Fran Part 28

"Grace! But Grace! You wouldn't marry _him!"_

Because she found his beauty appealing to her as never before, her voice was the colder: "Any one's place can be filled."

"You don't _care!"_ he cried out desperately.

"For Mr. Clinton? Yes, I admire his persistence in seeking G.o.d, and his wish to work for mankind. G.o.d comes easier to some than to others, and I believe I could help--"

Gregory, aghast at her measured tone, interrupted: "But I mean that you don't care--don't care for _me."_

"For--" she began abruptly, then added in an odd whisper, "for _you?"_

"Yes, for me...don't care how much I suffer, or whether I suffer at all--I mean my work, if it suffers. If I lose you, Grace--"

"Oh, you will always have Fran."

"Fran!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "So you don't care, Grace...It seems incredible because I care so much. Grace!" His accent was that of utter despair. "How can I lose you since you are everything? What would be left to live for? n.o.body else sympathizes with my aims. Who but you understands? Oh, n.o.body will ever sympathize--ever care--"

"But, Mr. Gregory!" she began, confused. Her face had grown white.

"Grace!" he caught her hand, expecting it to be s.n.a.t.c.hed away--the hand he had hourly admired at its work; he could feel its warmth, caress its shapeliness--and it did not resist. It trembled. He was afraid to press it at first, lest it be wrenched free; and then, the next moment, he was clasping it convulsively. For the first time in her life, Grace did not meet his eyes.

"Grace!" he panted, not knowing what he was saying, "you care, I see you care for me--don't you?"

"No," she whispered. Her lips were dry, her eyes wide, her bosom heaving. Boundaries. .h.i.therto unchangeable, were suddenly submerged.

Desperately, as if for her life, she sought to cling to such floating landmarks as Duty, Conscience, Virtue--but they were drifting madly beyond reach.

"But you can't love _him,_ can you?" Gregory asked brokenly.

Grace, with closed eyes, shook her head--what harm could there be in that confession? After his voice ceased, she still heard the roaring as of a sh.e.l.l, as if she might be half-drowned in mere sound.

"You won't go away, will you, Grace?" he pleaded, drawing her closer.

She shook her head, lips still parted, eyes still closed.

"Speak to me, Grace. Tell me you will never leave me."

Her lips trembled, then he heard a faint "Never!" Instantly neck and brow were crimsoned; her face, always superb, became enchanting. The dignity of the queen was lost in the woman's greater charm.

"Because you love me!" cried Gregory wildly. "I know you do, now, I know you do!" His arm was about her. "You will never leave me because you love me. Look at me, Grace!"

It seemed that her eyelids were held down by tyrannous thumbs. She tried to lift them, and tried again. Her face was irradiated by the sunrise glow of a master pa.s.sion. Swiftly he kissed her lips, and as she remained motionless, he kissed her again and again.

Suddenly she exclaimed blindly, "Oh, my G.o.d!" Then she threw her arms about him, as he drew her to his bosom.

It was at that moment, as if Fate herself had timed the interruption, that Fran entered.

There was a violent movement of mutual repulsion on the part of Hamilton Gregory and his secretary. Fran stood very still, the sharpness of her profile defined, with the keenness of eyes and a slight grayness about the lips that made her look oddly small and old.

Fran was a dash of water upon raging fire. The effect was not extinguishment, but choking vapors. Bewildered, lost to old self- consciousness, it was necessary for Grace to readjust herself not only to these two, but to herself as well.

Fran turned upon her father, and pointed toward his desk. "Stand there!" she said, scarcely above a whisper.

Gregory burst forth in blind wrath: "How dare you enter the room in this manner? You shall leave this house at once, and for ever....I should have driven you out long ago. Do you hear me? Go!"

Fran's arm was still extended. "Stand there!" she repeated.

Quivering in helpless fury, he stumbled to his desk, and leaned upon it. His face burned; that of Grace Noir was ghastly white.

"Now, _you"_ said Fran, her voice vibrating as she faced the secretary, "go to your typewriter!"

Grace did not move.

Fran's eyes resembled cold stones with jagged points as her steady arm pointed: "Go! Stand where I tell you to stand. Oh, I have tamed lions before to-day. You needn't look at me so--I'm not afraid of your teeth."

Grace's fear was not inspired by dread of exposure, but by the realization that she had done what she could not have forgiven in another. But for the supreme moment she might never have realized the real nature of her feeling for her employer. She stood appalled and humiliated, yet her spirit rose in hot revolt because it was Fran who had found her in Gregory's arms. She glared at her defiantly.

"Yes," said Fran somberly, "that's my profession, lion-taming. I'm the 'World-Famous Fran Nonpareil'. Go to your typewriter, Grace Noir, I say--Go!"

Grace could not speak without filling every word with concentrated hate: "You wicked little spy, your evil nature won't let you see anything but evil in the fruits of your eavesdropping. You misjudge simply because it would be impossible for you to understand."

"I see by your face that _you_ understand--pity you hadn't waked up long ago." Fran looked from one to the other with a dark face. Whether justly or not, they reminded her of two lions in a cage; she stood between, to keep them apart, lest, combining their forces, they spring upon her.

"I understand nothing of what you imagine you know," Grace said stammeringly. "I haven't committed a crime. Stop looking at me as if I had--do you hear?" Her tone was pa.s.sionate: "I am what I have always been-" Did she say that to rea.s.sure herself? "What do you mean, Fran?

I command you to put your suspicions in words."

"I have had them roar at me before to-day," cried Fran. "What I mean is that you're to leave the house this day."

"I shall not leave this house, unless Mr. Gregory orders it. It would be admitting that I've done wrong, and I am what I have always been.

What you saw...I will say this much, that it shall never happen again. But nothing has happened that you think, little impostor, with your evil mind...I am what I have always been. And I'm going to prove that you are an impostor in a very short time."

Fran turned to Hamilton Gregory. "Tell her to go," she said threateningly. "Tell her she must. Order it. You know what I mean when I say she must go, and she needn't show her claws at me. I don't go into the cage without my whip. Tell her to go."

He turned upon Fran, pushed to utter desperation. "No--_you_ shall go!" he said between clenched teeth.

"Yes!" exclaimed Grace. It was a hiss of triumphant hate.

Fran lost control over herself. "Do you think, knowing what I know, that I'll stand quietly by and see you disgrace your wife as you disgraced...Do you think I'll let you have this Grace Noir for your...to be the third--Do you think I've come out of your past life to fold my hands? I tell you plainly that I'll ruin you with that secret before I'll let you have this woman."

Gregory beheld the awful secret quivering upon her lips. The danger drove him mad. _"You devil!"_ he shouted, rushing upon her.

Fran stood immovable, her eyes fastened on his. "Don't strike me," she said tensely, "don't strike me, I warn you, unless you kill at the first blow."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Don't strike me; I warn you."]

He staggered back as if her words possessed physical impact. He shrunk in a heap in the library chair and dropped his head upon his arms. To prevent Grace from learning the truth, he could have done almost anything in that first moment of insane terror; but he could not strike Fran.

In the meantime, Mrs. Gregory had been ascending the stairs. They could hear her now, as she softly moved along the hall. No one in the library wished, at that moment, to confront the wife, and absolute silence reigned in the apartment. They heard her pause, when opposite the door, doubtless to a.s.sure herself that the typewriter was at work.

If she did not hear the clicking of the keys, she might conclude that Grace was absent, and enter.

Gregory raised his haggard head with an air suggesting meditated flight. Even Grace cowered back instinctively. Swift as a shadow, Fran darted on tiptoe to the typewriter, and began pounding upon it vigorously.