The Hollow of Her Hand Part 58

"How dare you insinuate--"

"She chucked me. That's the sum and sub--"

"Oh, I was old enough to know that she left you--chucked you, if you will--and to know why she did it. I--I suppose you are looked upon by--these people here--Leslie Wrandall and every one else, as a fine English gentleman, a cousin of the great Lord Murgatroyd.

Are you?"

"Confound you, Hetty, how dare you use such a tone in speaking to me?" he exclaimed.

"They THINK you are a gentleman, do they?"

"THINK? Why, dammit, I am a gentleman. The only ungentlemanly thing I ever did in my life was to--" He checked the angry words, biting his lips to keep them down.

"Was to desert your wife," she supplied scathingly.

"No! To marry her!" He blurted it out in his rage.

"Oh!" she cried, shrinking farther away from him, cut to the quick.

He regarded her with cold, fishy eyes. She was uncommonly pretty, he was bound to admit that. Her mother's eyes, her mother's exquisite skin, but singularly like certain Castleton portraits that he knew.

It somehow galled him to find that there was quite as much of the blue-blooded Castleton in her as there was commonplace Glynn; galled him more particularly because she was his own flesh and blood after all and, in spite of that, could taunt him with it.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Hetty," he said, to his own surprise.

The touch of tenderness had a brief life. He scowled an instant later. "We won't discuss the past, if you please. G.o.d knows I don't want to dig up rotten bones. You are against your own father. That's enough for me. I shan't impose myself upon you. You--"

"Why couldn't you have treated her with--" began Hetty hotly.

"Sh! No more of that, I say. I will not be upbraided by my own child.

Now, see here, what do you mean by letting a chance like that get away from you?" He jerked his head in the direction Leslie had taken.

"Chance?"

"Yes. This Wrandall fellow. 'Gad, I've known him less than a fortnight and he's told me every secret he ever knew. Why don't you marry him? He's not a bad sort."

"That is my affair," said she coldly.

"I'd take him like a shot if I was a gel in your shoes."

"He told you I had refused to marry him?"

"A hundred times."

"Did you reward his confidence by relating the WHOLE history of the Castleton family?"

He stared at her. "Good Lord, do you think I'm an a.s.s?"

"What have you told him?"

"Nothing. I permitted him to do all the telling. He gave me a highly commendable account of myself, of you, of the fine old family of Glynns and--G.o.d knows what all. He restored my pride, 'pon my soul he did." The Colonel laughed as he twisted his moustache with ironic fondness.

She was quite still for a minute or two. "I heard you were in England," she said, changing the subject.

"It may interest you to know that the old man overlooked us completely," he said, striking the calf of his leg with his thin walking-stick.

"Why should he leave anything to you?"

"And why not, curse him?" he growled. "Am I not his brother's son?

What do you mean by asking a question like that?"

"I think I will say good-bye to you now, father," she said deliberately. "We may never see each other again." She arose and stood before him, cold and proud, without a spark of emotion in her eyes.

He sat still, looking up at her in surprise. "Do you think you're doing the right thing, Hetty?" he asked, annoyed in spite of himself. "Remember that I am your father. I can and will overlook all you have said and done--"

"If you will go to her grave and kneel there and ask her pardon, I may think differently of you because, after all, I am your daughter.

You will not find her buried among the stately Castletons, but in a poor little spot far, far away from them. I can tell you how to find it. You have never inquired, I suppose?"

His eyes narrowed. "By Jove, you are a mean little beggar!"

"Mean?" she cried, clenching her hands. Then she laughed suddenly, shrilly. "Oh, if my mother could hear you say that to me!"

"Damme!" he exclaimed, coming to his feet in considerable agitation.

"Do you want people to hear us ragging each other? Don't go into hysterics, Hetty! See here, do you forget that I have written to you--loving letters they were--from the heart--written, I say, over and over again and what do I get in return? Not a single stroke of the pen from you, except the note a year ago telling me where you were and--"

"And that was merely to relieve your anxiety when you found I'd given up my work on the stage and might become a burden on you.

Oh, I read between your lines."

"Nothing of the sort. I never wanted you to go on the stage. Why have you persistently refused to answer my subsequent letters?"

"Because I read between the lines in all of them," she said levelly.

"You have no right to say that I expected you to get money out of that bally Wrandall woman--the goods merchant's daughter. That's downright insulting in you. I shan't let it go undefend--"

"You knew I couldn't lend you a thousand pounds, father," said she, very slowly and distinctly.

He coughed, perhaps in apology to her but more than likely to himself.

"You are at liberty," she went on, "to tell Mr. Leslie Wrandall all there is to tell about me. He doesn't know, but it won't matter much if he does have the truth concerning me. Tell him all if you like."

"My child," said he, with a fine display of wounded dignity, "I am not quite the rotter you think I am."

He did not feel called upon to explain to her that he had already borrowed a thousand pounds from her disappointed suitor, and was setting his nets for another thousand or two.

"It really won't matter," she said wearily. "Good-bye. I am leaving at nine to-morrow for Italy."

"See you at dinner? Or afterward, just for a--"

"I think not. I do not care to see Mr. Wrandall."

"Think it over again, Hetty. Don't--"