"I've given a bill of sale here,"Trent continued."They'll be round to-morrow.Better pack to-night.These valuers are such robbers.Come,another bottle!It'll all have to be sold.We'll make a night of it."Mrs.Da Souza rose and swept from the room -Da Souza had fallen forward with his head upon his hands.He was only half sober,but the shock was working like madness in his brain.The two girls,after whispering together for a moment,rose and followed Mrs.Da Souza.Trent stole from his place and out into the garden.With footsteps which were steady enough now he crossed the velvety lawns,and plunged into the shrubbery.Then he began to laugh softly as he walked.They were all duped!They had accepted his story without the slightest question.He leaned over the gate which led into the little plantation,and he was suddenly grave and silent.A night-wind was blowing fragrant and cool.The dark boughs of the trees waved to and fro against the background of deep blue sky.The lime leaves rustled softly,the perfume of roses came floating across from the flower-gardens.Trent stood quite still,listening and thinking.
"God!what a beast I am!"he muttered."It was there she sat!
I'm not fit to breathe the same air."
He looked back towards the house.The figures of the two girls,with Da Souza standing now between them,were silhouetted against the window.His face grew dark and fierce.
"Faugh!"he exclaimed,"what a kennel I have made of my house!
What a low-down thing I have begun to make of life!Yet -I was a beggar -and I am a millionaire.Is it harder to change oneself?
To-morrow"-he looked hard at the place where she had sat -"to-morrow I will ask her!"On his way back to the house a little cloaked figure stepped out from behind a shrub.He looked at her in amazement.It was the little brown girl,and her eyes were wet with tears.
"Listen,"she said quickly."I have been waiting to speak to you!
I want to say goodbye and to thank you.I am very,very sorry,and I hope that some day very soon you will make some more money and be happy again."Her lips were quivering.A single glance into her face assured him of her honesty.He took the hand which she held out and pressed her fingers.
"Little Julie,"he said,"you are a brick.Don't you bother about me.It isn't quite so bad as I made out -only don't tell your mother that.""I'm very glad,"she murmured."I think that it is hateful of them all to rush away,and I made up my mind to say goodbye however angry it made them.Let me go now,please.I want to get back before mamma misses me."He passed his arm around her tiny waist.She looked at him with frightened eyes.
"Please let me go,"she murmured.
He kissed her lips,and a moment afterwards vaguely repented it.
She buried her face in her hands and ran away sobbing.Trent lit a cigar and sat down upon a garden seat.
"It's a queer thing,"he said reflectingly."The girl's been thrown repeatedly at my head for a week and I might have kissed her at any moment,before her father and mother if I had liked,and they'd have thanked me.Now I've done it I'm sorry.She looked prettier than I've ever seen her too -and she's the only decent one of the lot.Lord!what a hubbub there'll be in the morning!"The stars came out and the moon rose,and still Scarlett Trent lingered in the scented darkness.He was a man of limited imagination and little given to superstitions.Yet that night there came to him a presentiment.He felt that he was on the threshold of great events.Something new in life was looming up before him.He had cut himself adrift from the old -it was a very wonderful and a very beautiful figure which was beckoning him to follow in other paths.The triumph of the earlier part of the day seemed to lie far back in a misty and unimportant past.
There was a new world and a greater,if fortune willed that he should enter it.
