XI
Colville had not done what he meant in going to Mrs. Bowen's; in fact,he had done just what he had not meant to do, as he distinctly perceivedin coming away. It was then that in a luminous retrospect he discoveredhis motive to have been a wish to atone to her for behaviour that musthave distressed her, or at least to explain it to her. She had not lethim do this at once; an instant willingness to hear and to condone wasnot in a woman's nature; she had to make him feel, by the infliction ofa degree of punishment, that she had suffered. But before she ended shehad made it clear that she was ready to grant him a tacit pardon, and hehad answered with a silly sarcasm the question that was to have led topeace. He could not help seeing that throughout the whole Carnivaladventure she had yielded her cherished reluctances to please him, toshow him that she was not stiff or prudish, to convince him that shewould not be a killjoy through her devotion to conventionalities whichshe thought he despised. He could not help seeing that he had abused herdelicate generosity, insulted her subtle concessions. He strolled alongdown the Arno, feeling flat and mean, as a man always does after acontest with a woman in which he has got the victory; our sex canpreserve its self-respect only through defeat in such a case. It gavehim no pleasure to remember that the glamour of the night before seemedstill to rest on Imogene unbroken; that, indeed, was rather an addedpain. He surprised himself in the midst of his poignant reflections by ayawn. Clearly the time was past when these ideal troubles could keep himawake, and there was, after all, a sort of brutal consolation in thefact. He was forty-one years old, and he was sleepy, whatever capacityfor suffering remained to him. He went to his hotel to catch a littlenap before lunch. When he woke it was dinner-time. The mists of slumberstill hung about him, and the events of the last forty-eight hoursshowed vast and shapelessly threatening through them.
When the drama of the _table d'hote_ reached its climax of roastchestnuts and butter, he determined to walk over to San Marco and pay avisit to Mr. Waters. He found the old minister from Haddam East Village,Massachusetts, Italianate outwardly in almost ludicrous degree. He worea fur-lined overcoat indoors; his feet, cased in thick woollen shoes,rested on a strip of carpet laid before his table; a man who had livedfor forty years in the pungent atmosphere of an air-tight stove,succeeding a quarter of a century of roaring hearth fires, contentedhimself with the spare heat of a scaldino, which he held his claspedhands over in the very Italian manner; the lamp that cast its light onthe book open before him was the classic _lucerna_, with three beaks,fed with olive oil. He looked up at his visitor over his spectacles,without recognising him, till Colville spoke. Then, after theirgreeting, "Is it snowing heavily?" he asked.
"It isn't snowing at all. What made you think that?"
"Perhaps I was drowsing over my book and dreamed it. We become verystrange and interesting studies to ourselves as we live along."
He took up the metaphysical consideration with the promptness of a manwho has no small-talk, and who speaks of the mind and soul as if theywere the gossip of the neighbourhood.
"At times the forty winters that I passed in Haddam East Village seemlike an alien experience, and I find myself pitying the life I livedthere quite as if it were the life of some one else. It seems incrediblethat men should still inhabit such climates."
"Then you're not homesick for Haddam East Village?"
"Ah! for the good and striving souls there, yes; especially the souls ofsome women there. They used to think that it was I who gave themconsolation and spiritual purpose, but it was they who really impartedit. Women souls--how beautiful they sometimes are! They seem truly likeangelic essences. I trust that I shall meet them somewhere some time,but it will never be in Haddam East Village. Yes, I must have beendreaming when you came in. I thought that I was by my fire there, andall round over the hills and in the streets the snow was deep andfalling still. "How distinctly," he said, closing his eyes, as artists doin looking at a picture, "I can see the black wavering lines of the wallsin the fields sinking into the drifts! the snow billowed over the gravesby the church where I preached! the banks of snow around the houses! thewhite desolation everywhere! I ask myself at times if the people arestill there. Yes, I feel as blessedly remote from that terrible winteras if I had died away from it, and were in the weather of heaven."
"Then you have no reproach for feeble-spirited fellow-citizens whoabandon their native climate and come to live in Italy?"
The old man drew his fur coat closer about him and shrugged hisshoulders in true Florentine fashion. "There may be something to sayagainst those who do so in the heyday of life, but I shall not be theone to say it. The race must yet revert in its decrepitude, as I have inmine, to the climates of the South. Since I have been in Italy I haverealised what used to occur to me dimly at home--the cruel disproportionbetween the end gained and the means expended in reclaiming the savageNorth. Half the human endeavour, half the human suffering, would havemade the whole South Protestant and the whole East Christian, and ourcivilisation would now be there. No, I shall never go back to NewEngland. New England? New Ireland----New Canada! Half the farms inHaddam are in the hands of our Irish friends, and the labour on the restis half done by French Canadians. That is all right and well. NewEngland must come to me here, by way of the great middle West and thePacific coast."
Colville smiled at the Emersonian touch, but he said gravely, "I cannever quite reconcile myself to the thought of dying out of my owncountry."
"Why not? It is very unimportant where one dies. A moment after yourbreath is gone you are in exile for ever--or at home for ever."
Colville sat musing upon this phase of Americanism, as he had upon manyothers. At last he broke the silence they had both let fall, far awayfrom the topic they had touched.
"Well," he asked, "how did you enjoy the veglione?"
"Oh, I'm too old to go to such places for pleasure," said the ministersimply. "But it was very interesting, and certainly very striking:especially when I went back, toward daylight, after seeing Mrs. Bowenhome."
"Did you go back?" demanded Colville, in some amaze.
"Oh yes. I felt that my experience was incomplete without some knowledgeof how the Carnival ended at such a place."
"Oh! And do you still feel that Savonarola was mistaken?"
"There seemed to be rather more boisterousness toward the close, and, ifI might judge, the excitement grew a little unwholesome. But I reallydon't feel myself very well qualified to decide. My own life has beenpassed in circumstances so widely different that I am at a certaindisadvantage."
"Yes," said Colville, with a smile; "I daresay the Carnival at HaddamEast Village was quite another tiling."
The old man smiled responsively. "I suppose that some of my formerparishioners might have been scandalised at my presence at a Carnivalball, had they known the fact merely in the abstract; but in my lettershome I shall try to set it before them in an instructive light. I shouldsay that the worst thing about such a scene of revelry would be that ittook us too much out of our inner quiet. But I suppose the same remarkmight apply to almost any form of social entertainment."
"Yes."
"But human nature is so constituted that some means of expansion must beprovided, or a violent explosion takes place. The only question is whatmeans are most innocent. I have been looking about," added the old manquietly, "at the theatres lately."
"Have you?" asked Colville, opening his eyes, in suppressed surprise.
"Yes; with a view to determining the degree of harmless amusement thatmay be derived from them. It's rather a difficult question. I should beinclined to say, however, that I don't think the ballet can ever beinstrumental for good."
Colville could not deny himself the pleasure of saying, "Well, not thehighest, I suppose."
"No," said Mr. Waters, in apparent unconsciousness of the irony. "But Ithink the Church has made a mistake in condemning the theatre _in toto_.It appears to me that it might always have countenanced a certain orderof comedy, in which the motive and plot are
unobjectionable. Though Idon't deny that there are moods when all laughter seems low and unworthyand incompatible with the most advanced state of being. And I confess,"he went on, with a dreamy thoughtfulness, "that I have very greatmisgivings in regard to tragedy. The glare that it throws upon the playof the passions--jealousy in its anguish, revenge glutting itself, envyeating its heart, hopeless love--their nakedness is terrible. The terrormay be salutary; it may be very mischievous. I am afraid that I haveleft some of my inquiries till it is too late. I seem to have no longerthe materials of judgment left in me. If I were still a young man likeyou----"
"Am I still a young man?" interrupted Colville sadly.
"You are young enough to respond to the appeals that sometimes find mesilent. If I were of your age I should certainly investigate some ofthese interesting problems."
"Ah, but if you become personally interested in the problems, it's asbad as if you hadn't the materials of judgment left; you're prejudiced.Besides, I doubt my youthfulness very much."
"You are fifty, I presume?" suggested Mr. Waters, in a leading way.
"Not very near--only too near," laughed Colville. "I'm forty-one."
"You are younger than I supposed. But I remember now that at your age Ihad the same feeling which you intimate. It seemed to me then that I hadreally passed the bound which separates us from the further possibilityof youth. But I've lived long enough since to know that I was mistaken.At forty, one has still a great part of youth before him--perhaps therichest and sweetest part. By that time the turmoil of ideas andsensations is over; we see clearly and feel consciously. We are in asort of quiet in which we peacefully enjoy. We have enlarged ourperspective sufficiently to perceive things in their true proportion andrelation; we are no longer tormented with the lurking fear of death,which darkens and embitters our earlier years; we have got into thehabit of life; we have often been ailing and we have not died. Then wehave time enough behind us to supply us with the materials of reverieand reminiscence; the terrible solitude of inexperience is broken; wehave learned to smile at many things besides the fear of death. We oughtalso to have learned pity and patience. Yes," the old man concluded, incheerful self-corroboration, "it is a beautiful age."
"But it doesn't look so beautiful as it is," Colville protested. "Peoplein that rosy prime don't produce the effect of garlanded striplings uponthe world at large. The women laugh at us; they think we are fat oldfellows; they don't recognise the slender and elegant youth that residesin our unwieldy bulk."
"You take my meaning a little awry. Besides, I doubt if even the groundyou assume is tenable. If a woman has lived long enough to be trulyyoung herself, she won't find a man at forty either decrepit orgrotesque. He can even make himself youthful to a girl of thought andimagination."
"Yes," Colville assented, with a certain discomfort.
"But to be truly young at forty," resumed Mr. Waters, "a man should bealready married."
"Yes?"
"I sometimes feel," continued the old man, "that I made a mistake inyielding to a disappointment that I met with early in life, and in notpermitting myself the chance of retrieval. I have missed a beautiful andconsoling experience in my devotion to a barren regret."
Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of amusement,of repulsion, and of curiosity at this.
"We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more convinced ofthat. We have scarcely a right to separate ourselves from the common lotin any way. I justify myself for having lived alone only as a widowermight. I--lost her. It was a great while ago."
"Yes," said Colville, after the pause which ensued; "I agree with youthat one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of thecommon lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that onehas no heart to put out his hand a second time--for a second rap overthe knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and howwhat is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful forin most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful whetheryou were ever really intended to share the common lot." He was aware ofan insincerity in his words; he hoped that it might not be perceptible,but he did not greatly care.
Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He resumed fromanother point. "But I should say that it would be unwise for a man ofmature life to seek his happiness with one much younger than himself. Idon't deny that there are cases in which the disparity of years countsfor little or nothing, but generally speaking, people ought to be asequally mated in age as possible. They ought to start with the sameadvantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live her life through acommunity of feeling, an equality of inexperience in the man she givesher heart to. If he is tired of things that still delight her, thechances of unhappiness are increased."
"Yes, that's true," answered Colville gravely. "It's apt to be a mistakeand a wrong."
"Oh, not always--not always," said the old minister. "We mustn't look atit in that way quite. Wrongs are of the will." He seemed to lapse into agreater intimacy of feeling with Colville. "Have you seen Mrs. Bowento-day? Or--ah! true! I think you told me."
"No," said Colville. "Have we spoken of her? But I have seen her."
"And was the little one well?"
"Very much better."
"Pretty creatures, both of them," said the minister, with as fresh apleasure in his recognition of the fact as if he had not said nearly thesame thing once before, "You've noticed the very remarkable resemblancebetween mother and daughter?"
"Oh yes."
"There is a gentleness in Mrs. Bowen which seems to me the lastrefinement of a gracious spirit," suggested Mr. Waters. "I have nevermet any lady who reconciled more exquisitely what is charming in societywith what is lovely in nature."
"Yes," said Colville. "Mrs. Bowen always had that gentle manner. I usedto know her here as a girl a great while ago."
"Did you? I wonder you allowed her to become Mrs. Bowen."
This sprightliness of Mr. Waters amused Colville greatly. "At that timeI was preoccupied with my great mistake, and I had no eyes for Mrs.Bowen."
"It isn't too late yet," said Mr. Waters, with open insinuation.
A bachelor of forty is always flattered by any suggestion of marriage;the suggestion that a beautiful and charming woman would marry him istoo much for whatever reserves of modesty and wisdom he may have storedup Colville took leave of the old minister in better humour with himselfthan he had been for forty-eight hours, or than he had any very goodreason for being now.
Mr. Waters came with him to the head of the stairs and held up the lampfor him to see. The light fell upon the white locks thinly stragglingfrom beneath his velvet skull-cap, and he looked like some mediaevalscholar of those who lived and died for learning in Florence whenletters were a passion there almost as strong as love.
The next day Colville would have liked to go at once and ask aboutEffie, but upon the whole he thought he would not go till after he hadbeen at the reception where he was going in the afternoon. It was anartist who was giving the reception; he had a number of pictures toshow, and there was to be tea. There are artists and artists. Thispainter was one who had a distinct social importance. It was felt to berather a nice thing to be asked to his reception; one was sure at leastto meet the nicest people.
This reason prevailed with Colville so far as it related to Mrs. Bowen,whom he felt that he would like to tell he had been there. He wouldspeak to her of this person and that--very respected and recognisedsocial figures,--so that she might see he was not the outlaw, theBohemian, he must sometimes have appeared to her. It would not be goingtoo far to say that something like an obscure intention to show himselfthe next Sunday at the English chapel, where Mrs. Bowen went, was notforming itself in his mind. As he went along it began to seem notimpossible that she would be at the reception. If Effie's indispositionwas no more serious than it appeared yesterday, very probably Mrs. Bowenwould be there. He even believed that he recognised her carriage amongthose which were drawn up in fro
nt of the old palace, under thepainter's studio windows.
There were a great number of people of the four nationalities thatmostly consort in Italy. There were English and Americans and Russiansand the sort of Italians resulting from the native intermarriages withthem; here and there were Italians of pure blood, borderers upon theforeign life through a literary interest, or an artistic relation, or amatrimonial intention; here and there, also, the large stomach of aGerman advanced the bounds of the new empire and the new ideal of duty.There were no Frenchmen; one may meet them in more strictly Italianassemblages, but it is as if the sorrows and uncertainties of France inthese times discouraged them from the international society in whichthey were always an infrequent element. It is not, of course, imaginablethat as Frenchmen they have doubts of their merits, but that they havetheir misgivings as to the intelligence of others. The language thatprevailed was English--in fact, one heard no other,--and the tea whichour civilisation carries everywhere with it steamed from the cups in allhands. This beverage, in fact, becomes a formidable factor in the lifeof a Florentine winter. One finds it at all houses, and more or lessmechanically drinks it.
"I am turning out a terrible tea toper," said Colville, stirring his cupin front of the old lady whom his relations to the ladies at PalazzoPinti had interested so much. "I don't think I drink less than ten cupsa day; seventy cups a week is a low average for me. I'm really beginningto look down at my boots a little anxiously."
Mrs. Amsden laughed. She had not been in America for forty years, butshe liked the American way of talking better than any other. "Oh, didn'tyou hear about Inglehart when he was here? He was so good-natured thathe used to drink all the tea people offered him, and then the youngladies made tea for him in his studio when they went to look at hispictures. It almost killed him. By the time spring came he trembled sothat the brush flew out of his hands when he took it up. He had to hurryoff to Venice to save his life. It's just as bad at the Italian houses;they've learned to like tea."
"When I was here before, they never offered you anything but coffee,"said Colville. "They took tea for medicine, and there was an old jokethat I thought I should die of, I heard it so often about the Italianthat said to the English woman when she offered him tea, '_Grazie; stobene_.'"
"Oh, that's all changed now."
"Yes; I've seen the tea, and I haven't heard the joke."
The flavour of Colville's talk apparently encouraged his companion tobelieve that he would like to make fun of their host's paintings withher; but whether he liked them, or whether he was principled againstthat sort of return for hospitality, he chose to reply seriously to someironical lures she threw out.
"Oh, if you're going to be good," she exclaimed, "I shall have nothingmore to say to you. Here comes Mr. Thurston; I can make _him_ abuse thepictures. There! You had better go away to a young lady I see alone overyonder, though I don't know what you will do with _one_ alone." Shelaughed and shook her head in a way that had once been arch and lively,but that was now puckery and infirm--it is affecting to see these thingsin women--and welcomed the old gentleman who came up and supersededColville.
The latter turned, with his cup still in his hand, and wandered aboutthrough the company, hoping he might see Mrs. Bowen among the groupspeering at the pictures or solidly blocking the view in front of them.He did not find her, but he found Imogene Graham standing somewhat apartnear a window. He saw her face light up at sight of him, and then darkenagain as he approached.
"Isn't this rather an unnatural state of things?" he asked when he hadcome up. "I ought to be obliged to fight my way to you throughsuccessive phalanxes of young men crowding round with cups of teaoutstretched in their imploring hands. Have you had some tea?"
"Thank you, no; I don't wish any," said the young girl, so coldly thathe could not help noticing, though commonly he was man enough to noticevery few things.
"How is Effie to-day?" he asked quickly.
"Oh, quite well," said Imogene.
"I don't see Mrs. Bowen," he ventured further.
"No," answered the girl, still very lifelessly; "I came with Mrs.Fleming." She looked about the room as if not to look at him.
He now perceived a distinct intention to snub him. He smiled. "Have youseen the pictures? There are two or three really lovely ones."
"Mrs. Fleming will be here in a moment, I suppose," said Imogeneevasively, but not with all her first coldness.
"Let us steal a march on her," said Colville briskly. "When she comesyou can tell her that I showed you the pictures."
"I don't know," faltered the girl.
"Perhaps it isn't necessary you should," he suggested.
She glanced at him with questioning trepidation.
"The respective duties of chaperone and _protegee_ are rather undefined.Where the chaperone isn't there to command, the _protegee_ isn't thereto obey. I suppose you'd know if you were at home?"
"Oh yes!"
"Let me imagine myself at a loan exhibition in Buffalo. Ah! that appealis irresistible. You'll come, I see."
She hesitated; she looked at the nearest picture, then followed him toanother. He now did what he had refused to do for the old lady whotempted him to it; he made fun of the pictures a little, but so amiablyand with so much justice to their good points that the painter himselfwould not have minded his jesting. From time to time he made Imogenesmile, but in her eyes lurked a look of uneasiness, and her mannerexpressed a struggle against his will which might have had its pathosfor him in different circumstances, but now it only incited him to makeher forget herself more and more; he treated her as one does a childthat is out of sorts--coaxingly, ironically.
When they had made the round of the rooms Mrs. Fleming was not at thewindow where she had left Imogene; the girl detected the top of herbonnet still in the next room.
"The chaperone is never there when you come back with the _protegee_,"said Colville. "It seems to be the nature of the chaperone."
Imogene turned very grave. "I think I ought to go to her," she murmured.
"Oh no; she ought to come to you; I stand out for _protegee_'s rights."
"I suppose she will come directly."
"She sees me with you; she knows you are safe."
"Oh, of course," said the girl. After a constraint which she marked byrather a long silence, she added, "How strange a roomful of talkingsounds, doesn't it? Just like a great caldron boiling up and bubblingover. Wouldn't you like to know what they're all saying?"
"Oh, it's quite bad enough to see them," replied Colville frivolously.
"I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very queer,don't you?" she asked, after another interval.
"Well, really," said Colville, laughing, "I don't know that thespectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to me. I ratherthink they look queerer with their hats on."
"Oh yes."
"Though there is not very much to choose. We're a queer-looking set,anyway."
He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, allowed herto make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not without amalicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as socialexercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were destined, withtime and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of society, and tobe accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, astouches of character. He had broken up that coldness with which she hadmet him at first, and now he let her adjust the fragments as she couldto the new situation. He wore that air of a gentleman who has beentalking a long time to a lady, and who will not dispute her possessionwith a new-comer.
But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over thecompany, he found that it had been increased by the accession of eightor ten young fellows, with a refreshing light of originality in theirfaces, and little touches of difference from the other men in theirdress.
"Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!" cried the girl, with a flash ofexcitement.
There was a sensation of interest an
d friendliness in the company asthese young fellows, after their moment of social intimidation, began togather round the pictures, and to fling their praise and blame about,and talk the delightful shop of the studio.
The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their voices, strucka pang of regret that was almost envy to Colville's heart.
Imogene followed them with eager eyes. "Oh," she sighed, "shouldn't youlike to be an artist?"
"I should, very much."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an architect."
"I should say I used to be, if you hadn't objected to my perfects andpreterits."
What came next seemed almost an accident.
"I didn't suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I amused you."She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at her own words.
"Have you been trying to amuse me?" he asked.
"Oh no. I thought----"
"Oh, then," said Colville sharply, "you meant that I was amusing myselfwith you?" She glanced at him in terror of his divination, but could notprotest. "Has any one told you that?" he pursued, with sudden angrysuspicion.
"No, _no_ one," began Imogene. She glanced about her, frightened. Theystood quite alone where they were; the people had mostly wandered offinto the other rooms. "Oh, don't--I didn't mean--I didn't intend to sayanything----"
"But you have said something--something that surprises me from _you_,and hurts me. I wish to know whether you say it from yourself."
"I don't know--yes. That is, not----Oh, I wish Mrs. Fleming----"
She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond her powerto control herself.
"Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming," said Colville, with freezing_hauteur_; and led the way where the top of Mrs. Fleming's bonnet stillshowed itself. He took leave at once, and hastily parting with his host,found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had notsaid that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by thedirectness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that womenwho liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigiousstraightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey blackin order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour.He could hardly keep himself from going to Palazzo Pinti.
But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a moodydinner, and then, after an hour's solitary bitterness in his room, wentout and passed the evening at the theatre. The play was one of thosefleering comedies which render contemptible for the time all honest andearnest intention, and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pititself. It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question thathad mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at hisresentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him off to sleepin a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial in himself as the onlything that was real and lasting.
He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he brought withit a letter which he said had been left with the porter an hour before.A faint appealing perfume of violet exhaled from the note, and mingledwith the steaming odours of the coffee and boiled milk, when Colville,after a glance at the unfamiliar handwriting of the superscription,broke the seal.
"DEAR MR. COLVILLE,--I don't know what you will think of my writing toyou, but perhaps you can't think worse of me than you do already, andanything will be better than the misery that I am in. I have not beenasleep all night. I hate myself for telling you, but I do want you tounderstand how I have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back thewords that you say wounded you. I didn't mean to wound you. Nobody is toblame for them but me; nobody ever breathed a word about you that wasmeant in unkindness.
"I am not ashamed of writing this, _whatever_ you think, and I will signmy name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM."
Colville had commonly a good appetite for his breakfast, but now he lethis coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about thisnote that touched him--the childlike simplicity and directness, thegenerous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the literature.However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. Herespected that intention; through all the sophistications in which lifehad wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised that if he had beenyounger he would have gone to Imogene herself with her letter. He feltfor the moment a rush of the emotion which he would once not havestopped to examine, which he would not have been capable of examining.But now his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In the noblesthuman purpose there is always some admixture, however slight, of lessnoble motive, and Colville was not without the willingness to seewhatever embarrassment she might feel when he showed her the letter, andto invoke her finest tact to aid him in re-assuring the child.
She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in response to hisinquiry for their health that Imogene and Effie had gone out to drive.She looked so pretty in the quiet house dress in which she rose from thesofa and stood, letting him come the whole way to greet her, that he didnot think of any other look in her, but afterward he remembered anevidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes.
He said, smiling, "I'm so glad to see you alone," and this brought stillanother look into her face, which also he afterward remembered. She didnot reply, but made a sound in her throat like a bird when it stirsitself for flight or song. It was a strange, indefinite little note, inwhich Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time, and recalledfor the sort of expectation suggested in it. She stood waiting for himto go on.
"I have come to get you to help me out of trouble."
"Yes?" said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. "I always supposed you wouldbe able to help yourself out of trouble. Or perhaps wouldn't mind it ifyou were in it."
"Oh yes, I mind it very much," returned Colville, refusing her banter,if it were banter. "Especially this sort of trouble, which involves someone else in the discomfort." He went on abruptly: "I have been held upto a young lady as a person who was amusing himself with her, and I wasso absurd as to be angry when she told me, and demanded the name of myfriend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given the young ladya bad night, and this morning she writes to tell me so, and to take allthe blame on herself, and to assure me that no harm was meant me by anyone. Of course I don't want her to be distressed about it. Perhaps youcan guess who has been writing to me."
Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. When he lookedup he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen's pretty face, such as he had notseen there before.
"I didn't know she had been writing to you, but I know that you aretalking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to you yesterday, andI blamed her for it, but I'm not sure that it wasn't best."
"Oh, indeed!" said Colville. "Perhaps you can tell me who put the ideainto her head?"
"Yes; I did."
A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the situation broken bythese words revolved before Colville's thought with kaleidoscopicvariety, and he passed through all the phases of anger, resentment,wounded self-love, and accusing shame.
At last, "I suppose you had your reasons," he said simply.
"I am in her mother's place here," she replied, tightening the grip ofone little hand upon another, where she held them laid against the sideof her waist.
"Yes, I know that," said Colville; "but what reason had you to warn heragainst me as a person who was amusing himself with her? I don't likethe phrase; but she seems to have got it from you; I use it at thirdhand."
"I don't like the phrase either; I didn't invent it."
"You used it."
"No; it wasn't I who used it. I should have been glad to use another, ifI could," said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect steadiness.
"Then you mean to say that you believe I've been trifling with thefeelings of this child?"
"I mean to say nothing. You are very much older; and she is a romanticgirl, very extravagant. You have tried to make her like you."
"I certainly have. I have tried to make Effie Bowen like me
too."
Mrs. Bowen passed this over in serenity that he felt was not far fromcontempt.
He gave a laugh that did not express enjoyment.
"You have no right to laugh!" she cried, losing herself a little, and somaking her first gain upon him.
"It appears not. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do about thisletter?"
"That is for you to decide." She recovered herself, and lost ground withhim in proportion.
"I thought perhaps that since you were able to judge my motives soclearly, you might be able to advise me."
"I don't judge your motives," Mrs. Bowen began. She added suddenly, asif by an after-thought, "I don't think you had any."
"I'm obliged to you."
"But you are as much to blame as if you had."
"And perhaps I'm as much to blame as if I had really wronged somebody?"
"Yes."
"It's rather paradoxical. You don't wish me to see her any more?"
"I haven't any wish about it; you must not _say_ that I have," said Mrs.Bowen, with dignity.
Colville smiled. "May I _ask_ if you have?"
"Not for myself."
"You put me on very short allowance of conjecture."
"I will not let you trifle with the matter!" she cried. "You have mademe speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been enough. Oh, I didn'tthink you had the miserable vanity to wish it!"
Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. "I see thateverything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. Good-bye, Mrs.Bowen." He approached her, holding out his hand. But if he expected tobe rewarded for this, nothing of the kind happened. She shrank swiftlyback.
"No, no. You shall not touch me."
He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, whatever otherfeeling showed, there was certainly no fear of him. Then with a slightbow he left the room.
Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into her ownroom. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and Effie were justcoming in. The child went to lay aside her hat and sacque; the girl,after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's face, lingered inquiringly.
"Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene."
"Yes," said Imogene faintly. "Do you think I oughtn't to have writtenit?"
"Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from Florence."
"Yes?" breathed the girl.
"I spoke openly with him."
"Yes?"
"I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised him."
Imogene was silent. Then she said, "I know that whatever you have done,you have acted for the best."
"Yes, I have a right that you should say that--I have a right that youshould always say it. I think he has behaved very foolishly, but I don'tblame him----"
"No! I was to blame."
"I don't _know_ that he was to blame, and I won't let you think he was."
"Oh, he is the best man in the world!"
"He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's nothing foryou to lose a friend at your age; but at mine----"
"I _know_ it, Mrs. Bowen."
"And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; I----"
"Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!" cried Imogene. She put upher hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. Bowen watched her, dryeyed, with her lips parted, and an intensity of question in her face.
"Imogene," she said at last, "I wish you to promise me one thing."
"Yes."
"Not to write to Mr. Colville again."
"No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!" The girl came up to kiss her; Mrs.Bowen turned her cheek.
Imogene was going from the room when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. "But Iwish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of yourself about him."
Imogene was going from the room, when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. "But Iwish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of yourselfabout him. If you care for him--if you think you care for him--then Ileave you perfectly free."
The girl looked up, scared. "No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't leave mefree--you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to do."
"Very well, then," said Mrs. Bowen.
They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the other tospeak. Then Imogene asked, "Is he--going soon?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen. "Why should he want to delay? He hadbetter go at once. And I hope he will go home--as far from Florence ashe can. I should think he would _hate_ the place."
"Yes," said the girl, with a quivering sigh; "it must be hateful tohim." She paused, and then she rushed on with bitter self-reproach. "AndI--_I_ have helped to make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's _I_ whohave been trifling with _him_. Trying to make him believe--no, not tryingto do that, but letting him see that I sympathised--Oh, do you think Ihave?"
"You know what you have been doing, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with thehardness it surprises men to know women use with each other, they seemsuch tender creatures in the abstract. "You have no need to ask me."
"No, no."
"As you say, I warned you from the first."
"Oh yes; you did."
"I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to expect----"
"Oh, yes, yes."
"And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless."
"Yes; I see it."
"I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that miserableveglione business I was trying to please you and him, because I wasafraid I _had_ said too much--gone too far. I wanted to show you that Idisdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose that a girl ofyour age could care for the admiration of a man of his."
"Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired _him_--and pitied him."
Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all that hadbeen rankling in her breast. "I didn't approve of going to the veglione.A great many people would be shocked if they knew I went; I wouldn't atall like to have it known. But I was not going to have him thinking thatI was severe with you, and wanted to deny you any really harmlesspleasure."
"Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You see," saidthe girl, "what a return I have made for your trust. I knew you didn'twant to go to the veglione. If I hadn't been the most selfish girl inthe world I wouldn't have let you. But I did. I _forced_ you to go, andthen, after we got there, I seized every advantage, and abused yourkindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor. Yes; I ought tohave refused to dance--if I'd had a spark of generosity or gratitude Iwould have done it; and I ought to have come straight back to you theinstant the waltz was done. And now see what has come of it! I've madeyou think he was trifling with me, and I've made him think that I'm afalse and hollow-hearted thing."
"You know best what you have done, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with asmiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She rose from thesofa, as if to indicate that there was no more to be said, and Imogene,with a fresh burst of grief, rushed away to her own room.
She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out her arms uponit, an image of that desolation of soul which, when we are young, seemslimitless, but which in later life we know has comparatively narrowbounds beyond the clouds that rest so blackly around us.
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