The Lifting of a Finger/Chapter 10

THE woman who entered the library a few moments later did not seem the same Margaret Bellamy was accustomed to see. She appeared dejected—crushed—and she carried herself like a person who had lost the power to struggle. In silence she took the chair Bellamy offered her and waited for him to speak. Quite impartially, as if he were relating a piece of gossip with which neither of them had any concern, Francis described the scene in his brother-in-law's smoking-room on the night of Mrs. Westlake's dance.

"Why did you do it?" Margaret asked when he stopped speaking. Her tone was wholly unimpassioned; evi​dently she did not think the man she had promised to marry worth wasting her scorn upon.

Bellamy shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't have any reason," he said, "except that the boy provoked me to it by his silly anger over nothing."

"Nothing!" repeated Margaret dully. "Why, after having done all you could to render my humiliation greater than it was, to make my friends despise as well as pity me, did you ask me to be your wife?" she questioned, with a look in her eyes that made Bellamy think of smouldering fire.

"The idea first presented itself to me as a way to win my wager," he answered. "You see, Hatfield wasn't thoughtful enough to stipulate that I must not be engaged to you when I got that kiss."

​Margaret was trembling and her eyes flashed, but she did not speak.

"However, I thought better of that plan," Francis went on; "it did not seem exactly a square way to win. But the idea of marrying you stayed in my mind. You see, you showed yourself so beautifully indifferent to me, so equally far from love and hate. I know of no more desirable quality in a wife than indifference. I shouldn't want my wife to dislike me exactly, because then she might make herself disagreeable, but, on the other hand, I can scarcely imagine a worse fate than for a man to be tied to a woman who loves him. A woman in love is the most tiresome creature in the world,—unless she happens to be in love with someone else; then she is interesting until you have ​won her away from the other fellow."

"Do you think I will marry you now?"

Margaret had risen to her feet and looked like an angry goddess as she confronted Bellamy. She was superb in her wrath, and the man who watched her lost no detail of the picture she presented. "What a splendid creature she is," he thought. "She reminds me of a tiger I once saw regain its freedom after being cared for by a cruel keeper. And she doesn't waste words; that's what makes her anger so impressive."

"You must please yourself about recalling the invitations you told me were sent yesterday," he said aloud, "but I confess I cannot see why this should be necessary. I assure you, my ​dear lady, this affair has done you no harm; in fact, your high rectitude is more than ever beyond question, because, you see—I paid the wager."

"You paid the wager," echoed Margaret. "I thought Mr. Hatfield——"

"You heard that Hatfield had lost his last dollar through his championship of you, I suppose," interrupted Francis. "Well, that is about as near the truth as gossip ever gets. It's the old story of laud the hero and damn the villian. If you will ask Westlake, he will tell you that it was I and not Hatfield who paid the wager. So you see your reputation, instead of being tarnished by this little affair, has been polished to a most surprising lustre. The world should regard me as a shining example of the ​man who came to scoff and remained to pray."

"You paid the wager!" Margaret said a second time. "Why, you never tried to win it."

"A pretty big price to pay, wasn't it—a thousand dollars for a kiss I didn't get?" Francis said smilingly.

"Why did you do it?" Margaret asked, looking into his black eyes as though she meant to read the truth there, even if his lips lied.

"Why did I pay it, do you mean?" Bellamy inquired. "There was nothing left to do. I hadn't won the wager, and, unfortunately, in addition to my other failings, I have always had a romantic fancy for the truth."

"But you hadn't even tried to win it," said Margaret in a bewildered way.

​"And you want to know why?" queried Bellamy, his smile deepening. "Well, you compel me to be ungallant. Perhaps I had changed my mind and did not want the kiss."

If Bellamy expected this speech to taunt Margaret to a greater show of anger he was disappointed. On the contrary, her face softened a trifle and her tone when she spoke was free from malice.

"I ought to hate you," she said, "and yet I do not. I do despise your views of life and your way of living, but there is something about you that appeals to me in spite of yourself. Your brutal honesty, I think it is."

"Some note in my tuneless nature chances to accord with the harmony of yours, I suppose," replied Francis care​lessly. "Then you are still willing to marry me, in spite of my deficiencies and drawbacks as a model husband?"

"Yes, I am still willing to marry you, but you must promise—no, you need promise nothing. The deficiencies and drawbacks you speak of are offset by the fact that, since I shall expect nothing of you, I need not fear disappointment. But I have suffered too much, Mr. Bellamy, to feel that I can bear any more humiliation."

"You have nothing to fear from me," Bellamy answered gavely. "I give you my word that so long as you do not interfere with me you may be sure of an equal consideration. You are sure you won't try to reform me?" he added after a pause.

Margaret's face hardened and her eyes ​grew scornful. "Reform you?" she said with intense calmness. "I would not lift a finger to——"

"Now, you can't say what you want to as it should be said," broke in Bellamy, laughing. "Let me try. You mean that you would not preach a sermon to me to save my soul from perdition. Is that it?"

His listener looked horrified, but before she realized it had nodded her head in assent; and Francis left the room, still laughing.