第42章

"If Henry hasn't gone to bed," said Laura, "tell him to wait up till I call him, or to sleep with his clothes on.There is something I want him to do for me--something important."

It was close upon midnight.Laura turned back into her room, removed her hat and veil, and tossed them, with her coat, upon the bed.She lit another burner of the chandelier, and drew a chair to her writing-desk between the windows.

Her first note was to Landry Court.She wrote it almost with a single spurt of the pen, and dated it carefully, so that he might know it had been written immediately after he had left.Thus it ran:

"Please do not try to see me again at any time or under any circumstances.I want you to understand, very clearly, that I do not wish to continue our acquaintance."Her letter to Corthell was more difficult, and it was not until she had rewritten it two or three times that it read to her satisfaction.

"My dear Mr.Corthell," so it was worded, "you asked me to-night that our fencing and quibbling be brought to an end.I quite agree with you that it is desirable.

I spoke as I did before you left upon an impulse that Ishall never cease to regret.I do not wish you to misunderstand me, nor to misinterpret my attitude in any way.You asked me to be your wife, and, very foolishly and wrongly, I gave you--intentionally--an answer which might easily be construed into an encouragement.Understand now that I do not wish you to try to make me love you.I would find it extremely distasteful.And, believe me, it would be quite hopeless.I do not now, and never shall care for you as I should care if I were to be your wife.I beseech you that you will not, in any manner, refer again to this subject.It would only distress and pain me.

"Cordially yours, "LAURA DEARBORN."

The letter to Curtis Jadwin was almost to the same effect.But she found the writing of it easier than the others.In addressing him she felt herself grow a little more serious, a little more dignified and calm.

It ran as follows:

MY DEAR MR.JADWIN:

"When you asked me to become your wife this evening, you deserved a straightforward answer, and instead Ireplied in a spirit of capriciousness and disingenuousness, which I now earnestly regret, and which ask you to pardon and to ignore.

"I allowed myself to tell you that you might find encouragement in my foolishly spoken words.I am deeply sorry that I should have so forgotten what was due to my own self-respect and to your sincerity.

"If I have permitted myself to convey to you the impression that I would ever be willing to be your wife, let me hasten to correct it.Whatever I said to you this evening, I must answer now--as I should have answered then--truthfully and unhesitatingly, no.

"This, I insist, must be the last word between us upon this unfortunate subject, if we are to continue, as Ihope, very good friends.

"Cordially yours, "LAURA DEARBORN.

She sealed, stamped, and directed the three envelopes, and glanced at the little leather-cased travelling clock that stood on the top of her desk.It was nearly two.

"I could not sleep, I could not sleep," she murmured, "if I did not know they were on the way."In answer to the bell Henry appeared, and Laura gave him the letters, with orders to mail them at once in the nearest box.

When it was all over she sat down again at her desk, and leaning an elbow upon it, covered her eyes with her hand for a long moment.She felt suddenly very tired, and when at last she lowered her hand, her fingers were wet.But in the end she grew calmer.She felt that, at all events, she had vindicated herself, that her life would begin again to-morrow with a clean page; and when at length she fell asleep, it was to the dreamless unconsciousness of an almost tranquil mind.

She slept late the next morning and breakfasted in bed between ten and eleven.Then, as the last vibrations of last night's commotion died away, a very natural curiosity began to assert itself.She wondered how each of the three men "would take it." In spite of herself she could not keep from wishing that she could be by when they read their dismissals.

Towards the early part of the afternoon, while Laura was in the library reading "Queen's Gardens," the special delivery brought Landry Court's reply.It was one _roulade_ of incoherence, even in places blistered with tears.Landry protested, implored, debased himself to the very dust.His letter bristled with exclamation points, and ended with a prolonged wail of distress and despair.

Quietly, and with a certain merciless sense of pacification, Laura deliberately reduced the letter to strips, burned it upon the hearth, and went back to her Ruskin.

A little later, the afternoon being fine, she determined to ride out to Lincoln Park, not fifteen minutes from her home, to take a little walk there, and to see how many new buds were out.

As she was leaving, Annie gave into her hands a pasteboard box, just brought to the house by a messenger boy.

The box was full of Jacqueminot roses, to the stems of which a note from Corthell was tied.He wrote but a single line:

"So it should have been 'good-by ' after all."Laura had Annie put the roses in Page's room.

"Tell Page she can have them; I don't want them.She can wear them to her dance to-night," she said.

While to herself she added:

"The little buds in the park will be prettier."She was gone from the house over two hours, for she had elected to walk all the way home.She came back flushed and buoyant from her exercise, her cheeks cool with the Lake breeze, a young maple leaf in one of the revers of her coat.Annie let her in, murmuring:

"A gentleman called just after you went out.I told him you were not at home, but he said he would wait.

He is in the library now."

"Who is he? Did he give his name?" demanded Laura.

The maid handed her Curtis Jadwin's card.