_ CHAPTER XLI. THE DAYS PASS BY
Several days passed and still Lucian Davlin had not found the much wished for opportunity to converse with Madeline. Neither had he been able to find Cora alone. Visit her room when he would, there was the burly waiting-maid. Finally Cora had warned him, with some asperity, that his "actions looked rather suspicious," and then he obeyed her gentle hint and remained aloof.
Two days after the bestowal of Strong, the maid, upon the not-too-grateful Cora, an angular, grenadier-looking female presented herself at the servants' entrance, announcing that she was "the new maid;" and she was installed as high priestess of Madeline's apartments without loss of time.
The servants below stairs made comments, as servants will. Even Miss Arthur, Percy, and Davlin agreed in calling the two maids, respectively, "Grenadier" and "Griffin."
But only Cora knew that the two were better learned in the art of spying than in matters of the toilet. She knew herself to be under continual surveillance. Above stairs or below, Madeline or Hagar, Strong or Joliffe were not far away. And yet she had not abandoned her plan of escaping.
One morning, Cora, looking from the window of her dressing room, saw two men moving about in the grounds below. Upon commenting upon their presence there, Strong had answered, readily;
"Yes, madame, Joliffe tells me that they are here to sink a well. Miss Payne has decided to have a fountain among those cedar trees, and they are to go to work immediately."
"But a well in winter! They can't dig."
"They don't dig; they bore. It's to be a fountain, madame."
But in spite of the "fountain" explanation, Cora knew that the house was guarded from without as well as from within.
"It's no use to warn Lucian, or anybody, now," she thought. "It would only get us all into worse trouble."
But still she did not abandon the thoughts of her own escape.
And now began a time of trial for poor Ellen Arthur. Madeline Payne, after studiously ignoring the two men for some days, began to unbend. She commenced by conversing with Percy, listening to his slow and stately sentences, smiling her approval, and completely captivating that susceptible gentleman. Then, by degrees, she drew Lucian into the conversation, and smiled upon and listened to him.
All this Cora observed, wondering what the girl was trying to do; while the spinster looked on in untold agony, fearful lest this fair sorceress should avenge herself for some of her childish grievances by robbing her of her lover.
Meanwhile Lucian Davlin interpreted all this in his own favor. "She is proud and still resentful," he thought. "And she is using Percy as a medium of approach to me."
At last Lucian, growing impatient, resorted to an old, old trick. He watched his opportunity, and one evening, as Madeline was following Cora from the drawing-room, the door of which he was holding open for their exit, he pushed into her hand a small scrap of paper.
She would have dropped it; her first impulse was to do so, but Cora turned as her hand was about to loosen its clasp upon the fragment. So she passed on, carrying it with her to her own room. There she opened it and read these pencilled words:
For God's sake do not torture me longer. You have condemned me without a hearing. Be as merciful as you are strong and lovely. At least let me see you alone, when I can plead for myself.
Half an hour later, Hagar tapped at his door. When he opened it, she put in his hand a bit of paper, on which were these faintly-pencilled lines:
If you desire my friendship, you must date our acquaintance from this week. You never knew me in the past.
"And she is right," muttered he; "the Madeline Payne of last summer, and the Madeline Payne of now, are to each other as the chrysalis to the butterfly, in beauty; as the kitten to the panther, in spirit; as the babe to the woman, in mind. That Madeline pleased me; this one, I love."
So he accepted the position, and did not give up striving to draw from her some special word, or look, or tone, that he need not feel belonged as much to Percy as to himself.
Meantime Percy was revolving various things in his learned head.
He had been, as a matter of course, deeply impressed with her beauty, and he had been much puzzled as well.
Having witnessed her arrival, he had fully expected rebellion from Cora, for Cora was not the woman to be barred out from a prospective fortune and make no sign. But there was no war, and no indications of battle. Cora and the heiress were wonderfully friendly. Mr. Percy could not understand it.
The manner of Davlin toward him had not changed in the least, remaining as studiously polite as when he was so cordially invited to take up his abode under the hospitable roof of Oakley.
That of Cora was decidedly different. While before she addressed him with a sort of conciliating courtesy, and had seemed desirous of furthering his plans and hastening on his marriage with Miss Arthur, she now manifested an almost contemptuous indifference, not only to himself, but to his
fiance.
True to her nature, Cora was gathering up what gleams of satisfaction she could. When she had become assured that it was not Percy who held possession of her stolen papers, and that the girl in whose hands they were was more his enemy than hers, she rejoiced in his discomfiture to come. Seeing that it was no longer necessary to propitiate her enemy, she indulged in the luxury of acting out her hatred, when she could without betraying to Davlin this change, which might require an explanation.
That some sort of understanding existed between Miss Payne and Cora, Percy instantly surmised, and every day confirmed the belief. That Miss Payne held the power, he also believed. So believing, he began to wonder if it were not better to "be off with the old love," and seek to win the heiress, for the vanity of Mr. Percy inspired him to believe that it would not be a hopeless task. He had heard, however, of that person who, "between two stools," fell to the ground, and he was careful not to reveal to Miss Arthur the laxity of his affections.
And so the days moved on.
Percy dividing his attention between his
fiance and Miss Payne; studying the latter, and closely watching Davlin and Cora.
That last named lady smiling and lounging below stairs, sulking and smoking above, and always under surveillance.
Davlin, having assured Cora that he was acting from motives politic, paying open court to Madeline.
That young lady calmly acting her part, thoroughly understanding and heartily despising them all.
John Arthur alternately raging and sulking, obdurately refusing to accede to his step-daughter's terms, and vowing to escape and wreak vengeance upon every one of them.
"Dr. Le Guise," calm as a Summer morning, and taking more real ease and comfort than all the others combined.
Hagar watchful and anxious.
The two new maids making themselves popular in the kitchen, and "sleeping with their eyes open."
* * * * *
And still no clue by which Madeline and her efficient
aides de camp could unravel the web of doubt that still clung about, and kept a prisoner, the long-suffering Philip Girard. _