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Not for flowers, or strawberries, merely; but for father's and mother's consent that, in a few weeks, when flowers and strawberries should have fully come, there should be a marriage feast made for her in the simple home, and she should go forth into the gay world again, the bride of a wealthy New York banker. Aunt Etherege and Saidie filled the house.
"Oh! dear no'" said Miss Saidie, "It is 'positively agonizing' to live as we do in such constant demand; I suppose you will feel it soon though, now you've come out. You have no idea of what is before you." "Excuse me, Miss Reid," interrupted Honor, "but I think I have a very fair one.
"Let us sleep here," she murmured, looking up to the palm branches over them defined against the lustrous sky. "See how the lilies sleep round us!" And that night they slept out in the moonlight. A month had gone by, and during that month, except for the time he was with Saidie in the bungalow, Hamilton, had he been less of a philosopher, would have been extremely uncomfortable.
The door opened noisily, and Saidie Blackall, very much over-dressed and distinctly rouged and made up, entered, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Doss, looking precisely the same as on that memorable night when they had been the innocent cause of so much trouble to Bella's husband.
The old woman ceased to fan the fire; the bright red glow of the coals fell softly on the strong, noble beauty of the man's face, and Saidie, looking up to it, sat speechless, her bosom heaving, her lips parted, her dark eyes full of mysterious fires, melting, swimming, behind their veil of lashes.
He's like that, isn't he?" "Oh, he's awfully fond of me, you know," protested the boy; "but it's his meddling ways that I can't stand. What business is it of his who my friends are? He hasn't got to take up with 'em, has he? Why, what he hates is for me to want to be with anybody but himself or Aunt Saidie.
Hamilton looked at Saidie; she crept to his side and put her head on his breast. "Yes, to-night, take me to-night," she murmured eagerly; he smiled, and put his arm around her. "The bridal clothes are of no consequence," he answered decisively. "My camel waits below. I will take her to-night." "She has no shoes," objected the old woman. "She cannot descend the stairs."
"He will never do that," said Saidie, going away with her message but half satisfied, and Bella turned a flushed cheek to her pillow. And then, for the second time, John Chetwynd asked, "Who is that man?" And Bella tried feebly to tell him. He had been attached to her for a long time, and had come over with her from the States. "And you did you mean to marry him, Bella?"
Saidie, with Oriental quickness, had soon grasped the whole situation, and had flung herself at his feet in a passion of tears, begging him to send her away or to kill her rather than let her presence make him unhappy.
Her intense pallor was illumined suddenly by a white flame, whether from the leaping of some inner emotion or from the sinking firelight which blazed up fitfully Miss Saidie could not tell. As she turned her head with an impatient movement her black hair slipped its heavy coil and spread in a shadowy mass upon her bared shoulders.
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