The Hollow of Her Hand Part 44

"No. I don't love you. Oh, I am so sorry to have given you--"

He was almost radiant. "Tell me the truth," he cried triumphantly.

"Don't hold anything back, darling. If there is anything troubling you, let me shoulder it. I can--I will do anything in the world for you. Listen: I know there's a mystery somewhere. I have felt it about you always. I have seen it in your eyes, I have always sensed it stealing over me when I'm with you--this strange, bewildering atmosphere of--"

"Hush! You must not say anything more," she cried out. "I cannot love you. There is nothing more to be said."

"But I know it now. You do love me. I could shout it to--" The miserable, whipped expression in her eyes checked this outburst.

He was struck by it, even dismayed. "My dearest one, my love," he said, with infinite tenderness, "what is it? Tell me!"

He drew her to him. His arm went about her shoulders. The final thrill of ecstasy bounded through his veins. The feel of her! The wonderful, subtle, feminine feel of her! His brain reeled in a new and vast whirl of intoxication.

She sat there very still and unresisting, her hand to her lips, uttering no word, scarcely breathing. He waited. He gave her time.

After a little while her fingers strayed to the crown of her limp, rakish panama. They found the single hat-pin and drew it out. He smiled as he pushed the hat away and then pressed her dark little head against his breast. Her blue eyes were swimming.

"Just this once, just this once," she murmured with a sob in her voice. Her hand stole upward and caressed his brown cheek and throat. Tears of joy started in his eyes--tears of exquisite delight.

"Good G.o.d, Hetty, I--I can't do without you," he whispered, shaken by his pa.s.sion. "Nothing can come between us. I must have you always like this."

"Che sara, sara," she sighed, like the breath of the summer wind as it sings in the trees.

The minutes pa.s.sed and neither spoke. His rapt gaze hung upon the glossy crown that pressed against him so gently. He could not see her eyes, but somehow he felt they were tightly shut, as if in pain.

"I love you, Hetty. Nothing can matter," he whispered at last.

"Tell me what it is."

She lifted her head and gently withdrew herself from his embrace.

He did not oppose her, noting the serious, almost sombre look in her eyes as she turned to regard him steadfastly, an unwavering integrity of purpose in their depths.

She had made up her mind to tell him a part of the truth. "Brandon, I am Hetty Glynn."

He started, not so much in surprise as at the abruptness with which she made the announcement.

"I have been sure of it, dear, from the beginning," he said quietly.

Then her tongue was loosed. The words rushed to her lips. "I was Hawkright's model for six months. I posed for all those studies, and for the big canvas in the academy. It was either that or starvation. Oh, you will hate me--you must hate me."

He laid his hand on her hair, a calm smile on his lips. "I can't love and hate at the same time," he said. "There was nothing wrong in what you did for Hawkright. I am a painter, you know. I understand.

Does--does Mrs. Wrandall know all this?"

"Yes--everything. She knows and understands. She is an angel, Brandon, an angel from heaven. But," she burst forth, "I am not altogether a sham. I AM the daughter of Colonel Castleton, and I AM the cousin of all the Murgatroyds,--the poor relation. It isn't as if I were the sc.u.m of the earth, is it? I AM a Castleton. My father comes of a n.o.ble family. And, Brandon, the only thing I've ever done in my life that I am really ashamed of is the deception I practised on you when you brought that magazine to me and faced me with it.

I did not lie to you. I simply let you believe I was not the--the person you thought I was. But I deceived you--"

"No, you did not deceive me," he said gently. "I read the truth in your dear eyes."

"There are other things, too. I shall not speak of them, except to repeat that I have not done anything else in all my life that I should be ashamed of." Her eyes were burning with earnestness. He could not but understand what she meant.

Again he stroked her hair. "I am sure of that," he said.

"My mother was Kitty Glynn, the actress. My father, a younger son, fell in love with her. They were married against the wishes of his father, who cut him off. He was in the service, and he was brave enough to stick. They went to one of the South African garrisons, and I was born there. Then to India. Then back to London, where an aunt had died, leaving my father quite a comfortable fortune. But his old friends would have nothing to do with him. He had lived--well, he had made life a h.e.l.l for my mother in those frontier posts. He deserted us in the end, after he had squandered the fortune. My mother made no effort to compel him to provide for her or for me.

She was proud. She was hurt. To-day he is in India, still in the service, a martinet with a record for bravery on the field of battle that cannot be taken from him, no matter what else may befall. I hear from him once or twice a year. That is all I can tell you about him. My mother died three years ago, after two years of invalidism.

During those years I tried to repay her for the sacrifice she had made in giving me the education, the--" She choked up for a second, and then went bravely on. "Her old manager made a place for me in one of his companies. I took my mother's name, Hetty Glynn, and--well, for a season and a half I was in the chorus. I could not stay there.

I COULD not," she repeated with a shudder. "I gave it up after my mother's death. I was fairly well equipped for work as a children's governess, so I engaged myself to--"

She stopped in dismay for he was laughing.

"And now do you know what I think of you, Miss Hetty Glynn?" he cried, seizing her hands and regarding her with a serious, steadfast gleam in his eyes. "You are the pluckiest, sandiest girl I've ever known. You are the kind that heroines are made of. There is nothing in what you've told me that could in the least alter my regard for you, except to increase the love I thought could not be stronger.

Will you marry me, Hetty?"

She jerked her hands away, and held them clenched against her breast.

"No! I cannot. It is impossible, Brandon. If I loved you less than I do, I might say yes, but--no, it is impossible."

His eyes narrowed. A grey shadow crept over his face.

"There can be only one obstacle so serious as all that," he said slowly. "You--you are already married."

"No!" she cried, lifting her pathetic eyes to his. "It isn't that.

Oh, please be good to me! Don't ask me to say anything more. Don't make it hard for me, Brandon. I love you--I love you. To be your wife would be the most glorious--No, no! I must not even think of it. I must put it out of my mind. There IS a barrier, dearest. We cannot surmount it. Don't ask me to tell you, for I cannot. I--I am so happy in knowing that you love me, and that you still love me after I have told you how mean and shameless I was in deceiving--"

He drew her close and kissed her full on the trembling lips. She gasped and closed her eyes, lying like one in a swoon. Soft, moaning sounds came from her lips. He could not help feeling a vast pity for her, she was so gentle, so miserably hurt by something he could not understand, but knew to be monumental in its power to oppress.

"Listen, dearest," he said, after a long silence; "I understand this much, at least: you can't talk about it now. Whatever it is, it hurts, and G.o.d knows I don't want to make it worse for you in this hour when I am so selfishly happy. Time will show us the way.

It can't be insurmountable. Love always triumphs. I only ask you to repeat those three little words, and I will be content. Say them."

"I love you," she murmured.

"There! You are mine! Three little words bind you to me for ever.

I will wait until the barrier is down. Then I will take you."

"The barrier grows stronger every day," she said, staring out beyond the tree-tops at the scudding clouds. "It never can be removed."

"Some day you will tell me--everything?"

She hesitated long. "Yes, before G.o.d, Brandon, I will tell you.

Not now, but--some day. Then you will see why--why I cannot--" She could not complete the sentence.

"I don't believe there is anything you can tell me that will alter my feelings toward you," he said firmly. "The barrier may be insurmountable, but my love is everlasting."

"I can only thank you, dear, and--love you with all my wretched heart."

"You are not pledged to some one else?"

"No."

"That's all I want to know," he said, with a deep breath. "I thought it might be--Leslie."

"No, no!" she cried out, and he caught a note of horror in her voice.

"Does--does he know this--this thing you can't tell me?" he demanded, a harsh note of jealousy in his voice.