A Bachelor Husband Part 70

She smoothed Marie's hands with her soft fingers.

"You have money--much money," she said "But your friends are few.

You are shy, and you do not make friends easily ... There has been one great moment of danger in your life--I cannot tell you what it was, but I can see the sea in your hand--and again in the future I can see much water ... It will come again in your life, and it carries on its bosom trouble and many tears, and ..." She looked again into Marie's face.

"You are trembling, Mademoiselle," she said in her soft voice.

Marie smiled faintly.

"I was nearly drowned once," she said. "I can never forget it."

She drew her hands away. "I don't think I want to hear any more,"

she said.

She paid double the fee and went to join Dorothy.

"Well?" Dorothy questioned hardily.

Marie shivered.

"It was rather eerie," she said. "But I don't believe in it. Shall we go home?"

"What did she say to you?" Dorothy asked as they drove away together. "She told me that I had had one disappointment in my life which I should never get over ..." She laughed. "She was right, too! Not that I believe in fortune telling."

Marie hardly listened. She was thinking of the palmist's soft voice and the touch of her hands as she had said: "I can see the sea in your hand--and again in the future I can see much water. It will come again in your life, and it carries on its bosom trouble and many tears ..."

She was not superst.i.tious, but the words haunted her.

Troubles and tears. Surely she had had enough of them.

She wished she had not gone to the bazaar; she wished with all her heart she had not gone to the palmist.

... "You started with dreams--alas! so many dreams--and they have forsaken you one by one. But they will come back ... A little patience and they will come back; dreams no longer, but reality."

She sat up with a little determined laugh.

"It's all rubbish--I don't believe a word of it," she told herself.

"She only said it because she thought it would please me."

"We're just dying for some tea, Greyson," she told the maid who admitted them. "I hope you've got some for us."

"Miss Chester is having tea now," the girl answered. "There is a lady with her in the drawing-room--a Mrs. Heriot."

Marie stood still with a little shock. She had quite forgotten that Chris had said Mrs. Heriot would probably call.

CHAPTER XIX

"I love him, and I love him, and I love!

Oh heart, my love goes welling o'er the brim; He makes my light more than the sun above.

And what am I! save what I am to him?"

MRS. HERIOT had quite failed to make a conquest of Miss Chester, for the old lady considered that every woman who used paint and powder was a hussy. There was a very formal tea progressing in the drawing-room when Marie entered.

Mrs. Heriot was genuinely glad to see her as she had found conversation uphill work with Miss Chester. She kissed Marie effusively.

"I suppose Chris forgot to tell you I was calling," she said. "Men are so forgetful."

"He did tell me," Marie answered, "and I am afraid it was I who forgot. I am so sorry. Won't you have some more tea?"

Dorothy came in, and she and Mrs. Heriot started a pa.s.sage-at-arms immediately. They were too much alike ever to agree, and Marie was relieved when Mrs. Heriot said she must go.

"Come and see me off," she whispered to Marie as she took her departure. "I want to tell you something."

Marie went reluctantly. She did not wish for any confidences from Mrs. Heriot, but apparently she was to be given no choice in the matter, for as soon as the drawing-room door had closed behind them Mrs. Heriot said in a mysterious voice: "Is there a room where we can be undisturbed for a moment? I have something very important to tell you."

Marie smiled nervously.

"n.o.body will hear us here," she said "I think---" But Mrs. Heriot insisted, and Marie led the way into the library, which had been turned into a sort of smoking-room for Chris since their marriage.

Mrs. Heriot shut the door carefully, then, turning, she asked with dramatic intensity:

"Mrs. Lawless, who is this Miss Webber?"

Marie stared at her.

"Dorothy Webber? She is my friend; we were at school together."

"My poor child! If you think she is your friend you are being dreadfully deceived--dreadfully."

"I don't know what you mean."

Mrs. Heriot dabbed her eyes to wipe away imaginary tears.

"I hate to see people deceived," she said. "I hate people who make scandal and mischief. I am only telling you for your own sake and because you and I have always been friends; but yesterday--down on the golf links."

Marie broke in with pale lips:

"Mrs. Heriot, I would much rather you said no more. It is of no interest to me--I beg of you, please ..."

But Mrs. Heriot was enjoying herself too much to stop. She had always disliked Marie, and she hated Dorothy because she had appeared to be on more friendly terms with Chris than she herself.

She went on, refusing to be silenced.

"You ought to turn her out of the house! She is a false friend!

Why, I saw her--and my sister saw her--with your husband's arms round her! Crying--in his arms! I hate having to tell you, but I thought, and my sister thought, that it was only right you should know." She broke off, looking at Mane's stony face with faintly malicious eyes. "Men are so weak, poor dears; how can one blame them!" she went on. "It's the women, with their subtle cleverness."