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Page 37
"Very well, sir," interrupted Stephen Foster. "I shall know what
measures to take in the future. Forewarned is forearmed. And, by the
way, to save you the trouble of hanging about Strand-on-the-Green, I
may tell you that I have sent my daughter out of town on a visit."
With that parting shot he went down the short flight of steps, and
passed into the street. Jack closed the door savagely, and began to
walk up and down the studio, as restless as a caged beast.
"Here's a nice mess!" he reflected. "Angry parent, obdurate daughter,
and all that sort of thing. But I rather fancy I scored--he gained
nothing by his visit, and after he thinks the matter over he will
probably take a more sensible view of it. His appeal to me shows clearly
that he failed to make Madge yield."
On the whole, after further consideration, Jack concluded that there was
no ground for despondency. His spirits rose as he recalled the girl's
earnest and loving promises, her assurances of eternal fidelity.
"My darling will be true to me, come what may," he thought. "No amount
of persuasion or threats can induce her to give me up, and in the end,
when Stephen Foster is convinced of that, he will make the best of it
and withdraw his objections. If Madge has been sent out of town, she
went against her will. But, of course, she will manage to let me hear
from her."
Jack sat down to his desk, intending to write a letter to a friend in
Paris, a well-to-do artist who lived in the neighborhood of the Pare
Monceaux. He held his pen undecidedly for a moment, and then leaned back
in his chair with a puzzled countenance.
"By Jove, it's queer," he muttered; "but Stephen Foster's voice was
awfully familiar. We never met before, and I never laid eyes on the man,
so far as I can remember. I am mistaken. It is only a fancy. No--I have
it! He suggests M. Felix Marchand--there is something in common in their
speech, though it is very slight. What an odd coincidence!"
That it could possibly be more than a coincidence did not occur to Jack,
and he would have laughed the idea to scorn. He dismissed the matter
from his mind, wrote and posted the letter, and then went off to dine by
appointment with Victor Nevill.
There was no word from Madge the next day, and it is to be feared that
Jack's work suffered in consequence, and that Alphonse found him
slightly irritable. But on the following morning a letter came in the
well-known handwriting. It was very brief. The girl was _not_ out of
town, but was stopping near Regent's Park with an elderly maternal aunt
who lived in Portland Terrace, and was addicted to the companionship of
cockatoos and cats, not to speak of a brace of overfed, half-blind pugs.
"I am in exile," the letter concluded, "and the dragon is a watchful
jailer. But she sleeps in the afternoon, and at three o'clock to-morrow
I will be inside the Charles street gate."
"To-morrow" meant to-day, and until lunch time Jack's brush flew
energetically over the canvas. He was at the trysting-place at the
appointed hour, and Madge was there waiting for him, so ravishingly
dressed that he could scarcely resist the temptation to gather her in
his arms. As they strolled through the park he rather gloomily described
his visit from Stephen Foster, but the girl's half-smiling, half-tearful
look of affection reassured him.
"You foolish boy!" she said, chidingly. "As if there were any danger of
your losing me. Why, I wouldn't give you up if you wanted me to! I think
you got the best of father, dear. He understands now, and by and by he
will relent. He is a good sort, really, and you will like him when you
know him better."
"We made a bad beginning," Jack said, ruefully.
They had reached the lake by this time, and they went on to a bench in
a shady and sequestered spot. Madge's high spirits seemed suddenly to
desert her, and she looked pensively across the glimmering water to the
tall mansions of Hanover Terrace.
"Madge, something troubles you," her lover said, anxiously.
"Yes, Jack. I--I received an anonymous letter at noon. Mrs. Sedgewick
forwarded it to me. Oh, it is shameful to speak of it--"
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