Firstly, he disliked whatever smacked of scenic effect, and women

were apt to get up scenes--hysterics, attitudes, and the like--upon

trivial provocation, He wanted to get the thing over quietly and

soon.

Secondly, he was not very sure that he should find in Mabel the

docile puppet she had appeared to him for so many years of tutelage.

She had matured marvelously of late. Her very manner of meeting him

that afternoon impressed him by its self-possession and freedom from

the emotion that used to gush from eyes and lips, in happy tears,

and broken, delighted greeting at his approach. For aught he knew to

the contrary, she might have accepted his fiat as just, if not

merciful, and not a dream of rebellion been fostered thereby. The

grave tranquillity of her demeanor might arise from the chastening

influences of the mortification she had sustained, and a

consciousness of ill-desert that bred humility. He would fain have

believed all this, but until he broached the subject to her, his

incertitude could not be removed, and in a step so momentous as that

which he meditated, it behooved him to try well the solidity of the

ground beneath him.

Lastly, our blood-prince of the kingdom of Ridgeley was, whether he

confessed it or not, acting under orders.

"Be very tolerant with that poor little deceived sister of yours!"

his fiancee had implored, her diamond eyes bedimmed by

quick-springing damps of commiseration. "Recollect that the

consciousness of wasted love is always harder to bear than what is

commonly known as bereavement. If you find her refractory, be

patient and persuasive, instead of dictatorial. Craft often effects

what overt violence would attempt in vain."

"Craft!" The word struck unpleasantly upon the Virginia lordling's

ear, and he echoed it with a suspicion of a frown upon his brow. "I

am not an adept in chicanery!"

"But you are a born diplomatist!" seductively. "And because I am of

the same credulous sex as our mistaken little darling, you will not

proceed to open warfare with her, even should she be both to resign

her lover? It is the glory of the strong to show charity to the weak

and erring."

For her sake, then, our flattered diplomatist would try the effect

of guile, instead of brutality, upon the helpless girl, the balance

of whose fate was grasped by his shapely hand. For one base second,

the idea of attempting an imitation of his sister's handwriting

flashed through his mind. But he was a gentleman, and forgery is not

a gentlemanly vice, any more than is counterfeiting bank-notes.

Finally, the author of craft--the subtle, refined virtue bepraised

by his bride-elect--the devil--came to his help.




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