Marshall Saunders - The House of Armour

“ You can’t do anything now,” said Dr. Camperdown pointedly.

“Yes I can—I’m her friend.”

“You’re her lover, as long as you dangle about her.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Captain Macartney peevishly and resuming his seat. “She isn’t in love with me.”

Dr. Camperdown burst into a roar of laughter. “She doesn’t smile upon you; then why all this agony?”

“It’s easily seen that you’ve not proposed to many women,” said Captain Macartney coolly. “They never say yes, at first.”

The shaft went home. His ugly vis-à-vis shrugged his shoulders and made no reply.

“We had a saying about Flora Colonibel in the past,” said Captain Macartney earnestly, “that she feared neither saint, angel, nor demon, but that she stood in mortal dread of Brian Camperdown. She will persecute that girl to a dead certainty. Can’t you hold her in check? My stepmother will stand by you. She would even take her for a trip somewhere, or have her visit her.”

“I’ll look after her,” briefly. “By the way, where did you meet her?”

“In Paris, with the French lady who has been traveling with her since she left school, and who asked my stepmother to take charge of her on the journey here.”

“Her arrival was a surprise,” said Dr. Camperdown. “Armour didn’t tell me that she was coming.”

Captain Macartney surveyed him with some jealousy. “So you too have an eye to her movements?”

“Yes,” said Camperdown impishly. “I don’t care for her antecedents.”

“Oh, indeed; I am glad that you do not,” said the officer, drawing on his gloves with a smile. “Of course you do not. You have no right to do so. How is that lady with the charming name?”

“She is well.”

“Is she still in her old quarters?”

“Yes.”

“I must do myself the pleasure of calling on her. She is as remarkable as ever I suppose?”

“More so.”

“I can well believe it. Now I must leave you. I am due at the South Barracks at twelve,” and he rose to go.

“Stop, Macartney; there are mitigating circumstances connected with this affair. I told you that Miss Delavigne’s immediate ancestry was poor. It is also noble on her mother’s side—formerly rich. You have heard of the French family the Lacy d’Entrevilles?”

“I have.”

“Ever hear that they sprang from the stock of a prince royal of France?”

“No, I have not.”

“They say they did; one of them, a Marquis Réné Théodore something or other was a colonel in Louis the Fourteenth’s body-guards—came out to Quebec in command of a regiment there, then to Acadie and founded this branch of the family; it is too long a story to tell. I dare say mademoiselle is as proud as the rest of them.”

“She is,” said his hearer with a short laugh.

“Born aristocrats—and years of noses to the grindstone can’t take it out of them, and the Delavignes, though hewers of wood and drawers of water, as compared with the aristocratic Lacy d’Entrevilles, were all high strung and full of honesty. Seriously, Macartney, I think her father was a monomaniac. A quiet man immersed in his business wouldn’t start out all at once on a career of dishonesty after an unblemished record.”

“I am glad to hear this,” said Captain Macartney, “and I am exceedingly obliged to you. Some other time I shall ask you to favor me with the whole story,” and he went thoughtfully away.

At ten o’clock on the evening of the day that Captain Macartney made his call on Dr. Camperdown Judy was restlessly hitching herself up and down the big front hall at Pinewood.

“Oh, that crutch!” ejaculated Mrs. Colonibel, who was playing cards with Valentine in the drawing room; “how I hate to hear it.”

“Don’t you like to hear your offspring taking a little exercise?” he asked tantalizingly.

“Not when she’s waiting for that detestable French girl,” said Mrs. Colonibel. “I do wish Stanton would send her away.”

“Everything comes to her who waits,” said Valentine. “The trouble is with you women that you won’t wait. Play, cousin.”

“Here she is,” exclaimed Judy, and she flung open the door with a joyful, “Welcome home.”

Vivienne was just getting out of a sleigh. “Ah, Judy, how kind of you to wait for me,” she said. “Did you get my note?”

“Yes; but nobody asked where you were except mamma.”

Vivienne’s face clouded slightly, then it brightened again. “Where is Mr. Armour?”

“In the library; he always spends his evenings there.”

“I wish to speak to him. Do you think I could go in.”

“Yes; what do you want to say?”

“I will tell you afterward,” and with a smile Vivienne let her cloak slip from her shoulders and knocked at a near door.

Judy with her head on one side like a little cat listened to the brief “Come in,” then as Vivienne disappeared from view she spun round and round the hall in a kind of dance.

“What is the matter with you?” asked her mother, coming from the drawing room.

Judy stopped. “I have a pain in my mind.”

“What kind of a pain, Judy?” asked Valentine, looking over Mrs. Colonibel’s shoulder.

“A joyful pain.”

“Miss Delavigne has gone upstairs, has she?” asked Mrs. Colonibel.

“Yes, she came in,” said Judy evasively.

“Why don’t you go to bed?” continued her mother.

“Because I choose to stay here and read,” and Judy seizing a book flung herself on a divan.

“Well, I am going,” said Mrs. Colonibel; “goodnight,” and she turned toward the staircase.

Valentine tossed a cap on his black head and opening a door leading to a veranda ran swiftly down a snowy path to the cottage.

When Vivienne entered the library Mr. Armour looked up in some surprise and with a faint trace of annoyance.

“I hope I am not disturbing you,” she said politely.

“Not at all,” and he turned his back on the table bestrewn with papers and invited her by a wave of the hand to sit down.

He stood himself leaning one elbow on the mantel, and looked curiously down at her as she sat glancing about at the book-cases and the rose and ashen hangings of his handsome room.

What a strangely self-possessed girl she was. Could he think of another who would come boldly into his presence and demand an interview with his own dignified self? No, he could not. Well, she was a foreigner. How he hated the type; the smooth black bands of hair, the level heavy eyebrows, the burning eyes. What havoc a face like this had already wrought in his family, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and averted them from her as she ejaculated:

“I beg your pardon for keeping you. I will say what I wish very shortly. I have just come from dining with the Macartneys.”

“At their hotel?”

“Yes.”

“I wish that you had consulted me,” he said in his most chilling manner. “Hotels are public places for young girls.”

“Not when they are under proper chaperonage,” she said gently; “and really I did not suppose that you took any interest in my movements.”

He glanced suspiciously at her, but saw that there was no hint of fault-finding in her manner.

“I have come in this evening to tell you something that I know will please you,” she said.

Something to please him—he wondered in a dull way what it was.

“Captain Macartney wishes to marry me,” she said.

He stared incredulously at her. “Captain Macartney!”

“Yes; he asked me this evening.”

He pondered over the news for some instants in silence, then he said, “Why do you say that this will please me?”