第96章 Desperately Wounded.(2)

"But to-day you have succeeded in satisfying him that this is not only possible,but the most natural thing for me to do.You have told him that my family will submit to my marriage with a loathsome wretch,who got drunk in the presence of ladies,insulted an orphan girl,and attempted murder--and all in one Sunday afternoon.Isuppose you thought me captivated,and carried away by such a burst and blaze of villainy;and so my high-toned family explain to the faultless and aristocratic Mr.Van Berg that they will submit to an odious marriage lest I clandestinely follow the scoundrel who was very properly driven away,like the base cur he is.This is why you received me to-night as if I were a pestilence.This is why I was treated at the table as if I were a death's head.This is why your perfect friend looked towards me as if my chair were vacant.He refused even to recognize the existence of such a loathsome thing as my family explain to him that I am.Great heaven!may I never live to receive a deeper humiliation than this!""But,Ida,"cried Stanton,deeply alarmed and agitated by her manner,"how else could we explain your action and your reckless words to your mother?""Oh,I admit that circumstances are against me,but there is no excuse for this outrage!I don't know what I did say to mother.

I've been too wretched and discouraged to remember.She IS my mother,and I'll say nothing against her,though,heaven knows,she has been a strange mother to me.Would to God I had a father that I could go to,or a brother!But it seems I have not a friend in the great,scornful world.Don't interrupt me.Words count for nothing now,and mine least of all.If you were all ready to believe me capable of what you have plainly intimated,you need something stronger than words to convince you to the contrary.Of one thing I shall make sure--you and your faithless friend shall never have the chance to insult me again.I wish you to leave my room.""Oh come,Ida,listen to reason,"Stanton began coaxingly.

"I admitted you,"she interrupted with a repellant gesture,"in the hope of receiving a little kindness,for which I was famishing,but I would rather you had stabbed me than have said what you have.

Hush,not a word more.The brutal wrong has been done.Will you not go?This is my private apartment.I command you to leave it;and if you will not obey I will summon Mr.Burleigh;"and she placed her hand on the bell.

Her manner was at once so commanding and threatening that Stanton,with a gesture of deprecation and protest,silently obeyed.

He was so surprised and unnerved by the interview in which the maiden had turned upon him with a fiery indignation that was almost volcanic,that he wished to think the affair all over and regain his composure before meeting any one.Clearly they had failed to understand Ida of late,and had misjudged her utterly.And yet,guided by appearances,he felt that they could scarcely have come to any other conclusion.

Now that he had been jostled out of his preoccupation,he began to realize that Ida had not appeared of late like the frivolous girl that had accompanied him to the country.Changes were taking place in her as well as in himself,"but not from the same cause,"he thought."After her words and manner to-night,I cannot doubt that Sibley has disgusted her as well as the rest of us,although she had a strange way of showing it.It cannot be that a woman would speak of a man for whom she had any regard,as Ida did of the wretch with whom we were associating her;and as for Van Berg,she has taken no pains to conceal her strong dislike for him from the first day of their meeting.I can't think of anyone else at present (although there might be a score)who is disturbing the shallow waters of her mind.

"I'm inclined to think that she is deeply mortified at the false position in which Sibley has placed her,and is too proud to make explanations.It may be also that she is realizing more fully the disgrace of her father's course,and it is also possible that she is waking up to a sense of her own deficiencies.Although she could not fail to dislike such people as Jennie Burton and Van Berg,she would be apt to contrast herself with them and the impression which she and they made on society.Confound it all!I wish I had not taken it for granted that she was pining for Sibley and ready to throw herself away for his sake.It has placed me in a deucedly awkward position.I doubt if she ever fully forgives me,and Ican't blame her if she doesn't."

"Well?"said Mrs.Mayhew,as Stanton moodily approached her.

"Come with me,"he said.When they were alone he prefaced his story with the irritable remark:

"It's a pity you can't understand your daughter better.She detests Sibley.""Thank heaven for that,"exclaimed the mother.

"I should be more inclined to thank both heaven and yourself if you had discovered the fact before sending me on such an intensely disagreeable mission.You must manage your daughter yourself hereafter,for she'll never take anything more from me;"and he told her substantially the nature of his interview,and his surmises as to the real causes of her trouble.

"I think you are right,"said Mrs.Mayhew,whose impressions were as changeable as superficial;"and I'm excessively glad to think so.

With her beauty,Ida can,in spite of her father,make a brilliant match,in every sense of the word;"and with the prospect of this supreme consummation of life regained,the wife and mother gave a sigh of great relief.

"But she's in an awful mood,I can tell you,"said Stanton,dubiously.