The Eagle's Shadow

'Oh, Hugh, Hugh!' she said, contritely, 'I was unpardonably rude. I'm sorry, dear, but it's quite impossible. You are a dear, cute little boy, and I love you—but not that way. So let's shake hands, Hugh, and be friends! And then you can go and play with Adele.' He raised her hand to his lips. He really was a nice boy.

'But, oh, dear!' said Margaret, when he had gone; 'what horrid creatures men are, and what a temper I'm in, and what a vexatious place the world is! I wish I were a pauper! I wish I had never been born! And I wish—and I wish I had those League papers fixed! I'll do it to-night! I'm sure I need something tranquillising, like assessments and decimal places and unpaid dues, to keep me from screaming. I hate them all—all three of them—as badly as I do him!'

Thereupon she blushed, for no apparent reason, and went to her own rooms in a frame of mind that was inexcusable, but very becoming. Her cheeks burned, her eyes flashed with a brighter glow that was gem-like and a little cruel, and her chin tilted up defiantly. Margaret had a resolute chin, a masculine chin. I fancy that it was only at the last moment that Nature found it a thought too boyish and modified it with a dimple—a very creditable dimple, by the way, that she must have been really proud of. That ridiculous little dint saved it, feminised it.

Altogether, then, she swept down upon the papers of the Ladies' League for the Edification of the Impecunious with very much the look of a diminutive Valkyrie—a Valkyrie of unusual personal attractions, you understand—en route for the battle-field and a little, a very little eager and expectant of the strife.

Subsequently, 'Oh, dear, dear!' said she, amid a feverish rustling of papers; 'the whole world is out of sorts to-night! I never did know how much seven times eight is, and I hate everybody, and I've left that list of unpaid dues in Uncle Fred's room, and I've got to go after it, and I don't want to! Bother those little suitors of mine!'

Miss Hugonin rose, and went out from her own rooms, carrying a bunch of keys, across the hallway to the room in which Frederick R. Woods had died. It was his study, you may remember. It had been little used since his death, but Margaret kept her less important papers there—the overflow, the flotsam of her vast philanthropic and educational correspondence.

And there she found Billy Woods.

XII

His back was turned to the door as she entered. He was staring at a picture beside the mantel—a portrait of Frederick R. Woods—and his eyes when he wheeled about were wistful.

Then, on a sudden, they lighted up as if they had caught fire from hers, and his adoration flaunted crimson banners in his cheeks, and his heart, I dare say, was a great blaze of happiness. He loved her, you see; when she entered a room it really made a difference to this absurd young man. He saw a great many lights, for instance, and heard music. And accordingly, he laughed now in a very contented fashion.

'I wasn't burglarising,' said he—'that is, not exactly. I ought to have asked your permission, I suppose, before coming here, but I couldn't find you, and—and it was rather important. You see,' Mr. Woods continued, pointing to the great carved desk. 'I happened to speak of this desk to the Colonel to-night. We—we were talking of Uncle Fred's death, and I found out, quite by accident, that it hadn't been searched since then—that is, not thoroughly. There are secret drawers, you see; one here,' and he touched the spring that threw it open, 'and the other on this side. There is—there is nothing of importance in them; only receipted bills and such. The other drawer is inside that centre compartment, which is locked. The Colonel wouldn't come. He said it was all foolishness, and that he had a book he wanted to read. So he sent me after what he called my mare's nest. It isn't, you see—no, not quite, not quite,' Mr. Woods murmured, with an odd smile, and then laughed and added, lamely: 'I—I suppose I'm the only person who knew about it.'

Mr. Woods's manner was a thought strange. He stammered a little in speaking; he laughed unnecessarily; and Margaret could see that his hands trembled. Taking him all in all, you would have sworn he was repressing some vital emotion. But he did not seem unhappy—no, not exactly unhappy. He was with Margaret, you see.

'Oh, you beauty!' his meditations ran.

He had some excuse. In the soft, rosy twilight of the room—the study at Selwoode is panelled in very dark oak, and the doors and windows are screened with crimson hangings—her parti-coloured red-and-yellow gown might have been a scrap of afterglow left over from an unusually fine sunset. In a word, Miss Hugonin was a very quaint and colourful and delectable figure as she came a little further into the room. Her eyes shone like blue stars, and her hair shone—there must be pounds of it, Billy thought—and her very shoulders, plump, flawless, ineffable, shone with the glow of an errant cloud-tatter that is just past the track of dawn, and is therefore neither pink nor white, but manages somehow to combine the best points of both colours.

'Ah, indeed?' said Miss Hugonin. Her tone imparted a surprising degree of chilliness to this simple remark.

'No,' she went on, very formally, 'this is not a private room; you owe me no apology for being here. Indeed, I am rather obliged to you, Mr. Woods, for none of us knew of these secret drawers. Here is the key to the central compartment, if you will be kind enough to point out the other one. Dear, dear!' Margaret concluded, languidly, 'all this is quite like a third-rate melodrama. I haven't the least doubt you will discover a will in there in your favour, and be reinstated as the long-lost heir and all that sort of thing. How tiresome that will be for me, though.'

She was in a mood to be cruel to-night. She held out the keys to him, in a disinterested fashion, and dropped them daintily into his outstretched palm, just as she might have given a coin to an unusually grimy mendicant. But the tips of her fingers grazed his hand.

That did the mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve in his body a-tingle. 'Peggy!' he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said 'Peggy, Peggy!' in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to have no intention of saying anything further.

Indeed, words would have seemed mere tautology to any one who could have seen his eyes. Margaret looked into them for a minute, and her own eyes fell before their blaze, and her heart—very foolishly—stood still for a breathing-space. Subsequently she recalled the fact that he was a fortune-hunter, and that she despised him, and also observed—to her surprise and indignation—that he was holding her hand and had apparently been doing so for some time. You may believe it, that she withdrew that pink-and-white trifle angrily enough.

'Pray don't be absurd, Mr. Woods,' said she.

Billy caught up the word. 'Absurd!' he echoed—'yes, that describes what I've been pretty well, doesn't it, Peggy? I was absurd when I let you send me to the right-about four years ago. I realised that to-day the moment I saw you. I should have held on like the very grimmest death; I should have bullied you into marrying me, if necessary, and in spite of fifty Anstruthers. Oh, yes, I know that now. But I was only a boy then, Peggy, and so I let a boy's pride come between us. I know now there isn't any question of pride where you are concerned—not any question of pride nor of any silly misunderstandings, nor of any uncle's wishes, nor of anything but just you, Peggy. It's just you that I care for now—just you.'

'Ah!' Margaret cried, with a swift intake of the breath that was almost a sob. He had dared, after all; oh, it was shameless, sordid! And yet (she thought dimly), how dear that little quiver in his voice had been were it unplanned!—and how she could have loved this big, eager boy were he not the hypocrite she knew him! She'd show him! But somehow—though it was manifestly what he deserved—she found she couldn't look him in the face while she did it. So she dropped her eyes to the floor and waited for a moment of tense silence. Then, 'Am I to consider this a proposal, Mr. Woods?' she asked, in muffled tones.

Billy stared. 'Yes,' said he, very gravely, after an interval.

'You see,' she explained, still in the same dull voice, 'you phrased it so vaguely I couldn't well be certain. You don't propose very well, Mr. Woods. I—I've had opportunities to become an authority on such matters, you see, since I've been rich. That makes a difference, doesn't it? A great many men are willing to marry me now who wouldn't have thought of such a thing, say—say, four years ago. So I've had some experience. Oh, yes, three—three persons have offered to marry me for my money earlier in this very evening—before you did, Mr. Woods. And, really, I can't compliment you on your methods, Mr. Woods; they are a little vague, a little abrupt, a little transparent, don't you think?'

'Peggy!' he cried, in a frightened whisper. He could not believe, you see, that it was the woman he loved who was speaking.

And for my part, I admit frankly that at this very point, if ever in her life, Margaret deserved a thorough shaking.

'Dear me,' she airily observed, 'I'm sure I've said nothing out of the way. I think it speaks very well for you