The Reason Why | Page 9

she clung to her and cried and
sobbed to be taken, too! And they--Mimo and the mother--always so
kind and loving and irresponsible, consented. And then the flight; and
weeks of happiness in luxurious hotels, until the mother's face grew

pinched and white, and no letters but her own--returned--came from
Uncle Francis. And ever the fear grew that if Mimo were absent from
her for a moment Uncle Francis would kill him. The poor, adored
mother! And then of the coming of Mirko and all their joy over it; and
then, gradually, the skeleton of poverty, when all the jewels had been
sold and all Mimo's uniform and swords; and nothing but his slender
income, which could not be taken from him, remained. How he had
worked to be a real artist, there in Paris! Oh! poor Mimo. He had tried,
but everything was so against a gentleman; and Mirko such a delicate
baby, and the mother's lovely face so often sad. And then the time of
the mother's first bad illness--how they had watched and prayed, and
Mimo had cried tears like a child, and the doctor had said the South
was the only thing to help their angel's recovery. So to marry Ladislaus
Shulski seemed the only way. He had a villa in the sun at Nice and
offered it to them; he was crazy about her--Zara--at that time, though
her skirts were not quite long, nor her splendid hair done up.
When her thoughts reached this far, the black panther in the Zoo never
looked fiercer when Francis Markrute poked his stick between its bars
to stir it up on Sunday mornings.
The hateful, hateful memories! When she came to know what marriage
meant, and--a man! But it had saved the sweet mother's life for that
winter. And though it was a strain to extract anything from Ladislaus,
still, in the years that followed, often she had been able to help until his
money, too, was all gone--on gambling and women.
And then the dear mother died--died in cold and poverty, in a poor little
studio in Paris--in spite of her daughter's and Mimo's frantic letters to
Uncle Francis for help. She knew now that he had been far away, in
South Africa, at the time, and had never received them, until too late;
but then, it seemed as if God Himself had forsaken them. And now
came the memory of her solemn promise. Mirko should never be
deserted--the adored mother could die in peace about that. Her last
words came back now--out of the glowing coals:
"I have been happy with Mimo, after all, my Chérisette, with you and
Mimo and Mirko. It was worth while--" And so she had gasped--and

died.
And here the tears gathered and blurred the flaming coals. But Zara's
decision had come. There was no other way. To her uncle's bargain she
must consent.
She got up abruptly and flung her hat on the bed--her cloak had already
fallen from her--and without further hesitation she descended the stairs.
Francis Markrute was still seated in his library; he had taken out his
watch and was calculating the time. It was twenty-five minutes to eight;
his guests would be coming to dine at eight o'clock and he had not
begun to dress. Would his niece have made up her mind by then?
That there could be any doubt about the fact that she would make up
her mind as he wished never entered his head. It was only a question of
time but it would be better, for every reason, if she arrived at the
conclusion at once.
He rose from his chair with a quiet smile as she entered the room. So
she had come! He had not relied upon his knowledge of a woman's
temperament in vain.
She was very pale. The extra whiteness showed even on her gardenia
skin, and her great eyes gleamed sullenly from beneath her lowering
brows of ink.
"If the terms are for the certain happiness of Mirko I consent," she said.
CHAPTER IV
The four men--the two railway magnates, Francis Markrute, and Lord
Tancred--had all been waiting a quarter of an hour before the
drawing-room fire when the Countess Shulski sailed into the room. She
wore an evening gown of some thin, black, transparent, woolen stuff,
which clung around her with the peculiar grace her poorest clothes
acquired. Another woman would have looked pitifully shabby in such a
dress, but her distinction made it appear to at least three of the men as

the robe of a goddess. Francis Markrute was too annoyed at the delay
of her coming to admire anything; but even he, as he presented his
guests to her, could not help remarking that he had never seen her look
more wonderful, nor more contemptuously