Part 36 (1/2)
He leaned forward, idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little smile crept to his lip.
”The whirligig of time does bring in its revenges, doesn't it?” he mused aloud. Mary Virginia's lips curled.
”I do not follow you,” she said coldly. ”I am not even sure you have the letters--that is why I am here. I must see them with my own eyes before I agree to pay for them. That is what you expect me to do, is it not?”
”Oh, I have them all right--that is very easily proven,” said he, unruffled. ”Now listen carefully, please, while I explain the real reason for your presence here this afternoon. Mr. Inglesby, for reasons of his own, desires to don the senatorial toga; why not? Also, even more vehemently, Mr. Inglesby desires to lead to the altar Miss Mary Virginia Eustis: yourself, dear lady, your charming self: again, why not? Who can blame him for so natural and laudable an ambition?
”As to his ever persuading you to become Mrs. Inglesby, without some--ah--moral suasion, why, you know what his chance would be better than I do. As to his persuading the state to send him to Was.h.i.+ngton, it would have been a certainty, a sure thing, if our zealous young friend Mayne hadn't egged your father into the game. How Mayne managed that, heaven knows, particularly with your father's affairs in the condition they are. Now, Eustis is a fine man. Far too fine to be lost in the shuffle at Was.h.i.+ngton, where he'd be a condemned nuisance--just as he sometimes is here at home. Do you begin to comprehend?”
”Why, no,” said she, blankly. ”And I certainly fail to see where my silly letters--”
”Let me make it plainer. You and your silly letters put the game into Mr. Inglesby's hands, swing the balance in his favor. _You_ pay _me_?
Heavens, no! _We_ pay _you_--and a thumping price at that!”
For a long moment they looked at each other.
”My dear Miss Eustis,” he put the tips of his fine fingers together, bent forward over them, and favored her with a white-toothed smile, ”behold in me Mr. Inglesby's amba.s.sador--the advocate of Cupid. Plainly, I am authorized to offer you Mr. Inglesby's heart, his hand, and--his check-book. Let us suppose you agree to accept--no, don't interrupt me yet, please. And keep your seat, Miss Eustis. You may smile, but I would advise you to consider very seriously what I am about to say to you, and to realize once for all that Mr. Inglesby is in dead earnest and prepared to go to considerable lengths. Well, then, as I was about to say: suppose you agree to accept his proposal! Being above all things a business man, Mr. Inglesby realizes that gilt-edged collateral should be put up for what you have to offer--youth, beauty, charm, health, culture, family name, desirable and influential connections, social position of the highest. In exchange he offers the Inglesby millions, his absolute devotion to yourself, and his hearty support to all your father's plans and interests. Observe the last, please; it is highly important. Besides this, Mayne and Eustis want reform, progress, Demos-with-a-full-dinner-pail, all the wearisome rest of that uplift stuff? Inglesby will see that they get an undiluted dose of it. More yet: if you have any scruples about Mayne, Inglesby will get behind that young man and boost him until he can crow on the weathervane--when you are Mrs. Inglesby. A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly expurgated. Come, Miss Eustis, that's fair enough. If you refuse--well, it's up to you to make Eustis understand that he must eliminate himself from politics--and look out for himself,” he finished ominously.
Mary Virginia rose impetuously.
”I am no longer seventeen, Mr. Hunter. What, do you honestly think you can frighten a grown woman into believing that a handful of silly letters could possibly be worth all that? Well, you can't. And--let me remind you that blackmailing women isn't smiled upon in Carolina. A hint of this and you'd be ostracized.”
”So would you. And why use such an extreme term as blackmailing for what really is a very fair offer?” said he, equably. ”The letters are not the only arrows in my quiver, Miss Eustis. But as you are more interested in them than anything else just now, suppose we run over a few, just to remind you of their amazing nature?” He rose leisurely, opened the safe in a corner of the room, took from the steel money-vault a package, and Mary Virginia recognized her own writing.
Always keeping them under his own hand, he yet allowed her to lean forward and verify what he chose to read.
Her face burned and tears of mortification stung her eyes. Good heavens, had she been as silly and as sentimental as all that? But as she listened to his smooth remorseless voice, mortification merged into amazement and amazement into consternation. Older and wiser now, she saw what ignorance and infatuation had really accomplished, and she realized that a fool can unwittingly pull the universe about her ears.
She was appalled. It was as if her waking self were confronted by an incredible something her dreaming self had done. She knew enough of the world now to realize how such letters would be received--with smiles intended to wound, with the raised eyebrow, the shrugged shoulder. She wondered, with a chill of panic, how she could ever hope to make anybody understand what she admitted she herself couldn't explain. For heaven's sake, _what_ had she been trying to tell this man? She didn't know any more, except that it hadn't been what these letters seemed to reveal.
”Well?” said the lazy, pleasant voice, ”don't you agree with me that it would have been barbarous to destroy them? Wonderful, aren't they?
Who would credit a demure American schoolgirl with their supreme art?
A French court lady might have written them, in a day when folks made a fine art of love and weren't afraid nor ashamed.”
”I must have been stark mad!” said she, twisting her fingers. ”How could I ever have done it? Oh, how?”
”Oh, we all have our moments of genius!” said he, airily.
As he faced her, smiling and urbane, she noted woman-fas.h.i.+on the superfine quality of his linen, the perfection of every detail of his appearance, the grace with which he wore his clothes. His manner was gracious, even courtly. Yet there was about him something so relentless that for the first time she felt a quiver of fear.
”If my father--or Mr. Mayne--knew this, you would undoubtedly be shot!” said she, and her eyes flashed.
”Unwritten law, chivalry, all the rest of that rot? I am well aware that the Southern trigger-finger is none too steady, where lovely woman is concerned,” he admitted, with a faint sneer. ”But when one plays for high stakes, Miss Eustis, one runs the risks. Granted I do get shot? That wouldn't give you the letters: it would simply hand them over to prosecuting attorneys and the public press, and they'd be d.a.m.ning with blood upon them. No, I don't think there'll be any fireworks--just a sensible deal, in which everybody benefits and n.o.body loses.”
”The thing is impossible, perfectly impossible.”
”I don't see why. Everything has its price and I'm offering you a pretty stiff one.”
”I would rather be burned alive. Marry Mr. Inglesby? _I_? Why, he is impossible, perfectly impossible!”
”He is nothing of the kind. And he is very much in love with you--you amount to a grand pa.s.sion with Inglesby. Also, he has twenty millions.” He added dryly: ”You are hard to please.”