The Lifting of a Finger/Chapter 17

IN the evening, instead of going to her rooms as soon as dinner was over, Margaret strolled out to the cool, moonlit gardens. She had not proceeded far when Gerald Randal stepped out from the shadow of the shrubbery and took his place beside her. Margaret smiled in greeting, and for a few moments they walked on in silence.

"Won't you sit down?" Randal said when they came to a rustic bench.

Margaret sank into the seat, a look of weariness on her beautiful face.

"You are tired and unhappy," the man murmured. "I wanted to kill those people who tortured you this afternoon."

​"You are kind always," Margaret said gently.

Randal leaned forward. "Surely you must know why I cannot help trying to be kind to you," he whispered with his face close to hers; "you must have guessed that I love you."

Margaret rose and faced him. She seemed to have no words to say, but her scorn spoke in her flashing eyes.

"Now I have angered you," cried Randal. "But I could keep silence no longer."

"Have you any excuse for offering me this insult?" demanded Margaret. "Have I ever given you any reason to think I would listen without anger to the words you have just spoken?"

"No, I can't say that you have," ​Randal replied curtly. He had dropped his mask of gentle deference and showed himself as he was—a cool, unscrupulous man of the world. "No, I can't say that you have," he repeated, leaning back in his seat and surveying her calmly; "but you are a very lovely woman, you know, and I suppose your beauty and the moonlight went to my head; or perhaps it was the wine I drank at dinner. But come, suppose we talk the matter over sensibly. No doubt it is very commendable in you not to regard the pranks of that worthless husband of yours as an excuse for indulging in a little amusement on your own account, but, after all, don't you think you're something of a fool?"

Without replying Margaret turned and would have left him, but, angered ​by her silence, Randal jumped up and caught her by the wrist.

"I have shown you more consideration than your precious husband ever did, and this is my reward," he sneered. "You bear all his neglect with meekness, but because I love you and long to make your life less lonely, you turn on me like a fury. Why don't you reserve your wrath for the man who deserves it more than I do? Do you love him, I wonder, or are you still pining for that scoundrel, Somers? I should think, after your experience with those two—— But that's the way with you women: you throw your hearts under the feet of the men who treat you like dogs."

There was a rustling of bushes, and Randal was silenced by a blow that sent him sprawling to the ground. It was ​Bellamy who stood over him, trembling with passion.

"It's time you learned to keep your insults for the women who regard them as compliments," Margaret's husband cried.

Randal got upon his feet with a mirthless laugh, and the two men confronted each other, the moonlight streaming on their white, angry faces.

"You are late with your championship," Randal said mockingly. "Had your wife been left less often alone I should not have dreamed of hoping to take your place by her side. I didn't suppose, under the circumstances, you would have any quarrel with your wife's lover."

"Perhaps I shouldn't if you were her lover," returned Francis shortly, "but I ​won't have her annoyed. Now go; take the first train back to town and don't let me see your face inside my doors again."

Randal stared at his host incredulously. "You don't mean that, Frank," he said at last. "Just now we are both excited, but we are too old friends to let a trifle come between us." Randal held out his hand. "You used to say there was not a woman in the world worth a quarrel between friends," he remarked.

"I was mistaken," Bellamy said curtly, and turned to where Margaret had been standing to find she was no longer there.

She came to her husband next day as he sat alone in the library. "I want to thank you for your protection last ​night," she said tremulously. "Perhaps I am to blame for what occurred; I may have been too kind to him; but I did not dream that he——"

"You need not take yourself to task," Francis interrupted coldly; "you were not to blame in the least. But since you are so grateful for my protection," he went on in another tone, "will you do me a favor in return for it? Wear that red gown you have to-night. I'm tired of seeing you dressed, like a saint, in white. I would like you to look like other women for a change."

When Margaret came down to dinner resplendent in the gown he had asked her to wear, her husband did not appear to see her, nor did he seem to notice the admiration she excited from the other men, who suddenly became aware that ​their hostess was a very beautiful woman and showered attentions upon her accordingly. When Margaret went upstairs, however, her husband followed her to the door of her sitting-room.

"Will you come in?" she turned on the threshold to ask.

Bellamy entered the room and threw himself into a chair. If he had an errand he was in no hurry to state it, but sat silently gazing about him in a half-curious, half-unseeing fashion. Presently his glance fell upon his wife.

"I wish you would not wear that red thing again," he exclaimed impatiently.

"I thought you admired this gown," Margaret said, smiling.

"I did," Bellamy replied, his eyes restless again; "but I find now that my ​taste has changed and I like you better in the white ones, after all. I suppose," he went on after a pause, "you have not forgiven me for what happened the last time I saw you wearing that dress? There's no such word as forgiveness in a good woman's creed," he ended bitterly.

"Yes, I have forgiven you," Margaret said, her tone so low that he could scarcely catch the words.

The man's eyes shone a moment; then the light died out of them and he frowned. "But you haven't forgotten," he muttered. "Can I do nothing that will cause the memory of that night to fade?" He leaned forward to look into her face. "Margaret, can you never forget?"

"Never!" As she spoke Margaret ​shrank away from him. "Never!" she repeated vehemently.

Bellamy straightened up and turned away. "Good-night," he said, and went swiftly out of the room.