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diff --git a/old/treef10.txt b/old/treef10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b18058d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/treef10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12570 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Reef, by Edith Wharton*** + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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Please don't come till thirtieth. +Anna." + +All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train had +hammered the words of the telegram into George Darrow's +ears, ringing every change of irony on its commonplace +syllables: rattling them out like a discharge of musketry, +letting them, one by one, drip slowly and coldly into his +brain, or shaking, tossing, transposing them like the dice +in some game of the gods of malice; and now, as he emerged +from his compartment at the pier, and stood facing the wind- +swept platform and the angry sea beyond, they leapt out at +him as if from the crest of the waves, stung and blinded him +with a fresh fury of derision. + +"Unexpected obstacle. Please don't come till thirtieth. +Anna." + +She had put him off at the very last moment, and for the +second time: put him off with all her sweet reasonableness, +and for one of her usual "good" reasons--he was certain that +this reason, like the other, (the visit of her husband's +uncle's widow) would be "good"! But it was that very +certainty which chilled him. The fact of her dealing so +reasonably with their case shed an ironic light on the idea +that there had been any exceptional warmth in the greeting +she had given him after their twelve years apart. + +They had found each other again, in London, some three +months previously, at a dinner at the American Embassy, and +when she had caught sight of him her smile had been like a +red rose pinned on her widow's mourning. He still felt the +throb of surprise with which, among the stereotyped faces of +the season's diners, he had come upon her unexpected face, +with the dark hair banded above grave eyes; eyes in which he +had recognized every little curve and shadow as he would +have recognized, after half a life-time, the details of a +room he had played in as a child. And as, in the plumed +starred crowd, she had stood out for him, slender, secluded +and different, so he had felt, the instant their glances +met, that he as sharply detached himself for her. All that +and more her smile had said; had said not merely "I +remember," but "I remember just what you remember"; almost, +indeed, as though her memory had aided his, her glance flung +back on their recaptured moment its morning brightness. +Certainly, when their distracted Ambassadress--with the cry: +"Oh, you know Mrs. Leath? That's perfect, for General +Farnham has failed me"--had waved them together for the +march to the diningroom, Darrow had felt a slight pressure +of the arm on his, a pressure faintly but unmistakably +emphasizing the exclamation: "Isn't it wonderful?--In +London--in the season--in a mob?" + +Little enough, on the part of most women; but it was a sign +of Mrs. Leath's quality that every movement, every syllable, +told with her. Even in the old days, as an intent grave- +eyed girl, she had seldom misplaced her light strokes; and +Darrow, on meeting her again, had immediately felt how much +finer and surer an instrument of expression she had become. + +Their evening together had been a long confirmation of this +feeling. She had talked to him, shyly yet frankly, of what +had happened to her during the years when they had so +strangely failed to meet. She had told him of her marriage +to Fraser Leath, and of her subsequent life in France, where +her husband's mother, left a widow in his youth, had been +re-married to the Marquis de Chantelle, and where, partly in +consequence of this second union, the son had permanently +settled himself. She had spoken also, with an intense +eagerness of affection, of her little girl Effie, who was +now nine years old, and, in a strain hardly less tender, of +Owen Leath, the charming clever young stepson whom her +husband's death had left to her care... + + +A porter, stumbling against Darrow's bags, roused him to the +fact that he still obstructed the platform, inert and +encumbering as his luggage. + +"Crossing, sir?" + +Was he crossing? He really didn't know; but for lack of any +more compelling impulse he followed the porter to the +luggage van, singled out his property, and turned to march +behind it down the gang-way. As the fierce wind shouldered +him, building up a crystal wall against his efforts, he felt +anew the derision of his case. + +"Nasty weather to cross, sir," the porter threw back at him +as they beat their way down the narrow walk to the pier. +Nasty weather, indeed; but luckily, as it had turned out, +there was no earthly reason why Darrow should cross. + +While he pushed on in the wake of his luggage his thoughts +slipped back into the old groove. He had once or twice run +across the man whom Anna Summers had preferred to him, and +since he had met her again he had been exercising his +imagination on the picture of what her married life must +have been. Her husband had struck him as a characteristic +specimen of the kind of American as to whom one is not quite +clear whether he lives in Europe in order to cultivate an +art, or cultivates an art as a pretext for living in Europe. +Mr. Leath's art was water-colour painting, but he practised +it furtively, almost clandestinely, with the disdain of a +man of the world for anything bordering on the professional, +while he devoted himself more openly, and with religious +seriousness, to the collection of enamelled snuff-boxes. He +was blond and well-dressed, with the physical distinction +that comes from having a straight figure, a thin nose, and +the habit of looking slightly disgusted--as who should not, +in a world where authentic snuff-boxes were growing daily +harder to find, and the market was flooded with flagrant +forgeries? + +Darrow had often wondered what possibilities of communion +there could have been between Mr. Leath and his wife. Now +he concluded that there had probably been none. Mrs. +Leath's words gave no hint of her husband's having failed to +justify her choice; but her very reticence betrayed her. +She spoke of him with a kind of impersonal seriousness, as +if he had been a character in a novel or a figure in +history; and what she said sounded as though it had been +learned by heart and slightly dulled by repetition. This +fact immensely increased Darrow's impression that his +meeting with her had annihilated the intervening years. +She, who was always so elusive and inaccessible, had grown +suddenly communicative and kind: had opened the doors of her +past, and tacitly left him to draw his own conclusions. As +a result, he had taken leave of her with the sense that he +was a being singled out and privileged, to whom she had +entrusted something precious to keep. It was her happiness +in their meeting that she had given him, had frankly left +him to do with as he willed; and the frankness of the +gesture doubled the beauty of the gift. + +Their next meeting had prolonged and deepened the +impression. They had found each other again, a few days +later, in an old country house full of books and pictures, +in the soft landscape of southern England. The presence of a +large party, with all its aimless and agitated +displacements, had served only to isolate the pair and give +them (at least to the young man's fancy) a deeper feeling of +communion, and their days there had been like some musical +prelude, where the instruments, breathing low, seem to hold +back the waves of sound that press against them. + +Mrs. Leath, on this occasion, was no less kind than before; +but she contrived to make him understand that what was so +inevitably coming was not to come too soon. It was not that +she showed any hesitation as to the issue, but rather that +she seemed to wish not to miss any stage in the gradual +reflowering of their intimacy. + +Darrow, for his part, was content to wait if she wished it. +He remembered that once, in America, when she was a girl, +and he had gone to stay with her family in the country, she +had been out when he arrived, and her mother had told him to +look for her in the garden. She was not in the garden, but +beyond it he had seen her approaching down a long shady +path. Without hastening her step she had smiled and signed +to him to wait; and charmed by the lights and shadows that +played upon her as she moved, and by the pleasure of +watching her slow advance toward him, he had obeyed her and +stood still. And so she seemed now to be walking to him down +the years, the light and shade of old memories and new hopes +playing variously on her, and each step giving him the +vision of a different grace. She did not waver or turn +aside; he knew she would come straight to where he stood; +but something in her eyes said "Wait", and again he obeyed +and waited. + +On the fourth day an unexpected event threw out his +calculations. Summoned to town by the arrival in England of +her husband's mother, she left without giving Darrow the +chance he had counted on, and he cursed himself for a +dilatory blunderer. Still, his disappointment was tempered +by the certainty of being with her again before she left for +France; and they did in fact see each other in London. +There, however, the atmosphere had changed with the +conditions. He could not say that she avoided him, or even +that she was a shade less glad to see him; but she was beset +by family duties and, as he thought, a little too readily +resigned to them. + +The Marquise de Chantelle, as Darrow soon perceived, had the +same mild formidableness as the late Mr. Leath: a sort of +insistent self-effacement before which every one about her +gave way. It was perhaps the shadow of this lady's +presence--pervasive even during her actual brief eclipses-- +that subdued and silenced Mrs. Leath. The latter was, +moreover, preoccupied about her stepson, who, soon after +receiving his degree at Harvard, had been rescued from a +stormy love-affair, and finally, after some months of +troubled drifting, had yielded to his step-mother's counsel +and gone up to Oxford for a year of supplementary study. +Thither Mrs. Leath went once or twice to visit him, and her +remaining days were packed with family obligations: getting, +as she phrased it, "frocks and governesses" for her little +girl, who had been left in France, and having to devote the +remaining hours to long shopping expeditions with her +mother-in-law. Nevertheless, during her brief escapes from +duty, Darrow had had time to feel her safe in the custody of +his devotion, set apart for some inevitable hour; and the +last evening, at the theatre, between the overshadowing +Marquise and the unsuspicious Owen, they had had an almost +decisive exchange of words. + +Now, in the rattle of the wind about his ears, Darrow +continued to hear the mocking echo of her message: +"Unexpected obstacle." In such an existence as Mrs. Leath's, +at once so ordered and so exposed, he knew how small a +complication might assume the magnitude of an "obstacle;" +yet, even allowing as impartially as his state of mind +permitted for the fact that, with her mother-in-law always, +and her stepson intermittently, under her roof, her lot +involved a hundred small accommodations generally foreign to +the freedom of widowhood--even so, he could not but think +that the very ingenuity bred of such conditions might have +helped her to find a way out of them. No, her "reason", +whatever it was, could, in this case, be nothing but a +pretext; unless he leaned to the less flattering alternative +that any reason seemed good enough for postponing him! +Certainly, if her welcome had meant what he imagined, she +could not, for the second time within a few weeks, have +submitted so tamely to the disarrangement of their plans; a +disarrangement which--his official duties considered--might, +for all she knew, result in his not being able to go to her +for months. + +"Please don't come till thirtieth." The thirtieth--and it +was now the fifteenth! She flung back the fortnight on his +hands as if he had been an idler indifferent to dates, +instead of an active young diplomatist who, to respond to +her call, had had to hew his way through a very jungle of +engagements! "Please don't come till thirtieth." That was +all. Not the shadow of an excuse or a regret; not even the +perfunctory "have written" with which it is usual to soften +such blows. She didn't want him, and had taken the shortest +way to tell him so. Even in his first moment of +exasperation it struck him as characteristic that she should +not have padded her postponement with a fib. Certainly her +moral angles were not draped! + +"If I asked her to marry me, she'd have refused in the same +language. But thank heaven I haven't!" he reflected. + +These considerations, which had been with him every yard of +the way from London, reached a climax of irony as he was +drawn into the crowd on the pier. It did not soften his +feelings to remember that, but for her lack of forethought, +he might, at this harsh end of the stormy May day, have been +sitting before his club fire in London instead of shivering +in the damp human herd on the pier. Admitting the sex's +traditional right to change, she might at least have advised +him of hers by telegraphing directly to his rooms. But in +spite of their exchange of letters she had apparently failed +to note his address, and a breathless emissary had rushed +from the Embassy to pitch her telegram into his compartment +as the train was moving from the station. + +Yes, he had given her chance enough to learn where he lived; +and this minor proof of her indifference became, as he +jammed his way through the crowd, the main point of his +grievance against her and of his derision of himself. Half +way down the pier the prod of an umbrella increased his +exasperation by rousing him to the fact that it was raining. +Instantly the narrow ledge became a battle-ground of +thrusting, slanting, parrying domes. The wind rose with the +rain, and the harried wretches exposed to this double +assault wreaked on their neighbours the vengeance they could +not take on the elements. + +Darrow, whose healthy enjoyment of life made him in general +a good traveller, tolerant of agglutinated humanity, felt +himself obscurely outraged by these promiscuous contacts. +It was as though all the people about him had taken his +measure and known his plight; as though they were +contemptuously bumping and shoving him like the +inconsiderable thing he had become. "She doesn't want you, +doesn't want you, doesn't want you," their umbrellas and +their elbows seemed to say. + +He had rashly vowed, when the telegram was flung into his +window: "At any rate I won't turn back"--as though it might +cause the sender a malicious joy to have him retrace his +steps rather than keep on to Paris! Now he perceived the +absurdity of the vow, and thanked his stars that he need not +plunge, to no purpose, into the fury of waves outside the +harbour. + +With this thought in his mind he turned back to look for his +porter; but the contiguity of dripping umbrellas made +signalling impossible and, perceiving that he had lost sight +of the man, he scrambled up again to the platform. As he +reached it, a descending umbrella caught him in the collar- +bone; and the next moment, bent sideways by the wind, it +turned inside out and soared up, kite-wise, at the end of a +helpless female arm. + +Darrow caught the umbrella, lowered its inverted ribs, and +looked up at the face it exposed to him. + +"Wait a minute," he said; "you can't stay here." + +As he spoke, a surge of the crowd drove the owner of the +umbrella abruptly down on him. Darrow steadied her with +extended arms, and regaining her footing she cried out: "Oh, +dear, oh, dear! It's in ribbons!" + +Her lifted face, fresh and flushed in the driving rain, woke +in him a memory of having seen it at a distant time and in a +vaguely unsympathetic setting; but it was no moment to +follow up such clues, and the face was obviously one to make +its way on its own merits. + +Its possessor had dropped her bag and bundles to clutch at +the tattered umbrella. "I bought it only yesterday at the +Stores; and--yes--it's utterly done for!" she lamented. + +Darrow smiled at the intensity of her distress. It was food +for the moralist that, side by side with such catastrophes +as his, human nature was still agitating itself over its +microscopic woes! + +"Here's mine if you want it!" he shouted back at her through +the shouting of the gale. + +The offer caused the young lady to look at him more +intently. "Why, it's Mr. Darrow!" she exclaimed; and then, +all radiant recognition: "Oh, thank you! We'll share it, if +you will." + +She knew him, then; and he knew her; but how and where had +they met? He put aside the problem for subsequent solution, +and drawing her into a more sheltered corner, bade her wait +till he could find his porter. + +When, a few minutes later, he came back with his recovered +property, and the news that the boat would not leave till +the tide had turned, she showed no concern. + +"Not for two hours? How lucky--then I can find my trunk!" + +Ordinarily Darrow would have felt little disposed to involve +himself in the adventure of a young female who had lost her +trunk; but at the moment he was glad of any pretext for +activity. Even should he decide to take the next up train +from Dover he still had a yawning hour to fill; and the +obvious remedy was to devote it to the loveliness in +distress under his umbrella. + +"You've lost a trunk? Let me see if I can find it." + +It pleased him that she did not return the conventional "Oh, +WOULD you?" Instead, she corrected him with a laugh--Not +a trunk, but my trunk; I've no other--" and then added +briskly: "You'd better first see to getting your own things +on the boat." + +This made him answer, as if to give substance to his plans +by discussing them: "I don't actually know that I'm going +over." + +"Not going over?" + +"Well...perhaps not by this boat." Again he felt a stealing +indecision. "I may probably have to go back to London. +I'm--I'm waiting...expecting a letter...(She'll think me a +defaulter," he reflected.) "But meanwhile there's plenty of +time to find your trunk." + +He picked up his companion's bundles, and offered her an arm +which enabled her to press her slight person more closely +under his umbrella; and as, thus linked, they beat their way +back to the platform, pulled together and apart like +marionettes on the wires of the wind, he continued to wonder +where he could have seen her. He had immediately classed +her as a compatriot; her small nose, her clear tints, a kind +of sketchy delicacy in her face, as though she had been +brightly but lightly washed in with water-colour, all +confirmed the evidence of her high sweet voice and of her +quick incessant gestures.She was clearly an American, but +with the loose native quality strained through a closer woof +of manners: the composite product of an enquiring and +adaptable race. All this, however, did not help him to fit +a name to her, for just such instances were perpetually +pouring through the London Embassy, and the etched and +angular American was becoming rarer than the fluid type. + +More puzzling than the fact of his being unable to identify +her was the persistent sense connecting her with something +uncomfortable and distasteful. So pleasant a vision as that +gleaming up at him between wet brown hair and wet brown boa +should have evoked only associations as pleasing; but each +effort to fit her image into his past resulted in the same +memories of boredom and a vague discomfort... + + + +II + + +Don't you remember me now--at Mrs. Murrett's?" +She threw the question at Darrow across a table of the quiet +coffee-room to which, after a vainly prolonged quest for her +trunk, he had suggested taking her for a cup of tea. + +In this musty retreat she had removed her dripping hat, hung +it on the fender to dry, and stretched herself on tiptoe in +front of the round eagle-crowned mirror, above the mantel +vases of dyed immortelles, while she ran her fingers comb- +wise through her hair. The gesture had acted on Darrow's +numb feelings as the glow of the fire acted on his +circulation; and when he had asked: "Aren't your feet wet, +too?" and, after frank inspection of a stout-shod sole, she +had answered cheerfully: "No--luckily I had on my new +boots," he began to feel that human intercourse would still +be tolerable if it were always as free from formality. + +The removal of his companion's hat, besides provoking this +reflection, gave him his first full sight of her face; and +this was so favourable that the name she now pronounced fell +on him with a quite disproportionate shock of dismay. + +"Oh, Mrs. Murrett's--was it THERE?" + +He remembered her now, of course: remembered her as one of +the shadowy sidling presences in the background of that +awful house in Chelsea, one of the dumb appendages of the +shrieking unescapable Mrs. Murrett, into whose talons he had +fallen in the course of his head-long pursuit of Lady Ulrica +Crispin. Oh, the taste of stale follies! How insipid it +was, yet how it clung! + +"I used to pass you on the stairs," she reminded him. + +Yes: he had seen her slip by--he recalled it now--as he +dashed up to the drawing-room in quest of Lady Ulrica. The +thought made him steal a longer look. How could such a face +have been merged in the Murrett mob? Its fugitive slanting +lines, that lent themselves to all manner of tender tilts +and foreshortenings, had the freakish grace of some young +head of the Italian comedy. The hair stood up from her +forehead in a boyish elf-lock, and its colour matched her +auburn eyes flecked with black, and the little brown spot on +her cheek, between the ear that was meant to have a rose +behind it and the chin that should have rested on a ruff. +When she smiled, the left corner of her mouth went up a +little higher than the right; and her smile began in her +eyes and ran down to her lips in two lines of light. He had +dashed past that to reach Lady Ulrica Crispin! + +"But of course you wouldn't remember me," she was saying. +"My name is Viner--Sophy Viner." + +Not remember her? But of course he DID! He was genuinely +sure of it now. "You're Mrs. Murrett's niece," he declared. + +She shook her head. "No; not even that. Only her reader." + +"Her reader? Do you mean to say she ever reads?" + +Miss Viner enjoyed his wonder. "Dear, no! But I wrote +notes, and made up the visiting-book, and walked the dogs, +and saw bores for her." + +Darrow groaned. "That must have been rather bad!" + +"Yes; but nothing like as bad as being her niece." + +"That I can well believe. I'm glad to hear," he added, +"that you put it all in the past tense." + +She seemed to droop a little at the allusion; then she +lifted her chin with a jerk of defiance. "Yes. All is at +an end between us. We've just parted in tears--but not in +silence!" + +"Just parted? Do you mean to say you've been there all this +time?" + +"Ever since you used to come there to see Lady Ulrica? Does +it seem to you so awfully long ago?" + +The unexpectedness of the thrust--as well as its doubtful +taste--chilled his growing enjoyment of her chatter. He had +really been getting to like her--had recovered, under the +candid approval of her eye, his usual sense of being a +personable young man, with all the privileges pertaining to +the state, instead of the anonymous rag of humanity he had +felt himself in the crowd on the pier. It annoyed him, at +that particular moment, to be reminded that naturalness is +not always consonant with taste. + +She seemed to guess his thought. "You don't like my saying +that you came for Lady Ulrica?" she asked, leaning over the +table to pour herself a second cup of tea. + +He liked her quickness, at any rate. "It's better," he +laughed, "than your thinking I came for Mrs. Murrett!" + +"Oh, we never thought anybody came for Mrs. Murrett! It was +always for something else: the music, or the cook--when +there was a good one--or the other people; generally ONE +of the other people." + +"I see." + +She was amusing, and that, in his present mood, was more to +his purpose than the exact shade of her taste. It was odd, +too, to discover suddenly that the blurred tapestry of Mrs. +Murrett's background had all the while been alive and full +of eyes. Now, with a pair of them looking into his, he was +conscious of a queer reversal of perspective. + +"Who were the 'we'? Were you a cloud of witnesses?" + +"There were a good many of us." She smiled. "Let me see-- +who was there in your time? Mrs. Bolt--and Mademoiselle--and +Professor Didymus and the Polish Countess. Don't you +remember the Polish Countess? She crystal-gazed, and played +accompaniments, and Mrs. Murrett chucked her because Mrs. +Didymus accused her of hypnotizing the Professor. But of +course you don't remember. We were all invisible to you; +but we could see. And we all used to wonder about you----" + +Again Darrow felt a redness in the temples. "What about +me?" + +"Well--whether it was you or she who..." + +He winced, but hid his disapproval. It made the time pass +to listen to her. + +"And what, if one may ask, was your conclusion?" + +"Well, Mrs. Bolt and Mademoiselle and the Countess naturally +thought it was SHE; but Professor Didymus and Jimmy +Brance--especially Jimmy----" + +"Just a moment: who on earth is Jimmy Brance?" + +She exclaimed in wonder: "You WERE absorbed--not to +remember Jimmy Brance! He must have been right about you, +after all." She let her amused scrutiny dwell on him. "But +how could you? She was false from head to foot!" + +"False----?" In spite of time and satiety, the male instinct +of ownership rose up and repudiated the charge. + +Miss Viner caught his look and laughed. "Oh, I only meant +externally! You see, she often used to come to my room after +tennis, or to touch up in the evenings, when they were going +on; and I assure you she took apart like a puzzle. In fact +I used to say to Jimmy--just to make him wild--:'I'll bet +you anything you like there's nothing wrong, because I know +she'd never dare un--'" She broke the word in two, and her +quick blush made her face like a shallow-petalled rose +shading to the deeper pink of the centre. + +The situation was saved, for Darrow, by an abrupt rush of +memories, and he gave way to a mirth which she as frankly +echoed. "Of course," she gasped through her laughter, "I +only said it to tease Jimmy----" + +Her amusement obscurely annoyed him. "Oh, you're all +alike!" he exclaimed, moved by an unaccountable sense of +disappointment. + +She caught him up in a flash--she didn't miss things! "You +say that because you think I'm spiteful and envious? Yes--I +was envious of Lady Ulrica...Oh, not on account of you or +Jimmy Brance! Simply because she had almost all the things +I've always wanted: clothes and fun and motors, and +admiration and yachting and Paris--why, Paris alone would +be enough!--And how do you suppose a girl can see that sort +of thing about her day after day, and never wonder why some +women, who don't seem to have any more right to it, have it +all tumbled into their laps, while others are writing dinner +invitations, and straightening out accounts, and copying +visiting lists, and finishing golf-stockings, and matching +ribbons, and seeing that the dogs get their sulphur? One +looks in one's glass, after all!" + +She launched the closing words at him on a cry that lifted +them above the petulance of vanity; but his sense of her +words was lost in the surprise of her face. Under the +flying clouds of her excitement it was no longer a shallow +flower-cup but a darkening gleaming mirror that might give +back strange depths of feeling. The girl had stuff in her-- +he saw it; and she seemed to catch the perception in his +eyes. + +"That's the kind of education I got at Mrs. Murrett's--and +I never had any other," she said with a shrug. + +"Good Lord--were you there so long?" + +"Five years. I stuck it out longer than any of the others." +She spoke as though it were something to be proud of. + +"Well, thank God you're out of it now!" + +Again a just perceptible shadow crossed her face. "Yes--I'm +out of it now fast enough." + +"And what--if I may ask--are you doing next?" + +She brooded a moment behind drooped lids; then, with a touch +of hauteur: "I'm going to Paris: to study for the stage." + +"The stage?" Darrow stared at her, dismayed. All his +confused contradictory impressions assumed a new aspect at +this announcement; and to hide his surprise he added +lightly: "Ah--then you will have Paris, after all!" + +"Hardly Lady Ulrica's Paris. It s not likely to be roses, +roses all the way." + +"It's not, indeed." Real compassion prompted him to +continue: "Have you any--any influence you can count on?" + +She gave a somewhat flippant little laugh. "None but my +own. I've never had any other to count on." + +He passed over the obvious reply. "But have you any idea +how the profession is over-crowded? I know I'm trite----" + +"I've a very clear idea. But I couldn't go on as I was." + +"Of course not. But since, as you say, you'd stuck it out +longer than any of the others, couldn't you at least have +held on till you were sure of some kind of an opening?" + +She made no reply for a moment; then she turned a listless +glance to the rain-beaten window. "Oughtn't we be +starting?" she asked, with a lofty assumption of +indifference that might have been Lady Ulrica's. + +Darrow, surprised by the change, but accepting her rebuff as +a phase of what he guessed to be a confused and tormented +mood, rose from his seat and lifted her jacket from the +chair-back on which she had hung it to dry. As he held it +toward her she looked up at him quickly. + +"The truth is, we quarrelled," she broke out, "and I left +last night without my dinner--and without my salary." + +"Ah--" he groaned, with a sharp perception of all the sordid +dangers that might attend such a break with Mrs. Murrett. + +"And without a character!" she added, as she slipped her +arms into the jacket. "And without a trunk, as it appears-- +but didn't you say that, before going, there'd be time for +another look at the station?" + +There was time for another look at the station; but the look +again resulted in disappointment, since her trunk was +nowhere to be found in the huge heap disgorged by the newly- +arrived London express. The fact caused Miss Viner a +moment's perturbation; but she promptly adjusted herself to +the necessity of proceeding on her journey, and her decision +confirmed Darrow's vague resolve to go to Paris instead of +retracing his way to London. + +Miss Viner seemed cheered at the prospect of his company, +and sustained by his offer to telegraph to Charing Cross for +the missing trunk; and he left her to wait in the fly while +he hastened back to the telegraph office. The enquiry +despatched, he was turning away from the desk when another +thought struck him and he went back and indited a message to +his servant in London: "If any letters with French post-mark +received since departure forward immediately to Terminus +Hotel Gare du Nord Paris." + +Then he rejoined Miss Viner, and they drove off through the +rain to the pier. + + + +III + + +Almost as soon as the train left Calais her head had dropped +back into the corner, and she had fallen asleep. + +Sitting opposite, in the compartment from which he had +contrived to have other travellers excluded, Darrow looked +at her curiously. He had never seen a face that changed so +quickly. A moment since it had danced like a field of +daisies in a summer breeze; now, under the pallid +oscillating light of the lamp overhead, it wore the hard +stamp of experience, as of a soft thing chilled into shape +before its curves had rounded: and it moved him to see that +care already stole upon her when she slept. + +The story she had imparted to him in the wheezing shaking +cabin, and at the Calais buffet--where he had insisted on +offering her the dinner she had missed at Mrs. Murrett's-- +had given a distincter outline to her figure. From the +moment of entering the New York boarding-school to which a +preoccupied guardian had hastily consigned her after the +death of her parents, she had found herself alone in a busy +and indifferent world. Her youthful history might, in fact, +have been summed up in the statement that everybody had been +too busy to look after her. Her guardian, a drudge in a big +banking house, was absorbed by "the office"; the guardian's +wife, by her health and her religion; and an elder sister, +Laura, married, unmarried, remarried, and pursuing, through +all these alternating phases, some vaguely "artistic" ideal +on which the guardian and his wife looked askance, had (as +Darrow conjectured) taken their disapproval as a pretext for +not troubling herself about poor Sophy, to whom--perhaps for +this reason--she had remained the incarnation of remote +romantic possibilities. + +In the course of time a sudden "stroke" of the guardian's +had thrown his personal affairs into a state of confusion +from which--after his widely lamented death--it became +evident that it would not be possible to extricate his +ward's inheritance. No one deplored this more sincerely +than his widow, who saw in it one more proof of her +husband's life having been sacrificed to the innumerable +duties imposed on him, and who could hardly--but for the +counsels of religion--have brought herself to pardon the +young girl for her indirect share in hastening his end. +Sophy did not resent this point of view. She was really +much sorrier for her guardian's death than for the loss of +her insignificant fortune. The latter had represented only +the means of holding her in bondage, and its disappearance +was the occasion of her immediate plunge into the wide +bright sea of life surrounding the island-of her captivity. +She had first landed--thanks to the intervention of the +ladies who had directed her education--in a Fifth Avenue +school-room where, for a few months, she acted as a buffer +between three autocratic infants and their bodyguard of +nurses and teachers. The too-pressing attentions of their +father's valet had caused her to fly this sheltered spot, +against the express advice of her educational superiors, who +implied that, in their own case, refinement and self-respect +had always sufficed to keep the most ungovernable passions +at bay. The experience of the guardian's widow having been +precisely similar, and the deplorable precedent of Laura's +career being present to all their minds, none of these +ladies felt any obligation to intervene farther in Sophy's +affairs; and she was accordingly left to her own resources. + +A schoolmate from the Rocky Mountains, who was taking her +father and mother to Europe, had suggested Sophy's +accompanying them, and "going round" with her while her +progenitors, in the care of the courier, nursed their +ailments at a fashionable bath. Darrow gathered that the +"going round" with Mamie Hoke was a varied and diverting +process; but this relatively brilliant phase of Sophy's +career was cut short by the elopement of the inconsiderate +Mamie with a "matinee idol" who had followed her from New +York, and by the precipitate return of her parents to +negotiate for the repurchase of their child. + +It was then--after an interval of repose with compassionate +but impecunious American friends in Paris--that Miss Viner +had been drawn into the turbid current of Mrs. Murrett's +career. The impecunious compatriots had found Mrs. Murrett +for her, and it was partly on their account (because they +were such dears, and so unconscious, poor confiding things, +of what they were letting her in for) that Sophy had stuck +it out so long in the dreadful house in Chelsea. The +Farlows, she explained to Darrow, were the best friends she +had ever had (and the only ones who had ever "been decent" +about Laura, whom they had seen once, and intensely +admired); but even after twenty years of Paris they were the +most incorrigibly inexperienced angels, and quite persuaded +that Mrs. Murrett was a woman of great intellectual +eminence, and the house at Chelsea "the last of the salons" +--Darrow knew what she meant? And she hadn't liked to +undeceive them, knowing that to do so would be virtually to +throw herself back on their hands, and feeling, moreover, +after her previous experiences, the urgent need of gaining, +at any cost, a name for stability; besides which--she threw +it off with a slight laugh--no other chance, in all these +years, had happened to come to her. + +She had brushed in this outline of her career with light +rapid strokes, and in a tone of fatalism oddly untinged by +bitterness. Darrow perceived that she classified people +according to their greater or less "luck" in life, but she +appeared to harbour no resentment against the undefined +power which dispensed the gift in such unequal measure. +Things came one's way or they didn't; and meanwhile one +could only look on, and make the most of small +compensations, such as watching "the show" at Mrs. +Murrett's, and talking over the Lady Ulricas and other +footlight figures. And at any moment, of course, a turn of +the kaleidoscope might suddenly toss a bright spangle into +the grey pattern of one's days. + +This light-hearted philosophy was not without charm to a +young man accustomed to more traditional views. George +Darrow had had a fairly varied experience of feminine types, +but the women he had frequented had either been pronouncedly +"ladies" or they had not. Grateful to both for ministering +to the more complex masculine nature, and disposed to assume +that they had been evolved, if not designed, to that end, he +had instinctively kept the two groups apart in his mind, +avoiding that intermediate society which attempts to +conciliate both theories of life. "Bohemianism" seemed to +him a cheaper convention than the other two, and he liked, +above all, people who went as far as they could in their own +line--liked his "ladies" and their rivals to be equally +unashamed of showing for exactly what they were. He had not +indeed--the fact of Lady Ulrica was there to remind him-- +been without his experience of a third type; but that +experience had left him with a contemptuous distaste for the +woman who uses the privileges of one class to shelter the +customs of another. + +As to young girls, he had never thought much about them +since his early love for the girl who had become Mrs. Leath. +That episode seemed, as he looked back on it, to bear no +more relation to reality than a pale decorative design to +the confused richness of a summer landscape. He no longer +understood the violent impulses and dreamy pauses of his own +young heart, or the inscrutable abandonments and reluctances +of hers. He had known a moment of anguish at losing her--the +mad plunge of youthful instincts against the barrier of +fate; but the first wave of stronger sensation had swept +away all but the outline of their story, and the memory of +Anna Summers had made the image of the young girl sacred, +but the class uninteresting. + +Such generalisations belonged, however, to an earlier stage +of his experience. The more he saw of life the more +incalculable he found it; and he had learned to yield to his +impressions without feeling the youthful need of relating +them to others. It was the girl in the opposite seat who +had roused in him the dormant habit of comparison. She was +distinguished from the daughters of wealth by her avowed +acquaintance with the real business of living, a familiarity +as different as possible from their theoretical proficiency; +yet it seemed to Darrow that her experience had made her +free without hardness and self-assured without +assertiveness. + + +The rush into Amiens, and the flash of the station lights +into their compartment, broke Miss Viner's sleep, and +without changing her position she lifted her lids and looked +at Darrow. There was neither surprise nor bewilderment in +the look. She seemed instantly conscious, not so much of +where she was, as of the fact that she was with him; and +that fact seemed enough to reassure her. She did not even +turn her head to look out; her eyes continued to rest on him +with a vague smile which appeared to light her face from +within, while her lips kept their sleepy droop. + +Shouts and the hurried tread of travellers came to them +through the confusing cross-lights of the platform. A head +appeared at the window, and Darrow threw himself forward to +defend their solitude; but the intruder was only a train +hand going his round of inspection. He passed on, and the +lights and cries of the station dropped away, merged in a +wider haze and a hollower resonance, as the train gathered +itself up with a long shake and rolled out again into the +darkness. + +Miss Viner's head sank back against the cushion, pushing out +a dusky wave of hair above her forehead. The swaying of the +train loosened a lock over her ear, and she shook it back +with a movement like a boy's, while her gaze still rested on +her companion. + +"You're not too tired?" + +She shook her head with a smile. + +"We shall be in before midnight. We're very nearly on +time." He verified the statement by holding up his watch to +the lamp. + +She nodded dreamily. "It's all right. I telegraphed Mrs. +Farlow that they mustn't think of coming to the station; but +they'll have told the concierge to look out for me." + +"You'll let me drive you there?" + +She nodded again, and her eyes closed. It was very pleasant +to Darrow that she made no effort to talk or to dissemble +her sleepiness. He sat watching her till the upper lashes +met and mingled with the lower, and their blent shadow lay +on her cheek; then he stood up and drew the curtain over the +lamp, drowning the compartment in a bluish twilight. + +As he sank back into his seat he thought how differently +Anna Summers--or even Anna Leath--would have behaved. She +would not have talked too much; she would not have been +either restless or embarrassed; but her adaptability, her +appropriateness, would not have been nature but "tact." The +oddness of the situation would have made sleep impossible, +or, if weariness had overcome her for a moment, she would +have waked with a start, wondering where she was, and how +she had come there, and if her hair were tidy; and nothing +short of hairpins and a glass would have restored her self- +possession... + +The reflection set him wondering whether the "sheltered" +girl's bringing-up might not unfit her for all subsequent +contact with life. How much nearer to it had Mrs. Leath +been brought by marriage and motherhood, and the passage of +fourteen years? What were all her reticences and evasions +but the result of the deadening process of forming a "lady"? +The freshness he had marvelled at was like the unnatural +whiteness of flowers forced in the dark. + +As he looked back at their few days together he saw that +their intercourse had been marked, on her part, by the same +hesitations and reserves which had chilled their earlier +intimacy. Once more they had had their hour together and +she had wasted it. As in her girlhood, her eyes had made +promises which her lips were afraid to keep. She was still +afraid of life, of its ruthlessness, its danger and mystery. +She was still the petted little girl who cannot be left +alone in the dark...His memory flew back to their youthful +story, and long-forgotten details took shape before him. +How frail and faint the picture was! They seemed, he and +she, like the ghostly lovers of the Grecian Urn, forever +pursuing without ever clasping each other. To this day he +did not quite know what had parted them: the break had been +as fortuitous as the fluttering apart of two seed-vessels on +a wave of summer air... + +The very slightness, vagueness, of the memory gave it an +added poignancy. He felt the mystic pang of the parent for +a child which has just breathed and died. Why had it +happened thus, when the least shifting of influences might +have made it all so different? If she had been given to him +then he would have put warmth in her veins and light in her +eyes: would have made her a woman through and through. +Musing thus, he had the sense of waste that is the bitterest +harvest of experience. A love like his might have given her +the divine gift of self-renewal; and now he saw her fated to +wane into old age repeating the same gestures, echoing the +words she had always heard, and perhaps never guessing that, +just outside her glazed and curtained consciousness, life +rolled away, a vast blackness starred with lights, like the +night landscape beyond the windows of the train. + +The engine lowered its speed for the passage through a +sleeping station. In the light of the platform lamp Darrow +looked across at his companion. Her head had dropped toward +one shoulder, and her lips were just far enough apart for +the reflection of the upper one to deepen the colour of the +other. The jolting of the train had again shaken loose the +lock above her ear. It danced on her cheek like the flit of +a brown wing over flowers, and Darrow felt an intense desire +to lean forward and put it back behind her ear. + + + +IV + + +As their motor-cab, on the way from the Gare du Nord, turned +into the central glitter of the Boulevard, Darrow had bent +over to point out an incandescent threshold. + +"There!" + +Above the doorway, an arch of flame flashed out the name of +a great actress, whose closing performances in a play of +unusual originality had been the theme of long articles in +the Paris papers which Darrow had tossed into their +compartment at Calais. + +"That's what you must see before you're twenty-four hours +older!" + +The girl followed his gesture eagerly. She was all awake +and alive now, as if the heady rumours of the streets, with +their long effervescences of light, had passed into her +veins like wine. + +"Cerdine? Is that where she acts?" She put her head out of +the window, straining back for a glimpse of the sacred +threshold. As they flew past it she sank into her seat with +a satisfied sigh. + +"It's delicious enough just to KNOW she's there! I've +never seen her, you know. When I was here with Mamie Hoke +we never went anywhere but to the music halls, because she +couldn't understand any French; and when I came back +afterward to the Farlows' I was dead broke, and couldn't +afford the play, and neither could they; so the only chance +we had was when friends of theirs invited us--and once it +was to see a tragedy by a Roumanian lady, and the other time +it was for 'L'Ami Fritz' at the Francais." + +Darrow laughed. "You must do better than that now. 'Le +Vertige' is a fine thing, and Cerdine gets some wonderful +effects out of it. You must come with me tomorrow evening +to see it--with your friends, of course.--That is," he +added, "if there's any sort of chance of getting seats." + +The flash of a street lamp lit up her radiant face. "Oh, +will you really take us? What fun to think that it's +tomorrow already!" + +It was wonderfully pleasant to be able to give such +pleasure. Darrow was not rich, but it was almost impossible +for him to picture the state of persons with tastes and +perceptions like his own, to whom an evening at the theatre +was an unattainable indulgence. There floated through his +mind an answer of Mrs. Leath's to his enquiry whether she +had seen the play in question. "No. I meant to, of course, +but one is so overwhelmed with things in Paris. And then +I'm rather sick of Cerdine--one is always being dragged to +see her." + +That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitude +toward such opportunities. There were too many, they were a +nuisance, one had to defend one's self! He even remembered +wondering, at the moment, whether to a really fine taste the +exceptional thing could ever become indifferent through +habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon dulled +that it could be kept alive only by privation. Here, at any +rate, was a fine chance to experiment with such a hunger: he +almost wished he might stay on in Paris long enough to take +the measure of Miss Viner's receptivity. + +She was still dwelling on his promise, "It's too beautiful +of you! Oh, don't you THINK you'll be able to get +seats?" And then, after a pause of brimming appreciation: "I +wonder if you'll think me horrid?--but it may be my only +chance; and if you can't get places for us all, wouldn't you +perhaps just take ME? After all, the Farlows may have +seen it!" + +He had not, of course, thought her horrid, but only the more +engaging, for being so natural, and so unashamed of showing +the frank greed of her famished youth. "Oh, you shall go +somehow!" he had gaily promised her; and she had dropped +back with a sigh of pleasure as their cab passed into the +dimly-lit streets of the Farlows' quarter beyond the +Seine... + + +This little passage came back to him the next morning, as he +opened his hotel window on the early roar of the Northern +Terminus. + +The girl was there, in the room next to him. That had been +the first point in his waking consciousness. The second was +a sense of relief at the obligation imposed on him by this +unexpected turn of everts. To wake to the necessity of +action, to postpone perforce the fruitless contemplation of +his private grievance, was cause enough for gratitude, even +if the small adventure in which he found himself involved +had not, on its own merits, roused an instinctive curiosity +to see it through. + +When he and his companion, the night before, had reached the +Farlows' door in the rue de la Chaise, it was only to find, +after repeated assaults on its panels, that the Farlows were +no longer there. They had moved away the week before, not +only from their apartment but from Paris; and Miss Viner's +breach with Mrs. Murrett had been too sudden to permit her +letter and telegram to overtake them. Both communications, +no doubt, still reposed in a pigeon-hole of the loge; +but its custodian, when drawn from his lair, sulkily +declined to let Miss Viner verify the fact, and only flung +out, in return for Darrow's bribe, the statement that the +Americans had gone to Joigny. + +To pursue them there at that hour was manifestly impossible, +and Miss Viner, disturbed but not disconcerted by this new +obstacle, had quite simply acceded to Darrow's suggestion +that she should return for what remained of the night to the +hotel where he had sent his luggage. + +The drive back through the dark hush before dawn, with the +nocturnal blaze of the Boulevard fading around them like the +false lights of a magician's palace, had so played on her +impressionability that she seemed to give no farther thought +to her own predicament. Darrow noticed that she did not +feel the beauty and mystery of the spectacle as much as its +pressure of human significance, all its hidden implications +of emotion and adventure. As they passed the shadowy +colonnade of the Francais, remote and temple-like in the +paling lights, he felt a clutch on his arm, and heard the +cry: "There are things THERE that I want so desperately +to see!" and all the way back to the hotel she continued to +question him, with shrewd precision and an artless thirst +for detail, about the theatrical life of Paris. He was +struck afresh, as he listened, by the way in which her +naturalness eased the situation of constraint, leaving to it +only a pleasant savour of good fellowship. It was the kind +of episode that one might, in advance, have characterized as +"awkward", yet that was proving, in the event, as much +outside such definitions as a sunrise stroll with a dryad in +a dew-drenched forest; and Darrow reflected that mankind +would never have needed to invent tact if it had not first +invented social complications. + +It had been understood, with his good-night to Miss Viner, +that the next morning he was to look up the Joigny trains, +and see her safely to the station; but, while he breakfasted +and waited for a time-table, he recalled again her cry of +joy at the prospect of seeing Cerdine. It was certainly a +pity, since that most elusive and incalculable of artists +was leaving the next week for South America, to miss what +might be a last sight of her in her greatest part; and +Darrow, having dressed and made the requisite excerpts from +the time-table, decided to carry the result of his +deliberations to his neighbour's door. + +It instantly opened at his knock, and she came forth looking +as if she had been plunged into some sparkling element which +had curled up all her drooping tendrils and wrapped her in a +shimmer of fresh leaves. + +"Well, what do you think of me?" she cried; and with a hand +at her waist she spun about as if to show off some miracle +of Parisian dress-making. + +"I think the missing trunk has come--and that it was worth +waiting for!" + +"You DO like my dress?" + +"I adore it! I always adore new dresses--why, you don't mean +to say it's NOT a new one?" + +She laughed out her triumph. + +"No, no, no! My trunk hasn't come, and this is only my old +rag of yesterday--but I never knew the trick to fail!" And, +as he stared: "You see," she joyously explained, "I've +always had to dress in all kinds of dreary left-overs, and +sometimes, when everybody else was smart and new, it used to +make me awfully miserable. So one day, when Mrs. Murrett +dragged me down unexpectedly to fill a place at dinner, I +suddenly thought I'd try spinning around like that, and say +to every one: 'WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ME?' And, do +you know, they were all taken in, including Mrs. Murrett, +who didn't recognize my old turned and dyed rags, and told +me afterward it was awfully bad form to dress as if I were +somebody that people would expect to know! And ever since, +whenever I've particularly wanted to look nice, I've just +asked people what they thought of my new frock; and they're +always, always taken in!" + +She dramatized her explanation so vividly that Darrow felt +as if his point were gained. + +"Ah, but this confirms your vocation--of course," he cried, +"you must see Cerdine!" and, seeing her face fall at this +reminder of the change in her prospects, he hastened to set +forth his plan. As he did so, he saw how easy it was to +explain things to her. She would either accept his +suggestion, or she would not: but at least she would waste +no time in protestations and objections, or any vain +sacrifice to the idols of conformity. The conviction that +one could, on any given point, almost predicate this of her, +gave him the sense of having advanced far enough in her +intimacy to urge his arguments against a hasty pursuit of +her friends. + +Yes, it would certainly be foolish--she at once agreed--in +the case of such dear indefinite angels as the Farlows, to +dash off after them without more positive proof that they +were established at Joigny, and so established that they +could take her in. She owned it was but too probable that +they had gone there to "cut down", and might be doing so in +quarters too contracted to receive her; and it would be +unfair, on that chance, to impose herself on them +unannounced. The simplest way of getting farther light on +the question would be to go back to the rue de la Chaise, +where, at that more conversable hour, the concierge +might be less chary of detail; and she could decide on her +next step in the light of such facts as he imparted. + +Point by point, she fell in with the suggestion, +recognizing, in the light of their unexplained flight, that +the Farlows might indeed be in a situation on which one +could not too rashly intrude. Her concern for her friends +seemed to have effaced all thought of herself, and this +little indication of character gave Darrow a quite +disproportionate pleasure. She agreed that it would be well +to go at once to the rue de la Chaise, but met his proposal +that they should drive by the declaration that it was a +"waste" not to walk in Paris; so they set off on foot +through the cheerful tumult of the streets. + +The walk was long enough for him to learn many things about +her. The storm of the previous night had cleared the air, +and Paris shone in morning beauty under a sky that was all +broad wet washes of white and blue; but Darrow again noticed +that her visual sensitiveness was less keen than her feeling +for what he was sure the good Farlows--whom he already +seemed to know--would have called "the human interest." She +seemed hardly conscious of sensations of form and colour, or +of any imaginative suggestion, and the spectacle before +them--always, in its scenic splendour, so moving to her +companion--broke up, under her scrutiny, into a thousand +minor points: the things in the shops, the types of +character and manner of occupation shown in the passing +faces, the street signs, the names of the hotels they +passed, the motley brightness of the flower-carts, the +identity of the churches and public buildings that caught +her eye. But what she liked best, he divined, was the mere +fact of being free to walk abroad in the bright air, her +tongue rattling on as it pleased, while her feet kept time +to the mighty orchestration of the city's sounds. Her +delight in the fresh air, in the freedom, light and sparkle +of the morning, gave him a sudden insight into her stifled +past; nor was it indifferent to him to perceive how much his +presence evidently added to her enjoyment. If only as a +sympathetic ear, he guessed what he must be worth to her. +The girl had been dying for some one to talk to, some one +before whom she could unfold and shake out to the light her +poor little shut-away emotions. Years of repression were +revealed in her sudden burst of confidence; and the pity she +inspired made Darrow long to fill her few free hours to the +brim. + +She had the gift of rapid definition, and his questions as +to the life she had led with the Farlows, during the +interregnum between the Hoke and Murrett eras, called up +before him a queer little corner of Parisian existence. The +Farlows themselves--he a painter, she a "magazine writer"-- +rose before him in all their incorruptible simplicity: an +elderly New England couple, with vague yearnings for +enfranchisement, who lived in Paris as if it were a +Massachusetts suburb, and dwelt hopefully on the "higher +side" of the Gallic nature. With equal vividness she set +before him the component figures of the circle from which +Mrs. Farlow drew the "Inner Glimpses of French Life" +appearing over her name in a leading New England journal: +the Roumanian lady who had sent them tickets for her +tragedy, an elderly French gentleman who, on the strength of +a week's stay at Folkestone, translated English fiction for +the provincial press, a lady from Wichita, Kansas, who +advocated free love and the abolition of the corset, a +clergyman's widow from Torquay who had written an "English +Ladies' Guide to Foreign Galleries" and a Russian sculptor +who lived on nuts and was "almost certainly" an anarchist. +It was this nucleus, and its outer ring of musical, +architectural and other American students, which posed +successively to Mrs. Farlow's versatile fancy as a centre of +"University Life", a "Salon of the Faubourg St. Germain", a +group of Parisian "Intellectuals" or a "Cross-section of +Montmartre"; but even her faculty for extracting from it the +most varied literary effects had not sufficed to create a +permanent demand for the "Inner Glimpses", and there were +days when--Mr. Farlow's landscapes being equally +unmarketable--a temporary withdrawal to the country +(subsequently utilized as "Peeps into Chateau Life") became +necessary to the courageous couple. + +Five years of Mrs. Murrett's world, while increasing Sophy's +tenderness for the Farlows, had left her with few illusions +as to their power of advancing her fortunes; and she did not +conceal from Darrow that her theatrical projects were of the +vaguest. They hung mainly on the problematical good-will of +an ancient comedienne, with whom Mrs. Farlow had a slight +acquaintance (extensively utilized in "Stars of the French +Footlights" and "Behind the Scenes at the Francais"), and +who had once, with signs of approval, heard Miss Viner +recite the Nuit de Mai. + +"But of course I know how much that's worth," the girl broke +off, with one of her flashes of shrewdness. "And besides, +it isn't likely that a poor old fossil like Mme. Dolle could +get anybody to listen to her now, even if she really thought +I had talent. But she might introduce me to people; or at +least give me a few tips. If I could manage to earn enough +to pay for lessons I'd go straight to some of the big people +and work with them. I'm rather hoping the Farlows may find +me a chance of that kind--an engagement with some American +family in Paris who would want to be 'gone round' with like +the Hokes, and who'd leave me time enough to study." + +In the rue de la Chaise they learned little except the exact +address of the Farlows, and the fact that they had sub-let +their flat before leaving. This information obtained, +Darrow proposed to Miss Viner that they should stroll along +the quays to a little restaurant looking out on the Seine, +and there, over the plat du jour, consider the next step +to be taken. The long walk had given her cheeks a glow +indicative of wholesome hunger, and she made no difficulty +about satisfying it in Darrow's company. Regaining the +river they walked on in the direction of Notre Dame, delayed +now and again by the young man's irresistible tendency to +linger over the bookstalls, and by his ever-fresh response +to the shifting beauties of the scene. For two years his +eyes had been subdued to the atmospheric effects of London, +to the mysterious fusion of darkly-piled city and low-lying +bituminous sky; and the transparency of the French air, +which left the green gardens and silvery stones so +classically clear yet so softly harmonized, struck him as +having a kind of conscious intelligence. Every line of the +architecture, every arch of the bridges, the very sweep of +the strong bright river between them, while contributing to +this effect, sent forth each a separate appeal to some +sensitive memory; so that, for Darrow, a walk through the +Paris streets was always like the unrolling of a vast +tapestry from which countless stored fragrances were shaken +out. + +It was a proof of the richness and multiplicity of the +spectacle that it served, without incongruity, for so +different a purpose as the background of Miss Viner's +enjoyment. As a mere drop-scene for her personal adventure +it was just as much in its place as in the evocation of +great perspectives of feeling. For her, as he again +perceived when they were seated at their table in a low +window above the Seine, Paris was "Paris" by virtue of all +its entertaining details, its endless ingenuities of +pleasantness. Where else, for instance, could one find the +dear little dishes of hors d'oeuvre, the symmetrically- +laid anchovies and radishes, the thin golden shells of +butter, or the wood strawberries and brown jars of cream +that gave to their repast the last refinement of rusticity? +Hadn't he noticed, she asked, that cooking always expressed +the national character, and that French food was clever and +amusing just because the people were? And in private houses, +everywhere, how the dishes always resembled the talk--how +the very same platitudes seemed to go into people's mouths +and come out of them? Couldn't he see just what kind of menu +it would make, if a fairy waved a wand and suddenly turned +the conversation at a London dinner into joints and +puddings? She always thought it a good sign when people +liked Irish stew; it meant that they enjoyed changes and +surprises, and taking life as it came; and such a beautiful +Parisian version of the dish as the navarin that was +just being set before them was like the very best kind of +talk--the kind when one could never tell before-hand just +what was going to be said! + +Darrow, as he watched her enjoyment of their innocent feast, +wondered if her vividness and vivacity were signs of her +calling. She was the kind of girl in whom certain people +would instantly have recognized the histrionic gift. But +experience had led him to think that, except at the creative +moment, the divine flame burns low in its possessors. The +one or two really intelligent actresses he had known had +struck him, in conversation, as either bovine or primitively +"jolly". He had a notion that, save in the mind of genius, +the creative process absorbs too much of the whole stuff of +being to leave much surplus for personal expression; and the +girl before him, with her changing face and flexible +fancies, seemed destined to work in life itself rather than +in any of its counterfeits. + +The coffee and liqueurs were already on the table when her +mind suddenly sprang back to the Farlows. She jumped up +with one of her subversive movements and declared that she +must telegraph at once. Darrow called for writing materials +and room was made at her elbow for the parched ink-bottle +and saturated blotter of the Parisian restaurant; but the +mere sight of these jaded implements seemed to paralyze Miss +Viner's faculties. She hung over the telegraph-form with +anxiously-drawn brow, the tip of the pen-handle pressed +against her lip; and at length she raised her troubled eyes +to Darrow's. + +"I simply can't think how to say it." + +"What--that you're staying over to see Cerdine?" + +"But AM I--am I, really?" The joy of it flamed over her +face. + +Darrow looked at his watch. "You could hardly get an answer +to your telegram in time to take a train to Joigny this +afternoon, even if you found your friends could have you." + +She mused for a moment, tapping her lip with the pen. "But I +must let them know I'm here. I must find out as soon as +possible if they CAN, have me." She laid the pen down +despairingly. "I never COULD write a telegram!" she +sighed. + +"Try a letter, then and tell them you'll arrive tomorrow." + +This suggestion produced immediate relief, and she gave an +energetic dab at the ink-bottle; but after another interval +of uncertain scratching she paused again."Oh, it's fearful! +I don't know what on earth to say. I wouldn't for the world +have them know how beastly Mrs. Murrett's been." + +Darrow did not think it necessary to answer. It was no +business of his, after all. He lit a cigar and leaned back +in his seat, letting his eyes take their fill of indolent +pleasure. In the throes of invention she had pushed back +her hat, loosening the stray lock which had invited his +touch the night before. After looking at it for a while he +stood up and wandered to the window. + +Behind him he heard her pen scrape on. + +"I don't want to worry them--I'm so certain they've got +bothers of their own." The faltering scratches ceased again. +"I wish I weren't such an idiot about writing: all the words +get frightened and scurry away when I try to catch them." +He glanced back at her with a smile as she bent above her +task like a school-girl struggling with a "composition." Her +flushed cheek and frowning brow showed that her difficulty +was genuine and not an artless device to draw him to her +side. She was really powerless to put her thoughts in +writing, and the inability seemed characteristic of her +quick impressionable mind, and of the incessant come-and-go +of her sensations. He thought of Anna Leath's letters, or +rather of the few he had received, years ago, from the girl +who had been Anna Summers. He saw the slender firm strokes +of the pen, recalled the clear structure of the phrases, +and, by an abrupt association of ideas, remembered that, at +that very hour, just such a document might be awaiting him +at the hotel. + +What if it were there, indeed, and had brought him a +complete explanation of her telegram? The revulsion of +feeling produced by this thought made him look at the girl +with sudden impatience. She struck him as positively +stupid, and he wondered how he could have wasted half his +day with her, when all the while Mrs. Leath's letter might +be lying on his table. At that moment, if he could have +chosen, he would have left his companion on the spot; but he +had her on his hands, and must accept the consequences. + +Some odd intuition seemed to make her conscious of his +change of mood, for she sprang from her seat, crumpling the +letter in her hand. + +"I'm too stupid; but I won't keep you any longer. I'll go +back to the hotel and write there." + +Her colour deepened, and for the first time, as their eyes +met, he noticed a faint embarrassment in hers. Could it be +that his nearness was, after all, the cause of her +confusion? The thought turned his vague impatience with her +into a definite resentment toward himself. There was really +no excuse for his having blundered into such an adventure. +Why had he not shipped the girl off to Joigny by the evening +train, instead of urging her to delay, and using Cerdine as +a pretext? Paris was full of people he knew, and his +annoyance was increased by the thought that some friend of +Mrs. Leath's might see him at the play, and report his +presence there with a suspiciously good-looking companion. +The idea was distinctly disagreeable: he did not want the +woman he adored to think he could forget her for a moment. +And by this time he had fully persuaded himself that a +letter from her was awaiting him, and had even gone so far +as to imagine that its contents might annul the writer's +telegraphed injunction, and call him to her side at once... + + + +V + + +At the porter's desk a brief "Pas de lettres" fell +destructively on the fabric of these hopes. +Mrs. Leath had not written--she had not taken the trouble to +explain her telegram. Darrow turned away with a sharp pang +of humiliation. Her frugal silence mocked his prodigality +of hopes and fears. He had put his question to the porter +once before, on returning to the hotel after luncheon; and +now, coming back again in the late afternoon, he was met by +the same denial. The second post was in, and had brought +him nothing. + +A glance at his watch showed that he had barely time to +dress before taking Miss Viner out to dine; but as he turned +to the lift a new thought struck him, and hurrying back into +the hall he dashed off another telegram to his servant: +"Have you forwarded any letter with French postmark today? +Telegraph answer Terminus." + +Some kind of reply would be certain to reach him on his +return from the theatre, and he would then know definitely +whether Mrs. Leath meant to write or not. He hastened up to +his room and dressed with a lighter heart. + +Miss Viner's vagrant trunk had finally found its way to its +owner; and, clad in such modest splendour as it furnished, +she shone at Darrow across their restaurant table. In the +reaction of his wounded vanity he found her prettier and +more interesting than before. Her dress, sloping away from +the throat, showed the graceful set of her head on its +slender neck, and the wide brim of her hat arched above her +hair like a dusky halo. Pleasure danced in her eyes and on +her lips, and as she shone on him between the candle-shades +Darrow felt that he should not be at all sorry to be seen +with her in public. He even sent a careless glance about +him in the vague hope that it might fall on an acquaintance. + +At the theatre her vivacity sank into a breathless hush, and +she sat intent in her corner of their baignoire, with +the gaze of a neophyte about to be initiated into the sacred +mysteries. Darrow placed himself behind her, that he might +catch her profile between himself and the stage. He was +touched by the youthful seriousness of her expression. In +spite of the experiences she must have had, and of the +twenty-four years to which she owned, she struck him as +intrinsically young; and he wondered how so evanescent a +quality could have been preserved in the desiccating Murrett +air. As the play progressed he noticed that her immobility +was traversed by swift flashes of perception. She was not +missing anything, and her intensity of attention when +Cerdine was on the stage drew an anxious line between her +brows. + +After the first act she remained for a few minutes rapt and +motionless; then she turned to her companion with a quick +patter of questions. He gathered from them that she had +been less interested in following the general drift of the +play than in observing the details of its interpretation. +Every gesture and inflection of the great actress's had been +marked and analyzed; and Darrow felt a secret gratification +in being appealed to as an authority on the histrionic art. +His interest in it had hitherto been merely that of the +cultivated young man curious of all forms of artistic +expression; but in reply to her questions he found things to +say about it which evidently struck his listener as +impressive and original, and with which he himself was not, +on the whole, dissatisfied. Miss Viner was much more +concerned to hear his views than to express her own, and the +deference with which she received his comments called from +him more ideas about the theatre than he had ever supposed +himself to possess. + +With the second act she began to give more attention to the +development of the play, though her interest was excited +rather by what she called "the story" than by the conflict +of character producing it. Oddly combined with her sharp +apprehension of things theatrical, her knowledge of +technical "dodges" and green-room precedents, her glibness +about "lines" and "curtains", was the primitive simplicity +of her attitude toward the tale itself, as toward something +that was "really happening" and at which one assisted as at +a street-accident or a quarrel overheard in the next room. +She wanted to know if Darrow thought the lovers "really +would" be involved in the catastrophe that threatened them, +and when he reminded her that his predictions were +disqualified by his having already seen the play, she +exclaimed: "Oh, then, please don't tell me what's going to +happen!" and the next moment was questioning him about +Cerdine's theatrical situation and her private history. On +the latter point some of her enquiries were of a kind that +it is not in the habit of young girls to make, or even to +know how to make; but her apparent unconsciousness of the +fact seemed rather to reflect on her past associates than on +herself. + +When the second act was over, Darrow suggested their taking +a turn in the foyer; and seated on one of its cramped +red velvet sofas they watched the crowd surge up and down in +a glare of lights and gilding. Then, as she complained of +the heat, he led her through the press to the congested +cafe at the foot of the stairs, where orangeades were +thrust at them between the shoulders of packed +consommateurs and Darrow, lighting a cigarette while she +sucked her straw, knew the primitive complacency of the man +at whose companion other men stare. + +On a corner of their table lay a smeared copy of a +theatrical journal. It caught Sophy's eye and after poring +over the page she looked up with an excited exclamation. + +'They're giving Oedipe tomorrow afternoon at the +Francais! I suppose you've seen it heaps and heaps of +times?" + +He smiled back at her. "You must see it too. We'll go +tomorrow." + +She sighed at his suggestion, but without discarding it. +"How can I? The last train for Joigny leaves at four." + +"But you don't know yet that your friends will want you." + +"I shall know tomorrow early. I asked Mrs. Farlow to +telegraph as soon as she got my letter." +A twinge of compunction shot through Darrow. Her words +recalled to him that on their return to the hotel after +luncheon she had given him her letter to post, and that he +had never thought of it again. No doubt it was still in the +pocket of the coat he had taken off when he dressed for +dinner. In his perturbation he pushed back his chair, and +the movement made her look up at him. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing. Only--you know I don't fancy that letter can have +caught this afternoon's post." + +"Not caught it? Why not?" + +"Why, I'm afraid it will have been too late." He bent his +head to light another cigarette. + +She struck her hands together with a gesture which, to his +amusement, he noticed she had caught from Cerdine. + +"Oh, dear, I hadn't thought of that! But surely it will +reach them in the morning?" + +"Some time in the morning, I suppose. You know the French +provincial post is never in a hurry. I don't believe your +letter would have been delivered this evening in any case." +As this idea occurred to him he felt himself almost +absolved. + +"Perhaps, then, I ought to have telegraphed?" + +"I'll telegraph for you in the morning if you say so." + +The bell announcing the close of the entr'-acte shrilled +through the cafe, and she sprang to her feet. + +"Oh, come, come! We mustn't miss it!" + +Instantly forgetful of the Farlows, she slipped her arm +through his and turned to push her way back to the theatre. + +As soon as the curtain went up she as promptly forgot her +companion. Watching her from the corner to which he had +returned, Darrow saw that great waves of sensation were +beating deliciously against her brain. It was as though +every starved sensibility were throwing out feelers to the +mounting tide; as though everything she was seeing, hearing, +imagining, rushed in to fill the void of all she had always +been denied. + +Darrow, as he observed her, again felt a detached enjoyment +in her pleasure. She was an extraordinary conductor of +sensation: she seemed to transmit it physically, in +emanations that set the blood dancing in his veins. He had +not often had the opportunity of studying the effects of a +perfectly fresh impression on so responsive a temperament, +and he felt a fleeting desire to make its chords vibrate for +his own amusement. + +At the end of the next act she discovered with dismay that +in their transit to the cafe she had lost the beautiful +pictured programme he had bought for her. She wanted to go +back and hunt for it, but Darrow assured her that he would +have no trouble in getting her another. When he went out in +quest of it she followed him protestingly to the door of the +box, and he saw that she was distressed at the thought of +his having to spend an additional franc for her. This +frugality smote Darrow by its contrast to her natural bright +profusion; and again he felt the desire to right so clumsy +an injustice. + +When he returned to the box she was still standing in the +doorway, and he noticed that his were not the only eyes +attracted to her. Then another impression sharply diverted +his attention. Above the fagged faces of the Parisian crowd +he had caught the fresh fair countenance of Owen Leath +signalling a joyful recognition. The young man, slim and +eager, had detached himself from two companions of his own +type, and was seeking to push through the press to his step- +mother's friend. The encounter, to Darrow, could hardly +have been more inopportune; it woke in him a confusion of +feelings of which only the uppermost was allayed by seeing +Sophy Viner, as if instinctively warned, melt back into the +shadow of their box. + +A minute later Owen Leath was at his side. "I was sure it +was you! Such luck to run across you! Won't you come off +with us to supper after it's over? Montmartre, or wherever +else you please. Those two chaps over there are friends of +mine, at the Beaux Arts; both of them rather good fellows-- +and we'd be so glad----" + +For half a second Darrow read in his hospitable eye the +termination "if you'd bring the lady too"; then it deflected +into: "We'd all be so glad if you'd come." + +Darrow, excusing himself with thanks, lingered on for a few +minutes' chat, in which every word, and every tone of his +companion's voice, was like a sharp light flashed into +aching eyes. He was glad when the bell called the audience +to their seats, and young Leath left him with the friendly +question: "We'll see you at Givre later on?" + +When he rejoined Miss Viner, Darrow's first care was to find +out, by a rapid inspection of the house, whether Owen +Leath's seat had given him a view of their box. But the +young man was not visible from it, and Darrow concluded that +he had been recognized in the corridor and not at his +companion's side. He scarcely knew why it seemed to him so +important that this point should be settled; certainly his +sense of reassurance was less due to regard for Miss Viner +than to the persistent vision of grave offended eyes... + +During the drive back to the hotel this vision was +persistently kept before him by the thought that the evening +post might have brought a letter from Mrs. Leath. Even if +no letter had yet come, his servant might have telegraphed +to say that one was on its way; and at the thought his +interest in the girl at his side again cooled to the +fraternal, the almost fatherly. She was no more to him, +after all, than an appealing young creature to whom it was +mildly agreeable to have offered an evening's diversion; and +when, as they rolled into the illuminated court of the +hotel, she turned with a quick movement which brought her +happy face close to his, he leaned away, affecting to be +absorbed in opening the door of the cab. + +At the desk the night porter, after a vain search through +the pigeon-holes, was disposed to think that a letter or +telegram had in fact been sent up for the gentleman; and +Darrow, at the announcement, could hardly wait to ascend to +his room. Upstairs, he and his companion had the long +dimly-lit corridor to themselves, and Sophy paused on her +threshold, gathering up in one hand the pale folds of her +cloak, while she held the other out to Darrow. + +"If the telegram comes early I shall be off by the first +train; so I suppose this is good-bye," she said, her eyes +dimmed by a little shadow of regret. + +Darrow, with a renewed start of contrition, perceived that +he had again forgotten her letter; and as their hands met he +vowed to himself that the moment she had left him he would +dash down stairs to post it. + +"Oh, I'll see you in the morning, of course!" + +A tremor of pleasure crossed her face as he stood before +her, smiling a little uncertainly. + +"At any rate," she said, "I want to thank you now for my +good day." + +He felt in her hand the same tremor he had seen in her face. +"But it's YOU, on the contrary--" he began, lifting the +hand to his lips. + +As he dropped it, and their eyes met, something passed +through hers that was like a light carried rapidly behind a +curtained window. + +"Good night; you must be awfully tired," he said with a +friendly abruptness, turning away without even waiting to +see her pass into her room. He unlocked his door, and +stumbling over the threshold groped in the darkness for the +electric button. The light showed him a telegram on the +table, and he forgot everything else as he caught it up. + +"No letter from France," the message read. + +It fell from Darrow's hand to the floor, and he dropped into +a chair by the table and sat gazing at the dingy drab and +olive pattern of the carpet. She had not written, then; she +had not written, and it was manifest now that she did not +mean to write. If she had had any intention of explaining +her telegram she would certainly, within twenty-four hours, +have followed it up by a letter. But she evidently did not +intend to explain it, and her silence could mean only that +she had no explanation to give, or else that she was too +indifferent to be aware that one was needed. + +Darrow, face to face with these alternatives, felt a +recrudescence of boyish misery. It was no longer his hurt +vanity that cried out. He told himself that he could have +borne an equal amount of pain, if only it had left Mrs. +Leath's image untouched; but he could not bear to think of +her as trivial or insincere. The thought was so intolerable +that he felt a blind desire to punish some one else for the +pain it caused him. + +As he sat moodily staring at the carpet its silly +intricacies melted into a blur from which the eyes of Mrs. +Leath again looked out at him. He saw the fine sweep of her +brows, and the deep look beneath them as she had turned from +him on their last evening in London. "This will be good- +bye, then," she had said; and it occurred to him that her +parting phrase had been the same as Sophy Viner's. + +At the thought he jumped to his feet and took down from its +hook the coat in which he had left Miss Viner's letter. The +clock marked the third quarter after midnight, and he knew +it would make no difference if he went down to the post-box +now or early the next morning; but he wanted to clear his +conscience, and having found the letter he went to the door. + +A sound in the next room made him pause. He had become +conscious again that, a few feet off, on the other side of a +thin partition, a small keen flame of life was quivering and +agitating the air. Sophy's face came hack to him +insistently. It was as vivid now as Mrs. Leath's had been a +moment earlier. He recalled with a faint smile of +retrospective pleasure the girl's enjoyment of her evening, +and the innumerable fine feelers of sensation she had thrown +out to its impressions. + +It gave him a curiously close sense of her presence to think +that at that moment she was living over her enjoyment as +intensely as he was living over his unhappiness. His own +case was irremediable, but it was easy enough to give her a +few more hours of pleasure. And did she not perhaps +secretly expect it of him? After all, if she had been very +anxious to join her friends she would have telegraphed them +on reaching Paris, instead of writing. He wondered now that +he had not been struck at the moment by so artless a device +to gain more time. The fact of her having practised it did +not make him think less well of her; it merely strengthened +the impulse to use his opportunity. She was starving, poor +child, for a little amusement, a little personal life--why +not give her the chance of another day in Paris? If he did +so, should he not be merely falling in with her own hopes? + +At the thought his sympathy for her revived. She became of +absorbing interest to him as an escape from himself and an +object about which his thwarted activities could cluster. +He felt less drearily alone because of her being there, on +the other side of the door, and in his gratitude to her for +giving him this relief he began, with indolent amusement, to +plan new ways of detaining her. He dropped back into his +chair, lit a cigar, and smiled a little at the image of her +smiling face. He tried to imagine what incident of the day +she was likely to be recalling at that particular moment, +and what part he probably played in it. That it was not a +small part he was certain, and the knowledge was undeniably +pleasant. + +Now and then a sound from her room brought before him more +vividly the reality of the situation and the strangeness of +the vast swarming solitude in which he and she were +momentarily isolated, amid long lines of rooms each holding +its separate secret. The nearness of all these other +mysteries enclosing theirs gave Darrow a more intimate sense +of the girl's presence, and through the fumes of his cigar +his imagination continued to follow her to and fro, traced +the curve of her slim young arms as she raised them to undo +her hair, pictured the sliding down of her dress to the +waist and then to the knees, and the whiteness of her feet +as she slipped across the floor to bed... + +He stood up and shook himself with a yawn, throwing away the +end of his cigar. His glance, in following it, lit on the +telegram which had dropped to the floor. The sounds in the +next room had ceased, and once more he felt alone and +unhappy. + +Opening the window, he folded his arms on the sill and +looked out on the vast light-spangled mass of the city, and +then up at the dark sky, in which the morning planet stood. + + + +VI + + +At the Theatre Francais, the next afternoon, Darrow yawned +and fidgeted in his seat. + +The day was warm, the theatre crowded and airless, and the +performance, it seemed to him, intolerably bad. He stole a +glance at his companion, wondering if she shared his +feelings. Her rapt profile betrayed no unrest, but +politeness might have caused her to feign an interest that +she did not feel. He leaned back impatiently, stifling +another yawn, and trying to fix his attention on the stage. +Great things were going forward there, and he was not +insensible to the stern beauties of the ancient drama. But +the interpretation of the play seemed to him as airless and +lifeless as the atmosphere of the theatre. The players were +the same whom he had often applauded in those very parts, +and perhaps that fact added to the impression of staleness +and conventionality produced by their performance. Surely +it was time to infuse new blood into the veins of the +moribund art. He had the impression that the ghosts of +actors were giving a spectral performance on the shores of +Styx. + +Certainly it was not the most profitable way for a young man +with a pretty companion to pass the golden hours of a spring +afternoon. The freshness of the face at his side, +reflecting the freshness of the season, suggested dapplings +of sunlight through new leaves, the sound of a brook in the +grass, the ripple of tree-shadows over breezy meadows... + +When at length the fateful march of the cothurns was stayed +by the single pause in the play, and Darrow had led Miss +Viner out on the balcony overhanging the square before the +theatre, he turned to see if she shared his feelings. But +the rapturous look she gave him checked the depreciation on +his lips. + +"Oh, why did you bring me out here? One ought to creep away +and sit in the dark till it begins again!" + +"Is THAT the way they made you feel?" + +"Didn't they YOU?...As if the gods were there all the +while, just behind them, pulling the strings?" Her hands +were pressed against the railing, her face shining and +darkening under the wing-beats of successive impressions. + +Darrow smiled in enjoyment of her pleasure. After all, he +had felt all that, long ago; perhaps it was his own fault, +rather than that of the actors, that the poetry of the play +seemed to have evaporated...But no, he had been right in +judging the performance to be dull and stale: it was simply +his companion's inexperience, her lack of occasions to +compare and estimate, that made her think it brilliant. + +"I was afraid you were bored and wanted to come away." + +"BORED?" She made a little aggrieved grimace. "You mean +you thought me too ignorant and stupid to appreciate it?" + +"No; not that." The hand nearest him still lay on the +railing of the balcony, and he covered it for a moment with +his. As he did so he saw the colour rise and tremble in her +cheek. + +"Tell me just what you think," he said, bending his head a +little, and only half-aware of his words. + +She did not turn her face to his, but began to talk rapidly, +trying to convey something of what she felt. But she was +evidently unused to analyzing her aesthetic emotions, and +the tumultuous rush of the drama seemed to have left her in +a state of panting wonder, as though it had been a storm or +some other natural cataclysm. She had no literary or +historic associations to which to attach her impressions: +her education had evidently not comprised a course in Greek +literature. But she felt what would probably have been +unperceived by many a young lady who had taken a first in +classics: the ineluctable fatality of the tale, the dread +sway in it of the same mysterious "luck" which pulled the +threads of her own small destiny. It was not literature to +her, it was fact: as actual, as near by, as what was +happening to her at the moment and what the next hour held +in store. Seen in this light, the play regained for Darrow +its supreme and poignant reality. He pierced to the heart +of its significance through all the artificial accretions +with which his theories of art and the conventions of the +stage had clothed it, and saw it as he had never seen it: as +life. + +After this there could be no question of flight, and he took +her back to the theatre, content to receive his own +sensations through the medium of hers. But with the +continuation of the play, and the oppression of the heavy +air, his attention again began to wander, straying back over +the incidents of the morning. + +He had been with Sophy Viner all day, and he was surprised +to find how quickly the time had gone. She had hardly +attempted, as the hours passed, to conceal her satisfaction +on finding that no telegram came from the Farlows. "They'll +have written," she had simply said; and her mind had at once +flown on to the golden prospect of an afternoon at the +theatre. The intervening hours had been disposed of in a +stroll through the lively streets, and a repast, luxuriously +lingered over, under the chestnut-boughs of a restaurant in +the Champs Elysees. Everything entertained and interested +her, and Darrow remarked, with an amused detachment, that +she was not insensible to the impression her charms +produced. Yet there was no hard edge of vanity in her sense +of her prettiness: she seemed simply to be aware of it as a +note in the general harmony, and to enjoy sounding the note +as a singer enjoys singing. + +After luncheon, as they sat over their coffee, she had again +asked an immense number of questions and delivered herself +of a remarkable variety of opinions. Her questions testified +to a wholesome and comprehensive human curiosity, and her +comments showed, like her face and her whole attitude, an +odd mingling of precocious wisdom and disarming ignorance. +When she talked to him about "life"--the word was often on +her lips--she seemed to him like a child playing with a +tiger's cub; and he said to himself that some day the child +would grow up--and so would the tiger. Meanwhile, such +expertness qualified by such candour made it impossible to +guess the extent of her personal experience, or to estimate +its effect on her character. She might be any one of a +dozen definable types, or she might--more disconcertingly to +her companion and more perilously to herself--be a shifting +and uncrystallized mixture of them all. + +Her talk, as usual, had promptly reverted to the stage. She +was eager to learn about every form of dramatic expression +which the metropolis of things theatrical had to offer, and +her curiosity ranged from the official temples of the art to +its less hallowed haunts. Her searching enquiries about a +play whose production, on one of the latter scenes, had +provoked a considerable amount of scandal, led Darrow to +throw out laughingly: "To see THAT you'll have to wait +till you're married!" and his answer had sent her off at a +tangent. + +"Oh, I never mean to marry," she had rejoined in a tone of +youthful finality. + +"I seem to have heard that before!" + +"Yes; from girls who've only got to choose!" Her eyes had +grown suddenly almost old. "I'd like you to see the only +men who've ever wanted to marry me! One was the doctor on +the steamer, when I came abroad with the Hokes: he'd been +cashiered from the navy for drunkenness. The other was a +deaf widower with three grown-up daughters, who kept a +clock-shop in Bayswater!--Besides," she rambled on, "I'm not +so sure that I believe in marriage. You see I'm all for +self-development and the chance to live one's life. I'm +awfully modern, you know." + +It was just when she proclaimed herself most awfully modern +that she struck him as most helplessly backward; yet the +moment after, without any bravado, or apparent desire to +assume an attitude, she would propound some social axiom +which could have been gathered only in the bitter soil of +experience. + +All these things came back to him as he sat beside her in +the theatre and watched her ingenuous absorption. It was on +"the story" that her mind was fixed, and in life also, he +suspected, it would always be "the story", rather than its +remoter imaginative issues, that would hold her. He did not +believe there were ever any echoes in her soul... + +There was no question, however, that what she felt was felt +with intensity: to the actual, the immediate, she spread +vibrating strings. When the play was over, and they came +out once more into the sunlight, Darrow looked down at her +with a smile. + +"Well?" he asked. + +She made no answer. Her dark gaze seemed to rest on him +without seeing him. Her cheeks and lips were pale, and the +loose hair under her hat-brim clung to her forehead in damp +rings. She looked like a young priestess still dazed by the +fumes of the cavern. + +"You poor child--it's been almost too much for you!" + +She shook her head with a vague smile. + +"Come," he went on, putting his hand on her arm, "let's jump +into a taxi and get some air and sunshine. Look, there are +hours of daylight left; and see what a night it's going to +be!" + +He pointed over their heads, to where a white moon hung in +the misty blue above the roofs of the rue de Rivoli. + +She made no answer, and he signed to a motor-cab, calling +out to the driver: "To the Bois!" + +As the carriage turned toward the Tuileries she roused +herself. "I must go first to the hotel. There may be a +message--at any rate I must decide on something." + +Darrow saw that the reality of the situation had suddenly +forced itself upon her. "I MUST decide on something," +she repeated. + +He would have liked to postpone the return, to persuade her +to drive directly to the Bois for dinner. It would have +been easy enough to remind her that she could not start for +Joigny that evening, and that therefore it was of no moment +whether she received the Farlows' answer then or a few hours +later; but for some reason he hesitated to use this +argument, which had come so naturally to him the day before. +After all, he knew she would find nothing at the hotel--so +what did it matter if they went there? + +The porter, interrogated, was not sure. He himself had +received nothing for the lady, but in his absence his +subordinate might have sent a letter upstairs. + +Darrow and Sophy mounted together in the lift, and the young +man, while she went into her room, unlocked his own door and +glanced at the empty table. For him at least no message had +come; and on her threshold, a moment later, she met him with +the expected: "No--there's nothing!" + +He feigned an unregretful surprise. "So much the better! +And now, shall we drive out somewhere? Or would you rather +take a boat to Bellevue? Have you ever dined there, on the +terrace, by moonlight? It's not at all bad. And there's no +earthly use in sitting here waiting." + +She stood before him in perplexity. + +"But when I wrote yesterday I asked them to telegraph. I +suppose they're horribly hard up, the poor dears, and they +thought a letter would do as well as a telegram." The colour +had risen to her face. "That's why I wrote instead of +telegraphing; I haven't a penny to spare myself!" + +Nothing she could have said could have filled her listener +with a deeper contrition. He felt the red in his own face +as he recalled the motive with which he had credited her in +his midnight musings. But that motive, after all, had +simply been trumped up to justify his own disloyalty: he had +never really believed in it. The reflection deepened his +confusion, and he would have liked to take her hand in his +and confess the injustice he had done her. + +She may have interpreted his change of colour as an +involuntary protest at being initiated into such shabby +details, for she went on with a laugh: "I suppose you can +hardly understand what it means to have to stop and think +whether one can afford a telegram? But I've always had to +consider such things. And I mustn't stay here any longer +now--I must try to get a night train for Joigny. Even if +the Farlows can't take me in, I can go to the hotel: it will +cost less than staying here." She paused again and then +exclaimed: "I ought to have thought of that sooner; I ought +to have telegraphed yesterday! But I was sure I should hear +from them today; and I wanted--oh, I DID so awfully want +to stay!" She threw a troubled look at Darrow. "Do you +happen to remember," she asked, "what time it was when you +posted my letter?" + + + +VII + + +Darrow was still standing on her threshold. As she put the +question he entered the room and closed the door behind him. + +His heart was beating a little faster than usual and he had +no clear idea of what he was about to do or say, beyond the +definite conviction that, whatever passing impulse of +expiation moved him, he would not be fool enough to tell her +that he had not sent her letter. He knew that most +wrongdoing works, on the whole, less mischief than its +useless confession; and this was clearly a case where a +passing folly might be turned, by avowal, into a serious +offense. + +"I'm so sorry--so sorry; but you must let me help you...You +will let me help you?" he said. + +He took her hands and pressed them together between his, +counting on a friendly touch to help out the insufficiency +of words. He felt her yield slightly to his clasp, and +hurried on without giving her time to answer. + +"Isn't it a pity to spoil our good time together by +regretting anything you might have done to prevent our +having it?" + +She drew back, freeing her hands. Her face, losing its look +of appealing confidence, was suddenly sharpened by distrust. + +"You didn't forget to post my letter?" + +Darrow stood before her, constrained and ashamed, and ever +more keenly aware that the betrayal of his distress must be +a greater offense than its concealment. + +"What an insinuation!" he cried, throwing out his hands with +a laugh. + +Her face instantly melted to laughter. "Well, then--I +WON'T be sorry; I won't regret anything except that our +good time is over!" + +The words were so unexpected that they routed all his +resolves. If she had gone on doubting him he could probably +have gone on deceiving her; but her unhesitating acceptance +of his word made him hate the part he was playing. At the +same moment a doubt shot up its serpenthead in his own +bosom. Was it not he rather than she who was childishly +trustful? Was she not almost too ready to take his word, and +dismiss once for all the tiresome question of the letter? +Considering what her experiences must have been, such +trustfulness seemed open to suspicion. But the moment his +eyes fell on her he was ashamed of the thought, and knew it +for what it really was: another pretext to lessen his own +delinquency. + +"Why should our good time be over?" he asked. "Why +shouldn't it last a little longer?" + +She looked up, her lips parted in surprise; but before she +could speak he went on: "I want you to stay with me--I want +you, just for a few days, to have all the things you've +never had. It's not always May and Paris--why not make the +most of them now? You know me--we're not strangers--why +shouldn't you treat me like a friend?" + +While he spoke she had drawn away a little, but her hand +still lay in his. She was pale, and her eyes were fixed on +him in a gaze in which there was neither distrust or +resentment, but only an ingenuous wonder. He was +extraordinarily touched by her expression. + +"Oh, do! You must. Listen: to prove that I'm sincere I'll +tell you...I'll tell you I didn't post your letter...I +didn't post it because I wanted so much to give you a few +good hours...and because I couldn't bear to have you go." + +He had the feeling that the words were being uttered in +spite of him by some malicious witness of the scene, and yet +that he was not sorry to have them spoken. + +The girl had listened to him in silence. She remained +motionless for a moment after he had ceased to speak; then +she snatched away her hand. + +"You didn't post my letter? You kept it back on purpose? And +you tell me so NOW, to prove to me that I'd better put +myself under your protection?" She burst into a laugh that +had in it all the piercing echoes of her Murrett past, and +her face, at the same moment, underwent the same change, +shrinking into a small malevolent white mask in which the +eyes burned black. "Thank you--thank you most awfully for +telling me! And for all your other kind intentions! The +plan's delightful--really quite delightful, and I'm +extremely flattered and obliged." + +She dropped into a seat beside her dressing-table, resting +her chin on her lifted hands, and laughing out at him under +the elf-lock which had shaken itself down over her eyes. + +Her outburst did not offend the young man; its immediate +effect was that of allaying his agitation. The theatrical +touch in her manner made his offense seem more venial than +he had thought it a moment before. + +He drew up a chair and sat down beside her. "After all," he +said, in a tone of good-humoured protest, "I needn't have +told you I'd kept back your letter; and my telling you seems +rather strong proof that I hadn't any very nefarious designs +on you." + +She met this with a shrug, but he did not give her time to +answer. "My designs," he continued with a smile, "were not +nefarious. I saw you'd been through a bad time with Mrs. +Murrett, and that there didn't seem to be much fun ahead for +you; and I didn't see--and I don't yet see--the harm of +trying to give you a few hours of amusement between a +depressing past and a not particularly cheerful future." He +paused again, and then went on, in the same tone of friendly +reasonableness: "The mistake I made was not to tell you this +at once--not to ask you straight out to give me a day or +two, and let me try to make you forget all the things that +are troubling you. I was a fool not to see that if I'd put +it to you in that way you'd have accepted or refused, as you +chose; but that at least you wouldn't have mistaken my +intentions.--Intentions!" He stood up, walked the length of +the room, and turned back to where she still sat motionless, +her elbows propped on the dressing-table, her chin on her +hands. "What rubbish we talk about intentions! The truth is +I hadn't any: I just liked being with you. Perhaps you +don't know how extraordinarily one can like being with +you...I was depressed and adrift myself; and you made me +forget my bothers; and when I found you were going--and +going back to dreariness, as I was--I didn't see why we +shouldn't have a few hours together first; so I left your +letter in my pocket." + +He saw her face melt as she listened, and suddenly she +unclasped her hands and leaned to him. + +"But are YOU unhappy too? Oh, I never understood--I +never dreamed it! I thought you'd always had everything in +the world you wanted!" + +Darrow broke into a laugh at this ingenuous picture of his +state. He was ashamed of trying to better his case by an +appeal to her pity, and annoyed with himself for alluding to +a subject he would rather have kept out of his thoughts. +But her look of sympathy had disarmed him; his heart was +bitter and distracted; she was near him, her eyes were +shining with compassion--he bent over her and kissed her +hand. + +"Forgive me--do forgive me," he said. + +She stood up with a smiling head-shake. "Oh, it's not so +often that people try to give me any pleasure--much less two +whole days of it! I sha'n't forget how kind you've been. I +shall have plenty of time to remember. But this IS good- +bye, you know. I must telegraph at once to say I'm coming." + +"To say you're coming? Then I'm not forgiven?" + +"Oh, you're forgiven--if that's any comfort." + +"It's not, the very least, if your way of proving it is to +go away!" + +She hung her head in meditation. "But I can't stay.--How +CAN I stay?" she broke out, as if arguing with some +unseen monitor. + +"Why can't you? No one knows you're here...No one need ever +know." + +She looked up, and their eyes exchanged meanings for a rapid +minute. Her gaze was as clear as a boy's. "Oh, it's not +THAT," she exclaimed, almost impatiently; "it's not people +I'm afraid of! They've never put themselves out for me--why +on earth should I care about them?" + +He liked her directness as he had never liked it before. +"Well, then, what is it? Not ME, I hope?" + +"No, not you: I like you. It's the money! With me that's +always the root of the matter. I could never yet afford a +treat in my life!" + +Is THAT all?" He laughed, relieved by her naturalness. +"Look here; since we re talking as man to man--can't you +trust me about that too?" + +"Trust you? How do you mean? You'd better not trust +ME!" she laughed back sharply. "I might never be able to +pay up!" + +His gesture brushed aside the allusion. "Money may be the +root of the matter; it can't be the whole of it, between +friends. Don't you think one friend may accept a small +service from another without looking too far ahead or +weighing too many chances? The question turns entirely on +what you think of me. If you like me well enough to be +willing to take a few days' holiday with me, just for the +pleasure of the thing, and the pleasure you'll be giving me, +let's shake hands on it. If you don't like me well enough +we'll shake hands too; only I shall be sorry," he ended. + +"Oh, but I shall be sorry too!" Her face, as she lifted it +to his, looked so small and young that Darrow felt a +fugitive twinge of compunction, instantly effaced by the +excitement of pursuit. + +"Well, then?" He stood looking down on her, his eyes +persuading her. He was now intensely aware that his +nearness was having an effect which made it less and less +necessary for him to choose his words, and he went on, more +mindful of the inflections of his voice than of what he was +actually saying: "Why on earth should we say good-bye if +we're both sorry to? Won't you tell me your reason? It's not +a bit like you to let anything stand in the way of your +saying just what you feel. You mustn't mind offending me, +you know!" + +She hung before him like a leaf on the meeting of cross- +currents, that the next ripple may sweep forward or whirl +back. Then she flung up her head with the odd boyish +movement habitual to her in moments of excitement. "What I +feel? Do you want to know what I feel? That you're giving me +the only chance I've ever had!" + +She turned about on her heel and, dropping into the nearest +chair, sank forward, her face hidden against the dressing- +table. + +Under the folds of her thin summer dress the modelling of +her back and of her lifted arms, and the slight hollow +between her shoulder-blades, recalled the faint curves of a +terra-cotta statuette, some young image of grace hardly more +than sketched in the clay. Darrow, as he stood looking at +her, reflected that her character, for all its seeming +firmness, its flashing edges of "opinion", was probably no +less immature. He had not expected her to yield so suddenly +to his suggestion, or to confess her yielding in that way. +At first he was slightly disconcerted; then he saw how her +attitude simplified his own. Her behaviour had all the +indecision and awkwardness of inexperience. It showed that +she was a child after all; and all he could do--all he had +ever meant to do--was to give her a child's holiday to look +back to. + +For a moment he fancied she was crying; but the next she was +on her feet and had swept round on him a face she must have +turned away only to hide the first rush of her pleasure. + +For a while they shone on each other without speaking; then +she sprang to him and held out both hands. + +"Is it true? Is it really true? Is it really going to happen +to ME?" + +He felt like answering: "You're the very creature to whom it +was bound to happen"; but the words had a double sense that +made him wince, and instead he caught her proffered hands +and stood looking at her across the length of her arms, +without attempting to bend them or to draw her closer. He +wanted her to know how her words had moved him; but his +thoughts were blurred by the rush of the same emotion that +possessed her, and his own words came with an effort. + +He ended by giving her back a laugh as frank as her own, and +declaring, as he dropped her hands: "All that and more too-- +you'll see!" + + + +VIII + + +All day, since the late reluctant dawn, the rain had come +down in torrents. It streamed against Darrow's high-perched +windows, reduced their vast prospect of roofs and chimneys +to a black oily huddle, and filled the room with the drab +twilight of an underground aquarium. + +The streams descended with the regularity of a third day's +rain, when trimming and shuffling are over, and the weather +has settled down to do its worst. There were no variations +of rhythm, no lyrical ups and downs: the grey lines +streaking the panes were as dense and uniform as a page of +unparagraphed narrative. + +George Darrow had drawn his armchair to the fire. The time- +table he had been studying lay on the floor, and he sat +staring with dull acquiescence into the boundless blur of +rain, which affected him like a vast projection of his own +state of mind. Then his eyes travelled slowly about the +room. + +It was exactly ten days since his hurried unpacking had +strewn it with the contents of his portmanteaux. His +brushes and razors were spread out on the blotched marble of +the chest of drawers. A stack of newspapers had accumulated +on the centre table under the "electrolier", and half a +dozen paper novels lay on the mantelpiece among cigar-cases +and toilet bottles; but these traces of his passage had made +no mark on the featureless dulness of the room, its look of +being the makeshift setting of innumerable transient +collocations. There was something sardonic, almost +sinister, in its appearance of having deliberately "made up" +for its anonymous part, all in noncommittal drabs and +browns, with a carpet and paper that nobody would remember, +and chairs and tables as impersonal as railway porters. + +Darrow picked up the time-table and tossed it on to the +table. Then he rose to his feet, lit a cigar and went to +the window. Through the rain he could just discover the +face of a clock in a tall building beyond the railway roofs. +He pulled out his watch, compared the two time-pieces, and +started the hands of his with such a rush that they flew +past the hour and he had to make them repeat the circuit +more deliberately. He felt a quite disproportionate +irritation at the trifling blunder. When he had corrected +it he went back to his chair and threw himself down, leaning +back his head against his hands. Presently his cigar went +out, and he got up, hunted for the matches, lit it again and +returned to his seat. + +The room was getting on his nerves. During the first few +days, while the skies were clear, he had not noticed it, or +had felt for it only the contemptuous indifference of the +traveller toward a provisional shelter. But now that he was +leaving it, was looking at it for the last time, it seemed +to have taken complete possession of his mind, to be soaking +itself into him like an ugly indelible blot. Every detail +pressed itself on his notice with the familiarity of an +accidental confidant: whichever way he turned, he felt the +nudge of a transient intimacy... + +The one fixed point in his immediate future was that his +leave was over and that he must be back at his post in +London the next morning. Within twenty-four hours he would +again be in a daylight world of recognized activities, +himself a busy, responsible, relatively necessary factor in +the big whirring social and official machine. That fixed +obligation was the fact he could think of with the least +discomfort, yet for some unaccountable reason it was the one +on which he found it most difficult to fix his thoughts. +Whenever he did so, the room jerked him back into the circle +of its insistent associations. It was extraordinary with +what a microscopic minuteness of loathing he hated it all: +the grimy carpet and wallpaper, the black marble mantel- +piece, the clock with a gilt allegory under a dusty bell, +the high-bolstered brown-counterpaned bed, the framed card +of printed rules under the electric light switch, and the +door of communication with the next room. He hated the door +most of all... + +At the outset, he had felt no special sense of +responsibility. He was satisfied that he had struck the +right note, and convinced of his power of sustaining it. +The whole incident had somehow seemed, in spite of its +vulgar setting and its inevitable prosaic propinquities, to +be enacting itself in some unmapped region outside the pale +of the usual. It was not like anything that had ever +happened to him before, or in which he had ever pictured +himself as likely to be involved; but that, at first, had +seemed no argument against his fitness to deal with it. + +Perhaps but for the three days' rain he might have got away +without a doubt as to his adequacy. The rain had made all +the difference. It had thrown the whole picture out of +perspective, blotted out the mystery of the remoter planes +and the enchantment of the middle distance, and thrust into +prominence every commonplace fact of the foreground. It was +the kind of situation that was not helped by being thought +over; and by the perversity of circumstance he had been +forced into the unwilling contemplation of its every +aspect... + +His cigar had gone out again, and he threw it into the fire +and vaguely meditated getting up to find another. But the +mere act of leaving his chair seemed to call for a greater +exertion of the will than he was capable of, and he leaned +his head back with closed eyes and listened to the drumming +of the rain. + +A different noise aroused him. It was the opening and +closing of the door leading from the corridor into the +adjoining room. He sat motionless, without opening his +eyes; but now another sight forced itself under his lowered +lids. It was the precise photographic picture of that other +room. Everything in it rose before him and pressed itself +upon his vision with the same acuity of distinctness as the +objects surrounding him. A step sounded on the floor, and +he knew which way the step was directed, what pieces of +furniture it had to skirt, where it would probably pause, +and what was likely to arrest it. He heard another sound, +and recognized it as that of a wet umbrella placed in the +black marble jamb of the chimney-piece, against the hearth. +He caught the creak of a hinge, and instantly differentiated +it as that of the wardrobe against the opposite wall. Then +he heard the mouse-like squeal of a reluctant drawer, and +knew it was the upper one in the chest of drawers beside the +bed: the clatter which followed was caused by the mahogany +toilet-glass jumping on its loosened pivots... + +The step crossed the floor again. It was strange how much +better he knew it than the person to whom it belonged! Now +it was drawing near the door of communication between the +two rooms. He opened his eyes and looked. The step had +ceased and for a moment there was silence. Then he heard a +low knock. He made no response, and after an interval he +saw that the door handle was being tentatively turned. He +closed his eyes once more... + +The door opened, and the step was in the room, coming +cautiously toward him. He kept his eyes shut, relaxing his +body to feign sleep. There was another pause, then a +wavering soft advance, the rustle of a dress behind his +chair, the warmth of two hands pressed for a moment on his +lids. The palms of the hands had the lingering scent of some +stuff that he had bought on the Boulevard...He looked up and +saw a letter falling over his shoulder to his knee... + +"Did I disturb you? I'm so sorry! They gave me this just now +when I came in." + +The letter, before he could catch it, had slipped between +his knees to the floor. It lay there, address upward, at +his feet, and while he sat staring down at the strong +slender characters on the blue-gray envelope an arm reached +out from behind to pick it up. + +"Oh, don't--DON'T" broke from him, and he bent over and +caught the arm. The face above it was close to his. + +"Don't what?" + +----"take the trouble," he stammered. + +He dropped the arm and stooped down. His grasp closed over +the letter, he fingered its thickness and weight and +calculated the number of sheets it must contain. + +Suddenly he felt the pressure of the hand on his shoulder, +and became aware that the face was still leaning over him, +and that in a moment he would have to look up and kiss it... + +He bent forward first and threw the unopened letter into the +middle of the fire. + + + +BOOK II + +IX + + +The light of the October afternoon lay on an old high-roofed +house which enclosed in its long expanse of brick and +yellowish stone the breadth of a grassy court filled with +the shadow and sound of limes. + +From the escutcheoned piers at the entrance of the court a +level drive, also shaded by limes, extended to a white- +barred gate beyond which an equally level avenue of grass, +cut through a wood, dwindled to a blue-green blur against a +sky banked with still white slopes of cloud. + +In the court, half-way between house and drive, a lady +stood. She held a parasol above her head, and looked now at +the house-front, with its double flight of steps meeting +before a glazed door under sculptured trophies, now down the +drive toward the grassy cutting through the wood. Her air +was less of expectancy than of contemplation: she seemed not +so much to be watching for any one, or listening for an +approaching sound, as letting the whole aspect of the place +sink into her while she held herself open to its influence. +Yet it was no less apparent that the scene was not new to +her. There was no eagerness of investigation in her survey: +she seemed rather to be looking about her with eyes to +which, for some intimate inward reason, details long since +familiar had suddenly acquired an unwonted freshness. + +This was in fact the exact sensation of which Mrs. Leath was +conscious as she came forth from the house and descended +into the sunlit court. She had come to meet her step-son, +who was likely to be returning at that hour from an +afternoon's shooting in one of the more distant plantations, +and she carried in her hand the letter which had sent her in +search of him; but with her first step out of the house all +thought of him had been effaced by another series of +impressions. + +The scene about her was known to satiety. She had seen +Givre at all seasons of the year, and for the greater part +of every year, since the far-off day of her marriage; the +day when, ostensibly driving through its gates at her +husband's side, she had actually been carried there on a +cloud of iris-winged visions. + +The possibilities which the place had then represented were +still vividly present to her. The mere phrase "a French +chateau" had called up to her youthful fancy a throng of +romantic associations, poetic, pictorial and emotional; and +the serene face of the old house seated in its park among +the poplar-bordered meadows of middle France, had seemed, on +her first sight of it, to hold out to her a fate as noble +and dignified as its own mien. + +Though she could still call up that phase of feeling it had +long since passed, and the house had for a time become to +her the very symbol of narrowness and monotony. Then, with +the passing of years, it had gradually acquired a less +inimical character, had become, not again a castle of +dreams, evoker of fair images and romantic legend, but the +shell of a life slowly adjusted to its dwelling: the place +one came back to, the place where one had one's duties, +one's habits and one's books, the place one would naturally +live in till one died: a dull house, an inconvenient house, +of which one knew all the defects, the shabbinesses, the +discomforts, but to which one was so used that one could +hardly, after so long a time, think one's self away from it +without suffering a certain loss of identity. + +Now, as it lay before her in the autumn mildness, its +mistress was surprised at her own insensibility. She had +been trying to see the house through the eyes of an old +friend who, the next morning, would be driving up to it for +the first time; and in so doing she seemed to be opening her +own eyes upon it after a long interval of blindness. + +The court was very still, yet full of a latent life: the +wheeling and rustling of pigeons about the rectangular yews +and across the sunny gravel; the sweep of rooks above the +lustrous greyish-purple slates of the roof, and the stir of +the tree-tops as they met the breeze which every day, at +that hour, came punctually up from the river. + +Just such a latent animation glowed in Anna Leath. In every +nerve and vein she was conscious of that equipoise of bliss +which the fearful human heart scarce dares acknowledge. She +was not used to strong or full emotions; but she had always +known that she should not be afraid of them. She was not +afraid now; but she felt a deep inward stillness. + +The immediate effect of the feeling had been to send her +forth in quest of her step-son. She wanted to stroll back +with him and have a quiet talk before they re-entered the +house. It was always easy to talk to him, and at this +moment he was the one person to whom she could have spoken +without fear of disturbing her inner stillness. She was +glad, for all sorts of reasons, that Madame de Chantelle and +Effie were still at Ouchy with the governess, and that she +and Owen had the house to themselves. And she was glad that +even he was not yet in sight. She wanted to be alone a +little longer; not to think, but to let the long slow waves +of joy break over her one by one. + +She walked out of the court and sat down on one of the +benches that bordered the drive. From her seat she had a +diagonal view of the long house-front and of the domed +chapel terminating one of the wings. Beyond a gate in the +court-yard wall the flower-garden drew its dark-green +squares and raised its statues against the yellowing +background of the park. In the borders only a few late +pinks and crimsons smouldered, but a peacock strutting in +the sun seemed to have gathered into his out-spread fan all +the summer glories of the place. + +In Mrs. Leath's hand was the letter which had opened her +eyes to these things, and a smile rose to her lips at the +mere feeling of the paper between her fingers. The thrill it +sent through her gave a keener edge to every sense. She +felt, saw, breathed the shining world as though a thin +impenetrable veil had suddenly been removed from it. + +Just such a veil, she now perceived, had always hung between +herself and life. It had been like the stage gauze which +gives an illusive air of reality to the painted scene behind +it, yet proves it, after all, to be no more than a painted +scene. + +She had been hardly aware, in her girlhood, of differing +from others in this respect. In the well-regulated well-fed +Summers world the unusual was regarded as either immoral or +ill-bred, and people with emotions were not visited. +Sometimes, with a sense of groping in a topsy-turvy +universe, Anna had wondered why everybody about her seemed +to ignore all the passions and sensations which formed the +stuff of great poetry and memorable action. In a community +composed entirely of people like her parents and her +parents' friends she did not see how the magnificent things +one read about could ever have happened. She was sure that +if anything of the kind had occurred in her immediate circle +her mother would have consulted the family clergyman, and +her father perhaps even have rung up the police; and her +sense of humour compelled her to own that, in the given +conditions, these precautions might not have been +unjustified. + +Little by little the conditions conquered her, and she +learned to regard the substance of life as a mere canvas for +the embroideries of poet and painter, and its little swept +and fenced and tended surface as its actual substance. It +was in the visioned region of action and emotion that her +fullest hours were spent; but it hardly occurred to her that +they might be translated into experience, or connected with +anything likely to happen to a young lady living in West +Fifty- fifth Street. + +She perceived, indeed, that other girls, leading outwardly +the same life as herself, and seemingly unaware of her world +of hidden beauty, were yet possessed of some vital secret +which escaped her. There seemed to be a kind of freemasonry +between them; they were wider awake than she, more alert, +and surer of their wants if not of their opinions. She +supposed they were "cleverer", and accepted her inferiority +good-humouredly, half aware, within herself, of a reserve of +unused power which the others gave no sign of possessing. + +This partly consoled her for missing so much of what made +their "good time"; but the resulting sense of exclusion, of +being somehow laughingly but firmly debarred from a share of +their privileges, threw her back on herself and deepened the +reserve which made envious mothers cite her as a model of +ladylike repression. +Love, she told herself, would one day release her from this +spell of unreality. She was persuaded that the sublime +passion was the key to the enigma; but it was difficult to +relate her conception of love to the forms it wore in her +experience. Two or three of the girls she had envied for +their superior acquaintance with the arts of life had +contracted, in the course of time, what were variously +described as "romantic" or "foolish" marriages; one even +made a runaway match, and languished for a while under a +cloud of social reprobation. Here, then, was passion in +action, romance converted to reality; yet the heroines of +these exploits returned from them untransfigured, and their +husbands were as dull as ever when one had to sit next to +them at dinner. + +Her own case, of course, would be different. Some day she +would find the magic bridge between West Fifty-fifth Street +and life; once or twice she had even fancied that the clue +was in her hand. The first time was when she had met young +Darrow. She recalled even now the stir of the encounter. +But his passion swept over her like a wind that shakes the +roof of the forest without reaching its still glades or +rippling its hidden pools. He was extraordinarily +intelligent and agreeable, and her heart beat faster when he +was with her. He had a tall fair easy presence and a mind +in which the lights of irony played pleasantly through the +shades of feeling. She liked to hear his voice almost as +much as to listen to what he was saying, and to listen to +what he was saying almost as much as to feel that he was +looking at her; but he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted to +talk to him about books and pictures, and have him insinuate +the eternal theme of their love into every subject they +discussed. + +Whenever they were apart a reaction set in. She wondered +how she could have been so cold, called herself a prude and +an idiot, questioned if any man could really care for her, +and got up in the dead of night to try new ways of doing her +hair. But as soon as he reappeared her head straightened +itself on her slim neck and she sped her little shafts of +irony, or flew her little kites of erudition, while hot and +cold waves swept over her, and the things she really wanted +to say choked in her throat and burned the palms of her +hands. + +Often she told herself that any silly girl who had waltzed +through a season would know better than she how to attract a +man and hold him; but when she said "a man" she did not +really mean George Darrow. + +Then one day, at a dinner, she saw him sitting next to one +of the silly girls in question: the heroine of the elopement +which had shaken West Fifty-fifth Street to its base. The +young lady had come back from her adventure no less silly +than when she went; and across the table the partner of her +flight, a fat young man with eye-glasses, sat stolidly +eating terrapin and talking about polo and investments. + +The young woman was undoubtedly as silly as ever; yet after +watching her for a few minutes Miss Summers perceived that +she had somehow grown luminous, perilous, obscurely menacing +to nice girls and the young men they intended eventually to +accept. Suddenly, at the sight, a rage of possessorship +awoke in her. She must save Darrow, assert her right to him +at any price. Pride and reticence went down in a hurricane +of jealousy. She heard him laugh, and there was something +new in his laugh...She watched him talking, talking...He sat +slightly sideways, a faint smile beneath his lids, lowering +his voice as he lowered it when he talked to her. She +caught the same inflections, but his eyes were different. +It would have offended her once if he had looked at her like +that. Now her one thought was that none but she had a right +to be so looked at. And that girl of all others! What +illusions could he have about a girl who, hardly a year ago, +had made a fool of herself over the fat young man stolidly +eating terrapin across the table? If that was where romance +and passion ended, it was better to take to district +visiting or algebra! + +All night she lay awake and wondered: "What was she saying +to him? How shall I learn to say such things?" and she +decided that her heart would tell her--that the next time +they were alone together the irresistible word would spring +to her lips. He came the next day, and they were alone, and +all she found was: "I didn't know that you and Kitty Mayne +were such friends." + +He answered with indifference that he didn't know it either, +and in the reaction of relief she declared: "She's certainly +ever so much prettier than she was..." + +"She's rather good fun," he admitted, as though he had not +noticed her other advantages; and suddenly Anna saw in his +eyes the look she had seen there the previous evening. + +She felt as if he were leagues and leagues away from her. +All her hopes dissolved, and she was conscious of sitting +rigidly, with high head and straight lips, while the +irresistible word fled with a last wing-beat into the golden +mist of her illusions... + + +She was still quivering with the pain and bewilderment of +this adventure when Fraser Leath appeared. She met him +first in Italy, where she was travelling with her parents; +and the following winter he came to New York. In Italy he +had seemed interesting: in New York he became remarkable. +He seldom spoke of his life in Europe, and let drop but the +most incidental allusions to the friends, the tastes, the +pursuits which filled his cosmopolitan days; but in the +atmosphere of West Fifty-fifth Street he seemed the +embodiment of a storied past. He presented Miss Summers +with a prettily-bound anthology of the old French poets and, +when she showed a discriminating pleasure in the gift, +observed with his grave smile: "I didn't suppose I should +find any one here who would feel about these things as I +do." On another occasion he asked her acceptance of a half- +effaced eighteenth century pastel which he had surprisingly +picked up in a New York auction-room. "I know no one but you +who would really appreciate it," he explained. + +He permitted himself no other comments, but these conveyed +with sufficient directness that he thought her worthy of a +different setting. That she should be so regarded by a man +living in an atmosphere of art and beauty, and esteeming +them the vital elements of life, made her feel for the first +time that she was understood. Here was some one whose scale +of values was the same as hers, and who thought her opinion +worth hearing on the very matters which they both considered +of supreme importance. The discovery restored her self- +confidence, and she revealed herself to Mr. Leath as she had +never known how to reveal herself to Darrow. + +As the courtship progressed, and they grew more +confidential, her suitor surprised and delighted her by +little explosions of revolutionary sentiment. He said: +"Shall you mind, I wonder, if I tell you that you live in a +dread-fully conventional atmosphere?" and, seeing that she +manifestly did not mind: "Of course I shall say things now +and then that will horrify your dear delightful parents--I +shall shock them awfully, I warn you." + +In confirmation of this warning he permitted himself an +occasional playful fling at the regular church-going of Mr. +and Mrs. Summers, at the innocuous character of the +literature in their library, and at their guileless +appreciations in art. He even ventured to banter Mrs. +Summers on her refusal to receive the irrepressible Kitty +Mayne who, after a rapid passage with George Darrow, was now +involved in another and more flagrant adventure. + +"In Europe, you know, the husband is regarded as the only +judge in such matters. As long as he accepts the situation +--" Mr. Leath explained to Anna, who took his view the more +emphatically in order to convince herself that, personally, +she had none but the most tolerant sentiments toward the +lady. + +The subversiveness of Mr. Leath's opinions was enhanced by +the distinction of his appearance and the reserve of his +manners. He was like the anarchist with a gardenia in his +buttonhole who figures in the higher melodrama. Every word, +every allusion, every note of his agreeably-modulated voice, +gave Anna a glimpse of a society at once freer and finer, +which observed the traditional forms but had discarded the +underlying prejudices; whereas the world she knew had +discarded many of the forms and kept almost all the +prejudices. + +In such an atmosphere as his an eager young woman, curious +as to all the manifestations of life, yet instinctively +desiring that they should come to her in terms of beauty and +fine feeling, must surely find the largest scope for self- +expression. Study, travel, the contact of the world, the +comradeship of a polished and enlightened mind, would +combine to enrich her days and form her character; and it +was only in the rare moments when Mr. Leath's symmetrical +blond mask bent over hers, and his kiss dropped on her like +a cold smooth pebble, that she questioned the completeness +of the joys he offered. + +There had been a time when the walls on which her gaze now +rested had shed a glare of irony on these early dreams. In +the first years of her marriage the sober symmetry of Givre +had suggested only her husband's neatly-balanced mind. It +was a mind, she soon learned, contentedly absorbed in +formulating the conventions of the unconventional. West +Fifty-fifth Street was no more conscientiously concerned +than Givre with the momentous question of "what people did"; +it was only the type of deed investigated that was +different. Mr. Leath collected his social instances with +the same seriousness and patience as his snuff-boxes. He +exacted a rigid conformity to his rules of non-conformity +and his scepticism had the absolute accent of a dogma. He +even cherished certain exceptions to his rules as the book- +collector prizes a "defective" first edition. The +Protestant church-going of Anna's parents had provoked his +gentle sarcasm; but he prided himself on his mother's +devoutness, because Madame de Chantelle, in embracing her +second husband's creed, had become part of a society which +still observes the outward rites of piety. + +Anna, in fact, had discovered in her amiable and elegant +mother-in-law an unexpected embodiment of the West Fifty- +fifth Street ideal. Mrs. Summers and Madame de Chantelle, +however strongly they would have disagreed as to the +authorized source of Christian dogma, would have found +themselves completely in accord on all the momentous +minutiae of drawing-room conduct; yet Mr. Leath treated his +mother's foibles with a respect which Anna's experience of +him forbade her to attribute wholly to filial affection. + +In the early days, when she was still questioning the Sphinx +instead of trying to find an answer to it, she ventured to +tax her husband with his inconsistency. + +"You say your mother won't like it if I call on that amusing +little woman who came here the other day, and was let in by +mistake; but Madame de Chantelle tells me she lives with her +husband, and when mother refused to visit Kitty Mayne you +said----" + +Mr. Leath's smile arrested her. "My dear child, I don't +pretend to apply the principles of logic to my poor mother's +prejudices." + +"But if you admit that they ARE prejudices----?" + +"There are prejudices and prejudices. My mother, of course, +got hers from Monsieur de Chantelle, and they seem to me as +much in their place in this house as the pot-pourri in your +hawthorn jar. They preserve a social tradition of which I +should be sorry to lose the least perfume. Of course I +don't expect you, just at first, to feel the difference, to +see the nuance. In the case of little Madame de +Vireville, for instance: you point out that she's still +under her husband's roof. Very true; and if she were merely +a Paris acquaintance--especially if you had met her, as one +still might, in the RIGHT KIND of house in Paris--I +should be the last to object to your visiting her. But in +the country it's different. Even the best provincial +society is what you would call narrow: I don't deny it; and +if some of our friends met Madame de Vireville at Givre-- +well, it would produce a bad impression. You're inclined to +ridicule such considerations, but gradually you'll come to +see their importance; and meanwhile, do trust me when I ask +you to be guided by my mother. It is always well for a +stranger in an old society to err a little on the side of +what you call its prejudices but I should rather describe as +its traditions." + +After that she no longer tried to laugh or argue her husband +out of his convictions. They WERE convictions, and +therefore unassailable. Nor was any insincerity implied in +the fact that they sometimes seemed to coincide with hers. +There were occasions when he really did look at things as +she did; but for reasons so different as to make the +distance between them all the greater. Life, to Mr. Leath, +was like a walk through a carefully classified museum, +where, in moments of doubt, one had only to look at the +number and refer to one's catalogue; to his wife it was like +groping about in a huge dark lumber-room where the exploring +ray of curiosity lit up now some shape of breathing beauty +and now a mummy's grin. + +In the first bewilderment of her new state these discoveries +had had the effect of dropping another layer of gauze +between herself and reality. She seemed farther than ever +removed from the strong joys and pangs for which she felt +herself made. She did not adopt her husband's views, but +insensibly she began to live his life. She tried to throw a +compensating ardour into the secret excursions of her +spirit, and thus the old vicious distinction between romance +and reality was re-established for her, and she resigned +herself again to the belief that "real life" was neither +real nor alive. + +The birth of her little girl swept away this delusion. At +last she felt herself in contact with the actual business of +living: but even this impression was not enduring. + +Everything but the irreducible crude fact of child-bearing +assumed, in the Leath household, the same ghostly tinge of +unreality. Her husband, at the time, was all that his own +ideal of a husband required. He was attentive, and even +suitably moved: but as he sat by her bedside, and +thoughtfully proffered to her the list of people who had +"called to enquire", she looked first at him, and then at +the child between them, and wondered at the blundering +alchemy of Nature... + +With the exception of the little girl herself, everything +connected with that time had grown curiously remote and +unimportant. The days that had moved so slowly as they +passed seemed now to have plunged down head-long steeps of +time; and as she sat in the autumn sun, with Darrow's letter +in her hand, the history of Anna Leath appeared to its +heroine like some grey shadowy tale that she might have read +in an old book, one night as she was falling asleep... + + + +X + + +Two brown blurs emerging from the farther end of the wood- +vista gradually defined themselves as her step-son and an +attendant game-keeper. They grew slowly upon the bluish +background, with occasional delays and re-effacements, and +she sat still, waiting till they should reach the gate at +the end of the drive, where the keeper would turn off to his +cottage and Owen continue on to the house. + +She watched his approach with a smile. From the first days +of her marriage she had been drawn to the boy, but it was +not until after Effie's birth that she had really begun to +know him. The eager observation of her own child had shown +her how much she had still to learn about the slight fair +boy whom the holidays periodically restored to Givre. Owen, +even then, both physically and morally, furnished her with +the oddest of commentaries on his father's mien and mind. +He would never, the family sighingly recognized, be nearly +as handsome as Mr. Leath; but his rather charmingly +unbalanced face, with its brooding forehead and petulant +boyish smile, suggested to Anna what his father's +countenance might have been could one have pictured its neat +features disordered by a rattling breeze. She even pushed +the analogy farther, and descried in her step-son's mind a +quaintly-twisted reflection of her husband's. With his +bursts of door-slamming activity, his fits of bookish +indolence, his crude revolutionary dogmatizing and his +flashes of precocious irony, the boy was not unlike a +boisterous embodiment of his father's theories. It was as +though Fraser Leath's ideas, accustomed to hang like +marionettes on their pegs, should suddenly come down and +walk. There were moments, indeed, when Owen's humours must +have suggested to his progenitor the gambols of an infant +Frankenstein; but to Anna they were the voice of her secret +rebellions, and her tenderness to her step-son was partly +based on her severity toward herself. As he had the courage +she had lacked, so she meant him to have the chances she had +missed; and every effort she made for him helped to keep her +own hopes alive. + +Her interest in Owen led her to think more often of his +mother, and sometimes she would slip away and stand alone +before her predecessor's portrait. Since her arrival at +Givre the picture--a "full-length" by a once fashionable +artist--had undergone the successive displacements of an +exiled consort removed farther and farther from the throne; +and Anna could not help noting that these stages coincided +with the gradual decline of the artist's fame. She had a +fancy that if his credit had been in the ascendant the first +Mrs. Leath might have continued to throne over the drawing- +room mantel- piece, even to the exclusion of her successor's +effigy. Instead of this, her peregrinations had finally +landed her in the shrouded solitude of the billiard-room, an +apartment which no one ever entered, but where it was +understood that "the light was better," or might have been +if the shutters had not been always closed. + +Here the poor lady, elegantly dressed, and seated in the +middle of a large lonely canvas, in the blank contemplation +of a gilt console, had always seemed to Anna to be waiting +for visitors who never came. + +"Of course they never came, you poor thing! I wonder how +long it took you to find out that they never would?" Anna +had more than once apostrophized her, with a derision +addressed rather to herself than to the dead; but it was +only after Effie's birth that it occurred to her to study +more closely the face in the picture, and speculate on the +kind of visitors that Owen's mother might have hoped for. + +"She certainly doesn't look as if they would have been the +same kind as mine: but there's no telling, from a portrait +that was so obviously done 'to please the family', and that +leaves Owen so unaccounted for. Well, they never came, the +visitors; they never came; and she died of it. She died of +it long before they buried her: I'm certain of that. Those +are stone-dead eyes in the picture...The loneliness must +have been awful, if even Owen couldn't keep her from dying +of it. And to feel it so she must have HAD feelings-- +real live ones, the kind that twitch and tug. And all she +had to look at all her life was a gilt console--yes, that's +it, a gilt console screwed to the wall! That's exactly and +absolutely what he is!" + +She did not mean, if she could help it, that either Effie or +Owen should know that loneliness, or let her know it again. +They were three, now, to keep each other warm, and she +embraced both children in the same passion of motherhood, as +though one were not enough to shield her from her +predecessor's fate. + +Sometimes she fancied that Owen Leath's response was warmer +than that of her own child. But then Effie was still hardly +more than a baby, and Owen, from the first, had been almost +"old enough to understand": certainly DID understand +now, in a tacit way that yet perpetually spoke to her. This +sense of his understanding was the deepest element in their +feeling for each other. There were so many things between +them that were never spoken of, or even indirectly alluded +to, yet that, even in their occasional discussions and +differences, formed the unadduced arguments making for final +agreement... + +Musing on this, she continued to watch his approach; and her +heart began to beat a little faster at the thought of what +she had to say to him. But when he reached the gate she saw +him pause, and after a moment he turned aside as if to gain +a cross-road through the park. + +She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not see +her. No doubt he meant to go back with the gamekeeper, +perhaps to the kennels, to see a retriever who had hurt his +leg. Suddenly she was seized by the whim to overtake him. +She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into her +bodice, and catching up her skirts began to run. + +She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness +of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard since +she had romped with Owen in his school-days; nor did she +know what impulse moved her now. She only knew that run she +must, that no other motion, short of flight, would have been +buoyant enough for her humour. She seemed to be keeping +pace with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily +expression to the lyric rush of her thoughts. The earth +always felt elastic under her, and she had a conscious joy +in treading it; but never had it been as soft and springy as +today. It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went, +so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in +dreams, of skimming miraculously over short bright waves. +The air, too, seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping +by on its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp +perfumes of the failing day. She panted to herself: "This +is nonsense!" her blood hummed back: "But it's glorious!" +and she sped on till she saw that Owen had caught sight of +her and was striding back in her direction. + +Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her hands +clasped against the letter in her breast. + +"No, I'm not mad," she called out; "but there's something in +the air today--don't you feel it?--And I wanted to have a +little talk with you," she added as he came up to her, +smiling at him and linking her arm in his. + +He smiled back, but above the smile she saw the shade of +anxiety which, for the last two months, had kept its fixed +line between his handsome eyes. + +"Owen, don't look like that! I don't want you to!" she said +imperiously. + +He laughed. "You said that exactly like Effie. What do you +want me to do? To race with you as I do Effie? But I +shouldn't have a show!" he protested, still with the little +frown between his eyes. + +"Where are you going?" she asked. + +"To the kennels. But there's not the least need. The vet +has seen Garry and he's all right. If there's anything you +wanted to tell me----" + +"Did I say there was? I just came out to meet you--I wanted +to know if you'd had good sport." + +The shadow dropped on him again. "None at all. The fact is +I didn't try. Jean and I have just been knocking about in +the woods. I wasn't in a sanguinary mood." + +They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly of a +height that keeping step came as naturally to them as +breathing. Anna stole another look at the young face on a +level with her own. + +"You DID say there was something you wanted to tell me," +her step-son began after a pause. + +"Well, there is." She slackened her pace involuntarily, and +they came to a pause and stood facing each other under the +limes. + +"Is Darrow coming?" he asked. + +She seldom blushed, but at the question a sudden heat +suffused her. She held her head high. + +"Yes: he's coming. I've just heard. He arrives to-morrow. +But that's not----" She saw her blunder and tried to rectify +it. "Or rather, yes, in a way it is my reason for wanting +to speak to you----" + +"Because he's coming?" + +"Because he's not yet here." + +"It's about him, then?" + +He looked at her kindly, half-humourously, an almost +fraternal wisdom in his smile. + +"About----? No, no: I meant that I wanted to speak today +because it's our last day alone together." + +"Oh, I see." He had slipped his hands into the pockets of +his tweed shooting jacket and lounged along at her side, his +eyes bent on the moist ruts of the drive, as though the +matter had lost all interest for him. + +"Owen----" + +He stopped again and faced her. "Look here, my dear, it's +no sort of use." + +"What's no use?" + +"Anything on earth you can any of you say." + +She challenged him: "Am I one of 'any of you'?" + +He did not yield. "Well, then--anything on earth that even +YOU can say." +"You don't in the least know what I can say--or what I mean +to." + +"Don't I, generally?" + +She gave him this point, but only to make another. "Yes; but +this is particularly. I want to say...Owen, you've been +admirable all through." + +He broke into a laugh in which the odd elder-brotherly note +was once more perceptible. + +"Admirable," she emphasized. "And so has SHE." + +"Oh, and so have you to HER!" His voice broke down to +boyishness. "I've never lost sight of that for a minute. +It's been altogether easier for her, though," he threw off +presently. + +"On the whole, I suppose it has. Well----" she summed up +with a laugh, "aren't you all the better pleased to be told +you've behaved as well as she?" + +"Oh, you know, I've not done it for you," he tossed back at +her, without the least note of hostility in the affected +lightness of his tone. + +"Haven't you, though, perhaps--the least bit? Because, after +all, you knew I understood?" + +"You've been awfully kind about pretending to." + +She laughed. "You don't believe me? You must remember I had +your grandmother to consider." + +"Yes: and my father--and Effie, I suppose--and the outraged +shades of Givre!" He paused, as if to lay more stress on the +boyish sneer: "Do you likewise include the late Monsieur de +Chantelle?" + +His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust. She +went on, in the same tone of affectionate persuasion: "Yes: +I must have seemed to you too subject to Givre. Perhaps I +have been. But you know that was not my real object in +asking you to wait, to say nothing to your grandmother +before her return." + +He considered. "Your real object, of course, was to gain +time." + +"Yes--but for whom? Why not for YOU?" + +"For me?" He flushed up quickly. "You don't mean----?" + +She laid her hand on his arm and looked gravely into his +handsome eyes. + +"I mean that when your grandmother gets back from Ouchy I +shall speak to her----" +"You'll speak to her...?" + +"Yes; if only you'll promise to give me time----" + +"Time for her to send for Adelaide Painter?" + +"Oh, she'll undoubtedly send for Adelaide Painter!" + +The allusion touched a spring of mirth in both their minds, +and they exchanged a laughing look. + +"Only you must promise not to rush things. You must give me +time to prepare Adelaide too," Mrs. Leath went on. + +"Prepare her too?" He drew away for a better look at her. +"Prepare her for what?" + +"Why, to prepare your grandmother! For your marriage. Yes, +that's what I mean. I'm going to see you through, you know +----" + +His feint of indifference broke down and he caught her hand. +"Oh, you dear divine thing! I didn't dream----" + +"I know you didn't." She dropped her gaze and began to walk +on slowly. "I can't say you've convinced me of the wisdom +of the step. Only I seem to see that other things matter +more--and that not missing things matters most. Perhaps +I've changed--or YOUR not changing has convinced me. +I'm certain now that you won't budge. And that was really +all I ever cared about." + +"Oh, as to not budging--I told you so months ago: you might +have been sure of that! And how can you be any surer today +than yesterday?" + +"I don't know. I suppose one learns something every day---- +" + +"Not at Givre!" he laughed, and shot a half-ironic look at +her. "But you haven't really BEEN at Givre lately--not +for months! Don't you suppose I've noticed that, my dear?" + +She echoed his laugh to merge it in an undenying sigh. "Poor +Givre..." + +"Poor empty Givre! With so many rooms full and yet not a +soul in it--except of course my grandmother, who is its +soul!" + +They had reached the gateway of the court and stood looking +with a common accord at the long soft-hued facade on which +the autumn light was dying. "It looks so made to be happy +in----" she murmured. + +"Yes--today, today!" He pressed her arm a little. "Oh, you +darling--to have given it that look for me!" He paused, and +then went on in a lower voice: "Don't you feel we owe it to +the poor old place to do what we can to give it that look? +You, too, I mean? Come, let's make it grin from wing to +wing! I've such a mad desire to say outrageous things to it +--haven't you? After all, in old times there must have been +living people here!" + +Loosening her arm from his she continued to gaze up at the +house-front, which seemed, in the plaintive decline of +light, to send her back the mute appeal of something doomed. + +"It IS beautiful," she said. + +"A beautiful memory! Quite perfect to take out and turn over +when I'm grinding at the law in New York, and you're----" He +broke off and looked at her with a questioning smile. +"Come! Tell me. You and I don't have to say things to talk +to each other. When you turn suddenly absentminded and +mysterious I always feel like saying: 'Come back. All is +discovered'." + +She returned his smile. "You know as much as I know. I +promise you that." + +He wavered, as if for the first time uncertain how far he +might go. "I don't know Darrow as much as you know him," he +presently risked. + +She frowned a little. "You said just now we didn't need to +say things" + +"Was I speaking? I thought it was your eyes----" He +caught her by both elbows and spun her halfway round, so +that the late sun shed a betraying gleam on her face. +"They're such awfully conversational eyes! Don't you suppose +they told me long ago why it's just today you've made up +your mind that people have got to live their own lives--even +at Givre?" + + + +XI + + +"This is the south terrace," Anna said. "Should you like to +walk down to the river?" + +She seemed to listen to herself speaking from a far-off airy +height, and yet to be wholly gathered into the circle of +consciousness which drew its glowing ring about herself and +Darrow. To the aerial listener her words sounded flat and +colourless, but to the self within the ring each one beat +with a separate heart. + +It was the day after Darrow's arrival, and he had come down +early, drawn by the sweetness of the light on the lawns and +gardens below his window. Anna had heard the echo of his +step on the stairs, his pause in the stone- flagged hall, +his voice as he asked a servant where to find her. She was +at the end of the house, in the brown-panelled sitting-room +which she frequented at that season because it caught the +sunlight first and kept it longest. She stood near the +window, in the pale band of brightness, arranging some +salmon-pink geraniums in a shallow porcelain bowl. Every +sensation of touch and sight was thrice-alive in her. The +grey- green fur of the geranium leaves caressed her fingers +and the sunlight wavering across the irregular surface of +the old parquet floor made it seem as bright and shifting as +the brown bed of a stream. + +Darrow stood framed in the door-way of the farthest drawing- +room, a light-grey figure against the black and white +flagging of the hall; then he began to move toward her down +the empty pale-panelled vista, crossing one after another +the long reflections which a projecting cabinet or screen +cast here and there upon the shining floors. + +As he drew nearer, his figure was suddenly displaced by that +of her husband, whom, from the same point, she had so often +seen advancing down the same perspective. Straight, spare, +erect, looking to right and left with quick precise turns of +the head, and stopping now and then to straighten a chair or +alter the position of a vase, Fraser Leath used to march +toward her through the double file of furniture like a +general reviewing a regiment drawn up for his inspection. +At a certain point, midway across the second room, he always +stopped before the mantel-piece of pinkish-yellow marble and +looked at himself in the tall garlanded glass that +surmounted it. She could not remember that he had ever +found anything to straighten or alter in his own studied +attire, but she had never known him to omit the inspection +when he passed that particular mirror. + +When it was over he continued more briskly on his way, and +the resulting expression of satisfaction was still on his +face when he entered the oak sitting-room to greet his +wife... + +The spectral projection of this little daily scene hung but +for a moment before Anna, but in that moment she had time to +fling a wondering glance across the distance between her +past and present. Then the footsteps of the present came +close, and she had to drop the geraniums to give her hand to +Darrow... + +"Yes, let us walk down to the river." + +They had neither of them, as yet, found much to say to each +other. Darrow had arrived late on the previous afternoon, +and during the evening they had had between them Owen Leath +and their own thoughts. Now they were alone for the first +time and the fact was enough in itself. Yet Anna was +intensely aware that as soon as they began to talk more +intimately they would feel that they knew each other less +well. + +They passed out onto the terrace and down the steps to the +gravel walk below. The delicate frosting of dew gave the +grass a bluish shimmer, and the sunlight, sliding in emerald +streaks along the tree-boles, gathered itself into great +luminous blurs at the end of the wood-walks, and hung above +the fields a watery glory like the ring about an autumn +moon. + +"It's good to be here," Darrow said. + +They took a turn to the left and stopped for a moment to +look back at the long pink house-front, plainer, friendlier, +less adorned than on the side toward the court. So +prolonged yet delicate had been the friction of time upon +its bricks that certain expanses had the bloom and texture +of old red velvet, and the patches of gold lichen spreading +over them looked like the last traces of a dim embroidery. +The dome of the chapel, with its gilded cross, rose above +one wing, and the other ended in a conical pigeon-house, +above which the birds were flying, lustrous and slatey, +their breasts merged in the blue of the roof when they +dropped down on it. + +"And this is where you've been all these years." + +They turned away and began to walk down a long tunnel of +yellowing trees. Benches with mossy feet stood against the +mossy edges of the path, and at its farther end it widened +into a circle about a basin rimmed with stone, in which the +opaque water strewn with leaves looked like a slab of gold- +flecked agate. The path, growing narrower, wound on +circuitously through the woods, between slender serried +trunks twined with ivy. Patches of blue appeared above them +through the dwindling leaves, and presently the trees drew +back and showed the open fields along the river. + +They walked on across the fields to the tow-path. In a +curve of the wall some steps led up to a crumbling pavilion +with openings choked with ivy. Anna and Darrow seated +themselves on the bench projecting from the inner wall of +the pavilion and looked across the river at the slopes +divided into blocks of green and fawn-colour, and at the +chalk-tinted village lifting its squat church-tower and grey +roofs against the precisely drawn lines of the landscape. +Anna sat silent, so intensely aware of Darrow's nearness +that there was no surprise in the touch he laid on her hand. +They looked at each other, and he smiled and said: "There +are to be no more obstacles now." + +"Obstacles?" The word startled her. "What obstacles?" + +"Don't you remember the wording of the telegram that turned +me back last May? 'Unforeseen obstacle': that was it. What +was the earth-shaking problem, by the way? Finding a +governess for Effie, wasn't it?" + +"But I gave you my reason: the reason why it was an +obstacle. I wrote you fully about it." + +"Yes, I know you did." He lifted her hand and kissed it. +"How far off it all seems, and how little it all matters +today!" + +She looked at him quickly. "Do you feel that? I suppose I'm +different. I want to draw all those wasted months into +today--to make them a part of it." + +"But they are, to me. You reach back and take everything-- +back to the first days of all." + +She frowned a little, as if struggling with an inarticulate +perplexity. "It's curious how, in those first days, too, +something that I didn't understand came between us." + +"Oh, in those days we neither of us understood, did we? It's +part of what's called the bliss of being young." + +"Yes, I thought that, too: thought it, I mean, in looking +back. But it couldn't, even then, have been as true of you +as of me; and now----" + +"Now," he said, "the only thing that matters is that we're +sitting here together." + +He dismissed the rest with a lightness that might have +seemed conclusive evidence of her power over him. But she +took no pride in such triumphs. It seemed to her that she +wanted his allegiance and his adoration not so much for +herself as for their mutual love, and that in treating +lightly any past phase of their relation he took something +from its present beauty. The colour rose to her face. + +"Between you and me everything matters." + +"Of course!" She felt the unperceiving sweetness of his +smile. "That's why," he went on, "'everything,' for me, is +here and now: on this bench, between you and me." + +She caught at the phrase. "That's what I meant: it's here +and now; we can't get away from it." + +"Get away from it? Do you want to? AGAIN?" + +Her heart was beating unsteadily. Something in her, +fitfully and with reluctance, struggled to free itself, but +the warmth of his nearness penetrated every sense as the +sunlight steeped the landscape. Then, suddenly, she felt +that she wanted no less than the whole of her happiness. + +"'Again'? But wasn't it YOU, the last time----?" + +She paused, the tremor in her of Psyche holding up the lamp. +But in the interrogative light of her pause her companion's +features underwent no change. + +"The last time? Last spring? But it was you who--for the +best of reasons, as you've told me--turned me back from your +very door last spring!" + +She saw that he was good-humouredly ready to "thresh out," +for her sentimental satisfaction, a question which, for his +own, Time had so conclusively dealt with; and the sense of +his readiness reassured her. + +"I wrote as soon as I could," she rejoined. "I explained +the delay and asked you to come. And you never even +answered my letter." + +"It was impossible to come then. I had to go back to my +post." + +"And impossible to write and tell me so?" + +"Your letter was a long time coming. I had waited a week-- +ten days. I had some excuse for thinking, when it came, +that you were in no great hurry for an answer." + +"You thought that--really--after reading it?" + +"I thought it." + +Her heart leaped up to her throat. "Then why are you here +today?" + +He turned on her with a quick look of wonder. "God knows-- +if you can ask me that!" + +"You see I was right to say I didn't understand." + +He stood up abruptly and stood facing her, blocking the view +over the river and the checkered slopes. "Perhaps I might +say so too." + +"No, no: we must neither of us have any reason for saying it +again." She looked at him gravely. "Surely you and I +needn't arrange the lights before we show ourselves to each +other. I want you to see me just as I am, with all my +irrational doubts and scruples; the old ones and the new +ones too." + +He came back to his seat beside her. "Never mind the old +ones. They were justified--I'm willing to admit it. With +the governess having suddenly to be packed off, and Effie on +your hands, and your mother-in-law ill, I see the +impossibility of your letting me come. I even see that, at +the moment, it was difficult to write and explain. But what +does all that matter now? The new scruples are the ones I +want to tackle." + +Again her heart trembled. She felt her happiness so near, +so sure, that to strain it closer might be like a child's +crushing a pet bird in its caress. But her very security +urged her on. For so long her doubts had been knife-edged: +now they had turned into bright harmless toys that she could +toss and catch without peril! + +"You didn't come, and you didn't answer my letter; and after +waiting four months I wrote another." +"And I answered that one; and I'm here." + +"Yes." She held his eyes. "But in my last letter I repeated +exactly what I'd said in the first--the one I wrote you last +June. I told you then that I was ready to give you the +answer to what you'd asked me in London; and in telling you +that, I told you what the answer was." + +"My dearest! My dearest!" Darrow murmured. + +"You ignored that letter. All summer you made no sign. And +all I ask now is, that you should frankly tell me why." + +"I can only repeat what I've just said. I was hurt and +unhappy and I doubted you. I suppose if I'd cared less I +should have been more confident. I cared so much that I +couldn't risk another failure. For you'd made me feel that +I'd miserably failed. So I shut my eyes and set my teeth +and turned my back. There's the whole pusillanimous truth +of it!" + +"Oh, if it's the WHOLE truth!----" She let him clasp +her. "There's my torment, you see. I thought that was what +your silence meant till I made you break it. Now I want to +be sure that I was right." + +"What can I tell you to make you sure?" + +"You can let me tell YOU everything first." She drew +away, but without taking her hands from him. "Owen saw you +in Paris," she began. + +She looked at him and he faced her steadily. The light was +full on his pleasantly-browned face, his grey eyes, his +frank white forehead. She noticed for the first time a +seal-ring in a setting of twisted silver on the hand he had +kept on hers. + +"In Paris? Oh, yes...So he did." + +"He came back and told me. I think you talked to him a +moment in a theatre. I asked if you'd spoken of my having +put you off--or if you'd sent me any message. He didn't +remember that you had." + +"In a crush--in a Paris foyer? My dear!" + +"It was absurd of me! But Owen and I have always been on odd +kind of brother-and-sister terms. I think he guessed about +us when he saw you with me in London. So he teased me a +little and tried to make me curious about you; and when he +saw he'd succeeded he told me he hadn't had time to say much +to you because you were in such a hurry to get back to the +lady you were with." + +He still held her hands, but she felt no tremor in his, and +the blood did not stir in his brown cheek. He seemed to be +honestly turning over his memories. +"Yes: and what else did he tell you?" + +"Oh, not much, except that she was awfully pretty. When I +asked him to describe her he said you had her tucked away in +a baignoire and he hadn't actually seen her; but he saw the +tail of her cloak, and somehow knew from that that she was +pretty. One DOES, you know...I think he said the cloak +was pink." + +Darrow broke into a laugh. "Of course it was--they always +are! So that was at the bottom of your doubts?" + +"Not at first. I only laughed. But afterward, when I wrote +you and you didn't answer----Oh, you DO see?" she +appealed to him. + +He was looking at her gently. "Yes: I see." + +"It's not as if this were a light thing between us. I want +you to know me as I am. If I thought that at that +moment...when you were on your way here, almost----" + +He dropped her hand and stood up. "Yes, yes--I understand." + +"But do you?" Her look followed him. "I'm not a goose of a +girl. I know...of course I KNOW...but there are things +a woman feels...when what she knows doesn't make any +difference. It's not that I want you to explain--I mean +about that particular evening. It's only that I want you to +have the whole of my feeling. I didn't know what it was +till I saw you again. I never dreamed I should say such +things to you!" + +"I never dreamed I should be here to hear you say them!" He +turned back and lifting a floating end of her scarf put his +lips to it. "But now that you have, I know--I know," he +smiled down at her. + +"You know?" + +"That this is no light thing between us. Now you may ask me +anything you please! That was all I wanted to ask YOU." + +For a long moment they looked at each other without +speaking. She saw the dancing spirit in his eyes turn grave +and darken to a passionate sternness. He stooped and kissed +her, and she sat as if folded in wings. + + + +XII + + +It was in the natural order of things that, on the way back +to the house, their talk should have turned to the future. + +Anna was not eager to define it. She had an extraordinary +sensitiveness to the impalpable elements of happiness, and +as she walked at Darrow's side her imagination flew back and +forth, spinning luminous webs of feeling between herself and +the scene about her. Every heightening of emotion produced +for her a new effusion of beauty in visible things, and with +it the sense that such moments should be lingered over and +absorbed like some unrenewable miracle. She understood +Darrow's impatience to see their plans take shape. She knew +it must be so, she would not have had it otherwise; but to +reach a point where she could fix her mind on his appeal for +dates and decisions was like trying to break her way through +the silver tangle of an April wood. + +Darrow wished to use his diplomatic opportunities as a means +of studying certain economic and social problems with which +he presently hoped to deal in print; and with this in view +he had asked for, and obtained, a South American +appointment. Anna was ready to follow where he led, and not +reluctant to put new sights as well as new thoughts between +herself and her past. She had, in a direct way, only Effie +and Effie's education to consider; and there seemed, after +due reflection, no reason why the most anxious regard for +these should not be conciliated with the demands of Darrow's +career. Effie, it was evident, could be left to Madame de +Chantelle's care till the couple should have organized their +life; and she might even, as long as her future step- +father's work retained him in distant posts, continue to +divide her year between Givre and the antipodes. + +As for Owen, who had reached his legal majority two years +before, and was soon to attain the age fixed for the taking +over of his paternal inheritance, the arrival of this date +would reduce his step-mother's responsibility to a friendly +concern for his welfare. This made for the prompt +realization of Darrow's wishes, and there seemed no reason +why the marriage should not take place within the six weeks +that remained of his leave. + +They passed out of the wood-walk into the open brightness of +the garden. The noon sunlight sheeted with gold the bronze +flanks of the polygonal yews. Chrysanthemums, russet, +saffron and orange, glowed like the efflorescence of an +enchanted forest; belts of red begonia purpling to wine- +colour ran like smouldering flame among the borders; and +above this outspread tapestry the house extended its +harmonious length, the soberness of its lines softened to +grace in the luminous misty air. + +Darrow stood still, and Anna felt that his glance was +travelling from her to the scene about them and then back to +her face. + +"You're sure you're prepared to give up Givre? You look so +made for each other!" + +"Oh, Givre----" She broke off suddenly, feeling as if her +too careless tone had delivered all her past into his hands; +and with one of her instinctive movements of recoil she +added: "When Owen marries I shall have to give it up." + +"When Owen marries? That's looking some distance ahead! I +want to be told that meanwhile you'll have no regrets." + +She hesitated. Why did he press her to uncover to him her +poor starved past? A vague feeling of loyalty, a desire to +spare what could no longer harm her, made her answer +evasively: "There will probably be no 'meanwhile.' Owen may +marry before long." + +She had not meant to touch on the subject, for her step-son +had sworn her to provisional secrecy; but since the +shortness of Darrow's leave necessitated a prompt adjustment +of their own plans, it was, after all, inevitable that she +should give him at least a hint of Owen's. + +"Owen marry? Why, he always seems like a faun in flannels! I +hope he's found a dryad. There might easily be one left in +these blue-and-gold woods." + +"I can't tell you yet where he found his dryad, but she +IS one, I believe: at any rate she'll become the Givre +woods better than I do. Only there may be difficulties----" + +"Well! At that age they're not always to be wished away." + +She hesitated. "Owen, at any rate, has made up his mind to +overcome them; and I've promised to see him through." + +She went on, after a moment's consideration, to explain that +her step-son's choice was, for various reasons, not likely +to commend itself to his grandmother. "She must be prepared +for it, and I've promised to do the preparing. You know I +always HAVE seen him through things, and he rather +counts on me now." + +She fancied that Darrow's exclamation had in it a faint note +of annoyance, and wondered if he again suspected her of +seeking a pretext for postponement. + +"But once Owen's future is settled, you won't, surely, for +the sake of what you call seeing him through, ask that I +should go away again without you?" He drew her closer as +they walked. "Owen will understand, if you don't. Since +he's in the same case himself I'll throw myself on his +mercy. He'll see that I have the first claim on you; he +won't even want you not to see it." + +"Owen sees everything: I'm not afraid of that. But his +future isn't settled. He's very young to marry--too young, +his grandmother is sure to think--and the marriage he wants +to make is not likely to convince her to the contrary." + +"You don't mean that it's like his first choice?" + +"Oh, no! But it's not what Madame de Chantelle would call a +good match; it's not even what I call a wise one." + +"Yet you're backing him up?" + +"Yet I'm backing him up." She paused. "I wonder if you'll +understand? What I've most wanted for him, and shall want +for Effie, is that they shall always feel free to make their +own mistakes, and never, if possible, be persuaded to make +other people's. Even if Owen's marriage is a mistake, and +has to be paid for, I believe he'll learn and grow in the +paying. Of course I can't make Madame de Chantelle see +this; but I can remind her that, with his character--his big +rushes of impulse, his odd intervals of ebb and apathy--she +may drive him into some worse blunder if she thwarts him +now." + +"And you mean to break the news to her as soon as she comes +back from Ouchy?" + +"As soon as I see my way to it. She knows the girl and +likes her: that's our hope. And yet it may, in the end, +prove our danger, make it harder for us all, when she learns +the truth, than if Owen had chosen a stranger. I can't tell +you more till I've told her: I've promised Owen not to tell +any one. All I ask you is to give me time, to give me a few +days at any rate She's been wonderfully 'nice,' as she would +call it, about you, and about the fact of my having soon to +leave Givre; but that, again, may make it harder for Owen. +At any rate, you can see, can't you, how it makes me want to +stand by him? You see, I couldn't bear it if the least +fraction of my happiness seemed to be stolen from his--as if +it were a little scrap of happiness that had to be pieced +out with other people's!" She clasped her hands on Darrow's +arm. "I want our life to be like a house with all the +windows lit: I'd like to string lanterns from the roof and +chimneys!" + +She ended with an inward tremor. All through her exposition +and her appeal she had told herself that the moment could +hardly have been less well chosen. In Darrow's place she +would have felt, as he doubtless did, that her carefully +developed argument was only the disguise of an habitual +indecision. It was the hour of all others when she would +have liked to affirm herself by brushing aside every +obstacle to his wishes; yet it was only by opposing them +that she could show the strength of character she wanted him +to feel in her. + +But as she talked she began to see that Darrow's face gave +back no reflection of her words, that he continued to wear +the abstracted look of a man who is not listening to what is +said to him. It caused her a slight pang to discover that +his thoughts could wander at such a moment; then, with a +flush of joy she perceived the reason. + +In some undefinable way she had become aware, without +turning her head, that he was steeped in the sense of her +nearness, absorbed in contemplating the details of her face +and dress; and the discovery made the words throng to her +lips. She felt herself speak with ease, authority, +conviction. She said to herself: "He doesn't care what I +say--it's enough that I say it--even if it's stupid he'll +like me better for it..." She knew that every inflexion of +her voice, every gesture, every characteristic of her +person--its very defects, the fact that her forehead was too +high, that her eyes were not large enough, that her hands, +though slender, were not small, and that the fingers did not +taper--she knew that these deficiencies were so many +channels through which her influence streamed to him; that +she pleased him in spite of them, perhaps because of them; +that he wanted her as she was, and not as she would have +liked to be; and for the first time she felt in her veins +the security and lightness of happy love. + +They reached the court and walked under the limes toward the +house. The hall door stood wide, and through the windows +opening on the terrace the sun slanted across the black and +white floor, the faded tapestry chairs, and Darrow's +travelling coat and cap, which lay among the cloaks and rugs +piled on a bench against the wall. + +The sight of these garments, lying among her own wraps, gave +her a sense of homely intimacy. It was as if her happiness +came down from the skies and took on the plain dress of +daily things. At last she seemed to hold it in her hand. + +As they entered the hall her eye lit on an unstamped note +conspicuously placed on the table. + +"From Owen! He must have rushed off somewhere in the motor." + +She felt a secret stir of pleasure at the immediate +inference that she and Darrow would probably lunch alone. +Then she opened the note and stared at it in wonder. + +"Dear," Owen wrote, "after what you said yesterday I can't +wait another hour, and I'm off to Francheuil, to catch the +Dijon express and travel back with them. Don't be +frightened; I won't speak unless it's safe to. Trust me for +that--but I had to go." + +She looked up slowly. + +"He's gone to Dijon to meet his grandmother. Oh, I hope I +haven't made a mistake!" + +"You? Why, what have you to do with his going to Dijon?" + +She hesitated. "The day before yesterday I told him, for +the first time, that I meant to see him through, no matter +what happened. And I'm afraid he's lost his head, and will +be imprudent and spoil things. You see, I hadn't meant to +say a word to him till I'd had time to prepare Madame de +Chantelle." + +She felt that Darrow was looking at her and reading her +thoughts, and the colour flew to her face. "Yes: it was +when I heard you were coming that I told him. I wanted him +to feel as I felt...it seemed too unkind to make him wait!" +Her hand was in his, and his arm rested for a moment on her +shoulder. + +"It WOULD have been too unkind to make him wait." + +They moved side by side toward the stairs. Through the haze +of bliss enveloping her, Owen's affairs seemed curiously +unimportant and remote. Nothing really mattered but this +torrent of light in her veins. She put her foot on the +lowest step, saying: "It's nearly luncheon time--I must take +off my hat..." and as she started up the stairs Darrow stood +below in the hall and watched her. But the distance between +them did not make him seem less near: it was as if his +thoughts moved with her and touched her like endearing +hands. + +In her bedroom she shut the door and stood still, looking +about her in a fit of dreamy wonder. Her feelings were +unlike any she had ever known: richer, deeper, more +complete. For the first time everything in her, from head +to foot, seemed to be feeding the same full current of +sensation. + +She took off her hat and went to the dressing-table to +smooth her hair. The pressure of the hat had flattened the +dark strands on her forehead; her face was paler than usual, +with shadows about the eyes. She felt a pang of regret for +the wasted years. "If I look like this today," she said to +herself, "what will he think of me when I'm ill or worried?" +She began to run her fingers through her hair, rejoicing in +its thickness; then she desisted and sat still, resting her +chin on her hands. + +"I want him to see me as I am," she thought. + +Deeper than the deepest fibre of her vanity was the +triumphant sense that AS SHE WAS, with her flattened +hair, her tired pallor, her thin sleeves a little tumbled by +the weight of her jacket, he would like her even better, +feel her nearer, dearer, more desirable, than in all the +splendours she might put on for him. In the light of this +discovery she studied her face with a new intentness, seeing +its defects as she had never seen them, yet seeing them +through a kind of radiance, as though love were a luminous +medium into which she had been bodily plunged. + +She was glad now that she had confessed her doubts and her +jealousy. She divined that a man in love may be flattered +by such involuntary betrayals, that there are moments when +respect for his liberty appeals to him less than the +inability to respect it: moments so propitious that a +woman's very mistakes and indiscretions may help to +establish her dominion. The sense of power she had been +aware of in talking to Darrow came back with ten-fold force. +She felt like testing him by the most fantastic exactions, +and at the same moment she longed to humble herself before +him, to make herself the shadow and echo of his mood. She +wanted to linger with him in a world of fancy and yet to +walk at his side in the world of fact. She wanted him to +feel her power and yet to love her for her ignorance and +humility. She felt like a slave, and a goddess, and a girl +in her teens... + + + +XIII + + +Darrow, late that evening, threw himself into an armchair +before his fire and mused. + +The room was propitious to meditation. The red-veiled lamp, +the corners of shadow, the splashes of firelight on the +curves of old full-bodied wardrobes and cabinets, gave it an +air of intimacy increased by its faded hangings, its +slightly frayed and threadbare rugs. Everything in it was +harmoniously shabby, with a subtle sought-for shabbiness in +which Darrow fancied he discerned the touch of Fraser Leath. +But Fraser Leath had grown so unimportant a factor in the +scheme of things that these marks of his presence caused the +young man no emotion beyond that of a faint retrospective +amusement. + +The afternoon and evening had been perfect. + +After a moment of concern over her step-son's departure, +Anna had surrendered herself to her happiness with an +impetuosity that Darrow had never suspected in her. Early +in the afternoon they had gone out in the motor, traversing +miles of sober-tinted landscape in which, here and there, a +scarlet vineyard flamed, clattering through the streets of +stony villages, coming out on low slopes above the river, or +winding through the pale gold of narrow wood-roads with the +blue of clear-cut hills at their end. Over everything lay a +faint sunshine that seemed dissolved in the still air, and +the smell of wet roots and decaying leaves was merged in the +pungent scent of burning underbrush. Once, at the turn of a +wall, they stopped the motor before a ruined gateway and, +stumbling along a road full of ruts, stood before a little +old deserted house, fantastically carved and chimneyed, +which lay in a moat under the shade of ancient trees. They +paced the paths between the trees, found a mouldy Temple of +Love on an islet among reeds and plantains, and, sitting on +a bench in the stable-yard, watched the pigeons circling +against the sunset over their cot of patterned brick. Then +the motor flew on into the dusk... + +When they came in they sat beside the fire in the oak +drawing-room, and Darrow noticed how delicately her head +stood out against the sombre panelling, and mused on the +enjoyment there would always be in the mere fact of watching +her hands as they moved about among the tea-things... + +They dined late, and facing her across the table, with its +low lights and flowers, he felt an extraordinary pleasure in +seeing her again in evening dress, and in letting his eyes +dwell on the proud shy set of her head, the way her dark +hair clasped it, and the girlish thinness of her neck above +the slight swell of the breast. His imagination was struck +by the quality of reticence in her beauty. She suggested a +fine portrait kept down to a few tones, or a Greek vase on +which the play of light is the only pattern. + +After dinner they went out on the terrace for a look at the +moon-misted park. Through the crepuscular whiteness the +trees hung in blotted masses. Below the terrace, the garden +drew its dark diagrams between statues that stood like +muffled conspirators on the edge of the shadow. Farther +off, the meadows unrolled a silver-shot tissue to the +mantling of mist above the river; and the autumn stars +trembled overhead like their own reflections seen in dim +water. + +He lit his cigar, and they walked slowly up and down the +flags in the languid air, till he put an arm about her, +saying: "You mustn't stay till you're chilled"; then they +went back into the room and drew up their chairs to the +fire. + +It seemed only a moment later that she said: "It must be +after eleven," and stood up and looked down on him, smiling +faintly. He sat still, absorbing the look, and thinking: +"There'll be evenings and evenings"--till she came nearer, +bent over him, and with a hand on his shoulder said: "Good +night." + +He got to his feet and put his arms about her. + +"Good night," he answered, and held her fast; and they gave +each other a long kiss of promise and communion. + +The memory of it glowed in him still as he sat over his +crumbling fire; but beneath his physical exultation he felt +a certain gravity of mood. His happiness was in some sort +the rallying-point of many scattered purposes. He summed it +up vaguely by saying to himself that to be loved by a woman +like that made "all the difference"...He was a little tired +of experimenting on life; he wanted to "take a line", to +follow things up, to centralize and concentrate, and produce +results. Two or three more years of diplomacy--with her +beside him!--and then their real life would begin: study, +travel and book-making for him, and for her--well, the joy, +at any rate, of getting out of an atmosphere of bric-a-brac +and card-leaving into the open air of competing activities. + +The desire for change had for some time been latent in him, +and his meeting with Mrs. Leath the previous spring had +given it a definite direction. With such a comrade to focus +and stimulate his energies he felt modestly but agreeably +sure of "doing something". And under this assurance was the +lurking sense that he was somehow worthy of his opportunity. +His life, on the whole, had been a creditable affair. Out +of modest chances and middling talents he had built himself +a fairly marked personality, known some exceptional people, +done a number of interesting and a few rather difficult +things, and found himself, at thirty-seven, possessed of an +intellectual ambition sufficient to occupy the passage to a +robust and energetic old age. As for the private and +personal side of his life, it had come up to the current +standards, and if it had dropped, now and then, below a more +ideal measure, even these declines had been brief, +parenthetic, incidental. In the recognized essentials he +had always remained strictly within the limit of his +scruples. + +From this reassuring survey of his case he came back to the +contemplation of its crowning felicity. His mind turned +again to his first meeting with Anna Summers and took up one +by one the threads of their faintly sketched romance. He +dwelt with pardonable pride on the fact that fate had so +early marked him for the high privilege of possessing her: +it seemed to mean that they had really, in the truest sense +of the ill-used phrase, been made for each other. + +Deeper still than all these satisfactions was the mere +elemental sense of well-being in her presence. That, after +all, was what proved her to be the woman for him: the +pleasure he took in the set of her head, the way her hair +grew on her forehead and at the nape, her steady gaze when +he spoke, the grave freedom of her gait and gestures. He +recalled every detail of her face, the fine veinings of the +temples, the bluish-brown shadows in her upper lids, and the +way the reflections of two stars seemed to form and break up +in her eyes when he held her close to him... + +If he had had any doubt as to the nature of her feeling for +him those dissolving stars would have allayed it. She was +reserved, she was shy even, was what the shallow and +effusive would call "cold". She was like a picture so hung +that it can be seen only at a certain angle: an angle known +to no one but its possessor. The thought flattered his +sense of possessorship...He felt that the smile on his lips +would have been fatuous had it had a witness. He was +thinking of her look when she had questioned him about his +meeting with Owen at the theatre: less of her words than of +her look, and of the effort the question cost her: the +reddening of her cheek, the deepening of the strained line +between her brows, the way her eyes sought shelter and then +turned and drew on him. Pride and passion were in the +conflict--magnificent qualities in a wife! The sight almost +made up for his momentary embarrassment at the rousing of a +memory which had no place in his present picture of himself. + +Yes! It was worth a good deal to watch that fight between +her instinct and her intelligence, and know one's self the +object of the struggle... + +Mingled with these sensations were considerations of another +order. He reflected with satisfaction that she was the kind +of woman with whom one would like to be seen in public. It +would be distinctly agreeable to follow her into drawing- +rooms, to walk after her down the aisle of a theatre, to get +in and out of trains with her, to say "my wife" of her to +all sorts of people. He draped these details in the +handsome phrase "She's a woman to be proud of", and felt +that this fact somehow justified and ennobled his +instinctive boyish satisfaction in loving her. + +He stood up, rambled across the room and leaned out for a +while into the starry night. Then he dropped again into his +armchair with a sigh of deep content. + +"Oh, hang it," he suddenly exclaimed, "it's the best thing +that's ever happened to me, anyhow!" + + +The next day was even better. He felt, and knew she felt, +that they had reached a clearer understanding of each other. +It was as if, after a swim through bright opposing waves, +with a dazzle of sun in their eyes, they had gained an inlet +in the shades of a cliff, where they could float on the +still surface and gaze far down into the depths. + +Now and then, as they walked and talked, he felt a thrill of +youthful wonder at the coincidence of their views and their +experiences, at the way their minds leapt to the same point +in the same instant. + +"The old delusion, I suppose," he smiled to himself. "Will +Nature never tire of the trick?" + +But he knew it was more than that. There were moments in +their talk when he felt, distinctly and unmistakably, the +solid ground of friendship underneath the whirling dance of +his sensations. "How I should like her if I didn't love +her!" he summed it up, wondering at the miracle of such a +union. + +In the course of the morning a telegram had come from Owen +Leath, announcing that he, his grandmother and Effie would +arrive from Dijon that afternoon at four. The station of the +main line was eight or ten miles from Givre, and Anna, soon +after three, left in the motor to meet the travellers. + +When she had gone Darrow started for a walk, planning to get +back late, in order that the reunited family might have the +end of the afternoon to themselves. He roamed the country- +side till long after dark, and the stable-clock of Givre was +striking seven as he walked up the avenue to the court. + +In the hall, coming down the stairs, he encountered Anna. +Her face was serene, and his first glance showed him that +Owen had kept his word and that none of her forebodings had +been fulfilled. + +She had just come down from the school-room, where Effie and +the governess were having supper; the little girl, she told +him, looked immensely better for her Swiss holiday, but was +dropping with sleep after the journey, and too tired to make +her habitual appearance in the drawing-room before being put +to bed. Madame de Chantelle was resting, but would be down +for dinner; and as for Owen, Anna supposed he was off +somewhere in the park--he had a passion for prowling about +the park at nightfall... + +Darrow followed her into the brown room, where the tea-table +had been left for him. He declined her offer of tea, but +she lingered a moment to tell him that Owen had in fact kept +his word, and that Madame de Chantelle had come back in the +best of humours, and unsuspicious of the blow about to fall. + +"She has enjoyed her month at Ouchy, and it has given her a +lot to talk about--her symptoms, and the rival doctors, and +the people at the hotel. It seems she met your Ambassadress +there, and Lady Wantley, and some other London friends of +yours, and she's heard what she calls 'delightful things' +about you: she told me to tell you so. She attaches great +importance to the fact that your grandmother was an Everard +of Albany. She's prepared to open her arms to you. I don't +know whether it won't make it harder for poor Owen...the +contrast, I mean...There are no Ambassadresses or Everards +to vouch for HIS choice! But you'll help me, won't you? +You'll help me to help him? To-morrow I'll tell you the +rest. Now I must rush up and tuck in Effie..." + +"Oh, you'll see, we'll pull it off for him!" he assured her; +"together, we can't fail to pull it off." + +He stood and watched her with a smile as she fled down the +half-lit vista to the hall. + + + +XIV + + +If Darrow, on entering the drawing-room before dinner, +examined its new occupant with unusual interest, it was more +on Owen Leath's account than his own. + +Anna's hints had roused his interest in the lad's love +affair, and he wondered what manner of girl the heroine of +the coming conflict might be. He had guessed that Owen's +rebellion symbolized for his step-mother her own long +struggle against the Leath conventions, and he understood +that if Anna so passionately abetted him it was partly +because, as she owned, she wanted his liberation to coincide +with hers. + +The lady who was to represent, in the impending struggle, +the forces of order and tradition was seated by the fire +when Darrow entered. Among the flowers and old furniture of +the large pale-panelled room, Madame de Chantelle had the +inanimate elegance of a figure introduced into a "still- +life" to give the scale. And this, Darrow reflected, was +exactly what she doubtless regarded as her chief obligation: +he was sure she thought a great deal of "measure", and +approved of most things only up to a certain point. +She was a woman of sixty, with a figure at once young and +old-fashioned. Her fair faded tints, her quaint corseting, +the passementerie on her tight-waisted dress, the velvet +band on her tapering arm, made her resemble a "carte de +visite" photograph of the middle sixties. One saw her, +younger but no less invincibly lady-like, leaning on a chair +with a fringed back, a curl in her neck, a locket on her +tuckered bosom, toward the end of an embossed morocco album +beginning with The Beauties of the Second Empire. + +She received her daughter-in-law's suitor with an affability +which implied her knowledge and approval of his suit. +Darrow had already guessed her to be a person who would +instinctively oppose any suggested changes, and then, after +one had exhausted one's main arguments, unexpectedly yield +to some small incidental reason, and adhere doggedly to her +new position. She boasted of her old-fashioned prejudices, +talked a good deal of being a grandmother, and made a show +of reaching up to tap Owen's shoulder, though his height was +little more than hers. + +She was full of a small pale prattle about the people she +had seen at Ouchy, as to whom she had the minute statistical +information of a gazetteer, without any apparent sense of +personal differences. She said to Darrow: "They tell me +things are very much changed in America...Of course in my +youth there WAS a Society"...She had no desire to return +there she was sure the standards must be so different. +"There are charming people everywhere...and one must always +look on the best side...but when one has lived among +Traditions it's difficult to adapt one's self to the new +ideas...These dreadful views of marriage...it's so hard to +explain them to my French relations...I'm thankful to say I +don't pretend to understand them myself! But YOU'RE an +Everard--I told Anna last spring in London that one sees +that instantly"... + +She wandered off to the cooking and the service of the hotel +at Ouchy. She attached great importance to gastronomic +details and to the manners of hotel servants. There, too, +there was a falling off, she said. "I don t know, of +course; but people say it's owing to the Americans. +Certainly my waiter had a way of slapping down the +dishes...they tell me that many of them are +Anarchists...belong to Unions, you know." She appealed to +Darrow's reported knowledge of economic conditions to +confirm this ominous rumour. + +After dinner Owen Leath wandered into the next room, where +the piano stood, and began to play among the shadows. His +step-mother presently joined him, and Darrow sat alone with +Madame de Chantelle. + +She took up the thread of her mild chat and carried it on at +the same pace as her knitting. Her conversation resembled +the large loose-stranded web between her fingers: now and +then she dropped a stitch, and went on regardless of the gap +in the pattern. + +Darrow listened with a lazy sense of well-being. In the +mental lull of the after-dinner hour, with harmonious +memories murmuring through his mind, and the soft tints and +shadowy spaces of the fine old room charming his eyes to +indolence, Madame de Chantelle's discourse seemed not out of +place. He could understand that, in the long run, the +atmosphere of Givre might be suffocating; but in his present +mood its very limitations had a grace. + +Presently he found the chance to say a word in his own +behalf; and thereupon measured the advantage, never before +particularly apparent to him, of being related to the +Everards of Albany. Madame de Chantelle's conception of her +native country--to which she had not returned since her +twentieth year--reminded him of an ancient geographer's map +of the Hyperborean regions. It was all a foggy blank, from +which only one or two fixed outlines emerged; and one of +these belonged to the Everards of Albany. + +The fact that they offered such firm footing--formed, so to +speak, a friendly territory on which the opposing powers +could meet and treat--helped him through the task of +explaining and justifying himself as the successor of Fraser +Leath. Madame de Chantelle could not resist such +incontestable claims. She seemed to feel her son's hovering +and discriminating presence, and she gave Darrow the sense +that he was being tested and approved as a last addition to +the Leath Collection. + +She also made him aware of the immense advantage he +possessed in belonging to the diplomatic profession. She +spoke of this humdrum calling as a Career, and gave Darrow +to understand that she supposed him to have been seducing +Duchesses when he was not negotiating Treaties. He heard +again quaint phrases which romantic old ladies had used in +his youth: "Brilliant diplomatic society...social +advantages...the entree everywhere...nothing else +FORMS a young man in the same way..." and she sighingly +added that she could have wished her grandson had chosen the +same path to glory. + +Darrow prudently suppressed his own view of the profession, +as well as the fact that he had adopted it provisionally, +and for reasons less social than sociological; and the talk +presently passed on to the subject of his future plans. + +Here again, Madame de Chantelle's awe of the Career made her +admit the necessity of Anna's consenting to an early +marriage. The fact that Darrow was "ordered" to South +America seemed to put him in the romantic light of a young +soldier charged to lead a forlorn hope: she sighed and said: +"At such moments a wife's duty is at her husband's side." + +The problem of Effie's future might have disturbed her, she +added; but since Anna, for a time, consented to leave the +little girl with her, that problem was at any rate deferred. +She spoke plaintively of the responsibility of looking after +her granddaughter, but Darrow divined that she enjoyed the +flavour of the word more than she felt the weight of the +fact. + +"Effie's a perfect child. She's more like my son, perhaps, +than dear Owen. She'll never intentionally give me the +least trouble. But of course the responsibility will be +great...I'm not sure I should dare to undertake it if it +were not for her having such a treasure of a governess. Has +Anna told you about our little governess? After all the +worry we had last year, with one impossible creature after +another, it seems providential, just now, to have found her. +At first we were afraid she was too young; but now we've the +greatest confidence in her. So clever and amusing--and +SUCH a lady! I don't say her education's all it might +be...no drawing or singing...but one can't have everything; +and she speaks Italian..." + +Madame de Chantelle's fond insistence on the likeness +between Effie Leath and her father, if not particularly +gratifying to Darrow, had at least increased his desire to +see the little girl. It gave him an odd feeling of +discomfort to think that she should have any of the +characteristics of the late Fraser Leath: he had, somehow, +fantastically pictured her as the mystical offspring of the +early tenderness between himself and Anna Summers. + +His encounter with Effie took place the next morning, on the +lawn below the terrace, where he found her, in the early +sunshine, knocking about golf balls with her brother. +Almost at once, and with infinite relief, he saw that the +resemblance of which Madame de Chantelle boasted was mainly +external. Even that discovery was slightly distasteful, +though Darrow was forced to own that Fraser Leath's +straight-featured fairness had lent itself to the production +of a peculiarly finished image of childish purity. But it +was evident that other elements had also gone to the making +of Effie, and that another spirit sat in her eyes. Her +serious handshake, her "pretty" greeting, were worthy of the +Leath tradition, and he guessed her to be more malleable +than Owen, more subject to the influences of Givre; but the +shout with which she returned to her romp had in it the note +of her mother's emancipation. + +He had begged a holiday for her, and when Mrs. Leath +appeared he and she and the little girl went off for a +ramble. Anna wished her daughter to have time to make +friends with Darrow before learning in what relation he was +to stand to her; and the three roamed the woods and fields +till the distant chime of the stable-clock made them turn +back for luncheon. + +Effie, who was attended by a shaggy terrier, had picked up +two or three subordinate dogs at the stable; and as she +trotted on ahead with her yapping escort, Anna hung back to +throw a look at Darrow. + +"Yes," he answered it, "she's exquisite...Oh, I see what I'm +asking of you! But she'll be quite happy here, won't she? +And you must remember it won't be for long..." + +Anna sighed her acquiescence. "Oh, she'll be happy here. +It's her nature to be happy. She'll apply herself to it, +conscientiously, as she does to her lessons, and to what she +calls 'being good'...In a way, you see, that's just what +worries me. Her idea of 'being good' is to please the +person she's with--she puts her whole dear little mind on +it! And so, if ever she's with the wrong person----" + +"But surely there's no danger of that just now? Madame de +Chantelle tells me that you've at last put your hand on a +perfect governess----" + +Anna, without answering, glanced away from him toward her +daughter. + +"It's lucky, at any rate," Darrow continued, "that Madame de +Chantelle thinks her so." + +"Oh, I think very highly of her too." + +"Highly enough to feel quite satisfied to leave her with +Effie?" + +"Yes. She's just the person for Effie. Only, of course, +one never knows...She's young, and she might take it into +her head to leave us..." After a pause she added: "I'm +naturally anxious to know what you think of her." + +When they entered the house the hands of the hall clock +stood within a few minutes of the luncheon hour. Anna led +Effie off to have her hair smoothed and Darrow wandered into +the oak sitting-room, which he found untenanted. The sun +lay pleasantly on its brown walls, on the scattered books +and the flowers in old porcelain vases. In his eyes +lingered the vision of the dark-haired mother mounting the +stairs with her little fair daughter. The contrast between +them seemed a last touch of grace in the complex harmony of +things. He stood in the window, looking out at the park, +and brooding inwardly upon his happiness... + +He was roused by Effie's voice and the scamper of her feet +down the long floors behind him. + +"Here he is! Here he is!" she cried, flying over the +threshold. + +He turned and stooped to her with a smile, and as she caught +his hand he perceived that she was trying to draw him toward +some one who had paused behind her in the doorway, and whom +he supposed to be her mother. + +"HERE he is!" Effie repeated, with her sweet impatience. + +The figure in the doorway came forward and Darrow, looking +up, found himself face to face with Sophy Viner. They stood +still, a yard or two apart, and looked at each other without +speaking. + +As they paused there, a shadow fell across one of the +terrace windows, and Owen Leath stepped whistling into the +room. In his rough shooting clothes, with the glow of +exercise under his fair skin, he looked extraordinarily +light-hearted and happy. Darrow, with a quick side-glance, +noticed this, and perceived also that the glow on the +youth's cheek had deepened suddenly to red. He too stopped +short, and the three stood there motionless for a barely +perceptible beat of time. During its lapse, Darrow's eyes +had turned back from Owen's face to that of the girl between +them. He had the sense that, whatever was done, it was he +who must do it, and that it must be done immediately. He +went forward and held out his hand. + +"How do you do, Miss Viner?" + +She answered: "How do you do?" in a voice that sounded clear +and natural; and the next moment he again became aware of +steps behind him, and knew that Mrs. Leath was in the room. + +To his strained senses there seemed to be another just +measurable pause before Anna said, looking gaily about the +little group: "Has Owen introduced you? This is Effie's +friend, Miss Viner." + +Effie, still hanging on her governess's arm, pressed herself +closer with a little gesture of appropriation; and Miss +Viner laid her hand on her pupil's hair. + +Darrow felt that Anna's eyes had turned to him. + +"I think Miss Viner and I have met already--several years +ago in London." + +"I remember," said Sophy Viner, in the same clear voice. + +"How charming! Then we're all friends. But luncheon must be +ready," said Mrs. Leath. + +She turned back to the door, and the little procession moved +down the two long drawing-rooms, with Effie waltzing on +ahead. + + + +XV + + +Madame de Chantelle and Anna had planned, for the afternoon, +a visit to a remotely situated acquaintance whom the +introduction of the motor had transformed into a neighbour. +Effie was to pay for her morning's holiday by an hour or two +in the school-room, and Owen suggested that he and Darrow +should betake themselves to a distant covert in the +desultory quest for pheasants. + +Darrow was not an ardent sportsman, but any pretext for +physical activity would have been acceptable at the moment; +and he was glad both to get away from the house and not to +be left to himself. + +When he came downstairs the motor was at the door, and Anna +stood before the hall mirror, swathing her hat in veils. +She turned at the sound of his step and smiled at him for a +long full moment. + +"I'd no idea you knew Miss Viner," she said, as he helped +her into her long coat. + +"It came back to me, luckily, that I'd seen her two or three +times in London, several years ago. She was secretary, or +something of the sort, in the background of a house where I +used to dine." + +He loathed the slighting indifference of the phrase, but he +had uttered it deliberately, had been secretly practising it +all through the interminable hour at the luncheon-table. +Now that it was spoken, he shivered at its note of +condescension. In such cases one was almost sure to +overdo...But Anna seemed to notice nothing unusual. + +"Was she really? You must tell me all about it--tell me +exactly how she struck you. I'm so glad it turns out that +you know her." + +"'Know' is rather exaggerated: we used to pass each other on +the stairs." + +Madame de Chantelle and Owen appeared together as he spoke, +and Anna, gathering up her wraps, said: "You'll tell me +about that, then. Try and remember everything you can." + +As he tramped through the woods at his young host's side, +Darrow felt the partial relief from thought produced by +exercise and the obligation to talk. Little as he cared for +shooting, he had the habit of concentration which makes it +natural for a man to throw himself wholly into whatever +business he has in hand, and there were moments of the +afternoon when a sudden whirr in the undergrowth, a vivider +gleam against the hazy browns and greys of the woods, was +enough to fill the foreground of his attention. But all the +while, behind these voluntarily emphasized sensations, his +secret consciousness continued to revolve on a loud wheel of +thought. For a time it seemed to be sweeping him through +deep gulfs of darkness. His sensations were too swift and +swarming to be disentangled. He had an almost physical +sense of struggling for air, of battling helplessly with +material obstructions, as though the russet covert through +which he trudged were the heart of a maleficent jungle... + +Snatches of his companion's talk drifted to him +intermittently through the confusion of his thoughts. He +caught eager self-revealing phrases, and understood that +Owen was saying things about himself, perhaps hinting +indirectly at the hopes for which Darrow had been prepared +by Anna's confidences. He had already become aware that the +lad liked him, and had meant to take the first opportunity +of showing that he reciprocated the feeling. But the effort +of fixing his attention on Owen's words was so great that it +left no power for more than the briefest and most +inexpressive replies. + +Young Leath, it appeared, felt that he had reached a +turning-point in his career, a height from which he could +impartially survey his past progress and projected +endeavour. At one time he had had musical and literary +yearnings, visions of desultory artistic indulgence; but +these had of late been superseded by the resolute +determination to plunge into practical life. + +"I don't want, you see," Darrow heard him explaining, "to +drift into what my grandmother, poor dear, is trying to make +of me: an adjunct of Givre. I don't want--hang it all!--to +slip into collecting sensations as my father collected +snuff-boxes. I want Effie to have Givre--it's my +grandmother's, you know, to do as she likes with; and I've +understood lately that if it belonged to me it would +gradually gobble me up. I want to get out of it, into a +life that's big and ugly and struggling. If I can extract +beauty out of THAT, so much the better: that'll prove my +vocation. But I want to MAKE beauty, not be drowned in +the ready-made, like a bee in a pot of honey." + +Darrow knew that he was being appealed to for corroboration +of these views and for encouragement in the course to which +they pointed. To his own ears his answers sounded now curt, +now irrelevant: at one moment he seemed chillingly +indifferent, at another he heard himself launching out on a +flood of hazy discursiveness. He dared not look at Owen, +for fear of detecting the lad's surprise at these senseless +transitions. And through the confusion of his inward +struggles and outward loquacity he heard the ceaseless trip- +hammer beat of the question: "What in God's name shall I +do?"... + +To get back to the house before Anna's return seemed his +most pressing necessity. He did not clearly know why: he +simply felt that he ought to be there. At one moment it +occurred to him that Miss Viner might want to speak to him +alone--and again, in the same flash, that it would probably +be the last thing she would want...At any rate, he felt he +ought to try to speak to HER; or at least be prepared to +do so, if the chance should occur... + +Finally, toward four, he told his companion that he had some +letters on his mind and must get back to the house and +despatch them before the ladies returned. He left Owen with +the beater and walked on to the edge of the covert. At the +park gates he struck obliquely through the trees, following +a grass avenue at the end of which he had caught a glimpse +of the roof of the chapel. A grey haze had blotted out the +sun and the still air clung about him tepidly. At length +the house-front raised before him its expanse of damp- +silvered brick, and he was struck afresh by the high decorum +of its calm lines and soberly massed surfaces. It made him +feel, in the turbid coil of his fears and passions, like a +muddy tramp forcing his way into some pure sequestered +shrine... + +By and bye, he knew, he should have to think the complex +horror out, slowly, systematically, bit by bit; but for the +moment it was whirling him about so fast that he could just +clutch at its sharp spikes and be tossed off again. Only +one definite immediate fact stuck in his quivering grasp. +He must give the girl every chance--must hold himself +passive till she had taken them... + +In the court Effie ran up to him with her leaping terrier. + +"I was coming out to meet you--you and Owen. Miss Viner was +coming, too, and then she couldn't because she's got such a +headache. I'm afraid I gave it to her because I did my +division so disgracefully. It's too bad, isn't it? But +won't you walk back with me? Nurse won't mind the least bit; +she'd so much rather go in to tea." + +Darrow excused himself laughingly, on the plea that he had +letters to write, which was much worse than having a +headache, and not infrequently resulted in one. + +"Oh, then you can go and write them in Owen's study. That's +where gentlemen always write their letters." + +She flew on with her dog and Darrow pursued his way to the +house. Effie's suggestion struck him as useful. He had +pictured himself as vaguely drifting about the drawing- +rooms, and had perceived the difficulty of Miss Viner's +having to seek him there; but the study, a small room on the +right of the hall, was in easy sight from the staircase, and +so situated that there would be nothing marked in his being +found there in talk with her. + +He went in, leaving the door open, and sat down at the +writing-table. The room was a friendly heterogeneous place, +the one repository, in the well-ordered and amply-servanted +house, of all its unclassified odds and ends: Effie's +croquet-box and fishing rods, Owen's guns and golf-sticks +and racquets, his step-mother's flower-baskets and gardening +implements, even Madame de Chantelle's embroidery frame, and +the back numbers of the Catholic Weekly. The early twilight +had begun to fall, and presently a slanting ray across the +desk showed Darrow that a servant was coming across the hall +with a lamp. He pulled out a sheet of note-paper and began +to write at random, while the man, entering, put the lamp at +his elbow and vaguely "straightened" the heap of newspapers +tossed on the divan. Then his steps died away and Darrow +sat leaning his head on his locked hands. + +Presently another step sounded on the stairs, wavered a +moment and then moved past the threshold of the study. +Darrow got up and walked into the hall, which was still +unlighted. In the dimness he saw Sophy Viner standing by +the hall door in her hat and jacket. She stopped at sight +of him, her hand on the door-bolt, and they stood for a +second without speaking. + +"Have you seen Effie?" she suddenly asked. "She went out to +meet you." + +"She DID meet me, just now, in the court. She's gone on +to join her brother." + +Darrow spoke as naturally as he could, but his voice sounded +to his own ears like an amateur actor's in a "light" part. + +Miss Viner, without answering, drew back the bolt. He +watched her in silence as the door swung open; then he said: +"She has her +nurse with her. She won't be long." + +She stood irresolute, and he added: "I was writing in there +--won't you come and have a little talk? Every one's out." + +The last words struck him as not well-chosen, but there was +no time to choose. She paused a second longer and then +crossed the threshold of the study. At luncheon she had sat +with her back to the window, and beyond noting that she had +grown a little thinner, and had less colour and vivacity, he +had seen no change in her; but now, as the lamplight fell on +her face, its whiteness startled him. + +"Poor thing...poor thing...what in heaven's name can she +suppose?" he wondered. + +"Do sit down--I want to talk to you," he said and pushed a +chair toward her. + +She did not seem to see it, or, if she did, she deliberately +chose another seat. He came back to his own chair and +leaned his elbows on the blotter. She faced him from the +farther side of the table. + +"You promised to let me hear from you now and then," he +began awkwardly, and with a sharp sense of his awkwardness. + +A faint smile made her face more tragic. "Did I? There was +nothing to tell. I've had no history--like the happy +countries..." + +He waited a moment before asking: "You ARE happy here?" + +"I WAS," she said with a faint emphasis. + +"Why do you say 'was'? You're surely not thinking of going? +There can't be kinder people anywhere." Darrow hardly knew +what he was saying; but her answer came to him with deadly +definiteness. + +"I suppose it depends on you whether I go or stay." + +"On me?" He stared at her across Owen's scattered papers. +"Good God! What can you think of me, to say that?" + +The mockery of the question flashed back at him from her +wretched face. She stood up, wandered away, and leaned an +instant in the darkening window-frame. From there she +turned to fling back at him: "Don't imagine I'm the least +bit sorry for anything!" + +He steadied his elbows on the table and hid his face in his +hands. It was harder, oh, damnably harder, than he had +expected! Arguments, expedients, palliations, evasions, all +seemed to be slipping away from him: he was left face to +face with the mere graceless fact of his inferiority. He +lifted his head to ask at random: "You've been here, then, +ever since?" + +"Since June; yes. It turned out that the Farlows were +hunting for me--all the while--for this." + +She stood facing him, her back to the window, evidently +impatient to be gone, yet with something still to say, or +that she expected to hear him say. The sense of her +expectancy benumbed him. What in heaven's name could he say +to her that was not an offense or a mockery? + +"Your idea of the theatre--you gave that up at once, then?" + +"Oh, the theatre!" She gave a little laugh. "I couldn't +wait for the theatre. I had to take the first thing that +offered; I took this." + +He pushed on haltingly: "I'm glad--extremely glad--you're +happy here...I'd counted on your letting me know if there +was anything I could do...The theatre, now--if you still +regret it--if you're not contented here...I know people in +that line in London--I'm certain I can manage it for you +when I get back----" + +She moved up to the table and leaned over it to ask, in a +voice that was hardly above a whisper: "Then you DO want +me to leave? Is that it?" + +He dropped his arms with a groan. "Good heavens! How can +you think such things? At the time, you know, I begged you +to let me do what I could, but you wouldn't hear of it...and +ever since I've been wanting to be of use--to do something, +anything, to help you..." + +She heard him through, motionless, without a quiver of the +clasped hands she rested on the edge of the table. + +"If you want to help me, then--you can help me to stay +here," she brought out with low-toned intensity. + +Through the stillness of the pause which followed, the bray +of a motor-horn sounded far down the drive. Instantly she +turned, with a last white look at him, and fled from the +room and up the stairs. He stood motionless, benumbed by +the shock of her last words. She was afraid, then--afraid +of him--sick with fear of him! The discovery beat him down +to a lower depth... + +The motor-horn sounded again, close at hand, and he turned +and went up to his room. His letter-writing was a +sufficient pretext for not immediately joining the party +about the tea-table, and he wanted to be alone and try to +put a little order into his tumultuous thinking. + +Upstairs, the room held out the intimate welcome of its lamp +and fire. Everything in it exhaled the same sense of peace +and stability which, two evenings before, had lulled him to +complacent meditation. His armchair again invited him from +the hearth, but he was too agitated to sit still, and with +sunk head and hands clasped behind his back he began to +wander up and down the room. + +His five minutes with Sophy Viner had flashed strange lights +into the shadowy corners of his consciousness. The girl's +absolute candour, her hard ardent honesty, was for the +moment the vividest point in his thoughts. He wondered anew, +as he had wondered before, at the way in which the harsh +discipline of life had stripped her of false sentiment +without laying the least touch on her pride. When they had +parted, five months before, she had quietly but decidedly +rejected all his offers of help, even to the suggestion of +his trying to further her theatrical aims: she had made it +clear that she wished their brief alliance to leave no trace +on their lives save that of its own smiling memory. But now +that they were unexpectedly confronted in a situation which +seemed, to her terrified fancy, to put her at his mercy, her +first impulse was to defend her right to the place she had +won, and to learn as quickly as possible if he meant to +dispute it. While he had pictured her as shrinking away +from him in a tremor of self-effacement she had watched his +movements, made sure of her opportunity, and come straight +down to "have it out" with him. He was so struck by the +frankness and energy of the proceeding that for a moment he +lost sight of the view of his own character implied in it. + +"Poor thing...poor thing!" he could only go on saying; and +with the repetition of the words the picture of himself as +she must see him pitiably took shape again. + +He understood then, for the first time, how vague, in +comparison with hers, had been his own vision of the part he +had played in the brief episode of their relation. The +incident had left in him a sense of exasperation and self- +contempt, but that, as he now perceived, was chiefly, if not +altogether, as it bore on his preconceived ideal of his +attitude toward another woman. He had fallen below his own +standard of sentimental loyalty, and if he thought of Sophy +Viner it was mainly as the chance instrument of his lapse. +These considerations were not agreeable to his pride, but +they were forced on him by the example of her valiant +common-sense. If he had cut a sorry figure in the business, +he owed it to her not to close his eyes to the fact any +longer... + +But when he opened them, what did he see? The situation, +detestable at best, would yet have been relatively simple if +protecting Sophy Viner had been the only duty involved in +it. The fact that that duty was paramount did not do away +with the contingent obligations. It was Darrow's instinct, +in difficult moments, to go straight to the bottom of the +difficulty; but he had never before had to take so dark a +dive as this, and for the minute he shivered on the +brink...Well, his first duty, at any rate, was to the girl: +he must let her see that he meant to fulfill it to the last +jot, and then try to find out how to square the fulfillment +with the other problems already in his path... + + + +XVI + + +In the oak room he found Mrs. Leath, her mother-in-law and +Effie. The group, as he came toward it down the long +drawing-rooms, composed itself prettily about the tea-table. +The lamps and the fire crossed their gleams on silver and +porcelain, on the bright haze of Effie's hair and on the +whiteness of Anna's forehead, as she leaned back in her +chair behind the tea-urn. + +She did not move at Darrow's approach, but lifted to him a +deep gaze of peace and confidence. The look seemed to throw +about him the spell of a divine security: he felt the joy of +a convalescent suddenly waking to find the sunlight on his +face. + +Madame de Chantelle, across her knitting, discoursed of +their afternoon's excursion, with occasional pauses induced +by the hypnotic effect of the fresh air; and Effie, +kneeling, on the hearth, softly but insistently sought to +implant in her terrier's mind some notion of the relation +between a vertical attitude and sugar. + +Darrow took a chair behind the little girl, so that he might +look across at her mother. It was almost a necessity for +him, at the moment, to let his eyes rest on Anna's face, and +to meet, now and then, the proud shyness of her gaze. + +Madame de Chantelle presently enquired what had become of +Owen, and a moment later the window behind her opened, and +her grandson, gun in hand, came in from the terrace. As he +stood there in the lamp-light, with dead leaves and bits of +bramble clinging to his mud-spattered clothes, the scent of +the night about him and its chill on his pale bright face, +he really had the look of a young faun strayed in from the +forest. + +Effie abandoned the terrier to fly to him. "Oh, Owen, where +in the world have you been? I walked miles and miles with +Nurse and couldn't find you, and we met Jean and he said he +didn't know where you'd gone." + +"Nobody knows where I go, or what I see when I get there-- +that's the beauty of it!" he laughed back at her. "But if +you're good," he added, "I'll tell you about it one of these +days." + +"Oh, now, Owen, now! I don't really believe I'll ever be +much better than I am now." + +"Let Owen have his tea first," her mother suggested; but the +young man, declining the offer, propped his gun against the +wall, and, lighting a cigarette, began to pace up and down +the room in a way that reminded Darrow of his own caged +wanderings. Effie pursued him with her blandishments, and +for a while he poured out to her a low-voiced stream of +nonsense; then he sat down beside his step-mother and leaned +over to help himself to tea. + +"Where's Miss Viner?" he asked, as Effie climbed up on him. +"Why isn't she here to chain up this ungovernable infant?" + +"Poor Miss Viner has a headache. Effie says she went to her +room as soon as lessons were over, and sent word that she +wouldn't be down for tea." + +"Ah," said Owen, abruptly setting down his cup. He stood +up, lit another cigarette, and wandered away to the piano in +the room beyond. + +From the twilight where he sat a lonely music, borne on +fantastic chords, floated to the group about the tea-table. +Under its influence Madame de Chantelle's meditative pauses +increased in length and frequency, and Effie stretched +herself on the hearth, her drowsy head against the dog. +Presently her nurse appeared, and Anna rose at the same +time. "Stop a minute in my sitting-room on your way up," +she paused to say to Darrow as she went. + +A few hours earlier, her request would have brought him +instantly to his feet. She had given him, on the day of his +arrival, an inviting glimpse of the spacious book-lined room +above stairs in which she had gathered together all the +tokens of her personal tastes: the retreat in which, as one +might fancy, Anna Leath had hidden the restless ghost of +Anna Summers; and the thought of a talk with her there had +been in his mind ever since. But now he sat motionless, as +if spell-bound by the play of Madame de Chantelle's needles +and the pulsations of Owen's fitful music. + +"She will want to ask me about the girl," he repeated to +himself, with a fresh sense of the insidious taint that +embittered all his thoughts; the hand of the slender- +columned clock on the mantel-piece had spanned a half-hour +before shame at his own indecision finally drew him to his +feet. + +From her writing-table, where she sat over a pile of +letters, Anna lifted her happy smile. The impulse to press +his lips to it made him come close and draw her upward. She +threw her head back, as if surprised at the abruptness of +the gesture; then her face leaned to his with the slow droop +of a flower. He felt again the sweep of the secret tides, +and all his fears went down in them. + +She sat down in the sofa-corner by the fire and he drew an +armchair close to her. His gaze roamed peacefully about the +quiet room. + +"It's just like you--it is you," he said, as his eyes came +back to her. + +"It's a good place to be alone in--I don't think I've ever +before cared to talk with any one here." + +"Let's be quiet, then: it's the best way of talking." + +"Yes; but we must save it up till later. There are things I +want to say to you now." + +He leaned back in his chair. "Say them, then, and I'll +listen." + +"Oh, no. I want you to tell me about Miss Viner." + +"About Miss Viner?" He summoned up a look of faint +interrogation. + +He thought she seemed surprised at his surprise. "It's +important, naturally," she explained, "that I should find +out all I can about her before I leave." + +"Important on Effie's account?" + +"On Effie's account--of course." + +"Of course...But you've every reason to be satisfied, +haven't you?" + +"Every apparent reason. We all like her. Effie's very fond +of her, and she seems to have a delightful influence on the +child. But we know so little, after all--about her +antecedents, I mean, and her past history. That's why I +want you to try and recall everything you heard about her +when you used to see her in London." + +"Oh, on that score I'm afraid I sha'n't be of much use. As I +told you, she was a mere shadow in the background of the +house I saw her in--and that was four or five years ago..." + +"When she was with a Mrs. Murrett?" + +"Yes; an appalling woman who runs a roaring dinner-factory +that used now and then to catch me in its wheels. I escaped +from them long ago; but in my time there used to be half a +dozen fagged 'hands' to tend the machine, and Miss Viner was +one of them. I'm glad she's out of it, poor girl!" +"Then you never really saw anything of her there?" + +"I never had the chance. Mrs. Murrett discouraged any +competition on the part of her subordinates." + +"Especially such pretty ones, I suppose?" Darrow made no +comment, and she continued: "And Mrs. Murrett's own opinion +--if she'd offered you one--probably wouldn't have been of +much value?" + +"Only in so far as her disapproval would, on general +principles, have been a good mark for Miss Viner. But +surely," he went on after a pause, "you could have found out +about her from the people through whom you first heard of +her?" + +Anna smiled. "Oh, we heard of her through Adelaide Painter +--;" and in reply to his glance of interrogation she +explained that the lady in question was a spinster of South +Braintree, Massachusetts, who, having come to Paris some +thirty years earlier, to nurse a brother through an illness, +had ever since protestingly and provisionally camped there +in a state of contemptuous protestation oddly manifested by +her never taking the slip-covers off her drawing-room +chairs. Her long residence on Gallic soil had not mitigated +her hostility toward the creed and customs of the race, but +though she always referred to the Catholic Church as the +Scarlet Woman and took the darkest views of French private +life, Madame de Chantelle placed great reliance on her +judgment and experience, and in every domestic crisis the +irreducible Adelaide was immediately summoned to Givre. + +"It's all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her +second marriage, has lived so much in the country that she's +practically lost sight of all her other American friends. +Besides which, you can see how completely she has identified +herself with Monsieur de Chantelle's nationality and adopted +French habits and prejudices. Yet when anything goes wrong +she always sends for Adelaide Painter, who's more American +than the Stars and Stripes, and might have left South +Braintree yesterday, if she hadn't, rather, brought it over +with her in her trunk." + +Darrow laughed. "Well, then, if South Braintree vouches for +Miss Viner----" + +"Oh, but only indirectly. When we had that odious adventure +with Mademoiselle Grumeau, who'd been so highly recommended +by Monsieur de Chantelle's aunt, the Chanoinesse, Adelaide +was of course sent for, and she said at once: 'I'm not the +least bit surprised. I've always told you that what you +wanted for Effie was a sweet American girl, and not one of +these nasty foreigners.' Unluckily she couldn't, at the +moment, put her hand on a sweet American; but she presently +heard of Miss Viner through the Farlows, an excellent couple +who live in the Quartier Latin and write about French life +for the American papers. I was only too thankful to find +anyone who was vouched for by decent people; and so far I've +had no cause to regret my choice. But I know, after all, +very little about Miss Viner; and there are all kinds of +reasons why I want, as soon as possible, to find out more-- +to find out all I can." + +"Since you've got to leave Effie I understand your feeling +in that way. But is there, in such a case, any +recommendation worth half as much as your own direct +experience?" + +"No; and it's been so favourable that I was ready to accept +it as conclusive. Only, naturally, when I found you'd known +her in London I was in hopes you'd give me some more +specific reasons for liking her as much as I do." + +"I'm afraid I can give you nothing more specific than my +general vague impression that she seems very plucky and +extremely nice." + +"You don't, at any rate, know anything specific to the +contrary?" + +"To the contrary? How should I? I'm not conscious of ever +having heard any one say two words about her. I only infer +that she must have pluck and character to have stuck it out +so long at Mrs. Murrett's." + +"Yes, poor thing! She has pluck, certainly; and pride, too; +which must have made it all the harder." Anna rose to her +feet. "You don't know how glad I am that your impression's +on the whole so good. I particularly wanted you to like +her." + +He drew her to him with a smile. "On that condition I'm +prepared to love even Adelaide Painter." + +"I almost hope you wont have the chance to--poor Adelaide! +Her appearance here always coincides with a catastrophe." + +"Oh, then I must manage to meet her elsewhere." He held Anna +closer, saying to himself, as he smoothed back the hair from +her forehead: "What does anything matter but just THIS? +--Must I go now?" he added aloud. + +She answered absently: "It must be time to dress"; then she +drew back a little and laid her hands on his shoulders. "My +love--oh, my dear love!" she said. + +It came to him that they were the first words of endearment +he had heard her speak, and their rareness gave them a magic +quality of reassurance, as though no danger could strike +through such a shield. + +A knock on the door made them draw apart. Anna lifted her +hand to her hair and Darrow stooped to examine a photograph +of Effie on the writing-table. + +"Come in!" Anna said. + +The door opened and Sophy Viner entered. Seeing Darrow, she +drew back. + +"Do come in, Miss Viner," Anna repeated, looking at her +kindly. + +The girl, a quick red in her cheeks, still hesitated on the +threshold. + +"I'm so sorry; but Effie has mislaid her Latin grammar, and +I thought she might have left it here. I need it to prepare +for tomorrow's lesson." + +"Is this it?" Darrow asked, picking up a book from the +table. + +"Oh, thank you!" + +He held it out to her and she took it and moved to the door. + +"Wait a minute, please, Miss Viner," Anna said; and as the +girl turned back, she went on with her quiet smile: "Effie +told us you'd gone to your room with a headache. You mustn't +sit up over tomorrow's lessons if you don't feel well." + +Sophy's blush deepened. "But you see I have to. Latin's one +of my weak points, and there's generally only one page of +this book between me and Effie." She threw the words off +with a half-ironic smile. "Do excuse my disturbing you," +she added. + +"You didn't disturb me," Anna answered. Darrow perceived +that she was looking intently at the girl, as though struck +by something tense and tremulous in her face, her voice, her +whole mien and attitude. "You DO look tired. You'd +much better go straight to bed. Effie won't be sorry to skip +her Latin." + +"Thank you--but I'm really all right," murmured Sophy Viner. +Her glance, making a swift circuit of the room, dwelt for an +appreciable instant on the intimate propinquity of arm-chair +and sofa-corner; then she turned back to the door. + + + +BOOK III + +XVII + + +At dinner that evening Madame de Chantelle's slender +monologue was thrown out over gulfs of silence. Owen was +still in the same state of moody abstraction as when Darrow +had left him at the piano; and even Anna's face, to her +friend's vigilant eye, revealed not, perhaps, a personal +preoccupation, but a vague sense of impending disturbance. + +She smiled, she bore a part in the talk, her eyes dwelt on +Darrow's with their usual deep reliance; but beneath the +surface of her serenity his tense perceptions detected a +hidden stir. + +He was sufficiently self-possessed to tell himself that it +was doubtless due to causes with which he was not directly +concerned. He knew the question of Owen's marriage was soon +to be raised, and the abrupt alteration in the young man's +mood made it seem probable that he was himself the centre of +the atmospheric disturbance, For a moment it occurred to +Darrow that Anna might have employed her afternoon in +preparing Madame de Chantelle for her grandson's impending +announcement; but a glance at the elder lady's unclouded +brow showed that he must seek elsewhere the clue to Owen's +taciturnity and his step-mother's concern. Possibly Anna +had found reason to change her own attitude in the matter, +and had made the change known to Owen. But this, again, was +negatived by the fact that, during the afternoon's shooting, +young Leath had been in a mood of almost extravagant +expansiveness, and that, from the moment of his late return +to the house till just before dinner, there had been, to +Darrow's certain knowledge, no possibility of a private talk +between himself and his step-mother. + +This obscured, if it narrowed, the field of conjecture; and +Darrow's gropings threw him back on the conclusion that he +was probably reading too much significance into the moods of +a lad he hardly knew, and who had been described to him as +subject to sudden changes of humour. As to Anna's fancied +perturbation, it might simply be due to the fact that she +had decided to plead Owen's cause the next day, and had +perhaps already had a glimpse of the difficulties awaiting +her. But Darrow knew that he was too deep in his own +perplexities to judge the mental state of those about him. +It might be, after all, that the variations he felt in the +currents of communication were caused by his own inward +tremor. + +Such, at any rate, was the conclusion he had reached when, +shortly after the two ladies left the drawing-room, he bade +Owen good-night and went up to his room. Ever since the +rapid self-colloquy which had followed on his first sight of +Sophy Viner, he had known there were other questions to be +faced behind the one immediately confronting him. On the +score of that one, at least, his mind, if not easy, was +relieved. He had done what was possible to reassure the +girl, and she had apparently recognized the sincerity of his +intention. He had patched up as decent a conclusion as he +could to an incident that should obviously have had no +sequel; but he had known all along that with the securing of +Miss Viner's peace of mind only a part of his obligation was +discharged, and that with that part his remaining duty was +in conflict. It had been his first business to convince the +girl that their secret was safe with him; but it was far +from easy to square this with the equally urgent obligation +of safe-guarding Anna's responsibility toward her child. +Darrow was not much afraid of accidental disclosures. Both +he and Sophy Viner had too much at stake not to be on their +guard. The fear that beset him was of another kind, and had +a profounder source. He wanted to do all he could for the +girl, but the fact of having had to urge Anna to confide +Effie to her was peculiarly repugnant to him. His own ideas +about Sophy Viner were too mixed and indeterminate for him +not to feel the risk of such an experiment; yet he found +himself in the intolerable position of appearing to press it +on the woman he desired above all others to protect... + +Till late in the night his thoughts revolved in a turmoil of +indecision. His pride was humbled by the discrepancy +between what Sophy Viner had been to him and what he had +thought of her. This discrepancy, which at the time had +seemed to simplify the incident, now turned out to be its +most galling complication. The bare truth, indeed, was that +he had hardly thought of her at all, either at the time or +since, and that he was ashamed to base his judgement of her +on his meagre memory of their adventure. + +The essential cheapness of the whole affair--as far as his +share in it was concerned--came home to him with humiliating +distinctness. He would have liked to be able to feel that, +at the time at least, he had staked something more on it, +and had somehow, in the sequel, had a more palpable loss to +show. But the plain fact was that he hadn't spent a penny +on it; which was no doubt the reason of the prodigious score +it had since been rolling up. At any rate, beat about the +case as he would, it was clear that he owed it to Anna--and +incidentally to his own peace of mind--to find some way of +securing Sophy Viner's future without leaving her installed +at Givre when he and his wife should depart for their new +post. + +The night brought no aid to the solving of this problem; but +it gave him, at any rate, the clear conviction that no time +was to be lost. His first step must be to obtain from Miss +Viner the chance of another and calmer talk; and he resolved +to seek it at the earliest hour. + +He had gathered that Effie's lessons were preceded by an +early scamper in the park, and conjecturing that her +governess might be with her he betook himself the next +morning to the terrace, whence he wandered on to the gardens +and the walks beyond. + +The atmosphere was still and pale. The muffled sunlight +gleamed like gold tissue through grey gauze, and the beech +alleys tapered away to a blue haze blent of sky and forest. +It was one of those elusive days when the familiar forms of +things seem about to dissolve in a prismatic shimmer. + +The stillness was presently broken by joyful barks, and +Darrow, tracking the sound, overtook Effie flying down one +of the long alleys at the head of her pack. Beyond her he +saw Miss Viner seated near the stone-rimmed basin beside +which he and Anna had paused on their first walk to the +river. + +The girl, coming forward at his approach, returned his +greeting almost gaily. His first glance showed him that she +had regained her composure, and the change in her appearance +gave him the measure of her fears. For the first time he +saw in her again the sidelong grace that had charmed his +eyes in Paris; but he saw it now as in a painted picture. + +"Shall we sit down a minute?" he asked, as Effie trotted +off. + +The girl looked away from him. "I'm afraid there's not much +time; we must be back at lessons at half-past nine." + +"But it's barely ten minutes past. Let's at least walk a +little way toward the river." + +She glanced down the long walk ahead of them and then back +in the direction of the house. "If you like," she said in a +low voice, with one of her quick fluctuations of colour; but +instead of taking the way he proposed she turned toward a +narrow path which branched off obliquely through the trees. + +Darrow was struck, and vaguely troubled, by the change in +her look and tone. There was in them an undefinable appeal, +whether for help or forbearance he could not tell. Then it +occurred to him that there might have been something +misleading in his so pointedly seeking her, and he felt a +momentary constraint. To ease it he made an abrupt dash at +the truth. + +"I came out to look for you because our talk of yesterday +was so unsatisfactory. I want to hear more about you--about +your plans and prospects. I've been wondering ever since +why you've so completely given up the theatre." + +Her face instantly sharpened to distrust. "I had to live," +she said in an off-hand tone. + +"I understand perfectly that you should like it here--for a +time." His glance strayed down the gold-roofed windings +ahead of them. "It's delightful: you couldn't be better +placed. Only I wonder a little at your having so completely +given up any idea of a different future." + +She waited for a moment before answering: "I suppose I'm +less restless than I used to be." + +"It's certainly natural that you should be less restless +here than at Mrs. Murrett's; yet somehow I don't seem to see +you permanently given up to forming the young." + +"What--exactly--DO you seem to see me permanently given +up to? You know you warned me rather emphatically against +the theatre." She threw off the statement without +impatience, as though they were discussing together the fate +of a third person in whom both were benevolently interested. +Darrow considered his reply. "If I did, it was because you +so emphatically refused to let me help you to a start." + +She stopped short and faced him "And you think I may let you +now?" + +Darrow felt the blood in his cheek. He could not understand +her attitude--if indeed she had consciously taken one, and +her changes of tone did not merely reflect the involuntary +alternations of her mood. It humbled him to perceive once +more how little he had to guide him in his judgment of her. +He said to himself: "If I'd ever cared a straw for her I +should know how to avoid hurting her now"--and his +insensibility struck him as no better than a vulgar +obtuseness. But he had a fixed purpose ahead and could only +push on to it. + +"I hope, at any rate, you'll listen to my reasons. There's +been time, on both sides, to think them over since----" He +caught himself back and hung helpless on the "since": +whatever words he chose, he seemed to stumble among +reminders of their past. + +She walked on beside him, her eyes on the ground. "Then I'm +to understand--definitely--that you DO renew your +offer?" she asked + +"With all my heart! If you'll only let me----" + +She raised a hand, as though to check him. "It's extremely +friendly of you--I DO believe you mean it as a friend-- +but I don't quite understand why, finding me, as you say, so +well placed here, you should show more anxiety about my +future than at a time when I was actually, and rather +desperately, adrift." + +"Oh, no, not more!" + +"If you show any at all, it must, at any rate, be for +different reasons.--In fact, it can only be," she went on, +with one of her disconcerting flashes of astuteness, "for +one of two reasons; either because you feel you ought to +help me, or because, for some reason, you think you owe it +to Mrs. Leath to let her know what you know of me." + +Darrow stood still in the path. Behind him he heard Effie's +call, and at the child's voice he saw Sophy turn her head +with the alertness of one who is obscurely on the watch. +The look was so fugitive that he could not have said wherein +it differed from her normal professional air of having her +pupil on her mind. + +Effie sprang past them, and Darrow took up the girl's +challenge. + +"What you suggest about Mrs. Leath is hardly worth +answering. As to my reasons for wanting to help you, a good +deal depends on the words one uses to define rather +indefinite things. It's true enough that I want to help +you; but the wish isn't due to...to any past kindness on +your part, but simply to my own interest in you. Why not +put it that our friendship gives me the right to intervene +for what I believe to be your benefit?" + +She took a few hesitating steps and then paused again. +Darrow noticed that she had grown pale and that there were +rings of shade about her eyes. + +"You've known Mrs. Leath a long time?" she asked him +suddenly. + +He paused with a sense of approaching peril. "A long time-- +yes." + +"She told me you were friends--great friends" + +"Yes," he admitted, "we're great friends." + +"Then you might naturally feel yourself justified in telling +her that you don't think I'm the right person for Effie." +He uttered a sound of protest, but she disregarded it. "I +don't say you'd LIKE to do it. You wouldn't: you'd hate +it. And the natural alternative would be to try to persuade +me that I'd be better off somewhere else than here. But +supposing that failed, and you saw I was determined to stay? +THEN you might think it your duty to tell Mrs. Leath." + +She laid the case before him with a cold lucidity. "I +should, in your place, I believe," she ended with a little +laugh. + +"I shouldn't feel justified in telling her, behind your +back, if I thought you unsuited for the place; but I should +certainly feel justified," he rejoined after a pause, "in +telling YOU if I thought the place unsuited to you." + +"And that's what you're trying to tell me now?" + +"Yes; but not for the reasons you imagine." + +"What, then, are your reasons, if you please?" + +"I've already implied them in advising you not to give up +all idea of the theatre. You're too various, too gifted, +too personal, to tie yourself down, at your age, to the +dismal drudgery of teaching." + +"And is THAT what you've told Mrs. Leath?" + +She rushed the question out at him as if she expected to +trip him up over it. He was moved by the simplicity of the +stratagem. + +"I've told her exactly nothing," he replied. + +"And what--exactly--do you mean by 'nothing'? You and she +were talking about me when I came into her sitting-room +yesterday." + +Darrow felt his blood rise at the thrust. + +"I've told her, simply, that I'd seen you once or twice at +Mrs. Murrett's." + +"And not that you've ever seen me since?" + +"And not that I've ever seen you since..." + +"And she believes you--she completely believes you?" + +He uttered a protesting exclamation, and his flush reflected +itself in the girl's cheek. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't mean to ask you that." She +halted, and again cast a rapid glance behind and ahead of +her. Then she held out her hand. "Well, then, thank you-- +and let me relieve your fears. I sha'n't be Effie's +governess much longer." + +At the announcement, Darrow tried to merge his look of +relief into the expression of friendly interest with which +he grasped her hand. "You really do agree with me, then? +And you'll give me a chance to talk things over with you?" + +She shook her head with a faint smile. "I'm not thinking of +the stage. I've had another offer: that's all." + +The relief was hardly less great. After all, his personal +responsibility ceased with her departure from Givre. + +"You'll tell me about that, then--won't you?" + +Her smile flickered up. "Oh, you'll hear about it soon...I +must catch Effie now and drag her back to the blackboard." + +She walked on for a few yards, and then paused again and +confronted him. "I've been odious to you--and not quite +honest," she broke out suddenly. + +"Not quite honest?" he repeated, caught in a fresh wave of +wonder. + +"I mean, in seeming not to trust you. It's come over me +again as we talked that, at heart, I've always KNOWN I +could..." + +Her colour rose in a bright wave, and her eyes clung to his +for a swift instant of reminder and appeal. For the same +space of time the past surged up in him confusedly; then a +veil dropped between them. + +"Here's Effie now!" she exclaimed. + +He turned and saw the little girl trotting back to them, her +hand in Owen Leath's. +Even through the stir of his subsiding excitement Darrow was +at once aware of the change effected by the young man's +approach. For a moment Sophy Viner's cheeks burned redder; +then they faded to the paleness of white petals. She lost, +however, nothing of the bright bravery which it was her way +to turn on the unexpected. Perhaps no one less familiar +with her face than Darrow would have discerned the tension +of the smile she transferred from himself to Owen Leath, or +have remarked that her eyes had hardened from misty grey to +a shining darkness. But her observer was less struck by +this than by the corresponding change in Owen Leath. The +latter, when he came in sight, had been laughing and talking +unconcernedly with Effie; but as his eye fell on Miss Viner +his expression altered as suddenly as hers. + +The change, for Darrow, was less definable; but, perhaps for +that reason, it struck him as more sharply significant. +Only--just what did it signify? Owen, like Sophy Viner, had +the kind of face which seems less the stage on which +emotions move than the very stuff they work in. In moments +of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow +fluid, to unmake and remake themselves like the shadows of +clouds on a stream. Darrow, through the rapid flight of the +shadows, could not seize on any specific indication of +feeling: he merely perceived that the young man was +unaccountably surprised at finding him with Miss Viner, and +that the extent of his surprise might cover all manner of +implications. + +Darrow's first idea was that Owen, if he suspected that the +conversation was not the result of an accidental encounter, +might wonder at his step-mother's suitor being engaged, at +such an hour, in private talk with her little girl's +governess. The thought was so disturbing that, as the three +turned back to the house, he was on the point of saying to +Owen: "I came out to look for your mother." But, in the +contingency he feared, even so simple a phrase might seem +like an awkward attempt at explanation; and he walked on in +silence at Miss Viner's side. Presently he was struck by +the fact that Owen Leath and the girl were silent also; and +this gave a new turn to his thoughts. Silence may be as +variously shaded as speech; and that which enfolded Darrow +and his two companions seemed to his watchful perceptions to +be quivering with cross-threads of communication. At first +he was aware only of those that centred in his own troubled +consciousness; then it occurred to him that an equal +activity of intercourse was going on outside of it. +Something was in fact passing mutely and rapidly between +young Leath and Sophy Viner; but what it was, and whither it +tended, Darrow, when they reached the house, was but just +beginning to divine... + + + +XVIII + + +Anna Leath, from the terrace, watched the return of the +little group. + +She looked down on them, as they advanced across the garden, +from the serene height of her unassailable happiness. There +they were, coming toward her in the mild morning light, her +child, her step-son, her promised husband: the three beings +who filled her life. She smiled a little at the happy +picture they presented, Effie's gambols encircling it in a +moving frame within which the two men came slowly forward in +the silence of friendly understanding. It seemed part of +the deep intimacy of the scene that they should not be +talking to each other, and it did not till afterward strike +her as odd that neither of them apparently felt it necessary +to address a word to Sophy Viner. + +Anna herself, at the moment, was floating in the mid-current +of felicity, on a tide so bright and buoyant that she seemed +to be one with its warm waves. The first rush of bliss had +stunned and dazzled her; but now that, each morning, she +woke to the calm certainty of its recurrence, she was +growing used to the sense of security it gave. + +"I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; as if +it had grown out of me like wings." So she phrased it to +Darrow, as, later in the morning, they paced the garden- +paths together. His answering look gave her the same +assurance of safety. The evening before he had seemed +preoccupied, and the shadow of his mood had faintly +encroached on the great golden orb of their blessedness; but +now it was uneclipsed again, and hung above them high and +bright as the sun at noon. + +Upstairs in her sitting-room, that afternoon, she was +thinking of these things. The morning mists had turned to +rain, compelling the postponement of an excursion in which +the whole party were to have joined. Effie, with her +governess, had been despatched in the motor to do some +shopping at Francheuil; and Anna had promised Darrow to join +him, later in the afternoon, for a quick walk in the rain. + +He had gone to his room after luncheon to get some belated +letters off his conscience; and when he had left her she had +continued to sit in the same place, her hands crossed on her +knees, her head slightly bent, in an attitude of brooding +retrospection. As she looked back at her past life, it +seemed to her to have consisted of one ceaseless effort to +pack into each hour enough to fill out its slack folds; but +now each moment was like a miser's bag stretched to bursting +with pure gold. + +She was roused by the sound of Owen's step in the gallery +outside her room. It paused at her door and in answer to +his knock she called out "Come in!" + +As the door closed behind him she was struck by his look of +pale excitement, and an impulse of compunction made her say: +"You've come to ask me why I haven't spoken to your +grandmother!" +He sent about him a glance vaguely reminding her of the +strange look with which Sophy Viner had swept the room the +night before; then his brilliant eyes came back to her. + +"I've spoken to her myself," he said. + +Anna started up, incredulous. + +"You've spoken to her? When?" + +"Just now. I left her to come here." + +Anna's first feeling was one of annoyance. There was really +something comically incongruous in this boyish surrender to +impulse on the part of a young man so eager to assume the +responsibilities of life. She looked at him with a faintly +veiled amusement. + +"You asked me to help you and I promised you I would. It was +hardly worth while to work out such an elaborate plan of +action if you intended to take the matter out of my hands +without telling me." + +"Oh, don't take that tone with me!" he broke out, almost +angrily. + +"That tone? What tone?" She stared at his quivering face. +"I might," she pursued, still half-laughing, "more properly +make that request of YOU!" + +Owen reddened and his vehemence suddenly subsided. + +"I meant that I HAD to speak--that's all. You don't +give me a chance to explain..." + +She looked at him gently, wondering a little at her own +impatience. + +"Owen! Don't I always want to give you every chance? It's +because I DO that I wanted to talk to your grandmother +first--that I was waiting and watching for the right +moment..." + +"The right moment? So was I. That's why I've spoken." His +voice rose again and took the sharp edge it had in moments +of high pressure. + +His step-mother turned away and seated herself in her sofa- +corner. "Oh, my dear, it's not a privilege to quarrel over! +You've taken a load off my shoulders. Sit down and tell me +all about it." + +He stood before her, irresolute. "I can't sit down," he +said. + +"Walk about, then. Only tell me: I'm impatient." + +His immediate response was to throw himself into the +armchair at her side, where he lounged for a moment without +speaking, his legs stretched out, his arms locked behind his +thrown-back head. Anna, her eyes on his face, waited +quietly for him to speak. + +"Well--of course it was just what one expected." + +"She takes it so badly, you mean?" + +"All the heavy batteries were brought up: my father, Givre, +Monsieur de Chantelle, the throne and the altar. Even my +poor mother was dragged out of oblivion and armed with +imaginary protests." + +Anna sighed out her sympathy. "Well--you were prepared for +all that?" + +"I thought I was, till I began to hear her say it. Then it +sounded so incredibly silly that I told her so." + +"Oh, Owen--Owen!" + +"Yes: I know. I was a fool; but I couldn't help it." + +"And you've mortally offended her, I suppose? That's exactly +what I wanted to prevent." She laid a hand on his shoulder. +"You tiresome boy, not to wait and let me speak for you!" + +He moved slightly away, so that her hand slipped from its +place. "You don't understand," he said, frowning. + +"I don't see how I can, till you explain. If you thought +the time had come to tell your grandmother, why not have +asked me to do it? I had my reasons for waiting; but if +you'd told me to speak I should have done so, naturally." + +He evaded her appeal by a sudden turn. "What WERE your +reasons for waiting?" + +Anna did not immediately answer. Her step-son's eyes were +on her face, and under his gaze she felt a faint +disquietude. + +"I was feeling my way...I wanted to be absolutely sure..." + +"Absolutely sure of what?" + +She delayed again for a just perceptible instant. "Why, +simply of OUR side of the case." + +"But you told me you were, the other day, when we talked it +over before they came back from Ouchy." + +"Oh, my dear--if you think that, in such a complicated +matter, every day, every hour, doesn't more or less modify +one's surest sureness!" + +"That's just what I'm driving at. I want to know what has +modified yours." + +She made a slight gesture of impatience. "What does it +matter, now the thing's done? I don't know that I could give +any clear reason..." + +He got to his feet and stood looking down on her with a +tormented brow. "But it's absolutely necessary that you +should." + +At his tone her impatience flared up. "It's not necessary +that I should give you any explanation whatever, since +you've taken the matter out of my hands. All I can say is +that I was trying to help you: that no other thought ever +entered my mind." She paused a moment and then added: "If +you doubted it, you were right to do what you've done." + +"Oh, I never doubted YOU!" he retorted, with a fugitive +stress on the pronoun. His face had cleared to its old look +of trust. "Don't be offended if I've seemed to," he went +on. "I can't quite explain myself, either...it's all a kind +of tangle, isn't it? That's why I thought I'd better speak +at once; or rather why I didn't think at all, but just +suddenly blurted the thing out----" + +Anna gave him back his look of conciliation. "Well, the how +and why don't much matter now. The point is how to deal +with your grandmother. You've not told me what she means to +do." + +"Oh, she means to send for Adelaide Painter." + +The name drew a faint note of mirth from him and relaxed +both their faces to a smile. + +"Perhaps," Anna added, "it's really the best thing for us +all." + +Owen shrugged his shoulders. "It's too preposterous and +humiliating. Dragging that woman into our secrets----!" + +"This could hardly be a secret much longer." + +He had moved to the hearth, where he stood pushing about the +small ornaments on the mantel-shelf; but at her answer he +turned back to her. + +"You haven't, of course, spoken of it to any one?" + +"No; but I intend to now." + +She paused for his reply, and as it did not come she +continued: "If Adelaide Painter's to be told there's no +possible reason why I shouldn't tell Mr. Darrow." +Owen abruptly set down the little statuette between his +fingers. "None whatever: I want every one to know." + +She smiled a little at his over-emphasis, and was about to +meet it with a word of banter when he continued, facing her: +"You haven't, as yet, said a word to him?" + +"I've told him nothing, except what the discussion of our +own plans--his and mine--obliged me to: that you were +thinking of marrying, and that I wasn't willing to leave +France till I'd done what I could to see you through." + +At her first words the colour had rushed to his forehead; +but as she continued she saw his face compose itself and his +blood subside. + +"You're a brick, my dear!" he exclaimed. + +"You had my word, you know." + +"Yes; yes--I know." His face had clouded again. "And that's +all--positively all--you've ever said to him?" + +"Positively all. But why do you ask?" + +He had a moment's embarrassed hesitation. "It was +understood, wasn't it, that my grandmother was to be the +first to know?" + +"Well--and so she has been, hasn't she, since you've told +her?" + +He turned back to his restless shifting of the knick-knacks. + +"And you're sure that nothing you've said to Darrow could +possibly have given him a hint----?" + +"Nothing I've said to him--certainly." + +He swung about on her. "Why do you put it in that way?" + +"In what way?" + +"Why--as if you thought some one else might have spoken..." + +"Some one else? Who else?" She rose to her feet. "What on +earth, my dear boy, can you be driving at?" + +"I'm trying to find out whether you think he knows anything +definite." + +"Why should I think so? Do YOU?" + +"I don't know. I want to find out." + +She laughed at his obstinate insistence. "To test my +veracity, I suppose?" At the sound of a step in the gallery +she added: "Here he is--you can ask him yourself." + +She met Darrow's knock with an invitation to enter, and he +came into the room and paused between herself and Owen. She +was struck, as he stood there, by the contrast between his +happy careless good-looks and her step-son's frowning +agitation. + +Darrow met her eyes with a smile. "Am I too soon? Or is our +walk given up?" + +"No; I was just going to get ready." She continued to linger +between the two, looking slowly from one to the other. "But +there's something we want to tell you first: Owen is engaged +to Miss Viner." + +The sense of an indefinable interrogation in Owen's mind +made her, as she spoke, fix her eyes steadily on Darrow. + +He had paused just opposite the window, so that, even in the +rainy afternoon light, his face was clearly open to her +scrutiny. For a second, immense surprise was alone visible +on it: so visible that she half turned to her step-son, with +a faint smile for his refuted suspicions. Why, she +wondered, should Owen have thought that Darrow had already +guessed his secret, and what, after all, could be so +disturbing to him in this not improbable contingency? At any +rate, his doubt must have been dispelled: there was nothing +feigned about Darrow's astonishment. When her eyes turned +back to him he was already crossing to Owen with +outstretched hand, and she had, through an unaccountable +faint flutter of misgiving, a mere confused sense of their +exchanging the customary phrases. Her next perception was +of Owen's tranquillized look, and of his smiling return of +Darrow's congratulatory grasp. She had the eerie feeling of +having been overswept by a shadow which there had been no +cloud to cast... + +A moment later Owen had left the room and she and Darrow +were alone. He had turned away to the window and stood +staring out into the down-pour. + +"You're surprised at Owen's news?" she asked. + +"Yes: I am surprised," he answered. + +"You hadn't thought of its being Miss Viner?" + +"Why should I have thought of Miss Viner?" + +"You see now why I wanted so much to find out what you knew +about her." He made no comment, and she pursued: "Now that +you DO know it's she, if there's anything----" + +He moved back into the room and went up to her. His face +was serious, with a slight shade of annoyance. "What on +earth should there be? As I told you, I've never in my life +heard any one say two words about Miss Viner." + +Anna made no answer and they continued to face each other +without moving. For the moment she had ceased to think +about Sophy Viner and Owen: the only thought in her mind was +that Darrow was alone with her, close to her, and that, for +the first time, their hands and lips had not met. + +He glanced back doubtfully at the window. "It's pouring. +Perhaps you'd rather not go out?" + +She hesitated, as if waiting for him to urge her. "I +suppose I'd better not. I ought to go at once to my mother- +in-law--Owen's just been telling her," she said. + +"Ah." Darrow hazarded a smile. "That accounts for my +having, on my way up, heard some one telephoning for Miss +Painter!" + +At the allusion they laughed together, vaguely, and Anna +moved toward the door. He held it open for her and followed +her out. + + + +XIX + + +He left her at the door of Madame de Chantelle's sitting- +room, and plunged out alone into the rain. + +The wind flung about the stripped tree-tops of the avenue +and dashed the stinging streams into his face. He walked to +the gate and then turned into the high-road and strode along +in the open, buffeted by slanting gusts. The evenly ridged +fields were a blurred waste of mud, and the russet coverts +which he and Owen had shot through the day before shivered +desolately against a driving sky. + +Darrow walked on and on, indifferent to the direction he was +taking. His thoughts were tossing like the tree-tops. +Anna's announcement had not come to him as a complete +surprise: that morning, as he strolled back to the house +with Owen Leath and Miss Viner, he had had a momentary +intuition of the truth. But it had been no more than an +intuition, the merest faint cloud-puff of surmise; and now +it was an attested fact, darkening over the whole sky. + +In respect of his own attitude, he saw at once that the +discovery made no appreciable change. If he had been bound +to silence before, he was no less bound to it now; the only +difference lay in the fact that what he had just learned had +rendered his bondage more intolerable. Hitherto he had felt +for Sophy Viner's defenseless state a sympathy profoundly +tinged with compunction. But now he was half-conscious of +an obscure indignation against her. Superior as he had +fancied himself to ready-made judgments, he was aware of +cherishing the common doubt as to the disinterestedness of +the woman who tries to rise above her past. No wonder she +had been sick with fear on meeting him! It was in his power +to do her more harm than he had dreamed... + +Assuredly he did not want to harm her; but he did +desperately want to prevent her marrying Owen Leath. He +tried to get away from the feeling, to isolate and +exteriorize it sufficiently to see what motives it was made +of; but it remained a mere blind motion of his blood, the +instinctive recoil from the thing that no amount of arguing +can make "straight." His tramp, prolonged as it was, carried +him no nearer to enlightenment; and after trudging through +two or three sallow mud-stained villages he turned about and +wearily made his way back to Givre. As he walked up the +black avenue, making for the lights that twinkled through +its pitching branches, he had a sudden realisation of his +utter helplessness. He might think and combine as he would; +but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could +do... + +He dropped his wet coat in the vestibule and began to mount +the stairs to his room. But on the landing he was overtaken +by a sober-faced maid who, in tones discreetly lowered, +begged him to be so kind as to step, for a moment, into the +Marquise's sitting-room. Somewhat disconcerted by the +summons, he followed its bearer to the door at which, a +couple of hours earlier, he had taken leave of Mrs. Leath. +It opened to admit him to a large lamp-lit room which he +immediately perceived to be empty; and the fact gave him +time to note, even through his disturbance of mind, the +interesting degree to which Madame de Chantelle's apartment +"dated" and completed her. Its looped and corded curtains, +its purple satin upholstery, the Sevres jardinieres, the +rosewood fire-screen, the little velvet tables edged with +lace and crowded with silver knick-knacks and simpering +miniatures, reconstituted an almost perfect setting for the +blonde beauty of the 'sixties. Darrow wondered that Fraser +Leath's filial respect should have prevailed over his +aesthetic scruples to the extent of permitting such an +anachronism among the eighteenth century graces of Givre; +but a moment's reflection made it clear that, to its late +owner, the attitude would have seemed exactly in the +traditions of the place. + +Madame de Chantelle's emergence from an inner room snatched +Darrow from these irrelevant musings. She was already +beaded and bugled for the evening, and, save for a slight +pinkness of the eye-lids, her elaborate appearance revealed +no mark of agitation; but Darrow noticed that, in +recognition of the solemnity of the occasion, she pinched a +lace handkerchief between her thumb and forefinger. + +She plunged at once into the centre of the difficulty, +appealing to him, in the name of all the Everards, to +descend there with her to the rescue of her darling. She +wasn't, she was sure, addressing herself in vain to one +whose person, whose "tone," whose traditions so brilliantly +declared his indebtedness to the principles she besought him +to defend. Her own reception of Darrow, the confidence she +had at once accorded him, must have shown him that she had +instinctively felt their unanimity of sentiment on these +fundamental questions. She had in fact recognized in him +the one person whom, without pain to her maternal piety, she +could welcome as her son's successor; and it was almost as +to Owen's father that she now appealed to Darrow to aid in +rescuing the wretched boy. + +"Don't think, please, that I'm casting the least reflection +on Anna, or showing any want of sympathy for her, when I say +that I consider her partly responsible for what's happened. +Anna is 'modern'--I believe that's what it's called when you +read unsettling books and admire hideous pictures. Indeed," +Madame de Chantelle continued, leaning confidentially +forward, "I myself have always more or less lived in that +atmosphere: my son, you know, was very revolutionary. Only +he didn't, of course, apply his ideas: they were purely +intellectual. That's what dear Anna has always failed to +understand. And I'm afraid she's created the same kind of +confusion in Owen's mind--led him to mix up things you read +about with things you do...You know, of course, that she +sides with him in this wretched business?" + +Developing at length upon this theme, she finally narrowed +down to the point of Darrow's intervention. "My grandson, +Mr. Darrow, calls me illogical and uncharitable because my +feelings toward Miss Viner have changed since I've heard +this news. Well! You've known her, it appears, for some +years: Anna tells me you used to see her when she was a +companion, or secretary or something, to a dreadfully vulgar +Mrs. Murrett. And I ask you as a friend, I ask you as one +of US, to tell me if you think a girl who has had to +knock about the world in that kind of position, and at the +orders of all kinds of people, is fitted to be Owen's wife +I'm not implying anything against her! I LIKED the girl, +Mr. Darrow...But what's that got to do with it? I don't want +her to marry my grandson. If I'd been looking for a wife +for Owen, I shouldn't have applied to the Farlows to find me +one. That's what Anna won't understand; and what you must +help me to make her see." + +Darrow, to this appeal, could oppose only the repeated +assurance of his inability to interfere. He tried to make +Madame de Chantelle see that the very position he hoped to +take in the household made his intervention the more +hazardous. He brought up the usual arguments, and sounded +the expected note of sympathy; but Madame de Chantelle's +alarm had dispelled her habitual imprecision, and, though +she had not many reasons to advance, her argument clung to +its point like a frightened sharp-clawed animal. + +"Well, then," she summed up, in response to his repeated +assertions that he saw no way of helping her, "you can, at +least, even if you won't say a word to the others, tell me +frankly and fairly--and quite between ourselves--your +personal opinion of Miss Viner, since you've known her so +much longer than we have." + +He protested that, if he had known her longer, he had known +her much less well, and that he had already, on this point, +convinced Anna of his inability to pronounce an opinion. + +Madame de Chantelle drew a deep sigh of intelligence. "Your +opinion of Mrs. Murrett is enough! I don't suppose you +pretend to conceal THAT? And heaven knows what other +unspeakable people she's been mixed up with. The only +friends she can produce are called Hoke...Don't try to +reason with me, Mr. Darrow. There are feelings that go +deeper than facts...And I KNOW she thought of studying +for the stage..." Madame de Chantelle raised the corner of +her lace handkerchief to her eyes. "I'm old-fashioned--like +my furniture," she murmured. "And I thought I could count +on you, Mr. Darrow..." + + +When Darrow, that night, regained his room, he reflected +with a flash of irony that each time he entered it he +brought a fresh troop of perplexities to trouble its serene +seclusion. Since the day after his arrival, only forty- +eight hours before, when he had set his window open to the +night, and his hopes had seemed as many as its stars, each +evening had brought its new problem and its renewed +distress. But nothing, as yet, had approached the blank +misery of mind with which he now set himself to face the +fresh questions confronting him. + +Sophy Viner had not shown herself at dinner, so that he had +had no glimpse of her in her new character, and no means of +divining the real nature of the tie between herself and Owen +Leath. One thing, however, was clear: whatever her real +feelings were, and however much or little she had at stake, +if she had made up her mind to marry Owen she had more than +enough skill and tenacity to defeat any arts that poor +Madame de Chantelle could oppose to her. + +Darrow himself was in fact the only person who might +possibly turn her from her purpose: Madame de Chantelle, at +haphazard, had hit on the surest means of saving Owen--if to +prevent his marriage were to save him! Darrow, on this +point, did not pretend to any fixed opinion; one feeling +alone was clear and insistent in him: he did not mean, if he +could help it, to let the marriage take place. + +How he was to prevent it he did not know: to his tormented +imagination every issue seemed closed. For a fantastic +instant he was moved to follow Madame de Chantelle's +suggestion and urge Anna to withdraw her approval. If his +reticence, his efforts to avoid the subject, had not escaped +her, she had doubtless set them down to the fact of his +knowing more, and thinking less, of Sophy Viner than he had +been willing to admit; and he might take advantage of this +to turn her mind gradually from the project. Yet how do so +without betraying his insincerity? If he had had nothing to +hide he could easily have said: "It's one thing to know +nothing against the girl, it's another to pretend that I +think her a good match for Owen." But could he say even so +much without betraying more? It was not Anna's questions, or +his answers to them, that he feared, but what might cry +aloud in the intervals between them. He understood now that +ever since Sophy Viner's arrival at Givre he had felt in +Anna the lurking sense of something unexpressed, and perhaps +inexpressible, between the girl and himself...When at last +he fell asleep he had fatalistically committed his next step +to the chances of the morrow. + +The first that offered itself was an encounter with Mrs. +Leath as he descended the stairs the next morning. She had +come down already hatted and shod for a dash to the park +lodge, where one of the gatekeeper's children had had an +accident. In her compact dark dress she looked more than +usually straight and slim, and her face wore the pale glow +it took on at any call on her energy: a kind of warrior +brightness that made her small head, with its strong chin +and close-bound hair, like that of an amazon in a frieze. + +It was their first moment alone since she had left him, the +afternoon before, at her mother-in-law's door; and after a +few words about the injured child their talk inevitably +reverted to Owen. + +Anna spoke with a smile of her "scene" with Madame de +Chantelle, who belonged, poor dear, to a generation when +"scenes" (in the ladylike and lachrymal sense of the term) +were the tribute which sensibility was expected to pay to +the unusual. Their conversation had been, in every detail, +so exactly what Anna had foreseen that it had clearly not +made much impression on her; but she was eager to know the +result of Darrow's encounter with her mother-in-law. + +"She told me she'd sent for you: she always 'sends for' +people in emergencies. That again, I suppose, is de +l'epoque. And failing Adelaide Painter, who can't get here +till this afternoon, there was no one but poor you to turn +to." + +She put it all lightly, with a lightness that seemed to his +tight-strung nerves slightly, undefinably over-done. But he +was so aware of his own tension that he wondered, the next +moment, whether anything would ever again seem to him quite +usual and insignificant and in the common order of things. + +As they hastened on through the drizzle in which the storm +of the night was weeping itself out, Anna drew close under +his umbrella, and at the pressure of her arm against his he +recalled his walk up the Dover pier with Sophy Viner. The +memory gave him a startled vision of the inevitable +occasions of contact, confidence, familiarity, which his +future relationship to the girl would entail, and the +countless chances of betrayal that every one of them +involved. + +"Do tell me just what you said," he heard Anna pleading; and +with sudden resolution he affirmed: "I quite understand your +mother-in-law's feeling as she does." + +The words, when uttered, seemed a good deal less significant +than they had sounded to his inner ear; and Anna replied +without surprise: "Of course. It's inevitable that she +should. But we shall bring her round in time." Under the +dripping dome she raised her face to his. "Don't you +remember what you said the day before yesterday? 'Together +we can't fail to pull it off for him!' I've told Owen that, +so you're pledged and there's no going back." + +The day before yesterday! Was it possible that, no longer +ago, life had seemed a sufficiently simple business for a +sane man to hazard such assurances? + +"Anna," he questioned her abruptly, "why are you so anxious +for this marriage?" + +She stopped short to face him. "Why? But surely I've +explained to you--or rather I've hardly had to, you seemed +so in sympathy with my reasons!" + +"I didn't know, then, who it was that Owen wanted to marry." + +The words were out with a spring and he felt a clearer air +in his brain. But her logic hemmed him in. + +"You knew yesterday; and you assured me then that you hadn't +a word to say----" + +"Against Miss Viner?" The name, once uttered, sounded on and +on in his ears. "Of course not. But that doesn't +necessarily imply that I think her a good match for Owen." + +Anna made no immediate answer. When she spoke it was to +question: "Why don't you think her a good match for Owen?" + +"Well--Madame de Chantelle's reasons seem to me not quite as +negligible as you think." + +"You mean the fact that she's been Mrs. Murrett's secretary, +and that the people who employed her before were called +Hoke? For, as far as Owen and I can make out, these are the +gravest charges against her." + +"Still, one can understand that the match is not what Madame +de Chantelle had dreamed of." + +"Oh, perfectly--if that's all you mean." +The lodge was in sight, and she hastened her step. He +strode on beside her in silence, but at the gate she checked +him with the question: "Is it really all you mean?" + +"Of course," he heard himself declare. + +"Oh, then I think I shall convince you--even if I can't, +like Madame de Chantelle, summon all the Everards to my +aid!" She lifted to him the look of happy laughter that +sometimes brushed her with a gleam of spring. + +Darrow watched her hasten along the path between the +dripping chrysanthemums and enter the lodge. After she had +gone in he paced up and down outside in the drizzle, waiting +to learn if she had any message to send back to the house; +and after the lapse of a few minutes she came out again. + +The child, she said, was badly, though not dangerously, +hurt, and the village doctor, who was already on hand, had +asked that the surgeon, already summoned from Francheuil, +should be told to bring with him certain needful appliances. +Owen had started by motor to fetch the surgeon, but there +was still time to communicate with the latter by telephone. +The doctor furthermore begged for an immediate provision of +such bandages and disinfectants as Givre itself could +furnish, and Anna bade Darrow address himself to Miss Viner, +who would know where to find the necessary things, and would +direct one of the servants to bicycle with them to the +lodge. + +Darrow, as he hurried off on this errand, had at once +perceived the opportunity it offered of a word with Sophy +Viner. What that word was to be he did not know; but now, +if ever, was the moment to make it urgent and conclusive. +It was unlikely that he would again have such a chance of +unobserved talk with her. + +He had supposed he should find her with her pupil in the +school-room; but he learned from a servant that Effie had +gone to Francheuil with her step-brother, and that Miss +Viner was still in her room. Darrow sent her word that he +was the bearer of a message from the lodge, and a moment +later he heard her coming down the stairs. + + + +XX + + +For a second, as she approached him, the quick tremor of her +glance showed her all intent on the same thought as himself. +He transmitted his instructions with mechanical precision, +and she answered in the same tone, repeating his words with +the intensity of attention of a child not quite sure of +understanding. Then she disappeared up the stairs. + +Darrow lingered on in the hall, not knowing if she meant to +return, yet inwardly sure she would. At length he saw her +coming down in her hat and jacket. The rain still streaked +the window panes, and, in order to say something, he said: +"You're not going to the lodge yourself?" + +"I've sent one of the men ahead with the things; but I +thought Mrs. Leath might need me." + +"She didn't ask for you," he returned, wondering how he +could detain her; but she answered decidedly: "I'd better +go." + +He held open the door, picked up his umbrella and followed +her out. As they went down the steps she glanced back at +him. "You've forgotten your mackintosh." + +"I sha'n't need it." + +She had no umbrella, and he opened his and held it out to +her. She rejected it with a murmur of thanks and walked on +through the thin drizzle, and he kept the umbrella over his +own head, without offering to shelter her. + +Rapidly and in silence they crossed the court and began to +walk down the avenue. They had traversed a third of its +length before Darrow said abruptly: "Wouldn't it have been +fairer, when we talked together yesterday, to tell me what +I've just heard from Mrs. Leath?" + +"Fairer----?" She stopped short with a startled look. + +"If I'd known that your future was already settled I should +have spared you my gratuitous suggestions." + +She walked on, more slowly, for a yard or two. "I couldn't +speak yesterday. I meant to have told you today." + +"Oh, I'm not reproaching you for your lack of confidence. +Only, if you HAD told me, I should have been more sure +of your really meaning what you said to me yesterday." + +She did not ask him to what he referred, and he saw that her +parting words to him lived as vividly in her memory as in +his. + +"Is it so important that you should be sure?" she finally +questioned. + +"Not to you, naturally," he returned with involuntary +asperity. It was incredible, yet it was a fact, that for +the moment his immediate purpose in seeking to speak to her +was lost under a rush of resentment at counting for so +little in her fate. Of what stuff, then, was his feeling +for her made? A few hours earlier she had touched his +thoughts as little as his senses; but now he felt old +sleeping instincts stir in him... +A rush of rain dashed against his face, and, catching +Sophy's hat, strained it back from her loosened hair. She +put her hands to her head with a familiar gesture...He came +closer and held his umbrella over her... + +At the lodge he waited while she went in. The rain +continued to stream down on him and he shivered in the +dampness and stamped his feet on the flags. It seemed to +him that a long time elapsed before the door opened and she +reappeared. He glanced into the house for a glimpse of +Anna, but obtained none; yet the mere sense of her nearness +had completely altered his mood. + +The child, Sophy told him, was doing well; but Mrs. Leath +had decided to wait till the surgeon came. Darrow, as they +turned away, looked through the gates, and saw the doctor's +old-fashioned carriage by the roadside. + +"Let me tell the doctor's boy to drive you back," he +suggested; but Sophy answered: "No; I'll walk," and he moved +on toward the house at her side. She expressed no surprise +at his not remaining at the lodge, and again they walked on +in silence through the rain. She had accepted the shelter +of his umbrella, but she kept herself at such a carefully +measured distance that even the slight swaying movements +produced by their quick pace did not once bring her arm in +touch with his; and, noticing this, he perceived that every +drop of her blood must be alive to his nearness. + +"What I meant just now," he began, "was that you ought to +have been sure of my good wishes." + +She seemed to weigh the words. "Sure enough for what?" + +"To trust me a little farther than you did." + +"I've told you that yesterday I wasn't free to speak." + +"Well, since you are now, may I say a word to you?" + +She paused perceptibly, and when she spoke it was in so low +a tone that he had to bend his head to catch her answer. "I +can't think what you can have to say." + +"It's not easy to say here, at any rate. And indoors I +sha'n't know where to say it." He glanced about him in the +rain. "Let's walk over to the spring-house for a minute." + +To the right of the drive, under a clump of trees, a little +stucco pavilion crowned by a balustrade rose on arches of +mouldering brick over a flight of steps that led down to a +spring. Other steps curved up to a door above. Darrow +mounted these, and opening the door entered a small circular +room hung with loosened strips of painted paper whereon +spectrally faded Mandarins executed elongated gestures. +Some black and gold chairs with straw seats and an unsteady +table of cracked lacquer stood on the floor of red-glazed +tile. + +Sophy had followed him without comment. He closed the door +after her, and she stood motionless, as though waiting for +him to speak. + +"Now we can talk quietly," he said, looking at her with a +smile into which he tried to put an intention of the +frankest friendliness. + +She merely repeated: "I can't think what you can have to +say." + +Her voice had lost the note of half-wistful confidence on +which their talk of the previous day had closed, and she +looked at him with a kind of pale hostility. Her tone made +it evident that his task would be difficult, but it did not +shake his resolve to go on. He sat down, and mechanically +she followed his example. The table was between them and +she rested her arms on its cracked edge and her chin on her +interlocked hands. He looked at her and she gave him back +his look. + +"Have you nothing to say to ME?" he asked at length. + +A faint smile lifted, in the remembered way, the left corner +of her narrowed lips. + +"About my marriage?" + +"About your marriage." + +She continued to consider him between half-drawn lids. "What +can I say that Mrs. Leath has not already told you?" + +"Mrs. Leath has told me nothing whatever but the fact--and +her pleasure in it." + +"Well; aren't those the two essential points?" + +"The essential points to YOU? I should have thought----" + +"Oh, to YOU, I meant," she put in keenly. + +He flushed at the retort, but steadied himself and rejoined: +"The essential point to me is, of course, that you should be +doing what's really best for you." + +She sat silent, with lowered lashes. At length she +stretched out her arm and took up from the table a little +threadbare Chinese hand-screen. She turned its ebony stem +once or twice between her fingers, and as she did so Darrow +was whimsically struck by the way in which their evanescent +slight romance was symbolized by the fading lines on the +frail silk. + +"Do you think my engagement to Mr. Leath not really best for +me?" she asked at length. + +Darrow, before answering, waited long enough to get his +words into the tersest shape--not without a sense, as he did +so, of his likeness to the surgeon deliberately poising his +lancet for a clean incision. "I'm not sure," he replied, +"of its being the best thing for either of you." + +She took the stroke steadily, but a faint red swept her face +like the reflection of a blush. She continued to keep her +lowered eyes on the screen. + +"From whose point of view do you speak?" + +"Naturally, that of the persons most concerned." + +"From Owen's, then, of course? You don't think me a good +match for him?" + +"From yours, first of all. I don't think him a good match +for you." + +He brought the answer out abruptly, his eyes on her face. +It had grown extremely pale, but as the meaning of his words +shaped itself in her mind he saw a curious inner light dawn +through her set look. She lifted her lids just far enough +for a veiled glance at him, and a smile slipped through them +to her trembling lips. For a moment the change merely +bewildered him; then it pulled him up with a sharp jerk of +apprehension. + +"I don't think him a good match for you," he stammered, +groping for the lost thread of his words. + +She threw a vague look about the chilly rain-dimmed room. +"And you've brought me here to tell me why?" + +The question roused him to the sense that their minutes were +numbered, and that if he did not immediately get to his +point there might be no other chance of making it. + +"My chief reason is that I believe he's too young and +inexperienced to give you the kind of support you need." + +At his words her face changed again, freezing to a tragic +coldness. She stared straight ahead of her, perceptibly +struggling with the tremor of her muscles; and when she had +controlled it she flung out a pale-lipped pleasantry. "But +you see I've always had to support myself!" + +"He's a boy," Darrow pushed on, "a charming, wonderful boy; +but with no more notion than a boy how to deal with the +inevitable daily problems...the trivial stupid unimportant +things that life is chiefly made up of." +"I'll deal with them for him," she rejoined. + +"They'll be more than ordinarily difficult." + +She shot a challenging glance at him. "You must have some +special reason for saying so." + +"Only my clear perception of the facts." + +"What facts do you mean?" + +Darrow hesitated. "You must know better than I," he +returned at length, "that the way won't be made easy to +you." + +"Mrs. Leath, at any rate, has made it so." + +"Madame de Chantelle will not." + +"How do YOU know that?" she flung back. + +He paused again, not sure how far it was prudent to reveal +himself in the confidence of the household. Then, to avoid +involving Anna, he answered: "Madame de Chantelle sent for +me yesterday." + +"Sent for you--to talk to you about me?" The colour rose to +her forehead and her eyes burned black under lowered brows. +"By what right, I should like to know? What have you to do +with me, or with anything in the world that concerns me?" + +Darrow instantly perceived what dread suspicion again +possessed her, and the sense that it was not wholly +unjustified caused him a passing pang of shame. But it did +not turn him from his purpose. + +"I'm an old friend of Mrs. Leath's. It's not unnatural that +Madame de Chantelle should talk to me." + +She dropped the screen on the table and stood up, turning on +him the same small mask of wrath and scorn which had glared +at him, in Paris, when he had confessed to his suppression +of her letter. She walked away a step or two and then came +back. + +"May I ask what Madame de Chantelle said to you?" + +"She made it clear that she should not encourage the +marriage." + +"And what was her object in making that clear to YOU?" + +Darrow hesitated. "I suppose she thought----" + +"That she could persuade you to turn Mrs. Leath against me?" + +He was silent, and she pressed him: "Was that it?" +"That was it." + +"But if you don't--if you keep your promise----" + +"My promise?" + +"To say nothing...nothing whatever..." Her strained look +threw a haggard light along the pause. + +As she spoke, the whole odiousness of the scene rushed over +him. "Of course I shall say nothing...you know that..." He +leaned to her and laid his hand on hers. "You know I +wouldn't for the world..." + +She drew back and hid her face with a sob. Then she sank +again into her seat, stretched her arms across the table and +laid her face upon them. He sat still, overwhelmed with +compunction. After a long interval, in which he had +painfully measured the seconds by her hard-drawn breathing, +she looked up at him with a face washed clear of bitterness. + +"Don't suppose I don't know what you must have thought of +me!" + +The cry struck him down to a lower depth of self-abasement. +"My poor child," he felt like answering, "the shame of it is +that I've never thought of you at all!" But he could only +uselessly repeat: "I'll do anything I can to help you." + +She sat silent, drumming the table with her hand. He saw +that her doubt of him was allayed, and the perception made +him more ashamed, as if her trust had first revealed to him +how near he had come to not deserving it. Suddenly she +began to speak. + +"You think, then, I've no right to marry him?" + +"No right? God forbid! I only meant----" + +"That you'd rather I didn't marry any friend of yours." She +brought it out deliberately, not as a question, but as a +mere dispassionate statement of fact. + +Darrow in turn stood up and wandered away helplessly to the +window. He stood staring out through its small discoloured +panes at the dim brown distances; then he moved back to the +table. + +"I'll tell you exactly what I meant. You'll be wretched if +you marry a man you're not in love with." + +He knew the risk of misapprehension that he ran, but he +estimated his chances of success as precisely in proportion +to his peril. If certain signs meant what he thought they +did, he might yet--at what cost he would not stop to think-- +make his past pay for his future. + +The girl, at his words, had lifted her head with a movement +of surprise. Her eyes slowly reached his face and rested +there in a gaze of deep interrogation. He held the look for +a moment; then his own eyes dropped and he waited. + +At length she began to speak. "You're mistaken--you're +quite mistaken." + +He waited a moment longer. "Mistaken----?" + +"In thinking what you think. I'm as happy as if I deserved +it!" she suddenly proclaimed with a laugh. + +She stood up and moved toward the door. "NOW are you +satisfied?" she asked, turning her vividest face to him from +the threshold. + + + +XXI + + +Down the avenue there came to them, with the opening of the +door, the voice of Owen's motor. It was the signal which +had interrupted their first talk, and again, instinctively, +they drew apart at the sound. Without a word Darrow turned +back into the room, while Sophy Viner went down the steps +and walked back alone toward the court. + +At luncheon the presence of the surgeon, and the non- +appearance of Madame de Chantelle--who had excused herself +on the plea of a headache--combined to shift the +conversational centre of gravity; and Darrow, under shelter +of the necessarily impersonal talk, had time to adjust his +disguise and to perceive that the others were engaged in the +same re-arrangement. It was the first time that he had seen +young Leath and Sophy Viner together since he had learned of +their engagement; but neither revealed more emotion than +befitted the occasion. It was evident that Owen was deeply +under the girl's charm, and that at the least sign from her +his bliss would have broken bounds; but her reticence was +justified by the tacitly recognized fact of Madame de +Chantelle's disapproval. This also visibly weighed on +Anna's mind, making her manner to Sophy, if no less kind, +yet a trifle more constrained than if the moment of final +understanding had been reached. So Darrow interpreted the +tension perceptible under the fluent exchange of +commonplaces in which he was diligently sharing. But he was +more and more aware of his inability to test the moral +atmosphere about him: he was like a man in fever testing +another's temperature by the touch. + +After luncheon Anna, who was to motor the surgeon home, +suggested to Darrow that he should accompany them. Effie was +also of the party; and Darrow inferred that Anna wished to +give her step-son a chance to be alone with his betrothed. +On the way back, after the surgeon had been left at his +door, the little girl sat between her mother and Darrow, and +her presence kept their talk from taking a personal turn. +Darrow knew that Mrs. Leath had not yet told Effie of the +relation in which he was to stand to her. The premature +divulging of Owen's plans had thrown their own into the +background, and by common consent they continued, in the +little girl's presence, on terms of an informal +friendliness. + +The sky had cleared after luncheon, and to prolong their +excursion they returned by way of the ivy-mantled ruin which +was to have been the scene of the projected picnic. This +circuit brought them back to the park gates not long before +sunset, and as Anna wished to stop at the lodge for news of +the injured child Darrow left her there with Effie and +walked on alone to the house. He had the impression that +she was slightly surprised at his not waiting for her; but +his inner restlessness vented itself in an intense desire +for bodily movement. He would have liked to walk himself +into a state of torpor; to tramp on for hours through the +moist winds and the healing darkness and come back +staggering with fatigue and sleep. But he had no pretext +for such a flight, and he feared that, at such a moment, his +prolonged absence might seem singular to Anna. + +As he approached the house, the thought of her nearness +produced a swift reaction of mood. It was as if an intenser +vision of her had scattered his perplexities like morning +mists. At this moment, wherever she was, he knew he was +safely shut away in her thoughts, and the knowledge made +every other fact dwindle away to a shadow. He and she loved +each other, and their love arched over them open and ample +as the day: in all its sunlit spaces there was no cranny for +a fear to lurk. In a few minutes he would be in her presence +and would read his reassurance in her eyes. And presently, +before dinner, she would contrive that they should have an +hour by themselves in her sitting-room, and he would sit by +the hearth and watch her quiet movements, and the way the +bluish lustre on her hair purpled a little as she bent above +the fire. + +A carriage drove out of the court as he entered it, and in +the hall his vision was dispelled by the exceedingly +substantial presence of a lady in a waterproof and a tweed +hat, who stood firmly planted in the centre of a pile of +luggage, as to which she was giving involved but lucid +directions to the footman who had just admitted her. She +went on with these directions regardless of Darrow's +entrance, merely fixing her small pale eyes on him while she +proceeded, in a deep contralto voice, and a fluent French +pronounced with the purest Boston accent, to specify the +destination of her bags; and this enabled Darrow to give her +back a gaze protracted enough to take in all the details of +her plain thick-set person, from the square sallow face +beneath bands of grey hair to the blunt boot-toes protruding +under her wide walking skirt. + +She submitted to this scrutiny with no more evidence of +surprise than a monument examined by a tourist; but when the +fate of her luggage had been settled she turned suddenly to +Darrow and, dropping her eyes from his face to his feet, +asked in trenchant accents: "What sort of boots have you got +on?" + +Before he could summon his wits to the consideration of this +question she continued in a tone of suppressed indignation: +"Until Americans get used to the fact that France is under +water for half the year they're perpetually risking their +lives by not being properly protected. I suppose you've +been tramping through all this nasty clammy mud as if you'd +been taking a stroll on Boston Common." + +Darrow, with a laugh, affirmed his previous experience of +French dampness, and the degree to which he was on his guard +against it; but the lady, with a contemptuous snort, +rejoined: "You young men are all alike----"; to which she +appended, after another hard look at him: "I suppose you're +George Darrow? I used to know one of your mother's cousins, +who married a Tunstall of Mount Vernon Street. My name is +Adelaide Painter. Have you been in Boston lately? No? I'm +sorry for that. I hear there have been several new houses +built at the lower end of Commonwealth Avenue and I hoped +you could tell me about them. I haven't been there for +thirty years myself." + +Miss Painter's arrival at Givre produced the same effect as +the wind's hauling around to the north after days of languid +weather. When Darrow joined the group about the tea-table +she had already given a tingle to the air. Madame de +Chantelle still remained invisible above stairs; but Darrow +had the impression that even through her drawn curtains and +bolted doors a stimulating whiff must have entered. + +Anna was in her usual seat behind the tea-tray, and Sophy +Viner presently led in her pupil. Owen was also there, +seated, as usual, a little apart from the others, and +following Miss Painter's massive movements and equally +substantial utterances with a smile of secret intelligence +which gave Darrow the idea of his having been in clandestine +parley with the enemy. Darrow further took note that the +girl and her suitor perceptibly avoided each other; but this +might be a natural result of the tension Miss Painter had +been summoned to relieve. + +Sophy Viner would evidently permit no recognition of the +situation save that which it lay with Madame de Chantelle to +accord; but meanwhile Miss Painter had proclaimed her tacit +sense of it by summoning the girl to a seat at her side. + +Darrow, as he continued to observe the newcomer, who was +perched on her arm-chair like a granite image on the edge of +a cliff, was aware that, in a more detached frame of mind, +he would have found an extreme interest in studying and +classifying Miss Painter. It was not that she said anything +remarkable, or betrayed any of those unspoken perceptions +which give significance to the most commonplace utterances. +She talked of the lateness of her train, of an impending +crisis in international politics, of the difficulty of +buying English tea in Paris and of the enormities of which +French servants were capable; and her views on these +subjects were enunciated with a uniformity of emphasis +implying complete unconsciousness of any difference in their +interest and importance. She always applied to the French +race the distant epithet of "those people", but she betrayed +an intimate acquaintance with many of its members, and an +encyclopaedic knowledge of the domestic habits, financial +difficulties and private complications of various persons of +social importance. Yet, as she evidently felt no +incongruity in her attitude, so she revealed no desire to +parade her familiarity with the fashionable, or indeed any +sense of it as a fact to be paraded. It was evident that +the titled ladies whom she spoke of as Mimi or Simone or +Odette were as much "those people" to her as the bonne +who tampered with her tea and steamed the stamps off her +letters ("when, by a miracle, I don't put them in the box +myself.") Her whole attitude was of a vast grim tolerance +of things-as-they-came, as though she had been some +wonderful automatic machine which recorded facts but had not +yet been perfected to the point of sorting or labelling +them. + +All this, as Darrow was aware, still fell short of +accounting for the influence she obviously exerted on the +persons in contact with her. It brought a slight relief to +his state of tension to go on wondering, while he watched +and listened, just where the mystery lurked. Perhaps, after +all, it was in the fact of her blank insensibility, an +insensibility so devoid of egotism that it had no hardness +and no grimaces, but rather the freshness of a simpler +mental state. After living, as he had, as they all had, for +the last few days, in an atmosphere perpetually tremulous +with echoes and implications, it was restful and fortifying +merely to walk into the big blank area of Miss Painter's +mind, so vacuous for all its accumulated items, so echoless +for all its vacuity. + +His hope of a word with Anna before dinner was dispelled by +her rising to take Miss Painter up to Madame de Chantelle; +and he wandered away to his own room, leaving Owen and Miss +Viner engaged in working out a picture-puzzle for Effie. + +Madame de Chantelle--possibly as the result of her friend's +ministrations--was able to appear at the dinner-table, +rather pale and pink-nosed, and casting tenderly reproachful +glances at her grandson, who faced them with impervious +serenity; and the situation was relieved by the fact that +Miss Viner, as usual, had remained in the school-room with +her pupil. + +Darrow conjectured that the real clash of arms would not +take place till the morrow; and wishing to leave the field +open to the contestants he set out early on a solitary walk. +It was nearly luncheon-time when he returned from it and +came upon Anna just emerging from the house. She had on her +hat and jacket and was apparently coming forth to seek him, +for she said at once: "Madame de Chantelle wants you to go +up to her." + +"To go up to her? Now?" + +"That's the message she sent. She appears to rely on you to +do something." She added with a smile: "Whatever it is, +let's have it over!" + +Darrow, through his rising sense of apprehension, wondered +why, instead of merely going for a walk, he had not jumped +into the first train and got out of the way till Owen's +affairs were finally settled. + +"But what in the name of goodness can I do?" he protested, +following Anna back into the hall. + +"I don't know. But Owen seems so to rely on you, too----" + +"Owen! Is HE to be there?" + +"No. But you know I told him he could count on you." + +"But I've said to your mother-in-law all I could." + +"Well, then you can only repeat it." + +This did not seem to Darrow to simplify his case as much as +she appeared to think; and once more he had a movement of +recoil. "There's no possible reason for my being mixed up +in this affair!" + +Anna gave him a reproachful glance. "Not the fact that +I am?" she reminded him; but even this only stiffened his +resistance. + +"Why should you be, either--to this extent?" + +The question made her pause. She glanced about the hall, as +if to be sure they had it to themselves; and then, in a +lowered voice: "I don't know," she suddenly confessed; "but, +somehow, if THEY'RE not happy I feel as if we shouldn't +be." + +"Oh, well--" Darrow acquiesced, in the tone of the man who +perforce yields to so lovely an unreasonableness. Escape +was, after all, impossible, and he could only resign himself +to being led to Madame de Chantelle's door. + +Within, among the bric-a-brac and furbelows, he found Miss +Painter seated in a redundant purple armchair with the +incongruous air of a horseman bestriding a heavy mount. +Madame de Chantelle sat opposite, still a little wan and +disordered under her elaborate hair, and clasping the +handkerchief whose visibility symbolized her distress. On +the young man's entrance she sighed out a plaintive welcome, +to which she immediately appended: "Mr. Darrow, I can't help +feeling that at heart you're with me!" + +The directness of the challenge made it easier for Darrow to +protest, and he reiterated his inability to give an opinion +on either side. + +"But Anna declares you have--on hers!" + +He could not restrain a smile at this faint flaw in an +impartiality so scrupulous. Every evidence of feminine +inconsequence in Anna seemed to attest her deeper subjection +to the most inconsequent of passions. He had certainly +promised her his help--but before he knew what he was +promising. + +He met Madame de Chantelle's appeal by replying: "If there +were anything I could possibly say I should want it to be in +Miss Viner's favour." + +"You'd want it to be--yes! But could you make it so?" + +"As far as facts go, I don't see how I can make it either +for or against her. I've already said that I know nothing +of her except that she's charming." + +"As if that weren't enough--weren't all there OUGHT to +be!" Miss Painter put in impatiently. She seemed to address +herself to Darrow, though her small eyes were fixed on her +friend. + +"Madame de Chantelle seems to imagine," she pursued, "that a +young American girl ought to have a dossier--a police- +record, or whatever you call it: what those awful women in +the streets have here. In our country it's enough to know +that a young girl's pure and lovely: people don't +immediately ask her to show her bank-account and her +visiting-list." + +Madame de Chantelle looked plaintively at her sturdy +monitress. "You don't expect me not to ask if she's got a +family?" + +"No; nor to think the worse of her if she hasn't. The fact +that she's an orphan ought, with your ideas, to be a merit. +You won't have to invite her father and mother to Givre!" + +"Adelaide--Adelaide!" the mistress of Givre lamented. + +"Lucretia Mary," the other returned--and Darrow spared an +instant's amusement to the quaint incongruity of the name-- +"you know you sent for Mr. Darrow to refute me; and how can +he, till he knows what I think?" + +"You think it's perfectly simple to let Owen marry a girl we +know nothing about?" + +"No; but I don't think it's perfectly simple to prevent +him." + +The shrewdness of the answer increased Darrow's interest in +Miss Painter. She had not hitherto struck him as being a +person of much penetration, but he now felt sure that her +gimlet gaze might bore to the heart of any practical +problem. + +Madame de Chantelle sighed out her recognition of the +difficulty. + +"I haven't a word to say against Miss Viner; but she's +knocked about so, as it's called, that she must have been +mixed up with some rather dreadful people. If only Owen +could be made to see that--if one could get at a few facts, +I mean. She says, for instance, that she has a sister; but +it seems she doesn't even know her address!" + +"If she does, she may not want to give it to you. I daresay +the sister's one of the dreadful people. I've no doubt that +with a little time you could rake up dozens of them: have +her 'traced', as they call it in detective stories. I don't +think you'd frighten Owen, but you might: it's natural +enough he should have been corrupted by those foreign ideas. +You might even manage to part him from the girl; but you +couldn't keep him from being in love with her. I saw that +when I looked them over last evening. I said to myself: +'It's a real old-fashioned American case, as sweet and sound +as home-made bread.' Well, if you take his loaf away from +him, what are you going to feed him with instead? Which of +your nasty Paris poisons do you think he'll turn to? +Supposing you succeed in keeping him out of a really bad +mess--and, knowing the young man as I do, I rather think +that, at this crisis, the only way to do it would be to +marry him slap off to somebody else--well, then, who, may I +ask, would you pick out? One of your sweet French +ingenues, I suppose? With as much mind as a minnow and as +much snap as a soft-boiled egg. You might hustle him into +that kind of marriage; I daresay you could--but if I know +Owen, the natural thing would happen before the first baby +was weaned." + +"I don't know why you insinuate such odious things against +Owen!" + +"Do you think it would be odious of him to return to his +real love when he'd been forcibly parted from her? At any +rate, it's what your French friends do, every one of them! +Only they don't generally have the grace to go back to an +old love; and I believe, upon my word, Owen would!" + +Madame de Chantelle looked at her with a mixture of awe and +exultation. "Of course you realize, Adelaide, that in +suggesting this you're insinuating the most shocking things +against Miss Viner?" + +"When I say that if you part two young things who are dying +to be happy in the lawful way it's ten to one they'll come +together in an unlawful one? I'm insinuating shocking things +against YOU, Lucretia Mary, in suggesting for a moment +that you'll care to assume such a responsibility before your +Maker. And you wouldn't, if you talked things straight out +with him, instead of merely sending him messages through a +miserable sinner like yourself!" + +Darrow expected this assault on her adopted creed to provoke +in Madame de Chantelle an explosion of pious indignation; +but to his surprise she merely murmured: "I don't know what +Mr. Darrow'll think of you!" + +"Mr. Darrow probably knows his Bible as well as I do," Miss +Painter calmly rejoined; adding a moment later, without the +least perceptible change of voice or expression: "I suppose +you've heard that Gisele de Folembray's husband accuses her +of being mixed up with the Duc d'Arcachon in that business +of trying to sell a lot of imitation pearls to Mrs. Homer +Pond, the Chicago woman the Duke's engaged to? It seems the +jeweller says Gisele brought Mrs. Pond there, and got +twenty-five per cent--which of course she passed on to +d'Arcachon. The poor old Duchess is in a fearful state--so +afraid her son'll lose Mrs. Pond! When I think that Gisele +is old Bradford Wagstaff's grand-daughter, I'm thankful he's +safe in Mount Auburn!" + + + +XXII + + +It was not until late that afternoon that Darrow could claim +his postponed hour with Anna. When at last he found her +alone in her sitting-room it was with a sense of liberation +so great that he sought no logical justification of it. He +simply felt that all their destinies were in Miss Painter's +grasp, and that, resistance being useless, he could only +enjoy the sweets of surrender. + +Anna herself seemed as happy, and for more explicable +reasons. She had assisted, after luncheon, at another +debate between Madame de Chantelle and her confidant, and +had surmised, when she withdrew from it, that victory was +permanently perched on Miss Painter's banners. + +"I don't know how she does it, unless it's by the dead +weight of her convictions. She detests the French so that +she'd back up Owen even if she knew nothing--or knew too +much--of Miss Viner. She somehow regards the match as a +protest against the corruption of European morals. I told +Owen that was his great chance, and he's made the most of +it." + +"What a tactician you are! You make me feel that I hardly +know the rudiments of diplomacy," Darrow smiled at her, +abandoning himself to a perilous sense of well-being. + +She gave him back his smile. "I'm afraid I think nothing +short of my own happiness is worth wasting any diplomacy +on!" + +"That's why I mean to resign from the service of my +country," he rejoined with a laugh of deep content. + +The feeling that both resistance and apprehension were vain +was working like wine in his veins. He had done what he +could to deflect the course of events: now he could only +stand aside and take his chance of safety. Underneath this +fatalistic feeling was the deep sense of relief that he had, +after all, said and done nothing that could in the least +degree affect the welfare of Sophy Viner. That fact took a +millstone off his neck. + +Meanwhile he gave himself up once more to the joy of Anna's +presence. They had not been alone together for two long +days, and he had the lover's sense that he had forgotten, or +at least underestimated, the strength of the spell she cast. +Once more her eyes and her smile seemed to bound his world. +He felt that their light would always move with him as the +sunset moves before a ship at sea. + + +The next day his sense of security was increased by a +decisive incident. It became known to the expectant +household that Madame de Chantelle had yielded to the +tremendous impact of Miss Painter's determination and that +Sophy Viner had been "sent for" to the purple satin sitting- +room. + +At luncheon, Owen's radiant countenance proclaimed the happy +sequel, and Darrow, when the party had moved back to the +oak-room for coffee, deemed it discreet to wander out alone +to the terrace with his cigar. The conclusion of Owen's +romance brought his own plans once more to the front. Anna +had promised that she would consider dates and settle +details as soon as Madame de Chantelle and her grandson had +been reconciled, and Darrow was eager to go into the +question at once, since it was necessary that the +preparations for his marriage should go forward as rapidly +as possible. Anna, he knew, would not seek any farther +pretext for delay; and he strolled up and down contentedly +in the sunshine, certain that she would come out and +reassure him as soon as the reunited family had claimed its +due share of her attention. + +But when she finally joined him her first word was for the +younger lovers. + +"I want to thank you for what you've done for Owen," she +began, with her happiest smile. + +"Who--I?" he laughed. "Are you confusing me with Miss +Painter?" + +"Perhaps I ought to say for ME," she corrected herself. +"You've been even more of a help to us than Adelaide." + +"My dear child! What on earth have I done?" + +"You've managed to hide from Madame de Chantelle that you +don't really like poor Sophy." + +Darrow felt the pallour in his cheek. "Not like her? What +put such an idea into your head?" + +"Oh, it's more than an idea--it's a feeling. But what +difference does it make, after all? You saw her in such a +different setting that it's natural you should be a little +doubtful. But when you know her better I'm sure you'll feel +about her as I do." + +"It's going to be hard for me not to feel about everything +as you do." + +"Well, then--please begin with my daughter-in-law!" + +He gave her back in the same tone of banter: "Agreed: if you +ll agree to feel as I do about the pressing necessity of our +getting married." + +"I want to talk to you about that too. You don't know what +a weight is off my mind! With Sophy here for good, I shall +feel so differently about leaving Effie. I've seen much +more accomplished governesses--to my cost!--but I've never +seen a young thing more gay and kind and human. You must +have noticed, though you've seen them so little together, +how Effie expands when she's with her. And that, you know, +is what I want. Madame de Chantelle will provide the +necessary restraint." She clasped her hands on his arm. +"Yes, I'm ready to go with you now. But first of all--this +very moment!--you must come with me to Effie. She knows, of +course, nothing of what's been happening; and I want her to +be told first about YOU." + +Effie, sought throughout the house, was presently traced to +the school-room, and thither Darrow mounted with Anna. He +had never seen her so alight with happiness, and he had +caught her buoyancy of mood. He kept repeating to himself: +"It's over--it's over," as if some monstrous midnight +hallucination had been routed by the return of day. + +As they approached the school-room door the terrier's barks +came to them through laughing remonstrances. + +"She's giving him his dinner," Anna whispered, her hand in +Darrow's. + +"Don't forget the gold-fish!" they heard another voice call +out. + +Darrow halted on the threshold. "Oh--not now!" + +"Not now?" + +"I mean--she'd rather have you tell her first. I'll wait +for you both downstairs." + +He was aware that she glanced at him intently. "As you +please. I'll bring her down at once." + +She opened the door, and as she went in he heard her say: +"No, Sophy, don't go! I want you both." + + +The rest of Darrow's day was a succession of empty and +agitating scenes. On his way down to Givre, before he had +seen Effie Leath, he had pictured somewhat sentimentally the +joy of the moment when he should take her in his arms and +receive her first filial kiss. Everything in him that +egotistically craved for rest, stability, a comfortably +organized middle-age, all the home-building instincts of the +man who has sufficiently wooed and wandered, combined to +throw a charm about the figure of the child who might--who +should--have been his. Effie came to him trailing the cloud +of glory of his first romance, giving him back the magic +hour he had missed and mourned. And how different the +realization of his dream had been! The child's radiant +welcome, her unquestioning acceptance of, this new figure in +the family group, had been all that he had hoped and +fancied. If Mother was so awfully happy about it, and Owen +and Granny, too, how nice and cosy and comfortable it was +going to be for all of them, her beaming look seemed to say; +and then, suddenly, the small pink fingers he had been +kissing were laid on the one flaw in the circle, on the one +point which must be settled before Effie could, with +complete unqualified assurance, admit the new-comer to full +equality with the other gods of her Olympus. + +"And is Sophy awfully happy about it too?" she had asked, +loosening her hold on Darrow's neck to tilt back her head +and include her mother in her questioning look. + +"Why, dearest, didn't you see she was?" Anna had exclaimed, +leaning to the group with radiant eyes. + +"I think I should like to ask her," the child rejoined, +after a minute's shy consideration; and as Darrow set her +down her mother laughed: "Do, darling, do! Run off at once, +and tell her we expect her to be awfully happy too." + +The scene had been succeeded by others less poignant but +almost as trying. Darrow cursed his luck in having, at such +a moment, to run the gauntlet of a houseful of interested +observers. The state of being "engaged", in itself an +absurd enough predicament, even to a man only intermittently +exposed, became intolerable under the continuous scrutiny of +a small circle quivering with participation. Darrow was +furthermore aware that, though the case of the other couple +ought to have made his own less conspicuous, it was rather +they who found a refuge in the shadow of his prominence. +Madame de Chantelle, though she had consented to Owen's +engagement and formally welcomed his betrothed, was +nevertheless not sorry to show, by her reception of Darrow, +of what finely-shaded degrees of cordiality she was capable. +Miss Painter, having won the day for Owen, was also free to +turn her attention to the newer candidate for her sympathy; +and Darrow and Anna found themselves immersed in a warm bath +of sentimental curiosity. + +It was a relief to Darrow that he was under a positive +obligation to end his visit within the next forty-eight +hours. When he left London, his Ambassador had accorded him +a ten days' leave. His fate being definitely settled and +openly published he had no reason for asking to have the +time prolonged, and when it was over he was to return to his +post till the time fixed for taking up his new duties. Anna +and he had therefore decided to be married, in Paris, a day +or two before the departure of the steamer which was to take +them to South America; and Anna, shortly after his return to +England, was to go up to Paris and begin her own +preparations. + +In honour of the double betrothal Effie and Miss Viner were +to appear that evening at dinner; and Darrow, on leaving his +room, met the little girl springing down the stairs, her +white ruffles and coral-coloured bows making her look like a +daisy with her yellow hair for its centre. Sophy Viner was +behind her pupil, and as she came into the light Darrow +noticed a change in her appearance and wondered vaguely why +she looked suddenly younger, more vivid, more like the +little luminous ghost of his Paris memories. Then it +occurred to him that it was the first time she had appeared +at dinner since his arrival at Givre, and the first time, +consequently, that he had seen her in evening dress. She +was still at the age when the least adornment embellishes; +and no doubt the mere uncovering of her young throat and +neck had given her back her former brightness. But a second +glance showed a more precise reason for his impression. +Vaguely though he retained such details, he felt sure she +was wearing the dress he had seen her in every evening in +Paris. It was a simple enough dress, black, and transparent +on the arms and shoulders, and he would probably not have +recognized it if she had not called his attention to it in +Paris by confessing that she hadn't any other. "The same +dress? That proves that she's forgotten!" was his first +half-ironic thought; but the next moment, with a pang of +compunction, he said to himself that she had probably put it +on for the same reason as before: simply because she hadn't +any other. + +He looked at her in silence, and for an instant, above +Effie's bobbing head, she gave him back his look in a full +bright gaze. + +"Oh, there's Owen!" Effie cried, and whirled away down the +gallery to the door from which her step-brother was +emerging. As Owen bent to catch her, Sophy Viner turned +abruptly back to Darrow. + +"You, too?" she said with a quick laugh. "I didn't know---- +" And as Owen came up to them she added, in a tone that +might have been meant to reach his ear: "I wish you all the +luck that we can spare!" + +About the dinner-table, which Effie, with Miss Viner's aid, +had lavishly garlanded, the little party had an air of +somewhat self-conscious festivity. In spite of flowers, +champagne and a unanimous attempt at ease, there were +frequent lapses in the talk, and moments of nervous groping +for new subjects. Miss Painter alone seemed not only +unaffected by the general perturbation but as tightly sealed +up in her unconsciousness of it as a diver in his bell. To +Darrow's strained attention even Owen's gusts of gaiety +seemed to betray an inward sense of insecurity. After +dinner, however, at the piano, he broke into a mood of +extravagant hilarity and flooded the room with the splash +and ripple of his music. + +Darrow, sunk in a sofa corner in the lee of Miss Painter's +granite bulk, smoked and listened in silence, his eyes +moving from one figure to another. Madame de Chantelle, in +her armchair near the fire, clasped her little granddaughter +to her with the gesture of a drawing-room Niobe, and Anna, +seated near them, had fallen into one of the attitudes of +vivid calm which seemed to Darrow to express her inmost +quality. Sophy Viner, after moving uncertainly about the +room, had placed herself beyond Mrs. Leath, in a chair near +the piano, where she sat with head thrown back and eyes +attached to the musician, in the same rapt fixity of +attention with which she had followed the players at the +Francais. The accident of her having fallen into the same +attitude, and of her wearing the same dress, gave Darrow, as +he watched her, a strange sense of double consciousness. To +escape from it, his glance turned back to Anna; but from the +point at which he was placed his eyes could not take in the +one face without the other, and that renewed the disturbing +duality of the impression. Suddenly Owen broke off with a +crash of chords and jumped to his feet. + +"What's the use of this, with such a moon to say it for us?" + +Behind the uncurtained window a low golden orb hung like a +ripe fruit against the glass. + +"Yes--let's go out and listen," Anna answered. Owen threw +open the window, and with his gesture a fold of the heavy +star-sprinkled sky seemed to droop into the room like a +drawn-in curtain. The air that entered with it had a frosty +edge, and Anna bade Effie run to the hall for wraps. + +Darrow said: "You must have one too," and started toward the +door; but Sophy, following her pupil, cried back: "We'll +bring things for everybody." + +Owen had followed her, and in a moment the three reappeared, +and the party went out on the terrace. The deep blue purity +of the night was unveiled by mist, and the moonlight rimmed +the edges of the trees with a silver blur and blanched to +unnatural whiteness the statues against their walls of +shade. + +Darrow and Anna, with Effie between them, strolled to the +farther corner of the terrace. Below them, between the +fringes of the park, the lawn sloped dimly to the fields +above the river. For a few minutes they stood silently side +by side, touched to peace beneath the trembling beauty of +the sky. When they turned back, Darrow saw that Owen and +Sophy Viner, who had gone down the steps to the garden, were +also walking in the direction of the house. As they +advanced, Sophy paused in a patch of moonlight, between the +sharp shadows of the yews, and Darrow noticed that she had +thrown over her shoulders a long cloak of some light colour, +which suddenly evoked her image as she had entered the +restaurant at his side on the night of their first dinner in +Paris. A moment later they were all together again on the +terrace, and when they re-entered the drawing-room the older +ladies were on their way to bed. + +Effie, emboldened by the privileges of the evening, was for +coaxing Owen to round it off with a game of forfeits or some +such reckless climax; but Sophy, resuming her professional +role, sounded the summons to bed. In her pupil's wake she +made her round of good-nights; but when she proffered her +hand to Anna, the latter ignoring the gesture held out both +arms. + +"Good-night, dear child," she said impulsively, and drew the +girl to her kiss. + + + +BOOK IV + +XXIII + + +The next day was Darrow's last at Givre and, foreseeing that +the afternoon and evening would have to be given to the +family, he had asked Anna to devote an early hour to the +final consideration of their plans. He was to meet her in +the brown sitting-room at ten, and they were to walk down to +the river and talk over their future in the little pavilion +abutting on the wall of the park. + +It was just a week since his arrival at Givre, and Anna +wished, before he left, to return to the place where they +had sat on their first afternoon together. Her +sensitiveness to the appeal of inanimate things, to the +colour and texture of whatever wove itself into the +substance of her emotion, made her want to hear Darrow's +voice, and to feel his eyes on her, in the spot where bliss +had first flowed into her heart. + +That bliss, in the interval, had wound itself into every +fold of her being. Passing, in the first days, from a high +shy tenderness to the rush of a secret surrender, it had +gradually widened and deepened, to flow on in redoubled +beauty. She thought she now knew exactly how and why she +loved Darrow, and she could see her whole sky reflected in +the deep and tranquil current of her love. + +Early the next day, in her sitting-room, she was glancing +through the letters which it was Effie's morning privilege +to carry up to her. Effie meanwhile circled inquisitively +about the room, where there was always something new to +engage her infant fancy; and Anna, looking up, saw her +suddenly arrested before a photograph of Darrow which, the +day before, had taken its place on the writing-table. + +Anna held out her arms with a faint blush. "You do like +him, don't you, dear?" + +"Oh, most awfully, dearest," Effie, against her breast, +leaned back to assure her with a limpid look. "And so do +Granny and Owen--and I DO think Sophy does too," she +added, after a moment's earnest pondering. + +"I hope so," Anna laughed. She checked the impulse to +continue: "Has she talked to you about him, that you're so +sure?" She did not know what had made the question spring to +her lips, but she was glad she had closed them before +pronouncing it. Nothing could have been more distasteful to +her than to clear up such obscurities by turning on them the +tiny flame of her daughter's observation. And what, after +all, now that Owen's happiness was secured, did it matter if +there were certain reserves in Darrow's approval of his +marriage? + +A knock on the door made Anna glance at the clock. "There's +Nurse to carry you off." + +"It's Sophy's knock," the little girl answered, jumping down +to open the door; and Miss Viner in fact stood on the +threshold. + +"Come in," Anna said with a smile, instantly remarking how +pale she looked. + +"May Effie go out for a turn with Nurse?" the girl asked. +"I should like to speak to you a moment." + +"Of course. This ought to be YOUR holiday, as yesterday +was Effie's. Run off, dear," she added, stooping to kiss +the little girl. + +When the door had closed she turned back to Sophy Viner with +a look that sought her confidence. "I'm so glad you came, +my dear. We've got so many things to talk about, just you +and I together." + +The confused intercourse of the last days had, in fact, left +little time for any speech with Sophy but such as related to +her marriage and the means of overcoming Madame de +Chantelle's opposition to it. Anna had exacted of Owen that +no one, not even Sophy Viner, should be given a hint of her +own projects till all contingent questions had been disposed +of. She had felt, from the outset, a secret reluctance to +intrude her securer happiness on the doubts and fears of the +young pair. + +From the sofa-corner to which she had dropped back she +pointed to Darrow's chair. "Come and sit by me, dear. I +wanted to see you alone. There's so much to say that I +hardly know where to begin." + +She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the arms of the +sofa, her eyes bent smilingly on Sophy's. As she did so, +she noticed that the girl's unusual pallour was partly due +to the slight veil of powder on her face. The discovery was +distinctly disagreeable. Anna had never before noticed, on +Sophy's part, any recourse to cosmetics, and, much as she +wished to think herself exempt from old-fashioned +prejudices, she suddenly became aware that she did not like +her daughter's governess to have a powdered face. Then she +reflected that the girl who sat opposite her was no longer +Effie's governess, but her own future daughter-in-law; and +she wondered whether Miss Viner had chosen this odd way of +celebrating her independence, and whether, as Mrs. Owen +Leath, she would present to the world a bedizened +countenance. This idea was scarcely less distasteful than +the other, and for a moment Anna continued to consider her +without speaking. Then, in a flash, the truth came to her: +Miss Viner had powdered her face because Miss Viner had been +crying. + +Anna leaned forward impulsively. "My dear child, what's the +matter?" She saw the girl's blood rush up under the white +mask, and hastened on: "Please don't be afraid to tell me. +I do so want you to feel that you can trust me as Owen does. +And you know you mustn't mind if, just at first, Madame de +Chantelle occasionally relapses." + +She spoke eagerly, persuasively, almost on a note of +pleading. She had, in truth, so many reasons for wanting +Sophy to like her: her love for Owen, her solicitude for +Effie, and her own sense of the girl's fine mettle. She had +always felt a romantic and almost humble admiration for +those members of her sex who, from force of will, or the +constraint of circumstances, had plunged into the conflict +from which fate had so persistently excluded her. There +were even moments when she fancied herself vaguely to blame +for her immunity, and felt that she ought somehow to have +affronted the perils and hardships which refused to come to +her. And now, as she sat looking at Sophy Viner, so small, +so slight, so visibly defenceless and undone, she still +felt, through all the superiority of her worldly advantages +and her seeming maturity, the same odd sense of ignorance +and inexperience. She could not have said what there was in +the girl's manner and expression to give her this feeling, +but she was reminded, as she looked at Sophy Viner, of the +other girls she had known in her youth, the girls who seemed +possessed of a secret she had missed. Yes, Sophy Viner had +their look--almost the obscurely menacing look of Kitty +Mayne...Anna, with an inward smile, brushed aside the image +of this forgotten rival. But she had felt, deep down, a +twinge of the old pain, and she was sorry that, even for the +flash of a thought, Owen's betrothed should have reminded +her of so different a woman... + +She laid her hand on the girl's. "When his grandmother sees +how happy Owen is she'll be quite happy herself. If it's +only that, don't be distressed. Just trust to Owen--and the +future." + +Sophy Viner, with an almost imperceptible recoil of her +whole slight person, had drawn her hand from under the palm +enclosing it. + +"That's what I wanted to talk to you about--the future." + +"Of course! We've all so many plans to make--and to fit into +each other's. Please let's begin with yours." + +The girl paused a moment, her hands clasped on the arms of +her chair, her lids dropped under Anna's gaze; then she +said: "I should like to make no plans at all...just yet..." + +"No plans?" + +"No--I should like to go away...my friends the Farlows would +let me go to them..." Her voice grew firmer and she lifted +her eyes to add: "I should like to leave today, if you don't +mind." + +Anna listened with a rising wonder. + +"You want to leave Givre at once?" She gave the idea a +moment's swift consideration. "You prefer to be with your +friends till your marriage? I understand that--but surely +you needn't rush off today? There are so many details to +discuss; and before long, you know, I shall be going away +too." + +"Yes, I know." The girl was evidently trying to steady her +voice. "But I should like to wait a few days--to have a +little more time to myself." + +Anna continued to consider her kindly. It was evident that +she did not care to say why she wished to leave Givre so +suddenly, but her disturbed face and shaken voice betrayed a +more pressing motive than the natural desire to spend the +weeks before her marriage under her old friends' roof. +Since she had made no response to the allusion to Madame de +Chantelle, Anna could but conjecture that she had had a +passing disagreement with Owen; and if this were so, random +interference might do more harm than good. + +"My dear child, if you really want to go at once I sha'n't, +of course, urge you to stay. I suppose you have spoken to +Owen?" + +"No. Not yet..." + +Anna threw an astonished glance at her. "You mean to say +you haven't told him?" + +"I wanted to tell you first. I thought I ought to, on +account of Effie." Her look cleared as she put forth this +reason. + +"Oh, Effie!--" Anna's smile brushed away the scruple. "Owen +has a right to ask that you should consider him before you +think of his sister...Of course you shall do just as you +wish," she went on, after another thoughtful interval. + +"Oh, thank you," Sophy Viner murmured and rose to her feet. + +Anna rose also, vaguely seeking for some word that should +break down the girl's resistance. "You'll tell Owen at +once?" she finally asked. + +Miss Viner, instead of replying, stood before her in +manifest uncertainty, and as she did so there was a light +tap on the door, and Owen Leath walked into the room. + +Anna's first glance told her that his face was unclouded. +He met her greeting with his happiest smile and turned to +lift Sophy's hand to his lips. The perception that he was +utterly unconscious of any cause for Miss Viner's agitation +came to his step-mother with a sharp thrill of surprise. + +"Darrow's looking for you," he said to her. "He asked me to +remind you that you'd promised to go for a walk with him." + +Anna glanced at the clock. "I'll go down presently." She +waited and looked again at Sophy Viner, whose troubled eyes +seemed to commit their message to her. "You'd better tell +Owen, my dear." + +Owen's look also turned on the girl. "Tell me what? Why, +what's happened?" + +Anna summoned a laugh to ease the vague tension of the +moment. "Don't look so startled! Nothing, except that Sophy +proposes to desert us for a while for the Farlows." + +Owen's brow cleared. "I was afraid she'd run off before +long." He glanced at Anna. "Do please keep her here as long +as you can!" + +Sophy intervened: "Mrs. Leath's already given me leave to +go." + +"Already? To go when?" + +"Today," said Sophy in a low tone, her eyes on Anna's. + +"Today? Why on earth should you go today?" Owen dropped back +a step or two, flushing and paling under his bewildered +frown. His eyes seemed to search the girl more closely. +"Something's happened." He too looked at his step-mother. +"I suppose she must have told you what it is?" + +Anna was struck by the suddenness and vehemence of his +appeal. It was as though some smouldering apprehension had +lain close under the surface of his security. + +"She's told me nothing except that she wishes to be with her +friends. It's quite natural that she should want to go to +them." + +Owen visibly controlled himself. "Of course--quite +natural." He spoke to Sophy. "But why didn't you tell me +so? Why did you come first to my step-mother?" + +Anna intervened with her calm smile. "That seems to me +quite natural, too. Sophy was considerate enough to tell me +first because of Effie." + +He weighed it. "Very well, then: that's quite natural, as +you say. And of course she must do exactly as she pleases." +He still kept his eyes on the girl. "Tomorrow," he abruptly +announced, "I shall go up to Paris to see you." + +"Oh, no--no!" she protested. + +Owen turned back to Anna. "NOW do you say that +nothing's happened?" + +Under the influence of his agitation Anna felt a vague +tightening of the heart. She seemed to herself like some +one in a dark room about whom unseen presences are groping. + +"If it's anything that Sophy wishes to tell you, no doubt +she'll do so. I'm going down now, and I'll leave you here +to talk it over by yourselves." + +As she moved to the door the girl caught up with her. "But +there's nothing to tell: why should there be? I've explained +that I simply want to be quiet." Her look seemed to detain +Mrs. Leath. + +Owen broke in: "Is that why I mayn't go up tomorrow?" + +"Not tomorrow!" + +"Then when may I?" + +"Later...in a little while...a few days..." + +"In how many days?" +"Owen!" his step-mother interposed; but he seemed no longer +aware of her. "If you go away today, the day that our +engagement's made known, it's only fair," he persisted, +"that you should tell me when I am to see you." + +Sophy's eyes wavered between the two and dropped down +wearily. "It's you who are not fair--when I've said I +wanted to be quiet." + +"But why should my coming disturb you? I'm not asking now to +come tomorrow. I only ask you not to leave without telling +me when I'm to see you." + +"Owen, I don't understand you!" his step-mother exclaimed. + +"You don't understand my asking for some explanation, some +assurance, when I'm left in this way, without a word, +without a sign? All I ask her to tell me is when she'll see +me." + +Anna turned back to Sophy Viner, who stood straight and +tremulous between the two. + +"After all, my dear, he's not unreasonable!" + +"I'll write--I'll write," the girl repeated. + +"WHAT will you write?" he pressed her vehemently. + +"Owen," Anna exclaimed, "you are unreasonable!" + +He turned from Sophy to his step-mother. "I only want her +to say what she means: that she's going to write to break +off our engagement. Isn't that what you're going away for?" + +Anna felt the contagion of his excitement. She looked at +Sophy, who stood motionless, her lips set, her whole face +drawn to a silent fixity of resistance. + +"You ought to speak, my dear--you ought to answer him." + +"I only ask him to wait----" + +"Yes," Owen, broke in, "and you won't say how long!" + +Both instinctively addressed themselves to Anna, who stood, +nearly as shaken as themselves, between the double shock of +their struggle. She looked again from Sophy's inscrutable +eyes to Owen's stormy features; then she said: "What can I +do, when there's clearly something between you that I don't +know about?" + +"Oh, if it WERE between us! Can't you see it's outside +of us--outside of her, dragging at her, dragging her away +from me?" Owen wheeled round again upon his step-mother. + +Anna turned from him to the girl. "Is it true that you want +to break your engagement? If you do, you ought to tell him +now." + +Owen burst into a laugh. "She doesn't dare to--she's afraid +I'll guess the reason!" + +A faint sound escaped from Sophy's lips, but she kept them +close on whatever answer she had ready. + +"If she doesn't wish to marry you, why should she be afraid +to have you know the reason?" + +"She's afraid to have YOU know it--not me!" + +"To have ME know it?" + +He laughed again, and Anna, at his laugh, felt a sudden rush +of indignation. + +"Owen, you must explain what you mean!" + +He looked at her hard before answering; then: "Ask Darrow!" +he said. + +"Owen--Owen!" Sophy Viner murmured. + + + +XXIV + + +Anna stood looking from one to the other. It had become +apparent to her in a flash that Owen's retort, though it +startled Sophy, did not take her by surprise; and the +discovery shot its light along dark distances of fear. + +The immediate inference was that Owen had guessed the reason +of Darrow's disapproval of his marriage, or that, at least, +he suspected Sophy Viner of knowing and dreading it. This +confirmation of her own obscure doubt sent a tremor of alarm +through Anna. For a moment she felt like exclaiming: "All +this is really no business of mine, and I refuse to have you +mix me up in it--" but her secret fear held her fast. + +Sophy Viner was the first to speak. + +"I should like to go now," she said in a low voice, taking a +few steps toward the door. + +Her tone woke Anna to the sense of her own share in the +situation. "I quite agree with you, my dear, that it's +useless to carry on this discussion. But since Mr. Darrow's +name has been brought into it, for reasons which I fail to +guess, I want to tell you that you're both mistaken if you +think he's not in sympathy with your marriage. If that's +what Owen means to imply, the idea's a complete delusion." + +She spoke the words deliberately and incisively, as if +hoping that the sound of their utterance would stifle the +whisper in her bosom. + +Sophy's only answer was a vague murmur, and a movement that +brought her nearer to the door; but before she could reach +it Owen had placed himself in her way. + +"I don't mean to imply what you think," he said, addressing +his step-mother but keeping his eyes on the girl. "I don't +say Darrow doesn't like our marriage; I say it's Sophy who's +hated it since Darrow's been here!" + +He brought out the charge in a tone of forced composure, but +his lips were white and he grasped the doorknob to hide the +tremor of his hand. + +Anna's anger surged up with her fears. "You're absurd, +Owen! I don't know why I listen to you. Why should Sophy +dislike Mr. Darrow, and if she does, why should that have +anything to do with her wishing to break her engagement?" + +"I don't say she dislikes him! I don't say she likes him; I +don't know what it is they say to each other when they're +shut up together alone." + +"Shut up together alone?" Anna stared. Owen seemed like a +man in delirium; such an exhibition was degrading to them +all. But he pushed on without seeing her look. + +"Yes--the first evening she came, in the study; the next +morning, early, in the park; yesterday, again, in the +spring-house, when you were at the lodge with the doctor...I +don't know what they say to each other, but they've taken +every chance they could to say it...and to say it when they +thought that no one saw them." + +Anna longed to silence him, but no words came to her. It was +as though all her confused apprehensions had suddenly taken +definite shape. There was "something"--yes, there was +"something"...Darrow's reticences and evasions had been more +than a figment of her doubts. + +The next instant brought a recoil of pride. She turned +indignantly on her step-son. + +"I don't half understand what you've been saying; but what +you seem to hint is so preposterous, and so insulting both +to Sophy and to me, that I see no reason why we should +listen to you any longer." + +Though her tone steadied Owen, she perceived at once that it +would not deflect him from his purpose. He spoke less +vehemently, but with all the more precision. + +"How can it be preposterous, since it's true? Or insulting, +since I don't know, any more than YOU, the meaning of +what I've been seeing? If you'll be patient with me I'll try +to put it quietly. What I mean is that Sophy has completely +changed since she met Darrow here, and that, having noticed +the change, I'm hardly to blame for having tried to find out +its cause." + +Anna made an effort to answer him with the same composure. +"You're to blame, at any rate, for so recklessly assuming +that you HAVE found it out. You seem to forget that, +till they met here, Sophy and Mr. Darrow hardly knew each +other." + +"If so, it's all the stranger that they've been so often +closeted together!" + +"Owen, Owen--" the girl sighed out. + +He turned his haggard face to her. "Can I help it, if I've +seen and known what I wasn't meant to? For God's sake give +me a reason--any reason I can decently make out with! Is it +my fault if, the day after you arrived, when I came back +late through the garden, the curtains of the study hadn't +been drawn, and I saw you there alone with Darrow?" + +Anna laughed impatiently. "Really, Owen, if you make it a +grievance that two people who are staying in the same house +should be seen talking together----!" + +"They were not talking. That's the point----" + +"Not talking? How do you know? You could hardly hear them +from the garden!" + +"No; but I could see. HE was sitting at my desk, with +his face in his hands. SHE was standing in the window, +looking away from him..." + +He waited, as if for Sophy Viner's answer; but still she +neither stirred nor spoke. + +"That was the first time," he went on; "and the second was +the next morning in the park. It was natural enough, their +meeting there. Sophy had gone out with Effie, and Effie ran +back to look for me. She told me she'd left Sophy and +Darrow in the path that leads to the river, and presently we +saw them ahead of us. They didn't see us at first, because +they were standing looking at each other; and this time they +were not speaking either. We came up close before they +heard us, and all that time they never spoke, or stopped +looking at each other. After that I began to wonder; and so +I watched them." + +"Oh, Owen!" +"Oh, I only had to wait. Yesterday, when I motored you and +the doctor back from the lodge, I saw Sophy coming out of +the spring-house. I supposed she'd taken shelter from the +rain, and when you got out of the motor I strolled back down +the avenue to meet her. But she'd disappeared--she must +have taken a short cut and come into the house by the side +door. I don't know why I went on to the spring-house; I +suppose it was what you'd call spying. I went up the steps +and found the room empty; but two chairs had been moved out +from the wall and were standing near the table; and one of +the Chinese screens that lie on it had dropped to the +floor." + +Anna sounded a faint note of irony. "Really? Sophy'd gone +there for shelter, and she dropped a screen and moved a +chair?" + +"I said two chairs----" + +"Two? What damning evidence--of I don't know what!" + +"Simply of the fact that Darrow'd been there with her. As I +looked out of the window I saw him close by, walking away. +He must have turned the corner of the spring-house just as I +got to the door." + +There was another silence, during which Anna paused, not +only to collect her own words but to wait for Sophy Viner's; +then, as the girl made no sign, she turned to her. + +"I've absolutely nothing to say to all this; but perhaps +you'd like me to wait and hear your answer?" + +Sophy raised her head with a quick flash of colour. "I've no +answer either--except that Owen must be mad." + +In the interval since she had last spoken she seemed to have +regained her self-control, and her voice rang clear, with a +cold edge of anger. + +Anna looked at her step-son. He had grown extremely pale, +and his hand fell from the door with a discouraged gesture. +"That's all then? You won't give me any reason?" + +"I didn't suppose it was necessary to give you or any one +else a reason for talking with a friend of Mrs. Leath's +under Mrs. Leath's own roof." + +Owen hardly seemed to feel the retort: he kept his dogged +stare on her face. + +"I won't ask for one, then. I'll only ask you to give me +your assurance that your talks with Darrow have had nothing +to do with your suddenly deciding to leave Givre." + +She hesitated, not so much with the air of weighing her +answer as of questioning his right to exact any. "I give +you my assurance; and now I should like to go," she said. + +As she turned away, Anna intervened. "My dear, I think you +ought to speak." + +The girl drew herself up with a faint laugh. "To him--or to +YOU?" + +"To him." + +She stiffened. "I've said all there is to say." + +Anna drew back, her eyes on her step-son. He had left the +threshold and was advancing toward Sophy Viner with a motion +of desperate appeal; but as he did so there was a knock on +the door. A moment's silence fell on the three; then Anna +said: "Come in!" + +Darrow came into the room. Seeing the three together, he +looked rapidly from one to the other; then he turned to Anna +with a smile. + +"I came up to see if you were ready; but please send me off +if I'm not wanted." + +His look, his voice, the simple sense of his presence, +restored Anna's shaken balance. By Owen's side he looked so +strong, so urbane, so experienced, that the lad's passionate +charges dwindled to mere boyish vapourings. A moment ago +she had dreaded Darrow's coming; now she was glad that he +was there. + +She turned to him with sudden decision. "Come in, please; I +want you to hear what Owen has been saying." + +She caught a murmur from Sophy Viner, but disregarded it. +An illuminating impulse urged her on. She, habitually so +aware of her own lack of penetration, her small skill in +reading hidden motives and detecting secret signals, now +felt herself mysteriously inspired. She addressed herself to +Sophy Viner. "It's much better for you both that this +absurd question should be cleared up now " Then, turning to +Darrow, she continued: "For some reason that I don't pretend +to guess, Owen has taken it into his head that you've +influenced Miss Viner to break her engagement." + +She spoke slowly and deliberately, because she wished to +give time and to gain it; time for Darrow and Sophy to +receive the full impact of what she was saying, and time to +observe its full effect on them. She had said to herself: +"If there's nothing between them, they'll look at each +other; if there IS something, they won't;" and as she +ceased to speak she felt as if all her life were in her +eyes. + +Sophy, after a start of protest, remained motionless, her +gaze on the ground. Darrow, his face grown grave, glanced +slowly from Owen Leath to Anna. With his eyes on the latter +he asked: "Has Miss Viner broken her engagement?" + +A moment's silence followed his question; then the girl +looked up and said: "Yes!" + +Owen, as she spoke, uttered a smothered exclamation and +walked out of the room. She continued to stand in the same +place, without appearing to notice his departure, and +without vouchsafing an additional word of explanation; then, +before Anna could find a cry to detain her, she too turned +and went out. + +"For God's sake, what's happened?" Darrow asked; but Anna, +with a drop of the heart, was saying to herself that he and +Sophy Viner had not looked at each other. + + + +XXV + + +Anna stood in the middle of the room, her eyes on the door. +Darrow's questioning gaze was still on her, and she said to +herself with a quick-drawn breath: "If only he doesn't come +near me!" + +It seemed to her that she had been suddenly endowed with the +fatal gift of reading the secret sense of every seemingly +spontaneous look and movement, and that in his least gesture +of affection she would detect a cold design. + +For a moment longer he continued to look at her enquiringly; +then he turned away and took up his habitual stand by the +mantel-piece. She drew a deep breath of relief . + +"Won't you please explain?" he said. + +"I can't explain: I don't know. I didn't even know--till +she told you--that she really meant to break her engagement. +All I know is that she came to me just now and said she +wished to leave Givre today; and that Owen, when he heard of +it--for she hadn't told him--at once accused her of going +away with the secret intention of throwing him over." + +"And you think it's a definite break?" She perceived, as she +spoke, that his brow had cleared. + +"How should I know? Perhaps you can tell me." + +"I?" She fancied his face clouded again, but he did not move +from his tranquil attitude. + +"As I told you," she went on, "Owen has worked himself up to +imagining that for some mysterious reason you've influenced +Sophy against him." + +Darrow still visibly wondered. "It must indeed be a +mysterious reason! He knows how slightly I know Miss Viner. +Why should he imagine anything so wildly improbable?" + +"I don't know that either." + +"But he must have hinted at some reason." + +"No: he admits he doesn't know your reason. He simply says +that Sophy's manner to him has changed since she came back +to Givre and that he's seen you together several times--in +the park, the spring-house, I don't know where--talking +alone in a way that seemed confidential--almost secret; and +he draws the preposterous conclusion that you've used your +influence to turn her against him." + +"My influence? What kind of influence?" + +"He doesn't say." + +Darrow again seemed to turn over the facts she gave him. +His face remained grave, but without the least trace of +discomposure. "And what does Miss Viner say?" + +"She says it's perfectly natural that she should +occasionally talk to my friends when she's under my roof-- +and refuses to give him any other explanation." + +"That at least is perfectly natural!" + +Anna felt her cheeks flush as she answered: "Yes--but there +is something----" + +"Something----?" + +"Some reason for her sudden decision to break her +engagement. I can understand Owen's feeling, sorry as I am +for his way of showing it. The girl owes him some sort of +explanation, and as long as she refuses to give it his +imagination is sure to run wild." + +"She would have given it, no doubt, if he d asked it in a +different tone." + +"I don't defend Owen's tone--but she knew what it was before +she accepted him. She knows he's excitable and +undisciplined." + +"Well, she's been disciplining him a little--probably the +best thing that could happen. Why not let the matter rest +there?" + +"Leave Owen with the idea that you HAVE been the cause +of the break?" + +He met the question with his easy smile. "Oh, as to that-- +leave him with any idea of me he chooses! But leave him, at +any rate, free." + +"Free?" she echoed in surprise. + +"Simply let things be. You've surely done all you could for +him and Miss Viner. If they don't hit it off it's their own +affair. What possible motive can you have for trying to +interfere now?" + +Her gaze widened to a deeper wonder. "Why--naturally, what +he says of you!" + +"I don't care a straw what he says of me! In such a +situation a boy in love will snatch at the most far-fetched +reason rather than face the mortifying fact that the lady +may simply be tired of him." + +"You don t quite understand Owen. Things go deep with him, +and last long. It took him a long time to recover from his +other unlucky love affair. He's romantic and extravagant: +he can't live on the interest of his feelings. He worships +Sophy and she seemed to be fond of him. If she's changed +it's been very sudden. And if they part like this, angrily +and inarticulately, it will hurt him horribly--hurt his very +soul. But that, as you say, is between the two. What +concerns me is his associating you with their quarrel. +Owen's like my own son--if you'd seen him when I first came +here you'd know why. We were like two prisoners who talk to +each other by tapping on the wall. He's never forgotten it, +nor I. Whether he breaks with Sophy, or whether they make +it up, I can't let him think you had anything to do with +it." + +She raised her eyes entreatingly to Darrow's, and read in +them the forbearance of the man resigned to the discussion +of non-existent problems. + +"I'll do whatever you want me to," he said; "but I don't yet +know what it is." + +His smile seemed to charge her with inconsequence, and the +prick to her pride made her continue: "After all, it's not +so unnatural that Owen, knowing you and Sophy to be almost +strangers, should wonder what you were saying to each other +when he saw you talking together." + +She felt a warning tremor as she spoke, as though some +instinct deeper than reason surged up in defense of its +treasure. But Darrow's face was unstirred save by the flit +of his half-amused smile. + +"Well, my dear--and couldn't you have told him?" +"I?" she faltered out through her blush. + +"You seem to forget, one and all of you, the position you +put me in when I came down here: your appeal to me to see +Owen through, your assurance to him that I would, Madame de +Chantelle's attempt to win me over; and most of all, my own +sense of the fact you've just recalled to me: the +importance, for both of us, that Owen should like me. It +seemed to me that the first thing to do was to get as much +light as I could on the whole situation; and the obvious way +of doing it was to try to know Miss Viner better. Of course +I've talked with her alone--I've talked with her as often as +I could. I've tried my best to find out if you were right +in encouraging Owen to marry her." + +She listened with a growing sense of reassurance, struggling +to separate the abstract sense of his words from the +persuasion in which his eyes and voice enveloped them. + +"I see--I do see," she murmured. + +"You must see, also, that I could hardly say this to Owen +without offending him still more, and perhaps increasing the +breach between Miss Viner and himself. What sort of figure +should I cut if I told him I'd been trying to find out if +he'd made a proper choice? In any case, it's none of my +business to offer an explanation of what she justly says +doesn't need one. If she declines to speak, it's obviously +on the ground that Owen's insinuations are absurd; and that +surely pledges me to silence." + +"Yes, yes! I see," Anna repeated. "But I don't want you to +explain anything to Owen." + +"You haven't yet told me what you do want." + +She hesitated, conscious of the difficulty of justifying her +request; then: "I want you to speak to Sophy," she said. + +Darrow broke into an incredulous laugh. "Considering what +my previous attempts have resulted in----!" + +She raised her eyes quickly. "They haven't, at least, +resulted in your liking her less, in your thinking less well +of her than you've told me?" + +She fancied he frowned a little. "I wonder why you go back +to that?" + +"I want to be sure--I owe it to Owen. Won't you tell me the +exact impression she's produced on you?" + +"I have told you--I like Miss Viner." + +"Do you still believe she's in love with Owen?" + +"There was nothing in our short talks to throw any +particular light on that." + +"You still believe, though, that there's no reason why he +shouldn't marry her?" + +Again he betrayed a restrained impatience. "How can I +answer that without knowing her reasons for breaking with +him?" + +"That's just what I want you to find out from her." + +"And why in the world should she tell me?" + +"Because, whatever grievance she has against Owen, she can +certainly have none against me. She can't want to have Owen +connect me in his mind with this wretched quarrel; and she +must see that he will until he's convinced you've had no +share in it." + +Darrow's elbow dropped from the mantel-piece and he took a +restless step or two across the room. Then he halted before +her. + +"Why can't you tell her this yourself?" + +"Don't you see?" + +He eyed her intently, and she pressed on: "You must have +guessed that Owen's jealous of you." + +"Jealous of me?" The blood flew up under his brown skin. + +"Blind with it--what else would drive him to this folly? And +I can't have her think me jealous too! I've said all I +could, short of making her think so; and she's refused a +word more to either of us. Our only chance now is that she +should listen to you--that you should make her see the harm +her silence may do." + +Darrow uttered a protesting exclamation. "It's all too +preposterous--what you suggest! I can't, at any rate, appeal +to her on such a ground as that!" + +Anna laid her hand on his arm. "Appeal to her on the ground +that I'm almost Owen's mother, and that any estrangement +between you and him would kill me. She knows what he is-- +she'll understand. Tell her to say anything, do anything, +she wishes; but not to go away without speaking, not to +leave THAT between us when she goes!" + +She drew back a step and lifted her face to his, trying to +look into his eyes more deeply than she had ever looked; but +before she could discern what they expressed he had taken +hold of her hands and bent his head to kiss them. + +"You'll see her? You'll see her?" she entreated; and he +answered: "I'll do anything in the world you want me to." + + + +XXVI + + +Darrow waited alone in the sitting-room. + +No place could have been more distasteful as the scene of +the talk that lay before him; but he had acceded to Anna's +suggestion that it would seem more natural for her to summon +Sophy Viner than for him to go in search of her. As his +troubled pacings carried him back and forth a relentless +hand seemed to be tearing away all the tender fibres of +association that bound him to the peaceful room. Here, in +this very place, he had drunk his deepest draughts of +happiness, had had his lips at the fountain-head of its +overflowing rivers; but now that source was poisoned and he +would taste no more of an untainted cup. + +For a moment he felt an actual physical anguish; then his +nerves hardened for the coming struggle. He had no notion +of what awaited him; but after the first instinctive recoil +he had seen in a flash the urgent need of another word with +Sophy Viner. He had been insincere in letting Anna think +that he had consented to speak because she asked it. In +reality he had been feverishly casting about for the pretext +she had given him; and for some reason this trivial +hypocrisy weighed on him more than all his heavy burden of +deceit. + +At length he heard a step behind him and Sophy Viner +entered. When she saw him she paused on the threshold and +half drew back. + +"I was told that Mrs. Leath had sent for me." + +"Mrs. Leath DID send for you. She'll be here presently; +but I asked her to let me see you first." + +He spoke very gently, and there was no insincerity in his +gentleness. He was profoundly moved by the change in the +girl's appearance. At sight of him she had forced a smile; +but it lit up her wretchedness like a candle-flame held to a +dead face. + +She made no reply, and Darrow went on: "You must understand +my wanting to speak to you, after what I was told just now." + +She interposed, with a gesture of protest: "I'm not +responsible for Owen's ravings!" + +"Of course----". He broke off and they stood facing each +other. She lifted a hand and pushed back her loose lock +with the gesture that was burnt into his memory; then she +looked about her and dropped into the nearest chair. + +"Well, you've got what you wanted," she said. + +"What do you mean by what I wanted?" + +"My engagement's broken--you heard me say so." + +"Why do you say that's what I wanted? All I wished, from the +beginning, was to advise you, to help you as best I could-- +--" + +"That's what you've done," she rejoined. "You've convinced +me that it's best I shouldn't marry him." + +Darrow broke into a despairing laugh. "At the very moment +when you'd convinced me to the contrary!" + +"Had I?" Her smile flickered up. "Well, I really believed +it till you showed me...warned me..." + +"Warned you?" + +"That I'd be miserable if I married a man I didn't love." + +"Don't you love him?" + +She made no answer, and Darrow started up and walked away to +the other end of the room. He stopped before the writing- +table, where his photograph, well-dressed, handsome, self- +sufficient--the portrait of a man of the world, confident of +his ability to deal adequately with the most delicate +situations--offered its huge fatuity to his gaze. He turned +back to her. "It's rather hard on Owen, isn't it, that you +should have waited until now to tell him?" + +She reflected a moment before answering. "I told him as +soon as I knew." + +"Knew that you couldn't marry him?" + +"Knew that I could never live here with him." She looked +about the room, as though the very walls must speak for her. + +For a moment Darrow continued to search her face +perplexedly; then their eyes met in a long disastrous gaze. + +"Yes----" she said, and stood up. + +Below the window they heard Effie whistling for her dogs, +and then, from the terrace, her mother calling her. + +"There--THAT for instance," Sophy Viner said. + +Darrow broke out: "It's I who ought to go!" + +She kept her small pale smile. "What good would that do any +of us--now?" + +He covered his face with his hands. "Good God!" he groaned. +"How could I tell?" + +"You couldn't tell. We neither of us could." She seemed to +turn the problem over critically. "After all, it might have +been YOU instead of me!" + +He took another distracted turn about the room and coming +back to her sat down in a chair at her side. A mocking hand +seemed to dash the words from his lips. There was nothing on +earth that he could say to her that wasn't foolish or cruel +or contemptible... + +"My dear," he began at last, "oughtn't you, at any rate, to +try?" + +Her gaze grew grave. "Try to forget you?" + +He flushed to the forehead. "I meant, try to give Owen more +time; to give him a chance. He's madly in love with you; +all the good that's in him is in your hands. His step-mother +felt that from the first. And she thought--she believed---- +" + +"She thought I could make him happy. Would she think so +now?" + +"Now...? I don't say now. But later? Time modifies...rubs +out...more quickly than you think...Go away, but let him +hope...I'm going too--WE'RE going--" he stumbled on the +plural--"in a very few weeks: going for a long time, +probably. What you're thinking of now may never happen. We +may not all be here together again for years." + +She heard him out in silence, her hands clasped on her knee, +her eyes bent on them. "For me," she said, "you'll always +be here." + +"Don't say that--oh, don't! Things change...people +change...You'll see!" + +"You don't understand. I don't want anything to change. I +don't want to forget--to rub out. At first I imagined I +did; but that was a foolish mistake. As soon as I saw you +again I knew it...It's not being here with you that I'm +afraid of--in the sense you think. It's being here, or +anywhere, with Owen." She stood up and bent her tragic smile +on him. "I want to keep you all to myself." + +The only words that came to him were futile denunciations of +his folly; but the sense of their futility checked them on +his lips. "Poor child--you poor child!" he heard himself +vainly repeating. + +Suddenly he felt the strong reaction of reality and its +impetus brought him to his feet. "Whatever happens, I +intend to go--to go for good," he exclaimed. "I want you to +understand that. Oh, don't be afraid--I'll find a reason. +But it's perfectly clear that I must go." + +She uttered a protesting cry. "Go away? You? Don't you see +that that would tell everything--drag everybody into the +horror?" + +He found no answer, and her voice dropped back to its calmer +note. "What good would your going do? Do you suppose it +would change anything for me?" She looked at him with a +musing wistfulness. "I wonder what your feeling for me was? +It seems queer that I've never really known--I suppose we +DON'T know much about that kind of feeling. Is it like +taking a drink when you're thirsty?...I used to feel as if +all of me was in the palm of your hand..." + +He bowed his humbled head, but she went on almost +exultantly: "Don't for a minute think I'm sorry! It was +worth every penny it cost. My mistake was in being ashamed, +just at first, of its having cost such a lot. I tried to +carry it off as a joke--to talk of it to myself as an +'adventure'. I'd always wanted adventures, and you'd given +me one, and I tried to take your attitude about it, to 'play +the game' and convince myself that I hadn't risked any more +on it than you. Then, when I met you again, I suddenly saw +that I HAD risked more, but that I'd won more, too--such +worlds! I'd been trying all the while to put everything I +could between us; now I want to sweep everything away. I'd +been trying to forget how you looked; now I want to remember +you always. I'd been trying not to hear your voice; now I +never want to hear any other. I've made my choice--that's +all: I've had you and I mean to keep you." Her face was +shining like her eyes. "To keep you hidden away here," she +ended, and put her hand upon her breast. + +After she had left him, Darrow continued to sit motionless, +staring back into their past. Hitherto it had lingered on +the edge of his mind in a vague pink blur, like one of the +little rose-leaf clouds that a setting sun drops from its +disk. Now it was a huge looming darkness, through which his +eyes vainly strained. The whole episode was still obscure +to him, save where here and there, as they talked, some +phrase or gesture or intonation of the girl's had lit up a +little spot in the night. + +She had said: "I wonder what your feeling for me was?" and +he found himself wondering too...He remembered distinctly +enough that he had not meant the perilous passion--even in +its most transient form--to play a part in their relation. +In that respect his attitude had been above reproach. She +was an unusually original and attractive creature, to whom +he had wanted to give a few days of harmless pleasuring, and +who was alert and expert enough to understand his intention +and spare him the boredom of hesitations and +misinterpretations. That had been his first impression, and +her subsequent demeanour had justified it. She had been, +from the outset, just the frank and easy comrade he had +expected to find her. Was it he, then, who, in the sequel, +had grown impatient of the bounds he had set himself? Was it +his wounded vanity that, seeking balm for its hurt, yearned +to dip deeper into the healing pool of her compassion? In +his confused memory of the situation he seemed not to have +been guiltless of such yearnings...Yet for the first few +days the experiment had been perfectly successful. Her +enjoyment had been unclouded and his pleasure in it +undisturbed. It was very gradually--he seemed to see--that +a shade of lassitude had crept over their intercourse. +Perhaps it was because, when her light chatter about people +failed, he found she had no other fund to draw on, or +perhaps simply because of the sweetness of her laugh, or of +the charm of the gesture with which, one day in the woods of +Marly, she had tossed off her hat and tilted back her head +at the call of a cuckoo; or because, whenever he looked at +her unexpectedly, he found that she was looking at him and +did not want him to know it; or perhaps, in varying degrees, +because of all these things, that there had come a moment +when no word seemed to fly high enough or dive deep enough +to utter the sense of well-being each gave to the other, and +the natural substitute for speech had been a kiss. + +The kiss, at all events, had come at the precise moment to +save their venture from disaster. They had reached the +point when her amazing reminiscences had begun to flag, when +her future had been exhaustively discussed, her theatrical +prospects minutely studied, her quarrel with Mrs. Murrett +retold with the last amplification of detail, and when, +perhaps conscious of her exhausted resources and his +dwindling interest, she had committed the fatal error of +saying that she could see he was unhappy, and entreating him +to tell her why... + +From the brink of estranging confidences, and from the risk +of unfavourable comparisons, his gesture had snatched her +back to safety; and as soon as he had kissed her he felt +that she would never bore him again. She was one of the +elemental creatures whose emotion is all in their pulses, +and who become inexpressive or sentimental when they try to +turn sensation into speech. His caress had restored her to +her natural place in the scheme of things, and Darrow felt +as if he had clasped a tree and a nymph had bloomed from +it... + +The mere fact of not having to listen to her any longer +added immensely to her charm. She continued, of course, to +talk to him, but it didn't matter, because he no longer made +any effort to follow her words, but let her voice run on as +a musical undercurrent to his thoughts. + +She hadn't a drop of poetry in her, but she had some of the +qualities that create it in others; and in moments of heat +the imagination does not always feel the difference... + +Lying beside her in the shade, Darrow felt her presence as a +part of the charmed stillness of the summer woods, as the +element of vague well-being that suffused his senses and +lulled to sleep the ache of wounded pride. All he asked of +her, as yet, was a touch on the hand or on the lips--and +that she should let him go on lying there through the long +warm hours, while a black-bird's song throbbed like a +fountain, and the summer wind stirred in the trees, and +close by, between the nearest branches and the brim of his +tilted hat, a slight white figure gathered up all the +floating threads of joy... + +He recalled, too, having noticed, as he lay staring at a +break in the tree-tops, a stream of mares'-tails coming up +the sky. He had said to himself: "It will rain to-morrow," +and the thought had made the air seem warmer and the sun +more vivid on her hair...Perhaps if the mares'-tails had not +come up the sky their adventure might have had no sequel. +But the cloud brought rain, and next morning he looked out +of his window into a cold grey blur. They had planned an +all-day excursion down the Seine, to the two Andelys and +Rouen, and now, with the long hours on their hands, they +were both a little at a loss...There was the Louvre, of +course, and the Luxembourg; but he had tried looking at +pictures with her, she had first so persistently admired the +worst things, and then so frankly lapsed into indifference, +that he had no wish to repeat the experiment. So they went +out, aimlessly, and took a cold wet walk, turning at length +into the deserted arcades of the Palais Royal, and finally +drifting into one of its equally deserted restaurants, where +they lunched alone and somewhat dolefully, served by a wan +old waiter with the look of a castaway who has given up +watching for a sail...It was odd how the waiter's face came +back to him... + +Perhaps but for the rain it might never have happened; but +what was the use of thinking of that now? He tried to turn +his thoughts to more urgent issues; but, by a strange +perversity of association, every detail of the day was +forcing itself on his mind with an insistence from which +there was no escape. Reluctantly he relived the long wet +walk back to the hotel, after a tedious hour at a +cinematograph show on the Boulevard. It was still raining +when they withdrew from this stale spectacle, but she had +obstinately refused to take a cab, had even, on the way, +insisted on loitering under the dripping awnings of shop- +windows and poking into draughty passages, and finally, when +they had nearly reached their destination, had gone so far +as to suggest that they should turn back to hunt up some +show she had heard of in a theatre at the Batignolles. But +at that he had somewhat irritably protested: he remembered +that, for the first time, they were both rather irritable, +and vaguely disposed to resist one another's suggestions. +His feet were wet, and he was tired of walking, and sick of +the smell of stuffy unaired theatres, and he had said he +must really get back to write some letters--and so they had +kept on to the hotel... + + + +XXVII + + +Darrow had no idea how long he had sat there when he heard +Anna's hand on the door. The effort of rising, and of +composing his face to meet her, gave him a factitious sense +of self-control. He said to himself: "I must decide on +something----" and that lifted him a hair's breadth above +the whirling waters. + +She came in with a lighter step, and he instantly perceived +that something unforeseen and reassuring had happened. + +"She's been with me. She came and found me on the terrace. +We've had a long talk and she's explained everything. I +feel as if I'd never known her before!" + +Her voice was so moved and tender that it checked his start +of apprehension. + +"She's explained----?" + +"It's natural, isn't it, that she should have felt a little +sore at the kind of inspection she's been subjected to? Oh, +not from you--I don't mean that! But Madame de Chantelle's +opposition--and her sending for Adelaide Painter! She told +me frankly she didn't care to owe her husband to Adelaide +Painter...She thinks now that her annoyance at feeling +herself so talked over and scrutinized may have shown itself +in her manner to Owen, and set him imagining the insane +things he did...I understand all she must have felt, and I +agree with her that it's best she should go away for a +while. She's made me," Anna summed up, "feel as if I'd been +dreadfully thick-skinned and obtuse!" + +"YOU?" + +"Yes. As if I'd treated her like the bric-a-brac that used +to be sent down here 'on approval,' to see if it would look +well with the other pieces." She added, with a sudden flush +of enthusiasm: "I'm glad she's got it in her to make one +feel like that!" + +She seemed to wait for Darrow to agree with her, or to put +some other question, and he finally found voice to ask: +"Then you think it's not a final break?" + +"I hope not--I've never hoped it more! I had a word with +Owen, too, after I left her, and I think he understands that +he must let her go without insisting on any positive +promise. She's excited...he must let her calm down..." + +Again she waited, and Darrow said: "Surely you can make him +see that." + +"She'll help me to--she's to see him, of course, before she +goes. She starts immediately, by the way, with Adelaide +Painter, who is motoring over to Francheuil to catch the one +o'clock express--and who, of course, knows nothing of all +this, and is simply to be told that Sophy has been sent for +by the Farlows." + +Darrow mutely signed his comprehension, and she went on: +"Owen is particularly anxious that neither Adelaide nor his +grandmother should have the least inkling of what's +happened. The need of shielding Sophy will help him to +control himself. He's coming to his senses, poor boy; he's +ashamed of his wild talk already. He asked me to tell you +so; no doubt he'll tell you so himself." + +Darrow made a movement of protest. "Oh, as to that--the +thing's not worth another word." + +"Or another thought, either?" She brightened. "Promise me +you won't even think of it--promise me you won't be hard on +him!" + +He was finding it easier to smile back at her. "Why should +you think it necessary to ask my indulgence for Owen?" + +She hesitated a moment, her eyes wandering from him. Then +they came back with a smile. "Perhaps because I need it for +myself." + +"For yourself?" + +"I mean, because I understand better how one can torture +one's self over unrealities." + +As Darrow listened, the tension of his nerves began to +relax. Her gaze, so grave and yet so sweet, was like a deep +pool into which he could plunge and hide himself from the +hard glare of his misery. As this ecstatic sense enveloped +him he found it more and more difficult to follow her words +and to frame an answer; but what did anything matter, except +that her voice should go on, and the syllables fall like +soft touches on his tortured brain? + +"Don't you know," she continued, "the bliss of waking from a +bad dream in one's own quiet room, and going slowly over all +the horror without being afraid of it any more? That's what +I'm doing now. And that's why I understand Owen..." She +broke off, and he felt her touch on his arm. "BECAUSE +I'D DREAMED THE HORROR TOO!" + +He understood her then, and stammered: "You?" + +"Forgive me! And let me tell you!...It will help you to +understand Owen...There WERE little things...little +signs...once I had begun to watch for them: your reluctance +to speak about her...her reserve with you...a sort of +constraint we'd never seen in her before..." + +She laughed up at him, and with her hands in his he +contrived to say: "NOW you understand why?" + +"Oh, I understand; of course I understand; and I want you to +laugh at me--with me! Because there were other things +too...crazier things still...There was even--last night on +the terrace--her pink cloak..." + +"Her pink cloak?" Now he honestly wondered, and as she saw +it she blushed. + +"You've forgotten about the cloak? The pink cloak that Owen +saw you with at the play in Paris? Yes...yes...I was mad +enough for that!...It does me good to laugh about it now! +But you ought to know that I'm going to be a jealous +woman...a ridiculously jealous woman...you ought to be +warned of it in time..." + +He had dropped her hands, and she leaned close and lifted +her arms to his neck with one of her rare gestures of +surrender. + +"I don't know why it is; but it makes me happier now to have +been so foolish!" + +Her lips were parted in a noiseless laugh and the tremor of +her lashes made their shadow move on her cheek. He looked +at her through a mist of pain and saw all her offered beauty +held up like a cup to his lips; but as he stooped to it a +darkness seemed to fall between them, her arms slipped from +his shoulders and she drew away from him abruptly. + +"But she WAS with you, then?" she exclaimed; and then, +as he stared at her: "Oh, don't say no! Only go and look at +your eyes!" + +He stood speechless, and she pressed on: "Don't deny it--oh, +don't deny it! What will be left for me to imagine if you +do? Don't you see how every single thing cries it out? Owen +sees it--he saw it again just now! When I told him she'd +relented, and would see him, he said: 'Is that Darrow's +doing too?'" + +Darrow took the onslaught in silence. He might have spoken, +have summoned up the usual phrases of banter and denial; he +was not even certain that they might not, for the moment, +have served their purpose if he could have uttered them +without being seen. But he was as conscious of what had +happened to his face as if he had obeyed Anna's bidding and +looked at himself in the glass. He knew he could no more +hide from her what was written there than he could efface +from his soul the fiery record of what he had just lived +through. There before him, staring him in the eyes, and +reflecting itself in all his lineaments, was the +overwhelming fact of Sophy Viner's passion and of the act by +which she had attested it. + +Anna was talking again, hurriedly, feverishly, and his soul +was wrung by the anguish in her voice. "Do speak at last-- +you must speak! I don't want to ask you to harm the girl; +but you must see that your silence is doing her more harm +than your answering my questions could. You're leaving me +only the worst things to think of her...she'd see that +herself if she were here. What worse injury can you do her +than to make me hate her--to make me feel she's plotted with +you to deceive us?" + +"Oh, not that!" Darrow heard his own voice before he was +aware that he meant to speak. "Yes; I did see her in +Paris," he went on after a pause; "but I was bound to +respect her reason for not wanting it known." + +Anna paled. "It was she at the theatre that night?" + +"I was with her at the theatre one night." + +"Why should she have asked you not to say so?" + +"She didn't wish it known that I'd met her." + +"Why shouldn't she have wished it known?" + +"She had quarrelled with Mrs. Murrett and come over suddenly +to Paris, and she didn't want the Farlows to hear of it. I +came across her by accident, and she asked me not to speak +of having seen her." + +"Because of her quarrel? Because she was ashamed of her part +in it?" + +"Oh, no. There was nothing for her to be ashamed of. But +the Farlows had found the place for her, and she didn't want +them to know how suddenly she'd had to leave, and how badly +Mrs. Murrett had behaved. She was in a terrible plight--the +woman had even kept back her month's salary. She knew the +Farlows would be awfully upset, and she wanted more time to +prepare them." + +Darrow heard himself speak as though the words had proceeded +from other lips. His explanation sounded plausible enough, +and he half-fancied Anna's look grew lighter. She waited a +moment, as though to be sure he had no more to add; then she +said: "But the Farlows DID know; they told me all about +it when they sent her to me." + +He flushed as if she had laid a deliberate trap for him. +"They may know NOW; they didn't then----" + +"That's no reason for her continuing now to make a mystery +of having met you." + +"It's the only reason I can give you." + +"Then I'll go and ask her for one myself." She turned and +took a few steps toward the door. + +"Anna!" He started to follow her, and then checked himself. +"Don't do that!" + +"Why not?" + +"It's not like you...not generous..." + +She stood before him straight and pale, but under her rigid +face he saw the tumult of her doubt and misery. + +"I don't want to be ungenerous; I don't want to pry into her +secrets. But things can't be left like this. Wouldn't it be +better for me to go to her? Surely she'll understand--she'll +explain...It may be some mere trifle she's concealing: +something that would horrify the Farlows, but that I +shouldn't see any harm in..." She paused, her eyes +searching his face. "A love affair, I suppose...that's it? +You met her with some man at the theatre--and she was +frightened and begged you to fib about it? Those poor young +things that have to go about among us like machines--oh, if +you knew how I pity them!" + +"If you pity her, why not let her go?" + +She stared. "Let her go--go for good, you mean? Is that the +best you can say for her?" + +"Let things take their course. After all, it's between +herself and Owen." + +"And you and me--and Effie, if Owen marries her, and I leave +my child with them! Don't you see the impossibility of what +you're asking? We're all bound together in this coil." + +Darrow turned away with a groan. "Oh, let her go--let her +go." + +"Then there IS something--something really bad? She +WAS with some one when you met her? Some one with whom she +was----" She broke off, and he saw her struggling with new +thoughts. "If it's THAT, of course...Oh, don't you +see," she desperately appealed to him, "that I must find +out, and that it's too late now for you not to speak? Don't +be afraid that I'll betray you...I'll never, never let a +soul suspect. But I must know the truth, and surely it's +best for her that I should find it out from you." + +Darrow waited a moment; then he said slowly: "What you +imagine's mere madness. She was at the theatre with me." + +"With you?" He saw a tremor pass through her, but she +controlled it instantly and faced him straight and +motionless as a wounded creature in the moment before it +feels its wound. "Why should you both have made a mystery +of that?" + +"I've told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. "She +may have been afraid that Owen----" + +"But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me +that you hardly knew her--that you hadn't even seen her for +years." She broke off and the blood rose to her face and +forehead. "Even if SHE had other reasons, there could +be only one reason for your obeying her----" +Silence fell between them, a silence in which the room +seemed to become suddenly resonant with voices. Darrow's +gaze wandered to the window and he noticed that the gale of +two days before had nearly stripped the tops of the lime- +trees in the court. Anna had moved away and was resting her +elbows against the mantel-piece, her head in her hands. As +she stood there he took in with a new intensity of vision +little details of her appearance that his eyes had often +cherished: the branching blue veins in the backs of her +hands, the warm shadow that her hair cast on her ear, and +the colour of the hair itself, dull black with a tawny +under-surface, like the wings of certain birds. He felt it +to be useless to speak. + +After a while she lifted her head and said: "I shall not see +her again before she goes." + +He made no answer, and turning to him she added: "That is +why she's going, I suppose? Because she loves you and won't +give you up?" + +Darrow waited. The paltriness of conventional denial was so +apparent to him that even if it could have delayed discovery +he could no longer have resorted to it. Under all his other +fears was the dread of dishonouring the hour. + +"She HAS given me up," he said at last. + + + +XXVIII + + +When he had gone out of the room Anna stood where he had +left her. "I must believe him! I must believe him!" she +said. + +A moment before, at the moment when she had lifted her arms +to his neck, she had been wrapped in a sense of complete +security. All the spirits of doubt had been exorcised, and +her love was once more the clear habitation in which every +thought and feeling could move in blissful freedom. And +then, as she raised her face to Darrow's and met his eyes, +she had seemed to look into the very ruins of his soul. +That was the only way she could express it. It was as +though he and she had been looking at two sides of the same +thing, and the side she had seen had been all light and +life, and his a place of graves... + +She didn't now recall who had spoken first, or even, very +clearly, what had been said. It seemed to her only a moment +later that she had found herself standing at the other end +of the room--the room which had suddenly grown so small +that, even with its length between them, she felt as if he +touched her--crying out to him "It IS because of you +she's going!" and reading the avowal in his face. + +That was his secret, then, THEIR secret: he had met the +girl in Paris and helped her in her straits--lent her money, +Anna vaguely conjectured--and she had fallen in love with +him, and on meeting him again had been suddenly overmastered +by her passion. Anna, dropping back into her sofa-corner, +sat staring these facts in the face. + +The girl had been in a desperate plight--frightened, +penniless, outraged by what had happened, and not knowing +(with a woman like Mrs. Murrett) what fresh injury might +impend; and Darrow, meeting her in this distracted hour, had +pitied, counselled, been kind to her, with the fatal, the +inevitable result. There were the facts as Anna made them +out: that, at least, was their external aspect, was as much +of them as she had been suffered to see; and into the secret +intricacies they might cover she dared not yet project her +thoughts. + +"I must believe him...I must believe him..." She kept on +repeating the words like a talisman. It was natural, after +all, that he should have behaved as he had: defended the +girl's piteous secret to the last. She too began to feel the +contagion of his pity--the stir, in her breast, of feelings +deeper and more native to her than the pains of jealousy. +From the security of her blessedness she longed to lean over +with compassionate hands...But Owen? What was Owen's part to +be? She owed herself first to him--she was bound to protect +him not only from all knowledge of the secret she had +surprised, but also--and chiefly!--from its consequences. +Yes: the girl must go--there could be no doubt of it--Darrow +himself had seen it from the first; and at the thought she +had a wild revulsion of relief, as though she had been +trying to create in her heart the delusion of a generosity +she could not feel... + +The one fact on which she could stay her mind was that Sophy +was leaving immediately; would be out of the house within an +hour. Once she was gone, it would be easier to bring Owen +to the point of understanding that the break was final; if +necessary, to work upon the girl to make him see it. But +that, Anna was sure, would not be necessary. It was clear +that Sophy Viner was leaving Givre with no thought of ever +seeing it again... + +Suddenly, as she tried to put some order in her thoughts, +she heard Owen's call at the door: "Mother!----" a name he +seldom gave her. There was a new note in his voice: the +note of a joyous impatience. It made her turn hastily to +the glass to see what face she was about to show him; but +before she had had time to compose it he was in the room and +she was caught in a school-boy hug. + +"It's all right! It's all right! And it's all your doing! I +want to do the worst kind of penance--bell and candle and +the rest. I've been through it with HER, and now she +hands me on to you, and you're to call me any names you +please." He freed her with his happy laugh. "I'm to be +stood in the corner till next week, and then I'm to go up to +see her. And she says I owe it all to you!" + +"To me?" It was the first phrase she found to clutch at as +she tried to steady herself in the eddies of his joy. + +"Yes: you were so patient, and so dear to her; and you saw +at once what a damned ass I'd been!" She tried a smile, and +it seemed to pass muster with him, for he sent it back in a +broad beam. "That's not so difficult to see? No, I admit it +doesn't take a microscope. But you were so wise and +wonderful--you always are. I've been mad these last days, +simply mad--you and she might well have washed your hands of +me! And instead, it's all right--all right!" + +She drew back a little, trying to keep the smile on her lips +and not let him get the least glimpse of what it hid. Now +if ever, indeed, it behoved her to be wise and wonderful! + +"I'm so glad, dear; so glad. If only you'll always feel +like that about me..." She stopped, hardly knowing what she +said, and aghast at the idea that her own hands should have +retied the knot she imagined to be broken. But she saw he +had something more to say; something hard to get out, but +absolutely necessary to express. He caught her hands, +pulled her close, and, with his forehead drawn into its +whimsical smiling wrinkles, "Look here," he cried, "if +Darrow wants to call me a damned ass too you're not to stop +him!" + +It brought her back to a sharper sense of her central peril: +of the secret to be kept from him at whatever cost to her +racked nerves. + +"Oh, you know, he doesn't always wait for orders!" On the +whole it sounded better than she'd feared. + +"You mean he's called me one already?" He accepted the fact +with his gayest laugh. "Well, that saves a lot of trouble; +now we can pass to the order of the day----" he broke off +and glanced at the clock--"which is, you know, dear, that +she's starting in about an hour; she and Adelaide must +already be snatching a hasty sandwich. You'll come down to +bid them good-bye?" + +"Yes--of course." + +There had, in fact, grown upon her while he spoke the +urgency of seeing Sophy Viner again before she left. The +thought was deeply distasteful: Anna shrank from +encountering the girl till she had cleared a way through her +own perplexities. But it was obvious that since they had +separated, barely an hour earlier, the situation had taken a +new shape. Sophy Viner had apparently reconsidered her +decision to break amicably but definitely with Owen, and +stood again in their path, a menace and a mystery; and +confused impulses of resistance stirred in Anna's mind. +She felt Owen's touch on her arm. "Are you coming?" + +"Yes...yes...presently." + +"What's the matter? You look so strange." + +"What do you mean by strange?" + +"I don't know: startled--surprised " She read what her look +must be by its sudden reflection in his face. + +"Do I? No wonder! You've given us all an exciting morning." + +He held to his point. "You're more excited now that there's +no cause for it. What on earth has happened since I saw +you?" + +He looked about the room, as if seeking the clue to her +agitation, and in her dread of what he might guess she +answered: "What has happened is simply that I'm rather +tired. Will you ask Sophy to come up and see me here?" + + +While she waited she tried to think what she should say when +the girl appeared; but she had never been more conscious of +her inability to deal with the oblique and the tortuous. +She had lacked the hard teachings of experience, and an +instinctive disdain for whatever was less clear and open +than her own conscience had kept her from learning anything +of the intricacies and contradictions of other hearts. She +said to herself: "I must find out----" yet everything in her +recoiled from the means by which she felt it must be done... + +Sophy Viner appeared almost immediately, dressed for +departure, her little bag on her arm. She was still pale to +the point of haggardness, but with a light upon her that +struck Anna with surprise. Or was it, perhaps, that she was +looking at the girl with new eyes: seeing her, for the first +time, not as Effie's governess, not as Owen's bride, but as +the embodiment of that unknown peril lurking in the +background of every woman's thoughts about her lover? Anna, +at any rate, with a sudden sense of estrangement, noted in +her graces and snares never before perceived. It was only +the flash of a primitive instinct, but it lasted long enough +to make her ashamed of the darknesses it lit up in her +heart... + +She signed to Sophy to sit down on the sofa beside her. "I +asked you to come up to me because I wanted to say good-bye +quietly," she explained, feeling her lips tremble, but +trying to speak in a tone of friendly naturalness. + +The girl's only answer was a faint smile of acquiescence, +and Anna, disconcerted by her silence, went on: "You've +decided, then, not to break your engagement?" + +Sophy Viner raised her head with a look of surprise. +Evidently the question, thus abruptly put, must have sounded +strangely on the lips of so ardent a partisan as Mrs. Leath! +"I thought that was what you wished," she said. + +"What I wished?" Anna's heart shook against her side. "I +wish, of course, whatever seems best for Owen...It's +natural, you must understand, that that consideration should +come first with me..." + +Sophy was looking at her steadily. "I supposed it was the +only one that counted with you." + +The curtness of retort roused Anna's latent antagonism. "It +is," she said, in a hard voice that startled her as she +heard it. Had she ever spoken so to any one before? She +felt frightened, as though her very nature had changed +without her knowing it...Feeling the girl's astonished gaze +still on her, she continued: "The suddenness of the change +has naturally surprised me. When I left you it was +understood that you were to reserve your decision----" + +"Yes." + +"And now----?" Anna waited for a reply that did not come. +She did not understand the girl's attitude, the edge of +irony in her short syllables, the plainly premeditated +determination to lay the burden of proof on her +interlocutor. Anna felt the sudden need to lift their +intercourse above this mean level of defiance and distrust. +She looked appealingly at Sophy. + +"Isn't it best that we should speak quite frankly? It's this +change on your part that perplexes me. You can hardly be +surprised at that. It's true, I asked you not to break with +Owen too abruptly--and I asked it, believe me, as much for +your sake as for his: I wanted you to take time to think +over the difficulty that seems to have arisen between you. +The fact that you felt it required thinking over seemed to +show you wouldn't take the final step lightly--wouldn't, I +mean, accept of Owen more than you could give him. But your +change of mind obliges me to ask the question I thought you +would have asked yourself. Is there any reason why you +shouldn't marry Owen?" + +She stopped a little breathlessly, her eyes on Sophy Viner's +burning face. "Any reason----? What do you mean by a +reason?" + +Anna continued to look at her gravely. "Do you love some +one else?" she asked. + +Sophy's first look was one of wonder and a faint relief; +then she gave back the other's scrutiny in a glance of +indescribable reproach. "Ah, you might have waited!" she +exclaimed. + +"Waited?" + +"Till I'd gone: till I was out of the house. You might have +known...you might have guessed..." She turned her eyes +again on Anna. "I only meant to let him hope a little +longer, so that he shouldn't suspect anything; of course I +can't marry him," she said. + +Anna stood motionless, silenced by the shock of the avowal. +She too was trembling, less with anger than with a confused +compassion. But the feeling was so blent with others, less +generous and more obscure, that she found no words to +express it, and the two women faced each other without +speaking. + +"I'd better go," Sophy murmured at length with lowered head. + +The words roused in Anna a latent impulse of compunction. +The girl looked so young, so exposed and desolate! And what +thoughts must she be hiding in her heart! It was impossible +that they should part in such a spirit. + +"I want you to know that no one said anything...It was I +who..." + +Sophy looked at her. "You mean that Mr. Darrow didn't tell +you? Of course not: do you suppose I thought he did? You +found it out, that's all--I knew you would. In your place I +should have guessed it sooner." + +The words were spoken simply, without irony or emphasis; but +they went through Anna like a sword. Yes, the girl would +have had divinations, promptings that she had not had! She +felt half envious of such a sad precocity of wisdom. + +"I'm so sorry...so sorry..." she murmured. + +"Things happen that way. Now I'd better go. I'd like to +say good-bye to Effie." + +"Oh----" it broke in a cry from Effie's mother. "Not like +this--you mustn't! I feel--you make me feel too horribly: as +if I were driving you away..." The words had rushed up from +the depths of her bewildered pity. + +"No one is driving me away: I had to go," she heard the girl +reply. + +There was another silence, during which passionate impulses +of magnanimity warred in Anna with her doubts and dreads. +At length, her eyes on Sophy's face: "Yes, you must go now," +she began; "but later on...after a while, when all this is +over...if there's no reason why you shouldn't marry Owen---- +" she paused a moment on the words--" I shouldn't want you +to think I stood between you..." + +"You?" Sophy flushed again, and then grew pale. She seemed +to try to speak, but no words came. +"Yes! It was not true when I said just now that I was +thinking only of Owen. I'm sorry--oh, so sorry!--for you +too. Your life--I know how hard it's been; and +mine...mine's so full...Happy women understand best!" Anna +drew near and touched the girl's hand; then she began again, +pouring all her soul into the broken phrases: "It's terrible +now...you see no future; but if, by and bye...you know +best...but you're so young...and at your age things DO +pass. If there's no reason, no real reason, why you +shouldn't marry Owen, I WANT him to hope, I'll help him +to hope...if you say so..." + +With the urgency of her pleading her clasp tightened on +Sophy's hand, but it warmed to no responsive tremor: the +girl seemed numb, and Anna was frightened by the stony +silence of her look. "I suppose I'm not more than half a +woman," she mused, "for I don't want my happiness to hurt +her;" and aloud she repeated: "If only you'll tell me +there's no reason----" + +The girl did not speak; but suddenly, like a snapped branch, +she bent, stooped down to the hand that clasped her, and +laid her lips upon it in a stream of weeping. She cried +silently, continuously, abundantly, as though Anna's touch +had released the waters of some deep spring of pain; then, +as Anna, moved and half afraid, leaned over her with a sound +of pity, she stood up and turned away. + +"You're going, then--for good--like this?" Anna moved +toward her and stopped. Sophy stopped too, with eyes that +shrank from her. + +"Oh----" Anna cried, and hid her face. + +The girl walked across the room and paused again in the +doorway. From there she flung back: "I wanted it--I chose +it. He was good to me--no one ever was so good!" + +The door-handle turned, and Anna heard her go. + + + +XXIX + + +Her first thought was: "He's going too in a few hours--I +needn't see him again before he leaves..." At that moment +the possibility of having to look in Darrow's face and hear +him speak seemed to her more unendurable than anything else +she could imagine. Then, on the next wave of feeling, came +the desire to confront him at once and wring from him she +knew not what: avowal, denial, justification, anything that +should open some channel of escape to the flood of her pent- +up anguish. + +She had told Owen she was tired, and this seemed a +sufficient reason for remaining upstairs when the motor came +to the door and Miss Painter and Sophy Viner were borne off +in it; sufficient also for sending word to Madame de +Chantelle that she would not come down till after luncheon. +Having despatched her maid with this message, she lay down +on her sofa and stared before her into darkness... + +She had been unhappy before, and the vision of old miseries +flocked like hungry ghosts about her fresh pain: she +recalled her youthful disappointment, the failure of her +marriage, the wasted years that followed; but those were +negative sorrows, denials and postponements of life. She +seemed in no way related to their shadowy victim, she who +was stretched on this fiery rack of the irreparable. She +had suffered before--yes, but lucidly, reflectively, +elegiacally: now she was suffering as a hurt animal must, +blindly, furiously, with the single fierce animal longing +that the awful pain should stop... + +She heard her maid knock, and she hid her face and made no +answer. The knocking continued, and the discipline of habit +at length made her lift her head, compose her face and hold +out her hand to the note the woman brought her. It was a +word from Darrow--"May I see you?"--and she said at once, in +a voice that sounded thin and empty: "Ask Mr. Darrow to come +up." + +The maid enquired if she wished to have her hair smoothed +first, and she answered that it didn't matter; but when the +door had closed, the instinct of pride drew her to her feet +and she looked at herself in the glass above the mantelpiece +and passed her hands over her hair. Her eyes were burning +and her face looked tired and thinner; otherwise she could +see no change in her appearance, and she wondered that at +such a moment her body should seem as unrelated to the self +that writhed within her as if it had been a statue or a +picture. + +The maid reopened the door to show in Darrow, and he paused +a moment on the threshold, as if waiting for Anna to speak. +He was extremely pale, but he looked neither ashamed nor +uncertain, and she said to herself, with a perverse thrill +of appreciation: "He's as proud as I am." + +Aloud she asked: "You wanted to see me?" + +"Naturally," he replied in a grave voice. + +"Don't! It's useless. I know everything. Nothing you can +say will help." + +At the direct affirmation he turned even paler, and his +eyes, which he kept resolutely fixed on her, confessed his +misery. + +"You allow me no voice in deciding that?" + +"Deciding what?" + +"That there's nothing more to be said?" He waited for her to +answer, and then went on: "I don't even know what you mean +by 'everything'." + +"Oh, I don't know what more there is! I know enough. I +implored her to deny it, and she couldn't...What can you and +I have to say to each other?" Her voice broke into a sob. +The animal anguish was upon her again--just a blind cry +against her pain! + +Darrow kept his head high and his eyes steady. "It must be +as you wish; and yet it's not like you to be afraid." + +"Afraid?" + +"To talk things out--to face them." + +"It's for YOU to face this--not me!" + +"All I ask is to face it--but with you." Once more he +paused. "Won't you tell me what Miss Viner told you?" + +"Oh, she's generous--to the utmost!" The pain caught her +like a physical throe. It suddenly came to her how the girl +must have loved him to be so generous--what memories there +must be between them! + +"Oh, go, please go. It's too horrible. Why should I have +to see you?" she stammered, lifting her hands to her eyes. + +With her face hidden she waited to hear him move away, to +hear the door open and close again, as, a few hours earlier, +it had opened and closed on Sophy Viner. But Darrow made no +sound or movement: he too was waiting. Anna felt a thrill +of resentment: his presence was an outrage on her sorrow, a +humiliation to her pride. It was strange that he should +wait for her to tell him so! + +"You want me to leave Givre?" he asked at length. She made +no answer, and he went on: "Of course I'll do as you wish; +but if I go now am I not to see you again?" + +His voice was firm: his pride was answering her pride! + +She faltered: "You must see it's useless----" + +"I might remind you that you're dismissing me without a +hearing----" + +"Without a hearing? I've heard you both!" + +----"but I won't," he continued, "remind you of that, or of +anything or any one but Owen." + +"Owen?" + +"Yes; if we could somehow spare him----" + +She had dropped her hands and turned her startled eyes on +him. It seemed to her an age since she had thought of Owen! + +"You see, don't you," Darrow continued, "that if you send me +away now----" + +She interrupted: "Yes, I see----" and there was a long +silence between them. At length she said, very low: "I +don't want any one else to suffer as I'm suffering..." + +"Owen knows I meant to leave tomorrow," Darrow went on. "Any +sudden change of plan may make him think..." + +Oh, she saw his inevitable logic: the horror of it was on +every side of her! It had seemed possible to control her +grief and face Darrow calmly while she was upheld by the +belief that this was their last hour together, that after he +had passed out of the room there would be no fear of seeing +him again, no fear that his nearness, his look, his voice, +and all the unseen influences that flowed from him, would +dissolve her soul to weakness. But her courage failed at the +idea of having to conspire with him to shield Owen, of +keeping up with him, for Owen's sake, a feint of union and +felicity. To live at Darrow's side in seeming intimacy and +harmony for another twenty-four hours seemed harder than to +live without him for all the rest of her days. Her strength +failed her, and she threw herself down and buried her sobs +in the cushions where she had so often hidden a face aglow +with happiness. + +"Anna----" His voice was close to her. "Let me talk to you +quietly. It's not worthy of either of us to be afraid." + +Words of endearment would have offended her; but her heart +rose at the call to her courage. + +"I've no defense to make," he went on. "The facts are +miserable enough; but at least I want you to see them as +they are. Above all, I want you to know the truth about +Miss Viner----" + +The name sent the blood to Anna's forehead. She raised her +head and faced him. "Why should I know more of her than +what she's told me? I never wish to hear her name again!" + +"It's because you feel about her in that way that I ask you +--in the name of common charity--to let me give you the facts +as they are, and not as you've probably imagined them." + +"I've told you I don't think uncharitably of her. I don't +want to think of her at all!" + +"That's why I tell you you're afraid." + +"Afraid?" + +"Yes. You've always said you wanted, above all, to look at +life, at the human problem, as it is, without fear and +without hypocrisy; and it's not always a pleasant thing to +look at." He broke off, and then began again: "Don't think +this a plea for myself! I don't want to say a word to lessen +my offense. I don't want to talk of myself at all. Even if +I did, I probably couldn't make you understand--I don't, +myself, as I look back. Be just to me--it's your right; all +I ask you is to be generous to Miss Viner..." + +She stood up trembling. "You're free to be as generous to +her as you please!" + +"Yes: you've made it clear to me that I'm free. But there's +nothing I can do for her that will help her half as much as +your understanding her would." + +"Nothing you can do for her? You can marry her!" + +His face hardened. "You certainly couldn't wish her a worse +fate!" + +"It must have been what she expected...relied on..."He was +silent, and she broke out: "Or what is she? What are you? +It's too horrible! On your way here...to ME..." She felt +the tears in her throat and stopped. + +"That was it," he said bluntly. She stared at him. + +"I was on my way to you--after repeated delays and +postponements of your own making. At the very last you +turned me back with a mere word--and without explanation. I +waited for a letter; and none came. I'm not saying this to +justify myself. I'm simply trying to make you understand. +I felt hurt and bitter and bewildered. I thought you meant +to give me up. And suddenly, in my way, I found some one to +be sorry for, to be of use to. That, I swear to you, was +the way it began. The rest was a moment's folly...a flash +of madness...as such things are. We've never seen each +other since..." + +Anna was looking at him coldly. "You sufficiently describe +her in saying that!" + +"Yes, if you measure her by conventional standards--which is +what you always declare you never do." + +"Conventional standards? A girl who----" She was checked by +a sudden rush of almost physical repugnance. Suddenly she +broke out: "I always thought her an adventuress!" + +"Always?" + +"I don't mean always...but after you came..." + +"She's not an adventuress." + +"You mean that she professes to act on the new theories? The +stuff that awful women rave about on platforms?" + +"Oh, I don't think she pretended to have a theory----" + +"She hadn't even that excuse?" + +"She had the excuse of her loneliness, her unhappiness--of +miseries and humiliations that a woman like you can't even +guess. She had nothing to look back to but indifference or +unkindness--nothing to look forward to but anxiety. She saw +I was sorry for her and it touched her. She made too much +of it--she exaggerated it. I ought to have seen the danger, +but I didn't. There's no possible excuse for what I did." + +Anna listened to him in speechless misery. Every word he +spoke threw back a disintegrating light on their own past. +He had come to her with an open face and a clear conscience +--come to her from this! If his security was the security of +falsehood it was horrible; if it meant that he had +forgotten, it was worse. She would have liked to stop her +ears, to close her eyes, to shut out every sight and sound +and suggestion of a world in which such things could be; and +at the same time she was tormented by the desire to know +more, to understand better, to feel herself less ignorant +and inexpert in matters which made so much of the stuff of +human experience. What did he mean by "a moment's folly, a +flash of madness"? How did people enter on such adventures, +how pass out of them without more visible traces of their +havoc? Her imagination recoiled from the vision of a sudden +debasing familiarity: it seemed to her that her thoughts +would never again be pure... + +"I swear to you," she heard Darrow saying, "it was simply +that, and nothing more." + +She wondered at his composure, his competence, at his +knowing so exactly what to say. No doubt men often had to +make such explanations: they had the formulas by heart...A +leaden lassitude descended on her. She passed from flame +and torment into a colourless cold world where everything +surrounding her seemed equally indifferent and remote. For +a moment she simply ceased to feel. + +She became aware that Darrow was waiting for her to speak, +and she made an effort to represent to herself the meaning +of what he had just said; but her mind was as blank as a +blurred mirror. Finally she brought out: "I don't think I +understand what you've told me." + +"No; you don't understand," he returned with sudden +bitterness; and on his lips the charge of incomprehension +seemed an offense to her. + +"I don't want to--about such things!" + +He answered almost harshly: "Don't be afraid...you never +will..." and for an instant they faced each other like +enemies. Then the tears swelled in her throat at his +reproach. + +"You mean I don't feel things--I'm too hard?" + +"No: you're too high...too fine...such things are too far +from you." + +He paused, as if conscious of the futility of going on with +whatever he had meant to say, and again, for a short space, +they confronted each other, no longer as enemies--so it +seemed to her--but as beings of different language who had +forgotten the few words they had learned of each other's +speech. + +Darrow broke the silence. "It's best, on all accounts, that +I should stay till tomorrow; but I needn't intrude on you; +we needn't meet again alone. I only want to be sure I know +your wishes." He spoke the short sentences in a level voice, +as though he were summing up the results of a business +conference. + +Anna looked at him vaguely. "My wishes?" + +"As to Owen---- + +At that she started. "They must never meet again!" + +"It's not likely they will. What I meant was, that it +depends on you to spare him..." + +She answered steadily: "He shall never know," and after +another interval Darrow said: "This is good-bye, then." + +At the word she seemed to understand for the first time +whither the flying moments had been leading them. Resentment +and indignation died down, and all her consciousness +resolved itself into the mere visual sense that he was there +before her, near enough for her to lift her hand and touch +him, and that in another instant the place where he stood +would be empty. + +She felt a mortal weakness, a craven impulse to cry out to +him to stay, a longing to throw herself into his arms, and +take refuge there from the unendurable anguish he had caused +her. Then the vision called up another thought: "I shall +never know what that girl has known..." and the recoil of +pride flung her back on the sharp edges of her anguish. + +"Good-bye," she said, in dread lest he should read her face; +and she stood motionless, her head high, while he walked to +the door and went out. + + + +BOOK V + +XXX + + +Anna Leath, three days later, sat in Miss Painter's drawing- +room in the rue de Matignon. + +Coming up precipitately that morning from the country, she +had reached Paris at one o'clock and Miss Painter's landing +some ten minutes later. Miss Painter's mouldy little man- +servant, dissembling a napkin under his arm, had mildly +attempted to oppose her entrance; but Anna, insisting, had +gone straight to the dining-room and surprised her friend-- +who ate as furtively as certain animals--over a strange meal +of cold mutton and lemonade. Ignoring the embarrassment she +caused, she had set forth the object of her journey, and +Miss Painter, always hatted and booted for action, had +immediately hastened out, leaving her to the solitude of the +bare fireless drawing-room with its eternal slip-covers and +"bowed" shutters. + +In this inhospitable obscurity Anna had sat alone for close +upon two hours. Both obscurity and solitude were acceptable +to her, and impatient as she was to hear the result of the +errand on which she had despatched her hostess, she desired +still more to be alone. During her long meditation in a +white-swathed chair before the muffled hearth she had been +able for the first time to clear a way through the darkness +and confusion of her thoughts. The way did not go far, and +her attempt to trace it was as weak and spasmodic as a +convalescent's first efforts to pick up the thread of +living. She seemed to herself like some one struggling to +rise from a long sickness of which it would have been so +much easier to die. At Givre she had fallen into a kind of +torpor, a deadness of soul traversed by wild flashes of +pain; but whether she suffered or whether she was numb, she +seemed equally remote from her real living and doing self. + +It was only the discovery--that very morning--of Owen's +unannounced departure for Paris that had caught her out of +her dream and forced her back to action. The dread of what +this flight might imply, and of the consequences that might +result from it, had roused her to the sense of her +responsibility, and from the moment when she had resolved to +follow her step-son, and had made her rapid preparations for +pursuit, her mind had begun to work again, feverishly, +fitfully, but still with something of its normal order. In +the train she had been too agitated, too preoccupied with +what might next await her, to give her thoughts to anything +but the turning over of dread alternatives; but Miss +Painter's imperviousness had steadied her, and while she +waited for the sound of the latch-key she resolutely +returned upon herself. + +With respect to her outward course she could at least tell +herself that she had held to her purpose. She had, as +people said, "kept up" during the twenty-four hours +preceding George Darrow's departure; had gone with a calm +face about her usual business, and even contrived not too +obviously to avoid him. Then, the next day before dawn, +from behind the closed shutters where she had kept for half +the night her dry-eyed vigil, she had heard him drive off to +the train which brought its passengers to Paris in time for +the Calais express. + +The fact of his taking that train, of his travelling so +straight and far away from her, gave to what had happened +the implacable outline of reality. He was gone; he would +not come back; and her life had ended just as she had +dreamed it was beginning. She had no doubt, at first, as to +the absolute inevitability of this conclusion. The man who +had driven away from her house in the autumn dawn was not +the man she had loved; he was a stranger with whom she had +not a single thought in common. It was terrible, indeed, +that he wore the face and spoke in the voice of her friend, +and that, as long as he was under one roof with her, the +mere way in which he moved and looked could bridge at a +stroke the gulf between them. That, no doubt, was the fault +of her exaggerated sensibility to outward things: she was +frightened to see how it enslaved her. A day or two before +she had supposed the sense of honour was her deepest +sentiment: if she had smiled at the conventions of others it +was because they were too trivial, not because they were too +grave. There were certain dishonours with which she had +never dreamed that any pact could be made: she had had an +incorruptible passion for good faith and fairness. + +She had supposed that, once Darrow was gone, once she was +safe from the danger of seeing and hearing him, this high +devotion would sustain her. She had believed it would be +possible to separate the image of the man she had thought +him from that of the man he was. She had even foreseen the +hour when she might raise a mournful shrine to the memory of +the Darrow she had loved, without fear that his double's +shadow would desecrate it. But now she had begun to +understand that the two men were really one. The Darrow she +worshipped was inseparable from the Darrow she abhorred; and +the inevitable conclusion was that both must go, and she be +left in the desert of a sorrow without memories... + +But if the future was thus void, the present was all too +full. Never had blow more complex repercussions; and to +remember Owen was to cease to think of herself. What +impulse, what apprehension, had sent him suddenly to Paris? +And why had he thought it needful to conceal his going from +her? When Sophy Viner had left, it had been with the +understanding that he was to await her summons; and it +seemed improbable that he would break his pledge, and seek +her without leave, unless his lover's intuition had warned +him of some fresh danger. Anna recalled how quickly he had +read the alarm in her face when he had rushed back to her +sitting-room with the news that Miss Viner had promised to +see him again in Paris. To be so promptly roused, his +suspicions must have been but half-asleep; and since then, +no doubt, if she and Darrow had dissembled, so had he. To +her proud directness it was degrading to think that they had +been living together like enemies who spy upon each other's +movements: she felt a desperate longing for the days which +had seemed so dull and narrow, but in which she had walked +with her head high and her eyes unguarded. + +She had come up to Paris hardly knowing what peril she +feared, and still less how she could avert it. If Owen +meant to see Miss Viner--and what other object could he +have?--they must already be together, and it was too late to +interfere. It had indeed occurred to Anna that Paris might +not be his objective point: that his real purpose in leaving +Givre without her knowledge had been to follow Darrow to +London and exact the truth of him. But even to her alarmed +imagination this seemed improbable. She and Darrow, to the +last, had kept up so complete a feint of harmony that, +whatever Owen had surmised, he could scarcely have risked +acting on his suspicions. If he still felt the need of an +explanation, it was almost certainly of Sophy Viner that he +would ask it; and it was in quest of Sophy Viner that Anna +had despatched Miss Painter. + +She had found a blessed refuge from her perplexities in the +stolid Adelaide's unawareness. One could so absolutely +count on Miss Painter's guessing no more than one chose, and +yet acting astutely on such hints as one vouchsafed her! She +was like a well-trained retriever whose interest in his prey +ceases when he lays it at his master's feet. Anna, on +arriving, had explained that Owen's unannounced flight had +made her fear some fresh misunderstanding between himself +and Miss Viner. In the interests of peace she had thought it +best to follow him; but she hastily added that she did not +wish to see Sophy, but only, if possible, to learn from her +where Owen was. With these brief instructions Miss Painter +had started out; but she was a woman of many occupations, +and had given her visitor to understand that before +returning she should have to call on a friend who had just +arrived from Boston, and afterward despatch to another +exiled compatriot a supply of cranberries and brandied +peaches from the American grocery in the Champs Elysees. + +Gradually, as the moments passed, Anna began to feel the +reaction which, in moments of extreme nervous tension, +follows on any effort of the will. She seemed to have gone +as far as her courage would carry her, and she shrank more +and more from the thought of Miss Painter's return, since +whatever information the latter brought would necessitate +some fresh decision. What should she say to Owen if she +found him? What could she say that should not betray the one +thing she would give her life to hide from him? "Give her +life"--how the phrase derided her! It was a gift she would +not have bestowed on her worst enemy. She would not have +had Sophy Viner live the hours she was living now... +She tried again to look steadily and calmly at the picture +that the image of the girl evoked. She had an idea that she +ought to accustom herself to its contemplation. If life was +like that, why the sooner one got used to it the +better...But no! Life was not like that. Her adventure was +a hideous accident. She dreaded above all the temptation to +generalise from her own case, to doubt the high things she +had lived by and seek a cheap solace in belittling what fate +had refused her. There was such love as she had dreamed, +and she meant to go on believing in it, and cherishing the +thought that she was worthy of it. What had happened to her +was grotesque and mean and miserable; but she herself was +none of these things, and never, never would she make of +herself the mock that fate had made of her... + +She could not, as yet, bear to think deliberately of Darrow; +but she kept on repeating to herself "By and bye that will +come too." Even now she was determined not to let his image +be distorted by her suffering. As soon as she could, she +would try to single out for remembrance the individual +things she had liked in him before she had loved him +altogether. No "spiritual exercise" devised by the +discipline of piety could have been more torturing; but its +very cruelty attracted her. She wanted to wear herself out +with new pains... + + + +XXXI + + +The sound of Miss Painter's latch-key made her start. She +was still a bundle of quivering fears to whom each coming +moment seemed a menace. + +There was a slight interval, and a sound of voices in the +hall; then Miss Painter's vigorous hand was on the door. + +Anna stood up as she came in. "You've found him?" + +"I've found Sophy." + +"And Owen?--has she seen him? Is he here?" + +"SHE'S here: in the hall. She wants to speak to you." + +"Here--NOW?" Anna found no voice for more. + +"She drove back with me," Miss Painter continued in the tone +of impartial narrative. "The cabman was impertinent. I've +got his number." She fumbled in a stout black reticule. + +"Oh, I can't--" broke from Anna; but she collected herself, +remembering that to betray her unwillingness to see the girl +was to risk revealing much more. + +"She thought you might be too tired to see her: she wouldn't +come in till I'd found out." + +Anna drew a quick breath. An instant's thought had told her +that Sophy Viner would hardly have taken such a step unless +something more important had happened. "Ask her to come, +please," she said. + +Miss Painter, from the threshold, turned back to announce +her intention of going immediately to the police station to +report the cabman's delinquency; then she passed out, and +Sophy Viner entered. + +The look in the girl's face showed that she had indeed come +unwillingly; yet she seemed animated by an eager +resoluteness that made Anna ashamed of her tremors. For a +moment they looked at each other in silence, as if the +thoughts between them were packed too thick for speech; then +Anna said, in a voice from which she strove to take the edge +of hardness: "You know where Owen is, Miss Painter tells +me." + +"Yes; that was my reason for asking you to see me." Sophy +spoke simply, without constraint or hesitation. + +"I thought he'd promised you--" Anna interposed. + +"He did; but he broke his promise. That's what I thought I +ought to tell you." + +"Thank you." Anna went on tentatively: "He left Givre this +morning without a word. I followed him because I was +afraid..." + +She broke off again and the girl took up her phrase. "You +were afraid he'd guessed? He HAS..." + +"What do you mean--guessed what?" + +"That you know something he doesn't...something that made +you glad to have me go." + +"Oh--" Anna moaned. If she had wanted more pain she had it +now. "He's told you this?" she faltered. + +"He hasn't told me, because I haven't seen him. I kept him +off--I made Mrs. Farlow get rid of him. But he's written me +what he came to say; and that was it." + +"Oh, poor Owen!" broke from Anna. Through all the +intricacies of her suffering she felt the separate pang of +his. + +"And I want to ask you," the girl continued, "to let me see +him; for of course," she added in the same strange voice of +energy, "I wouldn't unless you consented." + +"To see him?" Anna tried to gather together her startled +thoughts. "What use would it be? What could you tell him?" + +"I want to tell him the truth," said Sophy Viner. + +The two women looked at each other, and a burning blush rose +to Anna's forehead. "I don't understand," she faltered. + +Sophy waited a moment; then she lowered her voice to say: "I +don't want him to think worse of me than he need..." + +"Worse?" + +"Yes--to think such things as you're thinking now...I want +him to know exactly what happened...then I want to bid him +good-bye." + +Anna tried to clear a way through her own wonder and +confusion. She felt herself obscurely moved. + +"Wouldn't it be worse for him?" + +"To hear the truth? It would be better, at any rate, for you +and Mr. Darrow." + +At the sound of the name Anna lifted her head quickly. "I've +only my step-son to consider!" + +The girl threw a startled look at her. "You don't mean-- +you're not going to give him up?" + +Anna felt her lips harden. "I don't think it's of any use +to talk of that." + +"Oh, I know! It's my fault for not knowing how to say what I +want you to hear. Your words are different; you know how to +choose them. Mine offend you...and the dread of it makes me +blunder. That's why, the other day, I couldn't say +anything...couldn't make things clear to you. But now +MUST, even if you hate it!" She drew a step nearer, her +slender figure swayed forward in a passion of entreaty. "Do +listen to me! What you've said is dreadful. How can you +speak of him in that voice? Don't you see that I went away +so that he shouldn't have to lose you?" + +Anna looked at her coldly. "Are you speaking of Mr. Darrow? +I don't know why you think your going or staying can in any +way affect our relations." + +"You mean that you HAVE given him up--because of me? Oh, +how could you? You can't really love him!--And yet," the +girl suddenly added, "you must, or you'd be more sorry for +me!" + +"I'm very sorry for you," Anna said, feeling as if the iron +band about her heart pressed on it a little less inexorably. + +"Then why won't you hear me? Why won't you try to +understand? It's all so different from what you imagine!" + +"I've never judged you." + +"I'm not thinking of myself. He loves you!" + +"I thought you'd come to speak of Owen." + +Sophy Viner seemed not to hear her. "He's never loved any +one else. Even those few days...I knew it all the +while...he never cared for me." + +"Please don't say any more!" Anna said. + +"I know it must seem strange to you that I should say so +much. I shock you, I offend you: you think me a creature +without shame. So I am--but not in the sense you think! I'm +not ashamed of having loved him; no; and I'm not ashamed of +telling you so. It's that that justifies me--and him +too...Oh, let me tell you how it happened! He was sorry for +me: he saw I cared. I KNEW that was all he ever felt. I +could see he was thinking of some one else. I knew it was +only for a week...He never said a word to mislead me...I +wanted to be happy just once--and I didn't dream of the harm +I might be doing him!" + +Anna could not speak. She hardly knew, as yet, what the +girl's words conveyed to her, save the sense of their tragic +fervour; but she was conscious of being in the presence of +an intenser passion than she had ever felt. + +"I am sorry for you." She paused. "But why do you say this +to me?" After another interval she exclaimed: "You'd no +right to let Owen love you." + +"No; that was wrong. At least what's happened since has +made it so. If things had been different I think I could +have made Owen happy. You were all so good to me--I wanted +so to stay with you! I suppose you'll say that makes it +worse: my daring to dream I had the right...But all that +doesn't matter now. I won't see Owen unless you're willing. +I should have liked to tell him what I've tried to tell you; +but you must know better; you feel things in a finer way. +Only you'll have to help him if I can't. He cares a great +deal...it's going to hurt him..." + +Anna trembled. "Oh, I know! What can I do?" + +"You can go straight back to Givre--now, at once! So that +Owen shall never know you've followed him." Sophy's clasped +hands reached out urgently. "And you can send for Mr. +Darrow--bring him back. Owen must be convinced that he's +mistaken, and nothing else will convince him. Afterward +I'll find a pretext--oh, I promise you! But first he must +see for himself that nothing's changed for you." + +Anna stood motionless, subdued and dominated. The girl's +ardour swept her like a wind. + +"Oh, can't I move you? Some day you'll know!" Sophy pleaded, +her eyes full of tears. + +Anna saw them, and felt a fullness in her throat. Again the +band about her heart seemed loosened. She wanted to find a +word, but could not: all within her was too dark and +violent. She gave the girl a speechless look. + +"I do believe you," she said suddenly; then she turned and +walked out of the room. + + + +XXXII + + +She drove from Miss Painter's to her own apartment. The +maid-servant who had it in charge had been apprised of her +coming, and had opened one or two of the rooms, and prepared +a fire in her bedroom. Anna shut herself in, refusing the +woman's ministrations. She felt cold and faint, and after +she had taken off her hat and cloak she knelt down by the +fire and stretched her hands to it. + +In one respect, at least, it was clear to her that she would +do well to follow Sophy Viner's counsel. It had been an act +of folly to follow Owen, and her first business was to get +back to Givre before him. But the only train leaving that +evening was a slow one, which did not reach Francheuil till +midnight, and she knew that her taking it would excite +Madame de Chantelle's wonder and lead to interminable talk. +She had come up to Paris on the pretext of finding a new +governess for Effie, and the natural thing was to defer her +return till the next morning. She knew Owen well enough to +be sure that he would make another attempt to see Miss +Viner, and failing that, would write again and await her +answer: so that there was no likelihood of his reaching +Givre till the following evening. + +Her sense of relief at not having to start out at once +showed her for the first time how tired she was. The +bonne had suggested a cup of tea, but the dread of having +any one about her had made Anna refuse, and she had eaten +nothing since morning but a sandwich bought at a buffet. +She was too tired to get up, but stretching out her arm she +drew toward her the arm-chair which stood beside the hearth +and rested her head against its cushions. Gradually the +warmth of the fire stole into her veins and her heaviness of +soul was replaced by a dreamy buoyancy. She seemed to be +seated on the hearth in her sitting-room at Givre, and +Darrow was beside her, in the chair against which she +leaned. He put his arms about her shoulders and drawing her +head back looked into her eyes. "Of all the ways you do +your hair, that's the way I like best," he said... + +A log dropped, and she sat up with a start. There was a +warmth in her heart, and she was smiling. Then she looked +about her, and saw where she was, and the glory fell. She +hid her face and sobbed. + +Presently she perceived that it was growing dark, and +getting up stiffly she began to undo the things in her bag +and spread them on the dressing-table. She shrank from +lighting the lights, and groped her way about, trying to +find what she needed. She seemed immeasurably far off from +every one, and most of all from herself. It was as if her +consciousness had been transmitted to some stranger whose +thoughts and gestures were indifferent to her... + +Suddenly she heard a shrill tinkle, and with a beating heart +she stood still in the middle of the room. It was the +telephone in her dressing-room--a call, no doubt, from +Adelaide Painter. Or could Owen have learned she was in +town? The thought alarmed her and she opened the door and +stumbled across the unlit room to the instrument. She held +it to her ear, and heard Darrow's voice pronounce her name. + +"Will you let me see you? I've come back--I had to come. +Miss Painter told me you were here." + +She began to tremble, and feared that he would guess it from +her voice. She did not know what she answered: she heard +him say: "I can't hear." She called "Yes!" and laid the +telephone down, and caught it up again--but he was gone. +She wondered if her "Yes" had reached him. + +She sat in her chair and listened. Why had she said that +she would see him? What did she mean to say to him when he +came? Now and then, as she sat there, the sense of his +presence enveloped her as in her dream, and she shut her +eyes and felt his arms about her. Then she woke to reality +and shivered. A long time elapsed, and at length she said +to herself: "He isn't coming." + +The door-bell rang as she said it, and she stood up, cold +and trembling. She thought: "Can he imagine there's any use +in coming?" and moved forward to bid the servant say she +could not see him. + +The door opened and she saw him standing in the drawing- +room. The room was cold and fireless, and a hard glare fell +from the wall-lights on the shrouded furniture and the white +slips covering the curtains. He looked pale and stern, with +a frown of fatigue between his eyes; and she remembered that +in three days he had travelled from Givre to London and +back. It seemed incredible that all that had befallen her +should have been compressed within the space of three days! + +"Thank you," he said as she came in. + +She answered: "It's better, I suppose----" + +He came toward her and took her in his arms. She struggled +a little, afraid of yielding, but he pressed her to him, not +bending to her but holding her fast, as though he had found +her after a long search: she heard his hurried breathing. +It seemed to come from her own breast, so close he held her; +and it was she who, at last, lifted up her face and drew +down his. + +She freed herself and went and sat on a sofa at the other +end of the room. A mirror between the shrouded window- +curtains showed her crumpled travelling dress and the white +face under her disordered hair + +She found her voice, and asked him how he had been able to +leave London. He answered that he had managed--he'd +arranged it; and she saw he hardly heard what she was +saying. + +"I had to see you," he went on, and moved nearer, sitting +down at her side. + +"Yes; we must think of Owen----" + +"Oh, Owen--!" + +Her mind had flown back to Sophy Viner's plea that she +should let Darrow return to Givre in order that Owen might +be persuaded of the folly of his suspicions. The suggestion +was absurd, of course. She could not ask Darrow to lend +himself to such a fraud, even had she had the inhuman +courage to play her part in it. She was suddenly +overwhelmed by the futility of every attempt to reconstruct +her ruined world. No, it was useless; and since it was +useless, every moment with Darrow was pure pain... + +"I've come to talk of myself, not of Owen," she heard him +saying. "When you sent me away the other day I understood +that it couldn't be otherwise--then. But it's not possible +that you and I should part like that. If I'm to lose you, it +must be for a better reason." + +"A better reason?" + +"Yes: a deeper one. One that means a fundamental disaccord +between us. This one doesn't--in spite of everything it +doesn't. That's what I want you to see, and have the +courage to acknowledge." + +"If I saw it I should have the courage!" + +"Yes: courage was the wrong word. You have that. That's why +I'm here." + +"But I don't see it," she continued sadly. "So it's +useless, isn't it?--and so cruel..." He was about to speak, +but she went on: "I shall never understand it--never!" + +He looked at her. "You will some day: you were made to feel +everything" + +"I should have thought this was a case of not feeling----" + +"On my part, you mean?" He faced her resolutely. "Yes, it +was: to my shame...What I meant was that when you've lived a +little longer you'll see what complex blunderers we all are: +how we're struck blind sometimes, and mad sometimes--and +then, when our sight and our senses come back, how we have +to set to work, and build up, little by little, bit by bit, +the precious things we'd smashed to atoms without knowing +it. Life's just a perpetual piecing together of broken +bits." + +She looked up quickly. "That's what I feel: that you ought +to----" + +He stood up, interrupting her with a gesture. "Oh, don't-- +don't say what you're going to! Men don't give their lives +away like that. If you won't have mine, it's at least my +own, to do the best I can with." + +"The best you can--that's what I mean! How can there be a +'best' for you that's made of some one else's worst?" + +He sat down again with a groan. "I don't know! It seemed +such a slight thing--all on the surface--and I've gone +aground on it because it was on the surface. I see the +horror of it just as you do. But I see, a little more +clearly, the extent, and the limits, of my wrong. It's not +as black as you imagine." + +She lowered her voice to say: "I suppose I shall never +understand; but she seems to love you..." + +"There's my shame! That I didn't guess it, didn't fly from +it. You say you'll never understand: but why shouldn't you? +Is it anything to be proud of, to know so little of the +strings that pull us? If you knew a little more, I could +tell you how such things happen without offending you; and +perhaps you'd listen without condemning me." + +"I don't condemn you." She was dizzy with struggling +impulses. She longed to cry out: "I DO understand! I've +understood ever since you've been here!" For she was aware, +in her own bosom, of sensations so separate from her +romantic thoughts of him that she saw her body and soul +divided against themselves. She recalled having read +somewhere that in ancient Rome the slaves were not allowed +to wear a distinctive dress lest they should recognize each +other and learn their numbers and their power. So, in +herself, she discerned for the first time instincts and +desires, which, mute and unmarked, had gone to and fro in +the dim passages of her mind, and now hailed each other with +a cry of mutiny. + +"Oh, I don't know what to think!" she broke out. "You say +you didn't know she loved you. But you know it now. +Doesn't that show you how you can put the broken bits +together?" + +"Can you seriously think it would be doing so to marry one +woman while I care for another?" + +"Oh, I don't know...I don't know..." The sense of her +weakness made her try to harden herself against his +arguments. + +"You do know! We've often talked of such things: of the +monstrousness of useless sacrifices. If I'm to expiate, +it's not in that way." He added abruptly: "It's in having to +say this to you now..." + +She found no answer. + +Through the silent apartment they heard the sudden peal of +the door-bell, and she rose to her feet. "Owen!" she +instantly exclaimed. + +"Is Owen in Paris?" + +She explained in a rapid undertone what she had learned from +Sophy Viner. + +"Shall I leave you?" Darrow asked. + +"Yes...no..." She moved to the dining-room door, with the +half-formed purpose of making him pass out, and then turned +back. "It may be Adelaide." + +They heard the outer door open, and a moment later Owen +walked into the room. He was pale, with excited eyes: as +they fell on Darrow, Anna saw his start of wonder. He made a +slight sign of recognition, and then went up to his step- +mother with an air of exaggerated gaiety. + +"You furtive person! I ran across the omniscient Adelaide +and heard from her that you'd rushed up suddenly and +secretly " He stood between Anna and Darrow, strained, +questioning, dangerously on edge. + +"I came up to meet Mr. Darrow," Anna answered. "His leave's +been prolonged--he's going back with me." + +The words seemed to have uttered themselves without her +will, yet she felt a great sense of freedom as she spoke +them. + +The hard tension of Owen's face changed to incredulous +surprise. He looked at Darrow. +"The merest luck...a colleague whose wife was ill...I came +straight back," she heard the latter tranquilly explaining. +His self-command helped to steady her, and she smiled at +Owen. + +"We'll all go back together tomorrow morning," she said as +she slipped her arm through his. + + + +XXXIII + + +Owen Leath did not go back with his step-mother to Givre. +In reply to her suggestion he announced his intention of +staying on a day or two longer in Paris. + +Anna left alone by the first train the next morning. Darrow +was to follow in the afternoon. When Owen had left them the +evening before, Darrow waited a moment for her to speak; +then, as she said nothing, he asked her if she really wished +him to return to Givre. She made a mute sign of assent, and +he added: "For you know that, much as I'm ready to do for +Owen, I can't do that for him--I can't go back to be sent +away again." + +"No--no!" + +He came nearer, and looked at her, and she went to him. All +her fears seemed to fall from her as he held her. It was a +different feeling from any she had known before: confused +and turbid, as if secret shames and rancours stirred in it, +yet richer, deeper, more enslaving. She leaned her head +back and shut her eyes beneath his kisses. She knew now +that she could never give him up. + +Nevertheless she asked him, the next morning, to let her go +back alone to Givre. She wanted time to think. She was +convinced that what had happened was inevitable, that she +and Darrow belonged to each other, and that he was right in +saying no past folly could ever put them asunder. If there +was a shade of difference in her feeling for him it was that +of an added intensity. She felt restless, insecure out of +his sight: she had a sense of incompleteness, of passionate +dependence, that was somehow at variance with her own +conception of her character. + +It was partly the consciousness of this change in herself +that made her want to be alone. The solitude of her inner +life had given her the habit of these hours of self- +examination, and she needed them as she needed her morning +plunge into cold water. + +During the journey she tried to review what had happened in +the light of her new decision and of her sudden relief from +pain. She seemed to herself to have passed through some +fiery initiation from which she had emerged seared and +quivering, but clutching to her breast a magic talisman. +Sophy Viner had cried out to her: "Some day you'll know!" +and Darrow had used the same words. They meant, she +supposed, that when she had explored the intricacies and +darknesses of her own heart her judgment of others would be +less absolute. Well, she knew now--knew weaknesses and +strengths she had not dreamed of, and the deep discord and +still deeper complicities between what thought in her and +what blindly wanted... + +Her mind turned anxiously to Owen. At least the blow that +was to fall on him would not seem to have been inflicted by +her hand. He would be left with the impression that his +breach with Sophy Viner was due to one of the ordinary +causes of such disruptions: though he must lose her, his +memory of her would not be poisoned. Anna never for a +moment permitted herself the delusion that she had renewed +her promise to Darrow in order to spare her step-son this +last refinement of misery. She knew she had been prompted +by the irresistible impulse to hold fast to what was most +precious to her, and that Owen's arrival on the scene had +been the pretext for her decision, and not its cause; yet +she felt herself fortified by the thought of what she had +spared him. It was as though a star she had been used to +follow had shed its familiar ray on ways unknown to her. + +All through these meditations ran the undercurrent of an +absolute trust in Sophy Viner. She thought of the girl with +a mingling of antipathy and confidence. It was humiliating +to her pride to recognize kindred impulses in a character +which she would have liked to feel completely alien to her. +But what indeed was the girl really like? She seemed to have +no scruples and a thousand delicacies. She had given +herself to Darrow, and concealed the episode from Owen +Leath, with no more apparent sense of debasement than the +vulgarest of adventuresses; yet she had instantly obeyed the +voice of her heart when it bade her part from the one and +serve the other. + +Anna tried to picture what the girl's life must have been: +what experiences, what initiations, had formed her. But her +own training had been too different: there were veils she +could not lift. She looked back at her married life, and +its colourless uniformity took on an air of high restraint +and order. Was it because she had been so incurious that it +had worn that look to her? It struck her with amazement that +she had never given a thought to her husband's past, or +wondered what he did and where he went when he was away from +her. If she had been asked what she supposed he thought +about when they were apart, she would instantly have +answered: his snuff-boxes. It had never occurred to her +that he might have passions, interests, preoccupations of +which she was absolutely ignorant. Yet he went up to Paris +rather regularly: ostensibly to attend sales and +exhibitions, or to confer with dealers and collectors. She +tried to picture him, straight, trim, beautifully brushed +and varnished, walking furtively down a quiet street, and +looking about him before he slipped into a doorway. She +understood now that she had been cold to him: what more +likely than that he had sought compensations? All men were +like that, she supposed--no doubt her simplicity had amused +him. + +In the act of transposing Fraser Leath into a Don Juan she +was pulled up by the ironic perception that she was simply +trying to justify Darrow. She wanted to think that all men +were "like that" because Darrow was "like that": she wanted +to justify her acceptance of the fact by persuading herself +that only through such concessions could women like herself +hope to keep what they could not give up. And suddenly she +was filled with anger at her blindness, and then at her +disastrous attempt to see. Why had she forced the truth out +of Darrow? If only she had held her tongue nothing need ever +have been known. Sophy Viner would have broken her +engagement, Owen would have been sent around the world, and +her own dream would have been unshattered. But she had +probed, insisted, cross-examined, not rested till she had +dragged the secret to the light. She was one of the luckless +women who always have the wrong audacities, and who always +know it... + +Was it she, Anna Leath, who was picturing herself to herself +in that way? She recoiled from her thoughts as if with a +sense of demoniac possession, and there flashed through her +the longing to return to her old state of fearless +ignorance. If at that moment she could have kept Darrow +from following her to Givre she would have done so... + +But he came; and with the sight of him the turmoil fell and +she felt herself reassured, rehabilitated. He arrived +toward dusk, and she motored to Francheuil to meet him. She +wanted to see him as soon as possible, for she had divined, +through the new insight that was in her, that only his +presence could restore her to a normal view of things. In +the motor, as they left the town and turned into the high- +road, he lifted her hand and kissed it, and she leaned +against him, and felt the currents flow between them. She +was grateful to him for not saying anything, and for not +expecting her to speak. She said to herself: "He never +makes a mistake--he always knows what to do"; and then she +thought with a start that it was doubtless because he had so +often been in such situations. The idea that his tact was a +kind of professional expertness filled her with repugnance, +and insensibly she drew away from him. He made no motion to +bring her nearer, and she instantly thought that that was +calculated too. She sat beside him in frozen misery, +wondering whether, henceforth, she would measure in this way +his every look and gesture. Neither of them spoke again +till the motor turned under the dark arch of the avenue, and +they saw the lights of Givre twinkling at its end. Then +Darrow laid his hand on hers and said: "I know, dear--" and +the hardness in her melted. "He's suffering as I am," she +thought; and for a moment the baleful fact between them +seemed to draw them closer instead of walling them up in +their separate wretchedness. + +It was wonderful to be once more re-entering the doors of +Givre with him, and as the old house received them into its +mellow silence she had again the sense of passing out of a +dreadful dream into the reassurance of kindly and familiar +things. It did not seem possible that these quiet rooms, so +full of the slowly-distilled accumulations of a fastidious +taste, should have been the scene of tragic dissensions. +The memory of them seemed to be shut out into the night with +the closing and barring of its doors. + +At the tea-table in the oak-room they found Madame de +Chantelle and Effie. The little girl, catching sight of +Darrow, raced down the drawing-rooms to meet him, and +returned in triumph on his shoulder. Anna looked at them +with a smile. Effie, for all her graces, was chary of such +favours, and her mother knew that in according them to +Darrow she had admitted him to the circle where Owen had +hitherto ruled. + +Over the tea-table Darrow gave Madame de Chantelle the +explanation of his sudden return from England. On reaching +London, he told her, he had found that the secretary he was +to have replaced was detained there by the illness of his +wife. The Ambassador, knowing Darrow's urgent reasons for +wishing to be in France, had immediately proposed his going +back, and awaiting at Givre the summons to relieve his +colleague; and he had jumped into the first train, without +even waiting to telegraph the news of his release. He spoke +naturally, easily, in his usual quiet voice, taking his tea +from Effie, helping himself to the toast she handed, and +stooping now and then to stroke the dozing terrier. And +suddenly, as Anna listened to his explanation, she asked +herself if it were true. + +The question, of course, was absurd. There was no possible +reason why he should invent a false account of his return, +and every probability that the version he gave was the real +one. But he had looked and spoken in the same way when he +had answered her probing questions about Sophy Viner, and +she reflected with a chill of fear that she would never +again know if he were speaking the truth or not. She was +sure he loved her, and she did not fear his insincerity as +much as her own distrust of him. For a moment it seemed to +her that this must corrupt the very source of love; then she +said to herself: "By and bye, when I am altogether his, we +shall be so near each other that there will be no room for +any doubts between us." But the doubts were there now, one +moment lulled to quiescence, the next more torturingly +alert. When the nurse appeared to summon Effie, the little +girl, after kissing her grandmother, entrenched herself on +Darrow's knee with the imperious demand to be carried up to +bed; and Anna, while she laughingly protested, said to +herself with a pang: "Can I give her a father about whom I +think such things?" + +The thought of Effie, and of what she owed to Effie, had +been the fundamental reason for her delays and hesitations +when she and Darrow had come together again in England. Her +own feeling was so clear that but for that scruple she would +have put her hand in his at once. But till she had seen him +again she had never considered the possibility of re- +marriage, and when it suddenly confronted her it seemed, for +the moment, to disorganize the life she had planned for +herself and her child. She had not spoken of this to Darrow +because it appeared to her a subject to be debated within +her own conscience. The question, then, was not as to his +fitness to become the guide and guardian of her child; nor +did she fear that her love for him would deprive Effie of +the least fraction of her tenderness, since she did not +think of love as something measured and exhaustible but as a +treasure perpetually renewed. What she questioned was her +right to introduce into her life any interests and duties +which might rob Effie of a part of her time, or lessen the +closeness of their daily intercourse. + +She had decided this question as it was inevitable that she +should; but now another was before her. Assuredly, at her +age, there was no possible reason why she should cloister +herself to bring up her daughter; but there was every reason +for not marrying a man in whom her own faith was not +complete... + + + +XXXIV + + +When she woke the next morning she felt a great lightness of +heart. She recalled her last awakening at Givre, three days +before, when it had seemed as though all her life had gone +down in darkness. Now Darrow was once more under the same +roof with her, and once more his nearness sufficed to make +the looming horror drop away. She could almost have smiled +at her scruples of the night before: as she looked back on +them they seemed to belong to the old ignorant timorous time +when she had feared to look life in the face, and had been +blind to the mysteries and contradictions of the human heart +because her own had not been revealed to her. Darrow had +said: "You were made to feel everything"; and to feel was +surely better than to judge. + +When she came downstairs he was already in the oak-room with +Effie and Madame de Chantelle, and the sense of reassurance +which his presence gave her was merged in the relief of not +being able to speak of what was between them. But there it +was, inevitably, and whenever they looked at each other they +saw it. In her dread of giving it a more tangible shape she +tried to devise means of keeping the little girl with her, +and, when the latter had been called away by the nurse, +found an excuse for following Madame de Chantelle upstairs +to the purple sitting-room. But a confidential talk with +Madame de Chantelle implied the detailed discussion of plans +of which Anna could hardly yet bear to consider the vaguest +outline: the date of her marriage, the relative advantages +of sailing from London or Lisbon, the possibility of hiring +a habitable house at their new post; and, when these +problems were exhausted, the application of the same method +to the subject of Owen's future. + +His grandmother, having no suspicion of the real reason of +Sophy Viner's departure, had thought it "extremely suitable" +of the young girl to withdraw to the shelter of her old +friends' roof in the hour of bridal preparation. This +maidenly retreat had in fact impressed Madame de Chantelle +so favourably that she was disposed for the first time to +talk over Owen's projects; and as every human event +translated itself for her into terms of social and domestic +detail, Anna had perforce to travel the same round again. +She felt a momentary relief when Darrow presently joined +them; but his coming served only to draw the conversation +back to the question of their own future, and Anna felt a +new pang as she heard him calmly and lucidly discussing it. +Did such self-possession imply indifference or insincerity? +In that problem her mind perpetually revolved; and she +dreaded the one answer as much as the other. + +She was resolved to keep on her course as though nothing had +happened: to marry Darrow and never let the consciousness of +the past intrude itself between them; but she was beginning +to feel that the only way of attaining to this state of +detachment from the irreparable was once for all to turn +back with him to its contemplation. As soon as this desire +had germinated it became so strong in her that she regretted +having promised Effie to take her out for the afternoon. +But she could think of no pretext for disappointing the +little girl, and soon after luncheon the three set forth in +the motor to show Darrow a chateau famous in the annals of +the region. During their excursion Anna found it impossible +to guess from his demeanour if Effie's presence between them +was as much of a strain to his composure as to hers. He +remained imperturbably good-humoured and appreciative while +they went the round of the monument, and she remarked only +that when he thought himself unnoticed his face grew grave +and his answers came less promptly. + +On the way back, two or three miles from Givre, she suddenly +proposed that they should walk home through the forest which +skirted that side of the park. Darrow acquiesced, and they +got out and sent Effie on in the motor. Their way led +through a bit of sober French woodland, flat as a faded +tapestry, but with gleams of live emerald lingering here and +there among its browns and ochres. The luminous grey air +gave vividness to its dying colours, and veiled the distant +glimpses of the landscape in soft uncertainty. In such a +solitude Anna had fancied it would be easier to speak; but +as she walked beside Darrow over the deep soundless flooring +of brown moss the words on her lips took flight again. It +seemed impossible to break the spell of quiet joy which his +presence laid on her, and when he began to talk of the place +they had just visited she answered his questions and then +waited for what he should say next...No, decidedly she could +not speak; she no longer even knew what she had meant to +say... + +The same experience repeated itself several times that day +and the next. When she and Darrow were apart she exhausted +herself in appeal and interrogation, she formulated with a +fervent lucidity every point in her imaginary argument. But +as soon as she was alone with him something deeper than +reason and subtler than shyness laid its benumbing touch +upon her, and the desire to speak became merely a dim +disquietude, through which his looks, his words, his touch, +reached her as through a mist of bodily pain. Yet this +inertia was torn by wild flashes of resistance, and when +they were apart she began to prepare again what she meant to +say to him. + +She knew he could not be with her without being aware of +this inner turmoil, and she hoped he would break the spell +by some releasing word. But she presently understood that +he recognized the futility of words, and was resolutely bent +on holding her to her own purpose of behaving as if nothing +had happened. Once more she inwardly accused him of +insensibility, and her imagination was beset by tormenting +visions of his past...Had such things happened to him +before? If the episode had been an isolated accident--"a +moment of folly and madness", as he had called it--she could +understand, or at least begin to understand (for at a +certain point her imagination always turned back); but if it +were a mere link in a chain of similar experiments, the +thought of it dishonoured her whole past... + +Effie, in the interregnum between governesses, had been +given leave to dine downstairs; and Anna, on the evening of +Darrow's return, kept the little girl with her till long +after the nurse had signalled from the drawing-room door. +When at length she had been carried off, Anna proposed a +game of cards, and after this diversion had drawn to its +languid close she said good-night to Darrow and followed +Madame de Chantelle upstairs. But Madame de Chantelle never +sat up late, and the second evening, with the amiably +implied intention of leaving Anna and Darrow to themselves, +she took an earlier leave of them than usual. + +Anna sat silent, listening to her small stiff steps as they +minced down the hall and died out in the distance. Madame +de Chantelle had broken her wooden embroidery frame, and +Darrow, having offered to repair it, had drawn his chair up +to a table that held a lamp. Anna watched him as he sat with +bent head and knitted brows, trying to fit together the +disjoined pieces. The sight of him, so tranquilly absorbed +in this trifling business, seemed to give to the quiet room +a perfume of intimacy, to fill it with a sense of sweet +familiar habit; and it came over her again that she knew +nothing of the inner thoughts of this man who was sitting by +her as a husband might. The lamplight fell on his white +forehead, on the healthy brown of his cheek, the backs of +his thin sunburnt hands. As she watched the hands her sense +of them became as vivid as a touch, and she said to herself: +"That other woman has sat and watched him as I am doing. +She has known him as I have never known him...Perhaps he is +thinking of that now. Or perhaps he has forgotten it all as +completely as I have forgotten everything that happened to +me before he came..." + +He looked young, active, stored with strength and energy; +not the man for vain repinings or long memories. She +wondered what she had to hold or satisfy him. He loved her +now; she had no doubt of that; but how could she hope to +keep him? They were so nearly of an age that already she +felt herself his senior. As yet the difference was not +visible; outwardly at least they were matched; but ill- +health or unhappiness would soon do away with this equality. +She thought with a pang of bitterness: "He won't grow any +older because he doesn't feel things; and because he +doesn't, I SHALL..." + +And when she ceased to please him, what then? Had he the +tradition of faith to the spoken vow, or the deeper piety of +the unspoken dedication? What was his theory, what his inner +conviction in such matters? But what did she care for his +convictions or his theories? No doubt he loved her now, and +believed he would always go on loving her, and was persuaded +that, if he ceased to, his loyalty would be proof against +the change. What she wanted to know was not what he thought +about it in advance, but what would impel or restrain him at +the crucial hour. She put no faith in her own arts: she was +too sure of having none! And if some beneficent enchanter +had bestowed them on her, she knew now that she would have +rejected the gift. She could hardly conceive of wanting the +kind of love that was a state one could be cozened into... + +Darrow, putting away the frame, walked across the room and +sat down beside her; and she felt he had something special +to say. + +"They're sure to send for me in a day or two now," he began. + +She made no answer, and he continued: "You'll tell me before +I go what day I'm to come back and get you?" + +It was the first time since his return to Givre that he had +made any direct allusion to the date of their marriage; and +instead of answering him she broke out: "There's something +I've been wanting you to know. The other day in Paris I saw +Miss Viner." + +She saw him flush with the intensity of his surprise. + +"You sent for her?" + +"No; she heard from Adelaide that I was in Paris and she +came. She came because she wanted to urge me to marry you. +I thought you ought to know what she had done." + +Darrow stood up. "I'm glad you've told me." He spoke with a +visible effort at composure. Her eyes followed him as he +moved away. + +"Is that all?" he asked after an interval. + +"It seems to me a great deal." + +"It's what she'd already asked me." His voice showed her how +deeply he was moved, and a throb of jealousy shot through +her. + +"Oh, it was for your sake, I know!" He made no answer, and +she added: "She's been exceedingly generous...Why shouldn't +we speak of it?" + +She had lowered her head, but through her dropped lids she +seemed to be watching the crowded scene of his face. + +"I've not shrunk from speaking of it." + +"Speaking of her, then, I mean. It seems to me that if I +could talk to you about her I should know better----" + +She broke off, confused, and he questioned: "What is it you +want to know better?" + +The colour rose to her forehead. How could she tell him +what she scarcely dared own to herself? There was nothing +she did not want to know, no fold or cranny of his secret +that her awakened imagination did not strain to penetrate; +but she could not expose Sophy Viner to the base fingerings +of a retrospective jealousy, nor Darrow to the temptation of +belittling her in the effort to better his own case. The +girl had been magnificent, and the only worthy return that +Anna could make was to take Darrow from her without a +question if she took him at all... + +She lifted her eyes to his face. "I think I only wanted to +speak her name. It's not right that we should seem so +afraid of it. If I were really afraid of it I should have +to give you up," she said. + +He bent over her and caught her to him. "Ah, you can't give +me up now!" he exclaimed. + +She suffered him to hold her fast without speaking; but the +old dread was between them again, and it was on her lips to +cry out: "How can I help it, when I AM so afraid?" + + + +XXXV + + +The next morning the dread was still there, and she +understood that she must snatch herself out of the torpor of +the will into which she had been gradually sinking, and tell +Darrow that she could not be his wife. + +The knowledge came to her in the watches of a sleepless +night, when, through the tears of disenchanted passion, she +stared back upon her past. There it lay before her, her +sole romance, in all its paltry poverty, the cheapest of +cheap adventures, the most pitiful of sentimental blunders. +She looked about her room, the room where, for so many +years, if her heart had been quiescent her thoughts had been +alive, and pictured herself henceforth cowering before a +throng of mean suspicions, of unavowed compromises and +concessions. In that moment of self-searching she saw that +Sophy Viner had chosen the better part, and that certain +renunciations might enrich where possession would have left +a desert. + +Passionate reactions of instinct fought against these +efforts of her will. Why should past or future coerce her, +when the present was so securely hers? Why insanely +surrender what the other would after all never have? Her +sense of irony whispered that if she sent away Darrow it +would not be to Sophy Viner, but to the first woman who +crossed his path--as, in a similar hour, Sophy Viner herself +had crossed it...But the mere fact that she could think such +things of him sent her shuddering back to the opposite pole. +She pictured herself gradually subdued to such a conception +of life and love, she pictured Effie growing up under the +influence of the woman she saw herself becoming--and she hid +her eyes from the humiliation of the picture... + + + +They were at luncheon when the summons that Darrow expected +was brought to him. He handed the telegram to Anna, and she +learned that his Ambassador, on the way to a German cure, +was to be in Paris the next evening and wished to confer +with him there before he went back to London. The idea that +the decisive moment was at hand was so agitating to her that +when luncheon was over she slipped away to the terrace and +thence went down alone to the garden. The day was grey but +mild, with the heaviness of decay in the air. She rambled +on aimlessly, following under the denuded boughs the path +she and Darrow had taken on their first walk to the river. +She was sure he would not try to overtake her: sure he would +guess why she wished to be alone. There were moments when +it seemed to double her loneliness to be so certain of his +reading her heart while she was so desperately ignorant of +his... + +She wandered on for more than an hour, and when she returned +to the house she saw, as she entered the hall, that Darrow +was seated at the desk in Owen's study. He heard her step, +and looking up turned in his chair without rising. Their +eyes met, and she saw that his were clear and smiling. He +had a heap of papers at his elbow and was evidently engaged +in some official correspondence. She wondered that he could +address himself so composedly to his task, and then +ironically reflected that such detachment was a sign of his +superiority. She crossed the threshold and went toward him; +but as she advanced she had a sudden vision of Owen, +standing outside in the cold autumn dusk and watching Darrow +and Sophy Viner as they faced each other across the lamplit +desk...The evocation was so vivid that it caught her breath +like a blow, and she sank down helplessly on the divan among +the piled-up books. Distinctly, at the moment, she +understood that the end had come. "When he speaks to me I +will tell him!" she thought... + +Darrow, laying aside his pen, looked at her for a moment in +silence; then he stood up and shut the door. + +"I must go to-morrow early," he said, sitting down beside +her. His voice was grave, with a slight tinge of sadness. +She said to herself: "He knows what I am feeling..." and now +the thought made her feel less alone. The expression of his +face was stern and yet tender: for the first time she +understood what he had suffered. + +She had no doubt as to the necessity of giving him up, but +it was impossible to tell him so then. She stood up and +said: "I'll leave you to your letters." He made no protest, +but merely answered: "You'll come down presently for a +walk?" and it occurred to her at once that she would walk +down to the river with him, and give herself for the last +time the tragic luxury of sitting at his side in the little +pavilion. "Perhaps," she thought, "it will be easier to +tell him there." + +It did not, on the way home from their walk, become any +easier to tell him; but her secret decision to do so before +he left gave her a kind of factitious calm and laid a +melancholy ecstasy upon the hour. Still skirting the +subject that fanned their very faces with its flame, they +clung persistently to other topics, and it seemed to Anna +that their minds had never been nearer together than in this +hour when their hearts were so separate. In the glow of +interchanged love she had grown less conscious of that other +glow of interchanged thought which had once illumined her +mind. She had forgotten how Darrow had widened her world +and lengthened out all her perspectives, and with a pang of +double destitution she saw herself alone among her shrunken +thoughts. + +For the first time, then, she had a clear vision of what her +life would be without him. She imagined herself trying to +take up the daily round, and all that had lightened and +animated it seemed equally lifeless and vain. She tried to +think of herself as wholly absorbed in her daughter's +development, like other mothers she had seen; but she +supposed those mothers must have had stored memories of +happiness to nourish them. She had had nothing, and all her +starved youth still claimed its due. + +When she went up to dress for dinner she said to herself: +"I'll have my last evening with him, and then, before we say +good night, I'll tell him." + +This postponement did not seem unjustified. Darrow had +shown her how he dreaded vain words, how resolved he was to +avoid all fruitless discussion. He must have been intensely +aware of what had been going on in her mind since his +return, yet when she had attempted to reveal it to him he +had turned from the revelation. She was therefore merely +following the line he had traced in behaving, till the final +moment came, as though there were nothing more to say... + +That moment seemed at last to be at hand when, at her usual +hour after dinner, Madame de Chantelle rose to go upstairs. +She lingered a little to bid good-bye to Darrow, whom she +was not likely to see in the morning; and her affable +allusions to his prompt return sounded in Anna's ear like +the note of destiny. + +A cold rain had fallen all day, and for greater warmth and +intimacy they had gone after dinner to the oak-room, +shutting out the chilly vista of the farther drawing-rooms. +The autumn wind, coming up from the river, cried about the +house with a voice of loss and separation; and Anna and +Darrow sat silent, as if they feared to break the hush that +shut them in. The solitude, the fire-light, the harmony of +soft hangings and old dim pictures, wove about them a spell +of security through which Anna felt, far down in her heart, +the muffled beat of an inextinguishable bliss. How could she +have thought that this last moment would be the moment to +speak to him, when it seemed to have gathered up into its +flight all the scattered splendours of her dream? + + + +XXXVI + + +Darrow continued to stand by the door after it had closed. +Anna felt that he was looking at her, and sat still, +disdaining to seek refuge in any evasive word or movement. +For the last time she wanted to let him take from her the +fulness of what the sight of her could give. + +He crossed over and sat down on the sofa. For a moment +neither of them spoke; then he said: "To-night, dearest, I +must have my answer." + +She straightened herself under the shock of his seeming to +take the very words from her lips. + +"To-night?" was all that she could falter. + +"I must be off by the early train. There won't be more than +a moment in the morning." + +He had taken her hand, and she said to herself that she must +free it before she could go on with what she had to say. +Then she rejected this concession to a weakness she was +resolved to defy. To the end she would leave her hand in +his hand, her eyes in his eyes: she would not, in their +final hour together, be afraid of any part of her love for +him. + +"You'll tell me to-night, dear," he insisted gently; and his +insistence gave her the strength to speak. + +"There's something I must ask you," she broke out, +perceiving, as she heard her words, that they were not in +the least what she had meant to say. + +He sat still, waiting, and she pressed on: "Do such things +happen to men often?" + +The quiet room seemed to resound with the long +reverberations of her question. She looked away from him, +and he released her and stood up. + +"I don't know what happens to other men. Such a thing never +happened to me..." + +She turned her eyes back to his face. She felt like a +traveller on a giddy path between a cliff and a precipice: +there was nothing for it now but to go on. + +"Had it...had it begun...before you met her in Paris?" + +"No; a thousand times no! I've told you the facts as they +were." + +"All the facts?" + +He turned abruptly. "What do you mean?" + +Her throat was dry and the loud pulses drummed in her +temples. + +"I mean--about her...Perhaps you knew...knew things about +her...beforehand." + +She stopped. The room had grown profoundly still. A log +dropped to the hearth and broke there in a hissing shower. + +Darrow spoke in a clear voice. "I knew nothing, absolutely +nothing," he said. + +She had the answer to her inmost doubt--to her last shameful +unavowed hope. She sat powerless under her woe. + +He walked to the fireplace and pushed back the broken log +with his foot. A flame shot out of it, and in the upward +glare she saw his pale face, stern with misery. + +"Is that all?" he asked. + +She made a slight sign with her head and he came slowly back +to her. "Then is this to be good-bye?" + +Again she signed a faint assent, and he made no effort to +touch her or draw nearer. "You understand that I sha'n't +come back?" + +He was looking at her, and she tried to return his look, but +her eyes were blind with tears, and in dread of his seeing +them she got up and walked away. He did not follow her, and +she stood with her back to him, staring at a bowl of +carnations on a little table strewn with books. Her tears +magnified everything she looked at, and the streaked petals +of the carnations, their fringed edges and frail curled +stamens, pressed upon her, huge and vivid. She noticed +among the books a volume of verse he had sent her from +England, and tried to remember whether it was before or +after... + +She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and at last +she turned to him. "I shall see you to-morrow before you +go..." + +He made no answer. + +She moved toward the door and he held it open for her. She +saw his hand on the door, and his seal ring in its setting +of twisted silver; and the sense of the end of all things +came to her. + +They walked down the drawing-rooms, between the shadowy +reflections of screens and cabinets, and mounted the stairs +side by side. At the end of the gallery, a lamp brought out +turbid gleams in the smoky battle-piece above it. + +On the landing Darrow stopped; his room was the nearest to +the stairs. "Good night," he said, holding out his hand. + +As Anna gave him hers the springs of grief broke loose in +her. She struggled with her sobs, and subdued them; but her +breath came unevenly, and to hide her agitation she leaned +on him and pressed her face against his arm. + +"Don't--don't," he whispered, soothing her. + +Her troubled breathing sounded loudly in the silence of the +sleeping house. She pressed her lips tight, but could not +stop the nervous pulsations in her throat, and he put an arm +about her and, opening his door, drew her across the +threshold of his room. The door shut behind her and she sat +down on the lounge at the foot of the bed. The pulsations +in her throat had ceased, but she knew they would begin +again if she tried to speak. + +Darrow walked away and leaned against the mantelpiece. The +red-veiled lamp shone on his books and papers, on the arm- +chair by the fire, and the scattered objects on his +dressing-table. A log glimmered on the hearth, and the room +was warm and faintly smoke-scented. It was the first time +she had ever been in a room he lived in, among his personal +possessions and the traces of his daily usage. Every object +about her seemed to contain a particle of himself: the whole +air breathed of him, steeping her in the sense of his +intimate presence. + +Suddenly she thought: "This is what Sophy Viner knew"...and +with a torturing precision she pictured them alone in such a +scene...Had he taken the girl to an hotel...where did people +go in such cases? Wherever they were, the silence of night +had been around them, and the things he used had been strewn +about the room...Anna, ashamed of dwelling on the detested +vision, stood up with a confused impulse of flight; then a +wave of contrary feeling arrested her and she paused with +lowered head. + +Darrow had come forward as she rose, and she perceived that +he was waiting for her to bid him good night. It was clear +that no other possibility had even brushed his mind; and the +fact, for some dim reason, humiliated her. "Why not...why +not?" something whispered in her, as though his forbearance, +his tacit recognition of her pride, were a slight on other +qualities she wanted him to feel in her. + +"In the morning, then?" she heard him say. + +"Yes, in the morning," she repeated. + +She continued to stand in the same place, looking vaguely +about the room. For once before they parted--since part +they must--she longed to be to him all that Sophy Viner had +been; but she remained rooted to the floor, unable to find a +word or imagine a gesture that should express her meaning. +Exasperated by her helplessness, she thought: "Don't I feel +things as other women do?" + +Her eye fell on a note-case she had given him. It was worn +at the corners with the friction of his pocket and distended +with thickly packed papers. She wondered if he carried her +letters in it, and she put her hand out and touched it. + +All that he and she had ever felt or seen, their close +encounters of word and look, and the closer contact of their +silences, trembled through her at the touch. She remembered +things he had said that had been like new skies above her +head: ways he had that seemed a part of the air she +breathed. The faint warmth of her girlish love came back to +her, gathering heat as it passed through her thoughts; and +her heart rocked like a boat on the surge of its long long +memories. "It's because I love him in too many ways," she +thought; and slowly she turned to the door. + +She was aware that Darrow was still silently watching her, +but he neither stirred nor spoke till she had reached the +threshold. Then he met her there and caught her in his +arms. + +"Not to-night--don't tell me to-night!" he whispered; and +she leaned away from him, closing her eyes for an instant, +and then slowly opening them to the flood of light in his. + + + +XXXVII + + +Anna and Darrow, the next day, sat alone in a compartment of +the Paris train. + +Anna, when they entered it, had put herself in the farthest +corner and placed her bag on the adjoining seat. She had +decided suddenly to accompany Darrow to Paris, had even +persuaded him to wait for a later train in order that they +might travel together. She had an intense longing to be +with him, an almost morbid terror of losing sight of him for +a moment: when he jumped out of the train and ran back along +the platform to buy a newspaper for her she felt as though +she should never see him again, and shivered with the cold +misery of her last journey to Paris, when she had thought +herself parted from him forever. Yet she wanted to keep him +at a distance, on the other side of the compartment, and as +the train moved out of the station she drew from her bag the +letters she had thrust in it as she left the house, and +began to glance over them so that her lowered lids should +hide her eyes from him. + +She was his now, his for life: there could never again be +any question of sacrificing herself to Effie's welfare, or +to any other abstract conception of duty. Effie of course +would not suffer; Anna would pay for her bliss as a wife by +redoubled devotion as a mother. Her scruples were not +overcome; but for the time their voices were drowned in the +tumultuous rumour of her happiness. + +As she opened her letters she was conscious that Darrow's +gaze was fixed on her, and gradually it drew her eyes +upward, and she drank deep of the passionate tenderness in +his. Then the blood rose to her face and she felt again the +desire to shield herself. She turned back to her letters +and her glance lit on an envelope inscribed in Owen's hand. + +Her heart began to beat oppressively: she was in a mood when +the simplest things seemed ominous. What could Owen have to +say to her? Only the first page was covered, and it +contained simply the announcement that, in the company of a +young compatriot who was studying at the Beaux Arts, he had +planned to leave for Spain the following evening. + +"He hasn't seen her, then!" was Anna's instant thought; and +her feeling was a strange compound of humiliation and +relief. The girl had kept her word, lived up to the line of +conduct she had set herself; and Anna had failed in the same +attempt. She did not reproach herself with her failure; but +she would have been happier if there had been less +discrepancy between her words to Sophy Viner and the act +which had followed them. It irritated her obscurely that +the girl should have been so much surer of her power to +carry out her purpose... + +Anna looked up and saw that Darrow's eyes were on the +newspaper. He seemed calm and secure, almost indifferent to +her presence. "Will it become a matter of course to him so +soon?" she wondered with a twinge of jealousy. She sat +motionless, her eyes fixed on him, trying to make him feel +the attraction of her gaze as she felt his. It surprised +and shamed her to detect a new element in her love for him: +a sort of suspicious tyrannical tenderness that seemed to +deprive it of all serenity. Finally he looked up, his smile +enveloped her, and she felt herself his in every fibre, his +so completely and inseparably that she saw the vanity of +imagining any other fate for herself. + +To give herself a countenance she held out Owen's letter. +He took it and glanced down the page, his face grown grave. +She waited nervously till he looked up. + +"That's a good plan; the best thing that could happen," he +said, a just perceptible shade of constraint in his tone. + +"Oh, yes," she hastily assented. She was aware of a faint +current of relief silently circulating between them. They +were both glad that Owen was going, that for a while he +would be out of their way; and it seemed to her horrible +that so much of the stuff of their happiness should be made +of such unavowed feelings... + +"I shall see him this evening," she said, wishing Darrow to +feel that she was not afraid of meeting her step-son. + +"Yes, of course; perhaps he might dine with you." + +The words struck her as strangely obtuse. Darrow was to +meet his Ambassador at the station on the latter's arrival, +and would in all probability have to spend the evening with +him, and Anna knew he had been concerned at the thought of +having to leave her alone. But how could he speak in that +careless tone of her dining with Owen? She lowered her voice +to say: "I'm afraid he's desperately unhappy." + +He answered, with a tinge of impatience: "It's much the best +thing that he should travel." + +"Yes--but don't you feel..." She broke off. She knew how +he disliked these idle returns on the irrevocable, and her +fear of doing or saying what he disliked was tinged by a new +instinct of subserviency against which her pride revolted. +She thought to herself: "He will see the change, and grow +indifferent to me as he did to HER..." and for a moment +it seemed to her that she was reliving the experience of +Sophy Viner. + +Darrow made no attempt to learn the end of her unfinished +sentence. He handed back Owen's letter and returned to his +newspaper; and when he looked up from it a few minutes later +it was with a clear brow and a smile that irresistibly drew +her back to happier thoughts. + +The train was just entering a station, and a moment later +their compartment was invaded by a commonplace couple +preoccupied with the bestowal of bulging packages. Anna, at +their approach, felt the possessive pride of the woman in +love when strangers are between herself and the man she +loves. She asked Darrow to open the window, to place her +bag in the net, to roll her rug into a cushion for her feet; +and while he was thus busied with her she was conscious of a +new devotion in his tone, in his way of bending over her and +meeting her eyes. He went back to his seat, and they looked +at each other like lovers smiling at a happy secret. + +Anna, before going back to Givre, had suggested Owen's +moving into her apartment, but he had preferred to remain at +the hotel to which he had sent his luggage, and on arriving +in Paris she decided to drive there at once. She was +impatient to have the meeting over, and glad that Darrow was +obliged to leave her at the station in order to look up a +colleague at the Embassy. She dreaded his seeing Owen again, +and yet dared not tell him so, and to ensure his remaining +away she mentioned an urgent engagement with her dress-maker +and a long list of commissions to be executed for Madame de +Chantelle. + +"I shall see you to-morrow morning," she said; but he +replied with a smile that he would certainly find time to +come to her for a moment on his way back from meeting the +Ambassador; and when he had put her in a cab he leaned +through the window to press his lips to hers. + +She blushed like a girl, thinking, half vexed, half happy: +"Yesterday he would not have done it..." and a dozen +scarcely definable differences in his look and manner seemed +all at once to be summed up in the boyish act. "After all, +I'm engaged to him," she reflected, and then smiled at the +absurdity of the word. The next instant, with a pang of +self-reproach, she remembered Sophy Viner's cry: "I knew all +the while he didn't care..." "Poor thing, oh poor thing!" +Anna murmured... + + +At Owen's hotel she waited in a tremor while the porter went +in search of him. Word was presently brought back that he +was in his room and begged her to come up, and as she +crossed the hall she caught sight of his portmanteaux lying +on the floor, already labelled for departure. + +Owen sat at a table writing, his back to the door; and when +he stood up the window was behind him, so that, in the rainy +afternoon light, his features were barely discernible. + +"Dearest--so you're really off?" she said, hesitating a +moment on the threshold. + +He pushed a chair forward, and they sat down, each waiting +for the other to speak. Finally she put some random +question about his travelling-companion, a slow shy +meditative youth whom he had once or twice brought down to +Givre. She reflected that it was natural he should have +given this uncommunicative comrade the preference over his +livelier acquaintances, and aloud she said: "I'm so glad +Fred Rempson can go with you." + +Owen answered in the same tone, and for a few minutes their +talk dragged itself on over a dry waste of common-places. +Anna noticed that, though ready enough to impart his own +plans, Owen studiously abstained from putting any questions +about hers. It was evident from his allusions that he meant +to be away for some time, and he presently asked her if she +would give instructions about packing and sending after him +some winter clothes he had left at Givre. This gave her the +opportunity to say that she expected to go back within a day +or two and would attend to the matter as soon as she +returned. She added: "I came up this morning with George, +who is going on to London to-morrow," intending, by the use +of Darrow's Christian name, to give Owen the chance to speak +of her marriage. But he made no comment, and she continued +to hear the name sounding on unfamiliarly between them. + +The room was almost dark, and she finally stood up and +glanced about for the light-switch, saying: "I can't see +you, dear." + +"Oh, don't--I hate the light!" Owen exclaimed, catching her +by the wrist and pushing her back into her seat. He gave a +nervous laugh and added: "I'm half-blind with neuralgia. I +suppose it's this beastly rain." + +"Yes; it will do you good to get down to Spain." + +She asked if he had the remedies the doctor had given him +for a previous attack, and on his replying that he didn't +know what he'd done with the stuff, she sprang up, offering +to go to the chemist's. It was a relief to have something +to do for him, and she knew from his "Oh, thanks--would +you?" that it was a relief to him to have a pretext for not +detaining her. His natural impulse would have been to +declare that he didn't want any drugs, and would be all +right in no time; and his acquiescence showed her how +profoundly he felt the uselessness of their trying to +prolong their talk. His face was now no more than a white +blur in the dusk, but she felt its indistinctness as a veil +drawn over aching intensities of expression. "He knows...he +knows..." she said to herself, and wondered whether the +truth had been revealed to him by some corroborative fact or +by the sheer force of divination. + +He had risen also, and was clearly waiting for her to go, +and she turned to the door, saying: "I'll be back in a +moment." + +"Oh, don't come up again, please!" He paused, embarrassed. +"I mean--I may not be here. I've got to go and pick up +Rempson, and see about some final things with him." +She stopped on the threshold with a sinking heart. He meant +this to be their leave-taking, then--and he had not even +asked her when she was to be married, or spoken of seeing +her again before she set out for the other side of the +world. + +"Owen!" she cried, and turned back. + +He stood mutely before her in the dimness. + +"You haven't told me how long you're to be gone." + +"How long? Oh, you see...that's rather vague...I hate +definite dates, you know..." + +He paused and she saw he did not mean to help her out. She +tried to say: "You'll be here for my wedding?" but could not +bring the words to her lips. Instead she murmured: "In six +weeks I shall be going too..." and he rejoined, as if he had +expected the announcement and prepared his answer: "Oh, by +that time, very likely..." + +"At any rate, I won't say good-bye," she stammered, feeling +the tears beneath her veil. + +"No, no; rather not!" he declared; but he made no movement, +and she went up and threw her arms about him. "You'll write +me, won't you?" + +"Of course, of course----" + +Her hands slipped down into his, and for a minute they held +each other dumbly in the darkness; then he gave a vague +laugh and said: "It's really time to light up." He pressed +the electric button with one hand while with the other he +opened the door; and she passed out without daring to turn +back, lest the light on his face should show her what she +feared to see. + + + +XXXVIII + + +Anna drove to the chemist's for Owen's remedy. On the way +she stopped her cab at a book-shop, and emerged from it +laden with literature. She knew what would interest Owen, +and what he was likely to have read, and she had made her +choice among the newest publications with the promptness of +a discriminating reader. But on the way back to the hotel +she was overcome by the irony of adding this mental panacea +to the other. There was something grotesque and almost +mocking in the idea of offering a judicious selection of +literature to a man setting out on such a journey. "He +knows...he knows..." she kept on repeating; and giving the +porter the parcel from the chemist's she drove away without +leaving the books. +She went to her apartment, whither her maid had preceded +her. There was a fire in the drawing-room and the tea-table +stood ready by the hearth. The stormy rain beat against the +uncurtained windows, and she thought of Owen, who would soon +be driving through it to the station, alone with his bitter +thoughts. She had been proud of the fact that he had always +sought her help in difficult hours; and now, in the most +difficult of all, she was the one being to whom he could not +turn. Between them, henceforth, there would always be the +wall of an insurmountable silence...She strained her aching +thoughts to guess how the truth had come to him. Had he seen +the girl, and had she told him? Instinctively, Anna rejected +this conjecture. But what need was there of assuming an +explicit statement, when every breath they had drawn for the +last weeks had been charged with the immanent secret? As she +looked back over the days since Darrow's first arrival at +Givre she perceived that at no time had any one deliberately +spoken, or anything been accidentally disclosed. The truth +had come to light by the force of its irresistible pressure; +and the perception gave her a startled sense of hidden +powers, of a chaos of attractions and repulsions far beneath +the ordered surfaces of intercourse. She looked back with +melancholy derision on her old conception of life, as a kind +of well-lit and well policed suburb to dark places one need +never know about. Here they were, these dark places, in her +own bosom, and henceforth she would always have to traverse +them to reach the beings she loved best! + +She was still sitting beside the untouched tea-table when +she heard Darrow's voice in the hall. She started up, +saying to herself: "I must tell him that Owen knows..." but +when the door opened and she saw his face, still lit by the +same smile of boyish triumph, she felt anew the uselessness +of speaking...Had he ever supposed that Owen would not know? +Probably, from the height of his greater experience, he had +seen long since that all that happened was inevitable; and +the thought of it, at any rate, was clearly not weighing on +him now. + +He was already dressed for the evening, and as he came +toward her he said: "The Ambassador's booked for an official +dinner and I'm free after all. Where shall we dine?" + +Anna had pictured herself sitting alone all the evening with +her wretched thoughts, and the fact of having to put them +out of her mind for the next few hours gave her an immediate +sensation of relief. Already her pulses were dancing to the +tune of Darrow's, and as they smiled at each other she +thought: "Nothing can ever change the fact that I belong to +him." + +"Where shall we dine?" he repeated gaily, and she named a +well-known restaurant for which she had once heard him +express a preference. But as she did so she fancied she saw +a shadow on his face, and instantly she said to herself: "It +was THERE he went with her!" + +"Oh, no, not there, after all!" she interrupted herself; and +now she was sure his colour deepened. + +"Where shall it be, then?" + +She noticed that he did not ask the reason of her change, +and this convinced her that she had guessed the truth, and +that he knew she had guessed it. "He will always know what +I am thinking, and he will never dare to ask me," she +thought; and she saw between them the same insurmountable +wall of silence as between herself and Owen, a wall of glass +through which they could watch each other's faintest motions +but which no sound could ever traverse... + +They drove to a restaurant on the Boulevard, and there, in +their intimate corner of the serried scene, the sense of +what was unspoken between them gradually ceased to oppress +her. He looked so light-hearted and handsome, so +ingenuously proud of her, so openly happy at being with her, +that no other fact could seem real in his presence. He had +learned that the Ambassador was to spend two days in Paris, +and he had reason to hope that in consequence his own +departure for London would be deferred. He was exhilarated +by the prospect of being with Anna for a few hours longer, +and she did not ask herself if his exhilaration were a sign +of insensibility, for she was too conscious of his power of +swaying her moods not to be secretly proud of affecting his. + +They lingered for some time over the fruit and coffee, and +when they rose to go Darrow suggested that, if she felt +disposed for the play, they were not too late for the second +part of the programme at one of the smaller theatres. + +His mention of the hour recalled Owen to her thoughts. She +saw his train rushing southward through the storm, and, in a +corner of the swaying compartment, his face, white and +indistinct as it had loomed on her in the rainy twilight. +It was horrible to be thus perpetually paying for her +happiness! + +Darrow had called for a theatrical journal, and he presently +looked up from it to say: "I hear the second play at the +Athenee is amusing." + +It was on Anna's lips to acquiesce; but as she was about to +speak she wondered if it were not at the Athenee that Owen +had seen Darrow with Sophy Viner. She was not sure he had +even mentioned the theatre, but the mere possibility was +enough to darken her sky. It was hateful to her to think of +accompanying Darrow to places where the girl had been with +him. She tried to reason away this scruple, she even +reminded herself with a bitter irony that whenever she was +in Darrow's arms she was where the girl had been before her +--but she could not shake off her superstitious dread of +being with him in any of the scenes of the Parisian episode. +She replied that she was too tired for the play, and they +drove back to her apartment. At the foot of the stairs she +half-turned to wish him good night, but he appeared not to +notice her gesture and followed her up to her door. + +"This is ever so much better than the theatre," he said as +they entered the drawing-room. + +She had crossed the room and was bending over the hearth to +light the fire. She knew he was approaching her, and that +in a moment he would have drawn the cloak from her shoulders +and laid his lips on her neck, just below the gathered-up +hair. These privileges were his and, however deferently and +tenderly he claimed them, the joyous ease of his manner +marked a difference and proclaimed a right. + +"After the theatre they came home like this," she thought; +and at the same instant she felt his hands on her shoulders +and shrank back. + +"Don't--oh, don't!" she cried, drawing her cloak about her. +She saw from his astonished stare that her face must be +quivering with pain. + +"Anna! What on earth is the matter?" + +"Owen knows!" she broke out, with a confused desire to +justify herself. + +Darrow's countenance changed. "Did he tell you so? What did +he say?" + +"Nothing! I knew it from the things he didn't say." + +"You had a talk with him this afternoon?" + +"Yes: for a few minutes. I could see he didn't want me to +stay." + +She had dropped into a chair, and sat there huddled, still +holding her cloak about her shoulders. + +Darrow did not dispute her assumption, and she noticed that +he expressed no surprise. He sat down at a little distance +from her, turning about in his fingers the cigar-case he had +drawn out as they came in. At length he said: "Had he seen +Miss Viner?" + +She shrank from the sound of the name. "No...I don't think +so...I'm sure he hadn't..." + +They remained silent, looking away from one another. Finally +Darrow stood up and took a few steps across the room. He +came back and paused before her, his eyes on her face. + +"I think you ought to tell me what you mean to do." +She raised her head and gave him back his look. "Nothing I +do can help Owen!" + +"No; but things can't go on like this." He paused, as if to +measure his words. "I fill you with aversion," he +exclaimed. + +She started up, half-sobbing. "No--oh, no!" + +"Poor child--you can't see your face!" + +She lifted her hands as if to hide it, and turning away from +him bowed her head upon the mantel-shelf. She felt that he +was standing a little way behind her, but he made no attempt +to touch her or come nearer. + +"I know you've felt as I've felt," he said in a low voice--" +that we belong to each other and that nothing can alter +that. But other thoughts come, and you can't banish them. +Whenever you see me you remember...you associate me with +things you abhor...You've been generous--immeasurably. +You've given me all the chances a woman could; but if it's +only made you suffer, what's the use?" + +She turned to him with a tear-stained face. "It hasn't only +done that." + +"Oh, no! I know...There've been moments..." He took her hand +and raised it to his lips. "They'll be with me as long as I +live. But I can't see you paying such a price for them. +I'm not worth what I'm costing you." + +She continued to gaze at him through tear-dilated eyes; and +suddenly she flung out the question: "Wasn't it the Athenee +you took her to that evening?" + +"Anna--Anna!" + +"Yes; I want to know now: to know everything. Perhaps that +will make me forget. I ought to have made you tell me +before. Wherever we go, I imagine you've been there with +her...I see you together. I want to know how it began, +where you went, why you left her...I can't go on in this +darkness any longer!" + +She did not know what had prompted her passionate outburst, +but already she felt lighter, freer, as if at last the evil +spell were broken. "I want to know everything," she +repeated. "It's the only way to make me forget." + +After she had ceased speaking Darrow remained where he was, +his arms folded, his eyes lowered, immovable. She waited, +her gaze on his face. + +"Aren't you going to tell me?" + +"No." +The blood rushed to her temples. "You won't? Why not?" + +"If I did, do you suppose you'd forget THAT?" + +"Oh--" she moaned, and turned away from him. + +"You see it's impossible," he went on. "I've done a thing I +loathe, and to atone for it you ask me to do another. What +sort of satisfaction would that give you? It would put +something irremediable between us." + +She leaned her elbow against the mantel-shelf and hid her +face in her hands. She had the sense that she was vainly +throwing away her last hope of happiness, yet she could do +nothing, think of nothing, to save it. The conjecture +flashed through her: "Should I be at peace if I gave him +up?" and she remembered the desolation of the days after she +had sent him away, and understood that that hope was vain. +The tears welled through her lids and ran slowly down +between her fingers. + +"Good-bye," she heard him say, and his footsteps turned to +the door. + +She tried to raise her head, but the weight of her despair +bowed it down. She said to herself: "This is the end...he +won't try to appeal to me again..." and she remained in a +sort of tranced rigidity, perceiving without feeling the +fateful lapse of the seconds. Then the cords that bound her +seemed to snap, and she lifted her head and saw him going. + +"Why, he's mine--he's mine! He's no one else's!" His face +was turned to her and the look in his eyes swept away all +her terrors. She no longer understood what had prompted her +senseless outcry; and the mortal sweetness of loving him +became again the one real fact in the world. + + + +XXXIX + + +Anna, the next day, woke to a humiliated memory of the +previous evening. + +Darrow had been right in saying that their sacrifice would +benefit no one; yet she seemed dimly to discern that there +were obligations not to be tested by that standard. She +owed it, at any rate, as much to his pride as to hers to +abstain from the repetition of such scenes; and she had +learned that it was beyond her power to do so while they +were together. Yet when he had given her the chance to free +herself, everything had vanished from her mind but the blind +fear of losing him; and she saw that he and she were as +profoundly and inextricably bound together as two trees with +interwoven roots. +For a long time she brooded on her plight, vaguely conscious +that the only escape from it must come from some external +chance. And slowly the occasion shaped itself in her mind. +It was Sophy Viner only who could save her--Sophy Viner only +who could give her back her lost serenity. She would seek +the girl out and tell her that she had given Darrow up; and +that step once taken there would be no retracing it, and she +would perforce have to go forward alone. + +Any pretext for action was a kind of anodyne, and she +despatched her maid to the Farlows' with a note asking if +Miss Viner would receive her. There was a long delay before +the maid returned, and when at last she appeared it was with +a slip of paper on which an address was written, and a +verbal message to the effect that Miss Viner had left some +days previously, and was staying with her sister in a hotel +near the Place de l'Etoile. The maid added that Mrs. +Farlow, on the plea that Miss Viner's plans were uncertain, +had at first made some difficulty about giving this +information; and Anna guessed that the girl had left her +friends' roof, and instructed them to withhold her address, +with the object of avoiding Owen. "She's kept faith with +herself and I haven't," Anna mused; and the thought was a +fresh incentive to action. + +Darrow had announced his intention of coming soon after +luncheon, and the morning was already so far advanced that +Anna, still mistrustful of her strength, decided to drive +immediately to the address Mrs. Farlow had given. On the +way there she tried to recall what she had heard of Sophy +Viner's sister, but beyond the girl's enthusiastic report of +the absent Laura's loveliness she could remember only +certain vague allusions of Mrs. Farlow's to her artistic +endowments and matrimonial vicissitudes. Darrow had +mentioned her but once, and in the briefest terms, as having +apparently very little concern for Sophy's welfare, and +being, at any rate, too geographically remote to give her +any practical support; and Anna wondered what chance had +brought her to her sister's side at this conjunction. Mrs. +Farlow had spoken of her as a celebrity (in what line Anna +failed to recall); but Mrs. Farlow's celebrities were +legion, and the name on the slip of paper--Mrs. McTarvie- +Birch--did not seem to have any definite association with +fame. + +While Anna waited in the dingy vestibule of the Hotel +Chicago she had so distinct a vision of what she meant to +say to Sophy Viner that the girl seemed already to be before +her; and her heart dropped from all the height of its +courage when the porter, after a long delay, returned with +the announcement that Miss Viner was no longer in the hotel. +Anna, doubtful if she understood, asked if he merely meant +that the young lady was out at the moment; but he replied +that she had gone away the day before. Beyond this he had +no information to impart, and after a moment's hesitation +Anna sent him back to enquire if Mrs. McTarvie-Birch would +receive her. She reflected that Sophy had probably pledged +her sister to the same secrecy as Mrs. Farlow, and that a +personal appeal to Mrs. Birch might lead to less negative +results. + +There was another long interval of suspense before the +porter reappeared with an affirmative answer; and a third +while an exiguous and hesitating lift bore her up past a +succession of shabby landings. + +When the last was reached, and her guide had directed her +down a winding passage that smelt of sea-going luggage, she +found herself before a door through which a strong odour of +tobacco reached her simultaneously with the sounds of a +suppressed altercation. Her knock was followed by a +silence, and after a minute or two the door was opened by a +handsome young man whose ruffled hair and general air of +creased disorder led her to conclude that he had just risen +from a long-limbed sprawl on a sofa strewn with tumbled +cushions. This sofa, and a grand piano bearing a basket of +faded roses, a biscuit-tin and a devastated breakfast tray, +almost filled the narrow sitting-room, in the remaining +corner of which another man, short, swarthy and humble, sat +examining the lining of his hat. + +Anna paused in doubt; but on her naming Mrs. Birch the young +man politely invited her to enter, at the same time casting +an impatient glance at the mute spectator in the background. + +The latter, raising his eyes, which were round and bulging, +fixed them, not on the young man but on Anna, whom, for a +moment, he scrutinized as searchingly as the interior of his +hat. Under his gaze she had the sense of being minutely +catalogued and valued; and the impression, when he finally +rose and moved toward the door, of having been accepted as a +better guarantee than he had had any reason to hope for. On +the threshold his glance crossed that of the young man in an +exchange of intelligence as full as it was rapid; and this +brief scene left Anna so oddly enlightened that she felt no +surprise when her companion, pushing an arm-chair forward, +sociably asked her if she wouldn't have a cigarette. Her +polite refusal provoked the remark that he would, if she'd +no objection; and while he groped for matches in his loose +pockets, and behind the photographs and letters crowding the +narrow mantel-shelf, she ventured another enquiry for Mrs. +Birch. + +"Just a minute," he smiled; "I think the masseur's with +her." He spoke in a smooth denationalized English, which, +like the look in his long-lashed eyes and the promptness of +his charming smile, suggested a long training in all the +arts of expediency. Having finally discovered a match-box +on the floor beside the sofa, he lit his cigarette and +dropped back among the cushions; and on Anna's remarking +that she was sorry to disturb Mrs. Birch he replied that +that was all right, and that she always kept everybody +waiting. + +After this, through the haze of his perpetually renewed +cigarettes, they continued to chat for some time of +indifferent topics; but when at last Anna again suggested +the possibility of her seeing Mrs. Birch he rose from his +corner with a slight shrug, and murmuring: "She's perfectly +hopeless," lounged off through an inner door. + +Anna was still wondering when and in what conjunction of +circumstances the much-married Laura had acquired a partner +so conspicuous for his personal charms, when the young man +returned to announce: "She says it's all right, if you don't +mind seeing her in bed." + +He drew aside to let Anna pass, and she found herself in a +dim untidy scented room, with a pink curtain pinned across +its single window, and a lady with a great deal of fair hair +and uncovered neck smiling at her from a pink bed on which +an immense powder-puff trailed. + +"You don't mind, do you? He costs such a frightful lot that +I can't afford to send him off," Mrs. Birch explained, +extending a thickly-ringed hand to Anna, and leaving her in +doubt as to whether the person alluded to were her +masseur or her husband. Before a reply was possible there +was a convulsive stir beneath the pink expanse, and +something that resembled another powder-puff hurled itself +at Anna with a volley of sounds like the popping of +Lilliputian champagne corks. Mrs. Birch, flinging herself +forward, gasped out: "If you'd just give him a +caramel...there, in that box on the dressing-table...it's +the only earthly thing to stop him..." and when Anna had +proffered this sop to her assailant, and he had withdrawn +with it beneath the bedspread, his mistress sank back with a +laugh. + +"Isn't he a beauty? The Prince gave him to me down at Nice +the other day--but he's perfectly awful," she confessed, +beaming intimately on her visitor. In the roseate penumbra +of the bed-curtains she presented to Anna's startled gaze an +odd chromo-like resemblance to Sophy Viner, or a suggestion, +rather, of what Sophy Viner might, with the years and in +spite of the powder-puff, become. Larger, blonder, heavier- +featured, she yet had glances and movements that +disturbingly suggested what was freshest and most engaging +in the girl; and as she stretched her bare plump arm across +the bed she seemed to be pulling back the veil from dingy +distances of family history. + +"Do sit down, if there's a place to sit on," she cordially +advised; adding, as Anna took the edge of a chair hung with +miscellaneous raiment: "My singing takes so much time that I +don't get a chance to walk the fat off--that's the worst of +being an artist." + +Anna murmured an assent. "I hope it hasn't inconvenienced +you to see me; I told Mr. Birch--" + +"Mr. WHO?" the recumbent beauty asked; and then: "Oh, +JIMMY!" she faintly laughed, as if more for her own +enlightenment than Anna's. + +The latter continued eagerly: "I understand from Mrs. Farlow +that your sister was with you, and I ventured to come up +because I wanted to ask you when I should have a chance of +finding her." + +Mrs. McTarvie-Birch threw back her head with a long stare. +"Do you mean to say the idiot at the door didn't tell you? +Sophy went away last night." + +"Last night?" Anna echoed. A sudden terror had possessed +her. Could it be that the girl had tricked them all and +gone with Owen? The idea was incredible, yet it took such +hold of her that she could hardly steady her lips to say: +"The porter did tell me, but I thought perhaps he was +mistaken. Mrs. Farlow seemed to think that I should find +her here." + +"It was all so sudden that I don't suppose she had time to +let the Farlows know. She didn't get Mrs. Murrett's wire +till yesterday, and she just pitched her things into a trunk +and rushed----" + +"Mrs. Murrett?" + +"Why, yes. Sophy's gone to India with Mrs. Murrett; they're +to meet at Brindisi," Sophy's sister said with a calm smile. + +Anna sat motionless, gazing at the disordered room, the pink +bed, the trivial face among the pillows. + +Mrs. McTarvie-Birch pursued: "They had a fearful kick-up +last spring--I daresay you knew about it--but I told Sophy +she'd better lump it, as long as the old woman was willing +to...As an artist, of course, it's perfectly impossible for +me to have her with me..." + +"Of course," Anna mechanically assented. + +Through the confused pain of her thoughts she was hardly +aware that Mrs. Birch's explanations were still continuing. +"Naturally I didn't altogether approve of her going back to +that beast of a woman. I said all I could...I told her she +was a fool to chuck up such a place as yours. But Sophy's +restless--always was--and she's taken it into her head she'd +rather travel..." + +Anna rose from her seat, groping for some formula of leave- +taking. The pushing back of her chair roused the white +dog's smouldering animosity, and he drowned his mistress's +further confidences in another outburst of hysterics. +Through the tumult Anna signed an inaudible farewell, and +Mrs. Birch, having momentarily succeeded in suppressing her +pet under a pillow, called out: "Do come again! I'd love to +sing to you." + +Anna murmured a word of thanks and turned to the door. As +she opened it she heard her hostess crying after her: +"Jimmy! Do you hear me? Jimmy BRANCE!" and then, there +being no response from the person summoned: "DO tell him +he must go and call the lift for you!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Reef by Edith Wharton + + + |