Chapter XVII: A Terrible Mistake

The newspaper that carried such fatal tidings to Max Verne in Paris holds a surprise for Vivian, too.

Returning from her wedding tour, she finds that Eve has kept for her the Richmond _State_ containing the description of her marriage. Mrs. Essex languidly thanks her, lays it aside, and for a time it is forgotten.

October sets in gloomily, with chilly winds and drizzling rain. Mr. Essex comes in from a drive down town one day and finds his bride lounging at the window in an easy chair, listlessly conning the pages of the _State_--a picture sweet enough for framing in her rose-hued morning dress, with a white rose nestled in her dark hair. He kisses her and sinks into an armchair close by, where he can watch her lovely face.

She has resumed her reading. The small hand, sparkling with diamonds, holds the paper steadily, the dark-fringed lashes droop to the rose-flushed cheeks, but about the lips in the calmness of repose, there has come the shadow of a change. The sunny sweetness, the arch dimples of old, have given place to wistful gravity. Her husband’s keen eyes note the change, and again he wonders, as he has often done before, why Vivian married him. She had owned she did not love him, and it was surely not for his money. Was it pride’s solace for the cruel letter she had received the evening her governess had disappeared?

Suddenly the paper rustles in her hands, she looks up, smiles, and speaks with swift impulsiveness:

“There is the oddest mistake in this paper, Earle, or I might say several mistakes. They have confounded the elder Mr. Verne with his nephew, married the elder man, and sent the nephew to Europe, when in truth it is quite the reverse.”

“Let me see,” and taking the paper he reads the statement, then answers:

“There is no mistake, my love. I saw the old gentleman yesterday, and congratulated him on his marriage.”

“But Eve told me----” she begins, then breaks off gasping, as if for breath, and turns her face from him to the window, staring out into the rain with dim, unseeing eyes.

“Eve told you?--go on, dear.”

“It is nothing--only, you see, it was her error, not mine. She said that--that Charlton’s friend, Max Verne, was to be married, and that his uncle was so displeased he had disinherited him.”

“She told you that, Vivian--when?” Earle Essex inquires with a lowering brow, and with a brave pretence of indifference she replies:

“Oh, ever so long ago--last summer I believe. Really, it does not matter when--the affair is too trivial for discussion.”

“I differ from you on that point. Can you remember when she told you? Was it before you accepted me?”

“Yes, I think so! Why do you question me so strangely, Earle?”

There is a flash of annoyance in her tone, and she lifts her dark eyes to his face in surprise, but they droop swiftly, for, in the keen eyes reading hers, shines the answer to her petulant question. He will never ask himself again why she married him. Eve’s mischievous gossip had kindled the fires of a reckless pride that consumed every instinct of the heart it fed on. His wife--the beautiful young creature sitting before him with pale lips that mock the smile that wreaths them--with white arms folded over a heart whose wild pulsations spurn her mind’s control--has married him because--she was maddened beyond endurance at the thought of Max Verne’s marriage to another. His heart burns with jealous rage, but it is not for him to breathe one word of blame. He schemed and plotted for this, and he has won her--“the hand without the heart,” as she had bitterly told him.

And Vivian sits still and fights down her heart silently. She has had a terrible shock.

She would not be Earle Essex’s wife to-day if she had not implicitly believed all that Eve had told her. She would have waited and hoped for a reconciliation with Max. All the same, it is too late to go back. The past is irrevocable. She is married now. All her faith and love are due to the man whose name she bears. She is trying to give him love for love, and persistently tramples every intruding thought of another. Pure as purity, true as truth, every thought of Max Verne now seems to her like a sin.

“I forgot to tell you,” her husband says, moodily, presently. “I saw your cousins to-day, and asked them to dine with us this evening. Diana had another engagement, but Eve will be here without fail.”

“Yes?”

“And I asked another person--recent acquaintance of mine. He will be a charming companion for our volatile Eve--so brilliant and versatile. I hope you will like him, Viva.”

“I hope so,” she answers, and taking up a book, tries to lose herself in its pages. Essex follows her example, pretending to read, but inwardly furious, knowing too well the truth now. She did not give her hand because he had caught her heart in the rebound, but through despair and pique.

----“All was loss,
All his wealth but gilded dross;
Bars retain nor rubies buy
Love whose light wings cleave the sky.”