Chapter VIII: “i Have Sworn an Oath and I Shall Have to Keep It.”

Talbot Strangemore could not repress a smile at the absurd action of his exceedingly high-tempered aunt. He said, hastily:

“Do not leave us, Aunt Drusilla. We are very glad of your company.”

But Miss Strangemore’s stiff black silk had already rustled across the threshold. He looked at Nina, half pityingly.

“I am afraid that my aunt has not been a very charming companion for you all these years,” he said.

“She has been all kindness,” Nina answered hastily. “Then, too, I had my governess. She was a very gentle, lovable lady.”

“She has left you?” he asked.

“A year ago,” she answered, simply.

“You should have retained her when your education was finished, as a companion,” said Talbot Strangemore.

“Do you think so?” she asked, “but you see that was impossible. She was engaged to be married all those years, and she left me to become a companion to a husband who worshiped her, and who had grown impatient of waiting.”

The light of the lamps shining full on his splendidly handsome face, showed that the delicate shaft had struck home. He winced slightly, said, “Ah-h?” in an embarrassed tone, and then a silence ensued, which he broke at length by an abrupt change of the subject:

“There is something that I ought to tell you, Nina, as the mistress of Selwyn Heights. My friends with whom I have been yachting--Cameron and the rest--have threatened to make an unceremonious descent upon us to-morrow. Of course I would rather they did not--so soon--but they have been so kind to me, I could really say nothing when they said they were so anxious to meet my young wife, and as they were yachting in these waters, they would run into Selwyn Heights to-morrow. Can you, will you, receive them, Nina? Or will it be inconvenient for you to entertain them?”

He wondered why she grew as pale as her trailing white robe, why she held her white hands so tightly together in her lap, why she was silent so long before she answered in a dull, strange voice:

“I will receive them.”

“The thought does not please you,” he said, quickly, and with a ring of offended pride in his tone. “Very well, Nina, you shall not be disturbed. This is your house, your home, and I will see that my friends do not intrude upon you.”

She rose quickly from her seat and looked him through with her proud, pure gaze.

“You quite misunderstood me, Mr. Strangemore,” she said, with quiet dignity. “You are master here as I am mistress. Your friends have a right to come to Selwyn Heights, I am ready to welcome them here. I had no intention of declining the honor of their visit. I will go now and consult with Aunt Drusilla, as to the arrangements for their entertainment.”

She swept to the door with queenly grace. He followed her almost against his own will, for her looks and tones although quiet and well-bred, had been a tacit repulse to him.

“You will come back,” he said.

She paused on the threshold, a slim, white figure, full of enchanting girlish curves and supple grace, looking back at him.

“No, this is my good-night,” she answered.

“But I shall see you again to-night,” he said, taking her hand in his and looking tenderly at the beautiful face.

She drew it quickly away and a hot blush stained her white brow and cheeks. Her young bosom heaved beneath its lace and flowers.

“No, not until to-morrow,” she answered, with something like a passionate protest in her young voice. “You know we are like strangers yet.”

“Good-night, then, my beautiful Nina,” he said, gently, but she shrank from the offered caress, and ran swiftly away from him.

He watched the pretty bride-like figure disappear with something like regret.

“By Jove, how beautiful she is,” he cried. “Mother was right, she has developed into a beauty of the rarest type. She is not like Sibyl or the rest; charming as they are there is something rarer yet about this girl my mother chose for my wife. What if I should suddenly fall in love with the fate I have raved against for long years! But, heavens, how angry Sibyl would be if she knew that I was actually thinking tenderly of my lovely and reserved young wife? What a pity that fate ever threw that little enchantress in my way again!”

He went out on the terrace alone and smoked a cigar in a fierce, irritated fashion, gazing up now and then at the tall, dark front of the house, and wondering idly which was his wife’s window, while all alone at the darkened casement of her room, Nina watched him with heavy, woeful eyes.

She had gone up to her dressing-room and hastily huddled out of Kitty’s keen sight a grey traveling-dress and cloak, that she had laid out to don that night.

“I shall not need them yet,” she said. “How strange that instead of my going away to seek my rival to-night, she is coming here under my own roof to-morrow. He will actually bring her here, that fair woman he loves, and they will flaunt their love under my wretched eyes and madden me with misery, until I give him the freedom he craves, either through the horrible mire of a divorce court, or--or, by the straight road of death! I have sworn an oath, and I shall have to keep it. Oh, mamma, did you realize what you were doing when you bade me give your son all my love and all my life, and to try always to secure his happiness? I do not believe you even dreamed that you were pledging me to a terrible sacrifice!”

Very different are Miss Drusilla’s thoughts and feelings, for she is scolding vigorously in the house-keeper’s room over the influx of unexpected guests to-morrow.

“It don’t make one bit of difference to me, Miss Strangemore,” that worthy person placidly assures her. “I prides myself on never being taken at a disadvantage! All will be in readiness for your friends, ma’am.”

“Don’t call them _my_ friends!” snaps the irate spitfire. “They’re no friends of mine, let me tell you; and I think they might have stayed away for decency’s sake, until Talbot Strangemore got acquainted with his wife. It’s outrageous, I say, crowding into Selwyn Heights at such a delicate time!”

Perhaps Talbot Strangemore thinks the same thoughts, pacing up and down the terrace before the tall, dark house, idly admiring its splendid proportions, and all unconscious of the brooding shadow of a coming tragedy.