Out of the Primitive Part 46

what a difference, don't y' know! She'd never have let you get out of England unmarried!"

"Dolores! this is quite enough!"

"The Countess of Avondale, future d.u.c.h.ess of Ruthby! Think I don't see through mamma's little game? And you'd shillyshally around, and throw over the true, n.o.ble hero to whom you owe everything--whom you've pretended you loved--to run after a t.i.tle, an Englishman, when you could have that big-hearted American!"

Genevieve's lips straightened. "What a patriot!" she rejoined with quiet irony. "You, of course, would never dream of marrying an Englishman."

"That's none of your business," snapped Dolores, not a little taken aback by the counter attack.

"You spoke about pretence and hypocrisy," went on Genevieve. "How about the way you tease and make sport of Lord Avondale?"

For a moment the younger girl stood quivering, transfixed by the dart.

Suddenly she put her hands before her eyes and rushed from the room in a storm of tears.

Genevieve started up as if to hasten after her, but checked herself and sank back into her chair. For a long time she sat motionless, in the blank dreary silence of profound grief, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, dry and l.u.s.treless.

When, a few minutes before their dinner hour, her father hurried into the room, expectant of his usual affectionate welcome, she did not spring up to greet him. The sound of his brisk step failed to penetrate to her consciousness. He came over to her and put a fond hand on her shoulder.

"H'm--how's this, my dear?" he asked. "Not asleep? Brown study, eh?"

She looked up at him dully; but at sight of the loving concern in his eyes, the unendurable hardness of her grief suddenly melted to tears.

She flung herself into his arms, to weep and sob with a violence of which he had never imagined his quiet high-bred daughter capable.

Bewildered and alarmed by the storm of emotion, he knew not what to do, and so instinctively did what was right. He patted her on the back and murmured inarticulate sounds of love and pity.

His sympathy and the blessed relief of tears soon restored her quiet self-control. She ceased sobbing and drew away from him, mortified at her outburst.

"There now," he ventured. "You feel better, don't you?"

"I've been very silly!" she exclaimed, drying her tear-wet cheeks.

"You're never silly--that is, since you came home this time," he qualified.

"Because--because--" She stopped with an odd catch in her voice, and seemed again about to burst into tears.

"Because _he_ taught you to be sensible,--you'd say."

"Ye--yes," she sobbed. "Oh, papa, I can't bear it--I can't! To think that after he'd shown himself so brave and strong--! But for that, I should never have--have come to this!"

"H'm,--from the way you talked last night, I took it that the matter was settled. You said then that you could no longer--h'm--love him."

"I can't!--I mustn't! Don't you see? He's proved himself weak. How, then, can I keep on loving him? But they--they infer that it is my fault. I believe they think I tempted him."

"How's that?"

"Because I urged him to take the communion with me. I told you what he himself said about alcohol. But he did not blame me. He pointed out that if he was too weak to resist then, he would have yielded to the next temptation."

"H'm,--no doubt. Yet I've been considering that point--the fact that you did force him against his will."

"Surely, papa, you cannot say it was my fault, when he himself admits that his own weakness--"

"Wait," broke in her father. "What do you know about the curse of drink? It's possible that he might be able to resist the craving if not roused by the taste."

"Yet if he is so weak that a few drops of the holy communion wine could cause him to give way so shamelessly--"

"Holy?--h'm!" commented Mr. Leslie. "Alcohol is a poison. Suppose the Church used a decoction containing a.r.s.enic. Would that make a.r.s.enic holy?"

"Oh, papa! But it's so very different!"

"Yes. Alcohol and a.r.s.enic are different poisons. But they're similar in at least one respect. The effects of each are c.u.mulative. To one who has been over-drugged with a.r.s.enic a slight amount more may prove a fatal dose. So of a person whose will has been undermined and almost paralyzed with alcohol--"

"That's it, papa. Don't you see? If he lacks the will, the strength, the self-control to resist!"

"No, that isn't the point. It's your part in this most unfortunate occurrence that I'm now considering."

"My part?"

"You told him that he must not look to you for help or even sympathy. I can understand your position as to that. At the same time, should you not have been as neutral on the other side? Was it quite fair for you to add to his temptations?"

"Yet the fact of his weakness--"

"I'm not talking about him, my dear. It's what you've done--the question whether you do not owe him reparation for your part in his--misfortune."

"My part?"

"Had you not forced him into what I cannot but consider an unfair test of his strength, he would not have fallen. Griffith tells me that he was well along toward a solution of the Zariba Dam. Had you not caused this unfortunate interruption in his work, he might soon have proved himself a master engineer. That would have strengthened him in his fight against this hereditary curse."

"He was to fight it on his own strength."

"What else would this engineering triumph have been but a proof to himself of his strength? You have deprived him of that. Griffith tells me that, hard as he is striving to work out the idea which he was certain would meet the difficulties of the dam, he now seems unable to make any progress."

"So Mr. Griffith and you blame all upon me?"

"You mistake me, my dear. What I wish to make clear to you is that, however hopeless Blake's condition may be, you are responsible for his failure upon this occasion."

"And if so?"

"Premising that in one respect my att.i.tude toward him is unalterable, I wish to say that he has risen very much in my esteem. I have had confidential talks with Griffith and Lord Avondale regarding him. I have been forced to the conclusion that you were justified in considering him, aside from this one great fault, a man essentially sound and reliable. He has brains, integrity, courage, and endurance.

Given sufficient inducement, those qualities would soon enable him to acquire all that he lacks,--manners and culture."

"Oh, papa, do not speak of it! It was because I saw all that in him that I felt so certain. If only it were not for the one thing!"

"H'm," considered Mr. Leslie, scrutinizing her tense face. "Then I gather it's not true what yesterday you said and no doubt believed. You still regard him with the same feelings as before this occurrence."

"No! no! He has destroyed all my faith in him. I--I can pity him. But anything more than that is--it must be--dead."

"Can't say I regret it. But--this is another question. You've lost him one chance. I believe you should give him another."

"Another chance?--you say that?" she asked incredulously.