dear! I may as well tell you the whole story now, though I had meant to wait and prepare you a little first, but you might as well know everything. Mr. Morgan has asked me to marry him and I have accepted. He has been most kind in every way. He has even offered to make you his heir! My dear, you don’t know what luck we are in! He has castles, real castles, three of them, and all kinds of places in America besides. And a yacht that is the envy of royalty. We can live where we like, and travel when we please, and there is nothing, simply nothing, that we cannot have. My dream for you is going to come true. Last night he was planning to have you presented at court. My dear, he is simply crazy about you. He loves you, he really does! He will be a real father to you—”
“Stop!” cried Kerry flashing her eyes like blue lightning, her face a deathly white. “Stop!” and then with a great cry she burst away from her mother, shut herself into her own room and locked the door.
Chapter 2
Kerry stood behind that locked door, a flaming, furious, frantic young soul, desperate, helpless, bound by the submission of years.
Her mother! Her beautiful mother! Going to marry that awful man! It could not be true. It must be some awful dream! It must be a nightmare that would pass!
She put her cold trembling hands over her eyes, and brushing away the vision of the present, tried to conjure up the dear dead past.
She heard her mother moving about the other room, little familiar movements, in her gentle, deliberate way. Mother was a perfect lady always, nothing impulsive or unconsidered about her habits. The shoving of a chair, the clink of the handglass as she laid it down on the old-fashioned marble shelf under the mirror. Kerry could almost vision her turning her head critically before the mirror to get one more glimpse of herself in her new hat before she went out.
And she could do that, when her child was suffering so on this side the closed door! But that was an old hurt, almost callous now.
Now—! She was stepping across the floor. That was the board in the middle of the room that creaked!
She had picked up her bag and gloves from the table, and now she stood a moment to put on her gloves, turning again to get another glimpse of the new hat.
Kerry’s eyes were closed, and the door against which she leaned was locked, but she could see it all, every motion. Now, she had turned and was walking toward the hall door. She was going! In another instant she would be gone! Gone with that awful—!
“Mother!”—
Kerry fumbled with the key frantically. It came out in her hand and had to be fitted in again! Oh, why had she locked her door! She would be gone—hopelessly—forever—perhaps!—It must not be! She must stop it! She must! Father would expect her to do something—!
The key slid into its hole again and she broke out into the sitting room wildly, the tears splashing unheeded down her white cheeks.
“Mother!”
The hall door was just closing, but it halted on the crack, and slowly swung open a couple of inches.
“Well?” said a cold voice, cold like icicles.
“Oh, Mother!” sobbed Kerry, her voice full of love and pleading. “Oh, Mother! Come back!”
The door opened a trifle wider and Isobel Kavanaugh’s delicately pretty face appeared.
“What is it you want, Kerry? I’m late now, I cannot come back!” Her voice was haughty and unsympathetic.
“Oh, Mother, just a minute. Come in! I must speak to you!”
Mrs. Kavanaugh stepped inside and drew the door to.
“You’ll have to hurry!” she said coldly.
Kerry was like a bright flame as she went rushing toward her mother. Her hair was red gold and as she crossed the room a ray of sunlight, the only ray that could get inside that dark hotel room, caught and tangled in its wavy meshes. It set a halo about the white face, with the great purply-blue eyes set like stars, wide apart. In her earnestness, her awful need, her face shone with hurt love and tenderness.
“Oh, Mother! Mother! You’re the only mother I have, and you’re so beautiful!” It was like a prayer, that form of words that had become a habit through the years—
Unconsciously Kerry had chosen the only mode of approach that could possibly have halted this vain woman a moment longer. For an instant she was almost mollified. Then she looked startled into the lovely illumined face of her daughter and saw her beauty as she had never seen it before. Saw that it was beauty even deeper, and more wonderful than her own, for with its delicacy was mingled a something of the intellect—or was it spirit?—they were all one to Mrs. Kavanaugh—that made it most unusual. Then too, there was that red-gold hair—or was it gold-red?—that the mother had always regretted and called plain red. She saw like a revelation that it made a startling combination. Kerry, in her trouble had suddenly grown up. Kerry was beautiful!
Then with the first throb of pride that made her look again, came another thought more powerful. Kerry would be a rival!
Perhaps Kerry already was a rival! Sam had been most insistent that she should bring Kerry along. Almost rudely insistent! Had there been anything back of that? Of course not! But—
All this in a flash of a thought. Then:
“What a perfectly ridiculous child!” she said coldly, “to call me back at such a time just to say that! But of course, you were always just like your father!”
“But, Mother, you will stay! You will not go with that bad man! For I’m sure he is bad, Mother, or Father would not have said what he did about him. I’m sure Father knew!”
“What did your father dare to say about my friend?” flashed the mother angrily. “Tell me instantly. You’ve no right to keep anything back like that. Your father had no right to say anything behind my back—”
“But Mother, he was only sorry about you. He was talking of you so lovingly,” pleaded Kerry.
“What did he say?” demanded the now furious woman.
“He said—” struggled Kerry, wildly casting about for some way to answer without telling all—“He said—he was not—worthy—of you!”
The fury went out of the woman’s eyes. She lifted her chin vainly with a little smile of self-consciousness.
“Oh, well, he would,” she answered half sneeringly. “You know my dear, your father thought no one was worthy of me, not even himself, I’ll say that for him. Not even himself. He was always humble enough. He knew his limitations, your poor dear father did!” Her tone was amused, reminiscent of a past which she scarcely seemed to regret.
A great anger surged over the girl, her vivid face flamed, and her dark eyes burned with unspeakable emotions.
“Mother! Oh, Mother! Listen. You don’t understand! He didn’t mean just that. He used a word—!”
“A
