Mr. Leslie, glancing up, sees Ivy reclining on a couch, and regarding the scene with supercilious surprise commingled with anger. Mrs. Cleveland, who has followed them into the room, stands still, a mute statue of rage and dismay.
"I—I should like to know the meaning of this, Mr. Noble," she gasps at length, haughtily. "I do not allow that girl in my parlor! Let her go to the servants' room. They are good enough for the likes of her."
Mr. Leslie turns his pale, handsome face round with an air of surprise.
"She is your sister's child," he says, with reproach in every tone of his voice.
"Yes, to my sorrow," Mrs. Cleveland flashes out. "Add to that that she is a pauper and an ingrate! Vera Campbell, get up and go to your own room. You ought to know your place if Mr. Noble does not!"
Vera rises silently, and standing still a moment, looks up into Leslie Noble's face. The supreme moment of her triumph has arrived. With a nervous tremor she looks up into his face for courage to sustain her in the trying ordeal of the Clevelands' wrath before its vials are poured out upon her shrinking head.
But the expression of the handsome, troubled face does not exactly satisfy her. He is not looking at her. His eyes are fixed on Ivy Cleveland's pretty face with its pink cheeks and turquoise-blue eyes. There is tenderness, regret and trouble in the rather weak though handsome face.
"Go, Vera," Mrs. Cleveland reiterates, sternly and impatiently.
Then Leslie's eyes fall on the slight, black-robed figure standing in silent, proud humility by his side.
He stoops over her, not to caress her, as for a moment she vaguely fancied, but to whisper in her ear:
"Do as she bids you this time, Vera. Go to your room and sleep soundly to-night. I will have it out with her now, and in the morning I will take you away."
She flashes one quick glance into his troubled eyes, bows her head, and goes mutely from the room. But something in that look haunts Leslie Noble ever after. It seemed to him as if those dark eyes said to him plainer than words could speak: "You are a coward. Are you not afraid to acknowledge your wife?" He is right. The look in her eyes has been palpable contempt.
She goes from the room, but only to enter the room adjoining the parlor, and conceal herself behind the heavy, dark-green hangings. So this is the grand triumph her imagination has pictured for her. This is the weak way in which her husband takes her part against the world.
CHAPTER IV.
When Vera has gone from the room, an embarrassed silence falls. Mrs. Cleveland is wondering what to say next. It is no part of her plan to offend Leslie Noble. She prefers to conciliate him. For Leslie himself, he is wondering in what terms he shall convey the truth to his arrogant relative and her haughty daughter.
"You must not take offense, Leslie, at my interference in this case," Mrs. Cleveland stammers at length. "I know your kind, easy nature, and I cannot tamely see you imposed upon by that wretched girl, who is the most ungrateful and hard-hearted creature you could imagine, and only fit to herd with the low and vulgar."
"I do not understand you," Mr. Noble answers, resting his arms on the back of the chair, and turning on her a white, perplexed face.
"She comes of bad stock," answered Mrs. Cleveland. "Her mother, my sister, married most wretchedly beneath her. The man was a low, drunken, brutal fellow, with nothing under Heaven to recommend him but a handsome face. As might have been expected, he abused and maltreated his wife, and then deserted her just before the birth of his daughter, who resembled him exceedingly in character as well as in person."
Leslie Noble winces. Pride of birth is a strong point with him. He is exceedingly well-born himself. The story of this drunken, wife-beating fellow thrills him with keenest disgust.
"Where is the fellow now—dead?" he asks anxiously.
"No, indeed; at least, not that I ever heard of," Mrs. Cleveland answers. "I have no doubt he is alive somewhere, in state prison, perhaps, and he will turn up some day to claim his daughter, and drag her down to his own vile depths of degradation."
Mr. Noble is silent from sheer inability to speak, and Mrs. Cleveland resumes, with apparent earnestness:
"I have my doubts whether I am acting right in keeping the girl here. She is a dead expense to me, and the most ungrateful and violent-tempered creature that ever lived. Would you believe that she flew at poor, dear little Ivy, and boxed her ears this morning? My pity and affection for my sister induced me to give them a home as long as she lived, but now that her influence is withdrawn from Vera, she will be perfectly unmanageable. I think I shall send her away."
"Where?" inquires Mr. Noble, trying to keep his eyes from the pink and white face of Ivy, who is listening intently to every word, without speaking herself.
"To some place where she may earn her own living, or, perhaps, to the House of Correction. She sadly needs discipline," is the instant reply.
Leslie Noble's face turns from white to red, and from red to white again. What he has heard has utterly dismayed him.
"I wish that I had known all this yesterday, or last night," he mutters, weakly.
"Why?" Mrs. Cleveland asks, startled by the dejected tone.
Leslie Noble looks from her to Ivy, who has started into a sitting posture, and fixed her blue eyes on his face.
"Because I have something shocking to tell you," he answers, growing very pale. "You must not be angry with me, Mrs. Cleveland, nor you, Ivy. It would not have happened if I had known all that I know now."
"Oh, what can you mean?" screams Ivy, startled into speech by her vague fear.
"You remember that I declined the Riverton's ball last night on the score of a violent headache?" he says, looking gravely at her.
"Yes, and I missed you so much. I did not enjoy the ball one bit," she murmurs, sentimentally.
Mr. Noble sighs furiously.
"I wish that I had gone, no matter how hard my head ached," he says, dejectedly. "Then Mrs. Campbell would never have sent for me to come to her room."
"To come to her room!" mother and daughter echo in breathless indignation.
"Yes," answers the young man, with another sigh.
"Impertinent! What did she wish?" Mrs. Cleveland breaks out, furiously, pale to the lips.
"She wished to tell me that she was dying, and to leave her daughter in my care," he stammers, confusedly.
"Go on," Mrs. Cleveland exclaims.
"She told me that Vera was delicate, sensitive, helpless and friendless, and so good and sweet that none could help loving her. She declared she could not die in peace without leaving her in the care of a kind protector."
"A fine protector a young man would make for a young girl," Mrs. Cleveland sneers, with cutting irony.
"You do not understand, I think," Leslie answers her, gravely. "She wished me to make her my wife."
"Your wife! Marry Vera Campbell!" Ivy shrieks out wildly.
He trembles at the passionate dismay of her voice, but answers, desperately:
"Vera Noble, now, Ivy, for her mother's grief overcame my reason, and I made her my wife last night by the side of her dying mother."
CHAPTER V.