The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,56
how much to believe the next time you tell me you love me! How about you staying in and letting me do the talking?”
“But don’t you see that wouldn’t do? They all know Sh—that is, they all knew Miss Cameron.”
“I see that you are perfectly crazy about money. You love money better than honor or decency or me.”
“Now you’re being unreasonable!” said the man irritably. “I’ve told you our fortune hangs upon what happens in the next few days. I can’t help it, can I, that my investments failed? Everybody else is having the same trouble. If the wedding had gone through as planned, there wouldn’t have been any trouble about money. I could have gotten around the old lady and gotten a loan of a hundred thousand or two to tide me over. But now—”
“But now, since she found you out and the fortune isn’t available, you mean to take it out on me—who really is the wronged one from the beginning. Well, I won’t stand for it, that’s all! I’m not going to stay shut in and have you roaming around perhaps with some handsome brunette who has another fortune lying around!”
Her eyes were blazing wrathfully. Her tone was low but very angry. He watched her furtively. It wouldn’t do to let her get started on that line. She could mess things up a lot more if she chose to.
“Look here, Arla!” He swung around upon her. “Be sensible! Haven’t I told you that my business will go under completely and leave me utterly bankrupt if I can’t tide over the next six months and pay my indebtedness? And now, just when I think I’m going to be able to swing it, you get childish and balk at helping me.”
“I’m not childish, and I don’t balk at helping you when it’s right and reasonable. But I won’t be lied about, and I don’t intend to allow anybody to mix me up with the girl you didn’t marry, not to save twenty businesses. Besides, I don’t see what a mere fifty thousand matters. Even if Mr. Sheldon does refuse to pay the twenty-five thousand now, and the other twenty-five thousand in two or three months, you still have a lot more thousands that you can’t do anything about. You can’t save your business any way you try, and it’s better to realize that and give it up. Just let them take over what you have, and don’t try to launch out. Begin again in a small way and I’ll help you!”
“Ah, but there’s where you are mistaken, Arla! I’ve found a way. I’m sure I’ve found a way to swing the rest of that. Just last night a way came. I can’t tell you about it yet, but it’s sure! And we shall be on easy street yet, my girl! Just have a little patience. A day or two after we’ve landed on the other side, I shall have everything all fixed up.”
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her cunningly.
She gave him a quick furtive glance.
“And suppose you didn’t? Suppose you are mistaken?” Her breath came sharply. “Don’t you know you are throwing away something sweeter and finer than any money or any business that you could ever have?”
Perhaps because her words went deeper than she understood, they angered him the more.
“Get out of my way!” he roared, forgetting he was on an ocean liner. “If you’re my wife, take my orders, then! Don’t you dare to stir out of the cabin again in daylight unless I say you may. Go! I don’t want to see you anymore; you make me tired! Talk about wedding trips? I’m having a glorious one!”
“Hush!” said Arla imperatively in a low controlled voice. “There’s your Mr. Sheldon just below you coming up the stairs!”
Carter turned and saw the puffy red face of the financier advancing pompously up to where he stood, but when he turned back to give Arla a warning scowl, she was not there. There seemed no way that she could have gone, but she was gone. Carter was left embarrassed and awkward to meet the dignified scrutiny of the man he wished to placate. He wished frantically that he knew how much of his conversation had been overheard.
Chapter 13
By a way that her need had come to her in the sudden crisis, Arla had fled to her stateroom. Having locked her door, she stood for an instant with clenched fists down at her sides, her teeth set in her