The TruantsMason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
General
The Truants
Mason, A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley)
Fiction
And Pamela could have cried out aloud. She had not thought, she had
not foreseen. She had fixed all her hopes on saving Millie. Set upon
that, she had not understood that other and dreadful consequences
might ensue. These consequences were vivid enough before her eyes now.
All three would meet--Tony, Millie, and Lionel Callon. What would
follow? What might not follow? Pamela closed her eyes. Her heart sank;
she felt faint at the thought of what she had so blindly brought
about.
"Tony!" she exclaimed. She wrung her hands together, pleading with him
in short and broken sentences. "Don't think of him!... Think of
Millie. You can gain her back!... I am very sure.... I wrote that to
you, didn't I?... Mr. Callon.... It is not worth while.... He is of no
account.... Millie was lonely, that was all.... There would be a
scandal, at the best...." And Tony laughed harshly.
"Oh, it is not worth while," she cried again piteously, and yet again,
"it is not worth while."
"Yet I am anxious to meet him," said Tony.
Suddenly Pamela looked over his shoulder to the door, and, for a
moment, hope brightened on her face. But Stretton understood the look,
and replied to it.
"No, Warrisden is not here. I left him behind with our luggage at
Monte Carlo."
"Why did he stay?" cried Pamela, as again her hopes fell.
"He could hardly refuse. This is my affair, not his. I claimed
to-night. He will come to you, no doubt, tomorrow."
"You meant him to stay behind, then?"
"I meant to see you alone," said Tony; and Pamela dared question him
no more, though the questions thronged in her mind and tortured her.
Was it only because he wished to see her alone that he left Warrisden
behind? Was it not also so that he might not be hampered afterwards?
Was it only so that another might not know of the trouble between
himself and Millie? Or was it not so that another might not be on hand
to hinder him from exacting retribution? Pamela was appalled. Tony was
angry--yes, that was natural enough. She would not have felt half her
present distress if he had shown his passion in tempestuous words, if
he had threatened, if he had raved. But there was so much deliberation
in his anger, he had it so completely in control; it was an instrument
which he meant to use, not a fever which might master him for a moment
and let him go.
"You are so changed," she cried. "I did not think of that when I wrote
to you. But, of course, these years and the Foreign Legion could not
but change you."
She moved away, and sat down holding her head between her hands.
Stretton did not answer her words in any way. He moved towards her,
and asked--
"Is Callon, too, at Eze?"
"No, no," she cried, raising her head, thankful, at last, that here
was some small point on which she could attenuate his suspicions. "You
are making too much of the trouble."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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