Frances Waldeaux [15]
Both women were silent. Mrs. Waldeaux got up at last and caught Clara by the arm. She was trembling violently. "No, I'm not ill. I'm well enough. But you don't under- stand! That woman has killed George. I spent twenty years in making him what he is. I worked--there was nothing but him for me in the world. I didn't spare myself. To make him a gentleman--a Christian. And in a month she turns him into a thing like herself. He is following her vulgar courses. I saw the difference after he had lived with her for one day. He is tainted." She stood staring into the dull lamp. "She may not live long, though," she said. "She doesn't look strong----"
"Frances! For God's sake!"
"Well, what of it? Why shouldn't I wish her gone? The harm--the harm! Do you remember that Swedish maid I had--a great fair woman? One day she was stung by a green fly, and in a week she was dead, her whole body a mass of corruption! Oh, God lets such things be done! Nothing but a green fly----" She shook off Clara's hold, drawing her breath with difficulty. "That is Lisa. It is George that is being poisoned, body and soul. It's a pity to see my boy killed by a thing like that--it's a pity----"
Miss Vance was too frightened to argue with her. She brought her wrapper, loosened her hair, soothing her in little womanish ways. But her burning curiosity drove her presently to ask one question.
"How can they live?"
"I have doubled his allowance."
"Frances! You will work harder to make money for Lisa Arpent?"
"Oh, what is money!" cried Frances, pushing her away impatiently.
CHAPTER V
Miss Vance persuaded Mrs. Waldeaux to go with her to Scotland. During the weeks that followed Frances always found Lucy Dunbar at her side in the trains or on the coaches.
"She is a very companionable child," she told Clara. "I often forget that I am any older than she. She never tires of hearing stories of George's scrapes or his queer sayings when he was a child. Such stories, I think, are usually tedious, but George was a peculiar boy."
Mr. Perry's search for notorieties took him also to Scotland, and, oddly enough, Prince Wolfburgh's search for amusement led him in the same direction. They met him and his cousin, Captain Odo Wolfburgh, at Oban, and again on the ramparts of Stirling Castle, and the very day that they arrived in Edinburgh, there, in Holyrood, in Queen Mary's chamber, stood the pursy little man, curling his mustache before her mirror.
Mr. Perry fell into the background with Miss Hassard. "His Highness is becoming monotonous!" he grumbled. "These foreigners never know when they are superfluous in society."
"Is he superfluous?" Jean glanced to the corner where the prince and Lucy were eagerly searching for the blood of Rizzio upon the steps.
"Decidedly," said Perry. "I wished to show you and Miss Dunbar a live prince, and I did it. That is done and over with. He has been seen and heard. There is no reason why he should pop up here and there all over Great Britain like a Jack-in-the-box. He's becoming a bore."
"You suspect him to be an impostor?" said Jean quickly.
"No. He's genuine enough. But we don't want any foreigners in our caravan," stroking his red beard complacently.
"No. What do you suppose is his object?" asked Jean, with one of her quick, furtive glances.
Mr. Perry's jaws grew red as his beard. "How can I tell?" he said gruffly. He went on irritably, a moment later: "Of course you see it. The fellow has no delicacy. He makes no more secret of his plans than if he were going to run down a rabbit. Last night at Stirling, over his beer, he held forth upon the dimples on Miss Dunbar's pink elbows, and asked me if her hair were all her own. I said, at last, that American men did not value women like sheep by their flesh and fleece and the money they were rated at in the market. I hit him square that time, prince or no prince!"
"Yes, you did, indeed," said Jean vaguely. Her keen eyes followed Lucy and the prince, who were loitering through the gallery,