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diff --git a/old/7insm10.txt b/old/7insm10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd6bc00 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7insm10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11728 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Indian Summer, by William D. Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Indian Summer + +Author: William D. Howells + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7359] +[This file was first posted on April 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + + + + +David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreaders Team + + + +INDIAN SUMMER + +BY + +WILLIAM D. HOWELLS + +AUTHOR OF "THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM," "A MODERN INSTANCE," +"WOMAN'S REASON," ETC. + + + + + + + +INDIAN SUMMER + + * * * * * + +I + + +Midway of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, where three arches break the +lines of the little jewellers' booths glittering on either hand, and +open an approach to the parapet, Colville lounged against the corner of +a shop and stared out upon the river. It was the late afternoon of a day +in January, which had begun bright and warm, but had suffered a change +of mood as its hours passed, and now, from a sky dimmed with flying grey +clouds, was threatening rain. There must already have been rain in the +mountains, for the yellow torrent that seethed and swirled around the +piers of the bridge was swelling momently on the wall of the Lung' Arno, +and rolling a threatening flood toward the Cascine, where it lost itself +under the ranks of the poplars that seemed to file across its course, +and let their delicate tops melt into the pallor of the low horizon. + +The city, with the sweep of the Lung' Arno on either hand, and its domes +and towers hung in the dull air, and the country with its white villas +and black cypresses breaking the grey stretches of the olive orchards on +its hill-sides, had alike been growing more and more insufferable; and +Colville was finding a sort of vindictive satisfaction in the power to +ignore the surrounding frippery of landscape and architecture. He +isolated himself so perfectly from it, as he brooded upon the river, +that, for any sensible difference, he might have been standing on the +Main Street Bridge at Des Vaches, Indiana, looking down at the tawny +sweep of the Wabash. He had no love for that stream, nor for the +ambitious town on its banks, but ever since he woke that morning he had +felt a growing conviction that he had been a great ass to leave them. He +had, in fact, taken the prodigious risk of breaking his life sharp off +from the course in which it had been set for many years, and of +attempting to renew it in a direction from which it had long been +diverted. Such an act could be precipitated only by a strong impulse of +conscience or a profound disgust, and with Colville it sprang from +disgust. He had experienced a bitter disappointment in the city to whose +prosperity he had given the energies of his best years, and in whose +favour he imagined that he had triumphantly established himself. + +He had certainly made the Des Vaches _Democrat-Republican_ a very good +paper; its ability was recognised throughout the State, and in Des +Vaches people of all parties were proud of it. They liked every morning +to see what Colville said; they believed that in his way he was the +smartest man in the State, and they were fond of claiming that there was +no such writer on any of the Indianapolis papers. They forgave some +political heresies to the talent they admired; they permitted him the +whim of free trade, they laughed tolerantly when he came out in favour +of civil service reform, and no one had much fault to find when the +_Democrat-Republican_ bolted the nomination of a certain politician of +its party for Congress. But when Colville permitted his own name to be +used by the opposing party, the people arose in their might and defeated +him by a tremendous majority. That was what the regular nominee said. It +was a withering rebuke to treason, in the opinion of this gentleman; it +was a good joke, anyway, with the Democratic managers who had taken +Colville up, being all in the Republican family; whichever it was, it +was a mortification for Colville which his pride could not brook. He +stood disgraced before the community not only as a theorist and +unpractical doctrinaire, but as a dangerous man; and what was worse, he +could not wholly acquit himself of a measure of bad faith; his +conscience troubled him even more than his pride. Money was found, and a +printer bought up with it to start a paper in opposition to the +_Democrat-Republican_. Then Colville contemptuously offered to sell out +to the Republican committee in charge of the new enterprise, and they +accepted his terms. + +In private life he found much of the old kindness returning to him; and +his successful opponent took the first opportunity of heaping coals of +fire on his head in the public street, when he appeared to the outer eye +to be shaking hands with Colville. During the months that he remained to +close up his affairs after the sale of his paper, the _Post-Democrat- +Republican_ (the newspaper had agglutinated the titles of two of its +predecessors, after the fashion of American journals) was fulsome in +its complimentary allusions to him. It politely invented the fiction +that he was going to Europe for his health, impaired by his journalistic +labours, and adventurously promised its readers that they might hope +to hear from him from time to time in its columns. In some of its +allusions to him Colville detected the point of a fine irony, of which +he had himself introduced the practice in the _Democrat-Republican_; +and he experienced, with a sense of personal impoverishment, +the curious fact that a journalist of strong characteristics +leaves the tradition of himself in such degree with the journal +he has created that he seems to bring very little away. He was +obliged to confess in his own heart that the paper was as good as ever. +The assistants, who had trained themselves to write like him, seemed to +be writing quite as well, and his honesty would not permit him to +receive the consolation offered him by the friends who told him that +there was a great falling off in the _Post-Democrat-Republican_. Except +that it was rather more Stalwart in its Republicanism, and had turned +quite round on the question of the tariff, it was very much what it had +always been. It kept the old decency of tone which he had given it, and +it maintained the literary character which he was proud of. The new +management must have divined that its popularity, with the women at +least, was largely due to its careful selections of verse and fiction, +its literary news, and its full and piquant criticisms, with their long +extracts from new books. It was some time since he had personally looked +after this department, and the young fellow in charge of it under him +had remained with the paper. Its continued excellence, which he could +not have denied if he had wished, seemed to leave him drained and +feeble, and it was partly from the sense of this that he declined the +overtures, well backed up with money, to establish an independent paper +in Des Vaches. He felt that there was not fight enough in him for the +work, even if he had not taken that strong disgust for public life which +included the place and its people. He wanted to get away, to get far +away, and with the abrupt and total change in his humour he reverted to +a period in his life when journalism and politics and the ambition of +Congress were things undreamed of. + +At that period he was a very young architect, with an inclination toward +the literary side of his profession, which made it seem profitable to +linger, with his Ruskin in his hand, among the masterpieces of Italian +Gothic, when perhaps he might have been better employed in designing +red-roofed many-verandaed, consciously mullioned seaside cottages on the +New England coast. He wrote a magazine paper on the zoology of the +Lombardic pillars in Verona, very Ruskinian, very scornful of modern +motive. He visited every part of the peninsula, but he gave the greater +part of his time to North Italy, and in Venice he met the young girl +whom he followed to Florence. His love did not prosper; when she went +away she left him in possession of that treasure to a man of his +temperament, a broken heart. From that time his vague dreams began to +lift, and to let him live in the clear light of common day; but he was +still lingering at Florence, ignorant of the good which had befallen +him, and cowering within himself under the sting of wounded vanity, when +he received a letter from his elder brother suggesting that he should +come and see how he liked the architecture of Des Vaches. His brother +had been seven years at Des Vaches, where he had lands, and a lead-mine, +and a scheme for a railroad, and had lately added a daily newspaper to +his other enterprises. He had, in fact, added two newspapers; for having +unexpectedly and almost involuntarily become the owner of the Des Vaches +_Republican_, the fancy of building up a great local journal seized him, +and he bought the _Wabash Valley Democrat_, uniting them under the name +of the _Democrat-Republican_. But he had trouble almost from the first +with his editors, and he naturally thought of the brother with a turn +for writing who had been running to waste for the last year or two in +Europe. His real purpose was to work Colville into the management of his +paper when he invited him to come out and look at the architecture of +Des Vaches. + +Colville went, because he was at that moment in the humour to go +anywhere, and because his money was running low, and he must begin work +somehow. He was still romantic enough to like the notion of the place a +little, because it bore the name given to it by the old French +_voyageurs_ from a herd of buffalo cows which they had seen grazing on +the site of their camp there; but when he came to the place itself he +did not like it. He hated it; but he stayed, and as an architect was the +last thing any one wanted in Des Vaches since the jail and court-house +had been built, he became, half without his willing it, a newspaper man. +He learned in time to relish the humorous intimacy of the life about +him; and when it was decided that he was no fool--there were doubts, +growing out of his Eastern accent and the work of his New York tailor, +at first--he found himself the object of a pleasing popularity. In due +time he bought his brother out; he became very fond of newspaper life, +its constant excitements and its endless variety; and six weeks before +he sold his paper he would have scoffed at a prophecy of his return to +Europe for the resumption of any artistic purpose whatever. But here he +was, lounging on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, whither he had come with +the intention of rubbing up his former studies, and of perhaps getting +back to put them in practice at New York ultimately. He had said to +himself before coming abroad that he was in no hurry; that he should +take it very easily--he had money enough for that; yet he would keep +architecture before him as an object, for he had lived long in a +community where every one was intensely occupied, and he unconsciously +paid to Des Vaches the tribute of feeling that an objectless life was +disgraceful to a man. + +In the meantime he suffered keenly and at every moment the loss of the +occupation of which he had bereaved himself; in thinking of quite other +things, in talk of totally different matters, from the dreams of night, +he woke with a start to the realisation of the fact that he had no +longer a newspaper. He perceived now, as never before, that for fifteen +years almost every breath of his life had been drawn with reference to +his paper, and that without it he was in some sort lost, and, as it +were, extinct. A tide of ridiculous home-sickness, which was an +expression of this passionate regret for the life he had put behind him, +rather than any longing for Des Vaches, swept over him, and the first +passages of a letter to the _Post-Democrat-Republican_ began to shape +themselves in his mind. He had always, when he left home for New York or +Washington, or for his few weeks of summer vacation on the Canadian +rivers or the New England coast, written back to his readers, in whom he +knew he could count upon quick sympathy in all he saw and felt, and he +now found himself addressing them with that frank familiarity which +comes to the journalist, in minor communities, from the habit of print. +He began by confessing to them the defeat of certain expectations with +which he had returned to Florence, and told them that they must not look +for anything like the ordinary letters of travel from him. But he was +not so singular in his attitude toward the place as he supposed; for any +tourist who comes to Florence with the old-fashioned expectation of +impressions will probably suffer a disappointment, unless he arrives +very young and for the first time. It is a city superficially so well +known that it affects one somewhat like a collection of views of itself; +they are from the most striking points, of course, but one has examined +them before, and is disposed to be critical of them. Certain emotions, +certain sensations failed to repeat themselves to Colville at sight of +the familiar monuments, which seemed to wear a hardy and indifferent +air, as if being stared at so many years by so many thousands of +travellers had extinguished in them that sensibility which one likes to +fancy in objects of interest everywhere. + +The life which was as vivid all about him as if caught by the latest +instantaneous process made the same comparatively ineffective appeal. +The operatic spectacle was still there. The people, with their cloaks +statuesquely draped over their left shoulders, moved down the street, or +posed in vehement dialogue on the sidewalks; the drama of bargaining, +with the customer's scorn, the shopman's pathos, came through the open +shop door; the handsome, heavy-eyed ladies, the bare-headed girls, +thronged the ways; the caffes were full of the well-remembered figures +over their newspapers and little cups; the officers were as splendid as +of old, with their long cigars in their mouths, their swords kicking +against their beautiful legs, and their spurs jingling; the dandies, +with their little dogs and their flower-like smiles, were still in front +of the confectioners' for the inspection of the ladies who passed; the +old beggar still crouched over her scaldino at the church door, and the +young man with one leg, whom he thought to escape by walking fast, had +timed him to a second from the other side of the street. There was the +wonted warmth in the sunny squares, and the old familiar damp and stench +in the deep narrow streets. But some charm had gone out of all this. The +artisans coming to the doors of their shallow booths for the light on +some bit of carpentering, or cobbling, or tinkering; the crowds swarming +through the middle of the streets on perfect terms with the wine-carts +and cab horses; the ineffective grandiosity of the palaces huddled upon +the crooked thoroughfares; the slight but insinuating cold of the +southern winter, gathering in the shade and dispersing in the sun, and +denied everywhere by the profusion of fruit and flowers, and by the +greenery of gardens showing through the grated portals and over the tops +of high walls; the groups of idle poor, permanently or temporarily +propped against the bases of edifices with a southern exposure; the +priests and monks and nuns in their gliding passage; the impassioned +snapping of the cabmen's whips; the clangour of bells that at some hours +inundated the city, and then suddenly subsided and left it to the +banging of coppersmiths; the open-air frying of cakes, with its +primitive smell of burning fat; the tramp of soldiery, and the fanfare +of bugles blown to gay measures--these and a hundred other +characteristic traits and facts still found a response in the +consciousness where they were once a rapture of novelty; but the +response was faint and thin; he could not warm over the old mood in +which he once treasured them all away as of equal preciousness. + +Of course there was a pleasure in recognising some details of former +experience in Florence as they recurred. Colville had been met at once +by a _festa_, when nothing could be done, and he was more than consoled +by the caressing sympathy with which he was assured that his broken +trunk could not be mended till the day after to-morrow; he had quite +forgotten about the festas and the sympathy. That night the piazza on +which he lodged seemed full of snow to the casual glance he gave it; +then he saw that it was the white Italian moonlight, which he had also +forgotten.... + + + + + + +II + + +Colville had readied this point in that sarcastic study of his own +condition of mind for the advantage of his late readers in the +_Post-Democrat-Republican_, when he was aware of a polite rustling of +draperies, with an ensuing well-bred murmur, which at once ignored him, +deprecated intrusion upon him, and asserted a common right to the +prospect on which he had been dwelling alone. He looked round with an +instinctive expectation of style and poise, in which he was not +disappointed. The lady, with a graceful lift of the head and a very +erect carriage, almost Bernhardtesque in the backward fling of her +shoulders and the strict compression of her elbows to her side, was +pointing out the different bridges to the little girl who was with her. + +"That first one is the Santa Trinita, and the next is the Carraja, and +that one quite down by the Cascine is the iron bridge. The Cascine you +remember--the park where we were driving--that clump of woods there----" + +A vagueness expressive of divided interest had crept into the lady's +tone rather than her words. Colville could feel that she was waiting for +the right moment to turn her delicate head, sculpturesquely defined by +its toque, and steal an imperceptible glance at him: and he +involuntarily afforded her the coveted excuse by the slight noise he +made in changing his position in order to be able to go away as soon as +he had seen whether she was pretty or not. At forty-one the question is +still important to every man with regard to every woman. + +"Mr. Colville!" + +The gentle surprise conveyed in the exclamation, without time for +recognition, convinced Colville, upon a cool review of the facts, that +the lady had known him before their eyes met. + +"Why, Mrs. Bowen!" he said. + +She put out her round, slender arm, and gave him a frank clasp of her +gloved hand. The glove wrinkled richly up the sleeve of her dress +half-way to her elbow. She bent on his face a demand for just what +quality and degree of change he found in hers, and apparently she +satisfied herself that his inspection was not to her disadvantage, for +she smiled brightly, and devoted the rest of her glance to an electric +summary of the facts of Colville's physiognomy; the sufficiently good +outline of his visage, with its full, rather close-cut, drabbish-brown +beard and moustache, both shaped a little by the ironical self-conscious +smile that lurked under them; the non-committal, rather weary-looking +eyes; the brown hair, slightly frosted, that showed while he stood with +his hat still off. He was a little above the middle height, and if it +must be confessed, neither his face nor his figure had quite preserved +their youthful lines. They were both much heavier than when Mrs. Bowen +saw them last, and the latter here and there swayed beyond the strict +bounds of symmetry. She was herself in that moment of life when, to the +middle-aged observer, at least, a woman's looks have a charm which is +wanting to her earlier bloom. By that time her character has wrought +itself more clearly out in her face, and her heart and mind confront you +more directly there. It is the youth of her spirit which has come to the +surface. + +"I should have known you anywhere," she exclaimed, with friendly +pleasure in seeing him. + +"You are very kind," said Colville. "I didn't know that I had preserved +my youthful beauty to that degree. But I can imagine it--if you say so, +Mrs. Bowen." + +"Oh, I assure you that you have!" she protested; and now she began +gently to pursue him with one fine question after another about himself, +till she had mastered the main facts of his history since they had last +met. He would not have known so well how to possess himself of hers, +even if he had felt the same necessity; but in fact it had happened that +he had heard of her from time to time at not very long intervals. She +had married a leading lawyer of her Western city, who in due time had +gone to Congress, and after his term was out had "taken up his +residence" in Washington, as the newspapers said, "in his elegant +mansion at the corner of & Street and Idaho Avenue." After that he +remembered reading that Mrs. Bowen was going abroad for the education of +her daughter, from which he made his own inferences concerning her +marriage. And "You knew Mr. Bowen was no longer living?" she said, with +fit obsequy of tone. + +"Yes, I knew," he answered, with decent sympathy. + +"This is my little Effie," said Mrs. Bowen after a moment; and now the +child, hitherto keeping herself discreetly in the background, came +forward and promptly gave her hand to Colville, who perceived that she +was not so small as he had thought her at first; an effect of infancy +had possibly been studied in the brevity of her skirts and the +immaturity of her corsage, but both were in good taste, and really to +the advantage of her young figure. There was reason and justice in her +being dressed as she was, for she really was not so old as she looked by +two or three years; and there was reason in Mrs. Bowen's carrying in the +hollow of her left arm the India shawl sacque she had taken off and hung +there; the deep cherry silk lining gave life to the sombre tints +prevailing in her dress, which its removal left free to express all the +grace of her extremely lady-like person. Lady-like was the word for Mrs. +Bowen throughout--for the turn of her head, the management of her arm +from the elbow, the curve of her hand from wrist to finger-tips, the +smile, subdued, but sufficiently sweet, playing about her little mouth, +which was yet not too little, and the refined and indefinite perfume +which exhaled from the ensemble of her silks, her laces, and her gloves, +like an odorous version of that otherwise impalpable quality which women +call style. She had, with all her flexibility, a certain charming +stiffness, like the stiffness of a very tall feather. + +"And have you been here a great while?" she asked, turning her head +slowly toward Colville, and looking at him with a little difficulty she +had in raising her eyelids; when she was younger the glance that shyly +stole from under the covert of their lashes was like a gleam of +sunshine, and it was still like a gleam of paler sunshine. + +Colville, whose mood was very susceptible to the weather, brightened in +the ray. "I only arrived last night," he said, with a smile. + +"How glad you must be to get back! Did you ever see Florence more +beautiful than it was this morning?" + +"Not for years," said Colville, with another smile for her pretty +enthusiasm. "Not for seventeen years at the least calculation." + +"Is it so many?" cried Mrs. Bowen, with lovely dismay. "Yes, it is," she +sighed, and she did not speak for an appreciable interval. + +He knew that she was thinking of that old love affair of his, to which +she was privy in some degree, though he never could tell how much; and +when she spoke he perceived that she purposely avoided speaking of a +certain person, whom a woman of more tact or of less would have insisted +upon naming at once. "I never can believe in the lapse of time when I +get back to Italy; it always makes me feel as young as when I left it +last." + +"I could imagine you'd never left it," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen reflected a moment. "Is that a compliment?" + +"I had an obscure intention of saying something fine; but I don't think +I've quite made it out," he owned. + +Mrs. Bowen gave her small, sweet smile. "It was very nice of you to try. +But I haven't really been away for some time; I've taken a house in +Florence, and I've been here two years. Palazzo Pinti, Lung' Arno della +Zecca. You must come and see me. Thursdays from four till six." + +"Thank you," said Colville. + +"I'm afraid," said Mrs. Bowen, remotely preparing to offer her hand in +adieu, "that Effie and I broke in upon some very important cogitations +of yours." She shifted the silken burden off her arm a little, and the +child stirred from the correct pose she had been keeping, and smiled +politely. + +"I don't think they deserve a real dictionary word like that," said +Colville. "I was simply mooning. If there was anything definite in my +mind, I was wishing that I was looking down on the Wabash in Dos Vaches, +instead of the Arno in Florence." + +"Oh! And I supposed you must be indulging all sorts of historical +associations with the place. Effie and I have been walking through the +Via de' Bardi, where Romola lived, and I was bringing her back over the +Ponte Vecchio, so as to impress the origin of Florence on her mind." + +"Is that what makes Miss Effie hate it?" asked Colville, looking at the +child, whose youthful resemblance to her mother was in all things so +perfect that a fantastic question whether she could ever have had any +other parent swept through him. Certainly, if Mrs. Bowen were to marry +again, there was nothing in this child's looks to suggest the idea of a +predecessor to the second husband. + +"Effie doesn't hate any sort of useful knowledge," said her mother half +jestingly. "She's just come to me from school at Vevay." + +"Oh, then, I think she might," persisted Colville. "Don't you hate the +origin of Florence a little?" he asked of the child. + +"I don't know enough about it," she answered, with a quick look of +question at her mother, and checking herself in a possibly indiscreet +smile. + +"Ah, that accounts for it," said Colville, and he laughed. It amused him +to see the child referring even this point of propriety to her mother, +and his thoughts idled off to what Mrs. Bowen's own untrammelled +girlhood must have been in her Western city. For her daughter there were +to be no buggy rides, or concerts, or dances at the invitation of young +men; no picnics, free and unchaperoned as the casing air; no sitting on +the steps at dusk with callers who never dreamed of asking for her +mother; no lingering at the gate with her youthful escort home from the +ball--nothing of that wild, sweet liberty which once made American +girlhood a long rapture. But would she be any the better for her +privations, for referring not only every point of conduct, but every +thought and feeling, to her mother? He suppressed a sigh for the +inevitable change, but rejoiced that his own youth had fallen in the +earlier time, and said, "You will hate it as soon as you've read a +little of it." + +"The difficulty is to read a little of Florentine history. I can't find +anything in less than ten or twelve volumes," said Mrs. Bowen. "Effie +and I were going to Viesseux's Library again, in desperation, to see if +there wasn't something shorter in French." + +She now offered Colville her hand, and he found himself very reluctant +to let it go. Something in her looks did not forbid him, and when she +took her hand away, he said, "Let me go to Viesseux's with you, Mrs. +Bowen, and give you the advantage of my unprejudiced ignorance in the +choice of a book on Florence." + +"Oh, I was longing to ask you!" said Mrs. Bowen frankly. "It is really +such a serious matter, especially when the book is for a young person. +Unless it's very dry, it's so apt to be--objectionable," + +"Yes," said Colville, with a smile at her perplexity. He moved off down +the slope of the bridge with her, between the jewellers' shops, and felt +a singular satisfaction in her company. Women of fashion always +interested him; he liked them; it diverted him that they should take +themselves seriously. Their resolution, their suffering for their ideal, +such as it was, their energy in dressing and adorning themselves, the +pains they were at to achieve the trivialities they passed their lives +in, were perpetually delightful to him. He often found them people of +great simplicity, and sometimes of singularly good sense; their frequent +vein of piety was delicious. + +Ten minutes earlier he would have said that nothing could have been less +welcome to him than this encounter, but now he felt unwilling to leave +Mrs. Bowen. + +"Go before, Effie," she said; and she added, to Colville, "How very +Florentine all this is! If you dropped from the clouds on this spot +without previous warning, you would know that you were on the Ponte +Vecchio, and nowhere else." + +"Yes, it's very Florentine," Colville assented. "The bridge is very well +as a bridge, but as a street I prefer the Main Street Bridge at Des +Vaches. I was looking at the jewellery before you came up, and I don't +think it's pretty, even the old pieces of peasant jewellery. Why do +people come here to look at it? If you were going to buy something for a +friend, would you dream of coming here for it?" + +"Oh _no_!" replied Mrs. Bowen, with the deepest feeling. + +They quitted the bridge, and turning to the left, moved down the street +which with difficulty finds space between the parapet of the river and +the shops of the mosaicists and dealers in statuary cramping it on the +other hand. + +"Here's something distinctively Florentine too," said Colville. "These +table-tops, and paper-weights, and caskets, and photograph frames, and +lockets, and breast-pins; and here, this ghostly glare of undersized +Psyches and Hebes and Graces in alabaster." + +"Oh, you mustn't think of any of them!" Mrs. Bowen broke in with horror. +"If your friend wishes you to get her something characteristically +Florentine, and at the same time very tasteful, you must go--" + +Colville gave a melancholy laugh. "My friend is an abstraction, Mrs. +Bowen, without sex or any sort of entity." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Bowen. Some fine drops had begun to sprinkle the +pavement. "What a ridiculous blunder! It's raining! Effie, I'm afraid we +must give up your book for to-day. We're not dressed for damp weather, +and we'd better hurry home as soon as possible." She got promptly into +the shelter of a doorway, and gathered her daughter to her, while she +flung her sacque over her shoulder and caught her draperies from the +ground for the next movement. "Mr. Colville, will you please stop the +first closed carriage that comes in sight?" + +A figure of _primo tenore_ had witnessed the manoeuvre from the box of +his cab; he held up his whip, and at a nod from Colville he drove +abreast of the doorway, his broken-kneed, tremulous little horse gay in +brass-mounted harness, and with a stiff turkey feather stuck upright at +one ear in his head-stall. + +Mrs. Bowen had no more scruple than another woman in stopping travel and +traffic in a public street for her convenience. She now entered into a +brisk parting conversation with Colville, such as ladies love, blocking +the narrow sidewalk with herself, her daughter, and her open carriage +door, and making people walk round her cab, in the road, which they did +meekly enough, with the Florentine submissiveness to the pretensions of +any sort of vehicle. She said a dozen important things that seemed to +have just come into her head, and, "Why, how stupid I am!" she called +out, making Colville check the driver in his first start, after she had +got into the cab. "We are to have a few people tonight. If you have no +engagement, I should be so glad to have you come. Can't you?" + +"Yes, I can," said Colville, admiring the whole transaction and the +parties to it with a passive smile. + +After finding her pocket, she found that her card-case was not in it, +but in the purse she had given Effie to carry; but she got her address +at last, and gave it to Colville, though he said he should remember it +without. "Any time between nine and eleven," she said. "It's so nice of +you to promise!" + +She questioned him from under her half-lifted eyelids, and he added, +with a laugh, "I'll come!" and was rewarded with two pretty smiles, just +alike, from mother and daughter, as they drove away. + + + + + + +III + + +Twenty years earlier, when Mrs. Bowen was Miss Lina Ridgely, she used to +be the friend and confidante of the girl who jilted Colville. They were +then both so young that they could scarcely have been a year out of +school before they left home for the year they were spending in Europe; +but to the young man's inexperience they seemed the wisest and maturest +of society women. His heart quaked in his breast when he saw them +talking and laughing together, for fear they should be talking and +laughing about him; he was even a little more afraid of Miss Ridgely +than of her friend, who was dashing and effective, where Miss Ridgely +was serene and elegant, according to his feeling at that time; but he +never saw her after his rejection, and it was not till he read of her +marriage with the Hon. Mr. Bowen that certain vague impressions began to +define themselves. He then remembered that Lina Ridgely in many fine +little ways had shown a kindness, almost a compassion, for him, as for +one whose unconsciousness a hopeless doom impended over. He perceived +that she had always seemed to like him--a thing that had not occurred to +him in the stupid absorption of his passion for the other--and fragments +of proof that she had probably defended and advocated him occurred to +him, and inspired a vain and retrospective gratitude; he abandoned +himself to regrets, which were proper enough in regard to Miss Ridgely, +but were certainly a little unlawful concerning Mrs. Bowen. + +As he walked away toward his hotel he amused himself with the conjecture +whether he, with his forty-one years and his hundred and eighty five +pounds, were not still a pathetic and even a romantic figure to this +pretty and kindly woman, who probably imagined him as heart-broken as +ever. He was very willing to see more of her, if she wished; but with +the rain beginning to fall more thick and chill in the darkening street, +he could have postponed their next meeting till a pleasanter evening +without great self-denial. He felt a little twinge of rheumatism in his +shoulder when he got into his room, for your room in a Florentine hotel +is always some degrees colder than outdoors, unless you have fire in it; +and with the sun shining on his windows when he went out after lunch, it +had seemed to Colville ridiculous to have his morning fire kept up. The +sun was what he had taken the room for. It was in it, the landlord +assured him, from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; and so, +in fact, it was, when it shone; but even then it was not fully in it, +but had a trick of looking in at the sides of the window, and painting +the chamber wall with a delusive glow. Colville raked away the ashes of +his fire-place, and throwing on two or three fagots of broom and pine +sprays, he had a blaze that would be very pretty to dress by after +dinner, but that gave out no warmth for the present. He left it, and +went down to the reading-room, as it was labelled over the door, in +homage to a predominance of English-speaking people among the guests; +but there was no fire there; that was kindled only by request, and he +shivered at the bare aspect of the apartment, with its cold piano, its +locked bookcases, and its table, where the London _Times_, the _Neue +Freie Presse_ of Vienna, and the _Italie_ of Rome exposed their titles, +one just beyond the margin of the other. He turned from the door and +went into the dining-room, where the stove was ostentatiously roaring +over its small logs and its lozenges of peat, But even here the fire had +been so recently lighted that the warmth was potential rather than +actual. By stooping down before the stove, and pressing his shoulder +against its brass doors, Colville managed to lull his enemy, while he +studied the figures of the woman-headed, woman-breasted hounds +developing into vines and foliage that covered the frescoed trellising +of the quadrangularly vaulted ceiling. The waiters, in their veteran +dress-coats, were putting the final touches to the table, and the sound +of voices outside the door obliged Colville to get up. The effort +involved made him still more reluctant about going out to Mrs. Bowen's. + +The door opened, and some English ladies entered, faintly acknowledging, +provisionally ignoring, his presence, and talking of what they had been +doing since lunch. They agreed that it was really too cold in the +churches for any pleasure in the pictures, and that the Pitti Gallery, +where they had those braziers, was the only place you could go with +comfort. A French lady and her husband came in; a Russian lady followed; +an Italian gentleman, an American family, and three or four detached men +of the English-speaking race, whose language at once became the law of +the table. + +As the dinner progressed from soup to fish, and from the _entree_ to the +roast and salad, the combined effect of the pleasant cheer and the +increasing earnestness of the stove made the room warmer and warmer. +They drank Chianti wine from the wicker-covered flasks, tied with tufts +of red and green silk, in which they serve table wine at Florence, and +said how pretty the bottles were, but how the wine did not seem very +good. + +"It certainly isn't so good as it used to be," said Colville. + +"Ah, then you have been in Florhence before." said the French lady, +whose English proved to be much better than the French that he began to +talk to her in. + +"Yes, a great while ago; in a state of pre-existence, in fact," he said. + +The lady looked a little puzzled, but interested. "In a state of +prhe-existence?" she repeated. + +"Yes; when I was young," he added, catching the gleam in her eye. "When +I was twenty-four. A great while ago." + +"You must be an Amerhican," said the lady, with a laugh. + +"Why do you think so? From my accent?" + +"Frhom your metaphysics too. The Amerhicans like to talk in that way." + +"I didn't know it," said Colville. + +"They like to strhike the key of personality; they can't endure not +being interhested. They must rhelate everything to themselves or to +those with whom they are talking." + +"And the French, no?" asked Colville. + +The lady laughed again. "There is a large Amerhican colony in Parhis. +Perhaps we have learned to be like you." + +The lady's husband did not speak English, and it was probably what they +had been saying that she interpreted to him, for he smiled, looking +forward to catch Colville's eye in a friendly way, and as if he would +not have him take his wife's talk too seriously. + +The Italian gentleman on Colville's right was politely offering him the +salad, which had been left for the guests to pass to one another. +Colville thanked him in Italian, and they began to talk of Italian +affairs. One thing led to another, and he found that his new friend, who +was not yet his acquaintance, was a member of Parliament, and a +republican. + +"That interests me as an American," said Colville. "But why do you want +a republic in Italy?" + +"When we have a constitutional king, why should we have a king?" asked +the Italian. + +An Englishman across the table relieved Colville from the difficulty of +answering this question by asking him another that formed talk about it +between them. He made his tacit observation that the English, since he +met them last, seemed to have grown in the grace of facile speech with +strangers; it was the American family which kept its talk within itself, +and hushed to a tone so low that no one else could hear it. Colville did +not like their mumbling; for the honour of the country, which we all +have at heart, however little we think it, he would have preferred that +they should speak up, and not seem afraid or ashamed; he thought the +English manner was better. In fact, he found himself in an unexpectedly +social mood; he joined in helping to break the ice; he laughed and +hazarded comment with those who were new-comers like himself, and was +very respectful of the opinions of people who had been longer in the +hotel, when they spoke of the cook's habit of underdoing the vegetables. +The dinner at the Hotel d'Atene made an imposing show on the _carte du +jour_; it looked like ten or twelve courses, but in fact it was five, +and even when eked out with roast chestnuts and butter into six, it +seemed somehow to stop very abruptly, though one seemed to have had +enough. You could have coffee afterward if you ordered it. Colville +ordered it, and was sorry when the last of his commensals, slightly +bowing him a good-night, left him alone to it. + +He had decided that he need not fear the damp in a cab rapidly driven to +Mrs. Bowen's. When he went to his room he had his doubts about his +dress-coat; but he put it on, and he took the crush hat with which he +had provided himself in coming through London. That was a part of the +social panoply unknown in Des Vaches; he had hardly been a dozen times +in evening dress there in fifteen years, and his suit was as new as his +hat. As he turned to the glass he thought himself personable enough, and +in fact he was one of those men who look better in evening dress than in +any other: the broad expanse of shirt bosom, with its three small studs +of gold dropping, points of light, one below the other, softened his +strong, almost harsh face, and balanced his rather large head. In his +morning coat, people had to look twice at him to make sure that he did +not look common; but now he was not wrong in thinking that he had an air +of distinction, as he took his hat under his arm and stood before the +pier-glass in his room. He was almost tempted to shave, and wear his +moustache alone, as he used to do: he had let his beard grow because he +found that under the lax social regimen at Des Vaches he neglected +shaving, and went about days at a time with his face in an offensive +stubble. Taking his chin between his fingers, and peering closer into +the mirror, he wondered how Mrs. Bowen should have known him; she must +have remembered him very vividly. He would like to take off his beard +and put on the youthfulness that comes of shaving, and see what she +would say. Perhaps, he thought, with a last glance at his toilet, he was +overdoing it, if she were only to have a few people, as she promised. He +put a thick neckerchief over his chest so as not to provoke that +abominable rheumatism by any sort of exposure, and he put on his ulster +instead of the light spring overcoat that he had gone about with all +day. + +He found that Palazzo Pinti, when you came to it, was rather a grand +affair, with a gold-banded porter eating salad in the lodge at the great +doorway, and a handsome gate of iron cutting you off from the regions +above till you had rung the bell of Mrs. Bowen's apartment, when it +swung open of itself, and you mounted. At her door a man in modified +livery received Colville, and helped him off with his overcoat so +skilfully that he did not hurt his rheumatic shoulder at all; there were +half a dozen other hats and coats on the carved chests that stood at +intervals along the wall, and some gayer wraps that exhaled a faint, +fascinating fragrance on the chilly air. Colville experienced the slight +exhilaration, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, of a man who +formally re-enters an assemblage of society after long absence from it, +and rubbing his hands a little nervously together, he put aside the +yellow Abruzzi blanket _portiere_, and let himself into the brilliant +interior. + +Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of subdued +splendour, and with her hands and fan and handkerchief tastefully +composed before her. At sight of Colville she gave a slight start, which +would have betrayed to him, if he had been another woman, that she had +not really believed he would come, and came forward with a rustle and +murmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush upon her, so +as to spare her this exertion, and he was tempted to a long-forgotten +foppishness of attitude as he stood talking with her during the brief +interval before she introduced him to any of the company. She had been +honest with him; there were not more than twenty-five or thirty people +there; but if he had overdone it in dressing for so small an affair, he +was not alone, and he was not sorry. He was sensible of a better +personal effect than the men in frock-coats and cut-aways were making, +and he perceived with self-satisfaction that his evening dress was of +better style than that of the others who wore it; at least no one else +carried a crush hat.-- + +At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville was +obscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they last met at an +evening party had been passed chiefly at New York and Washington, should +see that he was a man of the world in spite of Des Vaches. Before she +had decided which of the company she should first present him to, her +daughter came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some bread and +butter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming correctness of +manner. "Really," he said, turning about to take the cup, "I thought it +was you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got round to my side with a sash on. How do +you and Miss Effie justify yourselves in looking so bewitchingly alike?" + +"You notice it, then?" Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted. + +"I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind my having +been so personal in my observations?" + +"Oh, not at all," said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed. + +"It must be true," he said, "what a French lady said to me at the +_table-d'hote_ dinner to-night: 'the Amerhicans always strhike the note +of perhsonality.'" He neatly imitated the French lady's guttural accent. + +"I suppose we do," mused Mis. Bowen, "and that we don't mind it in each +other. I wish _you_ would say which I shall introduce you to," she said, +letting her glance stray invisibly over her company, where all the +people seemed comfortably talking. + +"Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow," said Colville. + +"Oh no; that won't do," said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has public +duties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her private pleasure to +them. But she postponed them a moment longer. "I hope you got home +before the rain," she said. + +"Yes," returned Colville. "That is, I don't mind a little sprinkling. +Who is the Junonian young person at the end of the room?" + +"Ah," said Mrs. Bowen, "you can't be introduced to _her_ first. But +_isn't_ she lovely?" + +"Yes. It's a wonderful effect of white and gold." + +"You mustn't say that to her. She was doubtful about her dress, because +she says that the ivory white with her hair makes her look just like +white and gold furniture." + +"Present me at once, then, before I forget not to say it to her." + +"No; I must keep you for some other person: anybody can talk to a pretty +girl." + +Colville said he did not know whether to smile or shed tears at this +embittered compliment, and pretended an eagerness for the acquaintance +denied him. + +Mrs. Bowen seemed disposed to intensify his misery. "Did you ever see a +more statuesque creature--with those superb broad shoulders and that +little head, and that thick braid brought round over the top? Doesn't +her face, with that calm look in those starry eyes, and that peculiar +fall of the corners of the mouth, remind you of some of those exquisite +great Du Maurier women? That style of face is very fashionable now: you +might think he had made it so." + +"Is there a fashion in faces?" asked Colville. + +"Why, certainly. You must know that." + +"Then why aren't all the ladies in the fashion?" + +"It isn't one that can be put on. Besides, every one hasn't got Imogene +Graham's figure to carry it off." + +"That's her name, then--Imogene Graham. It's a very pretty name." + +"Yes. She's staying with me for the winter. Now that's all I can allow +you to know for the present. Come! You must!" + +"But this is worse than nothing." He made a feint of protesting as she +led him away, and named him to the lady she wished him to know. But he +was not really sorry; he had his modest misgivings whether he were equal +to quite so much young lady as Miss Graham seemed. When he no longer +looked at her he had a whimsical impression of her being a heroic statue +of herself. + +The lady whom Mrs. Bowen left him with had not much to say, and she made +haste to introduce her husband, who had a great deal to say. He was an +Italian, but master of that very efficient English which the Italians +get together with unimaginable sufferings from our orthography, and +Colville repeated the republican deputy's saying about a constitutional +king, which he had begun to think was neat. + +"I might prefer a republic myself," said the Italian, "but I think that +gentleman is wrong to be a republican where he is, and for the present. +The monarchy is the condition of our unity; nothing else could hold us +together, and we must remain united if we are to exist as a nation. It's +a necessity, like our army of half a million men. We may not like it in +itself, but we know that it is our salvation." He began to speak of the +economic state of Italy, of the immense cost of freedom and independence +to a people whose political genius enables them to bear quietly burdens +of taxation that no other government would venture to impose. He spoke +with that fond, that appealing patriotism, which expresses so much to +the sympathetic foreigner in Italy: the sense of great and painful +uncertainty of Italy's future through the complications of diplomacy, +the memory of her sufferings in the past, the spirit of quiet and +inexhaustible patience for trials to come. This resolution, which is +almost resignation, poetises the attitude of the whole people; it made +Colville feel as if he had done nothing and borne nothing yet. + +"I am ashamed," he said, not without a remote resentment of the +unworthiness of the republican voters of Des Vaches, "when I hear of +such things, to think of what we are at home, with all our resources and +opportunities." + +The Italian would have politely excused us to him, but Colville would +have no palliation of our political and moral nakedness; and he framed a +continuation of the letter he began on the Ponte Vecchio to the +_Post-Democrat-Republican_, in which he made a bitterly ironical +comparison of the achievements of Italy and America in the last ten +years. + +He forgot about Miss Graham, and had only a vague sense of her splendour +as he caught sight of her in the long mirror which she stood before. She +was talking to a very handsome young clergyman, and smiling upon him. +The company seemed to be mostly Americans, but there were a good many +evident English also, and Colville was dimly aware of a question in his +mind whether this clergyman was English or American. There were three or +four Italians and there were some Germans, who spoke English. + +Colville moved about from group to group as his enlarging acquaintance +led, and found himself more interested in society than he could ever +have dreamed of being again. It was certainly a defect of the life at +Des Vaches that people, after the dancing and love-making period, went +out rarely or never. He began to see that the time he had spent so +busily in that enterprising city had certainly been in some sense +wasted. + +At a certain moment in the evening, which perhaps marked its +advancement, the tea-urn was replaced by a jug of the rum punch, mild or +strong according to the custom of the house, which is served at most +Florentine receptions. Some of the people went immediately after, but +the young clergyman remained talking with Miss Graham. + +Colville, with his smoking glass in his hand, found himself at the side +of a friendly old gentleman who had refused the punch. They joined in +talk by a common impulse, and the old gentleman said, directly, "You are +an American, I presume?" + +His accent had already established the fact of his own nationality, but +he seemed to think it the part of candour to say, when Colville had +acknowledged his origin, "I'm an American myself." + +"I've met several of our countrymen since I arrived," suggested +Colville. + +The old gentleman seemed to like this way of putting it. "Well, yes, +we're not unfairly represented here in numbers, I must confess. But I'm +bound to say that I don't find our countrymen so aggressive, so loud, as +our international novelists would make out. I haven't met any of their +peculiar heroines as yet, sir." + +Colville could not help laughing. "I wish _I_ had. But perhaps they +avoid people of our years and discretion, or else take such a filial +attitude toward us that we can't recognise them." + +"Perhaps, perhaps," cried the old gentleman, with cheerful assent. + +"I was talking with one of our German friends here just now, and he +complained that the American girls--especially the rich ones--seem very +calculating and worldly and conventional. I told him I didn't know how +to account for that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennobling +influences of society in Newport, as I've had glimpses of it." + +The old gentleman caressed his elbows, which he was holding in the palms +of his hands, in high enjoyment of Colville's sarcasm. "Ah! very good! +very good!" he said. "I quite agree with you, and I think the other sort +are altogether preferable." + +"I think," continued Colville, dropping his ironical tone, "that we've +much less to regret in their unsuspecting, unsophisticated freedom than +in the type of hard materialism which we produce in young girls, +perfectly wide awake, disenchanted, unromantic, who prefer the worldly +vanities and advantages deliberately and on principle, recognising +something better merely to despise it. I've sometimes seen them----" + +Mrs. Bowen came up in her gentle, inquiring way. "I'm glad that you and +Mr. Colville have made acquaintance," she said to the old gentleman. + +"Oh, but we haven't," said Colville. "We're entire strangers." + +"Then I'll introduce you to Rev. Mr. Waters. And take you away," she +added, putting her hand through Colville's arm with a delicate touch +that flattered his whole being, "for your time's come at last, and I'm +going to present you to Miss Graham." + +"I don't know," he said. "Of course, as there is a Miss Graham, I can't +help being presented to her, but I had almost worked myself up to the +point of wishing there were none. I believe I'm afraid." + +"Oh, I don't believe that at all. A simple schoolgirl like that!" Mrs. +Bowen's sense of humour had not the national acuteness. She liked joking +in men, but she did not know how to say funny things back "You'll see, +as you come up to her." + + + + + + +IV + + +Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer perspective. She +ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville lifted his eyes from bowing +before her he perceived that she--was neither so very tall nor so very +large, but possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood. But she +was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance of look that +was very winning. If she had ceased to be the goddess she looked across +the length of the _salon_, she had gained much by becoming an extremely +lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating +little irregularity that gave her the last charm. + +Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie remained at +Miss Graham's side, and seemed to have hold of the left hand which the +girl let hang carelessly behind her in the volume of her robe. The +child's face expressed an adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her +allegiance to her mother. + +"I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you at all," she +said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, which made favour for her +with Colville. "She promised it early in the evening." + +"She has used me much worse, Miss Graham," said Colville. "She has kept +me waiting from the beginning of time. So that I have grown grey on my +way up to you," he added, by an inspiration. "I was a comparatively +young man when Mrs. Bowen first told me she was going to introduce me." + +"Oh, how _good_!" said Miss Graham joyously. And her companion, after a +moment's hesitation, permitted herself a polite little titter. She had +made a discovery; she had discovered that Mr. Colville was droll. + +"I'm very glad you like it," he said, with a gravity that did not +deceive them. + +"Oh yes," sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. "Who but an American +could say just such things? There's the loveliest old lady here in +Florence, who's lived here thirty years, and she's always going back and +never getting back, and she's so homesick she doesn't know what to do, +and she always says that Americans may not be _better_ than other +people, but they are _different_." + +"That's very pretty. They're different in everything but thinking +themselves better. Their native modesty prevents that." + +"I don't exactly know what you mean," said Miss Graham, after a little +hesitation. + +"Well," returned Colville, "I haven't thought it out very clearly myself +yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from other people in not +thinking well of themselves, or they may differ from them in not +thinking well enough. But what I said had a very epigrammatic sound, and +I prefer not to investigate it too closely." + +This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in delighted +doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little nearer to +him. + +"There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ this evening +that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always strike the +key of personality." He practised these economies of material in +conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same incident or +suggestion do duty round a whole company. + +"Ah, I don't believe that," said Miss Graham. + +"Believe what?" + +"That the Americans always talk about themselves." + +"I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means by +what he says--or _she_." + +"How shocking!". + +"Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other people. +That's in the key of personality too." + +"But I don't believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, _she_ was +talking about _us_, then." + +"Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony +in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious +habit of introspection." + +"Do you think we're very introspective?" + +"Do you?" + +"I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any rate, +not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I wish I could. But +I'm always studying other people. They're so much more interesting." + +"Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so," suggested +Colville. + +"Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be +interesting." + +"Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young persons." + +"They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take an +old person for a hero--thirty-five or forty." She looked at Colville, +and blushing a little, hastened to add, "I don't believe that they begin +to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young men +are always saying! Don't you remember that passage somewhere in Heine's +_Pictures of Travel_, where he sees the hand of a lady coming out from +under her mantle, when she's confessing in a church, and he knows that +it's the hand of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered +nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I hated the +look of my hands--I was only sixteen, and it seemed as if I had had no +more experience than a child. Oh, I like people to go _through_ +something. Don't you?" + +"Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people." + +"No; but don't you like it for yourself?" + +"I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking of yet." + +Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: "Why, just +getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so long--I +should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for +the second time." + +"I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well," said Colville. "I wish I were +here for the first time. There's nothing like the first time in +everything." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence." + +"Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the old emotions +would be perfectly fascinating." + +"Yes, if they'd come when you do call them. But they're as +contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I've been shouting +around here for my old emotions all day, and I haven't had a responsive +squeak." + +"Oh!" cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. "How delightful!" +Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head and laughed, as if it +might not be quite kind to laugh at a person's joke to his face. + +Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more nonsense. +"No; the only way to get at your old emotions in regard to Florence is +to borrow them from somebody who's having them fresh. What do _you_ +think about Florence, Miss Graham?" + +"I? I've been here two months." + +"Then it's too late?" + +"No, I don't know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness all the +time. But I can't tell you. It's very different from Buffalo, I can +assure you." + +"Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it's not altogether to the +disadvantage of Buffalo." + +"Oh, have you been there?" asked Miss Graham, with a touching little +eagerness. "Do you know anybody in Buffalo?" + +"Some of the newspaper men; and I pass through there once a year on my +way to New York--or used to. It's a lively place." + +"Yes, it is," sighed Miss Graham fondly. + +"Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by the light +of the moon?" + +"What!" + +"Ah, I see," said Colville, peering at her under his thoughtfully +knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. You don't remember the old +negro minstrel song." + +"No," said Miss Graham. "I can only remember the end of the war." + +"How divinely young!" said Colville. "Well," he added, "I wish that +French lady could have overheard us, Miss Graham. I think she would have +changed her mind about Americans striking the note of personality in +their talk." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the girl reproachfully, after a moment of swift +reflection and recognition, "I don't see how you could let me do it! You +don't suppose that I should have talked so with every one? It was +because you were another American, and such an old friend of Mrs. +Bowen's." + +"That is what I shall certainly tell the French lady if she attacks me +about it," said Colville. He glanced carelessly toward the end of the +room, and saw the young clergyman taking leave of Mrs. Bowen; all the +rest of the company were gone. "Bless me!" he said, "I must be going." + +Mrs. Bowen had so swiftly advanced upon him that she caught the last +words. "Why?" she asked. + +"Because it's to-morrow, I suspect, and the invitation was for one day +only." + +"It was a season ticket," said Mrs. Bowen, with gay hospitality, "and it +isn't to-morrow for half an hour yet. I can't think of letting you go. +Come up to the fire, all, and let's sit down by it. It's at its very +best." + +Effie looked a pretty surprise and a pleasure in this girlish burst from +her mother, whose habitual serenity made it more striking in contrast, +and she forsook Miss Graham's hand and ran forward and disposed the +easy-chairs comfortably about the hearth. + +Colville and Mrs. Bowen suddenly found themselves upon those terms which +often succeed a long separation with people who have felt kindly toward +each other at a former meeting and have parted friends: they were much +more intimate than they had supposed themselves to be, or had really any +reason for being. + +"Which one of your guests do you wish me to offer up, Mrs. Bowen?" he +asked, from the hollow of the arm-chair, not too low, which he had sunk +into. With Mrs. Bowen in a higher chair at his right hand, and Miss +Graham intent upon him from the sofa on his left, a sense of delicious +satisfaction filled him from head to foot. "There isn't one I would +spare if you said the word." + +"And there isn't one I want destroyed, I'm sorry to say," answered Mrs. +Bowen. "Don't you think they were all very agreeable?" + +"Yes, yes; agreeable enough--agreeable enough, I suppose. But they +stayed too long. When I think we might have been sitting here for the +last half-hour, if they'd only gone sooner, I find it pretty hard to +forgive them." + +Mrs. Bowen and Miss Graham exchanged glances above his head--a glance +which demanded, "Didn't I tell you?" for a glance that answered, "Oh, he +_is_!" Effie Bowen's eyes widened; she kept them fastened upon Colville +in silent worship. + +He asked who were certain of the company that he had noticed, and Mrs. +Bowen let him make a little fun of them: the fun was very good-natured. +He repeated what the German had said about the worldly ambition of +American girls; but she would not allow him so great latitude in this. +She said they were no worldlier than other girls. Of course, they were +fond of society, and some of them got a little spoiled. But they were in +no danger of becoming too conventional. + +Colville did not insist. "I missed the military to-night, Mrs. Bowen," +he said. "I thought one couldn't get through an evening in Florence +without officers?" + +"We have them when there is dancing," returned Mrs. Bowen. + +"Yes, but they don't know anything but dancing," Miss Graham broke in. +"I like some one who can talk something besides compliments." + +"You are very peculiar, you know, Imogene," urged Mrs. Bowen gently. "I +don't think our young men at home do much better in conversation, if you +come to that, though." + +"Oh, _young_ men, yes! They're the same everywhere. But here, even when +they're away along in the thirties, they think that girls can only enjoy +flattery. _I_ should like a gentleman to talk to me without a single +word or look to show that he thought I was good-looking." + +"Ah, how could he he?" Colville insinuated, and the young girl coloured. + +"I mean, if I were pretty. This everlasting adulation is insulting." + +"Mr. Morton doesn't flatter," said Mrs. Bowen thoughtfully, turning the +feather screen she held at her face, now edgewise, now flatwise, toward +Colville. + +"Oh no," owned Miss Graham. "He's a clergyman." + +Mrs. Bowen addressed herself to Colville. "You must go to hear him some +day. He's very interesting, if you don't mind his being rather Low +Church." + +Colville was going to pretend to an advanced degree of ritualism; but it +occurred to him that it might be a serious matter to Mrs. Bowen, and he +asked instead who was the Rev. Mr. Waters. + +"Oh, isn't he lovely?" cried Miss Graham. "There, Mrs. Bowen! Mr. +Waters's manner is what I call _truly_ complimentary. He always talks to +you as if he expected you to be interested in serious matters, and as if +you were his intellectual equal. And he's so _happy_ here in Florence! +He gives you the impression of feeling every breath he breathes here a +privilege. You ought to hear him talk about Savonarola, Mr. Colville." + +"Well," said Colville, "I've heard a great many people talk about +Savonarola, and I'm rather glad he talked to me about American girls." + +"American girls!" uttered Miss Graham, in a little scream. "Did Mr. +Waters talk to you about _girls_?" + +"Yes. Why not? He was probably in love with one once." + +"Mr. Waters?" cried the girl. "What nonsense!" + +"Well, then, with some old lady. Would you like that better?" + +Miss Graham looked at Mrs. Bowen for permission, as it seemed, and then +laughed, but did not attempt any reply to Colville. + +"You find even that incredible of such pyramidal antiquity," he resumed. +"Well, it _is_ hard to believe. I told him what that German said, and we +agreed beautifully about another type of American girl which we said we +preferred." + +"Oh! What could it be?" demanded Miss Graham. + +"Ah, it wouldn't be so easy to say right off-hand," answered Colville +indolently. + +Mrs. Bowen put her hand under the elbow of the arm holding her screen. +"I don't believe I should agree with you so well," she said, apparently +with a sort of didactic intention. + +They entered into a discussion which is always fruitful with +Americans--the discussion of American girlhood, and Colville contended +for the old national ideal of girlish liberty as wide as the continent, +as fast as the Mississippi. Mrs. Bowen withstood him with delicate +firmness. "Oh," he said, "you're Europeanised." + +"I certainly prefer the European plan of bringing up girls," she replied +steadfastly. "I shouldn't think of letting a daughter of mine have the +freedom I had." + +"Well, perhaps it will come right in the next generation, then; she will +let her daughter have the freedom she hadn't." + +"Not if I'm alive to prevent it," cried Mrs. Bowen. + +Colville laughed. "Which plan do you prefer, Miss Graham?" + +"I don't think it's quite the same now as it used to be," answered the +girl evasively. + +"Well, then, all I can say is that if I had died before this chance, I +had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more that I'm obsolete. +I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good old times, and the new spirit of +the age flouts me. Miss Effie, do you prefer the Amer----" + +"No, thank you," said her mother quickly. + +"Effie is out of the question. It's time you were in bed, Effie." + +The child came with instant submissiveness and kissed her mother +good-night; she kissed Miss Graham, and gave her hand to Colville. He +held it a moment, letting her pull shyly away from him, while he lolled +back in his chair, and laughed at her with his sad eyes. "It's past the +time _I_ should be in bed, my dear, and I'm sitting up merely because +there's nobody to send me. It's not that I'm really such a very bad boy. +Good night. Don't put me into a disagreeable dream; put me into a nice +one." The child bridled at the mild pleasantry, and when Colville +released her hand she suddenly stooped forward and kissed him. + +"You're so _funny_!" she cried, and ran and escaped beyond the +_portiere_. + +Mrs. Bowen stared in the same direction, but not with severity. "Really, +Effie has been carried a little beyond herself." + +"Well," said Colville, "that's _one_ conquest since I came to Florence. +And merely by being funny! When I was in Florence before, Mrs. Bowen," +he continued, after a moment, "there were two ladies here, and I used to +go about quite freely with either of them. They were both very pretty, +and we were all very young. Don't you think it was charming?" Mrs. Bowen +coloured a lovely red, and smiled, but made no other response. "Florence +has changed very much for the worse since that time. There used to be a +pretty flower-girl, with a wide-flapping straw hat, who flung a heavy +bough full of roses into my lap when she met me driving across the +Carraja bridge. I spent an hour looking for that girl to-day, and +couldn't find her. The only flower-girl I could find was a fat one of +fifty, who kept me fifteen minutes in Via Tornabuoni while she was +fumbling away at my button-hole, trying to poke three second-hand +violets and a sickly daisy into it. Ah, youth! youth! I suppose a young +fellow could have found that other flower-girl at a glance; but _my_ old +eyes! No, we belong, each of us, to our own generation. Mrs. Bowen," he +said, with a touch of tragedy--whether real or affected, he did not well +know himself--in his hardiness, "what has become of Mrs. Pilsbury?" + +"Mrs. Milbury, you mean?" gasped Mrs. Bowen, in affright at his +boldness. + +"Milbury, Bilbury, Pilsbury--it's all one, so long as it isn't----" + +"They're living in Chicago!" she hastened to reply, as if she were +afraid he was going to say, "so long as it isn't Colville," and she +could not have borne that. + +Colville clasped his hands at the back of his head and looked at Mrs. +Bowen with eyes that let her know that he was perfectly aware she had +been telling Miss Graham of his youthful romance, and that he had now +touched it purposely. "And you wouldn't," he said, as if that were quite +relevant to what they had been talking about--"you wouldn't let Miss +Graham go out walking alone with a dotard like me?" + +"Certainly not," said Mrs. Bowen. + +Colville got to his feet by a surprising activity. "Good-bye, Miss +Graham." He offered his hand to her with burlesque despair, and then +turned to Mrs. Bowen. "Thank you for _such_ a pleasant evening! What was +your day, did you say?" + +"Oh, any day!" said Mrs. Bowen cordially, giving her hand. + +"Do you know whom you look like?" he asked, holding it. + +"No." + +"Lina Ridgely." + +The ladies stirred softly in their draperies after he was gone. They +turned and faced the hearth, where a log burned in a bed of hot ashes, +softly purring and ticking to itself, and whilst they stood pressing +their hands against the warm fronts of their dresses, as the fashion of +women is before a fire, the clock on the mantel began to strike twelve. + +"Was that her name?" asked Miss Graham, when the clock had had its say. +"Lina Ridgely?" + +"No; that was _my_ name," answered Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh yes!" murmured the young girl apologetically. + +"She led him on; she certainly encouraged him. It was shocking. He was +quite wild about it." + +"She must have been a cruel girl. How _could_ he speak of it so +lightly?" + +"It was best to speak of it, and have done with it," said Mrs. Bowen. +"He knew that I must have been telling you something about it." + +"Yes. How bold it was! A _young_ man couldn't have done it! Yes, he's +fascinating. But how old and sad he looked, as he lay back there in the +chair!" + +"Old? I don't think he looked old. He looked sad. Yes, it's left its +mark on him." + +The log burned quite through to its core, and fell asunder, a bristling +mass of embers. They had been looking at it with downcast heads. Now +they lifted their faces, and saw the pity in each other's eyes, and the +beautiful girl impulsively kissed the pretty woman good-night. + + + + + + +V + + +Colville fell asleep with the flattered sense which abounds in the heart +of a young man after his first successful evening in society, but which +can visit maturer life only upon some such conditions of long exile and +return as had been realised in his. The looks of these two charming +women followed him into his dreams; he knew he must have pleased them, +the dramatic homage of the child was evidence of that; and though it had +been many years since he had found it sufficient cause of happiness to +have pleased a woman, the desire to do so was by no means extinct in +him. The eyes of the girl hovered above him like stars; he felt in their +soft gaze that he was a romance to her young heart, and this made him +laugh; it also made him sigh. + +He woke at dawn with a sharp twinge in his shoulder, and he rose to give +himself the pleasure of making his own fire with those fagots of broom +and pine twigs which he had enjoyed the night before, promising himself +to get back into bed when the fire was well going, and sleep late. While +he stood before the open stove, the jangling of a small bell outside +called him to the window, and he saw a procession which had just issued +from the church going to administer the extreme unction to some dying +person across the piazza. The parish priest went first, bearing the +consecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding a +yellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of +_facchini_ in white robes and white hoods that hid their faces; their +tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning light; the bell +jangled dismally. + +"They even die dramatically in this country," thought Colville, in whom +the artist was taken with the effectiveness of the spectacle before his +human pity was stirred for the poor soul who was passing. He reproached +himself for that, and instead of getting back to bed, he dressed and +waited for the mature hour which he had ordered his breakfast for. When +it came at last, picturesquely borne on the open hand of Giovanni, +steaming coffee, hot milk, sweet butter in delicate disks, and two white +eggs coyly tucked in the fold of a napkin, and all grouped upon the wide +salver, it brought him a measure of the consolation which good cheer +imparts to the ridiculous human heart even in the house where death is. +But the sad incident tempered his mind with a sort of pensiveness that +lasted throughout the morning, and quite till lunch. He spent the time +in going about the churches; but the sunshine which the day began with +was overcast, as it was the day before, and the churches were rather too +dark and cold in the afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room and +looked over the English papers, which he did not care for much; and he +also made a diligent search of the catalogue for some book about +Florence for little Effie Bowen: he thought he would like to surprise +her mother with his interest in the matter. As the day waned toward +dark, he felt more and more tempted to take her at her word, when she +had said that any day was her day to him, and go to see her. If he had +been a younger man he would have anxiously considered this indulgence +and denied himself, but after forty a man denies himself no reasonable +and harmless indulgence; he has learned by that time that it is a pity +and a folly to do so. + +Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and departing +visitors, and then he remembered that it was this day she had named to +him on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss Graham thanked him for coming +his first Thursday, he made a merit of not having forgotten it, and said +he was going to come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham drew +him a cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in some +Florentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and Colville +smiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen urn with a +flower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore an aesthetic dress of +creamy camel's-hair, whose colour pleased the eye as its softness would +have flattered the touch. + +"What a very Tourgueneffish effect the samovar gives!" he said, taking a +biscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought him, shrinking with +redoubled shyness from the eyebrows which he arched at her. "I wonder +you can keep from calling me Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your mother, +Effie Bowenovna?" he asked of the child, with a temptation to say +Imogene Grahamovna. + +They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, "I'm sorry to say you +won't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad headache, and has left +Effie and me to receive. We feel very incompetent, but she says it will +do us good." + +There were some people there of the night before, and Colville had to +talk to them. One of the ladies asked him if he had met the Inglehart +boys as he came in. + +"The Inglehart boys? No. What are the Inglehart boys?" + +"They were here all last winter, and they've just got back. It's rather +exciting for Florence." She gave him a rapid sketch of that interesting +exodus of a score of young painters from the art school at Munich, under +the head of the singular and fascinating genius by whose name they +became known. "They had their own school for a while in Munich, and then +they all came down into Italy in a body. They had their studio things +with them, and they travelled third class, and they made the greatest +excitement everywhere, and had the greatest fun. They were a great +sensation in Florence. They went everywhere, and were such favourites. I +hope they are going to stay." + +"I hope so too," said Colville. "I should like to see them." + +"Dear me!" said the lady, with a glance at the clock. "It's five! I must +be going." + +The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, but Miss +Graham detained him. + +"What is Tourgueneffish?" she demanded. + +"The quality of the great Russian novelist, Tourgueneff," said Colville, +perceiving that she had not heard of him. + +"Oh!" + +"You ought to read him. The samovar sends up its agreeable odour all +through his books. Read _Lisa_ if you want your heart really broken. + +"I'm glad you approve of heart-breaks in books. So many people won't +read anything but cheerful books. It's the only quarrel I have with Mrs. +Bowen. She says there are so many sad things in life that they ought to +be kept out of books." + +"Ah, there I perceive a divided duty," said Colville. "I should like to +agree with both of you. But if Mrs. Bowen were here I should remind her +that if there are so many sad things in life that is a very good reason +for putting them in books too." + +"Of course I shall tell her what you said." + +"Why, I don't object to a certain degree of cheerfulness in books; only +don't carry it too far--that's all." + +This made the young girl laugh, and Colville was encouraged to go on. He +told her of the sight he had seen from his window at daybreak, and he +depicted it all very graphically, and made her feel its pathos perhaps +more keenly than he had felt it. "Now, that little incident kept with me +all day, tempering my boisterous joy in the Giottos, and reducing me to +a decent composure in the presence of the Cimabues; and it's pretty hard +to keep from laughing at some of them, don't you think?" + +The young people perceived that he was making fun again; but he +continued with an air of greater seriousness. "Don't you see what a very +good thing that was to begin one's day with? Why, even in Santa Croce, +with the thermometer ten degrees below zero in the shade of Alfieri's +monument, I was no gayer than I should have been in a church at home. I +suppose Mrs. Bowen would object to having that procession go by under +one's window in a book; but I can't really see how it would hurt the +reader, or damp his spirits permanently. A wholesome reaction would +ensue, such as you see now in me, whom the thing happened to in real +life." + +He stirred his tea, and shook with an inward laugh as he carried it to +his lips. + +"Yes," said Miss Graham thoughtfully, and she looked at him searchingly +in the interval of silence that ensued. But she only added, "I wish it +would get warmer in the churches. I've seen hardly anything of them +yet." + +"From the way I felt in them to-day," sighed Colville, "I should think +the churches would begin to thaw out about the middle of May. But if one +goes well wrapped up in furs, and has a friend along to rouse him and +keep him walking when he is about to fall into that lethargy which +precedes death by freezing, I think they may be visited even now with +safety. Have you been in Santa Maria Novella yet?" + +"No," said Miss Graham, with a shake of the head that expressed her +resolution to speak the whole truth if she died for it, "not even in +Santa Maria Novella." + +"What a wonderful old place it is! That curious facade, with the dials +and its layers of black and white marble soaked golden-red in a hundred +thousand sunsets! That exquisite grand portal!" He gesticulated with the +hand that the tea-cup left free, to suggest form and measurement as +artists do. "Then the inside! The great Cimabue, with all that famous +history on its back--the first divine Madonna by the first divine +master, carried through the streets in a triumph of art and religion! +Those frescoes of Ghirlandajo's with real Florentine faces and figures +in them, and all lavished upon the eternal twilight of that choir--but I +suppose that if the full day were let in on them, once, they would +vanish like ghosts at cock-crow! You must be sure to see the Spanish +chapel; and the old cloister itself is such a pathetic place. There's a +boys' school, as well as a military college, in the suppressed convent +now, and the colonnades were full of boys running and screaming and +laughing and making a joyful racket; it was so much more sorrowful than +silence would have been there. One of the little scamps came up to me, +and the young monk that was showing me round, and bobbed us a mocking +bow and bobbed his hat off; then they all burst out laughing again and +raced away, and the monk looked after them and said, so sweetly and +wearily, 'They're at their diversions: we must have patience.' There are +only twelve monks left there; all the rest are scattered and gone." He +gave his cup to Miss Graham for more tea. + +"Don't you think," she asked, drawing it from the samovar, "that it is +very sad having the convents suppressed?" + +"It was very sad having slavery abolished--for some people," suggested +Colville; he felt the unfairness of the point he had made. + +"Yes," sighed Miss Graham. + +Colville stood stirring his second cup of tea, when the _portiere_ +parted, and showed Mrs. Bowen wistfully pausing on the threshold. Her +face was pale, but she looked extremely pretty there. + +"Ah, come in, Mrs. Bowen!" he called gaily to her. "I won't give you +away to the other people. A cup of tea will do you good." + +"Oh, I'm a great deal better," said Mrs. Bowen, coming forward to give +him her hand. "I heard your voice, and I couldn't resist looking in." + +"That was very kind of you," said Colville gratefully: and her eyes met +his in a glance that flushed her face a deep red. "You find me here--_I_ +don't know why!--in my character of old family friend, doing my best to +make life a burden to the young ladies." + +"I wish you would stay to a family dinner with us," said Mrs. Bowen, and +Miss Graham brightened in cordial support of the hospitality. "Why can't +you?" + +"I don't know, unless it's because I'm a humane person, and have some +consideration for your headache." + +"Oh, that's all gone," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was one of those convenient +headaches--if you ever had them, you'd know--that go off at sunset." + +"But you'd have another to-morrow." + +"No, I'm safe for a whole fortnight from another." + +"Then you leave me without an excuse, and I was just wishing I had +none," said Colville. + +After dinner Mrs. Bowen sent Effie to bed early to make up for the late +hours of the night before, but she sat before the fire with Miss Graham +rather late, talking Colville over, when he was gone. + +"He's very puzzling to me," said Miss Graham. "Sometimes you think he's +nothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then something so sweet and +fresh comes out that you don't know what to do. Don't you think he has +really a very poetical mind, and that he's putting all the rest on?" + +"I think he likes to make little effects," said Mrs. Bowen judiciously. +"He always did, rather." + +"Why, was he like this when he was young?" + +"I don't consider him very old now." + +"No, of course not. I meant when you knew him before." Miss Graham had +some needlework in her hand; Mrs. Bowen, who never even pretended to +work at that kind of thing, had nothing in hers but the feather screen. + +"He is old, compared with you, Imogene; but you'll find, as you live +along, that your contemporaries are always young. Mr. Colville is very +much improved. He used to be painfully shy, but he put on a bold front, +and now the bold front seems to have become a second nature with him." + +"I like it," said Miss Graham, to her needle. + +"Yes; but I suspect he's still shy, at heart. He used to be very +sentimental, and was always talking Ruskin. I think if he hadn't talked +Ruskin so much, Jenny Milbury might have treated him better. It was very +priggish in him." + +"Oh, I can't imagine Mr. Colville's being priggish!" + +"He's very much improved. He used to be quite a sloven in his dress; you +know how very slovenly most American gentlemen are in their dress, at +any rate. I think that influenced her against him too." + +"He isn't slovenly now," suggested Miss Graham. + +"Oh no; he's quite swell," said Mrs. Bowen, depriving the adjective of +slanginess by the refinement of her tone. + +"Well," said Miss Graham, "I don't see how you could have endured her +after that. It was atrocious." + +"It was better for her to break with him, if she found out she didn't +love him, than to marry him. That," said Mrs. Bowen, with a depth of +feeling uncommon for her, "would have been a thousand times worse." + +"Yes, but she ought to have found out before she led him on so far." + +"Sometimes girls can't. They don't know themselves; they think they're +in love when they're not. She was very impulsive, and of course she was +flattered by it; he was so intellectual. But at last she found that she +couldn't bear it, and she had to tell him so." + +"Did she ever say why she didn't love him?" + +"No; I don't suppose she could. The only thing I remember her saying was +that he was 'too much of a mixture.'" + +"What _did_ she mean by that?" + +"I don't know exactly." + +"Do you think he's insincere?" + +"Oh no. Perhaps she meant that he wasn't single-minded." + +"Fickle?" + +"No. He certainly wasn't that in her case." + +"Undecided?" + +"He was decided enough with her--at last." + +Imogene dropped the hopeless quest, "How can a man ever stand such a +thing?" she sighed. + +"He stood it very nobly. That was the best thing about it; he took it in +the most delicate way. She showed me his letter. There wasn't a word or +a hint of reproach in it; he seemed to be anxious about nothing but her +feeling badly for him. Of course he couldn't help showing that he was +mortified for having pursued her with attentions that were disagreeable +to her; but that was delicate too. Yes, it was a very large-minded +letter," + +"It was shocking in her to show it." + +"It wasn't very nice. But it was a letter that any girl might have been +proud to show." + +"Oh, she _couldn't_ have done it to gratify her vanity!" + +"Girls are very queer, my dear," said Mrs. Bowen, as if the fact were an +abstraction. She mused upon the flat of her screen, while Miss Graham +plied her needle in silence. + +The latter spoke first. "Do you think he was very much broken by it?" + +"You never can tell. He went out west then, and there he has stayed ever +since. I suppose his life would have been very different if nothing of +the kind had happened. He had a great deal of talent. I always thought I +should hear of him in some way." + +"Well, it was a heartless, shameless thing! I don't see how you can +speak of it so leniently as you do, Mrs. Bowen. It makes all sorts of +coquetry and flirtation more detestable to me than ever. Why, it has +ruined his life!" + +"Oh, he was young enough then to outlive it. After all, they were a boy +and girl." + +"A boy and girl! How old were they?" + +"He must have been twenty-three or four, and she was twenty." + +"My age! Do you call that being a girl?" + +"She was old enough to know what she was about," said Mrs. Bowen justly. + +Imogene fell back in her chair, drawing out her needle the full length +of its thread, and then letting her hand fall. "I don't know. It seems +as if I never should be grown up, or anything but a child. Yes, when I +think of the way young men talk, they do seem boys. Why can't they talk +like Mr. Colville? I wish I could talk like him. It makes you forget how +old and plain he is." + +She remained with her eyelids dropped in an absent survey of her sewing, +while Mrs. Bowen regarded her with a look of vexation, impatience, +resentment, on the last refinement of these emotions, which she banished +from her face before Miss Graham looked up and said, with a smile "How +funny it is to see Effie's infatuation with him! She can't take her eyes +off him for a moment, and she follows him round the room so as not to +lose a word he is saying. It was heroic of her to go to bed without a +murmur before he left to-night." + +"Yes, she sees that he is good," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh, she sees that he's something very much more. Mr. Waters is good." + +Miss Graham had the best of the argument, and so Mrs. Bowen did not +reply. + +"I feel," continued the young girl, "as if it were almost a shame to +have asked him to go to that silly dancing party with us. It seems as if +we didn't appreciate him. I think we ought to have kept him for high +aesthetic occasions and historical researches." + +"Oh, I don't think Mr. Colville was very deeply offended at being asked +to go with us." + +"No," said Imogene, with another sigh, "he didn't seem so. I suppose +there's always an undercurrent of sadness--of tragedy--in everything for +him." + +"I don't suppose anything of the kind," cried Mrs. Bowen gaily. "He's +had time enough to get over it." + +"Do people _ever_ get over such things?" + +"Yes--men." + +"It must be because he was young, as you say. But if it had happened +_now_?" + +"Oh, it _couldn't_ happen now. He's altogether too cool and +calculating." + +"Do you think he's cool and calculating?" + +"No. He's too old for a broken heart--a new one." + +"Mrs. Bowen," demanded the girl solemnly, "could _you_ forgive yourself +for such a thing if you had done it?" + +"Yes, perfectly well, if I wasn't in love with him." + +"But if you'd made him _think_ you were?" pursued the girl breathlessly. + +"If I were a flirt--yes." + +"_I_ couldn't," said Imogene, with tragic depth. + +"Oh, be done with your intensities, and go to bed, Imogene," said Mrs. +Bowen, giving her a playful push. + + + + + + +VI + + +It was so long since Colville had been at a dancing party that Mrs. +Bowen's offer to take him to Madame Uccelli's had first struck his sense +of the ludicrous. Then it had begun to flatter him; it implied that he +was still young enough to dance if he would, though he had stipulated +that they were not to expect anything of the kind from him. He liked +also the notion of being seen and accepted in Florentine society as the +old friend of Mrs. Bowen's, for he had not been long in discovering that +her position in Florence was, among the foreign residents, rather +authoritative. She was one of the very few Americans who were asked to +Italian houses, and Italian houses lying even beyond the neutral ground +of English-speaking intermarriages. She was not, of course, asked to the +great Princess Strozzi ball, where the Florentine nobility appeared in +the mediaeval pomp--the veritable costumes--of their ancestors; only a +rich American banking family went, and their distinction was spoken of +under the breath; but any glory short of this was within Mrs. Bowen's +reach. So an old lady who possessed herself of Colville the night before +had told him, celebrating Mrs. Bowen at length, and boasting of her +acceptance among the best English residents, who, next after the +natives, seem to constitute the social ambition of Americans living in +Italian cities. + +It interested him to find that some geographical distinctions which are +fading at home had quite disappeared in Florence. When he was there +before, people from quite small towns in the East had made pretty Lina +Ridgely and her friend feel the disadvantage of having come from the +Western side of an imaginary line; he had himself been at the pains +always to let people know, at the American watering-places where he +spent his vacations, that though presently from Des Vaches, Indiana, he +was really born in Rhode Island; but in Florence it was not at all +necessary. He found in Mrs. Bowen's house people from Denver, Chicago, +St. Louis, Boston, New York, and Baltimore, all meeting as of apparently +the same civilisation, and whether Mrs. Bowen's own origin was, like +that of the Etruscan cities, lost in the mists of antiquity, or whether +she had sufficiently atoned for the error of her birth by subsequent +residence in the national capital and prolonged sojourn in New York, it +seemed certainly not to be remembered against her among her Eastern +acquaintance. The time had been when the fact that Miss Graham came from +Buffalo would have gone far to class her with the animal from which her +native city had taken its name; but now it made no difference, unless it +was a difference in her favour. The English spoke with the same vague +respect of Buffalo and of Philadelphia; and to a family of real +Bostonians Colville had the courage to say simply that he lived in Des +Vaches, and not to seek to palliate the truth in any sort. If he wished +to prevaricate at all, it was rather to attribute himself to Mrs. +Bowen's city in Ohio. + +She and Miss Graham called for him with her carriage the next night, +when it was time to go to Madame Uccelli's. + +"This gives me a very patronised and effeminate feeling," said Colville, +getting into the odorous dark of the carriage, and settling himself upon +the front seat with a skill inspired by his anxiety not to tear any of +the silken spreading white wraps that inundated the whole interior. +"Being come for by ladies!" They both gave some nervous joyful laughs, +as they found his hand in the obscurity, and left the sense of a gloved +pressure upon it. "Is this the way you used to do in Vesprucius, Mrs. +Bowen?" + +"Oh no, indeed!" she answered. "The young gentlemen used to find out +whether I was going, and came for me with a hack, and generally, if the +weather was good, we walked home." + +"That's the way we still do in Des Vaches. Sometimes, as a tremendous +joke, the ladies come for us in leap-year. How do you go to balls in +Buffalo, Miss Graham? Or, no; I withdraw the embarrassing question." +Some gleams from the street lamps, as they drove along, struck in +through the carriage windows, and flitted over the ladies' faces and +were gone again. "Ah! this is very trying. Couldn't you stop him at the +next corner, and let me see how radiant you ladies really are? I may be +in very great danger; I'd like to know just how much." + +"It wouldn't be of any use," cried the young girl gaily. "We're all +wrapped up, and you couldn't form any idea of us. You must wait, and let +us burst upon you when we come out of the dressing-room at Madame +Uccelli's." + +"But then it may be too late," he urged. "Is it very far?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's ridiculously far. It's outside the Roman +Gate. I don't see why people live at that distance." + +"In order to give the friends you bring the more pleasure of your +company, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Ah! that's very well. But you're not logical." + +"No," said Colville; "you can't be logical and complimentary at the same +time. It's too much to ask. How delicious your flowers are!" The ladies +each had a bouquet in her hand, which she was holding in addition to her +fan, the edges of her cloak, and the skirt of her train. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "we are so much obliged to you for them." + +"Why, I sent you _no flowers_," said Colville, startled into untimely +earnest. + +"Didn't you?" triumphed Mrs. Bowen. "I thought gentlemen always sent +flowers to ladies when they were going to a ball with them. They used +to, in Columbus." + +"And in Buffalo they always do," Miss Graham added. + +"Ah! they don't in Des Vaches," said Colville. They tried to mystify him +further about the bouquets; they succeeded in being very gay, and in +making themselves laugh a great deal. Mrs. Bowen was even livelier than +the young girl. + +Her carriage was one of the few private equipages that drove up to +Madame Uccelli's door; most people had not even come in a _remise_, but, +after the simple Florentine fashion, had taken the little cabs, which +stretched in a long line up and down the way; the horses had let their +weary heads drop, and were easing their broken knees by extending their +forelegs while they drowsed; the drivers, huddled in their great-coats, +had assembled around the doorway to see the guests alight, with that +amiable, unenvious interest of the Italians in the pleasure of others. +The deep sky glittered with stars; in the corner of the next villa +garden the black plumes of some cypresses blotted out their space among +them. + +"_Isn't_ it Florentine?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, giving the hand which +Colville offered in helping her out of the carriage a little vivid +pressure, full of reminiscence and confident sympathy. A flush of youth +warmed his heart; he did not quail even when the porter of the villa +intervened between her and her coachman, whom she was telling when to +come back, and said that the carriages were ordered for three o'clock. + +"Did you ever sit up so late as that in Des Vaches?" asked Miss Graham +mischievously. + +"Oh yes; I was editor of a morning paper," he explained. But he did not +like the imputation of her question. + +Madame Uccelli accepted him most hospitably among her guests when he was +presented. She was an American who had returned with her Italian husband +to Italy, and had long survived him in the villa which he had built with +her money. Such people grow very queer with the lapse of time. Madame +Uccelli's character remained inalienably American, but her manners and +customs had become largely Italian; without having learned the language +thoroughly, she spoke it very fluently, and its idioms marked her +Philadelphia English. Her house was a menagerie of all the +nationalities; she was liked in Italian society, and there were many +Italians; English-speaking Russians abounded; there were many genuine +English, Germans, Scandinavians, Protestant Irish, American Catholics, +and then Americans of all kinds. There was a superstition of her +exclusiveness among her compatriots, but one really met every one there +sooner or later; she was supposed to be a convert to the religion of her +late husband, but no one really knew what religion she was of, probably +not even Madame Uccelli herself. One thing you were sure of at her +house, and that was a substantial supper; it is the example of such +resident foreigners which has corrupted the Florentines, though many +native families still hold out against it. + +The dancing was just beginning, and the daughter of Madame Uccelli, who +spoke both English and Italian much better than her mother, came forward +and possessed herself of Miss Graham, after a polite feint of pressing +Mrs. Bowen to let her find a partner for her. + +Mrs. Bowen cooed a gracious refusal, telling Fanny Uccelli that she knew +very well that she never danced now. The girl had not much time for +Colville; she welcomed him, but she was full of her business of starting +the dance, and she hurried away without asking him whether she should +introduce him to some lady for the quadrille that was forming. Her +mother, however, asked him if he would not go out and get himself some +tea, and she found a lady to go with him to the supper-room. This lady +had daughters whom apparently she wished to supervise while they were +dancing, and she brought Colville back very soon. He had to stand by the +sofa where she sat till Madame Uccelli found him and introduced him to +another mother of daughters. Later he joined a group formed by the +father of one of the dancers and the non-dancing husband of a dancing +wife. Their conversation was perfunctory; they showed one another that +they had no pleasure in it. + +Presently the father went to see how his daughter looked while dancing; +the husband had evidently no such curiosity concerning his wife; and +Colville went with the father, and looked at Miss Graham. She was very +beautiful, and she obeyed the music as if it were her breath; her face +was rapt, intense, full of an unsmiling delight, which shone in her dark +eyes, glowing like low stars. Her _abandon_ interested Colville, and +then awed him; the spectacle of that young, unjaded capacity for +pleasure touched him with a profound sense of loss. Suddenly Imogene +caught sight of him, and with the coming of a second look in her eyes +the light of an exquisite smile flashed over her face. His heart was in +his throat. + +"_Your_ daughter?" asked the fond parent at his elbow. "That is mine +yonder in red." + +Colville did not answer, nor look at the young lady in red. The dance +was ceasing; the fragments of those kaleidoscopic radiations were +dispersing themselves; the tormented piano was silent. + +The officer whom Imogene had danced with brought her to Mrs. Bowen, and +resigned her with the regulation bow, hanging his head down before him +as if submitting his neck to the axe. She put her hand in Colville's +arm, where he stood beside Mrs. Bowen. "Oh, _do_ take me to get +something to eat!" + +In the supper-room she devoured salad and ices with a childish joy in +them. The place was jammed, and she laughed from her corner at +Colville's struggles in getting the things for her and bringing them to +her. While she was still in the midst of an ice, the faint note of the +piano sounded. "Oh, they're beginning again. It's the Lancers!" she +said, giving him the plate back. She took his arm again; she almost +pulled him along on their return. + +"Why don't _you_ dance?" she demanded mockingly. + +"I would if you'd let me dance with you." + +"Oh, that's impossible! I'm engaged ever so many deep." She dropped his +arm instantly at sight of a young Englishman who seemed to be looking +for her. This young Englishman had a zeal for dancing that was +unsparing; partners were nothing to him except as a means of dancing; +his manner expressed a supreme contempt for people who made the +slightest mistake, who danced with less science or less conscience than +himself. "I've been looking for you," he said, in a tone of cold rebuke, +without looking at her. "We've been waiting." + +Colville wished to beat him, but Imogene took his rebuke meekly, and +murmured some apologies about not hearing the piano before. He hurried +her off without recognising Colville's existence in any way. + +The undancing husband of the dancing wife was boring himself in a +corner; Colville decided that the chances with him were better than with +the fond father, and joined him, just as a polite officer came up and +entreated him to complete a set. "Oh, I never danced in my life," he +replied; and then he referred the officer to Colville. "Don't _you_ +dance?" + +"I used to dance," Colville began, while the officer stood looking +patiently at him. This was true. He used to dance the Lancers, too, and +very badly, seventeen years before. He had danced it with Lina Ridgely +and the other one, Mrs. Milbury. His glance wandered to the vacant place +on the floor; it was the same set which Miss Graham was in; she smiled +and beckoned derisively. A vain and foolish ambition fired him. "Oh yes, +I can dance a little," he said. + +A little was quite enough for the eager officer. He had Colville a +partner in an instant, and the next he was on the floor. + +"Oh, what fun!" cried Miss Graham; but the fun had not really begun yet. + +Colville had forgotten everything about the Lancers. He walked round +like a bear in a pen: he capered to and fro with a futile absurdity; +people poked him hither and thither; his progress was attended by +rending noises from the trains over which he found his path. He smiled +and cringed, and apologised to the hardening faces of the dancers: even +Miss Graham's face had become very grave. + +"This won't do," said the Englishman at last, with cold insolence. He +did not address himself to any one; he merely stopped; they all stopped, +and Colville was effectively expelled the set? another partner was found +for his lady, and he wandered giddily away. He did not know where to +turn; the whole room must have seen what an incredible ass he had made +of himself, but Mrs. Bowen looked as if she had not seen. + +He went up to her, resolved to make fun of himself at the first sign she +gave of being privy to his disgrace. But she only said, "Have you found +your way to the supper-room yet?" + +"Oh yes; twice," he answered, and kept on talking with her and Madame +Uccelli. After five minutes or so something occurred to Colville. "Have +_you_ found the way to the supper-room yet, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"No!" she owned, with a small, pathetic laugh, which expressed a certain +physical faintness, and reproached him with insupportable gentleness for +his selfish obtuseness. + +"Let me show you the way," he cried. + +"Why, I _am_ rather hungry," said Mrs. Bowen, taking his arm, with a +patient arrangement first of her fan, her bouquet, and her train, and +then moving along by his side with a delicate footed pace, which +insinuated and deprecated her dependence upon him. + +There were only a few people in the supper-room, and they had it +practically to themselves. She took a cup of tea and a slice of buttered +bread, with a little salad, which she excused herself from eating +because it was the day after her headache. "I shouldn't have thought you +_were_ hungry, Mrs. Bowen," he said, "if you hadn't told me so," and he +recalled that, as a young girl, her friend used to laugh at her for +having such a butterfly appetite; she was in fact one of those women who +go through life the marvels of such of our brutal sex as observe the +ethereal nature of their diet. But in an illogical revulsion of feeling. +Colville, who was again cramming himself with all the solids and fluids +in reach, and storing up a vain regret against the morrow, preferred her +delicacy to the magnificent rapacity of Miss Graham: Imogene had passed +from salad to ice, and at his suggestion had frankly reverted to salad +again and then taken a second ice, with the robust appetite of perfect +health and perfect youth. He felt a desire to speak against her to Mrs. +Bowen, he did not know why and he did not know how; he veiled his +feeling in an open attack. "Miss Graham has just been the cause of my +playing the fool, with her dancing. She dances so superbly that she +makes you want to dance too--she made me feel as if I _could_ dance." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "it was very kind of you to complete the set. I +saw you dancing," she added, without a glimmer of guilty consciousness +in her eyes. + +It was very sweet, but Colville had to protest. "Oh no; you didn't see +me _dancing_; you saw me _not dancing_. I am a ruined man, and I leave +Florence to-morrow; but I have the sad satisfaction of reflecting that I +don't leave an unbroken train among the ladies of that set. And I have +made one young Englishman so mad that there is a reasonable hope of his +not recovering." + +"Oh no; you _don't_ think of going away for that!" said Mrs. Bowen, not +heeding the rest of his joking. + +"Well, the time has been when I have left Florence for loss," said +Colville, with the air of preparing himself to listen to reason. + +"You mustn't," said Mrs. Bowen briefly. + +"Oh, very well, then, I won't," said Colville whimsically, as if that +settled it. + +Mrs. Bowen would not talk of the matter any more; he could see that with +her kindness, which was always more than her tact, she was striving to +get away from the subject. As he really cared for it no longer, this +made him persist in clinging to it; he liked this pretty woman's being +kind to him. "Well," he said finally, "I consent to stay in Florence on +condition that you suggest some means of atonement for me which I can +also make a punishment to Miss Graham." + +Mrs. Bowen did not respond to the question of placating and punishing +her _protegee_ with sustained interest. They went back to Madame +Uccelli, and to the other elderly ladies in the room that opened by +archways upon the dancing-room. + +Imogene was on the floor, dancing not merely with unabated joy, but with +a zest that seemed only to freshen from dance to dance. If she left the +dance, it was to go out on her partner's arm to the supper-room. +Colville could not decently keep on talking to Mrs. Bowen the whole +evening; it would be too conspicuous; he devolved from frump to frump; +he bored himself; he yawned in his passage from one of these mothers or +fathers to another. The hours passed; it was two o'clock; Imogene was +going out to the supper-room again. He was taking out his watch. She saw +him, and "Oh, don't!" she cried, laughing, as she passed. + +The dancing went on; she was waltzing now in the interminable german. +Some one had let down, a window in the dancing-room, and he was feeling +it in his shoulder. Mrs. Bowen, across the room, looked heroically +patient, but weary. He glanced, down at the frump on the sofa near, and +realised that she had been making a long speech to him, which, he could +see from her look, had ended in some sort of question. + +Three o'clock came, and they had to wait till the german was over. He +felt that Miss Graham was behaving badly, ungratefully, selfishly; on +the way home in the carriage he was silent from utter boredom and +fatigue, but Mrs. Bowen was sweetly sympathetic with the girl's rapture. +Imogene did not seem to feel his moodiness; she laughed, she joked, she +told a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of the last +waltz. "Isn't it divine?" she asked. "Oh! I feel as if I could dance for +a week." She was still dancing; she gave Colville's foot an accidental +tap in keeping time on the floor of the carriage to the tune she was +humming. No one said anything about a next meeting when they parted at +the gate of Palazzo Pinti, and Mrs. Bowen bade her coachman drive +Colville to his hotel. But both the ladies' voices called good-night to +him as he drove away. He fancied a shade of mocking in Miss Graham's +voice. + +The great outer door of the hotel was locked, of course, and the poor +little porter kept Colville thumping at it some time before he unlocked +it, full of sleepy smiles and apologies. "I'm sorry to wake you up," +said Colville kindly. + +"It is my duty," said the porter, with amiable heroism. He discharged +another duty by lighting a whole new candle, which would be set down to +Colville's account, and went before him to his room, up the wide stairs, +cold in their white linen path, and on through the crooked corridors +haunted by the ghosts of extinct _tables d'hote_, and full of goblin +shadows. He had recovered a noonday suavity by the time he reached +Colville's door, and bowed himself out, after lighting the candles +within, with a sweet plenitude of politeness, which Colville, even in +his gloomy mood, could not help admiring in a man in his shirt sleeves, +with only one suspender up. + +If there had been a fire, Colville would have liked to sit down before +it, and take an account of his feelings, but the atmosphere of a +bed-chamber in a Florentine hotel at half-past three o'clock on a winter +morning is not one that invites to meditation; and he made haste to get +into bed, with nothing clearer in his mind than a shapeless sense of +having been trifled with. He ought not to have gone to a dancing party, +to begin with, and then he certainly ought not to have attempted to +dance; so far he might have been master of the situation, and was +responsible for it; but he was, over and above this, aware of not having +wished to do either, of having been wrought upon against his convictions +to do both. He regarded now with supreme loathing a fantastic purpose +which he had formed while tramping round on those women's dresses, of +privately taking lessons in dancing, and astonishing Miss Graham at the +next ball where they met. Miss Graham? What did he care for that child? +Or Mrs. Bowen either, for the matter of that? Had he come four thousand +miles to be used, to be played with, by them? At this point Colville was +aware of the brutal injustice of his mood. They were ladies, both of +them, charming and good, and he had been a fool; that was all. It was +not the first time he had been a fool for women. An inexpressible +bitterness for that old wrong, which, however he had been used to laugh +at it and despise it, had made his life solitary and barren, poured upon +his soul; it was as if it had happened to him yesterday. + +A band of young men burst from one of the narrow streets leading into +the piazza and straggled across it, letting their voices flare out upon +the silence, and then drop extinct one by one. A whole world of faded +associations flushed again in Colville's heart. This was Italy; this was +Florence; and he execrated the hour in which he had dreamed of +returning. + + + + + + +VII + + +The next morning's sunshine dispersed the black mood of the night +before; but enough of Colville's self-disgust remained to determine him +not to let his return to Florence be altogether vain, or his sojourn so +idle as it had begun being. The vague purpose which he had cherished of +studying the past life and character of the Florentines in their +architecture shaped itself anew in the half-hour which he gave himself +over his coffee; and he turned it over in his mind with that mounting +joy in its capabilities which attends the contemplation of any sort of +artistic endeavour. No people had ever more distinctly left the impress +of their whole temper in their architecture, or more sharply +distinguished their varying moods from period to period in their palaces +and temples. He believed that he could not only supply that brief +historical sketch of Florence which Mrs. Bowen had lamented the want of, +but he could make her history speak an unintelligible, an unmistakeable +tongue in every monument of the past, from the Etruscan wall at Fiesole +to the cheap, plain, and tasteless shaft raised to commemorate Italian +Unity in the next piazza. With sketches from his own pencil, +illustrative of points which he could not otherwise enforce, he could +make such a book on Florence as did not exist, such a book as no one had +yet thought of making. With this object in his mind, making and keeping +him young, he could laugh with any one who liked at the vanity of the +middle-aged Hoosier who had spoiled a set in the Lancers at Madame +Uccelli's party; he laughed at him now alone, with a wholly impersonal +sense of his absurdity. + +After breakfast he went without delay to Viesseux's reading-room, to +examine his catalogue, and see what there was in it to his purpose. +While he was waiting his turn to pay his subscription, with the people +who surrounded the proprietor, half a dozen of the acquaintances he had +made at Mrs. Bowen's passed in and out. Viesseux's is a place where +sooner or later you meet every one you know among the foreign residents +at Florence; the natives in smaller proportion resort there too; and +Colville heard a lady asking for a book in that perfect Italian which +strikes envy to the heart of the stranger sufficiently versed in the +language to know that he never shall master it. He rather rejoiced in +his despair, however, as an earnest of his renewed intellectual life. +Henceforth his life would be wholly intellectual. He did not regret his +little excursion into society; it had shown him with dramatic sharpness +how unfit for it he was. + +"Good _morning_!" said some one in a bland undertone full of a pleasant +recognition of the claims to quiet of a place where some others were +speaking in their ordinary tones. + +Colville looked round on the Rev. Mr. Waters, and took his friendly +hand. "Good morning--glad to see you," he answered. + +"Are you looking for that short Florentine history for Mrs. Bowen's +little girl?" asked Mr. Waters, inclining his head slightly for the +reply. "She mentioned it to me." + +By day Colville remarked more distinctly that the old gentleman was +short and slight, with a youthful eagerness in his face surviving on +good terms with the grey locks that fell down his temples from under the +brim of his soft felt hat. With the boyish sweetness of his looks +blended a sort of appreciative shrewdness, which pointed his smiling +lips slightly aslant in what seemed the expectation rather than the +intention of humour. + +"Not exactly," said Colville, experiencing a difficulty in withholding +the fact that in some sort he was just going to write a short Florentine +history, and finding a certain pleasure in Mrs. Bowen's having +remembered that he had taken an interest in Effie's reading. He had a +sudden wish to tell Mr. Waters of his plan, but this was hardly the time +or place. + +They now found themselves face to face with the librarian, and Mr. +Waters made a gesture of waiving himself in Colville's favour. + +"No, no!" said the latter; "you had better ask. I am going to put this +gentleman through rather an extended course of sprouts." + +The librarian smiled with the helplessness of a foreigner, who knows his +interlocutor's English, but not the meaning of it. + +"Oh, I merely wanted to ask," said Mr. Waters, addressing the librarian, +and explaining to Colville, "whether you had received that book on +Savonarola yet. The German one." + +"I shall see," said the librarian, and he went upon a quest that kept +him some minutes. + +"You're not thinking of taking Savonarola's life, I suppose?" suggested +Colville. + +"Oh no. Villari's book has covered the whole ground for ever, it seems +to me. It's a wonderful book. You've read it?" + +"Yes. It's a thing that makes you feel that, after all, the Italians +have only to make a real effort in any direction, and they go ahead of +everybody else. What biography of the last twenty years can compare with +it?" + +"You're right, sir--you're right," cried the old man enthusiastically. +"They're a gifted race, a people of genius." + +"I wish for their own sakes they'd give their minds a little to +generalship," said Colville, pressed by the facts to hedge somewhat. +"They did get so badly smashed in their last war, poor fellows." + +"Oh, I don't think I should like them any better if they were better +soldiers. Perhaps the lesson of noble endurance that they've given our +times is all that we have the right to demand of them in the way of +heroism; no one can say they lack courage. And sometimes it seems to me +that in simply outgrowing the different sorts of despotism that had +fastened upon them, till their broken bonds fell away without positive +effort on their part, they showed a greater sublimity than if they had +violently conquered their freedom. Most nations sink lower and lower +under tyranny; the Italians grew steadily more and more civilised, more +noble, more gentle, more grand. It was a wonderful spectacle--like a +human soul perfected through suffering and privation. Every period of +their history is full of instruction. I find my ancestral puritanism +particularly appealed to by the puritanism of Savonarola." + +"Then Villari hasn't satisfied you that Savonarola wasn't a Protestant?" + +"Oh yes, he has. I said his puritanism. Just now I'm interested in +justifying his failure to myself, for it's one of the things in history +that I've found it hardest to accept. But no doubt his puritanic state +fell because it was dreary and ugly, as the puritanic state always has +been. It makes its own virtues intolerable; puritanism won't let you see +how good and beautiful the Puritans often are. It was inevitable that +Savonarola's enemies should misunderstand and hate him." + +"You are one of the last men I should have expected to find among the +_Arrabiati_," said Colville. + +"Oh, there's a great deal to be said for the Florentine Arrabiati, as +well as for the English Malignants, though the Puritans in neither case +would have known how to say it. Savonarola perished because he was +excessive. I am studying him in this aspect; it is fresh ground. It is +very interesting to inquire just at what point a man's virtues become +mischievous and intolerable." + +These ideas interested Colville; he turned to them with relief from the +sense of his recent trivialities; in this old man's earnestness he found +support and encouragement in the new course he had marked out for +himself. Sometimes it had occurred to him not only that he was too old +for the interests of his youth at forty, but that there was no longer +time for him to take up new ones. He considered Mr. Waters's grey hairs, +and determined to be wiser. "I should like to talk these things over +with you--and some other things," he said. + +The librarian came toward them with the book for Mr. Waters, who was +fumbling near-sightedly in his pocket-book for his card. "I shall be +very happy to see you at my room," he said. "Ah, thank you," he added, +taking his book, with a simple relish as if it were something whose +pleasantness was sensible to the touch. He gave Colville the scholar's +far-off look as he turned to go: he was already as remote as the +fifteenth century through the magic of the book, which he opened and +began to read at once. Colville stared after him; he did not wish to +come to just that yet, either. Life, active life, life of his own day, +called to him; he had been one of its busiest children: could he turn +his back upon it for any charm or use that was in the past? Again that +unnerving doubt, that paralysing distrust, beset him, and tempted him to +curse the day in which he had returned to this outworn Old World. Idler +on its modern surface, or delver in its deep-hearted past, could he +reconcile himself to it? What did he care for the Italians of to-day, or +the history of the Florentines as expressed in their architectural +monuments? It was the problems of the vast, tumultuous American life, +which he had turned his back on, that really concerned him. Later he +might take up the study that fascinated yonder old man, but for the +present it was intolerable. + +He was no longer young, that was true; but with an ache of old regret he +felt that he had not yet lived his life, that his was a baffled destiny, +an arrested fate. A lady came up and took his turn with the librarian, +and Colville did not stay for another. He went out and walked down the +Lung' Arno toward the Cascine. The sun danced on the river, and bathed +the long line of pale buff and grey houses that followed its curve, and +ceased in the mist of leafless tree-tops where the Cascine began. It was +not the hour of the promenade, and there was little driving; but the +sidewalks were peopled thickly enough with persons, in groups, or +singly, who had the air of straying aimlessly up or down, with no +purpose but to be in the sun, after the rainy weather of the past week. +There were faces of invalids, wistful and thin, and here and there a +man, muffled to the chin, lounged feebly on the parapet and stared at +the river. Colville hastened by them; they seemed to claim him as one of +their ailing and aging company, and just then he was in the humour of +being very young and strong. + +A carriage passed before him through the Cascine gates, and drove down +the road next the river. He followed, and when it had got a little way +it stopped at the roadside, and a lady and little girl alighted, who +looked about and caught sight of him, and then obviously waited for him +to come up with them. It was Imogene and Effie Bowen, and the young girl +called to him: "We _thought_ it was you. Aren't you astonished to find +us here at this hour?" she demanded, as soon as he came up, and gave him +her hand. "Mrs. Bowen sent us for our health--or Effie's health--and I +was just making the man stop and let us out for a little walk." + +"My health is very much broken too, Miss Effie," said Colville. "Will +you let me walk with you?" The child smiled, as she did at Colville's +speeches, which she apparently considered all jokes, but diplomatically +referred the decision to Imogene with an upward glance. + +"We shall be very glad indeed," said the girl. + +"That's very polite of you. But Miss Effie makes no effort to conceal +her dismay," said Colville. + +The little girl smiled again, and her smile was so like the smile of +Lina Ridgely, twenty years ago, that his next words were inevitably +tinged with reminiscence. + +"Does one still come for one's health to the Cascine? When I was in +Florence before, there was no other place if one went to look for it +with young ladies--the Cascine or the Boboli Gardens. Do they keep the +fountain of youth turned on here during the winter still?" + +"I've never seen it," said Imogene gaily. + +"Of course not. You never looked for it. Neither did I when I was here +before. But it wouldn't escape me now." + +Since he had met them he had aged again, in spite of his resolutions to +the contrary; somehow, beside their buoyancy and bloom, the youth in his +heart faded. + +Imogene had started forward as soon as he joined them, and Colville, +with Effie's gloved hand stolen shyly in his, was finding it quite +enough to keep up with her in her elastic advance. + +She wore a long habit of silk, whose fur-trimmed edge wandered +diagonally across her breast and down to the edge of her walking dress. +To Colville, whom her girlish slimness in her ball costume had puzzled +after his original impressions of Junonian abundance, she did not so +much dwindle as seem to vanish from the proportions his visions had +assigned her that first night when he saw her standing before the +mirror. In this outdoor avatar, this companionship with the sun and +breeze, she was new to him again, and he found himself searching his +consciousness for his lost acquaintance with her, and feeling as if he +knew her less and less. Perhaps, indeed, she had no very distinctive +individuality; perhaps at her age no woman has, but waits for it to come +to her through life, through experience. She was an expression of youth, +of health, of beauty, and of the moral loveliness that comes from a +fortunate combination of these; but beyond this she was elusive in a way +that seemed to characterise her even materially. He could not make +anything more of the mystery as he walked at her side, and he went +thinking--formlessly, as people always think--that with the child or +with her mother he would have had a community of interest and feeling +which he lacked with this splendid girlhood! he was both too young and +too old for it; and then, while he answered this or that to Imogene's +talk aptly enough, his mind went back to the time when this mystery was +no mystery, or when he was contemporary with it, and if he did not +understand it, at least accepted it as if it wore the most natural thing +in the world. It seemed a longer time now since it had been in his world +than it was since he was a child. + +"Should you have thought," she asked, turning her face back toward him, +"that it would be so hot in the sun to-day? _Oh_, that beautiful river! +How it twists and writhes along! Do you remember that sonnet of +Longfellow's--the one he wrote in Italian about the Ponte Vecchio, and +the Arno twisting like a dragon underneath it? They say that Hawthorne +used to live in a villa just behind the hill over there; we're going to +look it up as soon as the weather is settled. Don't you think his books +are perfectly fascinating?" + +"Yes," said Colville; "only I should want a good while to say it." + +"_I_ shouldn't!" retorted the girl. "When you've said fascinating, +you've said everything. There's no other word for them. Don't you like +to talk about the books you've read?" + +"I would if I could remember the names of the characters. But I get them +mixed up." + +"Oh, _I_ never do! I remember the least one of them, and all they do and +say." + +"I used to." + +"It seems to me you _used_ to do everything." + +"It seems to me as if I did." + + "'I remember, when I think, + That my youth was half divine.'" + + +"Oh, Tennyson--yes! _He's_ fascinating. Don't you think he's +fascinating?" + +"Very," said Colville. He was wondering whether this were the kind of +talk that he thought was literary when he was a young fellow. + +"How perfectly weird the 'Vision of Sin' is!" Imogene continued. "Don't +you like _weird_ things?" + +"Weird things?" Colville reflected. "Yes; but I don't see very much in +them any more. The fact is, they don't seem to come to anything in +particular." + +"Oh, _I_ think they do! I've had dreams that I've lived on for days. Do +you ever have prophetic dreams?" + +"Yes; but they never come true. When they do, I know that I didn't have +them." + +"What _do_ you mean?" + +"I mean that we are all so fond of the marvellous that we can't trust +ourselves about any experience that seems supernatural. If a ghost +appeared to me I should want him to prove it by at least two other +reliable, disinterested witnesses before I believed my own account of +the matter." + +"Oh!" cried the girl, half puzzled, half amused. "Then of course you +don't believe in ghosts?" + +"Yes; I expect to be one myself some day. But I'm in no hurry to mingle +with them." + +Imogene smiled vaguely, as if the talk pleased her, even when it mocked +the fancies and whims which, after so many generations that have +indulged them, she was finding so fresh and new in her turn. + +"Don't you like to walk by the side of a river?" she asked, increasing +her eager pace a little. "I feel as if it were bearing me along." + +"I feel as if I were carrying it," said Colville. "It's as fatiguing as +walking on railroad ties." + +"Oh, that's too bad!" cried the girl. "How can you be so prosaic? Should +you ever have believed that the sun could be so hot in January? And look +at those ridiculous green hillsides over the river there! Don't you like +it to be winter when it _is_ winter?" + +She did not seem to have expected anything from Colville but an +impulsive acquiescence, but she listened while he defended the mild +weather. "I think it's very well for Italy," he said. "It has always +seemed to me--that is, it seems to me now for the first time, but one +has to begin the other way--as if the seasons here had worn themselves +out like the turbulent passions of the people. I dare say the winter was +much fiercer in the times of the Bianchi and Neri." + +"Oh, how delightful! Do you really believe that?" + +"No, I don't know that I do. But I shouldn't have much difficulty in +proving it, I think, to the sympathetic understanding." + +"I wish you would prove it to mine. It sounds so pretty, I'm sure it +must be true." + +"Oh, then, it isn't necessary. I'll reserve my arguments for Mrs. +Bowen." + +"You had better. She isn't at all romantic. She says it's very well for +me she isn't--that her being matter-of-fact lets me be as romantic as I +like." + +"Then Mrs. Bowen isn't as romantic as she would like to be if she hadn't +charge of a romantic young lady?" + +"Oh, I don't say that. Dear me! I'd no idea it _could_ be so hot in +January." As they strolled along beside the long hedge of laurel, the +carriage slowly following them at a little distance, the sun beat strong +upon the white road, blotched here and there with the black irregular +shadows of the ilexes. The girl undid the pelisse across her breast, +with a fine impetuosity, and let it swing open as she walked. She +stopped suddenly. "Hark! What bird was that?" + +"'It was the nightingale, and not the lark,'" suggested Colville lazily. + +"Oh, _don't_ you think _Romeo and Juliet_ is divine?" demanded Imogene, +promptly dropping the question of the bird. + +"I don't know about Romeo," returned Colville, "but it's sometimes +occurred to me that Juliet was rather forth-putting." + +"You _know_ she wasn't. It's my favourite play. I could go every night. +It's perfectly amazing to me that they can play anything else." + +"You would like it five hundred nights in the year, like _Hazel Kirke_? +That would be a good deal of Romeo, not to say Juliet." + +"They ought to do it out of respect to Shakespeare. Don't you like +Shakespeare?" + +"Well, I've seen the time when I preferred Alexander Smith," said +Colville evasively. + +"Alexander Smith? Who in the world is Alexander Smith?" + +"How recent you are! Alexander Smith was an immortal who flourished +about the year 1850." + +"That was before I was born. How could I remember him? But I don't feel +so very recent for all that." + +"Neither do I, this morning," said Colville. "I was up at one of +Pharaoh's balls last night, and I danced too much." + +He gave Imogene a droll glance, and then bent it upon Effie's discreet +face. The child dropped her eyes with a blush like her mother's, having +first sought provisional counsel of Imogene, who turned away. He rightly +inferred that they all had been talking him over at breakfast, and he +broke into a laugh which they joined in, but Imogene said nothing in +recognition of the fact. + +With what he felt to be haste for his relief she said, "Don't you hate +to be told to read a book?" + +"I used to--quarter of a century ago," said Colville, recognising that +this was the way young people talked, even then. + +"Used to?" she repeated. "Don't you now?" + +"No; I'm a great deal more tractable now. I always say that I shall get +the book out of the library. I draw the line at buying. I still hate to +buy a book that people recommend." + +"What kind of books do you like to buy?" + +"Oh, no kind. I think we ought to get all our books out of the library." + +"Do you never like to talk in earnest?" + +"Well, not often," said Colville. "Because, if you do, you can't say +with a good conscience afterward that you were only in fun." + +"Oh! And do you always like to talk so that you can get out of things +afterward?" + +"No. I didn't say that, did I?" + +"Very nearly, I should think." + +"Then I'm glad I didn't quite." + +"I like people to be outspoken--to say everything they think," said the +girl, regarding him with a puzzled look. + +"Then I foresee that I shall become a favourite," answered Colville. "I +say a great deal more than I think." + +She looked at him again with envy, with admiration, qualifying her +perplexity. They had come to a point where some moss-grown, +weather-beaten statues stood at the corners of the road that traversed +the bosky stretch between the avenues of the Cascine. "Ah, how beautiful +they are!" he said, halting, and giving himself to the rapture that a +blackened garden statue imparts to one who beholds it from the +vantage-ground of sufficient years and experience. + +"Do you remember that story of Heine's," he resumed, after a moment, "of +the boy who steals out of the old castle by moonlight, and kisses the +lips of the garden statue, fallen among the rank grass of the ruinous +parterres? And long afterward, when he looks down on the sleep of the +dying girl where she lies on the green sofa, it seems to him that she +and that statue are the same?" + +"Oh!" deeply sighed the young girl. "No, I never read it. Tell me what +it is. I _must_ read it." + +"The rest is all talk--very good talk; but I doubt whether it would +interest you. He goes on to talk of a great many things---of the way +Bellini spoke French, for example. He says it was bloodcurdling, +horrible, cataclysmal. He brought out the poor French words and broke +them upon the wheel, till you thought the whole world must give way with +a thunder-crash. A dead hush reigned in the room; the women did not know +whether to faint or fly; the men looked down at their pantaloons, and +tried to realise what they had on." + +"Oh, how perfectly delightful! how shameful!" cried the girl. "I _must_ +read it. What is it in? What is the name of the story?" + +"It isn't a story," said Colville. "Did you ever see anything lovelier +than these statues?" + +"No," said Imogene. "_Are_ they good?" + +"They are much better than good--they are the very worst rococo." + +"What makes you say they are beautiful, then?" + +"Why, don't you see? They commemorate youth, gaiety, brilliant, joyous +life. That's what that kind of statues was made for--to look on at rich, +young, beautiful people and their gallantries; to be danced before by +fine ladies and gentlemen playing at shepherd and shepherdesses; to be +driven past by marcheses and contessinas flirting in carriages; to be +hung with scarfs and wreaths; to be parts of eternal _fetes champetres_. +Don't you see how bored they look? When I first came to Italy I should +have detested and ridiculed their bad art; but now they're +exquisite--the worse, the better," + +"I don't know what in the world you _do_ mean," said Imogene, laughing +uneasily. + +"Mrs. Bowen would. It's a pity Mrs. Bowen isn't here with us. Miss +Effie, if I lift you up to one of those statues, will you kindly ask it +if it doesn't remember a young American signor who was here just before +the French Revolution? I don't believe it's forgotten me." + +"No, no," said Imogene. "It's time we were walking back. Don't you like +Scott!" she added. "I should think you would if you like those romantic +things. I used to like Scott so _much_. When I was fifteen I wouldn't +read anything but Scott. Don't you like Thackeray? Oh, he's so +_cynical_! It's perfectly delightful." + +"Cynical?" repeated Colville thoughtfully. "I was looking into _The +Newcomes_ the other day, and I thought he was rather sentimental" + +"Sentimental! Why, what an idea! That is the strangest thing I ever +heard of. Oh!" she broke in upon her own amazement, "don't you think +Browning's 'Statue and the Bust' is splendid? Mr. Morton read it to +us--to Mrs. Bowen, I mean." + +Colville resented this freedom of Mr. Morion's, he did not know just +why; then his pique was lost in sarcastic recollection of the time when +he too used to read poems to ladies. He had read that poem to Lina +Ridgely and the other one. + +"Mrs. Bowen asked him to read it," Imogene continued. + +"Did she?" asked Colville pensively. + +"And then we discussed it afterward. We had a long discussion. And then +he read us the 'Legend of Pornic,' and we had a discussion about that. +Mrs. Bowen says it was real gold they found in the coffin; but I think +it was the girl's 'gold hair.' I don't know which Mr. Morion thought. +Which do you? Don't you think the 'Legend of Pornic' is splendid?" + +"Yes, it's a great poem, and deep," said Colville. They had come to a +place where the bank sloped invitingly to the river. "Miss Effie," he +asked, "wouldn't you like to go down and throw stones into the Arno? +That's what a river is for," he added, as the child glanced toward +Imogene for authorisation, "to have stones thrown into it." + +"Oh, let us!" cried Imogene, rushing down to the brink. "I don't want to +throw stones into it, but to get near it--to get near to any bit of +nature. They do pen you up so from it in Europe!" She stood and watched +Colville skim stones over the current. "When you stand by the shore of a +swift river like this, or near a railroad train when it comes whirling +by, don't you ever have a morbid impulse to fling yourself forward?" + +"Not at my time of life," said Colville, stooping to select a flat +stone. "Morbid impulses are one of the luxuries of youth." He threw the +stone, which skipped triumphantly far out into the stream. "That was +beautiful, wasn't it, Miss Effie?" + +"Lovely!" murmured the child. + +He offered her a flat pebble. "Would you like to try one?" + +"It would spoil my gloves," she said, in deprecating refusal. + +"Let _me_ try it!" cried Imogene. "I'm not afraid of my gloves." + +Colville yielded the pebble, looking at her with the thought of how +intoxicating he should once have found this bit of wilful _abandon_, but +feeling rather sorry for it now. "Oh, perhaps not?" he said, laying his +hand upon hers, and looking into her eyes. + +She returned his look, and then she dropped the pebble and put her hand +back in her muff, and turned and ran up the bank. "There's the carriage. +It's time we should be going." At the top of the bank she became a +mirror of dignity, a transparent mirror to his eye. "Are you going back +to town, Mr. Colville?" she asked, with formal state. "We could set you +down anywhere!" + +"Thank you, Miss Graham. I shall be glad to avail myself of your very +kind offer. Allow me." He handed her ceremoniously to the carriage; he +handed Effie Bowen even more ceremoniously to the carriage, holding his +hat in one hand while he offered the other. Then he mounted to the seat +in front of them. "The weather has changed," he said. + +Imogene hid her face in her muff, and Effie Bowen bowed hers against +Imogene's shoulder. + +A sense of the girl's beauty lingered in Colville's thought all day, and +recurred to him again and again; and the ambitious intensity and +enthusiasm of her talk came back in touches of amusement and compassion. +How divinely young it all was, and how lovely! He patronised it from a +height far aloof. + +He was not in the frame of mind for the hotel table, and he went to +lunch, at a restaurant. He chose a simple trattoria, the first he came +to, and he took his seat at one of the bare, rude tables, where the +joint saucers for pepper and salt, and a small glass for toothpicks, +with a much-scraped porcelain box for matches, expressed an uncorrupted +Florentinity of custom. But when he gave his order in offhand Italian, +the waiter answered in the French which waiters get together for the +traveller's confusion in Italy, and he resigned himself to whatever +chance of acquaintance might befall him. The place had a companionable +smell of stale tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a +space dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a variety of +sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a large table in this +space, and when Colville came up to examine the drawings he jostled him, +with due apologies, in the haste of a man working against time for +masters who will brook no delay. He was hurrying still when a party of +young men came in and took their places at the table, and began to rough +him for his delay. Colville could recognise several of them in the +vigorous burlesques on the walls, and as others dropped in the grotesque +portraitures made him feel as if he had seen them before. They all +talked at once, each man of his own interests, except when they joined +in a shout of mockery and welcome for some new-comer. Colville, at his +_risotto_, almost the room's length away, could hear what they thought, +one and another, of Botticelli and Michelangelo; of old Piloty's things +at Munich; of the dishes they had served to them, and of the quality of +the Chianti; of the respective merits of German and Italian tobacco; of +whether Inglehart had probably got to Venice yet; of the personal habits +of Billings, and of the question whether the want of modelling in +Simmons's nose had anything to do with his style of snoring; of the +overrated colouring of some of those Venetian fellows; of the delicacy +of Mino da Fiesole, and of the genius of Babson's tailor. Babson was +there to defend the cut of his trousers, and Billings and Simmons were +present to answer for themselves at the expense of the pictures of those +who had called their habits and features into question. When it came to +this all the voices joined in jolly uproar. Derision and denial broke +out of the tumult, and presently they were all talking quietly of a +reception which some of them were at the day before. Then Colville heard +one of them saying that he would like a chance to paint some lady whose +name he did not catch, and "She looks awfully sarcastic," one of the +young fellows said. + +"They say she _is_," said another. "They say she's awfully +intellectual." + +"Boston?" queried a third. + +"No, Kalamazoo. The centre of culture is out there now." + +"She knows how to dress, anyhow," said the first commentator. "I wonder +what Parker would talk to her about when he was painting her. He's never +read anything but Poe's 'Ullalume.'" + +"Well, that's a good subject--'Ullalume.'" + +"I suppose she's read it?" + +"She's read 'most everything, they say." + +"What's an Ullalume, anyway, Parker?" + +One of the group sprang up from the table and drew on the wall what he +labelled "An Ullalume." Another rapidly depicted Parker in the moment of +sketching a young lady; her portrait had got as far as the eyes and nose +when some one protested: "Oh, hello! No personalities." + +The draughtsman said, "Well, all right!" and sat down again. + +"Hall talked with her the most. What did she say, Hall?" + +"Hall can't remember words in three syllables, but he says it was mighty +brilliant and mighty deep." + +"They say she's a niece of Mrs. Bowen's. She's staying with Mrs. Bowen." + +Then it was the wisdom and brilliancy and severity of Imogene Graham +that these young men stood in awe of! Colville remembered how the minds +of girls of twenty had once dazzled him. "And yes," he mused, "she must +have believed that we were talking literature in the Cascine. Certainly +I should have thought it an intellectual time when I was at that age," +he owned to himself with forlorn irony. + +The young fellows went on to speak of Mrs. Bowen, whom it seemed they +had known the winter before. She had been very polite to them; they +praised her as if she were quite an old woman. + +"But she must have been a very pretty girl," one of them put in. + +"Well, she has a good deal of style yet." + +"Oh yes, but she never could have been a beauty like the other one." + +On her part, Imogene was very sober when she met Mrs. Bowen, though she +had come in flushed and excited from the air and the morning's +adventure. Mrs. Bowen was sitting by the fire, placidly reading; a vase +of roses on the little table near her diffused the delicate odour of +winter roses through the room; all seemed very still and dim, and of +another time, somehow. + +Imogene kept away from the fire, sitting down, in the provisional +fashion of women, with her things on; but she unbuttoned her pelisse and +flung it open. Effie had gone to her room. + +"Did you have a pleasant drive?" asked Mrs. Bowen. + +"Very," said the girl. + +"Mr. Morton brought you these roses," continued Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh," said Imogene, with a cold glance at them. + +"The Flemmings have asked us to a party Thursday. There is to be +dancing." + +"The Flemmings?" + +"Yes." As if she now saw reason to do so, Mrs. Bowen laid the book face +downward in her lap. She yawned a little, with her hand on her mouth. +"Did you meet any one you knew?" + +"Yes; Mr. Colville." Mrs. Bowen cut her yawn in half. "We got out to +walk in the Cascine, and we saw him coming in at the gate. He came up +and asked if he might walk with us." + +"Did you have a pleasant walk?" asked Mrs. Bowen, a breath more chillily +than she had asked if they had a pleasant drive. + +"Yes, pleasant enough. And then we came back and went down the river +bank, and he skipped stones, and we took him to his hotel." + +"Was there anybody you knew in the Cascine?" + +"Oh no; the place was a howling wilderness. I never saw it so deserted," +said the girl impatiently. "It was terribly hot walking. I thought I +should burn up." + +Mrs. Bowen did not answer anything; she let the book lie in her lap. + +"What an odd person Mr. Colville is!" said Imogene, after a moment. +"Don't you think he's very different from other gentlemen?" + +"Why?" + +"Oh, he has such a peculiar way of talking." + +"What peculiar way?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Plenty of the young men I see talk cynically, and I +do sometimes myself--desperately, don't you know. But then I know very +well we don't mean anything by it." + +"And do you think Mr. Colville does? Do you think he talks cynically?" + +Imogene leaned back in her chair and reflected. "No," she returned +slowly, "I can't say that he does. But he talks lightly, with a kind of +touch and go that makes you feel that he has exhausted all feeling. He +doesn't parade it at all. But you hear between the words, don't you +know, just as you read between the lines in some kinds of poetry. Of +course it's everything in knowing what he's been through. He's perfectly +unaffected; and don't you think he's good?" + +"Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Bowen. "In his way." + +"But he sees through you. Oh, quite! Nothing escapes him, and pretty +soon he lets out that he has seen through you, and then you feel so +_flat_! Oh, it's perfectly intoxicating to be with him. I would give the +world to talk as he does." + +"What was your talk all about?" + +"Oh, I don't know. I suppose it would have been called rather +intellectual." + +Mrs. Bowen smiled infinitesimally. But after a moment she said gravely, +"Mr. Colville is very much older than you. He's old enough to be your +father." + +"Yes, I know that. You feel that he feels old, and it's perfectly +tragical. Sometimes when he turns that slow, dull, melancholy look on +you, he seems a thousand years old." + +"I don't mean that he's positively old," said Mrs. Bowen. "He's only old +comparatively." + +"Oh yes; I understand that. And I don't mean that he really seems a +thousand years old. What I meant was, he seems a thousand years off, as +if he were still young, and had got left behind somehow. He seems to be +on the other side of some impassable barrier, and you want to get over +there and help him to our side, but you can't do it. I suppose his +talking in that light way is merely a subterfuge to hide his feeling, to +make him forget." + +Mrs. Bowen fingered the edges of her book. "You mustn't let your fancy +run away with you, Imogene," she said, with a little painful smile. + +"Oh, I _like_ to let it run away with me. And when I get such a subject +as Mr. Colville, there's no stopping. I can't stop, and I don't _wish_ +to stop. Shouldn't you have thought that he would have been perfectly +crushed at the exhibition he made of himself in the Lancers last night? +He wasn't the least embarrassed when he met me, and the only allusion he +made to it was to say that he had been up late, and had danced too much. +Wasn't it wonderful he could do it? Oh, if _I_ could do that!" + +"I wish he could have avoided the occasion for his bravado," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I think I was a little to blame, perhaps," said the girl. "I beckoned +him to come and take the vacant place." + +"I don't see that that was an excuse," returned Mrs. Bowen primly. + +Imogene seemed insensible to the tone, as it concerned herself; it only +apparently reminded her of something. "Guess what Mr. Colville said, +when I had been silly, and then tried to make up for it by being very +dignified all of a sudden?" + +"I don't know. How had you been silly?" + +The servant brought in some cards. Imogene caught up the pelisse which +she had been gradually shedding as she sat talking to Mrs. Bowen, and +ran out of the room by another door. + +They did not recur to the subject. But that night, when Mrs. Bowen went +to say good night to Effie, after the child had gone to bed, she +lingered. + +"Effie," she said at last, in a husky whisper, "what did Imogene say to +Mr. Colville to-day that made him laugh?" + +"I don't know," said the child. "They kept laughing at so many things." + +"Laughing?" + +"Yes; he laughed. Do you mean toward the last, when he had been throwing +stones into the river?" + +"It must have been then." + +The child stretched herself drowsily. "Oh I couldn't understand it all. +She wanted to throw a stone in the river, but he told her she had better +not. But that didn't make _him_ laugh. She was so very stiff just +afterward that he said the weather had changed, and that made _us_ +laugh." + +"Was that all?" + +"We kept laughing ever so long. I never saw any one like Mr. Colville. +How queerly the fire shines on your face! It gives you such a beautiful +complexion." + +"Does it?" + +"Yes, lovely." The child's mother stooped over and kissed her. "You're +the prettiest mamma in the world," she said, throwing her arms round her +neck. "Sometimes I can't tell whether Imogene is prettier or not, but +to-night I'm certain you are. Do you like to have me think that?" + +"Yes--yes. But don't pull me down so; you hurt my neck. Good night." + +The child let her go. "I haven't said my prayer yet, mamma. I was +thinking." + +"Well, say it now, then," said the mother gently. + +When the child had finished she turned upon her cheek. "Good night, +mamma." + +Mrs. Bowen went about the room a little while, picking up its pretty +disorder. Then she sat down in a chair by the hearth, where a log was +still burning. The light of the flame flickered upon her face, and threw +upon the ceiling a writhing, fantastic shadow, the odious caricature of +her gentle beauty. + + + + + + +VIII + + +In that still air of the Florentine winter, time seems to share the +arrest of the natural forces, the repose of the elements. The pale blue +sky is frequently overcast, and it rains two days out of five; +sometimes, under extraordinary provocation from the north a snow-storm +whirls along under the low grey dome, and whitens the brown roofs, where +a growth of spindling weeds and grass clothes the tiles the whole year +round, and shows its delicate green above the gathered flakes. But for +the most part the winds are laid, and the sole change is from quiet sun +to quiet shower. This at least is the impression which remains in the +senses of the sojourning stranger, whose days slip away with so little +difference one from another that they seem really not to have passed, +but, like the grass that keeps the hillsides fresh round Florence all +the winter long, to be waiting some decisive change of season before +they begin. + +The first of the Carnival sights that marked the lapse of a month since +his arrival took Colville by surprise. He could not have believed that +it was February yet if it had not been for the straggling maskers in +armour whom he met one day in Via Borgognissanti, with their visors up +for their better convenience in smoking. They were part of the chorus at +one of the theatres, and they were going about to eke out their salaries +with the gifts of people whose windows the festival season privileged +them to play under. The silly spectacle stirred Colville's blood a +little, as any sort of holiday preparation was apt to do. He thought +that it afforded him a fair occasion to call at Palazzo Pinti, where he +had not been so much of late as in the first days of his renewed +acquaintance with Mrs. Bowen. He had at one time had the fancy that Mrs. +Bowen was cool toward him. He might very well have been mistaken in +this; in fact, she had several times addressed him the politest +reproaches for not coming, but he made some evasion, and went only on +the days when she was receiving other people, and when necessarily he +saw very little of the family. + +Miss Graham was always very friendly, but always very busy, drawing tea +from the samovar, and looking after others. Effie Bowen dropped her eyes +in re-established strangeness when she brought the basket of cake to +him. There was one moment when he suspected that he had been talked over +in family council, and put under a certain regimen. But he had no proof +of this, and it had really nothing to do with his keeping away, which +was largely accidental. He had taken up, with as much earnestness as he +could reasonably expect of himself, that notion of studying the +architectural expression of Florentine character at the different +periods. He had spent a good deal of money in books, he had revived his +youthful familiarity with the city, and he had made what acquaintance he +could with people interested in such matters. He met some of these in +the limited but very active society in which he mingled daily and +nightly. After the first strangeness to any sort of social life had worn +off, he found himself very fond of the prompt hospitalities which his +introduction at Mrs. Bowen's had opened to him. His host--or more +frequently it was his hostess--had sometimes merely an apartment at a +hotel; perhaps the family was established in one of the furnished +lodgings which stretch the whole length of the Lung' Arno on either +hand, and abound in all the new streets approaching the Cascine, and had +set up the simple and facile housekeeping of the sojourner in Florence +for a few months; others had been living in the villa or the palace they +had taken for years. + +The more recent and transitory people expressed something of the +prevailing English and American aestheticism in the decoration of their +apartments, but the greater part accepted the Florentine drawing-room as +their landlord had imagined it for them, with furniture and curtains in +yellow satin, a cheap ingrain carpet thinly covering the stone floor, +and a fire of little logs ineffectually blazing on the hearth, and +flickering on the carved frames of the pictures on the wall and the +nakedness of the frescoed allegories in the ceiling. Whether of longer +or shorter stay, the sojourners were bound together by a common language +and a common social tradition; they all had a Day, and on that day there +was tea and bread and butter for every comer. They had one another to +dine; there were evening parties, with dancing and without dancing. +Colville even went to a fancy ball, where he was kept in countenance by +several other Florentines of the period of Romola. At all these places +he met nearly the same people, whose alien life in the midst of the +native community struck him as one of the phases of modern civilisation +worthy of note, if not particular study; for he fancied it destined to a +wider future throughout Europe, as the conditions in England and America +grow more tiresome and more onerous. They seemed to see very little of +Italian society, and to be shut out from practical knowledge of the +local life by the terms upon which they had themselves insisted. Our +race finds its simplified and cheapened London or New York in all its +Continental resorts now, but nowhere has its taste been so much studied +as in Italy, and especially in Florence. It was not, perhaps, the real +Englishman or American who had been considered, but a _forestiere_ +conventionalised from the Florentine's observation of many Anglo-Saxons. +But he had been so well conjectured that he was hemmed round with a very +fair illusion of his national circumstances. + +It was not that he had his English or American doctor to prescribe for +him when sick, and his English or American apothecary to compound his +potion; it was not that there was an English tailor and an American +dentist, an English bookseller and an English baker, and chapels of +every shade of Protestantism, with Catholic preaching in English every +Sunday. These things were more or less matters of necessity, but +Colville objected that the barbers should offer him an American shampoo; +that the groceries should abound in English biscuit and our own canned +fruit and vegetables, and that the grocers' clerks should be ambitious +to read the labels of the Boston baked beans. He heard--though he did +not prove this by experiment--that the master of a certain trattoria had +studied the doughnut of New England till he had actually surpassed the +original in the qualities that have undermined our digestion as a +people. But above all it interested him to see that intense expression +of American civilisation, the horse-car, triumphing along the +magnificent avenues that mark the line of the old city walls; and he +recognised an instinctive obedience to an abtruse natural law in the +fact that whereas the omnibus, which the Italians have derived from the +English, was not filled beyond its seating capacity, the horse-car was +overcrowded without and within at Florence, just as it is with us who +invented it. + +"I wouldn't mind even that," he said one day to the lady who was drawing +him his fifth or sixth cup of tea for that afternoon, and with whom he +was naturally making this absurd condition of things a matter of +personal question; "but you people here pass your days in a round of +unbroken English, except when you talk with your servants. I'm not sure +you don't speak English with the shop people. I can hardly get them to +speak Italian to me." + +"Perhaps they think you can speak English better," said the lady. + +This went over Florence; in a week it was told to Colville as something +said to some one else. He fearlessly reclaimed it as said to himself, +and this again was told. In the houses where he visited he had the +friendly acceptance of any intelligent and reasonably agreeable person +who comes promptly and willingly when he is asked, and seems always to +have enjoyed himself when he goes away. But besides this sort of general +favour, he enjoyed a very pleasing little personal popularity which came +from his interest in other people, from his good-nature, and from his +inertness. He slighted no acquaintance, and talked to every one with the +same apparent wish to be entertaining. This was because he was incapable +of the cruelty of open indifference when his lot was cast with a dull +person, and also because he was mentally too lazy to contrive pretences +for getting away; besides he did not really find anybody altogether a +bore, and he had no wish to shine. He listened without shrinking to +stories that he had heard before, and to things that had already been +said to him; as has been noted, he had himself the habit of repeating +his ideas with the recklessness of maturity, for he had lived long +enough to know that this can be done with almost entire safety. + +He haunted the studios a good deal, and through a retrospective affinity +with art, and a human sympathy with the sacrifice which it always +involves, he was on friendly terms with sculptors and painters who were +not in every case so friendly with one another. More than once he saw +the scars of old rivalries, and he might easily have been an adherent of +two or three parties. But he tried to keep the freedom of the different +camps without taking sides; and he felt the pathos of the case when they +all told the same story of the disaster which the taste for bric-a-brac +had wrought to the cause of art; how people who came abroad no longer +gave orders for statues and pictures, but spent their money on curtains +and carpets, old chests and chairs, and pots and pans. There were some +among these artists whom he had known twenty years before in Florence, +ardent and hopeful beginners; and now the backs of their grey or bald +heads, as they talked to him with their faces towards their work, and a +pencil or a pinch of clay held thoughtfully between their fingers, +appealed to him as if he had remained young and prosperous, and they had +gone forward to age and hard work. They were very quaint at times. They +talked the American slang of the war days and of the days before the +war; without a mastery of Italian, they often used the idioms of that +tongue in their English speech. They were dim and vague about the +country, with whose affairs they had kept up through the newspapers. +Here and there one thought he was going home very soon; others had +finally relinquished all thoughts of return. These had, perhaps without +knowing it, lost the desire to come back; they cowered before the +expensiveness of life in America, and doubted of a future with which, +indeed, only the young can hopefully grapple. But in spite of their +accumulated years, and the evil times on which they had fallen, Colville +thought them mostly very happy men, leading simple and innocent lives in +a world of the ideal, and rich in the inexhaustible beauty of the city, +the sky, the air. They all, whether they were ever going back or not, +were fervent Americans, and their ineffaceable nationality marked them, +perhaps, all the more strongly for the patches of something alien that +overlaid it in places. They knew that he was or had been a newspaper +man; but if they secretly cherished the hope that he would bring them to +the _dolce lume_ of print, they never betrayed it; and the authorship of +his letter about the American artists in Florence, which he printed in +the _American Register_ at Paris, was not traced to him for a whole +week. + +Colville was a frequent visitor of Mr. Waters, who had a lodging in +Piazza San Marco, of the poverty which can always be decent in Italy. It +was bare, but for the books that furnished it; with a table for his +writing, on a corner of which he breakfasted, a wide sofa with cushions +in coarse white linen that frankly confessed itself a bed by night, and +two chairs of plain Italian walnut; but the windows, which had no sun, +looked out upon the church and the convent sacred to the old Socinian +for the sake of the meek, heroic mystic whom they keep alive in all the +glory of his martyrdom. No two minds could well have been further apart +than the New England minister and the Florentine monk, and no two souls +nearer together, as Colville recognised with a not irreverent smile. + +When the old man was not looking up some point of his saint's history in +his books, he was taking with the hopefulness of youth and the patience +of age a lesson in colloquial Italian from his landlady's daughter, +which he pronounced with a scholarly scrupulosity and a sincere atonic +Massachusetts accent. He practised the language wherever he could, +especially at the trattoria where he dined, and where he made occasions +to detain the waiter in conversation. They humoured him, out of their +national good-heartedness and sympathy, and they did what they could to +realise a strange American dish for him on Sundays--a combination of +stockfish and potatoes boiled, and then fried together in small cakes. +They revered him as a foreign gentleman of saintly amiability and +incomprehensible preferences; and he was held in equal regard at the +next green-grocer's where he spent every morning five centessimi for a +bunch of radishes and ten for a little pat of butter to eat with his +bread and coffee; he could not yet accustom himself to mere bread and +coffee for breakfast, though he conformed as completely as he could to +the Italian way of living. He respected the abstemiousness of the race; +he held that it came from a spirituality of nature to which the North +was still strange, with all its conscience and sense of individual +accountability. He contended that he never suffered in his small +dealings with these people from the dishonesty which most of his +countrymen complained of; and he praised their unfailing gentleness of +manner; this could arise only from goodness of heart, which was perhaps +the best kind of goodness after all. + +None of these humble acquaintance of his could well have accounted for +the impression they all had that he was some sort of ecclesiastic. They +could never have understood--nor, for that matter, could any one have +understood through European tradition--the sort of sacerdotal office +that Mr. Waters had filled so long in the little deeply book-clubbed New +England village where he had outlived most of his flock, till one day he +rose in the midst of the surviving dyspeptics and consumptives and, +following the example of Mr. Emerson, renounced his calling for ever. By +that time even the pale Unitarianism thinning out into paler doubt was +no longer tenable with him. He confessed that while he felt the Divine +goodness more and more, he believed that it was a mistake to preach any +specific creed or doctrine, and he begged them to release him from their +service. A young man came to fill his place in their pulpit, but he kept +his place in their hearts. They raised a subscription of seventeen +hundred dollars and thirty-five cents; another being submitted to the +new button manufacturer, who had founded his industry in the village, he +promptly rounded it out to three thousand, and Mr. Waters came to +Florence. His people parted with him in terms of regret as delicate as +they were awkward, and their love followed him. He corresponded +regularly with two or three ladies, and his letters were sometimes read +from his pulpit. + +Colville took the Piazza San Marco in on his way to Palazzo Pinti on the +morning when he had made up his mind to go there, and he stood at the +window looking out with the old man, when some more maskers passed +through the place--two young fellows in old Florentine dress, with a +third habited as a nun. + +"Ah," said the old man gently, "I wish they hadn't introduced the nun! +But I suppose they can't help signalising their escape from the +domination of the Church on all occasions. It's a natural reaction. It +will all come right in time." + +"You preach the true American gospel," said Colville. + +"Of course; there is no other gospel. That is the gospel." + +"Do you suppose that Savonarola would think it had all come out right," +asked Colville, a little maliciously, "if he could look from the window +with us here and see the wicked old Carnival, that he tried so hard to +kill four hundred years ago, still alive? And kicking?" he added, in +cognisance of the caper of one of the maskers. + +"Oh yes; why not? By this time he knows that his puritanism was all a +mistake, unless as a thing for the moment only. I should rather like to +have Savonarola here with us; he would find these costumes familiar; +they are of his time. I shall make a point of seeing all I can of the +Carnival, as part of my study of Savonarola, if nothing else." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to give yourself limitations," said Colville, as +one of the maskers threw his arm round the mock-nun's neck. But the old +man did not see this, and Colville did not feel it necessary to explain +himself. + +The maskers had passed out of the piazza, now, and "Have you seen our +friends at Palazzo Pinti lately?" said Mr. Waters. + +"Not very," said Colville. "I was just on my way there." + +"I wish you would make them my compliments. Such a beautiful young +creature." + +"Yes," said Colville; "she is certainly a beautiful girl." + +"I meant Mrs. Bowen," returned the old man quietly. + +"Oh, I thought you meant Miss Graham. Mrs. Bowen is my contemporary, and +so I didn't think of her when you said young. I should have called her +pretty rather than beautiful." + +"No; she's beautiful. The young girl is good-looking--I don't deny that; +but she is very crude yet." + +Colville laughed. "Crude in looks? I should have said Miss Graham was +rather crude in mind, though I'm not sure I wouldn't have stopped at +saying _young_." + +"No," mildly persisted the old man; "she couldn't be crude in mind +without being crude in looks." + +"You mean," pursued Colville, smiling, but not wholly satisfied, "that +she hasn't a lovely nature?" + +"You never can know what sort of nature a young girl has. Her nature +depends so much upon that of the man whose fate she shares." + +"The woman is what the man makes her? That is convenient for the woman, +and relieves her of all responsibility." + +"The man is what the woman makes him, too, but not so much so. The man +was cast into a deep sleep, you know----" + +"And the woman was what he dreamed her. I wish she were." + +"In most cases she is," said Mr. Waters. + +They did not pursue the matter. The truth that floated in the old +minister's words pleased Colville by its vagueness, and flattered the +man in him by its implication of the man's superiority. He wanted to say +that if Mrs. Bowen were what the late Mr. Bowen had dreamed her, then +the late Mr. Bowen, when cast into his deep sleep, must have had Lina +Ridgely in his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the fantasy +unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he forbore to say +that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it would be better to begin +with some one whom nobody else had dreamed before; then you could be +sure at least of not having a wife to somebody else's mind rather than +your own. Once on his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped, arrested by a +thought that had not occurred to him before in relation to what Mr. +Waters had been saying, and then pushed on with the sense of security +which is the compensation the possession of the initiative brings to our +sex along with many responsibilities. In the enjoyment of this, no man +stops to consider the other side, which must wait his initiative, +however they mean to meet it. + +In the Por San Maria Colville found masks and dominoes filling the shop +windows and dangling from the doors. A devil in red and a clown in white +crossed the way in front of him from an intersecting street; several +children in pretty masquerading dresses flashed in and out among the +crowd. He hurried to the Lung' Arno, and reached the palace where Mrs. +Bowen lived, with these holiday sights fresh in his mind. Imogene turned +to meet him at the door of the apartment, running from the window where +she had left Effie Bowen still gazing. + +"We saw you coming," she said gaily, without waiting to exchange formal +greetings. "We didn't know at first but it might; be somebody else +disguised as you. We've been watching the maskers go by. Isn't it +exciting?" + +"Awfully," said Colville, going to the window with her, and putting his +arm on Effie's shoulder, where she knelt in a chair looking out. "What +have you seen?" + +"Oh, only two Spanish students with mandolins," said Imogene; "but you +can see they're _beginning_ to come." + +"They'll stop now," murmured Effie, with gentle disappointment; "it's +commencing to rain." + +"Oh, too bad!" wailed the young girl. But just then two mediaeval +men-at-arms came in sight, carrying umbrellas. "Isn't that too +delicious? Umbrellas and chain-armour!" + +"You can't expect them to let their chain-armour get rusty," said +Colville. "You ought to have been with me--minstrels in scale-armour, +Florentines of Savonarola's times, nuns, clowns, demons, fairies--no end +to them." + +"It's very well saying we ought to have been with you; but we can't go +anywhere alone." + +"I didn't say alone," said Colville. "Don't you think Mrs. Bowen would +trust you with me to see these Carnival beginnings?" He had not meant at +all to do anything of this kind, but that had not prevented his doing +it. + +"How do we know, when she hasn't been asked?" said Imogene, with a touch +of burlesque dolor, such as makes a dignified girl enchanting, when she +permits it to herself. She took Effie's hand in hers, the child having +faced round from the window, and stood smoothing it, with her lovely +head pathetically tilted on one side. + +"What haven't I been asked yet?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, coming lightly +toward them from a door at the side of the _salon_. She gave her hand to +Colville with the prettiest grace, and a cordiality that brought a flush +to her cheek. There had really been nothing between them but a little +unreasoned coolness, if it were even so much as that; say rather a +dryness, aggravated by time and absence, and now, as friends do, after a +thing of that kind, they were suddenly glad to be good to each other. + +"Why, you haven't been asked how you have been this long time," said +Colville. + +"I have been wanting to tell you for a whole week," returned Mrs. Bowen, +seating the rest and taking a chair for herself. "Where have you been?" + +"Oh, shut up in my cell at Hotel d'Atene, writing a short history of the +Florentine people for Miss Effie." + +"Effie, take Mr. Colville's hat," said her mother. "We're going to make +you stay to lunch," she explained to him. + +"Is that so?" he asked, with an effect of polite curiosity. + +"Yes." Imogene softly clapped her hands, unseen by Mrs. Bowen, for +Colville's instruction that all was going well. If it delights women to +pet an undangerous friend of our sex, to use him like one of themselves, +there are no words to paint the soft and flattered content with which +his spirit purrs under their caresses. "You must have nearly finished +the history," added Mrs. Bowen. + +"Well, I could have finished it," said Colville, "if I had only begun +it. You see, writing a short history of the Florentine people is such +quick work that you have to be careful how you actually put pen to +paper, or you're through with it before you've had any fun out of it." + +"I think Effie will like to read that kind of history," said her mother. + +The child hung her head, and would not look at Colville; she was still +shy with him; his absence must have seemed longer to a child, of course. + +At lunch they talked of the Carnival sights that had begun to appear. He +told of his call upon Mr. Waters, and of the old minister's purpose to +see all he could of the Carnival in order to judge intelligently of +Savonarola's opposition to it. + +"Mr. Waters is a very good man," said Mrs. Bowen, with the air of not +meaning to approve him quite, nor yet to let any notion of his be made +fun of in her presence. "But for my part I wish there were not going to +be any Carnival; the city will be in such an uproar for the next two +weeks." + +"O Mrs. Bowen!" cried Imogene reproachfully; Effie looked at her mother +in apparent anxiety lest she should be meaning to put forth an +unquestionable power and stop the Carnival. + +"The last Carnival, I thought there was never going to be any end to it; +I was so glad when Lent came." + +"Glad when _Lent_ came!" breathed Imogene, in astonishment; but she +ventured upon nothing more insubordinate, and Colville admired to see +this spirited girl as subject to Mrs. Bowen as her own child. There is +no reason why one woman should establish another woman over her, but +nearly all women do it in one sort or another, from love of a voluntary +submission, or from a fear of their own ignorance, if they are younger +and more inexperienced than their lieges. Neither the one passion nor +the other seems to reduce them to a like passivity as regards their +husbands. They must apparently have a fetish of their own sex. Colville +could see that Imogene obeyed Mrs. Bowen not only as a _protegee_ but as +a devotee. + +"Oh, I suppose _you_ will have to go through it all," said Mrs. Bowen, +in reward of the girl's acquiescence. + +"You're rather out of the way of it up here," said Colville. "You had +better let me go about with the young ladies--if you can trust them to +the care of an old fellow like me." + +"Oh, I don't think you're so very old, at all times," replied Mrs. +Bowen, with a peculiar look, whether indulgent or reproachful he could +not quite make out. + +But he replied, boldly, in his turn: "I have certainly my moments of +being young still; I don't deny it. There's always a danger of their +occurrence." + +"I was thinking," said Mrs. Bowen, with a graceful effect of not +listening, "that you would let me go too. It would be quite like old +times." + +"Only too much honour and pleasure," returned Colville, "if you will +leave out the old times. I'm not particular about having them along." +Mrs. Bowen joined in laughing at the joke, which they had to themselves. +"I was only consulting an explicit abhorrence of yours in not asking you +to go at first," he explained. + +"Oh yes; I understand that." + +The excellence of the whole arrangement seemed to grow upon Mrs. Bowen. +"Of course," she said, "Imogene ought to see all she can of the +Carnival. She may not have another chance, and perhaps if she had, _he_ +wouldn't consent." + +"I'll engage to get _his_ consent," said the girl. "What I was afraid of +was that I couldn't get yours, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Am I so severe as that?" asked Mrs. Bowen softly. + +"Quite," replied Imogene. + +"Perhaps," thought Colville, "it isn't always silent submission." + +For no very good reason that any one could give, the Carnival that year +was not a brilliant one. Colville's party seemed to be always meeting +the same maskers on the street, and the maskers did not greatly increase +in numbers. There were a few more of them after nightfall, but they were +then a little more bacchanal, and he felt it was better that the ladies +had gone home by that time. In the pursuit of the tempered pleasure of +looking up the maskers he was able to make the reflection that their +fantastic and vivid dresses sympathised in a striking way with the +architecture of the city, and gave him an effect of Florence which he +could not otherwise have had. There came by and by a little attempt at a +_corso_ in Via Cerratani and Via Tornabuoni. There were some masks in +carriages, and from one they actually threw plaster _confetti_; half a +dozen bare-legged boys ran before and beat one another with bladders, +Some people, but not many, watched the show from the windows, and the +footways were crowded. + +Having proposed that they should see the Carnival together, Colville had +made himself responsible for it to the Bowen household. Imogene said, +"Well is this the famous Carnival of Florence?" + +"It certainly doesn't compare with the Carnival last year," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"Your reproach is just, Mrs. Bowen," he acknowledged. "I've managed it +badly. But you know I've been out of practice a great while there in Des +Vaches." + +"Oh, poor Mr. Colville!" cried Imogene. "He isn't altogether to blame." + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen, humouring the joke in her turn. "It +seems to me that if he had consulted us a little earlier, he might have +done better." + +He drove home with the ladies, and Mrs. Bowen made him stay to tea. As +if she felt that he needed to be consoled for the failure of his +Carnival, she was especially indulgent with him. She played to him on +the piano some of the songs that were in fashion when they were in +Florence together before. + +Imogene had never heard them; she had heard her mother speak of them. +One or two of them were negro songs, such as very pretty young ladies +used to sing without harm to themselves or offence to others; but +Imogene decided that they were rather rowdy. "Dear me, Mrs. Bowen! Did +_you_ sing such songs? You wouldn't let Effie!" + +"No, I wouldn't let Effie. The times are changed. I wouldn't let Effie +go to the theatre alone with a young gentleman." + +"The times are changed for the worse," Colville began. "What harm ever +came to a young man from a young lady's going alone to the theatre with +him?" + +He stayed till the candles were brought in, and then went away only +because, as he said, they had not asked him to stay to dinner. + +He came nearly every day, upon one pretext or another, and he met them +oftener than that at the teas and on the days of other ladies in +Florence; for he was finding the busy idleness of the life very +pleasant, and he went everywhere. He formed the habit of carrying +flowers to the Palazzo Pinti, excusing himself on the ground that they +were so cheap and so abundant as to be impersonal. He brought violets to +Effie and roses to Imogene; to Mrs. Bowen he always brought a bunch of +the huge purple anemones which grow so abundantly all winter long about +Florence. "I wonder why _purple_ anemones?" he asked her one day in +presenting them to her. + +"Oh, it is quite time I should be wearing purple," she said gently. + +"Ah, Mrs. Bowen!" he reproached her. "Why do I bring purple violets to +Miss Effie?" + +"You must ask Effie!" said Mrs. Bowen, with a laugh. + +After that he stayed away forty-eight hours, and then appeared with a +bunch of the red anemones, as large as tulips, which light up the meadow +grass when it begins to stir from its torpor in the spring. "They grew +on purpose to set me right with you," he said, "and I saw them when I +was in the country." + +It was a little triumph for him, which she celebrated by putting them in +a vase on her table, and telling people who exclaimed over them that +they were some Mr. Colville gathered in the country. He enjoyed his +privileges at her house with the futureless satisfaction of a man. He +liked to go about with the Bowens; he was seen with the ladies driving +and walking, in most of their promenades. He directed their visits to +the churches and the galleries; he was fond of strolling about with +Effie's daintily-gloved little hand in his. He took her to Giocosa's and +treated her to ices; he let her choose from the confectioner's prettiest +caprices in candy; he was allowed to bring the child presents in his +pockets. Perhaps he was not as conscientious as he might have been in +his behaviour with the little girl. He did what he could to spoil her, +or at least to relax the severity of the training she had received; he +liked to see the struggle that went on in the mother's mind against +this, and then the other struggle with which she overcame her opposition +to it. The worst he did was to teach Effie some picturesque Western +phrases, which she used with innocent effectiveness; she committed the +crimes against convention which he taught her with all the conventional +elegance of her training. The most that he ever gained for her were some +concessions in going out in weather that her mother thought unfit, or +sitting up for half-hours after her bed-time. He ordered books for her +from Goodban's, and it was Colville now, and not the Rev. Mr. Morton, +who read poetry aloud to the ladies on afternoons when Mrs. Bowen gave +orders that she and Miss Graham should be denied to all other comers. + +It was an intimacy; and society in Florence is not blind, and especially +it is not dumb. The old lady who had celebrated Mrs. Bowen to him the +first night at Palazzo Pinti led a life of active questions as to what +was the supreme attraction to Colville there, and she referred her doubt +to every friend with whom she drank tea. She philosophised the situation +very scientifically, and if not very conclusively, how few are the +absolute conclusions of science upon any point! + +"He is a bachelor, and there is a natural affinity between bachelors and +widows--much more than if he were a widower too. If he were a widower I +should say it was undoubtedly mademoiselle. If he were a little _bit_ +younger, I should have no doubt it was madame; but men of that age have +such an ambition to marry young girls! I suppose that they think it +proves they are not so very old, after all. And certainly he isn't too +old to marry. If he were wise--which he probably isn't, if he's like +other men in such matters--there wouldn't be any question about Mrs. +Bowen. Pretty creature! And so much sense! Too much for him. Ah, my +dear, how we are wasted upon that sex!" + +Mrs. Bowen herself treated the affair with masterly frankness. More than +once in varying phrase, she said: "You are very good to give us so much +of your time, Mr. Colville, and I won't pretend I don't know it. You're +helping me out with a very hazardous experiment. When I undertook to see +Imogene through a winter in Florence, I didn't reflect what a very gay +time girls have at home, in Western towns especially. But I haven't +heard her breathe Buffalo once. And I'm sure it's doing her a great deal +of good here. She's naturally got a very good mind; she's very ambitious +to be cultivated. She's read a good deal, and she's anxious to know +history and art; and your advice and criticism are the greatest possible +advantage to her." + +"Thank you," said Colville, with a fine, remote dissatisfaction. "I +supposed I was merely enjoying myself." + +He had lately begun to haunt his banker's for information in regard to +the Carnival balls, with the hope that something might be made out of +them. + +But either there were to be no great Carnival balls, or it was a mistake +to suppose that his banker ought to know about them. Colville went +experimentally to one of the people's balls at a minor theatre, which he +found advertised on the house walls. At half-past ten the dancing had +not begun, but the masks were arriving; young women in gay silks and +dirty white gloves; men in women's dresses, with enormous hands; girls +as pages; clowns, pantaloons, old women, and the like. They were all +very good-humoured; the men, who far outnumbered the women, danced +contentedly together. Colville liked two cavalry soldiers who waltzed +with each other for an hour, and then went off to a battery on +exhibition in the pit, and had as much electricity as they could hold. +He liked also two young citizens who danced together as long as he +stayed, and did not leave off even for electrical refreshment. He came +away at midnight, pushing out of the theatre through a crowd of people +at the door, some of whom were tipsy. This certainly would not have done +for the ladies, though the people were civilly tipsy. + + + + + + +IX + + +The next morning Paolo, when he brought up Colville's breakfast, brought +the news that there was to be a veglione at the Pergola Theatre. This +news revived Colville's courage. "Paolo," he said, "you ought to open a +banking-house." Paolo was used to being joked by foreigners who could +not speak Italian very well; he smiled as if he understood. + +The banker had his astute doubts of Paolo's intelligence; the banker in +Europe doubts all news not originating in his house; but after a day or +two the advertisements in the newspapers carried conviction even to the +banker. + +When Colville went to the ladies with news of the veglione, he found +that they had already heard of it. "Should you like to go?" he asked +Mrs. Bowen. + +"I don't know. What do you think?" she asked in turn. + +"Oh, it's for you to do the thinking. I only know what I want." + +Imogene said nothing, while she watched the internal debate as it +expressed itself in Mrs. Bowen's face. + +"People go in boxes," she said thoughtfully; "but you would feel that a +box wasn't the same thing exactly?" + +"_We_ went on the floor," suggested Colville. + +"It was very different then. And, besides, Mrs. Finlay had absolutely +_no_ sense of propriety." When a woman has explicitly condemned a given +action, she apparently gathers courage for its commission under a little +different conditions. "Of course, if we went upon the floor, I shouldn't +wish it to be known at all, though foreigners can do almost anything +they like." + +"Really," said Colville, "when it comes to that, I don't see any harm in +it." + +"And you say go?" + +"I say whatever you say." + +Mrs. Bowen looked from him to Imogene. "I don't either," she said +finally, and they understood that she meant the harm which he had not +seen. + +"Which of us has been so good as to deserve this?" asked Colville. + +"Oh, you have all been good," she said. "We shall go in masks and +dominoes," she continued. "Nothing will happen, and who should know us +if anything did?" They had received tickets to the great Borghese ball, +which is still a fashionable and desired event of the Carnival to +foreigners in Florence; but their preconceptions of the veglione threw +into the shade the entertainment which the gentlemen of Florence offered +to favoured sojourners. + +"Come," said Mrs. Bowen, "you must go with us and help us choose our +dominoes." + +A prudent woman does not do an imprudent thing by halves. Effie was to +be allowed to go to the veglione too, and she went with them to the shop +where they were to hire their dominoes. It would be so much more fun, +Mrs. Bowen said, to choose the dresses in the shop than to have them +sent home for you to look at. Effie was to be in black; Imogene was to +have a light blue domino, and Mrs. Bowen chose a purple one; even where +their faces were not to be seen they considered their complexions in +choosing the colours. If you happened to find a friend, and wanted to +unmask, you would not want to look horrid. The shop people took the +vividest interest in it all, as if it were a new thing to them, and +these were the first foreigners they had ever served with masks and +dominoes. They made Mrs. Bowen and Imogene go into an inner room and +come out for the mystification of Colville, hulking about in the front +shop with his mask and domino on. + +"Which is which?" the ladies both challenged him, in the mask's +conventional falsetto, when they came out. + +With a man's severe logic he distinguished them according to their +silks, but there had been time for them to think of changing, and they +took off their masks to laugh in his face. + +They fluttered so airily about among the pendent masks and dominoes, +from which they shook a ghostly perfume of old carnivals, that his heart +leaped. + +"Ah, you'll never be so fascinating again!" he cried. He wanted to take +them in his arms, they were both so delicious; a man has still only that +primitive way of expressing his supreme satisfaction in women. "Now, +which am I?" he demanded of them, and that made them laugh again. He had +really put his arm about Effie. + +"Do you think you will know your papa at the veglione?" asked one of the +shop-women, with a mounting interest in the amiable family party. + +They all laughed; the natural mistake seemed particularly droll to +Imogene. + +"Come," cried Mrs. Bowen; "it's time we should be going." + +That was true; they had passed so long a time in the shop that they did +not feel justified in seriously attempting to beat down the price of +their dresses. They took them at the first price. The woman said with +reason that it was Carnival, and she could get her price for the things. + +They went to the veglione at eleven, the ladies calling for Colville, as +before, in Mrs. Bowen's carriage. He felt rather sheepish, coming out of +his room in his mask and domino, but the corridors of the hotel were +empty, and for the most part dark; there was no one up but the porter, +who wished him a pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion as if he +were going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His spirits +mounted in the atmosphere of adventure which the ladies diffused about +them in the carriage; Effie Bowen laughed aloud when he entered, in +childish gaiety of heart. + +The narrow streets roared with the wheels of cabs and carriages coming +and going; the street before the theatre was so packed that it was some +time before they could reach the door. Masks were passing in and out; +the nervous joy of the ladies expressed itself in a deep-drawn quivering +sigh. Their carriage door was opened by a servant of the theatre, who +wished them a pleasant veglione, and the next moment they were in the +crowded vestibule, where they paused a moment, to let Imogene and Effie +really feel that they were part of a masquerade. + +"Now, keep all together," said Mrs. Bowen, as they passed through the +inner door of the vestibule, and the brilliantly lighted theatre flashed +its colours and splendours upon them. The floor of the pit had been +levelled to that of the stage, which, stripped of the scenic apparatus, +opened vaster spaces for the motley crew already eddying over it in the +waltz. The boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light of candelabra +which added their sparkle to that of the gas jets. + +"You and Effie go before," said Mrs. Bowen to Imogene. She made them +take hands like children, and mechanically passed her own hand through +Colville's arm. + +A mask in red from head to foot attached himself to the party, and began +to make love to her in excellent pantomime. + +Colville was annoyed. He asked her if he should tell the fellow to take +himself off. + +"Not on any account!" she answered. "It's perfectly delightful. It +wouldn't be the veglione without it. Did you ever see such good acting?" + +"I don't think it's remarkable for anything but its fervour," said +Colville. + +"I should like to see you making love to some lady," she rejoined +mischievously. + +"I will make love to you, if you like," he said, but he felt in an +instant that his joke was in bad taste. + +They went the round of the theatre. "That is Prince Strozzi, Imogene," +said Mrs. Bowen, leaning forward to whisper to the girl. She pointed out +other people of historic and aristocratic names in the boxes, where +there was a democracy of beauty among the ladies, all painted and +powdered to the same marquise effect. + +On the floor were gentlemen in evening dress, without masks, and here +and there ladies waltzing, who had masks but no dominoes. But for the +most part people were in costume; the theatre flushed and flowered in +gay variety of tint that teased the eye with its flow through the dance. + +Mrs. Bowen had circumscribed the adventure so as to exclude dancing from +it. Imogene was not to dance. One might go to the veglione and look on +from a box; if one ventured further and went on the floor, decidedly one +was not to dance. + +This was thoroughly understood beforehand, and there were to be no +petitions or murmurs at the theatre. They found a quiet corner, and sat +down to look on. + +The mask in red followed, and took his place at a little distance, +where, whenever Mrs. Bowen looked that way, he continued to protest his +passion. + +"You're sure he doesn't bore you?" suggested Colville. + +"No, indeed. He's very amusing." + +"Oh, all right!" + +The waltz ceased; the whirling and winding confusion broke into an +irregular streaming hither and thither, up and down. They began to pick +out costumes and characters that interested them. Clowns in white, with +big noses, and harlequins in their motley, with flat black masks, +abounded. There were some admirable grasshoppers in green, with long +antennae quivering from their foreheads. Two or three Mephistos reddened +through the crowd. Several knights in armour got about with difficulty, +apparently burdened by their greaves and breastplates. + +A group of leaping and dancing masks gathered around a young man in +evening dress, with long hair, who stood leaning against a pillar near +them, and who underwent their mockeries with a smile of patience, half +amused, half tormented. + +When they grew tired of baiting him, and were looking about for other +prey, the red mask redoubled his show of devotion to Mrs. Bowen, and the +other masks began to flock round and approve. + +"Oh, now," she said, with a little embarrassed laugh, in which there was +no displeasure, "I think you may ask him to go away. But don't be harsh +with him," she added, at a brusque movement which Colville made toward +the mask. + +"Oh, why should I be harsh with him? We're not rivals." This was not in +good taste either, Colville felt. "Besides, I'm an Italian too," he +said, to retrieve himself. He made a few paces toward the mask, and said +in a low tone, with gentle suggestion, "Madame finds herself a little +incommoded." + +The mask threw himself into an attitude of burlesque despair, bowed low +with his hand on his heart, in token of submission, and vanished into +the crowd. The rest dispersed with cries of applause. + +"How very prettily you did it, both of you!" said Mrs. Bowen. "I begin +to believe you are an Italian, Mr. Colville. I shall be afraid of you." + +"You weren't afraid of him." + +"Oh, he was a real Italian." + +"It seems to me that mamma is getting all the good of the veglione," +said Effie, in a plaintive murmur. The well-disciplined child must have +suffered deeply before she lifted this seditious voice. + +"Why, so I am, Effie," answered her mother, "and I don't think it's fair +myself. What shall we do about it?" + +"I should like something to eat," said the child. + +"So should I," said Colville. "That's reparation your mother owes us +all. Let's make her take us and get us something. Wouldn't you like an +ice, Miss Graham?" + +"Yes, an _ice_," said Imogene, with an effect of adding, "Nothing more +for worlds," that made Colville laugh. She rose slowly, like one in a +dream, and cast a look as impassioned as a look could be made through a +mask on the scene she was leaving behind her. The band was playing a +waltz again, and the wide floor swam with circling couples. + +The corridor where the tables were set was thronged with people, who +were drinking beer and eating cold beef and boned turkey and slices of +huge round sausages. "Oh, how _can_ they?" cried the girl, shuddering. + +"I didn't know you were so ethereal-minded about these things," said +Colville. "I thought you didn't object to the salad at Madame +Uccelli's." + +"Oh, but at the veglione!" breathed the girl for all answer. He laughed +again, but Mrs. Bowen did not laugh with him; he wondered why. + +When they returned to their corner in the theatre they found a mask in a +black domino there, who made place for them, and remained standing near. +They began talking freely and audibly, as English-speaking people +incorrigibly do in Italy, where their tongue is all but the language of +the country. + +"Really," said Colville, "I think I shall stifle in this mask. If you +ladies will do what you can to surround me and keep me secret, I'll take +it off a moment." + +"I believe I will join you, Mr. Colville," said the mask near them. He +pushed up his little visor of silk, and discovered the mild, benignant +features of Mr. Waters. + +"Bless my soul!" cried Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen was apparently too much shocked to say anything. + +"You didn't expect to meet me here?" asked the old man, as if otherwise +it should be the most natural thing in the world. After that they could +only unite in suppressing their astonishment. "It's extremely +interesting," he went on, "extremely! I've been here ever since the +exercises began, and I have not only been very greatly amused, but +greatly instructed. It seems to me the key to a great many anomalies in +the history of this wonderful people." + +If Mr. Waters took this philosophical tone about the Carnival, it was +not possible for Colville to take any other. + +"And have you been able to divine from what you have seen here," he +asked gravely, "the grounds of Savonarola's objection to the Carnival?" + +"Not at all," said the old man promptly. "I have seen nothing but the +most harmless gaiety throughout the evening." + +Colville hung his head. He remembered reading once in a passage from +Swedenborg, that the most celestial angels had scarcely any power of +perceiving evil. + +"Why aren't you young people dancing?" asked Mr. Waters, in a cheerful +general way, of Mrs. Bowen's party. + +Colville was glad to break the silence. "Mrs. Bowen doesn't approve of +dancing at vegliones." + +"No?--why not?" inquired the old man, with invincible simplicity. + +Mrs. Bowen smiled her pretty, small smile below her mask. + +"The company is apt to be rather mixed," she said quietly. + +"Yes," pursued Mr. Waters; "but you could dance with one another. The +company seems very well behaved." + +"Oh, quite so," Mrs. Bowen assented. + +"Shortly after I came," said Mr. Waters, "one of the masks asked me to +dance. I was really sorry that my age and traditions forbade my doing +so. I tried to explain, but I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite +clear." + +"Probably it passed for a joke with her," said Colville, in order to say +something. + +"Ah, very likely; but I shall always feel that my impressions of the +Carnival would have been more definite if I could have danced. Now, if I +were a young man like you----" + +Imogens turned and looked at Colville through the eye-holes of her mask; +even in that sort of isolation he thought her eyes expressed surprise. + +"It never occurred to you before that I was a young man," he suggested +gravely. + +She did not reply. + +After a little interval, "Imogene," asked Mrs. Bowen, "would you like to +dance?" + +Colville was astonished. "The veglione has gone to your head, Mrs. +Bowen," he tacitly made his comment. She had spoken to Imogene, but she +glanced at him as if she expected him to be grateful to her for this +stroke of liberality. + +"What would be the use?" returned the girl. + +Colville rose. "After my performance in the Lancers, I can't expect you +to believe me; but I really do know how to waltz." He had but to extend +his arms, and she was hanging upon his shoulder, and they were whirling +away through a long orbit of delight to the girl. + +"Oh, why have you let me do you such injustice?" she murmured intensely. +"I never shall forgive myself." + +"It grieved me that you shouldn't have divined that I was really a +magnificent dancer in disguise, but I bore it as best I could," said +Colville, really amused at her seriousness. "Perhaps you'll find out +after a while that I'm not an old fellow either, but only a 'Lost +Youth,'" + +"Hush," she said; "I don't like to hear you talk so." + +"How?" + +"About--age!" she answered. "It makes me feel----- Don't to-night!" + +Colville laughed. "It isn't a fact that my blinking is going to change +materially. You had better make the most of me as a lost youth. I'm old +enough to be two of them." + +She did not answer, and as they wound up and down through the other +orbing couples, he remembered the veglione of seventeen years before, +when he had dreamed through the waltz with the girl who jilted him; she +was very docile and submissive that night; he believed afterward that if +he had spoken frankly then, she would not have refused him. But he had +veiled his passion in words and phrases that, taken in themselves, had +no meaning--that neither committed him nor claimed her. He could not +help it; he had not the courage at any moment to risk the loss of her +for ever, till it was too late, till he must lose her. + +"Do you believe in pre-existence?" he demanded of Imogene. + +"Oh yes!" she flashed back. "This very instant it was just as if I had +been here before, long ago." + +"Dancing with me?" + +"With you? Yes--yes--I think so." + +He had lived long enough to know that she was making herself believe +what she said, and that she had not lived long enough to know this. + +"Then you remember what I said to you--tried to say to you--that night?" +Through one of those psychological juggles which we all practise with +ourselves at times, it amused him, it charmed him, to find her striving +to realise this past. + +"No; it was so long ago? What was it?" she whispered dreamily. + +A turn of the waltz brought them near Mrs. Bowen; her mask seemed to +wear a dumb reproach. + +He began to be weary; one of the differences between youth and later +life is that the latter wearies so soon of any given emotion. + +"Ah, I can't remember, either! Aren't you getting rather tired of the +waltz and me?" + +"Oh no; go on!" she deeply murmured. "Try to remember." + +The long, pulsating stream of the music broke and fell. The dancers +crookedly dispersed in wandering lines. She took his arm; he felt her +heart leap against it; those innocent, trustful throbs upbraided him. At +the same time his own heart beat with a sort of fond, protecting +tenderness; he felt the witchery of his power to make this young, +radiant, and beautiful creature hang flattered and bewildered on his +talk; he liked the compassionate worship with which his tacit confidence +had inspired her, even while he was not without some satirical sense of +the crude sort of heart-broken hero he must be in the fancy of a girl of +her age. + +"Let us go and walk in the corridor a moment," he said. But they walked +there till the alluring melancholy music of the waltz began again. In a +mutual caprice, they rejoined the dance. + +It came into his head to ask, "Who is _he_?" and as he had got past +denying himself anything, he asked it. + +"He? What he?" + +"He that Mrs. Bowen thought might object to your seeing the Carnival?" + +"Oh!--oh yes! That was the not impossible he." + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes." + +"Then he's not even the not improbable he?" + +"No, indeed." + +They waltzed in silence. Then, "Why did you ask me that?" she murmured. + +"I don't know. Was it such a strange question?" + +"I don't know. You ought to." + +"Yes, if it was wrong, I'm old enough to know better." + +"You promised not to say 'old' any more." + +"Then I suppose I mustn't. But you mustn't get me to ignore it, and then +laugh at me for it." + +"Oh!" she reproached him, "you think I could do that?" + +"You could if it was you who were here with me once before." + +"Then I know I wasn't." + +Again they were silent, and it was he who spoke first. "I wish you would +tell me why you object to the interdicted topic?" + +"Because--because I like every time to be perfect in itself." + +"Oh! And this wouldn't be perfect in itself if I were--not so young as +some people?" + +"I didn't mean that. No; but if you didn't mention it, no one else would +think of it or care for it." + +"Did any one ever accuse you of flattering, Miss Graham?" + +"Not till now. And you are unjust." + +"Well, I withdraw the accusation." + +"And will you ever pretend such a thing again?" + +"Oh, never!" + +"Then I have your promise." + +The talk was light word-play, such as depends upon the talker's own mood +for its point or its pointlessness. Between two young people of equal +years it might have had meanings to penetrate, to sigh over, to +question. Colville found it delicious to be pursued by the ingenuous +fervour of this young girl, eager to vindicate her sincerity in +prohibiting him from his own ironical depreciation. Apparently, she had +a sentimental mission of which he was the object; he was to be convinced +that he was unnecessarily morbid; he was to be cheered up, to be kept in +heart. + +"I must believe in you after this," he said, with a smile which his mask +hid. + +"Thanks," she breathed. It seemed to him that her hand closed +convulsively upon his in their light clasp. + +The pressure sent a real pang to his heart. It forced her name from his +lips. "Imogene! Ah, I've no right to call you that." + +"Yes." + +"From this out I promise to be twenty years younger. But no one is to +know it but you. Do you think you will know it? I shouldn't like to keep +the secret to myself altogether." + +"No; I will help you. It shall be _our_ secret." + +She gave a low laugh of delight. He convinced himself that she had +entered into the light spirit of banter in which he believed that he was +talking. + +The music ceased again. He whirled her to the seat where he had left +Mrs. Bowen. She was not there, nor the others. + +Colville felt the meanness of a man who has betrayed his trust, and his +self-contempt was the sharper because the trust had been as tacit and +indefinite as it was generous. The effect of Mrs. Bowen's absence was as +if she had indignantly flown, and left him to the consequences of his +treachery. + +He sat down rather blankly with Imogene to wait for her return; it was +the only thing they could do. + +It had grown very hot. The air was thick with dust. The lights burned +through it as through a fog. + +"I believe I will take off my mask," she said. "I can scarcely breathe." + +"No, no," protested Colville; "that won't do." + +"I feel faint," she gasped. + +His heart sank. "Don't," he said incoherently. "Come with me into the +vestibule, and get a breath of air." + +He had almost to drag her through the crowd, but in the vestibule she +revived, and they returned to their place again. He did not share the +easy content with which she recognised the continued absence of Mrs. +Bowen. + +"Why they must be lost. But isn't it perfect sitting here and watching +the maskers?" + +"Perfect," said Colville distractedly. + +"Don't you like to make romances about the different ones?" + +It was on Colville's tongue to say that he had made all the romances he +wished for that evening, but he only answered, "Oh, very." + +"Poor Mrs. Bowen," laughed the girl. "It will be such a joke on her, +with her punctilious notions, getting lost from her _protegee_ at a +Carnival ball! I shall tell every one." + +"Oh no, don't," said Colville, in horror that big mask scarcely +concealed. + +"Why not?" + +"It wouldn't be at all the thing." + +"Why, are you becoming Europeanised too?" she demanded. "I thought you +went in for all sorts of unconventionalities. Recollect your promise. +You must be as impulsive as I am." + +Colville, staring anxiously about in every direction, made for the first +time the reflection that most young girls probably conform to the +proprieties without in the least knowing why. + +"Do you think," he asked, in desperation, "that you would be afraid to +be left here a moment while I went about in the crowd and tried to find +them?" + +"Not at all," she said. But she added, "Don't be gone long." + +"Oh no," he answered, pulling off his mask. "Be sure not to move from +here on any account." + +He plunged into the midst of the crowd that buffeted him from side to +side as he struck against its masses. The squeaking and gibbering masks +mocked in their falsetto at his wild-eyed, naked face thrusting hither +and thither among them. + +"I saw your lady wife with another gentleman," cried one of them, in a +subtle misinterpretation of the cause of his distraction. + +The throng had immensely increased; the clowns and harlequins ran +shrieking up and down, and leaped over one another's heads. + +It was useless. He went back to Imogene with a heart-sickening fear that +she too might have vanished. + +But she was still there. + +"You ought to have come sooner," she said gaily. "That red mask has been +here again. He looked as if he wanted to make love to _me_ this time. +But he didn't. If you'd been here you might have asked him where Mrs. +Bowen was." + +Colville sat down. He had done what he could to mend the matter, and the +time had come for philosophical submission. It was now his duty to keep +up Miss Graham's spirits. They were both Americans, and from the +national standpoint he was simply the young girl's middle-aged bachelor +friend. There was nothing in the situation for him to beat his breast +about. + +"Well, all that we can do is to wait for them," he said. + +"Oh yes," she answered easily. "They'll be sure to come back in the +course of time." + +They waited a half-hour, talking somewhat at random, and still the +others did not come. But the red mask came again. He approached +Colville, and said politely-- + +"_La signora e partita._" + +"The lady gone?" repeated Colville, taking this to be part of the red +mask's joke. + +"_La bambina pareva poco lene._" + +"The little one not well?" echoed Colville again, rising. "Are you +joking?" + +The mask made a deep murmur of polite deprecation. "I am not capable of +such a thing in a serious affair. Perhaps you know me?" he said, taking +off his mask, and in further sign of good faith he gave the name of a +painter sufficiently famous in Florence. + +"I beg your pardon, and thank you," said Colville. He had no need to +speak to Imogene--, her hand was already trembling on his arm. + +They drove home in silence through the white moonlight of the streets, +filled everywhere with the gay voices and figures of the Carnival. + +Mrs. Bowen met them at the door of her apartment, and received them with +a manner that justly distributed the responsibility and penalty for +their escapade. Colville felt that a meaner spirit would have wreaked +its displeasure upon the girl alone. She made short, quiet answers to +all his eager inquiries. Most probably it was some childish +indisposition; Effie had been faint. No, he need not go for the doctor. +Mr. Waters had called the doctor, who had just gone away. There was +nothing else that he could do for her. She dropped her eyes, and in +everything but words dismissed him. She would not even remain with him +till he could decently get himself out of the house. She left Imogene to +receive his adieux, feigning that she heard Effie calling. + +"I'm--I'm very sorry," faltered the girl, "that we didn't go back to her +at once." + +"Yes; I was to blame," answered the humiliated hero of her Carnival +dream. The clinging regret with which she kept his hand at parting +scarcely consoled him for what had happened. + +"I will come round in the morning," he said. "I must know how Effie is." + +"Yes; come." + + + + + + +X + + +Colville went to Palazzo Pinti next day with the feeling that he was +defying Mrs. Bowen. Upon a review of the facts he could not find himself +so very much to blame for the occurrences of the night before, and he +had not been able to prove to his reason that Mrs. Bowen had resented +his behaviour. She had not made a scene of any sort when he came in with +Imogene; it was natural that she should excuse herself, and should wish +to be with her sick child: she had done really nothing. But when a woman +has done nothing she fills the soul of the man whose conscience troubles +him with an instinctive apprehension. There is then no safety, his +nerves tell him, except in bringing the affair, whatever it is, to an +early issue--in having it out with her. Colville subdued the cowardly +impulse of his own heart, which would have deceived him with the +suggestion that Mrs. Bowen might be occupied with Effie, and it would be +better to ask for Miss Graham. He asked for Mrs. Bowen, and she came in +directly. + +She smiled in the usual way, and gave her hand, as she always did; but +her hand was cold, and she looked tired, though she said Effie was quite +herself again, and had been asking for him. "Imogene has been telling +her about your adventure last night, and making her laugh." + +If it had been Mrs. Bowen's purpose to mystify him, she could not have +done it more thoroughly than by this bold treatment of the affair. He +bent a puzzled gaze upon her. "I'm glad any of you have found it +amusing," he said;--"I confess that I couldn't let myself off so lightly +in regard to it." She did not reply, and he continued: "The fact is, I +don't think I behaved very well. I abused your kindness to Miss Graham." + +"Abused my kindness to Miss Graham?" + +"Yes. When you allowed her to dance at the veglione, I ought to have +considered that you were stretching a point. I ought to have taken her +back to you very soon, instead of tempting her to go and walk with me in +the corridor." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "So it was you who proposed it? Imogene was +afraid that she had. What exemplary young people you are! The way each +of you confesses and assumes all the blame would leave the severest +chaperone without a word." + +Her gaiety made Colville uncomfortable. He said gravely, "What I blame +myself most for is that I was not there to be of use to you when +Effie----" + +"Oh, you mustn't think of that at all. Mr. Waters was most efficient. My +admirer in the red mask was close at hand, and between them they got +Effie out without the slightest disturbance. I fancy most people thought +it was a Carnival joke. Please don't think of that again." + +Nothing could be politer than all this. + +"And you won't allow me to punish myself for not being there to give you +even a moral support?" + +"Certainly not. As I told Imogene, young people will be young people; +and I knew how fond you were of dancing." + +Though it pierced him, Colville could not help admiring the neatness of +this thrust. "I didn't know you were so ironical, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Ironical? Not at all." + +"Ah! I see I'm not forgiven." + +"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." + +Imogene and Effie came in. The child was a little pale, and willingly +let him take her on his knee, and lay her languid head on his shoulder. +The girl had not aged overnight like himself and Mrs. Bowen; she looked +as fresh and strong as yesterday. + +"Miss Graham," said Colville, "if a person to whom you had done a deadly +wrong insisted that you hadn't done any wrong at all, should you +consider yourself forgiven?" + +"It would depend upon the person," said the girl, with innocent +liveliness, recognising the extravagance in his tone. + +"Yes," he said, with an affected pensiveness, "so very much depends upon +the person in such a case." + +Mrs. Bowen rose. "Excuse me a moment; I will be back directly. Don't get +up, please," she said, and prevented him with a quick withdrawal to +another room, which left upon his sense the impression of elegant grace, +and a smile and sunny glance. But neither had any warmth in it. + +Colville heaved an involuntary sigh. "Do you feel very much used up?" he +asked Imogene. + +"Not at all," she laughed. "Do you?" + +"Not in the least. My veglione hasn't ended yet. I'm still practically +at the Pergola. It's easy to keep a thing of that sort up if you don't +sleep after you get home." + +"Didn't you sleep? I expected to lie awake a long time thinking it over; +but I dropped asleep at once. I suppose I was very tired. I didn't even +dream." + +"You must have slept hard. You're pretty apt to dream when you're +waking." + +"How do you know?" + +"Ah, I've noticed when you've been talking to me. Better not! It's a bad +habit; it gives you false views of things. I used----" + +"But you mustn't say you _used!_ That's forbidden now. Remember your +promise!" + +"My promise? What promise?" + +"Oh, if you've forgotten already." + +"I remember. But that was last night." + +"No, no! It was for all time. Why should dreams be so very misleading? I +think there's ever so much in dreams. The most wonderful thing is the +way you make people talk in dreams. It isn't strange that you should +talk yourself, but that other people should say this and that when you +aren't at all expecting what they say." + +"That's when you're sleeping. But when you're waking, you make people +say just what you want. And that's why day dreams are so bad. If you +make people say what you want, they probably don't mean it." + +"Don't you think so?" + +"Half the time. Do you ever have day dreams?" he asked Effie, pressing +her cheek against his own. + +"I don't know what they are," she murmured, with a soft little note of +polite regret for her ignorance, if possibly it incommoded him. + +"You will by and by," he said, "and then you must look out for them. +They're particularly bad in this air. I had one of them in Florence once +that lasted three months." + +"What was it about?" asked the child. + +Imogene involuntarily bent forward. + +"Ah, I can't tell you now. She's trying to hear us." + +"No, no," protested the girl, with a laugh. "I was thinking of something +else." + +"Oh, we know her, don't we?" he said to the child, with a playful appeal +to that passion for the joint possession of a mystery which all children +have. + +"We might whisper it," she suggested. + +"No; better wait for some other time." They were sitting near a table +where a pencil and some loose leaves of paper lay. He pulled his chair a +little closer, and, with the child still upon his knee, began to +scribble and sketch at random. "Ah, there's San Miniato," he said, with +a glance from the window. "Must get its outline in. You've heard how +there came to be a church up there? No? Well, it shows the sort of man +San Miniato really was. He was one of the early Christians, and he gave +the poor pagans a great deal of trouble. They first threw him to the +wild beasts in the amphitheatre, but the moment those animals set eyes +on him they saw it would be of no use; they just lay down and died. Very +well, then; the pagans determined to see what effect the axe would have +upon San Miniato: but as soon as they struck off his head he picked it +up, set it back on his shoulders again, waded across the Arno, walked up +the hill, and when he came to a convenient little oratory up there he +knelt down and expired. Isn't that a pretty good story? It's like +fairies, isn't it?" + +"Yes," whispered the child. + +"What nonsense!" said Imogene. "You made it up." + +"Oh, did I? Perhaps I built the church that stands there to commemorate +the fact. It's all in the history of Florence. Not in all histories; +some of them are too proud to put such stories in, but I'm going to put +every one I can find into the history I'm writing for Effie. San Miniato +was beheaded where the church of Santa Candida stands now, and he walked +all that distance." + +"Did he have to die when he got to the oratory?" asked the child, with +gentle regret. + +"It appears so," said Colville, sketching. "He would have been dead by +this time, anyway, you know." + +"Yes," she reluctantly admitted. + +"I never quite like those things, either, Effie," he said, pressing her +to him. "There were people cruelly put to death two or three thousand +years ago that I can't help feeling would be alive yet if they had been +justly treated. There are a good many fairy stories about Florence; +perhaps they used to be true stories; the truth seems to die out of +stories after a while, simply because people stop believing them. Saint +Ambrose of Milan restored the son of his host to life when he came down +here to dedicate the Church of San Giovanni. Then there was another +saint, San Zenobi, who worked a very pretty miracle after he was dead. +They were carrying his body from the Church of San Giovanni to the +Church of Santa Reparata, and in Piazza San Giovanni his bier touched a +dead elm-tree that stood there, and the tree instantly sprang into leaf +and flower, though it was in the middle of the winter. A great many +people took the leaves home with them, and a marble pillar was put up +there, with a cross and an elm-tree carved on it. Oh, the case is very +well authenticated." + +"I shall really begin to think you believe such things," said Imogene. +"Perhaps you _are_ a Catholic." + +Mrs. Bowen returned to the room, and sat down. + +"There's another fairy story, prettier yet," said Colville, while the +little girl drew a long deep breath of satisfaction and expectation. +"You've heard of the Buondelmonti?" he asked Imogene. + +"Oh, it seems to me as if I'd had _nothing_ but the Buondelmonti dinned +into me since I came to Florence!" she answered in lively despair. + +"Ah, this happened some centuries before the Buondelmonte you've been +bored with was born. This was Giovanni Gualberto of the Buondelmonti, +and he was riding along one day in 1003, near the Church of San Miniato, +when he met a certain man named Ugo, who had killed one of his brothers. +Gualberto stopped and drew his sword; Ugo saw no other chance of escape, +and he threw himself face downward on the ground, with his arms +stretched out in the form of the cross. 'Gualberto, remember Jesus +Christ, who died upon the cross praying for His enemies.' The story says +that these words went to Gualberto's heart; he got down from his horse, +and in sign of pardon lifted his enemy and kissed and embraced him. Then +they went together into the church, and fell on their knees before the +figure of Christ upon the cross, and the figure bowed its head in sign +of approval and pleasure in Gualberto's noble act of Christian piety." + +"Beautiful!" murmured the girl; the child only sighed. + +"Ah, yes; it's an easy matter to pick up one's head from the ground, and +set it back on one's shoulders, or to bring the dead to life, or to make +a tree put forth leaves and flowers in midwinter; but to melt the heart +of a man with forgiveness in the presence of his enemy--that's a +different thing; _that's_ no fairy story; that's a real miracle; and I +believe this one happened--it's so impossible." + +"Oh yes, it must have happened," said the girl. + +"Do you think it's so very hard to forgive, then?" asked Mrs. Bowen +gravely. + +"Oh, not for ladies," replied Colville. + +She flushed, and her eyes shone when she glanced at him. + +"I'm sorry to put you down," he said to the child; "but I can't take you +with me, and I must be going." + +Mrs. Bowen did not ask him to stay to lunch; he thought afterward that +she might have relented as far as that but for the last little thrust, +which he would better have spared. + +"Effie dear," said her mother, when the door closed upon Colville, +"don't you think you'd better lie down a while? You look so tired." + +"Shall I lie down on the sofa here?" + +"No, on your bed." + +"Well." + +"I'll go with you, Effie," said Imogene, "and see that you're nicely +tucked in." + +When she returned alone, Mrs. Bowen was sitting where she had left her, +and seemed not to have moved. "I think Effie will drop off to sleep," +she said; "she seems drowsy." She sat down, and after a pensive moment +continued, "I wonder what makes Mr. Colville seem so gloomy." + +"Does he seem gloomy?" asked Mrs. Bowen unsympathetically. + +"No, not gloomy exactly. But different from last night. I wish people +could always be the same! He was so gay and full of spirits; and now +he's so self-absorbed. He thinks you're offended with him, Mrs. Bowen." + +"I don't think he was very much troubled about it. I only thought he was +flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the loss of a +night." + +"Do you think Mr. Colville seems so very old?" asked Imogene anxiously. + +Mrs. Bowen appeared not to have heard her. She went to the window and +looked out. When she came back, "Isn't it almost time for you to have a +letter from home?" she asked. + +"Why, no. I had one from mother day before yesterday. What made you +think so?" + +"Imogene," interrupted Mrs. Bowen, with a sudden excitement which she +tried to control, but which made her lips tremble, and break a little +from her restraint, "you know that I am here in the place of your +mother, to advise you and look after you in every way?" + +"Why, yes, Mrs. Bowen," cried the girl, in surprise. + +"It's a position of great responsibility in regard to a young lady. I +can't have anything to reproach myself with afterward." + +"No." + +"Have I always been kind to you, and considerate of your rights and your +freedom? Have I ever interfered with you in any way that you think I +oughtn't?" + +"What an idea! You've been loveliness itself, Mrs. Bowen!" + +"Then I want you to listen to me, and answer me frankly, and not suspect +my motives." + +"Why, how _could_ I do that?" + +"Never mind!" cried Mrs. Bowen impatiently, almost angrily. "People +can't help their suspicions! Do you think Mr. Morton cares for you?" + +The girl hung her head. + +"Imogene, answer me!" + +"I don't know," answered Imogene coldly; "but if you're troubled about +that, Mrs. Bowen, you needn't be; I don't care anything for Mr. Morton." + +"If I thought you were becoming interested in any one, it would be my +duty to write to your mother and tell her." + +"Of course; I should expect you to do it." + +"And if I saw you becoming interested in any one in a way that I thought +would make you unhappy, it would be my duty to warn you." + +"Yes." + +"Of course, I don't mean that any one would knowingly try to make you +unhappy?" + +"No." + +"Men don't go about nowadays trying to break girls' hearts. But very +good men can be thoughtless and selfish." + +"Yes; I understand that," said Imogene, in a falling accent. + +"I don't wish to prejudice you against any one. I should consider it +very wrong and wicked. Besides, I don't care to interfere with you to +that degree. You are old enough to see and judge for yourself." + +Imogene sat silent, passing her hand across the front of her dress. The +clock ticked audibly from the mantel. + +"I will not have it left to me!" cried Mrs. Bowen. "It is hard enough, +at any rate. Do you think I like to speak to you?" + +"No." + +"Of course it makes me seem inhospitable, and distrustful, and +detestable." + +"I never thought of accusing you," said the girl, slowly lifting her +eyes. + +"I will never, never speak to you of it again," said Mrs. Bowen, "and +from this time forth I insist upon your feeling just as free as if I +hadn't spoken." She trembled upon the verge of a sob, from which she +repelled herself. + +Imogene sat still, with a sort of serious, bewildered look. + +"You shall have every proper opportunity of meeting any one you like." + +"Oh yes." + +"And I shall be only too gl-glad to take back everything!" + +Imogene sat motionless and silent. Mrs. Bowen broke out again with a +sort of violence; the years teach us something of self-control, perhaps, +but they weaken and unstring the nerves. In this opposition of silence +to silence, the woman of the world was no match for the inexperienced +girl. + +"Have you nothing to say, Imogene?" + +"I never thought of him in that way at all. I don't know what to say +yet. It--confuses me. I--I can't imagine it. But if you think that he is +trying to amuse himself----" + +"I never said that!" + +"No, I know it." + +"He likes to make you talk, and to talk with you. But he is perfectly +idle here, and--there is too much difference, every way. The very good +in him makes it the worse. I suppose that after talking with him every +one else seems insipid." + +"Yes." + +Mrs. Bowen rose and ran suddenly from the room. + +Imogene remained sitting cold and still. + +No one had been named since they spoke of Mr. Morton. + + + + + + +XI + + +Colville had not done what he meant in going to Mrs. Bowen's; in fact, +he had done just what he had not meant to do, as he distinctly perceived +in coming away. It was then that in a luminous retrospect he discovered +his motive to have been a wish to atone to her for behaviour that must +have distressed her, or at least to explain it to her. She had not let +him do this at once; an instant willingness to hear and to condone was +not in a woman's nature; she had to make him feel, by the infliction of +a degree of punishment, that she had suffered. But before she ended she +had made it clear that she was ready to grant him a tacit pardon, and he +had answered with a silly sarcasm the question that was to have led to +peace. He could not help seeing that throughout the whole Carnival +adventure she had yielded her cherished reluctances to please him, to +show him that she was not stiff or prudish, to convince him that she +would not be a killjoy through her devotion to conventionalities which +she thought he despised. He could not help seeing that he had abused her +delicate generosity, insulted her subtle concessions. He strolled along +down the Arno, feeling flat and mean, as a man always does after a +contest with a woman in which he has got the victory; our sex can +preserve its self-respect only through defeat in such a case. It gave +him no pleasure to remember that the glamour of the night before seemed +still to rest on Imogene unbroken; that, indeed, was rather an added +pain. He surprised himself in the midst of his poignant reflections by a +yawn. Clearly the time was past when these ideal troubles could keep him +awake, and there was, after all, a sort of brutal consolation in the +fact. He was forty-one years old, and he was sleepy, whatever capacity +for suffering remained to him. He went to his hotel to catch a little +nap before lunch. When he woke it was dinner-time. The mists of slumber +still hung about him, and the events of the last forty-eight hours +showed vast and shapelessly threatening through them. + +When the drama of the _table d'hote_ reached its climax of roast +chestnuts and butter, he determined to walk over to San Marco and pay a +visit to Mr. Waters. He found the old minister from Haddam East Village, +Massachusetts, Italianate outwardly in almost ludicrous degree. He wore +a fur-lined overcoat indoors; his feet, cased in thick woollen shoes, +rested on a strip of carpet laid before his table; a man who had lived +for forty years in the pungent atmosphere of an air-tight stove, +succeeding a quarter of a century of roaring hearth fires, contented +himself with the spare heat of a scaldino, which he held his clasped +hands over in the very Italian manner; the lamp that cast its light on +the book open before him was the classic _lucerna_, with three beaks, +fed with olive oil. He looked up at his visitor over his spectacles, +without recognising him, till Colville spoke. Then, after their +greeting, "Is it snowing heavily?" he asked. + +"It isn't snowing at all. What made you think that?" + +"Perhaps I was drowsing over my book and dreamed it. We become very +strange and interesting studies to ourselves as we live along." + +He took up the metaphysical consideration with the promptness of a man +who has no small-talk, and who speaks of the mind and soul as if they +were the gossip of the neighbourhood. + +"At times the forty winters that I passed in Haddam East Village seem +like an alien experience, and I find myself pitying the life I lived +there quite as if it were the life of some one else. It seems incredible +that men should still inhabit such climates." + +"Then you're not homesick for Haddam East Village?" + +"Ah! for the good and striving souls there, yes; especially the souls of +some women there. They used to think that it was I who gave them +consolation and spiritual purpose, but it was they who really imparted +it. Women souls--how beautiful they sometimes are! They seem truly like +angelic essences. I trust that I shall meet them somewhere some time, +but it will never be in Haddam East Village. Yes, I must have been +dreaming when you came in. I thought that I was by my fire there, and +all round over the hills and in the streets the snow was deep and +falling still. How distinctly, he said, closing his eyes, as artists do +in looking at a picture, I can see the black wavering lines of the walls +in the fields sinking into the drifts! the snow billowed over the graves +by the church where I preached! the banks of snow around the houses! the +white desolation everywhere! I ask myself at times if the people are +still there. Yes, I feel as blessedly remote from that terrible winter +as if I had died away from it, and were in the weather of heaven." + +"Then you have no reproach for feeble-spirited fellow-citizens who +abandon their native climate and come to live in Italy?" + +The old man drew his fur coat closer about him and shrugged his +shoulders in true Florentine fashion. "There may be something to say +against those who do so in the heyday of life, but I shall not be the +one to say it. The race must yet revert in its decrepitude, as I have in +mine, to the climates of the South. Since I have been in Italy I have +realised what used to occur to me dimly at home--the cruel disproportion +between the end gained and the means expended in reclaiming the savage +North. Half the human endeavour, half the human suffering, would have +made the whole South Protestant and the whole East Christian, and our +civilisation would now be there. No, I shall never go back to New +England. New England? New Ireland----New Canada! Half the farms in +Haddam are in the hands of our Irish friends, and the labour on the rest +is half done by French Canadians. That is all right and well. New +England must come to me here, by way of the great middle West and the +Pacific coast." + +Colville smiled at the Emersonian touch, but he said gravely, "I can +never quite reconcile myself to the thought of dying out of my own +country." + +"Why not? It is very unimportant where one dies. A moment after your +breath is gone you are in exile for ever--or at home for ever." + +Colville sat musing upon this phase of Americanism, as he had upon many +others. At last he broke the silence they had both let fall, far away +from the topic they had touched. + +"Well," he asked, "how did you enjoy the veglione?" + +"Oh, I'm too old to go to such places for pleasure," said the minister +simply. "But it was very interesting, and certainly very striking: +especially when I went back, toward daylight, after seeing Mrs. Bowen +home." + +"Did you go back?" demanded Colville, in some amaze. + +"Oh yes. I felt that my experience was incomplete without some knowledge +of how the Carnival ended at such a place." + +"Oh! And do you still feel that Savonarola was mistaken?" + +"There seemed to be rather more boisterousness toward the close, and, if +I might judge, the excitement grew a little unwholesome. But I really +don't feel myself very well qualified to decide. My own life has been +passed in circumstances so widely different that I am at a certain +disadvantage." + +"Yes," said Colville, with a smile; "I daresay the Carnival at Haddam +East Village was quite another tiling." + +The old man smiled responsively. "I suppose that some of my former +parishioners might have been scandalised at my presence at a Carnival +ball, had they known the fact merely in the abstract; but in my letters +home I shall try to set it before them in an instructive light. I should +say that the worst thing about such a scene of revelry would be that it +took us too much out of our inner quiet. But I suppose the same remark +might apply to almost any form of social entertainment." + +"Yes." + +"But human nature is so constituted that some means of expansion must be +provided, or a violent explosion takes place. The only question is what +means are most innocent. I have been looking about," added the old man +quietly, "at the theatres lately." + +"Have you?" asked Colville, opening his eyes, in suppressed surprise. + +"Yes; with a view to determining the degree of harmless amusement that +may be derived from them. It's rather a difficult question. I should be +inclined to say, however, that I don't think the ballet can ever be +instrumental for good." + +Colville could not deny himself the pleasure of saying, "Well, not the +highest, I suppose." + +"No," said Mr. Waters, in apparent unconsciousness of the irony. "But I +think the Church has made a mistake in condemning the theatre _in toto_. +It appears to me that it might always have countenanced a certain order +of comedy, in which the motive and plot are unobjectionable. Though I +don't deny that there are moods when all laughter seems low and unworthy +and incompatible with the most advanced state of being. And I confess," +he went on, with a dreamy thoughtfulness, "that I have very great +misgivings in regard to tragedy. The glare that it throws upon the play +of the passions--jealousy in its anguish, revenge glutting itself, envy +eating its heart, hopeless love--their nakedness is terrible. The terror +may be salutary; it may be very mischievous. I am afraid that I have +left some of my inquiries till it is too late. I seem to have no longer +the materials of judgment left in me. If I were still a young man like +you----" + +"Am I still a young man?" interrupted Colville sadly. + +"You are young enough to respond to the appeals that sometimes find me +silent. If I were of your age I should certainly investigate some of +these interesting problems." + +"Ah, but if you become personally interested in the problems, it's as +bad as if you hadn't the materials of judgment left; you're prejudiced. +Besides, I doubt my youthfulness very much." + +"You are fifty, I presume?" suggested Mr. Waters, in a leading way. + +"Not very near--only too near," laughed Colville. "I'm forty-one." + +"You are younger than I supposed. But I remember now that at your age I +had the same feeling which you intimate. It seemed to me then that I had +really passed the bound which separates us from the further possibility +of youth. But I've lived long enough since to know that I was mistaken. +At forty, one has still a great part of youth before him--perhaps the +richest and sweetest part. By that time the turmoil of ideas and +sensations is over; we see clearly and feel consciously. We are in a +sort of quiet in which we peacefully enjoy. We have enlarged our +perspective sufficiently to perceive things in their true proportion and +relation; we are no longer tormented with the lurking fear of death, +which darkens and embitters our earlier years; we have got into the +habit of life; we have often been ailing and we have not died. Then we +have time enough behind us to supply us with the materials of reverie +and reminiscence; the terrible solitude of inexperience is broken; we +have learned to smile at many things besides the fear of death. We ought +also to have learned pity and patience. Yes," the old man concluded, in +cheerful self-corroboration, "it is a beautiful age." + +"But it doesn't look so beautiful as it is," Colville protested. "People +in that rosy prime don't produce the effect of garlanded striplings upon +the world at large. The women laugh at us; they think we are fat old +fellows; they don't recognise the slender and elegant youth that resides +in our unwieldy bulk." + +"You take my meaning a little awry. Besides, I doubt if even the ground +you assume is tenable. If a woman has lived long enough to be truly +young herself, she won't find a man at forty either decrepit or +grotesque. He can even make himself youthful to a girl of thought and +imagination." + +"Yes," Colville assented, with a certain discomfort. + +"But to be truly young at forty," resumed Mr. Waters, "a man should be +already married." + +"Yes?" + +"I sometimes feel," continued the old man, "that I made a mistake in +yielding to a disappointment that I met with early in life, and in not +permitting myself the chance of retrieval. I have missed a beautiful and +consoling experience in my devotion to a barren regret." + +Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of amusement, +of repulsion, and of curiosity at this. + +"We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more convinced of +that. We have scarcely a right to separate ourselves from the common lot +in any way. I justify myself for having lived alone only as a widower +might. I--lost her. It was a great while ago." + +"Yes," said Colville, after the pause which ensued; "I agree with you +that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of the +common lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that one +has no heart to put out his hand a second time--for a second rap over +the knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and how +what is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful for +in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful whether +you were ever really intended to share the common lot." He was aware of +an insincerity in his words; he hoped that it might not be perceptible, +but he did not greatly care. + +Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He resumed from +another point. "But I should say that it would be unwise for a man of +mature life to seek his happiness with one much younger than himself. I +don't deny that there are cases in which the disparity of years counts +for little or nothing, but generally speaking, people ought to be as +equally mated in age as possible. They ought to start with the same +advantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live her life through a +community of feeling, an equality of inexperience in the man she gives +her heart to. If he is tired of things that still delight her, the +chances of unhappiness are increased." + +"Yes, that's true," answered Colville gravely. "It's apt to be a mistake +and a wrong." + +"Oh, not always--not always," said the old minister. "We mustn't look at +it in that way quite. Wrongs are of the will." He seemed to lapse into a +greater intimacy of feeling with Colville. "Have you seen Mrs. Bowen +to-day? Or--ah! true! I think you told me." + +"No," said Colville. "Have we spoken of her? But I have seen her." + +"And was the little one well?" + +"Very much better." + +"Pretty creatures, both of them," said the minister, with as fresh a +pleasure in his recognition of the fact as if he had not said nearly the +same thing once before, "You've noticed the very remarkable resemblance +between mother and daughter?" + +"Oh yes." + +"There is a gentleness in Mrs. Bowen which seems to me the last +refinement of a gracious spirit," suggested Mr. Waters. "I have never +met any lady who reconciled more exquisitely what is charming in society +with what is lovely in nature." + +"Yes," said Colville. "Mrs. Bowen always had that gentle manner. I used +to know her here as a girl a great while ago." + +"Did you? I wonder you allowed her to become Mrs. Bowen." + +This sprightliness of Mr. Waters amused Colville greatly. "At that time +I was preoccupied with my great mistake, and I had no eyes for Mrs. +Bowen." + +"It isn't too late yet," said Mr. Waters, with open insinuation. + +A bachelor of forty is always flattered by any suggestion of marriage; +the suggestion that a beautiful and charming woman would marry him is +too much for whatever reserves of modesty and wisdom he may have stored +up Colville took leave of the old minister in better humour with himself +than he had been for forty-eight hours, or than he had any very good +reason for being now. + +Mr. Waters came with him to the head of the stairs and held up the lamp +for him to see. The light fell upon the white locks thinly straggling +from beneath his velvet skull-cap, and he looked like some mediaeval +scholar of those who lived and died for learning in Florence when +letters were a passion there almost as strong as love. + +The next day Colville would have liked to go at once and ask about +Effie, but upon the whole he thought he would not go till after he had +been at the reception where he was going in the afternoon. It was an +artist who was giving the reception; he had a number of pictures to +show, and there was to be tea. There are artists and artists. This +painter was one who had a distinct social importance. It was felt to be +rather a nice thing to be asked to his reception; one was sure at least +to meet the nicest people. + +This reason prevailed with Colville so far as it related to Mrs. Bowen, +whom he felt that he would like to tell he had been there. He would +speak to her of this person and that--very respected and recognised +social figures,--so that she might see he was not the outlaw, the +Bohemian, he must sometimes have appeared to her. It would not be going +too far to say that something like an obscure intention to show himself +the next Sunday at the English chapel, where Mrs. Bowen went, was not +forming itself in his mind. As he went along it began to seem not +impossible that she would be at the reception. If Effie's indisposition +was no more serious than it appeared yesterday, very probably Mrs. Bowen +would be there. He even believed that he recognised her carriage among +those which were drawn up in front of the old palace, under the +painter's studio windows. + +There were a great number of people of the four nationalities that +mostly consort in Italy. There were English and Americans and Russians +and the sort of Italians resulting from the native intermarriages with +them; here and there were Italians of pure blood, borderers upon the +foreign life through a literary interest, or an artistic relation, or a +matrimonial intention; here and there, also, the large stomach of a +German advanced the bounds of the new empire and the new ideal of duty. +There were no Frenchmen; one may meet them in more strictly Italian +assemblages, but it is as if the sorrows and uncertainties of France in +these times discouraged them from the international society in which +they were always an infrequent element. It is not, of course, imaginable +that as Frenchmen they have doubts of their merits, but that they have +their misgivings as to the intelligence of others. The language that +prevailed was English--in fact, one heard no other,--and the tea which +our civilisation carries everywhere with it steamed from the cups in all +hands. This beverage, in fact, becomes a formidable factor in the life +of a Florentine winter. One finds it at all houses, and more or less +mechanically drinks it. + +"I am turning out a terrible tea toper," said Colville, stirring his cup +in front of the old lady whom his relations to the ladies at Palazzo +Pinti had interested so much. "I don't think I drink less than ten cups +a day; seventy cups a week is a low average for me. I'm really beginning +to look down at my boots a little anxiously." + +Mrs. Amsden laughed. She had not been in America for forty years, but +she liked the American way of talking better than any other. "Oh, didn't +you hear about Inglehart when he was here? He was so good-natured that +he used to drink all the tea people offered him, and then the young +ladies made tea for him in his studio when they went to look at his +pictures. It almost killed him. By the time spring came he trembled so +that the brush flew out of his hands when he took it up. He had to hurry +off to Venice to save his life. It's just as bad at the Italian houses; +they've learned to like tea." + +"When I was here before, they never offered you anything but coffee," +said Colville. "They took tea for medicine, and there was an old joke +that I thought I should die of, I heard it so often about the Italian +that said to the English woman when she offered him tea, '_Grazie; sto +bene_.'" + +"Oh, that's all changed now." + +"Yes; I've seen the tea, and I haven't heard the joke." + +The flavour of Colville's talk apparently encouraged his companion to +believe that he would like to make fun of their host's paintings with +her; but whether he liked them, or whether he was principled against +that sort of return for hospitality, he chose to reply seriously to some +ironical lures she threw out. + +"Oh, if you're going to be good," she exclaimed, "I shall have nothing +more to say to you. Here comes Mr. Thurston; I can make _him_ abuse the +pictures. There! You had better go away to a young lady I see alone over +yonder, though I don't know what you will do with _one_ alone." She +laughed and shook her head in a way that had once been arch and lively, +but that was now puckery and infirm--it is affecting to see these things +in women--and welcomed the old gentleman who came up and superseded +Colville. + +The latter turned, with his cup still in his hand, and wandered about +through the company, hoping he might see Mrs. Bowen among the groups +peering at the pictures or solidly blocking the view in front of them. +He did not find her, but he found Imogene Graham standing somewhat apart +near a window. He saw her face light up at sight of him, and then darken +again as he approached. + +"Isn't this rather an unnatural state of things?" he asked when he had +come up. "I ought to be obliged to fight my way to you through +successive phalanxes of young men crowding round with cups of tea +outstretched in their imploring hands. Have you had some tea?" + +"Thank you, no; I don't wish any," said the young girl, so coldly that +he could not help noticing, though commonly he was man enough to notice +very few things. + +"How is Effie to-day?" he asked quickly. + +"Oh, quite well," said Imogene. + +"I don't see Mrs. Bowen," he ventured further. + +"No," answered the girl, still very lifelessly; "I came with Mrs. +Fleming." She looked about the room as if not to look at him. + +He now perceived a distinct intention to snub him. He smiled. "Have you +seen the pictures? There are two or three really lovely ones." + +"Mrs. Fleming will be here in a moment, I suppose," said Imogene +evasively, but not with all her first coldness. + +"Let us steal a march on her," said Colville briskly. "When she comes +you can tell her that I showed you the pictures." + +"I don't know," faltered the girl. + +"Perhaps it isn't necessary you should," he suggested. + +She glanced at him with questioning trepidation. + +"The respective duties of chaperone and _protegee_ are rather undefined. +Where the chaperone isn't there to command, the _protegee_ isn't there +to obey. I suppose you'd know if you were at home?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"Let me imagine myself at a loan exhibition in Buffalo. Ah! that appeal +is irresistible. You'll come, I see." + +She hesitated; she looked at the nearest picture, then followed him to +another. He now did what he had refused to do for the old lady who +tempted him to it; he made fun of the pictures a little, but so amiably +and with so much justice to their good points that the painter himself +would not have minded his jesting. From time to time he made Imogene +smile, but in her eyes lurked a look of uneasiness, and her manner +expressed a struggle against his will which might have had its pathos +for him in different circumstances, but now it only incited him to make +her forget herself more and more; he treated her as one does a child +that is out of sorts--coaxingly, ironically. + +When they had made the round of the rooms Mrs. Fleming was not at the +window where she had left Imogene; the girl detected the top of her +bonnet still in the next room. + +"The chaperone is never there when you come back with the _protegee_," +said Colville. "It seems to be the nature of the chaperone." + +Imogene turned very grave. "I think I ought to go to her," she murmured. + +"Oh no; she ought to come to you; I stand out for _protegee_'s rights." + +"I suppose she will come directly." + +"She sees me with you; she knows you are safe." + +"Oh, of course," said the girl. After a constraint which she marked by +rather a long silence, she added, "How strange a roomful of talking +sounds, doesn't it? Just like a great caldron boiling up and bubbling +over. Wouldn't you like to know what they're all saying?" + +"Oh, it's quite bad enough to see them," replied Colville frivolously. + +"I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very queer, +don't you?" she asked, after another interval. + +"Well, really," said Colville, laughing, "I don't know that the +spectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to me. I rather +think they look queerer with their hats on." + +"Oh yes." + +"Though there is not very much to choose. We're a queer-looking set, +anyway." + +He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, allowed her +to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not without a +malicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as social +exercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were destined, with +time and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of society, and to +be accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, as +touches of character. He had broken up that coldness with which she had +met him at first, and now he let her adjust the fragments as she could +to the new situation. He wore that air of a gentleman who has been +talking a long time to a lady, and who will not dispute her possession +with a new-comer. + +But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over the +company, he found that it had been increased by the accession of eight +or ten young fellows, with a refreshing light of originality in their +faces, and little touches of difference from the other men in their +dress. + +"Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!" cried the girl, with a flash of +excitement. + +There was a sensation of interest and friendliness in the company as +these young fellows, after their moment of social intimidation, began to +gather round the pictures, and to fling their praise and blame about, +and talk the delightful shop of the studio. + +The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their voices, struck +a pang of regret that was almost envy to Colville's heart. + +Imogene followed them with eager eyes. "Oh," she sighed, "shouldn't you +like to be an artist?" + +"I should, very much." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an architect." + +"I should say I used to be, if you hadn't objected to my perfects and +preterits." + +What came next seemed almost an accident. + +"I didn't suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I amused you." +She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at her own words. + +"Have you been trying to amuse me?" he asked. + +"Oh no. I thought----" + +"Oh, then," said Colville sharply, "you meant that I was amusing myself +with you?" She glanced at him in terror of his divination, but could not +protest. "Has any one told you that?" he pursued, with sudden angry +suspicion. + +"No, _no_ one," began Imogene. She glanced about her, frightened. They +stood quite alone where they were; the people had mostly wandered off +into the other rooms. "Oh, don't--I didn't mean--I didn't intend to say +anything----" + +"But you have said something--something that surprises me from _you_, +and hurts me. I wish to know whether you say it from yourself." + +"I don't know--yes. That is, not----Oh, I wish Mrs. Fleming----" + +She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond her power +to control herself. + +"Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming," said Colville, with freezing +_hauteur_; and led the way where the top of Mrs. Fleming's bonnet still +showed itself. He took leave at once, and hastily parting with his host, +found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not +said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the +directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that women +who liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigious +straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey black +in order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour. +He could hardly keep himself from going to Palazzo Pinti. + +But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a moody +dinner, and then, after an hour's solitary bitterness in his room, went +out and passed the evening at the theatre. The play was one of those +fleering comedies which render contemptible for the time all honest and +earnest intention, and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pit +itself. It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question that +had mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at his +resentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him off to sleep +in a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial in himself as the only +thing that was real and lasting. + +He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he brought with +it a letter which he said had been left with the porter an hour before. +A faint appealing perfume of violet exhaled from the note, and mingled +with the steaming odours of the coffee and boiled milk, when Colville, +after a glance at the unfamiliar handwriting of the superscription, +broke the seal. + +"DEAR MR. COLVILLE,--I don't know what you will think of my writing to +you, but perhaps you can't think worse of me than you do already, and +anything will be better than the misery that I am in. I have not been +asleep all night. I hate myself for telling you, but I do want you to +understand how I have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back the +words that you say wounded you. I didn't mean to wound you. Nobody is to +blame for them but me; nobody ever breathed a word about you that was +meant in unkindness. + +"I am not ashamed of writing this, _whatever_ you think, and I will sign +my name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM." + + +Colville had commonly a good appetite for his breakfast, but now he let +his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about this +note that touched him--the childlike simplicity and directness, the +generous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the literature. +However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. He +respected that intention; through all the sophistications in which life +had wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised that if he had been +younger he would have gone to Imogene herself with her letter. He felt +for the moment a rush of the emotion which he would once not have +stopped to examine, which he would not have been capable of examining. +But now his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In the noblest +human purpose there is always some admixture, however slight, of less +noble motive, and Colville was not without the willingness to see +whatever embarrassment she might feel when he showed her the letter, and +to invoke her finest tact to aid him in re-assuring the child. + +She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in response to his +inquiry for their health that Imogene and Effie had gone out to drive. +She looked so pretty in the quiet house dress in which she rose from the +sofa and stood, letting him come the whole way to greet her, that he did +not think of any other look in her, but afterward he remembered an +evidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes. + +He said, smiling, "I'm so glad to see you alone," and this brought still +another look into her face, which also he afterward remembered. She did +not reply, but made a sound in her throat like a bird when it stirs +itself for flight or song. It was a strange, indefinite little note, in +which Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time, and recalled +for the sort of expectation suggested in it. She stood waiting for him +to go on. + +"I have come to get you to help me out of trouble." + +"Yes?" said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. "I always supposed you would +be able to help yourself out of trouble. Or perhaps wouldn't mind it if +you were in it." + +"Oh yes, I mind it very much," returned Colville, refusing her banter, +if it were banter. "Especially this sort of trouble, which involves some +one else in the discomfort." He went on abruptly: "I have been held up +to a young lady as a person who was amusing himself with her, and I was +so absurd as to be angry when she told me, and demanded the name of my +friend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given the young lady +a bad night, and this morning she writes to tell me so, and to take all +the blame on herself, and to assure me that no harm was meant me by any +one. Of course I don't want her to be distressed about it. Perhaps you +can guess who has been writing to me." + +Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. When he looked +up he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen's pretty face, such as he had not +seen there before. + +"I didn't know she had been writing to you, but I know that you are +talking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to you yesterday, and +I blamed her for it, but I'm not sure that it wasn't best." + +"Oh, indeed!" said Colville. "Perhaps you can tell me who put the idea +into her head?" + +"Yes; I did." + +A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the situation broken by +these words revolved before Colville's thought with kaleidoscopic +variety, and he passed through all the phases of anger, resentment, +wounded self-love, and accusing shame. + +At last, "I suppose you had your reasons," he said simply. + +"I am in her mother's place here," she replied, tightening the grip of +one little hand upon another, where she held them laid against the side +of her waist. + +"Yes, I know that," said Colville; "but what reason had you to warn her +against me as a person who was amusing himself with her? I don't like +the phrase; but she seems to have got it from you; I use it at third +hand." + +"I don't like the phrase either; I didn't invent it." + +"You used it." + +"No; it wasn't I who used it. I should have been glad to use another, if +I could," said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect steadiness. + +"Then you mean to say that you believe I've been trifling with the +feelings of this child?" + +"I mean to say nothing. You are very much older; and she is a romantic +girl, very extravagant. You have tried to make her like you." + +"I certainly have. I have tried to make Effie Bowen like me too." + +Mrs. Bowen passed this over in serenity that he felt was not far from +contempt. + +He gave a laugh that did not express enjoyment. + +"You have no right to laugh!" she cried, losing herself a little, and so +making her first gain upon him. + +"It appears not. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do about this +letter?" + +"That is for you to decide." She recovered herself, and lost ground with +him in proportion. + +"I thought perhaps that since you were able to judge my motives so +clearly, you might be able to advise me." + +"I don't judge your motives," Mrs. Bowen began. She added suddenly, as +if by an after-thought, "I don't think you had any." + +"I'm obliged to you." + +"But you are as much to blame as if you had." + +"And perhaps I'm as much to blame as if I had really wronged somebody?" + +"Yes." + +"It's rather paradoxical. You don't wish me to see her any more?" + +"I haven't any wish about it; you must not _say_ that I have," said Mrs. +Bowen, with dignity. + +Colville smiled. "May I _ask_ if you have?" + +"Not for myself." + +"You put me on very short allowance of conjecture." + +"I will not let you trifle with the matter!" she cried. "You have made +me speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been enough. Oh, I didn't +think you had the miserable vanity to wish it!" + +Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. "I see that +everything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. Good-bye, Mrs. +Bowen." He approached her, holding out his hand. But if he expected to +be rewarded for this, nothing of the kind happened. She shrank swiftly +back. + +"No, no. You shall not touch me." + +He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, whatever other +feeling showed, there was certainly no fear of him. Then with a slight +bow he left the room. + +Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into her own +room. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and Effie were just +coming in. The child went to lay aside her hat and sacque; the girl, +after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's face, lingered inquiringly. + +"Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene." + +"Yes," said Imogene faintly. "Do you think I oughtn't to have written +it?" + +"Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from Florence." + +"Yes?" breathed the girl. + +"I spoke openly with him." + +"Yes?" + +"I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised him." + +Imogene was silent. Then she said, "I know that whatever you have done, +you have acted for the best." + +"Yes, I have a right that you should say that--I have a right that you +should always say it. I think he has behaved very foolishly, but I don't +blame him----" + +"No! I was to blame." + +"I don't _know_ that he was to blame, and I won't let you think he was." + +"Oh, he is the best man in the world!" + +"He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's nothing for +you to lose a friend at your age; but at mine----" + +"I _know_ it, Mrs. Bowen." + +"And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; I----" + +"Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!" cried Imogene. She put up +her hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. Bowen watched her, dry +eyed, with her lips parted, and an intensity of question in her face. + +"Imogene," she said at last, "I wish you to promise me one thing." + +"Yes." + +"Not to write to Mr. Colville again." + +"No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!" The girl came up to kiss her; Mrs. +Bowen turned her cheek. + +Imogene was going from the room, when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. "But I +wish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of yourself +about him. If you care for him--if you think you care for him--then I +leave you perfectly free." + +The girl looked up, scared. "No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't leave me +free--you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to do." + +"Very well, then," said Mrs. Bowen. + +They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the other to +speak. Then Imogene asked, "Is he--going soon?" + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen. "Why should he want to delay? He had +better go at once. And I hope he will go home--as far from Florence as +he can. I should think he would _hate_ the place." + +"Yes," said the girl, with a quivering sigh; "it must be hateful to +him." She paused, and then she rushed on with bitter self-reproach. "And +I--_I_ have helped to make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's _I_ who +have been trifling with _him_ Trying to make him believe--no, not trying +to do that, but letting him see that I sympathised--Oh, do you think I +have?" + +"You know what you have been doing, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with the +hardness it surprises men to know women use with each other, they seem +such tender creatures in the abstract. "You have no need to ask me." + +"No, no." + +"As you say, I warned you from the first." + +"Oh yes; you did." + +"I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to expect----" + +"Oh, yes, yes." + +"And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless." + +"Yes; I see it." + +"I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that miserable +veglione business I was trying to please you and him, because I was +afraid I _had_ said too much--gone too far. I wanted to show you that I +disdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose that a girl of +your age could care for the admiration of a man of his." + +"Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired _him_--and pitied him." + +Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all that had +been rankling in her breast. "I didn't approve of going to the veglione. +A great many people would be shocked if they knew I went; I wouldn't at +all like to have it known. But I was not going to have him thinking that +I was severe with you, and wanted to deny you any really harmless +pleasure." + +"Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You see," said +the girl, "what a return I have made for your trust. I knew you didn't +want to go to the veglione. If I hadn't been the most selfish girl in +the world I wouldn't have let you. But I did. I _forced_ you to go, and +then, after we got there, I seized every advantage, and abused your +kindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor. Yes; I ought to +have refused to dance--if I'd had a spark of generosity or gratitude I +would have done it; and I ought to have come straight back to you the +instant the waltz was done. And now see what has come of it! I've made +you think he was trifling with me, and I've made him think that I'm a +false and hollow-hearted thing." + +"You know best what you have done, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with a +smiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She rose from the +sofa, as if to indicate that there was no more to be said, and Imogene, +with a fresh burst of grief, rushed away to her own room. + +She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out her arms upon +it, an image of that desolation of soul which, when we are young, seems +limitless, but which in later life we know has comparatively narrow +bounds beyond the clouds that rest so blackly around us. + + + + + + +XII + + +In his room Colville was devouring as best he might the chagrin with +which he had come away from Palazzo Pinti, while he packed his trunk for +departure. Now that the thing was over, the worst was past. Again he +observed that his emotions had no longer the continuity that the +emotions of his youth possessed. As he remembered, a painful or pleasant +impression used to last indefinitely; but here he was with this +humiliating affair hot in his mind, shrugging his shoulders with a sense +of relief, almost a sense of escape. Does the soul really wear out with +the body? The question flitted across his mind as he took down a pair of +trousers, and noticed that they were considerably frayed about the feet; +he determined to give them to Paolo, and this reminded him to ring for +Paolo, and send word to the office that he was going to take the evening +train for Rome. + +He went on packing, and putting away with the different garments the +unpleasant thoughts that he knew he should be sure to unpack with them +in Rome; but they would then have less poignancy. + +For the present he was doing the best he could, and he was not making +any sort of pretences. When his trunk was locked he kindled himself a +fire, and sat down before it to think of Imogene. He began with her, but +presently it seemed to be Mrs. Bowen that he was thinking of; then he +knew he was dropping off to sleep by the manner in which their two ideas +mixed. The fatigues and excitements of the week had been great, but he +would not give way; it was too disgraceful. + +Some one rapped at his door. He called out "_Avanti_!" and he would have +been less surprised to see either of those ladies than Paolo with the +account he had ordered to be made out. It was a long, pendulous, +minutely itemed affair, such as the traveller's recklessness in candles +and firewood comes to in the books of the Continental landlord, and it +almost swept the floor when its volume was unrolled. But it was not the +sum-total that dismayed Colville when he glanced at the final figure; +that, indeed, was not so very great, with all the items; it was the +conviction, suddenly flashing upon him, that he had not money enough by +him to pay it. His watch, held close to the fire, told him that it was +five o'clock; the banks had been closed an hour, and this was Saturday +afternoon. + +The squalid accident had all the effect of intention, as he viewed it +from without himself, and considered that the money ought to have been +the first thing in his thoughts after he determined to go away. He must +get the money somehow, and be off to Rome by the seven o'clock train. A +whimsical suggestion, which was so good a bit of irony that it made him +smile, flashed across him: he might borrow it of Mrs. Bowen. She was, in +fact, the only person in Florence with whom he was at all on borrowing +terms, and a sad sense of the sweetness of her lost friendship followed +upon the antic notion. No; for once he could not go to Mrs. Bowen. He +recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had together, +confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, and harmlessly +intimate in many things. He recalled how, when he was feeling dull from +the Florentine air, she had told him to take a little quinine, and he +had found immediate advantage in it. These memories did strike him as +grotesque or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was ashamed even +to seem in anywise recreant further. If she should ever hear that he had +lingered for thirty-six hours in Florence after he had told her he was +going away, what could she think but that he had repented his decision? +He determined to go down to the office of the hotel, and see if he could +not make some arrangement with the landlord. It would be extremely +distasteful, but his ample letter of credit would be at least a voucher +of his final ability to pay. As a desperate resort he could go and try +to get the money of Mr. Waters. + +He put on his coat and hat, and opened the door to some one who was just +in act to knock at it, and whom he struck against in the obscurity. + +"I beg your pardon," said the visitor. + +"Mr. Waters! Is it possible?" cried Colville, feeling something fateful +in the chance. "I was just going to see you." + +"I'm fortunate in meeting you, then. Shall we go to my room?" he asked, +at a hesitation in Colville's manner. + +"No, no," said the latter; "come in here." He led the way back into his +room, and struck a match to light the candles on his chimney. Their dim +rays fell upon the disorder his packing had left. "You must excuse the +look of things," he said. "The fact is, I'm just going away. I'm going +to Rome at seven o'clock." + +"Isn't this rather sudden?" asked the minister, with less excitement +than the fact might perhaps have been expected to create in a friend. "I +thought you intended to pass the winter in Florence." + +"Yes, I did--sit down, please--but I find myself obliged to cut my stay +short. Won't you take off your coat?" he asked, taking off his own. + +"Thank you; I've formed the habit of keeping it on indoors," said Mr. +Waters. "And I oughtn't to stay long, if you're to be off so soon." + +Colville gave a very uncomfortable laugh. "Why, the fact is, I'm not off +so very soon unless you help me." + +"Ah?" returned the old gentleman, with polite interest. + +"Yes, I find myself in the absurd position of a man who has reckoned +without his host. I have made all my plans for going, and have had my +hotel bill sent to me in pursuance of that idea, and now I discover that +I not only haven't money enough to pay it and get to Rome, but I haven't +much more than half enough to pay it. I have credit galore," he said, +trying to give the situation a touch of liveliness, "but the bank is +shut." + +Mr. Waters listened to the statement with a silence concerning which +Colville was obliged to form his conjectures. "That is unfortunate," he +said sympathetically, but not encouragingly. + +Colville pushed on desperately. "It is, unless you can help me, Mr. +Waters. I want you to lend me fifty dollars for as many hours." + +Mr. Waters shook his head with a compassionate smile. "I haven't fifty +francs in cash. You are welcome to what there is. I'm very forgetful +about money matters, and haven't been to the bankers." + +"Oh, don't excuse yourself to me, unless you wish to embitter my shame. +I'm obliged to you for offering to share your destitution with me. I +must try to run my face with the landlord," said Colville. + +"Oh no," said Mr. Waters gently. "Is there such haste as all that?" + +"Yes, I must go at once." + +"I don't like to have you apply to a stranger," said the old man, with +fatherly kindness. "Can't you remain over till Monday? I had a little +excursion to propose." + +"No, I can't possibly stay; I must go to-night," cried Colville. + +The minister rose. "Then I really mustn't detain you, I suppose. +Good-bye." He offered his hand. Colville took it, but could not let it +go at once. "I would like extremely to tell you why I'm leaving Florence +in such haste. But I don't see what good it would do, for I don't want +you to persuade me to stay." + +The old gentleman looked at him with friendly interest. + +"The fact is," Colville proceeded, as if he had been encouraged to do +so, "I have had the misfortune--yes, I'm afraid I've had the fault--to +make myself very displeasing to Mrs. Bowen, and in such a way that the +very least I can do is to take myself off as far and as soon as I +conveniently can." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Waters, with the cheerful note of incredulity in his +voice with which one is apt to respond to others' confession of +extremity. "Is it so bad as that? I've just seen Mrs. Bowen, and she +told me you were going." + +"Oh," said Colville, with disagreeable sensation, "perhaps she told you +why I was going." + +"No," answered Mr. Waters; "she didn't do that." Colville imagined a +consciousness in him, which perhaps did not exist. "She didn't allude to +the subject further than to state the fact, when I mentioned that I was +coming to see you." + +Colville had dropped his hand. "She was very forbearing," he said, with +bitterness that might well have been incomprehensible to Mr. Waters upon +any theory but one. + +"Perhaps," he suggested, "you are precipitate; perhaps you have +mistaken; perhaps you have been hasty. These things are often the result +of impulse in women. I have often wondered how they could make up their +minds; I believe they certainly ought to be allowed to change them at +least once." + +Colville turned very red. "What in the world do you mean? Do you imagine +that I have been offering myself to Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Wasn't it that which you wished to--which you said you would like to +tell me?" + +Colville was suddenly silent, on the verge of a self-derisive laugh. +When he spoke, he said gently: "No; it wasn't that. I never thought of +offering myself to her. We have always been very good friends. But now +I'm afraid we can't be friends any more--at least we can't be +acquaintances." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Waters. He waited a while as if for Colville to say +more, but the latter remained silent, and the old man gave his hand +again in farewell. "I must really be going. I hope you won't think me +intrusive in my mistaken conjecture?" + +"Oh no." + +"It was what I supposed you had been telling me----" + +"I understand. You mustn't be troubled," said Colville, though he had to +own to himself that it seemed superfluous to make this request of Mr. +Waters, who was taking the affair with all the serenity of age +concerning matters of sentiment. "I wish you were going to Rome with +me," he added, to disembarrass the moment of parting. + +"Thank you. But I shall not go to Rome for some years. Shall you come +back on your way in the spring?" + +"No, I shall not come to Florence again," said Colville sadly. + +"Ah, I'm sorry. Good-bye, my dear young friend. It's been a great +pleasure to know you." Colville walked down to the door of the hotel +with his visitor and parted with him there. As he turned back he met the +landlord, who asked him if he would have the omnibus for the station. +The landlord bowed smilingly, after his kind, and rubbed his hands. He +said he hoped Colville was pleased with his hotel, and ran to his desk +in the little office to get some cards for him, so that he might +recommend it accurately to American families. + +Colville looked absently at the cards. "The fact is," he said, to the +little bowing, smiling man; "I don't know but I shall be obliged to +postpone my going till Monday." He smiled too, trying to give the fact a +jocose effect, and added, "I find myself out of money, and I've no means +of paying your bill till I can see my bankers." + +After all his heroic intention, this was as near as he could come to +asking the landlord to let him send the money from Rome. + +The little man set his head on one side. + +"Oh, well, occupy the room until Monday, then," he cried hospitably. "It +is quite at your disposition. You will not want the omnibus?" + +"No, I shall not want the omnibus," said Colville, with a laugh, +doubtless not perfectly intelligible to the landlord, who respectfully +joined him in it. + +He did not mean to stop that night without writing to Mrs. Bowen, and +assuring her that though an accident had kept him in Florence till +Monday, she need not be afraid of seeing him again. But he could not go +back to his room yet; he wandered about the town, trying to pick himself +up from the ruin into which he had fallen again, and wondering with a +sort of alien compassion what was to become of his aimless, empty +existence. As he passed through the Piazza San Marco he had half a mind +to pick a pebble from the gardened margin of the fountain there and toss +it against the Rev. Mr. Waters's window, and when he put his skull-cap +out, to ask that optimistic agnostic what a man had best do with a life +that had ceased to interest him. But, for the time being, he got rid of +himself as he best could by going to the opera. They professed to give +_Rigoletto_, but it was all Mrs. Bowen and Imogene Graham to Colville. + +It was so late when he got back to his hotel that the outer gate was +shut, and he had to wake up the poor little porter, as on that night +when he returned from Madame Uccelli's. The porter was again equal to +his duty, and contrived to light a new candle to show him the way to his +room. The repetition, almost mechanical, of this small chicane made +Colville smile, and this apparently encouraged the porter to ask, as if +he supposed him to have been in society somewhere-- + +"You have amused yourself this evening? + +"Oh, very much." + +"I am glad. There is a letter for you.' + +"A letter! Where?" + +"I sent it to your room. It came just before midnight." + + + + + + +XIII + + +Mrs. Bowen sat before the hearth in her _salon_, with her hands fallen +in her lap. At thirty-eight the emotions engrave themselves more deeply +in the face than they do in our first youth, or than they will when we +have really aged, and the pretty woman looked haggard. + +Imogene came in, wearing a long blue robe, flung on as if with desperate +haste; her thick hair fell crazily out of a careless knot, down her +back. "I couldn't sleep," she said, with quivering lips, at the sight of +which Mrs. Bowen's involuntary smile hardened. "Isn't it eleven yet?" +she added, with a glance at the clock. "It seems years since I went to +bed." + +"It's been a long day," Mrs. Bowen admitted. She did not ask Imogene why +she could not sleep, perhaps because she knew already, and was too +honest to affect ignorance. + +The girl dropped into a chair opposite her, and began to pull her +fingers through the long tangle of her hair, while she drew her breath +in sighs that broke at times on her lips; some tears fell down her +cheeks unheeded. "Mrs. Bowen," she said, at length, "I should like to +know what right we have to drive any one from Florence? I should think +people would call it rather a high-handed proceeding if it were known." + +Mrs. Bowen met this feebleness promptly. "It isn't likely to be known. +But we are not driving Mr. Colville away." + +"He is going." + +"Yes; he said he would go." + +"Don't you believe he will go?" + +"I believe he will do what he says." + +"He has been very kind to us all; he has been as _good!_" + +"No one feels that more than I," said Mrs. Bowen, with a slight tremor +in her voice. She faltered a moment. "I can't let you say those things +to me, Imogene." + +"No; I know it's wrong. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, I wish I +could tell what I ought to do! I wish I could make up my mind. Oh, I +can't let him go--_so_. I--I don't know what to think any more. Once it +was clear, but now I'm not sure; no, I'm not sure." + +"Not sure about what?" + +"I think I am the one to go away, if any one." + +"You know you can't go away," said Mrs. Bowen, with weary patience. + +"No, of course not. Well, I shall never see any one like him." + +Mrs. Bowen made a start in her chair, as if she had no longer the power +to remain quiet, but only placed herself a little more rigidly in it. + +"No," the girl went on, as if uttering a hopeless reverie. "He made +every moment interesting. He was always thinking of us--he never thought +of himself. He did as much for Effie as for any one; he tried just as +hard to make himself interesting to her. He was unselfish. I have seen +him at places being kind to the stupidest people. You never caught him +choosing out the stylish or attractive ones, or trying to shine at +anybody's expense. Oh, he's a true gentleman--I shall always say it. How +delicate he was, never catching you up, or if you said a foolish thing, +trying to turn it against you. No, never, never, never! Oh dear! And +now, what can he think of me? Oh, how frivolous and fickle and selfish +he must think me!" + +"Imogene!" Mrs. Bowen cried out, but quelled herself again. + +"Yes," pursued the girl, in the same dreary monotone, "he thinks I +couldn't appreciate him because he was old. He thinks that I cared for +his not being handsome! Perhaps--perhaps----" She began to catch her +breath in the effort to keep back the sobs that were coming. "Oh, I +can't bear it! I would rather die than let him think it--such a thing as +that!" She bent her head aside, and cried upon the two hands with which +she clutched the top of her chair. + +Mrs. Bowen sat looking at her distractedly. From time to time she seemed +to silence a word upon her lips, and in fact she did not speak. + +Imogene lifted her head at last, and softly dried her eyes. Then, as she +pushed her handkerchief back into the pocket of her robe, "What sort of +looking girl was that other one?" + +"That other one?" + +"Yes; you know what I mean: the one who behaved so badly to him before." + +"Imogene!" said Mrs. Bowen severely, "this is nonsense, and I can't let +you go on so. I might pretend not to know what you mean; but I won't do +that; and I tell you that there is no sort of likeness--of +comparison----" + +"No, no," wailed the girl, "there _is_ none. I feel that. She had +nothing to warn her--he hadn't suffered then; he was young; he was able +to bear it--you said it yourself, Mrs. Bowen. But now--_now_, what will +he do? He could make fun of that, and not hate her so much, because she +didn't know how much harm she was doing. But I did; and what can he +think of me?" + +Mrs. Bowen looked across the barrier between them, that kept her from +taking Imogene into her arms, and laughing and kissing away her craze, +with cold dislike, and only said, "You know whether you've really +anything to accuse yourself of, Imogene. I can't and won't consider Mr. +Colville in the matter; I _didn't_ consider him in what I said to-day. +And I tell you again that I will not interfere with you in the slightest +degree beyond appearances and the responsibility I feel to your mother. +And it's for you to know your own mind. You are old enough. I will do +what you say. It's for you to be sure that you wish what you say." + +"Yes," said Imogene huskily, and she let an interval that was long to +them both elapse before she said anything more. "Have I always done what +you thought best, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Yes, I have never complained of you." + +"Then why can't you tell me now what you think best?" + +"Because there is nothing to be done. It is all over." + +"But if it were not, would you tell me?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"Because I--couldn't." + +"Then I take back my promise not to write to Mr. Colville. I am going to +ask him to stay." + +"Have you made up your mind to that, Imogene?" asked Mrs. Bowen, showing +no sign of excitement, except to take a faster hold of her own wrists +with the slim hands in which she had caught them. + +"Yes." + +"You know the position it places you in?" + +"What position?" + +"Has he offered himself to you?" + +"No!" the girl's face blazed. + +"Then, after what's passed, this is the same as offering yourself to +him." + +Imogene turned white. "I must write to him, unless you forbid me." + +"Certainly I shall not forbid you." Mrs. Bowen rose and went to her +writing-desk. "But if you have fully made up your mind to this step, and +are ready for the consequences, whatever they are----" She stopped, +before sitting down, and looked back over her shoulder at Imogene. + +"Yes," said the girl, who had also risen. + +"Then I will write to Mr. Colville for you, and render the proceeding as +little objectionable as possible." + +Imogene made no reply. She stood motionless while Mrs. Bowen wrote. + +"Is this what you wished?" asked the latter, offering the sheet:---- + +"Dear Mr. Colville,--I have reasons for wishing to recall my consent to +your going away. Will you not come and lunch with us to-morrow, and try +to forget everything that has passed during a few days? + +"Yours very sincerely, + +"Evalina Bowen." + +"Yes, that will do," gasped Imogene. + +Mrs. Bowen rang the bell for the porter, and stood with her back to the +girl, waiting for him at the salon door. He came after a delay that +sufficiently intimated the lateness of the hour. "This letter must go at +once to the Hotel d'Atene," said Mrs. Bowen peremptorily. + +"You shall be served," said the porter, with fortitude. + +As Mrs. Bowen turned, Imogene ran toward her with clasped hands. "Oh, +how merciful--how good----" + +Mrs. Bowen shrank back. "Don't touch me, Imogene, please!" + +It was her letter which Colville found on his table and read by the +struggling light of his newly acquired candle. Then he sat down and +replied to it. + +"Dear Mrs. Bowen,--I know that you mean some sort of kindness by me, and +I hope you will not think me prompted by any poor resentment in +declining to-morrow's lunch. I am satisfied that it is best for me to +go; and I am ashamed not to be gone already. But a ridiculous accident +has kept me, and when I came in and found your note I was just going to +write and ask your patience with my presence in Florence till Monday +morning. + +"Yours sincerely, THEODORE COLVILLE." + +He took his note down to the porter, who had lain down again in his +little booth, but sprang up with a cheerful request to be commanded. +Colville consulted him upon the propriety of sending the note to Palazzo +Pinti at once, and the porter, with his head laid in deprecation upon +one of his lifted shoulders, owned that it was perhaps the very least +little bit in the world late. + +"Send it the first thing in the morning, then," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen received it by the servant who brought her coffee to the +room, and she sent it without any word to Imogene. The girl came +instantly back with it. She was fully dressed, as if she had been up a +long time, and she wore a very plain, dull dress, in which one of her +own sex might have read the expression of a potential self-devotion. + +"It's just as I wish it, Mrs. Bowen," she said, in a low key of +impassioned resolution. "_Now_, my conscience is at rest. And you have +done this for me, Mrs. Bowen!" She stood timidly with the door in her +hand, watching Mrs. Bowen's slight smile; then, as if at some sign in +it, she flew to the bed and kissed her, and so fled out of the room +again. + +Colville slept late, and awoke with a vague sense of self-reproach, +which faded afterward to such poor satisfaction as comes to us from the +consciousness of having made the best of a bad business; some pangs of +softer regret mixed with this. At first he felt a stupid obligation to +keep indoors, and he really did not go out till after lunch. The +sunshine had looked cold from his window, and with the bright fire which +he found necessary in his room, he fancied a bitterness in the gusts +that caught up the dust in the piazza, and blew it against the line of +cabs on the other side; but when he got out into the weather he found +the breeze mild and the sun warm. The streets were thronged with people, +and at all the corners there were groups of cloaked and overcoated +talkers, soaking themselves full of the sunshine. The air throbbed, as +always, with the sound of bells, but it was a mellower and opener sound +than before, and looking at the purple bulk of one of those hills which +seem to rest like clouds at the end of each avenue in Florence, Colville +saw that it was clear of snow. He was going up through Via Cavour to +find Mr. Waters and propose a walk, but he met him before he had got +half-way to San Marco. + +The old man was at a momentary stand-still, looking up at the Riccardi +Palace, and he received Colville with apparent forgetfulness of anything +odd in his being still in Florence. "Upon the whole," he said, without +preliminary of any sort, as Colville turned and joined him in walking +on, "I don't know any homicide that more distinctly proves the futility +of assassination as a political measure than that over yonder." He +nodded his head sidewise toward the palace as he shuffled actively along +at Colville's elbow. + +"You might say that the moment when Lorenzino killed Alessandro was the +most auspicious for a deed of that kind. The Medici had only recently +been restored; Alessandro was the first ruler in Florence, who had worn +a title; no more reckless, brutal, and insolent tyrant ever lived, and +his right, even such as the Medici might have, to play the despot was +involved in the doubt of his origin; the heroism of the great siege +ought still to have survived in the people who withstood the forces of +the whole German Empire for fifteen months; it seems as if the taking +off of that single wretch should have ended the whole Medicean +domination; but there was not a voice raised to second the homicide's +appeal to the old love of liberty in Florence. The Medici party were +able to impose a boy of eighteen upon the most fiery democracy that ever +existed, and to hunt down and destroy Alessandro's murderer at their +leisure. No," added the old man thoughtfully, "I think that the friends +of progress must abandon assassination as invariably useless. The +trouble was not that Alessandro was alive, but that Florence was dead. +Assassination always comes too early or too late in any popular +movement. It may be," said Mr. Waters, with a carefulness to do justice +to assassination which made Colville smile, "that the modern scientific +spirits may be able to evolve something useful from the principle, but +considering the enormous abuses and perversions to which it is liable, I +am very doubtful of it--very doubtful." + +Colville laughed. "I like your way of bringing a fresh mind to all these +questions in history and morals, whether they are conventionally settled +or not. Don't you think the modern scientific spirit could evolve +something useful out of the old classic idea of suicide?" + +"Perhaps," said Mr. Waters; "I haven't yet thought it over. The worst +thing about suicide--and this must always rank it below political +assassination--is that its interest is purely personal. No man ever +kills himself for the good of others." + +"That's certainly against it. We oughtn't to countenance such an +abominably selfish practice. But you can't bring that charge against +euthanasy. What have you to say of that?" + +"I have heard one of the most benevolent and tender-hearted men I ever +knew defend it in cases of hopeless suffering. But I don't know that I +should be prepared to take his ground. There appears to be something so +sacred about human life that we must respect it even in spite of the +prayers of the sufferer who asks us to end his irremediable misery." + +"Well," said Colville, "I suspect we must at least class murder with the +ballet as a means of good. One might say there was still some virtue in +the primal, eldest curse against bloodshed." + +"Oh, I don't by any means deny those things," said the old man, with the +air of wishing to be scrupulously just. "Which way are you walking?" + +"Your way, if you will let me," replied Colville. "I was going to your +house to ask you to take a walk with me." + +"Ah, that's good. I was reading of the great siege last night, and I +thought of taking a look at Michelangelo's bastions. Let us go together, +if you don't think you'll find it too fatiguing." + +"I shall be ashamed to complain if I do." + +"And you didn't go to Rome after all?" said Mr. Waters. + +"No; I couldn't face the landlord with a petition so preposterous as +mine. I told him that I found I had no money to pay his bill till I had +seen my banker, and as he didn't propose that I should send him the +amount back from Rome, I stayed. Landlords have their limitations; they +are not imaginative, as a class." + +"Well, a day more will make no great difference to you, I suppose," said +the old man, "and a day less would have been a loss to me. I shall miss +you." + +"Shall you, indeed?" asked Colville, with a grateful stir of the heart. +"It's very nice of you to say that." + +"Oh no. I meet few people who are willing to look at life objectively +with me, and I have fancied some such willingness in you. What I chiefly +miss over here is a philosophic lift in the human mind, but probably +that is because my opportunities of meeting the best minds are few, and +my means of conversing with them are small. If I had not the whole past +with me, I should feel lonely at times." + +"And is the past such good company always?". + +"Yes, in a sense it is. The past is humanity set free from circumstance, +and history studied where it was once life is the past rehumanised." + +As if he found this rarefied air too thin for his lungs, Colville made +some ineffectual gasps at response, and the old man continued: "What I +mean is that I meet here the characters I read of, and commune with them +before their errors were committed, before they had condemned themselves +to failure, while they were still wise and sane, and still active and +vital forces." + +"Did they all fail? I thought some of the bad fellows had a pretty fair +worldly success?" + +"The blossom of decay." + +"Oh! what black pessimism!" + +"Not at all! Men fail, but man succeeds. I don't know what it all means, +or any part of it; but I have had moods in which it seemed as if the +whole, secret of the mystery were about to flash upon me. Walking along +in the full sun, in the midst of men, or sometimes in the solitude of +midnight, poring over a book, and thinking of quite other things, I have +felt that I had almost surprised it." + +"But never quite?" + +"Oh, it isn't too late yet." + +"I hope you won't have your revelation before I get away from Florence, +or I shall see them burning you here like the great _frate_." + +They had been walking down the Via Calzioli from the Duomo, and now they +came out into the Piazza della Signoria, suddenly, as one always seems +to do, upon the rise of the old palace and the leap of its tower into +the blue air. The history of all Florence is there, with memories of +every great time in bronze or marble, but the supreme presence is the +martyr who hangs for ever from the gibbet over the quenchless fire in +the midst. + +"Ah, they _had_ to kill him!" sighed the old man. "It has always been so +with the benefactors. They have always meant mankind more good than any +one generation can bear, and it must turn upon them and destroy them." + +"How will it be with you, then, when you have read us 'the riddle of the +painful earth'?" + +"That will be so simple that every one will accept it willingly and +gladly, and wonder that no one happened to think of it before. And, +perhaps, the world is now grown old enough and docile enough to receive +the truth without resentment." + +"I take back my charge of pessimism," said Colville. "You are an +optimist of the deepest dye." + +They walked out of the Piazza and down to the Lung' Arno, through the +corridor of the Uffizzi, where the illustrious Florentines stand in +marble under the arches, all reconciled and peaceful and equal at last. +Colville shivered a little as he passed between the silent ranks of the +statues. + +"I can't stand those fellows, to-day. They seem to feel such a smirk +satisfaction at having got out of it all." + +They issued upon the river, and he went to the parapet and looked down +on the water. "I wonder," he mused aloud, "if it has the same Sunday +look to these Sabbathless Italians as it has to us." + +"No; Nature isn't puritan," replied the old minister. + +"Not at Haddam East Village?" + +"No; there less than here; for she's had to make a harder fight for her +life there." + +"Ah, then you believe in Nature--you're a friend of Nature?" asked +Colville, following the lines of an oily swirl in the current with +indolent eye. + +"Only up to a certain point." Mr. Waters seemed to be patient of any +direction which the other might be giving the talk. "Nature is a savage. +She has good impulses, but you can't trust her altogether." + +"Do you know," said Colville, "I don't think there's very much of her +left in us after we reach a certain point in life? She drives us on at a +great pace for a while, and then some fine morning we wake up and find +that Nature has got tired of us and has left us to taste and conscience. +And taste and conscience are by no means so certain of what they want +you to do as Nature was." + +"Yes," said the minister, "I see what you mean." He joined Colville in +leaning on the parapet, and he looked out on the river as if he saw his +meaning there. "But by the time we reach that point in life most of us +have got the direction which Nature meant us to take, and there's no +longer any need of her driving us on." + +"And what about the unlucky fellows who haven't got the direction, or +haven't kept it?" + +"They had better go back to it." + +"But if Nature herself seemed to change her mind about you?" + +"Ah, you mean persons of weak will. They are a great curse to themselves +and to everybody else." + +"I'm not so sure of that," said Colville. "I've seen cases in which a +strong will looked very much more like the devil." + +"Yes, a perverted will. But there can be no good without a strong will. +A weak will means inconstancy. It means, even in good, good attempted +and relinquished, which is always a terrible thing, because it is sure +to betray some one who relied upon its accomplishment." + +"And in evil? Perhaps the evil, attempted and relinquished, turns into +good." + +"Oh, never!" replied the minister fervently. "There is something very +mysterious in what we call evil. Apparently it has infinitely greater +force and persistence than good. I don't know why it should be so. But +so it appears." + +"You'll have the reason of that along with the rest of the secret when +your revelation comes," said Colville, with a smile. He lifted his eyes +from the river, and looked up over the clustering roofs beyond it to the +hills beyond them, flecked to the crest of their purple slopes with the +white of villas and villages. As if something in the beauty of the +wonderful prospect had suggested the vision of its opposite, he said, +dreamily, "I don't think I shall go to Rome to-morrow, after all. I will +go to Des Vaches! Where did you say you were walking, Mr. Waters? Oh +yes! You told me. I will cross the bridge with you. But I couldn't stand +anything quite so vigorous as the associations of the siege this +afternoon. I'm going to the Boboli Gardens, to debauch myself with a +final sense of nerveless despotism, as it expressed itself in marble +allegory and formal alleys. The fact is that if I stay with you any +longer I shall tell you something that I'm too old to tell and you're +too old to hear." The old man smiled, but offered no urgence or comment, +and at the thither end of the bridge Colville said hastily, "Good-bye. +If you ever come to Des Vaches, look me up." + +"Good-bye," said the minister. "Perhaps we shall meet in Florence +again." + +"No, no. Whatever happens, that won't." + +They shook hands and parted. Colville stood a moment, watching the +slight bent figure of the old man as he moved briskly up the Via de' +Bardi, turning his head from, side to side, to look at the palaces as he +passed, and so losing himself in the dim, cavernous curve of the street. +As soon as he was out of sight, Colville had an impulse to hurry after +him and rejoin him; then he felt like turning about and going back to +his hotel. + +But he shook himself together into the shape of resolution, however +slight and transient. "I must do _something_ I intended to do," he said, +between his set teeth, and pushed on up through the Via Guicciardini. "I +will go to the Boboli because I _said_ I would." + +As he walked along, he seemed to himself to be merely crumbling away in +this impulse and that, in one abortive intent and another. What did it +all mean? Had he been his whole life one of these weak wills which are a +curse to themselves and others, and most a curse when they mean the +best? Was that the secret of his failure in life? But for many years he +had seemed to succeed, to be as other men were, hard, practical men; he +had once made a good newspaper, which was certainly not a dream of +romance. Had he given that up at last because he was a weak will? And +now was he running away from Florence because his will was weak? He +could look back to that squalid tragedy of his youth, and see that a +more violent, a more determined man could have possessed himself of the +girl whom he had lost. And now would it not be more manly, if more +brutal, to stay here, where a hope, however fleeting, however fitful, of +what might have been, had revisited him in the love of this young girl? +He felt sure, if anything were sure, that something in him, in spite of +their wide disparity of years, had captured her fancy, and now, in his +abasement, he felt again the charm of his own power over her. They were +no farther apart in years than many a husband and wife; they would grow +more and more together; there was youth enough in his heart yet; and who +was pushing him away from her, forbidding him this treasure that he had +but to put out his hand and make his own? Some one whom through all his +thoughts of another he was trying to please, but whom he had made +finally and inexorably his enemy. Better stay, then, something said to +him; and when he answered, "I will," something else reminded him that +this also was not willing but unwilling. + + + + + + +XIV + + +When he entered the beautiful old garden, its benison of peace fell upon +his tumult, and he began to breathe a freer air, reverting to his +purpose to be gone in the morning and resting in it, as he strolled up +the broad curve of its alley from the gate. He had not been there since +he walked there with one now more like a ghost to him than any of the +dead who had since died. It was there that she had refused him; he +recalled with a grim smile the awkwardness of getting back with her to +the gate from the point, far within the garden, where he had spoken. +Except that this had happened in the fall, and now it was early spring, +there seemed no change since then; the long years that had elapsed were +like a winter between. + +He met people in groups and singly loitering through the paths, and +chiefly speaking English; but no one spoke to him, and no one invaded +the solitude in which he walked. But the garden itself seemed to know +him, and to give him a tacit recognition; the great, foolish grotto +before the gate, with its statues by Bandinelli, and the fantastic +effects of drapery and flesh in party-coloured statues lifted high on +either side of the avenue; the vast shoulder of wall, covered thick with +ivy and myrtle, which he passed on his way to the amphitheatre behind +the palace; the alternate figures and urns on their pedestals in the +hemicycle, as if the urns were placed there to receive the ashes of the +figures when they became extinct; the white statues or the colossal +busts set at the ends of the long, alleys against black curtains of +foliage; the big fountain, with its group in the centre of the little +lake, and the meadow, quiet and sad, that stretched away on one side +from this; the keen light under the levels of the dense pines and +ilexes; the paths striking straight on either hand from the avenue +through which he sauntered, and the walk that coiled itself through the +depths of the plantations; all knew him, and from them and from the +winter neglect which was upon the place distilled a subtle influence, a +charm, an appeal belonging to that combination of artifice and nature +which is perfect only in an Italian garden under an Italian sky. He was +right in the name which he mockingly gave the effect before he felt it; +it was a debauch, delicate, refined, of unserious pensiveness, a smiling +melancholy, in which he walked emancipated from his harassing hopes, and +keeping only his shadowy regrets. + +Colville did not care to scale the easy height from which you have the +magnificent view, conscious of many photographs, of Florence. He +wandered about the skirts of that silent meadow, and seeing himself +unseen, he invaded its borders far enough to pluck one of those large +scarlet anemones, such as he had given his gentle enemy. It was tilting +there in the breeze above the unkempt grass, and the grass was beginning +to feel the spring, and to stir and stretch itself after its winter +sleep; it was sprinkled with violets, but these he did not molest. He +came back to a stained and mossy stone bench on the avenue, fronting a +pair of rustic youths carved in stone, who had not yet finished some +game in which he remembered seeing them engaged when he was there +before. He had not walked fast, but he had walked far, and was warm +enough to like the whiffs of soft wind on his uncovered head. The spring +was coming; that was its breath, which you know unmistakably in Italy +after all the kisses that winter gives. Some birds were singing in the +trees; down an alley into which he could look, between the high walls of +green, he could see two people in flirtation: he waited patiently till +the young man should put his arm round the girl's waist, for the +fleeting embrace from which she pushed it and fled further down the +path. + +"Yes, it's spring," thought Colville; and then, with the selfishness of +the troubled soul, he wished that it might be winter still and +indefinitely. It occurred to him now that he should not go back to Des +Vaches, for he did not know what he should do there. He would go to New +York: though he did not know what he should do in New York, either. + +He became tired of looking at the people who passed, and of speculating +about them through the second consciousness which enveloped the sad +substance of his misgivings like an atmosphere; and he let his eyelids +fall, as he leaned his head back against the tree behind his bench. Then +their voices pursued him through the twilight that he had made himself, +and forced him to the same weary conjecture as if he had seen their +faces. He heard gay laughter, and laughter that affected gaiety; the +tones of young men in earnest disquisition reached him through the veil, +and the talk, falling to whisper, of girls, with the names of men in it; +sums of money, a hundred francs, forty thousand francs, came in high +tones; a husband and wife went by quarrelling in the false security of +English, and snapping at each other as confidingly as if in the +sanctuary of home. The man bade the woman not be a fool, and she asked +him how she was to-endure his company if she was not a fool. + +Colville opened his eyes to look after them, when a voice that he knew +called out, "Why, it is Mr. Colville!" + +It was Mrs. Amsden, and pausing with her, as if they had passed him in +doubt, and arrested themselves when they had got a little way by, were +Effie Bowen and Imogens Graham. The old lady had the child by the hand, +and the girl stood a few paces apart from them. She was one of those +beauties who have the property of looking very plain at times, and +Colville, who had seen her in more than one transformation, now beheld +her somehow clumsy of feature, and with the youth gone from her aspect. +She seemed a woman of thirty, and she wore an unbecoming walking dress +of a fashion that contributed to this effect of age. Colville was aware +afterward of having wished that she was really as old and plain as she +looked. + +He had to come forward, and put on the conventional delight of a +gentleman meeting lady friends. + +"It's remarkable how your having your eyes shut estranged you," said +Mrs. Amsden. "Now, if you had let me see you oftener in church, where +people close their eyes a good deal for one purpose or another, I should +have known you at once." + +"I hope you haven't lost a great deal of time, as it is, Mrs. Amsden," +said Colville. "Of course I should have had my eyes open if I had known +you were going by." + +"Oh, don't apologise!" cried the old thing, with ready enjoyment of his +tone. + +"I don't apologise for not being recognisable; I apologise for being +visible," said Colville, with some shapeless impression that he ought to +excuse his continued presence in Florence to Imogene, but keeping his +eyes upon Mrs. Amsden, to whom what he said could not be intelligible. +"I ought to be in Turin to-day." + +"In Turin! Are you going away from Florence?" + +"I'm going home." + +"Why, did _you_ know that?" asked the old lady of Imogene, who slightly +nodded, and then of Effie, who also assented. "Really, the silence of +the Bowen family in regard to the affairs of others is extraordinary. +There never was a family more eminently qualified to live in Florence. I +dare say that if I saw a little more of them, I might hope to reach the +years of discretion myself some day. _Why_ are you going away? (You see +I haven't reached them yet!) Are you tired of Florence already?" + +"No," said Colville passively; "Florence is tired of me." + +"You're quite sure?" + +"Yes; there's no mistaking one of her sex on such a point." + +Mrs. Amsden laughed. "Ah, a great many people mistake us, both ways. And +you're really going back to America. What in the world for?" + +"I haven't the least idea." + +"Is America fonder of you than Florence?" + +"She's never told her love. I suspect it's merely that she's more used +to me." + +They were walking, without any volition of his, down the slope of the +broad avenue to the fountain, where he had already been. + +"Is your mother well?" he asked of the little girl. It seemed to him +that he had better not speak to Imogene, who still kept that little +distance from the rest, and get away as soon as he decently could. + +"She has a headache," said Effie. + +"Oh, I'm sorry," returned Colville. + +"Yes, she deputed me to take her young people out for an airing," said +Mrs. Amsden; "and Miss Graham decided us for the Boboli, where she +hadn't been yet. I've done what I could to make the place attractive. +But what is an old woman to do for a girl in a garden? We ought to have +brought some other young people--some of the Inglehart boys. But we're +respectable, we Americans abroad; we're decorous, above all things; and +I don't know about meeting _you_ here, Mr. Colville. It has a very bad +appearance. Are you sure that you didn't know I was to go by here at +exactly half-past four?" + +"I was living from breath to breath in the expectation of seeing you. +You must have noticed how eagerly I was looking out for you." + +"Yes, and with a single red anemone in your hand, so that I should know +you without being obliged to put on my spectacles." + +"You divine everything, Mrs. Amsden," he said, giving her the flower. + +"I shall make my brags to Mrs. Bowen when I see her," said the old lady. +"How far into the country did you walk for this?" + +"As far as the meadow yonder." + +They had got down to the sheet of water from which the sea-horses of the +fountain sprang, and the old lady sank upon a bench near it. Colville +held out his hand toward Effie. "I saw a lot of violets over there in +the grass." + +"Did you?" She put her hand eagerly into his, and they strolled off +together. After a first motion to accompany them, Imogene sat down +beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly the talk of the old lady, and +seeming in nowise concerned about the expedition for violets. Except for +a dull first glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in the +border of the grass, and the child ran quickly hither and thither in it, +stooping from time to time upon the flowers. Then she came out to where +he stood, and showed her bunch of violets, looking up into the face +which he bent upon her, while he trifled with his cane. He had a very +fatherly air with her. + +"I think I'll go and see what they've found," said Imogene irrelevantly, +to a remark of Mrs. Amsden's about the expensiveness of Madame Bossi's +bonnets. + +"Well," said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little girl ran to +meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration of the violets till +Colville lounged reluctantly up. "Go and show them to Mrs. Amsden," she +said, giving back the violets, which she had been smelling. The child +ran on. "Mr. Colville, I want to speak with you." + +"Yes," said Colville helplessly. + +"Why are you going away?" + +"Why? Oh, I've accomplished the objects--or no-objects--I came for," he +said, with dreary triviality, "and I must hurry away to other fields of +activity." He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of a +passionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow. + +"That is not true, and you needn't say it to spare me. You are going +away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about me." + +"Not quite that," returned Colville gently. + +"No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it's the same +thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go for that." + +"Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?" + +"Yes." + +Colville waited a long moment. "Then, I thank you, you dear girl, and I +am going to-morrow, all the same. But I shan't forget this; whatever my +life is to be, this will make it less unworthy and less unhappy. If it +could buy anything to give you joy, to add some little grace to the good +that must come to you, I would give it. Some day you'll meet the young +fellow whom you're to make immortal, and you must tell him of an old +fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to worship you for an +angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he'll understand, too! +Good-bye." If he was to fly, that was the sole instant. He took her +hand, and said again, "Good-bye." And then he suddenly cried, "Imogene, +do you wish me to stay?" + +"Yes!" said the girl, pouring all the intensity of her face into that +whisper. + +"Even if there had been nothing said to make me go away--should you +still wish me to stay?" + +"Yes." + +He looked her in the starry, lucid eyes, where a divine fervour +deepened. He sighed in nerveless perplexity; it was she who had the +courage. + +"It's a mistake! You mustn't! I am too old for you! It would be a wrong +and a cruelty! Yes, you must let me go, and forget me. I have been to +blame. If Mrs. Bowen has blamed me, she was right--I deserved it; I +deserved all she could say against me." + +"She never said anything against you. Do you think I would have let her? +No; it was I that said it, and I blamed you. It was because I thought +that you were--you were--" + +"Trifling with you? How could you think that?" + +"Yes, I know now how it was, and it makes you seem all the grander to +me. Did you think I cared for your being older than I was? I never cared +for it--I never hardly thought of it after the very first. I tried to +make you understand that, and how it hurt me to have you speak of it. +Don't you think that I could see how good you were? Do you suppose that +all I want is to be happy? I don't care for that--I despise it, and I +always hate myself for seeking my own pleasure, if I find myself doing +it. I have seen enough of life to know what _that_ comes to! And what +hurt me worst of all was that you seemed to believe that I cared for +nothing but amusing myself, when I wished to be something better, +higher! It's nothing whether you are of my age or not, if--if--you care +for me." + +"Imogene!" + +"All that I ask is to be with you, and try to make you forget what's +been sad in your life, and try to be of use to you in whatever you are +doing, and I shall be prouder and gladder of that than anything that +people _call_ happiness." + +Colville stood holding her hand, while she uttered these ideas and +incoherent repetitions of them, with a deep sense of powerlessness. "If +I believed that I could keep you from regretting this--" + +"What should I regret? I won't let you depreciate yourself--make +yourself out not good enough for the best. Oh, I know how it happened! +But now you shall never think of it again. No; I will not let you. That +is the only way you could make me regret anything." + +"I am going to stay," said Colville. "But on my own terms. I will be +bound to you, but you shall not be bound to me." + +"You doubt me! I would rather have you go! No; stay. And let me prove to +you how wrong you are. I mustn't ask more than that. Only give me the +chance to show you how different I am from what you think--how different +you are, too." + +"Yes. But you must be free." + +"Well." + +"What are they doing so long there?" asked Mrs. Amsden of Effie, putting +her glasses to her eyes. "I can't see." + +"They are just holding hands," said the child, with an easy satisfaction +in the explanation, which perhaps the old lady did not share. "He always +holds my hand when he is with me." + +"Does he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Amsden, with a cackle. She added, +"That's very polite of him, isn't it? You must be a great favourite with +Mr. Colville. You will miss him when he's gone." + +"Yes. He's very nice." + +Colville and Imogene returned, coming slowly across the loose, neglected +grass toward the old woman's seat. She rose as they came up. + +"You don't seem to have succeeded so well in getting flowers for Miss +Graham as for the other ladies. But perhaps you didn't find her +favourite over there. What is your favourite flower, Miss Graham? Don't +say you have none! I didn't know that I preferred scarlet anemones. Were +there no forget-me-nots over there in the grass?" + +"There was no occasion for them," answered Colville. + +"You always did make such pretty speeches!" said the old lady. "And they +have such an orphic character, too; you can interpret them in so many +different ways. Should you mind saying just what you meant by that one?" + +"Yes, very much," replied Colville. + +The old lady laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as lief report +that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she could +entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the toils +with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last consolation +which remained to her from a life of harmless coquetries. + +"I will refer it to Mrs. Bowen," she said. "She is a very wise woman, +and she used to know you a great while ago." + +"If you like, I will do it for you, Mrs. Amsden. I'm going to see her." + +"To renew your adieux? Well, why not? Parting is such sweet sorrow! And +if I were a young man I would go to say good-bye to Mrs. Bowen as often +as she would let me. Now tell me honestly, Mr. Colville, did you ever +see such an exquisite, perfect _creature_?" + +"Oh, that's asking a good deal." + +"What?" + +"To tell you a thing honestly. How did you come here, Mrs. Amsden?" + +"In Mrs. Bowen's carriage. I sent it round from the Pitti entrance to +the Porta Romana. It's waiting there now, I suppose." + +"I thought you had been corrupted, somehow. Your zeal is +carriage-bought. It _is_ a delightful vehicle. Do you think you could +give me a lift home in it?" + +"Yes, indeed. I've always a seat for you in my carriage. To Hotel +d'Atene?" + +"No, to Palazzo Pinti." + +"This is deliciously mysterious," said Mrs. Amsden, drawing her shawl up +about her shoulders, which, if no longer rounded, had still a charming +droop. One realises in looking at such old ladies that there are women +who could manage their own skeletons winningly. She put up her glasses, +which were an old-fashioned sort, held to the nose by a handle, and +perused the different persons of the group. "Mr. Colville concealing an +inward trepidation under a bold front; Miss Graham agitated but firm; +the child as much puzzled as the old woman. I feel that we are a very +interesting group--almost dramatic." + +"Oh, call us a passage from a modern novel," suggested Colville, "if +you're in the romantic mood. One of Mr. James's." + +"Don't you think we ought to be rather more of the great world for that? +I hardly feel up to Mr. James. I should have said Howells. Only nothing +happens in that case!" + +"Oh, very well; that's the most comfortable way. If it's only Howells, +there's no reason why I shouldn't go with Miss Graham to show her the +view of Florence from the cypress grove up yonder." + +"No; he's very particular when he's on Italian ground," said Mrs. +Amsden, rising. "You must come another time with Miss Graham, and bring +Mrs. Bowen. It's quite time we were going home." + +The light under the limbs of the trees had begun to grow more liquid. +The currents of warm breeze streaming through the cooler body of the air +had ceased to ruffle the lakelet round the fountain, and the naiads rode +their sea-horses through a perfect calm. A damp, pierced with the fresh +odour of the water and of the springing grass, descended upon them. The +saunterers through the different paths and alleys were issuing upon the +main avenues, and tending in gathering force toward the gate. + +They found Mrs. Bowen's carriage there, and drove first to her house, +beyond which Mrs. Amsden lived in a direct line. On the way Colville +kept up with her the bantering talk that they always carried on +together, and found in it a respite from the formless future pressing +close upon him. He sat with Effie on the front seat, and he would not +look at Imogene's face, which, nevertheless, was present to some inner +vision. When the porter opened the iron gate below and rang Mrs. Bowen's +bell, and Effie sprang up the stairs before them to give her mother the +news of Mr. Colville's coming, the girl stole her hand into his. + +"Shall you--tell her?" + +"Of course. She must know without an instant's delay." + +"Yes, yes; that is right. Oh!--Shall I go with you?" + +"Yes; come!" + + + + + + +XV + + +Mrs. Bowen came in to them, looking pale and pain-worn, as she did that +evening when she would not let Colville go away with the other +tea-taking callers to whom she had made her headache an excuse. The +eyelids which she had always a little difficulty in lifting were heavy +with suffering, and her pretty smile had an effect of very great +remoteness. But there was no consciousness of anything unusual or +unexpected in his presence expressed in her looks or manner. Colville +had meant to take Imogene by the hand and confront Mrs. Bowen with an +immediate declaration of what had happened; but he found this +impossible, at least in the form of his intention; he took, instead, the +hand of conventional welcome which she gave him, and he obeyed her in +taking provisionally the seat to which she invited him. At the same time +the order of his words was dispersed in that wonder, whether she +suspected anything, with which he listened to her placid talk about the +weather; she said she had thought it was a chilly day outdoors; but her +headaches always made her very sensitive. + +"Yes," said Colville, "I supposed it was cold myself till I went out, +for I woke with a tinge of rheumatism." He felt a strong desire to +excuse, to justify what had happened, and he went on, with a painful +sense of Imogene's eyes bent in bewildered deference upon him. "I +started out for a walk with Mr. Waters, but I left him after we got +across the Ponte Vecchio; he went up to look at the Michelangelo +bastions, and I strolled over to the Boboli Gardens--where I found your +young people." + +He had certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed actually +further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge, trying at +the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance. "But that +doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has +allowed me to stay in Florence." + +Mrs. Bowen could not turn paler than her headache had left her, and she +now underwent no change of complexion. But her throat was not clear +enough to say to the end, "Allowed you to stay in--" The trouble in her +throat arrested her again. + +Colville became very red. He put out his hand and took Imogene's, and +now his eyes and Mrs. Bowen's met in the kind of glance in which people +intercept and turn each other aside before they have reached a +resting-place in each other's souls. But at the girl's touch his courage +revived--in some physical sort. "Yes, and if she will let me stay with +her, we are not going to part again." + +Mrs. Bowen did not answer at once, and in the hush Colville heard the +breathing of all three. + +"Of course," he said, "we wished you to know at once, and I came in with +Imogene to tell you." + +"What do you wish me," asked Mrs. Bowen, "to do?" + +Colville forced a nervous laugh. "Really, I'm so little used to this +sort of affair that I don't know whether I have any wish. Imogene is +here with you, and I suppose I supposed you would wish to do something." + +"I will do whatever you think best." + +"Thank you: that's very kind of you." He fell into a silence, in which +he was able only to wish that he knew what was best, and from which he +came to the surface with, "Imogene's family ought to know, of course." + +"Yes; they put her in my charge. They will have to know. Shall I write +to them?" + +"Why, if you will." + +"Oh, certainly." + +"Thank you." + +He had taken to stroking with his right hand the hand of Imogene which +he held in his left, and now he looked round at her with a glance which +it was a relief not to have her meet. "And till we can hear from them, I +suppose you will let me come to see her?" + +"You know you have always been welcome here." + +"Thank you very much." It seemed as if there ought to be something else +to say, but Colville could not think of anything except: "We wish to act +in every way with your approval, Mrs. Bowen. And I know that you are +very particular in some things"--the words, now that they were said, +struck him as unfortunate, and even vulgar--"and I shouldn't wish to +annoy you--" + +"Oh, I understand. I think it will be--I have no doubt you will know how +to manage all that. It isn't as if you were both--" + +"Young?" asked Colville. "No; one of us is quite old enough to be +thoroughly up in the _convenances_. We are qualified, I'm afraid, as far +as that goes," he added bitterly, "to set all Florence an example of +correct behaviour." + +He knew there must be pain in the face which he would not look at; he +kept looking at Mrs. Bowen's face, in which certainly there was not much +pleasure, either. + +There was another silence, which became very oppressive before it ended +in a question from Mrs. Bowen, who stirred slightly in her chair, and +bent forward as if about to rise in asking it. "Shall you wish to +consider it an engagement?" + +Colville felt Imogene's hand tremble in his, but he received no definite +prompting from the tremor. "I don't believe I know what you mean." + +"I mean, till you have heard from Imogene's mother." + +"I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps under the circumstances--" The tremor +died out of the hand he held; it lay lax between his. "What do you say, +Imogene?" + +"I can't say anything. Whatever you think will be right--for me." + +"I wish to do what will seem right and fair to your mother." + +"Yes." + +Colville heaved a hopeless sigh. Then with a deep inward humiliation, he +said, "Perhaps if you know Imogene's mother, Mrs. Bowen, you can +suggest--advise--You--" + +"You must excuse me; I can't suggest or advise anything. I must leave +you perfectly free." She rose from her chair, and they, both rose too +from the sofa on which he had seated himself at Imogene's side. "I shall +have to leave you, I'm afraid; my head aches still a little. Imogene!" +She advanced toward the girl, who stood passively letting her come the +whole distance. As if sensible of the rebuff expressed in this attitude, +she halted a very little. Then she added, "I hope you will be very +happy," and suddenly cast her arms round the girl, and stood long +pressing her face into her neck. When she released her, Colville +trembled lest she should be going to give him her hand in +congratulation. But she only bowed slightly to him, with a sidelong, +aversive glance, and walked out of the room with a slow, rigid pace, +like one that controls a tendency to giddiness. + +Imogene threw herself on Colville's' breast. It gave him a shock, as if +he were letting her do herself some wrong. But she gripped him fast, and +began to sob and to cry. "Oh! oh! oh!" + +"What is it?--what is it, my poor girl?" he murmured. "Are you unhappy? +Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!" + +"No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy--yes, very, very unhappy! +Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel so toward any one. I hate her!" + +"You hate her?" gasped Colville. + +"Yes, I hate her. And she--she is so good to me! It must be that I've +done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, or I couldn't hate her +as I know I do." + +"Oh no," said Colville soothingly; "that's just your fancy. You haven't +harmed her, and you don't hate her." + +"Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her." + +"But you can't feel so toward her long," he urged, dealing as he might +with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so good--" + +"It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more." + +"I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're calmer you'll +feel differently, of course. I've kept you restless and nervous a long +time, poor child; but now our peace begins, and everything will be +bright and--" He stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound. + +She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. "Oh yes." + +"And, Imogene--perhaps--perhaps--Or, no; never mind, now. I must go +away--" She looked at him, frightened but submissive. "But I will be +back to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think--to give +you time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you--I want to +consider you, all the more because you won't consider yourself. +Good-bye." He stooped over and kissed her hair. Even in this he felt +like a thief; he could not look at the face she lifted to his. + +Mrs. Bowen sent word from her room that she was not coming to dinner, +and Imogene did not come till the dessert was put on. Then she found +Effie Bowen sitting alone at the table, and served in serious formality +by the man, whom she had apparently felt it right to repress, for they +were both silent. The little girl had not known how to deny herself an +excess of the less wholesome dishes, and she was perhaps anticipating +the regret which this indulgence was to bring, for she was very pensive. + +"Isn't mamma coming at _all_?" she asked plaintively, when Imogene sat +down, and refused everything but a cup of coffee. "Well," she went on, +"I can't make out what is coming to this family. You were all crying +last night because Mr. Colville was going away, and now, when he's going +to stay, it's just as bad. I don't think you make it very pleasant for +_him_. I should think he would be perfectly puzzled by it, after he's +done so much to please you all. I don't believe he thinks it's very +polite. I suppose it _is_ polite, but it doesn't seem so. And he's +always so cheerful and nice. I should think he would want to visit in +some family where there was more amusement. There used to be plenty in +this family, but now it's as dismal! The first of the winter you and +mamma used to be so pleasant when he came, and would try everything to +amuse him, and would let me come in to get some of the good of it; but +now you seem to fly every way as soon as he comes in sight of the house, +and I'm poked off in holes and corners before he can open his lips. And +I've borne it about as long as I can. I would rather be back in Vevay. +Or anywhere." At this point her own pathos overwhelmed her, and the +tears rolling down her cheeks moistened the crumbs of pastry at the +corners of her pretty mouth. "What was so strange, I should like to +know, about his staying, that mamma should pop up like a ghost, when I +told her he had come home with us, and grab me by the wrist, and twitch +me about, and ask me all sorts of questions I couldn't answer, and +frighten me almost to death? I haven't got over it yet. And I don't +think it's very nice. It used to be a very polite family, and pleasant +with each other, and always having something agreeable going on in it; +but if it keeps on very much longer in this way, I shall think the +Bowens are beginning to lose their good-breeding. I suppose that if Mr. +Colville were to go down on his knees to mamma and ask her to let him +take me somewhere now, she wouldn't do it." She pulled her handkerchief +out of her pocket, and dried her eyes on a ball of it. "I don't see what +_you've_ been crying about, Imogene. _You've_ got nothing to worry you." + +"I'm not very well, Effie," returned the girl gently. "I haven't been +well all day." + +"It seems to me that nobody is well any more. I don't believe Florence +is a very healthy place. Or at least this house isn't. _I_ think it must +be the drainage. If we keep on, I suppose we shall all have diphtheria. +Don't you, Imogene?" + +"Yes," asserted the girl distractedly. + +"The girls had it at Vevay frightfully. And none of them were as strong +afterward. Some of the parents came and took them away; but Madame +Schebres never let mamma know. Do you think that was right?" + +"No; it was very wrong." + +"I suppose Mr. Colville will have it if we do. That is, if he keeps +coming here. Is he coming any more?" + +"Yes; he's coming to-morrow morning." + +"_Is_ he?" A smile flickered over the rueful face. "What time is he +coming?" + +"I don't know exactly," said Imogene, listlessly stirring her coffee. +"Some time in the forenoon." + +"Do you suppose he's going to take us anywhere?" + +"Yes--I think so. I can't tell exactly." + +"If he asks me to go somewhere, will you tease mamma? She always lets +you, Imogene, and it seems sometimes as if she just took a pleasure in +denying me." + +"You mustn't talk so of your mother, Effie." + +"No; I wouldn't to _every_body. I know that she means for the best; but +I don't believe she understands how much I suffer when she won't let me +go with Mr. Colville. Don't you think he's about the nicest gentleman we +know, Imogene?" + +"Yes; he's very kind." + +"And I think he's handsome. A good many people would consider him +old-looking, and of course he isn't so young as Mr. Morton was, or the +Inglehart boys; but that makes him all the easier to get along with. And +his being just a little fat, that way, seems to suit so well with his +character." The smiles were now playing across the child's face, and her +eyes sparkling. "_I_ think Mr, Colville would make a good Saint +Nicholas--the kind they have going down chimneys in America. I'm going +to tell him, for the next veglione. It would be such a nice surprise." + +"No, better not tell him that," suggested Imogene. + +"Do you think he wouldn't like it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, it would become him. How old do you suppose he is, Imogene? +Seventy-five?" + +"What an idea!" cried the girl fiercely. "He's forty-one." + +"I didn't know they had those little jiggering lines at the corners of +their eyes so quick. But forty-one is pretty old, isn't it? Is Mr. +Waters--" + +"Effie," said her mother's voice at the door behind her, "will you ring +for Giovanni, and tell him to bring me a cup of coffee in here?" She +spoke from the _portiere_ of the _salotto_. + +"Yes, mamma. I'll bring it to you myself." + +"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Bowen called from within. + +The little girl softly pressed her hands together. "I _hope_ she'll let +me stay up! I feel so excited, and I hate to lie and think so long +before I get to sleep. Couldn't you just hint a little to her that I +might stay up? It's Sunday night." + +"I can't, Effie," said Imogene. "I oughtn't to interfere with any of +your mother's rules." + +The child sighed submissively and took the coffee that Giovanni brought +to her. She and Imogene went into the _salotto_ together. Mrs. Bowen was +at her writing-desk. "You can bring the coffee here, Effie," she said. + +"Must I go to bed at once, mamma?" asked the child, setting the cup +carefully down. + +The mother looked distractedly up from her writing. "No; you may sit up +a while," she said, looking back to her writing. + +"How long, mamma?" pleaded the little girl. + +"Oh, till you're sleepy. It doesn't matter _now_." + +She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she had written. + +Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself on a +stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read. + +Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in the indoor +chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a day as that had been. +She took some large beads of the strand she wore about her neck into her +mouth, and pulled at the strand listlessly with her hand while she +watched the fire. Her eyes wandered once to the child. + +"What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?" + +Effie shut her book over her hand. "It keeps me wakeful longer," she +whispered, with a glance at her mother from the corner of her eye. + +"I don't see why any one should wish to be wakeful," sighed the girl. + +When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene started +nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her chair. At last Mrs. +Bowen seemed to find the right phrases throughout, and she finished +rather a long letter, and read it over to herself. Then she said, +without leaving her desk, "Imogene, I've been trying to write to your +mother. Will you look at this?" + +She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came languidly and +took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on the desk, into her +hands, while Imogene was reading. + +"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18-- + +"Dear Mrs. Graham,--I have some very important news to give you in +regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of preparing you for it, I +will tell you at once that it relates to her marriage. + +"She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence when I was +here before, and of whom I never knew anything but good. We have seen +him very often, and I have seen nothing in him that I could not approve. +He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of Prairie des Vaches, Indiana, where he +was for many years a newspaper editor; but he was born somewhere in New +England. He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and though not +exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in his manners. +I am sure his character is irreproachable, though he is not a member of +any church. In regard to his means I know nothing whatever, and can only +infer from his way of life that he is in easy circumstances. + +"The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville is some +twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is very young in her +feelings for a girl of her age. If I could have realised anything like a +serious attachment between them sooner, I would have written before. +Even now I do not know whether I am to consider them engaged or not. No +doubt Imogene will write you more fully. + +"Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind happen while +Imogene was under my charge, though I am sure that you will not think I +have been careless or imprudent about her. I interfered as far as I +could, at the first moment I could, but it appears that it was then too +late to prevent what has followed.--Yours sincerely, EVALINA BOWEN." + + +Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, "Why isn't he a +society man?" + +Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. "I don't think a +society man would have undertaken to dance the Lancers as he did at +Madam Uccelli's," she answered patiently, without lifting her head. + +Imogene winced, but "I should despise him if he were merely a society +man," she said. "I have seen enough of them. I think it's better to be +intellectual and good." + +Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. "And as to his being +older, I don't see what difference it makes. If people are in sympathy, +then they are of the same age, no difference how much older than one the +other is. I have always heard that." She urged this as if it were a +question. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"And how should his having been a newspaper editor be anything against +him?" + +Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in astonishment. "Who +said it was against him?" + +"You hint as much. The whole letter is against him." + +"Imogene!" + +"Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I don't know +why you should hate _him_, He's done everything he could to satisfy +you." + +Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her forehead, as if +to soften a shock of headache that her change of posture had sent there. +"I will leave the letter with you, and you can send it or not as you +think best. It's merely a formality, my writing to your mother. Perhaps +you'll see it differently in the morning. Effie!" she called to the +child, who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at them and +listening intently. "It's time to go to bed now." + +When Effie stood before the glass in her mother's room, and Mrs. Bowen +was braiding her hair and tying it up for the night, she asked ruefully, +"What's the matter with Imogene, mamma?" + +"She isn't very happy to-night." + +"You don't seem very happy either," said the child, watching her own +face as it quivered in the mirror. "I should think that now Mr. +Colville's concluded to stay, we would all be happy again. But we don't +seem to. We're--we're perfectly demoralised!" It was one of the words +she had picked up from Colville. + +The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, and Effie +sobbed herself to sleep. + +Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen's desk, and pushing her letter away, +began to write. + +"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18--. + +"DEAR MOTHER,---I inclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which will tell you +better than I can what I wish to tell. I do not see how I can add +anything that would give you more of an idea of him, or less, either. No +person can be put down in cold black and white, and not seem like a mere +inventory. I do not suppose you expected me to become engaged when you +sent me out to Florence, and, as Mrs. Bowen says, I don't know whether I +am engaged or not. I will leave it entirely to Mr. Colville; if he says +we are engaged, we are. I am sure he will do what is best. I only know +that he was going away from Florence because he thought I supposed he +was not in earnest, and I asked him to stay. + +"I am a good deal excited to-night, and cannot write very clearly. But I +will write soon again, and more at length. + +"Perhaps something will be decided by that time. With much love to +father, + +"Your affectionate daughter, + +"Imogene." + +She put this letter into an envelope with Mrs. Bowen's, and leaving it +unsealed to show her in the morning, she began to write again. This time +she wrote to a girl with whom she had been on terms so intimate that +when they left school they had agreed to know each other by names +expressive of their extremely confidential friendship, and to address +each other respectively as Diary and Journal. They were going to write +every day, if only a line or two; and at the end of a year they were to +meet and read over together the records of their lives as set down in +these letters. They had never met since, though it was now three years +since they parted, and they had not written since Imogene came abroad; +that is, Imogene had not answered the only letter she had received from +her friend in Florence. This friend was a very serious girl, and had +wished to be a minister, but her family would not consent, or even +accept the compromise of studying medicine, which she proposed, and she +was still living at home in a small city of central New York. Imogene +now addressed her-- + +"DEAR DIARY,--You cannot think how far away the events of this day have +pushed the feelings and ideas of the time when I agreed to write to you +under this name. Till now it seems to me as if I had not changed in the +least thing since we parted, and now I can hardly know myself for the +same person. O dear Di! something very wonderful has come into my life, +and I feel that it rests with me to make it the greatest blessing to +myself and others, or the greatest misery. If I prove unworthy of it or +unequal to it, then I am sure that nothing but wretchedness will come of +it. + +"I am engaged--yes!--and to a man more than twice my own age. It is so +easy to tell you this, for I know that your large-mindedness will +receive it very differently from most people, and that you will see it +as I do. He is the noblest of men, though he tries to conceal it under +the light, ironical manner with which he has been faithful to a cruel +disappointment. It was here in Florence, twenty years ago, that a +girl--I am ashamed to call her a girl--trifled with the priceless +treasure that has fallen to me, and flung it away. You, Di, will +understand how I was first fascinated with the idea of trying to atone +to him here for all the wrong he had suffered. At first it was only the +vaguest suggestion--something like what I had read in a poem or a +novel--that had nothing to do with me personally, but it grew upon me +more and more the more I saw of him, and felt the witchery of his light, +indifferent manner, which I learned to see was tense with the anguish he +had suffered. She had killed his youth; she had spoiled his life: if I +could revive them, restore them! It came upon me like a great flash of +light at last, and as soon as this thought took possession of me, I felt +my whole being elevated and purified by it, and I was enabled to put +aside with contempt the selfish considerations that had occurred to me +at first. At first the difference between our ages was very shocking to +me; for I had always imagined it would be some one young; but when this +light broke upon me, I saw that _he_ was young, younger even than I, as +a man is at the same age with a girl. Sometimes with my experiences, the +fancies and flirtations that every one has and _must_ have, however one +despises them, I felt so _old_ beside him; for he had been true to one +love all his life, and he had not wavered for a moment. If I could make +him forget it, if I could lift every feather's weight of sorrow from his +breast, if I could help him to complete the destiny, grand and beautiful +as it would have been, which another had arrested, broken off--don't you +see, Di dear, how rich my reward would be? + +"And he, how forbearing, how considerate, how anxious for me, how full +of generous warning he has been! always putting me in mind, at every +step, of the difference in years between us; never thinking of himself, +and shrinking so much from even seeming to control me or sway me, that I +don't know really whether I have not made all the advances! + +"I cannot write his name yet, and you must not ask it till I can; and I +cannot tell you anything about his looks or his life without seeming to +degrade him, somehow, and make him a common man like others. + +"How can I make myself his companion in everything? How can I convince +him that there is no sacrifice for me, and that he alone is giving up? +These are the thoughts that keep whirling through my mind. I hope I +shall be helped, and I hope that I shall be tried, for that is the only +way for me to be helped. I feel strong enough for anything that people +can say. I should _welcome_ criticism and opposition from any quarter. +But I can see that _he_ is very sensitive--it comes from his keen sense +of the ridiculous--and if I suffer, it will be on account of this grand +unselfish nature, and I shall be glad of that. + +"I know you will understand me, Di, and I am not afraid of your laughing +at these ravings. But if you did I should not care. It is such a comfort +to say these things about him, to exalt him, and get him in the true +light at last. + +"Your faithful JOURNAL. + +"I shall tell him about you, one of the first things, and perhaps he can +suggest some way out of your trouble, he has had so much experience of +every kind. You will worship him, as I do, when you see him; for you +will feel at once that he understands you, and that is such a rest. + +"J." + + +Before Imogene fell asleep, Mrs. Bowen came to her in the dark, and +softly closed the door that opened from the girl's room into Effie's. +She sat down on the bed, and began to speak at once, as if she knew +Imogene must be awake. "I thought you would come to me, Imogene; but as +you didn't, I have come to you, for if you can go to sleep with hard +thoughts of me to-night, I can't let you. You need me for your friend, +and I wish to be your friend; it would be wicked in me to be anything +else; I would give the world if your mother were here; but I tried to +make my letter to her everything that it should be. If you don't think +it is, I will write it over in the morning." + +"No," said the girl coldly; "it will do very well. I don't wish to +trouble you so much." + +"Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame Mr. Colville? +Is that it? I don't ask you--I shall never ask you--how he came to +remain, but I know that he has acted truthfully and delicately. I knew +him long before you did, and no one need take his part with me." This +was not perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. "I have +told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I am not +satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much mistaken. I can't burst +out into praises of him to your mother: that would be very patronising +and very bad taste. Can't you see that it would?" + +"Oh yes." + +Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say something more, +but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. "Then I hope we understand each +other," she said, and went out of the room. + + + + + + +XVI + + +When Colville came in the morning, Mrs. Bowen received him. They shook +hands, and their eyes met in the intercepting glance of the night +before. + +"Imogene will be here in a moment," she said, with a naturalness that +made him awkward and conscious. + +"Oh, there is no haste," he answered uncouthly. "That is, I am very glad +of the chance to speak a moment with you, and to ask your--to profit by +what you think best. I know you are not very well pleased with me, and I +don't know that I can ever put myself in a better light with you--the +true light. It seems that there are some things we must not do even for +the truth's sake. But that's neither here nor there. What I am most +anxious for is not to take a shadow of advantage of this child's--of +Imogene's inexperience, and her remoteness from her family. I feel that +I must in some sort protect her from herself. Yes--that is my idea. But +I have to do this in so many ways that I hardly know how to begin. I +should be very willing, if you thought best, to go away and stay away +till she has heard from her people, and let her have that time to think +it all over again. She is very young--so much younger than I! Or, if you +thought it better, I would stay, and let her remain free while I held +myself bound to any decision of hers. I am anxious to do what is right. +At the same time"--he smiled ruefully--"there is such a thing as being +so _dis_interested that one may seem _un_interested. I may leave her so +very free that she may begin to suspect that I want a little freedom +myself. What shall I do? I wish to act with your approval." + +Mrs. Bowen had listened with acquiescence and intelligence that might +well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of her +hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have +told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no +longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of +Imogene's mother; but I will do only what you wish. Please understand +that, and don't ask me for advice any more. It is painful." She drew her +lower lip in a little, and let the screen fall into her lap. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bowen, to do anything--say anything--that is painful to +you," Colville began. "You know that I would give the world to please +you----" The words escaped him and left him staring at her, + +"What are you saying to me, Theodore Colville?" she exclaimed, flashing +a full-eyed glance upon him, and then breaking into a laugh, as +unnatural for her. "Really, I don't believe you know!" + +"Heaven knows I meant nothing but what I said," he answered, struggling +stupidly with a confusion of desires which every man but no woman will +understand. After eighteen hundred years, the man is still imperfectly +monogamous. "Is there anything wrong in it?" + +"Oh no! Not for you," she said scornfully. + +"I am very much in earnest," he went on hopelessly, "in asking your +opinion, your help, in regard to how I shall treat this affair." + +"And I am still more in earnest in telling you that I will give you no +opinion, no help. I forbid you to recur to the subject." He was silent, +unable to drop his eyes from hers. "But for her," continued Mrs. Bowen, +"I will do anything in my power. If she asks my advice I will give it, +and I will give her all the help I can." + +"Thank you," said Colville vaguely. + +"I will not have your thanks," promptly retorted Mrs. Bowen, "for I mean +you no kindness. I am trying to do my duty to Imogene, and when that is +ended, all is ended. There is no way now for you to please me--as you +call it--except to keep her from regretting what she has done." + +"Do you think I shall fail in that?" he demanded indignantly. + +"I can offer you no opinion. I can't tell what you will do." + +"There are two ways of keeping her from regretting what she has done; +and perhaps the simplest and best way would be to free her from the +consequences, as far as they're involved in me," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen dropped herself back in her armchair. "If you choose to force +these things upon me, I am a woman, and can't help myself. Especially, I +can't help myself against a guest." + +"Oh, I will relieve you of my presence," said Colville. "I've no wish to +force anything upon you--least of all myself." He rose, and moved toward +the door. + +She hastily intercepted him. "Do you think I will let you go without +seeing Imogene? Do you understand me so little as that? It's _too late_ +for you to go! You know what I think of all this, and I know, better +than you, what you think. I shall play my part, and you shall play +yours. I have refused to give you advice or help, and I never shall do +it. But I know what my duty to her is, and I will fulfil it. No matter +how distasteful it is to either of us, you must come here as before. The +house is as free to you as ever--freer. And we are to be as good friends +as ever--better. You can see Imogene alone or in my presence, and, as +far as I am concerned, you shall consider yourself engaged or not, as +you choose. Do you understand?" + +"Not in the least," said Colville, in the ghost of his old bantering +manner. "But don't explain, or I shall make still less of it." + +"I mean simply that I do it for Imogene and not for you." + +"Oh, I understand that you don't do it for me." + +At this moment Imogene appeared between the folds of the _portiere_, and +her timid, embarrassed glance from Mrs. Bowen to Colville was the first +gleam of consolation that had visited him since he parted with her the +night before. A thrill of inexplicable pride and fondness passed through +his heart, and even the compunction that followed could not spoil its +sweetness. But if Mrs. Bowen discreetly turned her head aside that she +need not witness a tender greeting between them, the precaution was +unnecessary. He merely went forward and took the girl's hand, with a +sigh of relief. "Good morning, Imogene," he said, with a kind of +compassionate admiration. + +"Good morning," she returned half-inquiringly. + +She did not take a seat near him, and turned, as if for instruction, to +Mrs. Bowen. It was probably the force of habit. In any case, Mrs. +Bowen's eyes gave no response. She bowed slightly to Colville, and +began, "I must leave Imogene to entertain you for the present, Mr.--" + +"No!" cried the girl impetuously; "don't go." Mrs. Bowen stopped. "I +wish to speak with you--with you and Mr. Colville together. I wish to +say--I don't know how to say it exactly; but I wish to know--You asked +him last night, Mrs. Bowen, whether he wished to consider it an +engagement?" + +"I thought perhaps you would rather hear from your mother--" + +"Yes, I would be glad to know that my mother approved; but if she +didn't, I couldn't help it. Mr. Colville said he was bound, but I was +not. That can't be. I _wish_ to be bound, if he is." + +"I don't quite know what you expect me to say." + +"Nothing," said Imogene. "I merely wished you to know. And I don't wish +you to sacrifice anything to us. If you think best, Mr. Colville will +not see me till I hear from home; though it won't make any difference +with me _what_ I hear." + +"There's no reason why you shouldn't meet," said Mrs. Bowen absently. + +"If you wish it to have the same appearance as an Italian +engagement----" + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen, putting her hand to her head with a gesture she +had; "that would be quite unnecessary. It would be ridiculous under the +circumstances. I have thought of it, and I have decided that the +American way is the best." + +"Very well, then," said Imogene, with the air of summing up; "then the +only question is whether we shall make it known or not to other people." + +This point seemed to give Mrs. Bowen greater pause than any. She was a +long time silent, and Colville saw that Imogene was beginning to chafe +at her indecision. Yet he did not see the moment to intervene in a +debate in which he found himself somewhat ludicrously ignored, as if the +affair were solely the concern of these two women, and none of his. + +"Of course, Mrs. Bowen," said the girl haughtily, "if it will be +disagreeable to you to have it known----" + +Mrs. Bowen blushed delicately--a blush of protest and of generous +surprise, or so it seemed to Colville. "I was not thinking of myself, +Imogene. I only wish to consider you. And I was thinking whether, at +this distance from home, you wouldn't prefer to have your family's +approval before you made it known." + +"I am sure of their approval. Father will do what mother says, and she +has always said that she would never interfere with me in--in--such a +thing." + +"Perhaps you would like all the more, then, to show her the deference of +waiting for her consent." + +Imogene started as if stopped short in swift career; it was not hard for +Colville to perceive that she saw for the first time the reverse side of +a magnanimous impulse. She suddenly turned to him. + +"I think Mrs. Bowen is right," he said gravely, in answer to the eyes of +Imogene. He continued, with a flicker of his wonted mood: "You must +consider me a little in the matter. I have some small shreds of +self-respect about me somewhere, and I would rather not be put in the +attitude of defying your family, or ignoring them." + +"No," said Imogene, in the same effect of arrest. + +"When it isn't absolutely necessary," continued Colville. "Especially as +you say there will be no opposition." + +"Of course," Imogene assented; and in fact what he said was very just, +and he knew it; but he could perceive that he had suffered loss with +her. A furtive glance at Mrs. Bowen did not assure him that he had made +a compensating gain in that direction, where, indeed, he had no right to +wish for any. + +"Well, then," the girl went on, "it shall be so. We will wait. It will +only be waiting. I ought to have thought of you before; I make a bad +beginning," she said tremulously. "I supposed I was thinking of you; but +I see that I was only thinking of myself." The tears stood in her eyes. +Mrs. Bowen, quite overlooked in this apology, slipped from the room. + +"Imogene!" said Colville, coming toward her. + +She dropped herself upon his shoulder. "Oh, why, why, why am I so +miserable?" + +"Miserable, Imogene!" he murmured, stroking her beautiful hair. + +"Yes, yes! Utterly miserable! It must be because I'm unworthy of +you--unequal every way. If you think so, cast me off at once. Don't be +weakly merciful!" + +The words pierced his heart. "I would give the world to make you happy, +my child!" he said, with perfidious truth, and a sigh that came from the +bottom of his soul. "Sit down here by me," he said, moving to the sofa; +and with whatever obscure sense of duty to her innocent self-abandon, he +made a space between them, and reduced her embrace to a clasp of the +hand she left with him. "Now tell me," he said, "what is it makes you +unhappy?" + +"Oh, I don't know," she answered, drying her averted eyes. "I suppose I +am overwrought from not sleeping, and from thinking how we should +arrange it all." + +"And now that it's all arranged, can't you be cheerful again?" + +"Yes." + +"You're satisfied with the way we've arranged it? Because if--" + +"Oh, perfectly--perfectly!" She hastily interrupted. "I wouldn't have it +otherwise. Of course," she added, "it wasn't very pleasant having some +one else suggest what I ought to have thought of myself, and seem more +delicate about you than I was." + +"Some one else?" + +"You know! Mrs. Bowen." + +"Oh! But I couldn't see that she was anxious to spare me. It occurred to +me that she was concerned about your family." + +"It led up to the other! it's all the same thing." + +"Well, even in that case, I don't see why you should mind it. It was +certainly very friendly of her, and I know that she has your interest at +heart entirely." + +"Yes; she knows how to make it seem so." + +Colville hesitated in bewilderment. "Imogene!" he cried at last, "I +don't understand this. Don't you think Mrs. Bowen likes you?" + +"She detests me." + +"Oh, no, no, no! That's too cruel an error. You mustn't think that. I +can't let you. It's morbid. I'm sure that she's devotedly kind and good +to you." + +"Being kind and good isn't liking. I know what she thinks. But of course +I can't expect to convince you of it; no one else could see it." + +"No!" said Colville, with generous fervour. + +"Because it doesn't exist and you mustn't imagine it. You are as +sincerely and unselfishly regarded in this house as you could be in your +own home. I'm sure of that. I know Mrs. Bowen. She has her little +worldlinesses and unrealities of manner, but she is truth and loyalty +itself. She would rather die than be false, or even unfair. I knew her +long ago--" + +"Yes," cried the girl, "long before you knew me!" + +"And I know her to be the soul of honour," said Colville, ignoring the +childish outburst. "Honour--like a man's," he added. "And, Imogene, I +want you to promise me that you'll not think of her any more in that +way. I want you to think of her as faithful and loving to you, for she +is so. Will you do it?" + +Imogene did not answer him at once. Then she turned upon him a face of +radiant self-abnegation. "I will do anything you tell me. Only tell me +things to do." + +The next time he came he again saw Mrs. Bowen alone before Imogene +appeared. The conversation was confined to two sentences. + +"Mr. Colville," she said, with perfectly tranquil point, while she +tilted a shut book to and fro on her knee, "I will thank you not to +defend me." + +Had she overheard? Had Imogene told her? He answered, in a fury of +resentment for her ingratitude that stupefied him. "I will never speak +of you again." + +Now they were enemies; he did not know how or why, but he said to +himself, in the bitterness of his heart, that it was better so; and when +Imogene appeared, and Mrs. Bowen vanished, as she did without another +word to him, he folded the girl in a vindictive embrace. + +"What is the matter?" she asked, pushing away from him. + +"With me?" + +"Yes; you seem so excited." + +"Oh, nothing," he said, shrinking from the sharpness of that scrutiny in +a woman's eyes, which, when it begins the perusal of a man's soul, +astonishes and intimidates him; he never perhaps becomes able to endure +it with perfect self-control. "I suppose a slight degree of excitement +in meeting you may be forgiven me." He smiled under the unrelaxed +severity of her gaze. + +"Was Mrs. Bowen saying anything about me?" + +"Not a word," said Colville, glad of getting back to the firm truth +again, even if it were mere literality. + +"We have made it up," she said, her scrutiny changing to a lovely appeal +for his approval. "What there was to make up." + +"Yes?" + +"I told her what you had said. And now it's all right between us, and +you mustn't be troubled at that any more. I did it to please you." + +She seemed to ask him with the last words whether she really had pleased +him, as if something in his aspect suggested a doubt; and he hastened to +reassure her. "That was very good of you. I appreciate it highly. It's +extremely gratifying." + +She broke into a laugh of fond derision. "I don't believe you really +cared about it, or else you're not thinking about it now. Sit down here; +I want to tell you of something I've thought out." She pulled him to the +sofa, and put his arm about her waist, with a simple fearlessness and +matter-of-course promptness that made him shudder. He felt that he ought +to tell her not to do it, but he did not quite know how without wounding +her. She took hold of his hand and drew his lax arm taut. Then she +looked up into his eyes, as if some sense of his misgiving had conveyed +itself to her, but she did not release her hold of his hand. + +"Perhaps we oughtn't, if we're not engaged?" she suggested, with such +utter trust in him as made his heart quake. + +"Oh," he sighed, from a complexity of feeling that no explanation could +wholly declare, "we're engaged enough for that, I suppose." + +"I'm glad you think so," she answered innocently. "I knew you wouldn't +let me if it were not right." Having settled the question, "Of course," +she continued, "we shall all do our best to keep our secret; but in +spite of everything it may get out. Do you see?" + +"Well?" + +"Well, of course it will make a great deal of remark." + +"Oh yes; you must be prepared for that, Imogene," said Colville, with as +much gravity as he could make comport with his actual position. + +"I am prepared for it, and prepared to despise it," answered the girl. +"I shall have no trouble except the fear that you will mind it." She +pressed his hand as if she expected him to say something to this. + +"I shall never care for it," he said, and this was true enough. "My only +care will be to keep you from regretting. I have tried from the first to +make you see that I was very much older than you. It would be miserable +enough if you came to see it too late." + +"I have never seen it, and I never shall see it, because there's no such +difference between us. It isn't the years that make us young or old--who +is it says that? No matter, it's true. And I want you to believe it. I +want you to feel that I am your youth--the youth you were robbed +of--given back to you. Will you do it? Oh, if you could, I should be the +happiest girl in the world." Tears of fervour dimmed the beautiful eyes +which looked into his. "Don't speak!" she hurried on. "I won't let you +till I have said it all. It's been this idea, this hope, with me +always--ever since I knew what happened to you here long ago--that you +might go back in my life and take up yours where it was broken off; that +I might make your life what it would have been--complete your destiny--" + +Colville wrenched himself loose from the hold that had been growing more +tenderly close and clinging. "And do you think I could be such a vampire +as to let you? Yes, yes; I have had my dreams of such a thing; but I see +now how hideous they were. You shall make no such sacrifice to me. You +must put away the fancies that could never be fulfilled, or if by some +infernal magic they could, would only bring sorrow to you and shame to +me. God forbid! And God forgive me, if I have done or said anything to +put this in your head! And thank God it isn't too late yet for you to +take yourself back." + +"Oh," she murmured. "Do you think it is self-sacrifice for me to give +myself to you? It's self-glorification! You don't understand--I haven't +told you what I mean, or else I've told it in such a way that I've made +it hateful to you. Do you think I don't care for you except to be +something to you? I'm not so generous as that. You are all the world to +me. If I take myself back from you, as you say, what shall I do with +myself?" + +"Has it come to that?" asked Colville. He sat down again with her, and +this time he put his arm around her and drew her to him, but it seemed +to him he did it as if she were his child. "I was going to tell you just +now that each of us lived to himself in this world, and that no one +could hope to enter into the life of another and complete it. But now I +see that I was partly wrong. We two are bound together, Imogene, and +whether we become all in all or nothing to each other, we can have no +separate fate." + +The girl's eyes kindled with rapture. "Then let us never speak of it +again. I was going to say something, but now I won't say it." + +"Yes, say it." + +"No; it will make you think that I am anxious on my own account about +appearances before people." + +"You poor child, I shall never think you are anxious on your own account +about anything. What were you going to say?" + +"Oh, nothing! It was only--are you invited to the Phillipses' fancy +ball?" + +"Yes," said Colville, silently making what he could of the diversion, "I +believe so." + +"And are you going--did you mean to go?" she asked timidly. + +"Good heavens, no! What in the world should I do at another fancy ball? +I walked about with the airy grace of a bull in a china shop at the last +one." + +Imogene did not smile. She faintly sighed. "Well, then, I won't go +either." + +"Did you intend to go?" + +"Oh no!" + +"Why, of course you did, and it's very right you should. Did you want me +to go?" + +"It would bore you." + +"Not if you're there." She gave his hand a grateful pressure. "Come, +I'll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy ball to please you is a very +different thing from a fancy ball in the abstract." + +"Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired your +compliments? I think they're the most charming compliments in the +world." + +"I don't think they're half so pretty as yours; but they're more +sincere." + +"No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make fun of the +flattery a little; they make a person feel that you like them, even +while you laugh at them." + +"They appear to be rather an intricate kind of compliment--sort of +_salsa agradolce_ affair--tutti frutti style--species of moral +mayonnaise." + +"No--be quiet! You know what I mean. What were we talking about? Oh! I +was going to say that the most fascinating thing about you always was +that ironical way of yours." + +"Have I an ironical way? You were going to tell me something more about +the fancy ball." + +"I don't care for it. I would rather talk about you." + +"And I prefer the ball. It's a fresher topic--to me." + +"Very well, then. But this I will say. No matter how happy you should +be, I should always want you to keep that tone of persiflage. You've no +idea how perfectly intoxicating it is." + +"Oh yes, I have. It seems to have turned the loveliest and wisest head +in the world." + +"Oh, do you really think so? I would give anything if you did." + +"What?" + +"Think I was pretty," she pleaded, with full eyes. "Do you?" + +"No, but I think you are wise. Fifty per cent, of truth--it's a large +average in compliments. What are you going to wear?" + +"Wear? Oh! At the ball! Something Egyptian, I suppose. It's to be an +Egyptian ball. Didn't you understand that?" + +"Oh yes. But I supposed you could go in any sort of dress." + +"You can't. You must go in some Egyptian character." + +"How would Moses do? In the bulrushes, you know. You could be Pharaoh's +daughter, and recognise me by my three hats. And toward the end of the +evening, when I became very much bored, I could go round killing +Egyptians." + +"No, no. Be serious. Though I like you to joke, too. I shall always want +you to joke. Shall you, always?" + +"There may be emergencies when I shall fail--like family prayers, and +grace before meat, and dangerous sickness." + +"Why, of course. But I mean when we're together, and there's no reason +why you shouldn't?" + +"Oh, at such times I shall certainly joke." + +"And before people, too! I won't have them saying that it's sobered +you--that you used to be very gay, and now you're cross, and never say +anything." + +"I will try to keep it up sufficiently to meet the public demand." + +"And I shall want you to joke me, too. You must satirise me. It does +more to show me my faults than anything else, and it will show other +people how perfectly submissive I am, and how I think everything you do +is just right." + +"If I were to beat you a little in company, don't you think it would +serve the same purpose?" + +"No, no; be serious." + +"About joking?" + +"No, about me. I know that I'm very intense, and you must try to correct +that tendency in me." + +"I will, with pleasure. Which of my tendencies are you going to +correct?" + +"You have none." + +"Well, then, neither have you. I'm not going to be outdone in +civilities." + +"Oh, if people could only hear you talk in this light way, and then know +what _I_ know!" + +Colville broke out into a laugh at the deep sigh which accompanied these +words. As a whole, the thing was grotesque and terrible to him, but +after a habit of his, he was finding a strange pleasure in its details. + +"No, no," she pleaded. "Don't laugh. There are girls that would give +their eyes for it." + +"As pretty eyes as yours?" + +"Do you think they're nice?" + +"Yes, if they were not so mysterious." + +"Mysterious?" + +"Yes, I feel that your eyes can't really be as honest as they look. That +was what puzzled me about them the first night I saw you." + +"No--did it, really?" + +"I went home saying to myself that no girl could be so sincere as that +Miss Graham seemed." + +"Did you say that?" + +"Words to that effect." + +"And what do you think now?" + +"Ah, I don't know. You had better go as the Sphinx." + +Imogene laughed in simple gaiety of heart. + +"How far we've got from the ball!" she said, as if the remote excursion +were a triumph. "What shall we really go as?" + +"Isis and Osiris." + +"Weren't they gods of some kind?" + +"Little one-horse deities--not very much." + +"It won't do to go as gods of any kind. They're always failures. People +expect too much of them." + +"Yes," said Colville. "That's human nature under all circumstances. But +why go to an Egyptian ball at all?" + +"Oh, we must go. If we both stayed away it would make talk at once, and +my object is to keep people in the dark till the very last moment. Of +course it's unfortunate your having told Mrs. Amsden that you were going +away, and then telling her just after you came back with me that you +were going to stay. But it can't be helped now. And I don't really care +for it. But don't you see why I want you to go to all these things?" + +"All these things?" + +"Yes, everything you're invited to after this. It's not merely for a +blind as regards ourselves now, but if they see that you're very fond of +all sorts of gaieties, they will see that you are--they will +understand----" + +There was no need for her to complete the sentence. Colville rose. +"Come, come, my dear child," he said, "why don't you end all this at +once? I don't blame you. Heaven knows I blame no one but myself! I ought +to have the strength to break away from this mistake, but I haven't. I +couldn't bear to see you suffer from pain that I should give you even +for your good. But do it yourself, Imogene, and for pity's sake don't +forbear from any notion of sparing me. I have no wish except for your +happiness, and now I tell you clearly that no appearance we can put on +before the world will deceive the world. At the end of all our trouble I +shall still be forty----" + +She sprang to him and put her hand over his mouth. "I know what you're +going to say, and I won't let you say it, for you've promised over and +over again not to speak of that any more. Oh, do you think I care for +the world, or what it will think or say?" + +"Yes, very much." + +"That shows how little you understand me. It's because I wish to _defy_ +the world--" + +"Imogene! Be as honest with yourself as you are with me." + +"I _am_ honest." + +"Look me in the eyes, then." + +She did so for an instant, and then hid her face on his shoulder. + +"You silly girl," he said. "What is it you really do wish?" + +"I wish there was no one in the world but you and me." + +"Ah, you'd find it very crowded at times," said Colville sadly. "Well, +well," he added, "I'll go to your fandangoes, because you want me to +go." + +"That's all I wished you to say," she replied, lifting her head, and +looking him radiantly in the face. "I don't want you to go at all! I +only want you to promise that you'll come here every night that you're +invited out, and read to Mrs. Bowen and me." + +"Oh, I can't do that," said Colville; "I'm too fond of society. For +example, I've been invited to an Egyptian fancy ball, and I couldn't +think of giving that up." + +"Oh, how delightful you are! They couldn't any of them talk like you." + +He had learned to follow the processes of her thought now. "Perhaps they +can when they come to my age." + +"There!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on his mouth again, to remind +him of another broken promise. "Why can't you give up the Egyptian +ball?" + +"Because I expect to meet a young lady there--a very beautiful young +lady." + +"But how shall you know her if she's disguised?" + +"Why, I shall be disguised too, you know." + +"Oh, what delicious nonsense you _do_ talk! Sit down here and tell me +what you are going to wear." + +She tried to pull him back to the sofa. "What character shall you go +in?" + +"No, no," he said, resisting the gentle traction. "I can't; I have +urgent business down-town." + +"Oh! Business in _Florence!"_ + +"Well, if I stayed, I should tell you what disguise I'm going to the +ball in." + +"I knew it was that. What do you think would be a good character for +me?" + +"I don't know. The serpent of old Nile would be pretty good for you." + +"Oh, I know you don't think it!" she cried fondly. She had now let him +take her hand, and he stood holding it at arm's-length. Effie Bowen came +into the room. "Good-bye," said Imogene, with an instant assumption of +society manner. + +"Good-bye," said Colville, and went out. + +"Oh, Mr. Colville!" she called, before he got to the outer door. + +"Yes," he said, starting back. + +She met him midway of the dim corridor. "Only to--" She put her arms +about his neck and sweetly kissed him. + +Colville went out into the sunlight feeling like some strange, newly +invented kind of scoundrel--a rascal of such recent origin and +introduction that he had not yet had time to classify himself and +ascertain the exact degree of his turpitude. The task employed his +thoughts all that day, and kept him vibrating between an instinctive +conviction of monstrous wickedness and a logical and well-reasoned +perception that he had all the facts and materials for a perfectly good +conscience. He was the betrothed lover of this poor child, whose +affection he could not check without a degree of brutality for which +only a better man would have the courage. When he thought of perhaps +refusing her caresses, he imagined the shock it would give her, and the +look of grief and mystification that would come into her eyes, and he +found himself incapable of that cruel rectitude. He knew that these were +the impulses of a white and loving soul; but at the end of all his +argument they remained a terror to him, so that he lacked nothing but +the will to fly from Florence and shun her altogether till she had heard +from her family. This, he recalled, with bitter self-reproach was what +had been his first inspiration; he had spoken of it to Mrs. Bowen, and +it had still everything in its favour except that it was impossible. + +Imogene returned to the salotto, where the little girl was standing with +her face to the window, drearily looking out; her back expressed an +inner desolation which revealed itself in her eyes when Imogene caught +her head between her hands, and tilted up her face to kiss it. + +"What is the matter, Effie?" she demanded gaily. + +"Nothing." + +"Oh yes, there is." + +"Nothing that you will care for. As long as he's pleasant to you, you +don't care what he does to me." + +"What has he done to you?" + +"He didn't take the slightest notice of me when I came into the room. He +didn't speak to me, or even look at me." + +Imogene caught the little grieving, quivering face to her breast "He is +a wicked, wicked wretch! And I will give him the awfulest scolding he +ever had when he comes here again. I will teach him to neglect my pet. I +will let him understand that if he doesn't notice you, he needn't notice +me. I will tell you, Effie--I've just thought of a way. The next time he +comes we will both receive him. We will sit up very stiffly on the sofa +together, and just answer Yes, No, Yes, No, to everything he says, till +he begins to take the hint, and learns how to behave himself. Will you?" + +A smile glittered through the little girl's tears; but she asked, "Do +you think it would be very polite?" + +"No matter, polite or not, it's what he deserves. Of course, as soon as +he begins to take the hint, we will be just as we always are." + +Imogene despatched a note, which Colville got the next morning, to tell +him of his crime, and apprise him of his punishment, and of the sweet +compunction that had pleaded for him in the breast of the child. If he +did not think he could help play the comedy through, he must come +prepared to offer Effie some sort of atonement. + +It was easy to do this: to come with his pockets full of presents, and +take the little girl on his lap, and pour out all his troubled heart in +the caresses and tendernesses which would bring him no remorse. He +humbled himself to her thoroughly, and with a strange sincerity in the +harmless duplicity, and promised, if she would take him back into +favour, that he would never offend again. Mrs. Bowen had sent word that +she was not well enough to see him; she had another of her headaches; +and he sent back a sympathetic and respectful message by Effie, who +stood thoughtfully at her mother's pillow after she had delivered it, +fingering the bouquet Colville had brought her, and putting her head +first on this side, and then on that to admire it. + +"I think Mr. Colville and Imogene are much more affectionate than they +used to be," she said. + +Mrs. Bowen started up on her elbow. "What do you mean, Effie?" + +"Oh, they're both so good to me." + +"Yes," said her mother, dropping back to her pillow. "Both?" + +"Yes; he's the _most_ affectionate." + +The mother turned her face the other way. "Then he must be," she +murmured. + +"What?" asked the child. + +"Nothing. I didn't know I spoke." + +The little girl stood a while still playing with her flowers. "I think +Mr. Colville is about the pleasantest gentleman that comes here. Don't +you, mamma?" + +"Yes." + +"He's so interesting, and says such nice things. I don't know whether +children ought to think of such things, but I wish I was going to marry +some one like Mr. Colville. Of course I should want to be tolerably old +if I did. How old do you think a person ought to be to marry him?" + +"You mustn't talk of such things, Effie," said her mother. + +"No; I suppose it isn't very nice." She picked out a bud in her bouquet, +and kissed it; then she held the nosegay at arm's-length before her, and +danced away with it. + + + + + + +XVII + + +In the ensuing fortnight a great many gaieties besides the Egyptian ball +took place, and Colville went wherever he and Imogene were both invited. +He declined the quiet dinners which he liked, and which his hearty +appetite and his habit of talk fitted him to enjoy, and accepted +invitations to all sorts of evenings and At Homes, where dancing +occupied a modest corner of the card, and usurped the chief place in the +pleasures. At these places it was mainly his business to see Imogene +danced with by others, but sometimes he waltzed with her himself, and +then he was complimented by people of his own age, who had left off +dancing, upon his vigour. They said they could not stand that sort of +thing, though they supposed, if you kept yourself in practice, it did +not come so hard. One of his hostesses, who had made a party for her +daughters, told him that he was an example to everybody, and that if +middle-aged people at home mingled more in the amusements of the young, +American society would not be the silly, insipid, boy-and-girl affair +that it was now. He went to these places in the character of a young +man, but he was not readily accepted or recognised in that character. +They gave him frumps to take out to supper, mothers and maiden aunts, +and if the mothers were youngish, they threw off on him, and did not +care for his talk. + +At one of the parties Imogene seemed to become aware for the first time +that the lapels of his dress-coat were not faced with silk. + +"Why don't you have them so?" she asked. "All the _other_ young men +have. And you ought to wear a _boutonniere_." + +"Oh, I think a man looks rather silly in silk lapels at my--" He +arrested himself, and then continued: "I'll see what the tailor can do +for me. In the meantime, give me a bud out of your bouquet." + +"How sweet you are!" she sighed. "You do the least thing so that it is +ten times as good as if any one else did it." + +The same evening, as he stood leaning against a doorway, behind Imogene +and a young fellow with whom she was beginning a quadrille, he heard her +taking him to task. + +"Why do you say 'Sir' to Mr. Colville?" + +"Well, I know the English laugh at us for doing it, and say it's like +servants; but I never feel quite right answering just 'Yes' and 'No' to +a man of his age." + +This was one of the Inglehart boys, whom he met at nearly all of these +parties, and not all of whom were so respectful. Some of them treated +him upon an old-boy theory, joking him as freely as if he were one of +themselves, laughing his antiquated notions of art to scorn, but +condoning them because he was good-natured, and because a man could not +help being of his own epoch anyway. They put a caricature of him among +the rest on the walls of their _trattoria_, where he once dined with +them. + +Mrs. Bowen did not often see him when he went to call upon Imogene, and +she was not at more than two or three of the parties. Mrs. Amsden came +to chaperon the girl, and apparently suffered an increase of unrequited +curiosity in regard to his relations to the Bowen household, and the +extraordinary development of his social activity. Colville not only went +to all those evening parties, but he was in continual movement during +the afternoon at receptions and at "days," of which he began to think +each lady had two or three. Here he drank tea, cup after cup, in +reckless excitement, and at night when he came home from the dancing +parties, dropping with fatigue, he could not sleep till toward morning. +He woke at the usual breakfast-hour, and then went about drowsing +throughout the day till the tea began again in the afternoon. He fell +asleep whenever he sat down, not only in the reading-room at Viesseux's, +where he disturbed the people over their newspapers by his +demonstrations of somnolence, but even at church, whither he went one +Sunday to please Imogene, and started awake during the service with the +impression that the clergyman had been making a joke. Everybody but +Imogene was smiling. At the cafe he slept without scruple, selecting a +corner seat for the purpose, and proportioning his _buonamano_ to the +indulgence of the _giovane_. He could not tell how long he slept at +these places, but sometimes it seemed to him hours. + +One day he went to see Imogene, and while Effie Bowen stood prattling to +him as he sat waiting for Imogene to come in, he faded light-headedly +away from himself on the sofa, as if he had been in his corner at the +cafe. Then he was aware of some one saying "Sh!" and he saw Effie +Bowen, with her finger on her lip, turned toward Imogene, a figure of +beautiful despair in the doorway. He was all tucked up with sofa +pillows, and made very comfortable, by the child, no doubt. She slipped +out, seeing him awake, so as to leave him and Imogene alone, as she had +apparently been generally instructed to do, and Imogene came forward. + +"What is the matter, Theodore?" she asked patiently. She had taken to +calling him Theodore when they were alone. She owned that she did not +like the name, but she said it was right she should call him by it, +since it was his. She came and sat down beside him, where he had raised +himself to a sitting posture, but she did not offer him any caress. + +"Nothing," he answered. "But this climate is making me insupportably +drowsy; or else the spring weather." + +"Oh no; it isn't that," she said, with a slight sigh. He had left her in +the middle of a german at three o'clock in the morning, but she now +looked as fresh and lambent as a star. "It's the late hours. They're +killing you." + +Colville tried to deny it; his incoherencies dissolved themselves in a +yawn, which he did not succeed in passing for a careless laugh. + +"It won't do," she said, as if speaking to herself; "no, it won't do." + +"Oh yes, it will," Colville protested. "I don't mind being up. I've been +used to it all my life on the paper. It's just some temporary thing. +It'll come all right." + +"Well, no matter," said Imogene. "It makes you ridiculous, going to all +those silly places, and I'd rather give it up." + +The tears began to steal down her cheeks, and Colville sighed. It seemed +to him that somebody or other was always crying. A man never quite gets +used to the tearfulness of women. + +"Oh, don't mind it," he said. "If you wish me to go, I will go! Or die +in the attempt," he added, with a smile. + +Imogene did not smile with him. "I don't wish you to go any more. It was +a mistake in the first place, and from this out I will adapt myself to +you." + +"And give up all your pleasures? Do you think I would let you do that? +No, indeed! Neither in this nor in anything else. I will not cut off +your young life in any way, Imogene--not shorten it or diminish it. If I +thought I should do that, or you would try to do it for me, I should +wish I had never seen you." + +"It isn't that. I know how good you are, and that you would do anything +for me." + +"Well, then, why don't you go to these fandangoes alone? I can see that +you have me on your mind all the time, when I'm with you." + +"Oughtn't I?" + +"Yes, up to a certain point, but not up to the point of spoiling your +fun. I will drop in now and then, but I won't try to come to all of +them, after this; you'll get along perfectly well with Mrs. Amsden, and +I shall be safe from her for a while. That old lady has marked me for +her prey: I can see it in her glittering eyeglass. I shall fall asleep +some evening between dances, and then she will get it all out of me." + +Imogene still refused to smile. "No; I shall give it up. I don't think +it's well, going so much without Mrs. Bowen. People will begin to talk." + +"Talk?" + +"Yes; they will begin to say that I had better stay with her a little +more, if she isn't well." + +"Why, isn't Mrs. Bowen well?" asked Colville, with trepidation. + +"No; she's miserable. Haven't you noticed?" + +"She sees me so seldom now. I thought it was only her headaches----" + +"It's much more than that. She seems to be failing every way. The doctor +has told her she ought to get away from Florence." Colville could not +speak; Imogene went on. "She's always delicate, you know. And I feel +that all that's keeping her here now is the news from home that I--we're +waiting for." + +Colville got up. "This is ghastly! She mustn't do it!" + +"How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is right, she +can't help doing it. Who could?" + +Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he was silent. +At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or so much truth; and +Imogene went on-- + +"She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were disagreeable, and +rather than accept any relief from _me_ she would die." + +"Is she--unkind to you?" faltered Colville. + +"She is only _too_ kind. You can feel that she's determined to be +so--that she's said she will have nothing to reproach herself with, and +she won't. You don't suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one she +disliked?" + +"Ah, I didn't know," sighed Colville. + +"The more she disliked them, the better she would use them. It's because +our engagement is so distasteful to her that she's determined to feel +that she did nothing to oppose it." + +"But how can you tell that it's distasteful, then?" + +"She lets you feel it by--not saying anything about it." + +"I can't see how--" + +"She never speaks of you. I don't believe she ever mentions your name. +She asks me about the places where I've been, and about the +people--every one but you. It's very uncomfortable." + +"Yes," said Colville, "it's uncomfortable." + +"And if I allude to letters from home, she merely presses her lips +together. It's perfectly wretched." + +"I see. It's I whom she dislikes, and I would do anything to please her. +She must know that," mused Colville aloud. "Imogene!" he exclaimed, with +a sudden inspiration. "Why shouldn't I go away?" + +"Go away?" she palpitated. "What should I do?" + +The colours faded from his brilliant proposal. "Oh, I only meant till +something was settled--determined--concluded; till this terrible +suspense was over." He added hopelessly, "But nothing can be done!" + +"I proposed," said Imogene, "that we should all go away. I suggested Via +Reggio--the doctor said she ought to have sea air--or Venice; but she +wouldn't hear of it. No; we must wait." + +"Yes, we must wait," repeated Colville hollowly. "Then nothing can be +done?" + +"Why, haven't you said it?" + +"Oh yes--yes. I can't go away, and you can't. But couldn't we do +something--get up something?" + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"I mean, couldn't we--amuse her somehow? help her to take her mind off +herself?" + +Imogene stared at him rather a long time. Then, as if she had satisfied +herself in her own mind, she shook her head. "She wouldn't submit to +it." + +"No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do," said Colville. + +"She has no right to do that," cried Imogene. "I'm sure that you're +always considering her, and proposing to do things for her. I won't let +you humble yourself, as if you had wronged her." + +"Oh, I don't call it humbling. I--I should only be too happy if I could +do _anything that was agreeable to her." + +"Very well, I will tell her," said the girl haughtily. "Shall you object +to my joining you in your amusements, whatever they are? I assure you I +will be very unobtrusive." + +"I don't understand all this," replied Colville. "Who has proposed to +exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about Mrs. Bowen if you didn't +want me to say or do something? I supposed you did; but I'll withdraw +the offensive proposition, whatever it was." + +"There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, why can't you +pity me a little?" + +"I didn't know anything was the matter with you. I thought you were +enjoying yourself----" + +"Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever you +sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won't mention +your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can't speak of you to any one; +and no one speaks to me----" + +"If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville essayed, in +dreary jest. + +"Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it's that +that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in +circumstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs. +Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amusement, you laugh +at me! If you don't understand it all, I'm sure _I_ don't." + +"Imogene!" + +"No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You don't care for +me." + +"Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the +past fortnight. + +"And I would have made any--_any_ sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn't +have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come +to me for a little sympathy." + +"O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she +really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and +I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me. +But you mustn't think of if. I dare say it will be different; I've no +doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I--" He did +not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was +able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any +one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very +original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed +for her. + +"No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were now +uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell +Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will +appreciate your generosity." + +"Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't _propose_ doing +for people." + +She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the +matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and +only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with +you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_ are. It +seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here +I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding +you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own +mother to me. Do you call that noble?" + +Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to +her own conscience. + +But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said, +"Oh no; that was a mistake." + +"Because, if you do, you shall--to punish me." + +"My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?" + +"Because I've been low and mean. Now I want you to do something for Mrs. +Bowen--something to amuse her; to show that we appreciate her. And I +don't want you to sympathise with me at all. When I ask for your +sympathy, it's a sign that I don't deserve it." + +"Is that so?" + +"Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your pardon for +something." + +"Yes; what's that?" + +"Can't you guess?" + +"No." + +"You needn't have" your lapels silk-lined. You needn't wear +_boutonnieres_." + +"Oh, but I've had the coat changed." + +"No matter! Change it back! It isn't for me to make you over. I must +make myself over. It's my right, it's my sacred privilege to conform to +you in every way, and I humble myself in the dust for having forgotten +it at the very start. Oh, _do_ you think I can ever be worthy of you? I +_will_ try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light dresses another +time! From this out, I shall dress more in keeping with you. I boasted +that I should live to comfort and console you, to recompense you for the +past, and what have I been doing? Wearying and degrading you!" + +"Oh no," pleaded Colville. "I am very comfortable. I don't need any +compensation for the past. I need--sleep. I'm going to bed tonight at +eight o'clock, and I am going to sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall +be fresh for Mrs. Fleming's ball." + +"I'm not going," said Imogene briefly. + +"Oh yes, you are. I'll come round to-morrow evening and see." + +"No. There are to be no more parties." + +"Why?" + +"I can't endure them." + +She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far aloof in +the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed puzzled, bewildered at +herself. + +Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and question to +which he left her, but he felt himself powerless against it. There was +but one solution to it all, and that was impossible. He could only +grieve over her trouble, and wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss which +made her trouble remote and impersonal to him, and submit. + + + + + + +XVIII + + +The young clergyman whom Colville saw talking to Imogene on his first +evening at Mrs. Bowen's had come back from Rome, where he had been +spending a month or two, and they began to meet at Palazzo Pinti again. +If they got on well enough together, they did not get on very far. The +suave house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended Colville; he +could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in art and books, which in +fact was rather conventional; and no doubt Mr. Morton had his own +reserves, under which he was perfectly civil, and only too deferential +to Colville, as to an older man. Since his return, Mrs. Bowen had come +back to her _salon_. She looked haggard; but she did what she could to +look otherwise. She was always polite to Colville, and she was politely +cordial with the clergyman. Sometimes Colville saw her driving out with +him and Effie; they appeared to make excursions, and he had an +impression, very obscure, that Mrs. Bowen lent the young clergyman +money; that he was a superstition of hers, and she a patron of his; he +must have been ten years younger than she; not more than twenty-five. + +The first Sunday after his return, Colville walked home with Mr. Waters +from hearing a sermon of Mr. Morton's, which they agreed was rather well +judged, and simply and fitly expressed. + +"And he spoke with the authority of the priest," said the old minister. +"His Church alone of all the Protestant Churches has preserved that to +its ministers. Sometimes I have thought it was a great thing." + +"Not always?" asked Colville, with a smile. + +"These things are matters of mood rather than conviction with me," +returned Mr. Waters. "Once they affected me very deeply; but now I shall +so soon know all about it that they don't move me. But at times I think +that if I were to live my life over again, I would prefer to be of some +formal, some inflexibly ritualised, religion. At solemnities---weddings +and funerals--I have been impressed with the advantage of the Anglican +rite: it is the Church speaking to and for humanity--or seems so," he +added, with cheerful indifference. "Something in its favour," he +continued, after a while, "is the influence that every ritualised faith +has with women. If they apprehend those mysteries more subtly than we, +such a preference of theirs must mean a good deal. Yes; the other +Protestant systems are men's systems. Women must have form. They don't +care for freedom." + +"They appear to like the formalist too, as well as the form," said +Colville, with scorn not obviously necessary. + +"Oh yes; they must have everything in the concrete," said the old +gentleman cheerfully. + +"I wonder where Mr. Morton met Mrs. Bowen first," said Colville. + +"Here, I think. I believe he had letters to her. Before you came I used +often to meet him at her house. I think she has helped him with money at +times." + +"Isn't that rather an unpleasant idea?" + +"Yes; it's disagreeable. And it places the ministry in a dependent +attitude. But under our system it's unavoidable. Young men devoting +themselves to the ministry frequently receive gifts of money." + +"I don't like it," cried Colville. + +"They don't feel it as others would. I didn't myself. Even at present I +may be said to be living on charity. But sometimes I have fancied that +in Mr. Morton's case there might be peculiarly mitigating +circumstances." + +"What do you mean?" + +"When I met him first at Mrs. Bowen's I used to think that it was Miss +Graham in whom he was interested----" + +"I can assure you," interrupted Colville, "that she was never interested +in him." + +"Oh no; I didn't suppose that," returned the old man tranquilly. "And +I've since had reason to revise my opinion. I think he is interested in +Mrs. Bowen." + +"Mrs. Bowen! And you think that would be a mitigating circumstance in +his acceptance of money from her? If he had the spirit of a man at all, +it would make it all the more revolting." + +"Oh no, oh no," softly pleaded Mr. Waters. "We must not look at these +things too romantically. He probably reasons that she would give him all +her money if they were married." + +"But he has no right to reason in that way," retorted Colville, with +heat. "They are not married; it's ignoble and unmanly for him to count +upon it. It's preposterous. She must be ten years older than he." + +"Oh, I don't say that they're to be married," Mr. Waters replied. "But +these disparities of age frequently occur in marriage. I don't like +them, though sometimes I think the evil is less when it is the wife who +is the elder. We look at youth and age in a gross, material way too +often. Women remain young longer than men. They keep their youthful +sympathies; an old woman understands a young girl. Do you--or do +I--understand a young man?" + +Colville laughed harshly. "It isn't _quite_ the same thing, Mr. Waters. +But yes; I'll admit, for the sake of argument, that I don't understand +young men. I'll go further, and say that I don't like them; I'm afraid +of them. And you wouldn't think," he added abruptly, "that it would be +well for me to marry a girl twenty years younger than myself." + +The old man glanced up at him with innocent slyness. "I prefer always to +discuss these things in an impersonal way." + +"But you can't discuss them impersonally with me; I'm engaged to Miss +Graham. Ever since you first found me here after I told you I was going +away I have wished to tell you this, and this seems as good a time as +any--or as bad." The defiance faded from his voice, which dropped to a +note of weary sadness. "Yes, we're engaged--or shall be, as soon as she +can hear from her family. I wanted to tell you because it seemed somehow +your due, and because I fancied you had a friendly interest in us both." + +"Yes, that is true," returned Mr. Waters. "I wish you joy." He went +through the form of offering his hand to Colville, who pressed it with +anxious fervour. + +"I confess," he said, "that I feel the risks of the affair. It's not +that I have any dread for my own part; I have lived my life, such as it +is. But the child is full of fancies about me that can't be fulfilled. +She dreams of restoring my youth somehow, of retrieving the past for me, +of avenging me at her own cost for an unlucky love affair that I had +here twenty years ago. It's pretty of her, but it's terribly +pathetic--it's tragic. I know very well that I'm a middle-aged man, and +that there's no more youth for me. I'm getting grey, and I'm getting +fat; I wouldn't be young if I could; it's a bore. I suppose I could keep +up an illusion of youthfulness for five or six years more; and then if I +could be quietly chloroformed out of the way, perhaps it wouldn't have +been so very bad." + +"I have always thought," said Mr. Waters dreamily, "that a good deal +might be said for abbreviating hopeless suffering. I have known some +very good people advocate its practice by science." + +"Yes," answered Colville. "Perhaps I've presented that point too +prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I don't care for +myself; that I consider only the happiness of this young girl that's +somehow--I hardly know how--been put in my keeping. I haven't forgotten +the talks that we've had heretofore on this subject, and it would be +affectation and bad taste in me to ignore them. Don't be troubled at +anything you've said; it was probably true, and I'm sure it was sincere. +Sometimes I think that the kindest--the least cruel--thing I could do +would be to break with her, to leave her. But I know that I shall do +nothing of the kind; I shall drift. The child is very dear to me. She +has great and noble qualities; she's supremely unselfish; she loves me +through her mistaken pity, and because she thinks she can sacrifice +herself to me. But she can't. Everything is against that; she doesn't +know how, and there is no reason why. I don't express it very well. I +think nobody clearly understands it but Mrs. Bowen, and I've somehow +alienated her." + +He became aware that his self-abnegation was taking the character of +self-pity, and he stopped. + +Mr. Waters seemed to be giving the subject serious attention in the +silence that ensued. "There is this to be remembered," he began, "which +we don't consider in our mere speculations upon any phase of human +affairs; and that is the wonderful degree of amelioration that any given +difficulty finds in the realisation. It is the anticipation, not the +experience, that is the trial. In a case of this kind, facts of +temperament, of mere association, of union, work unexpected mitigations; +they not only alleviate, they allay. You say that she cherishes an +illusion concerning you: well, with women, nothing is so indestructible +as an illusion. Give them any chance at all, and all the forces of their +nature combine to preserve it. And if, as you say, she is so dear to +you, that in itself is almost sufficient. I can well understand your +misgivings, springing as they do from a sensitive conscience; but we may +reasonably hope that they are exaggerated. Very probably there will not +be the rapture for her that there would be if--if you were younger; but +the chances of final happiness are great--yes, very considerable. She +will learn to appreciate what is really best in you, and you already +understand her. Your love for her is the key to the future. Without +that, of course----" + +"Oh, of course," interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of this +comforter's hand had been a sting; and he parted with him in that +feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man who has taken counsel +upon the confession of half his trouble. + +Something in Mrs. Bowen's manner when he met her next made him think +that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the sympathy he had +expressed for her ill-health. It was in the evening, and Imogene and Mr. +Morton were looking over a copy of _The Marble Faun_, which he had +illustrated with photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to look at +it too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his opinion of +people who illustrated _The Marble Faun_ with photographs; it surprised +him that she seemed to find something novel and brilliant in the idea. + +Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair beside the +couple with the book, and seeing Colville wandering neglectedly about +before he placed himself, she jumped down and ran and caught his hand. + +"Well, what now?" he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to pull him +toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from Palazzo Pinti he would +really miss the worship of that little thing. He knew that her impulse +had been to console him for his exclusion from the pleasures that +Imogene and Mr. Morton were enjoying. + +"Nothing. Just talk," she said, making him fast in a corner of the sofa +by crouching tight against him. + +"What about? About which is the pleasantest season?" + +"Oh no; we've talked about that so often. Besides, of course you'd say +spring, now that it's coming on so nicely." + +"Do you think I'm so changeable as that? Haven't I always said winter +when this question of the seasons was up? And I say it now. Shan't you +be awfully sorry when you can't have a pleasant little fire on the +hearth like this any more?" + +"Yes; I know. But it's very nice having the flowers, too. The grass was +all full of daisies to-day--perfectly powdered with them." + +"To-day? Where?" + +"At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions of violets +and crow's-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them for mamma and Imogene. +And we stayed so long that when we drove home the daisies had all shut +up, and the little pink leaves outside made it look like a field of red +clover. Are you never going there any more?" + +Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting between her +and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was returning to the room +after having already been there. She stood a moment, with a little +uncertainty, when she had shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon +the sofa beyond Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville's +arm, and the other through her mother's, and gripped them fast. "Now I +have got you both," she triumphed, and smiled first into her face, and +then into his. + +"Be quiet, Effie," said her mother, but she submitted. + +"I hope you're better for your drive to-day, Mrs. Bowen. Effie has been +telling me about it." + +"We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; but I'm +not an invalid, you know." + +"Oh no." + +"I'm feeling a little fagged. And the weather was tempting. I suppose +you've been taking one of your long walks." + +"No, I've scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to meet the +spring a little more than half-way; but this year I don't, somehow." + +"A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I hope you'll get away from Florence," said Colville. + +"Oh," she returned, with a faint flush, "I'm afraid Imogene exaggerated +that a little." She added, "You are very good." + +She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since that +Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say that he was going +to stay. It might be merely because she had worn out her mood of +severity, as people do, returning in good-humour to those with whom they +were offended, merely through the reconciling force of time. She did not +look at him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that +interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. Imogene and the +young clergyman at the table across the room were intent on the book +still; he was explaining and expatiating, and she listening. Colville +saw that he had a fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face. +When he turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she had +been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting mute, and her face, +with its bright colour, showed pathetically thin. + +"I should imagine that Venice would be good for you," he said. + +"It's still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave Florence, I +think we will go to Switzerland." + +"Oh, not to Madame Schebres's," pleaded the child, turning upon her. + +"No, not to Madame Schebres," consented the mother. She continued, +addressing Colville: "I was thinking of Lausanne. Do you know Lausanne +at all?" + +"Only from Gibbon's report. It's hardly up to date." + +"I thought of taking a house there for the summer," said Mrs. Bowen, +playing with Effie's fingers. "It's pleasant by the lake, I suppose." + +"It's lovely by the lake!" cried the child. "Oh, do go, mamma! I could +get a boat and learn to row. Here you can't row, the Arno's so swift." + +"The air would bring you up," said Colville to Mrs. Bowen. +"Switzerland's the only country where you're perfectly sure of waking +new every morning." + +This idea interested the child. "Waking new!" she repeated. + +"Yes; perfectly made over. You wake up another person. Shouldn't you +think that would be nice?" + +"No." + +"Well, I shouldn't, in your place. But in mine, I much prefer to wake up +another person. Only it's pretty hard on the other person." + +"How queer you are!" The child set her teeth for fondness of him, and +seizing his cheeks between her hands, squeezed them hard, admiring the +effect upon his features, which in some respects was not advantageous. + +"Effie!" cried her mother sternly; and she dropped to her place again, +and laid hold of Colville's arm for protection. "You are really very +rude. I shall send you to bed." + +"Oh no, don't, Mrs. Bowen," he begged. "I'm responsible for these +violences. Effie used to be a very well behaved child before she began +playing with me. It's all my fault." + +They remained talking on the sofa together, while Imogene and Mr. Morton +continued to interest themselves in the book. From time to time she +looked over at them, and then turned again to the young clergyman, who, +when he had closed the book, rested his hands on its top and began to +give an animated account of something, conjecturably his sojourn in +Rome. + +In a low voice, and with pauses adjusted to the occasional silences of +the young people across the room, Mrs. Bowen told Colville how Mr. +Morton was introduced to her by an old friend who was greatly interested +in him. She said, frankly, that she had been able to be of use to him, +and that he was now going back to America very soon; it was as if she +were privy to the conjecture that had come to the surface in his talk +with Mr. Waters, and wished him to understand exactly how matters stood +with the young clergyman and herself. Colville, indeed, began to be more +tolerant of him; he succeeded in praising the sermon he had heard him +preach. + +"Oh, he has talent," said Mrs. Bowen. + +They fell into the old, almost domestic strain, from which she broke at +times with an effort, but returning as if helplessly to it. He had the +gift of knowing how not to take an advantage with women; that sense of +unconstraint in them fought in his favour; when Effie dropped her head +wearily against his arm, her mother even laughed in sending her off to +bed; she had hitherto been serious. Imogene said she would go to see her +tucked in, and that sent the clergyman to say good-night to Mrs. Bowen, +and to put an end to Colville's audience. + +In these days, when Colville came every night to Palazzo Pinti, he got +back the tone he had lost in the past fortnight. He thought that it was +the complete immunity from his late pleasures, and the regular and +sufficient sleep, which had set him firmly on his feet again, but he did +not inquire very closely. Imogene went two or three times, after she had +declared she would go no more, from the necessity women feel of blunting +the edge of comment; but Colville profited instantly and fully by the +release from the parties which she offered him. He did not go even to +afternoon tea-drinkings; the "days" of the different ladies, which he +had been so diligent to observe, knew him no more. At the hours when +society assembled in this house or that and inquired for him, or +wondered about him, he was commonly taking a nap, and he was punctually +in bed every night at eleven, after his return from Mrs. Bowen's. + +He believed, of course, that he went there because he now no longer met +Imogene elsewhere, and he found the house pleasanter than it had ever +been since the veglione. Mrs. Bowen's relenting was not continuous, +however. There were times that seemed to be times of question and of +struggle with her, when she vacillated between the old cordiality and +the later alienation; when she went beyond the former, or lapsed into +moods colder and more repellent than the latter. It would have been +difficult to mark the moment when these struggles ceased altogether, and +an evening passed in unbroken kindness between them. But afterwards +Colville could remember an emotion of grateful surprise at a subtle word +or action of hers in which she appeared to throw all restraint--scruple +or rancour, whichever it might be--to the winds, and become perfectly +his friend again. It must have been by compliance with some wish or +assent to some opinion of his; what he knew was that he was not only +permitted, he was invited, to feel himself the most favoured guest. The +charming smile, so small and sweet, so very near to bitterness, came +back to her lips, the deeply fringed eyelids were lifted to let the +sunny eyes stream upon him. She did, now, whatever he asked her. She +consulted his taste and judgment on many points; she consented to +resume, when she should be a little stronger, their visits to the +churches and galleries: it would be a shame to go away from Florence +without knowing them thoroughly. It came to her asking him to drive with +her and Imogene in the Cascine; and when Imogene made some excuse not to +go, Mrs. Bowen did not postpone the drive, but took Colville and Effie. + +They drove quite down to the end of the Cascine, and got out there to +admire the gay monument, with the painted bust, of the poor young Indian +prince who died in Florence. They strolled all about, talking of the old +times in the Cascine, twenty years before; and walking up the road +beside the canal, while the carriage slowly followed, they stopped to +enjoy the peasants lying asleep in the grass on the other bank. Colville +and Effie gathered wild-flowers, and piled them in her mother's lap when +she remounted to the carriage and drove along while they made excursions +into the little dingles beside the road. Some people who overtook them +in these sylvan pleasures reported the fact at a reception to which they +were going, and Mrs. Amsden, whose mind had been gradually clearing +under the simultaneous withdrawal of Imogene and Colville from society, +professed herself again as thickly clouded as a weather-glass before a +storm. She appealed to the sympathy of others against this hardship. + +Mrs. Bowen took Colville home to dinner; Mr. Morton was coming, she +said, and he must come too. At table the young clergyman made her his +compliment on her look of health, and she said, Yes; she had been +driving, and she believed that she needed nothing but to be in the air a +little more, as she very well could, now the spring weather was really +coming. She said that they had been talking all winter of going to +Fiesole, where Imogene had never been yet; and upon comparison it +appeared that none of them had yet been to Fiesole except herself. Then +they must all go together, she said; the carriage would hold four very +comfortably. + +"Ah! that leaves me out," said Colville, who had caught sight of Effie's +fallen countenance. + +"Oh no. How is that? It leaves Effie out." + +"It's the same thing. But I might ride, and Effie might give me her hand +to hold over the side of the carriage; that would sustain me." + +"We could take her between us, Mrs. Bowen," suggested Imogene. "The back +seat is wide." + +"Then the party is made up," said Colville, "and Effie hasn't demeaned +herself by asking to go where she wasn't invited." + +The child turned inquiringly toward her mother, who met her with an +indulgent smile, which became a little flush of grateful appreciation +when it reached Colville; but Mrs. Bowen ignored Imogene in the matter +altogether. + +The evening passed delightfully. Mr. Morton had another book which he +had brought to show Imogene, and Mrs. Bowen sat a long time at the +piano, striking this air and that of the songs which she used to sing +when she was a girl: Colville was trying to recall them. When he and +Imogene were left alone for their adieux, they approached each other in +an estrangement through which each tried to break. + +"Why don't you scold me?" she asked. "I have neglected you the whole +evening." + +"How have you neglected me?" + +"How? Ah! if you don't know----" + +"No. I dare say I must be very stupid. I saw you talking with Mr. +Morton, and you seemed interested. I thought I'd better not intrude." + +She seemed uncertain of his intention, and then satisfied of its +simplicity. + +"Isn't it pleasant to have Mrs. Bowen in the old mood again?" he asked. + +"Is she in the old mood?" + +"Why, yes. Haven't you noticed how cordial she is? + +"I thought she was rather colder than usual." + +"Colder!" The chill of the idea penetrated even through the density of +Colville's selfish content. A very complex emotion, which took itself +for indignation, throbbed from his heart. "Is she cold with you, +Imogene?" + +"Oh, if you saw nothing----" + +"No; and I think you must be mistaken. She never speaks of you without +praising you." + +"Does she speak of me?" asked the girl, with her honest eyes wide open +upon him. + +"Why, no," Colville acknowledged. "Come to reflect, it's I who speak of +you. But how--how is she cold with you?" + +"Oh, I dare say it's a delusion of mine. Perhaps I'm cold with her." + +"Then don't be so, my dear! Be sure that she's your friend--true and +good. Good night." + +He caught the girl in his arms, and kissed her tenderly. She drew away, +and stood a moment with her repellent fingers on his breast. + +"Is it all for me?" she asked. + +"For the whole obliging and amiable world," he answered gaily. + + + + + + +XIX + + +The next time Colville came he found himself alone with Imogene, who +asked him what he had been doing all day. + +"Oh, living along till evening. What have you?" + +She did not answer at once, nor praise his speech for the devotion +implied in it. After a while she said: "Do you believe in courses of +reading? Mr. Morton has taken up a course of reading in Italian poetry. +He intends to master it." + +"Does he?" + +"Yes. Do you think something of the kind would be good for me?" + +"Oh, if you thirst for conquest. But I should prefer to rest on my +laurels if I were you." + +Imogene did not smile. "Mr. Morton thinks I should enjoy a course of +Kingsley. He says he's very earnest." + +"Oh, immensely. But aren't you earnest enough already, my dear?" + +"Do you think I'm too earnest?" + +"No; I should say you were just right." + +"You know better than that. I wish you would criticise me sometimes." + +"Oh, I'd rather not." + +"Why? Don't you see anything to criticise in me? Are you satisfied with +me in every way? You ought to think. You ought to think now. Do you +think that I am doing right in all respects? Am I all that I could be to +you, and to you alone? If I am wrong in the least thing, criticise me, +and I will try to be better." + +"Oh, you might criticise back, and I shouldn't like that." + +"Then you don't approve of a course of Kingsley?" asked the girl. + +"Does that follow? But if you're going in for earnestness, why don't you +take up a course of Carlyle?" + +"Do you think that would be better than Kingsley?" + +"Not a bit. But Carlyle's so earnest that he can't talk straight." + +"I can't make out what you mean. Wouldn't you like me to improve?" + +"Not much," laughed Colville. "If you did, I don't know what I should +do. I should have to begin to improve too, and I'm very comfortable as I +am." + +"I should wish to do it to--to be more worthy of you," grieved the girl, +as if deeply disappointed at his frivolous behaviour. + +He could not help laughing, but he was sorry, and would have taken her +hand; she kept it from him, and removed to the farthest corner of the +sofa. Apparently, however, her ideal did not admit of open pique, and +she went on trying to talk seriously with him. + +"You think, don't you, that we oughtn't to let a day pass without +storing away some thought--suggestion----" + +"Oh, there's no hurry," he said lazily. "Life is rather a long +affair--if you live. There appears to be plenty of time, though people +say not, and I think it would be rather odious to make every day of use. +Let a few of them go by without doing anything for you! And as for +reading, why not read when you're hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn't you +hate to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?" + +"Very well, then," said Imogene. "I shall not begin Kingsley." + +"Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton's quite right. He will look at these +things more from your own point of view. All the Kingsley novels are in +the Tauchnitz. By all means do what he says." + +"I will do what _you_ say." + +"Oh, but I say nothing." + +"Then I will do nothing." + +Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman appeared. +Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt obliged to make him some +amends by a greater show of cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of +the effort, for he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy +for him to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and if +he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville tolerantly +reflected that some people seemed to be born so, and that he was +probably not artificial, as he had once imagined from the ecclesiastical +scrupulosity of his dress. + +Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, and struck +some chords on it. At each stroke the young clergyman, whose eyes had +wandered a little toward her from the first, seemed to vibrate in +response. The conversation became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen joined +them. Then, by a series of illogical processes, the clergyman was +standing beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting beside +Colville on the sofa. + +"Isn't there to be any Effie, to-night?" he asked. + +"No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak with +you--about Imogene." + +"Yes," said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he could have +chosen another topic. + +"It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In less than a +fortnight we ought to have an answer." + +"Well?" said Colville, with a strange constriction of the heart. + +"Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband is +absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything." + +"It isn't an uncommon American situation," said Colville, relieving his +tension by this excursion. + +Mrs. Bowen ignored it. "I don't know how she may look at the affair. She +may give her assent at once, or she may decide that nothing has taken +place till--she sees you." + +"I could hardly blame her for that," he answered submissively. + +"It isn't a question of that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a question +of--others. Mr. Morton was here before you came, and I know he was +interested in Imogene--I am certain of it. He has come back, and he sees +no reason why he should not renew his attentions." + +"No--o--o," faltered Colville. + +"I wish you to realise the fact." + +"But what would you----" + +"I told you," said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that severity whose +recent absence Colville had found so comfortable, "that I can't advise +or suggest anything at all." + +He was long and miserably silent. At last, "Did you ever think," he +asked, "did you ever suppose--that is to say, did you ever suspect +that--she--that Imogene was--at all interested in him?" + +"I think she was--at one time," said Mrs. Bowen promptly. + +Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle. + +"But that is nothing," she went on. "People have many passing fancies. +The question is, what are you going to do now? I want to know, as Mr. +Morton's friend." + +"Ah, I wish you wanted to know as _my_ friend, Mrs. Bowen!" A sudden +thought flashed upon him. "Why shouldn't I go away from Florence till +Imogene hears from her mother? That seemed to me right in the first +place. There is no tie that binds her to me. I hold her to nothing. If +she finds in my absence that she likes this young man better--" An +expression of Mrs. Bowen's face stopped him. He perceived that he had +said something very shocking to her; he perceived that the thing was +shocking in itself, but it was not that which he cared for. "I don't +mean that I won't hold myself true to her as long as she will. I +recognise my responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for all +this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any penalty. But +what I can't bear is that you should misunderstand me, that you +should--I have been so wretched ever since you first began to blame me +for my part in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I can't--I +_won't_--go back to that state of things. No; you have no right to +relent toward me, and then fling me off as you have tried to do +to-night! I have some feeling too--some rights. You shall receive me as +a friend, or not at all! How can I live if you----" + +She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she forced herself +to her feet, and ran from the room. + +The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the sensation +had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain seated, they went on with +their playing till he rose. Then Imogene called out, "Isn't Mrs. Bowen +coming back?" + +"I don't know; I think not," answered Colville stupidly, standing where +he had risen. + +She hastened questioning toward him. "What is the matter? Isn't she +well?" + +Mr. Morton's face expressed a polite share in her anxiety. + +"Oh yes; quite, I believe," Colville replied. + +"She heard Effie call, I suppose," suggested the girl. + +"Yes, yes; I think so; that is--yes. I must be going. Good night." + +He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still there; but +he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, which Imogene hurried to +get. She sent word that she would join them presently. But Mr. Morion +said that it was late already, and he would beg Miss Graham to say +good-night for him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone. + +She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. "Imogene, I have been +talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton." + +The girl started and turned pale. + +"It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may consent to your +engagement. Then you must be prepared to act." + +"Act?" + +"To make it known. Matters can't go on as they have been going. I told +Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at once." + +"Why ought he to know?" asked Imogene, doubtless with that impulse to +temporise which is natural to the human soul in questions of right and +interest. She sank into the chair beside which she had been standing. + +"If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. Colville?" + +"Yes," said the girl. + +"And if she refuses?" + +"He has my word. I will keep my word to him," replied Imogene huskily. +"Nothing shall make me break it." + +"Very well, then!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. "We need not wait for your +mother's answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he ought to know at once. +Don't try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly as I +do. He is in love with you." + +"Oh," moaned the girl. + +"Yes; you can't deny it. And it's cruel, it's treacherous, to let him go +on thinking that you are free." + +"I will never see him again." + +"Ah! that isn't enough. He has a claim to know why. I will not let him +be treated so." + +They were both silent. Then, "What did Mr. Colville say?" asked Imogene. + +"He? I don't know that he said anything. He----" Mrs. Bowen stopped. + +Imogene rose from her chair. + +"I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too indelicate." + +"And shall you let it go on so?" + +"No. I will tell him myself." + +"How will you tell him?" + +"I will tell him if he speaks to me." + +"You will let it come to that?" + +"There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he." + +"But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not help him." + +Imogene trembled into her chair again. + +"I see," said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, "how it will be at last. It will be +as it has been from the first." She began to walk up and down the room, +mechanically putting the chairs in place, and removing the disorder in +which the occupancy of several people leaves a room at the end of an +evening. She closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to shut, with a +clash that jarred the strings from their silence. "But I will do it, and +I wonder----" + +"You will speak to him?" faltered the girl. + +"Yes!" returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself in her +rapid movements. "It won't do for you to tell him, and you won't let Mr. +Colville." + +"No, I can't," said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. "But I will +discourage him; I will not see him anymore." Mrs. Bowen silently +confronted her. "I will not see any one now till I have heard from +home." + +"And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I will have +to make it. What shall it be?" + +Imogene did not answer. She said: "I will not have any one know what is +between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard from home. If they try to +refuse, then it will be for him to take me against their will. But if he +doesn't choose to do that, then he shall be free, and I won't have him +humiliated a second time before the world. _This_ time _he_ shall be the +one to reject. And I don't care who suffers. The more I prize the +person, the gladder I shall be; and if I could suffer before everybody I +would. If people ever find it out, I will tell them that it was he who +broke it off." She rose again from her chair, and stood flushed and +thrilling with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out of the tortuous +complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief triumph, in which +she rejoiced as if it were enduring success. But she suddenly fell from +it in the dust. "Oh, what can I do for him? How can I make him feel more +and more that I would give up anything, everything, for him! It's +because he asks nothing and wants nothing that it's so hard! If I could +see that he was unhappy, as I did once! If I could see that he was at +all different since--since----Oh, what I dread is this smooth +tranquillity! If our lives could only be stormy and full of cares and +anxieties and troubles that I could take on myself, then, then I +shouldn't be afraid of the future! But I'm afraid they won't be so--no, +I'm afraid that they will be easy and quiet, and then what shall I do? O +Mrs. Bowen, do you think he cares for me?" + +Mrs. Bowen turned white; she did not speak. + +The girl wrung her hands. "Sometimes it seems as if he didn't--as if I +had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken me to save +me from the shame of knowing that I had made a mistake. Do you think +that is true? If you can only tell me that it isn't--Or, no! If it is +true, tell me that! _That_ would be real mercy." + +The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this appeal. But she +gathered herself together rigidly. "How can I answer you such a thing as +that? I mustn't listen to you; you mustn't ask me." She turned and left +the girl standing still in her attitude of imploring. But in her own +room, where she locked herself in, sobs mingled with the laughter which +broke crazily from her lips as she removed this ribbon and that jewel, +and pulled the bracelets from her wrists. A man would have plunged from +the house and walked the night away; a woman must wear it out in her +bed. + + + + + + +XX + + +In the morning Mrs. Bowen received a note from her banker covering a +despatch by cable from America. It was from Imogene's mother; it +acknowledged the letters they had written, and announced that she sailed +that day for Liverpool. It was dated at New York, and it was to be +inferred that after perhaps writing in answer to their letters, she had +suddenly made up her mind to come out. + +"Yes, that is it," said Imogene, to whom Mrs. Bowen hastened with the +despatch. "Why should she have telegraphed to _you_?" she asked coldly, +but with a latent fire of resentment in her tone. + +"You must ask her when she comes," returned Mrs. Bowen, with all her +gentleness. "It won't be long now." + +They looked as if they had neither of them slept; but the girl's vigil +seemed to have made her wild and fierce, like some bird that has beat +itself all night against its cage, and still from time to time feebly +strikes the bars with its wings. Mrs. Bowen was simply worn to apathy. + +"What shall you do about this?" she asked. + +"Do about it? Oh, I will think. I will try not to trouble you." + +"Imogene!" + +"I shall have to tell Mr. Colville. But I don't know that I shall tell +him at once. Give me the despatch, please." She possessed herself of it +greedily, offensively. "I shall ask you not to speak of it." + +"I will do whatever you wish." + +"Thank you." + +Mrs. Bowen left the room, but she turned immediately to re-open the door +she had closed behind her. + +"We were to have gone to Fiesole to-morrow," she said inquiringly. + +"We can still go if the day is fine," returned the girl. "Nothing is +changed. I wish very much to go. Couldn't we go to-day?" she added, with +eager defiance. + +"It's too late to-day," said Mrs. Bowen quietly. "I will write to remind +the gentlemen." + +"Thank you. I wish we could have gone to-day." + +"You can have the carriage if you wish to drive anywhere," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I will take Effie to see Mrs. Amsden." But Imogene changed her mind, +and went to call upon two Misses Guicciardi, the result of an +international marriage, whom Mrs. Bowen did not like very well. Imogene +drove with them to the Cascine, where they bowed to a numerous military +acquaintance, and they asked her if Mrs. Bowen would let her join them +in a theatre party that evening: they were New-Yorkers by birth, and it +was to be a theatre party in the New York style; they were to be +chaperoned by a young married lady; two young men cousins of theirs, +just out from America, had taken the box. + +When Imogene returned home she told Mrs. Bowen that she had accepted +this invitation. Mrs. Bowen said nothing, but when one of the young men +came up to hand Imogene down to the carriage, which was waiting with the +others at the gate, she could not have shown a greater tolerance of his +second-rate New Yorkiness if she had been a Boston dowager offering him +the scrupulous hospitalities of her city. + +Imogene came in at midnight; she hummed an air of the opera as she took +off her wraps and ornaments in her room, and this in the quiet of the +hour had a terrible, almost profane effect: it was as if some other kind +of girl had whistled. She showed the same nonchalance at breakfast, +where she was prompt, and answered Mrs. Bowen's inquiries about her +pleasure the night before with a liveliness that ignored the polite +resolution that prompted them. + +Mr. Morton was the first to arrive, and if his discouragement began at +once, the first steps masked themselves in a reckless welcome, which +seemed to fill him with joy, and Mrs. Bowen with silent perplexity. The +girl ran on about her evening at the opera, and about the weather, and +the excursion they were going to make; and after an apparently needless +ado over the bouquet which he brought her, together with one for Mrs. +Bowen, she put it into her belt, and made Colville notice it when he +came: he had not thought to bring flowers. + +He turned from her hilarity with anxious question to Mrs. Bowen, who did +not meet his eye, and who snubbed Effie when the child found occasion to +whisper: "_I_ think Imogene is acting very strangely, for _her_; don't +you, mamma? It seems as if going with those Guicciardi girls just once +had spoiled her." + +"Don't make remarks about people, Effie," said her mother sharply. "It +isn't nice in little girls, and I don't want you to do it. You talk too +much lately." + +Effie turned grieving away from this rejection, and her face did not +light up even at the whimsical sympathy in Colville's face, who saw that +she had met a check of some sort; he had to take her on his knee and +coax and kiss her before her wounded feelings were visibly healed. He +put her down with a sighing wish that some one could take him up and +soothe his troubled sensibilities too, and kept her hand in his while he +sat waiting for the last of those last moments in which the hurrying +delays of ladies preparing for an excursion seem never to end. + +When they were ready to get into the carriage, the usual contest of +self-sacrifice arose, which Imogene terminated by mounting to the front +seat; Mr. Morton hastened to take the seat beside her, and Colville was +left to sit with Effie and her mother. "You old people will be safer +back there," said Imogene. It was a little joke which she addressed to +the child, but a gleam from her eye as she turned to speak to the young +man at her side visited Colville in desperate defiance. He wondered what +she was about in that allusion to an idea which she had shrunk from so +sensitively hitherto. But he found himself in a situation which he could +not penetrate at any point. When he spoke with Mrs. Bowen, it was with a +dark undercurrent of conjecture as to how and when she expected him to +tell Mr. Morton of his relation to Imogene, or whether she still +expected him to do it; when his eyes fell upon the face of the young +man, he despaired as to the terms in which he should put the fact; any +form in which he tacitly dramatised it remained very embarrassing, for +he felt bound to say that while he held himself promised in the matter, +he did not allow her to feel herself so. + +A sky of American blueness and vastness, a mellow sun, and a delicate +breeze did all that these things could for them, as they began the long, +devious climb of the hills crowned by the ancient Etruscan city. At +first they were all in the constraint of their own and one another's +moods, known or imagined, and no talk began till the young clergyman +turned to Imogene and asked, after a long look at the smiling landscape, +"What sort of weather do you suppose they are having at Buffalo to-day?" + +"At Buffalo?" she repeated, as if the place had only a dim existence in +her remotest consciousness. "Oh! The ice isn't near out of the lake yet. +You can't count on it before the first of May." + +"And the first of May comes sooner or later, according to the season," +said Colville. "I remember coming on once in the middle of the month, +and the river was so full of ice between Niagara Falls and Buffalo that +I had to shut the car window that I'd kept open all the way through +Southern Canada. But we have very little of that local weather at home; +our weather is as democratic and continental as our political +constitution. Here it's March or May any time from September till June, +according as there's snow on the mountains or not." + +The young man smiled. "But don't you like," he asked with deference, +"this slow, orderly advance of the Italian spring, where the flowers +seem to come out one by one, and every blossom has its appointed time?" + +"Oh yes, it's very well in its way; but I prefer the rush of the +American spring; no thought of mild weather this morning; a warm, gusty +rain to-morrow night; day after to-morrow a burst of blossoms and +flowers and young leaves and birds. I don't know whether we were made +for our climate or our climate was made for us, but its impatience and +lavishness seem to answer some inner demand of our go-ahead souls. This +happens to be the week of the peach blossoms here, and you see their +pink everywhere to-day, and you don't see anything else in the blossom +line. But imagine the American spring abandoning a whole week of her +precious time to the exclusive use of peach blossoms! She wouldn't do +it; she's got too many other things on hand." + +Effie had stretched out over Colville's lap, and with her elbow sunk +deep in his knee, was renting her chin in her hand and taking the facts +of the landscape thoroughly in. "Do they have just a week?" she asked. + +"Not an hour more or less," said Colville. "If they found an almond +blossom hanging round anywhere after their time came, they would make an +awful row; and if any lazy little peach-blow hadn't got out by the time +their week was up, it would have to stay in till next year; the pear +blossoms wouldn't let it come out." + +"Wouldn't they?" murmured the child, in dreamy sympathy with this +belated peach-blow. + +"Well, that's what people say. In America it would be allowed to come +out any time. It's a free country." + +Mrs. Bowen offered to draw Effie back to a posture of more decorum, but +Colville put his arm round the little girl. "Oh, let her stay! It +doesn't incommode me, and she must be getting such a novel effect of the +landscape." + +The mother fell back into her former attitude of jaded passivity. He +wondered whether she had changed her mind about having him speak to Mr. +Morton; her quiescence might well have been indifference; one could have +said, knowing the whole situation, that she had made up her mind to let +things take their course, and struggle with them no longer. + +He could not believe that she felt content with him; she must feel far +otherwise; and he took refuge, as he had the power of doing, from the +discomfort of his own thoughts in jesting with the child, and mocking +her with this extravagance and that; the discomfort then became merely a +dull ache that insisted upon itself at intervals, like a grumbling +tooth. + +The prospect was full of that mingled wildness and subordination that +gives its supreme charm to the Italian landscape; and without elements +of great variety, it combined them in infinite picturesqueness. There +were olive orchards and vineyards, and again vineyards and olive +orchards. Closer to the farm-houses and cottages there were peaches and +other fruit trees and kitchen-gardens; broad ribbons of grain waved +between the ranks of trees; around the white villas the spires of the +cypresses pierced the blue air. Now and then they came to a villa with +weather-beaten statues strutting about its parterres. A mild, pleasant +heat brooded upon the fields and roofs, and the city, dropping lower and +lower as they mounted, softened and blended its towers and monuments in +a sombre mass shot with gleams of white. + +Colville spoke to Imogene, who withdrew her eyes from it with a sigh, +after long brooding upon the scene. "You can do nothing with it, I see." + +"With what?" + +"The landscape. It's too full of every possible interest. What a history +is written all over it, public and private! If you don't take it simply +like any other landscape, it becomes an oppression. It's well that +tourists come to Italy so ignorant, and keep so. Otherwise they couldn't +live to get home again; the past would crush them." + +Imogene scrutinised him as if to extract some personal meaning from his +words, and then turned her head away. The clergyman addressed him with +what was like a respectful toleration of the drolleries of a gifted but +eccentric man, the flavour of whose talk he was beginning to taste. + +"You don't really mean that one shouldn't come to Italy as well informed +as possible?" + +"Well, I did," said Colville, "but I don't." + +The young man pondered this, and Imogene started up with an air of +rescuing them from each other--as if she would not let Mr. Morton think +Colville trivial or Colville consider the clergyman stupid, but would do +what she could to take their minds off the whole question. Perhaps she +was not very clear as to how this was to be done; at any rate she did +not speak, and Mrs. Bowen came to her support, from whatever motive of +her own. It might have been from a sense of the injustice of letting Mr. +Morton suffer from the complications that involved herself and the +others. The affair had been going very hitchily ever since they started, +with the burden of the conversation left to the two men and that +helpless girl; if it were not to be altogether a failure she must +interfere." + +"Did you ever hear of Gratiano when you were in Venice?" she asked Mr. +Morton. + +"Is he one of their new water-colourists?" returned the young man. "I +heard they had quite a school there now." + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen, ignoring her failure as well as she could; "he +was a famous talker; he loved to speak an infinite deal of nothing more +than any man in Venice." + +"An ancestor of mine, Mr. Morton," said Colville; "a poor, honest man, +who did his best to make people forget that the ladies were silent. +Thank you, Mrs. Bowen, for mentioning him. I wish he were with us +to-day." + +The young man laughed. "Oh, in the _Merchant of Venice_!" + +"No other," said Colville. + +"I confess," said Mrs. Bowen, "that I _am_ rather stupid this morning. I +suppose it's the softness of the air; it's been harsh and irritating so +long. It makes me drowsy." + +"Don't mind _us_," returned Colville. "We will call you at important +points." They were driving into a village at which people stop sometimes +to admire the works of art in its church. "Here, for example, is--What +place is this?" he asked of the coachman. + +"San Domenico." + +"I should know it again by its beggars." Of all ages and sexes they +swarmed round the carriage, which the driver had instinctively slowed to +oblige them, and thrust forward their hands and hats. Colville gave +Effie his small change to distribute among them, at sight of which they +streamed down the street from every direction. Those who had received +brought forward the halt and blind, and did not scruple to propose being +rewarded for this service. At the same time they did not mind his +laughing in their faces; they laughed too, and went off content, or as +nearly so as beggars ever are. He buttoned up his pocket as they drove +on more rapidly. "I am the only person of no principle--except Effie--in +the carriage, and yet I am at this moment carrying more blessings out of +this village than I shall ever know what to do with. Mrs. Bowen, I know, +is regarding me with severe disapproval. She thinks that I ought to have +sent the beggars of San Domenico to Florence, where they would all be +shut up in the Pia Casa di Ricovero, and taught some useful occupation. +It's terrible in Florence. You can walk through Florence now and have no +appeal made to your better nature that is not made at the appellant's +risk of imprisonment. When I was there before, you had opportunities of +giving at every turn." + +"You can send a cheque to the Pia Casa," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Ah, but what good would that do me? When I give I want the pleasure of +it; I want to see my beneficiary cringe under my bounty. But I've tried +in vain to convince you that the world has gone wrong in other ways. Do +you remember the one-armed man whom we used to give to on the Lung' +Arno? That persevering sufferer has been repeatedly arrested for +mendicancy, and obliged to pay a fine out of his hard earnings to escape +being sent to your Pia Casa." + +Mrs. Bowen smiled, and said, Was he living yet? in a pensive tone of +reminiscence. She was even more than patient of Colville's nonsense. It +seemed to him that the light under her eyelids was sometimes a grateful +light. Confronting Imogene and the young man whose hopes of her he was +to destroy at the first opportunity, the lurid moral atmosphere which he +breathed seemed threatening to become a thing apparent to sense, and to +be about to blot the landscape. He fought it back as best he could, and +kept the hovering cloud from touching the earth by incessant effort. At +times he looked over the side of the carriage, and drew secretly a long +breath of fatigue. It began to be borne in upon him that these ladies +were using him ill in leaving him the burden of their entertainment. He +became angry, but his heart softened, and he forgave them again, for he +conjectured that he was the cause of the cares that kept them silent. He +felt certain that the affair had taken some new turn. He wondered if +Mrs. Bowen had told Imogene what she had demanded of him. But he could +only conjecture and wonder in the dreary undercurrent of thought that +flowed evenly and darkly on with the talk he kept going. He made the +most he could of the varying views of Florence which the turns and +mounting levels of the road gave him. He became affectionately grateful +to the young clergyman when he replied promptly and fully, and took an +interest in the objects or subjects he brought up. + +Neither Mrs. Bowen nor Imogene was altogether silent. The one helped on +at times wearily, and the other broke at times from her abstraction. +Doubtless the girl had undertaken too much in insisting upon a party of +pleasure with her mind full of so many things, and doubtless Mrs. Bowen +was sore with a rankling resentment at her insistence, and vexed at +herself for having yielded to it. If at her time of life and with all +her experience of it, she could not rise under this inner load, Imogene +must have been crushed by it. + +Her starts from the dreamy oppression, if that were what kept her +silent, took the form of aggression, when she disagreed with Colville +about things he was saying, or attacked him for this or that thing which +he had said in times past. It was an unhappy and unamiable +self-assertion, which he was not able to compassionate so much when she +resisted or defied Mrs. Bowen, as she seemed seeking to do at every +point. Perhaps another would not have felt it so; it must have been +largely in his consciousness; the young clergyman seemed not to see +anything in these bursts but the indulgence of a gay caprice, though his +laughing at them did not alleviate the effect to Colville, who, when he +turned to Mrs. Bowen for her alliance, was astonished with a prompt +snub, unmistakable to himself, however imperceptible to others. + +He found what diversion and comfort he could in the party of children +who beset them at a point near the town, and followed the carriage, +trying to sell them various light and useless trifles made of +straw--fans, baskets, parasols, and the like. He bought recklessly of +them and gave them to Effie, whom he assured, without the applause of +the ladies, and with the grave question of the young clergyman, that the +vendors were little Etruscan girls, all at least twenty-five hundred +years old. "It's very hard to find any Etruscans under that age; most of +the grown-up people are three thousand." + +The child humoured his extravagance with the faith in fable which +children are able to command, and said, "Oh, tell me about them!" while +she pushed up closer to him, and began to admire her presents, holding +them up before her, and dwelling fondly upon them one by one. + +"Oh, there's very little to tell," answered Colville. "They're mighty +close people, and always keep themselves very much _to_ themselves. But +wouldn't you like to see a party of Etruscans of all ages, even down to +little babies only eleven or twelve hundred years old, come driving into +an American town? It would make a great excitement, wouldn't it?" + +"It would be splendid." + +"Yes; we would give them a collation in the basement of the City Hall, +and drive them out to the cemetery. The Americans and Etruscans are very +much alike in that--they always show you their tombs." + +"Will they in Fiesole?" + +"How you always like to burrow into the past!" interrupted Imogene. + +"Well, it's rather difficult burrowing into the future," returned +Colville defensively. Accepting the challenge, he added: "Yes, I should +really like to meet a few Etruscans in Fiesole this morning. I should +feel as if I'd got amongst my contemporaries at last; they would +understand me." + +The girl's face flushed. "Then no one else can understand you?" + +"Apparently not. I am the great American _incompris_." + +"I'm sorry for you," she returned feebly; and, in fact, sarcasm was not +her strong point. + +When they entered the town they found the Etruscans preoccupied with +other visitors, whom at various points in the quaint little piazza they +surrounded in dense groups, to their own disadvantage as guides and +beggars and dealers in straw goods. One of the groups reluctantly +dispersed to devote itself to the new arrivals, and these then perceived +that it was a party of artists, scattered about and sketching, which had +absorbed the attention of the population. Colville went to the +restaurant to order lunch, leaving the ladies to the care of Mr. Morton. +When he came back he found the carriage surrounded by the artists, who +had turned out to be the Inglehart boys. They had walked up to Fiesole +the afternoon before, and they had been sketching there all the morning. +With the artist's indifference to the conventional objects of interest, +they were still ignorant of what ought to be seen in Fiesole by +tourists, and they accepted Colville's proposition to be of his party in +going the rounds of the Cathedral, the Museum, and the view from that +point of the wall called the Belvedere. They found that they had been at +the Belvedere before without knowing that it merited particular +recognition, and some of them had made sketches from it--of bits of +architecture and landscape, and of figure amongst the women with straw +fans and baskets to sell, who thronged round the whole party again, and +interrupted the prospect. In the church they differed amongst themselves +as to the best bits for study, and Colville listened in whimsical +despair to the enthusiasm of their likings and dislikings. All that was +so far from him now; but in the Museum, which had only a thin interest +based upon a small collection of art and archeology, he suffered a real +affliction in the presence of a young Italian couple, who were probably +plighted lovers. They went before a grey-haired pair, who might have +been the girl's father and mother, and they looked at none of the +objects, though they regularly stopped before them and waited till their +guide had said his say about them. The girl, clinging tight to the young +man's arm, knew nothing but him; her mouth and eyes were set in a +passionate concentration of her being upon him, and he seemed to walk in +a dream of her. From time to time they peered upon each other's faces, +and then they paused, rapt and indifferent to all besides. + +The young painters had their jokes about it; even Mr. Morton smiled, and +Mrs. Bowen recognised it. But Imogene did not smile; she regarded the +lovers with an interest in them scarcely less intense than their +interest in each other; and a cold perspiration of question broke out on +Colville's forehead. Was that her ideal of what her own engagement +should be? Had she expected him to behave in that way to her, and to +accept from her a devotion like that girl's? How bitterly he must have +disappointed her! It was so impossible to him that the thought of it +made him feel that he must break all ties which bound him to anything +like it. And yet he reflected that the time was when he could have been +equal to that, and even more. + +After lunch the painters joined them again, and they all went together +to visit the ruins of the Roman theatre and the stretch of Etruscan wall +beyond it. The former seems older than the latter, whose huge blocks of +stone lie as firmly and evenly in their courses as if placed there a +year ago; the turf creeps to the edge at top, and some small trees nod +along the crest of the wall, whose ancient face, clean and bare, looks +sternly out over a vast prospect, now young and smiling in the first +delight of spring. The piety or interest of the community, which guards +the entrance to the theatre by a fee of certain centesimi, may be +concerned in keeping the wall free from the grass and vines which are +stealing the half-excavated arena back to forgetfulness and decay; but +whatever agency it was, it weakened the appeal that the wall made to the +sympathy of the spectators. + +They could do nothing with it; the artists did not take their +sketch-blocks from their pockets. But in the theatre, where a few broken +columns marked the place of the stage, and the stone benches of the +auditorium were here and there reached by a flight of uncovered steps, +the human interest returned. + +"I suspect that there is such a thing as a ruin's being too old," said +Colville. "Our Etruscan friends made the mistake of building their wall +several thousand years too soon for our purpose." + +"Yes," consented the young clergyman. "It seems as if our own race +became alienated from us through the mere effect of time, don't you +think, sir? I mean, of course, terrestrially." + +The artists looked uneasy, as if they had not counted upon anything of +this kind, and they began to scatter about for points of view. Effie got +her mother's leave to run up and down one of the stairways, if she would +not fall. Mrs. Bowen sat down on one of the lower steps, and Mr. Morton +took his place respectfully near her. + +"I wonder how it looks from the top?" Imogene asked this of Colville, +with more meaning than seemed to belong to the question properly. + +"There is nothing like going to see," he suggested. He helped her up, +giving her his hand from one course of seats to another. When they +reached the point which commanded the best view of the whole, she sat +down, and he sank at her feet, but they did not speak of the view. + +"Theodore, I want to tell you something," she said abruptly. "I have +heard from home." + +"Yes?" he replied, in a tone in which he did his best to express a +readiness for any fate. + +"Mother has telegraphed. She is coming out. She is on her way now. She +will be here very soon." + +Colville did not know exactly what to say to these passionately +consecutive statements. "Well?" he said at last. + +"Well"--she repeated his word--"what do you intend to do?" + +"Intend to do in what event?" he asked, lifting his eyes for the first +time to the eyes which he felt burning down upon him. + +"If she should refuse?" + +Again he could not command an instant answer, but when it came it was a +fair one. "It isn't for me to say what I shall do," he replied gravely. +"Or, if it is, I can only say that I will do whatever you wish." + +"Do _you_ wish nothing?" + +"Nothing but your happiness." + +"Nothing but my happiness!" she retorted. "What is my happiness to me? +Have I ever sought it?" + +"I can't say," he answered; "but if I did not think you would find it--" + +"I shall find it, if ever I find it, in yours," she interrupted. "And +what shall you do if my mother will not consent to our engagement?" + +The experienced and sophisticated man--for that in no ill way was what +Colville was--felt himself on trial for his honour and his manhood by +this simple girl, this child. He could not endure to fall short of her +ideal of him at that moment, no matter what error or calamity the +fulfilment involved. "If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, it +will make no difference to me what your mother says. I would be glad of +her consent; I should hate to go counter to her will; but I know that I +am good enough man to be true and keep you all my life the first in all +my thoughts, and that's enough for me. But if you have any fear, any +doubt of yourself, now is the time--" + +Imogene rose to her feet as in some turmoil of thought or emotion that +would not suffer her to remain quiet. + +"Oh, keep still!" "Don't get up yet!" "Hold on a minute, please!" came +from the artists in different parts of the theatre, and half a dozen +imploring pencils were waved in the air. + +"They are sketching you," said Colville, and she sank compliantly into +her seat again. + +"I have no doubt for myself--no," she said, as if there had been no +interruption. + +"Then we need have no anxiety in meeting your mother," said Colville, +with a light sigh, after a moment's pause. "What makes you think she +will be unfavourable?" + +"I don't think that; but I thought--I didn't know but--" + +"What?" + +"Nothing, now." Her lips were quivering; he could see her struggle for +self-control, but he could not see it unmoved. + +"Poor child!" he said, putting out his hand toward her. + +"Don't take my hand; they're all looking," she begged. + +He forbore, and they remained silent and motionless a little while, +before she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak again. + +"Then we are promised to each other, whatever happens," she said. + +"Yes." + +"And we will never speak of this again. But there is one thing. Did Mrs. +Bowen ask you to tell Mr. Morton of our engagement?" + +"She said that I ought to do so." + +"And did you say you would?" + +"I don't know. But I suppose I ought to tell him." + +"I don't wish you to!" cried the girl. + +"You don't wish me to tell him?" + +"No; I will not have it!" + +"Oh, very well; it's much easier not. But it seems to me that it's only +fair to him." + +"Did you think of that yourself?" she demanded fiercely. + +"No," returned Colville, with sad self-recognition. "I'm afraid I'm not +apt to think of the comforts and rights of other people. It was Mrs. +Bowen who thought of it." + +"I knew it!" + +"But I must confess that I agreed with her, though I would have +preferred to postpone it till we heard from your family." He was +thoughtfully silent a moment; then he said, "But if their decision is to +have no weight with us, I think he ought to be told at once." + +"Do you think that I am flirting with him?" + +"Imogene!" exclaimed Colville reproachfully. + +"That's what you imply; that's what she implies." + +"You're very unjust to Mrs. Bowen, Imogene." + +"Oh, you always defend her! It isn't the first time you've told me I was +unjust to her." + +"I don't mean that you are willingly unjust, or could be so, to any +living creature, least of all to her. But I--we--owe her so much; she +has been so patient." + +"What do we owe her? How has she been patient?" + +"She has overcome her dislike to me." + +"Oh, indeed!" + +"And--and I feel under obligation to her for--in a thousand little ways; +and I should be glad to feel that we were acting with her approval; I +should like to please her." + +"You wish to tell Mr. Morton?" + +"I think I ought." + +"To please Mrs. Bowen! Tell him, then! You always cared more to please +her than me. Perhaps you stayed in Florence to please her!" + +She rose and ran down the broken seats and ruined steps so recklessly +and yet so sure-footedly that it seemed more like a flight than a pace +to the place where Mrs. Bowen and Mr. Morton were talking together. + +Colville followed as he could, slowly and with a heavy heart. A good +thing develops itself in infinite and unexpected shapes of good; a bad +thing into manifold and astounding evils. This mistake was whirling away +beyond his recall in hopeless mazes of error. He saw this generous young +spirit betrayed by it to ignoble and unworthy excess, and he knew that +he and not she was to blame. + +He was helpless to approach her, to speak with her, to set her right, +great as the need of that was, and he could see that she avoided him. +But their relations remained outwardly undisturbed. The artists brought +their sketches for inspection and comment, and, without speaking to each +other, he and Imogene discussed them with the rest. + +When they started homeward the painters said they were coming a little +way with them for a send-off, and then going back to spend the night in +Fiesole. They walked beside the carriage, talking with Mrs. Bowen and +Imogene, who had taken their places, with Effie between them, on the +back seat; and when they took their leave, Colville and the young +clergyman, who had politely walked with them, continued on foot a little +further, till they came to the place where the highway to Florence +divided into the new road and the old. At this point it steeply overtops +the fields on one side, which is shored up by a wall some ten or twelve +feet deep; and here round a sharp turn of the hill on the other side +came a peasant driving a herd of the black pigs of the country. + +Mrs. Bowen's horses were, perhaps, pampered beyond the habitual +resignation of Florentine horses to all manner of natural phenomena; +they reared at sight of the sable crew, and backing violently uphill, +set the carriage across the road, with its hind wheels a few feet from +the brink of the wall. The coachman sprang from his seat, the ladies and +the child remained in theirs as if paralysed. + +Colville ran forward to the side of the carriage. "Jump, Mrs. Bowen! +jump, Effie! Imogene--" + +The mother and the little one obeyed. He caught them in his arms and set +them down. The girl sat still, staring at him with reproachful, with +disdainful eyes. + +He leaped forward to drag her out; she shrank away, and then he flew to +help the coachman, who had the maddened horses by the bit. + +"Let go!" he heard the young clergyman calling to him; "she's safe!" He +caught a glimpse of Imogene, whom Mr. Morton had pulled from the other +side of the carriage. He struggled to free his wrist from the curb-bit +chain of the horse, through which he had plunged it in his attempt to +seize the bridle. The wheels of the carriage went over the wall; he felt +himself whirled into the air, and then swung ruining down into the +writhing and crashing heap at the bottom of the wall. + + + + + + +XXI + + +When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight in the +softness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strange +colour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently he +perceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was in +bed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young man +who sat watching him a little way off, and who now smiled cheerfully at +the expression in the eyes which Colville turned inquiringly upon him. + +"Where am I?" he asked, with what appeared to him very unnecessary +feebleness of voice. + +The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville repeated +his question in that tongue, he told him that he was in Palazzo Pinti, +whither he had been brought from the scene of his accident. He added +that Colville must not talk till the doctor had seen him and given him +leave, and he explained that he was himself a nurse from the hospital, +who had been taking care of him. + +Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he desisted in his +attempt to lift his right arm to it before the attendant could interfere +in behalf of the broken limb. He recalled dimly and fragmentarily long +histories that he had dreamed, but he forbore to ask how long he had +been in his present case, and he accepted patiently the apparition of +the doctor and other persons who came and went, and were at his bedside +or not there, as it seemed to him, between the opening and closing of an +eye. As the days passed they acquired greater permanence and maintained +a more uninterrupted identity. He was able to make quite sure of Mr. +Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in, leading Effie, and this +gave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to have grown younger and +better. Imogene was not among the phantoms who visited him; and he +accepted her absence as quiescently as he accepted the presence of the +others. There was a cheerfulness in those who came that permitted him no +anxiety, and he was too weak to invite it by any conjecture. He +consented to be spared and to spare himself; and there were some things +about the affair which gave him a singular and perhaps not wholly sane +content. One of these was the man nurse who had evidently taken care of +him throughout. He celebrated, whenever he looked at this capable +person, his escape from being, in the odious helplessness of sickness, a +burden upon the strength and sympathy of the two women for whom he had +otherwise made so much trouble. His satisfaction in this had much to do +with his recovery, which, when it once began, progressed rapidly to a +point where he was told that Imogene and her mother were at a hotel in +Florence, waiting till he should be strong enough to see them. It was +Mrs. Bowen who told him this with an air which she visibly strove to +render non-committal and impersonal, but which betrayed, nevertheless, a +faint apprehension for the effect upon him. The attitude of Imogene and +her mother was certainly not one to have been expected of people holding +their nominal relation to him, but Colville had been revising his +impressions of events on the day of his accident; Imogene's last look +came back to him, and he could not think the situation altogether +unaccountable. + +"Have I been here a long time?" he asked, as if he had not heeded what +she told him. + +"About a fortnight," answered Mrs. Bowen. + +"And Imogene--how long has she been away?" + +"Since they knew you would get well." + +"I will see them any time," he said quietly. + +"Do you think you are strong enough?" + +"I shall never be stronger till I have seen them," he returned, with a +glance at her. "Yes; I want them to come to-day. I shall not be excited; +don't be troubled--if you were going to be," he added. "Please send to +them at once." + +Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She returned in +half an hour with a lady who revealed even to Colville's languid regard +evidences of the character which Mrs. Bowen had attributed to Imogene's +mother. She was a large, robust person, laced to sufficient shapeliness, +and she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room with a waft of +some clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet temperament and perfect +health looked out of her clear, honest eyes--the eyes of Imogene Graham, +though the girl's were dark and the woman's were blue. When Mrs. Bowen +had named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs. Graham took +Colville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, and then lifted +herself a chair to his bedside, and sat down. + +"How do you do to-day, sir?" she said, with a touch of old-fashioned +respectfulness in the last word. "Do you think you are quite strong +enough to talk with me?" + +"I think so," said Colville, with a faint smile. "At least I can listen +with fortitude." + +Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. "I don't know +whether it will require much fortitude to hear what I have to say or +not," she said, with her keen gaze fixed upon him. "It's simply this: I +am going to take Imogene home." + +She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to this, and he +said blankly, "Yes?" + +"I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I had seen +you, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; for I had always +promised myself that her choice should be perfectly untrammelled, and I +have tried to bring her up with principles and ideas that would enable +her to make a good choice." + +"Yes," said Colville again. "I'm afraid you didn't take her temperament +and her youth into account, and that she disappointed you." + +"No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no reason to +blame her for her choice. Her mistake was of another kind." + +It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady found +an intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which modified the +intensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and that, like many +people who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in the presence of +another appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, and +she went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I think her +chances of happiness would have been greater, in the abstract, with one +nearer her own age; but that is a difference which other things affect +so much that it did not alarm me greatly. Some people are younger at +your age than at hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Graham +fetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the point +than to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But she +apparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as you are +concerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your conduct +throughout has been most high-minded and considerate and delicate." + +It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially if +he has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colville +summoned his dispersed forces to protest against this. + +"Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has been selfish +and shameful. If you could understand all--" + +"I think I do understand all--at least far more, I regret to say, than +my daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than satisfied +with you. I thank you and honour you." + +"Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't stand it." + +"And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving and +confirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful and +surprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very sick?" + +"Dimly," said Colville. + +"I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the error +which she had discovered in herself--discovered too late, as she felt." +Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out that +she did not love you." + +"Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly. + +"She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled her +misgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, and +saying to herself that when you were married, then there would be no +escape, and she _must_ love you." + +"Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see." + +"But the accident that was almost your death saved her from that +miserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in answer to the +protest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed at +your bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she was +feeling all the remorse that she ought to feel--that any one could +feel--she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you and +never should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind." + +"Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!" + +"Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt for +her--But no matter about that. She saw at last that if your heroic +devotion to her"--Colville did his best to hang his pillowed head for +shame--"if your present danger did not awaken her to some such feeling +for you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increased +her despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. She +was simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She has +had a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to +_demand_"--Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising to the +hysterical key--"her release from a fate that would be worse than death +for such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. She +esteems you, she respects you, she admires you, she likes you; but--" +Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her eyes shone. + +"She is free," said Colville, and with the words a mighty load rolled +from his heart. "There is no need to demand anything." + +"I know." + +"There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during--since I--we--spoke +together that I wouldn't have released her if I could have known what +you tell me now." + +"Of course!--of course!" + +"I have had my fears--my doubts; but whenever I approached the point I +found no avenue by which we could reach a clearer understanding. I could +not say much without seeming to seek for myself the release I was +offering her." + +"Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the suspicion at +the bottom of all that she had somehow forced herself upon you-- +misunderstood you, and made you say and do things to spare her that +you would not have done voluntarily." This was advanced tentatively. In +the midst of his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have, +a native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at the most +unexpected moments, and this must now have appeared in his countenance. +The lady rose haughtily. She had apparently been considering him, but, +after all, she must have been really considering her daughter. "If +anything of the kind was the case," she said, "I will ask you to spare +her the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for _me_ to know it. And +allow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would have been far kinder in +you--" + +"Ah, _think,_ my dear madam!" he exclaimed. "How _could_ I?" + +She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a generous +emotion, in which there was no trace of pique. + +"You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will trust you to +say anything you will to my daughter." + +"To your daughter? Shall I see her?" + +"She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness." + +Colville lay silent. "There is no forgiveness to be asked or granted," +he said, at length. "Why should she suffer the pain of seeing me?--for +it would be nothing else. What do you think? Will it do her any good +hereafter? I don't care for myself." + +"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Graham. "She is a strange child. +She may have some idea of reparation." + +"Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation is due! +Where there has been an error there must be blame; but wherever it lies +in ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. Tell her I say this; tell her +that I acquit her with all my heart of every shadow of wrong; that I am +not unhappy, but glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as it +has." He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and said, +with the feebleness of exhaustion, "Good-bye. Bid her good-bye for me." + +Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the door was +flung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She threw herself on her +knees beside his bed. "I will _pray_ to you!" she said, her face intense +with the passions working in her soul. She seemed choking with words +which would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that must stand for +all, she caught up the hand that lay limp on the coverlet; she crushed +it against her lips, and ran out of the room. + +He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his brain to take +account of what had passed. When he woke from it, little Effie Bowen was +airily tiptoeing about the room, fondly retouching its perfect order. He +closed his eyes, and felt her come to him and smooth the sheet softly +under his chin. Then he knew she must be standing with clasped hands +admiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from the door. It +closed, and all was still again. + + + + + + +XXII + + +Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. Bowen's house +as soon as he could. He made the more haste because he felt that if he +could have remained with the smallest trace of self-respect, he would +have been glad to stay there for ever. + +Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and the sun was +lying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the shade dense and cool in the +narrow streets, before he left Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was a glare +of light that struck back from the curving line of the buff houses; the +river had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black cypresses were dim +in the tremor of the distant air on the hill-slopes beyond; the olives +seemed to swelter in the sun, and the villa walls to burn whiter and +whiter. At evening the mosquito began to wind his tiny horn. It was the +end of May, and nearly everybody but the Florentines had gone out of +Florence, dispersing to Villa Reggio by the sea, to the hills of +Pistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than once Colville had +said that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after she ought to have got away, +and she had answered that she liked hot weather, and that this was not +comparable to the heat of Washington in June. She was looking very well, +and younger and prettier than she had since the first days of their +renewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern complexion enriched +itself in the sun; sometimes when she came into his room from outdoors +the straying brown hair curled into loose rings on her temples, and her +cheeks glowed a deep red. + +She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was not well +enough to go away, but she did not try to detain him after his strength +sufficiently returned. It was the blow on the head that kept him +longest. After his broken arm and his other bruises were quite healed, +he was aware of physical limits to thinking of the future or regretting +the past, and this sense of his powerlessness went far to reconcile him +to a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically he ought to +have been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a matter of fact he +suffered very little from either. Even in people who are in full +possession of their capacity for mental anguish one observes that after +they have undergone a certain amount of pain they cease to feel. + +Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours to entertain +him and take care of him. The child was with him every moment that she +could steal from her tasks, and her mother no longer attempted to stem +the tide of her devotion. It was understood that Effie should joke and +laugh with Mr. Colville as much as she chose; that she should fan him as +long as he could stand it; that she should read to him when he woke, and +watch him when he slept. She brought him his breakfast, she petted him +and caressed him, and wished to make him a monster of dependence and +self-indulgence. It seemed to grieve her that he got well so fast. + +The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee by the +window looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to the +silence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They had +not lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talked +till her head dropped against his shoulder. + +Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. "Why, is she asleep?" + +"Yes. Don't take her yet," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left to get +into Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was so richly content +with the peace, the tacit sweetness of the little moment, that he would +have been glad to have it silently endure forever. If any troublesome +question of his right to such a moment of bliss obtruded itself upon +him, he did not concern himself with it. + +"We shall have another hot day to-morrow," said Mrs. Bowen at length. "I +hope you will find your room comfortable." + +"Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, and no sun +ever comes into it except when they show it to foreigners in winter. +Then they get a few rays to enter as a matter of business, on condition +that they won't detain them. I dare say I shall stay there some time. I +suppose you will be getting away from Florence very soon. + +"Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet." + +"Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for all you've +done for me, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"No; I would rather not. It has been a great pleasure--to Effie." + +"Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice." They spoke in low tones, +and there was something in the hush that suggested to Colville the +feasibility of taking into his unoccupied hand one of the pretty hands +which the pale night-light showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap. But he +forbore, and only sighed. "Well, then, I will say nothing. But I shall +keep on thinking all my life." + +She made no answer. + +"When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. Waters," he +said. + +"He is going to stop all summer, I believe." + +"Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might find it too +hot, he said that he had seventy New England winters to thaw out of his +blood, and that all the summers he had left would not be more than he +needed. One of his friends told him that he could cook eggs in his +piazza in August, and he said that he should like nothing better than to +cook eggs there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot I've +ever seen." + +"Do you like it?" + +"It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any more. I think +it's very pleasant over here, now that everybody's gone," added +Colville, from a confused resentfulness of collectively remembered Days +and Afternoons and Evenings. "How still the night is!" + +A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the hush. + +"Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get home," sighed +Mrs. Bowen. + +"Well, so do I." + +"I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so long." +People often say such things in Europe. + +"No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there." + +"You can always make something to do there." + +"Oh yes." Some young young men, breaking from a street near by, began to +sing. "We shouldn't have that sort of thing at home." + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen pensively. + +"I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night after that +party at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with fury." + +"Why should it do that?" + +"I don't know. It seemed like voices from our youth--Lina." + +She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with which she +asked: "Did you hate that so much?" + +"No; the loss of it." + +They both fetched a deep breath. + +"The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca," said Mrs. Bowen. +"They have asked me to go." + +"Do you think of going?" inquired Colville. "I've always fancied it must +be pleasant there." + +"No; I declined. Sometimes I think I will just stay on in Florence." + +"I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing like +having the range of one's own house in summer." He looked out of the +window on the blue-black sky. + + "'And deepening through their silent spheres, + Heaven over heaven rose the night,'" + + +he quoted. "It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to read _Mariana +in the South_ to you and poor Jenny? How it must have bored her! What an +ass I was!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his reminiscence +rather than in agreement with his self-denunciation. + +Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but not +quite willingly as it seemed. + +Effie started from her sleep. "What--what is it?" she asked, stretching +and shivering as half-wakened children do. + +"Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her away. +"Say good-night to Mr. Colville." + +The child turned and kissed him. "Good night," she murmured. + +"Good night, you sleepy little soul!" It seemed to Colville that he must +be a pretty good man, after all, if this little thing loved him so. + +"Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?" asked her mother when she +began to undo her hair for her in her room. + +"Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?" + +"Oh yes; nice enough." + +Colville sat by the window a long time thinking Mrs. Bowen might come +back; but she did not return. + +Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel. + +"Are you pretty comfortable here?" he asked. + +"Well, it's a change," said Colville. "I miss the little one awfully." + +"She's a winning child," admitted the old man. "That combination of +conventionality and _naivete_ is very captivating. I notice it in the +mother." + +"Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?" + +"Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came." + +"I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go again +to-night." + +The old man said nothing to this. "The fact is," Colville went on, "I'm +so habituated to being there that I'm rather spoiled." + +"Ah, it's a nice place," Mr. Waters admitted. + +"Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I have the +reward of a good conscience. But I don't find that the reward is very +great." + +The old gentleman smiled. "The difficulty is to know conscience from +self-interest." + +"Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case," said Colville. "If I'd +consulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be at Palazzo +Pinti." + +"I dare say they would have been glad to keep you." + +"Do you really think so?" asked Colville, with sudden seriousness. "I +wish you would tell me why. Have you any reason--grounds? Pshaw! I'm +absurd!" He sank back into the easy-chair from whose depths he had +pulled himself in the eagerness of his demand, and wiped his forehead +with his handkerchief. "Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of my +engagement to Miss Graham?" + +"Yes." + +"That is broken off--if it were ever really on. It was a great mistake +for both of us--a tragical one for her, poor child, a ridiculous one for +me. My only consolation is that it was a mistake and no more; but I +don't conceal from myself that I might have prevented it altogether if I +had behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the outset. But I'm +afraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that ought to have pained +and alarmed me, and the rest followed inevitably, though I was always +just on the point of escaping the consequences of my weakness--my +wickedness." + +"Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that," said the old +minister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be figured under the old +idea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the point of +escaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he did not +pay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of the +inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which even +repentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an atonement for +Faust's trespass against one human soul in his benefactions to the race +at large; but it is a very cloudy business." + +"It isn't quite a parallel case," said Colville, rather sulkily. He had, +in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's generalisation than he could +from a more personal philosophy of the affair. + +"Oh no; I didn't think that," consented the old man. + +"And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of drainage or +subsoiling in atonement for my little dream," Colville continued, +resenting the parity of outline that grew upon him in spite of his +protest. They were both silent for a while, and then Colville cried out, +"Yes, yes; they are alike. _I_ dreamed, too, of recovering and restoring +my own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul, and it was in +essence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's nothing in my defence +that it was all formless and undirected at first, and that as soon as I +recognised it I abhorred it." + +"Oh yes, it is," replied the old man, with perfect equanimity. "Your +assertion is the hysterical excess of Puritanism in all times and +places. In the moral world we are responsible only for the wrong that we +intend. It can't he otherwise." + +"And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't intend?" + +"Ah, perhaps that isn't evil." + +"It's pain!" + +"It's pain, yes." + +"And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the anguish of +self-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, with the shame of an +error such as I allowed, perhaps encouraged her to make--" + +"Yes," said the old man. "The young suffer terribly. But they recover. +Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't recover. I wouldn't +defend you against yourself if I thought you seriously in the wrong. If +you know yourself to be, you shouldn't let me." + +Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time thoughtful. "How can +I tell?" he asked. "You know the facts; you can judge." + +"If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a greater +wrong than any you have committed." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the young +clergyman--what was his name?" + +"Morton. Do you think--do you suppose there was anything in that?" +demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer than +Mr. Waters might have found ludicrous. "He was an admirable young +fellow, with an excellent head and a noble heart. I underrated him at +one time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I was +afraid she did not appreciate him." + +"I'm not so sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness of +manner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definite +knowledge. + +"I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently. + +"But you are really very much more concerned in something else." + +"In what else?" + +"Can't you imagine?" + +"No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the face. + +"Then I have no more to say." + +"Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it anything +about--you hinted at something long ago--Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?" + +"Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me! +Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far as +his stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I--I love her!" The +words gave him courage. "In every breath and pulse! She is the most +beautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I have +loved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Good +heavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, falling from the +rapture of this confession, "she simply loathes _me_!" + +"It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the same +time to marry some one else." + +"Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes--I don't care +what you think of my weakness--I was not a free agent. It's very well to +condemn one's-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to others +is not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was to +keep my word--to prevent that poor child, if possible, from ever finding +out her mistake." + +If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener he +was disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged to +ask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, "I suppose you scarcely +blame me for that?" + +"Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are times when +it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without +control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz +and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in +a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less +skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact, +go sounding on without any special application of breath or fingers, +repeating the tunes that were played originally upon other men. It +appears to me that you suffered yourself to do something of the kind in +this affair. We are a long time learning to act with common-sense or +even common sanity in what are called matters of the affections. A +broken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am inclined to +think that it is the very best thing that could happen in most cases +where it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken engagement is +merely sanative, and so far beneficent." + +The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of his +own cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he followed +him down to the outer gate of the hotel. The afternoon sun was pouring +into the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plunged +with the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, a +sack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same material, and +Colville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid waves not only +by the stored cold of half a century of winters at Haddam East Village, +but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself in +an appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone that +Colville found himself steeped in perspiration, and glowing with a +strange excitement. + + + + + + +XXIII + + +Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in the +contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which had +been sent home from the tailor's just before Mr. Waters came in. The +coat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending to +lavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from Palazzo +Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk gauze +neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the time thought +very well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on his bed, it +seemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for his wear. He +ought to put on something as nearly analogous to sackcloth as a modern +stock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the grave +materials of his winter costume. But they were really insupportable in +this sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during his +sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs. +Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps +providential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, when +he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had been +loafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to her +to appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious she +always was herself! + +As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which the +becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightly +tied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back to +admit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerful +before his glass. Should he shave? As once before, this important +question occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages of +figure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect would +cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part of +his face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of a +double chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, at +least till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for his +visit to brook the necessary delay. + +He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in to +meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling. + +"You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said Colville, +tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his summer splendour. "Where +is your mamma?" + +"She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold of his +hand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us." + +"By all means--not that I haven't had coffee already, though." + +She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they went. + +Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. "How are +you feeling to-day?" she asked, politely ignoring his finery. + +"Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain of +the situation, "Of the best tailor's make in Florence." + +"You look very well," she smiled. + +"Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The trouble is that +I don't always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon a +lady." + +"Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried. + +"Oh, is it for me too?" + +This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy could +have brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but rather +heightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom, +that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear, and +a thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well with +all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived home +the bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly unobjectionable young man, +Mr. Morton. + +"Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked Mrs. +Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon. + +"Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. They +forgot to offer us any ice at the _table d'hote_ this evening." + +"This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a compromise +with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's this afternoon." + +"I _thought_ you would come," whispered the child to Colville. + +Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don't give +yourself away, Effie." + +"Why, let us go to Giacosa's too," said Colville, taking the ice. "We +shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel ourselves +foreign. It's astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed the +tourists. I didn't see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I walked +down Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza della +Signoria and the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and home-like +it was--all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves, and the +objects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a good rest +after their winter's work." + +Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to enjoy this; +her mother did not laugh. + +"Walked?" she asked. + +"Certainly. Why not?" + +"You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too." + +"I've _got_ well. But as to being gone, there's no hurry. I rather think +I shall wait now to see how long you stay." + +"We may keep you all summer," said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her eyelids +indifferently. + +"Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going to stay, and +he is such a very cool old gentleman that I don't think one need fear +the wildest antics of the mercury where he is." + +When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to the +salotto; and they all sat down by the window there and watched the +sunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of Michelangelo's David, in +the Piazzale below the church, blackened in perfect relief against the +pink sky and then faded against the grey while they talked. They were so +domestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was an image +of what might be rather than what really was; the very ease with which +he could apparently close his hand upon the happiness within his grasp +unnerved him. The talk strayed hither and thither, and went and came +aimlessly. A sound of singing floated in from the kitchen, and Effie +eagerly asked her mother if she might go and see Maddalena. Maddalena's +mother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains. + +"Yes, go," said Mrs. Bowen; "but don't stay too long." + +"Oh, I will be back in time," said the child, and Colville remembered +that he had proposed going to Giacosa's. + +"Yes; don't forget." He had forgotten it himself. + +"Maddalena is the cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings ballads to +Effie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants to +hear them at first hand." + +"Oh yes," said Colville dreamily. + +They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted with a +meaning deeper than speech. + +"Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?" asked Mrs. Bowen, after one of these +lapses. + +"Yes; he came this afternoon." + +"He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be lonely here." + +"He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history of the +place. And his satisfaction at having got out of Haddam East Village is +perennial." + +"But he will want to go back there before he dies." + +"I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you say. He has +the art of putting all sorts of ideas into people's heads. Do you know +what we talked about this afternoon?" + +"No, I don't," murmured Mrs. Bowen. + +"About you. And he encouraged me to believe--imagine--that I might speak +to you--ask--tell you that--I loved you, Lina." He leaned forward and +took one of the hands that lay in her lap. It trembled with a violence +inconceivable in relation to the perfect quiet of her attitude. But she +did not try to take it away. "Could you--do you love me?" + +"Yes," she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from his hold +altogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture he released her hand +to take her in his arms. + +He followed her a pace or two. "And you will--will be my wife?" he +pursued eagerly. + +"Never!" she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while a cold +bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of jest, +though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not treat it +otherwise than seriously. + +"Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you this +winter, and Heaven knows how long before!" + +"Yes; I know that." + +"And every moment." + +"Oh, I know that too." + +"Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved you so +much that I must tell you before we parted--" + +"I expected that--I intended it." + +"You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you won't--Ah, I don't +understand!" + +"How could _you_ understand? I love you--I blush and burn for shame to +think that I love you. But I will never marry you; I can at least help +doing that, and I can still keep some little trace of self-respect. How +you must really despise me, to think of anything else, after all that +has happened! Did you suppose that I was merely waiting till that poor +girl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can you be yourself, and +still be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was right. You are too much of +a mixture, Theodore Colville"--her calling him so showed how often she +had thought of him so--"too much for her, too much for Imogene, too much +for me; too much for any woman except some wretched creature who enjoys +being trampled on and dragged through the dust, as you have dragged me." + +"_I_ dragged _you_ through the dust? There hasn't been a moment in the +past six months when I wouldn't have rolled myself in it to please you." + +"Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was flattering to +me?" + +"That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, and that I +couldn't help wishing to show it even when I wouldn't acknowledge it to +myself. That is all. And now when I am free to speak, and you own that +you love me, you won't--I give it up!" he cried desperately. But in the +next breath he implored, "_Why_ do you drive me from you, Lina?" + +"Because you have humiliated me too much." She was perfectly steady, but +he knew her so well that in the twilight he knew what bitterness there +must be in the smile which she must be keeping on her lips. "I was here +in the place of her mother, her best friend, and you made me treat her +like an enemy. You made me betray her and cast her off." + +"I?" + +"Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really care for +her, that you were playing with yourself, as you were playing with her, +and I ought to have warned her." + +"It appears to me you did warn her," said Colville, with some resentful +return of courage. + +"I tried," she said simply, "and it made it worse. It made it worse +because I knew that I was acting for my own sake more than hers, because +I wasn't--disinterested." There was something in this explanation, +serious, tragic, as it was to Mrs. Bowen, which made Colville laugh. She +might have had some perception of its effect to him, or it may have been +merely from a hysterical helplessness, but she laughed too a little. + +"But why," he gathered courage to ask, "do you still dwell upon that? +Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton--that there was--" + +"He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He told me." + +"Oh!" + +"Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here between life +and death? No: you can have no hope from that." + +Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed him. He had +not strength enough to feel resentment against Mr. Waters for misleading +him with this _ignis fatuus_. + +"No one warned him, and it came to that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was of a +piece with the whole affair. I was weak in that too." + +Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted to +the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in resuming +it. + +"I couldn't imagine," he said, "that you cared anything for me when you +warned another against me. If I could--" + +"You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought to have +sympathised with her and helped her instead of making the poor child +feel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even put her on guard against +herself, though I knew all along that she didn't really care for you, +but was just in love with her own fancy for you, Even after you were +engaged I ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank with +her; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I was acting +for myself too, and I would not submit to that degradation. No! I would +rather have died. I dare say you don't understand. How could you? You +are a man, and the kind of man who couldn't. At every point you made me +violate every principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for caring +for a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to another. Don't +think it was gratifying to me. It was detestable; and yet I did let you +see that I cared for you. Yes, I even _tried_ to make you care for +me--falsely, cruelly, treacherously." + +"You didn't have to try very hard," said Colville, with a sort of cold +resignation to his fate. + +"Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told her for her +own sake that she didn't love you, but that would have been for my sake +too; and I would have told you if I hadn't cared for you and known how +you cared for me. I've saved at least the consciousness of this from the +wreck." + +"I don't think it's a great treasure," said Colville. "I wish that you +had saved the consciousness of having been frank even to your own +advantage." + +"Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps I've +deserved this too." + +"No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's unkindness, from me. +I won't afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me before I +go?" + +She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He had a dim +impression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he did not +venture to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his eyes upon as +much of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in a +vague outline of dark. + +"I want to assure you, Lina--Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall call +you for the first and last time!--that I _do_ understand everything, as +delicately and fully as you could wish, all that you have expressed, and +all that you have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure your +ideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have struggled +to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy and stupid +selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my dearest love--you +must forgive me!--that if I didn't see everything at the time, I do see +it now, and that I prize the love you kept from me far more than any +love you could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It isn't +logic--it sounds more like nonsense, I am afraid--but you know what I +mean by it. You are more perfect, more lovely to me, than any being in +the world, and I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not win +you against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you say we +must part, I know that you speak from a finer discernment than mine, and +I submit. I will try to console myself with the thought of your love, if +I may not have you. Yes, I submit." + +His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest art. +His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity, and +she rose also. "Remember," he said, "that I confess all you accuse me +of, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do--because you do +it." He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at her +side. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. "May I +kiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on the +lips. + +"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go--" + +"I am going." + +Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen. + +"Aren't you going to take--" She stopped and turned to her mother. She +must not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what her +gesture expressed. + +Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage, and +play upon the mother's heart through the feelings of her child, though +there is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation by any +means. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and the +resistance. "Tell her," she said, and turned away. + +"I can't go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping toward her for +the inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I am--going away, and I must say +good-bye." + +The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she repeated. + +"Yes--away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you again." + +The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless. +Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her, she +plunged her face against her mother's breast. "I can't _bear_ it!" she +sobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a storm +of cries and prayers. + +Colville wavered. + +"Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of a +woman who falls below her ideal of herself. + + + + + + +XXIV + + +In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit themselves +with the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage when +Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, but +of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of his +tested self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the appearance of +Effie was not a _coup de theatre_ contrived beforehand, it was an +accident of no consequence whatever; that if she had not come in at that +moment, her mother would have found some other pretext for detaining +him. This is a point which I would not presume to decide. I only know +that they were married early in June before the syndic of Florence, who +tied a tricolour sash round his ample waist for the purpose, and never +looked more paternal or venerable than when giving the sanction of the +Italian state to their union. It is not, of course, to be supposed that +Mrs. Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville may +have thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony took place in +the English chapel, the assistant clergyman officiating in the absence +of the incumbent, who had already gone out of town. + +The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home to Palazzo +Pinti with the party, the single and singularly honoured guest at their +wedding feast, for which Effie Bowen went with Colville to Giacosa's to +order the ices in person. She has never regretted her choice of a step +father, though when Colville asked her how she would like him in that +relation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she reconciled herself +to it; as to him she had no misgivings. He has sometimes found himself +the object of little jealousies on her part, but by promptly deciding +all questions between her and her mother in Effie's favour he has +convinced her of the groundlessness of her suspicions. + +In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the Colvilles +spent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their fellow-sojourners +returned from the _villeggiatura_ in the fall, however, they had turned +their faces southward, and they are now in Rome, where, arriving as a +married couple, there was no inquiry and no interest in their past. + +It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene has been +the grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or very much to blame; +even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a thing that happened, but one +would rather it had not happened. + +Last winter, however, Mrs. Colville received a letter from Mrs. Graham +which suggested, if it did not impart, consolation. "Mr. Morton was here +the other day, and spent the morning. He has a parish at Erie, and there +is talk of his coming to Buffalo." + +"Oh, Heaven grant it!" said Colville, with sudden piety. + +"Why?" demanded his wife. + +"Well, I wish she was married." + +"You have nothing whatever to do with her." + +It took him some time to realise that this was the fact. + +"No," he confessed; "but what do you think about it?" + +"There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will keep on long +enough--But if it isn't Mr. Morton, it will be some one else--some +_young_ person." + +Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. "I hope so," he +said. "_I_ have married a young person, and it would only be fair." + +This magnanimity was irresistible. + + +THE END. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + +This file should be named 7insm10.txt or 7insm10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7insm11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7insm10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Howells + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7359] +[This file was first posted on April 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + + + + +David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreaders Team + + + +INDIAN SUMMER + +BY + +WILLIAM D. HOWELLS + +AUTHOR OF "THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM," "A MODERN INSTANCE," +"WOMAN'S REASON," ETC. + + + + + + + +INDIAN SUMMER + + * * * * * + +I + + +Midway of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, where three arches break the +lines of the little jewellers' booths glittering on either hand, and +open an approach to the parapet, Colville lounged against the corner of +a shop and stared out upon the river. It was the late afternoon of a day +in January, which had begun bright and warm, but had suffered a change +of mood as its hours passed, and now, from a sky dimmed with flying grey +clouds, was threatening rain. There must already have been rain in the +mountains, for the yellow torrent that seethed and swirled around the +piers of the bridge was swelling momently on the wall of the Lung' Arno, +and rolling a threatening flood toward the Cascine, where it lost itself +under the ranks of the poplars that seemed to file across its course, +and let their delicate tops melt into the pallor of the low horizon. + +The city, with the sweep of the Lung' Arno on either hand, and its domes +and towers hung in the dull air, and the country with its white villas +and black cypresses breaking the grey stretches of the olive orchards on +its hill-sides, had alike been growing more and more insufferable; and +Colville was finding a sort of vindictive satisfaction in the power to +ignore the surrounding frippery of landscape and architecture. He +isolated himself so perfectly from it, as he brooded upon the river, +that, for any sensible difference, he might have been standing on the +Main Street Bridge at Des Vaches, Indiana, looking down at the tawny +sweep of the Wabash. He had no love for that stream, nor for the +ambitious town on its banks, but ever since he woke that morning he had +felt a growing conviction that he had been a great ass to leave them. He +had, in fact, taken the prodigious risk of breaking his life sharp off +from the course in which it had been set for many years, and of +attempting to renew it in a direction from which it had long been +diverted. Such an act could be precipitated only by a strong impulse of +conscience or a profound disgust, and with Colville it sprang from +disgust. He had experienced a bitter disappointment in the city to whose +prosperity he had given the energies of his best years, and in whose +favour he imagined that he had triumphantly established himself. + +He had certainly made the Des Vaches _Democrat-Republican_ a very good +paper; its ability was recognised throughout the State, and in Des +Vaches people of all parties were proud of it. They liked every morning +to see what Colville said; they believed that in his way he was the +smartest man in the State, and they were fond of claiming that there was +no such writer on any of the Indianapolis papers. They forgave some +political heresies to the talent they admired; they permitted him the +whim of free trade, they laughed tolerantly when he came out in favour +of civil service reform, and no one had much fault to find when the +_Democrat-Republican_ bolted the nomination of a certain politician of +its party for Congress. But when Colville permitted his own name to be +used by the opposing party, the people arose in their might and defeated +him by a tremendous majority. That was what the regular nominee said. It +was a withering rebuke to treason, in the opinion of this gentleman; it +was a good joke, anyway, with the Democratic managers who had taken +Colville up, being all in the Republican family; whichever it was, it +was a mortification for Colville which his pride could not brook. He +stood disgraced before the community not only as a theorist and +unpractical doctrinaire, but as a dangerous man; and what was worse, he +could not wholly acquit himself of a measure of bad faith; his +conscience troubled him even more than his pride. Money was found, and a +printer bought up with it to start a paper in opposition to the +_Democrat-Republican_. Then Colville contemptuously offered to sell out +to the Republican committee in charge of the new enterprise, and they +accepted his terms. + +In private life he found much of the old kindness returning to him; and +his successful opponent took the first opportunity of heaping coals of +fire on his head in the public street, when he appeared to the outer eye +to be shaking hands with Colville. During the months that he remained to +close up his affairs after the sale of his paper, the _Post-Democrat- +Republican_ (the newspaper had agglutinated the titles of two of its +predecessors, after the fashion of American journals) was fulsome in +its complimentary allusions to him. It politely invented the fiction +that he was going to Europe for his health, impaired by his journalistic +labours, and adventurously promised its readers that they might hope +to hear from him from time to time in its columns. In some of its +allusions to him Colville detected the point of a fine irony, of which +he had himself introduced the practice in the _Democrat-Republican_; +and he experienced, with a sense of personal impoverishment, the +curious fact that a journalist of strong characteristics leaves +the tradition of himself in such degree with the journal he has +created that he seems to bring very little away. He was obliged +to confess in his own heart that the paper was as good as ever. +The assistants, who had trained themselves to write like him, seemed to +be writing quite as well, and his honesty would not permit him to +receive the consolation offered him by the friends who told him that +there was a great falling off in the _Post-Democrat-Republican_. Except +that it was rather more Stalwart in its Republicanism, and had turned +quite round on the question of the tariff, it was very much what it had +always been. It kept the old decency of tone which he had given it, and +it maintained the literary character which he was proud of. The new +management must have divined that its popularity, with the women at +least, was largely due to its careful selections of verse and fiction, +its literary news, and its full and piquant criticisms, with their long +extracts from new books. It was some time since he had personally looked +after this department, and the young fellow in charge of it under him +had remained with the paper. Its continued excellence, which he could +not have denied if he had wished, seemed to leave him drained and +feeble, and it was partly from the sense of this that he declined the +overtures, well backed up with money, to establish an independent paper +in Des Vaches. He felt that there was not fight enough in him for the +work, even if he had not taken that strong disgust for public life which +included the place and its people. He wanted to get away, to get far +away, and with the abrupt and total change in his humour he reverted to +a period in his life when journalism and politics and the ambition of +Congress were things undreamed of. + +At that period he was a very young architect, with an inclination toward +the literary side of his profession, which made it seem profitable to +linger, with his Ruskin in his hand, among the masterpieces of Italian +Gothic, when perhaps he might have been better employed in designing +red-roofed many-verandaed, consciously mullioned seaside cottages on the +New England coast. He wrote a magazine paper on the zoology of the +Lombardic pillars in Verona, very Ruskinian, very scornful of modern +motive. He visited every part of the peninsula, but he gave the greater +part of his time to North Italy, and in Venice he met the young girl +whom he followed to Florence. His love did not prosper; when she went +away she left him in possession of that treasure to a man of his +temperament, a broken heart. From that time his vague dreams began to +lift, and to let him live in the clear light of common day; but he was +still lingering at Florence, ignorant of the good which had befallen +him, and cowering within himself under the sting of wounded vanity, when +he received a letter from his elder brother suggesting that he should +come and see how he liked the architecture of Des Vaches. His brother +had been seven years at Des Vaches, where he had lands, and a lead-mine, +and a scheme for a railroad, and had lately added a daily newspaper to +his other enterprises. He had, in fact, added two newspapers; for having +unexpectedly and almost involuntarily become the owner of the Des Vaches +_Republican_, the fancy of building up a great local journal seized him, +and he bought the _Wabash Valley Democrat_, uniting them under the name +of the _Democrat-Republican_. But he had trouble almost from the first +with his editors, and he naturally thought of the brother with a turn +for writing who had been running to waste for the last year or two in +Europe. His real purpose was to work Colville into the management of his +paper when he invited him to come out and look at the architecture of +Des Vaches. + +Colville went, because he was at that moment in the humour to go +anywhere, and because his money was running low, and he must begin work +somehow. He was still romantic enough to like the notion of the place a +little, because it bore the name given to it by the old French +_voyageurs_ from a herd of buffalo cows which they had seen grazing on +the site of their camp there; but when he came to the place itself he +did not like it. He hated it; but he stayed, and as an architect was the +last thing any one wanted in Des Vaches since the jail and court-house +had been built, he became, half without his willing it, a newspaper man. +He learned in time to relish the humorous intimacy of the life about +him; and when it was decided that he was no fool--there were doubts, +growing out of his Eastern accent and the work of his New York tailor, +at first--he found himself the object of a pleasing popularity. In due +time he bought his brother out; he became very fond of newspaper life, +its constant excitements and its endless variety; and six weeks before +he sold his paper he would have scoffed at a prophecy of his return to +Europe for the resumption of any artistic purpose whatever. But here he +was, lounging on the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, whither he had come with +the intention of rubbing up his former studies, and of perhaps getting +back to put them in practice at New York ultimately. He had said to +himself before coming abroad that he was in no hurry; that he should +take it very easily--he had money enough for that; yet he would keep +architecture before him as an object, for he had lived long in a +community where every one was intensely occupied, and he unconsciously +paid to Des Vaches the tribute of feeling that an objectless life was +disgraceful to a man. + +In the meantime he suffered keenly and at every moment the loss of the +occupation of which he had bereaved himself; in thinking of quite other +things, in talk of totally different matters, from the dreams of night, +he woke with a start to the realisation of the fact that he had no +longer a newspaper. He perceived now, as never before, that for fifteen +years almost every breath of his life had been drawn with reference to +his paper, and that without it he was in some sort lost, and, as it +were, extinct. A tide of ridiculous home-sickness, which was an +expression of this passionate regret for the life he had put behind him, +rather than any longing for Des Vaches, swept over him, and the first +passages of a letter to the _Post-Democrat-Republican_ began to shape +themselves in his mind. He had always, when he left home for New York or +Washington, or for his few weeks of summer vacation on the Canadian +rivers or the New England coast, written back to his readers, in whom he +knew he could count upon quick sympathy in all he saw and felt, and he +now found himself addressing them with that frank familiarity which +comes to the journalist, in minor communities, from the habit of print. +He began by confessing to them the defeat of certain expectations with +which he had returned to Florence, and told them that they must not look +for anything like the ordinary letters of travel from him. But he was +not so singular in his attitude toward the place as he supposed; for any +tourist who comes to Florence with the old-fashioned expectation of +impressions will probably suffer a disappointment, unless he arrives +very young and for the first time. It is a city superficially so well +known that it affects one somewhat like a collection of views of itself; +they are from the most striking points, of course, but one has examined +them before, and is disposed to be critical of them. Certain emotions, +certain sensations failed to repeat themselves to Colville at sight of +the familiar monuments, which seemed to wear a hardy and indifferent +air, as if being stared at so many years by so many thousands of +travellers had extinguished in them that sensibility which one likes to +fancy in objects of interest everywhere. + +The life which was as vivid all about him as if caught by the latest +instantaneous process made the same comparatively ineffective appeal. +The operatic spectacle was still there. The people, with their cloaks +statuesquely draped over their left shoulders, moved down the street, or +posed in vehement dialogue on the sidewalks; the drama of bargaining, +with the customer's scorn, the shopman's pathos, came through the open +shop door; the handsome, heavy-eyed ladies, the bare-headed girls, +thronged the ways; the caffès were full of the well-remembered figures +over their newspapers and little cups; the officers were as splendid as +of old, with their long cigars in their mouths, their swords kicking +against their beautiful legs, and their spurs jingling; the dandies, +with their little dogs and their flower-like smiles, were still in front +of the confectioners' for the inspection of the ladies who passed; the +old beggar still crouched over her scaldino at the church door, and the +young man with one leg, whom he thought to escape by walking fast, had +timed him to a second from the other side of the street. There was the +wonted warmth in the sunny squares, and the old familiar damp and stench +in the deep narrow streets. But some charm had gone out of all this. The +artisans coming to the doors of their shallow booths for the light on +some bit of carpentering, or cobbling, or tinkering; the crowds swarming +through the middle of the streets on perfect terms with the wine-carts +and cab horses; the ineffective grandiosity of the palaces huddled upon +the crooked thoroughfares; the slight but insinuating cold of the +southern winter, gathering in the shade and dispersing in the sun, and +denied everywhere by the profusion of fruit and flowers, and by the +greenery of gardens showing through the grated portals and over the tops +of high walls; the groups of idle poor, permanently or temporarily +propped against the bases of edifices with a southern exposure; the +priests and monks and nuns in their gliding passage; the impassioned +snapping of the cabmen's whips; the clangour of bells that at some hours +inundated the city, and then suddenly subsided and left it to the +banging of coppersmiths; the open-air frying of cakes, with its +primitive smell of burning fat; the tramp of soldiery, and the fanfare +of bugles blown to gay measures--these and a hundred other +characteristic traits and facts still found a response in the +consciousness where they were once a rapture of novelty; but the +response was faint and thin; he could not warm over the old mood in +which he once treasured them all away as of equal preciousness. + +Of course there was a pleasure in recognising some details of former +experience in Florence as they recurred. Colville had been met at once +by a _festa_, when nothing could be done, and he was more than consoled +by the caressing sympathy with which he was assured that his broken +trunk could not be mended till the day after to-morrow; he had quite +forgotten about the festas and the sympathy. That night the piazza on +which he lodged seemed full of snow to the casual glance he gave it; +then he saw that it was the white Italian moonlight, which he had also +forgotten.... + + + + + + +II + + +Colville had readied this point in that sarcastic study of his own +condition of mind for the advantage of his late readers in the +_Post-Democrat-Republican_, when he was aware of a polite rustling of +draperies, with an ensuing well-bred murmur, which at once ignored him, +deprecated intrusion upon him, and asserted a common right to the +prospect on which he had been dwelling alone. He looked round with an +instinctive expectation of style and poise, in which he was not +disappointed. The lady, with a graceful lift of the head and a very +erect carriage, almost Bernhardtesque in the backward fling of her +shoulders and the strict compression of her elbows to her side, was +pointing out the different bridges to the little girl who was with her. + +"That first one is the Santa Trinità, and the next is the Carraja, and +that one quite down by the Cascine is the iron bridge. The Cascine you +remember--the park where we were driving--that clump of woods there----" + +A vagueness expressive of divided interest had crept into the lady's +tone rather than her words. Colville could feel that she was waiting for +the right moment to turn her delicate head, sculpturesquely defined by +its toque, and steal an imperceptible glance at him: and he +involuntarily afforded her the coveted excuse by the slight noise he +made in changing his position in order to be able to go away as soon as +he had seen whether she was pretty or not. At forty-one the question is +still important to every man with regard to every woman. + +"Mr. Colville!" + +The gentle surprise conveyed in the exclamation, without time for +recognition, convinced Colville, upon a cool review of the facts, that +the lady had known him before their eyes met. + +"Why, Mrs. Bowen!" he said. + +She put out her round, slender arm, and gave him a frank clasp of her +gloved hand. The glove wrinkled richly up the sleeve of her dress +half-way to her elbow. She bent on his face a demand for just what +quality and degree of change he found in hers, and apparently she +satisfied herself that his inspection was not to her disadvantage, for +she smiled brightly, and devoted the rest of her glance to an electric +summary of the facts of Colville's physiognomy; the sufficiently good +outline of his visage, with its full, rather close-cut, drabbish-brown +beard and moustache, both shaped a little by the ironical self-conscious +smile that lurked under them; the non-committal, rather weary-looking +eyes; the brown hair, slightly frosted, that showed while he stood with +his hat still off. He was a little above the middle height, and if it +must be confessed, neither his face nor his figure had quite preserved +their youthful lines. They were both much heavier than when Mrs. Bowen +saw them last, and the latter here and there swayed beyond the strict +bounds of symmetry. She was herself in that moment of life when, to the +middle-aged observer, at least, a woman's looks have a charm which is +wanting to her earlier bloom. By that time her character has wrought +itself more clearly out in her face, and her heart and mind confront you +more directly there. It is the youth of her spirit which has come to the +surface. + +"I should have known you anywhere," she exclaimed, with friendly +pleasure in seeing him. + +"You are very kind," said Colville. "I didn't know that I had preserved +my youthful beauty to that degree. But I can imagine it--if you say so, +Mrs. Bowen." + +"Oh, I assure you that you have!" she protested; and now she began +gently to pursue him with one fine question after another about himself, +till she had mastered the main facts of his history since they had last +met. He would not have known so well how to possess himself of hers, +even if he had felt the same necessity; but in fact it had happened that +he had heard of her from time to time at not very long intervals. She +had married a leading lawyer of her Western city, who in due time had +gone to Congress, and after his term was out had "taken up his +residence" in Washington, as the newspapers said, "in his elegant +mansion at the corner of & Street and Idaho Avenue." After that he +remembered reading that Mrs. Bowen was going abroad for the education of +her daughter, from which he made his own inferences concerning her +marriage. And "You knew Mr. Bowen was no longer living?" she said, with +fit obsequy of tone. + +"Yes, I knew," he answered, with decent sympathy. + +"This is my little Effie," said Mrs. Bowen after a moment; and now the +child, hitherto keeping herself discreetly in the background, came +forward and promptly gave her hand to Colville, who perceived that she +was not so small as he had thought her at first; an effect of infancy +had possibly been studied in the brevity of her skirts and the +immaturity of her corsage, but both were in good taste, and really to +the advantage of her young figure. There was reason and justice in her +being dressed as she was, for she really was not so old as she looked by +two or three years; and there was reason in Mrs. Bowen's carrying in the +hollow of her left arm the India shawl sacque she had taken off and hung +there; the deep cherry silk lining gave life to the sombre tints +prevailing in her dress, which its removal left free to express all the +grace of her extremely lady-like person. Lady-like was the word for Mrs. +Bowen throughout--for the turn of her head, the management of her arm +from the elbow, the curve of her hand from wrist to finger-tips, the +smile, subdued, but sufficiently sweet, playing about her little mouth, +which was yet not too little, and the refined and indefinite perfume +which exhaled from the ensemble of her silks, her laces, and her gloves, +like an odorous version of that otherwise impalpable quality which women +call style. She had, with all her flexibility, a certain charming +stiffness, like the stiffness of a very tall feather. + +"And have you been here a great while?" she asked, turning her head +slowly toward Colville, and looking at him with a little difficulty she +had in raising her eyelids; when she was younger the glance that shyly +stole from under the covert of their lashes was like a gleam of +sunshine, and it was still like a gleam of paler sunshine. + +Colville, whose mood was very susceptible to the weather, brightened in +the ray. "I only arrived last night," he said, with a smile. + +"How glad you must be to get back! Did you ever see Florence more +beautiful than it was this morning?" + +"Not for years," said Colville, with another smile for her pretty +enthusiasm. "Not for seventeen years at the least calculation." + +"Is it so many?" cried Mrs. Bowen, with lovely dismay. "Yes, it is," she +sighed, and she did not speak for an appreciable interval. + +He knew that she was thinking of that old love affair of his, to which +she was privy in some degree, though he never could tell how much; and +when she spoke he perceived that she purposely avoided speaking of a +certain person, whom a woman of more tact or of less would have insisted +upon naming at once. "I never can believe in the lapse of time when I +get back to Italy; it always makes me feel as young as when I left it +last." + +"I could imagine you'd never left it," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen reflected a moment. "Is that a compliment?" + +"I had an obscure intention of saying something fine; but I don't think +I've quite made it out," he owned. + +Mrs. Bowen gave her small, sweet smile. "It was very nice of you to try. +But I haven't really been away for some time; I've taken a house in +Florence, and I've been here two years. Palazzo Pinti, Lung' Arno della +Zecca. You must come and see me. Thursdays from four till six." + +"Thank you," said Colville. + +"I'm afraid," said Mrs. Bowen, remotely preparing to offer her hand in +adieu, "that Effie and I broke in upon some very important cogitations +of yours." She shifted the silken burden off her arm a little, and the +child stirred from the correct pose she had been keeping, and smiled +politely. + +"I don't think they deserve a real dictionary word like that," said +Colville. "I was simply mooning. If there was anything definite in my +mind, I was wishing that I was looking down on the Wabash in Dos Vaches, +instead of the Arno in Florence." + +"Oh! And I supposed you must be indulging all sorts of historical +associations with the place. Effie and I have been walking through the +Via de' Bardi, where Romola lived, and I was bringing her back over the +Ponte Vecchio, so as to impress the origin of Florence on her mind." + +"Is that what makes Miss Effie hate it?" asked Colville, looking at the +child, whose youthful resemblance to her mother was in all things so +perfect that a fantastic question whether she could ever have had any +other parent swept through him. Certainly, if Mrs. Bowen were to marry +again, there was nothing in this child's looks to suggest the idea of a +predecessor to the second husband. + +"Effie doesn't hate any sort of useful knowledge," said her mother half +jestingly. "She's just come to me from school at Vevay." + +"Oh, then, I think she might," persisted Colville. "Don't you hate the +origin of Florence a little?" he asked of the child. + +"I don't know enough about it," she answered, with a quick look of +question at her mother, and checking herself in a possibly indiscreet +smile. + +"Ah, that accounts for it," said Colville, and he laughed. It amused him +to see the child referring even this point of propriety to her mother, +and his thoughts idled off to what Mrs. Bowen's own untrammelled +girlhood must have been in her Western city. For her daughter there were +to be no buggy rides, or concerts, or dances at the invitation of young +men; no picnics, free and unchaperoned as the casing air; no sitting on +the steps at dusk with callers who never dreamed of asking for her +mother; no lingering at the gate with her youthful escort home from the +ball--nothing of that wild, sweet liberty which once made American +girlhood a long rapture. But would she be any the better for her +privations, for referring not only every point of conduct, but every +thought and feeling, to her mother? He suppressed a sigh for the +inevitable change, but rejoiced that his own youth had fallen in the +earlier time, and said, "You will hate it as soon as you've read a +little of it." + +"The difficulty is to read a little of Florentine history. I can't find +anything in less than ten or twelve volumes," said Mrs. Bowen. "Effie +and I were going to Viesseux's Library again, in desperation, to see if +there wasn't something shorter in French." + +She now offered Colville her hand, and he found himself very reluctant +to let it go. Something in her looks did not forbid him, and when she +took her hand away, he said, "Let me go to Viesseux's with you, Mrs. +Bowen, and give you the advantage of my unprejudiced ignorance in the +choice of a book on Florence." + +"Oh, I was longing to ask you!" said Mrs. Bowen frankly. "It is really +such a serious matter, especially when the book is for a young person. +Unless it's very dry, it's so apt to be--objectionable," + +"Yes," said Colville, with a smile at her perplexity. He moved off down +the slope of the bridge with her, between the jewellers' shops, and felt +a singular satisfaction in her company. Women of fashion always +interested him; he liked them; it diverted him that they should take +themselves seriously. Their resolution, their suffering for their ideal, +such as it was, their energy in dressing and adorning themselves, the +pains they were at to achieve the trivialities they passed their lives +in, were perpetually delightful to him. He often found them people of +great simplicity, and sometimes of singularly good sense; their frequent +vein of piety was delicious. + +Ten minutes earlier he would have said that nothing could have been less +welcome to him than this encounter, but now he felt unwilling to leave +Mrs. Bowen. + +"Go before, Effie," she said; and she added, to Colville, "How very +Florentine all this is! If you dropped from the clouds on this spot +without previous warning, you would know that you were on the Ponte +Vecchio, and nowhere else." + +"Yes, it's very Florentine," Colville assented. "The bridge is very well +as a bridge, but as a street I prefer the Main Street Bridge at Des +Vaches. I was looking at the jewellery before you came up, and I don't +think it's pretty, even the old pieces of peasant jewellery. Why do +people come here to look at it? If you were going to buy something for a +friend, would you dream of coming here for it?" + +"Oh _no_!" replied Mrs. Bowen, with the deepest feeling. + +They quitted the bridge, and turning to the left, moved down the street +which with difficulty finds space between the parapet of the river and +the shops of the mosaicists and dealers in statuary cramping it on the +other hand. + +"Here's something distinctively Florentine too," said Colville. "These +table-tops, and paper-weights, and caskets, and photograph frames, and +lockets, and breast-pins; and here, this ghostly glare of undersized +Psyches and Hebes and Graces in alabaster." + +"Oh, you mustn't think of any of them!" Mrs. Bowen broke in with horror. +"If your friend wishes you to get her something characteristically +Florentine, and at the same time very tasteful, you must go--" + +Colville gave a melancholy laugh. "My friend is an abstraction, Mrs. +Bowen, without sex or any sort of entity." + +"Oh!" said Mrs. Bowen. Some fine drops had begun to sprinkle the +pavement. "What a ridiculous blunder! It's raining! Effie, I'm afraid we +must give up your book for to-day. We're not dressed for damp weather, +and we'd better hurry home as soon as possible." She got promptly into +the shelter of a doorway, and gathered her daughter to her, while she +flung her sacque over her shoulder and caught her draperies from the +ground for the next movement. "Mr. Colville, will you please stop the +first closed carriage that comes in sight?" + +A figure of _primo tenore_ had witnessed the manoeuvre from the box of +his cab; he held up his whip, and at a nod from Colville he drove +abreast of the doorway, his broken-kneed, tremulous little horse gay in +brass-mounted harness, and with a stiff turkey feather stuck upright at +one ear in his head-stall. + +Mrs. Bowen had no more scruple than another woman in stopping travel and +traffic in a public street for her convenience. She now entered into a +brisk parting conversation with Colville, such as ladies love, blocking +the narrow sidewalk with herself, her daughter, and her open carriage +door, and making people walk round her cab, in the road, which they did +meekly enough, with the Florentine submissiveness to the pretensions of +any sort of vehicle. She said a dozen important things that seemed to +have just come into her head, and, "Why, how stupid I am!" she called +out, making Colville check the driver in his first start, after she had +got into the cab. "We are to have a few people tonight. If you have no +engagement, I should be so glad to have you come. Can't you?" + +"Yes, I can," said Colville, admiring the whole transaction and the +parties to it with a passive smile. + +After finding her pocket, she found that her card-case was not in it, +but in the purse she had given Effie to carry; but she got her address +at last, and gave it to Colville, though he said he should remember it +without. "Any time between nine and eleven," she said. "It's so nice of +you to promise!" + +She questioned him from under her half-lifted eyelids, and he added, +with a laugh, "I'll come!" and was rewarded with two pretty smiles, just +alike, from mother and daughter, as they drove away. + + + + + + +III + + +Twenty years earlier, when Mrs. Bowen was Miss Lina Ridgely, she used to +be the friend and confidante of the girl who jilted Colville. They were +then both so young that they could scarcely have been a year out of +school before they left home for the year they were spending in Europe; +but to the young man's inexperience they seemed the wisest and maturest +of society women. His heart quaked in his breast when he saw them +talking and laughing together, for fear they should be talking and +laughing about him; he was even a little more afraid of Miss Ridgely +than of her friend, who was dashing and effective, where Miss Ridgely +was serene and elegant, according to his feeling at that time; but he +never saw her after his rejection, and it was not till he read of her +marriage with the Hon. Mr. Bowen that certain vague impressions began to +define themselves. He then remembered that Lina Ridgely in many fine +little ways had shown a kindness, almost a compassion, for him, as for +one whose unconsciousness a hopeless doom impended over. He perceived +that she had always seemed to like him--a thing that had not occurred to +him in the stupid absorption of his passion for the other--and fragments +of proof that she had probably defended and advocated him occurred to +him, and inspired a vain and retrospective gratitude; he abandoned +himself to regrets, which were proper enough in regard to Miss Ridgely, +but were certainly a little unlawful concerning Mrs. Bowen. + +As he walked away toward his hotel he amused himself with the conjecture +whether he, with his forty-one years and his hundred and eighty five +pounds, were not still a pathetic and even a romantic figure to this +pretty and kindly woman, who probably imagined him as heart-broken as +ever. He was very willing to see more of her, if she wished; but with +the rain beginning to fall more thick and chill in the darkening street, +he could have postponed their next meeting till a pleasanter evening +without great self-denial. He felt a little twinge of rheumatism in his +shoulder when he got into his room, for your room in a Florentine hotel +is always some degrees colder than outdoors, unless you have fire in it; +and with the sun shining on his windows when he went out after lunch, it +had seemed to Colville ridiculous to have his morning fire kept up. The +sun was what he had taken the room for. It was in it, the landlord +assured him, from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; and so, +in fact, it was, when it shone; but even then it was not fully in it, +but had a trick of looking in at the sides of the window, and painting +the chamber wall with a delusive glow. Colville raked away the ashes of +his fire-place, and throwing on two or three fagots of broom and pine +sprays, he had a blaze that would be very pretty to dress by after +dinner, but that gave out no warmth for the present. He left it, and +went down to the reading-room, as it was labelled over the door, in +homage to a predominance of English-speaking people among the guests; +but there was no fire there; that was kindled only by request, and he +shivered at the bare aspect of the apartment, with its cold piano, its +locked bookcases, and its table, where the London _Times_, the _Neue +Freie Presse_ of Vienna, and the _Italie_ of Rome exposed their titles, +one just beyond the margin of the other. He turned from the door and +went into the dining-room, where the stove was ostentatiously roaring +over its small logs and its lozenges of peat, But even here the fire had +been so recently lighted that the warmth was potential rather than +actual. By stooping down before the stove, and pressing his shoulder +against its brass doors, Colville managed to lull his enemy, while he +studied the figures of the woman-headed, woman-breasted hounds +developing into vines and foliage that covered the frescoed trellising +of the quadrangularly vaulted ceiling. The waiters, in their veteran +dress-coats, were putting the final touches to the table, and the sound +of voices outside the door obliged Colville to get up. The effort +involved made him still more reluctant about going out to Mrs. Bowen's. + +The door opened, and some English ladies entered, faintly acknowledging, +provisionally ignoring, his presence, and talking of what they had been +doing since lunch. They agreed that it was really too cold in the +churches for any pleasure in the pictures, and that the Pitti Gallery, +where they had those braziers, was the only place you could go with +comfort. A French lady and her husband came in; a Russian lady followed; +an Italian gentleman, an American family, and three or four detached men +of the English-speaking race, whose language at once became the law of +the table. + +As the dinner progressed from soup to fish, and from the _entrée_ to the +roast and salad, the combined effect of the pleasant cheer and the +increasing earnestness of the stove made the room warmer and warmer. +They drank Chianti wine from the wicker-covered flasks, tied with tufts +of red and green silk, in which they serve table wine at Florence, and +said how pretty the bottles were, but how the wine did not seem very +good. + +"It certainly isn't so good as it used to be," said Colville. + +"Ah, then you have been in Florhence before." said the French lady, +whose English proved to be much better than the French that he began to +talk to her in. + +"Yes, a great while ago; in a state of pre-existence, in fact," he said. + +The lady looked a little puzzled, but interested. "In a state of +prhe-existence?" she repeated. + +"Yes; when I was young," he added, catching the gleam in her eye. "When +I was twenty-four. A great while ago." + +"You must be an Amerhican," said the lady, with a laugh. + +"Why do you think so? From my accent?" + +"Frhom your metaphysics too. The Amerhicans like to talk in that way." + +"I didn't know it," said Colville. + +"They like to strhike the key of personality; they can't endure not +being interhested. They must rhelate everything to themselves or to +those with whom they are talking." + +"And the French, no?" asked Colville. + +The lady laughed again. "There is a large Amerhican colony in Parhis. +Perhaps we have learned to be like you." + +The lady's husband did not speak English, and it was probably what they +had been saying that she interpreted to him, for he smiled, looking +forward to catch Colville's eye in a friendly way, and as if he would +not have him take his wife's talk too seriously. + +The Italian gentleman on Colville's right was politely offering him the +salad, which had been left for the guests to pass to one another. +Colville thanked him in Italian, and they began to talk of Italian +affairs. One thing led to another, and he found that his new friend, who +was not yet his acquaintance, was a member of Parliament, and a +republican. + +"That interests me as an American," said Colville. "But why do you want +a republic in Italy?" + +"When we have a constitutional king, why should we have a king?" asked +the Italian. + +An Englishman across the table relieved Colville from the difficulty of +answering this question by asking him another that formed talk about it +between them. He made his tacit observation that the English, since he +met them last, seemed to have grown in the grace of facile speech with +strangers; it was the American family which kept its talk within itself, +and hushed to a tone so low that no one else could hear it. Colville did +not like their mumbling; for the honour of the country, which we all +have at heart, however little we think it, he would have preferred that +they should speak up, and not seem afraid or ashamed; he thought the +English manner was better. In fact, he found himself in an unexpectedly +social mood; he joined in helping to break the ice; he laughed and +hazarded comment with those who were new-comers like himself, and was +very respectful of the opinions of people who had been longer in the +hotel, when they spoke of the cook's habit of underdoing the vegetables. +The dinner at the Hotel d'Atene made an imposing show on the _carte du +jour_; it looked like ten or twelve courses, but in fact it was five, +and even when eked out with roast chestnuts and butter into six, it +seemed somehow to stop very abruptly, though one seemed to have had +enough. You could have coffee afterward if you ordered it. Colville +ordered it, and was sorry when the last of his commensals, slightly +bowing him a good-night, left him alone to it. + +He had decided that he need not fear the damp in a cab rapidly driven to +Mrs. Bowen's. When he went to his room he had his doubts about his +dress-coat; but he put it on, and he took the crush hat with which he +had provided himself in coming through London. That was a part of the +social panoply unknown in Des Vaches; he had hardly been a dozen times +in evening dress there in fifteen years, and his suit was as new as his +hat. As he turned to the glass he thought himself personable enough, and +in fact he was one of those men who look better in evening dress than in +any other: the broad expanse of shirt bosom, with its three small studs +of gold dropping, points of light, one below the other, softened his +strong, almost harsh face, and balanced his rather large head. In his +morning coat, people had to look twice at him to make sure that he did +not look common; but now he was not wrong in thinking that he had an air +of distinction, as he took his hat under his arm and stood before the +pier-glass in his room. He was almost tempted to shave, and wear his +moustache alone, as he used to do: he had let his beard grow because he +found that under the lax social regimen at Des Vaches he neglected +shaving, and went about days at a time with his face in an offensive +stubble. Taking his chin between his fingers, and peering closer into +the mirror, he wondered how Mrs. Bowen should have known him; she must +have remembered him very vividly. He would like to take off his beard +and put on the youthfulness that comes of shaving, and see what she +would say. Perhaps, he thought, with a last glance at his toilet, he was +overdoing it, if she were only to have a few people, as she promised. He +put a thick neckerchief over his chest so as not to provoke that +abominable rheumatism by any sort of exposure, and he put on his ulster +instead of the light spring overcoat that he had gone about with all +day. + +He found that Palazzo Pinti, when you came to it, was rather a grand +affair, with a gold-banded porter eating salad in the lodge at the great +doorway, and a handsome gate of iron cutting you off from the regions +above till you had rung the bell of Mrs. Bowen's apartment, when it +swung open of itself, and you mounted. At her door a man in modified +livery received Colville, and helped him off with his overcoat so +skilfully that he did not hurt his rheumatic shoulder at all; there were +half a dozen other hats and coats on the carved chests that stood at +intervals along the wall, and some gayer wraps that exhaled a faint, +fascinating fragrance on the chilly air. Colville experienced the slight +exhilaration, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, of a man who +formally re-enters an assemblage of society after long absence from it, +and rubbing his hands a little nervously together, he put aside the +yellow Abruzzi blanket _portière_, and let himself into the brilliant +interior. + +Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of subdued +splendour, and with her hands and fan and handkerchief tastefully +composed before her. At sight of Colville she gave a slight start, which +would have betrayed to him, if he had been another woman, that she had +not really believed he would come, and came forward with a rustle and +murmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush upon her, so +as to spare her this exertion, and he was tempted to a long-forgotten +foppishness of attitude as he stood talking with her during the brief +interval before she introduced him to any of the company. She had been +honest with him; there were not more than twenty-five or thirty people +there; but if he had overdone it in dressing for so small an affair, he +was not alone, and he was not sorry. He was sensible of a better +personal effect than the men in frock-coats and cut-aways were making, +and he perceived with self-satisfaction that his evening dress was of +better style than that of the others who wore it; at least no one else +carried a crush hat.-- + +At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville was +obscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they last met at an +evening party had been passed chiefly at New York and Washington, should +see that he was a man of the world in spite of Des Vaches. Before she +had decided which of the company she should first present him to, her +daughter came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some bread and +butter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming correctness of +manner. "Really," he said, turning about to take the cup, "I thought it +was you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got round to my side with a sash on. How do +you and Miss Effie justify yourselves in looking so bewitchingly alike?" + +"You notice it, then?" Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted. + +"I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind my having +been so personal in my observations?" + +"Oh, not at all," said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed. + +"It must be true," he said, "what a French lady said to me at the +_table-d'hôte_ dinner to-night: 'the Amerhicans always strhike the note +of perhsonality.'" He neatly imitated the French lady's guttural accent. + +"I suppose we do," mused Mis. Bowen, "and that we don't mind it in each +other. I wish _you_ would say which I shall introduce you to," she said, +letting her glance stray invisibly over her company, where all the +people seemed comfortably talking. + +"Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow," said Colville. + +"Oh no; that won't do," said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has public +duties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her private pleasure to +them. But she postponed them a moment longer. "I hope you got home +before the rain," she said. + +"Yes," returned Colville. "That is, I don't mind a little sprinkling. +Who is the Junonian young person at the end of the room?" + +"Ah," said Mrs. Bowen, "you can't be introduced to _her_ first. But +_isn't_ she lovely?" + +"Yes. It's a wonderful effect of white and gold." + +"You mustn't say that to her. She was doubtful about her dress, because +she says that the ivory white with her hair makes her look just like +white and gold furniture." + +"Present me at once, then, before I forget not to say it to her." + +"No; I must keep you for some other person: anybody can talk to a pretty +girl." + +Colville said he did not know whether to smile or shed tears at this +embittered compliment, and pretended an eagerness for the acquaintance +denied him. + +Mrs. Bowen seemed disposed to intensify his misery. "Did you ever see a +more statuesque creature--with those superb broad shoulders and that +little head, and that thick braid brought round over the top? Doesn't +her face, with that calm look in those starry eyes, and that peculiar +fall of the corners of the mouth, remind you of some of those exquisite +great Du Maurier women? That style of face is very fashionable now: you +might think he had made it so." + +"Is there a fashion in faces?" asked Colville. + +"Why, certainly. You must know that." + +"Then why aren't all the ladies in the fashion?" + +"It isn't one that can be put on. Besides, every one hasn't got Imogene +Graham's figure to carry it off." + +"That's her name, then--Imogene Graham. It's a very pretty name." + +"Yes. She's staying with me for the winter. Now that's all I can allow +you to know for the present. Come! You must!" + +"But this is worse than nothing." He made a feint of protesting as she +led him away, and named him to the lady she wished him to know. But he +was not really sorry; he had his modest misgivings whether he were equal +to quite so much young lady as Miss Graham seemed. When he no longer +looked at her he had a whimsical impression of her being a heroic statue +of herself. + +The lady whom Mrs. Bowen left him with had not much to say, and she made +haste to introduce her husband, who had a great deal to say. He was an +Italian, but master of that very efficient English which the Italians +get together with unimaginable sufferings from our orthography, and +Colville repeated the republican deputy's saying about a constitutional +king, which he had begun to think was neat. + +"I might prefer a republic myself," said the Italian, "but I think that +gentleman is wrong to be a republican where he is, and for the present. +The monarchy is the condition of our unity; nothing else could hold us +together, and we must remain united if we are to exist as a nation. It's +a necessity, like our army of half a million men. We may not like it in +itself, but we know that it is our salvation." He began to speak of the +economic state of Italy, of the immense cost of freedom and independence +to a people whose political genius enables them to bear quietly burdens +of taxation that no other government would venture to impose. He spoke +with that fond, that appealing patriotism, which expresses so much to +the sympathetic foreigner in Italy: the sense of great and painful +uncertainty of Italy's future through the complications of diplomacy, +the memory of her sufferings in the past, the spirit of quiet and +inexhaustible patience for trials to come. This resolution, which is +almost resignation, poetises the attitude of the whole people; it made +Colville feel as if he had done nothing and borne nothing yet. + +"I am ashamed," he said, not without a remote resentment of the +unworthiness of the republican voters of Des Vaches, "when I hear of +such things, to think of what we are at home, with all our resources and +opportunities." + +The Italian would have politely excused us to him, but Colville would +have no palliation of our political and moral nakedness; and he framed a +continuation of the letter he began on the Ponte Vecchio to the +_Post-Democrat-Republican_, in which he made a bitterly ironical +comparison of the achievements of Italy and America in the last ten +years. + +He forgot about Miss Graham, and had only a vague sense of her splendour +as he caught sight of her in the long mirror which she stood before. She +was talking to a very handsome young clergyman, and smiling upon him. +The company seemed to be mostly Americans, but there were a good many +evident English also, and Colville was dimly aware of a question in his +mind whether this clergyman was English or American. There were three or +four Italians and there were some Germans, who spoke English. + +Colville moved about from group to group as his enlarging acquaintance +led, and found himself more interested in society than he could ever +have dreamed of being again. It was certainly a defect of the life at +Des Vaches that people, after the dancing and love-making period, went +out rarely or never. He began to see that the time he had spent so +busily in that enterprising city had certainly been in some sense +wasted. + +At a certain moment in the evening, which perhaps marked its +advancement, the tea-urn was replaced by a jug of the rum punch, mild or +strong according to the custom of the house, which is served at most +Florentine receptions. Some of the people went immediately after, but +the young clergyman remained talking with Miss Graham. + +Colville, with his smoking glass in his hand, found himself at the side +of a friendly old gentleman who had refused the punch. They joined in +talk by a common impulse, and the old gentleman said, directly, "You are +an American, I presume?" + +His accent had already established the fact of his own nationality, but +he seemed to think it the part of candour to say, when Colville had +acknowledged his origin, "I'm an American myself." + +"I've met several of our countrymen since I arrived," suggested +Colville. + +The old gentleman seemed to like this way of putting it. "Well, yes, +we're not unfairly represented here in numbers, I must confess. But I'm +bound to say that I don't find our countrymen so aggressive, so loud, as +our international novelists would make out. I haven't met any of their +peculiar heroines as yet, sir." + +Colville could not help laughing. "I wish _I_ had. But perhaps they +avoid people of our years and discretion, or else take such a filial +attitude toward us that we can't recognise them." + +"Perhaps, perhaps," cried the old gentleman, with cheerful assent. + +"I was talking with one of our German friends here just now, and he +complained that the American girls--especially the rich ones--seem very +calculating and worldly and conventional. I told him I didn't know how +to account for that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennobling +influences of society in Newport, as I've had glimpses of it." + +The old gentleman caressed his elbows, which he was holding in the palms +of his hands, in high enjoyment of Colville's sarcasm. "Ah! very good! +very good!" he said. "I quite agree with you, and I think the other sort +are altogether preferable." + +"I think," continued Colville, dropping his ironical tone, "that we've +much less to regret in their unsuspecting, unsophisticated freedom than +in the type of hard materialism which we produce in young girls, +perfectly wide awake, disenchanted, unromantic, who prefer the worldly +vanities and advantages deliberately and on principle, recognising +something better merely to despise it. I've sometimes seen them----" + +Mrs. Bowen came up in her gentle, inquiring way. "I'm glad that you and +Mr. Colville have made acquaintance," she said to the old gentleman. + +"Oh, but we haven't," said Colville. "We're entire strangers." + +"Then I'll introduce you to Rev. Mr. Waters. And take you away," she +added, putting her hand through Colville's arm with a delicate touch +that flattered his whole being, "for your time's come at last, and I'm +going to present you to Miss Graham." + +"I don't know," he said. "Of course, as there is a Miss Graham, I can't +help being presented to her, but I had almost worked myself up to the +point of wishing there were none. I believe I'm afraid." + +"Oh, I don't believe that at all. A simple schoolgirl like that!" Mrs. +Bowen's sense of humour had not the national acuteness. She liked joking +in men, but she did not know how to say funny things back "You'll see, +as you come up to her." + + + + + + +IV + + +Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer perspective. She +ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville lifted his eyes from bowing +before her he perceived that she--was neither so very tall nor so very +large, but possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood. But she +was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance of look that +was very winning. If she had ceased to be the goddess she looked across +the length of the _salon_, she had gained much by becoming an extremely +lovely young girl; and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating +little irregularity that gave her the last charm. + +Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie remained at +Miss Graham's side, and seemed to have hold of the left hand which the +girl let hang carelessly behind her in the volume of her robe. The +child's face expressed an adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her +allegiance to her mother. + +"I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you at all," she +said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, which made favour for her +with Colville. "She promised it early in the evening." + +"She has used me much worse, Miss Graham," said Colville. "She has kept +me waiting from the beginning of time. So that I have grown grey on my +way up to you," he added, by an inspiration. "I was a comparatively +young man when Mrs. Bowen first told me she was going to introduce me." + +"Oh, how _good_!" said Miss Graham joyously. And her companion, after a +moment's hesitation, permitted herself a polite little titter. She had +made a discovery; she had discovered that Mr. Colville was droll. + +"I'm very glad you like it," he said, with a gravity that did not +deceive them. + +"Oh yes," sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. "Who but an American +could say just such things? There's the loveliest old lady here in +Florence, who's lived here thirty years, and she's always going back and +never getting back, and she's so homesick she doesn't know what to do, +and she always says that Americans may not be _better_ than other +people, but they are _different_." + +"That's very pretty. They're different in everything but thinking +themselves better. Their native modesty prevents that." + +"I don't exactly know what you mean," said Miss Graham, after a little +hesitation. + +"Well," returned Colville, "I haven't thought it out very clearly myself +yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from other people in not +thinking well of themselves, or they may differ from them in not +thinking well enough. But what I said had a very epigrammatic sound, and +I prefer not to investigate it too closely." + +This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in delighted +doubt of his intention. They both insensibly drifted a little nearer to +him. + +"There was a French lady said to me at the _table-d'hote_ this evening +that she knew I was an American, because the Americans always strike the +key of personality." He practised these economies of material in +conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same incident or +suggestion do duty round a whole company. + +"Ah, I don't believe that," said Miss Graham. + +"Believe what?" + +"That the Americans always talk about themselves." + +"I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a person means by +what he says--or _she_." + +"How shocking!". + +"Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about other people. +That's in the key of personality too." + +"But I don't believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, _she_ was +talking about _us_, then." + +"Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large American colony +in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and taught them our pernicious +habit of introspection." + +"Do you think we're very introspective?" + +"Do you?" + +"I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At any rate, +not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I wish I could. But +I'm always studying other people. They're so much more interesting." + +"Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so," suggested +Colville. + +"Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be +interesting." + +"Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young persons." + +"They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I should take an +old person for a hero--thirty-five or forty." She looked at Colville, +and blushing a little, hastened to add, "I don't believe that they begin +to be interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young men +are always saying! Don't you remember that passage somewhere in Heine's +_Pictures of Travel_, where he sees the hand of a lady coming out from +under her mantle, when she's confessing in a church, and he knows that +it's the hand of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered +nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I hated the +look of my hands--I was only sixteen, and it seemed as if I had had no +more experience than a child. Oh, I like people to go _through_ +something. Don't you?" + +"Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people." + +"No; but don't you like it for yourself?" + +"I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking of yet." + +Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: "Why, just +getting back to Florence, after not having been here for so long--I +should think it would be so romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for +the second time." + +"I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well," said Colville. "I wish I were +here for the first time. There's nothing like the first time in +everything." + +"Do you really think so?" + +"Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence." + +"Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the old emotions +would be perfectly fascinating." + +"Yes, if they'd come when you do call them. But they're as +contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I've been shouting +around here for my old emotions all day, and I haven't had a responsive +squeak." + +"Oh!" cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. "How delightful!" +Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head and laughed, as if it +might not be quite kind to laugh at a person's joke to his face. + +Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more nonsense. +"No; the only way to get at your old emotions in regard to Florence is +to borrow them from somebody who's having them fresh. What do _you_ +think about Florence, Miss Graham?" + +"I? I've been here two months." + +"Then it's too late?" + +"No, I don't know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness all the +time. But I can't tell you. It's very different from Buffalo, I can +assure you." + +"Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it's not altogether to the +disadvantage of Buffalo." + +"Oh, have you been there?" asked Miss Graham, with a touching little +eagerness. "Do you know anybody in Buffalo?" + +"Some of the newspaper men; and I pass through there once a year on my +way to New York--or used to. It's a lively place." + +"Yes, it is," sighed Miss Graham fondly. + +"Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by the light +of the moon?" + +"What!" + +"Ah, I see," said Colville, peering at her under his thoughtfully +knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. You don't remember the old +negro minstrel song." + +"No," said Miss Graham. "I can only remember the end of the war." + +"How divinely young!" said Colville. "Well," he added, "I wish that +French lady could have overheard us, Miss Graham. I think she would have +changed her mind about Americans striking the note of personality in +their talk." + +"Oh!" exclaimed the girl reproachfully, after a moment of swift +reflection and recognition, "I don't see how you could let me do it! You +don't suppose that I should have talked so with every one? It was +because you were another American, and such an old friend of Mrs. +Bowen's." + +"That is what I shall certainly tell the French lady if she attacks me +about it," said Colville. He glanced carelessly toward the end of the +room, and saw the young clergyman taking leave of Mrs. Bowen; all the +rest of the company were gone. "Bless me!" he said, "I must be going." + +Mrs. Bowen had so swiftly advanced upon him that she caught the last +words. "Why?" she asked. + +"Because it's to-morrow, I suspect, and the invitation was for one day +only." + +"It was a season ticket," said Mrs. Bowen, with gay hospitality, "and it +isn't to-morrow for half an hour yet. I can't think of letting you go. +Come up to the fire, all, and let's sit down by it. It's at its very +best." + +Effie looked a pretty surprise and a pleasure in this girlish burst from +her mother, whose habitual serenity made it more striking in contrast, +and she forsook Miss Graham's hand and ran forward and disposed the +easy-chairs comfortably about the hearth. + +Colville and Mrs. Bowen suddenly found themselves upon those terms which +often succeed a long separation with people who have felt kindly toward +each other at a former meeting and have parted friends: they were much +more intimate than they had supposed themselves to be, or had really any +reason for being. + +"Which one of your guests do you wish me to offer up, Mrs. Bowen?" he +asked, from the hollow of the arm-chair, not too low, which he had sunk +into. With Mrs. Bowen in a higher chair at his right hand, and Miss +Graham intent upon him from the sofa on his left, a sense of delicious +satisfaction filled him from head to foot. "There isn't one I would +spare if you said the word." + +"And there isn't one I want destroyed, I'm sorry to say," answered Mrs. +Bowen. "Don't you think they were all very agreeable?" + +"Yes, yes; agreeable enough--agreeable enough, I suppose. But they +stayed too long. When I think we might have been sitting here for the +last half-hour, if they'd only gone sooner, I find it pretty hard to +forgive them." + +Mrs. Bowen and Miss Graham exchanged glances above his head--a glance +which demanded, "Didn't I tell you?" for a glance that answered, "Oh, he +_is_!" Effie Bowen's eyes widened; she kept them fastened upon Colville +in silent worship. + +He asked who were certain of the company that he had noticed, and Mrs. +Bowen let him make a little fun of them: the fun was very good-natured. +He repeated what the German had said about the worldly ambition of +American girls; but she would not allow him so great latitude in this. +She said they were no worldlier than other girls. Of course, they were +fond of society, and some of them got a little spoiled. But they were in +no danger of becoming too conventional. + +Colville did not insist. "I missed the military to-night, Mrs. Bowen," +he said. "I thought one couldn't get through an evening in Florence +without officers?" + +"We have them when there is dancing," returned Mrs. Bowen. + +"Yes, but they don't know anything but dancing," Miss Graham broke in. +"I like some one who can talk something besides compliments." + +"You are very peculiar, you know, Imogene," urged Mrs. Bowen gently. "I +don't think our young men at home do much better in conversation, if you +come to that, though." + +"Oh, _young_ men, yes! They're the same everywhere. But here, even when +they're away along in the thirties, they think that girls can only enjoy +flattery. _I_ should like a gentleman to talk to me without a single +word or look to show that he thought I was good-looking." + +"Ah, how could he he?" Colville insinuated, and the young girl coloured. + +"I mean, if I were pretty. This everlasting adulation is insulting." + +"Mr. Morton doesn't flatter," said Mrs. Bowen thoughtfully, turning the +feather screen she held at her face, now edgewise, now flatwise, toward +Colville. + +"Oh no," owned Miss Graham. "He's a clergyman." + +Mrs. Bowen addressed herself to Colville. "You must go to hear him some +day. He's very interesting, if you don't mind his being rather Low +Church." + +Colville was going to pretend to an advanced degree of ritualism; but it +occurred to him that it might be a serious matter to Mrs. Bowen, and he +asked instead who was the Rev. Mr. Waters. + +"Oh, isn't he lovely?" cried Miss Graham. "There, Mrs. Bowen! Mr. +Waters's manner is what I call _truly_ complimentary. He always talks to +you as if he expected you to be interested in serious matters, and as if +you were his intellectual equal. And he's so _happy_ here in Florence! +He gives you the impression of feeling every breath he breathes here a +privilege. You ought to hear him talk about Savonarola, Mr. Colville." + +"Well," said Colville, "I've heard a great many people talk about +Savonarola, and I'm rather glad he talked to me about American girls." + +"American girls!" uttered Miss Graham, in a little scream. "Did Mr. +Waters talk to you about _girls_?" + +"Yes. Why not? He was probably in love with one once." + +"Mr. Waters?" cried the girl. "What nonsense!" + +"Well, then, with some old lady. Would you like that better?" + +Miss Graham looked at Mrs. Bowen for permission, as it seemed, and then +laughed, but did not attempt any reply to Colville. + +"You find even that incredible of such pyramidal antiquity," he resumed. +"Well, it _is_ hard to believe. I told him what that German said, and we +agreed beautifully about another type of American girl which we said we +preferred." + +"Oh! What could it be?" demanded Miss Graham. + +"Ah, it wouldn't be so easy to say right off-hand," answered Colville +indolently. + +Mrs. Bowen put her hand under the elbow of the arm holding her screen. +"I don't believe I should agree with you so well," she said, apparently +with a sort of didactic intention. + +They entered into a discussion which is always fruitful with +Americans--the discussion of American girlhood, and Colville contended +for the old national ideal of girlish liberty as wide as the continent, +as fast as the Mississippi. Mrs. Bowen withstood him with delicate +firmness. "Oh," he said, "you're Europeanised." + +"I certainly prefer the European plan of bringing up girls," she replied +steadfastly. "I shouldn't think of letting a daughter of mine have the +freedom I had." + +"Well, perhaps it will come right in the next generation, then; she will +let her daughter have the freedom she hadn't." + +"Not if I'm alive to prevent it," cried Mrs. Bowen. + +Colville laughed. "Which plan do you prefer, Miss Graham?" + +"I don't think it's quite the same now as it used to be," answered the +girl evasively. + +"Well, then, all I can say is that if I had died before this chance, I +had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more that I'm obsolete. +I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good old times, and the new spirit of +the age flouts me. Miss Effie, do you prefer the Amer----" + +"No, thank you," said her mother quickly. + +"Effie is out of the question. It's time you were in bed, Effie." + +The child came with instant submissiveness and kissed her mother +good-night; she kissed Miss Graham, and gave her hand to Colville. He +held it a moment, letting her pull shyly away from him, while he lolled +back in his chair, and laughed at her with his sad eyes. "It's past the +time _I_ should be in bed, my dear, and I'm sitting up merely because +there's nobody to send me. It's not that I'm really such a very bad boy. +Good night. Don't put me into a disagreeable dream; put me into a nice +one." The child bridled at the mild pleasantry, and when Colville +released her hand she suddenly stooped forward and kissed him. + +"You're so _funny_!" she cried, and ran and escaped beyond the +_portière_. + +Mrs. Bowen stared in the same direction, but not with severity. "Really, +Effie has been carried a little beyond herself." + +"Well," said Colville, "that's _one_ conquest since I came to Florence. +And merely by being funny! When I was in Florence before, Mrs. Bowen," +he continued, after a moment, "there were two ladies here, and I used to +go about quite freely with either of them. They were both very pretty, +and we were all very young. Don't you think it was charming?" Mrs. Bowen +coloured a lovely red, and smiled, but made no other response. "Florence +has changed very much for the worse since that time. There used to be a +pretty flower-girl, with a wide-flapping straw hat, who flung a heavy +bough full of roses into my lap when she met me driving across the +Carraja bridge. I spent an hour looking for that girl to-day, and +couldn't find her. The only flower-girl I could find was a fat one of +fifty, who kept me fifteen minutes in Via Tornabuoni while she was +fumbling away at my button-hole, trying to poke three second-hand +violets and a sickly daisy into it. Ah, youth! youth! I suppose a young +fellow could have found that other flower-girl at a glance; but _my_ old +eyes! No, we belong, each of us, to our own generation. Mrs. Bowen," he +said, with a touch of tragedy--whether real or affected, he did not well +know himself--in his hardiness, "what has become of Mrs. Pilsbury?" + +"Mrs. Milbury, you mean?" gasped Mrs. Bowen, in affright at his +boldness. + +"Milbury, Bilbury, Pilsbury--it's all one, so long as it isn't----" + +"They're living in Chicago!" she hastened to reply, as if she were +afraid he was going to say, "so long as it isn't Colville," and she +could not have borne that. + +Colville clasped his hands at the back of his head and looked at Mrs. +Bowen with eyes that let her know that he was perfectly aware she had +been telling Miss Graham of his youthful romance, and that he had now +touched it purposely. "And you wouldn't," he said, as if that were quite +relevant to what they had been talking about--"you wouldn't let Miss +Graham go out walking alone with a dotard like me?" + +"Certainly not," said Mrs. Bowen. + +Colville got to his feet by a surprising activity. "Good-bye, Miss +Graham." He offered his hand to her with burlesque despair, and then +turned to Mrs. Bowen. "Thank you for _such_ a pleasant evening! What was +your day, did you say?" + +"Oh, any day!" said Mrs. Bowen cordially, giving her hand. + +"Do you know whom you look like?" he asked, holding it. + +"No." + +"Lina Ridgely." + +The ladies stirred softly in their draperies after he was gone. They +turned and faced the hearth, where a log burned in a bed of hot ashes, +softly purring and ticking to itself, and whilst they stood pressing +their hands against the warm fronts of their dresses, as the fashion of +women is before a fire, the clock on the mantel began to strike twelve. + +"Was that her name?" asked Miss Graham, when the clock had had its say. +"Lina Ridgely?" + +"No; that was _my_ name," answered Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh yes!" murmured the young girl apologetically. + +"She led him on; she certainly encouraged him. It was shocking. He was +quite wild about it." + +"She must have been a cruel girl. How _could_ he speak of it so +lightly?" + +"It was best to speak of it, and have done with it," said Mrs. Bowen. +"He knew that I must have been telling you something about it." + +"Yes. How bold it was! A _young_ man couldn't have done it! Yes, he's +fascinating. But how old and sad he looked, as he lay back there in the +chair!" + +"Old? I don't think he looked old. He looked sad. Yes, it's left its +mark on him." + +The log burned quite through to its core, and fell asunder, a bristling +mass of embers. They had been looking at it with downcast heads. Now +they lifted their faces, and saw the pity in each other's eyes, and the +beautiful girl impulsively kissed the pretty woman good-night. + + + + + + +V + + +Colville fell asleep with the flattered sense which abounds in the heart +of a young man after his first successful evening in society, but which +can visit maturer life only upon some such conditions of long exile and +return as had been realised in his. The looks of these two charming +women followed him into his dreams; he knew he must have pleased them, +the dramatic homage of the child was evidence of that; and though it had +been many years since he had found it sufficient cause of happiness to +have pleased a woman, the desire to do so was by no means extinct in +him. The eyes of the girl hovered above him like stars; he felt in their +soft gaze that he was a romance to her young heart, and this made him +laugh; it also made him sigh. + +He woke at dawn with a sharp twinge in his shoulder, and he rose to give +himself the pleasure of making his own fire with those fagots of broom +and pine twigs which he had enjoyed the night before, promising himself +to get back into bed when the fire was well going, and sleep late. While +he stood before the open stove, the jangling of a small bell outside +called him to the window, and he saw a procession which had just issued +from the church going to administer the extreme unction to some dying +person across the piazza. The parish priest went first, bearing the +consecrated wafer in its vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding a +yellow silk umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of +_facchini_ in white robes and white hoods that hid their faces; their +tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new morning light; the bell +jangled dismally. + +"They even die dramatically in this country," thought Colville, in whom +the artist was taken with the effectiveness of the spectacle before his +human pity was stirred for the poor soul who was passing. He reproached +himself for that, and instead of getting back to bed, he dressed and +waited for the mature hour which he had ordered his breakfast for. When +it came at last, picturesquely borne on the open hand of Giovanni, +steaming coffee, hot milk, sweet butter in delicate disks, and two white +eggs coyly tucked in the fold of a napkin, and all grouped upon the wide +salver, it brought him a measure of the consolation which good cheer +imparts to the ridiculous human heart even in the house where death is. +But the sad incident tempered his mind with a sort of pensiveness that +lasted throughout the morning, and quite till lunch. He spent the time +in going about the churches; but the sunshine which the day began with +was overcast, as it was the day before, and the churches were rather too +dark and cold in the afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room and +looked over the English papers, which he did not care for much; and he +also made a diligent search of the catalogue for some book about +Florence for little Effie Bowen: he thought he would like to surprise +her mother with his interest in the matter. As the day waned toward +dark, he felt more and more tempted to take her at her word, when she +had said that any day was her day to him, and go to see her. If he had +been a younger man he would have anxiously considered this indulgence +and denied himself, but after forty a man denies himself no reasonable +and harmless indulgence; he has learned by that time that it is a pity +and a folly to do so. + +Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and departing +visitors, and then he remembered that it was this day she had named to +him on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss Graham thanked him for coming +his first Thursday, he made a merit of not having forgotten it, and said +he was going to come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham drew +him a cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in some +Florentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and Colville +smiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen urn with a +flower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore an aesthetic dress of +creamy camel's-hair, whose colour pleased the eye as its softness would +have flattered the touch. + +"What a very Tourguéneffish effect the samovar gives!" he said, taking a +biscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought him, shrinking with +redoubled shyness from the eyebrows which he arched at her. "I wonder +you can keep from calling me Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your mother, +Effie Bowenovna?" he asked of the child, with a temptation to say +Imogene Grahamovna. + +They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, "I'm sorry to say you +won't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad headache, and has left +Effie and me to receive. We feel very incompetent, but she says it will +do us good." + +There were some people there of the night before, and Colville had to +talk to them. One of the ladies asked him if he had met the Inglehart +boys as he came in. + +"The Inglehart boys? No. What are the Inglehart boys?" + +"They were here all last winter, and they've just got back. It's rather +exciting for Florence." She gave him a rapid sketch of that interesting +exodus of a score of young painters from the art school at Munich, under +the head of the singular and fascinating genius by whose name they +became known. "They had their own school for a while in Munich, and then +they all came down into Italy in a body. They had their studio things +with them, and they travelled third class, and they made the greatest +excitement everywhere, and had the greatest fun. They were a great +sensation in Florence. They went everywhere, and were such favourites. I +hope they are going to stay." + +"I hope so too," said Colville. "I should like to see them." + +"Dear me!" said the lady, with a glance at the clock. "It's five! I must +be going." + +The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, but Miss +Graham detained him. + +"What is Tourguéneffish?" she demanded. + +"The quality of the great Russian novelist, Tourguéneff," said Colville, +perceiving that she had not heard of him. + +"Oh!" + +"You ought to read him. The samovar sends up its agreeable odour all +through his books. Read _Lisa_ if you want your heart really broken. + +"I'm glad you approve of heart-breaks in books. So many people won't +read anything but cheerful books. It's the only quarrel I have with Mrs. +Bowen. She says there are so many sad things in life that they ought to +be kept out of books." + +"Ah, there I perceive a divided duty," said Colville. "I should like to +agree with both of you. But if Mrs. Bowen were here I should remind her +that if there are so many sad things in life that is a very good reason +for putting them in books too." + +"Of course I shall tell her what you said." + +"Why, I don't object to a certain degree of cheerfulness in books; only +don't carry it too far--that's all." + +This made the young girl laugh, and Colville was encouraged to go on. He +told her of the sight he had seen from his window at daybreak, and he +depicted it all very graphically, and made her feel its pathos perhaps +more keenly than he had felt it. "Now, that little incident kept with me +all day, tempering my boisterous joy in the Giottos, and reducing me to +a decent composure in the presence of the Cimabues; and it's pretty hard +to keep from laughing at some of them, don't you think?" + +The young people perceived that he was making fun again; but he +continued with an air of greater seriousness. "Don't you see what a very +good thing that was to begin one's day with? Why, even in Santa Croce, +with the thermometer ten degrees below zero in the shade of Alfieri's +monument, I was no gayer than I should have been in a church at home. I +suppose Mrs. Bowen would object to having that procession go by under +one's window in a book; but I can't really see how it would hurt the +reader, or damp his spirits permanently. A wholesome reaction would +ensue, such as you see now in me, whom the thing happened to in real +life." + +He stirred his tea, and shook with an inward laugh as he carried it to +his lips. + +"Yes," said Miss Graham thoughtfully, and she looked at him searchingly +in the interval of silence that ensued. But she only added, "I wish it +would get warmer in the churches. I've seen hardly anything of them +yet." + +"From the way I felt in them to-day," sighed Colville, "I should think +the churches would begin to thaw out about the middle of May. But if one +goes well wrapped up in furs, and has a friend along to rouse him and +keep him walking when he is about to fall into that lethargy which +precedes death by freezing, I think they may be visited even now with +safety. Have you been in Santa Maria Novella yet?" + +"No," said Miss Graham, with a shake of the head that expressed her +resolution to speak the whole truth if she died for it, "not even in +Santa Maria Novella." + +"What a wonderful old place it is! That curious façade, with the dials +and its layers of black and white marble soaked golden-red in a hundred +thousand sunsets! That exquisite grand portal!" He gesticulated with the +hand that the tea-cup left free, to suggest form and measurement as +artists do. "Then the inside! The great Cimabue, with all that famous +history on its back--the first divine Madonna by the first divine +master, carried through the streets in a triumph of art and religion! +Those frescoes of Ghirlandajo's with real Florentine faces and figures +in them, and all lavished upon the eternal twilight of that choir--but I +suppose that if the full day were let in on them, once, they would +vanish like ghosts at cock-crow! You must be sure to see the Spanish +chapel; and the old cloister itself is such a pathetic place. There's a +boys' school, as well as a military college, in the suppressed convent +now, and the colonnades were full of boys running and screaming and +laughing and making a joyful racket; it was so much more sorrowful than +silence would have been there. One of the little scamps came up to me, +and the young monk that was showing me round, and bobbed us a mocking +bow and bobbed his hat off; then they all burst out laughing again and +raced away, and the monk looked after them and said, so sweetly and +wearily, 'They're at their diversions: we must have patience.' There are +only twelve monks left there; all the rest are scattered and gone." He +gave his cup to Miss Graham for more tea. + +"Don't you think," she asked, drawing it from the samovar, "that it is +very sad having the convents suppressed?" + +"It was very sad having slavery abolished--for some people," suggested +Colville; he felt the unfairness of the point he had made. + +"Yes," sighed Miss Graham. + +Colville stood stirring his second cup of tea, when the _portière_ +parted, and showed Mrs. Bowen wistfully pausing on the threshold. Her +face was pale, but she looked extremely pretty there. + +"Ah, come in, Mrs. Bowen!" he called gaily to her. "I won't give you +away to the other people. A cup of tea will do you good." + +"Oh, I'm a great deal better," said Mrs. Bowen, coming forward to give +him her hand. "I heard your voice, and I couldn't resist looking in." + +"That was very kind of you," said Colville gratefully: and her eyes met +his in a glance that flushed her face a deep red. "You find me here--_I_ +don't know why!--in my character of old family friend, doing my best to +make life a burden to the young ladies." + +"I wish you would stay to a family dinner with us," said Mrs. Bowen, and +Miss Graham brightened in cordial support of the hospitality. "Why can't +you?" + +"I don't know, unless it's because I'm a humane person, and have some +consideration for your headache." + +"Oh, that's all gone," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was one of those convenient +headaches--if you ever had them, you'd know--that go off at sunset." + +"But you'd have another to-morrow." + +"No, I'm safe for a whole fortnight from another." + +"Then you leave me without an excuse, and I was just wishing I had +none," said Colville. + +After dinner Mrs. Bowen sent Effie to bed early to make up for the late +hours of the night before, but she sat before the fire with Miss Graham +rather late, talking Colville over, when he was gone. + +"He's very puzzling to me," said Miss Graham. "Sometimes you think he's +nothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then something so sweet and +fresh comes out that you don't know what to do. Don't you think he has +really a very poetical mind, and that he's putting all the rest on?" + +"I think he likes to make little effects," said Mrs. Bowen judiciously. +"He always did, rather." + +"Why, was he like this when he was young?" + +"I don't consider him very old now." + +"No, of course not. I meant when you knew him before." Miss Graham had +some needlework in her hand; Mrs. Bowen, who never even pretended to +work at that kind of thing, had nothing in hers but the feather screen. + +"He is old, compared with you, Imogene; but you'll find, as you live +along, that your contemporaries are always young. Mr. Colville is very +much improved. He used to be painfully shy, but he put on a bold front, +and now the bold front seems to have become a second nature with him." + +"I like it," said Miss Graham, to her needle. + +"Yes; but I suspect he's still shy, at heart. He used to be very +sentimental, and was always talking Ruskin. I think if he hadn't talked +Ruskin so much, Jenny Milbury might have treated him better. It was very +priggish in him." + +"Oh, I can't imagine Mr. Colville's being priggish!" + +"He's very much improved. He used to be quite a sloven in his dress; you +know how very slovenly most American gentlemen are in their dress, at +any rate. I think that influenced her against him too." + +"He isn't slovenly now," suggested Miss Graham. + +"Oh no; he's quite swell," said Mrs. Bowen, depriving the adjective of +slanginess by the refinement of her tone. + +"Well," said Miss Graham, "I don't see how you could have endured her +after that. It was atrocious." + +"It was better for her to break with him, if she found out she didn't +love him, than to marry him. That," said Mrs. Bowen, with a depth of +feeling uncommon for her, "would have been a thousand times worse." + +"Yes, but she ought to have found out before she led him on so far." + +"Sometimes girls can't. They don't know themselves; they think they're +in love when they're not. She was very impulsive, and of course she was +flattered by it; he was so intellectual. But at last she found that she +couldn't bear it, and she had to tell him so." + +"Did she ever say why she didn't love him?" + +"No; I don't suppose she could. The only thing I remember her saying was +that he was 'too much of a mixture.'" + +"What _did_ she mean by that?" + +"I don't know exactly." + +"Do you think he's insincere?" + +"Oh no. Perhaps she meant that he wasn't single-minded." + +"Fickle?" + +"No. He certainly wasn't that in her case." + +"Undecided?" + +"He was decided enough with her--at last." + +Imogene dropped the hopeless quest, "How can a man ever stand such a +thing?" she sighed. + +"He stood it very nobly. That was the best thing about it; he took it in +the most delicate way. She showed me his letter. There wasn't a word or +a hint of reproach in it; he seemed to be anxious about nothing but her +feeling badly for him. Of course he couldn't help showing that he was +mortified for having pursued her with attentions that were disagreeable +to her; but that was delicate too. Yes, it was a very large-minded +letter," + +"It was shocking in her to show it." + +"It wasn't very nice. But it was a letter that any girl might have been +proud to show." + +"Oh, she _couldn't_ have done it to gratify her vanity!" + +"Girls are very queer, my dear," said Mrs. Bowen, as if the fact were an +abstraction. She mused upon the flat of her screen, while Miss Graham +plied her needle in silence. + +The latter spoke first. "Do you think he was very much broken by it?" + +"You never can tell. He went out west then, and there he has stayed ever +since. I suppose his life would have been very different if nothing of +the kind had happened. He had a great deal of talent. I always thought I +should hear of him in some way." + +"Well, it was a heartless, shameless thing! I don't see how you can +speak of it so leniently as you do, Mrs. Bowen. It makes all sorts of +coquetry and flirtation more detestable to me than ever. Why, it has +ruined his life!" + +"Oh, he was young enough then to outlive it. After all, they were a boy +and girl." + +"A boy and girl! How old were they?" + +"He must have been twenty-three or four, and she was twenty." + +"My age! Do you call that being a girl?" + +"She was old enough to know what she was about," said Mrs. Bowen justly. + +Imogene fell back in her chair, drawing out her needle the full length +of its thread, and then letting her hand fall. "I don't know. It seems +as if I never should be grown up, or anything but a child. Yes, when I +think of the way young men talk, they do seem boys. Why can't they talk +like Mr. Colville? I wish I could talk like him. It makes you forget how +old and plain he is." + +She remained with her eyelids dropped in an absent survey of her sewing, +while Mrs. Bowen regarded her with a look of vexation, impatience, +resentment, on the last refinement of these emotions, which she banished +from her face before Miss Graham looked up and said, with a smile "How +funny it is to see Effie's infatuation with him! She can't take her eyes +off him for a moment, and she follows him round the room so as not to +lose a word he is saying. It was heroic of her to go to bed without a +murmur before he left to-night." + +"Yes, she sees that he is good," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh, she sees that he's something very much more. Mr. Waters is good." + +Miss Graham had the best of the argument, and so Mrs. Bowen did not +reply. + +"I feel," continued the young girl, "as if it were almost a shame to +have asked him to go to that silly dancing party with us. It seems as if +we didn't appreciate him. I think we ought to have kept him for high +aesthetic occasions and historical researches." + +"Oh, I don't think Mr. Colville was very deeply offended at being asked +to go with us." + +"No," said Imogene, with another sigh, "he didn't seem so. I suppose +there's always an undercurrent of sadness--of tragedy--in everything for +him." + +"I don't suppose anything of the kind," cried Mrs. Bowen gaily. "He's +had time enough to get over it." + +"Do people _ever_ get over such things?" + +"Yes--men." + +"It must be because he was young, as you say. But if it had happened +_now_?" + +"Oh, it _couldn't_ happen now. He's altogether too cool and +calculating." + +"Do you think he's cool and calculating?" + +"No. He's too old for a broken heart--a new one." + +"Mrs. Bowen," demanded the girl solemnly, "could _you_ forgive yourself +for such a thing if you had done it?" + +"Yes, perfectly well, if I wasn't in love with him." + +"But if you'd made him _think_ you were?" pursued the girl breathlessly. + +"If I were a flirt--yes." + +"_I_ couldn't," said Imogene, with tragic depth. + +"Oh, be done with your intensities, and go to bed, Imogene," said Mrs. +Bowen, giving her a playful push. + + + + + + +VI + + +It was so long since Colville had been at a dancing party that Mrs. +Bowen's offer to take him to Madame Uccelli's had first struck his sense +of the ludicrous. Then it had begun to flatter him; it implied that he +was still young enough to dance if he would, though he had stipulated +that they were not to expect anything of the kind from him. He liked +also the notion of being seen and accepted in Florentine society as the +old friend of Mrs. Bowen's, for he had not been long in discovering that +her position in Florence was, among the foreign residents, rather +authoritative. She was one of the very few Americans who were asked to +Italian houses, and Italian houses lying even beyond the neutral ground +of English-speaking intermarriages. She was not, of course, asked to the +great Princess Strozzi ball, where the Florentine nobility appeared in +the mediaeval pomp--the veritable costumes--of their ancestors; only a +rich American banking family went, and their distinction was spoken of +under the breath; but any glory short of this was within Mrs. Bowen's +reach. So an old lady who possessed herself of Colville the night before +had told him, celebrating Mrs. Bowen at length, and boasting of her +acceptance among the best English residents, who, next after the +natives, seem to constitute the social ambition of Americans living in +Italian cities. + +It interested him to find that some geographical distinctions which are +fading at home had quite disappeared in Florence. When he was there +before, people from quite small towns in the East had made pretty Lina +Ridgely and her friend feel the disadvantage of having come from the +Western side of an imaginary line; he had himself been at the pains +always to let people know, at the American watering-places where he +spent his vacations, that though presently from Des Vaches, Indiana, he +was really born in Rhode Island; but in Florence it was not at all +necessary. He found in Mrs. Bowen's house people from Denver, Chicago, +St. Louis, Boston, New York, and Baltimore, all meeting as of apparently +the same civilisation, and whether Mrs. Bowen's own origin was, like +that of the Etruscan cities, lost in the mists of antiquity, or whether +she had sufficiently atoned for the error of her birth by subsequent +residence in the national capital and prolonged sojourn in New York, it +seemed certainly not to be remembered against her among her Eastern +acquaintance. The time had been when the fact that Miss Graham came from +Buffalo would have gone far to class her with the animal from which her +native city had taken its name; but now it made no difference, unless it +was a difference in her favour. The English spoke with the same vague +respect of Buffalo and of Philadelphia; and to a family of real +Bostonians Colville had the courage to say simply that he lived in Des +Vaches, and not to seek to palliate the truth in any sort. If he wished +to prevaricate at all, it was rather to attribute himself to Mrs. +Bowen's city in Ohio. + +She and Miss Graham called for him with her carriage the next night, +when it was time to go to Madame Uccelli's. + +"This gives me a very patronised and effeminate feeling," said Colville, +getting into the odorous dark of the carriage, and settling himself upon +the front seat with a skill inspired by his anxiety not to tear any of +the silken spreading white wraps that inundated the whole interior. +"Being come for by ladies!" They both gave some nervous joyful laughs, +as they found his hand in the obscurity, and left the sense of a gloved +pressure upon it. "Is this the way you used to do in Vesprucius, Mrs. +Bowen?" + +"Oh no, indeed!" she answered. "The young gentlemen used to find out +whether I was going, and came for me with a hack, and generally, if the +weather was good, we walked home." + +"That's the way we still do in Des Vaches. Sometimes, as a tremendous +joke, the ladies come for us in leap-year. How do you go to balls in +Buffalo, Miss Graham? Or, no; I withdraw the embarrassing question." +Some gleams from the street lamps, as they drove along, struck in +through the carriage windows, and flitted over the ladies' faces and +were gone again. "Ah! this is very trying. Couldn't you stop him at the +next corner, and let me see how radiant you ladies really are? I may be +in very great danger; I'd like to know just how much." + +"It wouldn't be of any use," cried the young girl gaily. "We're all +wrapped up, and you couldn't form any idea of us. You must wait, and let +us burst upon you when we come out of the dressing-room at Madame +Uccelli's." + +"But then it may be too late," he urged. "Is it very far?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's ridiculously far. It's outside the Roman +Gate. I don't see why people live at that distance." + +"In order to give the friends you bring the more pleasure of your +company, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Ah! that's very well. But you're not logical." + +"No," said Colville; "you can't be logical and complimentary at the same +time. It's too much to ask. How delicious your flowers are!" The ladies +each had a bouquet in her hand, which she was holding in addition to her +fan, the edges of her cloak, and the skirt of her train. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "we are so much obliged to you for them." + +"Why, I sent you _no flowers_," said Colville, startled into untimely +earnest. + +"Didn't you?" triumphed Mrs. Bowen. "I thought gentlemen always sent +flowers to ladies when they were going to a ball with them. They used +to, in Columbus." + +"And in Buffalo they always do," Miss Graham added. + +"Ah! they don't in Des Vaches," said Colville. They tried to mystify him +further about the bouquets; they succeeded in being very gay, and in +making themselves laugh a great deal. Mrs. Bowen was even livelier than +the young girl. + +Her carriage was one of the few private equipages that drove up to +Madame Uccelli's door; most people had not even come in a _remise_, but, +after the simple Florentine fashion, had taken the little cabs, which +stretched in a long line up and down the way; the horses had let their +weary heads drop, and were easing their broken knees by extending their +forelegs while they drowsed; the drivers, huddled in their great-coats, +had assembled around the doorway to see the guests alight, with that +amiable, unenvious interest of the Italians in the pleasure of others. +The deep sky glittered with stars; in the corner of the next villa +garden the black plumes of some cypresses blotted out their space among +them. + +"_Isn't_ it Florentine?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, giving the hand which +Colville offered in helping her out of the carriage a little vivid +pressure, full of reminiscence and confident sympathy. A flush of youth +warmed his heart; he did not quail even when the porter of the villa +intervened between her and her coachman, whom she was telling when to +come back, and said that the carriages were ordered for three o'clock. + +"Did you ever sit up so late as that in Des Vaches?" asked Miss Graham +mischievously. + +"Oh yes; I was editor of a morning paper," he explained. But he did not +like the imputation of her question. + +Madame Uccelli accepted him most hospitably among her guests when he was +presented. She was an American who had returned with her Italian husband +to Italy, and had long survived him in the villa which he had built with +her money. Such people grow very queer with the lapse of time. Madame +Uccelli's character remained inalienably American, but her manners and +customs had become largely Italian; without having learned the language +thoroughly, she spoke it very fluently, and its idioms marked her +Philadelphia English. Her house was a menagerie of all the +nationalities; she was liked in Italian society, and there were many +Italians; English-speaking Russians abounded; there were many genuine +English, Germans, Scandinavians, Protestant Irish, American Catholics, +and then Americans of all kinds. There was a superstition of her +exclusiveness among her compatriots, but one really met every one there +sooner or later; she was supposed to be a convert to the religion of her +late husband, but no one really knew what religion she was of, probably +not even Madame Uccelli herself. One thing you were sure of at her +house, and that was a substantial supper; it is the example of such +resident foreigners which has corrupted the Florentines, though many +native families still hold out against it. + +The dancing was just beginning, and the daughter of Madame Uccelli, who +spoke both English and Italian much better than her mother, came forward +and possessed herself of Miss Graham, after a polite feint of pressing +Mrs. Bowen to let her find a partner for her. + +Mrs. Bowen cooed a gracious refusal, telling Fanny Uccelli that she knew +very well that she never danced now. The girl had not much time for +Colville; she welcomed him, but she was full of her business of starting +the dance, and she hurried away without asking him whether she should +introduce him to some lady for the quadrille that was forming. Her +mother, however, asked him if he would not go out and get himself some +tea, and she found a lady to go with him to the supper-room. This lady +had daughters whom apparently she wished to supervise while they were +dancing, and she brought Colville back very soon. He had to stand by the +sofa where she sat till Madame Uccelli found him and introduced him to +another mother of daughters. Later he joined a group formed by the +father of one of the dancers and the non-dancing husband of a dancing +wife. Their conversation was perfunctory; they showed one another that +they had no pleasure in it. + +Presently the father went to see how his daughter looked while dancing; +the husband had evidently no such curiosity concerning his wife; and +Colville went with the father, and looked at Miss Graham. She was very +beautiful, and she obeyed the music as if it were her breath; her face +was rapt, intense, full of an unsmiling delight, which shone in her dark +eyes, glowing like low stars. Her _abandon_ interested Colville, and +then awed him; the spectacle of that young, unjaded capacity for +pleasure touched him with a profound sense of loss. Suddenly Imogene +caught sight of him, and with the coming of a second look in her eyes +the light of an exquisite smile flashed over her face. His heart was in +his throat. + +"_Your_ daughter?" asked the fond parent at his elbow. "That is mine +yonder in red." + +Colville did not answer, nor look at the young lady in red. The dance +was ceasing; the fragments of those kaleidoscopic radiations were +dispersing themselves; the tormented piano was silent. + +The officer whom Imogene had danced with brought her to Mrs. Bowen, and +resigned her with the regulation bow, hanging his head down before him +as if submitting his neck to the axe. She put her hand in Colville's +arm, where he stood beside Mrs. Bowen. "Oh, _do_ take me to get +something to eat!" + +In the supper-room she devoured salad and ices with a childish joy in +them. The place was jammed, and she laughed from her corner at +Colville's struggles in getting the things for her and bringing them to +her. While she was still in the midst of an ice, the faint note of the +piano sounded. "Oh, they're beginning again. It's the Lancers!" she +said, giving him the plate back. She took his arm again; she almost +pulled him along on their return. + +"Why don't _you_ dance?" she demanded mockingly. + +"I would if you'd let me dance with you." + +"Oh, that's impossible! I'm engaged ever so many deep." She dropped his +arm instantly at sight of a young Englishman who seemed to be looking +for her. This young Englishman had a zeal for dancing that was +unsparing; partners were nothing to him except as a means of dancing; +his manner expressed a supreme contempt for people who made the +slightest mistake, who danced with less science or less conscience than +himself. "I've been looking for you," he said, in a tone of cold rebuke, +without looking at her. "We've been waiting." + +Colville wished to beat him, but Imogene took his rebuke meekly, and +murmured some apologies about not hearing the piano before. He hurried +her off without recognising Colville's existence in any way. + +The undancing husband of the dancing wife was boring himself in a +corner; Colville decided that the chances with him were better than with +the fond father, and joined him, just as a polite officer came up and +entreated him to complete a set. "Oh, I never danced in my life," he +replied; and then he referred the officer to Colville. "Don't _you_ +dance?" + +"I used to dance," Colville began, while the officer stood looking +patiently at him. This was true. He used to dance the Lancers, too, and +very badly, seventeen years before. He had danced it with Lina Ridgely +and the other one, Mrs. Milbury. His glance wandered to the vacant place +on the floor; it was the same set which Miss Graham was in; she smiled +and beckoned derisively. A vain and foolish ambition fired him. "Oh yes, +I can dance a little," he said. + +A little was quite enough for the eager officer. He had Colville a +partner in an instant, and the next he was on the floor. + +"Oh, what fun!" cried Miss Graham; but the fun had not really begun yet. + +Colville had forgotten everything about the Lancers. He walked round +like a bear in a pen: he capered to and fro with a futile absurdity; +people poked him hither and thither; his progress was attended by +rending noises from the trains over which he found his path. He smiled +and cringed, and apologised to the hardening faces of the dancers: even +Miss Graham's face had become very grave. + +"This won't do," said the Englishman at last, with cold insolence. He +did not address himself to any one; he merely stopped; they all stopped, +and Colville was effectively expelled the set? another partner was found +for his lady, and he wandered giddily away. He did not know where to +turn; the whole room must have seen what an incredible ass he had made +of himself, but Mrs. Bowen looked as if she had not seen. + +He went up to her, resolved to make fun of himself at the first sign she +gave of being privy to his disgrace. But she only said, "Have you found +your way to the supper-room yet?" + +"Oh yes; twice," he answered, and kept on talking with her and Madame +Uccelli. After five minutes or so something occurred to Colville. "Have +_you_ found the way to the supper-room yet, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"No!" she owned, with a small, pathetic laugh, which expressed a certain +physical faintness, and reproached him with insupportable gentleness for +his selfish obtuseness. + +"Let me show you the way," he cried. + +"Why, I _am_ rather hungry," said Mrs. Bowen, taking his arm, with a +patient arrangement first of her fan, her bouquet, and her train, and +then moving along by his side with a delicate footed pace, which +insinuated and deprecated her dependence upon him. + +There were only a few people in the supper-room, and they had it +practically to themselves. She took a cup of tea and a slice of buttered +bread, with a little salad, which she excused herself from eating +because it was the day after her headache. "I shouldn't have thought you +_were_ hungry, Mrs. Bowen," he said, "if you hadn't told me so," and he +recalled that, as a young girl, her friend used to laugh at her for +having such a butterfly appetite; she was in fact one of those women who +go through life the marvels of such of our brutal sex as observe the +ethereal nature of their diet. But in an illogical revulsion of feeling. +Colville, who was again cramming himself with all the solids and fluids +in reach, and storing up a vain regret against the morrow, preferred her +delicacy to the magnificent rapacity of Miss Graham: Imogene had passed +from salad to ice, and at his suggestion had frankly reverted to salad +again and then taken a second ice, with the robust appetite of perfect +health and perfect youth. He felt a desire to speak against her to Mrs. +Bowen, he did not know why and he did not know how; he veiled his +feeling in an open attack. "Miss Graham has just been the cause of my +playing the fool, with her dancing. She dances so superbly that she +makes you want to dance too--she made me feel as if I _could_ dance." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "it was very kind of you to complete the set. I +saw you dancing," she added, without a glimmer of guilty consciousness +in her eyes. + +It was very sweet, but Colville had to protest. "Oh no; you didn't see +me _dancing_; you saw me _not dancing_. I am a ruined man, and I leave +Florence to-morrow; but I have the sad satisfaction of reflecting that I +don't leave an unbroken train among the ladies of that set. And I have +made one young Englishman so mad that there is a reasonable hope of his +not recovering." + +"Oh no; you _don't_ think of going away for that!" said Mrs. Bowen, not +heeding the rest of his joking. + +"Well, the time has been when I have left Florence for loss," said +Colville, with the air of preparing himself to listen to reason. + +"You mustn't," said Mrs. Bowen briefly. + +"Oh, very well, then, I won't," said Colville whimsically, as if that +settled it. + +Mrs. Bowen would not talk of the matter any more; he could see that with +her kindness, which was always more than her tact, she was striving to +get away from the subject. As he really cared for it no longer, this +made him persist in clinging to it; he liked this pretty woman's being +kind to him. "Well," he said finally, "I consent to stay in Florence on +condition that you suggest some means of atonement for me which I can +also make a punishment to Miss Graham." + +Mrs. Bowen did not respond to the question of placating and punishing +her _protégée_ with sustained interest. They went back to Madame +Uccelli, and to the other elderly ladies in the room that opened by +archways upon the dancing-room. + +Imogene was on the floor, dancing not merely with unabated joy, but with +a zest that seemed only to freshen from dance to dance. If she left the +dance, it was to go out on her partner's arm to the supper-room. +Colville could not decently keep on talking to Mrs. Bowen the whole +evening; it would be too conspicuous; he devolved from frump to frump; +he bored himself; he yawned in his passage from one of these mothers or +fathers to another. The hours passed; it was two o'clock; Imogene was +going out to the supper-room again. He was taking out his watch. She saw +him, and "Oh, don't!" she cried, laughing, as she passed. + +The dancing went on; she was waltzing now in the interminable german. +Some one had let down, a window in the dancing-room, and he was feeling +it in his shoulder. Mrs. Bowen, across the room, looked heroically +patient, but weary. He glanced, down at the frump on the sofa near, and +realised that she had been making a long speech to him, which, he could +see from her look, had ended in some sort of question. + +Three o'clock came, and they had to wait till the german was over. He +felt that Miss Graham was behaving badly, ungratefully, selfishly; on +the way home in the carriage he was silent from utter boredom and +fatigue, but Mrs. Bowen was sweetly sympathetic with the girl's rapture. +Imogene did not seem to feel his moodiness; she laughed, she joked, she +told a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of the last +waltz. "Isn't it divine?" she asked. "Oh! I feel as if I could dance for +a week." She was still dancing; she gave Colville's foot an accidental +tap in keeping time on the floor of the carriage to the tune she was +humming. No one said anything about a next meeting when they parted at +the gate of Palazzo Pinti, and Mrs. Bowen bade her coachman drive +Colville to his hotel. But both the ladies' voices called good-night to +him as he drove away. He fancied a shade of mocking in Miss Graham's +voice. + +The great outer door of the hotel was locked, of course, and the poor +little porter kept Colville thumping at it some time before he unlocked +it, full of sleepy smiles and apologies. "I'm sorry to wake you up," +said Colville kindly. + +"It is my duty," said the porter, with amiable heroism. He discharged +another duty by lighting a whole new candle, which would be set down to +Colville's account, and went before him to his room, up the wide stairs, +cold in their white linen path, and on through the crooked corridors +haunted by the ghosts of extinct _tables d'hôte_, and full of goblin +shadows. He had recovered a noonday suavity by the time he reached +Colville's door, and bowed himself out, after lighting the candles +within, with a sweet plenitude of politeness, which Colville, even in +his gloomy mood, could not help admiring in a man in his shirt sleeves, +with only one suspender up. + +If there had been a fire, Colville would have liked to sit down before +it, and take an account of his feelings, but the atmosphere of a +bed-chamber in a Florentine hotel at half-past three o'clock on a winter +morning is not one that invites to meditation; and he made haste to get +into bed, with nothing clearer in his mind than a shapeless sense of +having been trifled with. He ought not to have gone to a dancing party, +to begin with, and then he certainly ought not to have attempted to +dance; so far he might have been master of the situation, and was +responsible for it; but he was, over and above this, aware of not having +wished to do either, of having been wrought upon against his convictions +to do both. He regarded now with supreme loathing a fantastic purpose +which he had formed while tramping round on those women's dresses, of +privately taking lessons in dancing, and astonishing Miss Graham at the +next ball where they met. Miss Graham? What did he care for that child? +Or Mrs. Bowen either, for the matter of that? Had he come four thousand +miles to be used, to be played with, by them? At this point Colville was +aware of the brutal injustice of his mood. They were ladies, both of +them, charming and good, and he had been a fool; that was all. It was +not the first time he had been a fool for women. An inexpressible +bitterness for that old wrong, which, however he had been used to laugh +at it and despise it, had made his life solitary and barren, poured upon +his soul; it was as if it had happened to him yesterday. + +A band of young men burst from one of the narrow streets leading into +the piazza and straggled across it, letting their voices flare out upon +the silence, and then drop extinct one by one. A whole world of faded +associations flushed again in Colville's heart. This was Italy; this was +Florence; and he execrated the hour in which he had dreamed of +returning. + + + + + + +VII + + +The next morning's sunshine dispersed the black mood of the night +before; but enough of Colville's self-disgust remained to determine him +not to let his return to Florence be altogether vain, or his sojourn so +idle as it had begun being. The vague purpose which he had cherished of +studying the past life and character of the Florentines in their +architecture shaped itself anew in the half-hour which he gave himself +over his coffee; and he turned it over in his mind with that mounting +joy in its capabilities which attends the contemplation of any sort of +artistic endeavour. No people had ever more distinctly left the impress +of their whole temper in their architecture, or more sharply +distinguished their varying moods from period to period in their palaces +and temples. He believed that he could not only supply that brief +historical sketch of Florence which Mrs. Bowen had lamented the want of, +but he could make her history speak an unintelligible, an unmistakeable +tongue in every monument of the past, from the Etruscan wall at Fiesole +to the cheap, plain, and tasteless shaft raised to commemorate Italian +Unity in the next piazza. With sketches from his own pencil, +illustrative of points which he could not otherwise enforce, he could +make such a book on Florence as did not exist, such a book as no one had +yet thought of making. With this object in his mind, making and keeping +him young, he could laugh with any one who liked at the vanity of the +middle-aged Hoosier who had spoiled a set in the Lancers at Madame +Uccelli's party; he laughed at him now alone, with a wholly impersonal +sense of his absurdity. + +After breakfast he went without delay to Viesseux's reading-room, to +examine his catalogue, and see what there was in it to his purpose. +While he was waiting his turn to pay his subscription, with the people +who surrounded the proprietor, half a dozen of the acquaintances he had +made at Mrs. Bowen's passed in and out. Viesseux's is a place where +sooner or later you meet every one you know among the foreign residents +at Florence; the natives in smaller proportion resort there too; and +Colville heard a lady asking for a book in that perfect Italian which +strikes envy to the heart of the stranger sufficiently versed in the +language to know that he never shall master it. He rather rejoiced in +his despair, however, as an earnest of his renewed intellectual life. +Henceforth his life would be wholly intellectual. He did not regret his +little excursion into society; it had shown him with dramatic sharpness +how unfit for it he was. + +"Good _morning_!" said some one in a bland undertone full of a pleasant +recognition of the claims to quiet of a place where some others were +speaking in their ordinary tones. + +Colville looked round on the Rev. Mr. Waters, and took his friendly +hand. "Good morning--glad to see you," he answered. + +"Are you looking for that short Florentine history for Mrs. Bowen's +little girl?" asked Mr. Waters, inclining his head slightly for the +reply. "She mentioned it to me." + +By day Colville remarked more distinctly that the old gentleman was +short and slight, with a youthful eagerness in his face surviving on +good terms with the grey locks that fell down his temples from under the +brim of his soft felt hat. With the boyish sweetness of his looks +blended a sort of appreciative shrewdness, which pointed his smiling +lips slightly aslant in what seemed the expectation rather than the +intention of humour. + +"Not exactly," said Colville, experiencing a difficulty in withholding +the fact that in some sort he was just going to write a short Florentine +history, and finding a certain pleasure in Mrs. Bowen's having +remembered that he had taken an interest in Effie's reading. He had a +sudden wish to tell Mr. Waters of his plan, but this was hardly the time +or place. + +They now found themselves face to face with the librarian, and Mr. +Waters made a gesture of waiving himself in Colville's favour. + +"No, no!" said the latter; "you had better ask. I am going to put this +gentleman through rather an extended course of sprouts." + +The librarian smiled with the helplessness of a foreigner, who knows his +interlocutor's English, but not the meaning of it. + +"Oh, I merely wanted to ask," said Mr. Waters, addressing the librarian, +and explaining to Colville, "whether you had received that book on +Savonarola yet. The German one." + +"I shall see," said the librarian, and he went upon a quest that kept +him some minutes. + +"You're not thinking of taking Savonarola's life, I suppose?" suggested +Colville. + +"Oh no. Villari's book has covered the whole ground for ever, it seems +to me. It's a wonderful book. You've read it?" + +"Yes. It's a thing that makes you feel that, after all, the Italians +have only to make a real effort in any direction, and they go ahead of +everybody else. What biography of the last twenty years can compare with +it?" + +"You're right, sir--you're right," cried the old man enthusiastically. +"They're a gifted race, a people of genius." + +"I wish for their own sakes they'd give their minds a little to +generalship," said Colville, pressed by the facts to hedge somewhat. +"They did get so badly smashed in their last war, poor fellows." + +"Oh, I don't think I should like them any better if they were better +soldiers. Perhaps the lesson of noble endurance that they've given our +times is all that we have the right to demand of them in the way of +heroism; no one can say they lack courage. And sometimes it seems to me +that in simply outgrowing the different sorts of despotism that had +fastened upon them, till their broken bonds fell away without positive +effort on their part, they showed a greater sublimity than if they had +violently conquered their freedom. Most nations sink lower and lower +under tyranny; the Italians grew steadily more and more civilised, more +noble, more gentle, more grand. It was a wonderful spectacle--like a +human soul perfected through suffering and privation. Every period of +their history is full of instruction. I find my ancestral puritanism +particularly appealed to by the puritanism of Savonarola." + +"Then Villari hasn't satisfied you that Savonarola wasn't a Protestant?" + +"Oh yes, he has. I said his puritanism. Just now I'm interested in +justifying his failure to myself, for it's one of the things in history +that I've found it hardest to accept. But no doubt his puritanic state +fell because it was dreary and ugly, as the puritanic state always has +been. It makes its own virtues intolerable; puritanism won't let you see +how good and beautiful the Puritans often are. It was inevitable that +Savonarola's enemies should misunderstand and hate him." + +"You are one of the last men I should have expected to find among the +_Arrabiati_," said Colville. + +"Oh, there's a great deal to be said for the Florentine Arrabiati, as +well as for the English Malignants, though the Puritans in neither case +would have known how to say it. Savonarola perished because he was +excessive. I am studying him in this aspect; it is fresh ground. It is +very interesting to inquire just at what point a man's virtues become +mischievous and intolerable." + +These ideas interested Colville; he turned to them with relief from the +sense of his recent trivialities; in this old man's earnestness he found +support and encouragement in the new course he had marked out for +himself. Sometimes it had occurred to him not only that he was too old +for the interests of his youth at forty, but that there was no longer +time for him to take up new ones. He considered Mr. Waters's grey hairs, +and determined to be wiser. "I should like to talk these things over +with you--and some other things," he said. + +The librarian came toward them with the book for Mr. Waters, who was +fumbling near-sightedly in his pocket-book for his card. "I shall be +very happy to see you at my room," he said. "Ah, thank you," he added, +taking his book, with a simple relish as if it were something whose +pleasantness was sensible to the touch. He gave Colville the scholar's +far-off look as he turned to go: he was already as remote as the +fifteenth century through the magic of the book, which he opened and +began to read at once. Colville stared after him; he did not wish to +come to just that yet, either. Life, active life, life of his own day, +called to him; he had been one of its busiest children: could he turn +his back upon it for any charm or use that was in the past? Again that +unnerving doubt, that paralysing distrust, beset him, and tempted him to +curse the day in which he had returned to this outworn Old World. Idler +on its modern surface, or delver in its deep-hearted past, could he +reconcile himself to it? What did he care for the Italians of to-day, or +the history of the Florentines as expressed in their architectural +monuments? It was the problems of the vast, tumultuous American life, +which he had turned his back on, that really concerned him. Later he +might take up the study that fascinated yonder old man, but for the +present it was intolerable. + +He was no longer young, that was true; but with an ache of old regret he +felt that he had not yet lived his life, that his was a baffled destiny, +an arrested fate. A lady came up and took his turn with the librarian, +and Colville did not stay for another. He went out and walked down the +Lung' Arno toward the Cascine. The sun danced on the river, and bathed +the long line of pale buff and grey houses that followed its curve, and +ceased in the mist of leafless tree-tops where the Cascine began. It was +not the hour of the promenade, and there was little driving; but the +sidewalks were peopled thickly enough with persons, in groups, or +singly, who had the air of straying aimlessly up or down, with no +purpose but to be in the sun, after the rainy weather of the past week. +There were faces of invalids, wistful and thin, and here and there a +man, muffled to the chin, lounged feebly on the parapet and stared at +the river. Colville hastened by them; they seemed to claim him as one of +their ailing and aging company, and just then he was in the humour of +being very young and strong. + +A carriage passed before him through the Cascine gates, and drove down +the road next the river. He followed, and when it had got a little way +it stopped at the roadside, and a lady and little girl alighted, who +looked about and caught sight of him, and then obviously waited for him +to come up with them. It was Imogene and Effie Bowen, and the young girl +called to him: "We _thought_ it was you. Aren't you astonished to find +us here at this hour?" she demanded, as soon as he came up, and gave him +her hand. "Mrs. Bowen sent us for our health--or Effie's health--and I +was just making the man stop and let us out for a little walk." + +"My health is very much broken too, Miss Effie," said Colville. "Will +you let me walk with you?" The child smiled, as she did at Colville's +speeches, which she apparently considered all jokes, but diplomatically +referred the decision to Imogene with an upward glance. + +"We shall be very glad indeed," said the girl. + +"That's very polite of you. But Miss Effie makes no effort to conceal +her dismay," said Colville. + +The little girl smiled again, and her smile was so like the smile of +Lina Ridgely, twenty years ago, that his next words were inevitably +tinged with reminiscence. + +"Does one still come for one's health to the Cascine? When I was in +Florence before, there was no other place if one went to look for it +with young ladies--the Cascine or the Boboli Gardens. Do they keep the +fountain of youth turned on here during the winter still?" + +"I've never seen it," said Imogene gaily. + +"Of course not. You never looked for it. Neither did I when I was here +before. But it wouldn't escape me now." + +Since he had met them he had aged again, in spite of his resolutions to +the contrary; somehow, beside their buoyancy and bloom, the youth in his +heart faded. + +Imogene had started forward as soon as he joined them, and Colville, +with Effie's gloved hand stolen shyly in his, was finding it quite +enough to keep up with her in her elastic advance. + +She wore a long habit of silk, whose fur-trimmed edge wandered +diagonally across her breast and down to the edge of her walking dress. +To Colville, whom her girlish slimness in her ball costume had puzzled +after his original impressions of Junonian abundance, she did not so +much dwindle as seem to vanish from the proportions his visions had +assigned her that first night when he saw her standing before the +mirror. In this outdoor avatar, this companionship with the sun and +breeze, she was new to him again, and he found himself searching his +consciousness for his lost acquaintance with her, and feeling as if he +knew her less and less. Perhaps, indeed, she had no very distinctive +individuality; perhaps at her age no woman has, but waits for it to come +to her through life, through experience. She was an expression of youth, +of health, of beauty, and of the moral loveliness that comes from a +fortunate combination of these; but beyond this she was elusive in a way +that seemed to characterise her even materially. He could not make +anything more of the mystery as he walked at her side, and he went +thinking--formlessly, as people always think--that with the child or +with her mother he would have had a community of interest and feeling +which he lacked with this splendid girlhood! he was both too young and +too old for it; and then, while he answered this or that to Imogene's +talk aptly enough, his mind went back to the time when this mystery was +no mystery, or when he was contemporary with it, and if he did not +understand it, at least accepted it as if it wore the most natural thing +in the world. It seemed a longer time now since it had been in his world +than it was since he was a child. + +"Should you have thought," she asked, turning her face back toward him, +"that it would be so hot in the sun to-day? _Oh_, that beautiful river! +How it twists and writhes along! Do you remember that sonnet of +Longfellow's--the one he wrote in Italian about the Ponte Vecchio, and +the Arno twisting like a dragon underneath it? They say that Hawthorne +used to live in a villa just behind the hill over there; we're going to +look it up as soon as the weather is settled. Don't you think his books +are perfectly fascinating?" + +"Yes," said Colville; "only I should want a good while to say it." + +"_I_ shouldn't!" retorted the girl. "When you've said fascinating, +you've said everything. There's no other word for them. Don't you like +to talk about the books you've read?" + +"I would if I could remember the names of the characters. But I get them +mixed up." + +"Oh, _I_ never do! I remember the least one of them, and all they do and +say." + +"I used to." + +"It seems to me you _used_ to do everything." + +"It seems to me as if I did." + + "'I remember, when I think, + That my youth was half divine.'" + + +"Oh, Tennyson--yes! _He's_ fascinating. Don't you think he's +fascinating?" + +"Very," said Colville. He was wondering whether this were the kind of +talk that he thought was literary when he was a young fellow. + +"How perfectly weird the 'Vision of Sin' is!" Imogene continued. "Don't +you like _weird_ things?" + +"Weird things?" Colville reflected. "Yes; but I don't see very much in +them any more. The fact is, they don't seem to come to anything in +particular." + +"Oh, _I_ think they do! I've had dreams that I've lived on for days. Do +you ever have prophetic dreams?" + +"Yes; but they never come true. When they do, I know that I didn't have +them." + +"What _do_ you mean?" + +"I mean that we are all so fond of the marvellous that we can't trust +ourselves about any experience that seems supernatural. If a ghost +appeared to me I should want him to prove it by at least two other +reliable, disinterested witnesses before I believed my own account of +the matter." + +"Oh!" cried the girl, half puzzled, half amused. "Then of course you +don't believe in ghosts?" + +"Yes; I expect to be one myself some day. But I'm in no hurry to mingle +with them." + +Imogene smiled vaguely, as if the talk pleased her, even when it mocked +the fancies and whims which, after so many generations that have +indulged them, she was finding so fresh and new in her turn. + +"Don't you like to walk by the side of a river?" she asked, increasing +her eager pace a little. "I feel as if it were bearing me along." + +"I feel as if I were carrying it," said Colville. "It's as fatiguing as +walking on railroad ties." + +"Oh, that's too bad!" cried the girl. "How can you be so prosaic? Should +you ever have believed that the sun could be so hot in January? And look +at those ridiculous green hillsides over the river there! Don't you like +it to be winter when it _is_ winter?" + +She did not seem to have expected anything from Colville but an +impulsive acquiescence, but she listened while he defended the mild +weather. "I think it's very well for Italy," he said. "It has always +seemed to me--that is, it seems to me now for the first time, but one +has to begin the other way--as if the seasons here had worn themselves +out like the turbulent passions of the people. I dare say the winter was +much fiercer in the times of the Bianchi and Neri." + +"Oh, how delightful! Do you really believe that?" + +"No, I don't know that I do. But I shouldn't have much difficulty in +proving it, I think, to the sympathetic understanding." + +"I wish you would prove it to mine. It sounds so pretty, I'm sure it +must be true." + +"Oh, then, it isn't necessary. I'll reserve my arguments for Mrs. +Bowen." + +"You had better. She isn't at all romantic. She says it's very well for +me she isn't--that her being matter-of-fact lets me be as romantic as I +like." + +"Then Mrs. Bowen isn't as romantic as she would like to be if she hadn't +charge of a romantic young lady?" + +"Oh, I don't say that. Dear me! I'd no idea it _could_ be so hot in +January." As they strolled along beside the long hedge of laurel, the +carriage slowly following them at a little distance, the sun beat strong +upon the white road, blotched here and there with the black irregular +shadows of the ilexes. The girl undid the pelisse across her breast, +with a fine impetuosity, and let it swing open as she walked. She +stopped suddenly. "Hark! What bird was that?" + +"'It was the nightingale, and not the lark,'" suggested Colville lazily. + +"Oh, _don't_ you think _Romeo and Juliet_ is divine?" demanded Imogene, +promptly dropping the question of the bird. + +"I don't know about Romeo," returned Colville, "but it's sometimes +occurred to me that Juliet was rather forth-putting." + +"You _know_ she wasn't. It's my favourite play. I could go every night. +It's perfectly amazing to me that they can play anything else." + +"You would like it five hundred nights in the year, like _Hazel Kirke_? +That would be a good deal of Romeo, not to say Juliet." + +"They ought to do it out of respect to Shakespeare. Don't you like +Shakespeare?" + +"Well, I've seen the time when I preferred Alexander Smith," said +Colville evasively. + +"Alexander Smith? Who in the world is Alexander Smith?" + +"How recent you are! Alexander Smith was an immortal who flourished +about the year 1850." + +"That was before I was born. How could I remember him? But I don't feel +so very recent for all that." + +"Neither do I, this morning," said Colville. "I was up at one of +Pharaoh's balls last night, and I danced too much." + +He gave Imogene a droll glance, and then bent it upon Effie's discreet +face. The child dropped her eyes with a blush like her mother's, having +first sought provisional counsel of Imogene, who turned away. He rightly +inferred that they all had been talking him over at breakfast, and he +broke into a laugh which they joined in, but Imogene said nothing in +recognition of the fact. + +With what he felt to be haste for his relief she said, "Don't you hate +to be told to read a book?" + +"I used to--quarter of a century ago," said Colville, recognising that +this was the way young people talked, even then. + +"Used to?" she repeated. "Don't you now?" + +"No; I'm a great deal more tractable now. I always say that I shall get +the book out of the library. I draw the line at buying. I still hate to +buy a book that people recommend." + +"What kind of books do you like to buy?" + +"Oh, no kind. I think we ought to get all our books out of the library." + +"Do you never like to talk in earnest?" + +"Well, not often," said Colville. "Because, if you do, you can't say +with a good conscience afterward that you were only in fun." + +"Oh! And do you always like to talk so that you can get out of things +afterward?" + +"No. I didn't say that, did I?" + +"Very nearly, I should think." + +"Then I'm glad I didn't quite." + +"I like people to be outspoken--to say everything they think," said the +girl, regarding him with a puzzled look. + +"Then I foresee that I shall become a favourite," answered Colville. "I +say a great deal more than I think." + +She looked at him again with envy, with admiration, qualifying her +perplexity. They had come to a point where some moss-grown, +weather-beaten statues stood at the corners of the road that traversed +the bosky stretch between the avenues of the Cascine. "Ah, how beautiful +they are!" he said, halting, and giving himself to the rapture that a +blackened garden statue imparts to one who beholds it from the +vantage-ground of sufficient years and experience. + +"Do you remember that story of Heine's," he resumed, after a moment, "of +the boy who steals out of the old castle by moonlight, and kisses the +lips of the garden statue, fallen among the rank grass of the ruinous +parterres? And long afterward, when he looks down on the sleep of the +dying girl where she lies on the green sofa, it seems to him that she +and that statue are the same?" + +"Oh!" deeply sighed the young girl. "No, I never read it. Tell me what +it is. I _must_ read it." + +"The rest is all talk--very good talk; but I doubt whether it would +interest you. He goes on to talk of a great many things---of the way +Bellini spoke French, for example. He says it was bloodcurdling, +horrible, cataclysmal. He brought out the poor French words and broke +them upon the wheel, till you thought the whole world must give way with +a thunder-crash. A dead hush reigned in the room; the women did not know +whether to faint or fly; the men looked down at their pantaloons, and +tried to realise what they had on." + +"Oh, how perfectly delightful! how shameful!" cried the girl. "I _must_ +read it. What is it in? What is the name of the story?" + +"It isn't a story," said Colville. "Did you ever see anything lovelier +than these statues?" + +"No," said Imogene. "_Are_ they good?" + +"They are much better than good--they are the very worst rococo." + +"What makes you say they are beautiful, then?" + +"Why, don't you see? They commemorate youth, gaiety, brilliant, joyous +life. That's what that kind of statues was made for--to look on at rich, +young, beautiful people and their gallantries; to be danced before by +fine ladies and gentlemen playing at shepherd and shepherdesses; to be +driven past by marcheses and contessinas flirting in carriages; to be +hung with scarfs and wreaths; to be parts of eternal _fétes champêtres_. +Don't you see how bored they look? When I first came to Italy I should +have detested and ridiculed their bad art; but now they're +exquisite--the worse, the better," + +"I don't know what in the world you _do_ mean," said Imogene, laughing +uneasily. + +"Mrs. Bowen would. It's a pity Mrs. Bowen isn't here with us. Miss +Effie, if I lift you up to one of those statues, will you kindly ask it +if it doesn't remember a young American signor who was here just before +the French Revolution? I don't believe it's forgotten me." + +"No, no," said Imogene. "It's time we were walking back. Don't you like +Scott!" she added. "I should think you would if you like those romantic +things. I used to like Scott so _much_. When I was fifteen I wouldn't +read anything but Scott. Don't you like Thackeray? Oh, he's so +_cynical_! It's perfectly delightful." + +"Cynical?" repeated Colville thoughtfully. "I was looking into _The +Newcomes_ the other day, and I thought he was rather sentimental" + +"Sentimental! Why, what an idea! That is the strangest thing I ever +heard of. Oh!" she broke in upon her own amazement, "don't you think +Browning's 'Statue and the Bust' is splendid? Mr. Morton read it to +us--to Mrs. Bowen, I mean." + +Colville resented this freedom of Mr. Morion's, he did not know just +why; then his pique was lost in sarcastic recollection of the time when +he too used to read poems to ladies. He had read that poem to Lina +Ridgely and the other one. + +"Mrs. Bowen asked him to read it," Imogene continued. + +"Did she?" asked Colville pensively. + +"And then we discussed it afterward. We had a long discussion. And then +he read us the 'Legend of Pornic,' and we had a discussion about that. +Mrs. Bowen says it was real gold they found in the coffin; but I think +it was the girl's 'gold hair.' I don't know which Mr. Morion thought. +Which do you? Don't you think the 'Legend of Pornic' is splendid?" + +"Yes, it's a great poem, and deep," said Colville. They had come to a +place where the bank sloped invitingly to the river. "Miss Effie," he +asked, "wouldn't you like to go down and throw stones into the Arno? +That's what a river is for," he added, as the child glanced toward +Imogene for authorisation, "to have stones thrown into it." + +"Oh, let us!" cried Imogene, rushing down to the brink. "I don't want to +throw stones into it, but to get near it--to get near to any bit of +nature. They do pen you up so from it in Europe!" She stood and watched +Colville skim stones over the current. "When you stand by the shore of a +swift river like this, or near a railroad train when it comes whirling +by, don't you ever have a morbid impulse to fling yourself forward?" + +"Not at my time of life," said Colville, stooping to select a flat +stone. "Morbid impulses are one of the luxuries of youth." He threw the +stone, which skipped triumphantly far out into the stream. "That was +beautiful, wasn't it, Miss Effie?" + +"Lovely!" murmured the child. + +He offered her a flat pebble. "Would you like to try one?" + +"It would spoil my gloves," she said, in deprecating refusal. + +"Let _me_ try it!" cried Imogene. "I'm not afraid of my gloves." + +Colville yielded the pebble, looking at her with the thought of how +intoxicating he should once have found this bit of wilful _abandon_, but +feeling rather sorry for it now. "Oh, perhaps not?" he said, laying his +hand upon hers, and looking into her eyes. + +She returned his look, and then she dropped the pebble and put her hand +back in her muff, and turned and ran up the bank. "There's the carriage. +It's time we should be going." At the top of the bank she became a +mirror of dignity, a transparent mirror to his eye. "Are you going back +to town, Mr. Colville?" she asked, with formal state. "We could set you +down anywhere!" + +"Thank you, Miss Graham. I shall be glad to avail myself of your very +kind offer. Allow me." He handed her ceremoniously to the carriage; he +handed Effie Bowen even more ceremoniously to the carriage, holding his +hat in one hand while he offered the other. Then he mounted to the seat +in front of them. "The weather has changed," he said. + +Imogene hid her face in her muff, and Effie Bowen bowed hers against +Imogene's shoulder. + +A sense of the girl's beauty lingered in Colville's thought all day, and +recurred to him again and again; and the ambitious intensity and +enthusiasm of her talk came back in touches of amusement and compassion. +How divinely young it all was, and how lovely! He patronised it from a +height far aloof. + +He was not in the frame of mind for the hotel table, and he went to +lunch, at a restaurant. He chose a simple trattoria, the first he came +to, and he took his seat at one of the bare, rude tables, where the +joint saucers for pepper and salt, and a small glass for toothpicks, +with a much-scraped porcelain box for matches, expressed an uncorrupted +Florentinity of custom. But when he gave his order in offhand Italian, +the waiter answered in the French which waiters get together for the +traveller's confusion in Italy, and he resigned himself to whatever +chance of acquaintance might befall him. The place had a companionable +smell of stale tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a +space dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a variety of +sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a large table in this +space, and when Colville came up to examine the drawings he jostled him, +with due apologies, in the haste of a man working against time for +masters who will brook no delay. He was hurrying still when a party of +young men came in and took their places at the table, and began to rough +him for his delay. Colville could recognise several of them in the +vigorous burlesques on the walls, and as others dropped in the grotesque +portraitures made him feel as if he had seen them before. They all +talked at once, each man of his own interests, except when they joined +in a shout of mockery and welcome for some new-comer. Colville, at his +_risotto_, almost the room's length away, could hear what they thought, +one and another, of Botticelli and Michelangelo; of old Piloty's things +at Munich; of the dishes they had served to them, and of the quality of +the Chianti; of the respective merits of German and Italian tobacco; of +whether Inglehart had probably got to Venice yet; of the personal habits +of Billings, and of the question whether the want of modelling in +Simmons's nose had anything to do with his style of snoring; of the +overrated colouring of some of those Venetian fellows; of the delicacy +of Mino da Fiesole, and of the genius of Babson's tailor. Babson was +there to defend the cut of his trousers, and Billings and Simmons were +present to answer for themselves at the expense of the pictures of those +who had called their habits and features into question. When it came to +this all the voices joined in jolly uproar. Derision and denial broke +out of the tumult, and presently they were all talking quietly of a +reception which some of them were at the day before. Then Colville heard +one of them saying that he would like a chance to paint some lady whose +name he did not catch, and "She looks awfully sarcastic," one of the +young fellows said. + +"They say she _is_," said another. "They say she's awfully +intellectual." + +"Boston?" queried a third. + +"No, Kalamazoo. The centre of culture is out there now." + +"She knows how to dress, anyhow," said the first commentator. "I wonder +what Parker would talk to her about when he was painting her. He's never +read anything but Poe's 'Ullalume.'" + +"Well, that's a good subject--'Ullalume.'" + +"I suppose she's read it?" + +"She's read 'most everything, they say." + +"What's an Ullalume, anyway, Parker?" + +One of the group sprang up from the table and drew on the wall what he +labelled "An Ullalume." Another rapidly depicted Parker in the moment of +sketching a young lady; her portrait had got as far as the eyes and nose +when some one protested: "Oh, hello! No personalities." + +The draughtsman said, "Well, all right!" and sat down again. + +"Hall talked with her the most. What did she say, Hall?" + +"Hall can't remember words in three syllables, but he says it was mighty +brilliant and mighty deep." + +"They say she's a niece of Mrs. Bowen's. She's staying with Mrs. Bowen." + +Then it was the wisdom and brilliancy and severity of Imogene Graham +that these young men stood in awe of! Colville remembered how the minds +of girls of twenty had once dazzled him. "And yes," he mused, "she must +have believed that we were talking literature in the Cascine. Certainly +I should have thought it an intellectual time when I was at that age," +he owned to himself with forlorn irony. + +The young fellows went on to speak of Mrs. Bowen, whom it seemed they +had known the winter before. She had been very polite to them; they +praised her as if she were quite an old woman. + +"But she must have been a very pretty girl," one of them put in. + +"Well, she has a good deal of style yet." + +"Oh yes, but she never could have been a beauty like the other one." + +On her part, Imogene was very sober when she met Mrs. Bowen, though she +had come in flushed and excited from the air and the morning's +adventure. Mrs. Bowen was sitting by the fire, placidly reading; a vase +of roses on the little table near her diffused the delicate odour of +winter roses through the room; all seemed very still and dim, and of +another time, somehow. + +Imogene kept away from the fire, sitting down, in the provisional +fashion of women, with her things on; but she unbuttoned her pelisse and +flung it open. Effie had gone to her room. + +"Did you have a pleasant drive?" asked Mrs. Bowen. + +"Very," said the girl. + +"Mr. Morton brought you these roses," continued Mrs. Bowen. + +"Oh," said Imogene, with a cold glance at them. + +"The Flemmings have asked us to a party Thursday. There is to be +dancing." + +"The Flemmings?" + +"Yes." As if she now saw reason to do so, Mrs. Bowen laid the book face +downward in her lap. She yawned a little, with her hand on her mouth. +"Did you meet any one you knew?" + +"Yes; Mr. Colville." Mrs. Bowen cut her yawn in half. "We got out to +walk in the Cascine, and we saw him coming in at the gate. He came up +and asked if he might walk with us." + +"Did you have a pleasant walk?" asked Mrs. Bowen, a breath more chillily +than she had asked if they had a pleasant drive. + +"Yes, pleasant enough. And then we came back and went down the river +bank, and he skipped stones, and we took him to his hotel." + +"Was there anybody you knew in the Cascine?" + +"Oh no; the place was a howling wilderness. I never saw it so deserted," +said the girl impatiently. "It was terribly hot walking. I thought I +should burn up." + +Mrs. Bowen did not answer anything; she let the book lie in her lap. + +"What an odd person Mr. Colville is!" said Imogene, after a moment. +"Don't you think he's very different from other gentlemen?" + +"Why?" + +"Oh, he has such a peculiar way of talking." + +"What peculiar way?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Plenty of the young men I see talk cynically, and I +do sometimes myself--desperately, don't you know. But then I know very +well we don't mean anything by it." + +"And do you think Mr. Colville does? Do you think he talks cynically?" + +Imogene leaned back in her chair and reflected. "No," she returned +slowly, "I can't say that he does. But he talks lightly, with a kind of +touch and go that makes you feel that he has exhausted all feeling. He +doesn't parade it at all. But you hear between the words, don't you +know, just as you read between the lines in some kinds of poetry. Of +course it's everything in knowing what he's been through. He's perfectly +unaffected; and don't you think he's good?" + +"Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Bowen. "In his way." + +"But he sees through you. Oh, quite! Nothing escapes him, and pretty +soon he lets out that he has seen through you, and then you feel so +_flat_! Oh, it's perfectly intoxicating to be with him. I would give the +world to talk as he does." + +"What was your talk all about?" + +"Oh, I don't know. I suppose it would have been called rather +intellectual." + +Mrs. Bowen smiled infinitesimally. But after a moment she said gravely, +"Mr. Colville is very much older than you. He's old enough to be your +father." + +"Yes, I know that. You feel that he feels old, and it's perfectly +tragical. Sometimes when he turns that slow, dull, melancholy look on +you, he seems a thousand years old." + +"I don't mean that he's positively old," said Mrs. Bowen. "He's only old +comparatively." + +"Oh yes; I understand that. And I don't mean that he really seems a +thousand years old. What I meant was, he seems a thousand years off, as +if he were still young, and had got left behind somehow. He seems to be +on the other side of some impassable barrier, and you want to get over +there and help him to our side, but you can't do it. I suppose his +talking in that light way is merely a subterfuge to hide his feeling, to +make him forget." + +Mrs. Bowen fingered the edges of her book. "You mustn't let your fancy +run away with you, Imogene," she said, with a little painful smile. + +"Oh, I _like_ to let it run away with me. And when I get such a subject +as Mr. Colville, there's no stopping. I can't stop, and I don't _wish_ +to stop. Shouldn't you have thought that he would have been perfectly +crushed at the exhibition he made of himself in the Lancers last night? +He wasn't the least embarrassed when he met me, and the only allusion he +made to it was to say that he had been up late, and had danced too much. +Wasn't it wonderful he could do it? Oh, if _I_ could do that!" + +"I wish he could have avoided the occasion for his bravado," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I think I was a little to blame, perhaps," said the girl. "I beckoned +him to come and take the vacant place." + +"I don't see that that was an excuse," returned Mrs. Bowen primly. + +Imogene seemed insensible to the tone, as it concerned herself; it only +apparently reminded her of something. "Guess what Mr. Colville said, +when I had been silly, and then tried to make up for it by being very +dignified all of a sudden?" + +"I don't know. How had you been silly?" + +The servant brought in some cards. Imogene caught up the pelisse which +she had been gradually shedding as she sat talking to Mrs. Bowen, and +ran out of the room by another door. + +They did not recur to the subject. But that night, when Mrs. Bowen went +to say good night to Effie, after the child had gone to bed, she +lingered. + +"Effie," she said at last, in a husky whisper, "what did Imogene say to +Mr. Colville to-day that made him laugh?" + +"I don't know," said the child. "They kept laughing at so many things." + +"Laughing?" + +"Yes; he laughed. Do you mean toward the last, when he had been throwing +stones into the river?" + +"It must have been then." + +The child stretched herself drowsily. "Oh I couldn't understand it all. +She wanted to throw a stone in the river, but he told her she had better +not. But that didn't make _him_ laugh. She was so very stiff just +afterward that he said the weather had changed, and that made _us_ +laugh." + +"Was that all?" + +"We kept laughing ever so long. I never saw any one like Mr. Colville. +How queerly the fire shines on your face! It gives you such a beautiful +complexion." + +"Does it?" + +"Yes, lovely." The child's mother stooped over and kissed her. "You're +the prettiest mamma in the world," she said, throwing her arms round her +neck. "Sometimes I can't tell whether Imogene is prettier or not, but +to-night I'm certain you are. Do you like to have me think that?" + +"Yes--yes. But don't pull me down so; you hurt my neck. Good night." + +The child let her go. "I haven't said my prayer yet, mamma. I was +thinking." + +"Well, say it now, then," said the mother gently. + +When the child had finished she turned upon her cheek. "Good night, +mamma." + +Mrs. Bowen went about the room a little while, picking up its pretty +disorder. Then she sat down in a chair by the hearth, where a log was +still burning. The light of the flame flickered upon her face, and threw +upon the ceiling a writhing, fantastic shadow, the odious caricature of +her gentle beauty. + + + + + + +VIII + + +In that still air of the Florentine winter, time seems to share the +arrest of the natural forces, the repose of the elements. The pale blue +sky is frequently overcast, and it rains two days out of five; +sometimes, under extraordinary provocation from the north a snow-storm +whirls along under the low grey dome, and whitens the brown roofs, where +a growth of spindling weeds and grass clothes the tiles the whole year +round, and shows its delicate green above the gathered flakes. But for +the most part the winds are laid, and the sole change is from quiet sun +to quiet shower. This at least is the impression which remains in the +senses of the sojourning stranger, whose days slip away with so little +difference one from another that they seem really not to have passed, +but, like the grass that keeps the hillsides fresh round Florence all +the winter long, to be waiting some decisive change of season before +they begin. + +The first of the Carnival sights that marked the lapse of a month since +his arrival took Colville by surprise. He could not have believed that +it was February yet if it had not been for the straggling maskers in +armour whom he met one day in Via Borgognissanti, with their visors up +for their better convenience in smoking. They were part of the chorus at +one of the theatres, and they were going about to eke out their salaries +with the gifts of people whose windows the festival season privileged +them to play under. The silly spectacle stirred Colville's blood a +little, as any sort of holiday preparation was apt to do. He thought +that it afforded him a fair occasion to call at Palazzo Pinti, where he +had not been so much of late as in the first days of his renewed +acquaintance with Mrs. Bowen. He had at one time had the fancy that Mrs. +Bowen was cool toward him. He might very well have been mistaken in +this; in fact, she had several times addressed him the politest +reproaches for not coming, but he made some evasion, and went only on +the days when she was receiving other people, and when necessarily he +saw very little of the family. + +Miss Graham was always very friendly, but always very busy, drawing tea +from the samovar, and looking after others. Effie Bowen dropped her eyes +in re-established strangeness when she brought the basket of cake to +him. There was one moment when he suspected that he had been talked over +in family council, and put under a certain regimen. But he had no proof +of this, and it had really nothing to do with his keeping away, which +was largely accidental. He had taken up, with as much earnestness as he +could reasonably expect of himself, that notion of studying the +architectural expression of Florentine character at the different +periods. He had spent a good deal of money in books, he had revived his +youthful familiarity with the city, and he had made what acquaintance he +could with people interested in such matters. He met some of these in +the limited but very active society in which he mingled daily and +nightly. After the first strangeness to any sort of social life had worn +off, he found himself very fond of the prompt hospitalities which his +introduction at Mrs. Bowen's had opened to him. His host--or more +frequently it was his hostess--had sometimes merely an apartment at a +hotel; perhaps the family was established in one of the furnished +lodgings which stretch the whole length of the Lung' Arno on either +hand, and abound in all the new streets approaching the Cascine, and had +set up the simple and facile housekeeping of the sojourner in Florence +for a few months; others had been living in the villa or the palace they +had taken for years. + +The more recent and transitory people expressed something of the +prevailing English and American aestheticism in the decoration of their +apartments, but the greater part accepted the Florentine drawing-room as +their landlord had imagined it for them, with furniture and curtains in +yellow satin, a cheap ingrain carpet thinly covering the stone floor, +and a fire of little logs ineffectually blazing on the hearth, and +flickering on the carved frames of the pictures on the wall and the +nakedness of the frescoed allegories in the ceiling. Whether of longer +or shorter stay, the sojourners were bound together by a common language +and a common social tradition; they all had a Day, and on that day there +was tea and bread and butter for every comer. They had one another to +dine; there were evening parties, with dancing and without dancing. +Colville even went to a fancy ball, where he was kept in countenance by +several other Florentines of the period of Romola. At all these places +he met nearly the same people, whose alien life in the midst of the +native community struck him as one of the phases of modern civilisation +worthy of note, if not particular study; for he fancied it destined to a +wider future throughout Europe, as the conditions in England and America +grow more tiresome and more onerous. They seemed to see very little of +Italian society, and to be shut out from practical knowledge of the +local life by the terms upon which they had themselves insisted. Our +race finds its simplified and cheapened London or New York in all its +Continental resorts now, but nowhere has its taste been so much studied +as in Italy, and especially in Florence. It was not, perhaps, the real +Englishman or American who had been considered, but a _forestière_ +conventionalised from the Florentine's observation of many Anglo-Saxons. +But he had been so well conjectured that he was hemmed round with a very +fair illusion of his national circumstances. + +It was not that he had his English or American doctor to prescribe for +him when sick, and his English or American apothecary to compound his +potion; it was not that there was an English tailor and an American +dentist, an English bookseller and an English baker, and chapels of +every shade of Protestantism, with Catholic preaching in English every +Sunday. These things were more or less matters of necessity, but +Colville objected that the barbers should offer him an American shampoo; +that the groceries should abound in English biscuit and our own canned +fruit and vegetables, and that the grocers' clerks should be ambitious +to read the labels of the Boston baked beans. He heard--though he did +not prove this by experiment--that the master of a certain trattoria had +studied the doughnut of New England till he had actually surpassed the +original in the qualities that have undermined our digestion as a +people. But above all it interested him to see that intense expression +of American civilisation, the horse-car, triumphing along the +magnificent avenues that mark the line of the old city walls; and he +recognised an instinctive obedience to an abtruse natural law in the +fact that whereas the omnibus, which the Italians have derived from the +English, was not filled beyond its seating capacity, the horse-car was +overcrowded without and within at Florence, just as it is with us who +invented it. + +"I wouldn't mind even that," he said one day to the lady who was drawing +him his fifth or sixth cup of tea for that afternoon, and with whom he +was naturally making this absurd condition of things a matter of +personal question; "but you people here pass your days in a round of +unbroken English, except when you talk with your servants. I'm not sure +you don't speak English with the shop people. I can hardly get them to +speak Italian to me." + +"Perhaps they think you can speak English better," said the lady. + +This went over Florence; in a week it was told to Colville as something +said to some one else. He fearlessly reclaimed it as said to himself, +and this again was told. In the houses where he visited he had the +friendly acceptance of any intelligent and reasonably agreeable person +who comes promptly and willingly when he is asked, and seems always to +have enjoyed himself when he goes away. But besides this sort of general +favour, he enjoyed a very pleasing little personal popularity which came +from his interest in other people, from his good-nature, and from his +inertness. He slighted no acquaintance, and talked to every one with the +same apparent wish to be entertaining. This was because he was incapable +of the cruelty of open indifference when his lot was cast with a dull +person, and also because he was mentally too lazy to contrive pretences +for getting away; besides he did not really find anybody altogether a +bore, and he had no wish to shine. He listened without shrinking to +stories that he had heard before, and to things that had already been +said to him; as has been noted, he had himself the habit of repeating +his ideas with the recklessness of maturity, for he had lived long +enough to know that this can be done with almost entire safety. + +He haunted the studios a good deal, and through a retrospective affinity +with art, and a human sympathy with the sacrifice which it always +involves, he was on friendly terms with sculptors and painters who were +not in every case so friendly with one another. More than once he saw +the scars of old rivalries, and he might easily have been an adherent of +two or three parties. But he tried to keep the freedom of the different +camps without taking sides; and he felt the pathos of the case when they +all told the same story of the disaster which the taste for bric-à-brac +had wrought to the cause of art; how people who came abroad no longer +gave orders for statues and pictures, but spent their money on curtains +and carpets, old chests and chairs, and pots and pans. There were some +among these artists whom he had known twenty years before in Florence, +ardent and hopeful beginners; and now the backs of their grey or bald +heads, as they talked to him with their faces towards their work, and a +pencil or a pinch of clay held thoughtfully between their fingers, +appealed to him as if he had remained young and prosperous, and they had +gone forward to age and hard work. They were very quaint at times. They +talked the American slang of the war days and of the days before the +war; without a mastery of Italian, they often used the idioms of that +tongue in their English speech. They were dim and vague about the +country, with whose affairs they had kept up through the newspapers. +Here and there one thought he was going home very soon; others had +finally relinquished all thoughts of return. These had, perhaps without +knowing it, lost the desire to come back; they cowered before the +expensiveness of life in America, and doubted of a future with which, +indeed, only the young can hopefully grapple. But in spite of their +accumulated years, and the evil times on which they had fallen, Colville +thought them mostly very happy men, leading simple and innocent lives in +a world of the ideal, and rich in the inexhaustible beauty of the city, +the sky, the air. They all, whether they were ever going back or not, +were fervent Americans, and their ineffaceable nationality marked them, +perhaps, all the more strongly for the patches of something alien that +overlaid it in places. They knew that he was or had been a newspaper +man; but if they secretly cherished the hope that he would bring them to +the _dolce lume_ of print, they never betrayed it; and the authorship of +his letter about the American artists in Florence, which he printed in +the _American Register_ at Paris, was not traced to him for a whole +week. + +Colville was a frequent visitor of Mr. Waters, who had a lodging in +Piazza San Marco, of the poverty which can always be decent in Italy. It +was bare, but for the books that furnished it; with a table for his +writing, on a corner of which he breakfasted, a wide sofa with cushions +in coarse white linen that frankly confessed itself a bed by night, and +two chairs of plain Italian walnut; but the windows, which had no sun, +looked out upon the church and the convent sacred to the old Socinian +for the sake of the meek, heroic mystic whom they keep alive in all the +glory of his martyrdom. No two minds could well have been further apart +than the New England minister and the Florentine monk, and no two souls +nearer together, as Colville recognised with a not irreverent smile. + +When the old man was not looking up some point of his saint's history in +his books, he was taking with the hopefulness of youth and the patience +of age a lesson in colloquial Italian from his landlady's daughter, +which he pronounced with a scholarly scrupulosity and a sincere atonic +Massachusetts accent. He practised the language wherever he could, +especially at the trattoria where he dined, and where he made occasions +to detain the waiter in conversation. They humoured him, out of their +national good-heartedness and sympathy, and they did what they could to +realise a strange American dish for him on Sundays--a combination of +stockfish and potatoes boiled, and then fried together in small cakes. +They revered him as a foreign gentleman of saintly amiability and +incomprehensible preferences; and he was held in equal regard at the +next green-grocer's where he spent every morning five centessimi for a +bunch of radishes and ten for a little pat of butter to eat with his +bread and coffee; he could not yet accustom himself to mere bread and +coffee for breakfast, though he conformed as completely as he could to +the Italian way of living. He respected the abstemiousness of the race; +he held that it came from a spirituality of nature to which the North +was still strange, with all its conscience and sense of individual +accountability. He contended that he never suffered in his small +dealings with these people from the dishonesty which most of his +countrymen complained of; and he praised their unfailing gentleness of +manner; this could arise only from goodness of heart, which was perhaps +the best kind of goodness after all. + +None of these humble acquaintance of his could well have accounted for +the impression they all had that he was some sort of ecclesiastic. They +could never have understood--nor, for that matter, could any one have +understood through European tradition--the sort of sacerdotal office +that Mr. Waters had filled so long in the little deeply book-clubbed New +England village where he had outlived most of his flock, till one day he +rose in the midst of the surviving dyspeptics and consumptives and, +following the example of Mr. Emerson, renounced his calling for ever. By +that time even the pale Unitarianism thinning out into paler doubt was +no longer tenable with him. He confessed that while he felt the Divine +goodness more and more, he believed that it was a mistake to preach any +specific creed or doctrine, and he begged them to release him from their +service. A young man came to fill his place in their pulpit, but he kept +his place in their hearts. They raised a subscription of seventeen +hundred dollars and thirty-five cents; another being submitted to the +new button manufacturer, who had founded his industry in the village, he +promptly rounded it out to three thousand, and Mr. Waters came to +Florence. His people parted with him in terms of regret as delicate as +they were awkward, and their love followed him. He corresponded +regularly with two or three ladies, and his letters were sometimes read +from his pulpit. + +Colville took the Piazza San Marco in on his way to Palazzo Pinti on the +morning when he had made up his mind to go there, and he stood at the +window looking out with the old man, when some more maskers passed +through the place--two young fellows in old Florentine dress, with a +third habited as a nun. + +"Ah," said the old man gently, "I wish they hadn't introduced the nun! +But I suppose they can't help signalising their escape from the +domination of the Church on all occasions. It's a natural reaction. It +will all come right in time." + +"You preach the true American gospel," said Colville. + +"Of course; there is no other gospel. That is the gospel." + +"Do you suppose that Savonarola would think it had all come out right," +asked Colville, a little maliciously, "if he could look from the window +with us here and see the wicked old Carnival, that he tried so hard to +kill four hundred years ago, still alive? And kicking?" he added, in +cognisance of the caper of one of the maskers. + +"Oh yes; why not? By this time he knows that his puritanism was all a +mistake, unless as a thing for the moment only. I should rather like to +have Savonarola here with us; he would find these costumes familiar; +they are of his time. I shall make a point of seeing all I can of the +Carnival, as part of my study of Savonarola, if nothing else." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to give yourself limitations," said Colville, as +one of the maskers threw his arm round the mock-nun's neck. But the old +man did not see this, and Colville did not feel it necessary to explain +himself. + +The maskers had passed out of the piazza, now, and "Have you seen our +friends at Palazzo Pinti lately?" said Mr. Waters. + +"Not very," said Colville. "I was just on my way there." + +"I wish you would make them my compliments. Such a beautiful young +creature." + +"Yes," said Colville; "she is certainly a beautiful girl." + +"I meant Mrs. Bowen," returned the old man quietly. + +"Oh, I thought you meant Miss Graham. Mrs. Bowen is my contemporary, and +so I didn't think of her when you said young. I should have called her +pretty rather than beautiful." + +"No; she's beautiful. The young girl is good-looking--I don't deny that; +but she is very crude yet." + +Colville laughed. "Crude in looks? I should have said Miss Graham was +rather crude in mind, though I'm not sure I wouldn't have stopped at +saying _young_." + +"No," mildly persisted the old man; "she couldn't be crude in mind +without being crude in looks." + +"You mean," pursued Colville, smiling, but not wholly satisfied, "that +she hasn't a lovely nature?" + +"You never can know what sort of nature a young girl has. Her nature +depends so much upon that of the man whose fate she shares." + +"The woman is what the man makes her? That is convenient for the woman, +and relieves her of all responsibility." + +"The man is what the woman makes him, too, but not so much so. The man +was cast into a deep sleep, you know----" + +"And the woman was what he dreamed her. I wish she were." + +"In most cases she is," said Mr. Waters. + +They did not pursue the matter. The truth that floated in the old +minister's words pleased Colville by its vagueness, and flattered the +man in him by its implication of the man's superiority. He wanted to say +that if Mrs. Bowen were what the late Mr. Bowen had dreamed her, then +the late Mr. Bowen, when cast into his deep sleep, must have had Lina +Ridgely in his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the fantasy +unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he forbore to say +that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it would be better to begin +with some one whom nobody else had dreamed before; then you could be +sure at least of not having a wife to somebody else's mind rather than +your own. Once on his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped, arrested by a +thought that had not occurred to him before in relation to what Mr. +Waters had been saying, and then pushed on with the sense of security +which is the compensation the possession of the initiative brings to our +sex along with many responsibilities. In the enjoyment of this, no man +stops to consider the other side, which must wait his initiative, +however they mean to meet it. + +In the Por San Maria Colville found masks and dominoes filling the shop +windows and dangling from the doors. A devil in red and a clown in white +crossed the way in front of him from an intersecting street; several +children in pretty masquerading dresses flashed in and out among the +crowd. He hurried to the Lung' Arno, and reached the palace where Mrs. +Bowen lived, with these holiday sights fresh in his mind. Imogene turned +to meet him at the door of the apartment, running from the window where +she had left Effie Bowen still gazing. + +"We saw you coming," she said gaily, without waiting to exchange formal +greetings. "We didn't know at first but it might; be somebody else +disguised as you. We've been watching the maskers go by. Isn't it +exciting?" + +"Awfully," said Colville, going to the window with her, and putting his +arm on Effie's shoulder, where she knelt in a chair looking out. "What +have you seen?" + +"Oh, only two Spanish students with mandolins," said Imogene; "but you +can see they're _beginning_ to come." + +"They'll stop now," murmured Effie, with gentle disappointment; "it's +commencing to rain." + +"Oh, too bad!" wailed the young girl. But just then two mediaeval +men-at-arms came in sight, carrying umbrellas. "Isn't that too +delicious? Umbrellas and chain-armour!" + +"You can't expect them to let their chain-armour get rusty," said +Colville. "You ought to have been with me--minstrels in scale-armour, +Florentines of Savonarola's times, nuns, clowns, demons, fairies--no end +to them." + +"It's very well saying we ought to have been with you; but we can't go +anywhere alone." + +"I didn't say alone," said Colville. "Don't you think Mrs. Bowen would +trust you with me to see these Carnival beginnings?" He had not meant at +all to do anything of this kind, but that had not prevented his doing +it. + +"How do we know, when she hasn't been asked?" said Imogene, with a touch +of burlesque dolor, such as makes a dignified girl enchanting, when she +permits it to herself. She took Effie's hand in hers, the child having +faced round from the window, and stood smoothing it, with her lovely +head pathetically tilted on one side. + +"What haven't I been asked yet?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, coming lightly +toward them from a door at the side of the _salon_. She gave her hand to +Colville with the prettiest grace, and a cordiality that brought a flush +to her cheek. There had really been nothing between them but a little +unreasoned coolness, if it were even so much as that; say rather a +dryness, aggravated by time and absence, and now, as friends do, after a +thing of that kind, they were suddenly glad to be good to each other. + +"Why, you haven't been asked how you have been this long time," said +Colville. + +"I have been wanting to tell you for a whole week," returned Mrs. Bowen, +seating the rest and taking a chair for herself. "Where have you been?" + +"Oh, shut up in my cell at Hotel d'Atene, writing a short history of the +Florentine people for Miss Effie." + +"Effie, take Mr. Colville's hat," said her mother. "We're going to make +you stay to lunch," she explained to him. + +"Is that so?" he asked, with an effect of polite curiosity. + +"Yes." Imogene softly clapped her hands, unseen by Mrs. Bowen, for +Colville's instruction that all was going well. If it delights women to +pet an undangerous friend of our sex, to use him like one of themselves, +there are no words to paint the soft and flattered content with which +his spirit purrs under their caresses. "You must have nearly finished +the history," added Mrs. Bowen. + +"Well, I could have finished it," said Colville, "if I had only begun +it. You see, writing a short history of the Florentine people is such +quick work that you have to be careful how you actually put pen to +paper, or you're through with it before you've had any fun out of it." + +"I think Effie will like to read that kind of history," said her mother. + +The child hung her head, and would not look at Colville; she was still +shy with him; his absence must have seemed longer to a child, of course. + +At lunch they talked of the Carnival sights that had begun to appear. He +told of his call upon Mr. Waters, and of the old minister's purpose to +see all he could of the Carnival in order to judge intelligently of +Savonarola's opposition to it. + +"Mr. Waters is a very good man," said Mrs. Bowen, with the air of not +meaning to approve him quite, nor yet to let any notion of his be made +fun of in her presence. "But for my part I wish there were not going to +be any Carnival; the city will be in such an uproar for the next two +weeks." + +"O Mrs. Bowen!" cried Imogene reproachfully; Effie looked at her mother +in apparent anxiety lest she should be meaning to put forth an +unquestionable power and stop the Carnival. + +"The last Carnival, I thought there was never going to be any end to it; +I was so glad when Lent came." + +"Glad when _Lent_ came!" breathed Imogene, in astonishment; but she +ventured upon nothing more insubordinate, and Colville admired to see +this spirited girl as subject to Mrs. Bowen as her own child. There is +no reason why one woman should establish another woman over her, but +nearly all women do it in one sort or another, from love of a voluntary +submission, or from a fear of their own ignorance, if they are younger +and more inexperienced than their lieges. Neither the one passion nor +the other seems to reduce them to a like passivity as regards their +husbands. They must apparently have a fetish of their own sex. Colville +could see that Imogene obeyed Mrs. Bowen not only as a _protégée_ but as +a devotee. + +"Oh, I suppose _you_ will have to go through it all," said Mrs. Bowen, +in reward of the girl's acquiescence. + +"You're rather out of the way of it up here," said Colville. "You had +better let me go about with the young ladies--if you can trust them to +the care of an old fellow like me." + +"Oh, I don't think you're so very old, at all times," replied Mrs. +Bowen, with a peculiar look, whether indulgent or reproachful he could +not quite make out. + +But he replied, boldly, in his turn: "I have certainly my moments of +being young still; I don't deny it. There's always a danger of their +occurrence." + +"I was thinking," said Mrs. Bowen, with a graceful effect of not +listening, "that you would let me go too. It would be quite like old +times." + +"Only too much honour and pleasure," returned Colville, "if you will +leave out the old times. I'm not particular about having them along." +Mrs. Bowen joined in laughing at the joke, which they had to themselves. +"I was only consulting an explicit abhorrence of yours in not asking you +to go at first," he explained. + +"Oh yes; I understand that." + +The excellence of the whole arrangement seemed to grow upon Mrs. Bowen. +"Of course," she said, "Imogene ought to see all she can of the +Carnival. She may not have another chance, and perhaps if she had, _he_ +wouldn't consent." + +"I'll engage to get _his_ consent," said the girl. "What I was afraid of +was that I couldn't get yours, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Am I so severe as that?" asked Mrs. Bowen softly. + +"Quite," replied Imogene. + +"Perhaps," thought Colville, "it isn't always silent submission." + +For no very good reason that any one could give, the Carnival that year +was not a brilliant one. Colville's party seemed to be always meeting +the same maskers on the street, and the maskers did not greatly increase +in numbers. There were a few more of them after nightfall, but they were +then a little more bacchanal, and he felt it was better that the ladies +had gone home by that time. In the pursuit of the tempered pleasure of +looking up the maskers he was able to make the reflection that their +fantastic and vivid dresses sympathised in a striking way with the +architecture of the city, and gave him an effect of Florence which he +could not otherwise have had. There came by and by a little attempt at a +_corso_ in Via Cerratani and Via Tornabuoni. There were some masks in +carriages, and from one they actually threw plaster _confetti_; half a +dozen bare-legged boys ran before and beat one another with bladders, +Some people, but not many, watched the show from the windows, and the +footways were crowded. + +Having proposed that they should see the Carnival together, Colville had +made himself responsible for it to the Bowen household. Imogene said, +"Well is this the famous Carnival of Florence?" + +"It certainly doesn't compare with the Carnival last year," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"Your reproach is just, Mrs. Bowen," he acknowledged. "I've managed it +badly. But you know I've been out of practice a great while there in Des +Vaches." + +"Oh, poor Mr. Colville!" cried Imogene. "He isn't altogether to blame." + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen, humouring the joke in her turn. "It +seems to me that if he had consulted us a little earlier, he might have +done better." + +He drove home with the ladies, and Mrs. Bowen made him stay to tea. As +if she felt that he needed to be consoled for the failure of his +Carnival, she was especially indulgent with him. She played to him on +the piano some of the songs that were in fashion when they were in +Florence together before. + +Imogene had never heard them; she had heard her mother speak of them. +One or two of them were negro songs, such as very pretty young ladies +used to sing without harm to themselves or offence to others; but +Imogene decided that they were rather rowdy. "Dear me, Mrs. Bowen! Did +_you_ sing such songs? You wouldn't let Effie!" + +"No, I wouldn't let Effie. The times are changed. I wouldn't let Effie +go to the theatre alone with a young gentleman." + +"The times are changed for the worse," Colville began. "What harm ever +came to a young man from a young lady's going alone to the theatre with +him?" + +He stayed till the candles were brought in, and then went away only +because, as he said, they had not asked him to stay to dinner. + +He came nearly every day, upon one pretext or another, and he met them +oftener than that at the teas and on the days of other ladies in +Florence; for he was finding the busy idleness of the life very +pleasant, and he went everywhere. He formed the habit of carrying +flowers to the Palazzo Pinti, excusing himself on the ground that they +were so cheap and so abundant as to be impersonal. He brought violets to +Effie and roses to Imogene; to Mrs. Bowen he always brought a bunch of +the huge purple anemones which grow so abundantly all winter long about +Florence. "I wonder why _purple_ anemones?" he asked her one day in +presenting them to her. + +"Oh, it is quite time I should be wearing purple," she said gently. + +"Ah, Mrs. Bowen!" he reproached her. "Why do I bring purple violets to +Miss Effie?" + +"You must ask Effie!" said Mrs. Bowen, with a laugh. + +After that he stayed away forty-eight hours, and then appeared with a +bunch of the red anemones, as large as tulips, which light up the meadow +grass when it begins to stir from its torpor in the spring. "They grew +on purpose to set me right with you," he said, "and I saw them when I +was in the country." + +It was a little triumph for him, which she celebrated by putting them in +a vase on her table, and telling people who exclaimed over them that +they were some Mr. Colville gathered in the country. He enjoyed his +privileges at her house with the futureless satisfaction of a man. He +liked to go about with the Bowens; he was seen with the ladies driving +and walking, in most of their promenades. He directed their visits to +the churches and the galleries; he was fond of strolling about with +Effie's daintily-gloved little hand in his. He took her to Giocosa's and +treated her to ices; he let her choose from the confectioner's prettiest +caprices in candy; he was allowed to bring the child presents in his +pockets. Perhaps he was not as conscientious as he might have been in +his behaviour with the little girl. He did what he could to spoil her, +or at least to relax the severity of the training she had received; he +liked to see the struggle that went on in the mother's mind against +this, and then the other struggle with which she overcame her opposition +to it. The worst he did was to teach Effie some picturesque Western +phrases, which she used with innocent effectiveness; she committed the +crimes against convention which he taught her with all the conventional +elegance of her training. The most that he ever gained for her were some +concessions in going out in weather that her mother thought unfit, or +sitting up for half-hours after her bed-time. He ordered books for her +from Goodban's, and it was Colville now, and not the Rev. Mr. Morton, +who read poetry aloud to the ladies on afternoons when Mrs. Bowen gave +orders that she and Miss Graham should be denied to all other comers. + +It was an intimacy; and society in Florence is not blind, and especially +it is not dumb. The old lady who had celebrated Mrs. Bowen to him the +first night at Palazzo Pinti led a life of active questions as to what +was the supreme attraction to Colville there, and she referred her doubt +to every friend with whom she drank tea. She philosophised the situation +very scientifically, and if not very conclusively, how few are the +absolute conclusions of science upon any point! + +"He is a bachelor, and there is a natural affinity between bachelors and +widows--much more than if he were a widower too. If he were a widower I +should say it was undoubtedly mademoiselle. If he were a little _bit_ +younger, I should have no doubt it was madame; but men of that age have +such an ambition to marry young girls! I suppose that they think it +proves they are not so very old, after all. And certainly he isn't too +old to marry. If he were wise--which he probably isn't, if he's like +other men in such matters--there wouldn't be any question about Mrs. +Bowen. Pretty creature! And so much sense! Too much for him. Ah, my +dear, how we are wasted upon that sex!" + +Mrs. Bowen herself treated the affair with masterly frankness. More than +once in varying phrase, she said: "You are very good to give us so much +of your time, Mr. Colville, and I won't pretend I don't know it. You're +helping me out with a very hazardous experiment. When I undertook to see +Imogene through a winter in Florence, I didn't reflect what a very gay +time girls have at home, in Western towns especially. But I haven't +heard her breathe Buffalo once. And I'm sure it's doing her a great deal +of good here. She's naturally got a very good mind; she's very ambitious +to be cultivated. She's read a good deal, and she's anxious to know +history and art; and your advice and criticism are the greatest possible +advantage to her." + +"Thank you," said Colville, with a fine, remote dissatisfaction. "I +supposed I was merely enjoying myself." + +He had lately begun to haunt his banker's for information in regard to +the Carnival balls, with the hope that something might be made out of +them. + +But either there were to be no great Carnival balls, or it was a mistake +to suppose that his banker ought to know about them. Colville went +experimentally to one of the people's balls at a minor theatre, which he +found advertised on the house walls. At half-past ten the dancing had +not begun, but the masks were arriving; young women in gay silks and +dirty white gloves; men in women's dresses, with enormous hands; girls +as pages; clowns, pantaloons, old women, and the like. They were all +very good-humoured; the men, who far outnumbered the women, danced +contentedly together. Colville liked two cavalry soldiers who waltzed +with each other for an hour, and then went off to a battery on +exhibition in the pit, and had as much electricity as they could hold. +He liked also two young citizens who danced together as long as he +stayed, and did not leave off even for electrical refreshment. He came +away at midnight, pushing out of the theatre through a crowd of people +at the door, some of whom were tipsy. This certainly would not have done +for the ladies, though the people were civilly tipsy. + + + + + + +IX + + +The next morning Paolo, when he brought up Colville's breakfast, brought +the news that there was to be a veglione at the Pergola Theatre. This +news revived Colville's courage. "Paolo," he said, "you ought to open a +banking-house." Paolo was used to being joked by foreigners who could +not speak Italian very well; he smiled as if he understood. + +The banker had his astute doubts of Paolo's intelligence; the banker in +Europe doubts all news not originating in his house; but after a day or +two the advertisements in the newspapers carried conviction even to the +banker. + +When Colville went to the ladies with news of the veglione, he found +that they had already heard of it. "Should you like to go?" he asked +Mrs. Bowen. + +"I don't know. What do you think?" she asked in turn. + +"Oh, it's for you to do the thinking. I only know what I want." + +Imogene said nothing, while she watched the internal debate as it +expressed itself in Mrs. Bowen's face. + +"People go in boxes," she said thoughtfully; "but you would feel that a +box wasn't the same thing exactly?" + +"_We_ went on the floor," suggested Colville. + +"It was very different then. And, besides, Mrs. Finlay had absolutely +_no_ sense of propriety." When a woman has explicitly condemned a given +action, she apparently gathers courage for its commission under a little +different conditions. "Of course, if we went upon the floor, I shouldn't +wish it to be known at all, though foreigners can do almost anything +they like." + +"Really," said Colville, "when it comes to that, I don't see any harm in +it." + +"And you say go?" + +"I say whatever you say." + +Mrs. Bowen looked from him to Imogene. "I don't either," she said +finally, and they understood that she meant the harm which he had not +seen. + +"Which of us has been so good as to deserve this?" asked Colville. + +"Oh, you have all been good," she said. "We shall go in masks and +dominoes," she continued. "Nothing will happen, and who should know us +if anything did?" They had received tickets to the great Borghese ball, +which is still a fashionable and desired event of the Carnival to +foreigners in Florence; but their preconceptions of the veglione threw +into the shade the entertainment which the gentlemen of Florence offered +to favoured sojourners. + +"Come," said Mrs. Bowen, "you must go with us and help us choose our +dominoes." + +A prudent woman does not do an imprudent thing by halves. Effie was to +be allowed to go to the veglione too, and she went with them to the shop +where they were to hire their dominoes. It would be so much more fun, +Mrs. Bowen said, to choose the dresses in the shop than to have them +sent home for you to look at. Effie was to be in black; Imogene was to +have a light blue domino, and Mrs. Bowen chose a purple one; even where +their faces were not to be seen they considered their complexions in +choosing the colours. If you happened to find a friend, and wanted to +unmask, you would not want to look horrid. The shop people took the +vividest interest in it all, as if it were a new thing to them, and +these were the first foreigners they had ever served with masks and +dominoes. They made Mrs. Bowen and Imogene go into an inner room and +come out for the mystification of Colville, hulking about in the front +shop with his mask and domino on. + +"Which is which?" the ladies both challenged him, in the mask's +conventional falsetto, when they came out. + +With a man's severe logic he distinguished them according to their +silks, but there had been time for them to think of changing, and they +took off their masks to laugh in his face. + +They fluttered so airily about among the pendent masks and dominoes, +from which they shook a ghostly perfume of old carnivals, that his heart +leaped. + +"Ah, you'll never be so fascinating again!" he cried. He wanted to take +them in his arms, they were both so delicious; a man has still only that +primitive way of expressing his supreme satisfaction in women. "Now, +which am I?" he demanded of them, and that made them laugh again. He had +really put his arm about Effie. + +"Do you think you will know your papa at the veglione?" asked one of the +shop-women, with a mounting interest in the amiable family party. + +They all laughed; the natural mistake seemed particularly droll to +Imogene. + +"Come," cried Mrs. Bowen; "it's time we should be going." + +That was true; they had passed so long a time in the shop that they did +not feel justified in seriously attempting to beat down the price of +their dresses. They took them at the first price. The woman said with +reason that it was Carnival, and she could get her price for the things. + +They went to the veglione at eleven, the ladies calling for Colville, as +before, in Mrs. Bowen's carriage. He felt rather sheepish, coming out of +his room in his mask and domino, but the corridors of the hotel were +empty, and for the most part dark; there was no one up but the porter, +who wished him a pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion as if he +were going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His spirits +mounted in the atmosphere of adventure which the ladies diffused about +them in the carriage; Effie Bowen laughed aloud when he entered, in +childish gaiety of heart. + +The narrow streets roared with the wheels of cabs and carriages coming +and going; the street before the theatre was so packed that it was some +time before they could reach the door. Masks were passing in and out; +the nervous joy of the ladies expressed itself in a deep-drawn quivering +sigh. Their carriage door was opened by a servant of the theatre, who +wished them a pleasant veglione, and the next moment they were in the +crowded vestibule, where they paused a moment, to let Imogene and Effie +really feel that they were part of a masquerade. + +"Now, keep all together," said Mrs. Bowen, as they passed through the +inner door of the vestibule, and the brilliantly lighted theatre flashed +its colours and splendours upon them. The floor of the pit had been +levelled to that of the stage, which, stripped of the scenic apparatus, +opened vaster spaces for the motley crew already eddying over it in the +waltz. The boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light of candelabra +which added their sparkle to that of the gas jets. + +"You and Effie go before," said Mrs. Bowen to Imogene. She made them +take hands like children, and mechanically passed her own hand through +Colville's arm. + +A mask in red from head to foot attached himself to the party, and began +to make love to her in excellent pantomime. + +Colville was annoyed. He asked her if he should tell the fellow to take +himself off. + +"Not on any account!" she answered. "It's perfectly delightful. It +wouldn't be the veglione without it. Did you ever see such good acting?" + +"I don't think it's remarkable for anything but its fervour," said +Colville. + +"I should like to see you making love to some lady," she rejoined +mischievously. + +"I will make love to you, if you like," he said, but he felt in an +instant that his joke was in bad taste. + +They went the round of the theatre. "That is Prince Strozzi, Imogene," +said Mrs. Bowen, leaning forward to whisper to the girl. She pointed out +other people of historic and aristocratic names in the boxes, where +there was a democracy of beauty among the ladies, all painted and +powdered to the same marquise effect. + +On the floor were gentlemen in evening dress, without masks, and here +and there ladies waltzing, who had masks but no dominoes. But for the +most part people were in costume; the theatre flushed and flowered in +gay variety of tint that teased the eye with its flow through the dance. + +Mrs. Bowen had circumscribed the adventure so as to exclude dancing from +it. Imogene was not to dance. One might go to the veglione and look on +from a box; if one ventured further and went on the floor, decidedly one +was not to dance. + +This was thoroughly understood beforehand, and there were to be no +petitions or murmurs at the theatre. They found a quiet corner, and sat +down to look on. + +The mask in red followed, and took his place at a little distance, +where, whenever Mrs. Bowen looked that way, he continued to protest his +passion. + +"You're sure he doesn't bore you?" suggested Colville. + +"No, indeed. He's very amusing." + +"Oh, all right!" + +The waltz ceased; the whirling and winding confusion broke into an +irregular streaming hither and thither, up and down. They began to pick +out costumes and characters that interested them. Clowns in white, with +big noses, and harlequins in their motley, with flat black masks, +abounded. There were some admirable grasshoppers in green, with long +antennae quivering from their foreheads. Two or three Mephistos reddened +through the crowd. Several knights in armour got about with difficulty, +apparently burdened by their greaves and breastplates. + +A group of leaping and dancing masks gathered around a young man in +evening dress, with long hair, who stood leaning against a pillar near +them, and who underwent their mockeries with a smile of patience, half +amused, half tormented. + +When they grew tired of baiting him, and were looking about for other +prey, the red mask redoubled his show of devotion to Mrs. Bowen, and the +other masks began to flock round and approve. + +"Oh, now," she said, with a little embarrassed laugh, in which there was +no displeasure, "I think you may ask him to go away. But don't be harsh +with him," she added, at a brusque movement which Colville made toward +the mask. + +"Oh, why should I be harsh with him? We're not rivals." This was not in +good taste either, Colville felt. "Besides, I'm an Italian too," he +said, to retrieve himself. He made a few paces toward the mask, and said +in a low tone, with gentle suggestion, "Madame finds herself a little +incommoded." + +The mask threw himself into an attitude of burlesque despair, bowed low +with his hand on his heart, in token of submission, and vanished into +the crowd. The rest dispersed with cries of applause. + +"How very prettily you did it, both of you!" said Mrs. Bowen. "I begin +to believe you are an Italian, Mr. Colville. I shall be afraid of you." + +"You weren't afraid of him." + +"Oh, he was a real Italian." + +"It seems to me that mamma is getting all the good of the veglione," +said Effie, in a plaintive murmur. The well-disciplined child must have +suffered deeply before she lifted this seditious voice. + +"Why, so I am, Effie," answered her mother, "and I don't think it's fair +myself. What shall we do about it?" + +"I should like something to eat," said the child. + +"So should I," said Colville. "That's reparation your mother owes us +all. Let's make her take us and get us something. Wouldn't you like an +ice, Miss Graham?" + +"Yes, an _ice_," said Imogene, with an effect of adding, "Nothing more +for worlds," that made Colville laugh. She rose slowly, like one in a +dream, and cast a look as impassioned as a look could be made through a +mask on the scene she was leaving behind her. The band was playing a +waltz again, and the wide floor swam with circling couples. + +The corridor where the tables were set was thronged with people, who +were drinking beer and eating cold beef and boned turkey and slices of +huge round sausages. "Oh, how _can_ they?" cried the girl, shuddering. + +"I didn't know you were so ethereal-minded about these things," said +Colville. "I thought you didn't object to the salad at Madame +Uccelli's." + +"Oh, but at the veglione!" breathed the girl for all answer. He laughed +again, but Mrs. Bowen did not laugh with him; he wondered why. + +When they returned to their corner in the theatre they found a mask in a +black domino there, who made place for them, and remained standing near. +They began talking freely and audibly, as English-speaking people +incorrigibly do in Italy, where their tongue is all but the language of +the country. + +"Really," said Colville, "I think I shall stifle in this mask. If you +ladies will do what you can to surround me and keep me secret, I'll take +it off a moment." + +"I believe I will join you, Mr. Colville," said the mask near them. He +pushed up his little visor of silk, and discovered the mild, benignant +features of Mr. Waters. + +"Bless my soul!" cried Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen was apparently too much shocked to say anything. + +"You didn't expect to meet me here?" asked the old man, as if otherwise +it should be the most natural thing in the world. After that they could +only unite in suppressing their astonishment. "It's extremely +interesting," he went on, "extremely! I've been here ever since the +exercises began, and I have not only been very greatly amused, but +greatly instructed. It seems to me the key to a great many anomalies in +the history of this wonderful people." + +If Mr. Waters took this philosophical tone about the Carnival, it was +not possible for Colville to take any other. + +"And have you been able to divine from what you have seen here," he +asked gravely, "the grounds of Savonarola's objection to the Carnival?" + +"Not at all," said the old man promptly. "I have seen nothing but the +most harmless gaiety throughout the evening." + +Colville hung his head. He remembered reading once in a passage from +Swedenborg, that the most celestial angels had scarcely any power of +perceiving evil. + +"Why aren't you young people dancing?" asked Mr. Waters, in a cheerful +general way, of Mrs. Bowen's party. + +Colville was glad to break the silence. "Mrs. Bowen doesn't approve of +dancing at vegliones." + +"No?--why not?" inquired the old man, with invincible simplicity. + +Mrs. Bowen smiled her pretty, small smile below her mask. + +"The company is apt to be rather mixed," she said quietly. + +"Yes," pursued Mr. Waters; "but you could dance with one another. The +company seems very well behaved." + +"Oh, quite so," Mrs. Bowen assented. + +"Shortly after I came," said Mr. Waters, "one of the masks asked me to +dance. I was really sorry that my age and traditions forbade my doing +so. I tried to explain, but I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite +clear." + +"Probably it passed for a joke with her," said Colville, in order to say +something. + +"Ah, very likely; but I shall always feel that my impressions of the +Carnival would have been more definite if I could have danced. Now, if I +were a young man like you----" + +Imogens turned and looked at Colville through the eye-holes of her mask; +even in that sort of isolation he thought her eyes expressed surprise. + +"It never occurred to you before that I was a young man," he suggested +gravely. + +She did not reply. + +After a little interval, "Imogene," asked Mrs. Bowen, "would you like to +dance?" + +Colville was astonished. "The veglione has gone to your head, Mrs. +Bowen," he tacitly made his comment. She had spoken to Imogene, but she +glanced at him as if she expected him to be grateful to her for this +stroke of liberality. + +"What would be the use?" returned the girl. + +Colville rose. "After my performance in the Lancers, I can't expect you +to believe me; but I really do know how to waltz." He had but to extend +his arms, and she was hanging upon his shoulder, and they were whirling +away through a long orbit of delight to the girl. + +"Oh, why have you let me do you such injustice?" she murmured intensely. +"I never shall forgive myself." + +"It grieved me that you shouldn't have divined that I was really a +magnificent dancer in disguise, but I bore it as best I could," said +Colville, really amused at her seriousness. "Perhaps you'll find out +after a while that I'm not an old fellow either, but only a 'Lost +Youth,'" + +"Hush," she said; "I don't like to hear you talk so." + +"How?" + +"About--age!" she answered. "It makes me feel----- Don't to-night!" + +Colville laughed. "It isn't a fact that my blinking is going to change +materially. You had better make the most of me as a lost youth. I'm old +enough to be two of them." + +She did not answer, and as they wound up and down through the other +orbing couples, he remembered the veglione of seventeen years before, +when he had dreamed through the waltz with the girl who jilted him; she +was very docile and submissive that night; he believed afterward that if +he had spoken frankly then, she would not have refused him. But he had +veiled his passion in words and phrases that, taken in themselves, had +no meaning--that neither committed him nor claimed her. He could not +help it; he had not the courage at any moment to risk the loss of her +for ever, till it was too late, till he must lose her. + +"Do you believe in pre-existence?" he demanded of Imogene. + +"Oh yes!" she flashed back. "This very instant it was just as if I had +been here before, long ago." + +"Dancing with me?" + +"With you? Yes--yes--I think so." + +He had lived long enough to know that she was making herself believe +what she said, and that she had not lived long enough to know this. + +"Then you remember what I said to you--tried to say to you--that night?" +Through one of those psychological juggles which we all practise with +ourselves at times, it amused him, it charmed him, to find her striving +to realise this past. + +"No; it was so long ago? What was it?" she whispered dreamily. + +A turn of the waltz brought them near Mrs. Bowen; her mask seemed to +wear a dumb reproach. + +He began to be weary; one of the differences between youth and later +life is that the latter wearies so soon of any given emotion. + +"Ah, I can't remember, either! Aren't you getting rather tired of the +waltz and me?" + +"Oh no; go on!" she deeply murmured. "Try to remember." + +The long, pulsating stream of the music broke and fell. The dancers +crookedly dispersed in wandering lines. She took his arm; he felt her +heart leap against it; those innocent, trustful throbs upbraided him. At +the same time his own heart beat with a sort of fond, protecting +tenderness; he felt the witchery of his power to make this young, +radiant, and beautiful creature hang flattered and bewildered on his +talk; he liked the compassionate worship with which his tacit confidence +had inspired her, even while he was not without some satirical sense of +the crude sort of heart-broken hero he must be in the fancy of a girl of +her age. + +"Let us go and walk in the corridor a moment," he said. But they walked +there till the alluring melancholy music of the waltz began again. In a +mutual caprice, they rejoined the dance. + +It came into his head to ask, "Who is _he_?" and as he had got past +denying himself anything, he asked it. + +"He? What he?" + +"He that Mrs. Bowen thought might object to your seeing the Carnival?" + +"Oh!--oh yes! That was the not impossible he." + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes." + +"Then he's not even the not improbable he?" + +"No, indeed." + +They waltzed in silence. Then, "Why did you ask me that?" she murmured. + +"I don't know. Was it such a strange question?" + +"I don't know. You ought to." + +"Yes, if it was wrong, I'm old enough to know better." + +"You promised not to say 'old' any more." + +"Then I suppose I mustn't. But you mustn't get me to ignore it, and then +laugh at me for it." + +"Oh!" she reproached him, "you think I could do that?" + +"You could if it was you who were here with me once before." + +"Then I know I wasn't." + +Again they were silent, and it was he who spoke first. "I wish you would +tell me why you object to the interdicted topic?" + +"Because--because I like every time to be perfect in itself." + +"Oh! And this wouldn't be perfect in itself if I were--not so young as +some people?" + +"I didn't mean that. No; but if you didn't mention it, no one else would +think of it or care for it." + +"Did any one ever accuse you of flattering, Miss Graham?" + +"Not till now. And you are unjust." + +"Well, I withdraw the accusation." + +"And will you ever pretend such a thing again?" + +"Oh, never!" + +"Then I have your promise." + +The talk was light word-play, such as depends upon the talker's own mood +for its point or its pointlessness. Between two young people of equal +years it might have had meanings to penetrate, to sigh over, to +question. Colville found it delicious to be pursued by the ingenuous +fervour of this young girl, eager to vindicate her sincerity in +prohibiting him from his own ironical depreciation. Apparently, she had +a sentimental mission of which he was the object; he was to be convinced +that he was unnecessarily morbid; he was to be cheered up, to be kept in +heart. + +"I must believe in you after this," he said, with a smile which his mask +hid. + +"Thanks," she breathed. It seemed to him that her hand closed +convulsively upon his in their light clasp. + +The pressure sent a real pang to his heart. It forced her name from his +lips. "Imogene! Ah, I've no right to call you that." + +"Yes." + +"From this out I promise to be twenty years younger. But no one is to +know it but you. Do you think you will know it? I shouldn't like to keep +the secret to myself altogether." + +"No; I will help you. It shall be _our_ secret." + +She gave a low laugh of delight. He convinced himself that she had +entered into the light spirit of banter in which he believed that he was +talking. + +The music ceased again. He whirled her to the seat where he had left +Mrs. Bowen. She was not there, nor the others. + +Colville felt the meanness of a man who has betrayed his trust, and his +self-contempt was the sharper because the trust had been as tacit and +indefinite as it was generous. The effect of Mrs. Bowen's absence was as +if she had indignantly flown, and left him to the consequences of his +treachery. + +He sat down rather blankly with Imogene to wait for her return; it was +the only thing they could do. + +It had grown very hot. The air was thick with dust. The lights burned +through it as through a fog. + +"I believe I will take off my mask," she said. "I can scarcely breathe." + +"No, no," protested Colville; "that won't do." + +"I feel faint," she gasped. + +His heart sank. "Don't," he said incoherently. "Come with me into the +vestibule, and get a breath of air." + +He had almost to drag her through the crowd, but in the vestibule she +revived, and they returned to their place again. He did not share the +easy content with which she recognised the continued absence of Mrs. +Bowen. + +"Why they must be lost. But isn't it perfect sitting here and watching +the maskers?" + +"Perfect," said Colville distractedly. + +"Don't you like to make romances about the different ones?" + +It was on Colville's tongue to say that he had made all the romances he +wished for that evening, but he only answered, "Oh, very." + +"Poor Mrs. Bowen," laughed the girl. "It will be such a joke on her, +with her punctilious notions, getting lost from her _protégée_ at a +Carnival ball! I shall tell every one." + +"Oh no, don't," said Colville, in horror that big mask scarcely +concealed. + +"Why not?" + +"It wouldn't be at all the thing." + +"Why, are you becoming Europeanised too?" she demanded. "I thought you +went in for all sorts of unconventionalities. Recollect your promise. +You must be as impulsive as I am." + +Colville, staring anxiously about in every direction, made for the first +time the reflection that most young girls probably conform to the +proprieties without in the least knowing why. + +"Do you think," he asked, in desperation, "that you would be afraid to +be left here a moment while I went about in the crowd and tried to find +them?" + +"Not at all," she said. But she added, "Don't be gone long." + +"Oh no," he answered, pulling off his mask. "Be sure not to move from +here on any account." + +He plunged into the midst of the crowd that buffeted him from side to +side as he struck against its masses. The squeaking and gibbering masks +mocked in their falsetto at his wild-eyed, naked face thrusting hither +and thither among them. + +"I saw your lady wife with another gentleman," cried one of them, in a +subtle misinterpretation of the cause of his distraction. + +The throng had immensely increased; the clowns and harlequins ran +shrieking up and down, and leaped over one another's heads. + +It was useless. He went back to Imogene with a heart-sickening fear that +she too might have vanished. + +But she was still there. + +"You ought to have come sooner," she said gaily. "That red mask has been +here again. He looked as if he wanted to make love to _me_ this time. +But he didn't. If you'd been here you might have asked him where Mrs. +Bowen was." + +Colville sat down. He had done what he could to mend the matter, and the +time had come for philosophical submission. It was now his duty to keep +up Miss Graham's spirits. They were both Americans, and from the +national standpoint he was simply the young girl's middle-aged bachelor +friend. There was nothing in the situation for him to beat his breast +about. + +"Well, all that we can do is to wait for them," he said. + +"Oh yes," she answered easily. "They'll be sure to come back in the +course of time." + +They waited a half-hour, talking somewhat at random, and still the +others did not come. But the red mask came again. He approached +Colville, and said politely-- + +"_La signora è partita._" + +"The lady gone?" repeated Colville, taking this to be part of the red +mask's joke. + +"_La bambina pareva poco lene._" + +"The little one not well?" echoed Colville again, rising. "Are you +joking?" + +The mask made a deep murmur of polite deprecation. "I am not capable of +such a thing in a serious affair. Perhaps you know me?" he said, taking +off his mask, and in further sign of good faith he gave the name of a +painter sufficiently famous in Florence. + +"I beg your pardon, and thank you," said Colville. He had no need to +speak to Imogene--, her hand was already trembling on his arm. + +They drove home in silence through the white moonlight of the streets, +filled everywhere with the gay voices and figures of the Carnival. + +Mrs. Bowen met them at the door of her apartment, and received them with +a manner that justly distributed the responsibility and penalty for +their escapade. Colville felt that a meaner spirit would have wreaked +its displeasure upon the girl alone. She made short, quiet answers to +all his eager inquiries. Most probably it was some childish +indisposition; Effie had been faint. No, he need not go for the doctor. +Mr. Waters had called the doctor, who had just gone away. There was +nothing else that he could do for her. She dropped her eyes, and in +everything but words dismissed him. She would not even remain with him +till he could decently get himself out of the house. She left Imogene to +receive his adieux, feigning that she heard Effie calling. + +"I'm--I'm very sorry," faltered the girl, "that we didn't go back to her +at once." + +"Yes; I was to blame," answered the humiliated hero of her Carnival +dream. The clinging regret with which she kept his hand at parting +scarcely consoled him for what had happened. + +"I will come round in the morning," he said. "I must know how Effie is." + +"Yes; come." + + + + + + +X + + +Colville went to Palazzo Pinti next day with the feeling that he was +defying Mrs. Bowen. Upon a review of the facts he could not find himself +so very much to blame for the occurrences of the night before, and he +had not been able to prove to his reason that Mrs. Bowen had resented +his behaviour. She had not made a scene of any sort when he came in with +Imogene; it was natural that she should excuse herself, and should wish +to be with her sick child: she had done really nothing. But when a woman +has done nothing she fills the soul of the man whose conscience troubles +him with an instinctive apprehension. There is then no safety, his +nerves tell him, except in bringing the affair, whatever it is, to an +early issue--in having it out with her. Colville subdued the cowardly +impulse of his own heart, which would have deceived him with the +suggestion that Mrs. Bowen might be occupied with Effie, and it would be +better to ask for Miss Graham. He asked for Mrs. Bowen, and she came in +directly. + +She smiled in the usual way, and gave her hand, as she always did; but +her hand was cold, and she looked tired, though she said Effie was quite +herself again, and had been asking for him. "Imogene has been telling +her about your adventure last night, and making her laugh." + +If it had been Mrs. Bowen's purpose to mystify him, she could not have +done it more thoroughly than by this bold treatment of the affair. He +bent a puzzled gaze upon her. "I'm glad any of you have found it +amusing," he said;--"I confess that I couldn't let myself off so lightly +in regard to it." She did not reply, and he continued: "The fact is, I +don't think I behaved very well. I abused your kindness to Miss Graham." + +"Abused my kindness to Miss Graham?" + +"Yes. When you allowed her to dance at the veglione, I ought to have +considered that you were stretching a point. I ought to have taken her +back to you very soon, instead of tempting her to go and walk with me in +the corridor." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "So it was you who proposed it? Imogene was +afraid that she had. What exemplary young people you are! The way each +of you confesses and assumes all the blame would leave the severest +chaperone without a word." + +Her gaiety made Colville uncomfortable. He said gravely, "What I blame +myself most for is that I was not there to be of use to you when +Effie----" + +"Oh, you mustn't think of that at all. Mr. Waters was most efficient. My +admirer in the red mask was close at hand, and between them they got +Effie out without the slightest disturbance. I fancy most people thought +it was a Carnival joke. Please don't think of that again." + +Nothing could be politer than all this. + +"And you won't allow me to punish myself for not being there to give you +even a moral support?" + +"Certainly not. As I told Imogene, young people will be young people; +and I knew how fond you were of dancing." + +Though it pierced him, Colville could not help admiring the neatness of +this thrust. "I didn't know you were so ironical, Mrs. Bowen." + +"Ironical? Not at all." + +"Ah! I see I'm not forgiven." + +"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." + +Imogene and Effie came in. The child was a little pale, and willingly +let him take her on his knee, and lay her languid head on his shoulder. +The girl had not aged overnight like himself and Mrs. Bowen; she looked +as fresh and strong as yesterday. + +"Miss Graham," said Colville, "if a person to whom you had done a deadly +wrong insisted that you hadn't done any wrong at all, should you +consider yourself forgiven?" + +"It would depend upon the person," said the girl, with innocent +liveliness, recognising the extravagance in his tone. + +"Yes," he said, with an affected pensiveness, "so very much depends upon +the person in such a case." + +Mrs. Bowen rose. "Excuse me a moment; I will be back directly. Don't get +up, please," she said, and prevented him with a quick withdrawal to +another room, which left upon his sense the impression of elegant grace, +and a smile and sunny glance. But neither had any warmth in it. + +Colville heaved an involuntary sigh. "Do you feel very much used up?" he +asked Imogene. + +"Not at all," she laughed. "Do you?" + +"Not in the least. My veglione hasn't ended yet. I'm still practically +at the Pergola. It's easy to keep a thing of that sort up if you don't +sleep after you get home." + +"Didn't you sleep? I expected to lie awake a long time thinking it over; +but I dropped asleep at once. I suppose I was very tired. I didn't even +dream." + +"You must have slept hard. You're pretty apt to dream when you're +waking." + +"How do you know?" + +"Ah, I've noticed when you've been talking to me. Better not! It's a bad +habit; it gives you false views of things. I used----" + +"But you mustn't say you _used!_ That's forbidden now. Remember your +promise!" + +"My promise? What promise?" + +"Oh, if you've forgotten already." + +"I remember. But that was last night." + +"No, no! It was for all time. Why should dreams be so very misleading? I +think there's ever so much in dreams. The most wonderful thing is the +way you make people talk in dreams. It isn't strange that you should +talk yourself, but that other people should say this and that when you +aren't at all expecting what they say." + +"That's when you're sleeping. But when you're waking, you make people +say just what you want. And that's why day dreams are so bad. If you +make people say what you want, they probably don't mean it." + +"Don't you think so?" + +"Half the time. Do you ever have day dreams?" he asked Effie, pressing +her cheek against his own. + +"I don't know what they are," she murmured, with a soft little note of +polite regret for her ignorance, if possibly it incommoded him. + +"You will by and by," he said, "and then you must look out for them. +They're particularly bad in this air. I had one of them in Florence once +that lasted three months." + +"What was it about?" asked the child. + +Imogene involuntarily bent forward. + +"Ah, I can't tell you now. She's trying to hear us." + +"No, no," protested the girl, with a laugh. "I was thinking of something +else." + +"Oh, we know her, don't we?" he said to the child, with a playful appeal +to that passion for the joint possession of a mystery which all children +have. + +"We might whisper it," she suggested. + +"No; better wait for some other time." They were sitting near a table +where a pencil and some loose leaves of paper lay. He pulled his chair a +little closer, and, with the child still upon his knee, began to +scribble and sketch at random. "Ah, there's San Miniato," he said, with +a glance from the window. "Must get its outline in. You've heard how +there came to be a church up there? No? Well, it shows the sort of man +San Miniato really was. He was one of the early Christians, and he gave +the poor pagans a great deal of trouble. They first threw him to the +wild beasts in the amphitheatre, but the moment those animals set eyes +on him they saw it would be of no use; they just lay down and died. Very +well, then; the pagans determined to see what effect the axe would have +upon San Miniato: but as soon as they struck off his head he picked it +up, set it back on his shoulders again, waded across the Arno, walked up +the hill, and when he came to a convenient little oratory up there he +knelt down and expired. Isn't that a pretty good story? It's like +fairies, isn't it?" + +"Yes," whispered the child. + +"What nonsense!" said Imogene. "You made it up." + +"Oh, did I? Perhaps I built the church that stands there to commemorate +the fact. It's all in the history of Florence. Not in all histories; +some of them are too proud to put such stories in, but I'm going to put +every one I can find into the history I'm writing for Effie. San Miniato +was beheaded where the church of Santa Candida stands now, and he walked +all that distance." + +"Did he have to die when he got to the oratory?" asked the child, with +gentle regret. + +"It appears so," said Colville, sketching. "He would have been dead by +this time, anyway, you know." + +"Yes," she reluctantly admitted. + +"I never quite like those things, either, Effie," he said, pressing her +to him. "There were people cruelly put to death two or three thousand +years ago that I can't help feeling would be alive yet if they had been +justly treated. There are a good many fairy stories about Florence; +perhaps they used to be true stories; the truth seems to die out of +stories after a while, simply because people stop believing them. Saint +Ambrose of Milan restored the son of his host to life when he came down +here to dedicate the Church of San Giovanni. Then there was another +saint, San Zenobi, who worked a very pretty miracle after he was dead. +They were carrying his body from the Church of San Giovanni to the +Church of Santa Reparata, and in Piazza San Giovanni his bier touched a +dead elm-tree that stood there, and the tree instantly sprang into leaf +and flower, though it was in the middle of the winter. A great many +people took the leaves home with them, and a marble pillar was put up +there, with a cross and an elm-tree carved on it. Oh, the case is very +well authenticated." + +"I shall really begin to think you believe such things," said Imogene. +"Perhaps you _are_ a Catholic." + +Mrs. Bowen returned to the room, and sat down. + +"There's another fairy story, prettier yet," said Colville, while the +little girl drew a long deep breath of satisfaction and expectation. +"You've heard of the Buondelmonti?" he asked Imogene. + +"Oh, it seems to me as if I'd had _nothing_ but the Buondelmonti dinned +into me since I came to Florence!" she answered in lively despair. + +"Ah, this happened some centuries before the Buondelmonte you've been +bored with was born. This was Giovanni Gualberto of the Buondelmonti, +and he was riding along one day in 1003, near the Church of San Miniato, +when he met a certain man named Ugo, who had killed one of his brothers. +Gualberto stopped and drew his sword; Ugo saw no other chance of escape, +and he threw himself face downward on the ground, with his arms +stretched out in the form of the cross. 'Gualberto, remember Jesus +Christ, who died upon the cross praying for His enemies.' The story says +that these words went to Gualberto's heart; he got down from his horse, +and in sign of pardon lifted his enemy and kissed and embraced him. Then +they went together into the church, and fell on their knees before the +figure of Christ upon the cross, and the figure bowed its head in sign +of approval and pleasure in Gualberto's noble act of Christian piety." + +"Beautiful!" murmured the girl; the child only sighed. + +"Ah, yes; it's an easy matter to pick up one's head from the ground, and +set it back on one's shoulders, or to bring the dead to life, or to make +a tree put forth leaves and flowers in midwinter; but to melt the heart +of a man with forgiveness in the presence of his enemy--that's a +different thing; _that's_ no fairy story; that's a real miracle; and I +believe this one happened--it's so impossible." + +"Oh yes, it must have happened," said the girl. + +"Do you think it's so very hard to forgive, then?" asked Mrs. Bowen +gravely. + +"Oh, not for ladies," replied Colville. + +She flushed, and her eyes shone when she glanced at him. + +"I'm sorry to put you down," he said to the child; "but I can't take you +with me, and I must be going." + +Mrs. Bowen did not ask him to stay to lunch; he thought afterward that +she might have relented as far as that but for the last little thrust, +which he would better have spared. + +"Effie dear," said her mother, when the door closed upon Colville, +"don't you think you'd better lie down a while? You look so tired." + +"Shall I lie down on the sofa here?" + +"No, on your bed." + +"Well." + +"I'll go with you, Effie," said Imogene, "and see that you're nicely +tucked in." + +When she returned alone, Mrs. Bowen was sitting where she had left her, +and seemed not to have moved. "I think Effie will drop off to sleep," +she said; "she seems drowsy." She sat down, and after a pensive moment +continued, "I wonder what makes Mr. Colville seem so gloomy." + +"Does he seem gloomy?" asked Mrs. Bowen unsympathetically. + +"No, not gloomy exactly. But different from last night. I wish people +could always be the same! He was so gay and full of spirits; and now +he's so self-absorbed. He thinks you're offended with him, Mrs. Bowen." + +"I don't think he was very much troubled about it. I only thought he was +flighty from want of sleep. At your age you don't mind the loss of a +night." + +"Do you think Mr. Colville seems so very old?" asked Imogene anxiously. + +Mrs. Bowen appeared not to have heard her. She went to the window and +looked out. When she came back, "Isn't it almost time for you to have a +letter from home?" she asked. + +"Why, no. I had one from mother day before yesterday. What made you +think so?" + +"Imogene," interrupted Mrs. Bowen, with a sudden excitement which she +tried to control, but which made her lips tremble, and break a little +from her restraint, "you know that I am here in the place of your +mother, to advise you and look after you in every way?" + +"Why, yes, Mrs. Bowen," cried the girl, in surprise. + +"It's a position of great responsibility in regard to a young lady. I +can't have anything to reproach myself with afterward." + +"No." + +"Have I always been kind to you, and considerate of your rights and your +freedom? Have I ever interfered with you in any way that you think I +oughtn't?" + +"What an idea! You've been loveliness itself, Mrs. Bowen!" + +"Then I want you to listen to me, and answer me frankly, and not suspect +my motives." + +"Why, how _could_ I do that?" + +"Never mind!" cried Mrs. Bowen impatiently, almost angrily. "People +can't help their suspicions! Do you think Mr. Morton cares for you?" + +The girl hung her head. + +"Imogene, answer me!" + +"I don't know," answered Imogene coldly; "but if you're troubled about +that, Mrs. Bowen, you needn't be; I don't care anything for Mr. Morton." + +"If I thought you were becoming interested in any one, it would be my +duty to write to your mother and tell her." + +"Of course; I should expect you to do it." + +"And if I saw you becoming interested in any one in a way that I thought +would make you unhappy, it would be my duty to warn you." + +"Yes." + +"Of course, I don't mean that any one would knowingly try to make you +unhappy?" + +"No." + +"Men don't go about nowadays trying to break girls' hearts. But very +good men can be thoughtless and selfish." + +"Yes; I understand that," said Imogene, in a falling accent. + +"I don't wish to prejudice you against any one. I should consider it +very wrong and wicked. Besides, I don't care to interfere with you to +that degree. You are old enough to see and judge for yourself." + +Imogene sat silent, passing her hand across the front of her dress. The +clock ticked audibly from the mantel. + +"I will not have it left to me!" cried Mrs. Bowen. "It is hard enough, +at any rate. Do you think I like to speak to you?" + +"No." + +"Of course it makes me seem inhospitable, and distrustful, and +detestable." + +"I never thought of accusing you," said the girl, slowly lifting her +eyes. + +"I will never, never speak to you of it again," said Mrs. Bowen, "and +from this time forth I insist upon your feeling just as free as if I +hadn't spoken." She trembled upon the verge of a sob, from which she +repelled herself. + +Imogene sat still, with a sort of serious, bewildered look. + +"You shall have every proper opportunity of meeting any one you like." + +"Oh yes." + +"And I shall be only too gl-glad to take back everything!" + +Imogene sat motionless and silent. Mrs. Bowen broke out again with a +sort of violence; the years teach us something of self-control, perhaps, +but they weaken and unstring the nerves. In this opposition of silence +to silence, the woman of the world was no match for the inexperienced +girl. + +"Have you nothing to say, Imogene?" + +"I never thought of him in that way at all. I don't know what to say +yet. It--confuses me. I--I can't imagine it. But if you think that he is +trying to amuse himself----" + +"I never said that!" + +"No, I know it." + +"He likes to make you talk, and to talk with you. But he is perfectly +idle here, and--there is too much difference, every way. The very good +in him makes it the worse. I suppose that after talking with him every +one else seems insipid." + +"Yes." + +Mrs. Bowen rose and ran suddenly from the room. + +Imogene remained sitting cold and still. + +No one had been named since they spoke of Mr. Morton. + + + + + + +XI + + +Colville had not done what he meant in going to Mrs. Bowen's; in fact, +he had done just what he had not meant to do, as he distinctly perceived +in coming away. It was then that in a luminous retrospect he discovered +his motive to have been a wish to atone to her for behaviour that must +have distressed her, or at least to explain it to her. She had not let +him do this at once; an instant willingness to hear and to condone was +not in a woman's nature; she had to make him feel, by the infliction of +a degree of punishment, that she had suffered. But before she ended she +had made it clear that she was ready to grant him a tacit pardon, and he +had answered with a silly sarcasm the question that was to have led to +peace. He could not help seeing that throughout the whole Carnival +adventure she had yielded her cherished reluctances to please him, to +show him that she was not stiff or prudish, to convince him that she +would not be a killjoy through her devotion to conventionalities which +she thought he despised. He could not help seeing that he had abused her +delicate generosity, insulted her subtle concessions. He strolled along +down the Arno, feeling flat and mean, as a man always does after a +contest with a woman in which he has got the victory; our sex can +preserve its self-respect only through defeat in such a case. It gave +him no pleasure to remember that the glamour of the night before seemed +still to rest on Imogene unbroken; that, indeed, was rather an added +pain. He surprised himself in the midst of his poignant reflections by a +yawn. Clearly the time was past when these ideal troubles could keep him +awake, and there was, after all, a sort of brutal consolation in the +fact. He was forty-one years old, and he was sleepy, whatever capacity +for suffering remained to him. He went to his hotel to catch a little +nap before lunch. When he woke it was dinner-time. The mists of slumber +still hung about him, and the events of the last forty-eight hours +showed vast and shapelessly threatening through them. + +When the drama of the _table d'hôte_ reached its climax of roast +chestnuts and butter, he determined to walk over to San Marco and pay a +visit to Mr. Waters. He found the old minister from Haddam East Village, +Massachusetts, Italianate outwardly in almost ludicrous degree. He wore +a fur-lined overcoat indoors; his feet, cased in thick woollen shoes, +rested on a strip of carpet laid before his table; a man who had lived +for forty years in the pungent atmosphere of an air-tight stove, +succeeding a quarter of a century of roaring hearth fires, contented +himself with the spare heat of a scaldino, which he held his clasped +hands over in the very Italian manner; the lamp that cast its light on +the book open before him was the classic _lucerna_, with three beaks, +fed with olive oil. He looked up at his visitor over his spectacles, +without recognising him, till Colville spoke. Then, after their +greeting, "Is it snowing heavily?" he asked. + +"It isn't snowing at all. What made you think that?" + +"Perhaps I was drowsing over my book and dreamed it. We become very +strange and interesting studies to ourselves as we live along." + +He took up the metaphysical consideration with the promptness of a man +who has no small-talk, and who speaks of the mind and soul as if they +were the gossip of the neighbourhood. + +"At times the forty winters that I passed in Haddam East Village seem +like an alien experience, and I find myself pitying the life I lived +there quite as if it were the life of some one else. It seems incredible +that men should still inhabit such climates." + +"Then you're not homesick for Haddam East Village?" + +"Ah! for the good and striving souls there, yes; especially the souls of +some women there. They used to think that it was I who gave them +consolation and spiritual purpose, but it was they who really imparted +it. Women souls--how beautiful they sometimes are! They seem truly like +angelic essences. I trust that I shall meet them somewhere some time, +but it will never be in Haddam East Village. Yes, I must have been +dreaming when you came in. I thought that I was by my fire there, and +all round over the hills and in the streets the snow was deep and +falling still. How distinctly, he said, closing his eyes, as artists do +in looking at a picture, I can see the black wavering lines of the walls +in the fields sinking into the drifts! the snow billowed over the graves +by the church where I preached! the banks of snow around the houses! the +white desolation everywhere! I ask myself at times if the people are +still there. Yes, I feel as blessedly remote from that terrible winter +as if I had died away from it, and were in the weather of heaven." + +"Then you have no reproach for feeble-spirited fellow-citizens who +abandon their native climate and come to live in Italy?" + +The old man drew his fur coat closer about him and shrugged his +shoulders in true Florentine fashion. "There may be something to say +against those who do so in the heyday of life, but I shall not be the +one to say it. The race must yet revert in its decrepitude, as I have in +mine, to the climates of the South. Since I have been in Italy I have +realised what used to occur to me dimly at home--the cruel disproportion +between the end gained and the means expended in reclaiming the savage +North. Half the human endeavour, half the human suffering, would have +made the whole South Protestant and the whole East Christian, and our +civilisation would now be there. No, I shall never go back to New +England. New England? New Ireland----New Canada! Half the farms in +Haddam are in the hands of our Irish friends, and the labour on the rest +is half done by French Canadians. That is all right and well. New +England must come to me here, by way of the great middle West and the +Pacific coast." + +Colville smiled at the Emersonian touch, but he said gravely, "I can +never quite reconcile myself to the thought of dying out of my own +country." + +"Why not? It is very unimportant where one dies. A moment after your +breath is gone you are in exile for ever--or at home for ever." + +Colville sat musing upon this phase of Americanism, as he had upon many +others. At last he broke the silence they had both let fall, far away +from the topic they had touched. + +"Well," he asked, "how did you enjoy the veglione?" + +"Oh, I'm too old to go to such places for pleasure," said the minister +simply. "But it was very interesting, and certainly very striking: +especially when I went back, toward daylight, after seeing Mrs. Bowen +home." + +"Did you go back?" demanded Colville, in some amaze. + +"Oh yes. I felt that my experience was incomplete without some knowledge +of how the Carnival ended at such a place." + +"Oh! And do you still feel that Savonarola was mistaken?" + +"There seemed to be rather more boisterousness toward the close, and, if +I might judge, the excitement grew a little unwholesome. But I really +don't feel myself very well qualified to decide. My own life has been +passed in circumstances so widely different that I am at a certain +disadvantage." + +"Yes," said Colville, with a smile; "I daresay the Carnival at Haddam +East Village was quite another tiling." + +The old man smiled responsively. "I suppose that some of my former +parishioners might have been scandalised at my presence at a Carnival +ball, had they known the fact merely in the abstract; but in my letters +home I shall try to set it before them in an instructive light. I should +say that the worst thing about such a scene of revelry would be that it +took us too much out of our inner quiet. But I suppose the same remark +might apply to almost any form of social entertainment." + +"Yes." + +"But human nature is so constituted that some means of expansion must be +provided, or a violent explosion takes place. The only question is what +means are most innocent. I have been looking about," added the old man +quietly, "at the theatres lately." + +"Have you?" asked Colville, opening his eyes, in suppressed surprise. + +"Yes; with a view to determining the degree of harmless amusement that +may be derived from them. It's rather a difficult question. I should be +inclined to say, however, that I don't think the ballet can ever be +instrumental for good." + +Colville could not deny himself the pleasure of saying, "Well, not the +highest, I suppose." + +"No," said Mr. Waters, in apparent unconsciousness of the irony. "But I +think the Church has made a mistake in condemning the theatre _in toto_. +It appears to me that it might always have countenanced a certain order +of comedy, in which the motive and plot are unobjectionable. Though I +don't deny that there are moods when all laughter seems low and unworthy +and incompatible with the most advanced state of being. And I confess," +he went on, with a dreamy thoughtfulness, "that I have very great +misgivings in regard to tragedy. The glare that it throws upon the play +of the passions--jealousy in its anguish, revenge glutting itself, envy +eating its heart, hopeless love--their nakedness is terrible. The terror +may be salutary; it may be very mischievous. I am afraid that I have +left some of my inquiries till it is too late. I seem to have no longer +the materials of judgment left in me. If I were still a young man like +you----" + +"Am I still a young man?" interrupted Colville sadly. + +"You are young enough to respond to the appeals that sometimes find me +silent. If I were of your age I should certainly investigate some of +these interesting problems." + +"Ah, but if you become personally interested in the problems, it's as +bad as if you hadn't the materials of judgment left; you're prejudiced. +Besides, I doubt my youthfulness very much." + +"You are fifty, I presume?" suggested Mr. Waters, in a leading way. + +"Not very near--only too near," laughed Colville. "I'm forty-one." + +"You are younger than I supposed. But I remember now that at your age I +had the same feeling which you intimate. It seemed to me then that I had +really passed the bound which separates us from the further possibility +of youth. But I've lived long enough since to know that I was mistaken. +At forty, one has still a great part of youth before him--perhaps the +richest and sweetest part. By that time the turmoil of ideas and +sensations is over; we see clearly and feel consciously. We are in a +sort of quiet in which we peacefully enjoy. We have enlarged our +perspective sufficiently to perceive things in their true proportion and +relation; we are no longer tormented with the lurking fear of death, +which darkens and embitters our earlier years; we have got into the +habit of life; we have often been ailing and we have not died. Then we +have time enough behind us to supply us with the materials of reverie +and reminiscence; the terrible solitude of inexperience is broken; we +have learned to smile at many things besides the fear of death. We ought +also to have learned pity and patience. Yes," the old man concluded, in +cheerful self-corroboration, "it is a beautiful age." + +"But it doesn't look so beautiful as it is," Colville protested. "People +in that rosy prime don't produce the effect of garlanded striplings upon +the world at large. The women laugh at us; they think we are fat old +fellows; they don't recognise the slender and elegant youth that resides +in our unwieldy bulk." + +"You take my meaning a little awry. Besides, I doubt if even the ground +you assume is tenable. If a woman has lived long enough to be truly +young herself, she won't find a man at forty either decrepit or +grotesque. He can even make himself youthful to a girl of thought and +imagination." + +"Yes," Colville assented, with a certain discomfort. + +"But to be truly young at forty," resumed Mr. Waters, "a man should be +already married." + +"Yes?" + +"I sometimes feel," continued the old man, "that I made a mistake in +yielding to a disappointment that I met with early in life, and in not +permitting myself the chance of retrieval. I have missed a beautiful and +consoling experience in my devotion to a barren regret." + +Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of amusement, +of repulsion, and of curiosity at this. + +"We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more convinced of +that. We have scarcely a right to separate ourselves from the common lot +in any way. I justify myself for having lived alone only as a widower +might. I--lost her. It was a great while ago." + +"Yes," said Colville, after the pause which ensued; "I agree with you +that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse his portion of the +common lot; but the effects of even a rebuff may last so long that one +has no heart to put out his hand a second time--for a second rap over +the knuckles. Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and how +what is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful for +in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you doubtful whether +you were ever really intended to share the common lot." He was aware of +an insincerity in his words; he hoped that it might not be perceptible, +but he did not greatly care. + +Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He resumed from +another point. "But I should say that it would be unwise for a man of +mature life to seek his happiness with one much younger than himself. I +don't deny that there are cases in which the disparity of years counts +for little or nothing, but generally speaking, people ought to be as +equally mated in age as possible. They ought to start with the same +advantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live her life through a +community of feeling, an equality of inexperience in the man she gives +her heart to. If he is tired of things that still delight her, the +chances of unhappiness are increased." + +"Yes, that's true," answered Colville gravely. "It's apt to be a mistake +and a wrong." + +"Oh, not always--not always," said the old minister. "We mustn't look at +it in that way quite. Wrongs are of the will." He seemed to lapse into a +greater intimacy of feeling with Colville. "Have you seen Mrs. Bowen +to-day? Or--ah! true! I think you told me." + +"No," said Colville. "Have we spoken of her? But I have seen her." + +"And was the little one well?" + +"Very much better." + +"Pretty creatures, both of them," said the minister, with as fresh a +pleasure in his recognition of the fact as if he had not said nearly the +same thing once before, "You've noticed the very remarkable resemblance +between mother and daughter?" + +"Oh yes." + +"There is a gentleness in Mrs. Bowen which seems to me the last +refinement of a gracious spirit," suggested Mr. Waters. "I have never +met any lady who reconciled more exquisitely what is charming in society +with what is lovely in nature." + +"Yes," said Colville. "Mrs. Bowen always had that gentle manner. I used +to know her here as a girl a great while ago." + +"Did you? I wonder you allowed her to become Mrs. Bowen." + +This sprightliness of Mr. Waters amused Colville greatly. "At that time +I was preoccupied with my great mistake, and I had no eyes for Mrs. +Bowen." + +"It isn't too late yet," said Mr. Waters, with open insinuation. + +A bachelor of forty is always flattered by any suggestion of marriage; +the suggestion that a beautiful and charming woman would marry him is +too much for whatever reserves of modesty and wisdom he may have stored +up Colville took leave of the old minister in better humour with himself +than he had been for forty-eight hours, or than he had any very good +reason for being now. + +Mr. Waters came with him to the head of the stairs and held up the lamp +for him to see. The light fell upon the white locks thinly straggling +from beneath his velvet skull-cap, and he looked like some mediaeval +scholar of those who lived and died for learning in Florence when +letters were a passion there almost as strong as love. + +The next day Colville would have liked to go at once and ask about +Effie, but upon the whole he thought he would not go till after he had +been at the reception where he was going in the afternoon. It was an +artist who was giving the reception; he had a number of pictures to +show, and there was to be tea. There are artists and artists. This +painter was one who had a distinct social importance. It was felt to be +rather a nice thing to be asked to his reception; one was sure at least +to meet the nicest people. + +This reason prevailed with Colville so far as it related to Mrs. Bowen, +whom he felt that he would like to tell he had been there. He would +speak to her of this person and that--very respected and recognised +social figures,--so that she might see he was not the outlaw, the +Bohemian, he must sometimes have appeared to her. It would not be going +too far to say that something like an obscure intention to show himself +the next Sunday at the English chapel, where Mrs. Bowen went, was not +forming itself in his mind. As he went along it began to seem not +impossible that she would be at the reception. If Effie's indisposition +was no more serious than it appeared yesterday, very probably Mrs. Bowen +would be there. He even believed that he recognised her carriage among +those which were drawn up in front of the old palace, under the +painter's studio windows. + +There were a great number of people of the four nationalities that +mostly consort in Italy. There were English and Americans and Russians +and the sort of Italians resulting from the native intermarriages with +them; here and there were Italians of pure blood, borderers upon the +foreign life through a literary interest, or an artistic relation, or a +matrimonial intention; here and there, also, the large stomach of a +German advanced the bounds of the new empire and the new ideal of duty. +There were no Frenchmen; one may meet them in more strictly Italian +assemblages, but it is as if the sorrows and uncertainties of France in +these times discouraged them from the international society in which +they were always an infrequent element. It is not, of course, imaginable +that as Frenchmen they have doubts of their merits, but that they have +their misgivings as to the intelligence of others. The language that +prevailed was English--in fact, one heard no other,--and the tea which +our civilisation carries everywhere with it steamed from the cups in all +hands. This beverage, in fact, becomes a formidable factor in the life +of a Florentine winter. One finds it at all houses, and more or less +mechanically drinks it. + +"I am turning out a terrible tea toper," said Colville, stirring his cup +in front of the old lady whom his relations to the ladies at Palazzo +Pinti had interested so much. "I don't think I drink less than ten cups +a day; seventy cups a week is a low average for me. I'm really beginning +to look down at my boots a little anxiously." + +Mrs. Amsden laughed. She had not been in America for forty years, but +she liked the American way of talking better than any other. "Oh, didn't +you hear about Inglehart when he was here? He was so good-natured that +he used to drink all the tea people offered him, and then the young +ladies made tea for him in his studio when they went to look at his +pictures. It almost killed him. By the time spring came he trembled so +that the brush flew out of his hands when he took it up. He had to hurry +off to Venice to save his life. It's just as bad at the Italian houses; +they've learned to like tea." + +"When I was here before, they never offered you anything but coffee," +said Colville. "They took tea for medicine, and there was an old joke +that I thought I should die of, I heard it so often about the Italian +that said to the English woman when she offered him tea, '_Grazie; sto +bene_.'" + +"Oh, that's all changed now." + +"Yes; I've seen the tea, and I haven't heard the joke." + +The flavour of Colville's talk apparently encouraged his companion to +believe that he would like to make fun of their host's paintings with +her; but whether he liked them, or whether he was principled against +that sort of return for hospitality, he chose to reply seriously to some +ironical lures she threw out. + +"Oh, if you're going to be good," she exclaimed, "I shall have nothing +more to say to you. Here comes Mr. Thurston; I can make _him_ abuse the +pictures. There! You had better go away to a young lady I see alone over +yonder, though I don't know what you will do with _one_ alone." She +laughed and shook her head in a way that had once been arch and lively, +but that was now puckery and infirm--it is affecting to see these things +in women--and welcomed the old gentleman who came up and superseded +Colville. + +The latter turned, with his cup still in his hand, and wandered about +through the company, hoping he might see Mrs. Bowen among the groups +peering at the pictures or solidly blocking the view in front of them. +He did not find her, but he found Imogene Graham standing somewhat apart +near a window. He saw her face light up at sight of him, and then darken +again as he approached. + +"Isn't this rather an unnatural state of things?" he asked when he had +come up. "I ought to be obliged to fight my way to you through +successive phalanxes of young men crowding round with cups of tea +outstretched in their imploring hands. Have you had some tea?" + +"Thank you, no; I don't wish any," said the young girl, so coldly that +he could not help noticing, though commonly he was man enough to notice +very few things. + +"How is Effie to-day?" he asked quickly. + +"Oh, quite well," said Imogene. + +"I don't see Mrs. Bowen," he ventured further. + +"No," answered the girl, still very lifelessly; "I came with Mrs. +Fleming." She looked about the room as if not to look at him. + +He now perceived a distinct intention to snub him. He smiled. "Have you +seen the pictures? There are two or three really lovely ones." + +"Mrs. Fleming will be here in a moment, I suppose," said Imogene +evasively, but not with all her first coldness. + +"Let us steal a march on her," said Colville briskly. "When she comes +you can tell her that I showed you the pictures." + +"I don't know," faltered the girl. + +"Perhaps it isn't necessary you should," he suggested. + +She glanced at him with questioning trepidation. + +"The respective duties of chaperone and _protégée_ are rather undefined. +Where the chaperone isn't there to command, the _protégée_ isn't there +to obey. I suppose you'd know if you were at home?" + +"Oh yes!" + +"Let me imagine myself at a loan exhibition in Buffalo. Ah! that appeal +is irresistible. You'll come, I see." + +She hesitated; she looked at the nearest picture, then followed him to +another. He now did what he had refused to do for the old lady who +tempted him to it; he made fun of the pictures a little, but so amiably +and with so much justice to their good points that the painter himself +would not have minded his jesting. From time to time he made Imogene +smile, but in her eyes lurked a look of uneasiness, and her manner +expressed a struggle against his will which might have had its pathos +for him in different circumstances, but now it only incited him to make +her forget herself more and more; he treated her as one does a child +that is out of sorts--coaxingly, ironically. + +When they had made the round of the rooms Mrs. Fleming was not at the +window where she had left Imogene; the girl detected the top of her +bonnet still in the next room. + +"The chaperone is never there when you come back with the _protégée_," +said Colville. "It seems to be the nature of the chaperone." + +Imogene turned very grave. "I think I ought to go to her," she murmured. + +"Oh no; she ought to come to you; I stand out for _protégée_'s rights." + +"I suppose she will come directly." + +"She sees me with you; she knows you are safe." + +"Oh, of course," said the girl. After a constraint which she marked by +rather a long silence, she added, "How strange a roomful of talking +sounds, doesn't it? Just like a great caldron boiling up and bubbling +over. Wouldn't you like to know what they're all saying?" + +"Oh, it's quite bad enough to see them," replied Colville frivolously. + +"I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very queer, +don't you?" she asked, after another interval. + +"Well, really," said Colville, laughing, "I don't know that the +spectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to me. I rather +think they look queerer with their hats on." + +"Oh yes." + +"Though there is not very much to choose. We're a queer-looking set, +anyway." + +He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, allowed her +to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not without a +malicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as social +exercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were destined, with +time and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of society, and to +be accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, as +touches of character. He had broken up that coldness with which she had +met him at first, and now he let her adjust the fragments as she could +to the new situation. He wore that air of a gentleman who has been +talking a long time to a lady, and who will not dispute her possession +with a new-comer. + +But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over the +company, he found that it had been increased by the accession of eight +or ten young fellows, with a refreshing light of originality in their +faces, and little touches of difference from the other men in their +dress. + +"Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!" cried the girl, with a flash of +excitement. + +There was a sensation of interest and friendliness in the company as +these young fellows, after their moment of social intimidation, began to +gather round the pictures, and to fling their praise and blame about, +and talk the delightful shop of the studio. + +The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their voices, struck +a pang of regret that was almost envy to Colville's heart. + +Imogene followed them with eager eyes. "Oh," she sighed, "shouldn't you +like to be an artist?" + +"I should, very much." + +"Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an architect." + +"I should say I used to be, if you hadn't objected to my perfects and +preterits." + +What came next seemed almost an accident. + +"I didn't suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I amused you." +She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at her own words. + +"Have you been trying to amuse me?" he asked. + +"Oh no. I thought----" + +"Oh, then," said Colville sharply, "you meant that I was amusing myself +with you?" She glanced at him in terror of his divination, but could not +protest. "Has any one told you that?" he pursued, with sudden angry +suspicion. + +"No, _no_ one," began Imogene. She glanced about her, frightened. They +stood quite alone where they were; the people had mostly wandered off +into the other rooms. "Oh, don't--I didn't mean--I didn't intend to say +anything----" + +"But you have said something--something that surprises me from _you_, +and hurts me. I wish to know whether you say it from yourself." + +"I don't know--yes. That is, not----Oh, I wish Mrs. Fleming----" + +She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond her power +to control herself. + +"Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming," said Colville, with freezing +_hauteur_; and led the way where the top of Mrs. Fleming's bonnet still +showed itself. He took leave at once, and hastily parting with his host, +found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not +said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the +directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that women +who liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigious +straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey black +in order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour. +He could hardly keep himself from going to Palazzo Pinti. + +But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a moody +dinner, and then, after an hour's solitary bitterness in his room, went +out and passed the evening at the theatre. The play was one of those +fleering comedies which render contemptible for the time all honest and +earnest intention, and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pit +itself. It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question that +had mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at his +resentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him off to sleep +in a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial in himself as the only +thing that was real and lasting. + +He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he brought with +it a letter which he said had been left with the porter an hour before. +A faint appealing perfume of violet exhaled from the note, and mingled +with the steaming odours of the coffee and boiled milk, when Colville, +after a glance at the unfamiliar handwriting of the superscription, +broke the seal. + +"DEAR MR. COLVILLE,--I don't know what you will think of my writing to +you, but perhaps you can't think worse of me than you do already, and +anything will be better than the misery that I am in. I have not been +asleep all night. I hate myself for telling you, but I do want you to +understand how I have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back the +words that you say wounded you. I didn't mean to wound you. Nobody is to +blame for them but me; nobody ever breathed a word about you that was +meant in unkindness. + +"I am not ashamed of writing this, _whatever_ you think, and I will sign +my name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM." + + +Colville had commonly a good appetite for his breakfast, but now he let +his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about this +note that touched him--the childlike simplicity and directness, the +generous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the literature. +However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. He +respected that intention; through all the sophistications in which life +had wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised that if he had been +younger he would have gone to Imogene herself with her letter. He felt +for the moment a rush of the emotion which he would once not have +stopped to examine, which he would not have been capable of examining. +But now his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In the noblest +human purpose there is always some admixture, however slight, of less +noble motive, and Colville was not without the willingness to see +whatever embarrassment she might feel when he showed her the letter, and +to invoke her finest tact to aid him in re-assuring the child. + +She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in response to his +inquiry for their health that Imogene and Effie had gone out to drive. +She looked so pretty in the quiet house dress in which she rose from the +sofa and stood, letting him come the whole way to greet her, that he did +not think of any other look in her, but afterward he remembered an +evidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes. + +He said, smiling, "I'm so glad to see you alone," and this brought still +another look into her face, which also he afterward remembered. She did +not reply, but made a sound in her throat like a bird when it stirs +itself for flight or song. It was a strange, indefinite little note, in +which Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time, and recalled +for the sort of expectation suggested in it. She stood waiting for him +to go on. + +"I have come to get you to help me out of trouble." + +"Yes?" said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. "I always supposed you would +be able to help yourself out of trouble. Or perhaps wouldn't mind it if +you were in it." + +"Oh yes, I mind it very much," returned Colville, refusing her banter, +if it were banter. "Especially this sort of trouble, which involves some +one else in the discomfort." He went on abruptly: "I have been held up +to a young lady as a person who was amusing himself with her, and I was +so absurd as to be angry when she told me, and demanded the name of my +friend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given the young lady +a bad night, and this morning she writes to tell me so, and to take all +the blame on herself, and to assure me that no harm was meant me by any +one. Of course I don't want her to be distressed about it. Perhaps you +can guess who has been writing to me." + +Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. When he looked +up he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen's pretty face, such as he had not +seen there before. + +"I didn't know she had been writing to you, but I know that you are +talking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to you yesterday, and +I blamed her for it, but I'm not sure that it wasn't best." + +"Oh, indeed!" said Colville. "Perhaps you can tell me who put the idea +into her head?" + +"Yes; I did." + +A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the situation broken by +these words revolved before Colville's thought with kaleidoscopic +variety, and he passed through all the phases of anger, resentment, +wounded self-love, and accusing shame. + +At last, "I suppose you had your reasons," he said simply. + +"I am in her mother's place here," she replied, tightening the grip of +one little hand upon another, where she held them laid against the side +of her waist. + +"Yes, I know that," said Colville; "but what reason had you to warn her +against me as a person who was amusing himself with her? I don't like +the phrase; but she seems to have got it from you; I use it at third +hand." + +"I don't like the phrase either; I didn't invent it." + +"You used it." + +"No; it wasn't I who used it. I should have been glad to use another, if +I could," said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect steadiness. + +"Then you mean to say that you believe I've been trifling with the +feelings of this child?" + +"I mean to say nothing. You are very much older; and she is a romantic +girl, very extravagant. You have tried to make her like you." + +"I certainly have. I have tried to make Effie Bowen like me too." + +Mrs. Bowen passed this over in serenity that he felt was not far from +contempt. + +He gave a laugh that did not express enjoyment. + +"You have no right to laugh!" she cried, losing herself a little, and so +making her first gain upon him. + +"It appears not. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do about this +letter?" + +"That is for you to decide." She recovered herself, and lost ground with +him in proportion. + +"I thought perhaps that since you were able to judge my motives so +clearly, you might be able to advise me." + +"I don't judge your motives," Mrs. Bowen began. She added suddenly, as +if by an after-thought, "I don't think you had any." + +"I'm obliged to you." + +"But you are as much to blame as if you had." + +"And perhaps I'm as much to blame as if I had really wronged somebody?" + +"Yes." + +"It's rather paradoxical. You don't wish me to see her any more?" + +"I haven't any wish about it; you must not _say_ that I have," said Mrs. +Bowen, with dignity. + +Colville smiled. "May I _ask_ if you have?" + +"Not for myself." + +"You put me on very short allowance of conjecture." + +"I will not let you trifle with the matter!" she cried. "You have made +me speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been enough. Oh, I didn't +think you had the miserable vanity to wish it!" + +Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. "I see that +everything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. Good-bye, Mrs. +Bowen." He approached her, holding out his hand. But if he expected to +be rewarded for this, nothing of the kind happened. She shrank swiftly +back. + +"No, no. You shall not touch me." + +He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, whatever other +feeling showed, there was certainly no fear of him. Then with a slight +bow he left the room. + +Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into her own +room. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and Effie were just +coming in. The child went to lay aside her hat and sacque; the girl, +after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's face, lingered inquiringly. + +"Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene." + +"Yes," said Imogene faintly. "Do you think I oughtn't to have written +it?" + +"Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from Florence." + +"Yes?" breathed the girl. + +"I spoke openly with him." + +"Yes?" + +"I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised him." + +Imogene was silent. Then she said, "I know that whatever you have done, +you have acted for the best." + +"Yes, I have a right that you should say that--I have a right that you +should always say it. I think he has behaved very foolishly, but I don't +blame him----" + +"No! I was to blame." + +"I don't _know_ that he was to blame, and I won't let you think he was." + +"Oh, he is the best man in the world!" + +"He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's nothing for +you to lose a friend at your age; but at mine----" + +"I _know_ it, Mrs. Bowen." + +"And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; I----" + +"Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!" cried Imogene. She put up +her hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. Bowen watched her, dry +eyed, with her lips parted, and an intensity of question in her face. + +"Imogene," she said at last, "I wish you to promise me one thing." + +"Yes." + +"Not to write to Mr. Colville again." + +"No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!" The girl came up to kiss her; Mrs. +Bowen turned her cheek. + +Imogene was going from the room, when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. "But I +wish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of yourself +about him. If you care for him--if you think you care for him--then I +leave you perfectly free." + +The girl looked up, scared. "No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't leave me +free--you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to do." + +"Very well, then," said Mrs. Bowen. + +They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the other to +speak. Then Imogene asked, "Is he--going soon?" + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen. "Why should he want to delay? He had +better go at once. And I hope he will go home--as far from Florence as +he can. I should think he would _hate_ the place." + +"Yes," said the girl, with a quivering sigh; "it must be hateful to +him." She paused, and then she rushed on with bitter self-reproach. "And +I--_I_ have helped to make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's _I_ who +have been trifling with _him_ Trying to make him believe--no, not trying +to do that, but letting him see that I sympathised--Oh, do you think I +have?" + +"You know what you have been doing, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with the +hardness it surprises men to know women use with each other, they seem +such tender creatures in the abstract. "You have no need to ask me." + +"No, no." + +"As you say, I warned you from the first." + +"Oh yes; you did." + +"I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to expect----" + +"Oh, yes, yes." + +"And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless." + +"Yes; I see it." + +"I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that miserable +veglione business I was trying to please you and him, because I was +afraid I _had_ said too much--gone too far. I wanted to show you that I +disdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose that a girl of +your age could care for the admiration of a man of his." + +"Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired _him_--and pitied him." + +Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all that had +been rankling in her breast. "I didn't approve of going to the veglione. +A great many people would be shocked if they knew I went; I wouldn't at +all like to have it known. But I was not going to have him thinking that +I was severe with you, and wanted to deny you any really harmless +pleasure." + +"Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You see," said +the girl, "what a return I have made for your trust. I knew you didn't +want to go to the veglione. If I hadn't been the most selfish girl in +the world I wouldn't have let you. But I did. I _forced_ you to go, and +then, after we got there, I seized every advantage, and abused your +kindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor. Yes; I ought to +have refused to dance--if I'd had a spark of generosity or gratitude I +would have done it; and I ought to have come straight back to you the +instant the waltz was done. And now see what has come of it! I've made +you think he was trifling with me, and I've made him think that I'm a +false and hollow-hearted thing." + +"You know best what you have done, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with a +smiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She rose from the +sofa, as if to indicate that there was no more to be said, and Imogene, +with a fresh burst of grief, rushed away to her own room. + +She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out her arms upon +it, an image of that desolation of soul which, when we are young, seems +limitless, but which in later life we know has comparatively narrow +bounds beyond the clouds that rest so blackly around us. + + + + + + +XII + + +In his room Colville was devouring as best he might the chagrin with +which he had come away from Palazzo Pinti, while he packed his trunk for +departure. Now that the thing was over, the worst was past. Again he +observed that his emotions had no longer the continuity that the +emotions of his youth possessed. As he remembered, a painful or pleasant +impression used to last indefinitely; but here he was with this +humiliating affair hot in his mind, shrugging his shoulders with a sense +of relief, almost a sense of escape. Does the soul really wear out with +the body? The question flitted across his mind as he took down a pair of +trousers, and noticed that they were considerably frayed about the feet; +he determined to give them to Paolo, and this reminded him to ring for +Paolo, and send word to the office that he was going to take the evening +train for Rome. + +He went on packing, and putting away with the different garments the +unpleasant thoughts that he knew he should be sure to unpack with them +in Rome; but they would then have less poignancy. + +For the present he was doing the best he could, and he was not making +any sort of pretences. When his trunk was locked he kindled himself a +fire, and sat down before it to think of Imogene. He began with her, but +presently it seemed to be Mrs. Bowen that he was thinking of; then he +knew he was dropping off to sleep by the manner in which their two ideas +mixed. The fatigues and excitements of the week had been great, but he +would not give way; it was too disgraceful. + +Some one rapped at his door. He called out "_Avanti_!" and he would have +been less surprised to see either of those ladies than Paolo with the +account he had ordered to be made out. It was a long, pendulous, +minutely itemed affair, such as the traveller's recklessness in candles +and firewood comes to in the books of the Continental landlord, and it +almost swept the floor when its volume was unrolled. But it was not the +sum-total that dismayed Colville when he glanced at the final figure; +that, indeed, was not so very great, with all the items; it was the +conviction, suddenly flashing upon him, that he had not money enough by +him to pay it. His watch, held close to the fire, told him that it was +five o'clock; the banks had been closed an hour, and this was Saturday +afternoon. + +The squalid accident had all the effect of intention, as he viewed it +from without himself, and considered that the money ought to have been +the first thing in his thoughts after he determined to go away. He must +get the money somehow, and be off to Rome by the seven o'clock train. A +whimsical suggestion, which was so good a bit of irony that it made him +smile, flashed across him: he might borrow it of Mrs. Bowen. She was, in +fact, the only person in Florence with whom he was at all on borrowing +terms, and a sad sense of the sweetness of her lost friendship followed +upon the antic notion. No; for once he could not go to Mrs. Bowen. He +recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had together, +confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, and harmlessly +intimate in many things. He recalled how, when he was feeling dull from +the Florentine air, she had told him to take a little quinine, and he +had found immediate advantage in it. These memories did strike him as +grotesque or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was ashamed even +to seem in anywise recreant further. If she should ever hear that he had +lingered for thirty-six hours in Florence after he had told her he was +going away, what could she think but that he had repented his decision? +He determined to go down to the office of the hotel, and see if he could +not make some arrangement with the landlord. It would be extremely +distasteful, but his ample letter of credit would be at least a voucher +of his final ability to pay. As a desperate resort he could go and try +to get the money of Mr. Waters. + +He put on his coat and hat, and opened the door to some one who was just +in act to knock at it, and whom he struck against in the obscurity. + +"I beg your pardon," said the visitor. + +"Mr. Waters! Is it possible?" cried Colville, feeling something fateful +in the chance. "I was just going to see you." + +"I'm fortunate in meeting you, then. Shall we go to my room?" he asked, +at a hesitation in Colville's manner. + +"No, no," said the latter; "come in here." He led the way back into his +room, and struck a match to light the candles on his chimney. Their dim +rays fell upon the disorder his packing had left. "You must excuse the +look of things," he said. "The fact is, I'm just going away. I'm going +to Rome at seven o'clock." + +"Isn't this rather sudden?" asked the minister, with less excitement +than the fact might perhaps have been expected to create in a friend. "I +thought you intended to pass the winter in Florence." + +"Yes, I did--sit down, please--but I find myself obliged to cut my stay +short. Won't you take off your coat?" he asked, taking off his own. + +"Thank you; I've formed the habit of keeping it on indoors," said Mr. +Waters. "And I oughtn't to stay long, if you're to be off so soon." + +Colville gave a very uncomfortable laugh. "Why, the fact is, I'm not off +so very soon unless you help me." + +"Ah?" returned the old gentleman, with polite interest. + +"Yes, I find myself in the absurd position of a man who has reckoned +without his host. I have made all my plans for going, and have had my +hotel bill sent to me in pursuance of that idea, and now I discover that +I not only haven't money enough to pay it and get to Rome, but I haven't +much more than half enough to pay it. I have credit galore," he said, +trying to give the situation a touch of liveliness, "but the bank is +shut." + +Mr. Waters listened to the statement with a silence concerning which +Colville was obliged to form his conjectures. "That is unfortunate," he +said sympathetically, but not encouragingly. + +Colville pushed on desperately. "It is, unless you can help me, Mr. +Waters. I want you to lend me fifty dollars for as many hours." + +Mr. Waters shook his head with a compassionate smile. "I haven't fifty +francs in cash. You are welcome to what there is. I'm very forgetful +about money matters, and haven't been to the bankers." + +"Oh, don't excuse yourself to me, unless you wish to embitter my shame. +I'm obliged to you for offering to share your destitution with me. I +must try to run my face with the landlord," said Colville. + +"Oh no," said Mr. Waters gently. "Is there such haste as all that?" + +"Yes, I must go at once." + +"I don't like to have you apply to a stranger," said the old man, with +fatherly kindness. "Can't you remain over till Monday? I had a little +excursion to propose." + +"No, I can't possibly stay; I must go to-night," cried Colville. + +The minister rose. "Then I really mustn't detain you, I suppose. +Good-bye." He offered his hand. Colville took it, but could not let it +go at once. "I would like extremely to tell you why I'm leaving Florence +in such haste. But I don't see what good it would do, for I don't want +you to persuade me to stay." + +The old gentleman looked at him with friendly interest. + +"The fact is," Colville proceeded, as if he had been encouraged to do +so, "I have had the misfortune--yes, I'm afraid I've had the fault--to +make myself very displeasing to Mrs. Bowen, and in such a way that the +very least I can do is to take myself off as far and as soon as I +conveniently can." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Waters, with the cheerful note of incredulity in his +voice with which one is apt to respond to others' confession of +extremity. "Is it so bad as that? I've just seen Mrs. Bowen, and she +told me you were going." + +"Oh," said Colville, with disagreeable sensation, "perhaps she told you +why I was going." + +"No," answered Mr. Waters; "she didn't do that." Colville imagined a +consciousness in him, which perhaps did not exist. "She didn't allude to +the subject further than to state the fact, when I mentioned that I was +coming to see you." + +Colville had dropped his hand. "She was very forbearing," he said, with +bitterness that might well have been incomprehensible to Mr. Waters upon +any theory but one. + +"Perhaps," he suggested, "you are precipitate; perhaps you have +mistaken; perhaps you have been hasty. These things are often the result +of impulse in women. I have often wondered how they could make up their +minds; I believe they certainly ought to be allowed to change them at +least once." + +Colville turned very red. "What in the world do you mean? Do you imagine +that I have been offering myself to Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Wasn't it that which you wished to--which you said you would like to +tell me?" + +Colville was suddenly silent, on the verge of a self-derisive laugh. +When he spoke, he said gently: "No; it wasn't that. I never thought of +offering myself to her. We have always been very good friends. But now +I'm afraid we can't be friends any more--at least we can't be +acquaintances." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Waters. He waited a while as if for Colville to say +more, but the latter remained silent, and the old man gave his hand +again in farewell. "I must really be going. I hope you won't think me +intrusive in my mistaken conjecture?" + +"Oh no." + +"It was what I supposed you had been telling me----" + +"I understand. You mustn't be troubled," said Colville, though he had to +own to himself that it seemed superfluous to make this request of Mr. +Waters, who was taking the affair with all the serenity of age +concerning matters of sentiment. "I wish you were going to Rome with +me," he added, to disembarrass the moment of parting. + +"Thank you. But I shall not go to Rome for some years. Shall you come +back on your way in the spring?" + +"No, I shall not come to Florence again," said Colville sadly. + +"Ah, I'm sorry. Good-bye, my dear young friend. It's been a great +pleasure to know you." Colville walked down to the door of the hotel +with his visitor and parted with him there. As he turned back he met the +landlord, who asked him if he would have the omnibus for the station. +The landlord bowed smilingly, after his kind, and rubbed his hands. He +said he hoped Colville was pleased with his hotel, and ran to his desk +in the little office to get some cards for him, so that he might +recommend it accurately to American families. + +Colville looked absently at the cards. "The fact is," he said, to the +little bowing, smiling man; "I don't know but I shall be obliged to +postpone my going till Monday." He smiled too, trying to give the fact a +jocose effect, and added, "I find myself out of money, and I've no means +of paying your bill till I can see my bankers." + +After all his heroic intention, this was as near as he could come to +asking the landlord to let him send the money from Rome. + +The little man set his head on one side. + +"Oh, well, occupy the room until Monday, then," he cried hospitably. "It +is quite at your disposition. You will not want the omnibus?" + +"No, I shall not want the omnibus," said Colville, with a laugh, +doubtless not perfectly intelligible to the landlord, who respectfully +joined him in it. + +He did not mean to stop that night without writing to Mrs. Bowen, and +assuring her that though an accident had kept him in Florence till +Monday, she need not be afraid of seeing him again. But he could not go +back to his room yet; he wandered about the town, trying to pick himself +up from the ruin into which he had fallen again, and wondering with a +sort of alien compassion what was to become of his aimless, empty +existence. As he passed through the Piazza San Marco he had half a mind +to pick a pebble from the gardened margin of the fountain there and toss +it against the Rev. Mr. Waters's window, and when he put his skull-cap +out, to ask that optimistic agnostic what a man had best do with a life +that had ceased to interest him. But, for the time being, he got rid of +himself as he best could by going to the opera. They professed to give +_Rigoletto_, but it was all Mrs. Bowen and Imogene Graham to Colville. + +It was so late when he got back to his hotel that the outer gate was +shut, and he had to wake up the poor little porter, as on that night +when he returned from Madame Uccelli's. The porter was again equal to +his duty, and contrived to light a new candle to show him the way to his +room. The repetition, almost mechanical, of this small chicane made +Colville smile, and this apparently encouraged the porter to ask, as if +he supposed him to have been in society somewhere-- + +"You have amused yourself this evening? + +"Oh, very much." + +"I am glad. There is a letter for you.' + +"A letter! Where?" + +"I sent it to your room. It came just before midnight." + + + + + + +XIII + + +Mrs. Bowen sat before the hearth in her _salon_, with her hands fallen +in her lap. At thirty-eight the emotions engrave themselves more deeply +in the face than they do in our first youth, or than they will when we +have really aged, and the pretty woman looked haggard. + +Imogene came in, wearing a long blue robe, flung on as if with desperate +haste; her thick hair fell crazily out of a careless knot, down her +back. "I couldn't sleep," she said, with quivering lips, at the sight of +which Mrs. Bowen's involuntary smile hardened. "Isn't it eleven yet?" +she added, with a glance at the clock. "It seems years since I went to +bed." + +"It's been a long day," Mrs. Bowen admitted. She did not ask Imogene why +she could not sleep, perhaps because she knew already, and was too +honest to affect ignorance. + +The girl dropped into a chair opposite her, and began to pull her +fingers through the long tangle of her hair, while she drew her breath +in sighs that broke at times on her lips; some tears fell down her +cheeks unheeded. "Mrs. Bowen," she said, at length, "I should like to +know what right we have to drive any one from Florence? I should think +people would call it rather a high-handed proceeding if it were known." + +Mrs. Bowen met this feebleness promptly. "It isn't likely to be known. +But we are not driving Mr. Colville away." + +"He is going." + +"Yes; he said he would go." + +"Don't you believe he will go?" + +"I believe he will do what he says." + +"He has been very kind to us all; he has been as _good!_" + +"No one feels that more than I," said Mrs. Bowen, with a slight tremor +in her voice. She faltered a moment. "I can't let you say those things +to me, Imogene." + +"No; I know it's wrong. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, I wish I +could tell what I ought to do! I wish I could make up my mind. Oh, I +can't let him go--_so_. I--I don't know what to think any more. Once it +was clear, but now I'm not sure; no, I'm not sure." + +"Not sure about what?" + +"I think I am the one to go away, if any one." + +"You know you can't go away," said Mrs. Bowen, with weary patience. + +"No, of course not. Well, I shall never see any one like him." + +Mrs. Bowen made a start in her chair, as if she had no longer the power +to remain quiet, but only placed herself a little more rigidly in it. + +"No," the girl went on, as if uttering a hopeless reverie. "He made +every moment interesting. He was always thinking of us--he never thought +of himself. He did as much for Effie as for any one; he tried just as +hard to make himself interesting to her. He was unselfish. I have seen +him at places being kind to the stupidest people. You never caught him +choosing out the stylish or attractive ones, or trying to shine at +anybody's expense. Oh, he's a true gentleman--I shall always say it. How +delicate he was, never catching you up, or if you said a foolish thing, +trying to turn it against you. No, never, never, never! Oh dear! And +now, what can he think of me? Oh, how frivolous and fickle and selfish +he must think me!" + +"Imogene!" Mrs. Bowen cried out, but quelled herself again. + +"Yes," pursued the girl, in the same dreary monotone, "he thinks I +couldn't appreciate him because he was old. He thinks that I cared for +his not being handsome! Perhaps--perhaps----" She began to catch her +breath in the effort to keep back the sobs that were coming. "Oh, I +can't bear it! I would rather die than let him think it--such a thing as +that!" She bent her head aside, and cried upon the two hands with which +she clutched the top of her chair. + +Mrs. Bowen sat looking at her distractedly. From time to time she seemed +to silence a word upon her lips, and in fact she did not speak. + +Imogene lifted her head at last, and softly dried her eyes. Then, as she +pushed her handkerchief back into the pocket of her robe, "What sort of +looking girl was that other one?" + +"That other one?" + +"Yes; you know what I mean: the one who behaved so badly to him before." + +"Imogene!" said Mrs. Bowen severely, "this is nonsense, and I can't let +you go on so. I might pretend not to know what you mean; but I won't do +that; and I tell you that there is no sort of likeness--of +comparison----" + +"No, no," wailed the girl, "there _is_ none. I feel that. She had +nothing to warn her--he hadn't suffered then; he was young; he was able +to bear it--you said it yourself, Mrs. Bowen. But now--_now_, what will +he do? He could make fun of that, and not hate her so much, because she +didn't know how much harm she was doing. But I did; and what can he +think of me?" + +Mrs. Bowen looked across the barrier between them, that kept her from +taking Imogene into her arms, and laughing and kissing away her craze, +with cold dislike, and only said, "You know whether you've really +anything to accuse yourself of, Imogene. I can't and won't consider Mr. +Colville in the matter; I _didn't_ consider him in what I said to-day. +And I tell you again that I will not interfere with you in the slightest +degree beyond appearances and the responsibility I feel to your mother. +And it's for you to know your own mind. You are old enough. I will do +what you say. It's for you to be sure that you wish what you say." + +"Yes," said Imogene huskily, and she let an interval that was long to +them both elapse before she said anything more. "Have I always done what +you thought best, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Yes, I have never complained of you." + +"Then why can't you tell me now what you think best?" + +"Because there is nothing to be done. It is all over." + +"But if it were not, would you tell me?" + +"No." + +"Why?" + +"Because I--couldn't." + +"Then I take back my promise not to write to Mr. Colville. I am going to +ask him to stay." + +"Have you made up your mind to that, Imogene?" asked Mrs. Bowen, showing +no sign of excitement, except to take a faster hold of her own wrists +with the slim hands in which she had caught them. + +"Yes." + +"You know the position it places you in?" + +"What position?" + +"Has he offered himself to you?" + +"No!" the girl's face blazed. + +"Then, after what's passed, this is the same as offering yourself to +him." + +Imogene turned white. "I must write to him, unless you forbid me." + +"Certainly I shall not forbid you." Mrs. Bowen rose and went to her +writing-desk. "But if you have fully made up your mind to this step, and +are ready for the consequences, whatever they are----" She stopped, +before sitting down, and looked back over her shoulder at Imogene. + +"Yes," said the girl, who had also risen. + +"Then I will write to Mr. Colville for you, and render the proceeding as +little objectionable as possible." + +Imogene made no reply. She stood motionless while Mrs. Bowen wrote. + +"Is this what you wished?" asked the latter, offering the sheet:---- + +"Dear Mr. Colville,--I have reasons for wishing to recall my consent to +your going away. Will you not come and lunch with us to-morrow, and try +to forget everything that has passed during a few days? + +"Yours very sincerely, + +"Evalina Bowen." + +"Yes, that will do," gasped Imogene. + +Mrs. Bowen rang the bell for the porter, and stood with her back to the +girl, waiting for him at the salon door. He came after a delay that +sufficiently intimated the lateness of the hour. "This letter must go at +once to the Hotel d'Atene," said Mrs. Bowen peremptorily. + +"You shall be served," said the porter, with fortitude. + +As Mrs. Bowen turned, Imogene ran toward her with clasped hands. "Oh, +how merciful--how good----" + +Mrs. Bowen shrank back. "Don't touch me, Imogene, please!" + +It was her letter which Colville found on his table and read by the +struggling light of his newly acquired candle. Then he sat down and +replied to it. + +"Dear Mrs. Bowen,--I know that you mean some sort of kindness by me, and +I hope you will not think me prompted by any poor resentment in +declining to-morrow's lunch. I am satisfied that it is best for me to +go; and I am ashamed not to be gone already. But a ridiculous accident +has kept me, and when I came in and found your note I was just going to +write and ask your patience with my presence in Florence till Monday +morning. + +"Yours sincerely, THEODORE COLVILLE." + +He took his note down to the porter, who had lain down again in his +little booth, but sprang up with a cheerful request to be commanded. +Colville consulted him upon the propriety of sending the note to Palazzo +Pinti at once, and the porter, with his head laid in deprecation upon +one of his lifted shoulders, owned that it was perhaps the very least +little bit in the world late. + +"Send it the first thing in the morning, then," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen received it by the servant who brought her coffee to the +room, and she sent it without any word to Imogene. The girl came +instantly back with it. She was fully dressed, as if she had been up a +long time, and she wore a very plain, dull dress, in which one of her +own sex might have read the expression of a potential self-devotion. + +"It's just as I wish it, Mrs. Bowen," she said, in a low key of +impassioned resolution. "_Now_, my conscience is at rest. And you have +done this for me, Mrs. Bowen!" She stood timidly with the door in her +hand, watching Mrs. Bowen's slight smile; then, as if at some sign in +it, she flew to the bed and kissed her, and so fled out of the room +again. + +Colville slept late, and awoke with a vague sense of self-reproach, +which faded afterward to such poor satisfaction as comes to us from the +consciousness of having made the best of a bad business; some pangs of +softer regret mixed with this. At first he felt a stupid obligation to +keep indoors, and he really did not go out till after lunch. The +sunshine had looked cold from his window, and with the bright fire which +he found necessary in his room, he fancied a bitterness in the gusts +that caught up the dust in the piazza, and blew it against the line of +cabs on the other side; but when he got out into the weather he found +the breeze mild and the sun warm. The streets were thronged with people, +and at all the corners there were groups of cloaked and overcoated +talkers, soaking themselves full of the sunshine. The air throbbed, as +always, with the sound of bells, but it was a mellower and opener sound +than before, and looking at the purple bulk of one of those hills which +seem to rest like clouds at the end of each avenue in Florence, Colville +saw that it was clear of snow. He was going up through Via Cavour to +find Mr. Waters and propose a walk, but he met him before he had got +half-way to San Marco. + +The old man was at a momentary stand-still, looking up at the Riccardi +Palace, and he received Colville with apparent forgetfulness of anything +odd in his being still in Florence. "Upon the whole," he said, without +preliminary of any sort, as Colville turned and joined him in walking +on, "I don't know any homicide that more distinctly proves the futility +of assassination as a political measure than that over yonder." He +nodded his head sidewise toward the palace as he shuffled actively along +at Colville's elbow. + +"You might say that the moment when Lorenzino killed Alessandro was the +most auspicious for a deed of that kind. The Medici had only recently +been restored; Alessandro was the first ruler in Florence, who had worn +a title; no more reckless, brutal, and insolent tyrant ever lived, and +his right, even such as the Medici might have, to play the despot was +involved in the doubt of his origin; the heroism of the great siege +ought still to have survived in the people who withstood the forces of +the whole German Empire for fifteen months; it seems as if the taking +off of that single wretch should have ended the whole Medicean +domination; but there was not a voice raised to second the homicide's +appeal to the old love of liberty in Florence. The Medici party were +able to impose a boy of eighteen upon the most fiery democracy that ever +existed, and to hunt down and destroy Alessandro's murderer at their +leisure. No," added the old man thoughtfully, "I think that the friends +of progress must abandon assassination as invariably useless. The +trouble was not that Alessandro was alive, but that Florence was dead. +Assassination always comes too early or too late in any popular +movement. It may be," said Mr. Waters, with a carefulness to do justice +to assassination which made Colville smile, "that the modern scientific +spirits may be able to evolve something useful from the principle, but +considering the enormous abuses and perversions to which it is liable, I +am very doubtful of it--very doubtful." + +Colville laughed. "I like your way of bringing a fresh mind to all these +questions in history and morals, whether they are conventionally settled +or not. Don't you think the modern scientific spirit could evolve +something useful out of the old classic idea of suicide?" + +"Perhaps," said Mr. Waters; "I haven't yet thought it over. The worst +thing about suicide--and this must always rank it below political +assassination--is that its interest is purely personal. No man ever +kills himself for the good of others." + +"That's certainly against it. We oughtn't to countenance such an +abominably selfish practice. But you can't bring that charge against +euthanasy. What have you to say of that?" + +"I have heard one of the most benevolent and tender-hearted men I ever +knew defend it in cases of hopeless suffering. But I don't know that I +should be prepared to take his ground. There appears to be something so +sacred about human life that we must respect it even in spite of the +prayers of the sufferer who asks us to end his irremediable misery." + +"Well," said Colville, "I suspect we must at least class murder with the +ballet as a means of good. One might say there was still some virtue in +the primal, eldest curse against bloodshed." + +"Oh, I don't by any means deny those things," said the old man, with the +air of wishing to be scrupulously just. "Which way are you walking?" + +"Your way, if you will let me," replied Colville. "I was going to your +house to ask you to take a walk with me." + +"Ah, that's good. I was reading of the great siege last night, and I +thought of taking a look at Michelangelo's bastions. Let us go together, +if you don't think you'll find it too fatiguing." + +"I shall be ashamed to complain if I do." + +"And you didn't go to Rome after all?" said Mr. Waters. + +"No; I couldn't face the landlord with a petition so preposterous as +mine. I told him that I found I had no money to pay his bill till I had +seen my banker, and as he didn't propose that I should send him the +amount back from Rome, I stayed. Landlords have their limitations; they +are not imaginative, as a class." + +"Well, a day more will make no great difference to you, I suppose," said +the old man, "and a day less would have been a loss to me. I shall miss +you." + +"Shall you, indeed?" asked Colville, with a grateful stir of the heart. +"It's very nice of you to say that." + +"Oh no. I meet few people who are willing to look at life objectively +with me, and I have fancied some such willingness in you. What I chiefly +miss over here is a philosophic lift in the human mind, but probably +that is because my opportunities of meeting the best minds are few, and +my means of conversing with them are small. If I had not the whole past +with me, I should feel lonely at times." + +"And is the past such good company always?". + +"Yes, in a sense it is. The past is humanity set free from circumstance, +and history studied where it was once life is the past rehumanised." + +As if he found this rarefied air too thin for his lungs, Colville made +some ineffectual gasps at response, and the old man continued: "What I +mean is that I meet here the characters I read of, and commune with them +before their errors were committed, before they had condemned themselves +to failure, while they were still wise and sane, and still active and +vital forces." + +"Did they all fail? I thought some of the bad fellows had a pretty fair +worldly success?" + +"The blossom of decay." + +"Oh! what black pessimism!" + +"Not at all! Men fail, but man succeeds. I don't know what it all means, +or any part of it; but I have had moods in which it seemed as if the +whole, secret of the mystery were about to flash upon me. Walking along +in the full sun, in the midst of men, or sometimes in the solitude of +midnight, poring over a book, and thinking of quite other things, I have +felt that I had almost surprised it." + +"But never quite?" + +"Oh, it isn't too late yet." + +"I hope you won't have your revelation before I get away from Florence, +or I shall see them burning you here like the great _frate_." + +They had been walking down the Via Calzioli from the Duomo, and now they +came out into the Piazza della Signoria, suddenly, as one always seems +to do, upon the rise of the old palace and the leap of its tower into +the blue air. The history of all Florence is there, with memories of +every great time in bronze or marble, but the supreme presence is the +martyr who hangs for ever from the gibbet over the quenchless fire in +the midst. + +"Ah, they _had_ to kill him!" sighed the old man. "It has always been so +with the benefactors. They have always meant mankind more good than any +one generation can bear, and it must turn upon them and destroy them." + +"How will it be with you, then, when you have read us 'the riddle of the +painful earth'?" + +"That will be so simple that every one will accept it willingly and +gladly, and wonder that no one happened to think of it before. And, +perhaps, the world is now grown old enough and docile enough to receive +the truth without resentment." + +"I take back my charge of pessimism," said Colville. "You are an +optimist of the deepest dye." + +They walked out of the Piazza and down to the Lung' Arno, through the +corridor of the Uffizzi, where the illustrious Florentines stand in +marble under the arches, all reconciled and peaceful and equal at last. +Colville shivered a little as he passed between the silent ranks of the +statues. + +"I can't stand those fellows, to-day. They seem to feel such a smirk +satisfaction at having got out of it all." + +They issued upon the river, and he went to the parapet and looked down +on the water. "I wonder," he mused aloud, "if it has the same Sunday +look to these Sabbathless Italians as it has to us." + +"No; Nature isn't puritan," replied the old minister. + +"Not at Haddam East Village?" + +"No; there less than here; for she's had to make a harder fight for her +life there." + +"Ah, then you believe in Nature--you're a friend of Nature?" asked +Colville, following the lines of an oily swirl in the current with +indolent eye. + +"Only up to a certain point." Mr. Waters seemed to be patient of any +direction which the other might be giving the talk. "Nature is a savage. +She has good impulses, but you can't trust her altogether." + +"Do you know," said Colville, "I don't think there's very much of her +left in us after we reach a certain point in life? She drives us on at a +great pace for a while, and then some fine morning we wake up and find +that Nature has got tired of us and has left us to taste and conscience. +And taste and conscience are by no means so certain of what they want +you to do as Nature was." + +"Yes," said the minister, "I see what you mean." He joined Colville in +leaning on the parapet, and he looked out on the river as if he saw his +meaning there. "But by the time we reach that point in life most of us +have got the direction which Nature meant us to take, and there's no +longer any need of her driving us on." + +"And what about the unlucky fellows who haven't got the direction, or +haven't kept it?" + +"They had better go back to it." + +"But if Nature herself seemed to change her mind about you?" + +"Ah, you mean persons of weak will. They are a great curse to themselves +and to everybody else." + +"I'm not so sure of that," said Colville. "I've seen cases in which a +strong will looked very much more like the devil." + +"Yes, a perverted will. But there can be no good without a strong will. +A weak will means inconstancy. It means, even in good, good attempted +and relinquished, which is always a terrible thing, because it is sure +to betray some one who relied upon its accomplishment." + +"And in evil? Perhaps the evil, attempted and relinquished, turns into +good." + +"Oh, never!" replied the minister fervently. "There is something very +mysterious in what we call evil. Apparently it has infinitely greater +force and persistence than good. I don't know why it should be so. But +so it appears." + +"You'll have the reason of that along with the rest of the secret when +your revelation comes," said Colville, with a smile. He lifted his eyes +from the river, and looked up over the clustering roofs beyond it to the +hills beyond them, flecked to the crest of their purple slopes with the +white of villas and villages. As if something in the beauty of the +wonderful prospect had suggested the vision of its opposite, he said, +dreamily, "I don't think I shall go to Rome to-morrow, after all. I will +go to Des Vaches! Where did you say you were walking, Mr. Waters? Oh +yes! You told me. I will cross the bridge with you. But I couldn't stand +anything quite so vigorous as the associations of the siege this +afternoon. I'm going to the Boboli Gardens, to debauch myself with a +final sense of nerveless despotism, as it expressed itself in marble +allegory and formal alleys. The fact is that if I stay with you any +longer I shall tell you something that I'm too old to tell and you're +too old to hear." The old man smiled, but offered no urgence or comment, +and at the thither end of the bridge Colville said hastily, "Good-bye. +If you ever come to Des Vaches, look me up." + +"Good-bye," said the minister. "Perhaps we shall meet in Florence +again." + +"No, no. Whatever happens, that won't." + +They shook hands and parted. Colville stood a moment, watching the +slight bent figure of the old man as he moved briskly up the Via de' +Bardi, turning his head from, side to side, to look at the palaces as he +passed, and so losing himself in the dim, cavernous curve of the street. +As soon as he was out of sight, Colville had an impulse to hurry after +him and rejoin him; then he felt like turning about and going back to +his hotel. + +But he shook himself together into the shape of resolution, however +slight and transient. "I must do _something_ I intended to do," he said, +between his set teeth, and pushed on up through the Via Guicciardini. "I +will go to the Boboli because I _said_ I would." + +As he walked along, he seemed to himself to be merely crumbling away in +this impulse and that, in one abortive intent and another. What did it +all mean? Had he been his whole life one of these weak wills which are a +curse to themselves and others, and most a curse when they mean the +best? Was that the secret of his failure in life? But for many years he +had seemed to succeed, to be as other men were, hard, practical men; he +had once made a good newspaper, which was certainly not a dream of +romance. Had he given that up at last because he was a weak will? And +now was he running away from Florence because his will was weak? He +could look back to that squalid tragedy of his youth, and see that a +more violent, a more determined man could have possessed himself of the +girl whom he had lost. And now would it not be more manly, if more +brutal, to stay here, where a hope, however fleeting, however fitful, of +what might have been, had revisited him in the love of this young girl? +He felt sure, if anything were sure, that something in him, in spite of +their wide disparity of years, had captured her fancy, and now, in his +abasement, he felt again the charm of his own power over her. They were +no farther apart in years than many a husband and wife; they would grow +more and more together; there was youth enough in his heart yet; and who +was pushing him away from her, forbidding him this treasure that he had +but to put out his hand and make his own? Some one whom through all his +thoughts of another he was trying to please, but whom he had made +finally and inexorably his enemy. Better stay, then, something said to +him; and when he answered, "I will," something else reminded him that +this also was not willing but unwilling. + + + + + + +XIV + + +When he entered the beautiful old garden, its benison of peace fell upon +his tumult, and he began to breathe a freer air, reverting to his +purpose to be gone in the morning and resting in it, as he strolled up +the broad curve of its alley from the gate. He had not been there since +he walked there with one now more like a ghost to him than any of the +dead who had since died. It was there that she had refused him; he +recalled with a grim smile the awkwardness of getting back with her to +the gate from the point, far within the garden, where he had spoken. +Except that this had happened in the fall, and now it was early spring, +there seemed no change since then; the long years that had elapsed were +like a winter between. + +He met people in groups and singly loitering through the paths, and +chiefly speaking English; but no one spoke to him, and no one invaded +the solitude in which he walked. But the garden itself seemed to know +him, and to give him a tacit recognition; the great, foolish grotto +before the gate, with its statues by Bandinelli, and the fantastic +effects of drapery and flesh in party-coloured statues lifted high on +either side of the avenue; the vast shoulder of wall, covered thick with +ivy and myrtle, which he passed on his way to the amphitheatre behind +the palace; the alternate figures and urns on their pedestals in the +hemicycle, as if the urns were placed there to receive the ashes of the +figures when they became extinct; the white statues or the colossal +busts set at the ends of the long, alleys against black curtains of +foliage; the big fountain, with its group in the centre of the little +lake, and the meadow, quiet and sad, that stretched away on one side +from this; the keen light under the levels of the dense pines and +ilexes; the paths striking straight on either hand from the avenue +through which he sauntered, and the walk that coiled itself through the +depths of the plantations; all knew him, and from them and from the +winter neglect which was upon the place distilled a subtle influence, a +charm, an appeal belonging to that combination of artifice and nature +which is perfect only in an Italian garden under an Italian sky. He was +right in the name which he mockingly gave the effect before he felt it; +it was a debauch, delicate, refined, of unserious pensiveness, a smiling +melancholy, in which he walked emancipated from his harassing hopes, and +keeping only his shadowy regrets. + +Colville did not care to scale the easy height from which you have the +magnificent view, conscious of many photographs, of Florence. He +wandered about the skirts of that silent meadow, and seeing himself +unseen, he invaded its borders far enough to pluck one of those large +scarlet anemones, such as he had given his gentle enemy. It was tilting +there in the breeze above the unkempt grass, and the grass was beginning +to feel the spring, and to stir and stretch itself after its winter +sleep; it was sprinkled with violets, but these he did not molest. He +came back to a stained and mossy stone bench on the avenue, fronting a +pair of rustic youths carved in stone, who had not yet finished some +game in which he remembered seeing them engaged when he was there +before. He had not walked fast, but he had walked far, and was warm +enough to like the whiffs of soft wind on his uncovered head. The spring +was coming; that was its breath, which you know unmistakably in Italy +after all the kisses that winter gives. Some birds were singing in the +trees; down an alley into which he could look, between the high walls of +green, he could see two people in flirtation: he waited patiently till +the young man should put his arm round the girl's waist, for the +fleeting embrace from which she pushed it and fled further down the +path. + +"Yes, it's spring," thought Colville; and then, with the selfishness of +the troubled soul, he wished that it might be winter still and +indefinitely. It occurred to him now that he should not go back to Des +Vaches, for he did not know what he should do there. He would go to New +York: though he did not know what he should do in New York, either. + +He became tired of looking at the people who passed, and of speculating +about them through the second consciousness which enveloped the sad +substance of his misgivings like an atmosphere; and he let his eyelids +fall, as he leaned his head back against the tree behind his bench. Then +their voices pursued him through the twilight that he had made himself, +and forced him to the same weary conjecture as if he had seen their +faces. He heard gay laughter, and laughter that affected gaiety; the +tones of young men in earnest disquisition reached him through the veil, +and the talk, falling to whisper, of girls, with the names of men in it; +sums of money, a hundred francs, forty thousand francs, came in high +tones; a husband and wife went by quarrelling in the false security of +English, and snapping at each other as confidingly as if in the +sanctuary of home. The man bade the woman not be a fool, and she asked +him how she was to-endure his company if she was not a fool. + +Colville opened his eyes to look after them, when a voice that he knew +called out, "Why, it is Mr. Colville!" + +It was Mrs. Amsden, and pausing with her, as if they had passed him in +doubt, and arrested themselves when they had got a little way by, were +Effie Bowen and Imogens Graham. The old lady had the child by the hand, +and the girl stood a few paces apart from them. She was one of those +beauties who have the property of looking very plain at times, and +Colville, who had seen her in more than one transformation, now beheld +her somehow clumsy of feature, and with the youth gone from her aspect. +She seemed a woman of thirty, and she wore an unbecoming walking dress +of a fashion that contributed to this effect of age. Colville was aware +afterward of having wished that she was really as old and plain as she +looked. + +He had to come forward, and put on the conventional delight of a +gentleman meeting lady friends. + +"It's remarkable how your having your eyes shut estranged you," said +Mrs. Amsden. "Now, if you had let me see you oftener in church, where +people close their eyes a good deal for one purpose or another, I should +have known you at once." + +"I hope you haven't lost a great deal of time, as it is, Mrs. Amsden," +said Colville. "Of course I should have had my eyes open if I had known +you were going by." + +"Oh, don't apologise!" cried the old thing, with ready enjoyment of his +tone. + +"I don't apologise for not being recognisable; I apologise for being +visible," said Colville, with some shapeless impression that he ought to +excuse his continued presence in Florence to Imogene, but keeping his +eyes upon Mrs. Amsden, to whom what he said could not be intelligible. +"I ought to be in Turin to-day." + +"In Turin! Are you going away from Florence?" + +"I'm going home." + +"Why, did _you_ know that?" asked the old lady of Imogene, who slightly +nodded, and then of Effie, who also assented. "Really, the silence of +the Bowen family in regard to the affairs of others is extraordinary. +There never was a family more eminently qualified to live in Florence. I +dare say that if I saw a little more of them, I might hope to reach the +years of discretion myself some day. _Why_ are you going away? (You see +I haven't reached them yet!) Are you tired of Florence already?" + +"No," said Colville passively; "Florence is tired of me." + +"You're quite sure?" + +"Yes; there's no mistaking one of her sex on such a point." + +Mrs. Amsden laughed. "Ah, a great many people mistake us, both ways. And +you're really going back to America. What in the world for?" + +"I haven't the least idea." + +"Is America fonder of you than Florence?" + +"She's never told her love. I suspect it's merely that she's more used +to me." + +They were walking, without any volition of his, down the slope of the +broad avenue to the fountain, where he had already been. + +"Is your mother well?" he asked of the little girl. It seemed to him +that he had better not speak to Imogene, who still kept that little +distance from the rest, and get away as soon as he decently could. + +"She has a headache," said Effie. + +"Oh, I'm sorry," returned Colville. + +"Yes, she deputed me to take her young people out for an airing," said +Mrs. Amsden; "and Miss Graham decided us for the Boboli, where she +hadn't been yet. I've done what I could to make the place attractive. +But what is an old woman to do for a girl in a garden? We ought to have +brought some other young people--some of the Inglehart boys. But we're +respectable, we Americans abroad; we're decorous, above all things; and +I don't know about meeting _you_ here, Mr. Colville. It has a very bad +appearance. Are you sure that you didn't know I was to go by here at +exactly half-past four?" + +"I was living from breath to breath in the expectation of seeing you. +You must have noticed how eagerly I was looking out for you." + +"Yes, and with a single red anemone in your hand, so that I should know +you without being obliged to put on my spectacles." + +"You divine everything, Mrs. Amsden," he said, giving her the flower. + +"I shall make my brags to Mrs. Bowen when I see her," said the old lady. +"How far into the country did you walk for this?" + +"As far as the meadow yonder." + +They had got down to the sheet of water from which the sea-horses of the +fountain sprang, and the old lady sank upon a bench near it. Colville +held out his hand toward Effie. "I saw a lot of violets over there in +the grass." + +"Did you?" She put her hand eagerly into his, and they strolled off +together. After a first motion to accompany them, Imogene sat down +beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly the talk of the old lady, and +seeming in nowise concerned about the expedition for violets. Except for +a dull first glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in the +border of the grass, and the child ran quickly hither and thither in it, +stooping from time to time upon the flowers. Then she came out to where +he stood, and showed her bunch of violets, looking up into the face +which he bent upon her, while he trifled with his cane. He had a very +fatherly air with her. + +"I think I'll go and see what they've found," said Imogene irrelevantly, +to a remark of Mrs. Amsden's about the expensiveness of Madame Bossi's +bonnets. + +"Well," said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little girl ran to +meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration of the violets till +Colville lounged reluctantly up. "Go and show them to Mrs. Amsden," she +said, giving back the violets, which she had been smelling. The child +ran on. "Mr. Colville, I want to speak with you." + +"Yes," said Colville helplessly. + +"Why are you going away?" + +"Why? Oh, I've accomplished the objects--or no-objects--I came for," he +said, with dreary triviality, "and I must hurry away to other fields of +activity." He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of a +passionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow. + +"That is not true, and you needn't say it to spare me. You are going +away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about me." + +"Not quite that," returned Colville gently. + +"No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it's the same +thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go for that." + +"Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?" + +"Yes." + +Colville waited a long moment. "Then, I thank you, you dear girl, and I +am going to-morrow, all the same. But I shan't forget this; whatever my +life is to be, this will make it less unworthy and less unhappy. If it +could buy anything to give you joy, to add some little grace to the good +that must come to you, I would give it. Some day you'll meet the young +fellow whom you're to make immortal, and you must tell him of an old +fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to worship you for an +angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he'll understand, too! +Good-bye." If he was to fly, that was the sole instant. He took her +hand, and said again, "Good-bye." And then he suddenly cried, "Imogene, +do you wish me to stay?" + +"Yes!" said the girl, pouring all the intensity of her face into that +whisper. + +"Even if there had been nothing said to make me go away--should you +still wish me to stay?" + +"Yes." + +He looked her in the starry, lucid eyes, where a divine fervour +deepened. He sighed in nerveless perplexity; it was she who had the +courage. + +"It's a mistake! You mustn't! I am too old for you! It would be a wrong +and a cruelty! Yes, you must let me go, and forget me. I have been to +blame. If Mrs. Bowen has blamed me, she was right--I deserved it; I +deserved all she could say against me." + +"She never said anything against you. Do you think I would have let her? +No; it was I that said it, and I blamed you. It was because I thought +that you were--you were--" + +"Trifling with you? How could you think that?" + +"Yes, I know now how it was, and it makes you seem all the grander to +me. Did you think I cared for your being older than I was? I never cared +for it--I never hardly thought of it after the very first. I tried to +make you understand that, and how it hurt me to have you speak of it. +Don't you think that I could see how good you were? Do you suppose that +all I want is to be happy? I don't care for that--I despise it, and I +always hate myself for seeking my own pleasure, if I find myself doing +it. I have seen enough of life to know what _that_ comes to! And what +hurt me worst of all was that you seemed to believe that I cared for +nothing but amusing myself, when I wished to be something better, +higher! It's nothing whether you are of my age or not, if--if--you care +for me." + +"Imogene!" + +"All that I ask is to be with you, and try to make you forget what's +been sad in your life, and try to be of use to you in whatever you are +doing, and I shall be prouder and gladder of that than anything that +people _call_ happiness." + +Colville stood holding her hand, while she uttered these ideas and +incoherent repetitions of them, with a deep sense of powerlessness. "If +I believed that I could keep you from regretting this--" + +"What should I regret? I won't let you depreciate yourself--make +yourself out not good enough for the best. Oh, I know how it happened! +But now you shall never think of it again. No; I will not let you. That +is the only way you could make me regret anything." + +"I am going to stay," said Colville. "But on my own terms. I will be +bound to you, but you shall not be bound to me." + +"You doubt me! I would rather have you go! No; stay. And let me prove to +you how wrong you are. I mustn't ask more than that. Only give me the +chance to show you how different I am from what you think--how different +you are, too." + +"Yes. But you must be free." + +"Well." + +"What are they doing so long there?" asked Mrs. Amsden of Effie, putting +her glasses to her eyes. "I can't see." + +"They are just holding hands," said the child, with an easy satisfaction +in the explanation, which perhaps the old lady did not share. "He always +holds my hand when he is with me." + +"Does he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Amsden, with a cackle. She added, +"That's very polite of him, isn't it? You must be a great favourite with +Mr. Colville. You will miss him when he's gone." + +"Yes. He's very nice." + +Colville and Imogene returned, coming slowly across the loose, neglected +grass toward the old woman's seat. She rose as they came up. + +"You don't seem to have succeeded so well in getting flowers for Miss +Graham as for the other ladies. But perhaps you didn't find her +favourite over there. What is your favourite flower, Miss Graham? Don't +say you have none! I didn't know that I preferred scarlet anemones. Were +there no forget-me-nots over there in the grass?" + +"There was no occasion for them," answered Colville. + +"You always did make such pretty speeches!" said the old lady. "And they +have such an orphic character, too; you can interpret them in so many +different ways. Should you mind saying just what you meant by that one?" + +"Yes, very much," replied Colville. + +The old lady laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as lief report +that reply of his as another. Even more than a man whom she could +entangle in his speech she liked a man who could slip through the toils +with unfailing ease. Her talk with such a man was the last consolation +which remained to her from a life of harmless coquetries. + +"I will refer it to Mrs. Bowen," she said. "She is a very wise woman, +and she used to know you a great while ago." + +"If you like, I will do it for you, Mrs. Amsden. I'm going to see her." + +"To renew your adieux? Well, why not? Parting is such sweet sorrow! And +if I were a young man I would go to say good-bye to Mrs. Bowen as often +as she would let me. Now tell me honestly, Mr. Colville, did you ever +see such an exquisite, perfect _creature_?" + +"Oh, that's asking a good deal." + +"What?" + +"To tell you a thing honestly. How did you come here, Mrs. Amsden?" + +"In Mrs. Bowen's carriage. I sent it round from the Pitti entrance to +the Porta Romana. It's waiting there now, I suppose." + +"I thought you had been corrupted, somehow. Your zeal is +carriage-bought. It _is_ a delightful vehicle. Do you think you could +give me a lift home in it?" + +"Yes, indeed. I've always a seat for you in my carriage. To Hotel +d'Atene?" + +"No, to Palazzo Pinti." + +"This is deliciously mysterious," said Mrs. Amsden, drawing her shawl up +about her shoulders, which, if no longer rounded, had still a charming +droop. One realises in looking at such old ladies that there are women +who could manage their own skeletons winningly. She put up her glasses, +which were an old-fashioned sort, held to the nose by a handle, and +perused the different persons of the group. "Mr. Colville concealing an +inward trepidation under a bold front; Miss Graham agitated but firm; +the child as much puzzled as the old woman. I feel that we are a very +interesting group--almost dramatic." + +"Oh, call us a passage from a modern novel," suggested Colville, "if +you're in the romantic mood. One of Mr. James's." + +"Don't you think we ought to be rather more of the great world for that? +I hardly feel up to Mr. James. I should have said Howells. Only nothing +happens in that case!" + +"Oh, very well; that's the most comfortable way. If it's only Howells, +there's no reason why I shouldn't go with Miss Graham to show her the +view of Florence from the cypress grove up yonder." + +"No; he's very particular when he's on Italian ground," said Mrs. +Amsden, rising. "You must come another time with Miss Graham, and bring +Mrs. Bowen. It's quite time we were going home." + +The light under the limbs of the trees had begun to grow more liquid. +The currents of warm breeze streaming through the cooler body of the air +had ceased to ruffle the lakelet round the fountain, and the naiads rode +their sea-horses through a perfect calm. A damp, pierced with the fresh +odour of the water and of the springing grass, descended upon them. The +saunterers through the different paths and alleys were issuing upon the +main avenues, and tending in gathering force toward the gate. + +They found Mrs. Bowen's carriage there, and drove first to her house, +beyond which Mrs. Amsden lived in a direct line. On the way Colville +kept up with her the bantering talk that they always carried on +together, and found in it a respite from the formless future pressing +close upon him. He sat with Effie on the front seat, and he would not +look at Imogene's face, which, nevertheless, was present to some inner +vision. When the porter opened the iron gate below and rang Mrs. Bowen's +bell, and Effie sprang up the stairs before them to give her mother the +news of Mr. Colville's coming, the girl stole her hand into his. + +"Shall you--tell her?" + +"Of course. She must know without an instant's delay." + +"Yes, yes; that is right. Oh!--Shall I go with you?" + +"Yes; come!" + + + + + + +XV + + +Mrs. Bowen came in to them, looking pale and pain-worn, as she did that +evening when she would not let Colville go away with the other +tea-taking callers to whom she had made her headache an excuse. The +eyelids which she had always a little difficulty in lifting were heavy +with suffering, and her pretty smile had an effect of very great +remoteness. But there was no consciousness of anything unusual or +unexpected in his presence expressed in her looks or manner. Colville +had meant to take Imogene by the hand and confront Mrs. Bowen with an +immediate declaration of what had happened; but he found this +impossible, at least in the form of his intention; he took, instead, the +hand of conventional welcome which she gave him, and he obeyed her in +taking provisionally the seat to which she invited him. At the same time +the order of his words was dispersed in that wonder, whether she +suspected anything, with which he listened to her placid talk about the +weather; she said she had thought it was a chilly day outdoors; but her +headaches always made her very sensitive. + +"Yes," said Colville, "I supposed it was cold myself till I went out, +for I woke with a tinge of rheumatism." He felt a strong desire to +excuse, to justify what had happened, and he went on, with a painful +sense of Imogene's eyes bent in bewildered deference upon him. "I +started out for a walk with Mr. Waters, but I left him after we got +across the Ponte Vecchio; he went up to look at the Michelangelo +bastions, and I strolled over to the Boboli Gardens--where I found your +young people." + +He had certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed actually +further from it than at first, and he made a desperate plunge, trying at +the same time to keep something of his habitual nonchalance. "But that +doesn't account for my being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has +allowed me to stay in Florence." + +Mrs. Bowen could not turn paler than her headache had left her, and she +now underwent no change of complexion. But her throat was not clear +enough to say to the end, "Allowed you to stay in--" The trouble in her +throat arrested her again. + +Colville became very red. He put out his hand and took Imogene's, and +now his eyes and Mrs. Bowen's met in the kind of glance in which people +intercept and turn each other aside before they have reached a +resting-place in each other's souls. But at the girl's touch his courage +revived--in some physical sort. "Yes, and if she will let me stay with +her, we are not going to part again." + +Mrs. Bowen did not answer at once, and in the hush Colville heard the +breathing of all three. + +"Of course," he said, "we wished you to know at once, and I came in with +Imogene to tell you." + +"What do you wish me," asked Mrs. Bowen, "to do?" + +Colville forced a nervous laugh. "Really, I'm so little used to this +sort of affair that I don't know whether I have any wish. Imogene is +here with you, and I suppose I supposed you would wish to do something." + +"I will do whatever you think best." + +"Thank you: that's very kind of you." He fell into a silence, in which +he was able only to wish that he knew what was best, and from which he +came to the surface with, "Imogene's family ought to know, of course." + +"Yes; they put her in my charge. They will have to know. Shall I write +to them?" + +"Why, if you will." + +"Oh, certainly." + +"Thank you." + +He had taken to stroking with his right hand the hand of Imogene which +he held in his left, and now he looked round at her with a glance which +it was a relief not to have her meet. "And till we can hear from them, I +suppose you will let me come to see her?" + +"You know you have always been welcome here." + +"Thank you very much." It seemed as if there ought to be something else +to say, but Colville could not think of anything except: "We wish to act +in every way with your approval, Mrs. Bowen. And I know that you are +very particular in some things"--the words, now that they were said, +struck him as unfortunate, and even vulgar--"and I shouldn't wish to +annoy you--" + +"Oh, I understand. I think it will be--I have no doubt you will know how +to manage all that. It isn't as if you were both--" + +"Young?" asked Colville. "No; one of us is quite old enough to be +thoroughly up in the _convenances_. We are qualified, I'm afraid, as far +as that goes," he added bitterly, "to set all Florence an example of +correct behaviour." + +He knew there must be pain in the face which he would not look at; he +kept looking at Mrs. Bowen's face, in which certainly there was not much +pleasure, either. + +There was another silence, which became very oppressive before it ended +in a question from Mrs. Bowen, who stirred slightly in her chair, and +bent forward as if about to rise in asking it. "Shall you wish to +consider it an engagement?" + +Colville felt Imogene's hand tremble in his, but he received no definite +prompting from the tremor. "I don't believe I know what you mean." + +"I mean, till you have heard from Imogene's mother." + +"I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps under the circumstances--" The tremor +died out of the hand he held; it lay lax between his. "What do you say, +Imogene?" + +"I can't say anything. Whatever you think will be right--for me." + +"I wish to do what will seem right and fair to your mother." + +"Yes." + +Colville heaved a hopeless sigh. Then with a deep inward humiliation, he +said, "Perhaps if you know Imogene's mother, Mrs. Bowen, you can +suggest--advise--You--" + +"You must excuse me; I can't suggest or advise anything. I must leave +you perfectly free." She rose from her chair, and they, both rose too +from the sofa on which he had seated himself at Imogene's side. "I shall +have to leave you, I'm afraid; my head aches still a little. Imogene!" +She advanced toward the girl, who stood passively letting her come the +whole distance. As if sensible of the rebuff expressed in this attitude, +she halted a very little. Then she added, "I hope you will be very +happy," and suddenly cast her arms round the girl, and stood long +pressing her face into her neck. When she released her, Colville +trembled lest she should be going to give him her hand in +congratulation. But she only bowed slightly to him, with a sidelong, +aversive glance, and walked out of the room with a slow, rigid pace, +like one that controls a tendency to giddiness. + +Imogene threw herself on Colville's' breast. It gave him a shock, as if +he were letting her do herself some wrong. But she gripped him fast, and +began to sob and to cry. "Oh! oh! oh!" + +"What is it?--what is it, my poor girl?" he murmured. "Are you unhappy? +Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!" + +"No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy--yes, very, very unhappy! +Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel so toward any one. I hate her!" + +"You hate her?" gasped Colville. + +"Yes, I hate her. And she--she is so good to me! It must be that I've +done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, or I couldn't hate her +as I know I do." + +"Oh no," said Colville soothingly; "that's just your fancy. You haven't +harmed her, and you don't hate her." + +"Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her." + +"But you can't feel so toward her long," he urged, dealing as he might +with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so good--" + +"It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more." + +"I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're calmer you'll +feel differently, of course. I've kept you restless and nervous a long +time, poor child; but now our peace begins, and everything will be +bright and--" He stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound. + +She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. "Oh yes." + +"And, Imogene--perhaps--perhaps--Or, no; never mind, now. I must go +away--" She looked at him, frightened but submissive. "But I will be +back to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think--to give +you time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you--I want to +consider you, all the more because you won't consider yourself. +Good-bye." He stooped over and kissed her hair. Even in this he felt +like a thief; he could not look at the face she lifted to his. + +Mrs. Bowen sent word from her room that she was not coming to dinner, +and Imogene did not come till the dessert was put on. Then she found +Effie Bowen sitting alone at the table, and served in serious formality +by the man, whom she had apparently felt it right to repress, for they +were both silent. The little girl had not known how to deny herself an +excess of the less wholesome dishes, and she was perhaps anticipating +the regret which this indulgence was to bring, for she was very pensive. + +"Isn't mamma coming at _all_?" she asked plaintively, when Imogene sat +down, and refused everything but a cup of coffee. "Well," she went on, +"I can't make out what is coming to this family. You were all crying +last night because Mr. Colville was going away, and now, when he's going +to stay, it's just as bad. I don't think you make it very pleasant for +_him_. I should think he would be perfectly puzzled by it, after he's +done so much to please you all. I don't believe he thinks it's very +polite. I suppose it _is_ polite, but it doesn't seem so. And he's +always so cheerful and nice. I should think he would want to visit in +some family where there was more amusement. There used to be plenty in +this family, but now it's as dismal! The first of the winter you and +mamma used to be so pleasant when he came, and would try everything to +amuse him, and would let me come in to get some of the good of it; but +now you seem to fly every way as soon as he comes in sight of the house, +and I'm poked off in holes and corners before he can open his lips. And +I've borne it about as long as I can. I would rather be back in Vevay. +Or anywhere." At this point her own pathos overwhelmed her, and the +tears rolling down her cheeks moistened the crumbs of pastry at the +corners of her pretty mouth. "What was so strange, I should like to +know, about his staying, that mamma should pop up like a ghost, when I +told her he had come home with us, and grab me by the wrist, and twitch +me about, and ask me all sorts of questions I couldn't answer, and +frighten me almost to death? I haven't got over it yet. And I don't +think it's very nice. It used to be a very polite family, and pleasant +with each other, and always having something agreeable going on in it; +but if it keeps on very much longer in this way, I shall think the +Bowens are beginning to lose their good-breeding. I suppose that if Mr. +Colville were to go down on his knees to mamma and ask her to let him +take me somewhere now, she wouldn't do it." She pulled her handkerchief +out of her pocket, and dried her eyes on a ball of it. "I don't see what +_you've_ been crying about, Imogene. _You've_ got nothing to worry you." + +"I'm not very well, Effie," returned the girl gently. "I haven't been +well all day." + +"It seems to me that nobody is well any more. I don't believe Florence +is a very healthy place. Or at least this house isn't. _I_ think it must +be the drainage. If we keep on, I suppose we shall all have diphtheria. +Don't you, Imogene?" + +"Yes," asserted the girl distractedly. + +"The girls had it at Vevay frightfully. And none of them were as strong +afterward. Some of the parents came and took them away; but Madame +Schebres never let mamma know. Do you think that was right?" + +"No; it was very wrong." + +"I suppose Mr. Colville will have it if we do. That is, if he keeps +coming here. Is he coming any more?" + +"Yes; he's coming to-morrow morning." + +"_Is_ he?" A smile flickered over the rueful face. "What time is he +coming?" + +"I don't know exactly," said Imogene, listlessly stirring her coffee. +"Some time in the forenoon." + +"Do you suppose he's going to take us anywhere?" + +"Yes--I think so. I can't tell exactly." + +"If he asks me to go somewhere, will you tease mamma? She always lets +you, Imogene, and it seems sometimes as if she just took a pleasure in +denying me." + +"You mustn't talk so of your mother, Effie." + +"No; I wouldn't to _every_body. I know that she means for the best; but +I don't believe she understands how much I suffer when she won't let me +go with Mr. Colville. Don't you think he's about the nicest gentleman we +know, Imogene?" + +"Yes; he's very kind." + +"And I think he's handsome. A good many people would consider him +old-looking, and of course he isn't so young as Mr. Morton was, or the +Inglehart boys; but that makes him all the easier to get along with. And +his being just a little fat, that way, seems to suit so well with his +character." The smiles were now playing across the child's face, and her +eyes sparkling. "_I_ think Mr, Colville would make a good Saint +Nicholas--the kind they have going down chimneys in America. I'm going +to tell him, for the next veglione. It would be such a nice surprise." + +"No, better not tell him that," suggested Imogene. + +"Do you think he wouldn't like it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, it would become him. How old do you suppose he is, Imogene? +Seventy-five?" + +"What an idea!" cried the girl fiercely. "He's forty-one." + +"I didn't know they had those little jiggering lines at the corners of +their eyes so quick. But forty-one is pretty old, isn't it? Is Mr. +Waters--" + +"Effie," said her mother's voice at the door behind her, "will you ring +for Giovanni, and tell him to bring me a cup of coffee in here?" She +spoke from the _portière_ of the _salotto_. + +"Yes, mamma. I'll bring it to you myself." + +"Thank you, dear," Mrs. Bowen called from within. + +The little girl softly pressed her hands together. "I _hope_ she'll let +me stay up! I feel so excited, and I hate to lie and think so long +before I get to sleep. Couldn't you just hint a little to her that I +might stay up? It's Sunday night." + +"I can't, Effie," said Imogene. "I oughtn't to interfere with any of +your mother's rules." + +The child sighed submissively and took the coffee that Giovanni brought +to her. She and Imogene went into the _salotto_ together. Mrs. Bowen was +at her writing-desk. "You can bring the coffee here, Effie," she said. + +"Must I go to bed at once, mamma?" asked the child, setting the cup +carefully down. + +The mother looked distractedly up from her writing. "No; you may sit up +a while," she said, looking back to her writing. + +"How long, mamma?" pleaded the little girl. + +"Oh, till you're sleepy. It doesn't matter _now_." + +She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she had written. + +Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself on a +stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read. + +Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in the indoor +chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a day as that had been. +She took some large beads of the strand she wore about her neck into her +mouth, and pulled at the strand listlessly with her hand while she +watched the fire. Her eyes wandered once to the child. + +"What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?" + +Effie shut her book over her hand. "It keeps me wakeful longer," she +whispered, with a glance at her mother from the corner of her eye. + +"I don't see why any one should wish to be wakeful," sighed the girl. + +When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene started +nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her chair. At last Mrs. +Bowen seemed to find the right phrases throughout, and she finished +rather a long letter, and read it over to herself. Then she said, +without leaving her desk, "Imogene, I've been trying to write to your +mother. Will you look at this?" + +She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came languidly and +took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on the desk, into her +hands, while Imogene was reading. + +"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18-- + +"Dear Mrs. Graham,--I have some very important news to give you in +regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of preparing you for it, I +will tell you at once that it relates to her marriage. + +"She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence when I was +here before, and of whom I never knew anything but good. We have seen +him very often, and I have seen nothing in him that I could not approve. +He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of Prairie des Vaches, Indiana, where he +was for many years a newspaper editor; but he was born somewhere in New +England. He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and though not +exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in his manners. +I am sure his character is irreproachable, though he is not a member of +any church. In regard to his means I know nothing whatever, and can only +infer from his way of life that he is in easy circumstances. + +"The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville is some +twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is very young in her +feelings for a girl of her age. If I could have realised anything like a +serious attachment between them sooner, I would have written before. +Even now I do not know whether I am to consider them engaged or not. No +doubt Imogene will write you more fully. + +"Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind happen while +Imogene was under my charge, though I am sure that you will not think I +have been careless or imprudent about her. I interfered as far as I +could, at the first moment I could, but it appears that it was then too +late to prevent what has followed.--Yours sincerely, EVALINA BOWEN." + + +Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, "Why isn't he a +society man?" + +Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. "I don't think a +society man would have undertaken to dance the Lancers as he did at +Madam Uccelli's," she answered patiently, without lifting her head. + +Imogene winced, but "I should despise him if he were merely a society +man," she said. "I have seen enough of them. I think it's better to be +intellectual and good." + +Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. "And as to his being +older, I don't see what difference it makes. If people are in sympathy, +then they are of the same age, no difference how much older than one the +other is. I have always heard that." She urged this as if it were a +question. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"And how should his having been a newspaper editor be anything against +him?" + +Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in astonishment. "Who +said it was against him?" + +"You hint as much. The whole letter is against him." + +"Imogene!" + +"Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I don't know +why you should hate _him_, He's done everything he could to satisfy +you." + +Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her forehead, as if +to soften a shock of headache that her change of posture had sent there. +"I will leave the letter with you, and you can send it or not as you +think best. It's merely a formality, my writing to your mother. Perhaps +you'll see it differently in the morning. Effie!" she called to the +child, who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at them and +listening intently. "It's time to go to bed now." + +When Effie stood before the glass in her mother's room, and Mrs. Bowen +was braiding her hair and tying it up for the night, she asked ruefully, +"What's the matter with Imogene, mamma?" + +"She isn't very happy to-night." + +"You don't seem very happy either," said the child, watching her own +face as it quivered in the mirror. "I should think that now Mr. +Colville's concluded to stay, we would all be happy again. But we don't +seem to. We're--we're perfectly demoralised!" It was one of the words +she had picked up from Colville. + +The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, and Effie +sobbed herself to sleep. + +Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen's desk, and pushing her letter away, +began to write. + +"FLORENCE, _March_ 10, 18--. + +"DEAR MOTHER,---I inclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which will tell you +better than I can what I wish to tell. I do not see how I can add +anything that would give you more of an idea of him, or less, either. No +person can be put down in cold black and white, and not seem like a mere +inventory. I do not suppose you expected me to become engaged when you +sent me out to Florence, and, as Mrs. Bowen says, I don't know whether I +am engaged or not. I will leave it entirely to Mr. Colville; if he says +we are engaged, we are. I am sure he will do what is best. I only know +that he was going away from Florence because he thought I supposed he +was not in earnest, and I asked him to stay. + +"I am a good deal excited to-night, and cannot write very clearly. But I +will write soon again, and more at length. + +"Perhaps something will be decided by that time. With much love to +father, + +"Your affectionate daughter, + +"Imogene." + +She put this letter into an envelope with Mrs. Bowen's, and leaving it +unsealed to show her in the morning, she began to write again. This time +she wrote to a girl with whom she had been on terms so intimate that +when they left school they had agreed to know each other by names +expressive of their extremely confidential friendship, and to address +each other respectively as Diary and Journal. They were going to write +every day, if only a line or two; and at the end of a year they were to +meet and read over together the records of their lives as set down in +these letters. They had never met since, though it was now three years +since they parted, and they had not written since Imogene came abroad; +that is, Imogene had not answered the only letter she had received from +her friend in Florence. This friend was a very serious girl, and had +wished to be a minister, but her family would not consent, or even +accept the compromise of studying medicine, which she proposed, and she +was still living at home in a small city of central New York. Imogene +now addressed her-- + +"DEAR DIARY,--You cannot think how far away the events of this day have +pushed the feelings and ideas of the time when I agreed to write to you +under this name. Till now it seems to me as if I had not changed in the +least thing since we parted, and now I can hardly know myself for the +same person. O dear Di! something very wonderful has come into my life, +and I feel that it rests with me to make it the greatest blessing to +myself and others, or the greatest misery. If I prove unworthy of it or +unequal to it, then I am sure that nothing but wretchedness will come of +it. + +"I am engaged--yes!--and to a man more than twice my own age. It is so +easy to tell you this, for I know that your large-mindedness will +receive it very differently from most people, and that you will see it +as I do. He is the noblest of men, though he tries to conceal it under +the light, ironical manner with which he has been faithful to a cruel +disappointment. It was here in Florence, twenty years ago, that a +girl--I am ashamed to call her a girl--trifled with the priceless +treasure that has fallen to me, and flung it away. You, Di, will +understand how I was first fascinated with the idea of trying to atone +to him here for all the wrong he had suffered. At first it was only the +vaguest suggestion--something like what I had read in a poem or a +novel--that had nothing to do with me personally, but it grew upon me +more and more the more I saw of him, and felt the witchery of his light, +indifferent manner, which I learned to see was tense with the anguish he +had suffered. She had killed his youth; she had spoiled his life: if I +could revive them, restore them! It came upon me like a great flash of +light at last, and as soon as this thought took possession of me, I felt +my whole being elevated and purified by it, and I was enabled to put +aside with contempt the selfish considerations that had occurred to me +at first. At first the difference between our ages was very shocking to +me; for I had always imagined it would be some one young; but when this +light broke upon me, I saw that _he_ was young, younger even than I, as +a man is at the same age with a girl. Sometimes with my experiences, the +fancies and flirtations that every one has and _must_ have, however one +despises them, I felt so _old_ beside him; for he had been true to one +love all his life, and he had not wavered for a moment. If I could make +him forget it, if I could lift every feather's weight of sorrow from his +breast, if I could help him to complete the destiny, grand and beautiful +as it would have been, which another had arrested, broken off--don't you +see, Di dear, how rich my reward would be? + +"And he, how forbearing, how considerate, how anxious for me, how full +of generous warning he has been! always putting me in mind, at every +step, of the difference in years between us; never thinking of himself, +and shrinking so much from even seeming to control me or sway me, that I +don't know really whether I have not made all the advances! + +"I cannot write his name yet, and you must not ask it till I can; and I +cannot tell you anything about his looks or his life without seeming to +degrade him, somehow, and make him a common man like others. + +"How can I make myself his companion in everything? How can I convince +him that there is no sacrifice for me, and that he alone is giving up? +These are the thoughts that keep whirling through my mind. I hope I +shall be helped, and I hope that I shall be tried, for that is the only +way for me to be helped. I feel strong enough for anything that people +can say. I should _welcome_ criticism and opposition from any quarter. +But I can see that _he_ is very sensitive--it comes from his keen sense +of the ridiculous--and if I suffer, it will be on account of this grand +unselfish nature, and I shall be glad of that. + +"I know you will understand me, Di, and I am not afraid of your laughing +at these ravings. But if you did I should not care. It is such a comfort +to say these things about him, to exalt him, and get him in the true +light at last. + +"Your faithful JOURNAL. + +"I shall tell him about you, one of the first things, and perhaps he can +suggest some way out of your trouble, he has had so much experience of +every kind. You will worship him, as I do, when you see him; for you +will feel at once that he understands you, and that is such a rest. + +"J." + + +Before Imogene fell asleep, Mrs. Bowen came to her in the dark, and +softly closed the door that opened from the girl's room into Effie's. +She sat down on the bed, and began to speak at once, as if she knew +Imogene must be awake. "I thought you would come to me, Imogene; but as +you didn't, I have come to you, for if you can go to sleep with hard +thoughts of me to-night, I can't let you. You need me for your friend, +and I wish to be your friend; it would be wicked in me to be anything +else; I would give the world if your mother were here; but I tried to +make my letter to her everything that it should be. If you don't think +it is, I will write it over in the morning." + +"No," said the girl coldly; "it will do very well. I don't wish to +trouble you so much." + +"Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame Mr. Colville? +Is that it? I don't ask you--I shall never ask you--how he came to +remain, but I know that he has acted truthfully and delicately. I knew +him long before you did, and no one need take his part with me." This +was not perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. "I have +told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I am not +satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much mistaken. I can't burst +out into praises of him to your mother: that would be very patronising +and very bad taste. Can't you see that it would?" + +"Oh yes." + +Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say something more, +but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. "Then I hope we understand each +other," she said, and went out of the room. + + + + + + +XVI + + +When Colville came in the morning, Mrs. Bowen received him. They shook +hands, and their eyes met in the intercepting glance of the night +before. + +"Imogene will be here in a moment," she said, with a naturalness that +made him awkward and conscious. + +"Oh, there is no haste," he answered uncouthly. "That is, I am very glad +of the chance to speak a moment with you, and to ask your--to profit by +what you think best. I know you are not very well pleased with me, and I +don't know that I can ever put myself in a better light with you--the +true light. It seems that there are some things we must not do even for +the truth's sake. But that's neither here nor there. What I am most +anxious for is not to take a shadow of advantage of this child's--of +Imogene's inexperience, and her remoteness from her family. I feel that +I must in some sort protect her from herself. Yes--that is my idea. But +I have to do this in so many ways that I hardly know how to begin. I +should be very willing, if you thought best, to go away and stay away +till she has heard from her people, and let her have that time to think +it all over again. She is very young--so much younger than I! Or, if you +thought it better, I would stay, and let her remain free while I held +myself bound to any decision of hers. I am anxious to do what is right. +At the same time"--he smiled ruefully--"there is such a thing as being +so _dis_interested that one may seem _un_interested. I may leave her so +very free that she may begin to suspect that I want a little freedom +myself. What shall I do? I wish to act with your approval." + +Mrs. Bowen had listened with acquiescence and intelligence that might +well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of her +hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have +told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no +longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of +Imogene's mother; but I will do only what you wish. Please understand +that, and don't ask me for advice any more. It is painful." She drew her +lower lip in a little, and let the screen fall into her lap. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Bowen, to do anything--say anything--that is painful to +you," Colville began. "You know that I would give the world to please +you----" The words escaped him and left him staring at her, + +"What are you saying to me, Theodore Colville?" she exclaimed, flashing +a full-eyed glance upon him, and then breaking into a laugh, as +unnatural for her. "Really, I don't believe you know!" + +"Heaven knows I meant nothing but what I said," he answered, struggling +stupidly with a confusion of desires which every man but no woman will +understand. After eighteen hundred years, the man is still imperfectly +monogamous. "Is there anything wrong in it?" + +"Oh no! Not for you," she said scornfully. + +"I am very much in earnest," he went on hopelessly, "in asking your +opinion, your help, in regard to how I shall treat this affair." + +"And I am still more in earnest in telling you that I will give you no +opinion, no help. I forbid you to recur to the subject." He was silent, +unable to drop his eyes from hers. "But for her," continued Mrs. Bowen, +"I will do anything in my power. If she asks my advice I will give it, +and I will give her all the help I can." + +"Thank you," said Colville vaguely. + +"I will not have your thanks," promptly retorted Mrs. Bowen, "for I mean +you no kindness. I am trying to do my duty to Imogene, and when that is +ended, all is ended. There is no way now for you to please me--as you +call it--except to keep her from regretting what she has done." + +"Do you think I shall fail in that?" he demanded indignantly. + +"I can offer you no opinion. I can't tell what you will do." + +"There are two ways of keeping her from regretting what she has done; +and perhaps the simplest and best way would be to free her from the +consequences, as far as they're involved in me," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen dropped herself back in her armchair. "If you choose to force +these things upon me, I am a woman, and can't help myself. Especially, I +can't help myself against a guest." + +"Oh, I will relieve you of my presence," said Colville. "I've no wish to +force anything upon you--least of all myself." He rose, and moved toward +the door. + +She hastily intercepted him. "Do you think I will let you go without +seeing Imogene? Do you understand me so little as that? It's _too late_ +for you to go! You know what I think of all this, and I know, better +than you, what you think. I shall play my part, and you shall play +yours. I have refused to give you advice or help, and I never shall do +it. But I know what my duty to her is, and I will fulfil it. No matter +how distasteful it is to either of us, you must come here as before. The +house is as free to you as ever--freer. And we are to be as good friends +as ever--better. You can see Imogene alone or in my presence, and, as +far as I am concerned, you shall consider yourself engaged or not, as +you choose. Do you understand?" + +"Not in the least," said Colville, in the ghost of his old bantering +manner. "But don't explain, or I shall make still less of it." + +"I mean simply that I do it for Imogene and not for you." + +"Oh, I understand that you don't do it for me." + +At this moment Imogene appeared between the folds of the _portière_, and +her timid, embarrassed glance from Mrs. Bowen to Colville was the first +gleam of consolation that had visited him since he parted with her the +night before. A thrill of inexplicable pride and fondness passed through +his heart, and even the compunction that followed could not spoil its +sweetness. But if Mrs. Bowen discreetly turned her head aside that she +need not witness a tender greeting between them, the precaution was +unnecessary. He merely went forward and took the girl's hand, with a +sigh of relief. "Good morning, Imogene," he said, with a kind of +compassionate admiration. + +"Good morning," she returned half-inquiringly. + +She did not take a seat near him, and turned, as if for instruction, to +Mrs. Bowen. It was probably the force of habit. In any case, Mrs. +Bowen's eyes gave no response. She bowed slightly to Colville, and +began, "I must leave Imogene to entertain you for the present, Mr.--" + +"No!" cried the girl impetuously; "don't go." Mrs. Bowen stopped. "I +wish to speak with you--with you and Mr. Colville together. I wish to +say--I don't know how to say it exactly; but I wish to know--You asked +him last night, Mrs. Bowen, whether he wished to consider it an +engagement?" + +"I thought perhaps you would rather hear from your mother--" + +"Yes, I would be glad to know that my mother approved; but if she +didn't, I couldn't help it. Mr. Colville said he was bound, but I was +not. That can't be. I _wish_ to be bound, if he is." + +"I don't quite know what you expect me to say." + +"Nothing," said Imogene. "I merely wished you to know. And I don't wish +you to sacrifice anything to us. If you think best, Mr. Colville will +not see me till I hear from home; though it won't make any difference +with me _what_ I hear." + +"There's no reason why you shouldn't meet," said Mrs. Bowen absently. + +"If you wish it to have the same appearance as an Italian +engagement----" + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen, putting her hand to her head with a gesture she +had; "that would be quite unnecessary. It would be ridiculous under the +circumstances. I have thought of it, and I have decided that the +American way is the best." + +"Very well, then," said Imogene, with the air of summing up; "then the +only question is whether we shall make it known or not to other people." + +This point seemed to give Mrs. Bowen greater pause than any. She was a +long time silent, and Colville saw that Imogene was beginning to chafe +at her indecision. Yet he did not see the moment to intervene in a +debate in which he found himself somewhat ludicrously ignored, as if the +affair were solely the concern of these two women, and none of his. + +"Of course, Mrs. Bowen," said the girl haughtily, "if it will be +disagreeable to you to have it known----" + +Mrs. Bowen blushed delicately--a blush of protest and of generous +surprise, or so it seemed to Colville. "I was not thinking of myself, +Imogene. I only wish to consider you. And I was thinking whether, at +this distance from home, you wouldn't prefer to have your family's +approval before you made it known." + +"I am sure of their approval. Father will do what mother says, and she +has always said that she would never interfere with me in--in--such a +thing." + +"Perhaps you would like all the more, then, to show her the deference of +waiting for her consent." + +Imogene started as if stopped short in swift career; it was not hard for +Colville to perceive that she saw for the first time the reverse side of +a magnanimous impulse. She suddenly turned to him. + +"I think Mrs. Bowen is right," he said gravely, in answer to the eyes of +Imogene. He continued, with a flicker of his wonted mood: "You must +consider me a little in the matter. I have some small shreds of +self-respect about me somewhere, and I would rather not be put in the +attitude of defying your family, or ignoring them." + +"No," said Imogene, in the same effect of arrest. + +"When it isn't absolutely necessary," continued Colville. "Especially as +you say there will be no opposition." + +"Of course," Imogene assented; and in fact what he said was very just, +and he knew it; but he could perceive that he had suffered loss with +her. A furtive glance at Mrs. Bowen did not assure him that he had made +a compensating gain in that direction, where, indeed, he had no right to +wish for any. + +"Well, then," the girl went on, "it shall be so. We will wait. It will +only be waiting. I ought to have thought of you before; I make a bad +beginning," she said tremulously. "I supposed I was thinking of you; but +I see that I was only thinking of myself." The tears stood in her eyes. +Mrs. Bowen, quite overlooked in this apology, slipped from the room. + +"Imogene!" said Colville, coming toward her. + +She dropped herself upon his shoulder. "Oh, why, why, why am I so +miserable?" + +"Miserable, Imogene!" he murmured, stroking her beautiful hair. + +"Yes, yes! Utterly miserable! It must be because I'm unworthy of +you--unequal every way. If you think so, cast me off at once. Don't be +weakly merciful!" + +The words pierced his heart. "I would give the world to make you happy, +my child!" he said, with perfidious truth, and a sigh that came from the +bottom of his soul. "Sit down here by me," he said, moving to the sofa; +and with whatever obscure sense of duty to her innocent self-abandon, he +made a space between them, and reduced her embrace to a clasp of the +hand she left with him. "Now tell me," he said, "what is it makes you +unhappy?" + +"Oh, I don't know," she answered, drying her averted eyes. "I suppose I +am overwrought from not sleeping, and from thinking how we should +arrange it all." + +"And now that it's all arranged, can't you be cheerful again?" + +"Yes." + +"You're satisfied with the way we've arranged it? Because if--" + +"Oh, perfectly--perfectly!" She hastily interrupted. "I wouldn't have it +otherwise. Of course," she added, "it wasn't very pleasant having some +one else suggest what I ought to have thought of myself, and seem more +delicate about you than I was." + +"Some one else?" + +"You know! Mrs. Bowen." + +"Oh! But I couldn't see that she was anxious to spare me. It occurred to +me that she was concerned about your family." + +"It led up to the other! it's all the same thing." + +"Well, even in that case, I don't see why you should mind it. It was +certainly very friendly of her, and I know that she has your interest at +heart entirely." + +"Yes; she knows how to make it seem so." + +Colville hesitated in bewilderment. "Imogene!" he cried at last, "I +don't understand this. Don't you think Mrs. Bowen likes you?" + +"She detests me." + +"Oh, no, no, no! That's too cruel an error. You mustn't think that. I +can't let you. It's morbid. I'm sure that she's devotedly kind and good +to you." + +"Being kind and good isn't liking. I know what she thinks. But of course +I can't expect to convince you of it; no one else could see it." + +"No!" said Colville, with generous fervour. + +"Because it doesn't exist and you mustn't imagine it. You are as +sincerely and unselfishly regarded in this house as you could be in your +own home. I'm sure of that. I know Mrs. Bowen. She has her little +worldlinesses and unrealities of manner, but she is truth and loyalty +itself. She would rather die than be false, or even unfair. I knew her +long ago--" + +"Yes," cried the girl, "long before you knew me!" + +"And I know her to be the soul of honour," said Colville, ignoring the +childish outburst. "Honour--like a man's," he added. "And, Imogene, I +want you to promise me that you'll not think of her any more in that +way. I want you to think of her as faithful and loving to you, for she +is so. Will you do it?" + +Imogene did not answer him at once. Then she turned upon him a face of +radiant self-abnegation. "I will do anything you tell me. Only tell me +things to do." + +The next time he came he again saw Mrs. Bowen alone before Imogene +appeared. The conversation was confined to two sentences. + +"Mr. Colville," she said, with perfectly tranquil point, while she +tilted a shut book to and fro on her knee, "I will thank you not to +defend me." + +Had she overheard? Had Imogene told her? He answered, in a fury of +resentment for her ingratitude that stupefied him. "I will never speak +of you again." + +Now they were enemies; he did not know how or why, but he said to +himself, in the bitterness of his heart, that it was better so; and when +Imogene appeared, and Mrs. Bowen vanished, as she did without another +word to him, he folded the girl in a vindictive embrace. + +"What is the matter?" she asked, pushing away from him. + +"With me?" + +"Yes; you seem so excited." + +"Oh, nothing," he said, shrinking from the sharpness of that scrutiny in +a woman's eyes, which, when it begins the perusal of a man's soul, +astonishes and intimidates him; he never perhaps becomes able to endure +it with perfect self-control. "I suppose a slight degree of excitement +in meeting you may be forgiven me." He smiled under the unrelaxed +severity of her gaze. + +"Was Mrs. Bowen saying anything about me?" + +"Not a word," said Colville, glad of getting back to the firm truth +again, even if it were mere literality. + +"We have made it up," she said, her scrutiny changing to a lovely appeal +for his approval. "What there was to make up." + +"Yes?" + +"I told her what you had said. And now it's all right between us, and +you mustn't be troubled at that any more. I did it to please you." + +She seemed to ask him with the last words whether she really had pleased +him, as if something in his aspect suggested a doubt; and he hastened to +reassure her. "That was very good of you. I appreciate it highly. It's +extremely gratifying." + +She broke into a laugh of fond derision. "I don't believe you really +cared about it, or else you're not thinking about it now. Sit down here; +I want to tell you of something I've thought out." She pulled him to the +sofa, and put his arm about her waist, with a simple fearlessness and +matter-of-course promptness that made him shudder. He felt that he ought +to tell her not to do it, but he did not quite know how without wounding +her. She took hold of his hand and drew his lax arm taut. Then she +looked up into his eyes, as if some sense of his misgiving had conveyed +itself to her, but she did not release her hold of his hand. + +"Perhaps we oughtn't, if we're not engaged?" she suggested, with such +utter trust in him as made his heart quake. + +"Oh," he sighed, from a complexity of feeling that no explanation could +wholly declare, "we're engaged enough for that, I suppose." + +"I'm glad you think so," she answered innocently. "I knew you wouldn't +let me if it were not right." Having settled the question, "Of course," +she continued, "we shall all do our best to keep our secret; but in +spite of everything it may get out. Do you see?" + +"Well?" + +"Well, of course it will make a great deal of remark." + +"Oh yes; you must be prepared for that, Imogene," said Colville, with as +much gravity as he could make comport with his actual position. + +"I am prepared for it, and prepared to despise it," answered the girl. +"I shall have no trouble except the fear that you will mind it." She +pressed his hand as if she expected him to say something to this. + +"I shall never care for it," he said, and this was true enough. "My only +care will be to keep you from regretting. I have tried from the first to +make you see that I was very much older than you. It would be miserable +enough if you came to see it too late." + +"I have never seen it, and I never shall see it, because there's no such +difference between us. It isn't the years that make us young or old--who +is it says that? No matter, it's true. And I want you to believe it. I +want you to feel that I am your youth--the youth you were robbed +of--given back to you. Will you do it? Oh, if you could, I should be the +happiest girl in the world." Tears of fervour dimmed the beautiful eyes +which looked into his. "Don't speak!" she hurried on. "I won't let you +till I have said it all. It's been this idea, this hope, with me +always--ever since I knew what happened to you here long ago--that you +might go back in my life and take up yours where it was broken off; that +I might make your life what it would have been--complete your destiny--" + +Colville wrenched himself loose from the hold that had been growing more +tenderly close and clinging. "And do you think I could be such a vampire +as to let you? Yes, yes; I have had my dreams of such a thing; but I see +now how hideous they were. You shall make no such sacrifice to me. You +must put away the fancies that could never be fulfilled, or if by some +infernal magic they could, would only bring sorrow to you and shame to +me. God forbid! And God forgive me, if I have done or said anything to +put this in your head! And thank God it isn't too late yet for you to +take yourself back." + +"Oh," she murmured. "Do you think it is self-sacrifice for me to give +myself to you? It's self-glorification! You don't understand--I haven't +told you what I mean, or else I've told it in such a way that I've made +it hateful to you. Do you think I don't care for you except to be +something to you? I'm not so generous as that. You are all the world to +me. If I take myself back from you, as you say, what shall I do with +myself?" + +"Has it come to that?" asked Colville. He sat down again with her, and +this time he put his arm around her and drew her to him, but it seemed +to him he did it as if she were his child. "I was going to tell you just +now that each of us lived to himself in this world, and that no one +could hope to enter into the life of another and complete it. But now I +see that I was partly wrong. We two are bound together, Imogene, and +whether we become all in all or nothing to each other, we can have no +separate fate." + +The girl's eyes kindled with rapture. "Then let us never speak of it +again. I was going to say something, but now I won't say it." + +"Yes, say it." + +"No; it will make you think that I am anxious on my own account about +appearances before people." + +"You poor child, I shall never think you are anxious on your own account +about anything. What were you going to say?" + +"Oh, nothing! It was only--are you invited to the Phillipses' fancy +ball?" + +"Yes," said Colville, silently making what he could of the diversion, "I +believe so." + +"And are you going--did you mean to go?" she asked timidly. + +"Good heavens, no! What in the world should I do at another fancy ball? +I walked about with the airy grace of a bull in a china shop at the last +one." + +Imogene did not smile. She faintly sighed. "Well, then, I won't go +either." + +"Did you intend to go?" + +"Oh no!" + +"Why, of course you did, and it's very right you should. Did you want me +to go?" + +"It would bore you." + +"Not if you're there." She gave his hand a grateful pressure. "Come, +I'll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy ball to please you is a very +different thing from a fancy ball in the abstract." + +"Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired your +compliments? I think they're the most charming compliments in the +world." + +"I don't think they're half so pretty as yours; but they're more +sincere." + +"No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make fun of the +flattery a little; they make a person feel that you like them, even +while you laugh at them." + +"They appear to be rather an intricate kind of compliment--sort of +_salsa agradolce_ affair--tutti frutti style--species of moral +mayonnaise." + +"No--be quiet! You know what I mean. What were we talking about? Oh! I +was going to say that the most fascinating thing about you always was +that ironical way of yours." + +"Have I an ironical way? You were going to tell me something more about +the fancy ball." + +"I don't care for it. I would rather talk about you." + +"And I prefer the ball. It's a fresher topic--to me." + +"Very well, then. But this I will say. No matter how happy you should +be, I should always want you to keep that tone of persiflage. You've no +idea how perfectly intoxicating it is." + +"Oh yes, I have. It seems to have turned the loveliest and wisest head +in the world." + +"Oh, do you really think so? I would give anything if you did." + +"What?" + +"Think I was pretty," she pleaded, with full eyes. "Do you?" + +"No, but I think you are wise. Fifty per cent, of truth--it's a large +average in compliments. What are you going to wear?" + +"Wear? Oh! At the ball! Something Egyptian, I suppose. It's to be an +Egyptian ball. Didn't you understand that?" + +"Oh yes. But I supposed you could go in any sort of dress." + +"You can't. You must go in some Egyptian character." + +"How would Moses do? In the bulrushes, you know. You could be Pharaoh's +daughter, and recognise me by my three hats. And toward the end of the +evening, when I became very much bored, I could go round killing +Egyptians." + +"No, no. Be serious. Though I like you to joke, too. I shall always want +you to joke. Shall you, always?" + +"There may be emergencies when I shall fail--like family prayers, and +grace before meat, and dangerous sickness." + +"Why, of course. But I mean when we're together, and there's no reason +why you shouldn't?" + +"Oh, at such times I shall certainly joke." + +"And before people, too! I won't have them saying that it's sobered +you--that you used to be very gay, and now you're cross, and never say +anything." + +"I will try to keep it up sufficiently to meet the public demand." + +"And I shall want you to joke me, too. You must satirise me. It does +more to show me my faults than anything else, and it will show other +people how perfectly submissive I am, and how I think everything you do +is just right." + +"If I were to beat you a little in company, don't you think it would +serve the same purpose?" + +"No, no; be serious." + +"About joking?" + +"No, about me. I know that I'm very intense, and you must try to correct +that tendency in me." + +"I will, with pleasure. Which of my tendencies are you going to +correct?" + +"You have none." + +"Well, then, neither have you. I'm not going to be outdone in +civilities." + +"Oh, if people could only hear you talk in this light way, and then know +what _I_ know!" + +Colville broke out into a laugh at the deep sigh which accompanied these +words. As a whole, the thing was grotesque and terrible to him, but +after a habit of his, he was finding a strange pleasure in its details. + +"No, no," she pleaded. "Don't laugh. There are girls that would give +their eyes for it." + +"As pretty eyes as yours?" + +"Do you think they're nice?" + +"Yes, if they were not so mysterious." + +"Mysterious?" + +"Yes, I feel that your eyes can't really be as honest as they look. That +was what puzzled me about them the first night I saw you." + +"No--did it, really?" + +"I went home saying to myself that no girl could be so sincere as that +Miss Graham seemed." + +"Did you say that?" + +"Words to that effect." + +"And what do you think now?" + +"Ah, I don't know. You had better go as the Sphinx." + +Imogene laughed in simple gaiety of heart. + +"How far we've got from the ball!" she said, as if the remote excursion +were a triumph. "What shall we really go as?" + +"Isis and Osiris." + +"Weren't they gods of some kind?" + +"Little one-horse deities--not very much." + +"It won't do to go as gods of any kind. They're always failures. People +expect too much of them." + +"Yes," said Colville. "That's human nature under all circumstances. But +why go to an Egyptian ball at all?" + +"Oh, we must go. If we both stayed away it would make talk at once, and +my object is to keep people in the dark till the very last moment. Of +course it's unfortunate your having told Mrs. Amsden that you were going +away, and then telling her just after you came back with me that you +were going to stay. But it can't be helped now. And I don't really care +for it. But don't you see why I want you to go to all these things?" + +"All these things?" + +"Yes, everything you're invited to after this. It's not merely for a +blind as regards ourselves now, but if they see that you're very fond of +all sorts of gaieties, they will see that you are--they will +understand----" + +There was no need for her to complete the sentence. Colville rose. +"Come, come, my dear child," he said, "why don't you end all this at +once? I don't blame you. Heaven knows I blame no one but myself! I ought +to have the strength to break away from this mistake, but I haven't. I +couldn't bear to see you suffer from pain that I should give you even +for your good. But do it yourself, Imogene, and for pity's sake don't +forbear from any notion of sparing me. I have no wish except for your +happiness, and now I tell you clearly that no appearance we can put on +before the world will deceive the world. At the end of all our trouble I +shall still be forty----" + +She sprang to him and put her hand over his mouth. "I know what you're +going to say, and I won't let you say it, for you've promised over and +over again not to speak of that any more. Oh, do you think I care for +the world, or what it will think or say?" + +"Yes, very much." + +"That shows how little you understand me. It's because I wish to _defy_ +the world--" + +"Imogene! Be as honest with yourself as you are with me." + +"I _am_ honest." + +"Look me in the eyes, then." + +She did so for an instant, and then hid her face on his shoulder. + +"You silly girl," he said. "What is it you really do wish?" + +"I wish there was no one in the world but you and me." + +"Ah, you'd find it very crowded at times," said Colville sadly. "Well, +well," he added, "I'll go to your fandangoes, because you want me to +go." + +"That's all I wished you to say," she replied, lifting her head, and +looking him radiantly in the face. "I don't want you to go at all! I +only want you to promise that you'll come here every night that you're +invited out, and read to Mrs. Bowen and me." + +"Oh, I can't do that," said Colville; "I'm too fond of society. For +example, I've been invited to an Egyptian fancy ball, and I couldn't +think of giving that up." + +"Oh, how delightful you are! They couldn't any of them talk like you." + +He had learned to follow the processes of her thought now. "Perhaps they +can when they come to my age." + +"There!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on his mouth again, to remind +him of another broken promise. "Why can't you give up the Egyptian +ball?" + +"Because I expect to meet a young lady there--a very beautiful young +lady." + +"But how shall you know her if she's disguised?" + +"Why, I shall be disguised too, you know." + +"Oh, what delicious nonsense you _do_ talk! Sit down here and tell me +what you are going to wear." + +She tried to pull him back to the sofa. "What character shall you go +in?" + +"No, no," he said, resisting the gentle traction. "I can't; I have +urgent business down-town." + +"Oh! Business in _Florence!"_ + +"Well, if I stayed, I should tell you what disguise I'm going to the +ball in." + +"I knew it was that. What do you think would be a good character for +me?" + +"I don't know. The serpent of old Nile would be pretty good for you." + +"Oh, I know you don't think it!" she cried fondly. She had now let him +take her hand, and he stood holding it at arm's-length. Effie Bowen came +into the room. "Good-bye," said Imogene, with an instant assumption of +society manner. + +"Good-bye," said Colville, and went out. + +"Oh, Mr. Colville!" she called, before he got to the outer door. + +"Yes," he said, starting back. + +She met him midway of the dim corridor. "Only to--" She put her arms +about his neck and sweetly kissed him. + +Colville went out into the sunlight feeling like some strange, newly +invented kind of scoundrel--a rascal of such recent origin and +introduction that he had not yet had time to classify himself and +ascertain the exact degree of his turpitude. The task employed his +thoughts all that day, and kept him vibrating between an instinctive +conviction of monstrous wickedness and a logical and well-reasoned +perception that he had all the facts and materials for a perfectly good +conscience. He was the betrothed lover of this poor child, whose +affection he could not check without a degree of brutality for which +only a better man would have the courage. When he thought of perhaps +refusing her caresses, he imagined the shock it would give her, and the +look of grief and mystification that would come into her eyes, and he +found himself incapable of that cruel rectitude. He knew that these were +the impulses of a white and loving soul; but at the end of all his +argument they remained a terror to him, so that he lacked nothing but +the will to fly from Florence and shun her altogether till she had heard +from her family. This, he recalled, with bitter self-reproach was what +had been his first inspiration; he had spoken of it to Mrs. Bowen, and +it had still everything in its favour except that it was impossible. + +Imogene returned to the salotto, where the little girl was standing with +her face to the window, drearily looking out; her back expressed an +inner desolation which revealed itself in her eyes when Imogene caught +her head between her hands, and tilted up her face to kiss it. + +"What is the matter, Effie?" she demanded gaily. + +"Nothing." + +"Oh yes, there is." + +"Nothing that you will care for. As long as he's pleasant to you, you +don't care what he does to me." + +"What has he done to you?" + +"He didn't take the slightest notice of me when I came into the room. He +didn't speak to me, or even look at me." + +Imogene caught the little grieving, quivering face to her breast "He is +a wicked, wicked wretch! And I will give him the awfulest scolding he +ever had when he comes here again. I will teach him to neglect my pet. I +will let him understand that if he doesn't notice you, he needn't notice +me. I will tell you, Effie--I've just thought of a way. The next time he +comes we will both receive him. We will sit up very stiffly on the sofa +together, and just answer Yes, No, Yes, No, to everything he says, till +he begins to take the hint, and learns how to behave himself. Will you?" + +A smile glittered through the little girl's tears; but she asked, "Do +you think it would be very polite?" + +"No matter, polite or not, it's what he deserves. Of course, as soon as +he begins to take the hint, we will be just as we always are." + +Imogene despatched a note, which Colville got the next morning, to tell +him of his crime, and apprise him of his punishment, and of the sweet +compunction that had pleaded for him in the breast of the child. If he +did not think he could help play the comedy through, he must come +prepared to offer Effie some sort of atonement. + +It was easy to do this: to come with his pockets full of presents, and +take the little girl on his lap, and pour out all his troubled heart in +the caresses and tendernesses which would bring him no remorse. He +humbled himself to her thoroughly, and with a strange sincerity in the +harmless duplicity, and promised, if she would take him back into +favour, that he would never offend again. Mrs. Bowen had sent word that +she was not well enough to see him; she had another of her headaches; +and he sent back a sympathetic and respectful message by Effie, who +stood thoughtfully at her mother's pillow after she had delivered it, +fingering the bouquet Colville had brought her, and putting her head +first on this side, and then on that to admire it. + +"I think Mr. Colville and Imogene are much more affectionate than they +used to be," she said. + +Mrs. Bowen started up on her elbow. "What do you mean, Effie?" + +"Oh, they're both so good to me." + +"Yes," said her mother, dropping back to her pillow. "Both?" + +"Yes; he's the _most_ affectionate." + +The mother turned her face the other way. "Then he must be," she +murmured. + +"What?" asked the child. + +"Nothing. I didn't know I spoke." + +The little girl stood a while still playing with her flowers. "I think +Mr. Colville is about the pleasantest gentleman that comes here. Don't +you, mamma?" + +"Yes." + +"He's so interesting, and says such nice things. I don't know whether +children ought to think of such things, but I wish I was going to marry +some one like Mr. Colville. Of course I should want to be tolerably old +if I did. How old do you think a person ought to be to marry him?" + +"You mustn't talk of such things, Effie," said her mother. + +"No; I suppose it isn't very nice." She picked out a bud in her bouquet, +and kissed it; then she held the nosegay at arm's-length before her, and +danced away with it. + + + + + + +XVII + + +In the ensuing fortnight a great many gaieties besides the Egyptian ball +took place, and Colville went wherever he and Imogene were both invited. +He declined the quiet dinners which he liked, and which his hearty +appetite and his habit of talk fitted him to enjoy, and accepted +invitations to all sorts of evenings and At Homes, where dancing +occupied a modest corner of the card, and usurped the chief place in the +pleasures. At these places it was mainly his business to see Imogene +danced with by others, but sometimes he waltzed with her himself, and +then he was complimented by people of his own age, who had left off +dancing, upon his vigour. They said they could not stand that sort of +thing, though they supposed, if you kept yourself in practice, it did +not come so hard. One of his hostesses, who had made a party for her +daughters, told him that he was an example to everybody, and that if +middle-aged people at home mingled more in the amusements of the young, +American society would not be the silly, insipid, boy-and-girl affair +that it was now. He went to these places in the character of a young +man, but he was not readily accepted or recognised in that character. +They gave him frumps to take out to supper, mothers and maiden aunts, +and if the mothers were youngish, they threw off on him, and did not +care for his talk. + +At one of the parties Imogene seemed to become aware for the first time +that the lapels of his dress-coat were not faced with silk. + +"Why don't you have them so?" she asked. "All the _other_ young men +have. And you ought to wear a _boutonnière_." + +"Oh, I think a man looks rather silly in silk lapels at my--" He +arrested himself, and then continued: "I'll see what the tailor can do +for me. In the meantime, give me a bud out of your bouquet." + +"How sweet you are!" she sighed. "You do the least thing so that it is +ten times as good as if any one else did it." + +The same evening, as he stood leaning against a doorway, behind Imogene +and a young fellow with whom she was beginning a quadrille, he heard her +taking him to task. + +"Why do you say 'Sir' to Mr. Colville?" + +"Well, I know the English laugh at us for doing it, and say it's like +servants; but I never feel quite right answering just 'Yes' and 'No' to +a man of his age." + +This was one of the Inglehart boys, whom he met at nearly all of these +parties, and not all of whom were so respectful. Some of them treated +him upon an old-boy theory, joking him as freely as if he were one of +themselves, laughing his antiquated notions of art to scorn, but +condoning them because he was good-natured, and because a man could not +help being of his own epoch anyway. They put a caricature of him among +the rest on the walls of their _trattoria_, where he once dined with +them. + +Mrs. Bowen did not often see him when he went to call upon Imogene, and +she was not at more than two or three of the parties. Mrs. Amsden came +to chaperon the girl, and apparently suffered an increase of unrequited +curiosity in regard to his relations to the Bowen household, and the +extraordinary development of his social activity. Colville not only went +to all those evening parties, but he was in continual movement during +the afternoon at receptions and at "days," of which he began to think +each lady had two or three. Here he drank tea, cup after cup, in +reckless excitement, and at night when he came home from the dancing +parties, dropping with fatigue, he could not sleep till toward morning. +He woke at the usual breakfast-hour, and then went about drowsing +throughout the day till the tea began again in the afternoon. He fell +asleep whenever he sat down, not only in the reading-room at Viesseux's, +where he disturbed the people over their newspapers by his +demonstrations of somnolence, but even at church, whither he went one +Sunday to please Imogene, and started awake during the service with the +impression that the clergyman had been making a joke. Everybody but +Imogene was smiling. At the café he slept without scruple, selecting a +corner seat for the purpose, and proportioning his _buonamano_ to the +indulgence of the _giovane_. He could not tell how long he slept at +these places, but sometimes it seemed to him hours. + +One day he went to see Imogene, and while Effie Bowen stood prattling to +him as he sat waiting for Imogene to come in, he faded light-headedly +away from himself on the sofa, as if he had been in his corner at the +café. Then he was aware of some one saying "Sh!" and he saw Effie +Bowen, with her finger on her lip, turned toward Imogene, a figure of +beautiful despair in the doorway. He was all tucked up with sofa +pillows, and made very comfortable, by the child, no doubt. She slipped +out, seeing him awake, so as to leave him and Imogene alone, as she had +apparently been generally instructed to do, and Imogene came forward. + +"What is the matter, Theodore?" she asked patiently. She had taken to +calling him Theodore when they were alone. She owned that she did not +like the name, but she said it was right she should call him by it, +since it was his. She came and sat down beside him, where he had raised +himself to a sitting posture, but she did not offer him any caress. + +"Nothing," he answered. "But this climate is making me insupportably +drowsy; or else the spring weather." + +"Oh no; it isn't that," she said, with a slight sigh. He had left her in +the middle of a german at three o'clock in the morning, but she now +looked as fresh and lambent as a star. "It's the late hours. They're +killing you." + +Colville tried to deny it; his incoherencies dissolved themselves in a +yawn, which he did not succeed in passing for a careless laugh. + +"It won't do," she said, as if speaking to herself; "no, it won't do." + +"Oh yes, it will," Colville protested. "I don't mind being up. I've been +used to it all my life on the paper. It's just some temporary thing. +It'll come all right." + +"Well, no matter," said Imogene. "It makes you ridiculous, going to all +those silly places, and I'd rather give it up." + +The tears began to steal down her cheeks, and Colville sighed. It seemed +to him that somebody or other was always crying. A man never quite gets +used to the tearfulness of women. + +"Oh, don't mind it," he said. "If you wish me to go, I will go! Or die +in the attempt," he added, with a smile. + +Imogene did not smile with him. "I don't wish you to go any more. It was +a mistake in the first place, and from this out I will adapt myself to +you." + +"And give up all your pleasures? Do you think I would let you do that? +No, indeed! Neither in this nor in anything else. I will not cut off +your young life in any way, Imogene--not shorten it or diminish it. If I +thought I should do that, or you would try to do it for me, I should +wish I had never seen you." + +"It isn't that. I know how good you are, and that you would do anything +for me." + +"Well, then, why don't you go to these fandangoes alone? I can see that +you have me on your mind all the time, when I'm with you." + +"Oughtn't I?" + +"Yes, up to a certain point, but not up to the point of spoiling your +fun. I will drop in now and then, but I won't try to come to all of +them, after this; you'll get along perfectly well with Mrs. Amsden, and +I shall be safe from her for a while. That old lady has marked me for +her prey: I can see it in her glittering eyeglass. I shall fall asleep +some evening between dances, and then she will get it all out of me." + +Imogene still refused to smile. "No; I shall give it up. I don't think +it's well, going so much without Mrs. Bowen. People will begin to talk." + +"Talk?" + +"Yes; they will begin to say that I had better stay with her a little +more, if she isn't well." + +"Why, isn't Mrs. Bowen well?" asked Colville, with trepidation. + +"No; she's miserable. Haven't you noticed?" + +"She sees me so seldom now. I thought it was only her headaches----" + +"It's much more than that. She seems to be failing every way. The doctor +has told her she ought to get away from Florence." Colville could not +speak; Imogene went on. "She's always delicate, you know. And I feel +that all that's keeping her here now is the news from home that I--we're +waiting for." + +Colville got up. "This is ghastly! She mustn't do it!" + +"How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is right, she +can't help doing it. Who could?" + +Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he was silent. +At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or so much truth; and +Imogene went on-- + +"She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were disagreeable, and +rather than accept any relief from _me_ she would die." + +"Is she--unkind to you?" faltered Colville. + +"She is only _too_ kind. You can feel that she's determined to be +so--that she's said she will have nothing to reproach herself with, and +she won't. You don't suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one she +disliked?" + +"Ah, I didn't know," sighed Colville. + +"The more she disliked them, the better she would use them. It's because +our engagement is so distasteful to her that she's determined to feel +that she did nothing to oppose it." + +"But how can you tell that it's distasteful, then?" + +"She lets you feel it by--not saying anything about it." + +"I can't see how--" + +"She never speaks of you. I don't believe she ever mentions your name. +She asks me about the places where I've been, and about the +people--every one but you. It's very uncomfortable." + +"Yes," said Colville, "it's uncomfortable." + +"And if I allude to letters from home, she merely presses her lips +together. It's perfectly wretched." + +"I see. It's I whom she dislikes, and I would do anything to please her. +She must know that," mused Colville aloud. "Imogene!" he exclaimed, with +a sudden inspiration. "Why shouldn't I go away?" + +"Go away?" she palpitated. "What should I do?" + +The colours faded from his brilliant proposal. "Oh, I only meant till +something was settled--determined--concluded; till this terrible +suspense was over." He added hopelessly, "But nothing can be done!" + +"I proposed," said Imogene, "that we should all go away. I suggested Via +Reggio--the doctor said she ought to have sea air--or Venice; but she +wouldn't hear of it. No; we must wait." + +"Yes, we must wait," repeated Colville hollowly. "Then nothing can be +done?" + +"Why, haven't you said it?" + +"Oh yes--yes. I can't go away, and you can't. But couldn't we do +something--get up something?" + +"I don't know what you mean." + +"I mean, couldn't we--amuse her somehow? help her to take her mind off +herself?" + +Imogene stared at him rather a long time. Then, as if she had satisfied +herself in her own mind, she shook her head. "She wouldn't submit to +it." + +"No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do," said Colville. + +"She has no right to do that," cried Imogene. "I'm sure that you're +always considering her, and proposing to do things for her. I won't let +you humble yourself, as if you had wronged her." + +"Oh, I don't call it humbling. I--I should only be too happy if I could +do _anything that was agreeable to her." + +"Very well, I will tell her," said the girl haughtily. "Shall you object +to my joining you in your amusements, whatever they are? I assure you I +will be very unobtrusive." + +"I don't understand all this," replied Colville. "Who has proposed to +exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about Mrs. Bowen if you didn't +want me to say or do something? I supposed you did; but I'll withdraw +the offensive proposition, whatever it was." + +"There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, why can't you +pity me a little?" + +"I didn't know anything was the matter with you. I thought you were +enjoying yourself----" + +"Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever you +sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won't mention +your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can't speak of you to any one; +and no one speaks to me----" + +"If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville essayed, in +dreary jest. + +"Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it's that +that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in +circumstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs. +Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amusement, you laugh +at me! If you don't understand it all, I'm sure _I_ don't." + +"Imogene!" + +"No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You don't care for +me." + +"Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the +past fortnight. + +"And I would have made any--_any_ sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn't +have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come +to me for a little sympathy." + +"O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she +really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and +I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me. +But you mustn't think of if. I dare say it will be different; I've no +doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I--" He did +not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was +able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any +one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very +original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed +for her. + +"No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were now +uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell +Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will +appreciate your generosity." + +"Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't _propose_ doing +for people." + +She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the +matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and +only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with +you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_ are. It +seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here +I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding +you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own +mother to me. Do you call that noble?" + +Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to +her own conscience. + +But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said, +"Oh no; that was a mistake." + +"Because, if you do, you shall--to punish me." + +"My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?" + +"Because I've been low and mean. Now I want you to do something for Mrs. +Bowen--something to amuse her; to show that we appreciate her. And I +don't want you to sympathise with me at all. When I ask for your +sympathy, it's a sign that I don't deserve it." + +"Is that so?" + +"Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your pardon for +something." + +"Yes; what's that?" + +"Can't you guess?" + +"No." + +"You needn't have" your lapels silk-lined. You needn't wear +_boutonnières_." + +"Oh, but I've had the coat changed." + +"No matter! Change it back! It isn't for me to make you over. I must +make myself over. It's my right, it's my sacred privilege to conform to +you in every way, and I humble myself in the dust for having forgotten +it at the very start. Oh, _do_ you think I can ever be worthy of you? I +_will_ try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light dresses another +time! From this out, I shall dress more in keeping with you. I boasted +that I should live to comfort and console you, to recompense you for the +past, and what have I been doing? Wearying and degrading you!" + +"Oh no," pleaded Colville. "I am very comfortable. I don't need any +compensation for the past. I need--sleep. I'm going to bed tonight at +eight o'clock, and I am going to sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall +be fresh for Mrs. Fleming's ball." + +"I'm not going," said Imogene briefly. + +"Oh yes, you are. I'll come round to-morrow evening and see." + +"No. There are to be no more parties." + +"Why?" + +"I can't endure them." + +She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far aloof in +the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed puzzled, bewildered at +herself. + +Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and question to +which he left her, but he felt himself powerless against it. There was +but one solution to it all, and that was impossible. He could only +grieve over her trouble, and wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss which +made her trouble remote and impersonal to him, and submit. + + + + + + +XVIII + + +The young clergyman whom Colville saw talking to Imogene on his first +evening at Mrs. Bowen's had come back from Rome, where he had been +spending a month or two, and they began to meet at Palazzo Pinti again. +If they got on well enough together, they did not get on very far. The +suave house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended Colville; he +could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in art and books, which in +fact was rather conventional; and no doubt Mr. Morton had his own +reserves, under which he was perfectly civil, and only too deferential +to Colville, as to an older man. Since his return, Mrs. Bowen had come +back to her _salon_. She looked haggard; but she did what she could to +look otherwise. She was always polite to Colville, and she was politely +cordial with the clergyman. Sometimes Colville saw her driving out with +him and Effie; they appeared to make excursions, and he had an +impression, very obscure, that Mrs. Bowen lent the young clergyman +money; that he was a superstition of hers, and she a patron of his; he +must have been ten years younger than she; not more than twenty-five. + +The first Sunday after his return, Colville walked home with Mr. Waters +from hearing a sermon of Mr. Morton's, which they agreed was rather well +judged, and simply and fitly expressed. + +"And he spoke with the authority of the priest," said the old minister. +"His Church alone of all the Protestant Churches has preserved that to +its ministers. Sometimes I have thought it was a great thing." + +"Not always?" asked Colville, with a smile. + +"These things are matters of mood rather than conviction with me," +returned Mr. Waters. "Once they affected me very deeply; but now I shall +so soon know all about it that they don't move me. But at times I think +that if I were to live my life over again, I would prefer to be of some +formal, some inflexibly ritualised, religion. At solemnities---weddings +and funerals--I have been impressed with the advantage of the Anglican +rite: it is the Church speaking to and for humanity--or seems so," he +added, with cheerful indifference. "Something in its favour," he +continued, after a while, "is the influence that every ritualised faith +has with women. If they apprehend those mysteries more subtly than we, +such a preference of theirs must mean a good deal. Yes; the other +Protestant systems are men's systems. Women must have form. They don't +care for freedom." + +"They appear to like the formalist too, as well as the form," said +Colville, with scorn not obviously necessary. + +"Oh yes; they must have everything in the concrete," said the old +gentleman cheerfully. + +"I wonder where Mr. Morton met Mrs. Bowen first," said Colville. + +"Here, I think. I believe he had letters to her. Before you came I used +often to meet him at her house. I think she has helped him with money at +times." + +"Isn't that rather an unpleasant idea?" + +"Yes; it's disagreeable. And it places the ministry in a dependent +attitude. But under our system it's unavoidable. Young men devoting +themselves to the ministry frequently receive gifts of money." + +"I don't like it," cried Colville. + +"They don't feel it as others would. I didn't myself. Even at present I +may be said to be living on charity. But sometimes I have fancied that +in Mr. Morton's case there might be peculiarly mitigating +circumstances." + +"What do you mean?" + +"When I met him first at Mrs. Bowen's I used to think that it was Miss +Graham in whom he was interested----" + +"I can assure you," interrupted Colville, "that she was never interested +in him." + +"Oh no; I didn't suppose that," returned the old man tranquilly. "And +I've since had reason to revise my opinion. I think he is interested in +Mrs. Bowen." + +"Mrs. Bowen! And you think that would be a mitigating circumstance in +his acceptance of money from her? If he had the spirit of a man at all, +it would make it all the more revolting." + +"Oh no, oh no," softly pleaded Mr. Waters. "We must not look at these +things too romantically. He probably reasons that she would give him all +her money if they were married." + +"But he has no right to reason in that way," retorted Colville, with +heat. "They are not married; it's ignoble and unmanly for him to count +upon it. It's preposterous. She must be ten years older than he." + +"Oh, I don't say that they're to be married," Mr. Waters replied. "But +these disparities of age frequently occur in marriage. I don't like +them, though sometimes I think the evil is less when it is the wife who +is the elder. We look at youth and age in a gross, material way too +often. Women remain young longer than men. They keep their youthful +sympathies; an old woman understands a young girl. Do you--or do +I--understand a young man?" + +Colville laughed harshly. "It isn't _quite_ the same thing, Mr. Waters. +But yes; I'll admit, for the sake of argument, that I don't understand +young men. I'll go further, and say that I don't like them; I'm afraid +of them. And you wouldn't think," he added abruptly, "that it would be +well for me to marry a girl twenty years younger than myself." + +The old man glanced up at him with innocent slyness. "I prefer always to +discuss these things in an impersonal way." + +"But you can't discuss them impersonally with me; I'm engaged to Miss +Graham. Ever since you first found me here after I told you I was going +away I have wished to tell you this, and this seems as good a time as +any--or as bad." The defiance faded from his voice, which dropped to a +note of weary sadness. "Yes, we're engaged--or shall be, as soon as she +can hear from her family. I wanted to tell you because it seemed somehow +your due, and because I fancied you had a friendly interest in us both." + +"Yes, that is true," returned Mr. Waters. "I wish you joy." He went +through the form of offering his hand to Colville, who pressed it with +anxious fervour. + +"I confess," he said, "that I feel the risks of the affair. It's not +that I have any dread for my own part; I have lived my life, such as it +is. But the child is full of fancies about me that can't be fulfilled. +She dreams of restoring my youth somehow, of retrieving the past for me, +of avenging me at her own cost for an unlucky love affair that I had +here twenty years ago. It's pretty of her, but it's terribly +pathetic--it's tragic. I know very well that I'm a middle-aged man, and +that there's no more youth for me. I'm getting grey, and I'm getting +fat; I wouldn't be young if I could; it's a bore. I suppose I could keep +up an illusion of youthfulness for five or six years more; and then if I +could be quietly chloroformed out of the way, perhaps it wouldn't have +been so very bad." + +"I have always thought," said Mr. Waters dreamily, "that a good deal +might be said for abbreviating hopeless suffering. I have known some +very good people advocate its practice by science." + +"Yes," answered Colville. "Perhaps I've presented that point too +prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I don't care for +myself; that I consider only the happiness of this young girl that's +somehow--I hardly know how--been put in my keeping. I haven't forgotten +the talks that we've had heretofore on this subject, and it would be +affectation and bad taste in me to ignore them. Don't be troubled at +anything you've said; it was probably true, and I'm sure it was sincere. +Sometimes I think that the kindest--the least cruel--thing I could do +would be to break with her, to leave her. But I know that I shall do +nothing of the kind; I shall drift. The child is very dear to me. She +has great and noble qualities; she's supremely unselfish; she loves me +through her mistaken pity, and because she thinks she can sacrifice +herself to me. But she can't. Everything is against that; she doesn't +know how, and there is no reason why. I don't express it very well. I +think nobody clearly understands it but Mrs. Bowen, and I've somehow +alienated her." + +He became aware that his self-abnegation was taking the character of +self-pity, and he stopped. + +Mr. Waters seemed to be giving the subject serious attention in the +silence that ensued. "There is this to be remembered," he began, "which +we don't consider in our mere speculations upon any phase of human +affairs; and that is the wonderful degree of amelioration that any given +difficulty finds in the realisation. It is the anticipation, not the +experience, that is the trial. In a case of this kind, facts of +temperament, of mere association, of union, work unexpected mitigations; +they not only alleviate, they allay. You say that she cherishes an +illusion concerning you: well, with women, nothing is so indestructible +as an illusion. Give them any chance at all, and all the forces of their +nature combine to preserve it. And if, as you say, she is so dear to +you, that in itself is almost sufficient. I can well understand your +misgivings, springing as they do from a sensitive conscience; but we may +reasonably hope that they are exaggerated. Very probably there will not +be the rapture for her that there would be if--if you were younger; but +the chances of final happiness are great--yes, very considerable. She +will learn to appreciate what is really best in you, and you already +understand her. Your love for her is the key to the future. Without +that, of course----" + +"Oh, of course," interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of this +comforter's hand had been a sting; and he parted with him in that +feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man who has taken counsel +upon the confession of half his trouble. + +Something in Mrs. Bowen's manner when he met her next made him think +that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the sympathy he had +expressed for her ill-health. It was in the evening, and Imogene and Mr. +Morton were looking over a copy of _The Marble Faun_, which he had +illustrated with photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to look at +it too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his opinion of +people who illustrated _The Marble Faun_ with photographs; it surprised +him that she seemed to find something novel and brilliant in the idea. + +Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair beside the +couple with the book, and seeing Colville wandering neglectedly about +before he placed himself, she jumped down and ran and caught his hand. + +"Well, what now?" he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to pull him +toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from Palazzo Pinti he would +really miss the worship of that little thing. He knew that her impulse +had been to console him for his exclusion from the pleasures that +Imogene and Mr. Morton were enjoying. + +"Nothing. Just talk," she said, making him fast in a corner of the sofa +by crouching tight against him. + +"What about? About which is the pleasantest season?" + +"Oh no; we've talked about that so often. Besides, of course you'd say +spring, now that it's coming on so nicely." + +"Do you think I'm so changeable as that? Haven't I always said winter +when this question of the seasons was up? And I say it now. Shan't you +be awfully sorry when you can't have a pleasant little fire on the +hearth like this any more?" + +"Yes; I know. But it's very nice having the flowers, too. The grass was +all full of daisies to-day--perfectly powdered with them." + +"To-day? Where?" + +"At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions of violets +and crow's-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them for mamma and Imogene. +And we stayed so long that when we drove home the daisies had all shut +up, and the little pink leaves outside made it look like a field of red +clover. Are you never going there any more?" + +Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting between her +and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was returning to the room +after having already been there. She stood a moment, with a little +uncertainty, when she had shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon +the sofa beyond Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville's +arm, and the other through her mother's, and gripped them fast. "Now I +have got you both," she triumphed, and smiled first into her face, and +then into his. + +"Be quiet, Effie," said her mother, but she submitted. + +"I hope you're better for your drive to-day, Mrs. Bowen. Effie has been +telling me about it." + +"We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; but I'm +not an invalid, you know." + +"Oh no." + +"I'm feeling a little fagged. And the weather was tempting. I suppose +you've been taking one of your long walks." + +"No, I've scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to meet the +spring a little more than half-way; but this year I don't, somehow." + +"A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I hope you'll get away from Florence," said Colville. + +"Oh," she returned, with a faint flush, "I'm afraid Imogene exaggerated +that a little." She added, "You are very good." + +She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since that +Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say that he was going +to stay. It might be merely because she had worn out her mood of +severity, as people do, returning in good-humour to those with whom they +were offended, merely through the reconciling force of time. She did not +look at him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that +interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. Imogene and the +young clergyman at the table across the room were intent on the book +still; he was explaining and expatiating, and she listening. Colville +saw that he had a fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face. +When he turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she had +been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting mute, and her face, +with its bright colour, showed pathetically thin. + +"I should imagine that Venice would be good for you," he said. + +"It's still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave Florence, I +think we will go to Switzerland." + +"Oh, not to Madame Schebres's," pleaded the child, turning upon her. + +"No, not to Madame Schebres," consented the mother. She continued, +addressing Colville: "I was thinking of Lausanne. Do you know Lausanne +at all?" + +"Only from Gibbon's report. It's hardly up to date." + +"I thought of taking a house there for the summer," said Mrs. Bowen, +playing with Effie's fingers. "It's pleasant by the lake, I suppose." + +"It's lovely by the lake!" cried the child. "Oh, do go, mamma! I could +get a boat and learn to row. Here you can't row, the Arno's so swift." + +"The air would bring you up," said Colville to Mrs. Bowen. +"Switzerland's the only country where you're perfectly sure of waking +new every morning." + +This idea interested the child. "Waking new!" she repeated. + +"Yes; perfectly made over. You wake up another person. Shouldn't you +think that would be nice?" + +"No." + +"Well, I shouldn't, in your place. But in mine, I much prefer to wake up +another person. Only it's pretty hard on the other person." + +"How queer you are!" The child set her teeth for fondness of him, and +seizing his cheeks between her hands, squeezed them hard, admiring the +effect upon his features, which in some respects was not advantageous. + +"Effie!" cried her mother sternly; and she dropped to her place again, +and laid hold of Colville's arm for protection. "You are really very +rude. I shall send you to bed." + +"Oh no, don't, Mrs. Bowen," he begged. "I'm responsible for these +violences. Effie used to be a very well behaved child before she began +playing with me. It's all my fault." + +They remained talking on the sofa together, while Imogene and Mr. Morton +continued to interest themselves in the book. From time to time she +looked over at them, and then turned again to the young clergyman, who, +when he had closed the book, rested his hands on its top and began to +give an animated account of something, conjecturably his sojourn in +Rome. + +In a low voice, and with pauses adjusted to the occasional silences of +the young people across the room, Mrs. Bowen told Colville how Mr. +Morton was introduced to her by an old friend who was greatly interested +in him. She said, frankly, that she had been able to be of use to him, +and that he was now going back to America very soon; it was as if she +were privy to the conjecture that had come to the surface in his talk +with Mr. Waters, and wished him to understand exactly how matters stood +with the young clergyman and herself. Colville, indeed, began to be more +tolerant of him; he succeeded in praising the sermon he had heard him +preach. + +"Oh, he has talent," said Mrs. Bowen. + +They fell into the old, almost domestic strain, from which she broke at +times with an effort, but returning as if helplessly to it. He had the +gift of knowing how not to take an advantage with women; that sense of +unconstraint in them fought in his favour; when Effie dropped her head +wearily against his arm, her mother even laughed in sending her off to +bed; she had hitherto been serious. Imogene said she would go to see her +tucked in, and that sent the clergyman to say good-night to Mrs. Bowen, +and to put an end to Colville's audience. + +In these days, when Colville came every night to Palazzo Pinti, he got +back the tone he had lost in the past fortnight. He thought that it was +the complete immunity from his late pleasures, and the regular and +sufficient sleep, which had set him firmly on his feet again, but he did +not inquire very closely. Imogene went two or three times, after she had +declared she would go no more, from the necessity women feel of blunting +the edge of comment; but Colville profited instantly and fully by the +release from the parties which she offered him. He did not go even to +afternoon tea-drinkings; the "days" of the different ladies, which he +had been so diligent to observe, knew him no more. At the hours when +society assembled in this house or that and inquired for him, or +wondered about him, he was commonly taking a nap, and he was punctually +in bed every night at eleven, after his return from Mrs. Bowen's. + +He believed, of course, that he went there because he now no longer met +Imogene elsewhere, and he found the house pleasanter than it had ever +been since the veglione. Mrs. Bowen's relenting was not continuous, +however. There were times that seemed to be times of question and of +struggle with her, when she vacillated between the old cordiality and +the later alienation; when she went beyond the former, or lapsed into +moods colder and more repellent than the latter. It would have been +difficult to mark the moment when these struggles ceased altogether, and +an evening passed in unbroken kindness between them. But afterwards +Colville could remember an emotion of grateful surprise at a subtle word +or action of hers in which she appeared to throw all restraint--scruple +or rancour, whichever it might be--to the winds, and become perfectly +his friend again. It must have been by compliance with some wish or +assent to some opinion of his; what he knew was that he was not only +permitted, he was invited, to feel himself the most favoured guest. The +charming smile, so small and sweet, so very near to bitterness, came +back to her lips, the deeply fringed eyelids were lifted to let the +sunny eyes stream upon him. She did, now, whatever he asked her. She +consulted his taste and judgment on many points; she consented to +resume, when she should be a little stronger, their visits to the +churches and galleries: it would be a shame to go away from Florence +without knowing them thoroughly. It came to her asking him to drive with +her and Imogene in the Cascine; and when Imogene made some excuse not to +go, Mrs. Bowen did not postpone the drive, but took Colville and Effie. + +They drove quite down to the end of the Cascine, and got out there to +admire the gay monument, with the painted bust, of the poor young Indian +prince who died in Florence. They strolled all about, talking of the old +times in the Cascine, twenty years before; and walking up the road +beside the canal, while the carriage slowly followed, they stopped to +enjoy the peasants lying asleep in the grass on the other bank. Colville +and Effie gathered wild-flowers, and piled them in her mother's lap when +she remounted to the carriage and drove along while they made excursions +into the little dingles beside the road. Some people who overtook them +in these sylvan pleasures reported the fact at a reception to which they +were going, and Mrs. Amsden, whose mind had been gradually clearing +under the simultaneous withdrawal of Imogene and Colville from society, +professed herself again as thickly clouded as a weather-glass before a +storm. She appealed to the sympathy of others against this hardship. + +Mrs. Bowen took Colville home to dinner; Mr. Morton was coming, she +said, and he must come too. At table the young clergyman made her his +compliment on her look of health, and she said, Yes; she had been +driving, and she believed that she needed nothing but to be in the air a +little more, as she very well could, now the spring weather was really +coming. She said that they had been talking all winter of going to +Fiesole, where Imogene had never been yet; and upon comparison it +appeared that none of them had yet been to Fiesole except herself. Then +they must all go together, she said; the carriage would hold four very +comfortably. + +"Ah! that leaves me out," said Colville, who had caught sight of Effie's +fallen countenance. + +"Oh no. How is that? It leaves Effie out." + +"It's the same thing. But I might ride, and Effie might give me her hand +to hold over the side of the carriage; that would sustain me." + +"We could take her between us, Mrs. Bowen," suggested Imogene. "The back +seat is wide." + +"Then the party is made up," said Colville, "and Effie hasn't demeaned +herself by asking to go where she wasn't invited." + +The child turned inquiringly toward her mother, who met her with an +indulgent smile, which became a little flush of grateful appreciation +when it reached Colville; but Mrs. Bowen ignored Imogene in the matter +altogether. + +The evening passed delightfully. Mr. Morton had another book which he +had brought to show Imogene, and Mrs. Bowen sat a long time at the +piano, striking this air and that of the songs which she used to sing +when she was a girl: Colville was trying to recall them. When he and +Imogene were left alone for their adieux, they approached each other in +an estrangement through which each tried to break. + +"Why don't you scold me?" she asked. "I have neglected you the whole +evening." + +"How have you neglected me?" + +"How? Ah! if you don't know----" + +"No. I dare say I must be very stupid. I saw you talking with Mr. +Morton, and you seemed interested. I thought I'd better not intrude." + +She seemed uncertain of his intention, and then satisfied of its +simplicity. + +"Isn't it pleasant to have Mrs. Bowen in the old mood again?" he asked. + +"Is she in the old mood?" + +"Why, yes. Haven't you noticed how cordial she is? + +"I thought she was rather colder than usual." + +"Colder!" The chill of the idea penetrated even through the density of +Colville's selfish content. A very complex emotion, which took itself +for indignation, throbbed from his heart. "Is she cold with you, +Imogene?" + +"Oh, if you saw nothing----" + +"No; and I think you must be mistaken. She never speaks of you without +praising you." + +"Does she speak of me?" asked the girl, with her honest eyes wide open +upon him. + +"Why, no," Colville acknowledged. "Come to reflect, it's I who speak of +you. But how--how is she cold with you?" + +"Oh, I dare say it's a delusion of mine. Perhaps I'm cold with her." + +"Then don't be so, my dear! Be sure that she's your friend--true and +good. Good night." + +He caught the girl in his arms, and kissed her tenderly. She drew away, +and stood a moment with her repellent fingers on his breast. + +"Is it all for me?" she asked. + +"For the whole obliging and amiable world," he answered gaily. + + + + + + +XIX + + +The next time Colville came he found himself alone with Imogene, who +asked him what he had been doing all day. + +"Oh, living along till evening. What have you?" + +She did not answer at once, nor praise his speech for the devotion +implied in it. After a while she said: "Do you believe in courses of +reading? Mr. Morton has taken up a course of reading in Italian poetry. +He intends to master it." + +"Does he?" + +"Yes. Do you think something of the kind would be good for me?" + +"Oh, if you thirst for conquest. But I should prefer to rest on my +laurels if I were you." + +Imogene did not smile. "Mr. Morton thinks I should enjoy a course of +Kingsley. He says he's very earnest." + +"Oh, immensely. But aren't you earnest enough already, my dear?" + +"Do you think I'm too earnest?" + +"No; I should say you were just right." + +"You know better than that. I wish you would criticise me sometimes." + +"Oh, I'd rather not." + +"Why? Don't you see anything to criticise in me? Are you satisfied with +me in every way? You ought to think. You ought to think now. Do you +think that I am doing right in all respects? Am I all that I could be to +you, and to you alone? If I am wrong in the least thing, criticise me, +and I will try to be better." + +"Oh, you might criticise back, and I shouldn't like that." + +"Then you don't approve of a course of Kingsley?" asked the girl. + +"Does that follow? But if you're going in for earnestness, why don't you +take up a course of Carlyle?" + +"Do you think that would be better than Kingsley?" + +"Not a bit. But Carlyle's so earnest that he can't talk straight." + +"I can't make out what you mean. Wouldn't you like me to improve?" + +"Not much," laughed Colville. "If you did, I don't know what I should +do. I should have to begin to improve too, and I'm very comfortable as I +am." + +"I should wish to do it to--to be more worthy of you," grieved the girl, +as if deeply disappointed at his frivolous behaviour. + +He could not help laughing, but he was sorry, and would have taken her +hand; she kept it from him, and removed to the farthest corner of the +sofa. Apparently, however, her ideal did not admit of open pique, and +she went on trying to talk seriously with him. + +"You think, don't you, that we oughtn't to let a day pass without +storing away some thought--suggestion----" + +"Oh, there's no hurry," he said lazily. "Life is rather a long +affair--if you live. There appears to be plenty of time, though people +say not, and I think it would be rather odious to make every day of use. +Let a few of them go by without doing anything for you! And as for +reading, why not read when you're hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn't you +hate to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?" + +"Very well, then," said Imogene. "I shall not begin Kingsley." + +"Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton's quite right. He will look at these +things more from your own point of view. All the Kingsley novels are in +the Tauchnitz. By all means do what he says." + +"I will do what _you_ say." + +"Oh, but I say nothing." + +"Then I will do nothing." + +Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman appeared. +Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt obliged to make him some +amends by a greater show of cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of +the effort, for he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy +for him to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and if +he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville tolerantly +reflected that some people seemed to be born so, and that he was +probably not artificial, as he had once imagined from the ecclesiastical +scrupulosity of his dress. + +Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, and struck +some chords on it. At each stroke the young clergyman, whose eyes had +wandered a little toward her from the first, seemed to vibrate in +response. The conversation became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen joined +them. Then, by a series of illogical processes, the clergyman was +standing beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting beside +Colville on the sofa. + +"Isn't there to be any Effie, to-night?" he asked. + +"No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak with +you--about Imogene." + +"Yes," said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he could have +chosen another topic. + +"It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In less than a +fortnight we ought to have an answer." + +"Well?" said Colville, with a strange constriction of the heart. + +"Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband is +absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything." + +"It isn't an uncommon American situation," said Colville, relieving his +tension by this excursion. + +Mrs. Bowen ignored it. "I don't know how she may look at the affair. She +may give her assent at once, or she may decide that nothing has taken +place till--she sees you." + +"I could hardly blame her for that," he answered submissively. + +"It isn't a question of that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a question +of--others. Mr. Morton was here before you came, and I know he was +interested in Imogene--I am certain of it. He has come back, and he sees +no reason why he should not renew his attentions." + +"No--o--o," faltered Colville. + +"I wish you to realise the fact." + +"But what would you----" + +"I told you," said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that severity whose +recent absence Colville had found so comfortable, "that I can't advise +or suggest anything at all." + +He was long and miserably silent. At last, "Did you ever think," he +asked, "did you ever suppose--that is to say, did you ever suspect +that--she--that Imogene was--at all interested in him?" + +"I think she was--at one time," said Mrs. Bowen promptly. + +Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle. + +"But that is nothing," she went on. "People have many passing fancies. +The question is, what are you going to do now? I want to know, as Mr. +Morton's friend." + +"Ah, I wish you wanted to know as _my_ friend, Mrs. Bowen!" A sudden +thought flashed upon him. "Why shouldn't I go away from Florence till +Imogene hears from her mother? That seemed to me right in the first +place. There is no tie that binds her to me. I hold her to nothing. If +she finds in my absence that she likes this young man better--" An +expression of Mrs. Bowen's face stopped him. He perceived that he had +said something very shocking to her; he perceived that the thing was +shocking in itself, but it was not that which he cared for. "I don't +mean that I won't hold myself true to her as long as she will. I +recognise my responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for all +this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any penalty. But +what I can't bear is that you should misunderstand me, that you +should--I have been so wretched ever since you first began to blame me +for my part in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I can't--I +_won't_--go back to that state of things. No; you have no right to +relent toward me, and then fling me off as you have tried to do +to-night! I have some feeling too--some rights. You shall receive me as +a friend, or not at all! How can I live if you----" + +She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she forced herself +to her feet, and ran from the room. + +The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the sensation +had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain seated, they went on with +their playing till he rose. Then Imogene called out, "Isn't Mrs. Bowen +coming back?" + +"I don't know; I think not," answered Colville stupidly, standing where +he had risen. + +She hastened questioning toward him. "What is the matter? Isn't she +well?" + +Mr. Morton's face expressed a polite share in her anxiety. + +"Oh yes; quite, I believe," Colville replied. + +"She heard Effie call, I suppose," suggested the girl. + +"Yes, yes; I think so; that is--yes. I must be going. Good night." + +He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still there; but +he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, which Imogene hurried to +get. She sent word that she would join them presently. But Mr. Morion +said that it was late already, and he would beg Miss Graham to say +good-night for him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone. + +She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. "Imogene, I have been +talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton." + +The girl started and turned pale. + +"It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may consent to your +engagement. Then you must be prepared to act." + +"Act?" + +"To make it known. Matters can't go on as they have been going. I told +Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at once." + +"Why ought he to know?" asked Imogene, doubtless with that impulse to +temporise which is natural to the human soul in questions of right and +interest. She sank into the chair beside which she had been standing. + +"If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. Colville?" + +"Yes," said the girl. + +"And if she refuses?" + +"He has my word. I will keep my word to him," replied Imogene huskily. +"Nothing shall make me break it." + +"Very well, then!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. "We need not wait for your +mother's answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he ought to know at once. +Don't try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly as I +do. He is in love with you." + +"Oh," moaned the girl. + +"Yes; you can't deny it. And it's cruel, it's treacherous, to let him go +on thinking that you are free." + +"I will never see him again." + +"Ah! that isn't enough. He has a claim to know why. I will not let him +be treated so." + +They were both silent. Then, "What did Mr. Colville say?" asked Imogene. + +"He? I don't know that he said anything. He----" Mrs. Bowen stopped. + +Imogene rose from her chair. + +"I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too indelicate." + +"And shall you let it go on so?" + +"No. I will tell him myself." + +"How will you tell him?" + +"I will tell him if he speaks to me." + +"You will let it come to that?" + +"There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he." + +"But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not help him." + +Imogene trembled into her chair again. + +"I see," said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, "how it will be at last. It will be +as it has been from the first." She began to walk up and down the room, +mechanically putting the chairs in place, and removing the disorder in +which the occupancy of several people leaves a room at the end of an +evening. She closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to shut, with a +clash that jarred the strings from their silence. "But I will do it, and +I wonder----" + +"You will speak to him?" faltered the girl. + +"Yes!" returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself in her +rapid movements. "It won't do for you to tell him, and you won't let Mr. +Colville." + +"No, I can't," said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. "But I will +discourage him; I will not see him anymore." Mrs. Bowen silently +confronted her. "I will not see any one now till I have heard from +home." + +"And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I will have +to make it. What shall it be?" + +Imogene did not answer. She said: "I will not have any one know what is +between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard from home. If they try to +refuse, then it will be for him to take me against their will. But if he +doesn't choose to do that, then he shall be free, and I won't have him +humiliated a second time before the world. _This_ time _he_ shall be the +one to reject. And I don't care who suffers. The more I prize the +person, the gladder I shall be; and if I could suffer before everybody I +would. If people ever find it out, I will tell them that it was he who +broke it off." She rose again from her chair, and stood flushed and +thrilling with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out of the tortuous +complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief triumph, in which +she rejoiced as if it were enduring success. But she suddenly fell from +it in the dust. "Oh, what can I do for him? How can I make him feel more +and more that I would give up anything, everything, for him! It's +because he asks nothing and wants nothing that it's so hard! If I could +see that he was unhappy, as I did once! If I could see that he was at +all different since--since----Oh, what I dread is this smooth +tranquillity! If our lives could only be stormy and full of cares and +anxieties and troubles that I could take on myself, then, then I +shouldn't be afraid of the future! But I'm afraid they won't be so--no, +I'm afraid that they will be easy and quiet, and then what shall I do? O +Mrs. Bowen, do you think he cares for me?" + +Mrs. Bowen turned white; she did not speak. + +The girl wrung her hands. "Sometimes it seems as if he didn't--as if I +had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken me to save +me from the shame of knowing that I had made a mistake. Do you think +that is true? If you can only tell me that it isn't--Or, no! If it is +true, tell me that! _That_ would be real mercy." + +The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this appeal. But she +gathered herself together rigidly. "How can I answer you such a thing as +that? I mustn't listen to you; you mustn't ask me." She turned and left +the girl standing still in her attitude of imploring. But in her own +room, where she locked herself in, sobs mingled with the laughter which +broke crazily from her lips as she removed this ribbon and that jewel, +and pulled the bracelets from her wrists. A man would have plunged from +the house and walked the night away; a woman must wear it out in her +bed. + + + + + + +XX + + +In the morning Mrs. Bowen received a note from her banker covering a +despatch by cable from America. It was from Imogene's mother; it +acknowledged the letters they had written, and announced that she sailed +that day for Liverpool. It was dated at New York, and it was to be +inferred that after perhaps writing in answer to their letters, she had +suddenly made up her mind to come out. + +"Yes, that is it," said Imogene, to whom Mrs. Bowen hastened with the +despatch. "Why should she have telegraphed to _you_?" she asked coldly, +but with a latent fire of resentment in her tone. + +"You must ask her when she comes," returned Mrs. Bowen, with all her +gentleness. "It won't be long now." + +They looked as if they had neither of them slept; but the girl's vigil +seemed to have made her wild and fierce, like some bird that has beat +itself all night against its cage, and still from time to time feebly +strikes the bars with its wings. Mrs. Bowen was simply worn to apathy. + +"What shall you do about this?" she asked. + +"Do about it? Oh, I will think. I will try not to trouble you." + +"Imogene!" + +"I shall have to tell Mr. Colville. But I don't know that I shall tell +him at once. Give me the despatch, please." She possessed herself of it +greedily, offensively. "I shall ask you not to speak of it." + +"I will do whatever you wish." + +"Thank you." + +Mrs. Bowen left the room, but she turned immediately to re-open the door +she had closed behind her. + +"We were to have gone to Fiesole to-morrow," she said inquiringly. + +"We can still go if the day is fine," returned the girl. "Nothing is +changed. I wish very much to go. Couldn't we go to-day?" she added, with +eager defiance. + +"It's too late to-day," said Mrs. Bowen quietly. "I will write to remind +the gentlemen." + +"Thank you. I wish we could have gone to-day." + +"You can have the carriage if you wish to drive anywhere," said Mrs. +Bowen. + +"I will take Effie to see Mrs. Amsden." But Imogene changed her mind, +and went to call upon two Misses Guicciardi, the result of an +international marriage, whom Mrs. Bowen did not like very well. Imogene +drove with them to the Cascine, where they bowed to a numerous military +acquaintance, and they asked her if Mrs. Bowen would let her join them +in a theatre party that evening: they were New-Yorkers by birth, and it +was to be a theatre party in the New York style; they were to be +chaperoned by a young married lady; two young men cousins of theirs, +just out from America, had taken the box. + +When Imogene returned home she told Mrs. Bowen that she had accepted +this invitation. Mrs. Bowen said nothing, but when one of the young men +came up to hand Imogene down to the carriage, which was waiting with the +others at the gate, she could not have shown a greater tolerance of his +second-rate New Yorkiness if she had been a Boston dowager offering him +the scrupulous hospitalities of her city. + +Imogene came in at midnight; she hummed an air of the opera as she took +off her wraps and ornaments in her room, and this in the quiet of the +hour had a terrible, almost profane effect: it was as if some other kind +of girl had whistled. She showed the same nonchalance at breakfast, +where she was prompt, and answered Mrs. Bowen's inquiries about her +pleasure the night before with a liveliness that ignored the polite +resolution that prompted them. + +Mr. Morton was the first to arrive, and if his discouragement began at +once, the first steps masked themselves in a reckless welcome, which +seemed to fill him with joy, and Mrs. Bowen with silent perplexity. The +girl ran on about her evening at the opera, and about the weather, and +the excursion they were going to make; and after an apparently needless +ado over the bouquet which he brought her, together with one for Mrs. +Bowen, she put it into her belt, and made Colville notice it when he +came: he had not thought to bring flowers. + +He turned from her hilarity with anxious question to Mrs. Bowen, who did +not meet his eye, and who snubbed Effie when the child found occasion to +whisper: "_I_ think Imogene is acting very strangely, for _her_; don't +you, mamma? It seems as if going with those Guicciardi girls just once +had spoiled her." + +"Don't make remarks about people, Effie," said her mother sharply. "It +isn't nice in little girls, and I don't want you to do it. You talk too +much lately." + +Effie turned grieving away from this rejection, and her face did not +light up even at the whimsical sympathy in Colville's face, who saw that +she had met a check of some sort; he had to take her on his knee and +coax and kiss her before her wounded feelings were visibly healed. He +put her down with a sighing wish that some one could take him up and +soothe his troubled sensibilities too, and kept her hand in his while he +sat waiting for the last of those last moments in which the hurrying +delays of ladies preparing for an excursion seem never to end. + +When they were ready to get into the carriage, the usual contest of +self-sacrifice arose, which Imogene terminated by mounting to the front +seat; Mr. Morton hastened to take the seat beside her, and Colville was +left to sit with Effie and her mother. "You old people will be safer +back there," said Imogene. It was a little joke which she addressed to +the child, but a gleam from her eye as she turned to speak to the young +man at her side visited Colville in desperate defiance. He wondered what +she was about in that allusion to an idea which she had shrunk from so +sensitively hitherto. But he found himself in a situation which he could +not penetrate at any point. When he spoke with Mrs. Bowen, it was with a +dark undercurrent of conjecture as to how and when she expected him to +tell Mr. Morton of his relation to Imogene, or whether she still +expected him to do it; when his eyes fell upon the face of the young +man, he despaired as to the terms in which he should put the fact; any +form in which he tacitly dramatised it remained very embarrassing, for +he felt bound to say that while he held himself promised in the matter, +he did not allow her to feel herself so. + +A sky of American blueness and vastness, a mellow sun, and a delicate +breeze did all that these things could for them, as they began the long, +devious climb of the hills crowned by the ancient Etruscan city. At +first they were all in the constraint of their own and one another's +moods, known or imagined, and no talk began till the young clergyman +turned to Imogene and asked, after a long look at the smiling landscape, +"What sort of weather do you suppose they are having at Buffalo to-day?" + +"At Buffalo?" she repeated, as if the place had only a dim existence in +her remotest consciousness. "Oh! The ice isn't near out of the lake yet. +You can't count on it before the first of May." + +"And the first of May comes sooner or later, according to the season," +said Colville. "I remember coming on once in the middle of the month, +and the river was so full of ice between Niagara Falls and Buffalo that +I had to shut the car window that I'd kept open all the way through +Southern Canada. But we have very little of that local weather at home; +our weather is as democratic and continental as our political +constitution. Here it's March or May any time from September till June, +according as there's snow on the mountains or not." + +The young man smiled. "But don't you like," he asked with deference, +"this slow, orderly advance of the Italian spring, where the flowers +seem to come out one by one, and every blossom has its appointed time?" + +"Oh yes, it's very well in its way; but I prefer the rush of the +American spring; no thought of mild weather this morning; a warm, gusty +rain to-morrow night; day after to-morrow a burst of blossoms and +flowers and young leaves and birds. I don't know whether we were made +for our climate or our climate was made for us, but its impatience and +lavishness seem to answer some inner demand of our go-ahead souls. This +happens to be the week of the peach blossoms here, and you see their +pink everywhere to-day, and you don't see anything else in the blossom +line. But imagine the American spring abandoning a whole week of her +precious time to the exclusive use of peach blossoms! She wouldn't do +it; she's got too many other things on hand." + +Effie had stretched out over Colville's lap, and with her elbow sunk +deep in his knee, was renting her chin in her hand and taking the facts +of the landscape thoroughly in. "Do they have just a week?" she asked. + +"Not an hour more or less," said Colville. "If they found an almond +blossom hanging round anywhere after their time came, they would make an +awful row; and if any lazy little peach-blow hadn't got out by the time +their week was up, it would have to stay in till next year; the pear +blossoms wouldn't let it come out." + +"Wouldn't they?" murmured the child, in dreamy sympathy with this +belated peach-blow. + +"Well, that's what people say. In America it would be allowed to come +out any time. It's a free country." + +Mrs. Bowen offered to draw Effie back to a posture of more decorum, but +Colville put his arm round the little girl. "Oh, let her stay! It +doesn't incommode me, and she must be getting such a novel effect of the +landscape." + +The mother fell back into her former attitude of jaded passivity. He +wondered whether she had changed her mind about having him speak to Mr. +Morton; her quiescence might well have been indifference; one could have +said, knowing the whole situation, that she had made up her mind to let +things take their course, and struggle with them no longer. + +He could not believe that she felt content with him; she must feel far +otherwise; and he took refuge, as he had the power of doing, from the +discomfort of his own thoughts in jesting with the child, and mocking +her with this extravagance and that; the discomfort then became merely a +dull ache that insisted upon itself at intervals, like a grumbling +tooth. + +The prospect was full of that mingled wildness and subordination that +gives its supreme charm to the Italian landscape; and without elements +of great variety, it combined them in infinite picturesqueness. There +were olive orchards and vineyards, and again vineyards and olive +orchards. Closer to the farm-houses and cottages there were peaches and +other fruit trees and kitchen-gardens; broad ribbons of grain waved +between the ranks of trees; around the white villas the spires of the +cypresses pierced the blue air. Now and then they came to a villa with +weather-beaten statues strutting about its parterres. A mild, pleasant +heat brooded upon the fields and roofs, and the city, dropping lower and +lower as they mounted, softened and blended its towers and monuments in +a sombre mass shot with gleams of white. + +Colville spoke to Imogene, who withdrew her eyes from it with a sigh, +after long brooding upon the scene. "You can do nothing with it, I see." + +"With what?" + +"The landscape. It's too full of every possible interest. What a history +is written all over it, public and private! If you don't take it simply +like any other landscape, it becomes an oppression. It's well that +tourists come to Italy so ignorant, and keep so. Otherwise they couldn't +live to get home again; the past would crush them." + +Imogene scrutinised him as if to extract some personal meaning from his +words, and then turned her head away. The clergyman addressed him with +what was like a respectful toleration of the drolleries of a gifted but +eccentric man, the flavour of whose talk he was beginning to taste. + +"You don't really mean that one shouldn't come to Italy as well informed +as possible?" + +"Well, I did," said Colville, "but I don't." + +The young man pondered this, and Imogene started up with an air of +rescuing them from each other--as if she would not let Mr. Morton think +Colville trivial or Colville consider the clergyman stupid, but would do +what she could to take their minds off the whole question. Perhaps she +was not very clear as to how this was to be done; at any rate she did +not speak, and Mrs. Bowen came to her support, from whatever motive of +her own. It might have been from a sense of the injustice of letting Mr. +Morton suffer from the complications that involved herself and the +others. The affair had been going very hitchily ever since they started, +with the burden of the conversation left to the two men and that +helpless girl; if it were not to be altogether a failure she must +interfere." + +"Did you ever hear of Gratiano when you were in Venice?" she asked Mr. +Morton. + +"Is he one of their new water-colourists?" returned the young man. "I +heard they had quite a school there now." + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen, ignoring her failure as well as she could; "he +was a famous talker; he loved to speak an infinite deal of nothing more +than any man in Venice." + +"An ancestor of mine, Mr. Morton," said Colville; "a poor, honest man, +who did his best to make people forget that the ladies were silent. +Thank you, Mrs. Bowen, for mentioning him. I wish he were with us +to-day." + +The young man laughed. "Oh, in the _Merchant of Venice_!" + +"No other," said Colville. + +"I confess," said Mrs. Bowen, "that I _am_ rather stupid this morning. I +suppose it's the softness of the air; it's been harsh and irritating so +long. It makes me drowsy." + +"Don't mind _us_," returned Colville. "We will call you at important +points." They were driving into a village at which people stop sometimes +to admire the works of art in its church. "Here, for example, is--What +place is this?" he asked of the coachman. + +"San Domenico." + +"I should know it again by its beggars." Of all ages and sexes they +swarmed round the carriage, which the driver had instinctively slowed to +oblige them, and thrust forward their hands and hats. Colville gave +Effie his small change to distribute among them, at sight of which they +streamed down the street from every direction. Those who had received +brought forward the halt and blind, and did not scruple to propose being +rewarded for this service. At the same time they did not mind his +laughing in their faces; they laughed too, and went off content, or as +nearly so as beggars ever are. He buttoned up his pocket as they drove +on more rapidly. "I am the only person of no principle--except Effie--in +the carriage, and yet I am at this moment carrying more blessings out of +this village than I shall ever know what to do with. Mrs. Bowen, I know, +is regarding me with severe disapproval. She thinks that I ought to have +sent the beggars of San Domenico to Florence, where they would all be +shut up in the Pia Casa di Ricovero, and taught some useful occupation. +It's terrible in Florence. You can walk through Florence now and have no +appeal made to your better nature that is not made at the appellant's +risk of imprisonment. When I was there before, you had opportunities of +giving at every turn." + +"You can send a cheque to the Pia Casa," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Ah, but what good would that do me? When I give I want the pleasure of +it; I want to see my beneficiary cringe under my bounty. But I've tried +in vain to convince you that the world has gone wrong in other ways. Do +you remember the one-armed man whom we used to give to on the Lung' +Arno? That persevering sufferer has been repeatedly arrested for +mendicancy, and obliged to pay a fine out of his hard earnings to escape +being sent to your Pia Casa." + +Mrs. Bowen smiled, and said, Was he living yet? in a pensive tone of +reminiscence. She was even more than patient of Colville's nonsense. It +seemed to him that the light under her eyelids was sometimes a grateful +light. Confronting Imogene and the young man whose hopes of her he was +to destroy at the first opportunity, the lurid moral atmosphere which he +breathed seemed threatening to become a thing apparent to sense, and to +be about to blot the landscape. He fought it back as best he could, and +kept the hovering cloud from touching the earth by incessant effort. At +times he looked over the side of the carriage, and drew secretly a long +breath of fatigue. It began to be borne in upon him that these ladies +were using him ill in leaving him the burden of their entertainment. He +became angry, but his heart softened, and he forgave them again, for he +conjectured that he was the cause of the cares that kept them silent. He +felt certain that the affair had taken some new turn. He wondered if +Mrs. Bowen had told Imogene what she had demanded of him. But he could +only conjecture and wonder in the dreary undercurrent of thought that +flowed evenly and darkly on with the talk he kept going. He made the +most he could of the varying views of Florence which the turns and +mounting levels of the road gave him. He became affectionately grateful +to the young clergyman when he replied promptly and fully, and took an +interest in the objects or subjects he brought up. + +Neither Mrs. Bowen nor Imogene was altogether silent. The one helped on +at times wearily, and the other broke at times from her abstraction. +Doubtless the girl had undertaken too much in insisting upon a party of +pleasure with her mind full of so many things, and doubtless Mrs. Bowen +was sore with a rankling resentment at her insistence, and vexed at +herself for having yielded to it. If at her time of life and with all +her experience of it, she could not rise under this inner load, Imogene +must have been crushed by it. + +Her starts from the dreamy oppression, if that were what kept her +silent, took the form of aggression, when she disagreed with Colville +about things he was saying, or attacked him for this or that thing which +he had said in times past. It was an unhappy and unamiable +self-assertion, which he was not able to compassionate so much when she +resisted or defied Mrs. Bowen, as she seemed seeking to do at every +point. Perhaps another would not have felt it so; it must have been +largely in his consciousness; the young clergyman seemed not to see +anything in these bursts but the indulgence of a gay caprice, though his +laughing at them did not alleviate the effect to Colville, who, when he +turned to Mrs. Bowen for her alliance, was astonished with a prompt +snub, unmistakable to himself, however imperceptible to others. + +He found what diversion and comfort he could in the party of children +who beset them at a point near the town, and followed the carriage, +trying to sell them various light and useless trifles made of +straw--fans, baskets, parasols, and the like. He bought recklessly of +them and gave them to Effie, whom he assured, without the applause of +the ladies, and with the grave question of the young clergyman, that the +vendors were little Etruscan girls, all at least twenty-five hundred +years old. "It's very hard to find any Etruscans under that age; most of +the grown-up people are three thousand." + +The child humoured his extravagance with the faith in fable which +children are able to command, and said, "Oh, tell me about them!" while +she pushed up closer to him, and began to admire her presents, holding +them up before her, and dwelling fondly upon them one by one. + +"Oh, there's very little to tell," answered Colville. "They're mighty +close people, and always keep themselves very much _to_ themselves. But +wouldn't you like to see a party of Etruscans of all ages, even down to +little babies only eleven or twelve hundred years old, come driving into +an American town? It would make a great excitement, wouldn't it?" + +"It would be splendid." + +"Yes; we would give them a collation in the basement of the City Hall, +and drive them out to the cemetery. The Americans and Etruscans are very +much alike in that--they always show you their tombs." + +"Will they in Fiesole?" + +"How you always like to burrow into the past!" interrupted Imogene. + +"Well, it's rather difficult burrowing into the future," returned +Colville defensively. Accepting the challenge, he added: "Yes, I should +really like to meet a few Etruscans in Fiesole this morning. I should +feel as if I'd got amongst my contemporaries at last; they would +understand me." + +The girl's face flushed. "Then no one else can understand you?" + +"Apparently not. I am the great American _incompris_." + +"I'm sorry for you," she returned feebly; and, in fact, sarcasm was not +her strong point. + +When they entered the town they found the Etruscans preoccupied with +other visitors, whom at various points in the quaint little piazza they +surrounded in dense groups, to their own disadvantage as guides and +beggars and dealers in straw goods. One of the groups reluctantly +dispersed to devote itself to the new arrivals, and these then perceived +that it was a party of artists, scattered about and sketching, which had +absorbed the attention of the population. Colville went to the +restaurant to order lunch, leaving the ladies to the care of Mr. Morton. +When he came back he found the carriage surrounded by the artists, who +had turned out to be the Inglehart boys. They had walked up to Fiesole +the afternoon before, and they had been sketching there all the morning. +With the artist's indifference to the conventional objects of interest, +they were still ignorant of what ought to be seen in Fiesole by +tourists, and they accepted Colville's proposition to be of his party in +going the rounds of the Cathedral, the Museum, and the view from that +point of the wall called the Belvedere. They found that they had been at +the Belvedere before without knowing that it merited particular +recognition, and some of them had made sketches from it--of bits of +architecture and landscape, and of figure amongst the women with straw +fans and baskets to sell, who thronged round the whole party again, and +interrupted the prospect. In the church they differed amongst themselves +as to the best bits for study, and Colville listened in whimsical +despair to the enthusiasm of their likings and dislikings. All that was +so far from him now; but in the Museum, which had only a thin interest +based upon a small collection of art and archeology, he suffered a real +affliction in the presence of a young Italian couple, who were probably +plighted lovers. They went before a grey-haired pair, who might have +been the girl's father and mother, and they looked at none of the +objects, though they regularly stopped before them and waited till their +guide had said his say about them. The girl, clinging tight to the young +man's arm, knew nothing but him; her mouth and eyes were set in a +passionate concentration of her being upon him, and he seemed to walk in +a dream of her. From time to time they peered upon each other's faces, +and then they paused, rapt and indifferent to all besides. + +The young painters had their jokes about it; even Mr. Morton smiled, and +Mrs. Bowen recognised it. But Imogene did not smile; she regarded the +lovers with an interest in them scarcely less intense than their +interest in each other; and a cold perspiration of question broke out on +Colville's forehead. Was that her ideal of what her own engagement +should be? Had she expected him to behave in that way to her, and to +accept from her a devotion like that girl's? How bitterly he must have +disappointed her! It was so impossible to him that the thought of it +made him feel that he must break all ties which bound him to anything +like it. And yet he reflected that the time was when he could have been +equal to that, and even more. + +After lunch the painters joined them again, and they all went together +to visit the ruins of the Roman theatre and the stretch of Etruscan wall +beyond it. The former seems older than the latter, whose huge blocks of +stone lie as firmly and evenly in their courses as if placed there a +year ago; the turf creeps to the edge at top, and some small trees nod +along the crest of the wall, whose ancient face, clean and bare, looks +sternly out over a vast prospect, now young and smiling in the first +delight of spring. The piety or interest of the community, which guards +the entrance to the theatre by a fee of certain centesimi, may be +concerned in keeping the wall free from the grass and vines which are +stealing the half-excavated arena back to forgetfulness and decay; but +whatever agency it was, it weakened the appeal that the wall made to the +sympathy of the spectators. + +They could do nothing with it; the artists did not take their +sketch-blocks from their pockets. But in the theatre, where a few broken +columns marked the place of the stage, and the stone benches of the +auditorium were here and there reached by a flight of uncovered steps, +the human interest returned. + +"I suspect that there is such a thing as a ruin's being too old," said +Colville. "Our Etruscan friends made the mistake of building their wall +several thousand years too soon for our purpose." + +"Yes," consented the young clergyman. "It seems as if our own race +became alienated from us through the mere effect of time, don't you +think, sir? I mean, of course, terrestrially." + +The artists looked uneasy, as if they had not counted upon anything of +this kind, and they began to scatter about for points of view. Effie got +her mother's leave to run up and down one of the stairways, if she would +not fall. Mrs. Bowen sat down on one of the lower steps, and Mr. Morton +took his place respectfully near her. + +"I wonder how it looks from the top?" Imogene asked this of Colville, +with more meaning than seemed to belong to the question properly. + +"There is nothing like going to see," he suggested. He helped her up, +giving her his hand from one course of seats to another. When they +reached the point which commanded the best view of the whole, she sat +down, and he sank at her feet, but they did not speak of the view. + +"Theodore, I want to tell you something," she said abruptly. "I have +heard from home." + +"Yes?" he replied, in a tone in which he did his best to express a +readiness for any fate. + +"Mother has telegraphed. She is coming out. She is on her way now. She +will be here very soon." + +Colville did not know exactly what to say to these passionately +consecutive statements. "Well?" he said at last. + +"Well"--she repeated his word--"what do you intend to do?" + +"Intend to do in what event?" he asked, lifting his eyes for the first +time to the eyes which he felt burning down upon him. + +"If she should refuse?" + +Again he could not command an instant answer, but when it came it was a +fair one. "It isn't for me to say what I shall do," he replied gravely. +"Or, if it is, I can only say that I will do whatever you wish." + +"Do _you_ wish nothing?" + +"Nothing but your happiness." + +"Nothing but my happiness!" she retorted. "What is my happiness to me? +Have I ever sought it?" + +"I can't say," he answered; "but if I did not think you would find it--" + +"I shall find it, if ever I find it, in yours," she interrupted. "And +what shall you do if my mother will not consent to our engagement?" + +The experienced and sophisticated man--for that in no ill way was what +Colville was--felt himself on trial for his honour and his manhood by +this simple girl, this child. He could not endure to fall short of her +ideal of him at that moment, no matter what error or calamity the +fulfilment involved. "If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, it +will make no difference to me what your mother says. I would be glad of +her consent; I should hate to go counter to her will; but I know that I +am good enough man to be true and keep you all my life the first in all +my thoughts, and that's enough for me. But if you have any fear, any +doubt of yourself, now is the time--" + +Imogene rose to her feet as in some turmoil of thought or emotion that +would not suffer her to remain quiet. + +"Oh, keep still!" "Don't get up yet!" "Hold on a minute, please!" came +from the artists in different parts of the theatre, and half a dozen +imploring pencils were waved in the air. + +"They are sketching you," said Colville, and she sank compliantly into +her seat again. + +"I have no doubt for myself--no," she said, as if there had been no +interruption. + +"Then we need have no anxiety in meeting your mother," said Colville, +with a light sigh, after a moment's pause. "What makes you think she +will be unfavourable?" + +"I don't think that; but I thought--I didn't know but--" + +"What?" + +"Nothing, now." Her lips were quivering; he could see her struggle for +self-control, but he could not see it unmoved. + +"Poor child!" he said, putting out his hand toward her. + +"Don't take my hand; they're all looking," she begged. + +He forbore, and they remained silent and motionless a little while, +before she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak again. + +"Then we are promised to each other, whatever happens," she said. + +"Yes." + +"And we will never speak of this again. But there is one thing. Did Mrs. +Bowen ask you to tell Mr. Morton of our engagement?" + +"She said that I ought to do so." + +"And did you say you would?" + +"I don't know. But I suppose I ought to tell him." + +"I don't wish you to!" cried the girl. + +"You don't wish me to tell him?" + +"No; I will not have it!" + +"Oh, very well; it's much easier not. But it seems to me that it's only +fair to him." + +"Did you think of that yourself?" she demanded fiercely. + +"No," returned Colville, with sad self-recognition. "I'm afraid I'm not +apt to think of the comforts and rights of other people. It was Mrs. +Bowen who thought of it." + +"I knew it!" + +"But I must confess that I agreed with her, though I would have +preferred to postpone it till we heard from your family." He was +thoughtfully silent a moment; then he said, "But if their decision is to +have no weight with us, I think he ought to be told at once." + +"Do you think that I am flirting with him?" + +"Imogene!" exclaimed Colville reproachfully. + +"That's what you imply; that's what she implies." + +"You're very unjust to Mrs. Bowen, Imogene." + +"Oh, you always defend her! It isn't the first time you've told me I was +unjust to her." + +"I don't mean that you are willingly unjust, or could be so, to any +living creature, least of all to her. But I--we--owe her so much; she +has been so patient." + +"What do we owe her? How has she been patient?" + +"She has overcome her dislike to me." + +"Oh, indeed!" + +"And--and I feel under obligation to her for--in a thousand little ways; +and I should be glad to feel that we were acting with her approval; I +should like to please her." + +"You wish to tell Mr. Morton?" + +"I think I ought." + +"To please Mrs. Bowen! Tell him, then! You always cared more to please +her than me. Perhaps you stayed in Florence to please her!" + +She rose and ran down the broken seats and ruined steps so recklessly +and yet so sure-footedly that it seemed more like a flight than a pace +to the place where Mrs. Bowen and Mr. Morton were talking together. + +Colville followed as he could, slowly and with a heavy heart. A good +thing develops itself in infinite and unexpected shapes of good; a bad +thing into manifold and astounding evils. This mistake was whirling away +beyond his recall in hopeless mazes of error. He saw this generous young +spirit betrayed by it to ignoble and unworthy excess, and he knew that +he and not she was to blame. + +He was helpless to approach her, to speak with her, to set her right, +great as the need of that was, and he could see that she avoided him. +But their relations remained outwardly undisturbed. The artists brought +their sketches for inspection and comment, and, without speaking to each +other, he and Imogene discussed them with the rest. + +When they started homeward the painters said they were coming a little +way with them for a send-off, and then going back to spend the night in +Fiesole. They walked beside the carriage, talking with Mrs. Bowen and +Imogene, who had taken their places, with Effie between them, on the +back seat; and when they took their leave, Colville and the young +clergyman, who had politely walked with them, continued on foot a little +further, till they came to the place where the highway to Florence +divided into the new road and the old. At this point it steeply overtops +the fields on one side, which is shored up by a wall some ten or twelve +feet deep; and here round a sharp turn of the hill on the other side +came a peasant driving a herd of the black pigs of the country. + +Mrs. Bowen's horses were, perhaps, pampered beyond the habitual +resignation of Florentine horses to all manner of natural phenomena; +they reared at sight of the sable crew, and backing violently uphill, +set the carriage across the road, with its hind wheels a few feet from +the brink of the wall. The coachman sprang from his seat, the ladies and +the child remained in theirs as if paralysed. + +Colville ran forward to the side of the carriage. "Jump, Mrs. Bowen! +jump, Effie! Imogene--" + +The mother and the little one obeyed. He caught them in his arms and set +them down. The girl sat still, staring at him with reproachful, with +disdainful eyes. + +He leaped forward to drag her out; she shrank away, and then he flew to +help the coachman, who had the maddened horses by the bit. + +"Let go!" he heard the young clergyman calling to him; "she's safe!" He +caught a glimpse of Imogene, whom Mr. Morton had pulled from the other +side of the carriage. He struggled to free his wrist from the curb-bit +chain of the horse, through which he had plunged it in his attempt to +seize the bridle. The wheels of the carriage went over the wall; he felt +himself whirled into the air, and then swung ruining down into the +writhing and crashing heap at the bottom of the wall. + + + + + + +XXI + + +When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight in the +softness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. Then the strange +colour of the grass commended itself to his notice, and presently he +perceived that the thing under his head was a pillow, and that he was in +bed. He was supported in this conclusion by the opinion of the young man +who sat watching him a little way off, and who now smiled cheerfully at +the expression in the eyes which Colville turned inquiringly upon him. + +"Where am I?" he asked, with what appeared to him very unnecessary +feebleness of voice. + +The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville repeated +his question in that tongue, he told him that he was in Palazzo Pinti, +whither he had been brought from the scene of his accident. He added +that Colville must not talk till the doctor had seen him and given him +leave, and he explained that he was himself a nurse from the hospital, +who had been taking care of him. + +Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he desisted in his +attempt to lift his right arm to it before the attendant could interfere +in behalf of the broken limb. He recalled dimly and fragmentarily long +histories that he had dreamed, but he forbore to ask how long he had +been in his present case, and he accepted patiently the apparition of +the doctor and other persons who came and went, and were at his bedside +or not there, as it seemed to him, between the opening and closing of an +eye. As the days passed they acquired greater permanence and maintained +a more uninterrupted identity. He was able to make quite sure of Mr. +Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in, leading Effie, and this +gave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to have grown younger and +better. Imogene was not among the phantoms who visited him; and he +accepted her absence as quiescently as he accepted the presence of the +others. There was a cheerfulness in those who came that permitted him no +anxiety, and he was too weak to invite it by any conjecture. He +consented to be spared and to spare himself; and there were some things +about the affair which gave him a singular and perhaps not wholly sane +content. One of these was the man nurse who had evidently taken care of +him throughout. He celebrated, whenever he looked at this capable +person, his escape from being, in the odious helplessness of sickness, a +burden upon the strength and sympathy of the two women for whom he had +otherwise made so much trouble. His satisfaction in this had much to do +with his recovery, which, when it once began, progressed rapidly to a +point where he was told that Imogene and her mother were at a hotel in +Florence, waiting till he should be strong enough to see them. It was +Mrs. Bowen who told him this with an air which she visibly strove to +render non-committal and impersonal, but which betrayed, nevertheless, a +faint apprehension for the effect upon him. The attitude of Imogene and +her mother was certainly not one to have been expected of people holding +their nominal relation to him, but Colville had been revising his +impressions of events on the day of his accident; Imogene's last look +came back to him, and he could not think the situation altogether +unaccountable. + +"Have I been here a long time?" he asked, as if he had not heeded what +she told him. + +"About a fortnight," answered Mrs. Bowen. + +"And Imogene--how long has she been away?" + +"Since they knew you would get well." + +"I will see them any time," he said quietly. + +"Do you think you are strong enough?" + +"I shall never be stronger till I have seen them," he returned, with a +glance at her. "Yes; I want them to come to-day. I shall not be excited; +don't be troubled--if you were going to be," he added. "Please send to +them at once." + +Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She returned in +half an hour with a lady who revealed even to Colville's languid regard +evidences of the character which Mrs. Bowen had attributed to Imogene's +mother. She was a large, robust person, laced to sufficient shapeliness, +and she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room with a waft of +some clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet temperament and perfect +health looked out of her clear, honest eyes--the eyes of Imogene Graham, +though the girl's were dark and the woman's were blue. When Mrs. Bowen +had named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs. Graham took +Colville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, and then lifted +herself a chair to his bedside, and sat down. + +"How do you do to-day, sir?" she said, with a touch of old-fashioned +respectfulness in the last word. "Do you think you are quite strong +enough to talk with me?" + +"I think so," said Colville, with a faint smile. "At least I can listen +with fortitude." + +Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. "I don't know +whether it will require much fortitude to hear what I have to say or +not," she said, with her keen gaze fixed upon him. "It's simply this: I +am going to take Imogene home." + +She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to this, and he +said blankly, "Yes?" + +"I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I had seen +you, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; for I had always +promised myself that her choice should be perfectly untrammelled, and I +have tried to bring her up with principles and ideas that would enable +her to make a good choice." + +"Yes," said Colville again. "I'm afraid you didn't take her temperament +and her youth into account, and that she disappointed you." + +"No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no reason to +blame her for her choice. Her mistake was of another kind." + +It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial lady found +an intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the case, which modified the +intensity of her maternal feeling in regard to it, and that, like many +people who talk well, she liked to hear herself talk in the presence of +another appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, and +she went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I think her +chances of happiness would have been greater, in the abstract, with one +nearer her own age; but that is a difference which other things affect +so much that it did not alarm me greatly. Some people are younger at +your age than at hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Graham +fetched a sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the point +than to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But she +apparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as you are +concerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. Your conduct +throughout has been most high-minded and considerate and delicate." + +It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, especially if +he has been ascribing to himself the opposite demerits. But Colville +summoned his dispersed forces to protest against this. + +"Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has been selfish +and shameful. If you could understand all--" + +"I think I do understand all--at least far more, I regret to say, than +my daughter has been willing to tell me. And I am more than satisfied +with you. I thank you and honour you." + +"Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't stand it." + +"And when I came here it was with the full intention of approving and +confirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at once by a painful and +surprising state of things. You are aware that you have been very sick?" + +"Dimly," said Colville. + +"I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at the error +which she had discovered in herself--discovered too late, as she felt." +Mrs. Graham hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out that +she did not love you." + +"Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly. + +"She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had stifled her +misgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost wickedly, pushing on, and +saying to herself that when you were married, then there would be no +escape, and she _must_ love you." + +"Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see." + +"But the accident that was almost your death saved her from that +miserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in answer to the +protest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I found her half crazed at +your bedside. She was fully aware of your danger, but while she was +feeling all the remorse that she ought to feel--that any one could +feel--she was more and more convinced that she never had loved you and +never should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind." + +"Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!" + +"Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt for +her--But no matter about that. She saw at last that if your heroic +devotion to her"--Colville did his best to hang his pillowed head for +shame--"if your present danger did not awaken her to some such feeling +for you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increased +her despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. She +was simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She has +had a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to +_demand_"--Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising to the +hysterical key--"her release from a fate that would be worse than death +for such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. She +esteems you, she respects you, she admires you, she likes you; but--" +Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her eyes shone. + +"She is free," said Colville, and with the words a mighty load rolled +from his heart. "There is no need to demand anything." + +"I know." + +"There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during--since I--we--spoke +together that I wouldn't have released her if I could have known what +you tell me now." + +"Of course!--of course!" + +"I have had my fears--my doubts; but whenever I approached the point I +found no avenue by which we could reach a clearer understanding. I could +not say much without seeming to seek for myself the release I was +offering her." + +"Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the suspicion at +the bottom of all that she had somehow forced herself upon you-- +misunderstood you, and made you say and do things to spare her that +you would not have done voluntarily." This was advanced tentatively. In +the midst of his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have, +a native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at the most +unexpected moments, and this must now have appeared in his countenance. +The lady rose haughtily. She had apparently been considering him, but, +after all, she must have been really considering her daughter. "If +anything of the kind was the case," she said, "I will ask you to spare +her the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for _me_ to know it. And +allow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would have been far kinder in +you--" + +"Ah, _think,_ my dear madam!" he exclaimed. "How _could_ I?" + +She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a generous +emotion, in which there was no trace of pique. + +"You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will trust you to +say anything you will to my daughter." + +"To your daughter? Shall I see her?" + +"She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness." + +Colville lay silent. "There is no forgiveness to be asked or granted," +he said, at length. "Why should she suffer the pain of seeing me?--for +it would be nothing else. What do you think? Will it do her any good +hereafter? I don't care for myself." + +"I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Graham. "She is a strange child. +She may have some idea of reparation." + +"Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation is due! +Where there has been an error there must be blame; but wherever it lies +in ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. Tell her I say this; tell her +that I acquit her with all my heart of every shadow of wrong; that I am +not unhappy, but glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as it +has." He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and said, +with the feebleness of exhaustion, "Good-bye. Bid her good-bye for me." + +Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the door was +flung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She threw herself on her +knees beside his bed. "I will _pray_ to you!" she said, her face intense +with the passions working in her soul. She seemed choking with words +which would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that must stand for +all, she caught up the hand that lay limp on the coverlet; she crushed +it against her lips, and ran out of the room. + +He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his brain to take +account of what had passed. When he woke from it, little Effie Bowen was +airily tiptoeing about the room, fondly retouching its perfect order. He +closed his eyes, and felt her come to him and smooth the sheet softly +under his chin. Then he knew she must be standing with clasped hands +admiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from the door. It +closed, and all was still again. + + + + + + +XXII + + +Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. Bowen's house +as soon as he could. He made the more haste because he felt that if he +could have remained with the smallest trace of self-respect, he would +have been glad to stay there for ever. + +Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and the sun was +lying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the shade dense and cool in the +narrow streets, before he left Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was a glare +of light that struck back from the curving line of the buff houses; the +river had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black cypresses were dim +in the tremor of the distant air on the hill-slopes beyond; the olives +seemed to swelter in the sun, and the villa walls to burn whiter and +whiter. At evening the mosquito began to wind his tiny horn. It was the +end of May, and nearly everybody but the Florentines had gone out of +Florence, dispersing to Villa Reggio by the sea, to the hills of +Pistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than once Colville had +said that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after she ought to have got away, +and she had answered that she liked hot weather, and that this was not +comparable to the heat of Washington in June. She was looking very well, +and younger and prettier than she had since the first days of their +renewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern complexion enriched +itself in the sun; sometimes when she came into his room from outdoors +the straying brown hair curled into loose rings on her temples, and her +cheeks glowed a deep red. + +She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was not well +enough to go away, but she did not try to detain him after his strength +sufficiently returned. It was the blow on the head that kept him +longest. After his broken arm and his other bruises were quite healed, +he was aware of physical limits to thinking of the future or regretting +the past, and this sense of his powerlessness went far to reconcile him +to a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically he ought to +have been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a matter of fact he +suffered very little from either. Even in people who are in full +possession of their capacity for mental anguish one observes that after +they have undergone a certain amount of pain they cease to feel. + +Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours to entertain +him and take care of him. The child was with him every moment that she +could steal from her tasks, and her mother no longer attempted to stem +the tide of her devotion. It was understood that Effie should joke and +laugh with Mr. Colville as much as she chose; that she should fan him as +long as he could stand it; that she should read to him when he woke, and +watch him when he slept. She brought him his breakfast, she petted him +and caressed him, and wished to make him a monster of dependence and +self-indulgence. It seemed to grieve her that he got well so fast. + +The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee by the +window looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of Oltrarno, to the +silence and solid dark of the solemn company of hills beyond. They had +not lighted the lamps because of the mosquitoes, and they had talked +till her head dropped against his shoulder. + +Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. "Why, is she asleep?" + +"Yes. Don't take her yet," said Colville. + +Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left to get +into Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was so richly content +with the peace, the tacit sweetness of the little moment, that he would +have been glad to have it silently endure forever. If any troublesome +question of his right to such a moment of bliss obtruded itself upon +him, he did not concern himself with it. + +"We shall have another hot day to-morrow," said Mrs. Bowen at length. "I +hope you will find your room comfortable." + +"Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, and no sun +ever comes into it except when they show it to foreigners in winter. +Then they get a few rays to enter as a matter of business, on condition +that they won't detain them. I dare say I shall stay there some time. I +suppose you will be getting away from Florence very soon. + +"Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet." + +"Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for all you've +done for me, Mrs. Bowen?" + +"No; I would rather not. It has been a great pleasure--to Effie." + +"Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice." They spoke in low tones, +and there was something in the hush that suggested to Colville the +feasibility of taking into his unoccupied hand one of the pretty hands +which the pale night-light showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap. But he +forbore, and only sighed. "Well, then, I will say nothing. But I shall +keep on thinking all my life." + +She made no answer. + +"When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. Waters," he +said. + +"He is going to stop all summer, I believe." + +"Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might find it too +hot, he said that he had seventy New England winters to thaw out of his +blood, and that all the summers he had left would not be more than he +needed. One of his friends told him that he could cook eggs in his +piazza in August, and he said that he should like nothing better than to +cook eggs there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot I've +ever seen." + +"Do you like it?" + +"It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any more. I think +it's very pleasant over here, now that everybody's gone," added +Colville, from a confused resentfulness of collectively remembered Days +and Afternoons and Evenings. "How still the night is!" + +A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the hush. + +"Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get home," sighed +Mrs. Bowen. + +"Well, so do I." + +"I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so long." +People often say such things in Europe. + +"No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there." + +"You can always make something to do there." + +"Oh yes." Some young young men, breaking from a street near by, began to +sing. "We shouldn't have that sort of thing at home." + +"No," said Mrs. Bowen pensively. + +"I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night after that +party at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with fury." + +"Why should it do that?" + +"I don't know. It seemed like voices from our youth--Lina." + +She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with which she +asked: "Did you hate that so much?" + +"No; the loss of it." + +They both fetched a deep breath. + +"The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca," said Mrs. Bowen. +"They have asked me to go." + +"Do you think of going?" inquired Colville. "I've always fancied it must +be pleasant there." + +"No; I declined. Sometimes I think I will just stay on in Florence." + +"I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's nothing like +having the range of one's own house in summer." He looked out of the +window on the blue-black sky. + + "'And deepening through their silent spheres, + Heaven over heaven rose the night,'" + + +he quoted. "It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to read _Mariana +in the South_ to you and poor Jenny? How it must have bored her! What an +ass I was!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his reminiscence +rather than in agreement with his self-denunciation. + +Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; but not +quite willingly as it seemed. + +Effie started from her sleep. "What--what is it?" she asked, stretching +and shivering as half-wakened children do. + +"Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead her away. +"Say good-night to Mr. Colville." + +The child turned and kissed him. "Good night," she murmured. + +"Good night, you sleepy little soul!" It seemed to Colville that he must +be a pretty good man, after all, if this little thing loved him so. + +"Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?" asked her mother when she +began to undo her hair for her in her room. + +"Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?" + +"Oh yes; nice enough." + +Colville sat by the window a long time thinking Mrs. Bowen might come +back; but she did not return. + +Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel. + +"Are you pretty comfortable here?" he asked. + +"Well, it's a change," said Colville. "I miss the little one awfully." + +"She's a winning child," admitted the old man. "That combination of +conventionality and _naïveté_ is very captivating. I notice it in the +mother." + +"Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?" + +"Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came." + +"I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go again +to-night." + +The old man said nothing to this. "The fact is," Colville went on, "I'm +so habituated to being there that I'm rather spoiled." + +"Ah, it's a nice place," Mr. Waters admitted. + +"Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I have the +reward of a good conscience. But I don't find that the reward is very +great." + +The old gentleman smiled. "The difficulty is to know conscience from +self-interest." + +"Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case," said Colville. "If I'd +consulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be at Palazzo +Pinti." + +"I dare say they would have been glad to keep you." + +"Do you really think so?" asked Colville, with sudden seriousness. "I +wish you would tell me why. Have you any reason--grounds? Pshaw! I'm +absurd!" He sank back into the easy-chair from whose depths he had +pulled himself in the eagerness of his demand, and wiped his forehead +with his handkerchief. "Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of my +engagement to Miss Graham?" + +"Yes." + +"That is broken off--if it were ever really on. It was a great mistake +for both of us--a tragical one for her, poor child, a ridiculous one for +me. My only consolation is that it was a mistake and no more; but I +don't conceal from myself that I might have prevented it altogether if I +had behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the outset. But I'm +afraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that ought to have pained +and alarmed me, and the rest followed inevitably, though I was always +just on the point of escaping the consequences of my weakness--my +wickedness." + +"Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that," said the old +minister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be figured under the old +idea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the point of +escaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he did not +pay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of the +inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which even +repentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine an atonement for +Faust's trespass against one human soul in his benefactions to the race +at large; but it is a very cloudy business." + +"It isn't quite a parallel case," said Colville, rather sulkily. He had, +in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's generalisation than he could +from a more personal philosophy of the affair. + +"Oh no; I didn't think that," consented the old man. + +"And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of drainage or +subsoiling in atonement for my little dream," Colville continued, +resenting the parity of outline that grew upon him in spite of his +protest. They were both silent for a while, and then Colville cried out, +"Yes, yes; they are alike. _I_ dreamed, too, of recovering and restoring +my own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul, and it was in +essence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's nothing in my defence +that it was all formless and undirected at first, and that as soon as I +recognised it I abhorred it." + +"Oh yes, it is," replied the old man, with perfect equanimity. "Your +assertion is the hysterical excess of Puritanism in all times and +places. In the moral world we are responsible only for the wrong that we +intend. It can't he otherwise." + +"And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't intend?" + +"Ah, perhaps that isn't evil." + +"It's pain!" + +"It's pain, yes." + +"And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the anguish of +self-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, with the shame of an +error such as I allowed, perhaps encouraged her to make--" + +"Yes," said the old man. "The young suffer terribly. But they recover. +Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't recover. I wouldn't +defend you against yourself if I thought you seriously in the wrong. If +you know yourself to be, you shouldn't let me." + +Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time thoughtful. "How can +I tell?" he asked. "You know the facts; you can judge." + +"If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a greater +wrong than any you have committed." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the young +clergyman--what was his name?" + +"Morton. Do you think--do you suppose there was anything in that?" +demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer than +Mr. Waters might have found ludicrous. "He was an admirable young +fellow, with an excellent head and a noble heart. I underrated him at +one time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I was +afraid she did not appreciate him." + +"I'm not so sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness of +manner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definite +knowledge. + +"I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently. + +"But you are really very much more concerned in something else." + +"In what else?" + +"Can't you imagine?" + +"No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the face. + +"Then I have no more to say." + +"Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it anything +about--you hinted at something long ago--Mrs. Bowen?" + +"Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?" + +"Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me! +Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far as +his stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I--I love her!" The +words gave him courage. "In every breath and pulse! She is the most +beautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I have +loved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Good +heavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, falling from the +rapture of this confession, "she simply loathes _me_!" + +"It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the same +time to marry some one else." + +"Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes--I don't care +what you think of my weakness--I was not a free agent. It's very well to +condemn one's-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to others +is not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was to +keep my word--to prevent that poor child, if possible, from ever finding +out her mistake." + +If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener he +was disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged to +ask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, "I suppose you scarcely +blame me for that?" + +"Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are times when +it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without +control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz +and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in +a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less +skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact, +go sounding on without any special application of breath or fingers, +repeating the tunes that were played originally upon other men. It +appears to me that you suffered yourself to do something of the kind in +this affair. We are a long time learning to act with common-sense or +even common sanity in what are called matters of the affections. A +broken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am inclined to +think that it is the very best thing that could happen in most cases +where it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken engagement is +merely sanative, and so far beneficent." + +The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of his +own cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he followed +him down to the outer gate of the hotel. The afternoon sun was pouring +into the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plunged +with the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, a +sack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same material, and +Colville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid waves not only +by the stored cold of half a century of winters at Haddam East Village, +but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself in +an appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone that +Colville found himself steeped in perspiration, and glowing with a +strange excitement. + + + + + + +XXIII + + +Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in the +contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which had +been sent home from the tailor's just before Mr. Waters came in. The +coat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending to +lavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from Palazzo +Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk gauze +neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the time thought +very well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on his bed, it +seemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for his wear. He +ought to put on something as nearly analogous to sackcloth as a modern +stock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the grave +materials of his winter costume. But they were really insupportable in +this sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during his +sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs. +Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps +providential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, when +he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had been +loafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to her +to appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious she +always was herself! + +As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which the +becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightly +tied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back to +admit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerful +before his glass. Should he shave? As once before, this important +question occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages of +figure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect would +cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part of +his face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of a +double chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, at +least till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for his +visit to brook the necessary delay. + +He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in to +meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling. + +"You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said Colville, +tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his summer splendour. "Where +is your mamma?" + +"She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold of his +hand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us." + +"By all means--not that I haven't had coffee already, though." + +She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they went. + +Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. "How are +you feeling to-day?" she asked, politely ignoring his finery. + +"Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain of +the situation, "Of the best tailor's make in Florence." + +"You look very well," she smiled. + +"Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The trouble is that +I don't always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon a +lady." + +"Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen. + +"Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried. + +"Oh, is it for me too?" + +This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy could +have brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but rather +heightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom, +that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear, and +a thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well with +all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived home +the bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly unobjectionable young man, +Mr. Morton. + +"Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked Mrs. +Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon. + +"Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. They +forgot to offer us any ice at the _table d'hôte_ this evening." + +"This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a compromise +with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's this afternoon." + +"I _thought_ you would come," whispered the child to Colville. + +Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don't give +yourself away, Effie." + +"Why, let us go to Giacosa's too," said Colville, taking the ice. "We +shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel ourselves +foreign. It's astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed the +tourists. I didn't see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I walked +down Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza della +Signoria and the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and home-like +it was--all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves, and the +objects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a good rest +after their winter's work." + +Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to enjoy this; +her mother did not laugh. + +"Walked?" she asked. + +"Certainly. Why not?" + +"You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too." + +"I've _got_ well. But as to being gone, there's no hurry. I rather think +I shall wait now to see how long you stay." + +"We may keep you all summer," said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her eyelids +indifferently. + +"Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going to stay, and +he is such a very cool old gentleman that I don't think one need fear +the wildest antics of the mercury where he is." + +When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to the +salotto; and they all sat down by the window there and watched the +sunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of Michelangelo's David, in +the Piazzale below the church, blackened in perfect relief against the +pink sky and then faded against the grey while they talked. They were so +domestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was an image +of what might be rather than what really was; the very ease with which +he could apparently close his hand upon the happiness within his grasp +unnerved him. The talk strayed hither and thither, and went and came +aimlessly. A sound of singing floated in from the kitchen, and Effie +eagerly asked her mother if she might go and see Maddalena. Maddalena's +mother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains. + +"Yes, go," said Mrs. Bowen; "but don't stay too long." + +"Oh, I will be back in time," said the child, and Colville remembered +that he had proposed going to Giacosa's. + +"Yes; don't forget." He had forgotten it himself. + +"Maddalena is the cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings ballads to +Effie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants to +hear them at first hand." + +"Oh yes," said Colville dreamily. + +They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted with a +meaning deeper than speech. + +"Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?" asked Mrs. Bowen, after one of these +lapses. + +"Yes; he came this afternoon." + +"He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be lonely here." + +"He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history of the +place. And his satisfaction at having got out of Haddam East Village is +perennial." + +"But he will want to go back there before he dies." + +"I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you say. He has +the art of putting all sorts of ideas into people's heads. Do you know +what we talked about this afternoon?" + +"No, I don't," murmured Mrs. Bowen. + +"About you. And he encouraged me to believe--imagine--that I might speak +to you--ask--tell you that--I loved you, Lina." He leaned forward and +took one of the hands that lay in her lap. It trembled with a violence +inconceivable in relation to the perfect quiet of her attitude. But she +did not try to take it away. "Could you--do you love me?" + +"Yes," she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from his hold +altogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture he released her hand +to take her in his arms. + +He followed her a pace or two. "And you will--will be my wife?" he +pursued eagerly. + +"Never!" she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while a cold +bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of jest, +though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not treat it +otherwise than seriously. + +"Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you this +winter, and Heaven knows how long before!" + +"Yes; I know that." + +"And every moment." + +"Oh, I know that too." + +"Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved you so +much that I must tell you before we parted--" + +"I expected that--I intended it." + +"You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you won't--Ah, I don't +understand!" + +"How could _you_ understand? I love you--I blush and burn for shame to +think that I love you. But I will never marry you; I can at least help +doing that, and I can still keep some little trace of self-respect. How +you must really despise me, to think of anything else, after all that +has happened! Did you suppose that I was merely waiting till that poor +girl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can you be yourself, and +still be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was right. You are too much of +a mixture, Theodore Colville"--her calling him so showed how often she +had thought of him so--"too much for her, too much for Imogene, too much +for me; too much for any woman except some wretched creature who enjoys +being trampled on and dragged through the dust, as you have dragged me." + +"_I_ dragged _you_ through the dust? There hasn't been a moment in the +past six months when I wouldn't have rolled myself in it to please you." + +"Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was flattering to +me?" + +"That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, and that I +couldn't help wishing to show it even when I wouldn't acknowledge it to +myself. That is all. And now when I am free to speak, and you own that +you love me, you won't--I give it up!" he cried desperately. But in the +next breath he implored, "_Why_ do you drive me from you, Lina?" + +"Because you have humiliated me too much." She was perfectly steady, but +he knew her so well that in the twilight he knew what bitterness there +must be in the smile which she must be keeping on her lips. "I was here +in the place of her mother, her best friend, and you made me treat her +like an enemy. You made me betray her and cast her off." + +"I?" + +"Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really care for +her, that you were playing with yourself, as you were playing with her, +and I ought to have warned her." + +"It appears to me you did warn her," said Colville, with some resentful +return of courage. + +"I tried," she said simply, "and it made it worse. It made it worse +because I knew that I was acting for my own sake more than hers, because +I wasn't--disinterested." There was something in this explanation, +serious, tragic, as it was to Mrs. Bowen, which made Colville laugh. She +might have had some perception of its effect to him, or it may have been +merely from a hysterical helplessness, but she laughed too a little. + +"But why," he gathered courage to ask, "do you still dwell upon that? +Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton--that there was--" + +"He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He told me." + +"Oh!" + +"Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here between life +and death? No: you can have no hope from that." + +Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed him. He had +not strength enough to feel resentment against Mr. Waters for misleading +him with this _ignis fatuus_. + +"No one warned him, and it came to that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was of a +piece with the whole affair. I was weak in that too." + +Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted to +the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in resuming +it. + +"I couldn't imagine," he said, "that you cared anything for me when you +warned another against me. If I could--" + +"You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought to have +sympathised with her and helped her instead of making the poor child +feel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even put her on guard against +herself, though I knew all along that she didn't really care for you, +but was just in love with her own fancy for you, Even after you were +engaged I ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank with +her; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I was acting +for myself too, and I would not submit to that degradation. No! I would +rather have died. I dare say you don't understand. How could you? You +are a man, and the kind of man who couldn't. At every point you made me +violate every principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for caring +for a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to another. Don't +think it was gratifying to me. It was detestable; and yet I did let you +see that I cared for you. Yes, I even _tried_ to make you care for +me--falsely, cruelly, treacherously." + +"You didn't have to try very hard," said Colville, with a sort of cold +resignation to his fate. + +"Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told her for her +own sake that she didn't love you, but that would have been for my sake +too; and I would have told you if I hadn't cared for you and known how +you cared for me. I've saved at least the consciousness of this from the +wreck." + +"I don't think it's a great treasure," said Colville. "I wish that you +had saved the consciousness of having been frank even to your own +advantage." + +"Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps I've +deserved this too." + +"No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's unkindness, from me. +I won't afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me before I +go?" + +She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He had a dim +impression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he did not +venture to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his eyes upon as +much of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in a +vague outline of dark. + +"I want to assure you, Lina--Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall call +you for the first and last time!--that I _do_ understand everything, as +delicately and fully as you could wish, all that you have expressed, and +all that you have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure your +ideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have struggled +to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy and stupid +selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my dearest love--you +must forgive me!--that if I didn't see everything at the time, I do see +it now, and that I prize the love you kept from me far more than any +love you could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It isn't +logic--it sounds more like nonsense, I am afraid--but you know what I +mean by it. You are more perfect, more lovely to me, than any being in +the world, and I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not win +you against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you say we +must part, I know that you speak from a finer discernment than mine, and +I submit. I will try to console myself with the thought of your love, if +I may not have you. Yes, I submit." + +His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest art. +His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity, and +she rose also. "Remember," he said, "that I confess all you accuse me +of, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do--because you do +it." He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at her +side. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. "May I +kiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on the +lips. + +"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go--" + +"I am going." + +Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen. + +"Aren't you going to take--" She stopped and turned to her mother. She +must not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what her +gesture expressed. + +Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage, and +play upon the mother's heart through the feelings of her child, though +there is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation by any +means. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and the +resistance. "Tell her," she said, and turned away. + +"I can't go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping toward her for +the inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I am--going away, and I must say +good-bye." + +The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she repeated. + +"Yes--away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you again." + +The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless. +Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her, she +plunged her face against her mother's breast. "I can't _bear_ it!" she +sobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a storm +of cries and prayers. + +Colville wavered. + +"Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of a +woman who falls below her ideal of herself. + + + + + + +XXIV + + +In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit themselves +with the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage when +Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, but +of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of his +tested self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the appearance of +Effie was not a _coup de théâtre_ contrived beforehand, it was an +accident of no consequence whatever; that if she had not come in at that +moment, her mother would have found some other pretext for detaining +him. This is a point which I would not presume to decide. I only know +that they were married early in June before the syndic of Florence, who +tied a tricolour sash round his ample waist for the purpose, and never +looked more paternal or venerable than when giving the sanction of the +Italian state to their union. It is not, of course, to be supposed that +Mrs. Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville may +have thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony took place in +the English chapel, the assistant clergyman officiating in the absence +of the incumbent, who had already gone out of town. + +The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home to Palazzo +Pinti with the party, the single and singularly honoured guest at their +wedding feast, for which Effie Bowen went with Colville to Giacosa's to +order the ices in person. She has never regretted her choice of a step +father, though when Colville asked her how she would like him in that +relation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she reconciled herself +to it; as to him she had no misgivings. He has sometimes found himself +the object of little jealousies on her part, but by promptly deciding +all questions between her and her mother in Effie's favour he has +convinced her of the groundlessness of her suspicions. + +In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the Colvilles +spent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their fellow-sojourners +returned from the _villeggiatura_ in the fall, however, they had turned +their faces southward, and they are now in Rome, where, arriving as a +married couple, there was no inquiry and no interest in their past. + +It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene has been +the grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or very much to blame; +even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a thing that happened, but one +would rather it had not happened. + +Last winter, however, Mrs. Colville received a letter from Mrs. Graham +which suggested, if it did not impart, consolation. "Mr. Morton was here +the other day, and spent the morning. He has a parish at Erie, and there +is talk of his coming to Buffalo." + +"Oh, Heaven grant it!" said Colville, with sudden piety. + +"Why?" demanded his wife. + +"Well, I wish she was married." + +"You have nothing whatever to do with her." + +It took him some time to realise that this was the fact. + +"No," he confessed; "but what do you think about it?" + +"There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will keep on long +enough--But if it isn't Mr. Morton, it will be some one else--some +_young_ person." + +Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. "I hope so," he +said. "_I_ have married a young person, and it would only be fair." + +This magnanimity was irresistible. + + +THE END. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + +This file should be named 8insm10.txt or 8insm10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8insm11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8insm10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Howells</TITLE> +<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 14pt; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + // --> + </style> +</HEAD> +<BODY> +<H1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Indian Summer, +<br>by William D. Howells</H1> + +<PRE> +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Indian Summer + +Author: William D. Howells + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7359] +[This file was first posted on April 20, 2003] +[Most recently updated May 3, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + + + + +David Garcia, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed +Proofreaders Team +</PRE> + + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <h1> + INDIAN SUMMER + </h1> + <center> + <b>BY<br> + <br> + WILLIAM D. HOWELLS<br> + <br> + <br> + AUTHOR OF "THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM," "A MODERN INSTANCE," + "WOMAN'S REASON," ETC.</b> + </center> + + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <center> + <b>INDIAN SUMMER</b> + </center> + <hr> + <a name="I"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Midway of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence, where three arches + break the lines of the little jewellers' booths glittering on + either hand, and open an approach to the parapet, Colville + lounged against the corner of a shop and stared out upon the + river. It was the late afternoon of a day in January, which + had begun bright and warm, but had suffered a change of mood + as its hours passed, and now, from a sky dimmed with flying + grey clouds, was threatening rain. There must already have + been rain in the mountains, for the yellow torrent that + seethed and swirled around the piers of the bridge was + swelling momently on the wall of the Lung' Arno, and rolling + a threatening flood toward the Cascine, where it lost itself + under the ranks of the poplars that seemed to file across its + course, and let their delicate tops melt into the pallor of + the low horizon. + </p> + <p> + The city, with the sweep of the Lung' Arno on either hand, + and its domes and towers hung in the dull air, and the + country with its white villas and black cypresses breaking + the grey stretches of the olive orchards on its hill-sides, + had alike been growing more and more insufferable; and + Colville was finding a sort of vindictive satisfaction in the + power to ignore the surrounding frippery of landscape and + architecture. He isolated himself so perfectly from it, as he + brooded upon the river, that, for any sensible difference, he + might have been standing on the Main Street Bridge at Des + Vaches, Indiana, looking down at the tawny sweep of the + Wabash. He had no love for that stream, nor for the ambitious + town on its banks, but ever since he woke that morning he had + felt a growing conviction that he had been a great ass to + leave them. He had, in fact, taken the prodigious risk of + breaking his life sharp off from the course in which it had + been set for many years, and of attempting to renew it in a + direction from which it had long been diverted. Such an act + could be precipitated only by a strong impulse of conscience + or a profound disgust, and with Colville it sprang from + disgust. He had experienced a bitter disappointment in the + city to whose prosperity he had given the energies of his + best years, and in whose favour he imagined that he had + triumphantly established himself. + </p> + <p> + He had certainly made the Des Vaches + <i>Democrat-Republican</i> a very good paper; its ability was + recognised throughout the State, and in Des Vaches people of + all parties were proud of it. They liked every morning to see + what Colville said; they believed that in his way he was the + smartest man in the State, and they were fond of claiming + that there was no such writer on any of the Indianapolis + papers. They forgave some political heresies to the talent + they admired; they permitted him the whim of free trade, they + laughed tolerantly when he came out in favour of civil + service reform, and no one had much fault to find when the + <i>Democrat-Republican</i> bolted the nomination of a certain + politician of its party for Congress. But when Colville + permitted his own name to be used by the opposing party, the + people arose in their might and defeated him by a tremendous + majority. That was what the regular nominee said. It was a + withering rebuke to treason, in the opinion of this + gentleman; it was a good joke, anyway, with the Democratic + managers who had taken Colville up, being all in the + Republican family; whichever it was, it was a mortification + for Colville which his pride could not brook. He stood + disgraced before the community not only as a theorist and + unpractical doctrinaire, but as a dangerous man; and what was + worse, he could not wholly acquit himself of a measure of bad + faith; his conscience troubled him even more than his pride. + Money was found, and a printer bought up with it to start a + paper in opposition to the <i>Democrat-Republican</i>. Then + Colville contemptuously offered to sell out to the Republican + committee in charge of the new enterprise, and they accepted + his terms. + </p> + <p> + In private life he found much of the old kindness returning + to him; and his successful opponent took the first + opportunity of heaping coals of fire on his head in the + public street, when he appeared to the outer eye to be + shaking hands with Colville. During the months that he + remained to close up his affairs after the sale of his paper, + the <i>Post-Democrat-Republican</i> (the newspaper had + agglutinated the titles of two of its predecessors, after the + fashion of American journals) was fulsome in its + complimentary allusions to him. It politely invented the + fiction that he was going to Europe for his health, impaired + by his journalistic labours, and adventurously promised its + readers that they might hope to hear from him from time to + time in its columns. In some of its allusions to him Colville + detected the point of a fine irony, of which he had himself + introduced the practice in the <i>Democrat-Republican</i>; + and he experienced, with a sense of personal impoverishment, + the curious fact that a journalist of strong characteristics + leaves the tradition of himself in such degree with the + journal he has created that he seems to bring very little + away. He was obliged to confess in his own heart that the + paper was as good as ever. The assistants, who had trained + themselves to write like him, seemed to be writing quite as + well, and his honesty would not permit him to receive the + consolation offered him by the friends who told him that + there was a great falling off in the + <i>Post-Democrat-Republican</i>. Except that it was rather + more Stalwart in its Republicanism, and had turned quite + round on the question of the tariff, it was very much what it + had always been. It kept the old decency of tone which he had + given it, and it maintained the literary character which he + was proud of. The new management must have divined that its + popularity, with the women at least, was largely due to its + careful selections of verse and fiction, its literary news, + and its full and piquant criticisms, with their long extracts + from new books. It was some time since he had personally + looked after this department, and the young fellow in charge + of it under him had remained with the paper. Its continued + excellence, which he could not have denied if he had wished, + seemed to leave him drained and feeble, and it was partly + from the sense of this that he declined the overtures, well + backed up with money, to establish an independent paper in + Des Vaches. He felt that there was not fight enough in him + for the work, even if he had not taken that strong disgust + for public life which included the place and its people. He + wanted to get away, to get far away, and with the abrupt and + total change in his humour he reverted to a period in his + life when journalism and politics and the ambition of + Congress were things undreamed of. + </p> + <p> + At that period he was a very young architect, with an + inclination toward the literary side of his profession, which + made it seem profitable to linger, with his Ruskin in his + hand, among the masterpieces of Italian Gothic, when perhaps + he might have been better employed in designing red-roofed + many-verandaed, consciously mullioned seaside cottages on the + New England coast. He wrote a magazine paper on the zoology + of the Lombardic pillars in Verona, very Ruskinian, very + scornful of modern motive. He visited every part of the + peninsula, but he gave the greater part of his time to North + Italy, and in Venice he met the young girl whom he followed + to Florence. His love did not prosper; when she went away she + left him in possession of that treasure to a man of his + temperament, a broken heart. From that time his vague dreams + began to lift, and to let him live in the clear light of + common day; but he was still lingering at Florence, ignorant + of the good which had befallen him, and cowering within + himself under the sting of wounded vanity, when he received a + letter from his elder brother suggesting that he should come + and see how he liked the architecture of Des Vaches. His + brother had been seven years at Des Vaches, where he had + lands, and a lead-mine, and a scheme for a railroad, and had + lately added a daily newspaper to his other enterprises. He + had, in fact, added two newspapers; for having unexpectedly + and almost involuntarily become the owner of the Des Vaches + <i>Republican</i>, the fancy of building up a great local + journal seized him, and he bought the <i>Wabash Valley + Democrat</i>, uniting them under the name of the + <i>Democrat-Republican</i>. But he had trouble almost from + the first with his editors, and he naturally thought of the + brother with a turn for writing who had been running to waste + for the last year or two in Europe. His real purpose was to + work Colville into the management of his paper when he + invited him to come out and look at the architecture of Des + Vaches. + </p> + <p> + Colville went, because he was at that moment in the humour to + go anywhere, and because his money was running low, and he + must begin work somehow. He was still romantic enough to like + the notion of the place a little, because it bore the name + given to it by the old French <i>voyageurs</i> from a herd of + buffalo cows which they had seen grazing on the site of their + camp there; but when he came to the place itself he did not + like it. He hated it; but he stayed, and as an architect was + the last thing any one wanted in Des Vaches since the jail + and court-house had been built, he became, half without his + willing it, a newspaper man. He learned in time to relish the + humorous intimacy of the life about him; and when it was + decided that he was no fool—there were doubts, growing + out of his Eastern accent and the work of his New York + tailor, at first—he found himself the object of a + pleasing popularity. In due time he bought his brother out; + he became very fond of newspaper life, its constant + excitements and its endless variety; and six weeks before he + sold his paper he would have scoffed at a prophecy of his + return to Europe for the resumption of any artistic purpose + whatever. But here he was, lounging on the Ponte Vecchio at + Florence, whither he had come with the intention of rubbing + up his former studies, and of perhaps getting back to put + them in practice at New York ultimately. He had said to + himself before coming abroad that he was in no hurry; that he + should take it very easily—he had money enough for + that; yet he would keep architecture before him as an object, + for he had lived long in a community where every one was + intensely occupied, and he unconsciously paid to Des Vaches + the tribute of feeling that an objectless life was + disgraceful to a man. + </p> + <p> + In the meantime he suffered keenly and at every moment the + loss of the occupation of which he had bereaved himself; in + thinking of quite other things, in talk of totally different + matters, from the dreams of night, he woke with a start to + the realisation of the fact that he had no longer a + newspaper. He perceived now, as never before, that for + fifteen years almost every breath of his life had been drawn + with reference to his paper, and that without it he was in + some sort lost, and, as it were, extinct. A tide of + ridiculous home-sickness, which was an expression of this + passionate regret for the life he had put behind him, rather + than any longing for Des Vaches, swept over him, and the + first passages of a letter to the + <i>Post-Democrat-Republican</i> began to shape themselves in + his mind. He had always, when he left home for New York or + Washington, or for his few weeks of summer vacation on the + Canadian rivers or the New England coast, written back to his + readers, in whom he knew he could count upon quick sympathy + in all he saw and felt, and he now found himself addressing + them with that frank familiarity which comes to the + journalist, in minor communities, from the habit of print. He + began by confessing to them the defeat of certain + expectations with which he had returned to Florence, and told + them that they must not look for anything like the ordinary + letters of travel from him. But he was not so singular in his + attitude toward the place as he supposed; for any tourist who + comes to Florence with the old-fashioned expectation of + impressions will probably suffer a disappointment, unless he + arrives very young and for the first time. It is a city + superficially so well known that it affects one somewhat like + a collection of views of itself; they are from the most + striking points, of course, but one has examined them before, + and is disposed to be critical of them. Certain emotions, + certain sensations failed to repeat themselves to Colville at + sight of the familiar monuments, which seemed to wear a hardy + and indifferent air, as if being stared at so many years by + so many thousands of travellers had extinguished in them that + sensibility which one likes to fancy in objects of interest + everywhere. + </p> + <p> + The life which was as vivid all about him as if caught by the + latest instantaneous process made the same comparatively + ineffective appeal. The operatic spectacle was still there. + The people, with their cloaks statuesquely draped over their + left shoulders, moved down the street, or posed in vehement + dialogue on the sidewalks; the drama of bargaining, with the + customer's scorn, the shopman's pathos, came through the open + shop door; the handsome, heavy-eyed ladies, the bare-headed + girls, thronged the ways; the caffès were full of the + well-remembered figures over their newspapers and little + cups; the officers were as splendid as of old, with their + long cigars in their mouths, their swords kicking against + their beautiful legs, and their spurs jingling; the dandies, + with their little dogs and their flower-like smiles, were + still in front of the confectioners' for the inspection of + the ladies who passed; the old beggar still crouched over her + scaldino at the church door, and the young man with one leg, + whom he thought to escape by walking fast, had timed him to a + second from the other side of the street. There was the + wonted warmth in the sunny squares, and the old familiar damp + and stench in the deep narrow streets. But some charm had + gone out of all this. The artisans coming to the doors of + their shallow booths for the light on some bit of + carpentering, or cobbling, or tinkering; the crowds swarming + through the middle of the streets on perfect terms with the + wine-carts and cab horses; the ineffective grandiosity of the + palaces huddled upon the crooked thoroughfares; the slight + but insinuating cold of the southern winter, gathering in the + shade and dispersing in the sun, and denied everywhere by the + profusion of fruit and flowers, and by the greenery of + gardens showing through the grated portals and over the tops + of high walls; the groups of idle poor, permanently or + temporarily propped against the bases of edifices with a + southern exposure; the priests and monks and nuns in their + gliding passage; the impassioned snapping of the cabmen's + whips; the clangour of bells that at some hours inundated the + city, and then suddenly subsided and left it to the banging + of coppersmiths; the open-air frying of cakes, with its + primitive smell of burning fat; the tramp of soldiery, and + the fanfare of bugles blown to gay measures—these and a + hundred other characteristic traits and facts still found a + response in the consciousness where they were once a rapture + of novelty; but the response was faint and thin; he could not + warm over the old mood in which he once treasured them all + away as of equal preciousness. + </p> + <p> + Of course there was a pleasure in recognising some details of + former experience in Florence as they recurred. Colville had + been met at once by a <i>festa</i>, when nothing could be + done, and he was more than consoled by the caressing sympathy + with which he was assured that his broken trunk could not be + mended till the day after to-morrow; he had quite forgotten + about the festas and the sympathy. That night the piazza on + which he lodged seemed full of snow to the casual glance he + gave it; then he saw that it was the white Italian moonlight, + which he had also forgotten.... + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="II"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Colville had readied this point in that sarcastic study of + his own condition of mind for the advantage of his late + readers in the <i>Post-Democrat-Republican</i>, when he was + aware of a polite rustling of draperies, with an ensuing + well-bred murmur, which at once ignored him, deprecated + intrusion upon him, and asserted a common right to the + prospect on which he had been dwelling alone. He looked round + with an instinctive expectation of style and poise, in which + he was not disappointed. The lady, with a graceful lift of + the head and a very erect carriage, almost Bernhardtesque in + the backward fling of her shoulders and the strict + compression of her elbows to her side, was pointing out the + different bridges to the little girl who was with her. + </p> + <p> + "That first one is the Santa Trinità, and the next is + the Carraja, and that one quite down by the Cascine is the + iron bridge. The Cascine you remember—the park where we + were driving—that clump of woods there——" + </p> + <p> + A vagueness expressive of divided interest had crept into the + lady's tone rather than her words. Colville could feel that + she was waiting for the right moment to turn her delicate + head, sculpturesquely defined by its toque, and steal an + imperceptible glance at him: and he involuntarily afforded + her the coveted excuse by the slight noise he made in + changing his position in order to be able to go away as soon + as he had seen whether she was pretty or not. At forty-one + the question is still important to every man with regard to + every woman. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Colville!" + </p> + <p> + The gentle surprise conveyed in the exclamation, without time + for recognition, convinced Colville, upon a cool review of + the facts, that the lady had known him before their eyes met. + </p> + <p> + "Why, Mrs. Bowen!" he said. + </p> + <p> + She put out her round, slender arm, and gave him a frank + clasp of her gloved hand. The glove wrinkled richly up the + sleeve of her dress half-way to her elbow. She bent on his + face a demand for just what quality and degree of change he + found in hers, and apparently she satisfied herself that his + inspection was not to her disadvantage, for she smiled + brightly, and devoted the rest of her glance to an electric + summary of the facts of Colville's physiognomy; the + sufficiently good outline of his visage, with its full, + rather close-cut, drabbish-brown beard and moustache, both + shaped a little by the ironical self-conscious smile that + lurked under them; the non-committal, rather weary-looking + eyes; the brown hair, slightly frosted, that showed while he + stood with his hat still off. He was a little above the + middle height, and if it must be confessed, neither his face + nor his figure had quite preserved their youthful lines. They + were both much heavier than when Mrs. Bowen saw them last, + and the latter here and there swayed beyond the strict bounds + of symmetry. She was herself in that moment of life when, to + the middle-aged observer, at least, a woman's looks have a + charm which is wanting to her earlier bloom. By that time her + character has wrought itself more clearly out in her face, + and her heart and mind confront you more directly there. It + is the youth of her spirit which has come to the surface. + </p> + <p> + "I should have known you anywhere," she exclaimed, with + friendly pleasure in seeing him. + </p> + <p> + "You are very kind," said Colville. "I didn't know that I had + preserved my youthful beauty to that degree. But I can + imagine it—if you say so, Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I assure you that you have!" she protested; and now she + began gently to pursue him with one fine question after + another about himself, till she had mastered the main facts + of his history since they had last met. He would not have + known so well how to possess himself of hers, even if he had + felt the same necessity; but in fact it had happened that he + had heard of her from time to time at not very long + intervals. She had married a leading lawyer of her Western + city, who in due time had gone to Congress, and after his + term was out had "taken up his residence" in Washington, as + the newspapers said, "in his elegant mansion at the corner of + & Street and Idaho Avenue." After that he remembered + reading that Mrs. Bowen was going abroad for the education of + her daughter, from which he made his own inferences + concerning her marriage. And "You knew Mr. Bowen was no + longer living?" she said, with fit obsequy of tone. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I knew," he answered, with decent sympathy. + </p> + <p> + "This is my little Effie," said Mrs. Bowen after a moment; + and now the child, hitherto keeping herself discreetly in the + background, came forward and promptly gave her hand to + Colville, who perceived that she was not so small as he had + thought her at first; an effect of infancy had possibly been + studied in the brevity of her skirts and the immaturity of + her corsage, but both were in good taste, and really to the + advantage of her young figure. There was reason and justice + in her being dressed as she was, for she really was not so + old as she looked by two or three years; and there was reason + in Mrs. Bowen's carrying in the hollow of her left arm the + India shawl sacque she had taken off and hung there; the deep + cherry silk lining gave life to the sombre tints prevailing + in her dress, which its removal left free to express all the + grace of her extremely lady-like person. Lady-like was the + word for Mrs. Bowen throughout—for the turn of her + head, the management of her arm from the elbow, the curve of + her hand from wrist to finger-tips, the smile, subdued, but + sufficiently sweet, playing about her little mouth, which was + yet not too little, and the refined and indefinite perfume + which exhaled from the ensemble of her silks, her laces, and + her gloves, like an odorous version of that otherwise + impalpable quality which women call style. She had, with all + her flexibility, a certain charming stiffness, like the + stiffness of a very tall feather. + </p> + <p> + "And have you been here a great while?" she asked, turning + her head slowly toward Colville, and looking at him with a + little difficulty she had in raising her eyelids; when she + was younger the glance that shyly stole from under the covert + of their lashes was like a gleam of sunshine, and it was + still like a gleam of paler sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Colville, whose mood was very susceptible to the weather, + brightened in the ray. "I only arrived last night," he said, + with a smile. + </p> + <p> + "How glad you must be to get back! Did you ever see Florence + more beautiful than it was this morning?" + </p> + <p> + "Not for years," said Colville, with another smile for her + pretty enthusiasm. "Not for seventeen years at the least + calculation." + </p> + <p> + "Is it so many?" cried Mrs. Bowen, with lovely dismay. "Yes, + it is," she sighed, and she did not speak for an appreciable + interval. + </p> + <p> + He knew that she was thinking of that old love affair of his, + to which she was privy in some degree, though he never could + tell how much; and when she spoke he perceived that she + purposely avoided speaking of a certain person, whom a woman + of more tact or of less would have insisted upon naming at + once. "I never can believe in the lapse of time when I get + back to Italy; it always makes me feel as young as when I + left it last." + </p> + <p> + "I could imagine you'd never left it," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen reflected a moment. "Is that a compliment?" + </p> + <p> + "I had an obscure intention of saying something fine; but I + don't think I've quite made it out," he owned. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen gave her small, sweet smile. "It was very nice of + you to try. But I haven't really been away for some time; + I've taken a house in Florence, and I've been here two years. + Palazzo Pinti, Lung' Arno della Zecca. You must come and see + me. Thursdays from four till six." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I'm afraid," said Mrs. Bowen, remotely preparing to offer + her hand in adieu, "that Effie and I broke in upon some very + important cogitations of yours." She shifted the silken + burden off her arm a little, and the child stirred from the + correct pose she had been keeping, and smiled politely. + </p> + <p> + "I don't think they deserve a real dictionary word like + that," said Colville. "I was simply mooning. If there was + anything definite in my mind, I was wishing that I was + looking down on the Wabash in Dos Vaches, instead of the Arno + in Florence." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! And I supposed you must be indulging all sorts of + historical associations with the place. Effie and I have been + walking through the Via de' Bardi, where Romola lived, and I + was bringing her back over the Ponte Vecchio, so as to + impress the origin of Florence on her mind." + </p> + <p> + "Is that what makes Miss Effie hate it?" asked Colville, + looking at the child, whose youthful resemblance to her + mother was in all things so perfect that a fantastic question + whether she could ever have had any other parent swept + through him. Certainly, if Mrs. Bowen were to marry again, + there was nothing in this child's looks to suggest the idea + of a predecessor to the second husband. + </p> + <p> + "Effie doesn't hate any sort of useful knowledge," said her + mother half jestingly. "She's just come to me from school at + Vevay." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, then, I think she might," persisted Colville. "Don't you + hate the origin of Florence a little?" he asked of the child. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know enough about it," she answered, with a quick + look of question at her mother, and checking herself in a + possibly indiscreet smile. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, that accounts for it," said Colville, and he laughed. It + amused him to see the child referring even this point of + propriety to her mother, and his thoughts idled off to what + Mrs. Bowen's own untrammelled girlhood must have been in her + Western city. For her daughter there were to be no buggy + rides, or concerts, or dances at the invitation of young men; + no picnics, free and unchaperoned as the casing air; no + sitting on the steps at dusk with callers who never dreamed + of asking for her mother; no lingering at the gate with her + youthful escort home from the ball—nothing of that + wild, sweet liberty which once made American girlhood a long + rapture. But would she be any the better for her privations, + for referring not only every point of conduct, but every + thought and feeling, to her mother? He suppressed a sigh for + the inevitable change, but rejoiced that his own youth had + fallen in the earlier time, and said, "You will hate it as + soon as you've read a little of it." + </p> + <p> + "The difficulty is to read a little of Florentine history. I + can't find anything in less than ten or twelve volumes," said + Mrs. Bowen. "Effie and I were going to Viesseux's Library + again, in desperation, to see if there wasn't something + shorter in French." + </p> + <p> + She now offered Colville her hand, and he found himself very + reluctant to let it go. Something in her looks did not forbid + him, and when she took her hand away, he said, "Let me go to + Viesseux's with you, Mrs. Bowen, and give you the advantage + of my unprejudiced ignorance in the choice of a book on + Florence." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I was longing to ask you!" said Mrs. Bowen frankly. "It + is really such a serious matter, especially when the book is + for a young person. Unless it's very dry, it's so apt to + be—objectionable," + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, with a smile at her perplexity. He + moved off down the slope of the bridge with her, between the + jewellers' shops, and felt a singular satisfaction in her + company. Women of fashion always interested him; he liked + them; it diverted him that they should take themselves + seriously. Their resolution, their suffering for their ideal, + such as it was, their energy in dressing and adorning + themselves, the pains they were at to achieve the + trivialities they passed their lives in, were perpetually + delightful to him. He often found them people of great + simplicity, and sometimes of singularly good sense; their + frequent vein of piety was delicious. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes earlier he would have said that nothing could + have been less welcome to him than this encounter, but now he + felt unwilling to leave Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Go before, Effie," she said; and she added, to Colville, + "How very Florentine all this is! If you dropped from the + clouds on this spot without previous warning, you would know + that you were on the Ponte Vecchio, and nowhere else." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, it's very Florentine," Colville assented. "The bridge + is very well as a bridge, but as a street I prefer the Main + Street Bridge at Des Vaches. I was looking at the jewellery + before you came up, and I don't think it's pretty, even the + old pieces of peasant jewellery. Why do people come here to + look at it? If you were going to buy something for a friend, + would you dream of coming here for it?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh <i>no</i>!" replied Mrs. Bowen, with the deepest feeling. + </p> + <p> + They quitted the bridge, and turning to the left, moved down + the street which with difficulty finds space between the + parapet of the river and the shops of the mosaicists and + dealers in statuary cramping it on the other hand. + </p> + <p> + "Here's something distinctively Florentine too," said + Colville. "These table-tops, and paper-weights, and caskets, + and photograph frames, and lockets, and breast-pins; and + here, this ghostly glare of undersized Psyches and Hebes and + Graces in alabaster." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you mustn't think of any of them!" Mrs. Bowen broke in + with horror. "If your friend wishes you to get her something + characteristically Florentine, and at the same time very + tasteful, you must go—" + </p> + <p> + Colville gave a melancholy laugh. "My friend is an + abstraction, Mrs. Bowen, without sex or any sort of entity." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" said Mrs. Bowen. Some fine drops had begun to sprinkle + the pavement. "What a ridiculous blunder! It's raining! + Effie, I'm afraid we must give up your book for to-day. We're + not dressed for damp weather, and we'd better hurry home as + soon as possible." She got promptly into the shelter of a + doorway, and gathered her daughter to her, while she flung + her sacque over her shoulder and caught her draperies from + the ground for the next movement. "Mr. Colville, will you + please stop the first closed carriage that comes in sight?" + </p> + <p> + A figure of <i>primo tenore</i> had witnessed the manoeuvre + from the box of his cab; he held up his whip, and at a nod + from Colville he drove abreast of the doorway, his + broken-kneed, tremulous little horse gay in brass-mounted + harness, and with a stiff turkey feather stuck upright at one + ear in his head-stall. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen had no more scruple than another woman in stopping + travel and traffic in a public street for her convenience. + She now entered into a brisk parting conversation with + Colville, such as ladies love, blocking the narrow sidewalk + with herself, her daughter, and her open carriage door, and + making people walk round her cab, in the road, which they did + meekly enough, with the Florentine submissiveness to the + pretensions of any sort of vehicle. She said a dozen + important things that seemed to have just come into her head, + and, "Why, how stupid I am!" she called out, making Colville + check the driver in his first start, after she had got into + the cab. "We are to have a few people tonight. If you have no + engagement, I should be so glad to have you come. Can't you?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I can," said Colville, admiring the whole transaction + and the parties to it with a passive smile. + </p> + <p> + After finding her pocket, she found that her card-case was + not in it, but in the purse she had given Effie to carry; but + she got her address at last, and gave it to Colville, though + he said he should remember it without. "Any time between nine + and eleven," she said. "It's so nice of you to promise!" + </p> + <p> + She questioned him from under her half-lifted eyelids, and he + added, with a laugh, "I'll come!" and was rewarded with two + pretty smiles, just alike, from mother and daughter, as they + drove away. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="III"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + Twenty years earlier, when Mrs. Bowen was Miss Lina Ridgely, + she used to be the friend and confidante of the girl who + jilted Colville. They were then both so young that they could + scarcely have been a year out of school before they left home + for the year they were spending in Europe; but to the young + man's inexperience they seemed the wisest and maturest of + society women. His heart quaked in his breast when he saw + them talking and laughing together, for fear they should be + talking and laughing about him; he was even a little more + afraid of Miss Ridgely than of her friend, who was dashing + and effective, where Miss Ridgely was serene and elegant, + according to his feeling at that time; but he never saw her + after his rejection, and it was not till he read of her + marriage with the Hon. Mr. Bowen that certain vague + impressions began to define themselves. He then remembered + that Lina Ridgely in many fine little ways had shown a + kindness, almost a compassion, for him, as for one whose + unconsciousness a hopeless doom impended over. He perceived + that she had always seemed to like him—a thing that had + not occurred to him in the stupid absorption of his passion + for the other—and fragments of proof that she had + probably defended and advocated him occurred to him, and + inspired a vain and retrospective gratitude; he abandoned + himself to regrets, which were proper enough in regard to + Miss Ridgely, but were certainly a little unlawful concerning + Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + As he walked away toward his hotel he amused himself with the + conjecture whether he, with his forty-one years and his + hundred and eighty five pounds, were not still a pathetic and + even a romantic figure to this pretty and kindly woman, who + probably imagined him as heart-broken as ever. He was very + willing to see more of her, if she wished; but with the rain + beginning to fall more thick and chill in the darkening + street, he could have postponed their next meeting till a + pleasanter evening without great self-denial. He felt a + little twinge of rheumatism in his shoulder when he got into + his room, for your room in a Florentine hotel is always some + degrees colder than outdoors, unless you have fire in it; and + with the sun shining on his windows when he went out after + lunch, it had seemed to Colville ridiculous to have his + morning fire kept up. The sun was what he had taken the room + for. It was in it, the landlord assured him, from ten in the + morning till four in the afternoon; and so, in fact, it was, + when it shone; but even then it was not fully in it, but had + a trick of looking in at the sides of the window, and + painting the chamber wall with a delusive glow. Colville + raked away the ashes of his fire-place, and throwing on two + or three fagots of broom and pine sprays, he had a blaze that + would be very pretty to dress by after dinner, but that gave + out no warmth for the present. He left it, and went down to + the reading-room, as it was labelled over the door, in homage + to a predominance of English-speaking people among the + guests; but there was no fire there; that was kindled only by + request, and he shivered at the bare aspect of the apartment, + with its cold piano, its locked bookcases, and its table, + where the London <i>Times</i>, the <i>Neue Freie Presse</i> + of Vienna, and the <i>Italie</i> of Rome exposed their + titles, one just beyond the margin of the other. He turned + from the door and went into the dining-room, where the stove + was ostentatiously roaring over its small logs and its + lozenges of peat, But even here the fire had been so recently + lighted that the warmth was potential rather than actual. By + stooping down before the stove, and pressing his shoulder + against its brass doors, Colville managed to lull his enemy, + while he studied the figures of the woman-headed, + woman-breasted hounds developing into vines and foliage that + covered the frescoed trellising of the quadrangularly vaulted + ceiling. The waiters, in their veteran dress-coats, were + putting the final touches to the table, and the sound of + voices outside the door obliged Colville to get up. The + effort involved made him still more reluctant about going out + to Mrs. Bowen's. + </p> + <p> + The door opened, and some English ladies entered, faintly + acknowledging, provisionally ignoring, his presence, and + talking of what they had been doing since lunch. They agreed + that it was really too cold in the churches for any pleasure + in the pictures, and that the Pitti Gallery, where they had + those braziers, was the only place you could go with comfort. + A French lady and her husband came in; a Russian lady + followed; an Italian gentleman, an American family, and three + or four detached men of the English-speaking race, whose + language at once became the law of the table. + </p> + <p> + As the dinner progressed from soup to fish, and from the + <i>entrée</i> to the roast and salad, the combined + effect of the pleasant cheer and the increasing earnestness + of the stove made the room warmer and warmer. They drank + Chianti wine from the wicker-covered flasks, tied with tufts + of red and green silk, in which they serve table wine at + Florence, and said how pretty the bottles were, but how the + wine did not seem very good. + </p> + <p> + "It certainly isn't so good as it used to be," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, then you have been in Florhence before." said the French + lady, whose English proved to be much better than the French + that he began to talk to her in. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, a great while ago; in a state of pre-existence, in + fact," he said. + </p> + <p> + The lady looked a little puzzled, but interested. "In a state + of prhe-existence?" she repeated. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; when I was young," he added, catching the gleam in her + eye. "When I was twenty-four. A great while ago." + </p> + <p> + "You must be an Amerhican," said the lady, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + "Why do you think so? From my accent?" + </p> + <p> + "Frhom your metaphysics too. The Amerhicans like to talk in + that way." + </p> + <p> + "I didn't know it," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "They like to strhike the key of personality; they can't + endure not being interhested. They must rhelate everything to + themselves or to those with whom they are talking." + </p> + <p> + "And the French, no?" asked Colville. + </p> + <p> + The lady laughed again. "There is a large Amerhican colony in + Parhis. Perhaps we have learned to be like you." + </p> + <p> + The lady's husband did not speak English, and it was probably + what they had been saying that she interpreted to him, for he + smiled, looking forward to catch Colville's eye in a friendly + way, and as if he would not have him take his wife's talk too + seriously. + </p> + <p> + The Italian gentleman on Colville's right was politely + offering him the salad, which had been left for the guests to + pass to one another. Colville thanked him in Italian, and + they began to talk of Italian affairs. One thing led to + another, and he found that his new friend, who was not yet + his acquaintance, was a member of Parliament, and a + republican. + </p> + <p> + "That interests me as an American," said Colville. "But why + do you want a republic in Italy?" + </p> + <p> + "When we have a constitutional king, why should we have a + king?" asked the Italian. + </p> + <p> + An Englishman across the table relieved Colville from the + difficulty of answering this question by asking him another + that formed talk about it between them. He made his tacit + observation that the English, since he met them last, seemed + to have grown in the grace of facile speech with strangers; + it was the American family which kept its talk within itself, + and hushed to a tone so low that no one else could hear it. + Colville did not like their mumbling; for the honour of the + country, which we all have at heart, however little we think + it, he would have preferred that they should speak up, and + not seem afraid or ashamed; he thought the English manner was + better. In fact, he found himself in an unexpectedly social + mood; he joined in helping to break the ice; he laughed and + hazarded comment with those who were new-comers like himself, + and was very respectful of the opinions of people who had + been longer in the hotel, when they spoke of the cook's habit + of underdoing the vegetables. The dinner at the Hotel d'Atene + made an imposing show on the <i>carte du jour</i>; it looked + like ten or twelve courses, but in fact it was five, and even + when eked out with roast chestnuts and butter into six, it + seemed somehow to stop very abruptly, though one seemed to + have had enough. You could have coffee afterward if you + ordered it. Colville ordered it, and was sorry when the last + of his commensals, slightly bowing him a good-night, left him + alone to it. + </p> + <p> + He had decided that he need not fear the damp in a cab + rapidly driven to Mrs. Bowen's. When he went to his room he + had his doubts about his dress-coat; but he put it on, and he + took the crush hat with which he had provided himself in + coming through London. That was a part of the social panoply + unknown in Des Vaches; he had hardly been a dozen times in + evening dress there in fifteen years, and his suit was as new + as his hat. As he turned to the glass he thought himself + personable enough, and in fact he was one of those men who + look better in evening dress than in any other: the broad + expanse of shirt bosom, with its three small studs of gold + dropping, points of light, one below the other, softened his + strong, almost harsh face, and balanced his rather large + head. In his morning coat, people had to look twice at him to + make sure that he did not look common; but now he was not + wrong in thinking that he had an air of distinction, as he + took his hat under his arm and stood before the pier-glass in + his room. He was almost tempted to shave, and wear his + moustache alone, as he used to do: he had let his beard grow + because he found that under the lax social regimen at Des + Vaches he neglected shaving, and went about days at a time + with his face in an offensive stubble. Taking his chin + between his fingers, and peering closer into the mirror, he + wondered how Mrs. Bowen should have known him; she must have + remembered him very vividly. He would like to take off his + beard and put on the youthfulness that comes of shaving, and + see what she would say. Perhaps, he thought, with a last + glance at his toilet, he was overdoing it, if she were only + to have a few people, as she promised. He put a thick + neckerchief over his chest so as not to provoke that + abominable rheumatism by any sort of exposure, and he put on + his ulster instead of the light spring overcoat that he had + gone about with all day. + </p> + <p> + He found that Palazzo Pinti, when you came to it, was rather + a grand affair, with a gold-banded porter eating salad in the + lodge at the great doorway, and a handsome gate of iron + cutting you off from the regions above till you had rung the + bell of Mrs. Bowen's apartment, when it swung open of itself, + and you mounted. At her door a man in modified livery + received Colville, and helped him off with his overcoat so + skilfully that he did not hurt his rheumatic shoulder at all; + there were half a dozen other hats and coats on the carved + chests that stood at intervals along the wall, and some gayer + wraps that exhaled a faint, fascinating fragrance on the + chilly air. Colville experienced the slight exhilaration, the + mingled reluctance and eagerness, of a man who formally + re-enters an assemblage of society after long absence from + it, and rubbing his hands a little nervously together, he put + aside the yellow Abruzzi blanket <i>portière</i>, and + let himself into the brilliant interior. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of + subdued splendour, and with her hands and fan and + handkerchief tastefully composed before her. At sight of + Colville she gave a slight start, which would have betrayed + to him, if he had been another woman, that she had not really + believed he would come, and came forward with a rustle and + murmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush + upon her, so as to spare her this exertion, and he was + tempted to a long-forgotten foppishness of attitude as he + stood talking with her during the brief interval before she + introduced him to any of the company. She had been honest + with him; there were not more than twenty-five or thirty + people there; but if he had overdone it in dressing for so + small an affair, he was not alone, and he was not sorry. He + was sensible of a better personal effect than the men in + frock-coats and cut-aways were making, and he perceived with + self-satisfaction that his evening dress was of better style + than that of the others who wore it; at least no one else + carried a crush hat.— + </p> + <p> + At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville + was obscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they + last met at an evening party had been passed chiefly at New + York and Washington, should see that he was a man of the + world in spite of Des Vaches. Before she had decided which of + the company she should first present him to, her daughter + came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some bread and + butter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming + correctness of manner. "Really," he said, turning about to + take the cup, "I thought it was you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got + round to my side with a sash on. How do you and Miss Effie + justify yourselves in looking so bewitchingly alike?" + </p> + <p> + "You notice it, then?" Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted. + </p> + <p> + "I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind + my having been so personal in my observations?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, not at all," said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed. + </p> + <p> + "It must be true," he said, "what a French lady said to me at + the <i>table-d'hôte</i> dinner to-night: 'the + Amerhicans always strhike the note of perhsonality.'" He + neatly imitated the French lady's guttural accent. + </p> + <p> + "I suppose we do," mused Mis. Bowen, "and that we don't mind + it in each other. I wish <i>you</i> would say which I shall + introduce you to," she said, letting her glance stray + invisibly over her company, where all the people seemed + comfortably talking. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow," said + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; that won't do," said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has + public duties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her + private pleasure to them. But she postponed them a moment + longer. "I hope you got home before the rain," she said. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," returned Colville. "That is, I don't mind a little + sprinkling. Who is the Junonian young person at the end of + the room?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah," said Mrs. Bowen, "you can't be introduced to <i>her</i> + first. But <i>isn't</i> she lovely?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. It's a wonderful effect of white and gold." + </p> + <p> + "You mustn't say that to her. She was doubtful about her + dress, because she says that the ivory white with her hair + makes her look just like white and gold furniture." + </p> + <p> + "Present me at once, then, before I forget not to say it to + her." + </p> + <p> + "No; I must keep you for some other person: anybody can talk + to a pretty girl." + </p> + <p> + Colville said he did not know whether to smile or shed tears + at this embittered compliment, and pretended an eagerness for + the acquaintance denied him. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen seemed disposed to intensify his misery. "Did you + ever see a more statuesque creature—with those superb + broad shoulders and that little head, and that thick braid + brought round over the top? Doesn't her face, with that calm + look in those starry eyes, and that peculiar fall of the + corners of the mouth, remind you of some of those exquisite + great Du Maurier women? That style of face is very + fashionable now: you might think he had made it so." + </p> + <p> + "Is there a fashion in faces?" asked Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Why, certainly. You must know that." + </p> + <p> + "Then why aren't all the ladies in the fashion?" + </p> + <p> + "It isn't one that can be put on. Besides, every one hasn't + got Imogene Graham's figure to carry it off." + </p> + <p> + "That's her name, then—Imogene Graham. It's a very + pretty name." + </p> + <p> + "Yes. She's staying with me for the winter. Now that's all I + can allow you to know for the present. Come! You must!" + </p> + <p> + "But this is worse than nothing." He made a feint of + protesting as she led him away, and named him to the lady she + wished him to know. But he was not really sorry; he had his + modest misgivings whether he were equal to quite so much + young lady as Miss Graham seemed. When he no longer looked at + her he had a whimsical impression of her being a heroic + statue of herself. + </p> + <p> + The lady whom Mrs. Bowen left him with had not much to say, + and she made haste to introduce her husband, who had a great + deal to say. He was an Italian, but master of that very + efficient English which the Italians get together with + unimaginable sufferings from our orthography, and Colville + repeated the republican deputy's saying about a + constitutional king, which he had begun to think was neat. + </p> + <p> + "I might prefer a republic myself," said the Italian, "but I + think that gentleman is wrong to be a republican where he is, + and for the present. The monarchy is the condition of our + unity; nothing else could hold us together, and we must + remain united if we are to exist as a nation. It's a + necessity, like our army of half a million men. We may not + like it in itself, but we know that it is our salvation." He + began to speak of the economic state of Italy, of the immense + cost of freedom and independence to a people whose political + genius enables them to bear quietly burdens of taxation that + no other government would venture to impose. He spoke with + that fond, that appealing patriotism, which expresses so much + to the sympathetic foreigner in Italy: the sense of great and + painful uncertainty of Italy's future through the + complications of diplomacy, the memory of her sufferings in + the past, the spirit of quiet and inexhaustible patience for + trials to come. This resolution, which is almost resignation, + poetises the attitude of the whole people; it made Colville + feel as if he had done nothing and borne nothing yet. + </p> + <p> + "I am ashamed," he said, not without a remote resentment of + the unworthiness of the republican voters of Des Vaches, + "when I hear of such things, to think of what we are at home, + with all our resources and opportunities." + </p> + <p> + The Italian would have politely excused us to him, but + Colville would have no palliation of our political and moral + nakedness; and he framed a continuation of the letter he + began on the Ponte Vecchio to the + <i>Post-Democrat-Republican</i>, in which he made a bitterly + ironical comparison of the achievements of Italy and America + in the last ten years. + </p> + <p> + He forgot about Miss Graham, and had only a vague sense of + her splendour as he caught sight of her in the long mirror + which she stood before. She was talking to a very handsome + young clergyman, and smiling upon him. The company seemed to + be mostly Americans, but there were a good many evident + English also, and Colville was dimly aware of a question in + his mind whether this clergyman was English or American. + There were three or four Italians and there were some + Germans, who spoke English. + </p> + <p> + Colville moved about from group to group as his enlarging + acquaintance led, and found himself more interested in + society than he could ever have dreamed of being again. It + was certainly a defect of the life at Des Vaches that people, + after the dancing and love-making period, went out rarely or + never. He began to see that the time he had spent so busily + in that enterprising city had certainly been in some sense + wasted. + </p> + <p> + At a certain moment in the evening, which perhaps marked its + advancement, the tea-urn was replaced by a jug of the rum + punch, mild or strong according to the custom of the house, + which is served at most Florentine receptions. Some of the + people went immediately after, but the young clergyman + remained talking with Miss Graham. + </p> + <p> + Colville, with his smoking glass in his hand, found himself + at the side of a friendly old gentleman who had refused the + punch. They joined in talk by a common impulse, and the old + gentleman said, directly, "You are an American, I presume?" + </p> + <p> + His accent had already established the fact of his own + nationality, but he seemed to think it the part of candour to + say, when Colville had acknowledged his origin, "I'm an + American myself." + </p> + <p> + "I've met several of our countrymen since I arrived," + suggested Colville. + </p> + <p> + The old gentleman seemed to like this way of putting it. + "Well, yes, we're not unfairly represented here in numbers, I + must confess. But I'm bound to say that I don't find our + countrymen so aggressive, so loud, as our international + novelists would make out. I haven't met any of their peculiar + heroines as yet, sir." + </p> + <p> + Colville could not help laughing. "I wish <i>I</i> had. But + perhaps they avoid people of our years and discretion, or + else take such a filial attitude toward us that we can't + recognise them." + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps, perhaps," cried the old gentleman, with cheerful + assent. + </p> + <p> + "I was talking with one of our German friends here just now, + and he complained that the American girls—especially + the rich ones—seem very calculating and worldly and + conventional. I told him I didn't know how to account for + that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennobling + influences of society in Newport, as I've had glimpses of + it." + </p> + <p> + The old gentleman caressed his elbows, which he was holding + in the palms of his hands, in high enjoyment of Colville's + sarcasm. "Ah! very good! very good!" he said. "I quite agree + with you, and I think the other sort are altogether + preferable." + </p> + <p> + "I think," continued Colville, dropping his ironical tone, + "that we've much less to regret in their unsuspecting, + unsophisticated freedom than in the type of hard materialism + which we produce in young girls, perfectly wide awake, + disenchanted, unromantic, who prefer the worldly vanities and + advantages deliberately and on principle, recognising + something better merely to despise it. I've sometimes seen + them——" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen came up in her gentle, inquiring way. "I'm glad + that you and Mr. Colville have made acquaintance," she said + to the old gentleman. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, but we haven't," said Colville. "We're entire + strangers." + </p> + <p> + "Then I'll introduce you to Rev. Mr. Waters. And take you + away," she added, putting her hand through Colville's arm + with a delicate touch that flattered his whole being, "for + your time's come at last, and I'm going to present you to + Miss Graham." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," he said. "Of course, as there is a Miss + Graham, I can't help being presented to her, but I had almost + worked myself up to the point of wishing there were none. I + believe I'm afraid." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't believe that at all. A simple schoolgirl like + that!" Mrs. Bowen's sense of humour had not the national + acuteness. She liked joking in men, but she did not know how + to say funny things back "You'll see, as you come up to her." + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="IV"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + IV + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Miss Graham did, indeed, somehow diminish in the nearer + perspective. She ceased to be overwhelming. When Colville + lifted his eyes from bowing before her he perceived that + she—was neither so very tall nor so very large, but + possessed merely a generous amplitude of womanhood. But she + was even more beautiful, with a sweet and youthful radiance + of look that was very winning. If she had ceased to be the + goddess she looked across the length of the <i>salon</i>, she + had gained much by becoming an extremely lovely young girl; + and her teeth, when she spoke, showed a fascinating little + irregularity that gave her the last charm. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen glided away with the young clergyman, but Effie + remained at Miss Graham's side, and seemed to have hold of + the left hand which the girl let hang carelessly behind her + in the volume of her robe. The child's face expressed an + adoration of Miss Graham far beyond her allegiance to her + mother. + </p> + <p> + "I began to doubt whether Mrs. Bowen was going to bring you + at all," she said frankly, with an innocent, nervous laugh, + which made favour for her with Colville. "She promised it + early in the evening." + </p> + <p> + "She has used me much worse, Miss Graham," said Colville. + "She has kept me waiting from the beginning of time. So that + I have grown grey on my way up to you," he added, by an + inspiration. "I was a comparatively young man when Mrs. Bowen + first told me she was going to introduce me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, how <i>good</i>!" said Miss Graham joyously. And her + companion, after a moment's hesitation, permitted herself a + polite little titter. She had made a discovery; she had + discovered that Mr. Colville was droll. + </p> + <p> + "I'm very glad you like it," he said, with a gravity that did + not deceive them. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes," sighed Miss Graham, with generous ardour. "Who but + an American could say just such things? There's the loveliest + old lady here in Florence, who's lived here thirty years, and + she's always going back and never getting back, and she's so + homesick she doesn't know what to do, and she always says + that Americans may not be <i>better</i> than other people, + but they are <i>different</i>." + </p> + <p> + "That's very pretty. They're different in everything but + thinking themselves better. Their native modesty prevents + that." + </p> + <p> + "I don't exactly know what you mean," said Miss Graham, after + a little hesitation. + </p> + <p> + "Well," returned Colville, "I haven't thought it out very + clearly myself yet. I may mean that the Americans differ from + other people in not thinking well of themselves, or they may + differ from them in not thinking well enough. But what I said + had a very epigrammatic sound, and I prefer not to + investigate it too closely." + </p> + <p> + This made Miss Graham and Miss Effie both cry out "Oh!" in + delighted doubt of his intention. They both insensibly + drifted a little nearer to him. + </p> + <p> + "There was a French lady said to me at the + <i>table-d'hote</i> this evening that she knew I was an + American, because the Americans always strike the key of + personality." He practised these economies of material in + conversation quite recklessly, and often made the same + incident or suggestion do duty round a whole company. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I don't believe that," said Miss Graham. + </p> + <p> + "Believe what?" + </p> + <p> + "That the Americans always talk about themselves." + </p> + <p> + "I'm not sure she meant that. You never can tell what a + person means by what he says—or <i>she</i>." + </p> + <p> + "How shocking!". + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps the French lady meant that we always talk about + other people. That's in the key of personality too." + </p> + <p> + "But I don't believe we do," said Miss Graham. "At any rate, + <i>she</i> was talking about <i>us</i>, then." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, she accounted for that by saying there was a large + American colony in Paris, who had corrupted the French, and + taught them our pernicious habit of introspection." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think we're very introspective?" + </p> + <p> + "Do you?" + </p> + <p> + "I know I'm not. I hardly ever think about myself at all. At + any rate, not till it's too late. That's the great trouble. I + wish I could. But I'm always studying other people. They're + so much more interesting." + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps if you knew yourself better you wouldn't think so," + suggested Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I know they are. I don't think any young person can be + interesting." + </p> + <p> + "Then what becomes of all the novels? They're full of young + persons." + </p> + <p> + "They're ridiculous. If I were going to write a novel, I + should take an old person for a hero—thirty-five or + forty." She looked at Colville, and blushing a little, + hastened to add, "I don't believe that they begin to be + interesting much before that time. Such flat things as young + men are always saying! Don't you remember that passage + somewhere in Heine's <i>Pictures of Travel</i>, where he sees + the hand of a lady coming out from under her mantle, when + she's confessing in a church, and he knows that it's the hand + of a young person who has enjoyed nothing and suffered + nothing, it's so smooth and flower-like? After I read that I + hated the look of my hands—I was only sixteen, and it + seemed as if I had had no more experience than a child. Oh, I + like people to go <i>through</i> something. Don't you?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, yes, I suppose I do. Other people." + </p> + <p> + "No; but don't you like it for yourself?" + </p> + <p> + "I can't tell; I haven't been through anything worth speaking + of yet." + </p> + <p> + Miss Graham looked at him dubiously, but pursued with ardour: + "Why, just getting back to Florence, after not having been + here for so long—I should think it would be so + romantic. Oh dear! I wish I were here for the second time." + </p> + <p> + "I'm afraid you wouldn't like it so well," said Colville. "I + wish I were here for the first time. There's nothing like the + first time in everything." + </p> + <p> + "Do you really think so?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, there's nothing like the first time in Florence." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I can't imagine it. I should think that recalling the + old emotions would be perfectly fascinating." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, if they'd come when you do call them. But they're as + contrary-minded as spirits from the vasty deep. I've been + shouting around here for my old emotions all day, and I + haven't had a responsive squeak." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" cried Miss Graham, staring full-eyed at him. "How + delightful!" Effie Bowen turned away her pretty little head + and laughed, as if it might not be quite kind to laugh at a + person's joke to his face. + </p> + <p> + Stimulated by their appreciation, Colville went on with more + nonsense. "No; the only way to get at your old emotions in + regard to Florence is to borrow them from somebody who's + having them fresh. What do <i>you</i> think about Florence, + Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "I? I've been here two months." + </p> + <p> + "Then it's too late?" + </p> + <p> + "No, I don't know that it is. I keep feeling the strangeness + all the time. But I can't tell you. It's very different from + Buffalo, I can assure you." + </p> + <p> + "Buffalo? I can imagine the difference. And it's not + altogether to the disadvantage of Buffalo." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, have you been there?" asked Miss Graham, with a touching + little eagerness. "Do you know anybody in Buffalo?" + </p> + <p> + "Some of the newspaper men; and I pass through there once a + year on my way to New York—or used to. It's a lively + place." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, it is," sighed Miss Graham fondly. + </p> + <p> + "Do the girls of Buffalo still come out at night and dance by + the light of the moon?" + </p> + <p> + "What!" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I see," said Colville, peering at her under his + thoughtfully knitted brows, "you do belong to another era. + You don't remember the old negro minstrel song." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Miss Graham. "I can only remember the end of the + war." + </p> + <p> + "How divinely young!" said Colville. "Well," he added, "I + wish that French lady could have overheard us, Miss Graham. I + think she would have changed her mind about Americans + striking the note of personality in their talk." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" exclaimed the girl reproachfully, after a moment of + swift reflection and recognition, "I don't see how you could + let me do it! You don't suppose that I should have talked so + with every one? It was because you were another American, and + such an old friend of Mrs. Bowen's." + </p> + <p> + "That is what I shall certainly tell the French lady if she + attacks me about it," said Colville. He glanced carelessly + toward the end of the room, and saw the young clergyman + taking leave of Mrs. Bowen; all the rest of the company were + gone. "Bless me!" he said, "I must be going." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen had so swiftly advanced upon him that she caught + the last words. "Why?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "Because it's to-morrow, I suspect, and the invitation was + for one day only." + </p> + <p> + "It was a season ticket," said Mrs. Bowen, with gay + hospitality, "and it isn't to-morrow for half an hour yet. I + can't think of letting you go. Come up to the fire, all, and + let's sit down by it. It's at its very best." + </p> + <p> + Effie looked a pretty surprise and a pleasure in this girlish + burst from her mother, whose habitual serenity made it more + striking in contrast, and she forsook Miss Graham's hand and + ran forward and disposed the easy-chairs comfortably about + the hearth. + </p> + <p> + Colville and Mrs. Bowen suddenly found themselves upon those + terms which often succeed a long separation with people who + have felt kindly toward each other at a former meeting and + have parted friends: they were much more intimate than they + had supposed themselves to be, or had really any reason for + being. + </p> + <p> + "Which one of your guests do you wish me to offer up, Mrs. + Bowen?" he asked, from the hollow of the arm-chair, not too + low, which he had sunk into. With Mrs. Bowen in a higher + chair at his right hand, and Miss Graham intent upon him from + the sofa on his left, a sense of delicious satisfaction + filled him from head to foot. "There isn't one I would spare + if you said the word." + </p> + <p> + "And there isn't one I want destroyed, I'm sorry to say," + answered Mrs. Bowen. "Don't you think they were all very + agreeable?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, yes; agreeable enough—agreeable enough, I + suppose. But they stayed too long. When I think we might have + been sitting here for the last half-hour, if they'd only gone + sooner, I find it pretty hard to forgive them." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen and Miss Graham exchanged glances above his + head—a glance which demanded, "Didn't I tell you?" for + a glance that answered, "Oh, he <i>is</i>!" Effie Bowen's + eyes widened; she kept them fastened upon Colville in silent + worship. + </p> + <p> + He asked who were certain of the company that he had noticed, + and Mrs. Bowen let him make a little fun of them: the fun was + very good-natured. He repeated what the German had said about + the worldly ambition of American girls; but she would not + allow him so great latitude in this. She said they were no + worldlier than other girls. Of course, they were fond of + society, and some of them got a little spoiled. But they were + in no danger of becoming too conventional. + </p> + <p> + Colville did not insist. "I missed the military to-night, + Mrs. Bowen," he said. "I thought one couldn't get through an + evening in Florence without officers?" + </p> + <p> + "We have them when there is dancing," returned Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, but they don't know anything but dancing," Miss Graham + broke in. "I like some one who can talk something besides + compliments." + </p> + <p> + "You are very peculiar, you know, Imogene," urged Mrs. Bowen + gently. "I don't think our young men at home do much better + in conversation, if you come to that, though." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, <i>young</i> men, yes! They're the same everywhere. But + here, even when they're away along in the thirties, they + think that girls can only enjoy flattery. <i>I</i> should + like a gentleman to talk to me without a single word or look + to show that he thought I was good-looking." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, how could he he?" Colville insinuated, and the young + girl coloured. + </p> + <p> + "I mean, if I were pretty. This everlasting adulation is + insulting." + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Morton doesn't flatter," said Mrs. Bowen thoughtfully, + turning the feather screen she held at her face, now + edgewise, now flatwise, toward Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no," owned Miss Graham. "He's a clergyman." + </p> + <p> + Mrs Bowen addressed herself to Colville. "You must go to hear + him some day. He's very interesting, if you don't mind his + being rather Low Church." + </p> + <p> + Colville was going to pretend to an advanced degree of + ritualism; but it occurred to him that it might be a serious + matter to Mrs. Bowen, and he asked instead who was the Rev. + Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, isn't he lovely?" cried Miss Graham. "There, Mrs. Bowen! + Mr. Waters's manner is what I call <i>truly</i> + complimentary. He always talks to you as if he expected you + to be interested in serious matters, and as if you were his + intellectual equal. And he's so <i>happy</i> here in + Florence! He gives you the impression of feeling every breath + he breathes here a privilege. You ought to hear him talk + about Savonarola, Mr. Colville." + </p> + <p> + "Well," said Colville, "I've heard a great many people talk + about Savonarola, and I'm rather glad he talked to me about + American girls." + </p> + <p> + "American girls!" uttered Miss Graham, in a little scream. + "Did Mr. Waters talk to you about <i>girls</i>?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. Why not? He was probably in love with one once." + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Waters?" cried the girl. "What nonsense!" + </p> + <p> + "Well, then, with some old lady. Would you like that better?" + </p> + <p> + Miss Graham looked at Mrs. Bowen for permission, as it + seemed, and then laughed, but did not attempt any reply to + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "You find even that incredible of such pyramidal antiquity," + he resumed. "Well, it <i>is</i> hard to believe. I told him + what that German said, and we agreed beautifully about + another type of American girl which we said we preferred." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! What could it be?" demanded Miss Graham. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, it wouldn't be so easy to say right off-hand," answered + Colville indolently. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen put her hand under the elbow of the arm holding + her screen. "I don't believe I should agree with you so + well," she said, apparently with a sort of didactic + intention. + </p> + <p> + They entered into a discussion which is always fruitful with + Americans—the discussion of American girlhood, and + Colville contended for the old national ideal of girlish + liberty as wide as the continent, as fast as the Mississippi. + Mrs. Bowen withstood him with delicate firmness. "Oh," he + said, "you're Europeanised." + </p> + <p> + "I certainly prefer the European plan of bringing up girls," + she replied steadfastly. "I shouldn't think of letting a + daughter of mine have the freedom I had." + </p> + <p> + "Well, perhaps it will come right in the next generation, + then; she will let her daughter have the freedom she hadn't." + </p> + <p> + "Not if I'm alive to prevent it," cried Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed. "Which plan do you prefer, Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't think it's quite the same now as it used to be," + answered the girl evasively. + </p> + <p> + "Well, then, all I can say is that if I had died before this + chance, I had lived a blessed time. I perceive more and more + that I'm obsolete. I'm in my dotage; I prattle of the good + old times, and the new spirit of the age flouts me. Miss + Effie, do you prefer the Amer——" + </p> + <p> + "No, thank you," said her mother quickly. + </p> + <p> + "Effie is out of the question. It's time you were in bed, + Effie." + </p> + <p> + The child came with instant submissiveness and kissed her + mother good-night; she kissed Miss Graham, and gave her hand + to Colville. He held it a moment, letting her pull shyly away + from him, while he lolled back in his chair, and laughed at + her with his sad eyes. "It's past the time <i>I</i> should be + in bed, my dear, and I'm sitting up merely because there's + nobody to send me. It's not that I'm really such a very bad + boy. Good night. Don't put me into a disagreeable dream; put + me into a nice one." The child bridled at the mild + pleasantry, and when Colville released her hand she suddenly + stooped forward and kissed him. + </p> + <p> + "You're so <i>funny</i>!" she cried, and ran and escaped + beyond the <i>portière</i>. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen stared in the same direction, but not with + severity. "Really, Effie has been carried a little beyond + herself." + </p> + <p> + "Well," said Colville, "that's <i>one</i> conquest since I + came to Florence. And merely by being funny! When I was in + Florence before, Mrs. used to go about quite freely with + either of them. They were both very pretty, and we were all + very young. Don't you think it was charming?" Mrs. Bowen + coloured a lovely red, and smiled, but made no other + response. "Florence has changed very much for the worse since + that time. There used to be a pretty flower-girl, with a + wide-flapping straw hat, who flung a heavy bough full of + roses into my lap when she met me driving across the Carraja + bridge. I spent an hour looking for that girl to-day, and + couldn't find her. The only flower-girl I could find was a + fat one of fifty, who kept me fifteen minutes in Via + Tornabuoni while she was fumbling away at my button-hole, + trying to poke three second-hand violets and a sickly daisy + into it. Ah, youth! youth! I suppose a young fellow could + have found that other flower-girl at a glance; but <i>my</i> + old eyes! No, we belong, each of us, to our own generation. + Mrs. Bowen," he said, with a touch of tragedy—whether + real or affected, he did not well know himself—in his + hardiness, "what has become of Mrs. Pilsbury?" + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Milbury, you mean?" gasped Mrs. Bowen, in affright at + his boldness. + </p> + <p> + "Milbury, Bilbury, Pilsbury—it's all one, so long as it + isn't——" + </p> + <p> + "They're living in Chicago!" she hastened to reply, as if she + were afraid he was going to say, "so long as it isn't + Colville," and she could not have borne that. + </p> + <p> + Colville clasped his hands at the back of his head and looked + at Mrs. Bowen with eyes that let her know that he was + perfectly aware she had been telling Miss Graham of his + youthful romance, and that he had now touched it purposely. + "And you wouldn't," he said, as if that were quite relevant + to what they had been talking about—"you wouldn't let + Miss Graham go out walking alone with a dotard like me?" + </p> + <p> + "Certainly not," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + Colville got to his feet by a surprising activity. "Good-bye, + Miss Graham." He offered his hand to her with burlesque + despair, and then turned to Mrs. Bowen. "Thank you for + <i>such</i> a pleasant evening! What was your day, did you + say?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, any day!" said Mrs. Bowen cordially, giving her hand. + </p> + <p> + "Do you know whom you look like?" he asked, holding it. + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Lina Ridgely." + </p> + <p> + The ladies stirred softly in their draperies after he was + gone. They turned and faced the hearth, where a log burned in + a bed of hot ashes, softly purring and ticking to itself, and + whilst they stood pressing their hands against the warm + fronts of their dresses, as the fashion of women is before a + fire, the clock on the mantel began to strike twelve. + </p> + <p> + "Was that her name?" asked Miss Graham, when the clock had + had its say. "Lina Ridgely?" + </p> + <p> + "No; that was <i>my</i> name," answered Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes!" murmured the young girl apologetically. + </p> + <p> + "She led him on; she certainly encouraged him. It was + shocking. He was quite wild about it." + </p> + <p> + "She must have been a cruel girl. How <i>could</i> he speak + of it so lightly?" + </p> + <p> + "It was best to speak of it, and have done with it," said + Mrs. Bowen. "He knew that I must have been telling you + something about it." + </p> + <p> + "Yes. How bold it was! A <i>young</i> man couldn't have done + it! Yes, he's fascinating. But how old and sad he looked, as + he lay back there in the chair!" + </p> + <p> + "Old? I don't think he looked old. He looked sad. Yes, it's + left its mark on him." + </p> + <p> + The log burned quite through to its core, and fell asunder, a + bristling mass of embers. They had been looking at it with + downcast heads. Now they lifted their faces, and saw the pity + in each other's eyes, and the beautiful girl impulsively + kissed the pretty woman good-night. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="V"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + Colville fell asleep with the flattered sense which abounds + in the heart of a young man after his first successful + evening in society, but which can visit maturer life only + upon some such conditions of long exile and return as had + been realised in his. The looks of these two charming women + followed him into his dreams; he knew he must have pleased + them, the dramatic homage of the child was evidence of that; + and though it had been many years since he had found it + sufficient cause of happiness to have pleased a woman, the + desire to do so was by no means extinct in him. The eyes of + the girl hovered above him like stars; he felt in their soft + gaze that he was a romance to her young heart, and this made + him laugh; it also made him sigh. + </p> + <p> + He woke at dawn with a sharp twinge in his shoulder, and he + rose to give himself the pleasure of making his own fire with + those fagots of broom and pine twigs which he had enjoyed the + night before, promising himself to get back into bed when the + fire was well going, and sleep late. While he stood before + the open stove, the jangling of a small bell outside called + him to the window, and he saw a procession which had just + issued from the church going to administer the extreme + unction to some dying person across the piazza. The parish + priest went first, bearing the consecrated wafer in its + vessel, and at his side an acolyte holding a yellow silk + umbrella over the Eucharist; after them came a number of + <i>facchini</i> in white robes and white hoods that hid their + faces; their tapers burned sallow and lifeless in the new + morning light; the bell jangled dismally. + </p> + <p> + "They even die dramatically in this country," thought + Colville, in whom the artist was taken with the effectiveness + of the spectacle before his human pity was stirred for the + poor soul who was passing. He reproached himself for that, + and instead of getting back to bed, he dressed and waited for + the mature hour which he had ordered his breakfast for. When + it came at last, picturesquely borne on the open hand of + Giovanni, steaming coffee, hot milk, sweet butter in delicate + disks, and two white eggs coyly tucked in the fold of a + napkin, and all grouped upon the wide salver, it brought him + a measure of the consolation which good cheer imparts to the + ridiculous human heart even in the house where death is. But + the sad incident tempered his mind with a sort of pensiveness + that lasted throughout the morning, and quite till lunch. He + spent the time in going about the churches; but the sunshine + which the day began with was overcast, as it was the day + before, and the churches were rather too dark and cold in the + afternoon. He went to Viesseux's reading-room and looked over + the English papers, which he did not care for much; and he + also made a diligent search of the catalogue for some book + about Florence for little Effie Bowen: he thought he would + like to surprise her mother with his interest in the matter. + As the day waned toward dark, he felt more and more tempted + to take her at her word, when she had said that any day was + her day to him, and go to see her. If he had been a younger + man he would have anxiously considered this indulgence and + denied himself, but after forty a man denies himself no + reasonable and harmless indulgence; he has learned by that + time that it is a pity and a folly to do so. + </p> + <p> + Colville found Mrs. Bowen's room half full of arriving and + departing visitors, and then he remembered that it was this + day she had named to him on the Ponte Vecchio, and when Miss + Graham thanked him for coming his first Thursday, he made a + merit of not having forgotten it, and said he was going to + come every Thursday during the winter. Miss Graham drew him a + cup of tea from the Russian samovar which replaces in some + Florentine houses the tea-pot of Occidental civilisation, and + Colville smiled upon it and upon her, bending over the brazen + urn with a flower-like tilt of her beautiful head. She wore + an aesthetic dress of creamy camel's-hair, whose colour + pleased the eye as its softness would have flattered the + touch. + </p> + <p> + "What a very Tourguéneffish effect the samovar gives!" + he said, taking a biscuit from the basket Effie Bowen brought + him, shrinking with redoubled shyness from the eyebrows which + he arched at her. "I wonder you can keep from calling me + Fedor Colvillitch. Where is your mother, Effie Bowenovna?" he + asked of the child, with a temptation to say Imogene + Grahamovna. + </p> + <p> + They both looked mystified, but Miss Graham said, "I'm sorry + to say you won't see Mrs. Bowen today. She has a very bad + headache, and has left Effie and me to receive. We feel very + incompetent, but she says it will do us good." + </p> + <p> + There were some people there of the night before, and + Colville had to talk to them. One of the ladies asked him if + he had met the Inglehart boys as he came in. + </p> + <p> + "The Inglehart boys? No. What are the Inglehart boys?" + </p> + <p> + "They were here all last winter, and they've just got back. + It's rather exciting for Florence." She gave him a rapid + sketch of that interesting exodus of a score of young + painters from the art school at Munich, under the head of the + singular and fascinating genius by whose name they became + known. "They had their own school for a while in Munich, and + then they all came down into Italy in a body. They had their + studio things with them, and they travelled third class, and + they made the greatest excitement everywhere, and had the + greatest fun. They were a great sensation in Florence. They + went everywhere, and were such favourites. I hope they are + going to stay." + </p> + <p> + "I hope so too," said Colville. "I should like to see them." + </p> + <p> + "Dear me!" said the lady, with a glance at the clock. "It's + five! I must be going." + </p> + <p> + The other ladies went, and Colville approached to take leave, + but Miss Graham detained him. + </p> + <p> + "What is Tourguéneffish?" she demanded. + </p> + <p> + "The quality of the great Russian novelist, + Tourguéneff," said Colville, perceiving that she had + not heard of him. + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" + </p> + <p> + "You ought to read him. The samovar sends up its agreeable + odour all through his books. Read <i>Lisa</i> if you want + your heart really broken. + </p> + <p> + "I'm glad you approve of heart-breaks in books. So many + people won't read anything but cheerful books. It's the only + quarrel I have with Mrs. Bowen. She says there are so many + sad things in life that they ought to be kept out of books." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, there I perceive a divided duty," said Colville. "I + should like to agree with both of you. But if Mrs. Bowen were + here I should remind her that if there are so many sad things + in life that is a very good reason for putting them in books + too." + </p> + <p> + "Of course I shall tell her what you said." + </p> + <p> + "Why, I don't object to a certain degree of cheerfulness in + books; only don't carry it too far—that's all." + </p> + <p> + This made the young girl laugh, and Colville was encouraged + to go on. He told her of the sight he had seen from his + window at daybreak, and he depicted it all very graphically, + and made her feel its pathos perhaps more keenly than he had + felt it. "Now, that little incident kept with me all day, + tempering my boisterous joy in the Giottos, and reducing me + to a decent composure in the presence of the Cimabues; and + it's pretty hard to keep from laughing at some of them, don't + you think?" + </p> + <p> + The young people perceived that he was making fun again; but + he continued with an air of greater seriousness. "Don't you + see what a very good thing that was to begin one's day with? + Why, even in Santa Croce, with the thermometer ten degrees + below zero in the shade of Alfieri's monument, I was no gayer + than I should have been in a church at home. I suppose Mrs. + Bowen would object to having that procession go by under + one's window in a book; but I can't really see how it would + hurt the reader, or damp his spirits permanently. A wholesome + reaction would ensue, such as you see now in me, whom the + thing happened to in real life." + </p> + <p> + He stirred his tea, and shook with an inward laugh as he + carried it to his lips. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Miss Graham thoughtfully, and she looked at him + searchingly in the interval of silence that ensued. But she + only added, "I wish it would get warmer in the churches. I've + seen hardly anything of them yet." + </p> + <p> + "From the way I felt in them to-day," sighed Colville, "I + should think the churches would begin to thaw out about the + middle of May. But if one goes well wrapped up in furs, and + has a friend along to rouse him and keep him walking when he + is about to fall into that lethargy which precedes death by + freezing, I think they may be visited even now with safety. + Have you been in Santa Maria Novella yet?" + </p> + <p> + "No," said Miss Graham, with a shake of the head that + expressed her resolution to speak the whole truth if she died + for it, "not even in Santa Maria Novella." + </p> + <p> + "What a wonderful old place it is! That curious + façade, with the dials and its layers of black and + white marble soaked golden-red in a hundred thousand sunsets! + That exquisite grand portal!" He gesticulated with the hand + that the tea-cup left free, to suggest form and measurement + as artists do. "Then the inside! The great Cimabue, with all + that famous history on its back—the first divine + Madonna by the first divine master, carried through the + streets in a triumph of art and religion! Those frescoes of + Ghirlandajo's with real Florentine faces and figures in them, + and all lavished upon the eternal twilight of that + choir—but I suppose that if the full day were let in on + them, once, they would vanish like ghosts at cock-crow! You + must be sure to see the Spanish chapel; and the old cloister + itself is such a pathetic place. There's a boys' school, as + well as a military college, in the suppressed convent now, + and the colonnades were full of boys running and screaming + and laughing and making a joyful racket; it was so much more + sorrowful than silence would have been there. One of the + little scamps came up to me, and the young monk that was + showing me round, and bobbed us a mocking bow and bobbed his + hat off; then they all burst out laughing again and raced + away, and the monk looked after them and said, so sweetly and + wearily, 'They're at their diversions: we must have + patience.' There are only twelve monks left there; all the + rest are scattered and gone." He gave his cup to Miss Graham + for more tea. + </p> + <p> + "Don't you think," she asked, drawing it from the samovar, + "that it is very sad having the convents suppressed?" + </p> + <p> + "It was very sad having slavery abolished—for some + people," suggested Colville; he felt the unfairness of the + point he had made. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," sighed Miss Graham. + </p> + <p> + Colville stood stirring his second cup of tea, when the + <i>portière</i> parted, and showed Mrs. Bowen + wistfully pausing on the threshold. Her face was pale, but + she looked extremely pretty there. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, come in, Mrs. Bowen!" he called gaily to her. "I won't + give you away to the other people. A cup of tea will do you + good." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I'm a great deal better," said Mrs. Bowen, coming + forward to give him her hand. "I heard your voice, and I + couldn't resist looking in." + </p> + <p> + "That was very kind of you," said Colville gratefully: and + her eyes met his in a glance that flushed her face a deep + red. "You find me here—<i>I</i> don't know + why!—in my character of old family friend, doing my + best to make life a burden to the young ladies." + </p> + <p> + "I wish you would stay to a family dinner with us," said Mrs. + Bowen, and Miss Graham brightened in cordial support of the + hospitality. "Why can't you?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know, unless it's because I'm a humane person, and + have some consideration for your headache." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, that's all gone," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was one of those + convenient headaches—if you ever had them, you'd + know—that go off at sunset." + </p> + <p> + "But you'd have another to-morrow." + </p> + <p> + "No, I'm safe for a whole fortnight from another." + </p> + <p> + "Then you leave me without an excuse, and I was just wishing + I had none," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + After dinner Mrs. Bowen sent Effie to bed early to make up + for the late hours of the night before, but she sat before + the fire with Miss Graham rather late, talking Colville over, + when he was gone. + </p> + <p> + "He's very puzzling to me," said Miss Graham. "Sometimes you + think he's nothing but an old cynic, from his talk, and then + something so sweet and fresh comes out that you don't know + what to do. Don't you think he has really a very poetical + mind, and that he's putting all the rest on?" + </p> + <p> + "I think he likes to make little effects," said Mrs. Bowen + judiciously. "He always did, rather." + </p> + <p> + "Why, was he like this when he was young?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't consider him very old now." + </p> + <p> + "No, of course not. I meant when you knew him before." Miss + Graham had some needlework in her hand; Mrs. Bowen, who never + even pretended to work at that kind of thing, had nothing in + hers but the feather screen. + </p> + <p> + "He is old, compared with you, Imogene; but you'll find, as + you live along, that your contemporaries are always young. + Mr. Colville is very much improved. He used to be painfully + shy, but he put on a bold front, and now the bold front seems + to have become a second nature with him." + </p> + <p> + "I like it," said Miss Graham, to her needle. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; but I suspect he's still shy, at heart. He used to be + very sentimental, and was always talking Ruskin. I think if + he hadn't talked Ruskin so much, Jenny Milbury might have + treated him better. It was very priggish in him." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I can't imagine Mr. Colville's being priggish!" + </p> + <p> + "He's very much improved. He used to be quite a sloven in his + dress; you know how very slovenly most American gentlemen are + in their dress, at any rate. I think that influenced her + against him too." + </p> + <p> + "He isn't slovenly now," suggested Miss Graham. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; he's quite swell," said Mrs. Bowen, depriving the + adjective of slanginess by the refinement of her tone. + </p> + <p> + "Well," said Miss Graham, "I don't see how you could have + endured her after that. It was atrocious." + </p> + <p> + "It was better for her to break with him, if she found out + she didn't love him, than to marry him. That," said Mrs. + Bowen, with a depth of feeling uncommon for her, "would have + been a thousand times worse." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, but she ought to have found out before she led him on + so far." + </p> + <p> + "Sometimes girls can't. They don't know themselves; they + think they're in love when they're not. She was very + impulsive, and of course she was flattered by it; he was so + intellectual. But at last she found that she couldn't bear + it, and she had to tell him so." + </p> + <p> + "Did she ever say why she didn't love him?" + </p> + <p> + "No; I don't suppose she could. The only thing I remember her + saying was that he was 'too much of a mixture.'" + </p> + <p> + "What <i>did</i> she mean by that?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know exactly." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think he's insincere?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no. Perhaps she meant that he wasn't single-minded." + </p> + <p> + "Fickle?" + </p> + <p> + "No. He certainly wasn't that in her case." + </p> + <p> + "Undecided?" + </p> + <p> + "He was decided enough with her—at last." + </p> + <p> + Imogene dropped the hopeless quest, "How can a man ever stand + such a thing?" she sighed. + </p> + <p> + "He stood it very nobly. That was the best thing about it; he + took it in the most delicate way. She showed me his letter. + There wasn't a word or a hint of reproach in it; he seemed to + be anxious about nothing but her feeling badly for him. Of + course he couldn't help showing that he was mortified for + having pursued her with attentions that were disagreeable to + her; but that was delicate too. Yes, it was a very + large-minded letter," + </p> + <p> + "It was shocking in her to show it." + </p> + <p> + "It wasn't very nice. But it was a letter that any girl might + have been proud to show." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, she <i>couldn't</i> have done it to gratify her vanity!" + </p> + <p> + "Girls are very queer, my dear," said Mrs. Bowen, as if the + fact were an abstraction. She mused upon the flat of her + screen, while Miss Graham plied her needle in silence. + </p> + <p> + The latter spoke first. "Do you think he was very much broken + by it?" + </p> + <p> + "You never can tell. He went out west then, and there he has + stayed ever since. I suppose his life would have been very + different if nothing of the kind had happened. He had a great + deal of talent. I always thought I should hear of him in some + way." + </p> + <p> + "Well, it was a heartless, shameless thing! I don't see how + you can speak of it so leniently as you do, Mrs. Bowen. It + makes all sorts of coquetry and flirtation more detestable to + me than ever. Why, it has ruined his life!" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he was young enough then to outlive it. After all, they + were a boy and girl." + </p> + <p> + "A boy and girl! How old were they?" + </p> + <p> + "He must have been twenty-three or four, and she was twenty." + </p> + <p> + "My age! Do you call that being a girl?" + </p> + <p> + "She was old enough to know what she was about," said Mrs. + Bowen justly. + </p> + <p> + Imogene fell back in her chair, drawing out her needle the + full length of its thread, and then letting her hand fall. "I + don't know. It seems as if I never should be grown up, or + anything but a child. Yes, when I think of the way young men + talk, they do seem boys. Why can't they talk like Mr. + Colville? I wish I could talk like him. It makes you forget + how old and plain he is." + </p> + <p> + She remained with her eyelids dropped in an absent survey of + her sewing, while Mrs. Bowen regarded her with a look of + vexation, impatience, resentment, on the last refinement of + these emotions, which she banished from her face before Miss + Graham looked up and said, with a smile "How funny it is to + see Effie's infatuation with him! She can't take her eyes off + him for a moment, and she follows him round the room so as + not to lose a word he is saying. It was heroic of her to go + to bed without a murmur before he left to-night." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, she sees that he is good," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, she sees that he's something very much more. Mr. Waters + is good." + </p> + <p> + Miss Graham had the best of the argument, and so Mrs. Bowen + did not reply. + </p> + <p> + "I feel," continued the young girl, "as if it were almost a + shame to have asked him to go to that silly dancing party + with us. It seems as if we didn't appreciate him. I think we + ought to have kept him for high aesthetic occasions and + historical researches." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't think Mr. Colville was very deeply offended at + being asked to go with us." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Imogene, with another sigh, "he didn't seem so. I + suppose there's always an undercurrent of sadness—of + tragedy—in everything for him." + </p> + <p> + "I don't suppose anything of the kind," cried Mrs. Bowen + gaily. "He's had time enough to get over it." + </p> + <p> + "Do people <i>ever</i> get over such things?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes—men." + </p> + <p> + "It must be because he was young, as you say. But if it had + happened <i>now</i>?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it <i>couldn't</i> happen now. He's altogether too cool + and calculating." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think he's cool and calculating?" + </p> + <p> + "No. He's too old for a broken heart—a new one." + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Bowen," demanded the girl solemnly, "could <i>you</i> + forgive yourself for such a thing if you had done it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, perfectly well, if I wasn't in love with him." + </p> + <p> + "But if you'd made him <i>think</i> you were?" pursued the + girl breathlessly. + </p> + <p> + "If I were a flirt—yes." + </p> + <p> + "<i>I</i> couldn't," said Imogene, with tragic depth. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, be done with your intensities, and go to bed, Imogene," + said Mrs. Bowen, giving her a playful push. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="VI"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + VI + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + It was so long since Colville had been at a dancing party + that Mrs. Bowen's offer to take him to Madame Uccelli's had + first struck his sense of the ludicrous. Then it had begun to + flatter him; it implied that he was still young enough to + dance if he would, though he had stipulated that they were + not to expect anything of the kind from him. He liked also + the notion of being seen and accepted in Florentine society + as the old friend of Mrs. Bowen's, for he had not been long + in discovering that her position in Florence was, among the + foreign residents, rather authoritative. She was one of the + very few Americans who were asked to Italian houses, and + Italian houses lying even beyond the neutral ground of + English-speaking intermarriages. She was not, of course, + asked to the great Princess Strozzi ball, where the + Florentine nobility appeared in the mediaeval pomp—the + veritable costumes—of their ancestors; only a rich + American banking family went, and their distinction was + spoken of under the breath; but any glory short of this was + within Mrs. Bowen's reach. So an old lady who possessed + herself of Colville the night before had told him, + celebrating Mrs. Bowen at length, and boasting of her + acceptance among the best English residents, who, next after + the natives, seem to constitute the social ambition of + Americans living in Italian cities. + </p> + <p> + It interested him to find that some geographical distinctions + which are fading at home had quite disappeared in Florence. + When he was there before, people from quite small towns in + the East had made pretty Lina Ridgely and her friend feel the + disadvantage of having come from the Western side of an + imaginary line; he had himself been at the pains always to + let people know, at the American watering-places where he + spent his vacations, that though presently from Des Vaches, + Indiana, he was really born in Rhode Island; but in Florence + it was not at all necessary. He found in Mrs. Bowen's house + people from Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, New York, and + Baltimore, all meeting as of apparently the same + civilisation, and whether Mrs. Bowen's own origin was, like + that of the Etruscan cities, lost in the mists of antiquity, + or whether she had sufficiently atoned for the error of her + birth by subsequent residence in the national capital and + prolonged sojourn in New York, it seemed certainly not to be + remembered against her among her Eastern acquaintance. The + time had been when the fact that Miss Graham came from + Buffalo would have gone far to class her with the animal from + which her native city had taken its name; but now it made no + difference, unless it was a difference in her favour. The + English spoke with the same vague respect of Buffalo and of + Philadelphia; and to a family of real Bostonians Colville had + the courage to say simply that he lived in Des Vaches, and + not to seek to palliate the truth in any sort. If he wished + to prevaricate at all, it was rather to attribute himself to + Mrs. Bowen's city in Ohio. + </p> + <p> + She and Miss Graham called for him with her carriage the next + night, when it was time to go to Madame Uccelli's. + </p> + <p> + "This gives me a very patronised and effeminate feeling," + said Colville, getting into the odorous dark of the carriage, + and settling himself upon the front seat with a skill + inspired by his anxiety not to tear any of the silken + spreading white wraps that inundated the whole interior. + "Being come for by ladies!" They both gave some nervous + joyful laughs, as they found his hand in the obscurity, and + left the sense of a gloved pressure upon it. "Is this the way + you used to do in Vesprucius, Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no, indeed!" she answered. "The young gentlemen used to + find out whether I was going, and came for me with a hack, + and generally, if the weather was good, we walked home." + </p> + <p> + "That's the way we still do in Des Vaches. Sometimes, as a + tremendous joke, the ladies come for us in leap-year. How do + you go to balls in Buffalo, Miss Graham? Or, no; I withdraw + the embarrassing question." Some gleams from the street + lamps, as they drove along, struck in through the carriage + windows, and flitted over the ladies' faces and were gone + again. "Ah! this is very trying. Couldn't you stop him at the + next corner, and let me see how radiant you ladies really + are? I may be in very great danger; I'd like to know just how + much." + </p> + <p> + "It wouldn't be of any use," cried the young girl gaily. + "We're all wrapped up, and you couldn't form any idea of us. + You must wait, and let us burst upon you when we come out of + the dressing-room at Madame Uccelli's." + </p> + <p> + "But then it may be too late," he urged. "Is it very far?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's ridiculously far. It's outside + the Roman Gate. I don't see why people live at that + distance." + </p> + <p> + "In order to give the friends you bring the more pleasure of + your company, Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Ah! that's very well. But you're not logical." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Colville; "you can't be logical and complimentary + at the same time. It's too much to ask. How delicious your + flowers are!" The ladies each had a bouquet in her hand, + which she was holding in addition to her fan, the edges of + her cloak, and the skirt of her train. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "we are so much obliged to you for + them." + </p> + <p> + "Why, I sent you <i>no flowers</i>," said Colville, startled + into untimely earnest. + </p> + <p> + "Didn't you?" triumphed Mrs. Bowen. "I thought gentlemen + always sent flowers to ladies when they were going to a ball + with them. They used to, in Columbus." + </p> + <p> + "And in Buffalo they always do," Miss Graham added. + </p> + <p> + "Ah! they don't in Des Vaches," said Colville. They tried to + mystify him further about the bouquets; they succeeded in + being very gay, and in making themselves laugh a great deal. + Mrs. Bowen was even livelier than the young girl. + </p> + <p> + Her carriage was one of the few private equipages that drove + up to Madame Uccelli's door; most people had not even come in + a <i>remise</i>, but, after the simple Florentine fashion, + had taken the little cabs, which stretched in a long line up + and down the way; the horses had let their weary heads drop, + and were easing their broken knees by extending their + forelegs while they drowsed; the drivers, huddled in their + great-coats, had assembled around the doorway to see the + guests alight, with that amiable, unenvious interest of the + Italians in the pleasure of others. The deep sky glittered + with stars; in the corner of the next villa garden the black + plumes of some cypresses blotted out their space among them. + </p> + <p> + "<i>Isn't</i> it Florentine?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, giving the + hand which Colville offered in helping her out of the + carriage a little vivid pressure, full of reminiscence and + confident sympathy. A flush of youth warmed his heart; he did + not quail even when the porter of the villa intervened + between her and her coachman, whom she was telling when to + come back, and said that the carriages were ordered for three + o'clock. + </p> + <p> + "Did you ever sit up so late as that in Des Vaches?" asked + Miss Graham mischievously. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; I was editor of a morning paper," he explained. But + he did not like the imputation of her question. + </p> + <p> + Madame Uccelli accepted him most hospitably among her guests + when he was presented. She was an American who had returned + with her Italian husband to Italy, and had long survived him + in the villa which he had built with her money. Such people + grow very queer with the lapse of time. Madame Uccelli's + character remained inalienably American, but her manners and + customs had become largely Italian; without having learned + the language thoroughly, she spoke it very fluently, and its + idioms marked her Philadelphia English. Her house was a + menagerie of all the nationalities; she was liked in Italian + society, and there were many Italians; English-speaking + Russians abounded; there were many genuine English, Germans, + Scandinavians, Protestant Irish, American Catholics, and then + Americans of all kinds. There was a superstition of her + exclusiveness among her compatriots, but one really met every + one there sooner or later; she was supposed to be a convert + to the religion of her late husband, but no one really knew + what religion she was of, probably not even Madame Uccelli + herself. One thing you were sure of at her house, and that + was a substantial supper; it is the example of such resident + foreigners which has corrupted the Florentines, though many + native families still hold out against it. + </p> + <p> + The dancing was just beginning, and the daughter of Madame + Uccelli, who spoke both English and Italian much better than + her mother, came forward and possessed herself of Miss + Graham, after a polite feint of pressing Mrs. Bowen to let + her find a partner for her. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen cooed a gracious refusal, telling Fanny Uccelli + that she knew very well that she never danced now. The girl + had not much time for Colville; she welcomed him, but she was + full of her business of starting the dance, and she hurried + away without asking him whether she should introduce him to + some lady for the quadrille that was forming. Her mother, + however, asked him if he would not go out and get himself + some tea, and she found a lady to go with him to the + supper-room. This lady had daughters whom apparently she + wished to supervise while they were dancing, and she brought + Colville back very soon. He had to stand by the sofa where + she sat till Madame Uccelli found him and introduced him to + another mother of daughters. Later he joined a group formed + by the father of one of the dancers and the non-dancing + husband of a dancing wife. Their conversation was + perfunctory; they showed one another that they had no + pleasure in it. + </p> + <p> + Presently the father went to see how his daughter looked + while dancing; the husband had evidently no such curiosity + concerning his wife; and Colville went with the father, and + looked at Miss Graham. She was very beautiful, and she obeyed + the music as if it were her breath; her face was rapt, + intense, full of an unsmiling delight, which shone in her + dark eyes, glowing like low stars. Her <i>abandon</i> + interested Colville, and then awed him; the spectacle of that + young, unjaded capacity for pleasure touched him with a + profound sense of loss. Suddenly Imogene caught sight of him, + and with the coming of a second look in her eyes the light of + an exquisite smile flashed over her face. His heart was in + his throat. + </p> + <p> + "<i>Your</i> daughter?" asked the fond parent at his elbow. + "That is mine yonder in red." + </p> + <p> + Colville did not answer, nor look at the young lady in red. + The dance was ceasing; the fragments of those kaleidoscopic + radiations were dispersing themselves; the tormented piano + was silent. + </p> + <p> + The officer whom Imogene had danced with brought her to Mrs. + Bowen, and resigned her with the regulation bow, hanging his + head down before him as if submitting his neck to the axe. + She put her hand in Colville's arm, where he stood beside + Mrs. Bowen. "Oh, <i>do</i> take me to get something to eat!" + </p> + <p> + In the supper-room she devoured salad and ices with a + childish joy in them. The place was jammed, and she laughed + from her corner at Colville's struggles in getting the things + for her and bringing them to her. While she was still in the + midst of an ice, the faint note of the piano sounded. "Oh, + they're beginning again. It's the Lancers!" she said, giving + him the plate back. She took his arm again; she almost pulled + him along on their return. + </p> + <p> + "Why don't <i>you</i> dance?" she demanded mockingly. + </p> + <p> + "I would if you'd let me dance with you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, that's impossible! I'm engaged ever so many deep." She + dropped his arm instantly at sight of a young Englishman who + seemed to be looking for her. This young Englishman had a + zeal for dancing that was unsparing; partners were nothing to + him except as a means of dancing; his manner expressed a + supreme contempt for people who made the slightest mistake, + who danced with less science or less conscience than himself. + "I've been looking for you," he said, in a tone of cold + rebuke, without looking at her. "We've been waiting." + </p> + <p> + Colville wished to beat him, but Imogene took his rebuke + meekly, and murmured some apologies about not hearing the + piano before. He hurried her off without recognising + Colville's existence in any way. + </p> + <p> + The undancing husband of the dancing wife was boring himself + in a corner; Colville decided that the chances with him were + better than with the fond father, and joined him, just as a + polite officer came up and entreated him to complete a set. + "Oh, I never danced in my life," he replied; and then he + referred the officer to Colville. "Don't <i>you</i> dance?" + </p> + <p> + "I used to dance," Colville began, while the officer stood + looking patiently at him. This was true. He used to dance the + Lancers, too, and very badly, seventeen years before. He had + danced it with Lina Ridgely and the other one, Mrs. Milbury. + His glance wandered to the vacant place on the floor; it was + the same set which Miss Graham was in; she smiled and + beckoned derisively. A vain and foolish ambition fired him. + "Oh yes, I can dance a little," he said. + </p> + <p> + A little was quite enough for the eager officer. He had + Colville a partner in an instant, and the next he was on the + floor. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, what fun!" cried Miss Graham; but the fun had not really + begun yet. + </p> + <p> + Colville had forgotten everything about the Lancers. He + walked round like a bear in a pen: he capered to and fro with + a futile absurdity; people poked him hither and thither; his + progress was attended by rending noises from the trains over + which he found his path. He smiled and cringed, and + apologised to the hardening faces of the dancers: even Miss + Graham's face had become very grave. + </p> + <p> + "This won't do," said the Englishman at last, with cold + insolence. He did not address himself to any one; he merely + stopped; they all stopped, and Colville was effectively + expelled the set? another partner was found for his lady, and + he wandered giddily away. He did not know where to turn; the + whole room must have seen what an incredible ass he had made + of himself, but Mrs. Bowen looked as if she had not seen. + </p> + <p> + He went up to her, resolved to make fun of himself at the + first sign she gave of being privy to his disgrace. But she + only said, "Have you found your way to the supper-room yet?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; twice," he answered, and kept on talking with her + and Madame Uccelli. After five minutes or so something + occurred to Colville. "Have <i>you</i> found the way to the + supper-room yet, Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "No!" she owned, with a small, pathetic laugh, which + expressed a certain physical faintness, and reproached him + with insupportable gentleness for his selfish obtuseness. + </p> + <p> + "Let me show you the way," he cried. + </p> + <p> + "Why, I <i>am</i> rather hungry," said Mrs. Bowen, taking his + arm, with a patient arrangement first of her fan, her + bouquet, and her train, and then moving along by his side + with a delicate footed pace, which insinuated and deprecated + her dependence upon him. + </p> + <p> + There were only a few people in the supper-room, and they had + it practically to themselves. She took a cup of tea and a + slice of buttered bread, with a little salad, which she + excused herself from eating because it was the day after her + headache. "I shouldn't have thought you <i>were</i> hungry, + Mrs. Bowen," he said, "if you hadn't told me so," and he + recalled that, as a young girl, her friend used to laugh at + her for having such a butterfly appetite; she was in fact one + of those women who go through life the marvels of such of our + brutal sex as observe the ethereal nature of their diet. But + in an illogical revulsion of feeling. Colville, who was again + cramming himself with all the solids and fluids in reach, and + storing up a vain regret against the morrow, preferred her + delicacy to the magnificent rapacity of Miss Graham: Imogene + had passed from salad to ice, and at his suggestion had + frankly reverted to salad again and then taken a second ice, + with the robust appetite of perfect health and perfect youth. + He felt a desire to speak against her to Mrs. Bowen, he did + not know why and he did not know how; he veiled his feeling + in an open attack. "Miss Graham has just been the cause of my + playing the fool, with her dancing. She dances so superbly + that she makes you want to dance too—she made me feel + as if I <i>could</i> dance." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen; "it was very kind of you to complete + the set. I saw you dancing," she added, without a glimmer of + guilty consciousness in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + It was very sweet, but Colville had to protest. "Oh no; you + didn't see me <i>dancing</i>; you saw me <i>not dancing</i>. + I am a ruined man, and I leave Florence to-morrow; but I have + the sad satisfaction of reflecting that I don't leave an + unbroken train among the ladies of that set. And I have made + one young Englishman so mad that there is a reasonable hope + of his not recovering." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; you <i>don't</i> think of going away for that!" said + Mrs. Bowen, not heeding the rest of his joking. + </p> + <p> + "Well, the time has been when I have left Florence for loss," + said Colville, with the air of preparing himself to listen to + reason. + </p> + <p> + "You mustn't," said Mrs. Bowen briefly. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very well, then, I won't," said Colville whimsically, as + if that settled it. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen would not talk of the matter any more; he could + see that with her kindness, which was always more than her + tact, she was striving to get away from the subject. As he + really cared for it no longer, this made him persist in + clinging to it; he liked this pretty woman's being kind to + him. "Well," he said finally, "I consent to stay in Florence + on condition that you suggest some means of atonement for me + which I can also make a punishment to Miss Graham." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen did not respond to the question of placating and + punishing her <i>protégée</i> with sustained + interest. They went back to Madame Uccelli, and to the other + elderly ladies in the room that opened by archways upon the + dancing-room. + </p> + <p> + Imogene was on the floor, dancing not merely with unabated + joy, but with a zest that seemed only to freshen from dance + to dance. If she left the dance, it was to go out on her + partner's arm to the supper-room. Colville could not decently + keep on talking to Mrs. Bowen the whole evening; it would be + too conspicuous; he devolved from frump to frump; he bored + himself; he yawned in his passage from one of these mothers + or fathers to another. The hours passed; it was two o'clock; + Imogene was going out to the supper-room again. He was taking + out his watch. She saw him, and "Oh, don't!" she cried, + laughing, as she passed. + </p> + <p> + The dancing went on; she was waltzing now in the interminable + german. Some one had let down, a window in the dancing-room, + and he was feeling it in his shoulder. Mrs. Bowen, across the + room, looked heroically patient, but weary. He glanced, down + at the frump on the sofa near, and realised that she had been + making a long speech to him, which, he could see from her + look, had ended in some sort of question. + </p> + <p> + Three o'clock came, and they had to wait till the german was + over. He felt that Miss Graham was behaving badly, + ungratefully, selfishly; on the way home in the carriage he + was silent from utter boredom and fatigue, but Mrs. Bowen was + sweetly sympathetic with the girl's rapture. Imogene did not + seem to feel his moodiness; she laughed, she joked, she told + a number of things that happened, she hummed the air of the + last waltz. "Isn't it divine?" she asked. "Oh! I feel as if I + could dance for a week." She was still dancing; she gave + Colville's foot an accidental tap in keeping time on the + floor of the carriage to the tune she was humming. No one + said anything about a next meeting when they parted at the + gate of Palazzo Pinti, and Mrs. Bowen bade her coachman drive + Colville to his hotel. But both the ladies' voices called + good-night to him as he drove away. He fancied a shade of + mocking in Miss Graham's voice. + </p> + <p> + The great outer door of the hotel was locked, of course, and + the poor little porter kept Colville thumping at it some time + before he unlocked it, full of sleepy smiles and apologies. + "I'm sorry to wake you up," said Colville kindly. + </p> + <p> + "It is my duty," said the porter, with amiable heroism. He + discharged another duty by lighting a whole new candle, which + would be set down to Colville's account, and went before him + to his room, up the wide stairs, cold in their white linen + path, and on through the crooked corridors haunted by the + ghosts of extinct <i>tables d'hôte</i>, and full of + goblin shadows. He had recovered a noonday suavity by the + time he reached Colville's door, and bowed himself out, after + lighting the candles within, with a sweet plenitude of + politeness, which Colville, even in his gloomy mood, could + not help admiring in a man in his shirt sleeves, with only + one suspender up. + </p> + <p> + If there had been a fire, Colville would have liked to sit + down before it, and take an account of his feelings, but the + atmosphere of a bed-chamber in a Florentine hotel at + half-past three o'clock on a winter morning is not one that + invites to meditation; and he made haste to get into bed, + with nothing clearer in his mind than a shapeless sense of + having been trifled with. He ought not to have gone to a + dancing party, to begin with, and then he certainly ought not + to have attempted to dance; so far he might have been master + of the situation, and was responsible for it; but he was, + over and above this, aware of not having wished to do either, + of having been wrought upon against his convictions to do + both. He regarded now with supreme loathing a fantastic + purpose which he had formed while tramping round on those + women's dresses, of privately taking lessons in dancing, and + astonishing Miss Graham at the next ball where they met. Miss + Graham? What did he care for that child? Or Mrs. Bowen + either, for the matter of that? Had he come four thousand + miles to be used, to be played with, by them? At this point + Colville was aware of the brutal injustice of his mood. They + were ladies, both of them, charming and good, and he had been + a fool; that was all. It was not the first time he had been a + fool for women. An inexpressible bitterness for that old + wrong, which, however he had been used to laugh at it and + despise it, had made his life solitary and barren, poured + upon his soul; it was as if it had happened to him yesterday. + </p> + <p> + A band of young men burst from one of the narrow streets + leading into the piazza and straggled across it, letting + their voices flare out upon the silence, and then drop + extinct one by one. A whole world of faded associations + flushed again in Colville's heart. This was Italy; this was + Florence; and he execrated the hour in which he had dreamed + of returning. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="VII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + VII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + The next morning's sunshine dispersed the black mood of the + night before; but enough of Colville's self-disgust remained + to determine him not to let his return to Florence be + altogether vain, or his sojourn so idle as it had begun + being. The vague purpose which he had cherished of studying + the past life and character of the Florentines in their + architecture shaped itself anew in the half-hour which he + gave himself over his coffee; and he turned it over in his + mind with that mounting joy in its capabilities which attends + the contemplation of any sort of artistic endeavour. No + people had ever more distinctly left the impress of their + whole temper in their architecture, or more sharply + distinguished their varying moods from period to period in + their palaces and temples. He believed that he could not only + supply that brief historical sketch of Florence which Mrs. + Bowen had lamented the want of, but he could make her history + speak an unintelligible, an unmistakeable tongue in every + monument of the past, from the Etruscan wall at Fiesole to + the cheap, plain, and tasteless shaft raised to commemorate + Italian Unity in the next piazza. With sketches from his own + pencil, illustrative of points which he could not otherwise + enforce, he could make such a book on Florence as did not + exist, such a book as no one had yet thought of making. With + this object in his mind, making and keeping him young, he + could laugh with any one who liked at the vanity of the + middle-aged Hoosier who had spoiled a set in the Lancers at + Madame Uccelli's party; he laughed at him now alone, with a + wholly impersonal sense of his absurdity. + </p> + <p> + After breakfast he went without delay to Viesseux's + reading-room, to examine his catalogue, and see what there + was in it to his purpose. While he was waiting his turn to + pay his subscription, with the people who surrounded the + proprietor, half a dozen of the acquaintances he had made at + Mrs. Bowen's passed in and out. Viesseux's is a place where + sooner or later you meet every one you know among the foreign + residents at Florence; the natives in smaller proportion + resort there too; and Colville heard a lady asking for a book + in that perfect Italian which strikes envy to the heart of + the stranger sufficiently versed in the language to know that + he never shall master it. He rather rejoiced in his despair, + however, as an earnest of his renewed intellectual life. + Henceforth his life would be wholly intellectual. He did not + regret his little excursion into society; it had shown him + with dramatic sharpness how unfit for it he was. + </p> + <p> + "Good <i>morning</i>!" said some one in a bland undertone + full of a pleasant recognition of the claims to quiet of a + place where some others were speaking in their ordinary + tones. + </p> + <p> + Colville looked round on the Rev. Mr. Waters, and took his + friendly hand. "Good morning—glad to see you," he + answered. + </p> + <p> + "Are you looking for that short Florentine history for Mrs. + Bowen's little girl?" asked Mr. Waters, inclining his head + slightly for the reply. "She mentioned it to me." + </p> + <p> + By day Colville remarked more distinctly that the old + gentleman was short and slight, with a youthful eagerness in + his face surviving on good terms with the grey locks that + fell down his temples from under the brim of his soft felt + hat. With the boyish sweetness of his looks blended a sort of + appreciative shrewdness, which pointed his smiling lips + slightly aslant in what seemed the expectation rather than + the intention of humour. + </p> + <p> + "Not exactly," said Colville, experiencing a difficulty in + withholding the fact that in some sort he was just going to + write a short Florentine history, and finding a certain + pleasure in Mrs. Bowen's having remembered that he had taken + an interest in Effie's reading. He had a sudden wish to tell + Mr. Waters of his plan, but this was hardly the time or + place. + </p> + <p> + They now found themselves face to face with the librarian, + and Mr. Waters made a gesture of waiving himself in + Colville's favour. + </p> + <p> + "No, no!" said the latter; "you had better ask. I am going to + put this gentleman through rather an extended course of + sprouts." + </p> + <p> + The librarian smiled with the helplessness of a foreigner, + who knows his interlocutor's English, but not the meaning of + it. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I merely wanted to ask," said Mr. Waters, addressing the + librarian, and explaining to Colville, "whether you had + received that book on Savonarola yet. The German one." + </p> + <p> + "I shall see," said the librarian, and he went upon a quest + that kept him some minutes. + </p> + <p> + "You're not thinking of taking Savonarola's life, I suppose?" + suggested Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no. Villari's book has covered the whole ground for ever, + it seems to me. It's a wonderful book. You've read it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. It's a thing that makes you feel that, after all, the + Italians have only to make a real effort in any direction, + and they go ahead of everybody else. What biography of the + last twenty years can compare with it?" + </p> + <p> + "You're right, sir—you're right," cried the old man + enthusiastically. "They're a gifted race, a people of + genius." + </p> + <p> + "I wish for their own sakes they'd give their minds a little + to generalship," said Colville, pressed by the facts to hedge + somewhat. "They did get so badly smashed in their last war, + poor fellows." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't think I should like them any better if they were + better soldiers. Perhaps the lesson of noble endurance that + they've given our times is all that we have the right to + demand of them in the way of heroism; no one can say they + lack courage. And sometimes it seems to me that in simply + outgrowing the different sorts of despotism that had fastened + upon them, till their broken bonds fell away without positive + effort on their part, they showed a greater sublimity than if + they had violently conquered their freedom. Most nations sink + lower and lower under tyranny; the Italians grew steadily + more and more civilised, more noble, more gentle, more grand. + It was a wonderful spectacle—like a human soul + perfected through suffering and privation. Every period of + their history is full of instruction. I find my ancestral + puritanism particularly appealed to by the puritanism of + Savonarola." + </p> + <p> + "Then Villari hasn't satisfied you that Savonarola wasn't a + Protestant?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, he has. I said his puritanism. Just now I'm + interested in justifying his failure to myself, for it's one + of the things in history that I've found it hardest to + accept. But no doubt his puritanic state fell because it was + dreary and ugly, as the puritanic state always has been. It + makes its own virtues intolerable; puritanism won't let you + see how good and beautiful the Puritans often are. It was + inevitable that Savonarola's enemies should misunderstand and + hate him." + </p> + <p> + "You are one of the last men I should have expected to find + among the <i>Arrabiati</i>," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there's a great deal to be said for the Florentine + Arrabiati, as well as for the English Malignants, though the + Puritans in neither case would have known how to say it. + Savonarola perished because he was excessive. I am studying + him in this aspect; it is fresh ground. It is very + interesting to inquire just at what point a man's virtues + become mischievous and intolerable." + </p> + <p> + These ideas interested Colville; he turned to them with + relief from the sense of his recent trivialities; in this old + man's earnestness he found support and encouragement in the + new course he had marked out for himself. Sometimes it had + occurred to him not only that he was too old for the + interests of his youth at forty, but that there was no longer + time for him to take up new ones. He considered Mr. Waters's + grey hairs, and determined to be wiser. "I should like to + talk these things over with you—and some other things," + he said. + </p> + <p> + The librarian came toward them with the book for Mr. Waters, + who was fumbling near-sightedly in his pocket-book for his + card. "I shall be very happy to see you at my room," he said. + "Ah, thank you," he added, taking his book, with a simple + relish as if it were something whose pleasantness was + sensible to the touch. He gave Colville the scholar's far-off + look as he turned to go: he was already as remote as the + fifteenth century through the magic of the book, which he + opened and began to read at once. Colville stared after him; + he did not wish to come to just that yet, either. Life, + active life, life of his own day, called to him; he had been + one of its busiest children: could he turn his back upon it + for any charm or use that was in the past? Again that + unnerving doubt, that paralysing distrust, beset him, and + tempted him to curse the day in which he had returned to this + outworn Old World. Idler on its modern surface, or delver in + its deep-hearted past, could he reconcile himself to it? What + did he care for the Italians of to-day, or the history of the + Florentines as expressed in their architectural monuments? It + was the problems of the vast, tumultuous American life, which + he had turned his back on, that really concerned him. Later + he might take up the study that fascinated yonder old man, + but for the present it was intolerable. + </p> + <p> + He was no longer young, that was true; but with an ache of + old regret he felt that he had not yet lived his life, that + his was a baffled destiny, an arrested fate. A lady came up + and took his turn with the librarian, and Colville did not + stay for another. He went out and walked down the Lung' Arno + toward the Cascine. The sun danced on the river, and bathed + the long line of pale buff and grey houses that followed its + curve, and ceased in the mist of leafless tree-tops where the + Cascine began. It was not the hour of the promenade, and + there was little driving; but the sidewalks were peopled + thickly enough with persons, in groups, or singly, who had + the air of straying aimlessly up or down, with no purpose but + to be in the sun, after the rainy weather of the past week. + There were faces of invalids, wistful and thin, and here and + there a man, muffled to the chin, lounged feebly on the + parapet and stared at the river. Colville hastened by them; + they seemed to claim him as one of their ailing and aging + company, and just then he was in the humour of being very + young and strong. + </p> + <p> + A carriage passed before him through the Cascine gates, and + drove down the road next the river. He followed, and when it + had got a little way it stopped at the roadside, and a lady + and little girl alighted, who looked about and caught sight + of him, and then obviously waited for him to come up with + them. It was Imogene and Effie Bowen, and the young girl + called to him: "We <i>thought</i> it was you. Aren't you + astonished to find us here at this hour?" she demanded, as + soon as he came up, and gave him her hand. "Mrs. Bowen sent + us for our health—or Effie's health—and I was + just making the man stop and let us out for a little walk." + </p> + <p> + "My health is very much broken too, Miss Effie," said + Colville. "Will you let me walk with you?" The child smiled, + as she did at Colville's speeches, which she apparently + considered all jokes, but diplomatically referred the + decision to Imogene with an upward glance. + </p> + <p> + "We shall be very glad indeed," said the girl. + </p> + <p> + "That's very polite of you. But Miss Effie makes no effort to + conceal her dismay," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + The little girl smiled again, and her smile was so like the + smile of Lina Ridgely, twenty years ago, that his next words + were inevitably tinged with reminiscence. + </p> + <p> + "Does one still come for one's health to the Cascine? When I + was in Florence before, there was no other place if one went + to look for it with young ladies—the Cascine or the + Boboli Gardens. Do they keep the fountain of youth turned on + here during the winter still?" + </p> + <p> + "I've never seen it," said Imogene gaily. + </p> + <p> + "Of course not. You never looked for it. Neither did I when I + was here before. But it wouldn't escape me now." + </p> + <p> + Since he had met them he had aged again, in spite of his + resolutions to the contrary; somehow, beside their buoyancy + and bloom, the youth in his heart faded. + </p> + <p> + Imogene had started forward as soon as he joined them, and + Colville, with Effie's gloved hand stolen shyly in his, was + finding it quite enough to keep up with her in her elastic + advance. + </p> + <p> + She wore a long habit of silk, whose fur-trimmed edge + wandered diagonally across her breast and down to the edge of + her walking dress. To Colville, whom her girlish slimness in + her ball costume had puzzled after his original impressions + of Junonian abundance, she did not so much dwindle as seem to + vanish from the proportions his visions had assigned her that + first night when he saw her standing before the mirror. In + this outdoor avatar, this companionship with the sun and + breeze, she was new to him again, and he found himself + searching his consciousness for his lost acquaintance with + her, and feeling as if he knew her less and less. Perhaps, + indeed, she had no very distinctive individuality; perhaps at + her age no woman has, but waits for it to come to her through + life, through experience. She was an expression of youth, of + health, of beauty, and of the moral loveliness that comes + from a fortunate combination of these; but beyond this she + was elusive in a way that seemed to characterise her even + materially. He could not make anything more of the mystery as + he walked at her side, and he went thinking—formlessly, + as people always think—that with the child or with her + mother he would have had a community of interest and feeling + which he lacked with this splendid girlhood! he was both too + young and too old for it; and then, while he answered this or + that to Imogene's talk aptly enough, his mind went back to + the time when this mystery was no mystery, or when he was + contemporary with it, and if he did not understand it, at + least accepted it as if it wore the most natural thing in the + world. It seemed a longer time now since it had been in his + world than it was since he was a child. + </p> + <p> + "Should you have thought," she asked, turning her face back + toward him, "that it would be so hot in the sun to-day? + <i>Oh</i>, that beautiful river! How it twists and writhes + along! Do you remember that sonnet of Longfellow's—the + one he wrote in Italian about the Ponte Vecchio, and the Arno + twisting like a dragon underneath it? They say that Hawthorne + used to live in a villa just behind the hill over there; + we're going to look it up as soon as the weather is settled. + Don't you think his books are perfectly fascinating?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville; "only I should want a good while to say + it." + </p> + <p> + "<i>I</i> shouldn't!" retorted the girl. "When you've said + fascinating, you've said everything. There's no other word + for them. Don't you like to talk about the books you've + read?" + </p> + <p> + "I would if I could remember the names of the characters. But + I get them mixed up." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, <i>I</i> never do! I remember the least one of them, and + all they do and say." + </p> + <p> + "I used to." + </p> + <p> + "It seems to me you <i>used</i> to do everything." + </p> + <p> + "It seems to me as if I did." + </p> + <p> + "'I remember, when I think,<br> + That my youth was half divine.'" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, Tennyson—yes! <i>He's</i> fascinating. Don't you + think he's fascinating?" + </p> + <p> + "Very," said Colville. He was wondering whether this were the + kind of talk that he thought was literary when he was a young + fellow. + </p> + <p> + "How perfectly weird the 'Vision of Sin' is!" Imogene + continued. "Don't you like <i>weird</i> things?" + </p> + <p> + "Weird things?" Colville reflected. "Yes; but I don't see + very much in them any more. The fact is, they don't seem to + come to anything in particular." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, <i>I</i> think they do! I've had dreams that I've lived + on for days. Do you ever have prophetic dreams?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; but they never come true. When they do, I know that I + didn't have them." + </p> + <p> + "What <i>do</i> you mean?" + </p> + <p> + "I mean that we are all so fond of the marvellous that we + can't trust ourselves about any experience that seems + supernatural. If a ghost appeared to me I should want him to + prove it by at least two other reliable, disinterested + witnesses before I believed my own account of the matter." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" cried the girl, half puzzled, half amused. "Then of + course you don't believe in ghosts?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I expect to be one myself some day. But I'm in no hurry + to mingle with them." + </p> + <p> + Imogene smiled vaguely, as if the talk pleased her, even when + it mocked the fancies and whims which, after so many + generations that have indulged them, she was finding so fresh + and new in her turn. + </p> + <p> + "Don't you like to walk by the side of a river?" she asked, + increasing her eager pace a little. "I feel as if it were + bearing me along." + </p> + <p> + "I feel as if I were carrying it," said Colville. "It's as + fatiguing as walking on railroad ties." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, that's too bad!" cried the girl. "How can you be so + prosaic? Should you ever have believed that the sun could be + so hot in January? And look at those ridiculous green + hillsides over the river there! Don't you like it to be + winter when it <i>is</i> winter?" + </p> + <p> + She did not seem to have expected anything from Colville but + an impulsive acquiescence, but she listened while he defended + the mild weather. "I think it's very well for Italy," he + said. "It has always seemed to me—that is, it seems to + me now for the first time, but one has to begin the other + way—as if the seasons here had worn themselves out like + the turbulent passions of the people. I dare say the winter + was much fiercer in the times of the Bianchi and Neri." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, how delightful! Do you really believe that?" + </p> + <p> + "No, I don't know that I do. But I shouldn't have much + difficulty in proving it, I think, to the sympathetic + understanding." + </p> + <p> + "I wish you would prove it to mine. It sounds so pretty, I'm + sure it must be true." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, then, it isn't necessary. I'll reserve my arguments for + Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "You had better. She isn't at all romantic. She says it's + very well for me she isn't—that her being + matter-of-fact lets me be as romantic as I like." + </p> + <p> + "Then Mrs. Bowen isn't as romantic as she would like to be if + she hadn't charge of a romantic young lady?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't say that. Dear me! I'd no idea it <i>could</i> + be so hot in January." As they strolled along beside the long + hedge of laurel, the carriage slowly following them at a + little distance, the sun beat strong upon the white road, + blotched here and there with the black irregular shadows of + the ilexes. The girl undid the pelisse across her breast, + with a fine impetuosity, and let it swing open as she walked. + She stopped suddenly. "Hark! What bird was that?" + </p> + <p> + "'It was the nightingale, and not the lark,'" suggested + Colville lazily. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, <i>don't</i> you think <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> is + divine?" demanded Imogene, promptly dropping the question of + the bird. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know about Romeo," returned Colville, "but it's + sometimes occurred to me that Juliet was rather + forth-putting." + </p> + <p> + "You <i>know</i> she wasn't. It's my favourite play. I could + go every night. It's perfectly amazing to me that they can + play anything else." + </p> + <p> + "You would like it five hundred nights in the year, like + <i>Hazel Kirke</i>? That would be a good deal of Romeo, not + to say Juliet." + </p> + <p> + "They ought to do it out of respect to Shakespeare. Don't you + like Shakespeare?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, I've seen the time when I preferred Alexander Smith," + said Colville evasively. + </p> + <p> + "Alexander Smith? Who in the world is Alexander Smith?" + </p> + <p> + "How recent you are! Alexander Smith was an immortal who + flourished about the year 1850." + </p> + <p> + "That was before I was born. How could I remember him? But I + don't feel so very recent for all that." + </p> + <p> + "Neither do I, this morning," said Colville. "I was up at one + of Pharaoh's balls last night, and I danced too much." + </p> + <p> + He gave Imogene a droll glance, and then bent it upon Effie's + discreet face. The child dropped her eyes with a blush like + her mother's, having first sought provisional counsel of + Imogene, who turned away. He rightly inferred that they all + had been talking him over at breakfast, and he broke into a + laugh which they joined in, but Imogene said nothing in + recognition of the fact. + </p> + <p> + With what he felt to be haste for his relief she said, "Don't + you hate to be told to read a book?" + </p> + <p> + "I used to—quarter of a century ago," said Colville, + recognising that this was the way young people talked, even + then. + </p> + <p> + "Used to?" she repeated. "Don't you now?" + </p> + <p> + "No; I'm a great deal more tractable now. I always say that I + shall get the book out of the library. I draw the line at + buying. I still hate to buy a book that people recommend." + </p> + <p> + "What kind of books do you like to buy?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no kind. I think we ought to get all our books out of + the library." + </p> + <p> + "Do you never like to talk in earnest?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, not often," said Colville. "Because, if you do, you + can't say with a good conscience afterward that you were only + in fun." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! And do you always like to talk so that you can get out + of things afterward?" + </p> + <p> + "No. I didn't say that, did I?" + </p> + <p> + "Very nearly, I should think." + </p> + <p> + "Then I'm glad I didn't quite." + </p> + <p> + "I like people to be outspoken—to say everything they + think," said the girl, regarding him with a puzzled look. + </p> + <p> + "Then I foresee that I shall become a favourite," answered + Colville. "I say a great deal more than I think." + </p> + <p> + She looked at him again with envy, with admiration, + qualifying her perplexity. They had come to a point where + some moss-grown, weather-beaten statues stood at the corners + of the road that traversed the bosky stretch between the + avenues of the Cascine. "Ah, how beautiful they are!" he + said, halting, and giving himself to the rapture that a + blackened garden statue imparts to one who beholds it from + the vantage-ground of sufficient years and experience. + </p> + <p> + "Do you remember that story of Heine's," he resumed, after a + moment, "of the boy who steals out of the old castle by + moonlight, and kisses the lips of the garden statue, fallen + among the rank grass of the ruinous parterres? And long + afterward, when he looks down on the sleep of the dying girl + where she lies on the green sofa, it seems to him that she + and that statue are the same?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" deeply sighed the young girl. "No, I never read it. + Tell me what it is. I <i>must</i> read it." + </p> + <p> + "The rest is all talk—very good talk; but I doubt + whether it would interest you. He goes on to talk of a great + many things—-of the way Bellini spoke French, for + example. He says it was bloodcurdling, horrible, cataclysmal. + He brought out the poor French words and broke them upon the + wheel, till you thought the whole world must give way with a + thunder-crash. A dead hush reigned in the room; the women did + not know whether to faint or fly; the men looked down at + their pantaloons, and tried to realise what they had on." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, how perfectly delightful! how shameful!" cried the girl. + "I <i>must</i> read it. What is it in? What is the name of + the story?" + </p> + <p> + "It isn't a story," said Colville. "Did you ever see anything + lovelier than these statues?" + </p> + <p> + "No," said Imogene. "<i>Are</i> they good?" + </p> + <p> + "They are much better than good—they are the very worst + rococo." + </p> + <p> + "What makes you say they are beautiful, then?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, don't you see? They commemorate youth, gaiety, + brilliant, joyous life. That's what that kind of statues was + made for—to look on at rich, young, beautiful people + and their gallantries; to be danced before by fine ladies and + gentlemen playing at shepherd and shepherdesses; to be driven + past by marcheses and contessinas flirting in carriages; to + be hung with scarfs and wreaths; to be parts of eternal + <i>fétes champêtres</i>. Don't you see how bored + they look? When I first came to Italy I should have detested + and ridiculed their bad art; but now they're + exquisite—the worse, the better," + </p> + <p> + "I don't know what in the world you <i>do</i> mean," said + Imogene, laughing uneasily. + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Bowen would. It's a pity Mrs. Bowen isn't here with us. + Miss Effie, if I lift you up to one of those statues, will + you kindly ask it if it doesn't remember a young American + signor who was here just before the French Revolution? I + don't believe it's forgotten me." + </p> + <p> + "No, no," said Imogene. "It's time we were walking back. + Don't you like Scott!" she added. "I should think you would + if you like those romantic things. I used to like Scott so + <i>much</i>. When I was fifteen I wouldn't read anything but + Scott. Don't you like Thackeray? Oh, he's so <i>cynical</i>! + It's perfectly delightful." + </p> + <p> + "Cynical?" repeated Colville thoughtfully. "I was looking + into <i>The Newcomes</i> the other day, and I thought he was + rather sentimental" + </p> + <p> + "Sentimental! Why, what an idea! That is the strangest thing + I ever heard of. Oh!" she broke in upon her own amazement, + "don't you think Browning's 'Statue and the Bust' is + splendid? Mr. Morton read it to us—to Mrs. Bowen, I + mean." + </p> + <p> + Colville resented this freedom of Mr. Morion's, he did not + know just why; then his pique was lost in sarcastic + recollection of the time when he too used to read poems to + ladies. He had read that poem to Lina Ridgely and the other + one. + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Bowen asked him to read it," Imogene continued. + </p> + <p> + "Did she?" asked Colville pensively. + </p> + <p> + "And then we discussed it afterward. We had a long + discussion. And then he read us the 'Legend of Pornic,' and + we had a discussion about that. Mrs. Bowen says it was real + gold they found in the coffin; but I think it was the girl's + 'gold hair.' I don't know which Mr. Morion thought. Which do + you? Don't you think the 'Legend of Pornic' is splendid?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, it's a great poem, and deep," said Colville. They had + come to a place where the bank sloped invitingly to the + river. "Miss Effie," he asked, "wouldn't you like to go down + and throw stones into the Arno? That's what a river is for," + he added, as the child glanced toward Imogene for + authorisation, "to have stones thrown into it." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, let us!" cried Imogene, rushing down to the brink. "I + don't want to throw stones into it, but to get near + it—to get near to any bit of nature. They do pen you up + so from it in Europe!" She stood and watched Colville skim + stones over the current. "When you stand by the shore of a + swift river like this, or near a railroad train when it comes + whirling by, don't you ever have a morbid impulse to fling + yourself forward?" + </p> + <p> + "Not at my time of life," said Colville, stooping to select a + flat stone. "Morbid impulses are one of the luxuries of + youth." He threw the stone, which skipped triumphantly far + out into the stream. "That was beautiful, wasn't it, Miss + Effie?" + </p> + <p> + "Lovely!" murmured the child. + </p> + <p> + He offered her a flat pebble. "Would you like to try one?" + </p> + <p> + "It would spoil my gloves," she said, in deprecating refusal. + </p> + <p> + "Let <i>me</i> try it!" cried Imogene. "I'm not afraid of my + gloves." + </p> + <p> + Colville yielded the pebble, looking at her with the thought + of how intoxicating he should once have found this bit of + wilful <i>abandon</i>, but feeling rather sorry for it now. + "Oh, perhaps not?" he said, laying his hand upon hers, and + looking into her eyes. + </p> + <p> + She returned his look, and then she dropped the pebble and + put her hand back in her muff, and turned and ran up the + bank. "There's the carriage. It's time we should be going." + At the top of the bank she became a mirror of dignity, a + transparent mirror to his eye. "Are you going back to town, + Mr. Colville?" she asked, with formal state. "We could set + you down anywhere!" + </p> + <p> + "Thank you, Miss Graham. I shall be glad to avail myself of + your very kind offer. Allow me." He handed her ceremoniously + to the carriage; he handed Effie Bowen even more + ceremoniously to the carriage, holding his hat in one hand + while he offered the other. Then he mounted to the seat in + front of them. "The weather has changed," he said. + </p> + <p> + Imogene hid her face in her muff, and Effie Bowen bowed hers + against Imogene's shoulder. + </p> + <p> + A sense of the girl's beauty lingered in Colville's thought + all day, and recurred to him again and again; and the + ambitious intensity and enthusiasm of her talk came back in + touches of amusement and compassion. How divinely young it + all was, and how lovely! He patronised it from a height far + aloof. + </p> + <p> + He was not in the frame of mind for the hotel table, and he + went to lunch, at a restaurant. He chose a simple trattoria, + the first he came to, and he took his seat at one of the + bare, rude tables, where the joint saucers for pepper and + salt, and a small glass for toothpicks, with a much-scraped + porcelain box for matches, expressed an uncorrupted + Florentinity of custom. But when he gave his order in offhand + Italian, the waiter answered in the French which waiters get + together for the traveller's confusion in Italy, and he + resigned himself to whatever chance of acquaintance might + befall him. The place had a companionable smell of stale + tobacco, and the dim light showed him on the walls of a space + dropped a step or two lower, at the end of the room, a + variety of sketches and caricatures. A waiter was laying a + large table in this space, and when Colville came up to + examine the drawings he jostled him, with due apologies, in + the haste of a man working against time for masters who will + brook no delay. He was hurrying still when a party of young + men came in and took their places at the table, and began to + rough him for his delay. Colville could recognise several of + them in the vigorous burlesques on the walls, and as others + dropped in the grotesque portraitures made him feel as if he + had seen them before. They all talked at once, each man of + his own interests, except when they joined in a shout of + mockery and welcome for some new-comer. Colville, at his + <i>risotto</i>, almost the room's length away, could hear + what they thought, one and another, of Botticelli and + Michelangelo; of old Piloty's things at Munich; of the dishes + they had served to them, and of the quality of the Chianti; + of the respective merits of German and Italian tobacco; of + whether Inglehart had probably got to Venice yet; of the + personal habits of Billings, and of the question whether the + want of modelling in Simmons's nose had anything to do with + his style of snoring; of the overrated colouring of some of + those Venetian fellows; of the delicacy of Mino da Fiesole, + and of the genius of Babson's tailor. Babson was there to + defend the cut of his trousers, and Billings and Simmons were + present to answer for themselves at the expense of the + pictures of those who had called their habits and features + into question. When it came to this all the voices joined in + jolly uproar. Derision and denial broke out of the tumult, + and presently they were all talking quietly of a reception + which some of them were at the day before. Then Colville + heard one of them saying that he would like a chance to paint + some lady whose name he did not catch, and "She looks awfully + sarcastic," one of the young fellows said. + </p> + <p> + "They say she <i>is</i>," said another. "They say she's + awfully intellectual." + </p> + <p> + "Boston?" queried a third. + </p> + <p> + "No, Kalamazoo. The centre of culture is out there now." + </p> + <p> + "She knows how to dress, anyhow," said the first commentator. + "I wonder what Parker would talk to her about when he was + painting her. He's never read anything but Poe's 'Ullalume.'" + </p> + <p> + "Well, that's a good subject—'Ullalume.'" + </p> + <p> + "I suppose she's read it?" + </p> + <p> + "She's read 'most everything, they say." + </p> + <p> + "What's an Ullalume, anyway, Parker?" + </p> + <p> + One of the group sprang up from the table and drew on the + wall what he labelled "An Ullalume." Another rapidly depicted + Parker in the moment of sketching a young lady; her portrait + had got as far as the eyes and nose when some one protested: + "Oh, hello! No personalities." + </p> + <p> + The draughtsman said, "Well, all right!" and sat down again. + </p> + <p> + "Hall talked with her the most. What did she say, Hall?" + </p> + <p> + "Hall can't remember words in three syllables, but he says it + was mighty brilliant and mighty deep." + </p> + <p> + "They say she's a niece of Mrs. Bowen's. She's staying with + Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + Then it was the wisdom and brilliancy and severity of Imogene + Graham that these young men stood in awe of! Colville + remembered how the minds of girls of twenty had once dazzled + him. "And yes," he mused, "she must have believed that we + were talking literature in the Cascine. Certainly I should + have thought it an intellectual time when I was at that age," + he owned to himself with forlorn irony. + </p> + <p> + The young fellows went on to speak of Mrs. Bowen, whom it + seemed they had known the winter before. She had been very + polite to them; they praised her as if she were quite an old + woman. + </p> + <p> + "But she must have been a very pretty girl," one of them put + in. + </p> + <p> + "Well, she has a good deal of style yet." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, but she never could have been a beauty like the + other one." + </p> + <p> + On her part, Imogene was very sober when she met Mrs. Bowen, + though she had come in flushed and excited from the air and + the morning's adventure. Mrs. Bowen was sitting by the fire, + placidly reading; a vase of roses on the little table near + her diffused the delicate odour of winter roses through the + room; all seemed very still and dim, and of another time, + somehow. + </p> + <p> + Imogene kept away from the fire, sitting down, in the + provisional fashion of women, with her things on; but she + unbuttoned her pelisse and flung it open. Effie had gone to + her room. + </p> + <p> + "Did you have a pleasant drive?" asked Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Very," said the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Morton brought you these roses," continued Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Oh," said Imogene, with a cold glance at them. + </p> + <p> + "The Flemmings have asked us to a party Thursday. There is to + be dancing." + </p> + <p> + "The Flemmings?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." As if she now saw reason to do so, Mrs. Bowen laid the + book face downward in her lap. She yawned a little, with her + hand on her mouth. "Did you meet any one you knew?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; Mr. Colville." Mrs. Bowen cut her yawn in half. "We got + out to walk in the Cascine, and we saw him coming in at the + gate. He came up and asked if he might walk with us." + </p> + <p> + "Did you have a pleasant walk?" asked Mrs. Bowen, a breath + more chillily than she had asked if they had a pleasant + drive. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, pleasant enough. And then we came back and went down + the river bank, and he skipped stones, and we took him to his + hotel." + </p> + <p> + "Was there anybody you knew in the Cascine?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; the place was a howling wilderness. I never saw it so + deserted," said the girl impatiently. "It was terribly hot + walking. I thought I should burn up." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen did not answer anything; she let the book lie in + her lap. + </p> + <p> + "What an odd person Mr. Colville is!" said Imogene, after a + moment. "Don't you think he's very different from other + gentlemen?" + </p> + <p> + "Why?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he has such a peculiar way of talking." + </p> + <p> + "What peculiar way?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't know. Plenty of the young men I see talk + cynically, and I do sometimes myself—desperately, don't + you know. But then I know very well we don't mean anything by + it." + </p> + <p> + "And do you think Mr. Colville does? Do you think he talks + cynically?" + </p> + <p> + Imogene leaned back in her chair and reflected. "No," she + returned slowly, "I can't say that he does. But he talks + lightly, with a kind of touch and go that makes you feel that + he has exhausted all feeling. He doesn't parade it at all. + But you hear between the words, don't you know, just as you + read between the lines in some kinds of poetry. Of course + it's everything in knowing what he's been through. He's + perfectly unaffected; and don't you think he's good?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Bowen. "In his way." + </p> + <p> + "But he sees through you. Oh, quite! Nothing escapes him, and + pretty soon he lets out that he has seen through you, and + then you feel so <i>flat</i>! Oh, it's perfectly intoxicating + to be with him. I would give the world to talk as he does." + </p> + <p> + "What was your talk all about?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't know. I suppose it would have been called rather + intellectual." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen smiled infinitesimally. But after a moment she + said gravely, "Mr. Colville is very much older than you. He's + old enough to be your father." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I know that. You feel that he feels old, and it's + perfectly tragical. Sometimes when he turns that slow, dull, + melancholy look on you, he seems a thousand years old." + </p> + <p> + "I don't mean that he's positively old," said Mrs. Bowen. + "He's only old comparatively." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; I understand that. And I don't mean that he really + seems a thousand years old. What I meant was, he seems a + thousand years off, as if he were still young, and had got + left behind somehow. He seems to be on the other side of some + impassable barrier, and you want to get over there and help + him to our side, but you can't do it. I suppose his talking + in that light way is merely a subterfuge to hide his feeling, + to make him forget." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen fingered the edges of her book. "You mustn't let + your fancy run away with you, Imogene," she said, with a + little painful smile. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I <i>like</i> to let it run away with me. And when I get + such a subject as Mr. Colville, there's no stopping. I can't + stop, and I don't <i>wish</i> to stop. Shouldn't you have + thought that he would have been perfectly crushed at the + exhibition he made of himself in the Lancers last night? He + wasn't the least embarrassed when he met me, and the only + allusion he made to it was to say that he had been up late, + and had danced too much. Wasn't it wonderful he could do it? + Oh, if <i>I</i> could do that!" + </p> + <p> + "I wish he could have avoided the occasion for his bravado," + said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "I think I was a little to blame, perhaps," said the girl. "I + beckoned him to come and take the vacant place." + </p> + <p> + "I don't see that that was an excuse," returned Mrs. Bowen + primly. + </p> + <p> + Imogene seemed insensible to the tone, as it concerned + herself; it only apparently reminded her of something. "Guess + what Mr. Colville said, when I had been silly, and then tried + to make up for it by being very dignified all of a sudden?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. How had you been silly?" + </p> + <p> + The servant brought in some cards. Imogene caught up the + pelisse which she had been gradually shedding as she sat + talking to Mrs. Bowen, and ran out of the room by another + door. + </p> + <p> + They did not recur to the subject. But that night, when Mrs. + Bowen went to say good night to Effie, after the child had + gone to bed, she lingered. + </p> + <p> + "Effie," she said at last, in a husky whisper, "what did + Imogene say to Mr. Colville to-day that made him laugh?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," said the child. "They kept laughing at so + many things." + </p> + <p> + "Laughing?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he laughed. Do you mean toward the last, when he had + been throwing stones into the river?" + </p> + <p> + "It must have been then." + </p> + <p> + The child stretched herself drowsily. "Oh I couldn't + understand it all. She wanted to throw a stone in the river, + but he told her she had better not. But that didn't make + <i>him</i> laugh. She was so very stiff just afterward that + he said the weather had changed, and that made <i>us</i> + laugh." + </p> + <p> + "Was that all?" + </p> + <p> + "We kept laughing ever so long. I never saw any one like Mr. + Colville. How queerly the fire shines on your face! It gives + you such a beautiful complexion." + </p> + <p> + "Does it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, lovely." The child's mother stooped over and kissed + her. "You're the prettiest mamma in the world," she said, + throwing her arms round her neck. "Sometimes I can't tell + whether Imogene is prettier or not, but to-night I'm certain + you are. Do you like to have me think that?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes—yes. But don't pull me down so; you hurt my neck. + Good night." + </p> + <p> + The child let her go. "I haven't said my prayer yet, mamma. I + was thinking." + </p> + <p> + "Well, say it now, then," said the mother gently. + </p> + <p> + When the child had finished she turned upon her cheek. "Good + night, mamma." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen went about the room a little while, picking up its + pretty disorder. Then she sat down in a chair by the hearth, + where a log was still burning. The light of the flame + flickered upon her face, and threw upon the ceiling a + writhing, fantastic shadow, the odious caricature of her + gentle beauty. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="VIII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + VIII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + In that still air of the Florentine winter, time seems to + share the arrest of the natural forces, the repose of the + elements. The pale blue sky is frequently overcast, and it + rains two days out of five; sometimes, under extraordinary + provocation from the north a snow-storm whirls along under + the low grey dome, and whitens the brown roofs, where a + growth of spindling weeds and grass clothes the tiles the + whole year round, and shows its delicate green above the + gathered flakes. But for the most part the winds are laid, + and the sole change is from quiet sun to quiet shower. This + at least is the impression which remains in the senses of the + sojourning stranger, whose days slip away with so little + difference one from another that they seem really not to have + passed, but, like the grass that keeps the hillsides fresh + round Florence all the winter long, to be waiting some + decisive change of season before they begin. + </p> + <p> + The first of the Carnival sights that marked the lapse of a + month since his arrival took Colville by surprise. He could + not have believed that it was February yet if it had not been + for the straggling maskers in armour whom he met one day in + Via Borgognissanti, with their visors up for their better + convenience in smoking. They were part of the chorus at one + of the theatres, and they were going about to eke out their + salaries with the gifts of people whose windows the festival + season privileged them to play under. The silly spectacle + stirred Colville's blood a little, as any sort of holiday + preparation was apt to do. He thought that it afforded him a + fair occasion to call at Palazzo Pinti, where he had not been + so much of late as in the first days of his renewed + acquaintance with Mrs. Bowen. He had at one time had the + fancy that Mrs. Bowen was cool toward him. He might very well + have been mistaken in this; in fact, she had several times + addressed him the politest reproaches for not coming, but he + made some evasion, and went only on the days when she was + receiving other people, and when necessarily he saw very + little of the family. + </p> + <p> + Miss Graham was always very friendly, but always very busy, + drawing tea from the samovar, and looking after others. Effie + Bowen dropped her eyes in re-established strangeness when she + brought the basket of cake to him. There was one moment when + he suspected that he had been talked over in family council, + and put under a certain regimen. But he had no proof of this, + and it had really nothing to do with his keeping away, which + was largely accidental. He had taken up, with as much + earnestness as he could reasonably expect of himself, that + notion of studying the architectural expression of Florentine + character at the different periods. He had spent a good deal + of money in books, he had revived his youthful familiarity + with the city, and he had made what acquaintance he could + with people interested in such matters. He met some of these + in the limited but very active society in which he mingled + daily and nightly. After the first strangeness to any sort of + social life had worn off, he found himself very fond of the + prompt hospitalities which his introduction at Mrs. Bowen's + had opened to him. His host—or more frequently it was + his hostess—had sometimes merely an apartment at a + hotel; perhaps the family was established in one of the + furnished lodgings which stretch the whole length of the + Lung' Arno on either hand, and abound in all the new streets + approaching the Cascine, and had set up the simple and facile + housekeeping of the sojourner in Florence for a few months; + others had been living in the villa or the palace they had + taken for years. + </p> + <p> + The more recent and transitory people expressed something of + the prevailing English and American aestheticism in the + decoration of their apartments, but the greater part accepted + the Florentine drawing-room as their landlord had imagined it + for them, with furniture and curtains in yellow satin, a + cheap ingrain carpet thinly covering the stone floor, and a + fire of little logs ineffectually blazing on the hearth, and + flickering on the carved frames of the pictures on the wall + and the nakedness of the frescoed allegories in the ceiling. + Whether of longer or shorter stay, the sojourners were bound + together by a common language and a common social tradition; + they all had a Day, and on that day there was tea and bread + and butter for every comer. They had one another to dine; + there were evening parties, with dancing and without dancing. + Colville even went to a fancy ball, where he was kept in + countenance by several other Florentines of the period of + Romola. At all these places he met nearly the same people, + whose alien life in the midst of the native community struck + him as one of the phases of modern civilisation worthy of + note, if not particular study; for he fancied it destined to + a wider future throughout Europe, as the conditions in + England and America grow more tiresome and more onerous. They + seemed to see very little of Italian society, and to be shut + out from practical knowledge of the local life by the terms + upon which they had themselves insisted. Our race finds its + simplified and cheapened London or New York in all its + Continental resorts now, but nowhere has its taste been so + much studied as in Italy, and especially in Florence. It was + not, perhaps, the real Englishman or American who had been + considered, but a <i>forestière</i> conventionalised + from the Florentine's observation of many Anglo-Saxons. But + he had been so well conjectured that he was hemmed round with + a very fair illusion of his national circumstances. + </p> + <p> + It was not that he had his English or American doctor to + prescribe for him when sick, and his English or American + apothecary to compound his potion; it was not that there was + an English tailor and an American dentist, an English + bookseller and an English baker, and chapels of every shade + of Protestantism, with Catholic preaching in English every + Sunday. These things were more or less matters of necessity, + but Colville objected that the barbers should offer him an + American shampoo; that the groceries should abound in English + biscuit and our own canned fruit and vegetables, and that the + grocers' clerks should be ambitious to read the labels of the + Boston baked beans. He heard—though he did not prove + this by experiment—that the master of a certain + trattoria had studied the doughnut of New England till he had + actually surpassed the original in the qualities that have + undermined our digestion as a people. But above all it + interested him to see that intense expression of American + civilisation, the horse-car, triumphing along the magnificent + avenues that mark the line of the old city walls; and he + recognised an instinctive obedience to an abtruse natural law + in the fact that whereas the omnibus, which the Italians have + derived from the English, was not filled beyond its seating + capacity, the horse-car was overcrowded without and within at + Florence, just as it is with us who invented it. + </p> + <p> + "I wouldn't mind even that," he said one day to the lady who + was drawing him his fifth or sixth cup of tea for that + afternoon, and with whom he was naturally making this absurd + condition of things a matter of personal question; "but you + people here pass your days in a round of unbroken English, + except when you talk with your servants. I'm not sure you + don't speak English with the shop people. I can hardly get + them to speak Italian to me." + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps they think you can speak English better," said the + lady. + </p> + <p> + This went over Florence; in a week it was told to Colville as + something said to some one else. He fearlessly reclaimed it + as said to himself, and this again was told. In the houses + where he visited he had the friendly acceptance of any + intelligent and reasonably agreeable person who comes + promptly and willingly when he is asked, and seems always to + have enjoyed himself when he goes away. But besides this sort + of general favour, he enjoyed a very pleasing little personal + popularity which came from his interest in other people, from + his good-nature, and from his inertness. He slighted no + acquaintance, and talked to every one with the same apparent + wish to be entertaining. This was because he was incapable of + the cruelty of open indifference when his lot was cast with a + dull person, and also because he was mentally too lazy to + contrive pretences for getting away; besides he did not + really find anybody altogether a bore, and he had no wish to + shine. He listened without shrinking to stories that he had + heard before, and to things that had already been said to + him; as has been noted, he had himself the habit of repeating + his ideas with the recklessness of maturity, for he had lived + long enough to know that this can be done with almost entire + safety. + </p> + <p> + He haunted the studios a good deal, and through a + retrospective affinity with art, and a human sympathy with + the sacrifice which it always involves, he was on friendly + terms with sculptors and painters who were not in every case + so friendly with one another. More than once he saw the scars + of old rivalries, and he might easily have been an adherent + of two or three parties. But he tried to keep the freedom of + the different camps without taking sides; and he felt the + pathos of the case when they all told the same story of the + disaster which the taste for bric-à-brac had wrought + to the cause of art; how people who came abroad no longer + gave orders for statues and pictures, but spent their money + on curtains and carpets, old chests and chairs, and pots and + pans. There were some among these artists whom he had known + twenty years before in Florence, ardent and hopeful + beginners; and now the backs of their grey or bald heads, as + they talked to him with their faces towards their work, and a + pencil or a pinch of clay held thoughtfully between their + fingers, appealed to him as if he had remained young and + prosperous, and they had gone forward to age and hard work. + They were very quaint at times. They talked the American + slang of the war days and of the days before the war; without + a mastery of Italian, they often used the idioms of that + tongue in their English speech. They were dim and vague about + the country, with whose affairs they had kept up through the + newspapers. Here and there one thought he was going home very + soon; others had finally relinquished all thoughts of return. + These had, perhaps without knowing it, lost the desire to + come back; they cowered before the expensiveness of life in + America, and doubted of a future with which, indeed, only the + young can hopefully grapple. But in spite of their + accumulated years, and the evil times on which they had + fallen, Colville thought them mostly very happy men, leading + simple and innocent lives in a world of the ideal, and rich + in the inexhaustible beauty of the city, the sky, the air. + They all, whether they were ever going back or not, were + fervent Americans, and their ineffaceable nationality marked + them, perhaps, all the more strongly for the patches of + something alien that overlaid it in places. They knew that he + was or had been a newspaper man; but if they secretly + cherished the hope that he would bring them to the <i>dolce + lume</i> of print, they never betrayed it; and the authorship + of his letter about the American artists in Florence, which + he printed in the <i>American Register</i> at Paris, was not + traced to him for a whole week. + </p> + <p> + Colville was a frequent visitor of Mr. Waters, who had a + lodging in Piazza San Marco, of the poverty which can always + be decent in Italy. It was bare, but for the books that + furnished it; with a table for his writing, on a corner of + which he breakfasted, a wide sofa with cushions in coarse + white linen that frankly confessed itself a bed by night, and + two chairs of plain Italian walnut; but the windows, which + had no sun, looked out upon the church and the convent sacred + to the old Socinian for the sake of the meek, heroic mystic + whom they keep alive in all the glory of his martyrdom. No + two minds could well have been further apart than the New + England minister and the Florentine monk, and no two souls + nearer together, as Colville recognised with a not irreverent + smile. + </p> + <p> + When the old man was not looking up some point of his saint's + history in his books, he was taking with the hopefulness of + youth and the patience of age a lesson in colloquial Italian + from his landlady's daughter, which he pronounced with a + scholarly scrupulosity and a sincere atonic Massachusetts + accent. He practised the language wherever he could, + especially at the trattoria where he dined, and where he made + occasions to detain the waiter in conversation. They humoured + him, out of their national good-heartedness and sympathy, and + they did what they could to realise a strange American dish + for him on Sundays—a combination of stockfish and + potatoes boiled, and then fried together in small cakes. They + revered him as a foreign gentleman of saintly amiability and + incomprehensible preferences; and he was held in equal regard + at the next green-grocer's where he spent every morning five + centessimi for a bunch of radishes and ten for a little pat + of butter to eat with his bread and coffee; he could not yet + accustom himself to mere bread and coffee for breakfast, + though he conformed as completely as he could to the Italian + way of living. He respected the abstemiousness of the race; + he held that it came from a spirituality of nature to which + the North was still strange, with all its conscience and + sense of individual accountability. He contended that he + never suffered in his small dealings with these people from + the dishonesty which most of his countrymen complained of; + and he praised their unfailing gentleness of manner; this + could arise only from goodness of heart, which was perhaps + the best kind of goodness after all. + </p> + <p> + None of these humble acquaintance of his could well have + accounted for the impression they all had that he was some + sort of ecclesiastic. They could never have + understood—nor, for that matter, could any one have + understood through European tradition—the sort of + sacerdotal office that Mr. Waters had filled so long in the + little deeply book-clubbed New England village where he had + outlived most of his flock, till one day he rose in the midst + of the surviving dyspeptics and consumptives and, following + the example of Mr. Emerson, renounced his calling for ever. + By that time even the pale Unitarianism thinning out into + paler doubt was no longer tenable with him. He confessed that + while he felt the Divine goodness more and more, he believed + that it was a mistake to preach any specific creed or + doctrine, and he begged them to release him from their + service. A young man came to fill his place in their pulpit, + but he kept his place in their hearts. They raised a + subscription of seventeen hundred dollars and thirty-five + cents; another being submitted to the new button + manufacturer, who had founded his industry in the village, he + promptly rounded it out to three thousand, and Mr. Waters + came to Florence. His people parted with him in terms of + regret as delicate as they were awkward, and their love + followed him. He corresponded regularly with two or three + ladies, and his letters were sometimes read from his pulpit. + </p> + <p> + Colville took the Piazza San Marco in on his way to Palazzo + Pinti on the morning when he had made up his mind to go + there, and he stood at the window looking out with the old + man, when some more maskers passed through the + place—two young fellows in old Florentine dress, with a + third habited as a nun. + </p> + <p> + "Ah," said the old man gently, "I wish they hadn't introduced + the nun! But I suppose they can't help signalising their + escape from the domination of the Church on all occasions. + It's a natural reaction. It will all come right in time." + </p> + <p> + "You preach the true American gospel," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Of course; there is no other gospel. That is the gospel." + </p> + <p> + "Do you suppose that Savonarola would think it had all come + out right," asked Colville, a little maliciously, "if he + could look from the window with us here and see the wicked + old Carnival, that he tried so hard to kill four hundred + years ago, still alive? And kicking?" he added, in cognisance + of the caper of one of the maskers. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; why not? By this time he knows that his puritanism + was all a mistake, unless as a thing for the moment only. I + should rather like to have Savonarola here with us; he would + find these costumes familiar; they are of his time. I shall + make a point of seeing all I can of the Carnival, as part of + my study of Savonarola, if nothing else." + </p> + <p> + "I'm afraid you'll have to give yourself limitations," said + Colville, as one of the maskers threw his arm round the + mock-nun's neck. But the old man did not see this, and + Colville did not feel it necessary to explain himself. + </p> + <p> + The maskers had passed out of the piazza, now, and "Have you + seen our friends at Palazzo Pinti lately?" said Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + "Not very," said Colville. "I was just on my way there." + </p> + <p> + "I wish you would make them my compliments. Such a beautiful + young creature." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville; "she is certainly a beautiful girl." + </p> + <p> + "I meant Mrs. Bowen," returned the old man quietly. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I thought you meant Miss Graham. Mrs. Bowen is my + contemporary, and so I didn't think of her when you said + young. I should have called her pretty rather than + beautiful." + </p> + <p> + "No; she's beautiful. The young girl is good-looking—I + don't deny that; but she is very crude yet." + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed. "Crude in looks? I should have said Miss + Graham was rather crude in mind, though I'm not sure I + wouldn't have stopped at saying <i>young</i>." + </p> + <p> + "No," mildly persisted the old man; "she couldn't be crude in + mind without being crude in looks." + </p> + <p> + "You mean," pursued Colville, smiling, but not wholly + satisfied, "that she hasn't a lovely nature?" + </p> + <p> + "You never can know what sort of nature a young girl has. Her + nature depends so much upon that of the man whose fate she + shares." + </p> + <p> + "The woman is what the man makes her? That is convenient for + the woman, and relieves her of all responsibility." + </p> + <p> + "The man is what the woman makes him, too, but not so much + so. The man was cast into a deep sleep, you + know——" + </p> + <p> + "And the woman was what he dreamed her. I wish she were." + </p> + <p> + "In most cases she is," said Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + They did not pursue the matter. The truth that floated in the + old minister's words pleased Colville by its vagueness, and + flattered the man in him by its implication of the man's + superiority. He wanted to say that if Mrs. Bowen were what + the late Mr. Bowen had dreamed her, then the late Mr. Bowen, + when cast into his deep sleep, must have had Lina Ridgely in + his eye. But this seemed to be personalising the fantasy + unwarrantably, and pushing it too far. For like reason he + forbore to say that if Mr. Waters's theory were correct, it + would be better to begin with some one whom nobody else had + dreamed before; then you could be sure at least of not having + a wife to somebody else's mind rather than your own. Once on + his way to Palazzo Pinti, he stopped, arrested by a thought + that had not occurred to him before in relation to what Mr. + Waters had been saying, and then pushed on with the sense of + security which is the compensation the possession of the + initiative brings to our sex along with many + responsibilities. In the enjoyment of this, no man stops to + consider the other side, which must wait his initiative, + however they mean to meet it. + </p> + <p> + In the Por San Maria Colville found masks and dominoes + filling the shop windows and dangling from the doors. A devil + in red and a clown in white crossed the way in front of him + from an intersecting street; several children in pretty + masquerading dresses flashed in and out among the crowd. He + hurried to the Lung' Arno, and reached the palace where Mrs. + Bowen lived, with these holiday sights fresh in his mind. + Imogene turned to meet him at the door of the apartment, + running from the window where she had left Effie Bowen still + gazing. + </p> + <p> + "We saw you coming," she said gaily, without waiting to + exchange formal greetings. "We didn't know at first but it + might; be somebody else disguised as you. We've been watching + the maskers go by. Isn't it exciting?" + </p> + <p> + "Awfully," said Colville, going to the window with her, and + putting his arm on Effie's shoulder, where she knelt in a + chair looking out. "What have you seen?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, only two Spanish students with mandolins," said Imogene; + "but you can see they're <i>beginning</i> to come." + </p> + <p> + "They'll stop now," murmured Effie, with gentle + disappointment; "it's commencing to rain." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, too bad!" wailed the young girl. But just then two + mediaeval men-at-arms came in sight, carrying umbrellas. + "Isn't that too delicious? Umbrellas and chain-armour!" + </p> + <p> + "You can't expect them to let their chain-armour get rusty," + said Colville. "You ought to have been with + me—minstrels in scale-armour, Florentines of + Savonarola's times, nuns, clowns, demons, fairies—no + end to them." + </p> + <p> + "It's very well saying we ought to have been with you; but we + can't go anywhere alone." + </p> + <p> + "I didn't say alone," said Colville. "Don't you think Mrs. + Bowen would trust you with me to see these Carnival + beginnings?" He had not meant at all to do anything of this + kind, but that had not prevented his doing it. + </p> + <p> + "How do we know, when she hasn't been asked?" said Imogene, + with a touch of burlesque dolor, such as makes a dignified + girl enchanting, when she permits it to herself. She took + Effie's hand in hers, the child having faced round from the + window, and stood smoothing it, with her lovely head + pathetically tilted on one side. + </p> + <p> + "What haven't I been asked yet?" demanded Mrs. Bowen, coming + lightly toward them from a door at the side of the + <i>salon</i>. She gave her hand to Colville with the + prettiest grace, and a cordiality that brought a flush to her + cheek. There had really been nothing between them but a + little unreasoned coolness, if it were even so much as that; + say rather a dryness, aggravated by time and absence, and + now, as friends do, after a thing of that kind, they were + suddenly glad to be good to each other. + </p> + <p> + "Why, you haven't been asked how you have been this long + time," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I have been wanting to tell you for a whole week," returned + Mrs. Bowen, seating the rest and taking a chair for herself. + "Where have you been?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, shut up in my cell at Hotel d'Atene, writing a short + history of the Florentine people for Miss Effie." + </p> + <p> + "Effie, take Mr. Colville's hat," said her mother. "We're + going to make you stay to lunch," she explained to him. + </p> + <p> + "Is that so?" he asked, with an effect of polite curiosity. + </p> + <p> + "Yes." Imogene softly clapped her hands, unseen by Mrs. + Bowen, for Colville's instruction that all was going well. If + it delights women to pet an undangerous friend of our sex, to + use him like one of themselves, there are no words to paint + the soft and flattered content with which his spirit purrs + under their caresses. "You must have nearly finished the + history," added Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Well, I could have finished it," said Colville, "if I had + only begun it. You see, writing a short history of the + Florentine people is such quick work that you have to be + careful how you actually put pen to paper, or you're through + with it before you've had any fun out of it." + </p> + <p> + "I think Effie will like to read that kind of history," said + her mother. + </p> + <p> + The child hung her head, and would not look at Colville; she + was still shy with him; his absence must have seemed longer + to a child, of course. + </p> + <p> + At lunch they talked of the Carnival sights that had begun to + appear. He told of his call upon Mr. Waters, and of the old + minister's purpose to see all he could of the Carnival in + order to judge intelligently of Savonarola's opposition to + it. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Waters is a very good man," said Mrs. Bowen, with the + air of not meaning to approve him quite, nor yet to let any + notion of his be made fun of in her presence. "But for my + part I wish there were not going to be any Carnival; the city + will be in such an uproar for the next two weeks." + </p> + <p> + "O Mrs. Bowen!" cried Imogene reproachfully; Effie looked at + her mother in apparent anxiety lest she should be meaning to + put forth an unquestionable power and stop the Carnival. + </p> + <p> + "The last Carnival, I thought there was never going to be any + end to it; I was so glad when Lent came." + </p> + <p> + "Glad when <i>Lent</i> came!" breathed Imogene, in + astonishment; but she ventured upon nothing more + insubordinate, and Colville admired to see this spirited girl + as subject to Mrs. Bowen as her own child. There is no reason + why one woman should establish another woman over her, but + nearly all women do it in one sort or another, from love of a + voluntary submission, or from a fear of their own ignorance, + if they are younger and more inexperienced than their lieges. + Neither the one passion nor the other seems to reduce them to + a like passivity as regards their husbands. They must + apparently have a fetish of their own sex. Colville could see + that Imogene obeyed Mrs. Bowen not only as a + <i>protégée</i> but as a devotee. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I suppose <i>you</i> will have to go through it all," + said Mrs. Bowen, in reward of the girl's acquiescence. + </p> + <p> + "You're rather out of the way of it up here," said Colville. + "You had better let me go about with the young + ladies—if you can trust them to the care of an old + fellow like me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't think you're so very old, at all times," replied + Mrs. Bowen, with a peculiar look, whether indulgent or + reproachful he could not quite make out. + </p> + <p> + But he replied, boldly, in his turn: "I have certainly my + moments of being young still; I don't deny it. There's always + a danger of their occurrence." + </p> + <p> + "I was thinking," said Mrs. Bowen, with a graceful effect of + not listening, "that you would let me go too. It would be + quite like old times." + </p> + <p> + "Only too much honour and pleasure," returned Colville, "if + you will leave out the old times. I'm not particular about + having them along." Mrs. Bowen joined in laughing at the + joke, which they had to themselves. "I was only consulting an + explicit abhorrence of yours in not asking you to go at + first," he explained. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; I understand that." + </p> + <p> + The excellence of the whole arrangement seemed to grow upon + Mrs. Bowen. "Of course," she said, "Imogene ought to see all + she can of the Carnival. She may not have another chance, and + perhaps if she had, <i>he</i> wouldn't consent." + </p> + <p> + "I'll engage to get <i>his</i> consent," said the girl. "What + I was afraid of was that I couldn't get yours, Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Am I so severe as that?" asked Mrs. Bowen softly. + </p> + <p> + "Quite," replied Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps," thought Colville, "it isn't always silent + submission." + </p> + <p> + For no very good reason that any one could give, the Carnival + that year was not a brilliant one. Colville's party seemed to + be always meeting the same maskers on the street, and the + maskers did not greatly increase in numbers. There were a few + more of them after nightfall, but they were then a little + more bacchanal, and he felt it was better that the ladies had + gone home by that time. In the pursuit of the tempered + pleasure of looking up the maskers he was able to make the + reflection that their fantastic and vivid dresses sympathised + in a striking way with the architecture of the city, and gave + him an effect of Florence which he could not otherwise have + had. There came by and by a little attempt at a <i>corso</i> + in Via Cerratani and Via Tornabuoni. There were some masks in + carriages, and from one they actually threw plaster + <i>confetti</i>; half a dozen bare-legged boys ran before and + beat one another with bladders, Some people, but not many, + watched the show from the windows, and the footways were + crowded. + </p> + <p> + Having proposed that they should see the Carnival together, + Colville had made himself responsible for it to the Bowen + household. Imogene said, "Well is this the famous Carnival of + Florence?" + </p> + <p> + "It certainly doesn't compare with the Carnival last year," + said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Your reproach is just, Mrs. Bowen," he acknowledged. "I've + managed it badly. But you know I've been out of practice a + great while there in Des Vaches." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, poor Mr. Colville!" cried Imogene. "He isn't altogether + to blame." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen, humouring the joke in her + turn. "It seems to me that if he had consulted us a little + earlier, he might have done better." + </p> + <p> + He drove home with the ladies, and Mrs. Bowen made him stay + to tea. As if she felt that he needed to be consoled for the + failure of his Carnival, she was especially indulgent with + him. She played to him on the piano some of the songs that + were in fashion when they were in Florence together before. + </p> + <p> + Imogene had never heard them; she had heard her mother speak + of them. One or two of them were negro songs, such as very + pretty young ladies used to sing without harm to themselves + or offence to others; but Imogene decided that they were + rather rowdy. "Dear me, Mrs. Bowen! Did <i>you</i> sing such + songs? You wouldn't let Effie!" + </p> + <p> + "No, I wouldn't let Effie. The times are changed. I wouldn't + let Effie go to the theatre alone with a young gentleman." + </p> + <p> + "The times are changed for the worse," Colville began. "What + harm ever came to a young man from a young lady's going alone + to the theatre with him?" + </p> + <p> + He stayed till the candles were brought in, and then went + away only because, as he said, they had not asked him to stay + to dinner. + </p> + <p> + He came nearly every day, upon one pretext or another, and he + met them oftener than that at the teas and on the days of + other ladies in Florence; for he was finding the busy + idleness of the life very pleasant, and he went everywhere. + He formed the habit of carrying flowers to the Palazzo Pinti, + excusing himself on the ground that they were so cheap and so + abundant as to be impersonal. He brought violets to Effie and + roses to Imogene; to Mrs. Bowen he always brought a bunch of + the huge purple anemones which grow so abundantly all winter + long about Florence. "I wonder why <i>purple</i> anemones?" + he asked her one day in presenting them to her. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it is quite time I should be wearing purple," she said + gently. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, Mrs. Bowen!" he reproached her. "Why do I bring purple + violets to Miss Effie?" + </p> + <p> + "You must ask Effie!" said Mrs. Bowen, with a laugh. + </p> + <p> + After that he stayed away forty-eight hours, and then + appeared with a bunch of the red anemones, as large as + tulips, which light up the meadow grass when it begins to + stir from its torpor in the spring. "They grew on purpose to + set me right with you," he said, "and I saw them when I was + in the country." + </p> + <p> + It was a little triumph for him, which she celebrated by + putting them in a vase on her table, and telling people who + exclaimed over them that they were some Mr. Colville gathered + in the country. He enjoyed his privileges at her house with + the futureless satisfaction of a man. He liked to go about + with the Bowens; he was seen with the ladies driving and + walking, in most of their promenades. He directed their + visits to the churches and the galleries; he was fond of + strolling about with Effie's daintily-gloved little hand in + his. He took her to Giocosa's and treated her to ices; he let + her choose from the confectioner's prettiest caprices in + candy; he was allowed to bring the child presents in his + pockets. Perhaps he was not as conscientious as he might have + been in his behaviour with the little girl. He did what he + could to spoil her, or at least to relax the severity of the + training she had received; he liked to see the struggle that + went on in the mother's mind against this, and then the other + struggle with which she overcame her opposition to it. The + worst he did was to teach Effie some picturesque Western + phrases, which she used with innocent effectiveness; she + committed the crimes against convention which he taught her + with all the conventional elegance of her training. The most + that he ever gained for her were some concessions in going + out in weather that her mother thought unfit, or sitting up + for half-hours after her bed-time. He ordered books for her + from Goodban's, and it was Colville now, and not the Rev. Mr. + Morton, who read poetry aloud to the ladies on afternoons + when Mrs. Bowen gave orders that she and Miss Graham should + be denied to all other comers. + </p> + <p> + It was an intimacy; and society in Florence is not blind, and + especially it is not dumb. The old lady who had celebrated + Mrs. Bowen to him the first night at Palazzo Pinti led a life + of active questions as to what was the supreme attraction to + Colville there, and she referred her doubt to every friend + with whom she drank tea. She philosophised the situation very + scientifically, and if not very conclusively, how few are the + absolute conclusions of science upon any point! + </p> + <p> + "He is a bachelor, and there is a natural affinity between + bachelors and widows—much more than if he were a + widower too. If he were a widower I should say it was + undoubtedly mademoiselle. If he were a little <i>bit</i> + younger, I should have no doubt it was madame; but men of + that age have such an ambition to marry young girls! I + suppose that they think it proves they are not so very old, + after all. And certainly he isn't too old to marry. If he + were wise—which he probably isn't, if he's like other + men in such matters—there wouldn't be any question + about Mrs. Bowen. Pretty creature! And so much sense! Too + much for him. Ah, my dear, how we are wasted upon that sex!" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen herself treated the affair with masterly + frankness. More than once in varying phrase, she said: "You + are very good to give us so much of your time, Mr. Colville, + and I won't pretend I don't know it. You're helping me out + with a very hazardous experiment. When I undertook to see + Imogene through a winter in Florence, I didn't reflect what a + very gay time girls have at home, in Western towns + especially. But I haven't heard her breathe Buffalo once. And + I'm sure it's doing her a great deal of good here. She's + naturally got a very good mind; she's very ambitious to be + cultivated. She's read a good deal, and she's anxious to know + history and art; and your advice and criticism are the + greatest possible advantage to her." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you," said Colville, with a fine, remote + dissatisfaction. "I supposed I was merely enjoying myself." + </p> + <p> + He had lately begun to haunt his banker's for information in + regard to the Carnival balls, with the hope that something + might be made out of them. + </p> + <p> + But either there were to be no great Carnival balls, or it + was a mistake to suppose that his banker ought to know about + them. Colville went experimentally to one of the people's + balls at a minor theatre, which he found advertised on the + house walls. At half-past ten the dancing had not begun, but + the masks were arriving; young women in gay silks and dirty + white gloves; men in women's dresses, with enormous hands; + girls as pages; clowns, pantaloons, old women, and the like. + They were all very good-humoured; the men, who far + outnumbered the women, danced contentedly together. Colville + liked two cavalry soldiers who waltzed with each other for an + hour, and then went off to a battery on exhibition in the + pit, and had as much electricity as they could hold. He liked + also two young citizens who danced together as long as he + stayed, and did not leave off even for electrical + refreshment. He came away at midnight, pushing out of the + theatre through a crowd of people at the door, some of whom + were tipsy. This certainly would not have done for the + ladies, though the people were civilly tipsy. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="IX"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + IX + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + The next morning Paolo, when he brought up Colville's + breakfast, brought the news that there was to be a veglione + at the Pergola Theatre. This news revived Colville's courage. + "Paolo," he said, "you ought to open a banking-house." Paolo + was used to being joked by foreigners who could not speak + Italian very well; he smiled as if he understood. + </p> + <p> + The banker had his astute doubts of Paolo's intelligence; the + banker in Europe doubts all news not originating in his + house; but after a day or two the advertisements in the + newspapers carried conviction even to the banker. + </p> + <p> + When Colville went to the ladies with news of the veglione, + he found that they had already heard of it. "Should you like + to go?" he asked Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. What do you think?" she asked in turn. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it's for you to do the thinking. I only know what I + want." + </p> + <p> + Imogene said nothing, while she watched the internal debate + as it expressed itself in Mrs. Bowen's face. + </p> + <p> + "People go in boxes," she said thoughtfully; "but you would + feel that a box wasn't the same thing exactly?" + </p> + <p> + "<i>We</i> went on the floor," suggested Colville. + </p> + <p> + "It was very different then. And, besides, Mrs. Finlay had + absolutely <i>no</i> sense of propriety." When a woman has + explicitly condemned a given action, she apparently gathers + courage for its commission under a little different + conditions. "Of course, if we went upon the floor, I + shouldn't wish it to be known at all, though foreigners can + do almost anything they like." + </p> + <p> + "Really," said Colville, "when it comes to that, I don't see + any harm in it." + </p> + <p> + "And you say go?" + </p> + <p> + "I say whatever you say." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen looked from him to Imogene. "I don't either," she + said finally, and they understood that she meant the harm + which he had not seen. + </p> + <p> + "Which of us has been so good as to deserve this?" asked + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you have all been good," she said. "We shall go in masks + and dominoes," she continued. "Nothing will happen, and who + should know us if anything did?" They had received tickets to + the great Borghese ball, which is still a fashionable and + desired event of the Carnival to foreigners in Florence; but + their preconceptions of the veglione threw into the shade the + entertainment which the gentlemen of Florence offered to + favoured sojourners. + </p> + <p> + "Come," said Mrs. Bowen, "you must go with us and help us + choose our dominoes." + </p> + <p> + A prudent woman does not do an imprudent thing by halves. + Effie was to be allowed to go to the veglione too, and she + went with them to the shop where they were to hire their + dominoes. It would be so much more fun, Mrs. Bowen said, to + choose the dresses in the shop than to have them sent home + for you to look at. Effie was to be in black; Imogene was to + have a light blue domino, and Mrs. Bowen chose a purple one; + even where their faces were not to be seen they considered + their complexions in choosing the colours. If you happened to + find a friend, and wanted to unmask, you would not want to + look horrid. The shop people took the vividest interest in it + all, as if it were a new thing to them, and these were the + first foreigners they had ever served with masks and + dominoes. They made Mrs. Bowen and Imogene go into an inner + room and come out for the mystification of Colville, hulking + about in the front shop with his mask and domino on. + </p> + <p> + "Which is which?" the ladies both challenged him, in the + mask's conventional falsetto, when they came out. + </p> + <p> + With a man's severe logic he distinguished them according to + their silks, but there had been time for them to think of + changing, and they took off their masks to laugh in his face. + </p> + <p> + They fluttered so airily about among the pendent masks and + dominoes, from which they shook a ghostly perfume of old + carnivals, that his heart leaped. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, you'll never be so fascinating again!" he cried. He + wanted to take them in his arms, they were both so delicious; + a man has still only that primitive way of expressing his + supreme satisfaction in women. "Now, which am I?" he demanded + of them, and that made them laugh again. He had really put + his arm about Effie. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think you will know your papa at the veglione?" asked + one of the shop-women, with a mounting interest in the + amiable family party. + </p> + <p> + They all laughed; the natural mistake seemed particularly + droll to Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Come," cried Mrs. Bowen; "it's time we should be going." + </p> + <p> + That was true; they had passed so long a time in the shop + that they did not feel justified in seriously attempting to + beat down the price of their dresses. They took them at the + first price. The woman said with reason that it was Carnival, + and she could get her price for the things. + </p> + <p> + They went to the veglione at eleven, the ladies calling for + Colville, as before, in Mrs. Bowen's carriage. He felt rather + sheepish, coming out of his room in his mask and domino, but + the corridors of the hotel were empty, and for the most part + dark; there was no one up but the porter, who wished him a + pleasant time in as matter-of-fact fashion as if he were + going out to an evening party in his dress coat. His spirits + mounted in the atmosphere of adventure which the ladies + diffused about them in the carriage; Effie Bowen laughed + aloud when he entered, in childish gaiety of heart. + </p> + <p> + The narrow streets roared with the wheels of cabs and + carriages coming and going; the street before the theatre was + so packed that it was some time before they could reach the + door. Masks were passing in and out; the nervous joy of the + ladies expressed itself in a deep-drawn quivering sigh. Their + carriage door was opened by a servant of the theatre, who + wished them a pleasant veglione, and the next moment they + were in the crowded vestibule, where they paused a moment, to + let Imogene and Effie really feel that they were part of a + masquerade. + </p> + <p> + "Now, keep all together," said Mrs. Bowen, as they passed + through the inner door of the vestibule, and the brilliantly + lighted theatre flashed its colours and splendours upon them. + The floor of the pit had been levelled to that of the stage, + which, stripped of the scenic apparatus, opened vaster spaces + for the motley crew already eddying over it in the waltz. The + boxes, tier over tier, blazed with the light of candelabra + which added their sparkle to that of the gas jets. + </p> + <p> + "You and Effie go before," said Mrs. Bowen to Imogene. She + made them take hands like children, and mechanically passed + her own hand through Colville's arm. + </p> + <p> + A mask in red from head to foot attached himself to the + party, and began to make love to her in excellent pantomime. + </p> + <p> + Colville was annoyed. He asked her if he should tell the + fellow to take himself off. + </p> + <p> + "Not on any account!" she answered. "It's perfectly + delightful. It wouldn't be the veglione without it. Did you + ever see such good acting?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't think it's remarkable for anything but its fervour," + said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I should like to see you making love to some lady," she + rejoined mischievously. + </p> + <p> + "I will make love to you, if you like," he said, but he felt + in an instant that his joke was in bad taste. + </p> + <p> + They went the round of the theatre. "That is Prince Strozzi, + Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, leaning forward to whisper to the + girl. She pointed out other people of historic and + aristocratic names in the boxes, where there was a democracy + of beauty among the ladies, all painted and powdered to the + same marquise effect. + </p> + <p> + On the floor were gentlemen in evening dress, without masks, + and here and there ladies waltzing, who had masks but no + dominoes. But for the most part people were in costume; the + theatre flushed and flowered in gay variety of tint that + teased the eye with its flow through the dance. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen had circumscribed the adventure so as to exclude + dancing from it. Imogene was not to dance. One might go to + the veglione and look on from a box; if one ventured further + and went on the floor, decidedly one was not to dance. + </p> + <p> + This was thoroughly understood beforehand, and there were to + be no petitions or murmurs at the theatre. They found a quiet + corner, and sat down to look on. + </p> + <p> + The mask in red followed, and took his place at a little + distance, where, whenever Mrs. Bowen looked that way, he + continued to protest his passion. + </p> + <p> + "You're sure he doesn't bore you?" suggested Colville. + </p> + <p> + "No, indeed. He's very amusing." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, all right!" + </p> + <p> + The waltz ceased; the whirling and winding confusion broke + into an irregular streaming hither and thither, up and down. + They began to pick out costumes and characters that + interested them. Clowns in white, with big noses, and + harlequins in their motley, with flat black masks, abounded. + There were some admirable grasshoppers in green, with long + antennae quivering from their foreheads. Two or three + Mephistos reddened through the crowd. Several knights in + armour got about with difficulty, apparently burdened by + their greaves and breastplates. + </p> + <p> + A group of leaping and dancing masks gathered around a young + man in evening dress, with long hair, who stood leaning + against a pillar near them, and who underwent their mockeries + with a smile of patience, half amused, half tormented. + </p> + <p> + When they grew tired of baiting him, and were looking about + for other prey, the red mask redoubled his show of devotion + to Mrs. Bowen, and the other masks began to flock round and + approve. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, now," she said, with a little embarrassed laugh, in + which there was no displeasure, "I think you may ask him to + go away. But don't be harsh with him," she added, at a + brusque movement which Colville made toward the mask. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, why should I be harsh with him? We're not rivals." This + was not in good taste either, Colville felt. "Besides, I'm an + Italian too," he said, to retrieve himself. He made a few + paces toward the mask, and said in a low tone, with gentle + suggestion, "Madame finds herself a little incommoded." + </p> + <p> + The mask threw himself into an attitude of burlesque despair, + bowed low with his hand on his heart, in token of submission, + and vanished into the crowd. The rest dispersed with cries of + applause. + </p> + <p> + "How very prettily you did it, both of you!" said Mrs. Bowen. + "I begin to believe you are an Italian, Mr. Colville. I shall + be afraid of you." + </p> + <p> + "You weren't afraid of him." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he was a real Italian." + </p> + <p> + "It seems to me that mamma is getting all the good of the + veglione," said Effie, in a plaintive murmur. The + well-disciplined child must have suffered deeply before she + lifted this seditious voice. + </p> + <p> + "Why, so I am, Effie," answered her mother, "and I don't + think it's fair myself. What shall we do about it?" + </p> + <p> + "I should like something to eat," said the child. + </p> + <p> + "So should I," said Colville. "That's reparation your mother + owes us all. Let's make her take us and get us something. + Wouldn't you like an ice, Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, an <i>ice</i>," said Imogene, with an effect of adding, + "Nothing more for worlds," that made Colville laugh. She rose + slowly, like one in a dream, and cast a look as impassioned + as a look could be made through a mask on the scene she was + leaving behind her. The band was playing a waltz again, and + the wide floor swam with circling couples. + </p> + <p> + The corridor where the tables were set was thronged with + people, who were drinking beer and eating cold beef and boned + turkey and slices of huge round sausages. "Oh, how <i>can</i> + they?" cried the girl, shuddering. + </p> + <p> + "I didn't know you were so ethereal-minded about these + things," said Colville. "I thought you didn't object to the + salad at Madame Uccelli's." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, but at the veglione!" breathed the girl for all answer. + He laughed again, but Mrs. Bowen did not laugh with him; he + wondered why. + </p> + <p> + When they returned to their corner in the theatre they found + a mask in a black domino there, who made place for them, and + remained standing near. They began talking freely and + audibly, as English-speaking people incorrigibly do in Italy, + where their tongue is all but the language of the country. + </p> + <p> + "Really," said Colville, "I think I shall stifle in this + mask. If you ladies will do what you can to surround me and + keep me secret, I'll take it off a moment." + </p> + <p> + "I believe I will join you, Mr. Colville," said the mask near + them. He pushed up his little visor of silk, and discovered + the mild, benignant features of Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + "Bless my soul!" cried Colville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen was apparently too much shocked to say anything. + </p> + <p> + "You didn't expect to meet me here?" asked the old man, as if + otherwise it should be the most natural thing in the world. + After that they could only unite in suppressing their + astonishment. "It's extremely interesting," he went on, + "extremely! I've been here ever since the exercises began, + and I have not only been very greatly amused, but greatly + instructed. It seems to me the key to a great many anomalies + in the history of this wonderful people." + </p> + <p> + If Mr. Waters took this philosophical tone about the + Carnival, it was not possible for Colville to take any other. + </p> + <p> + "And have you been able to divine from what you have seen + here," he asked gravely, "the grounds of Savonarola's + objection to the Carnival?" + </p> + <p> + "Not at all," said the old man promptly. "I have seen nothing + but the most harmless gaiety throughout the evening." + </p> + <p> + Colville hung his head. He remembered reading once in a + passage from Swedenborg, that the most celestial angels had + scarcely any power of perceiving evil. + </p> + <p> + "Why aren't you young people dancing?" asked Mr. Waters, in a + cheerful general way, of Mrs. Bowen's party. + </p> + <p> + Colville was glad to break the silence. "Mrs. Bowen doesn't + approve of dancing at vegliones." + </p> + <p> + "No?—why not?" inquired the old man, with invincible + simplicity. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen smiled her pretty, small smile below her mask. + </p> + <p> + "The company is apt to be rather mixed," she said quietly. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," pursued Mr. Waters; "but you could dance with one + another. The company seems very well behaved." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, quite so," Mrs. Bowen assented. + </p> + <p> + "Shortly after I came," said Mr. Waters, "one of the masks + asked me to dance. I was really sorry that my age and + traditions forbade my doing so. I tried to explain, but I'm + afraid I didn't make myself quite clear." + </p> + <p> + "Probably it passed for a joke with her," said Colville, in + order to say something. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, very likely; but I shall always feel that my impressions + of the were a young man like you——" + </p> + <p> + Imogens turned and looked at Colville through the eye-holes + of her mask; even in that sort of isolation he thought her + eyes expressed surprise. + </p> + <p> + "It never occurred to you before that I was a young man," he + suggested gravely. + </p> + <p> + She did not reply. + </p> + <p> + After a little interval, "Imogene," asked Mrs. Bowen, "would + you like to dance?" + </p> + <p> + Colville was astonished. "The veglione has gone to your head, + Mrs. Bowen," he tacitly made his comment. She had spoken to + Imogene, but she glanced at him as if she expected him to be + grateful to her for this stroke of liberality. + </p> + <p> + "What would be the use?" returned the girl. + </p> + <p> + Colville rose. "After my performance in the Lancers, I can't + expect you to believe me; but I really do know how to waltz." + He had but to extend his arms, and she was hanging upon his + shoulder, and they were whirling away through a long orbit of + delight to the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, why have you let me do you such injustice?" she murmured + intensely. "I never shall forgive myself." + </p> + <p> + "It grieved me that you shouldn't have divined that I was + really a magnificent dancer in disguise, but I bore it as + best I could," said Colville, really amused at her + seriousness. "Perhaps you'll find out after a while that I'm + not an old fellow either, but only a 'Lost Youth,'" + </p> + <p> + "Hush," she said; "I don't like to hear you talk so." + </p> + <p> + "How?" + </p> + <p> + "About—age!" she answered. "It makes me + feel——- Don't to-night!" + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed. "It isn't a fact that my blinking is going + to change materially. You had better make the most of me as a + lost youth. I'm old enough to be two of them." + </p> + <p> + She did not answer, and as they wound up and down through the + other orbing couples, he remembered the veglione of seventeen + years before, when he had dreamed through the waltz with the + girl who jilted him; she was very docile and submissive that + night; he believed afterward that if he had spoken frankly + then, she would not have refused him. But he had veiled his + passion in words and phrases that, taken in themselves, had + no meaning—that neither committed him nor claimed her. + He could not help it; he had not the courage at any moment to + risk the loss of her for ever, till it was too late, till he + must lose her. + </p> + <p> + "Do you believe in pre-existence?" he demanded of Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes!" she flashed back. "This very instant it was just as + if I had been here before, long ago." + </p> + <p> + "Dancing with me?" + </p> + <p> + "With you? Yes—yes—I think so." + </p> + <p> + He had lived long enough to know that she was making herself + believe what she said, and that she had not lived long enough + to know this. + </p> + <p> + "Then you remember what I said to you—tried to say to + you—that night?" Through one of those psychological + juggles which we all practise with ourselves at times, it + amused him, it charmed him, to find her striving to realise + this past. + </p> + <p> + "No; it was so long ago? What was it?" she whispered + dreamily. + </p> + <p> + A turn of the waltz brought them near Mrs. Bowen; her mask + seemed to wear a dumb reproach. + </p> + <p> + He began to be weary; one of the differences between youth + and later life is that the latter wearies so soon of any + given emotion. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I can't remember, either! Aren't you getting rather + tired of the waltz and me?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; go on!" she deeply murmured. "Try to remember." + </p> + <p> + The long, pulsating stream of the music broke and fell. The + dancers crookedly dispersed in wandering lines. She took his + arm; he felt her heart leap against it; those innocent, + trustful throbs upbraided him. At the same time his own heart + beat with a sort of fond, protecting tenderness; he felt the + witchery of his power to make this young, radiant, and + beautiful creature hang flattered and bewildered on his talk; + he liked the compassionate worship with which his tacit + confidence had inspired her, even while he was not without + some satirical sense of the crude sort of heart-broken hero + he must be in the fancy of a girl of her age. + </p> + <p> + "Let us go and walk in the corridor a moment," he said. But + they walked there till the alluring melancholy music of the + waltz began again. In a mutual caprice, they rejoined the + dance. + </p> + <p> + It came into his head to ask, "Who is <i>he</i>?" and as he + had got past denying himself anything, he asked it. + </p> + <p> + "He? What he?" + </p> + <p> + "He that Mrs. Bowen thought might object to your seeing the + Carnival?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh!—oh yes! That was the not impossible he." + </p> + <p> + "Is that all?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "Then he's not even the not improbable he?" + </p> + <p> + "No, indeed." + </p> + <p> + They waltzed in silence. Then, "Why did you ask me that?" she + murmured. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. Was it such a strange question?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. You ought to." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, if it was wrong, I'm old enough to know better." + </p> + <p> + "You promised not to say 'old' any more." + </p> + <p> + "Then I suppose I mustn't. But you mustn't get me to ignore + it, and then laugh at me for it." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" she reproached him, "you think I could do that?" + </p> + <p> + "You could if it was you who were here with me once before." + </p> + <p> + "Then I know I wasn't." + </p> + <p> + Again they were silent, and it was he who spoke first. "I + wish you would tell me why you object to the interdicted + topic?" + </p> + <p> + "Because—because I like every time to be perfect in + itself." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! And this wouldn't be perfect in itself if I + were—not so young as some people?" + </p> + <p> + "I didn't mean that. No; but if you didn't mention it, no one + else would think of it or care for it." + </p> + <p> + "Did any one ever accuse you of flattering, Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "Not till now. And you are unjust." + </p> + <p> + "Well, I withdraw the accusation." + </p> + <p> + "And will you ever pretend such a thing again?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, never!" + </p> + <p> + "Then I have your promise." + </p> + <p> + The talk was light word-play, such as depends upon the + talker's own mood for its point or its pointlessness. Between + two young people of equal years it might have had meanings to + penetrate, to sigh over, to question. Colville found it + delicious to be pursued by the ingenuous fervour of this + young girl, eager to vindicate her sincerity in prohibiting + him from his own ironical depreciation. Apparently, she had a + sentimental mission of which he was the object; he was to be + convinced that he was unnecessarily morbid; he was to be + cheered up, to be kept in heart. + </p> + <p> + "I must believe in you after this," he said, with a smile + which his mask hid. + </p> + <p> + "Thanks," she breathed. It seemed to him that her hand closed + convulsively upon his in their light clasp. + </p> + <p> + The pressure sent a real pang to his heart. It forced her + name from his lips. "Imogene! Ah, I've no right to call you + that." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "From this out I promise to be twenty years younger. But no + one is to know it but you. Do you think you will know it? I + shouldn't like to keep the secret to myself altogether." + </p> + <p> + "No; I will help you. It shall be <i>our</i> secret." + </p> + <p> + She gave a low laugh of delight. He convinced himself that + she had entered into the light spirit of banter in which he + believed that he was talking. + </p> + <p> + The music ceased again. He whirled her to the seat where he + had left Mrs. Bowen. She was not there, nor the others. + </p> + <p> + Colville felt the meanness of a man who has betrayed his + trust, and his self-contempt was the sharper because the + trust had been as tacit and indefinite as it was generous. + The effect of Mrs. Bowen's absence was as if she had + indignantly flown, and left him to the consequences of his + treachery. + </p> + <p> + He sat down rather blankly with Imogene to wait for her + return; it was the only thing they could do. + </p> + <p> + It had grown very hot. The air was thick with dust. The + lights burned through it as through a fog. + </p> + <p> + "I believe I will take off my mask," she said. "I can + scarcely breathe." + </p> + <p> + "No, no," protested Colville; "that won't do." + </p> + <p> + "I feel faint," she gasped. + </p> + <p> + His heart sank. "Don't," he said incoherently. "Come with me + into the vestibule, and get a breath of air." + </p> + <p> + He had almost to drag her through the crowd, but in the + vestibule she revived, and they returned to their place + again. He did not share the easy content with which she + recognised the continued absence of Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Why they must be lost. But isn't it perfect sitting here and + watching the maskers?" + </p> + <p> + "Perfect," said Colville distractedly. + </p> + <p> + "Don't you like to make romances about the different ones?" + </p> + <p> + It was on Colville's tongue to say that he had made all the + romances he wished for that evening, but he only answered, + "Oh, very." + </p> + <p> + "Poor Mrs. Bowen," laughed the girl. "It will be such a joke + on her, with her punctilious notions, getting lost from her + <i>protégée</i> at a Carnival ball! I shall + tell every one." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no, don't," said Colville, in horror that big mask + scarcely concealed. + </p> + <p> + "Why not?" + </p> + <p> + "It wouldn't be at all the thing." + </p> + <p> + "Why, are you becoming Europeanised too?" she demanded. "I + thought you went in for all sorts of unconventionalities. + Recollect your promise. You must be as impulsive as I am." + </p> + <p> + Colville, staring anxiously about in every direction, made + for the first time the reflection that most young girls + probably conform to the proprieties without in the least + knowing why. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think," he asked, in desperation, "that you would be + afraid to be left here a moment while I went about in the + crowd and tried to find them?" + </p> + <p> + "Not at all," she said. But she added, "Don't be gone long." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no," he answered, pulling off his mask. "Be sure not to + move from here on any account." + </p> + <p> + He plunged into the midst of the crowd that buffeted him from + side to side as he struck against its masses. The squeaking + and gibbering masks mocked in their falsetto at his + wild-eyed, naked face thrusting hither and thither among + them. + </p> + <p> + "I saw your lady wife with another gentleman," cried one of + them, in a subtle misinterpretation of the cause of his + distraction. + </p> + <p> + The throng had immensely increased; the clowns and harlequins + ran shrieking up and down, and leaped over one another's + heads. + </p> + <p> + It was useless. He went back to Imogene with a + heart-sickening fear that she too might have vanished. + </p> + <p> + But she was still there. + </p> + <p> + "You ought to have come sooner," she said gaily. "That red + mask has been here again. He looked as if he wanted to make + love to <i>me</i> this time. But he didn't. If you'd been + here you might have asked him where Mrs. Bowen was." + </p> + <p> + Colville sat down. He had done what he could to mend the + matter, and the time had come for philosophical submission. + It was now his duty to keep up Miss Graham's spirits. They + were both Americans, and from the national standpoint he was + simply the young girl's middle-aged bachelor friend. There + was nothing in the situation for him to beat his breast + about. + </p> + <p> + "Well, all that we can do is to wait for them," he said. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes," she answered easily. "They'll be sure to come back + in the course of time." + </p> + <p> + They waited a half-hour, talking somewhat at random, and + still the others did not come. But the red mask came again. + He approached Colville, and said politely— + </p> + <p> + "<i>La signora è partita.</i>" + </p> + <p> + "The lady gone?" repeated Colville, taking this to be part of + the red mask's joke. + </p> + <p> + "<i>La bambina pareva poco lene.</i>" + </p> + <p> + "The little one not well?" echoed Colville again, rising. + "Are you joking?" + </p> + <p> + The mask made a deep murmur of polite deprecation. "I am not + capable of such a thing in a serious affair. Perhaps you know + me?" he said, taking off his mask, and in further sign of + good faith he gave the name of a painter sufficiently famous + in Florence. + </p> + <p> + "I beg your pardon, and thank you," said Colville. He had no + need to speak to Imogene—, her hand was already + trembling on his arm. + </p> + <p> + They drove home in silence through the white moonlight of the + streets, filled everywhere with the gay voices and figures of + the Carnival. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen met them at the door of her apartment, and + received them with a manner that justly distributed the + responsibility and penalty for their escapade. Colville felt + that a meaner spirit would have wreaked its displeasure upon + the girl alone. She made short, quiet answers to all his + eager inquiries. Most probably it was some childish + indisposition; Effie had been faint. No, he need not go for + the doctor. Mr. Waters had called the doctor, who had just + gone away. There was nothing else that he could do for her. + She dropped her eyes, and in everything but words dismissed + him. She would not even remain with him till he could + decently get himself out of the house. She left Imogene to + receive his adieux, feigning that she heard Effie calling. + </p> + <p> + "I'm—I'm very sorry," faltered the girl, "that we + didn't go back to her at once." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I was to blame," answered the humiliated hero of her + Carnival dream. The clinging regret with which she kept his + hand at parting scarcely consoled him for what had happened. + </p> + <p> + "I will come round in the morning," he said. "I must know how + Effie is." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; come." + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + Colville went to Palazzo Pinti next day with the feeling that + he was defying Mrs. Bowen. Upon a review of the facts he + could not find himself so very much to blame for the + occurrences of the night before, and he had not been able to + prove to his reason that Mrs. Bowen had resented his + behaviour. She had not made a scene of any sort when he came + in with Imogene; it was natural that she should excuse + herself, and should wish to be with her sick child: she had + done really nothing. But when a woman has done nothing she + fills the soul of the man whose conscience troubles him with + an instinctive apprehension. There is then no safety, his + nerves tell him, except in bringing the affair, whatever it + is, to an early issue—in having it out with her. + Colville subdued the cowardly impulse of his own heart, which + would have deceived him with the suggestion that Mrs. Bowen + might be occupied with Effie, and it would be better to ask + for Miss Graham. He asked for Mrs. Bowen, and she came in + directly. + </p> + <p> + She smiled in the usual way, and gave her hand, as she always + did; but her hand was cold, and she looked tired, though she + said Effie was quite herself again, and had been asking for + him. "Imogene has been telling her about your adventure last + night, and making her laugh." + </p> + <p> + If it had been Mrs. Bowen's purpose to mystify him, she could + not have done it more thoroughly than by this bold treatment + of the affair. He bent a puzzled gaze upon her. "I'm glad any + of you have found it amusing," he said;—"I confess that + I couldn't let myself off so lightly in regard to it." She + did not reply, and he continued: "The fact is, I don't think + I behaved very well. I abused your kindness to Miss Graham." + </p> + <p> + "Abused my kindness to Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. When you allowed her to dance at the veglione, I ought + to have considered that you were stretching a point. I ought + to have taken her back to you very soon, instead of tempting + her to go and walk with me in the corridor." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. "So it was you who proposed it? + Imogene was afraid that she had. What exemplary young people + you are! The way each of you confesses and assumes all the + blame would leave the severest chaperone without a word." + </p> + <p> + Her gaiety made Colville uncomfortable. He said gravely, + "What I blame myself most for is that I was not there to be + of use to you when Effie——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you mustn't think of that at all. Mr. Waters was most + efficient. My admirer in the red mask was close at hand, and + between them they got Effie out without the slightest + disturbance. I fancy most people thought it was a Carnival + joke. Please don't think of that again." + </p> + <p> + Nothing could be politer than all this. + </p> + <p> + "And you won't allow me to punish myself for not being there + to give you even a moral support?" + </p> + <p> + "Certainly not. As I told Imogene, young people will be young + people; and I knew how fond you were of dancing." + </p> + <p> + Though it pierced him, Colville could not help admiring the + neatness of this thrust. "I didn't know you were so ironical, + Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Ironical? Not at all." + </p> + <p> + "Ah! I see I'm not forgiven." + </p> + <p> + "I'm sure I don't know what you mean." + </p> + <p> + Imogene and Effie came in. The child was a little pale, and + willingly let him take her on his knee, and lay her languid + head on his shoulder. The girl had not aged overnight like + himself and Mrs. Bowen; she looked as fresh and strong as + yesterday. + </p> + <p> + "Miss Graham," said Colville, "if a person to whom you had + done a deadly wrong insisted that you hadn't done any wrong + at all, should you consider yourself forgiven?" + </p> + <p> + "It would depend upon the person," said the girl, with + innocent liveliness, recognising the extravagance in his + tone. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," he said, with an affected pensiveness, "so very much + depends upon the person in such a case." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rose. "Excuse me a moment; I will be back + directly. Don't get up, please," she said, and prevented him + with a quick withdrawal to another room, which left upon his + sense the impression of elegant grace, and a smile and sunny + glance. But neither had any warmth in it. + </p> + <p> + Colville heaved an involuntary sigh. "Do you feel very much + used up?" he asked Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Not at all," she laughed. "Do you?" + </p> + <p> + "Not in the least. My veglione hasn't ended yet. I'm still + practically at the Pergola. It's easy to keep a thing of that + sort up if you don't sleep after you get home." + </p> + <p> + "Didn't you sleep? I expected to lie awake a long time + thinking it over; but I dropped asleep at once. I suppose I + was very tired. I didn't even dream." + </p> + <p> + "You must have slept hard. You're pretty apt to dream when + you're waking." + </p> + <p> + "How do you know?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I've noticed when you've been talking to me. Better not! + It's a bad habit; it gives you false views of things. I + used——" + </p> + <p> + "But you mustn't say you <i>used!</i> That's forbidden now. + Remember your promise!" + </p> + <p> + "My promise? What promise?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, if you've forgotten already." + </p> + <p> + "I remember. But that was last night." + </p> + <p> + "No, no! It was for all time. Why should dreams be so very + misleading? I think there's ever so much in dreams. The most + wonderful thing is the way you make people talk in dreams. It + isn't strange that you should talk yourself, but that other + people should say this and that when you aren't at all + expecting what they say." + </p> + <p> + "That's when you're sleeping. But when you're waking, you + make people say just what you want. And that's why day dreams + are so bad. If you make people say what you want, they + probably don't mean it." + </p> + <p> + "Don't you think so?" + </p> + <p> + "Half the time. Do you ever have day dreams?" he asked Effie, + pressing her cheek against his own. + </p> + <p> + "I don't know what they are," she murmured, with a soft + little note of polite regret for her ignorance, if possibly + it incommoded him. + </p> + <p> + "You will by and by," he said, "and then you must look out + for them. They're particularly bad in this air. I had one of + them in Florence once that lasted three months." + </p> + <p> + "What was it about?" asked the child. + </p> + <p> + Imogene involuntarily bent forward. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I can't tell you now. She's trying to hear us." + </p> + <p> + "No, no," protested the girl, with a laugh. "I was thinking + of something else." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, we know her, don't we?" he said to the child, with a + playful appeal to that passion for the joint possession of a + mystery which all children have. + </p> + <p> + "We might whisper it," she suggested. + </p> + <p> + "No; better wait for some other time." They were sitting near + a table where a pencil and some loose leaves of paper lay. He + pulled his chair a little closer, and, with the child still + upon his knee, began to scribble and sketch at random. "Ah, + there's San Miniato," he said, with a glance from the window. + "Must get its outline in. You've heard how there came to be a + church up there? No? Well, it shows the sort of man San + Miniato really was. He was one of the early Christians, and + he gave the poor pagans a great deal of trouble. They first + threw him to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre, but the + moment those animals set eyes on him they saw it would be of + no use; they just lay down and died. Very well, then; the + pagans determined to see what effect the axe would have upon + San Miniato: but as soon as they struck off his head he + picked it up, set it back on his shoulders again, waded + across the Arno, walked up the hill, and when he came to a + convenient little oratory up there he knelt down and expired. + Isn't that a pretty good story? It's like fairies, isn't it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," whispered the child. + </p> + <p> + "What nonsense!" said Imogene. "You made it up." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, did I? Perhaps I built the church that stands there to + commemorate the fact. It's all in the history of Florence. + Not in all histories; some of them are too proud to put such + stories in, but I'm going to put every one I can find into + the history I'm writing for Effie. San Miniato was beheaded + where the church of Santa Candida stands now, and he walked + all that distance." + </p> + <p> + "Did he have to die when he got to the oratory?" asked the + child, with gentle regret. + </p> + <p> + "It appears so," said Colville, sketching. "He would have + been dead by this time, anyway, you know." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," she reluctantly admitted. + </p> + <p> + "I never quite like those things, either, Effie," he said, + pressing her to him. "There were people cruelly put to death + two or three thousand years ago that I can't help feeling + would be alive yet if they had been justly treated. There are + a good many fairy stories about Florence; perhaps they used + to be true stories; the truth seems to die out of stories + after a while, simply because people stop believing them. + Saint Ambrose of Milan restored the son of his host to life + when he came down here to dedicate the Church of San + Giovanni. Then there was another saint, San Zenobi, who + worked a very pretty miracle after he was dead. They were + carrying his body from the Church of San Giovanni to the + Church of Santa Reparata, and in Piazza San Giovanni his bier + touched a dead elm-tree that stood there, and the tree + instantly sprang into leaf and flower, though it was in the + middle of the winter. A great many people took the leaves + home with them, and a marble pillar was put up there, with a + cross and an elm-tree carved on it. Oh, the case is very well + authenticated." + </p> + <p> + "I shall really begin to think you believe such things," said + Imogene. "Perhaps you <i>are</i> a Catholic." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen returned to the room, and sat down. + </p> + <p> + "There's another fairy story, prettier yet," said Colville, + while the little girl drew a long deep breath of satisfaction + and expectation. "You've heard of the Buondelmonti?" he asked + Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it seems to me as if I'd had <i>nothing</i> but the + Buondelmonti dinned into me since I came to Florence!" she + answered in lively despair. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, this happened some centuries before the Buondelmonte + you've been bored with was born. This was Giovanni Gualberto + of the Buondelmonti, and he was riding along one day in 1003, + near the Church of San Miniato, when he met a certain man + named Ugo, who had killed one of his brothers. Gualberto + stopped and drew his sword; Ugo saw no other chance of + escape, and he threw himself face downward on the ground, + with his arms stretched out in the form of the cross. + 'Gualberto, remember Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross + praying for His enemies.' The story says that these words + went to Gualberto's heart; he got down from his horse, and in + sign of pardon lifted his enemy and kissed and embraced him. + Then they went together into the church, and fell on their + knees before the figure of Christ upon the cross, and the + figure bowed its head in sign of approval and pleasure in + Gualberto's noble act of Christian piety." + </p> + <p> + "Beautiful!" murmured the girl; the child only sighed. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, yes; it's an easy matter to pick up one's head from the + ground, and set it back on one's shoulders, or to bring the + dead to life, or to make a tree put forth leaves and flowers + in midwinter; but to melt the heart of a man with forgiveness + in the presence of his enemy—that's a different thing; + <i>that's</i> no fairy story; that's a real miracle; and I + believe this one happened—it's so impossible." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, it must have happened," said the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think it's so very hard to forgive, then?" asked Mrs. + Bowen gravely. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, not for ladies," replied Colville. + </p> + <p> + She flushed, and her eyes shone when she glanced at him. + </p> + <p> + "I'm sorry to put you down," he said to the child; "but I + can't take you with me, and I must be going." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen did not ask him to stay to lunch; he thought + afterward that she might have relented as far as that but for + the last little thrust, which he would better have spared. + </p> + <p> + "Effie dear," said her mother, when the door closed upon + Colville, "don't you think you'd better lie down a while? You + look so tired." + </p> + <p> + "Shall I lie down on the sofa here?" + </p> + <p> + "No, on your bed." + </p> + <p> + "Well." + </p> + <p> + "I'll go with you, Effie," said Imogene, "and see that you're + nicely tucked in." + </p> + <p> + When she returned alone, Mrs. Bowen was sitting where she had + left her, and seemed not to have moved. "I think Effie will + drop off to sleep," she said; "she seems drowsy." She sat + down, and after a pensive moment continued, "I wonder what + makes Mr. Colville seem so gloomy." + </p> + <p> + "Does he seem gloomy?" asked Mrs. Bowen unsympathetically. + </p> + <p> + "No, not gloomy exactly. But different from last night. I + wish people could always be the same! He was so gay and full + of spirits; and now he's so self-absorbed. He thinks you're + offended with him, Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "I don't think he was very much troubled about it. I only + thought he was flighty from want of sleep. At your age you + don't mind the loss of a night." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think Mr. Colville seems so very old?" asked Imogene + anxiously. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen appeared not to have heard her. She went to the + window and looked out. When she came back, "Isn't it almost + time for you to have a letter from home?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "Why, no. I had one from mother day before yesterday. What + made you think so?" + </p> + <p> + "Imogene," interrupted Mrs. Bowen, with a sudden excitement + which she tried to control, but which made her lips tremble, + and break a little from her restraint, "you know that I am + here in the place of your mother, to advise you and look + after you in every way?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, yes, Mrs. Bowen," cried the girl, in surprise. + </p> + <p> + "It's a position of great responsibility in regard to a young + lady. I can't have anything to reproach myself with + afterward." + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Have I always been kind to you, and considerate of your + rights and your freedom? Have I ever interfered with you in + any way that you think I oughtn't?" + </p> + <p> + "What an idea! You've been loveliness itself, Mrs. Bowen!" + </p> + <p> + "Then I want you to listen to me, and answer me frankly, and + not suspect my motives." + </p> + <p> + "Why, how <i>could</i> I do that?" + </p> + <p> + "Never mind!" cried Mrs. Bowen impatiently, almost angrily. + "People can't help their suspicions! Do you think Mr. Morton + cares for you?" + </p> + <p> + The girl hung her head. + </p> + <p> + "Imogene, answer me!" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," answered Imogene coldly; "but if you're + troubled about that, Mrs. Bowen, you needn't be; I don't care + anything for Mr. Morton." + </p> + <p> + "If I thought you were becoming interested in any one, it + would be my duty to write to your mother and tell her." + </p> + <p> + "Of course; I should expect you to do it." + </p> + <p> + "And if I saw you becoming interested in any one in a way + that I thought would make you unhappy, it would be my duty to + warn you." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "Of course, I don't mean that any one would knowingly try to + make you unhappy?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Men don't go about nowadays trying to break girls' hearts. + But very good men can be thoughtless and selfish." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I understand that," said Imogene, in a falling accent. + </p> + <p> + "I don't wish to prejudice you against any one. I should + consider it very wrong and wicked. Besides, I don't care to + interfere with you to that degree. You are old enough to see + and judge for yourself." + </p> + <p> + Imogene sat silent, passing her hand across the front of her + dress. The clock ticked audibly from the mantel. + </p> + <p> + "I will not have it left to me!" cried Mrs. Bowen. "It is + hard enough, at any rate. Do you think I like to speak to + you?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Of course it makes me seem inhospitable, and distrustful, + and detestable." + </p> + <p> + "I never thought of accusing you," said the girl, slowly + lifting her eyes. + </p> + <p> + "I will never, never speak to you of it again," said Mrs. + Bowen, "and from this time forth I insist upon your feeling + just as free as if I hadn't spoken." She trembled upon the + verge of a sob, from which she repelled herself. + </p> + <p> + Imogene sat still, with a sort of serious, bewildered look. + </p> + <p> + "You shall have every proper opportunity of meeting any one + you like." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes." + </p> + <p> + "And I shall be only too gl-glad to take back everything!" + </p> + <p> + Imogene sat motionless and silent. Mrs. Bowen broke out again + with a sort of violence; the years teach us something of + self-control, perhaps, but they weaken and unstring the + nerves. In this opposition of silence to silence, the woman + of the world was no match for the inexperienced girl. + </p> + <p> + "Have you nothing to say, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "I never thought of him in that way at all. I don't know what + to say yet. It—confuses me. I—I can't imagine it. + But if you think that he is trying to amuse + himself——" + </p> + <p> + "I never said that!" + </p> + <p> + "No, I know it." + </p> + <p> + "He likes to make you talk, and to talk with you. But he is + perfectly idle here, and—there is too much difference, + every way. The very good in him makes it the worse. I suppose + that after talking with him every one else seems insipid." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rose and ran suddenly from the room. + </p> + <p> + Imogene remained sitting cold and still. + </p> + <p> + No one had been named since they spoke of Mr. Morton. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XI"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XI + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Colville had not done what he meant in going to Mrs. Bowen's; + in fact, he had done just what he had not meant to do, as he + distinctly perceived in coming away. It was then that in a + luminous retrospect he discovered his motive to have been a + wish to atone to her for behaviour that must have distressed + her, or at least to explain it to her. She had not let him do + this at once; an instant willingness to hear and to condone + was not in a woman's nature; she had to make him feel, by the + infliction of a degree of punishment, that she had suffered. + But before she ended she had made it clear that she was ready + to grant him a tacit pardon, and he had answered with a silly + sarcasm the question that was to have led to peace. He could + not help seeing that throughout the whole Carnival adventure + she had yielded her cherished reluctances to please him, to + show him that she was not stiff or prudish, to convince him + that she would not be a killjoy through her devotion to + conventionalities which she thought he despised. He could not + help seeing that he had abused her delicate generosity, + insulted her subtle concessions. He strolled along down the + Arno, feeling flat and mean, as a man always does after a + contest with a woman in which he has got the victory; our sex + can preserve its self-respect only through defeat in such a + case. It gave him no pleasure to remember that the glamour of + the night before seemed still to rest on Imogene unbroken; + that, indeed, was rather an added pain. He surprised himself + in the midst of his poignant reflections by a yawn. Clearly + the time was past when these ideal troubles could keep him + awake, and there was, after all, a sort of brutal consolation + in the fact. He was forty-one years old, and he was sleepy, + whatever capacity for suffering remained to him. He went to + his hotel to catch a little nap before lunch. When he woke it + was dinner-time. The mists of slumber still hung about him, + and the events of the last forty-eight hours showed vast and + shapelessly threatening through them. + </p> + <p> + When the drama of the <i>table d'hôte</i> reached its + climax of roast chestnuts and butter, he determined to walk + over to San Marco and pay a visit to Mr. Waters. He found the + old minister from Haddam East Village, Massachusetts, + Italianate outwardly in almost ludicrous degree. He wore a + fur-lined overcoat indoors; his feet, cased in thick woollen + shoes, rested on a strip of carpet laid before his table; a + man who had lived for forty years in the pungent atmosphere + of an air-tight stove, succeeding a quarter of a century of + roaring hearth fires, contented himself with the spare heat + of a scaldino, which he held his clasped hands over in the + very Italian manner; the lamp that cast its light on the book + open before him was the classic <i>lucerna</i>, with three + beaks, fed with olive oil. He looked up at his visitor over + his spectacles, without recognising him, till Colville spoke. + Then, after their greeting, "Is it snowing heavily?" he + asked. + </p> + <p> + "It isn't snowing at all. What made you think that?" + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps I was drowsing over my book and dreamed it. We + become very strange and interesting studies to ourselves as + we live along." + </p> + <p> + He took up the metaphysical consideration with the promptness + of a man who has no small-talk, and who speaks of the mind + and soul as if they were the gossip of the neighbourhood. + </p> + <p> + "At times the forty winters that I passed in Haddam East + Village seem like an alien experience, and I find myself + pitying the life I lived there quite as if it were the life + of some one else. It seems incredible that men should still + inhabit such climates." + </p> + <p> + "Then you're not homesick for Haddam East Village?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah! for the good and striving souls there, yes; especially + the souls of some women there. They used to think that it was + I who gave them consolation and spiritual purpose, but it was + they who really imparted it. Women souls—how beautiful + they sometimes are! They seem truly like angelic essences. I + trust that I shall meet them somewhere some time, but it will + never be in Haddam East Village. Yes, I must have been + dreaming when you came in. I thought that I was by my fire + there, and all round over the hills and in the streets the + snow was deep and falling still. How distinctly, he said, + closing his eyes, as artists do in looking at a picture, I + can see the black wavering lines of the walls in the fields + sinking into the drifts! the snow billowed over the graves by + the church where I preached! the banks of snow around the + houses! the white desolation everywhere! I ask myself at + times if the people are still there. Yes, I feel as blessedly + remote from that terrible winter as if I had died away from + it, and were in the weather of heaven." + </p> + <p> + "Then you have no reproach for feeble-spirited + fellow-citizens who abandon their native climate and come to + live in Italy?" + </p> + <p> + The old man drew his fur coat closer about him and shrugged + his shoulders in true Florentine fashion. "There may be + something to say against those who do so in the heyday of + life, but I shall not be the one to say it. The race must yet + revert in its decrepitude, as I have in mine, to the climates + of the South. Since I have been in Italy I have realised what + used to occur to me dimly at home—the cruel + disproportion between the end gained and the means expended + in reclaiming the savage North. Half the human endeavour, + half the human suffering, would have made the whole South + Protestant and the whole East Christian, and our civilisation + would now be there. No, I shall never go back to New England. + New England? New Ireland——New Canada! Half the + farms in Haddam are in the hands of our Irish friends, and + the labour on the rest is half done by French Canadians. That + is all right and well. New England must come to me here, by + way of the great middle West and the Pacific coast." + </p> + <p> + Colville smiled at the Emersonian touch, but he said gravely, + "I can never quite reconcile myself to the thought of dying + out of my own country." + </p> + <p> + "Why not? It is very unimportant where one dies. A moment + after your breath is gone you are in exile for ever—or + at home for ever." + </p> + <p> + Colville sat musing upon this phase of Americanism, as he had + upon many others. At last he broke the silence they had both + let fall, far away from the topic they had touched. + </p> + <p> + "Well," he asked, "how did you enjoy the veglione?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I'm too old to go to such places for pleasure," said the + minister simply. "But it was very interesting, and certainly + very striking: especially when I went back, toward daylight, + after seeing Mrs. Bowen home." + </p> + <p> + "Did you go back?" demanded Colville, in some amaze. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes. I felt that my experience was incomplete without + some knowledge of how the Carnival ended at such a place." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! And do you still feel that Savonarola was mistaken?" + </p> + <p> + "There seemed to be rather more boisterousness toward the + close, and, if I might judge, the excitement grew a little + unwholesome. But I really don't feel myself very well + qualified to decide. My own life has been passed in + circumstances so widely different that I am at a certain + disadvantage." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, with a smile; "I daresay the Carnival + at Haddam East Village was quite another tiling." + </p> + <p> + The old man smiled responsively. "I suppose that some of my + former parishioners might have been scandalised at my + presence at a Carnival ball, had they known the fact merely + in the abstract; but in my letters home I shall try to set it + before them in an instructive light. I should say that the + worst thing about such a scene of revelry would be that it + took us too much out of our inner quiet. But I suppose the + same remark might apply to almost any form of social + entertainment." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "But human nature is so constituted that some means of + expansion must be provided, or a violent explosion takes + place. The only question is what means are most innocent. I + have been looking about," added the old man quietly, "at the + theatres lately." + </p> + <p> + "Have you?" asked Colville, opening his eyes, in suppressed + surprise. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; with a view to determining the degree of harmless + amusement that may be derived from them. It's rather a + difficult question. I should be inclined to say, however, + that I don't think the ballet can ever be instrumental for + good." + </p> + <p> + Colville could not deny himself the pleasure of saying, + "Well, not the highest, I suppose." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Mr. Waters, in apparent unconsciousness of the + irony. "But I think the Church has made a mistake in + condemning the theatre <i>in toto</i>. It appears to me that + it might always have countenanced a certain order of comedy, + in which the motive and plot are unobjectionable. Though I + don't deny that there are moods when all laughter seems low + and unworthy and incompatible with the most advanced state of + being. And I confess," he went on, with a dreamy + thoughtfulness, "that I have very great misgivings in regard + to tragedy. The glare that it throws upon the play of the + passions—jealousy in its anguish, revenge glutting + itself, envy eating its heart, hopeless love—their + nakedness is terrible. The terror may be salutary; it may be + very mischievous. I am afraid that I have left some of my + inquiries till it is too late. I seem to have no longer the + materials of judgment left in me. If I were still a young man + like you——" + </p> + <p> + "Am I still a young man?" interrupted Colville sadly. + </p> + <p> + "You are young enough to respond to the appeals that + sometimes find me silent. If I were of your age I should + certainly investigate some of these interesting problems." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, but if you become personally interested in the problems, + it's as bad as if you hadn't the materials of judgment left; + you're prejudiced. Besides, I doubt my youthfulness very + much." + </p> + <p> + "You are fifty, I presume?" suggested Mr. Waters, in a + leading way. + </p> + <p> + "Not very near—only too near," laughed Colville. "I'm + forty-one." + </p> + <p> + "You are younger than I supposed. But I remember now that at + your age I had the same feeling which you intimate. It seemed + to me then that I had really passed the bound which separates + us from the further possibility of youth. But I've lived long + enough since to know that I was mistaken. At forty, one has + still a great part of youth before him—perhaps the + richest and sweetest part. By that time the turmoil of ideas + and sensations is over; we see clearly and feel consciously. + We are in a sort of quiet in which we peacefully enjoy. We + have enlarged our perspective sufficiently to perceive things + in their true proportion and relation; we are no longer + tormented with the lurking fear of death, which darkens and + embitters our earlier years; we have got into the habit of + life; we have often been ailing and we have not died. Then we + have time enough behind us to supply us with the materials of + reverie and reminiscence; the terrible solitude of + inexperience is broken; we have learned to smile at many + things besides the fear of death. We ought also to have + learned pity and patience. Yes," the old man concluded, in + cheerful self-corroboration, "it is a beautiful age." + </p> + <p> + "But it doesn't look so beautiful as it is," Colville + protested. "People in that rosy prime don't produce the + effect of garlanded striplings upon the world at large. The + women laugh at us; they think we are fat old fellows; they + don't recognise the slender and elegant youth that resides in + our unwieldy bulk." + </p> + <p> + "You take my meaning a little awry. Besides, I doubt if even + the ground you assume is tenable. If a woman has lived long + enough to be truly young herself, she won't find a man at + forty either decrepit or grotesque. He can even make himself + youthful to a girl of thought and imagination." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," Colville assented, with a certain discomfort. + </p> + <p> + "But to be truly young at forty," resumed Mr. Waters, "a man + should be already married." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" + </p> + <p> + "I sometimes feel," continued the old man, "that I made a + mistake in yielding to a disappointment that I met with early + in life, and in not permitting myself the chance of + retrieval. I have missed a beautiful and consoling experience + in my devotion to a barren regret." + </p> + <p> + Colville said nothing, but he experienced a mixed feeling of + amusement, of repulsion, and of curiosity at this. + </p> + <p> + "We are put into the world to be of it. I am more and more + convinced of that. We have scarcely a right to separate + ourselves from the common lot in any way. I justify myself + for having lived alone only as a widower might. I—lost + her. It was a great while ago." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, after the pause which ensued; "I agree + with you that one has no right to isolate himself, to refuse + his portion of the common lot; but the effects of even a + rebuff may last so long that one has no heart to put out his + hand a second time—for a second rap over the knuckles. + Oh, I know how trivial it is in the retrospect, and how what + is called a disappointment is something to be humbly grateful + for in most cases; but for a while it certainly makes you + doubtful whether you were ever really intended to share the + common lot." He was aware of an insincerity in his words; he + hoped that it might not be perceptible, but he did not + greatly care. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters took no notice of what he had been saying. He + resumed from another point. "But I should say that it would + be unwise for a man of mature life to seek his happiness with + one much younger than himself. I don't deny that there are + cases in which the disparity of years counts for little or + nothing, but generally speaking, people ought to be as + equally mated in age as possible. They ought to start with + the same advantages of ignorance. A young girl can only live + her life through a community of feeling, an equality of + inexperience in the man she gives her heart to. If he is + tired of things that still delight her, the chances of + unhappiness are increased." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, that's true," answered Colville gravely. "It's apt to + be a mistake and a wrong." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, not always—not always," said the old minister. "We + mustn't look at it in that way quite. Wrongs are of the + will." He seemed to lapse into a greater intimacy of feeling + with Colville. "Have you seen Mrs. Bowen to-day? Or—ah! + true! I think you told me." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Colville. "Have we spoken of her? But I have seen + her." + </p> + <p> + "And was the little one well?" + </p> + <p> + "Very much better." + </p> + <p> + "Pretty creatures, both of them," said the minister, with as + fresh a pleasure in his recognition of the fact as if he had + not said nearly the same thing once before, "You've noticed + the very remarkable resemblance between mother and daughter?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes." + </p> + <p> + "There is a gentleness in Mrs. Bowen which seems to me the + last refinement of a gracious spirit," suggested Mr. Waters. + "I have never met any lady who reconciled more exquisitely + what is charming in society with what is lovely in nature." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville. "Mrs. Bowen always had that gentle + manner. I used to know her here as a girl a great while ago." + </p> + <p> + "Did you? I wonder you allowed her to become Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + This sprightliness of Mr. Waters amused Colville greatly. "At + that time I was preoccupied with my great mistake, and I had + no eyes for Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "It isn't too late yet," said Mr. Waters, with open + insinuation. + </p> + <p> + A bachelor of forty is always flattered by any suggestion of + marriage; the suggestion that a beautiful and charming woman + would marry him is too much for whatever reserves of modesty + and wisdom he may have stored up Colville took leave of the + old minister in better humour with himself than he had been + for forty-eight hours, or than he had any very good reason + for being now. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters came with him to the head of the stairs and held + up the lamp for him to see. The light fell upon the white + locks thinly straggling from beneath his velvet skull-cap, + and he looked like some mediaeval scholar of those who lived + and died for learning in Florence when letters were a passion + there almost as strong as love. + </p> + <p> + The next day Colville would have liked to go at once and ask + about Effie, but upon the whole he thought he would not go + till after he had been at the reception where he was going in + the afternoon. It was an artist who was giving the reception; + he had a number of pictures to show, and there was to be tea. + There are artists and artists. This painter was one who had a + distinct social importance. It was felt to be rather a nice + thing to be asked to his reception; one was sure at least to + meet the nicest people. + </p> + <p> + This reason prevailed with Colville so far as it related to + Mrs. Bowen, whom he felt that he would like to tell he had + been there. He would speak to her of this person and + that—very respected and recognised social + figures,—so that she might see he was not the outlaw, + the Bohemian, he must sometimes have appeared to her. It + would not be going too far to say that something like an + obscure intention to show himself the next Sunday at the + English chapel, where Mrs. Bowen went, was not forming itself + in his mind. As he went along it began to seem not impossible + that she would be at the reception. If Effie's indisposition + was no more serious than it appeared yesterday, very probably + Mrs. Bowen would be there. He even believed that he + recognised her carriage among those which were drawn up in + front of the old palace, under the painter's studio windows. + </p> + <p> + There were a great number of people of the four nationalities + that mostly consort in Italy. There were English and + Americans and Russians and the sort of Italians resulting + from the native intermarriages with them; here and there were + Italians of pure blood, borderers upon the foreign life + through a literary interest, or an artistic relation, or a + matrimonial intention; here and there, also, the large + stomach of a German advanced the bounds of the new empire and + the new ideal of duty. There were no Frenchmen; one may meet + them in more strictly Italian assemblages, but it is as if + the sorrows and uncertainties of France in these times + discouraged them from the international society in which they + were always an infrequent element. It is not, of course, + imaginable that as Frenchmen they have doubts of their + merits, but that they have their misgivings as to the + intelligence of others. The language that prevailed was + English—in fact, one heard no other,—and the tea + which our civilisation carries everywhere with it steamed + from the cups in all hands. This beverage, in fact, becomes a + formidable factor in the life of a Florentine winter. One + finds it at all houses, and more or less mechanically drinks + it. + </p> + <p> + "I am turning out a terrible tea toper," said Colville, + stirring his cup in front of the old lady whom his relations + to the ladies at Palazzo Pinti had interested so much. "I + don't think I drink less than ten cups a day; seventy cups a + week is a low average for me. I'm really beginning to look + down at my boots a little anxiously." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Amsden laughed. She had not been in America for forty + years, but she liked the American way of talking better than + any other. "Oh, didn't you hear about Inglehart when he was + here? He was so good-natured that he used to drink all the + tea people offered him, and then the young ladies made tea + for him in his studio when they went to look at his pictures. + It almost killed him. By the time spring came he trembled so + that the brush flew out of his hands when he took it up. He + had to hurry off to Venice to save his life. It's just as bad + at the Italian houses; they've learned to like tea." + </p> + <p> + "When I was here before, they never offered you anything but + coffee," said Colville. "They took tea for medicine, and + there was an old joke that I thought I should die of, I heard + it so often about the Italian that said to the English woman + when she offered him tea, '<i>Grazie; sto bene</i>.'" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, that's all changed now." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I've seen the tea, and I haven't heard the joke." + </p> + <p> + The flavour of Colville's talk apparently encouraged his + companion to believe that he would like to make fun of their + host's paintings with her; but whether he liked them, or + whether he was principled against that sort of return for + hospitality, he chose to reply seriously to some ironical + lures she threw out. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, if you're going to be good," she exclaimed, "I shall + have nothing more to say to you. Here comes Mr. Thurston; I + can make <i>him</i> abuse the pictures. There! You had better + go away to a young lady I see alone over yonder, though I + don't know what you will do with <i>one</i> alone." She + laughed and shook her head in a way that had once been arch + and lively, but that was now puckery and infirm—it is + affecting to see these things in women—and welcomed the + old gentleman who came up and superseded Colville. + </p> + <p> + The latter turned, with his cup still in his hand, and + wandered about through the company, hoping he might see Mrs. + Bowen among the groups peering at the pictures or solidly + blocking the view in front of them. He did not find her, but + he found Imogene Graham standing somewhat apart near a + window. He saw her face light up at sight of him, and then + darken again as he approached. + </p> + <p> + "Isn't this rather an unnatural state of things?" he asked + when he had come up. "I ought to be obliged to fight my way + to you through successive phalanxes of young men crowding + round with cups of tea outstretched in their imploring hands. + Have you had some tea?" + </p> + <p> + "Thank you, no; I don't wish any," said the young girl, so + coldly that he could not help noticing, though commonly he + was man enough to notice very few things. + </p> + <p> + "How is Effie to-day?" he asked quickly. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, quite well," said Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "I don't see Mrs. Bowen," he ventured further. + </p> + <p> + "No," answered the girl, still very lifelessly; "I came with + Mrs. Fleming." She looked about the room as if not to look at + him. + </p> + <p> + He now perceived a distinct intention to snub him. He smiled. + "Have you seen the pictures? There are two or three really + lovely ones." + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Fleming will be here in a moment, I suppose," said + Imogene evasively, but not with all her first coldness. + </p> + <p> + "Let us steal a march on her," said Colville briskly. "When + she comes you can tell her that I showed you the pictures." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," faltered the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps it isn't necessary you should," he suggested. + </p> + <p> + She glanced at him with questioning trepidation. + </p> + <p> + "The respective duties of chaperone and + <i>protégée</i> are rather undefined. Where the + chaperone isn't there to command, the + <i>protégée</i> isn't there to obey. I suppose + you'd know if you were at home?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes!" + </p> + <p> + "Let me imagine myself at a loan exhibition in Buffalo. Ah! + that appeal is irresistible. You'll come, I see." + </p> + <p> + She hesitated; she looked at the nearest picture, then + followed him to another. He now did what he had refused to do + for the old lady who tempted him to it; he made fun of the + pictures a little, but so amiably and with so much justice to + their good points that the painter himself would not have + minded his jesting. From time to time he made Imogene smile, + but in her eyes lurked a look of uneasiness, and her manner + expressed a struggle against his will which might have had + its pathos for him in different circumstances, but now it + only incited him to make her forget herself more and more; he + treated her as one does a child that is out of + sorts—coaxingly, ironically. + </p> + <p> + When they had made the round of the rooms Mrs. Fleming was + not at the window where she had left Imogene; the girl + detected the top of her bonnet still in the next room. + </p> + <p> + "The chaperone is never there when you come back with the + <i>protégée</i>," said Colville. "It seems to + be the nature of the chaperone." + </p> + <p> + Imogene turned very grave. "I think I ought to go to her," + she murmured. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; she ought to come to you; I stand out for + <i>protégée</i>'s rights." + </p> + <p> + "I suppose she will come directly." + </p> + <p> + "She sees me with you; she knows you are safe." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, of course," said the girl. After a constraint which she + marked by rather a long silence, she added, "How strange a + roomful of talking sounds, doesn't it? Just like a great + caldron boiling up and bubbling over. Wouldn't you like to + know what they're all saying?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it's quite bad enough to see them," replied Colville + frivolously. + </p> + <p> + "I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very + queer, don't you?" she asked, after another interval. + </p> + <p> + "Well, really," said Colville, laughing, "I don't know that + the spectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to + me. I rather think they look queerer with their hats on." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes." + </p> + <p> + "Though there is not very much to choose. We're a + queer-looking set, anyway." + </p> + <p> + He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, + allowed her to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, + and was not without a malicious pleasure in her struggles. + They interested him as social exercises which, however abrupt + and undexterous now, were destined, with time and practice, + to become the finesse of a woman of society, and to be + accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, + as touches of character. He had broken up that coldness with + which she had met him at first, and now he let her adjust the + fragments as she could to the new situation. He wore that air + of a gentleman who has been talking a long time to a lady, + and who will not dispute her possession with a new-comer. + </p> + <p> + But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over + the company, he found that it had been increased by the + accession of eight or ten young fellows, with a refreshing + light of originality in their faces, and little touches of + difference from the other men in their dress. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!" cried the girl, with a + flash of excitement. + </p> + <p> + There was a sensation of interest and friendliness in the + company as these young fellows, after their moment of social + intimidation, began to gather round the pictures, and to + fling their praise and blame about, and talk the delightful + shop of the studio. + </p> + <p> + The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their + voices, struck a pang of regret that was almost envy to + Colville's heart. + </p> + <p> + Imogene followed them with eager eyes. "Oh," she sighed, + "shouldn't you like to be an artist?" + </p> + <p> + "I should, very much." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an + architect." + </p> + <p> + "I should say I used to be, if you hadn't objected to my + perfects and preterits." + </p> + <p> + What came next seemed almost an accident. + </p> + <p> + "I didn't suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I + amused you." She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at + her own words. + </p> + <p> + "Have you been trying to amuse me?" he asked. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no. I thought——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, then," said Colville sharply, "you meant that I was + amusing myself with you?" She glanced at him in terror of his + divination, but could not protest. "Has any one told you + that?" he pursued, with sudden angry suspicion. + </p> + <p> + "No, <i>no</i> one," began Imogene. She glanced about her, + frightened. They stood quite alone where they were; the + people had mostly wandered off into the other rooms. "Oh, + don't—I didn't mean—I didn't intend to say + anything——" + </p> + <p> + "But you have said something—something that surprises + me from <i>you</i>, and hurts me. I wish to know whether you + say it from yourself." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know—yes. That is, not——Oh, I wish + Mrs. Fleming——" + </p> + <p> + She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond + her power to control herself. + </p> + <p> + "Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming," said Colville, with + freezing <i>hauteur</i>; and led the way where the top of + Mrs. Fleming's bonnet still showed itself. He took leave at + once, and hastily parting with his host, found himself in the + street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not said that + from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the + directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed + that women who liked to beat about the bush in small matters + have a prodigious straightforwardness in more vital affairs, + and will even call grey black in order clearly to establish + the presence of the black in that colour. He could hardly + keep himself from going to Palazzo Pinti. + </p> + <p> + But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a + moody dinner, and then, after an hour's solitary bitterness + in his room, went out and passed the evening at the theatre. + The play was one of those fleering comedies which render + contemptible for the time all honest and earnest intention, + and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pit itself. + It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question that + had mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at + his resentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him + off to sleep in a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial + in himself as the only thing that was real and lasting. + </p> + <p> + He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he + brought with it a letter which he said had been left with the + porter an hour before. A faint appealing perfume of violet + exhaled from the note, and mingled with the steaming odours + of the coffee and boiled milk, when Colville, after a glance + at the unfamiliar handwriting of the superscription, broke + the seal. + </p> + <p> + "DEAR MR. COLVILLE,—I don't know what you will think of + my writing to you, but perhaps you can't think worse of me + than you do already, and anything will be better than the + misery that I am in. I have not been asleep all night. I hate + myself for telling you, but I do want you to understand how I + have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back the words + that you say wounded you. I didn't mean to wound you. Nobody + is to blame for them but me; nobody ever breathed a word + about you that was meant in unkindness. + </p> + <p> + "I am not ashamed of writing this, <i>whatever</i> you think, + and I will sign my name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM." + </p> + <p> + Colville had commonly a good appetite for his breakfast, but + now he let his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were + several things about this note that touched him—the + childlike simplicity and directness, the generous courage, + even the imperfection and crudity of the literature. However + he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. He + respected that intention; through all the sophistications in + which life had wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised + that if he had been younger he would have gone to Imogene + herself with her letter. He felt for the moment a rush of the + emotion which he would once not have stopped to examine, + which he would not have been capable of examining. But now + his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In the noblest + human purpose there is always some admixture, however slight, + of less noble motive, and Colville was not without the + willingness to see whatever embarrassment she might feel when + he showed her the letter, and to invoke her finest tact to + aid him in re-assuring the child. + </p> + <p> + She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in + response to his inquiry for their health that Imogene and + Effie had gone out to drive. She looked so pretty in the + quiet house dress in which she rose from the sofa and stood, + letting him come the whole way to greet her, that he did not + think of any other look in her, but afterward he remembered + an evidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes. + </p> + <p> + He said, smiling, "I'm so glad to see you alone," and this + brought still another look into her face, which also he + afterward remembered. She did not reply, but made a sound in + her throat like a bird when it stirs itself for flight or + song. It was a strange, indefinite little note, in which + Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time, and + recalled for the sort of expectation suggested in it. She + stood waiting for him to go on. + </p> + <p> + "I have come to get you to help me out of trouble." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. "I always + supposed you would be able to help yourself out of trouble. + Or perhaps wouldn't mind it if you were in it." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, I mind it very much," returned Colville, refusing + her banter, if it were banter. "Especially this sort of + trouble, which involves some one else in the discomfort." He + went on abruptly: "I have been held up to a young lady as a + person who was amusing himself with her, and I was so absurd + as to be angry when she told me, and demanded the name of my + friend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given the + young lady a bad night, and this morning she writes to tell + me so, and to take all the blame on herself, and to assure me + that no harm was meant me by any one. Of course I don't want + her to be distressed about it. Perhaps you can guess who has + been writing to me." + </p> + <p> + Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. + When he looked up he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen's pretty + face, such as he had not seen there before. + </p> + <p> + "I didn't know she had been writing to you, but I know that + you are talking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to + you yesterday, and I blamed her for it, but I'm not sure that + it wasn't best." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, indeed!" said Colville. "Perhaps you can tell me who put + the idea into her head?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I did." + </p> + <p> + A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the + situation broken by these words revolved before Colville's + thought with kaleidoscopic variety, and he passed through all + the phases of anger, resentment, wounded self-love, and + accusing shame. + </p> + <p> + At last, "I suppose you had your reasons," he said simply. + </p> + <p> + "I am in her mother's place here," she replied, tightening + the grip of one little hand upon another, where she held them + laid against the side of her waist. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I know that," said Colville; "but what reason had you + to warn her against me as a person who was amusing himself + with her? I don't like the phrase; but she seems to have got + it from you; I use it at third hand." + </p> + <p> + "I don't like the phrase either; I didn't invent it." + </p> + <p> + "You used it." + </p> + <p> + "No; it wasn't I who used it. I should have been glad to use + another, if I could," said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect + steadiness. + </p> + <p> + "Then you mean to say that you believe I've been trifling + with the feelings of this child?" + </p> + <p> + "I mean to say nothing. You are very much older; and she is a + romantic girl, very extravagant. You have tried to make her + like you." + </p> + <p> + "I certainly have. I have tried to make Effie Bowen like me + too." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen passed this over in serenity that he felt was not + far from contempt. + </p> + <p> + He gave a laugh that did not express enjoyment. + </p> + <p> + "You have no right to laugh!" she cried, losing herself a + little, and so making her first gain upon him. + </p> + <p> + "It appears not. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do + about this letter?" + </p> + <p> + "That is for you to decide." She recovered herself, and lost + ground with him in proportion. + </p> + <p> + "I thought perhaps that since you were able to judge my + motives so clearly, you might be able to advise me." + </p> + <p> + "I don't judge your motives," Mrs. Bowen began. She added + suddenly, as if by an after-thought, "I don't think you had + any." + </p> + <p> + "I'm obliged to you." + </p> + <p> + "But you are as much to blame as if you had." + </p> + <p> + "And perhaps I'm as much to blame as if I had really wronged + somebody?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "It's rather paradoxical. You don't wish me to see her any + more?" + </p> + <p> + "I haven't any wish about it; you must not <i>say</i> that I + have," said Mrs. Bowen, with dignity. + </p> + <p> + Colville smiled. "May I <i>ask</i> if you have?" + </p> + <p> + "Not for myself." + </p> + <p> + "You put me on very short allowance of conjecture." + </p> + <p> + "I will not let you trifle with the matter!" she cried. "You + have made me speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been + enough. Oh, I didn't think you had the miserable vanity to + wish it!" + </p> + <p> + Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. "I see + that everything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. + Good-bye, Mrs. Bowen." He approached her, holding out his + hand. But if he expected to be rewarded for this, nothing of + the kind happened. She shrank swiftly back. + </p> + <p> + "No, no. You shall not touch me." + </p> + <p> + He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, + whatever other feeling showed, there was certainly no fear of + him. Then with a slight bow he left the room. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into + her own room. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and + Effie were just coming in. The child went to lay aside her + hat and sacque; the girl, after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's + face, lingered inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Imogene faintly. "Do you think I oughtn't to have + written it?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from + Florence." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" breathed the girl. + </p> + <p> + "I spoke openly with him." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" + </p> + <p> + "I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised + him." + </p> + <p> + Imogene was silent. Then she said, "I know that whatever you + have done, you have acted for the best." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I have a right that you should say that—I have a + right that you should always say it. I think he has behaved + very foolishly, but I don't blame him——" + </p> + <p> + "No! I was to blame." + </p> + <p> + "I don't <i>know</i> that he was to blame, and I won't let + you think he was." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he is the best man in the world!" + </p> + <p> + "He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's + nothing for you to lose a friend at your age; but at + mine——" + </p> + <p> + "I <i>know</i> it, Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; + I——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!" cried Imogene. + She put up her hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. + Bowen watched her, dry eyed, with her lips parted, and an + intensity of question in her face. + </p> + <p> + "Imogene," she said at last, "I wish you to promise me one + thing." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "Not to write to Mr. Colville again." + </p> + <p> + "No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!" The girl came up to + kiss her; Mrs. Bowen turned her cheek. + </p> + <p> + wish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure + of yourself about him. If you care for him—if you think + you care for him—then I leave you perfectly free." + </p> + <p> + The girl looked up, scared. "No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't + leave me free—you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to + do." + </p> + <p> + "Very well, then," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the + other to speak. Then Imogene asked, "Is he—going soon?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen. "Why should he want to + delay? He had better go at once. And I hope he will go + home—as far from Florence as he can. I should think he + would <i>hate</i> the place." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said the girl, with a quivering sigh; "it must be + hateful to him." She paused, and then she rushed on with + bitter self-reproach. "And I—<i>I</i> have helped to + make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's <i>I</i> who have been + trifling with <i>him</i> Trying to make him believe—no, + not trying to do that, but letting him see that I + sympathised—Oh, do you think I have?" + </p> + <p> + "You know what you have been doing, Imogene," said Mrs. + Bowen, with the hardness it surprises men to know women use + with each other, they seem such tender creatures in the + abstract. "You have no need to ask me." + </p> + <p> + "No, no." + </p> + <p> + "As you say, I warned you from the first." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; you did." + </p> + <p> + "I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to + expect——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, yes, yes." + </p> + <p> + "And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I see it." + </p> + <p> + "I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that + miserable veglione business I was trying to please you and + him, because I was afraid I <i>had</i> said too + much—gone too far. I wanted to show you that I + disdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose + that a girl of your age could care for the admiration of a + man of his." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired + <i>him</i>—and pitied him." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all + that had been rankling in her breast. "I didn't approve of + going to the veglione. A great many people would be shocked + if they knew I went; I wouldn't at all like to have it known. + But I was not going to have him thinking that I was severe + with you, and wanted to deny you any really harmless + pleasure." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You + see," said the girl, "what a return I have made for your + trust. I knew you didn't want to go to the veglione. If I + hadn't been the most selfish girl in the world I wouldn't + have let you. But I did. I <i>forced</i> you to go, and then, + after we got there, I seized every advantage, and abused your + kindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor. Yes; + I ought to have refused to dance—if I'd had a spark of + generosity or gratitude I would have done it; and I ought to + have come straight back to you the instant the waltz was + done. And now see what has come of it! I've made you think he + was trifling with me, and I've made him think that I'm a + false and hollow-hearted thing." + </p> + <p> + "You know best what you have done, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, + with a smiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She + rose from the sofa, as if to indicate that there was no more + to be said, and Imogene, with a fresh burst of grief, rushed + away to her own room. + </p> + <p> + She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out + her arms upon it, an image of that desolation of soul which, + when we are young, seems limitless, but which in later life + we know has comparatively narrow bounds beyond the clouds + that rest so blackly around us. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + In his room Colville was devouring as best he might the + chagrin with which he had come away from Palazzo Pinti, while + he packed his trunk for departure. Now that the thing was + over, the worst was past. Again he observed that his emotions + had no longer the continuity that the emotions of his youth + possessed. As he remembered, a painful or pleasant impression + used to last indefinitely; but here he was with this + humiliating affair hot in his mind, shrugging his shoulders + with a sense of relief, almost a sense of escape. Does the + soul really wear out with the body? The question flitted + across his mind as he took down a pair of trousers, and + noticed that they were considerably frayed about the feet; he + determined to give them to Paolo, and this reminded him to + ring for Paolo, and send word to the office that he was going + to take the evening train for Rome. + </p> + <p> + He went on packing, and putting away with the different + garments the unpleasant thoughts that he knew he should be + sure to unpack with them in Rome; but they would then have + less poignancy. + </p> + <p> + For the present he was doing the best he could, and he was + not making any sort of pretences. When his trunk was locked + he kindled himself a fire, and sat down before it to think of + Imogene. He began with her, but presently it seemed to be + Mrs. Bowen that he was thinking of; then he knew he was + dropping off to sleep by the manner in which their two ideas + mixed. The fatigues and excitements of the week had been + great, but he would not give way; it was too disgraceful. + </p> + <p> + Some one rapped at his door. He called out "<i>Avanti</i>!" + and he would have been less surprised to see either of those + ladies than Paolo with the account he had ordered to be made + out. It was a long, pendulous, minutely itemed affair, such + as the traveller's recklessness in candles and firewood comes + to in the books of the Continental landlord, and it almost + swept the floor when its volume was unrolled. But it was not + the sum-total that dismayed Colville when he glanced at the + final figure; that, indeed, was not so very great, with all + the items; it was the conviction, suddenly flashing upon him, + that he had not money enough by him to pay it. His watch, + held close to the fire, told him that it was five o'clock; + the banks had been closed an hour, and this was Saturday + afternoon. + </p> + <p> + The squalid accident had all the effect of intention, as he + viewed it from without himself, and considered that the money + ought to have been the first thing in his thoughts after he + determined to go away. He must get the money somehow, and be + off to Rome by the seven o'clock train. A whimsical + suggestion, which was so good a bit of irony that it made him + smile, flashed across him: he might borrow it of Mrs. Bowen. + She was, in fact, the only person in Florence with whom he + was at all on borrowing terms, and a sad sense of the + sweetness of her lost friendship followed upon the antic + notion. No; for once he could not go to Mrs. Bowen. He + recollected now the many pleasant talks they had had + together, confidential in virtue of their old acquaintance, + and harmlessly intimate in many things. He recalled how, when + he was feeling dull from the Florentine air, she had told him + to take a little quinine, and he had found immediate + advantage in it. These memories did strike him as grotesque + or ludicrous; he only felt their pathos. He was ashamed even + to seem in anywise recreant further. If she should ever hear + that he had lingered for thirty-six hours in Florence after + he had told her he was going away, what could she think but + that he had repented his decision? He determined to go down + to the office of the hotel, and see if he could not make some + arrangement with the landlord. It would be extremely + distasteful, but his ample letter of credit would be at least + a voucher of his final ability to pay. As a desperate resort + he could go and try to get the money of Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + He put on his coat and hat, and opened the door to some one + who was just in act to knock at it, and whom he struck + against in the obscurity. + </p> + <p> + "I beg your pardon," said the visitor. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Waters! Is it possible?" cried Colville, feeling + something fateful in the chance. "I was just going to see + you." + </p> + <p> + "I'm fortunate in meeting you, then. Shall we go to my room?" + he asked, at a hesitation in Colville's manner. + </p> + <p> + "No, no," said the latter; "come in here." He led the way + back into his room, and struck a match to light the candles + on his chimney. Their dim rays fell upon the disorder his + packing had left. "You must excuse the look of things," he + said. "The fact is, I'm just going away. I'm going to Rome at + seven o'clock." + </p> + <p> + "Isn't this rather sudden?" asked the minister, with less + excitement than the fact might perhaps have been expected to + create in a friend. "I thought you intended to pass the + winter in Florence." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I did—sit down, please—but I find myself + obliged to cut my stay short. Won't you take off your coat?" + he asked, taking off his own. + </p> + <p> + "Thank you; I've formed the habit of keeping it on indoors," + said Mr. Waters. "And I oughtn't to stay long, if you're to + be off so soon." + </p> + <p> + Colville gave a very uncomfortable laugh. "Why, the fact is, + I'm not off so very soon unless you help me." + </p> + <p> + "Ah?" returned the old gentleman, with polite interest. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I find myself in the absurd position of a man who has + reckoned without his host. I have made all my plans for + going, and have had my hotel bill sent to me in pursuance of + that idea, and now I discover that I not only haven't money + enough to pay it and get to Rome, but I haven't much more + than half enough to pay it. I have credit galore," he said, + trying to give the situation a touch of liveliness, "but the + bank is shut." + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters listened to the statement with a silence + concerning which Colville was obliged to form his + conjectures. "That is unfortunate," he said sympathetically, + but not encouragingly. + </p> + <p> + Colville pushed on desperately. "It is, unless you can help + me, Mr. Waters. I want you to lend me fifty dollars for as + many hours." + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters shook his head with a compassionate smile. "I + haven't fifty francs in cash. You are welcome to what there + is. I'm very forgetful about money matters, and haven't been + to the bankers." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, don't excuse yourself to me, unless you wish to embitter + my shame. must try to run my face with the landlord," said + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no," said Mr. Waters gently. "Is there such haste as all + that?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I must go at once." + </p> + <p> + "I don't like to have you apply to a stranger," said the old + man, with fatherly kindness. "Can't you remain over till + Monday? I had a little excursion to propose." + </p> + <p> + "No, I can't possibly stay; I must go to-night," cried + Colville. + </p> + <p> + The minister rose. "Then I really mustn't detain you, I + suppose. Good-bye." He offered his hand. Colville took it, + but could not let it go at once. "I would like extremely to + tell you why I'm leaving Florence in such haste. But I don't + see what good it would do, for I don't want you to persuade + me to stay." + </p> + <p> + The old gentleman looked at him with friendly interest. + </p> + <p> + "The fact is," Colville proceeded, as if he had been + encouraged to do so, "I have had the misfortune—yes, + I'm afraid I've had the fault—to make myself very + displeasing to Mrs. Bowen, and in such a way that the very + least I can do is to take myself off as far and as soon as I + conveniently can." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" said Mr. Waters, with the cheerful note of incredulity + in his voice with which one is apt to respond to others' + confession of extremity. "Is it so bad as that? I've just + seen Mrs. Bowen, and she told me you were going." + </p> + <p> + "Oh," said Colville, with disagreeable sensation, "perhaps + she told you why I was going." + </p> + <p> + "No," answered Mr. Waters; "she didn't do that." Colville + imagined a consciousness in him, which perhaps did not exist. + "She didn't allude to the subject further than to state the + fact, when I mentioned that I was coming to see you." + </p> + <p> + Colville had dropped his hand. "She was very forbearing," he + said, with bitterness that might well have been + incomprehensible to Mr. Waters upon any theory but one. + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps," he suggested, "you are precipitate; perhaps you + have mistaken; perhaps you have been hasty. These things are + often the result of impulse in women. I have often wondered + how they could make up their minds; I believe they certainly + ought to be allowed to change them at least once." + </p> + <p> + Colville turned very red. "What in the world do you mean? Do + you imagine that I have been offering myself to Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "Wasn't it that which you wished to—which you said you + would like to tell me?" + </p> + <p> + Colville was suddenly silent, on the verge of a self-derisive + laugh. When he spoke, he said gently: "No; it wasn't that. I + never thought of offering myself to her. We have always been + very good friends. But now I'm afraid we can't be friends any + more—at least we can't be acquaintances." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Waters. He waited a while as if for + Colville to say more, but the latter remained silent, and the + old man gave his hand again in farewell. "I must really be + going. I hope you won't think me intrusive in my mistaken + conjecture?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no." + </p> + <p> + "It was what I supposed you had been telling + me——" + </p> + <p> + "I understand. You mustn't be troubled," said Colville, + though he had to own to himself that it seemed superfluous to + make this request of Mr. Waters, who was taking the affair + with all the serenity of age concerning matters of sentiment. + "I wish you were going to Rome with me," he added, to + disembarrass the moment of parting. + </p> + <p> + "Thank you. But I shall not go to Rome for some years. Shall + you come back on your way in the spring?" + </p> + <p> + "No, I shall not come to Florence again," said Colville + sadly. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I'm sorry. Good-bye, my dear young friend. It's been a + great pleasure to know you." Colville walked down to the door + of the hotel with his visitor and parted with him there. As + he turned back he met the landlord, who asked him if he would + have the omnibus for the station. The landlord bowed + smilingly, after his kind, and rubbed his hands. He said he + hoped Colville was pleased with his hotel, and ran to his + desk in the little office to get some cards for him, so that + he might recommend it accurately to American families. + </p> + <p> + Colville looked absently at the cards. "The fact is," he + said, to the little bowing, smiling man; "I don't know but I + shall be obliged to postpone my going till Monday." He smiled + too, trying to give the fact a jocose effect, and added, "I + find myself out of money, and I've no means of paying your + bill till I can see my bankers." + </p> + <p> + After all his heroic intention, this was as near as he could + come to asking the landlord to let him send the money from + Rome. + </p> + <p> + The little man set his head on one side. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, well, occupy the room until Monday, then," he cried + hospitably. "It is quite at your disposition. You will not + want the omnibus?" + </p> + <p> + "No, I shall not want the omnibus," said Colville, with a + laugh, doubtless not perfectly intelligible to the landlord, + who respectfully joined him in it. + </p> + <p> + He did not mean to stop that night without writing to Mrs. + Bowen, and assuring her that though an accident had kept him + in Florence till Monday, she need not be afraid of seeing him + again. But he could not go back to his room yet; he wandered + about the town, trying to pick himself up from the ruin into + which he had fallen again, and wondering with a sort of alien + compassion what was to become of his aimless, empty + existence. As he passed through the Piazza San Marco he had + half a mind to pick a pebble from the gardened margin of the + fountain there and toss it against the Rev. Mr. Waters's + window, and when he put his skull-cap out, to ask that + optimistic agnostic what a man had best do with a life that + had ceased to interest him. But, for the time being, he got + rid of himself as he best could by going to the opera. They + professed to give <i>Rigoletto</i>, but it was all Mrs. Bowen + and Imogene Graham to Colville. + </p> + <p> + It was so late when he got back to his hotel that the outer + gate was shut, and he had to wake up the poor little porter, + as on that night when he returned from Madame Uccelli's. The + porter was again equal to his duty, and contrived to light a + new candle to show him the way to his room. The repetition, + almost mechanical, of this small chicane made Colville smile, + and this apparently encouraged the porter to ask, as if he + supposed him to have been in society somewhere— + </p> + <p> + "You have amused yourself this evening? + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very much." + </p> + <p> + "I am glad. There is a letter for you.' + </p> + <p> + "A letter! Where?" + </p> + <p> + "I sent it to your room. It came just before midnight." + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XIII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XIII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Mrs. Bowen sat before the hearth in her <i>salon</i>, with + her hands fallen in her lap. At thirty-eight the emotions + engrave themselves more deeply in the face than they do in + our first youth, or than they will when we have really aged, + and the pretty woman looked haggard. + </p> + <p> + Imogene came in, wearing a long blue robe, flung on as if + with desperate haste; her thick hair fell crazily out of a + careless knot, down her back. "I couldn't sleep," she said, + with quivering lips, at the sight of which Mrs. Bowen's + involuntary smile hardened. "Isn't it eleven yet?" she added, + with a glance at the clock. "It seems years since I went to + bed." + </p> + <p> + "It's been a long day," Mrs. Bowen admitted. She did not ask + Imogene why she could not sleep, perhaps because she knew + already, and was too honest to affect ignorance. + </p> + <p> + The girl dropped into a chair opposite her, and began to pull + her fingers through the long tangle of her hair, while she + drew her breath in sighs that broke at times on her lips; + some tears fell down her cheeks unheeded. "Mrs. Bowen," she + said, at length, "I should like to know what right we have to + drive any one from Florence? I should think people would call + it rather a high-handed proceeding if it were known." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen met this feebleness promptly. "It isn't likely to + be known. But we are not driving Mr. Colville away." + </p> + <p> + "He is going." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he said he would go." + </p> + <p> + "Don't you believe he will go?" + </p> + <p> + "I believe he will do what he says." + </p> + <p> + "He has been very kind to us all; he has been as + <i>good!</i>" + </p> + <p> + "No one feels that more than I," said Mrs. Bowen, with a + slight tremor in her voice. She faltered a moment. "I can't + let you say those things to me, Imogene." + </p> + <p> + "No; I know it's wrong. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, + I wish I could tell what I ought to do! I wish I could make + up my mind. Oh, I can't let him go—<i>so</i>. I—I + don't know what to think any more. Once it was clear, but now + I'm not sure; no, I'm not sure." + </p> + <p> + "Not sure about what?" + </p> + <p> + "I think I am the one to go away, if any one." + </p> + <p> + "You know you can't go away," said Mrs. Bowen, with weary + patience. + </p> + <p> + "No, of course not. Well, I shall never see any one like + him." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen made a start in her chair, as if she had no longer + the power to remain quiet, but only placed herself a little + more rigidly in it. + </p> + <p> + "No," the girl went on, as if uttering a hopeless reverie. + "He made every moment interesting. He was always thinking of + us—he never thought of himself. He did as much for + Effie as for any one; he tried just as hard to make himself + interesting to her. He was unselfish. I have seen him at + places being kind to the stupidest people. You never caught + him choosing out the stylish or attractive ones, or trying to + shine at anybody's expense. Oh, he's a true gentleman—I + shall always say it. How delicate he was, never catching you + up, or if you said a foolish thing, trying to turn it against + you. No, never, never, never! Oh dear! And now, what can he + think of me? Oh, how frivolous and fickle and selfish he must + think me!" + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" Mrs. Bowen cried out, but quelled herself again. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," pursued the girl, in the same dreary monotone, "he + thinks I couldn't appreciate him because he was old. He + thinks that I cared for his not being handsome! + Perhaps—perhaps——" She began to catch her + breath in the effort to keep back the sobs that were coming. + "Oh, I can't bear it! I would rather die than let him think + it—such a thing as that!" She bent her head aside, and + cried upon the two hands with which she clutched the top of + her chair. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen sat looking at her distractedly. From time to time + she seemed to silence a word upon her lips, and in fact she + did not speak. + </p> + <p> + Imogene lifted her head at last, and softly dried her eyes. + Then, as she pushed her handkerchief back into the pocket of + her robe, "What sort of looking girl was that other one?" + </p> + <p> + "That other one?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; you know what I mean: the one who behaved so badly to + him before." + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" said Mrs. Bowen severely, "this is nonsense, and I + can't let you go on so. I might pretend not to know what you + mean; but I won't do that; and I tell you that there is no + sort of likeness—of comparison——" + </p> + <p> + "No, no," wailed the girl, "there <i>is</i> none. I feel + that. She had nothing to warn her—he hadn't suffered + then; he was young; he was able to bear it—you said it + yourself, Mrs. Bowen. But now—<i>now</i>, what will he + do? He could make fun of that, and not hate her so much, + because she didn't know how much harm she was doing. But I + did; and what can he think of me?" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen looked across the barrier between them, that kept + her from taking Imogene into her arms, and laughing and + kissing away her craze, with cold dislike, and only said, + "You know whether you've really anything to accuse yourself + of, Imogene. I can't and won't consider Mr. Colville in the + matter; I <i>didn't</i> consider him in what I said to-day. + And I tell you again that I will not interfere with you in + the slightest degree beyond appearances and the + responsibility I feel to your mother. And it's for you to + know your own mind. You are old enough. I will do what you + say. It's for you to be sure that you wish what you say." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Imogene huskily, and she let an interval that was + long to them both elapse before she said anything more. "Have + I always done what you thought best, Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I have never complained of you." + </p> + <p> + "Then why can't you tell me now what you think best?" + </p> + <p> + "Because there is nothing to be done. It is all over." + </p> + <p> + "But if it were not, would you tell me?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Why?" + </p> + <p> + "Because I—couldn't." + </p> + <p> + "Then I take back my promise not to write to Mr. Colville. I + am going to ask him to stay." + </p> + <p> + "Have you made up your mind to that, Imogene?" asked Mrs. + Bowen, showing no sign of excitement, except to take a faster + hold of her own wrists with the slim hands in which she had + caught them. + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "You know the position it places you in?" + </p> + <p> + "What position?" + </p> + <p> + "Has he offered himself to you?" + </p> + <p> + "No!" the girl's face blazed. + </p> + <p> + "Then, after what's passed, this is the same as offering + yourself to him." + </p> + <p> + Imogene turned white. "I must write to him, unless you forbid + me." + </p> + <p> + "Certainly I shall not forbid you." Mrs. Bowen rose and went + to her writing-desk. "But if you have fully made up your mind + to this step, and are ready for the consequences, whatever + they are——" She stopped, before sitting down, and + looked back over her shoulder at Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said the girl, who had also risen. + </p> + <p> + "Then I will write to Mr. Colville for you, and render the + proceeding as little objectionable as possible." + </p> + <p> + Imogene made no reply. She stood motionless while Mrs. Bowen + wrote. + </p> + <p> + "Is this what you wished?" asked the latter, offering the + sheet:—— + </p> + <p> + "Dear Mr. Colville,—I have reasons for wishing to + recall my consent to your going away. Will you not come and + lunch with us to-morrow, and try to forget everything that + has passed during a few days? + </p> + <p> + "Yours very sincerely, + </p> + <p> + "Evalina Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, that will do," gasped Imogene. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rang the bell for the porter, and stood with her + back to the girl, waiting for him at the salon door. He came + after a delay that sufficiently intimated the lateness of the + hour. "This letter must go at once to the Hotel d'Atene," + said Mrs. Bowen peremptorily. + </p> + <p> + "You shall be served," said the porter, with fortitude. + </p> + <p> + As Mrs. Bowen turned, Imogene ran toward her with clasped + hands. "Oh, how merciful—how good——" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen shrank back. "Don't touch me, Imogene, please!" + </p> + <p> + It was her letter which Colville found on his table and read + by the struggling light of his newly acquired candle. Then he + sat down and replied to it. + </p> + <p> + "Dear Mrs. Bowen,—I know that you mean some sort of + kindness by me, and I hope you will not think me prompted by + any poor resentment in declining to-morrow's lunch. I am + satisfied that it is best for me to go; and I am ashamed not + to be gone already. But a ridiculous accident has kept me, + and when I came in and found your note I was just going to + write and ask your patience with my presence in Florence till + Monday morning. + </p> + <p> + "Yours sincerely, THEODORE COLVILLE." + </p> + <p> + He took his note down to the porter, who had lain down again + in his little booth, but sprang up with a cheerful request to + be commanded. Colville consulted him upon the propriety of + sending the note to Palazzo Pinti at once, and the porter, + with his head laid in deprecation upon one of his lifted + shoulders, owned that it was perhaps the very least little + bit in the world late. + </p> + <p> + "Send it the first thing in the morning, then," said + Colville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen received it by the servant who brought her coffee + to the room, and she sent it without any word to Imogene. The + girl came instantly back with it. She was fully dressed, as + if she had been up a long time, and she wore a very plain, + dull dress, in which one of her own sex might have read the + expression of a potential self-devotion. + </p> + <p> + "It's just as I wish it, Mrs. Bowen," she said, in a low key + of impassioned resolution. "<i>Now</i>, my conscience is at + rest. And you have done this for me, Mrs. Bowen!" She stood + timidly with the door in her hand, watching Mrs. Bowen's + slight smile; then, as if at some sign in it, she flew to the + bed and kissed her, and so fled out of the room again. + </p> + <p> + Colville slept late, and awoke with a vague sense of + self-reproach, which faded afterward to such poor + satisfaction as comes to us from the consciousness of having + made the best of a bad business; some pangs of softer regret + mixed with this. At first he felt a stupid obligation to keep + indoors, and he really did not go out till after lunch. The + sunshine had looked cold from his window, and with the bright + fire which he found necessary in his room, he fancied a + bitterness in the gusts that caught up the dust in the + piazza, and blew it against the line of cabs on the other + side; but when he got out into the weather he found the + breeze mild and the sun warm. The streets were thronged with + people, and at all the corners there were groups of cloaked + and overcoated talkers, soaking themselves full of the + sunshine. The air throbbed, as always, with the sound of + bells, but it was a mellower and opener sound than before, + and looking at the purple bulk of one of those hills which + seem to rest like clouds at the end of each avenue in + Florence, Colville saw that it was clear of snow. He was + going up through Via Cavour to find Mr. Waters and propose a + walk, but he met him before he had got half-way to San Marco. + </p> + <p> + The old man was at a momentary stand-still, looking up at the + Riccardi Palace, and he received Colville with apparent + forgetfulness of anything odd in his being still in Florence. + "Upon the whole," he said, without preliminary of any sort, + as Colville turned and joined him in walking on, "I don't + know any homicide that more distinctly proves the futility of + assassination as a political measure than that over yonder." + He nodded his head sidewise toward the palace as he shuffled + actively along at Colville's elbow. + </p> + <p> + "You might say that the moment when Lorenzino killed + Alessandro was the most auspicious for a deed of that kind. + The Medici had only recently been restored; Alessandro was + the first ruler in Florence, who had worn a title; no more + reckless, brutal, and insolent tyrant ever lived, and his + right, even such as the Medici might have, to play the despot + was involved in the doubt of his origin; the heroism of the + great siege ought still to have survived in the people who + withstood the forces of the whole German Empire for fifteen + months; it seems as if the taking off of that single wretch + should have ended the whole Medicean domination; but there + was not a voice raised to second the homicide's appeal to the + old love of liberty in Florence. The Medici party were able + to impose a boy of eighteen upon the most fiery democracy + that ever existed, and to hunt down and destroy Alessandro's + murderer at their leisure. No," added the old man + thoughtfully, "I think that the friends of progress must + abandon assassination as invariably useless. The trouble was + not that Alessandro was alive, but that Florence was dead. + Assassination always comes too early or too late in any + popular movement. It may be," said Mr. Waters, with a + carefulness to do justice to assassination which made + Colville smile, "that the modern scientific spirits may be + able to evolve something useful from the principle, but + considering the enormous abuses and perversions to which it + is liable, I am very doubtful of it—very doubtful." + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed. "I like your way of bringing a fresh mind + to all these questions in history and morals, whether they + are conventionally settled or not. Don't you think the modern + scientific spirit could evolve something useful out of the + old classic idea of suicide?" + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps," said Mr. Waters; "I haven't yet thought it over. + The worst thing about suicide—and this must always rank + it below political assassination—is that its interest + is purely personal. No man ever kills himself for the good of + others." + </p> + <p> + "That's certainly against it. We oughtn't to countenance such + an abominably selfish practice. But you can't bring that + charge against euthanasy. What have you to say of that?" + </p> + <p> + "I have heard one of the most benevolent and tender-hearted + men I ever knew defend it in cases of hopeless suffering. But + I don't know that I should be prepared to take his ground. + There appears to be something so sacred about human life that + we must respect it even in spite of the prayers of the + sufferer who asks us to end his irremediable misery." + </p> + <p> + "Well," said Colville, "I suspect we must at least class + murder with the ballet as a means of good. One might say + there was still some virtue in the primal, eldest curse + against bloodshed." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't by any means deny those things," said the old + man, with the air of wishing to be scrupulously just. "Which + way are you walking?" + </p> + <p> + "Your way, if you will let me," replied Colville. "I was + going to your house to ask you to take a walk with me." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, that's good. I was reading of the great siege last + night, and I thought of taking a look at Michelangelo's + bastions. Let us go together, if you don't think you'll find + it too fatiguing." + </p> + <p> + "I shall be ashamed to complain if I do." + </p> + <p> + "And you didn't go to Rome after all?" said Mr. Waters. + </p> + <p> + "No; I couldn't face the landlord with a petition so + preposterous as mine. I told him that I found I had no money + to pay his bill till I had seen my banker, and as he didn't + propose that I should send him the amount back from Rome, I + stayed. Landlords have their limitations; they are not + imaginative, as a class." + </p> + <p> + "Well, a day more will make no great difference to you, I + suppose," said the old man, "and a day less would have been a + loss to me. I shall miss you." + </p> + <p> + "Shall you, indeed?" asked Colville, with a grateful stir of + the heart. "It's very nice of you to say that." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no. I meet few people who are willing to look at life + objectively with me, and I have fancied some such willingness + in you. What I chiefly miss over here is a philosophic lift + in the human mind, but probably that is because my + opportunities of meeting the best minds are few, and my means + of conversing with them are small. If I had not the whole + past with me, I should feel lonely at times." + </p> + <p> + "And is the past such good company always?". + </p> + <p> + "Yes, in a sense it is. The past is humanity set free from + circumstance, and history studied where it was once life is + the past rehumanised." + </p> + <p> + As if he found this rarefied air too thin for his lungs, + Colville made some ineffectual gasps at response, and the old + man continued: "What I mean is that I meet here the + characters I read of, and commune with them before their + errors were committed, before they had condemned themselves + to failure, while they were still wise and sane, and still + active and vital forces." + </p> + <p> + "Did they all fail? I thought some of the bad fellows had a + pretty fair worldly success?" + </p> + <p> + "The blossom of decay." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! what black pessimism!" + </p> + <p> + "Not at all! Men fail, but man succeeds. I don't know what it + all means, or any part of it; but I have had moods in which + it seemed as if the whole, secret of the mystery were about + to flash upon me. Walking along in the full sun, in the midst + of men, or sometimes in the solitude of midnight, poring over + a book, and thinking of quite other things, I have felt that + I had almost surprised it." + </p> + <p> + "But never quite?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, it isn't too late yet." + </p> + <p> + "I hope you won't have your revelation before I get away from + Florence, or I shall see them burning you here like the great + <i>frate</i>." + </p> + <p> + They had been walking down the Via Calzioli from the Duomo, + and now they came out into the Piazza della Signoria, + suddenly, as one always seems to do, upon the rise of the old + palace and the leap of its tower into the blue air. The + history of all Florence is there, with memories of every + great time in bronze or marble, but the supreme presence is + the martyr who hangs for ever from the gibbet over the + quenchless fire in the midst. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, they <i>had</i> to kill him!" sighed the old man. "It + has always been so with the benefactors. They have always + meant mankind more good than any one generation can bear, and + it must turn upon them and destroy them." + </p> + <p> + "How will it be with you, then, when you have read us 'the + riddle of the painful earth'?" + </p> + <p> + "That will be so simple that every one will accept it + willingly and gladly, and wonder that no one happened to + think of it before. And, perhaps, the world is now grown old + enough and docile enough to receive the truth without + resentment." + </p> + <p> + "I take back my charge of pessimism," said Colville. "You are + an optimist of the deepest dye." + </p> + <p> + They walked out of the Piazza and down to the Lung' Arno, + through the corridor of the Uffizzi, where the illustrious + Florentines stand in marble under the arches, all reconciled + and peaceful and equal at last. Colville shivered a little as + he passed between the silent ranks of the statues. + </p> + <p> + "I can't stand those fellows, to-day. They seem to feel such + a smirk satisfaction at having got out of it all." + </p> + <p> + They issued upon the river, and he went to the parapet and + looked down on the water. "I wonder," he mused aloud, "if it + has the same Sunday look to these Sabbathless Italians as it + has to us." + </p> + <p> + "No; Nature isn't puritan," replied the old minister. + </p> + <p> + "Not at Haddam East Village?" + </p> + <p> + "No; there less than here; for she's had to make a harder + fight for her life there." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, then you believe in Nature—you're a friend of + Nature?" asked Colville, following the lines of an oily swirl + in the current with indolent eye. + </p> + <p> + "Only up to a certain point." Mr. Waters seemed to be patient + of any direction which the other might be giving the talk. + "Nature is a savage. She has good impulses, but you can't + trust her altogether." + </p> + <p> + "Do you know," said Colville, "I don't think there's very + much of her left in us after we reach a certain point in + life? She drives us on at a great pace for a while, and then + some fine morning we wake up and find that Nature has got + tired of us and has left us to taste and conscience. And + taste and conscience are by no means so certain of what they + want you to do as Nature was." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said the minister, "I see what you mean." He joined + Colville in leaning on the parapet, and he looked out on the + river as if he saw his meaning there. "But by the time we + reach that point in life most of us have got the direction + which Nature meant us to take, and there's no longer any need + of her driving us on." + </p> + <p> + "And what about the unlucky fellows who haven't got the + direction, or haven't kept it?" + </p> + <p> + "They had better go back to it." + </p> + <p> + "But if Nature herself seemed to change her mind about you?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, you mean persons of weak will. They are a great curse to + themselves and to everybody else." + </p> + <p> + "I'm not so sure of that," said Colville. "I've seen cases in + which a strong will looked very much more like the devil." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, a perverted will. But there can be no good without a + strong will. A weak will means inconstancy. It means, even in + good, good attempted and relinquished, which is always a + terrible thing, because it is sure to betray some one who + relied upon its accomplishment." + </p> + <p> + "And in evil? Perhaps the evil, attempted and relinquished, + turns into good." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, never!" replied the minister fervently. "There is + something very mysterious in what we call evil. Apparently it + has infinitely greater force and persistence than good. I + don't know why it should be so. But so it appears." + </p> + <p> + "You'll have the reason of that along with the rest of the + secret when your revelation comes," said Colville, with a + smile. He lifted his eyes from the river, and looked up over + the clustering roofs beyond it to the hills beyond them, + flecked to the crest of their purple slopes with the white of + villas and villages. As if something in the beauty of the + wonderful prospect had suggested the vision of its opposite, + he said, dreamily, "I don't think I shall go to Rome + to-morrow, after all. I will go to Des Vaches! Where did you + say you were walking, Mr. Waters? Oh yes! You told me. I will + cross the bridge with you. But I couldn't stand anything + quite so vigorous as the associations of the siege this + afternoon. I'm going to the Boboli Gardens, to debauch myself + with a final sense of nerveless despotism, as it expressed + itself in marble allegory and formal alleys. The fact is that + if I stay with you any longer I shall tell you something that + I'm too old to tell and you're too old to hear." The old man + smiled, but offered no urgence or comment, and at the thither + end of the bridge Colville said hastily, "Good-bye. If you + ever come to Des Vaches, look me up." + </p> + <p> + "Good-bye," said the minister. "Perhaps we shall meet in + Florence again." + </p> + <p> + "No, no. Whatever happens, that won't." + </p> + <p> + They shook hands and parted. Colville stood a moment, + watching the slight bent figure of the old man as he moved + briskly up the Via de' Bardi, turning his head from, side to + side, to look at the palaces as he passed, and so losing + himself in the dim, cavernous curve of the street. As soon as + he was out of sight, Colville had an impulse to hurry after + him and rejoin him; then he felt like turning about and going + back to his hotel. + </p> + <p> + But he shook himself together into the shape of resolution, + however slight and transient. "I must do <i>something</i> I + intended to do," he said, between his set teeth, and pushed + on up through the Via Guicciardini. "I will go to the Boboli + because I <i>said</i> I would." + </p> + <p> + As he walked along, he seemed to himself to be merely + crumbling away in this impulse and that, in one abortive + intent and another. What did it all mean? Had he been his + whole life one of these weak wills which are a curse to + themselves and others, and most a curse when they mean the + best? Was that the secret of his failure in life? But for + many years he had seemed to succeed, to be as other men were, + hard, practical men; he had once made a good newspaper, which + was certainly not a dream of romance. Had he given that up at + last because he was a weak will? And now was he running away + from Florence because his will was weak? He could look back + to that squalid tragedy of his youth, and see that a more + violent, a more determined man could have possessed himself + of the girl whom he had lost. And now would it not be more + manly, if more brutal, to stay here, where a hope, however + fleeting, however fitful, of what might have been, had + revisited him in the love of this young girl? He felt sure, + if anything were sure, that something in him, in spite of + their wide disparity of years, had captured her fancy, and + now, in his abasement, he felt again the charm of his own + power over her. They were no farther apart in years than many + a husband and wife; they would grow more and more together; + there was youth enough in his heart yet; and who was pushing + him away from her, forbidding him this treasure that he had + but to put out his hand and make his own? Some one whom + through all his thoughts of another he was trying to please, + but whom he had made finally and inexorably his enemy. Better + stay, then, something said to him; and when he answered, "I + will," something else reminded him that this also was not + willing but unwilling. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XIV"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XIV + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + When he entered the beautiful old garden, its benison of + peace fell upon his tumult, and he began to breathe a freer + air, reverting to his purpose to be gone in the morning and + resting in it, as he strolled up the broad curve of its alley + from the gate. He had not been there since he walked there + with one now more like a ghost to him than any of the dead + who had since died. It was there that she had refused him; he + recalled with a grim smile the awkwardness of getting back + with her to the gate from the point, far within the garden, + where he had spoken. Except that this had happened in the + fall, and now it was early spring, there seemed no change + since then; the long years that had elapsed were like a + winter between. + </p> + <p> + He met people in groups and singly loitering through the + paths, and chiefly speaking English; but no one spoke to him, + and no one invaded the solitude in which he walked. But the + garden itself seemed to know him, and to give him a tacit + recognition; the great, foolish grotto before the gate, with + its statues by Bandinelli, and the fantastic effects of + drapery and flesh in party-coloured statues lifted high on + either side of the avenue; the vast shoulder of wall, covered + thick with ivy and myrtle, which he passed on his way to the + amphitheatre behind the palace; the alternate figures and + urns on their pedestals in the hemicycle, as if the urns were + placed there to receive the ashes of the figures when they + became extinct; the white statues or the colossal busts set + at the ends of the long, alleys against black curtains of + foliage; the big fountain, with its group in the centre of + the little lake, and the meadow, quiet and sad, that + stretched away on one side from this; the keen light under + the levels of the dense pines and ilexes; the paths striking + straight on either hand from the avenue through which he + sauntered, and the walk that coiled itself through the depths + of the plantations; all knew him, and from them and from the + winter neglect which was upon the place distilled a subtle + influence, a charm, an appeal belonging to that combination + of artifice and nature which is perfect only in an Italian + garden under an Italian sky. He was right in the name which + he mockingly gave the effect before he felt it; it was a + debauch, delicate, refined, of unserious pensiveness, a + smiling melancholy, in which he walked emancipated from his + harassing hopes, and keeping only his shadowy regrets. + </p> + <p> + Colville did not care to scale the easy height from which you + have the magnificent view, conscious of many photographs, of + Florence. He wandered about the skirts of that silent meadow, + and seeing himself unseen, he invaded its borders far enough + to pluck one of those large scarlet anemones, such as he had + given his gentle enemy. It was tilting there in the breeze + above the unkempt grass, and the grass was beginning to feel + the spring, and to stir and stretch itself after its winter + sleep; it was sprinkled with violets, but these he did not + molest. He came back to a stained and mossy stone bench on + the avenue, fronting a pair of rustic youths carved in stone, + who had not yet finished some game in which he remembered + seeing them engaged when he was there before. He had not + walked fast, but he had walked far, and was warm enough to + like the whiffs of soft wind on his uncovered head. The + spring was coming; that was its breath, which you know + unmistakably in Italy after all the kisses that winter gives. + Some birds were singing in the trees; down an alley into + which he could look, between the high walls of green, he + could see two people in flirtation: he waited patiently till + the young man should put his arm round the girl's waist, for + the fleeting embrace from which she pushed it and fled + further down the path. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, it's spring," thought Colville; and then, with the + selfishness of the troubled soul, he wished that it might be + winter still and indefinitely. It occurred to him now that he + should not go back to Des Vaches, for he did not know what he + should do there. He would go to New York: though he did not + know what he should do in New York, either. + </p> + <p> + He became tired of looking at the people who passed, and of + speculating about them through the second consciousness which + enveloped the sad substance of his misgivings like an + atmosphere; and he let his eyelids fall, as he leaned his + head back against the tree behind his bench. Then their + voices pursued him through the twilight that he had made + himself, and forced him to the same weary conjecture as if he + had seen their faces. He heard gay laughter, and laughter + that affected gaiety; the tones of young men in earnest + disquisition reached him through the veil, and the talk, + falling to whisper, of girls, with the names of men in it; + sums of money, a hundred francs, forty thousand francs, came + in high tones; a husband and wife went by quarrelling in the + false security of English, and snapping at each other as + confidingly as if in the sanctuary of home. The man bade the + woman not be a fool, and she asked him how she was to-endure + his company if she was not a fool. + </p> + <p> + Colville opened his eyes to look after them, when a voice + that he knew called out, "Why, it is Mr. Colville!" + </p> + <p> + It was Mrs. Amsden, and pausing with her, as if they had + passed him in doubt, and arrested themselves when they had + got a little way by, were Effie Bowen and Imogens Graham. The + old lady had the child by the hand, and the girl stood a few + paces apart from them. She was one of those beauties who have + the property of looking very plain at times, and Colville, + who had seen her in more than one transformation, now beheld + her somehow clumsy of feature, and with the youth gone from + her aspect. She seemed a woman of thirty, and she wore an + unbecoming walking dress of a fashion that contributed to + this effect of age. Colville was aware afterward of having + wished that she was really as old and plain as she looked. + </p> + <p> + He had to come forward, and put on the conventional delight + of a gentleman meeting lady friends. + </p> + <p> + "It's remarkable how your having your eyes shut estranged + you," said Mrs. Amsden. "Now, if you had let me see you + oftener in church, where people close their eyes a good deal + for one purpose or another, I should have known you at once." + </p> + <p> + "I hope you haven't lost a great deal of time, as it is, Mrs. + Amsden," said Colville. "Of course I should have had my eyes + open if I had known you were going by." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, don't apologise!" cried the old thing, with ready + enjoyment of his tone. + </p> + <p> + "I don't apologise for not being recognisable; I apologise + for being visible," said Colville, with some shapeless + impression that he ought to excuse his continued presence in + Florence to Imogene, but keeping his eyes upon Mrs. Amsden, + to whom what he said could not be intelligible. "I ought to + be in Turin to-day." + </p> + <p> + "In Turin! Are you going away from Florence?" + </p> + <p> + "I'm going home." + </p> + <p> + "Why, did <i>you</i> know that?" asked the old lady of + Imogene, who slightly nodded, and then of Effie, who also + assented. "Really, the silence of the Bowen family in regard + to the affairs of others is extraordinary. There never was a + family more eminently qualified to live in Florence. I dare + say that if I saw a little more of them, I might hope to + reach the years of discretion myself some day. <i>Why</i> are + you going away? (You see I haven't reached them yet!) Are you + tired of Florence already?" + </p> + <p> + "No," said Colville passively; "Florence is tired of me." + </p> + <p> + "You're quite sure?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; there's no mistaking one of her sex on such a point." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Amsden laughed. "Ah, a great many people mistake us, + both ways. And you're really going back to America. What in + the world for?" + </p> + <p> + "I haven't the least idea." + </p> + <p> + "Is America fonder of you than Florence?" + </p> + <p> + "She's never told her love. I suspect it's merely that she's + more used to me." + </p> + <p> + They were walking, without any volition of his, down the + slope of the broad avenue to the fountain, where he had + already been. + </p> + <p> + "Is your mother well?" he asked of the little girl. It seemed + to him that he had better not speak to Imogene, who still + kept that little distance from the rest, and get away as soon + as he decently could. + </p> + <p> + "She has a headache," said Effie. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I'm sorry," returned Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, she deputed me to take her young people out for an + airing," said Mrs. Amsden; "and Miss Graham decided us for + the Boboli, where she hadn't been yet. I've done what I could + to make the place attractive. But what is an old woman to do + for a girl in a garden? We ought to have brought some other + young people—some of the Inglehart boys. But we're + respectable, we Americans abroad; we're decorous, above all + things; and I don't know about meeting <i>you</i> here, Mr. + Colville. It has a very bad appearance. Are you sure that you + didn't know I was to go by here at exactly half-past four?" + </p> + <p> + "I was living from breath to breath in the expectation of + seeing you. You must have noticed how eagerly I was looking + out for you." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, and with a single red anemone in your hand, so that I + should know you without being obliged to put on my + spectacles." + </p> + <p> + "You divine everything, Mrs. Amsden," he said, giving her the + flower. + </p> + <p> + "I shall make my brags to Mrs. Bowen when I see her," said + the old lady. "How far into the country did you walk for + this?" + </p> + <p> + "As far as the meadow yonder." + </p> + <p> + They had got down to the sheet of water from which the + sea-horses of the fountain sprang, and the old lady sank upon + a bench near it. Colville held out his hand toward Effie. "I + saw a lot of violets over there in the grass." + </p> + <p> + "Did you?" She put her hand eagerly into his, and they + strolled off together. After a first motion to accompany + them, Imogene sat down beside Mrs. Amsden, answering quietly + the talk of the old lady, and seeming in nowise concerned + about the expedition for violets. Except for a dull first + glance, she did not look that way. Colville stood in the + border of the grass, and the child ran quickly hither and + thither in it, stooping from time to time upon the flowers. + Then she came out to where he stood, and showed her bunch of + violets, looking up into the face which he bent upon her, + while he trifled with his cane. He had a very fatherly air + with her. + </p> + <p> + "I think I'll go and see what they've found," said Imogene + irrelevantly, to a remark of Mrs. Amsden's about the + expensiveness of Madame Bossi's bonnets. + </p> + <p> + "Well," said the old lady. Imogene started, and the little + girl ran to meet her. She detained Effie with her admiration + of the violets till Colville lounged reluctantly up. "Go and + show them to Mrs. Amsden," she said, giving back the violets, + which she had been smelling. The child ran on. "Mr. Colville, + I want to speak with you." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville helplessly. + </p> + <p> + "Why are you going away?" + </p> + <p> + "Why? Oh, I've accomplished the objects—or + no-objects—I came for," he said, with dreary + triviality, "and I must hurry away to other fields of + activity." He kept his eyes on her face, which he saw full of + a passionate intensity, working to some sort of overflow. + </p> + <p> + "That is not true, and you needn't say it to spare me. You + are going away because Mrs. Bowen said something to you about + me." + </p> + <p> + "Not quite that," returned Colville gently. + </p> + <p> + "No; it was something that she said to me about you. But it's + the same thing. It makes no difference. I ask you not to go + for that." + </p> + <p> + "Do you know what you are saying, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + am going to-morrow, all the same. But I shan't forget this; + whatever my life is to be, this will make it less unworthy + and less unhappy. If it could buy anything to give you joy, + to add some little grace to the good that must come to you, I + would give it. Some day you'll meet the young fellow whom + you're to make immortal, and you must tell him of an old + fellow who knew you afar off, and understood how to worship + you for an angel of pity and unselfishness. Ah, I hope he'll + understand, too! Good-bye." If he was to fly, that was the + sole instant. He took her hand, and said again, "Good-bye." + And then he suddenly cried, "Imogene, do you wish me to + stay?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes!" said the girl, pouring all the intensity of her face + into that whisper. + </p> + <p> + "Even if there had been nothing said to make me go + away—should you still wish me to stay?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + He looked her in the starry, lucid eyes, where a divine + fervour deepened. He sighed in nerveless perplexity; it was + she who had the courage. + </p> + <p> + "It's a mistake! You mustn't! I am too old for you! It would + be a wrong and a cruelty! Yes, you must let me go, and forget + me. I have been to blame. If Mrs. Bowen has blamed me, she + was right—I deserved it; I deserved all she could say + against me." + </p> + <p> + "She never said anything against you. Do you think I would + have let her? No; it was I that said it, and I blamed you. It + was because I thought that you were—you were—" + </p> + <p> + "Trifling with you? How could you think that?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I know now how it was, and it makes you seem all the + grander to me. Did you think I cared for your being older + than I was? I never cared for it—I never hardly thought + of it after the very first. I tried to make you understand + that, and how it hurt me to have you speak of it. Don't you + think that I could see how good you were? Do you suppose that + all I want is to be happy? I don't care for that—I + despise it, and I always hate myself for seeking my own + pleasure, if I find myself doing it. I have seen enough of + life to know what <i>that</i> comes to! And what hurt me + worst of all was that you seemed to believe that I cared for + nothing but amusing myself, when I wished to be something + better, higher! It's nothing whether you are of my age or + not, if—if—you care for me." + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" + </p> + <p> + "All that I ask is to be with you, and try to make you forget + what's been sad in your life, and try to be of use to you in + whatever you are doing, and I shall be prouder and gladder of + that than anything that people <i>call</i> happiness." + </p> + <p> + Colville stood holding her hand, while she uttered these + ideas and incoherent repetitions of them, with a deep sense + of powerlessness. "If I believed that I could keep you from + regretting this—" + </p> + <p> + "What should I regret? I won't let you depreciate + yourself—make yourself out not good enough for the + best. Oh, I know how it happened! But now you shall never + think of it again. No; I will not let you. That is the only + way you could make me regret anything." + </p> + <p> + "I am going to stay," said Colville. "But on my own terms. I + will be bound to you, but you shall not be bound to me." + </p> + <p> + "You doubt me! I would rather have you go! No; stay. And let + me prove to you how wrong you are. I mustn't ask more than + that. Only give me the chance to show you how different I am + from what you think—how different you are, too." + </p> + <p> + "Yes. But you must be free." + </p> + <p> + "Well." + </p> + <p> + "What are they doing so long there?" asked Mrs. Amsden of + Effie, putting her glasses to her eyes. "I can't see." + </p> + <p> + "They are just holding hands," said the child, with an easy + satisfaction in the explanation, which perhaps the old lady + did not share. "He always holds my hand when he is with me." + </p> + <p> + "Does he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Amsden, with a cackle. She + added, "That's very polite of him, isn't it? You must be a + great favourite with Mr. Colville. You will miss him when + he's gone." + </p> + <p> + "Yes. He's very nice." + </p> + <p> + Colville and Imogene returned, coming slowly across the + loose, neglected grass toward the old woman's seat. She rose + as they came up. + </p> + <p> + "You don't seem to have succeeded so well in getting flowers + for Miss Graham as for the other ladies. But perhaps you + didn't find her favourite over there. What is your favourite + flower, Miss Graham? Don't say you have none! I didn't know + that I preferred scarlet anemones. Were there no + forget-me-nots over there in the grass?" + </p> + <p> + "There was no occasion for them," answered Colville. + </p> + <p> + "You always did make such pretty speeches!" said the old + lady. "And they have such an orphic character, too; you can + interpret them in so many different ways. Should you mind + saying just what you meant by that one?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, very much," replied Colville. + </p> + <p> + The old lady laughed with cheerful resignation. She would as + lief report that reply of his as another. Even more than a + man whom she could entangle in his speech she liked a man who + could slip through the toils with unfailing ease. Her talk + with such a man was the last consolation which remained to + her from a life of harmless coquetries. + </p> + <p> + "I will refer it to Mrs. Bowen," she said. "She is a very + wise woman, and she used to know you a great while ago." + </p> + <p> + "If you like, I will do it for you, Mrs. Amsden. I'm going to + see her." + </p> + <p> + "To renew your adieux? Well, why not? Parting is such sweet + sorrow! And if I were a young man I would go to say good-bye + to Mrs. Bowen as often as she would let me. Now tell me + honestly, Mr. Colville, did you ever see such an exquisite, + perfect <i>creature</i>?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, that's asking a good deal." + </p> + <p> + "What?" + </p> + <p> + "To tell you a thing honestly. How did you come here, Mrs. + Amsden?" + </p> + <p> + "In Mrs. Bowen's carriage. I sent it round from the Pitti + entrance to the Porta Romana. It's waiting there now, I + suppose." + </p> + <p> + "I thought you had been corrupted, somehow. Your zeal is + carriage-bought. It <i>is</i> a delightful vehicle. Do you + think you could give me a lift home in it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, indeed. I've always a seat for you in my carriage. To + Hotel d'Atene?" + </p> + <p> + "No, to Palazzo Pinti." + </p> + <p> + "This is deliciously mysterious," said Mrs. Amsden, drawing + her shawl up about her shoulders, which, if no longer + rounded, had still a charming droop. One realises in looking + at such old ladies that there are women who could manage + their own skeletons winningly. She put up her glasses, which + were an old-fashioned sort, held to the nose by a handle, and + perused the different persons of the group. "Mr. Colville + concealing an inward trepidation under a bold front; Miss + Graham agitated but firm; the child as much puzzled as the + old woman. I feel that we are a very interesting + group—almost dramatic." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, call us a passage from a modern novel," suggested + Colville, "if you're in the romantic mood. One of Mr. + James's." + </p> + <p> + "Don't you think we ought to be rather more of the great + world for that? I hardly feel up to Mr. James. I should have + said Howells. Only nothing happens in that case!" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very well; that's the most comfortable way. If it's only + Howells, there's no reason why I shouldn't go with Miss + Graham to show her the view of Florence from the cypress + grove up yonder." + </p> + <p> + "No; he's very particular when he's on Italian ground," said + Mrs. Amsden, rising. "You must come another time with Miss + Graham, and bring Mrs. Bowen. It's quite time we were going + home." + </p> + <p> + The light under the limbs of the trees had begun to grow more + liquid. The currents of warm breeze streaming through the + cooler body of the air had ceased to ruffle the lakelet round + the fountain, and the naiads rode their sea-horses through a + perfect calm. A damp, pierced with the fresh odour of the + water and of the springing grass, descended upon them. The + saunterers through the different paths and alleys were + issuing upon the main avenues, and tending in gathering force + toward the gate. + </p> + <p> + They found Mrs. Bowen's carriage there, and drove first to + her house, beyond which Mrs. Amsden lived in a direct line. + On the way Colville kept up with her the bantering talk that + they always carried on together, and found in it a respite + from the formless future pressing close upon him. He sat with + Effie on the front seat, and he would not look at Imogene's + face, which, nevertheless, was present to some inner vision. + When the porter opened the iron gate below and rang Mrs. + Bowen's bell, and Effie sprang up the stairs before them to + give her mother the news of Mr. Colville's coming, the girl + stole her hand into his. + </p> + <p> + "Shall you—tell her?" + </p> + <p> + "Of course. She must know without an instant's delay." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, yes; that is right. Oh!—Shall I go with you?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; come!" + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XV"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XV + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Mrs. Bowen came in to them, looking pale and pain-worn, as + she did that evening when she would not let Colville go away + with the other tea-taking callers to whom she had made her + headache an excuse. The eyelids which she had always a little + difficulty in lifting were heavy with suffering, and her + pretty smile had an effect of very great remoteness. But + there was no consciousness of anything unusual or unexpected + in his presence expressed in her looks or manner. Colville + had meant to take Imogene by the hand and confront Mrs. Bowen + with an immediate declaration of what had happened; but he + found this impossible, at least in the form of his intention; + he took, instead, the hand of conventional welcome which she + gave him, and he obeyed her in taking provisionally the seat + to which she invited him. At the same time the order of his + words was dispersed in that wonder, whether she suspected + anything, with which he listened to her placid talk about the + weather; she said she had thought it was a chilly day + outdoors; but her headaches always made her very sensitive. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, "I supposed it was cold myself till I + went out, for I woke with a tinge of rheumatism." He felt a + strong desire to excuse, to justify what had happened, and he + went on, with a painful sense of Imogene's eyes bent in + bewildered deference upon him. "I started out for a walk with + Mr. Waters, but I left him after we got across the Ponte + Vecchio; he went up to look at the Michelangelo bastions, and + I strolled over to the Boboli Gardens—where I found + your young people." + </p> + <p> + He had certainly brought himself to the point, but he seemed + actually further from it than at first, and he made a + desperate plunge, trying at the same time to keep something + of his habitual nonchalance. "But that doesn't account for my + being here. Imogene accounts for that. She has allowed me to + stay in Florence." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen could not turn paler than her headache had left + her, and she now underwent no change of complexion. But her + throat was not clear enough to say to the end, "Allowed you + to stay in—" The trouble in her throat arrested her + again. + </p> + <p> + Colville became very red. He put out his hand and took + Imogene's, and now his eyes and Mrs. Bowen's met in the kind + of glance in which people intercept and turn each other aside + before they have reached a resting-place in each other's + souls. But at the girl's touch his courage revived—in + some physical sort. "Yes, and if she will let me stay with + her, we are not going to part again." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen did not answer at once, and in the hush Colville + heard the breathing of all three. + </p> + <p> + "Of course," he said, "we wished you to know at once, and I + came in with Imogene to tell you." + </p> + <p> + "What do you wish me," asked Mrs. Bowen, "to do?" + </p> + <p> + Colville forced a nervous laugh. "Really, I'm so little used + to this sort of affair that I don't know whether I have any + wish. Imogene is here with you, and I suppose I supposed you + would wish to do something." + </p> + <p> + "I will do whatever you think best." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you: that's very kind of you." He fell into a silence, + in which he was able only to wish that he knew what was best, + and from which he came to the surface with, "Imogene's family + ought to know, of course." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; they put her in my charge. They will have to know. + Shall I write to them?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, if you will." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, certainly." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you." + </p> + <p> + He had taken to stroking with his right hand the hand of + Imogene which he held in his left, and now he looked round at + her with a glance which it was a relief not to have her meet. + "And till we can hear from them, I suppose you will let me + come to see her?" + </p> + <p> + "You know you have always been welcome here." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you very much." It seemed as if there ought to be + something else to say, but Colville could not think of + anything except: "We wish to act in every way with your + approval, Mrs. Bowen. And I know that you are very particular + in some things"—the words, now that they were said, + struck him as unfortunate, and even vulgar—"and I + shouldn't wish to annoy you—" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I understand. I think it will be—I have no doubt + you will know how to manage all that. It isn't as if you were + both—" + </p> + <p> + "Young?" asked Colville. "No; one of us is quite old enough + to be thoroughly up in the <i>convenances</i>. We are + qualified, I'm afraid, as far as that goes," he added + bitterly, "to set all Florence an example of correct + behaviour." + </p> + <p> + He knew there must be pain in the face which he would not + look at; he kept looking at Mrs. Bowen's face, in which + certainly there was not much pleasure, either. + </p> + <p> + There was another silence, which became very oppressive + before it ended in a question from Mrs. Bowen, who stirred + slightly in her chair, and bent forward as if about to rise + in asking it. "Shall you wish to consider it an engagement?" + </p> + <p> + Colville felt Imogene's hand tremble in his, but he received + no definite prompting from the tremor. "I don't believe I + know what you mean." + </p> + <p> + "I mean, till you have heard from Imogene's mother." + </p> + <p> + "I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps under the + circumstances—" The tremor died out of the hand he + held; it lay lax between his. "What do you say, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "I can't say anything. Whatever you think will be + right—for me." + </p> + <p> + "I wish to do what will seem right and fair to your mother." + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + Colville heaved a hopeless sigh. Then with a deep inward + humiliation, he said, "Perhaps if you know Imogene's mother, + Mrs. Bowen, you can suggest—advise—You—" + </p> + <p> + "You must excuse me; I can't suggest or advise anything. I + must leave you perfectly free." She rose from her chair, and + they, both rose too from the sofa on which he had seated + himself at Imogene's side. "I shall have to leave you, I'm + afraid; my head aches still a little. Imogene!" She advanced + toward the girl, who stood passively letting her come the + whole distance. As if sensible of the rebuff expressed in + this attitude, she halted a very little. Then she added, "I + hope you will be very happy," and suddenly cast her arms + round the girl, and stood long pressing her face into her + neck. When she released her, Colville trembled lest she + should be going to give him her hand in congratulation. But + she only bowed slightly to him, with a sidelong, aversive + glance, and walked out of the room with a slow, rigid pace, + like one that controls a tendency to giddiness. + </p> + <p> + Imogene threw herself on Colville's' breast. It gave him a + shock, as if he were letting her do herself some wrong. But + she gripped him fast, and began to sob and to cry. "Oh! oh! + oh!" + </p> + <p> + "What is it?—what is it, my poor girl?" he murmured. + "Are you unhappy? Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!" + </p> + <p> + "No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy—yes, + very, very unhappy! Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel + so toward any one. I hate her!" + </p> + <p> + "You hate her?" gasped Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I hate her. And she—she is so good to me! It must + be that I've done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, + or I couldn't hate her as I know I do." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no," said Colville soothingly; "that's just your fancy. + You haven't harmed her, and you don't hate her." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her." + </p> + <p> + "But you can't feel so toward her long," he urged, dealing as + he might with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so + good—" + </p> + <p> + "It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more." + </p> + <p> + "I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're + calmer you'll feel differently, of course. I've kept you + restless and nervous a long time, poor child; but now our + peace begins, and everything will be bright and—" He + stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound. + </p> + <p> + She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. "Oh yes." + </p> + <p> + "And, Imogene—perhaps—perhaps—Or, no; never + mind, now. I must go away—" She looked at him, + frightened but submissive. "But I will be back to-night, or + perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think—to give you + time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you—I + want to consider you, all the more because you won't consider + yourself. Good-bye." He stooped over and kissed her hair. + Even in this he felt like a thief; he could not look at the + face she lifted to his. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen sent word from her room that she was not coming to + dinner, and Imogene did not come till the dessert was put on. + Then she found Effie Bowen sitting alone at the table, and + served in serious formality by the man, whom she had + apparently felt it right to repress, for they were both + silent. The little girl had not known how to deny herself an + excess of the less wholesome dishes, and she was perhaps + anticipating the regret which this indulgence was to bring, + for she was very pensive. + </p> + <p> + "Isn't mamma coming at <i>all</i>?" she asked plaintively, + when Imogene sat down, and refused everything but a cup of + coffee. "Well," she went on, "I can't make out what is coming + to this family. You were all crying last night because Mr. + Colville was going away, and now, when he's going to stay, + it's just as bad. I don't think you make it very pleasant for + <i>him</i>. I should think he would be perfectly puzzled by + it, after he's done so much to please you all. I don't + believe he thinks it's very polite. I suppose it <i>is</i> + polite, but it doesn't seem so. And he's always so cheerful + and nice. I should think he would want to visit in some + family where there was more amusement. There used to be + plenty in this family, but now it's as dismal! The first of + the winter you and mamma used to be so pleasant when he came, + and would try everything to amuse him, and would let me come + in to get some of the good of it; but now you seem to fly + every way as soon as he comes in sight of the house, and I'm + poked off in holes and corners before he can open his lips. + And I've borne it about as long as I can. I would rather be + back in Vevay. Or anywhere." At this point her own pathos + overwhelmed her, and the tears rolling down her cheeks + moistened the crumbs of pastry at the corners of her pretty + mouth. "What was so strange, I should like to know, about his + staying, that mamma should pop up like a ghost, when I told + her he had come home with us, and grab me by the wrist, and + twitch me about, and ask me all sorts of questions I couldn't + answer, and frighten me almost to death? I haven't got over + it yet. And I don't think it's very nice. It used to be a + very polite family, and pleasant with each other, and always + having something agreeable going on in it; but if it keeps on + very much longer in this way, I shall think the Bowens are + beginning to lose their good-breeding. I suppose that if Mr. + Colville were to go down on his knees to mamma and ask her to + let him take me somewhere now, she wouldn't do it." She + pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, and dried her eyes + on a ball of it. "I don't see what <i>you've</i> been crying + about, Imogene. <i>You've</i> got nothing to worry you." + </p> + <p> + "I'm not very well, Effie," returned the girl gently. "I + haven't been well all day." + </p> + <p> + "It seems to me that nobody is well any more. I don't believe + Florence is a very healthy place. Or at least this house + isn't. <i>I</i> think it must be the drainage. If we keep on, + I suppose we shall all have diphtheria. Don't you, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," asserted the girl distractedly. + </p> + <p> + "The girls had it at Vevay frightfully. And none of them were + as strong afterward. Some of the parents came and took them + away; but Madame Schebres never let mamma know. Do you think + that was right?" + </p> + <p> + "No; it was very wrong." + </p> + <p> + "I suppose Mr. Colville will have it if we do. That is, if he + keeps coming here. Is he coming any more?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he's coming to-morrow morning." + </p> + <p> + "<i>Is</i> he?" A smile flickered over the rueful face. "What + time is he coming?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know exactly," said Imogene, listlessly stirring her + coffee. "Some time in the forenoon." + </p> + <p> + "Do you suppose he's going to take us anywhere?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes—I think so. I can't tell exactly." + </p> + <p> + "If he asks me to go somewhere, will you tease mamma? She + always lets you, Imogene, and it seems sometimes as if she + just took a pleasure in denying me." + </p> + <p> + "You mustn't talk so of your mother, Effie." + </p> + <p> + "No; I wouldn't to <i>every</i>body. I know that she means + for the best; but I don't believe she understands how much I + suffer when she won't let me go with Mr. Colville. Don't you + think he's about the nicest gentleman we know, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he's very kind." + </p> + <p> + "And I think he's handsome. A good many people would consider + him old-looking, and of course he isn't so young as Mr. + Morton was, or the Inglehart boys; but that makes him all the + easier to get along with. And his being just a little fat, + that way, seems to suit so well with his character." The + smiles were now playing across the child's face, and her eyes + sparkling. "<i>I</i> think Mr, Colville would make a good + Saint Nicholas—the kind they have going down chimneys + in America. I'm going to tell him, for the next veglione. It + would be such a nice surprise." + </p> + <p> + "No, better not tell him that," suggested Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think he wouldn't like it?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "Well, it would become him. How old do you suppose he is, + Imogene? Seventy-five?" + </p> + <p> + "What an idea!" cried the girl fiercely. "He's forty-one." + </p> + <p> + "I didn't know they had those little jiggering lines at the + corners of their eyes so quick. But forty-one is pretty old, + isn't it? Is Mr. Waters—" + </p> + <p> + "Effie," said her mother's voice at the door behind her, + "will you ring for Giovanni, and tell him to bring me a cup + of coffee in here?" She spoke from the <i>portière</i> + of the <i>salotto</i>. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, mamma. I'll bring it to you myself." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you, dear," Mrs. Bowen called from within. + </p> + <p> + The little girl softly pressed her hands together. "I + <i>hope</i> she'll let me stay up! I feel so excited, and I + hate to lie and think so long before I get to sleep. Couldn't + you just hint a little to her that I might stay up? It's + Sunday night." + </p> + <p> + "I can't, Effie," said Imogene. "I oughtn't to interfere with + any of your mother's rules." + </p> + <p> + The child sighed submissively and took the coffee that + Giovanni brought to her. She and Imogene went into the + <i>salotto</i> together. Mrs. Bowen was at her writing-desk. + "You can bring the coffee here, Effie," she said. + </p> + <p> + "Must I go to bed at once, mamma?" asked the child, setting + the cup carefully down. + </p> + <p> + The mother looked distractedly up from her writing. "No; you + may sit up a while," she said, looking back to her writing. + </p> + <p> + "How long, mamma?" pleaded the little girl. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, till you're sleepy. It doesn't matter <i>now</i>." + </p> + <p> + She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she + had written. + </p> + <p> + Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself + on a stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read. + </p> + <p> + Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in + the indoor chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a + day as that had been. She took some large beads of the strand + she wore about her neck into her mouth, and pulled at the + strand listlessly with her hand while she watched the fire. + Her eyes wandered once to the child. + </p> + <p> + "What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?" + </p> + <p> + Effie shut her book over her hand. "It keeps me wakeful + longer," she whispered, with a glance at her mother from the + corner of her eye. + </p> + <p> + "I don't see why any one should wish to be wakeful," sighed + the girl. + </p> + <p> + When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene + started nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her + chair. At last Mrs. Bowen seemed to find the right phrases + throughout, and she finished rather a long letter, and read + it over to herself. Then she said, without leaving her desk, + "Imogene, I've been trying to write to your mother. Will you + look at this?" + </p> + <p> + She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came + languidly and took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on + the desk, into her hands, while Imogene was reading. + </p> + <p> + "FLORENCE, <i>March</i> 10, 18— + </p> + <p> + "Dear Mrs. Graham,—I have some very important news to + give you in regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of + preparing you for it, I will tell you at once that it relates + to her marriage. + </p> + <p> + "She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence + when I was here before, and of whom I never knew anything but + good. We have seen him very often, and I have seen nothing in + him that I could not approve. He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of + Prairie des Vaches, Indiana, where he was for many years a + newspaper editor; but he was born somewhere in New England. + He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and though not + exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in + his manners. I am sure his character is irreproachable, + though he is not a member of any church. In regard to his + means I know nothing whatever, and can only infer from his + way of life that he is in easy circumstances. + </p> + <p> + "The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville + is some twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is + very young in her feelings for a girl of her age. If I could + have realised anything like a serious attachment between them + sooner, I would have written before. Even now I do not know + whether I am to consider them engaged or not. No doubt + Imogene will write you more fully. + </p> + <p> + "Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind + happen while have been careless or imprudent about her. I + interfered as far as I could, at the first moment I could, + but it appears that it was then too late to prevent what has + followed.—Yours sincerely, EVALINA BOWEN." + </p> + <p> + Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, "Why + isn't he a society man?" + </p> + <p> + Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. "I don't + think a society man would have undertaken to dance the + Lancers as he did at Madam Uccelli's," she answered + patiently, without lifting her head. + </p> + <p> + Imogene winced, but "I should despise him if he were merely a + society man," she said. "I have seen enough of them. I think + it's better to be intellectual and good." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. "And as to + his being older, I don't see what difference it makes. If + people are in sympathy, then they are of the same age, no + difference how much older than one the other is. I have + always heard that." She urged this as if it were a question. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "And how should his having been a newspaper editor be + anything against him?" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in + astonishment. "Who said it was against him?" + </p> + <p> + "You hint as much. The whole letter is against him." + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" + </p> + <p> + "Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I + don't know why you should hate <i>him</i>, He's done + everything he could to satisfy you." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her + forehead, as if to soften a shock of headache that her change + of posture had sent there. "I will leave the letter with you, + and you can send it or not as you think best. It's merely a + formality, my writing to your mother. Perhaps you'll see it + differently in the morning. Effie!" she called to the child, + who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at them + and listening intently. "It's time to go to bed now." + </p> + <p> + When Effie stood before the glass in her mother's room, and + Mrs. Bowen was braiding her hair and tying it up for the + night, she asked ruefully, "What's the matter with Imogene, + mamma?" + </p> + <p> + "She isn't very happy to-night." + </p> + <p> + "You don't seem very happy either," said the child, watching + her own face as it quivered in the mirror. "I should think + that now Mr. Colville's concluded to stay, we would all be + happy again. But we don't seem to. We're—we're + perfectly demoralised!" It was one of the words she had + picked up from Colville. + </p> + <p> + The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, + and Effie sobbed herself to sleep. + </p> + <p> + Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen's desk, and pushing her letter + away, began to write. + </p> + <p> + "FLORENCE, <i>March</i> 10, 18—. + </p> + <p> + "DEAR MOTHER,—-I inclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which + will tell you better than I can what I wish to tell. I do not + see how I can add anything that would give you more of an + idea of him, or less, either. No person can be put down in + cold black and white, and not seem like a mere inventory. I + do not suppose you expected me to become engaged when you + sent me out to Florence, and, as Mrs. Bowen says, I don't + know whether I am engaged or not. I will leave it entirely to + Mr. Colville; if he says we are engaged, we are. I am sure he + will do what is best. I only know that he was going away from + Florence because he thought I supposed he was not in earnest, + and I asked him to stay. + </p> + <p> + "I am a good deal excited to-night, and cannot write very + clearly. But I will write soon again, and more at length. + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps something will be decided by that time. With much + love to father, + </p> + <p> + "Your affectionate daughter, + </p> + <p> + "Imogene." + </p> + <p> + She put this letter into an envelope with Mrs. Bowen's, and + leaving it unsealed to show her in the morning, she began to + write again. This time she wrote to a girl with whom she had + been on terms so intimate that when they left school they had + agreed to know each other by names expressive of their + extremely confidential friendship, and to address each other + respectively as Diary and Journal. They were going to write + every day, if only a line or two; and at the end of a year + they were to meet and read over together the records of their + lives as set down in these letters. They had never met since, + though it was now three years since they parted, and they had + not written since Imogene came abroad; that is, Imogene had + not answered the only letter she had received from her friend + in Florence. This friend was a very serious girl, and had + wished to be a minister, but her family would not consent, or + even accept the compromise of studying medicine, which she + proposed, and she was still living at home in a small city of + central New York. Imogene now addressed her— + </p> + <p> + "DEAR DIARY,—You cannot think how far away the events + of this day have pushed the feelings and ideas of the time + when I agreed to write to you under this name. Till now it + seems to me as if I had not changed in the least thing since + we parted, and now I can hardly know myself for the same + person. O dear Di! something very wonderful has come into my + life, and I feel that it rests with me to make it the + greatest blessing to myself and others, or the greatest + misery. If I prove unworthy of it or unequal to it, then I am + sure that nothing but wretchedness will come of it. + </p> + <p> + "I am engaged—yes!—and to a man more than twice + my own age. It is so easy to tell you this, for I know that + your large-mindedness will receive it very differently from + most people, and that you will see it as I do. He is the + noblest of men, though he tries to conceal it under the + light, ironical manner with which he has been faithful to a + cruel disappointment. It was here in Florence, twenty years + ago, that a girl—I am ashamed to call her a + girl—trifled with the priceless treasure that has + fallen to me, and flung it away. You, Di, will understand how + I was first fascinated with the idea of trying to atone to + him here for all the wrong he had suffered. At first it was + only the vaguest suggestion—something like what I had + read in a poem or a novel—that had nothing to do with + me personally, but it grew upon me more and more the more I + saw of him, and felt the witchery of his light, indifferent + manner, which I learned to see was tense with the anguish he + had suffered. She had killed his youth; she had spoiled his + life: if I could revive them, restore them! It came upon me + like a great flash of light at last, and as soon as this + thought took possession of me, I felt my whole being elevated + and purified by it, and I was enabled to put aside with + contempt the selfish considerations that had occurred to me + at first. At first the difference between our ages was very + shocking to me; for I had always imagined it would be some + one young; but when this light broke upon me, I saw that + <i>he</i> was young, younger even than I, as a man is at the + same age with a girl. Sometimes with my experiences, the + fancies and flirtations that every one has and <i>must</i> + have, however one despises them, I felt so <i>old</i> beside + him; for he had been true to one love all his life, and he + had not wavered for a moment. If I could make him forget it, + if I could lift every feather's weight of sorrow from his + breast, if I could help him to complete the destiny, grand + and beautiful as it would have been, which another had + arrested, broken off—don't you see, Di dear, how rich + my reward would be? + </p> + <p> + "And he, how forbearing, how considerate, how anxious for me, + how full of generous warning he has been! always putting me + in mind, at every step, of the difference in years between + us; never thinking of himself, and shrinking so much from + even seeming to control me or sway me, that I don't know + really whether I have not made all the advances! + </p> + <p> + "I cannot write his name yet, and you must not ask it till I + can; and I cannot tell you anything about his looks or his + life without seeming to degrade him, somehow, and make him a + common man like others. + </p> + <p> + "How can I make myself his companion in everything? How can I + convince him that there is no sacrifice for me, and that he + alone is giving up? shall be helped, and I hope that I shall + be tried, for that is the only way for me to be helped. I + feel strong enough for anything that people can say. I should + <i>welcome</i> criticism and opposition from any quarter. But + I can see that <i>he</i> is very sensitive—it comes + from his keen sense of the ridiculous—and if I suffer, + it will be on account of this grand unselfish nature, and I + shall be glad of that. + </p> + <p> + "I know you will understand me, Di, and I am not afraid of + your laughing at these ravings. But if you did I should not + care. It is such a comfort to say these things about him, to + exalt him, and get him in the true light at last. + </p> + <p> + "Your faithful JOURNAL. + </p> + <p> + "I shall tell him about you, one of the first things, and + perhaps he can suggest some way out of your trouble, he has + had so much experience of every kind. You will worship him, + as I do, when you see him; for you will feel at once that he + understands you, and that is such a rest. + </p> + <p> + "J." + </p> + <p> + Before Imogene fell asleep, Mrs. Bowen came to her in the + dark, and softly closed the door that opened from the girl's + room into Effie's. She sat down on the bed, and began to + speak at once, as if she knew Imogene must be awake. "I + thought you would come to me, Imogene; but as you didn't, I + have come to you, for if you can go to sleep with hard + thoughts of me to-night, I can't let you. You need me for + your friend, and I wish to be your friend; it would be wicked + in me to be anything else; I would give the world if your + mother were here; but I tried to make my letter to her + everything that it should be. If you don't think it is, I + will write it over in the morning." + </p> + <p> + "No," said the girl coldly; "it will do very well. I don't + wish to trouble you so much." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame + Mr. Colville? Is that it? I don't ask you—I shall never + ask you—how he came to remain, but I know that he has + acted truthfully and delicately. I knew him long before you + did, and no one need take his part with me." This was not + perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. "I have + told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I + am not satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much + mistaken. I can't burst out into praises of him to your + mother: that would be very patronising and very bad taste. + Can't you see that it would?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say + something more, but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. "Then I + hope we understand each other," she said, and went out of the + room. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XVI"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XVI + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + When Colville came in the morning, Mrs. Bowen received him. + They shook hands, and their eyes met in the intercepting + glance of the night before. + </p> + <p> + "Imogene will be here in a moment," she said, with a + naturalness that made him awkward and conscious. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there is no haste," he answered uncouthly. "That is, I + am very glad of the chance to speak a moment with you, and to + ask your—to profit by what you think best. I know you + are not very well pleased with me, and I don't know that I + can ever put myself in a better light with you—the true + light. It seems that there are some things we must not do + even for the truth's sake. But that's neither here nor there. + What I am most anxious for is not to take a shadow of + advantage of this child's—of Imogene's inexperience, + and her remoteness from her family. I feel that I must in + some sort protect her from herself. Yes—that is my + idea. But should be very willing, if you thought best, to go + away and stay away till she has heard from her people, and + let her have that time to think it all over again. She is + very young—so much younger than I! Or, if you thought + it better, I would stay, and let her remain free while I held + myself bound to any decision of hers. I am anxious to do what + is right. At the same time"—he smiled + ruefully—"there is such a thing as being so + <i>dis</i>interested that one may seem <i>un</i>interested. I + may leave her so very free that she may begin to suspect that + I want a little freedom myself. What shall I do? I wish to + act with your approval." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen had listened with acquiescence and intelligence + that might well have looked like sympathy, as she sat + fingering the top of her hand-screen, with her eyelids + fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have told you that I will + not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no longer any + wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of + Imogene's mother; but I will do only what you wish. Please + understand that, and don't ask me for advice any more. It is + painful." She drew her lower lip in a little, and let the + screen fall into her lap. + </p> + <p> + "I'm sorry, Mrs. Bowen, to do anything—say + anything—that is painful to you," Colville began. "You + know that I would give the world to please you——" + The words escaped him and left him staring at her, + </p> + <p> + "What are you saying to me, Theodore Colville?" she + exclaimed, flashing a full-eyed glance upon him, and then + breaking into a laugh, as unnatural for her. "Really, I don't + believe you know!" + </p> + <p> + "Heaven knows I meant nothing but what I said," he answered, + struggling stupidly with a confusion of desires which every + man but no woman will understand. After eighteen hundred + years, the man is still imperfectly monogamous. "Is there + anything wrong in it?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no! Not for you," she said scornfully. + </p> + <p> + "I am very much in earnest," he went on hopelessly, "in + asking your opinion, your help, in regard to how I shall + treat this affair." + </p> + <p> + "And I am still more in earnest in telling you that I will + give you no opinion, no help. I forbid you to recur to the + subject." He was silent, unable to drop his eyes from hers. + "But for her," continued Mrs. Bowen, "I will do anything in + my power. If she asks my advice I will give it, and I will + give her all the help I can." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you," said Colville vaguely. + </p> + <p> + "I will not have your thanks," promptly retorted Mrs. Bowen, + "for I mean you no kindness. I am trying to do my duty to + Imogene, and when that is ended, all is ended. There is no + way now for you to please me—as you call + it—except to keep her from regretting what she has + done." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think I shall fail in that?" he demanded indignantly. + </p> + <p> + "I can offer you no opinion. I can't tell what you will do." + </p> + <p> + "There are two ways of keeping her from regretting what she + has done; and perhaps the simplest and best way would be to + free her from the consequences, as far as they're involved in + me," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen dropped herself back in her armchair. "If you + choose to force these things upon me, I am a woman, and can't + help myself. Especially, I can't help myself against a + guest." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I will relieve you of my presence," said Colville. "I've + no wish to force anything upon you—least of all + myself." He rose, and moved toward the door. + </p> + <p> + She hastily intercepted him. "Do you think I will let you go + without seeing Imogene? Do you understand me so little as + that? It's <i>too late</i> for you to go! You know what I + think of all this, and I know, better than you, what you + think. I shall play my part, and you shall play yours. I have + refused to give you advice or help, and I never shall do it. + But I know what my duty to her is, and I will fulfil it. No + matter how distasteful it is to either of us, you must come + here as before. The house is as free to you as + ever—freer. And we are to be as good friends as + ever—better. You can see Imogene alone or in my + presence, and, as far as I am concerned, you shall consider + yourself engaged or not, as you choose. Do you understand?" + </p> + <p> + "Not in the least," said Colville, in the ghost of his old + bantering manner. "But don't explain, or I shall make still + less of it." + </p> + <p> + "I mean simply that I do it for Imogene and not for you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I understand that you don't do it for me." + </p> + <p> + At this moment Imogene appeared between the folds of the + <i>portière</i>, and her timid, embarrassed glance + from Mrs. Bowen to Colville was the first gleam of + consolation that had visited him since he parted with her the + night before. A thrill of inexplicable pride and fondness + passed through his heart, and even the compunction that + followed could not spoil its sweetness. But if Mrs. Bowen + discreetly turned her head aside that she need not witness a + tender greeting between them, the precaution was unnecessary. + He merely went forward and took the girl's hand, with a sigh + of relief. "Good morning, Imogene," he said, with a kind of + compassionate admiration. + </p> + <p> + "Good morning," she returned half-inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + She did not take a seat near him, and turned, as if for + instruction, to Mrs. Bowen. It was probably the force of + habit. In any case, Mrs. Bowen's eyes gave no response. She + bowed slightly to Colville, and began, "I must leave Imogene + to entertain you for the present, Mr.—" + </p> + <p> + "No!" cried the girl impetuously; "don't go." Mrs. Bowen + stopped. "I wish to speak with you—with you and Mr. + Colville together. I wish to say—I don't know how to + say it exactly; but I wish to know—You asked him last + night, Mrs. Bowen, whether he wished to consider it an + engagement?" + </p> + <p> + "I thought perhaps you would rather hear from your + mother—" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I would be glad to know that my mother approved; but if + she didn't, I couldn't help it. Mr. Colville said he was + bound, but I was not. That can't be. I <i>wish</i> to be + bound, if he is." + </p> + <p> + "I don't quite know what you expect me to say." + </p> + <p> + "Nothing," said Imogene. "I merely wished you to know. And I + don't wish you to sacrifice anything to us. If you think + best, Mr. Colville will not see me till I hear from home; + though it won't make any difference with me <i>what</i> I + hear." + </p> + <p> + "There's no reason why you shouldn't meet," said Mrs. Bowen + absently. + </p> + <p> + "If you wish it to have the same appearance as an Italian + engagement——" + </p> + <p> + "No," said Mrs. Bowen, putting her hand to her head with a + gesture she had; "that would be quite unnecessary. It would + be ridiculous under the circumstances. I have thought of it, + and I have decided that the American way is the best." + </p> + <p> + "Very well, then," said Imogene, with the air of summing up; + "then the only question is whether we shall make it known or + not to other people." + </p> + <p> + This point seemed to give Mrs. Bowen greater pause than any. + She was a long time silent, and Colville saw that Imogene was + beginning to chafe at her indecision. Yet he did not see the + moment to intervene in a debate in which he found himself + somewhat ludicrously ignored, as if the affair were solely + the concern of these two women, and none of his. + </p> + <p> + "Of course, Mrs. Bowen," said the girl haughtily, "if it will + be disagreeable to you to have it known——" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen blushed delicately—a blush of protest and of + generous surprise, or so it seemed to Colville. "I was not + thinking of myself, Imogene. I only wish to consider you. And + I was thinking whether, at this distance from home, you + wouldn't prefer to have your family's approval before you + made it known." + </p> + <p> + "I am sure of their approval. Father will do what mother + says, and she has always said that she would never interfere + with me in—in—such a thing." + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps you would like all the more, then, to show her the + deference of waiting for her consent." + </p> + <p> + Imogene started as if stopped short in swift career; it was + not hard for Colville to perceive that she saw for the first + time the reverse side of a magnanimous impulse. She suddenly + turned to him. + </p> + <p> + "I think Mrs. Bowen is right," he said gravely, in answer to + the eyes of Imogene. He continued, with a flicker of his + wonted mood: "You must consider me a little in the matter. I + have some small shreds of self-respect about me somewhere, + and I would rather not be put in the attitude of defying your + family, or ignoring them." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Imogene, in the same effect of arrest. + </p> + <p> + "When it isn't absolutely necessary," continued Colville. + "Especially as you say there will be no opposition." + </p> + <p> + "Of course," Imogene assented; and in fact what he said was + very just, and he knew it; but he could perceive that he had + suffered loss with her. A furtive glance at Mrs. Bowen did + not assure him that he had made a compensating gain in that + direction, where, indeed, he had no right to wish for any. + </p> + <p> + "Well, then," the girl went on, "it shall be so. We will + wait. It will only be waiting. I ought to have thought of you + before; I make a bad beginning," she said tremulously. "I + supposed I was thinking of you; but I see that I was only + thinking of myself." The tears stood in her eyes. Mrs. Bowen, + quite overlooked in this apology, slipped from the room. + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" said Colville, coming toward her. + </p> + <p> + She dropped herself upon his shoulder. "Oh, why, why, why am + I so miserable?" + </p> + <p> + "Miserable, Imogene!" he murmured, stroking her beautiful + hair. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, yes! Utterly miserable! It must be because I'm unworthy + of you—unequal every way. If you think so, cast me off + at once. Don't be weakly merciful!" + </p> + <p> + The words pierced his heart. "I would give the world to make + you happy, my child!" he said, with perfidious truth, and a + sigh that came from the bottom of his soul. "Sit down here by + me," he said, moving to the sofa; and with whatever obscure + sense of duty to her innocent self-abandon, he made a space + between them, and reduced her embrace to a clasp of the hand + she left with him. "Now tell me," he said, "what is it makes + you unhappy?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't know," she answered, drying her averted eyes. "I + suppose I am overwrought from not sleeping, and from thinking + how we should arrange it all." + </p> + <p> + "And now that it's all arranged, can't you be cheerful + again?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "You're satisfied with the way we've arranged it? Because + if—" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, perfectly—perfectly!" She hastily interrupted. "I + wouldn't have it otherwise. Of course," she added, "it wasn't + very pleasant having some one else suggest what I ought to + have thought of myself, and seem more delicate about you than + I was." + </p> + <p> + "Some one else?" + </p> + <p> + "You know! Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! But I couldn't see that she was anxious to spare me. It + occurred to me that she was concerned about your family." + </p> + <p> + "It led up to the other! it's all the same thing." + </p> + <p> + "Well, even in that case, I don't see why you should mind it. + It was certainly very friendly of her, and I know that she + has your interest at heart entirely." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; she knows how to make it seem so." + </p> + <p> + don't understand this. Don't you think Mrs. Bowen likes you?" + </p> + <p> + "She detests me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no, no, no! That's too cruel an error. You mustn't think + that. I can't let you. It's morbid. I'm sure that she's + devotedly kind and good to you." + </p> + <p> + "Being kind and good isn't liking. I know what she thinks. + But of course I can't expect to convince you of it; no one + else could see it." + </p> + <p> + "No!" said Colville, with generous fervour. + </p> + <p> + "Because it doesn't exist and you mustn't imagine it. You are + as sincerely and unselfishly regarded in this house as you + could be in your own home. I'm sure of that. I know Mrs. + Bowen. She has her little worldlinesses and unrealities of + manner, but she is truth and loyalty itself. She would rather + die than be false, or even unfair. I knew her long + ago—" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," cried the girl, "long before you knew me!" + </p> + <p> + "And I know her to be the soul of honour," said Colville, + ignoring the childish outburst. "Honour—like a man's," + he added. "And, Imogene, I want you to promise me that you'll + not think of her any more in that way. I want you to think of + her as faithful and loving to you, for she is so. Will you do + it?" + </p> + <p> + Imogene did not answer him at once. Then she turned upon him + a face of radiant self-abnegation. "I will do anything you + tell me. Only tell me things to do." + </p> + <p> + The next time he came he again saw Mrs. Bowen alone before + Imogene appeared. The conversation was confined to two + sentences. + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Colville," she said, with perfectly tranquil point, + while she tilted a shut book to and fro on her knee, "I will + thank you not to defend me." + </p> + <p> + Had she overheard? Had Imogene told her? He answered, in a + fury of resentment for her ingratitude that stupefied him. "I + will never speak of you again." + </p> + <p> + Now they were enemies; he did not know how or why, but he + said to himself, in the bitterness of his heart, that it was + better so; and when Imogene appeared, and Mrs. Bowen + vanished, as she did without another word to him, he folded + the girl in a vindictive embrace. + </p> + <p> + "What is the matter?" she asked, pushing away from him. + </p> + <p> + "With me?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; you seem so excited." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, nothing," he said, shrinking from the sharpness of that + scrutiny in a woman's eyes, which, when it begins the perusal + of a man's soul, astonishes and intimidates him; he never + perhaps becomes able to endure it with perfect self-control. + "I suppose a slight degree of excitement in meeting you may + be forgiven me." He smiled under the unrelaxed severity of + her gaze. + </p> + <p> + "Was Mrs. Bowen saying anything about me?" + </p> + <p> + "Not a word," said Colville, glad of getting back to the firm + truth again, even if it were mere literality. + </p> + <p> + "We have made it up," she said, her scrutiny changing to a + lovely appeal for his approval. "What there was to make up." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" + </p> + <p> + "I told her what you had said. And now it's all right between + us, and you mustn't be troubled at that any more. I did it to + please you." + </p> + <p> + She seemed to ask him with the last words whether she really + had pleased him, as if something in his aspect suggested a + doubt; and he hastened to reassure her. "That was very good + of you. I appreciate it highly. It's extremely gratifying." + </p> + <p> + She broke into a laugh of fond derision. "I don't believe you + really cared about it, or else you're not thinking about it + now. Sit down here; I want to tell you of something I've + thought out." She pulled him to the sofa, and put his arm + about her waist, with a simple fearlessness and + matter-of-course promptness that made him shudder. He felt + that he ought to tell her not to do it, but he did not quite + know how without wounding her. She took hold of his hand and + drew his lax arm taut. Then she looked up into his eyes, as + if some sense of his misgiving had conveyed itself to her, + but she did not release her hold of his hand. + </p> + <p> + "Perhaps we oughtn't, if we're not engaged?" she suggested, + with such utter trust in him as made his heart quake. + </p> + <p> + "Oh," he sighed, from a complexity of feeling that no + explanation could wholly declare, "we're engaged enough for + that, I suppose." + </p> + <p> + "I'm glad you think so," she answered innocently. "I knew you + wouldn't let me if it were not right." Having settled the + question, "Of course," she continued, "we shall all do our + best to keep our secret; but in spite of everything it may + get out. Do you see?" + </p> + <p> + "Well?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, of course it will make a great deal of remark." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; you must be prepared for that, Imogene," said + Colville, with as much gravity as he could make comport with + his actual position. + </p> + <p> + "I am prepared for it, and prepared to despise it," answered + the girl. "I shall have no trouble except the fear that you + will mind it." She pressed his hand as if she expected him to + say something to this. + </p> + <p> + "I shall never care for it," he said, and this was true + enough. "My only care will be to keep you from regretting. I + have tried from the first to make you see that I was very + much older than you. It would be miserable enough if you came + to see it too late." + </p> + <p> + "I have never seen it, and I never shall see it, because + there's no such difference between us. It isn't the years + that make us young or old—who is it says that? No + matter, it's true. And I want you to believe it. I want you + to feel that I am your youth—the youth you were robbed + of—given back to you. Will you do it? Oh, if you could, + I should be the happiest girl in the world." Tears of fervour + dimmed the beautiful eyes which looked into his. "Don't + speak!" she hurried on. "I won't let you till I have said it + all. It's been this idea, this hope, with me + always—ever since I knew what happened to you here long + ago—that you might go back in my life and take up yours + where it was broken off; that I might make your life what it + would have been—complete your destiny—" + </p> + <p> + Colville wrenched himself loose from the hold that had been + growing more tenderly close and clinging. "And do you think I + could be such a vampire as to let you? Yes, yes; I have had + my dreams of such a thing; but I see now how hideous they + were. You shall make no such sacrifice to me. You must put + away the fancies that could never be fulfilled, or if by some + infernal magic they could, would only bring sorrow to you and + shame to me. God forbid! And God forgive me, if I have done + or said anything to put this in your head! And thank God it + isn't too late yet for you to take yourself back." + </p> + <p> + "Oh," she murmured. "Do you think it is self-sacrifice for me + to give myself to you? It's self-glorification! You don't + understand—I haven't told you what I mean, or else I've + told it in such a way that I've made it hateful to you. Do + you think I don't care for you except to be something to you? + I'm not so generous as that. You are all the world to me. If + I take myself back from you, as you say, what shall I do with + myself?" + </p> + <p> + "Has it come to that?" asked Colville. He sat down again with + her, and this time he put his arm around her and drew her to + him, but it seemed to him he did it as if she were his child. + "I was going to tell you just now that each of us lived to + himself in this world, and that no one could hope to enter + into the life of another and complete it. But now I see that + I was partly wrong. We two are bound together, Imogene, and + whether we become all in all or nothing to each other, we can + have no separate fate." + </p> + <p> + The girl's eyes kindled with rapture. "Then let us never + speak of it again. I was going to say something, but now I + won't say it." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, say it." + </p> + <p> + "No; it will make you think that I am anxious on my own + account about appearances before people." + </p> + <p> + "You poor child, I shall never think you are anxious on your + own account about anything. What were you going to say?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, nothing! It was only—are you invited to the + Phillipses' fancy ball?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, silently making what he could of the + diversion, "I believe so." + </p> + <p> + "And are you going—did you mean to go?" she asked + timidly. + </p> + <p> + "Good heavens, no! What in the world should I do at another + fancy ball? I walked about with the airy grace of a bull in a + china shop at the last one." + </p> + <p> + Imogene did not smile. She faintly sighed. "Well, then, I + won't go either." + </p> + <p> + "Did you intend to go?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no!" + </p> + <p> + "Why, of course you did, and it's very right you should. Did + you want me to go?" + </p> + <p> + "It would bore you." + </p> + <p> + "Not if you're there." She gave his hand a grateful pressure. + "Come, I'll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy ball to please + you is a very different thing from a fancy ball in the + abstract." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired + your compliments? I think they're the most charming + compliments in the world." + </p> + <p> + "I don't think they're half so pretty as yours; but they're + more sincere." + </p> + <p> + "No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make + fun of the flattery a little; they make a person feel that + you like them, even while you laugh at them." + </p> + <p> + "They appear to be rather an intricate kind of + compliment—sort of <i>salsa agradolce</i> + affair—tutti frutti style—species of moral + mayonnaise." + </p> + <p> + "No—be quiet! You know what I mean. What were we + talking about? Oh! I was going to say that the most + fascinating thing about you always was that ironical way of + yours." + </p> + <p> + "Have I an ironical way? You were going to tell me something + more about the fancy ball." + </p> + <p> + "I don't care for it. I would rather talk about you." + </p> + <p> + "And I prefer the ball. It's a fresher topic—to me." + </p> + <p> + "Very well, then. But this I will say. No matter how happy + you should be, I should always want you to keep that tone of + persiflage. You've no idea how perfectly intoxicating it is." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, I have. It seems to have turned the loveliest and + wisest head in the world." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, do you really think so? I would give anything if you + did." + </p> + <p> + "What?" + </p> + <p> + "Think I was pretty," she pleaded, with full eyes. "Do you?" + </p> + <p> + "No, but I think you are wise. Fifty per cent, of + truth—it's a large average in compliments. What are you + going to wear?" + </p> + <p> + "Wear? Oh! At the ball! Something Egyptian, I suppose. It's + to be an Egyptian ball. Didn't you understand that?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes. But I supposed you could go in any sort of dress." + </p> + <p> + "You can't. You must go in some Egyptian character." + </p> + <p> + "How would Moses do? In the bulrushes, you know. You could be + Pharaoh's daughter, and recognise me by my three hats. And + toward the end of the evening, when I became very much bored, + I could go round killing Egyptians." + </p> + <p> + "No, no. Be serious. Though I like you to joke, too. I shall + always want you to joke. Shall you, always?" + </p> + <p> + "There may be emergencies when I shall fail—like family + prayers, and grace before meat, and dangerous sickness." + </p> + <p> + "Why, of course. But I mean when we're together, and there's + no reason why you shouldn't?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, at such times I shall certainly joke." + </p> + <p> + "And before people, too! I won't have them saying that it's + sobered you—that you used to be very gay, and now + you're cross, and never say anything." + </p> + <p> + "I will try to keep it up sufficiently to meet the public + demand." + </p> + <p> + "And I shall want you to joke me, too. You must satirise me. + It does more to show me my faults than anything else, and it + will show other people how perfectly submissive I am, and how + I think everything you do is just right." + </p> + <p> + "If I were to beat you a little in company, don't you think + it would serve the same purpose?" + </p> + <p> + "No, no; be serious." + </p> + <p> + "About joking?" + </p> + <p> + "No, about me. I know that I'm very intense, and you must try + to correct that tendency in me." + </p> + <p> + "I will, with pleasure. Which of my tendencies are you going + to correct?" + </p> + <p> + "You have none." + </p> + <p> + "Well, then, neither have you. I'm not going to be outdone in + civilities." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, if people could only hear you talk in this light way, + and then know what <i>I</i> know!" + </p> + <p> + Colville broke out into a laugh at the deep sigh which + accompanied these words. As a whole, the thing was grotesque + and terrible to him, but after a habit of his, he was finding + a strange pleasure in its details. + </p> + <p> + "No, no," she pleaded. "Don't laugh. There are girls that + would give their eyes for it." + </p> + <p> + "As pretty eyes as yours?" + </p> + <p> + "Do you think they're nice?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, if they were not so mysterious." + </p> + <p> + "Mysterious?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, I feel that your eyes can't really be as honest as they + look. That was what puzzled me about them the first night I + saw you." + </p> + <p> + "No—did it, really?" + </p> + <p> + "I went home saying to myself that no girl could be so + sincere as that Miss Graham seemed." + </p> + <p> + "Did you say that?" + </p> + <p> + "Words to that effect." + </p> + <p> + "And what do you think now?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I don't know. You had better go as the Sphinx." + </p> + <p> + Imogene laughed in simple gaiety of heart. + </p> + <p> + "How far we've got from the ball!" she said, as if the remote + excursion were a triumph. "What shall we really go as?" + </p> + <p> + "Isis and Osiris." + </p> + <p> + "Weren't they gods of some kind?" + </p> + <p> + "Little one-horse deities—not very much." + </p> + <p> + "It won't do to go as gods of any kind. They're always + failures. People expect too much of them." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville. "That's human nature under all + circumstances. But why go to an Egyptian ball at all?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, we must go. If we both stayed away it would make talk at + once, and my object is to keep people in the dark till the + very last moment. Of course it's unfortunate your having told + Mrs. Amsden that you were going away, and then telling her + just after you came back with me that you were going to stay. + But it can't be helped now. And I don't really care for it. + But don't you see why I want you to go to all these things?" + </p> + <p> + "All these things?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, everything you're invited to after this. It's not + merely for a blind as regards ourselves now, but if they see + that you're very fond of all sorts of gaieties, they will see + that you are—they will understand——" + </p> + <p> + There was no need for her to complete the sentence. Colville + rose. "Come, come, my dear child," he said, "why don't you + end all this at once? I don't blame you. Heaven knows I blame + no one but myself! I ought to have the strength to break away + from this mistake, but I haven't. I couldn't bear to see you + suffer from pain that I should give you even for your good. + But do it yourself, Imogene, and for pity's sake don't + forbear from any notion of sparing me. I have no wish except + for your happiness, and now I tell you clearly that no + appearance we can put on before the world will deceive the + world. At the end of all our trouble I shall still be + forty——" + </p> + <p> + She sprang to him and put her hand over his mouth. "I know + what you're going to say, and I won't let you say it, for + you've promised over and over again not to speak of that any + more. Oh, do you think I care for the world, or what it will + think or say?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, very much." + </p> + <p> + "That shows how little you understand me. It's because I wish + to <i>defy</i> the world—" + </p> + <p> + "Imogene! Be as honest with yourself as you are with me." + </p> + <p> + "I <i>am</i> honest." + </p> + <p> + "Look me in the eyes, then." + </p> + <p> + She did so for an instant, and then hid her face on his + shoulder. + </p> + <p> + "You silly girl," he said. "What is it you really do wish?" + </p> + <p> + "I wish there was no one in the world but you and me." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, you'd find it very crowded at times," said Colville + sadly. "Well, well," he added, "I'll go to your fandangoes, + because you want me to go." + </p> + <p> + "That's all I wished you to say," she replied, lifting her + head, and looking him radiantly in the face. "I don't want + you to go at all! I only want you to promise that you'll come + here every night that you're invited out, and read to Mrs. + Bowen and me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I can't do that," said Colville; "I'm too fond of + society. For example, I've been invited to an Egyptian fancy + ball, and I couldn't think of giving that up." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, how delightful you are! They couldn't any of them talk + like you." + </p> + <p> + He had learned to follow the processes of her thought now. + "Perhaps they can when they come to my age." + </p> + <p> + "There!" she exclaimed, putting her hand on his mouth again, + to remind him of another broken promise. "Why can't you give + up the Egyptian ball?" + </p> + <p> + "Because I expect to meet a young lady there—a very + beautiful young lady." + </p> + <p> + "But how shall you know her if she's disguised?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, I shall be disguised too, you know." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, what delicious nonsense you <i>do</i> talk! Sit down + here and tell me what you are going to wear." + </p> + <p> + She tried to pull him back to the sofa. "What character shall + you go in?" + </p> + <p> + "No, no," he said, resisting the gentle traction. "I can't; I + have urgent business down-town." + </p> + <p> + "Oh! Business in <i>Florence!"</i> + </p> + <p> + "Well, if I stayed, I should tell you what disguise I'm going + to the ball in." + </p> + <p> + "I knew it was that. What do you think would be a good + character for me?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. The serpent of old Nile would be pretty good + for you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I know you don't think it!" she cried fondly. She had + now let him take her hand, and he stood holding it at + arm's-length. Effie Bowen came into the room. "Good-bye," + said Imogene, with an instant assumption of society manner. + </p> + <p> + "Good-bye," said Colville, and went out. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, Mr. Colville!" she called, before he got to the outer + door. + </p> + <p> + "Yes," he said, starting back. + </p> + <p> + She met him midway of the dim corridor. "Only to—" She + put her arms about his neck and sweetly kissed him. + </p> + <p> + Colville went out into the sunlight feeling like some + strange, newly invented kind of scoundrel—a rascal of + such recent origin and introduction that he had not yet had + time to classify himself and ascertain the exact degree of + his turpitude. The task employed his thoughts all that day, + and kept him vibrating between an instinctive conviction of + monstrous wickedness and a logical and well-reasoned + perception that he had all the facts and materials for a + perfectly good conscience. He was the betrothed lover of this + poor child, whose affection he could not check without a + degree of brutality for which only a better man would have + the courage. When he thought of perhaps refusing her + caresses, he imagined the shock it would give her, and the + look of grief and mystification that would come into her + eyes, and he found himself incapable of that cruel rectitude. + He knew that these were the impulses of a white and loving + soul; but at the end of all his argument they remained a + terror to him, so that he lacked nothing but the will to fly + from Florence and shun her altogether till she had heard from + her family. This, he recalled, with bitter self-reproach was + what had been his first inspiration; he had spoken of it to + Mrs. Bowen, and it had still everything in its favour except + that it was impossible. + </p> + <p> + Imogene returned to the salotto, where the little girl was + standing with her face to the window, drearily looking out; + her back expressed an inner desolation which revealed itself + in her eyes when Imogene caught her head between her hands, + and tilted up her face to kiss it. + </p> + <p> + "What is the matter, Effie?" she demanded gaily. + </p> + <p> + "Nothing." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, there is." + </p> + <p> + "Nothing that you will care for. As long as he's pleasant to + you, you don't care what he does to me." + </p> + <p> + "What has he done to you?" + </p> + <p> + "He didn't take the slightest notice of me when I came into + the room. He didn't speak to me, or even look at me." + </p> + <p> + Imogene caught the little grieving, quivering face to her + breast "He is a wicked, wicked wretch! And I will give him + the awfulest scolding he ever had when he comes here again. I + will teach him to neglect my pet. I will let him understand + that if he doesn't notice you, he needn't notice me. I will + tell you, Effie—I've just thought of a way. The next + time he comes we will both receive him. We will sit up very + stiffly on the sofa together, and just answer Yes, No, Yes, + No, to everything he says, till he begins to take the hint, + and learns how to behave himself. Will you?" + </p> + <p> + A smile glittered through the little girl's tears; but she + asked, "Do you think it would be very polite?" + </p> + <p> + "No matter, polite or not, it's what he deserves. Of course, + as soon as he begins to take the hint, we will be just as we + always are." + </p> + <p> + Imogene despatched a note, which Colville got the next + morning, to tell him of his crime, and apprise him of his + punishment, and of the sweet compunction that had pleaded for + him in the breast of the child. If he did not think he could + help play the comedy through, he must come prepared to offer + Effie some sort of atonement. + </p> + <p> + It was easy to do this: to come with his pockets full of + presents, and take the little girl on his lap, and pour out + all his troubled heart in the caresses and tendernesses which + would bring him no remorse. He humbled himself to her + thoroughly, and with a strange sincerity in the harmless + duplicity, and promised, if she would take him back into + favour, that he would never offend again. Mrs. Bowen had sent + word that she was not well enough to see him; she had another + of her headaches; and he sent back a sympathetic and + respectful message by Effie, who stood thoughtfully at her + mother's pillow after she had delivered it, fingering the + bouquet Colville had brought her, and putting her head first + on this side, and then on that to admire it. + </p> + <p> + "I think Mr. Colville and Imogene are much more affectionate + than they used to be," she said. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen started up on her elbow. "What do you mean, + Effie?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, they're both so good to me." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said her mother, dropping back to her pillow. "Both?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he's the <i>most</i> affectionate." + </p> + <p> + The mother turned her face the other way. "Then he must be," + she murmured. + </p> + <p> + "What?" asked the child. + </p> + <p> + "Nothing. I didn't know I spoke." + </p> + <p> + The little girl stood a while still playing with her flowers. + "I think Mr. Colville is about the pleasantest gentleman that + comes here. Don't you, mamma?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "He's so interesting, and says such nice things. I don't know + whether children ought to think of such things, but I wish I + was going to marry some one like Mr. Colville. Of course I + should want to be tolerably old if I did. How old do you + think a person ought to be to marry him?" + </p> + <p> + "You mustn't talk of such things, Effie," said her mother. + </p> + <p> + "No; I suppose it isn't very nice." She picked out a bud in + her bouquet, and kissed it; then she held the nosegay at + arm's-length before her, and danced away with it. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XVII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XVII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + In the ensuing fortnight a great many gaieties besides the + Egyptian ball took place, and Colville went wherever he and + Imogene were both invited. He declined the quiet dinners + which he liked, and which his hearty appetite and his habit + of talk fitted him to enjoy, and accepted invitations to all + sorts of evenings and At Homes, where dancing occupied a + modest corner of the card, and usurped the chief place in the + pleasures. At these places it was mainly his business to see + Imogene danced with by others, but sometimes he waltzed with + her himself, and then he was complimented by people of his + own age, who had left off dancing, upon his vigour. They said + they could not stand that sort of thing, though they + supposed, if you kept yourself in practice, it did not come + so hard. One of his hostesses, who had made a party for her + daughters, told him that he was an example to everybody, and + that if middle-aged people at home mingled more in the + amusements of the young, American society would not be the + silly, insipid, boy-and-girl affair that it was now. He went + to these places in the character of a young man, but he was + not readily accepted or recognised in that character. They + gave him frumps to take out to supper, mothers and maiden + aunts, and if the mothers were youngish, they threw off on + him, and did not care for his talk. + </p> + <p> + At one of the parties Imogene seemed to become aware for the + first time that the lapels of his dress-coat were not faced + with silk. + </p> + <p> + "Why don't you have them so?" she asked. "All the + <i>other</i> young men have. And you ought to wear a + <i>boutonnière</i>." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I think a man looks rather silly in silk lapels at + my—" He arrested himself, and then continued: "I'll see + what the tailor can do for me. In the meantime, give me a bud + out of your bouquet." + </p> + <p> + "How sweet you are!" she sighed. "You do the least thing so + that it is ten times as good as if any one else did it." + </p> + <p> + The same evening, as he stood leaning against a doorway, + behind Imogene and a young fellow with whom she was beginning + a quadrille, he heard her taking him to task. + </p> + <p> + "Why do you say 'Sir' to Mr. Colville?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, I know the English laugh at us for doing it, and say + it's like servants; but I never feel quite right answering + just 'Yes' and 'No' to a man of his age." + </p> + <p> + This was one of the Inglehart boys, whom he met at nearly all + of these parties, and not all of whom were so respectful. + Some of them treated him upon an old-boy theory, joking him + as freely as if he were one of themselves, laughing his + antiquated notions of art to scorn, but condoning them + because he was good-natured, and because a man could not help + being of his own epoch anyway. They put a caricature of him + among the rest on the walls of their <i>trattoria</i>, where + he once dined with them. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen did not often see him when he went to call upon + Imogene, and she was not at more than two or three of the + parties. Mrs. Amsden came to chaperon the girl, and + apparently suffered an increase of unrequited curiosity in + regard to his relations to the Bowen household, and the + extraordinary development of his social activity. Colville + not only went to all those evening parties, but he was in + continual movement during the afternoon at receptions and at + "days," of which he began to think each lady had two or + three. Here he drank tea, cup after cup, in reckless + excitement, and at night when he came home from the dancing + parties, dropping with fatigue, he could not sleep till + toward morning. He woke at the usual breakfast-hour, and then + went about drowsing throughout the day till the tea began + again in the afternoon. He fell asleep whenever he sat down, + not only in the reading-room at Viesseux's, where he + disturbed the people over their newspapers by his + demonstrations of somnolence, but even at church, whither he + went one Sunday to please Imogene, and started awake during + the service with the impression that the clergyman had been + making a joke. Everybody but Imogene was smiling. At the + café he slept without scruple, selecting a corner seat + for the purpose, and proportioning his <i>buonamano</i> to + the indulgence of the <i>giovane</i>. He could not tell how + long he slept at these places, but sometimes it seemed to him + hours. + </p> + <p> + One day he went to see Imogene, and while Effie Bowen stood + prattling to him as he sat waiting for Imogene to come in, he + faded light-headedly away from himself on the sofa, as if he + had been in his corner at the café. Then he was aware + of some one saying "Sh!" and he saw Effie Bowen, with her + finger on her lip, turned toward Imogene, a figure of + beautiful despair in the doorway. He was all tucked up with + sofa pillows, and made very comfortable, by the child, no + doubt. She slipped out, seeing him awake, so as to leave him + and Imogene alone, as she had apparently been generally + instructed to do, and Imogene came forward. + </p> + <p> + "What is the matter, Theodore?" she asked patiently. She had + taken to calling him Theodore when they were alone. She owned + that she did not like the name, but she said it was right she + should call him by it, since it was his. She came and sat + down beside him, where he had raised himself to a sitting + posture, but she did not offer him any caress. + </p> + <p> + "Nothing," he answered. "But this climate is making me + insupportably drowsy; or else the spring weather." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; it isn't that," she said, with a slight sigh. He had + left her in the middle of a german at three o'clock in the + morning, but she now looked as fresh and lambent as a star. + "It's the late hours. They're killing you." + </p> + <p> + Colville tried to deny it; his incoherencies dissolved + themselves in a yawn, which he did not succeed in passing for + a careless laugh. + </p> + <p> + "It won't do," she said, as if speaking to herself; "no, it + won't do." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, it will," Colville protested. "I don't mind being + up. I've been used to it all my life on the paper. It's just + some temporary thing. It'll come all right." + </p> + <p> + "Well, no matter," said Imogene. "It makes you ridiculous, + going to all those silly places, and I'd rather give it up." + </p> + <p> + The tears began to steal down her cheeks, and Colville + sighed. It seemed to him that somebody or other was always + crying. A man never quite gets used to the tearfulness of + women. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, don't mind it," he said. "If you wish me to go, I will + go! Or die in the attempt," he added, with a smile. + </p> + <p> + Imogene did not smile with him. "I don't wish you to go any + more. It was a mistake in the first place, and from this out + I will adapt myself to you." + </p> + <p> + "And give up all your pleasures? Do you think I would let you + do that? No, indeed! Neither in this nor in anything else. I + will not cut off your young life in any way, + Imogene—not shorten it or diminish it. If I thought I + should do that, or you would try to do it for me, I should + wish I had never seen you." + </p> + <p> + "It isn't that. I know how good you are, and that you would + do anything for me." + </p> + <p> + "Well, then, why don't you go to these fandangoes alone? I + can see that you have me on your mind all the time, when I'm + with you." + </p> + <p> + "Oughtn't I?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, up to a certain point, but not up to the point of + spoiling your fun. I will drop in now and then, but I won't + try to come to all of them, after this; you'll get along + perfectly well with Mrs. Amsden, and I shall be safe from her + for a while. That old lady has marked me for her prey: I can + see it in her glittering eyeglass. I shall fall asleep some + evening between dances, and then she will get it all out of + me." + </p> + <p> + Imogene still refused to smile. "No; I shall give it up. I + don't think it's well, going so much without Mrs. Bowen. + People will begin to talk." + </p> + <p> + "Talk?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; they will begin to say that I had better stay with her + a little more, if she isn't well." + </p> + <p> + "Why, isn't Mrs. Bowen well?" asked Colville, with + trepidation. + </p> + <p> + "No; she's miserable. Haven't you noticed?" + </p> + <p> + "She sees me so seldom now. I thought it was only her + headaches——" + </p> + <p> + "It's much more than that. She seems to be failing every way. + The doctor has told her she ought to get away from Florence." + Colville could not speak; Imogene went on. "She's always + delicate, you know. And I feel that all that's keeping her + here now is the news from home that I—we're waiting + for." + </p> + <p> + Colville got up. "This is ghastly! She mustn't do it!" + </p> + <p> + "How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is + right, she can't help doing it. Who could?" + </p> + <p> + Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he + was silent. At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or + so much truth; and Imogene went on— + </p> + <p> + "She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were + disagreeable, and rather than accept any relief from + <i>me</i> she would die." + </p> + <p> + "Is she—unkind to you?" faltered Colville. + </p> + <p> + "She is only <i>too</i> kind. You can feel that she's + determined to be so—that she's said she will have + nothing to reproach herself with, and she won't. You don't + suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one she disliked?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I didn't know," sighed Colville. + </p> + <p> + "The more she disliked them, the better she would use them. + It's because our engagement is so distasteful to her that + she's determined to feel that she did nothing to oppose it." + </p> + <p> + "But how can you tell that it's distasteful, then?" + </p> + <p> + "She lets you feel it by—not saying anything about it." + </p> + <p> + "I can't see how—" + </p> + <p> + "She never speaks of you. I don't believe she ever mentions + your name. She asks me about the places where I've been, and + about the people—every one but you. It's very + uncomfortable." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, "it's uncomfortable." + </p> + <p> + "And if I allude to letters from home, she merely presses her + lips together. It's perfectly wretched." + </p> + <p> + "I see. It's I whom she dislikes, and I would do anything to + please her. She must know that," mused Colville aloud. + "Imogene!" he exclaimed, with a sudden inspiration. "Why + shouldn't I go away?" + </p> + <p> + "Go away?" she palpitated. "What should I do?" + </p> + <p> + The colours faded from his brilliant proposal. "Oh, I only + meant till something was + settled—determined—concluded; till this terrible + suspense was over." He added hopelessly, "But nothing can be + done!" + </p> + <p> + "I proposed," said Imogene, "that we should all go away. I + suggested Via Reggio—the doctor said she ought to have + sea air—or Venice; but she wouldn't hear of it. No; we + must wait." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, we must wait," repeated Colville hollowly. "Then + nothing can be done?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, haven't you said it?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes—yes. I can't go away, and you can't. But + couldn't we do something—get up something?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know what you mean." + </p> + <p> + "I mean, couldn't we—amuse her somehow? help her to + take her mind off herself?" + </p> + <p> + Imogene stared at him rather a long time. Then, as if she had + satisfied herself in her own mind, she shook her head. "She + wouldn't submit to it." + </p> + <p> + "No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do," said + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "She has no right to do that," cried Imogene. "I'm sure that + you're always considering her, and proposing to do things for + her. I won't let you humble yourself, as if you had wronged + her." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't call it humbling. I—I should only be too + happy if I could do <i>anything that was agreeable to + her."</i> + </p> + <p> + "Very well, I will tell her," said the girl haughtily. "Shall + you object to my joining you in your amusements, whatever + they are? I assure you I will be very unobtrusive." + </p> + <p> + "I don't understand all this," replied Colville. "Who has + proposed to exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about + Mrs. Bowen if you didn't want me to say or do something? I + supposed you did; but I'll withdraw the offensive + proposition, whatever it was." + </p> + <p> + "There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, + why can't you pity me a little?" + </p> + <p> + "I didn't know anything was the matter with you. I thought + you were enjoying yourself——" + </p> + <p> + "Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep + whenever you sit down? And then coming home and talking to a + person who won't mention your name! Do you call that + enjoying? I can't speak of you to any one; and no one speaks + to me——" + </p> + <p> + "If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville + essayed, in dreary jest. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe + it's that that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a + little comfort in circumstances that drive me almost + distracted, you want to amuse Mrs. Bowen, and when I ask to + be allowed to share in the amusement, you laugh at me! If you + don't understand it all, I'm sure <i>I</i> don't." + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" + </p> + <p> + "No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You + don't care for me." + </p> + <p> + "Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his + sufferings in the past fortnight. + </p> + <p> + "And I would have made any—<i>any</i> sacrifice for + you. At least I wouldn't have made you show yourself a mean + and grudging person if you had come to me for a little + sympathy." + </p> + <p> + "O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense + that she really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do + sympathise with you, and I see how hard it is for you to + manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me. But you mustn't + think of if. I dare say it will be different; I've no doubt + we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. + I—" He did not know what he should urge next; but he + goaded his invention, and was able to declare that if they + loved each other they needed not regard any one else. This + flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very + original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw + it sufficed for her. + </p> + <p> + "No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it + were now uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and + smiled. "I will tell Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've + said, and I know she will appreciate your generosity." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't + <i>propose</i> doing for people." + </p> + <p> + She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, + what is the matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst + that is in me, and only the worst. Do you think I shall + always be so narrow-minded with you? I thought I loved you + enough to be magnanimous. <i>You</i> are. It seemed to me + that our lives together would be grand and large; and here I + am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and + scolding you because you wish to please some one that has + been as good as my own mother to me. Do you call that noble?" + </p> + <p> + Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently + addressed to her own conscience. + </p> + <p> + But when she asked if he really thought he had better go + away, he said, "Oh no; that was a mistake." + </p> + <p> + "Because, if you do, you shall—to punish me." + </p> + <p> + "My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?" + </p> + <p> + "Because I've been low and mean. Now I want you to do + something for Mrs. don't want you to sympathise with me at + all. When I ask for your sympathy, it's a sign that I don't + deserve it." + </p> + <p> + "Is that so?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your + pardon for something." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; what's that?" + </p> + <p> + "Can't you guess?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "You needn't have" your lapels silk-lined. You needn't wear + <i>boutonnières</i>." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, but I've had the coat changed." + </p> + <p> + "No matter! Change it back! It isn't for me to make you over. + I must make myself over. It's my right, it's my sacred + privilege to conform to you in every way, and I humble myself + in the dust for having forgotten it at the very start. Oh, + <i>do</i> you think I can ever be worthy of you? I + <i>will</i> try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light + dresses another time! From this out, I shall dress more in + keeping with you. I boasted that I should live to comfort and + console you, to recompense you for the past, and what have I + been doing? Wearying and degrading you!" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no," pleaded Colville. "I am very comfortable. I don't + need any compensation for the past. I need—sleep. I'm + going to bed tonight at eight o'clock, and I am going to + sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall be fresh for Mrs. + Fleming's ball." + </p> + <p> + "I'm not going," said Imogene briefly. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, you are. I'll come round to-morrow evening and see." + </p> + <p> + "No. There are to be no more parties." + </p> + <p> + "Why?" + </p> + <p> + "I can't endure them." + </p> + <p> + She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far + aloof in the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed + puzzled, bewildered at herself. + </p> + <p> + Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and + question to which he left her, but he felt himself powerless + against it. There was but one solution to it all, and that + was impossible. He could only grieve over her trouble, and + wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss which made her trouble + remote and impersonal to him, and submit. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XVIII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XVIII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + The young clergyman whom Colville saw talking to Imogene on + his first evening at Mrs. Bowen's had come back from Rome, + where he had been spending a month or two, and they began to + meet at Palazzo Pinti again. If they got on well enough + together, they did not get on very far. The suave + house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended + Colville; he could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in + art and books, which in fact was rather conventional; and no + doubt Mr. Morton had his own reserves, under which he was + perfectly civil, and only too deferential to Colville, as to + an older man. Since his return, Mrs. Bowen had come back to + her <i>salon</i>. She looked haggard; but she did what she + could to look otherwise. She was always polite to Colville, + and she was politely cordial with the clergyman. Sometimes + Colville saw her driving out with him and Effie; they + appeared to make excursions, and he had an impression, very + obscure, that Mrs. Bowen lent the young clergyman money; that + he was a superstition of hers, and she a patron of his; he + must have been ten years younger than she; not more than + twenty-five. + </p> + <p> + The first Sunday after his return, Colville walked home with + Mr. Waters from hearing a sermon of Mr. Morton's, which they + agreed was rather well judged, and simply and fitly + expressed. + </p> + <p> + "And he spoke with the authority of the priest," said the old + minister. "His Church alone of all the Protestant Churches + has preserved that to its ministers. Sometimes I have thought + it was a great thing." + </p> + <p> + "Not always?" asked Colville, with a smile. + </p> + <p> + "These things are matters of mood rather than conviction with + me," returned Mr. Waters. "Once they affected me very deeply; + but now I shall so soon know all about it that they don't + move me. But at times I think that if I were to live my life + over again, I would prefer to be of some formal, some + inflexibly ritualised, religion. At + solemnities—-weddings and funerals—I have been + impressed with the advantage of the Anglican rite: it is the + Church speaking to and for humanity—or seems so," he + added, with cheerful indifference. "Something in its favour," + he continued, after a while, "is the influence that every + ritualised faith has with women. If they apprehend those + mysteries more subtly than we, such a preference of theirs + must mean a good deal. Yes; the other Protestant systems are + men's systems. Women must have form. They don't care for + freedom." + </p> + <p> + "They appear to like the formalist too, as well as the form," + said Colville, with scorn not obviously necessary. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; they must have everything in the concrete," said the + old gentleman cheerfully. + </p> + <p> + "I wonder where Mr. Morton met Mrs. Bowen first," said + Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Here, I think. I believe he had letters to her. Before you + came I used often to meet him at her house. I think she has + helped him with money at times." + </p> + <p> + "Isn't that rather an unpleasant idea?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; it's disagreeable. And it places the ministry in a + dependent attitude. But under our system it's unavoidable. + Young men devoting themselves to the ministry frequently + receive gifts of money." + </p> + <p> + "I don't like it," cried Colville. + </p> + <p> + "They don't feel it as others would. I didn't myself. Even at + present I may be said to be living on charity. But sometimes + I have fancied that in Mr. Morton's case there might be + peculiarly mitigating circumstances." + </p> + <p> + "What do you mean?" + </p> + <p> + "When I met him first at Mrs. Bowen's I used to think that it + was Miss Graham in whom he was interested——" + </p> + <p> + "I can assure you," interrupted Colville, "that she was never + interested in him." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; I didn't suppose that," returned the old man + tranquilly. "And I've since had reason to revise my opinion. + I think he is interested in Mrs. Bowen." + </p> + <p> + "Mrs. Bowen! And you think that would be a mitigating + circumstance in his acceptance of money from her? If he had + the spirit of a man at all, it would make it all the more + revolting." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no, oh no," softly pleaded Mr. Waters. "We must not look + at these things too romantically. He probably reasons that + she would give him all her money if they were married." + </p> + <p> + "But he has no right to reason in that way," retorted + Colville, with heat. "They are not married; it's ignoble and + unmanly for him to count upon it. It's preposterous. She must + be ten years older than he." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't say that they're to be married," Mr. Waters + replied. "But these disparities of age frequently occur in + marriage. I don't like them, though sometimes I think the + evil is less when it is the wife who is the elder. We look at + youth and age in a gross, material way too often. Women + remain young longer than men. They keep their youthful + sympathies; an old woman understands a young girl. Do + you—or do I—understand a young man?" + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed harshly. "It isn't <i>quite</i> the same + thing, Mr. Waters. But yes; I'll admit, for the sake of + argument, that I don't understand young men. I'll go further, + and say that I don't like them; I'm afraid of them. And you + wouldn't think," he added abruptly, "that it would be well + for me to marry a girl twenty years younger than myself." + </p> + <p> + The old man glanced up at him with innocent slyness. "I + prefer always to discuss these things in an impersonal way." + </p> + <p> + "But you can't discuss them impersonally with me; I'm engaged + to Miss Graham. Ever since you first found me here after I + told you I was going away I have wished to tell you this, and + this seems as good a time as any—or as bad." The + defiance faded from his voice, which dropped to a note of + weary sadness. "Yes, we're engaged—or shall be, as soon + as she can hear from her family. I wanted to tell you because + it seemed somehow your due, and because I fancied you had a + friendly interest in us both." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, that is true," returned Mr. Waters. "I wish you joy." + He went through the form of offering his hand to Colville, + who pressed it with anxious fervour. + </p> + <p> + "I confess," he said, "that I feel the risks of the affair. + It's not that I have any dread for my own part; I have lived + my life, such as it is. But the child is full of fancies + about me that can't be fulfilled. She dreams of restoring my + youth somehow, of retrieving the past for me, of avenging me + at her own cost for an unlucky love affair that I had here + twenty years ago. It's pretty of her, but it's terribly + pathetic—it's tragic. I know very well that I'm a + middle-aged man, and that there's no more youth for me. I'm + getting grey, and I'm getting fat; I wouldn't be young if I + could; it's a bore. I suppose I could keep up an illusion of + youthfulness for five or six years more; and then if I could + be quietly chloroformed out of the way, perhaps it wouldn't + have been so very bad." + </p> + <p> + "I have always thought," said Mr. Waters dreamily, "that a + good deal might be said for abbreviating hopeless suffering. + I have known some very good people advocate its practice by + science." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," answered Colville. "Perhaps I've presented that point + too prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I + don't care for myself; that I consider only the happiness of + this young girl that's somehow—I hardly know + how—been put in my keeping. I haven't forgotten the + talks that we've had heretofore on this subject, and it would + be affectation and bad taste in me to ignore them. Don't be + troubled at anything you've said; it was probably true, and + I'm sure it was sincere. Sometimes I think that the + kindest—the least cruel—thing I could do would be + to break with her, to leave her. But I know that I shall do + nothing of the kind; I shall drift. The child is very dear to + me. She has great and noble qualities; she's supremely + unselfish; she loves me through her mistaken pity, and + because she thinks she can sacrifice herself to me. But she + can't. Everything is against that; she doesn't know how, and + there is no reason why. I don't express it very well. I think + nobody clearly understands it but Mrs. Bowen, and I've + somehow alienated her." + </p> + <p> + He became aware that his self-abnegation was taking the + character of self-pity, and he stopped. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters seemed to be giving the subject serious attention + in the silence that ensued. "There is this to be remembered," + he began, "which we don't consider in our mere speculations + upon any phase of human affairs; and that is the wonderful + degree of amelioration that any given difficulty finds in the + realisation. It is the anticipation, not the experience, that + is the trial. In a case of this kind, facts of temperament, + of mere association, of union, work unexpected mitigations; + they not only alleviate, they allay. You say that she + cherishes an illusion concerning you: well, with women, + nothing is so indestructible as an illusion. Give them any + chance at all, and all the forces of their nature combine to + preserve it. And if, as you say, she is so dear to you, that + in itself is almost sufficient. I can well understand your + misgivings, springing as they do from a sensitive conscience; + but we may reasonably hope that they are exaggerated. Very + probably there will not be the rapture for her that there + would be if—if you were younger; but the chances of + final happiness are great—yes, very considerable. She + will learn to appreciate what is really best in you, and you + already understand her. Your love for her is the key to the + future. Without that, of course——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, of course," interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of + this comforter's hand had been a sting; and he parted with + him in that feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man + who has taken counsel upon the confession of half his + trouble. + </p> + <p> + Something in Mrs. Bowen's manner when he met her next made + him think that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the + sympathy he had expressed for her ill-health. It was in the + evening, and Imogene and Mr. Morton were looking over a copy + of <i>The Marble Faun</i>, which he had illustrated with + photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to look at it + too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his + opinion of people who illustrated <i>The Marble Faun</i> with + photographs; it surprised him that she seemed to find + something novel and brilliant in the idea. + </p> + <p> + Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair + beside the couple with the book, and seeing Colville + wandering neglectedly about before he placed himself, she + jumped down and ran and caught his hand. + </p> + <p> + "Well, what now?" he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to + pull him toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from + Palazzo Pinti he would really miss the worship of that little + thing. He knew that her impulse had been to console him for + his exclusion from the pleasures that Imogene and Mr. Morton + were enjoying. + </p> + <p> + "Nothing. Just talk," she said, making him fast in a corner + of the sofa by crouching tight against him. + </p> + <p> + "What about? About which is the pleasantest season?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; we've talked about that so often. Besides, of course + you'd say spring, now that it's coming on so nicely." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think I'm so changeable as that? Haven't I always + said winter when this question of the seasons was up? And I + say it now. Shan't you be awfully sorry when you can't have a + pleasant little fire on the hearth like this any more?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I know. But it's very nice having the flowers, too. The + grass was all full of daisies to-day—perfectly powdered + with them." + </p> + <p> + "To-day? Where?" + </p> + <p> + "At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions + of violets and crow's-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them + for mamma and Imogene. And we stayed so long that when we + drove home the daisies had all shut up, and the little pink + leaves outside made it look like a field of red clover. Are + you never going there any more?" + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting + between her and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was + returning to the room after having already been there. She + stood a moment, with a little uncertainty, when she had + shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon the sofa beyond + Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville's arm, + and the other through her mother's, and gripped them fast. + "Now I have got you both," she triumphed, and smiled first + into her face, and then into his. + </p> + <p> + "Be quiet, Effie," said her mother, but she submitted. + </p> + <p> + "I hope you're better for your drive to-day, Mrs. Bowen. + Effie has been telling me about it." + </p> + <p> + "We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; + but I'm not an invalid, you know." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no." + </p> + <p> + "I'm feeling a little fagged. And the weather was tempting. I + suppose you've been taking one of your long walks." + </p> + <p> + "No, I've scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to + meet the spring a little more than half-way; but this year I + don't, somehow." + </p> + <p> + "A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe," + said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "I hope you'll get away from Florence," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "Oh," she returned, with a faint flush, "I'm afraid Imogene + exaggerated that a little." She added, "You are very good." + </p> + <p> + She was treating him more kindly than she had ever done since + that Sunday afternoon when he came in with Imogene to say + that he was going to stay. It might be merely because she had + worn out her mood of severity, as people do, returning in + good-humour to those with whom they were offended, merely + through the reconciling force of time. She did not look at + him, but this was better than meeting his eye with that + interceptive glance. A strange peace touched his heart. + Imogene and the young clergyman at the table across the room + were intent on the book still; he was explaining and + expatiating, and she listening. Colville saw that he had a + fine head, and an intelligent, handsome, gentle face. When he + turned again to Mrs. Bowen it was with the illusion that she + had been saying something; but she was, in fact, sitting + mute, and her face, with its bright colour, showed + pathetically thin. + </p> + <p> + "I should imagine that Venice would be good for you," he + said. + </p> + <p> + "It's still very harsh there, I hear. No; when we leave + Florence, I think we will go to Switzerland." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, not to Madame Schebres's," pleaded the child, turning + upon her. + </p> + <p> + "No, not to Madame Schebres," consented the mother. She + continued, addressing Colville: "I was thinking of Lausanne. + Do you know Lausanne at all?" + </p> + <p> + "Only from Gibbon's report. It's hardly up to date." + </p> + <p> + "I thought of taking a house there for the summer," said Mrs. + Bowen, playing with Effie's fingers. "It's pleasant by the + lake, I suppose." + </p> + <p> + "It's lovely by the lake!" cried the child. "Oh, do go, + mamma! I could get a boat and learn to row. Here you can't + row, the Arno's so swift." + </p> + <p> + "The air would bring you up," said Colville to Mrs. Bowen. + "Switzerland's the only country where you're perfectly sure + of waking new every morning." + </p> + <p> + This idea interested the child. "Waking new!" she repeated. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; perfectly made over. You wake up another person. + Shouldn't you think that would be nice?" + </p> + <p> + "No." + </p> + <p> + "Well, I shouldn't, in your place. But in mine, I much prefer + to wake up another person. Only it's pretty hard on the other + person." + </p> + <p> + "How queer you are!" The child set her teeth for fondness of + him, and seizing his cheeks between her hands, squeezed them + hard, admiring the effect upon his features, which in some + respects was not advantageous. + </p> + <p> + "Effie!" cried her mother sternly; and she dropped to her + place again, and laid hold of Colville's arm for protection. + "You are really very rude. I shall send you to bed." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no, don't, Mrs. Bowen," he begged. "I'm responsible for + these violences. Effie used to be a very well behaved child + before she began playing with me. It's all my fault." + </p> + <p> + They remained talking on the sofa together, while Imogene and + Mr. Morton continued to interest themselves in the book. From + time to time she looked over at them, and then turned again + to the young clergyman, who, when he had closed the book, + rested his hands on its top and began to give an animated + account of something, conjecturably his sojourn in Rome. + </p> + <p> + In a low voice, and with pauses adjusted to the occasional + silences of the young people across the room, Mrs. Bowen told + Colville how Mr. Morton was introduced to her by an old + friend who was greatly interested in him. She said, frankly, + that she had been able to be of use to him, and that he was + now going back to America very soon; it was as if she were + privy to the conjecture that had come to the surface in his + talk with Mr. Waters, and wished him to understand exactly + how matters stood with the young clergyman and herself. + Colville, indeed, began to be more tolerant of him; he + succeeded in praising the sermon he had heard him preach. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, he has talent," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + They fell into the old, almost domestic strain, from which + she broke at times with an effort, but returning as if + helplessly to it. He had the gift of knowing how not to take + an advantage with women; that sense of unconstraint in them + fought in his favour; when Effie dropped her head wearily + against his arm, her mother even laughed in sending her off + to bed; she had hitherto been serious. Imogene said she would + go to see her tucked in, and that sent the clergyman to say + good-night to Mrs. Bowen, and to put an end to Colville's + audience. + </p> + <p> + In these days, when Colville came every night to Palazzo + Pinti, he got back the tone he had lost in the past + fortnight. He thought that it was the complete immunity from + his late pleasures, and the regular and sufficient sleep, + which had set him firmly on his feet again, but he did not + inquire very closely. Imogene went two or three times, after + she had declared she would go no more, from the necessity + women feel of blunting the edge of comment; but Colville + profited instantly and fully by the release from the parties + which she offered him. He did not go even to afternoon + tea-drinkings; the "days" of the different ladies, which he + had been so diligent to observe, knew him no more. At the + hours when society assembled in this house or that and + inquired for him, or wondered about him, he was commonly + taking a nap, and he was punctually in bed every night at + eleven, after his return from Mrs. Bowen's. + </p> + <p> + He believed, of course, that he went there because he now no + longer met Imogene elsewhere, and he found the house + pleasanter than it had ever been since the veglione. Mrs. + Bowen's relenting was not continuous, however. There were + times that seemed to be times of question and of struggle + with her, when she vacillated between the old cordiality and + the later alienation; when she went beyond the former, or + lapsed into moods colder and more repellent than the latter. + It would have been difficult to mark the moment when these + struggles ceased altogether, and an evening passed in + unbroken kindness between them. But afterwards Colville could + remember an emotion of grateful surprise at a subtle word or + action of hers in which she appeared to throw all + restraint—scruple or rancour, whichever it might + be—to the winds, and become perfectly his friend again. + It must have been by compliance with some wish or assent to + some opinion of his; what he knew was that he was not only + permitted, he was invited, to feel himself the most favoured + guest. The charming smile, so small and sweet, so very near + to bitterness, came back to her lips, the deeply fringed + eyelids were lifted to let the sunny eyes stream upon him. + She did, now, whatever he asked her. She consulted his taste + and judgment on many points; she consented to resume, when + she should be a little stronger, their visits to the churches + and galleries: it would be a shame to go away from Florence + without knowing them thoroughly. It came to her asking him to + drive with her and Imogene in the Cascine; and when Imogene + made some excuse not to go, Mrs. Bowen did not postpone the + drive, but took Colville and Effie. + </p> + <p> + They drove quite down to the end of the Cascine, and got out + there to admire the gay monument, with the painted bust, of + the poor young Indian prince who died in Florence. They + strolled all about, talking of the old times in the Cascine, + twenty years before; and walking up the road beside the + canal, while the carriage slowly followed, they stopped to + enjoy the peasants lying asleep in the grass on the other + bank. Colville and Effie gathered wild-flowers, and piled + them in her mother's lap when she remounted to the carriage + and drove along while they made excursions into the little + dingles beside the road. Some people who overtook them in + these sylvan pleasures reported the fact at a reception to + which they were going, and Mrs. Amsden, whose mind had been + gradually clearing under the simultaneous withdrawal of + Imogene and Colville from society, professed herself again as + thickly clouded as a weather-glass before a storm. She + appealed to the sympathy of others against this hardship. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen took Colville home to dinner; Mr. Morton was + coming, she said, and he must come too. At table the young + clergyman made her his compliment on her look of health, and + she said, Yes; she had been driving, and she believed that + she needed nothing but to be in the air a little more, as she + very well could, now the spring weather was really coming. + She said that they had been talking all winter of going to + Fiesole, where Imogene had never been yet; and upon + comparison it appeared that none of them had yet been to + Fiesole except herself. Then they must all go together, she + said; the carriage would hold four very comfortably. + </p> + <p> + "Ah! that leaves me out," said Colville, who had caught sight + of Effie's fallen countenance. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no. How is that? It leaves Effie out." + </p> + <p> + "It's the same thing. But I might ride, and Effie might give + me her hand to hold over the side of the carriage; that would + sustain me." + </p> + <p> + "We could take her between us, Mrs. Bowen," suggested + Imogene. "The back seat is wide." + </p> + <p> + "Then the party is made up," said Colville, "and Effie hasn't + demeaned herself by asking to go where she wasn't invited." + </p> + <p> + The child turned inquiringly toward her mother, who met her + with an indulgent smile, which became a little flush of + grateful appreciation when it reached Colville; but Mrs. + Bowen ignored Imogene in the matter altogether. + </p> + <p> + The evening passed delightfully. Mr. Morton had another book + which he had brought to show Imogene, and Mrs. Bowen sat a + long time at the piano, striking this air and that of the + songs which she used to sing when she was a girl: Colville + was trying to recall them. When he and Imogene were left + alone for their adieux, they approached each other in an + estrangement through which each tried to break. + </p> + <p> + "Why don't you scold me?" she asked. "I have neglected you + the whole evening." + </p> + <p> + "How have you neglected me?" + </p> + <p> + "How? Ah! if you don't know——" + </p> + <p> + "No. I dare say I must be very stupid. I saw you talking with + Mr. Morton, and you seemed interested. I thought I'd better + not intrude." + </p> + <p> + She seemed uncertain of his intention, and then satisfied of + its simplicity. + </p> + <p> + "Isn't it pleasant to have Mrs. Bowen in the old mood again?" + he asked. + </p> + <p> + "Is she in the old mood?" + </p> + <p> + "Why, yes. Haven't you noticed how cordial she is? + </p> + <p> + "I thought she was rather colder than usual." + </p> + <p> + "Colder!" The chill of the idea penetrated even through the + density of Colville's selfish content. A very complex + emotion, which took itself for indignation, throbbed from his + heart. "Is she cold with you, Imogene?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, if you saw nothing——" + </p> + <p> + "No; and I think you must be mistaken. She never speaks of + you without praising you." + </p> + <p> + "Does she speak of me?" asked the girl, with her honest eyes + wide open upon him. + </p> + <p> + "Why, no," Colville acknowledged. "Come to reflect, it's I + who speak of you. But how—how is she cold with you?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I dare say it's a delusion of mine. Perhaps I'm cold + with her." + </p> + <p> + "Then don't be so, my dear! Be sure that she's your + friend—true and good. Good night." + </p> + <p> + He caught the girl in his arms, and kissed her tenderly. She + drew away, and stood a moment with her repellent fingers on + his breast. + </p> + <p> + "Is it all for me?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "For the whole obliging and amiable world," he answered + gaily. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XIX"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XIX + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + The next time Colville came he found himself alone with + Imogene, who asked him what he had been doing all day. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, living along till evening. What have you?" + </p> + <p> + She did not answer at once, nor praise his speech for the + devotion implied in it. After a while she said: "Do you + believe in courses of reading? Mr. Morton has taken up a + course of reading in Italian poetry. He intends to master + it." + </p> + <p> + "Does he?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. Do you think something of the kind would be good for + me?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, if you thirst for conquest. But I should prefer to rest + on my laurels if I were you." + </p> + <p> + Imogene did not smile. "Mr. Morton thinks I should enjoy a + course of Kingsley. He says he's very earnest." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, immensely. But aren't you earnest enough already, my + dear?" + </p> + <p> + "Do you think I'm too earnest?" + </p> + <p> + "No; I should say you were just right." + </p> + <p> + "You know better than that. I wish you would criticise me + sometimes." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I'd rather not." + </p> + <p> + "Why? Don't you see anything to criticise in me? Are you + satisfied with me in every way? You ought to think. You ought + to think now. Do you think that I am doing right in all + respects? Am I all that I could be to you, and to you alone? + If I am wrong in the least thing, criticise me, and I will + try to be better." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you might criticise back, and I shouldn't like that." + </p> + <p> + "Then you don't approve of a course of Kingsley?" asked the + girl. + </p> + <p> + "Does that follow? But if you're going in for earnestness, + why don't you take up a course of Carlyle?" + </p> + <p> + "Do you think that would be better than Kingsley?" + </p> + <p> + "Not a bit. But Carlyle's so earnest that he can't talk + straight." + </p> + <p> + "I can't make out what you mean. Wouldn't you like me to + improve?" + </p> + <p> + "Not much," laughed Colville. "If you did, I don't know what + I should do. I should have to begin to improve too, and I'm + very comfortable as I am." + </p> + <p> + "I should wish to do it to—to be more worthy of you," + grieved the girl, as if deeply disappointed at his frivolous + behaviour. + </p> + <p> + He could not help laughing, but he was sorry, and would have + taken her hand; she kept it from him, and removed to the + farthest corner of the sofa. Apparently, however, her ideal + did not admit of open pique, and she went on trying to talk + seriously with him. + </p> + <p> + "You think, don't you, that we oughtn't to let a day pass + without storing away some + thought—suggestion——" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there's no hurry," he said lazily. "Life is rather a + long affair—if you live. There appears to be plenty of + time, though people say not, and I think it would be rather + odious to make every day of use. Let a few of them go by + without doing anything for you! And as for reading, why not + read when you're hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn't you hate + to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?" + </p> + <p> + "Very well, then," said Imogene. "I shall not begin + Kingsley." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton's quite right. He will + look at these things more from your own point of view. All + the Kingsley novels are in the Tauchnitz. By all means do + what he says." + </p> + <p> + "I will do what <i>you</i> say." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, but I say nothing." + </p> + <p> + "Then I will do nothing." + </p> + <p> + Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman + appeared. Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt + obliged to make him some amends by a greater show of + cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of the effort, for + he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy for him + to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and + if he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville + tolerantly reflected that some people seemed to be born so, + and that he was probably not artificial, as he had once + imagined from the ecclesiastical scrupulosity of his dress. + </p> + <p> + Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, + and struck some chords on it. At each stroke the young + clergyman, whose eyes had wandered a little toward her from + the first, seemed to vibrate in response. The conversation + became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen joined them. Then, by a + series of illogical processes, the clergyman was standing + beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting + beside Colville on the sofa. + </p> + <p> + "Isn't there to be any Effie, to-night?" he asked. + </p> + <p> + "No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak + with you—about Imogene." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he + could have chosen another topic. + </p> + <p> + "It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In + less than a fortnight we ought to have an answer." + </p> + <p> + "Well?" said Colville, with a strange constriction of the + heart. + </p> + <p> + "Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband + is absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything." + </p> + <p> + "It isn't an uncommon American situation," said Colville, + relieving his tension by this excursion. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen ignored it. "I don't know how she may look at the + affair. She may give her assent at once, or she may decide + that nothing has taken place till—she sees you." + </p> + <p> + "I could hardly blame her for that," he answered + submissively. + </p> + <p> + "It isn't a question of that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a + question of—others. Mr. Morton was here before you + came, and I know he was interested in Imogene—I am + certain of it. He has come back, and he sees no reason why he + should not renew his attentions." + </p> + <p> + "No—o—o," faltered Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I wish you to realise the fact." + </p> + <p> + "But what would you——" + </p> + <p> + "I told you," said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that + severity whose recent absence Colville had found so + comfortable, "that I can't advise or suggest anything at + all." + </p> + <p> + He was long and miserably silent. At last, "Did you ever + think," he asked, "did you ever suppose—that is to say, + did you ever suspect that—she—that Imogene + was—at all interested in him?" + </p> + <p> + "I think she was—at one time," said Mrs. Bowen + promptly. + </p> + <p> + Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle. + </p> + <p> + "But that is nothing," she went on. "People have many passing + fancies. The question is, what are you going to do now? I + want to know, as Mr. Morton's friend." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, I wish you wanted to know as <i>my</i> friend, Mrs. + Bowen!" A sudden thought flashed upon him. "Why shouldn't I + go away from Florence till Imogene hears from her mother? + That seemed to me right in the first place. There is no tie + that binds her to me. I hold her to nothing. If she finds in + my absence that she likes this young man better—" An + expression of Mrs. Bowen's face stopped him. He perceived + that he had said something very shocking to her; he perceived + that the thing was shocking in itself, but it was not that + which he cared for. "I don't mean that I won't hold myself + true to her as long as she will. I recognise my + responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for all + this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any + penalty. But what I can't bear is that you should + misunderstand me, that you should—I have been so + wretched ever since you first began to blame me for my part + in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I + can't—I <i>won't</i>—go back to that state of + things. No; you have no right to relent toward me, and then + fling me off as you have tried to do to-night! I have some + feeling too—some rights. You shall receive me as a + friend, or not at all! How can I live if you——" + </p> + <p> + She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she + forced herself to her feet, and ran from the room. + </p> + <p> + The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the + sensation had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain + seated, they went on with their playing till he rose. Then + Imogene called out, "Isn't Mrs. Bowen coming back?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know; I think not," answered Colville stupidly, + standing where he had risen. + </p> + <p> + She hastened questioning toward him. "What is the matter? + Isn't she well?" + </p> + <p> + Mr. Morton's face expressed a polite share in her anxiety. + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; quite, I believe," Colville replied. + </p> + <p> + "She heard Effie call, I suppose," suggested the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, yes; I think so; that is—yes. I must be going. + Good night." + </p> + <p> + He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still + there; but he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, + which Imogene hurried to get. She sent word that she would + join them presently. But Mr. Morion said that it was late + already, and he would beg Miss Graham to say good-night for + him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone. + </p> + <p> + She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. "Imogene, I + have been talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton." + </p> + <p> + The girl started and turned pale. + </p> + <p> + "It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may + consent to your engagement. Then you must be prepared to + act." + </p> + <p> + "Act?" + </p> + <p> + "To make it known. Matters can't go on as they have been + going. I told Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at + once." + </p> + <p> + "Why ought he to know?" asked Imogene, doubtless with that + impulse to temporise which is natural to the human soul in + questions of right and interest. She sank into the chair + beside which she had been standing. + </p> + <p> + "If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. + Colville?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said the girl. + </p> + <p> + "And if she refuses?" + </p> + <p> + "He has my word. I will keep my word to him," replied Imogene + huskily. "Nothing shall make me break it." + </p> + <p> + "Very well, then!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. "We need not wait + for your mother's answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he + ought to know at once. do. He is in love with you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh," moaned the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; you can't deny it. And it's cruel, it's treacherous, to + let him go on thinking that you are free." + </p> + <p> + "I will never see him again." + </p> + <p> + "Ah! that isn't enough. He has a claim to know why. I will + not let him be treated so." + </p> + <p> + They were both silent. Then, "What did Mr. Colville say?" + asked Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "He? I don't know that he said anything. He——" + Mrs. Bowen stopped. + </p> + <p> + Imogene rose from her chair. + </p> + <p> + "I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too + indelicate." + </p> + <p> + "And shall you let it go on so?" + </p> + <p> + "No. I will tell him myself." + </p> + <p> + "How will you tell him?" + </p> + <p> + "I will tell him if he speaks to me." + </p> + <p> + "You will let it come to that?" + </p> + <p> + "There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he." + </p> + <p> + "But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not + help him." + </p> + <p> + Imogene trembled into her chair again. + </p> + <p> + "I see," said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, "how it will be at last. + It will be as it has been from the first." She began to walk + up and down the room, mechanically putting the chairs in + place, and removing the disorder in which the occupancy of + several people leaves a room at the end of an evening. She + closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to shut, with a + clash that jarred the strings from their silence. "But I will + do it, and I wonder——" + </p> + <p> + "You will speak to him?" faltered the girl. + </p> + <p> + "Yes!" returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself + in her rapid movements. "It won't do for you to tell him, and + you won't let Mr. Colville." + </p> + <p> + "No, I can't," said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. "But I + will discourage him; I will not see him anymore." Mrs. Bowen + silently confronted her. "I will not see any one now till I + have heard from home." + </p> + <p> + "And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I + will have to make it. What shall it be?" + </p> + <p> + Imogene did not answer. She said: "I will not have any one + know what is between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard + from home. If they try to refuse, then it will be for him to + take me against their will. But if he doesn't choose to do + that, then he shall be free, and I won't have him humiliated + a second time before the world. <i>This</i> time <i>he</i> + shall be the one to reject. And I don't care who suffers. The + more I prize the person, the gladder I shall be; and if I + could suffer before everybody I would. If people ever find it + out, I will tell them that it was he who broke it off." She + rose again from her chair, and stood flushed and thrilling + with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out of the tortuous + complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief + triumph, in which she rejoiced as if it were enduring + success. But she suddenly fell from it in the dust. "Oh, what + can I do for him? How can I make him feel more and more that + I would give up anything, everything, for him! could see that + he was unhappy, as I did once! If I could see that he was at + all different since—since——Oh, what I dread + is this smooth tranquillity! If our lives could only be + stormy and full of cares and anxieties and troubles that I + could take on myself, then, then I shouldn't be afraid of the + future! But I'm afraid they won't be so—no, Mrs. Bowen, + do you think he cares for me?" + </p> + <p> + Mrs Bowen turned white; she did not speak. + </p> + <p> + had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken + me to save me from the shame of knowing that I had made a + mistake. Do you think that is true? If you can only tell me + that it isn't—Or, no! If it is true, tell me that! + <i>That</i> would be real mercy." + </p> + <p> + The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this + appeal. But she gathered herself together rigidly. "How can I + answer you such a thing as that? I mustn't listen to you; you + mustn't ask me." She turned and left the girl standing still + in her attitude of imploring. But in her own room, where she + locked herself in, sobs mingled with the laughter which broke + crazily from her lips as she removed this ribbon and that + jewel, and pulled the bracelets from her wrists. A man would + have plunged from the house and walked the night away; a + woman must wear it out in her bed. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XX"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XX + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + In the morning Mrs. Bowen received a note from her banker + covering a despatch by cable from America. It was from + Imogene's mother; it acknowledged the letters they had + written, and announced that she sailed that day for + Liverpool. It was dated at New York, and it was to be + inferred that after perhaps writing in answer to their + letters, she had suddenly made up her mind to come out. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, that is it," said Imogene, to whom Mrs. Bowen hastened + with the despatch. "Why should she have telegraphed to + <i>you</i>?" she asked coldly, but with a latent fire of + resentment in her tone. + </p> + <p> + "You must ask her when she comes," returned Mrs. Bowen, with + all her gentleness. "It won't be long now." + </p> + <p> + They looked as if they had neither of them slept; but the + girl's vigil seemed to have made her wild and fierce, like + some bird that has beat itself all night against its cage, + and still from time to time feebly strikes the bars with its + wings. Mrs. Bowen was simply worn to apathy. + </p> + <p> + "What shall you do about this?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "Do about it? Oh, I will think. I will try not to trouble + you." + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" + </p> + <p> + "I shall have to tell Mr. Colville. But I don't know that I + shall tell him at once. Give me the despatch, please." She + possessed herself of it greedily, offensively. "I shall ask + you not to speak of it." + </p> + <p> + "I will do whatever you wish." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen left the room, but she turned immediately to + re-open the door she had closed behind her. + </p> + <p> + "We were to have gone to Fiesole to-morrow," she said + inquiringly. + </p> + <p> + "We can still go if the day is fine," returned the girl. + "Nothing is changed. I wish very much to go. Couldn't we go + to-day?" she added, with eager defiance. + </p> + <p> + "It's too late to-day," said Mrs. Bowen quietly. "I will + write to remind the gentlemen." + </p> + <p> + "Thank you. I wish we could have gone to-day." + </p> + <p> + "You can have the carriage if you wish to drive anywhere," + said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "I will take Effie to see Mrs. Amsden." But Imogene changed + her mind, and went to call upon two Misses Guicciardi, the + result of an international marriage, whom Mrs. Bowen did not + like very well. Imogene drove with them to the Cascine, where + they bowed to a numerous military acquaintance, and they + asked her if Mrs. Bowen would let her join them in a theatre + party that evening: they were New-Yorkers by birth, and it + was to be a theatre party in the New York style; they were to + be chaperoned by a young married lady; two young men cousins + of theirs, just out from America, had taken the box. + </p> + <p> + When Imogene returned home she told Mrs. Bowen that she had + accepted this invitation. Mrs. Bowen said nothing, but when + one of the young men came up to hand Imogene down to the + carriage, which was waiting with the others at the gate, she + could not have shown a greater tolerance of his second-rate + New Yorkiness if she had been a Boston dowager offering him + the scrupulous hospitalities of her city. + </p> + <p> + Imogene came in at midnight; she hummed an air of the opera + as she took off her wraps and ornaments in her room, and this + in the quiet of the hour had a terrible, almost profane + effect: it was as if some other kind of girl had whistled. + She showed the same nonchalance at breakfast, where she was + prompt, and answered Mrs. Bowen's inquiries about her + pleasure the night before with a liveliness that ignored the + polite resolution that prompted them. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Morton was the first to arrive, and if his discouragement + began at once, the first steps masked themselves in a + reckless welcome, which seemed to fill him with joy, and Mrs. + Bowen with silent perplexity. The girl ran on about her + evening at the opera, and about the weather, and the + excursion they were going to make; and after an apparently + needless ado over the bouquet which he brought her, together + with one for Mrs. Bowen, she put it into her belt, and made + Colville notice it when he came: he had not thought to bring + flowers. + </p> + <p> + He turned from her hilarity with anxious question to Mrs. + Bowen, who did not meet his eye, and who snubbed Effie when + the child found occasion to whisper: "<i>I</i> think Imogene + is acting very strangely, for <i>her</i>; don't you, mamma? + It seems as if going with those Guicciardi girls just once + had spoiled her." + </p> + <p> + "Don't make remarks about people, Effie," said her mother + sharply. "It isn't nice in little girls, and I don't want you + to do it. You talk too much lately." + </p> + <p> + Effie turned grieving away from this rejection, and her face + did not light up even at the whimsical sympathy in Colville's + face, who saw that she had met a check of some sort; he had + to take her on his knee and coax and kiss her before her + wounded feelings were visibly healed. He put her down with a + sighing wish that some one could take him up and soothe his + troubled sensibilities too, and kept her hand in his while he + sat waiting for the last of those last moments in which the + hurrying delays of ladies preparing for an excursion seem + never to end. + </p> + <p> + When they were ready to get into the carriage, the usual + contest of self-sacrifice arose, which Imogene terminated by + mounting to the front seat; Mr. Morton hastened to take the + seat beside her, and Colville was left to sit with Effie and + her mother. "You old people will be safer back there," said + Imogene. It was a little joke which she addressed to the + child, but a gleam from her eye as she turned to speak to the + young man at her side visited Colville in desperate defiance. + He wondered what she was about in that allusion to an idea + which she had shrunk from so sensitively hitherto. But he + found himself in a situation which he could not penetrate at + any point. When he spoke with Mrs. Bowen, it was with a dark + undercurrent of conjecture as to how and when she expected + him to tell Mr. Morton of his relation to Imogene, or whether + she still expected him to do it; when his eyes fell upon the + face of the young man, he despaired as to the terms in which + he should put the fact; any form in which he tacitly + dramatised it remained very embarrassing, for he felt bound + to say that while he held himself promised in the matter, he + did not allow her to feel herself so. + </p> + <p> + A sky of American blueness and vastness, a mellow sun, and a + delicate breeze did all that these things could for them, as + they began the long, devious climb of the hills crowned by + the ancient Etruscan city. At first they were all in the + constraint of their own and one another's moods, known or + imagined, and no talk began till the young clergyman turned + to Imogene and asked, after a long look at the smiling + landscape, "What sort of weather do you suppose they are + having at Buffalo to-day?" + </p> + <p> + "At Buffalo?" she repeated, as if the place had only a dim + existence in her remotest consciousness. "Oh! The ice isn't + near out of the lake yet. You can't count on it before the + first of May." + </p> + <p> + "And the first of May comes sooner or later, according to the + season," said Colville. "I remember coming on once in the + middle of the month, and the river was so full of ice between + Niagara Falls and Buffalo that I had to shut the car window + that I'd kept open all the way through Southern Canada. But + we have very little of that local weather at home; our + weather is as democratic and continental as our political + constitution. Here it's March or May any time from September + till June, according as there's snow on the mountains or + not." + </p> + <p> + The young man smiled. "But don't you like," he asked with + deference, "this slow, orderly advance of the Italian spring, + where the flowers seem to come out one by one, and every + blossom has its appointed time?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, it's very well in its way; but I prefer the rush of + the American spring; no thought of mild weather this morning; + a warm, gusty rain to-morrow night; day after to-morrow a + burst of blossoms and flowers and young leaves and birds. I + don't know whether we were made for our climate or our + climate was made for us, but its impatience and lavishness + seem to answer some inner demand of our go-ahead souls. This + happens to be the week of the peach blossoms here, and you + see their pink everywhere to-day, and you don't see anything + else in the blossom line. But imagine the American spring + abandoning a whole week of her precious time to the exclusive + use of peach blossoms! She wouldn't do it; she's got too many + other things on hand." + </p> + <p> + Effie had stretched out over Colville's lap, and with her + elbow sunk deep in his knee, was renting her chin in her hand + and taking the facts of the landscape thoroughly in. "Do they + have just a week?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "Not an hour more or less," said Colville. "If they found an + almond blossom hanging round anywhere after their time came, + they would make an awful row; and if any lazy little + peach-blow hadn't got out by the time their week was up, it + would have to stay in till next year; the pear blossoms + wouldn't let it come out." + </p> + <p> + "Wouldn't they?" murmured the child, in dreamy sympathy with + this belated peach-blow. + </p> + <p> + "Well, that's what people say. In America it would be allowed + to come out any time. It's a free country." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen offered to draw Effie back to a posture of more + decorum, but Colville put his arm round the little girl. "Oh, + let her stay! It doesn't incommode me, and she must be + getting such a novel effect of the landscape." + </p> + <p> + The mother fell back into her former attitude of jaded + passivity. He wondered whether she had changed her mind about + having him speak to Mr. Morton; her quiescence might well + have been indifference; one could have said, knowing the + whole situation, that she had made up her mind to let things + take their course, and struggle with them no longer. + </p> + <p> + He could not believe that she felt content with him; she must + feel far otherwise; and he took refuge, as he had the power + of doing, from the discomfort of his own thoughts in jesting + with the child, and mocking her with this extravagance and + that; the discomfort then became merely a dull ache that + insisted upon itself at intervals, like a grumbling tooth. + </p> + <p> + The prospect was full of that mingled wildness and + subordination that gives its supreme charm to the Italian + landscape; and without elements of great variety, it combined + them in infinite picturesqueness. There were olive orchards + and vineyards, and again vineyards and olive orchards. Closer + to the farm-houses and cottages there were peaches and other + fruit trees and kitchen-gardens; broad ribbons of grain waved + between the ranks of trees; around the white villas the + spires of the cypresses pierced the blue air. Now and then + they came to a villa with weather-beaten statues strutting + about its parterres. A mild, pleasant heat brooded upon the + fields and roofs, and the city, dropping lower and lower as + they mounted, softened and blended its towers and monuments + in a sombre mass shot with gleams of white. + </p> + <p> + Colville spoke to Imogene, who withdrew her eyes from it with + a sigh, after long brooding upon the scene. "You can do + nothing with it, I see." + </p> + <p> + "With what?" + </p> + <p> + "The landscape. It's too full of every possible interest. + What a history is written all over it, public and private! If + you don't take it simply like any other landscape, it becomes + an oppression. It's well that tourists come to Italy so + ignorant, and keep so. Otherwise they couldn't live to get + home again; the past would crush them." + </p> + <p> + Imogene scrutinised him as if to extract some personal + meaning from his words, and then turned her head away. The + clergyman addressed him with what was like a respectful + toleration of the drolleries of a gifted but eccentric man, + the flavour of whose talk he was beginning to taste. + </p> + <p> + "You don't really mean that one shouldn't come to Italy as + well informed as possible?" + </p> + <p> + "Well, I did," said Colville, "but I don't." + </p> + <p> + The young man pondered this, and Imogene started up with an + air of rescuing them from each other—as if she would + not let Mr. Morton think Colville trivial or Colville + consider the clergyman stupid, but would do what she could to + take their minds off the whole question. Perhaps she was not + very clear as to how this was to be done; at any rate she did + not speak, and Mrs. Bowen came to her support, from whatever + motive of her own. It might have been from a sense of the + injustice of letting Mr. Morton suffer from the complications + that involved herself and the others. The affair had been + going very hitchily ever since they started, with the burden + of the conversation left to the two men and that helpless + girl; if it were not to be altogether a failure she must + interfere." + </p> + <p> + "Did you ever hear of Gratiano when you were in Venice?" she + asked Mr. Morton. + </p> + <p> + "Is he one of their new water-colourists?" returned the young + man. "I heard they had quite a school there now." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Mrs. Bowen, ignoring her failure as well as she + could; "he was a famous talker; he loved to speak an infinite + deal of nothing more than any man in Venice." + </p> + <p> + "An ancestor of mine, Mr. Morton," said Colville; "a poor, + honest man, who did his best to make people forget that the + ladies were silent. Thank you, Mrs. Bowen, for mentioning + him. I wish he were with us to-day." + </p> + <p> + The young man laughed. "Oh, in the <i>Merchant of + Venice</i>!" + </p> + <p> + "No other," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I confess," said Mrs. Bowen, "that I <i>am</i> rather stupid + this morning. I suppose it's the softness of the air; it's + been harsh and irritating so long. It makes me drowsy." + </p> + <p> + "Don't mind <i>us</i>," returned Colville. "We will call you + at important points." They were driving into a village at + which people stop sometimes to admire the works of art in its + church. "Here, for example, is—What place is this?" he + asked of the coachman. + </p> + <p> + "San Domenico." + </p> + <p> + "I should know it again by its beggars." Of all ages and + sexes they swarmed round the carriage, which the driver had + instinctively slowed to oblige them, and thrust forward their + hands and hats. Colville gave Effie his small change to + distribute among them, at sight of which they streamed down + the street from every direction. Those who had received + brought forward the halt and blind, and did not scruple to + propose being rewarded for this service. At the same time + they did not mind his laughing in their faces; they laughed + too, and went off content, or as nearly so as beggars ever + are. He buttoned up his pocket as they drove on more rapidly. + "I am the only person of no principle—except + Effie—in the carriage, and yet I am at this moment + carrying more blessings out of this village than I shall ever + know what to do with. Mrs. Bowen, I know, is regarding me + with severe disapproval. She thinks that I ought to have sent + the beggars of San Domenico to Florence, where they would all + be shut up in the Pia Casa di Ricovero, and taught some + useful occupation. It's terrible in Florence. You can walk + through Florence now and have no appeal made to your better + nature that is not made at the appellant's risk of + imprisonment. When I was there before, you had opportunities + of giving at every turn." + </p> + <p> + "You can send a cheque to the Pia Casa," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Ah, but what good would that do me? When I give I want the + pleasure of it; I want to see my beneficiary cringe under my + bounty. But I've tried in vain to convince you that the world + has gone wrong in other ways. Do you remember the one-armed + man whom we used to give to on the Lung' Arno? That + persevering sufferer has been repeatedly arrested for + mendicancy, and obliged to pay a fine out of his hard + earnings to escape being sent to your Pia Casa." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen smiled, and said, Was he living yet? in a pensive + tone of reminiscence. She was even more than patient of + Colville's nonsense. It seemed to him that the light under + her eyelids was sometimes a grateful light. Confronting + Imogene and the young man whose hopes of her he was to + destroy at the first opportunity, the lurid moral atmosphere + which he breathed seemed threatening to become a thing + apparent to sense, and to be about to blot the landscape. He + fought it back as best he could, and kept the hovering cloud + from touching the earth by incessant effort. At times he + looked over the side of the carriage, and drew secretly a + long breath of fatigue. It began to be borne in upon him that + these ladies were using him ill in leaving him the burden of + their entertainment. He became angry, but his heart softened, + and he forgave them again, for he conjectured that he was the + cause of the cares that kept them silent. He felt certain + that the affair had taken some new turn. He wondered if Mrs. + Bowen had told Imogene what she had demanded of him. But he + could only conjecture and wonder in the dreary undercurrent + of thought that flowed evenly and darkly on with the talk he + kept going. He made the most he could of the varying views of + Florence which the turns and mounting levels of the road gave + him. He became affectionately grateful to the young clergyman + when he replied promptly and fully, and took an interest in + the objects or subjects he brought up. + </p> + <p> + Neither Mrs. Bowen nor Imogene was altogether silent. The one + helped on at times wearily, and the other broke at times from + her abstraction. Doubtless the girl had undertaken too much + in insisting upon a party of pleasure with her mind full of + so many things, and doubtless Mrs. Bowen was sore with a + rankling resentment at her insistence, and vexed at herself + for having yielded to it. If at her time of life and with all + her experience of it, she could not rise under this inner + load, Imogene must have been crushed by it. + </p> + <p> + Her starts from the dreamy oppression, if that were what kept + her silent, took the form of aggression, when she disagreed + with Colville about things he was saying, or attacked him for + this or that thing which he had said in times past. It was an + unhappy and unamiable self-assertion, which he was not able + to compassionate so much when she resisted or defied Mrs. + Bowen, as she seemed seeking to do at every point. Perhaps + another would not have felt it so; it must have been largely + in his consciousness; the young clergyman seemed not to see + anything in these bursts but the indulgence of a gay caprice, + though his laughing at them did not alleviate the effect to + Colville, who, when he turned to Mrs. Bowen for her alliance, + was astonished with a prompt snub, unmistakable to himself, + however imperceptible to others. + </p> + <p> + He found what diversion and comfort he could in the party of + children who beset them at a point near the town, and + followed the carriage, trying to sell them various light and + useless trifles made of straw—fans, baskets, parasols, + and the like. He bought recklessly of them and gave them to + Effie, whom he assured, without the applause of the ladies, + and with the grave question of the young clergyman, that the + vendors were little Etruscan girls, all at least twenty-five + hundred years old. "It's very hard to find any Etruscans + under that age; most of the grown-up people are three + thousand." + </p> + <p> + The child humoured his extravagance with the faith in fable + which children are able to command, and said, "Oh, tell me + about them!" while she pushed up closer to him, and began to + admire her presents, holding them up before her, and dwelling + fondly upon them one by one. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there's very little to tell," answered Colville. + "They're mighty close people, and always keep themselves very + much <i>to</i> themselves. But wouldn't you like to see a + party of Etruscans of all ages, even down to little babies + only eleven or twelve hundred years old, come driving into an + American town? It would make a great excitement, wouldn't + it?" + </p> + <p> + "It would be splendid." + </p> + <p> + "Yes; we would give them a collation in the basement of the + City Hall, and drive them out to the cemetery. The Americans + and Etruscans are very much alike in that—they always + show you their tombs." + </p> + <p> + "Will they in Fiesole?" + </p> + <p> + "How you always like to burrow into the past!" interrupted + Imogene. + </p> + <p> + "Well, it's rather difficult burrowing into the future," + returned Colville defensively. Accepting the challenge, he + added: "Yes, I should really like to meet a few Etruscans in + Fiesole this morning. I should feel as if I'd got amongst my + contemporaries at last; they would understand me." + </p> + <p> + The girl's face flushed. "Then no one else can understand + you?" + </p> + <p> + "Apparently not. I am the great American <i>incompris</i>." + </p> + <p> + "I'm sorry for you," she returned feebly; and, in fact, + sarcasm was not her strong point. + </p> + <p> + When they entered the town they found the Etruscans + preoccupied with other visitors, whom at various points in + the quaint little piazza they surrounded in dense groups, to + their own disadvantage as guides and beggars and dealers in + straw goods. One of the groups reluctantly dispersed to + devote itself to the new arrivals, and these then perceived + that it was a party of artists, scattered about and + sketching, which had absorbed the attention of the + population. Colville went to the restaurant to order lunch, + leaving the ladies to the care of Mr. Morton. When he came + back he found the carriage surrounded by the artists, who had + turned out to be the Inglehart boys. They had walked up to + Fiesole the afternoon before, and they had been sketching + there all the morning. With the artist's indifference to the + conventional objects of interest, they were still ignorant of + what ought to be seen in Fiesole by tourists, and they + accepted Colville's proposition to be of his party in going + the rounds of the Cathedral, the Museum, and the view from + that point of the wall called the Belvedere. They found that + they had been at the Belvedere before without knowing that it + merited particular recognition, and some of them had made + sketches from it—of bits of architecture and landscape, + and of figure amongst the women with straw fans and baskets + to sell, who thronged round the whole party again, and + interrupted the prospect. In the church they differed amongst + themselves as to the best bits for study, and Colville + listened in whimsical despair to the enthusiasm of their + likings and dislikings. All that was so far from him now; but + in the Museum, which had only a thin interest based upon a + small collection of art and archeology, he suffered a real + affliction in the presence of a young Italian couple, who + were probably plighted lovers. They went before a grey-haired + pair, who might have been the girl's father and mother, and + they looked at none of the objects, though they regularly + stopped before them and waited till their guide had said his + say about them. The girl, clinging tight to the young man's + arm, knew nothing but him; her mouth and eyes were set in a + passionate concentration of her being upon him, and he seemed + to walk in a dream of her. From time to time they peered upon + each other's faces, and then they paused, rapt and + indifferent to all besides. + </p> + <p> + The young painters had their jokes about it; even Mr. Morton + smiled, and Mrs. Bowen recognised it. But Imogene did not + smile; she regarded the lovers with an interest in them + scarcely less intense than their interest in each other; and + a cold perspiration of question broke out on Colville's + forehead. Was that her ideal of what her own engagement + should be? Had she expected him to behave in that way to her, + and to accept from her a devotion like that girl's? How + bitterly he must have disappointed her! It was so impossible + to him that the thought of it made him feel that he must + break all ties which bound him to anything like it. And yet + he reflected that the time was when he could have been equal + to that, and even more. + </p> + <p> + After lunch the painters joined them again, and they all went + together to visit the ruins of the Roman theatre and the + stretch of Etruscan wall beyond it. The former seems older + than the latter, whose huge blocks of stone lie as firmly and + evenly in their courses as if placed there a year ago; the + turf creeps to the edge at top, and some small trees nod + along the crest of the wall, whose ancient face, clean and + bare, looks sternly out over a vast prospect, now young and + smiling in the first delight of spring. The piety or interest + of the community, which guards the entrance to the theatre by + a fee of certain centesimi, may be concerned in keeping the + wall free from the grass and vines which are stealing the + half-excavated arena back to forgetfulness and decay; but + whatever agency it was, it weakened the appeal that the wall + made to the sympathy of the spectators. + </p> + <p> + They could do nothing with it; the artists did not take their + sketch-blocks from their pockets. But in the theatre, where a + few broken columns marked the place of the stage, and the + stone benches of the auditorium were here and there reached + by a flight of uncovered steps, the human interest returned. + </p> + <p> + "I suspect that there is such a thing as a ruin's being too + old," said Colville. "Our Etruscan friends made the mistake + of building their wall several thousand years too soon for + our purpose." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," consented the young clergyman. "It seems as if our own + race became alienated from us through the mere effect of + time, don't you think, sir? I mean, of course, + terrestrially." + </p> + <p> + The artists looked uneasy, as if they had not counted upon + anything of this kind, and they began to scatter about for + points of view. Effie got her mother's leave to run up and + down one of the stairways, if she would not fall. Mrs. Bowen + sat down on one of the lower steps, and Mr. Morton took his + place respectfully near her. + </p> + <p> + "I wonder how it looks from the top?" Imogene asked this of + Colville, with more meaning than seemed to belong to the + question properly. + </p> + <p> + "There is nothing like going to see," he suggested. He helped + her up, giving her his hand from one course of seats to + another. When they reached the point which commanded the best + view of the whole, she sat down, and he sank at her feet, but + they did not speak of the view. + </p> + <p> + "Theodore, I want to tell you something," she said abruptly. + "I have heard from home." + </p> + <p> + "Yes?" he replied, in a tone in which he did his best to + express a readiness for any fate. + </p> + <p> + "Mother has telegraphed. She is coming out. She is on her way + now. She will be here very soon." + </p> + <p> + Colville did not know exactly what to say to these + passionately consecutive statements. "Well?" he said at last. + </p> + <p> + "Well"—she repeated his word—"what do you intend + to do?" + </p> + <p> + "Intend to do in what event?" he asked, lifting his eyes for + the first time to the eyes which he felt burning down upon + him. + </p> + <p> + "If she should refuse?" + </p> + <p> + Again he could not command an instant answer, but when it + came it was a fair one. "It isn't for me to say what I shall + do," he replied gravely. "Or, if it is, I can only say that I + will do whatever you wish." + </p> + <p> + "Do <i>you</i> wish nothing?" + </p> + <p> + "Nothing but your happiness." + </p> + <p> + "Nothing but my happiness!" she retorted. "What is my + happiness to me? Have I ever sought it?" + </p> + <p> + "I can't say," he answered; "but if I did not think you would + find it—" + </p> + <p> + "I shall find it, if ever I find it, in yours," she + interrupted. "And what shall you do if my mother will not + consent to our engagement?" + </p> + <p> + The experienced and sophisticated man—for that in no + ill way was what Colville was—felt himself on trial for + his honour and his manhood by this simple girl, this child. + He could not endure to fall short of her ideal of him at that + moment, no matter what error or calamity the fulfilment + involved. "If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, it + will make no difference to me what your mother says. I would + be glad of her consent; I should hate to go counter to her + will; but I know that I am good enough man to be true and + keep you all my life the first in all my thoughts, and that's + enough for me. But if you have any fear, any doubt of + yourself, now is the time—" + </p> + <p> + Imogene rose to her feet as in some turmoil of thought or + emotion that would not suffer her to remain quiet. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, keep still!" "Don't get up yet!" "Hold on a minute, + please!" came from the artists in different parts of the + theatre, and half a dozen imploring pencils were waved in the + air. + </p> + <p> + "They are sketching you," said Colville, and she sank + compliantly into her seat again. + </p> + <p> + "I have no doubt for myself—no," she said, as if there + had been no interruption. + </p> + <p> + "Then we need have no anxiety in meeting your mother," said + Colville, with a light sigh, after a moment's pause. "What + makes you think she will be unfavourable?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't think that; but I thought—I didn't know + but—" + </p> + <p> + "What?" + </p> + <p> + "Nothing, now." Her lips were quivering; he could see her + struggle for self-control, but he could not see it unmoved. + </p> + <p> + "Poor child!" he said, putting out his hand toward her. + </p> + <p> + "Don't take my hand; they're all looking," she begged. + </p> + <p> + He forbore, and they remained silent and motionless a little + while, before she had recovered herself sufficiently to speak + again. + </p> + <p> + "Then we are promised to each other, whatever happens," she + said. + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "And we will never speak of this again. But there is one + thing. Did Mrs. Bowen ask you to tell Mr. Morton of our + engagement?" + </p> + <p> + "She said that I ought to do so." + </p> + <p> + "And did you say you would?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. But I suppose I ought to tell him." + </p> + <p> + "I don't wish you to!" cried the girl. + </p> + <p> + "You don't wish me to tell him?" + </p> + <p> + "No; I will not have it!" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very well; it's much easier not. But it seems to me that + it's only fair to him." + </p> + <p> + "Did you think of that yourself?" she demanded fiercely. + </p> + <p> + "No," returned Colville, with sad self-recognition. "I'm + afraid I'm not apt to think of the comforts and rights of + other people. It was Mrs. Bowen who thought of it." + </p> + <p> + "I knew it!" + </p> + <p> + "But I must confess that I agreed with her, though I would + have preferred to postpone it till we heard from your + family." He was thoughtfully silent a moment; then he said, + "But if their decision is to have no weight with us, I think + he ought to be told at once." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think that I am flirting with him?" + </p> + <p> + "Imogene!" exclaimed Colville reproachfully. + </p> + <p> + "That's what you imply; that's what she implies." + </p> + <p> + "You're very unjust to Mrs. Bowen, Imogene." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you always defend her! It isn't the first time you've + told me I was unjust to her." + </p> + <p> + "I don't mean that you are willingly unjust, or could be so, + to any living creature, least of all to her. But + I—we—owe her so much; she has been so patient." + </p> + <p> + "What do we owe her? How has she been patient?" + </p> + <p> + "She has overcome her dislike to me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, indeed!" + </p> + <p> + "And—and I feel under obligation to her for—in a + thousand little ways; and I should be glad to feel that we + were acting with her approval; I should like to please her." + </p> + <p> + "You wish to tell Mr. Morton?" + </p> + <p> + "I think I ought." + </p> + <p> + "To please Mrs. Bowen! Tell him, then! You always cared more + to please her than me. Perhaps you stayed in Florence to + please her!" + </p> + <p> + She rose and ran down the broken seats and ruined steps so + recklessly and yet so sure-footedly that it seemed more like + a flight than a pace to the place where Mrs. Bowen and Mr. + Morton were talking together. + </p> + <p> + Colville followed as he could, slowly and with a heavy heart. + A good thing develops itself in infinite and unexpected + shapes of good; a bad thing into manifold and astounding + evils. This mistake was whirling away beyond his recall in + hopeless mazes of error. He saw this generous young spirit + betrayed by it to ignoble and unworthy excess, and he knew + that he and not she was to blame. + </p> + <p> + He was helpless to approach her, to speak with her, to set + her right, great as the need of that was, and he could see + that she avoided him. But their relations remained outwardly + undisturbed. The artists brought their sketches for + inspection and comment, and, without speaking to each other, + he and Imogene discussed them with the rest. + </p> + <p> + When they started homeward the painters said they were coming + a little way with them for a send-off, and then going back to + spend the night in Fiesole. They walked beside the carriage, + talking with Mrs. Bowen and Imogene, who had taken their + places, with Effie between them, on the back seat; and when + they took their leave, Colville and the young clergyman, who + had politely walked with them, continued on foot a little + further, till they came to the place where the highway to + Florence divided into the new road and the old. At this point + it steeply overtops the fields on one side, which is shored + up by a wall some ten or twelve feet deep; and here round a + sharp turn of the hill on the other side came a peasant + driving a herd of the black pigs of the country. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen's horses were, perhaps, pampered beyond the + habitual resignation of Florentine horses to all manner of + natural phenomena; they reared at sight of the sable crew, + and backing violently uphill, set the carriage across the + road, with its hind wheels a few feet from the brink of the + wall. The coachman sprang from his seat, the ladies and the + child remained in theirs as if paralysed. + </p> + <p> + Colville ran forward to the side of the carriage. "Jump, Mrs. + Bowen! jump, Effie! Imogene—" + </p> + <p> + The mother and the little one obeyed. He caught them in his + arms and set them down. The girl sat still, staring at him + with reproachful, with disdainful eyes. + </p> + <p> + He leaped forward to drag her out; she shrank away, and then + he flew to help the coachman, who had the maddened horses by + the bit. + </p> + <p> + "Let go!" he heard the young clergyman calling to him; "she's + safe!" He caught a glimpse of Imogene, whom Mr. Morton had + pulled from the other side of the carriage. He struggled to + free his wrist from the curb-bit chain of the horse, through + which he had plunged it in his attempt to seize the bridle. + The wheels of the carriage went over the wall; he felt + himself whirled into the air, and then swung ruining down + into the writhing and crashing heap at the bottom of the + wall. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XXI"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XXI + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + When Colville came to himself his first sensation was delight + in the softness and smoothness of the turf on which he lay. + Then the strange colour of the grass commended itself to his + notice, and presently he perceived that the thing under his + head was a pillow, and that he was in bed. He was supported + in this conclusion by the opinion of the young man who sat + watching him a little way off, and who now smiled cheerfully + at the expression in the eyes which Colville turned + inquiringly upon him. + </p> + <p> + "Where am I?" he asked, with what appeared to him very + unnecessary feebleness of voice. + </p> + <p> + The young man begged his pardon in Italian, and when Colville + repeated his question in that tongue, he told him that he was + in Palazzo Pinti, whither he had been brought from the scene + of his accident. He added that Colville must not talk till + the doctor had seen him and given him leave, and he explained + that he was himself a nurse from the hospital, who had been + taking care of him. + </p> + <p> + Colville moved his head and felt the bandage upon it; he + desisted in his attempt to lift his right arm to it before + the attendant could interfere in behalf of the broken limb. + He recalled dimly and fragmentarily long histories that he + had dreamed, but he forbore to ask how long he had been in + his present case, and he accepted patiently the apparition of + the doctor and other persons who came and went, and were at + his bedside or not there, as it seemed to him, between the + opening and closing of an eye. As the days passed they + acquired greater permanence and maintained a more + uninterrupted identity. He was able to make quite sure of Mr. + Morton and of Mr. Waters; Mrs. Bowen came in, leading Effie, + and this gave him a great pleasure. Mrs. Bowen seemed to have + grown younger and better. Imogene was not among the phantoms + who visited him; and he accepted her absence as quiescently + as he accepted the presence of the others. There was a + cheerfulness in those who came that permitted him no anxiety, + and he was too weak to invite it by any conjecture. He + consented to be spared and to spare himself; and there were + some things about the affair which gave him a singular and + perhaps not wholly sane content. One of these was the man + nurse who had evidently taken care of him throughout. He + celebrated, whenever he looked at this capable person, his + escape from being, in the odious helplessness of sickness, a + burden upon the strength and sympathy of the two women for + whom he had otherwise made so much trouble. His satisfaction + in this had much to do with his recovery, which, when it once + began, progressed rapidly to a point where he was told that + Imogene and her mother were at a hotel in Florence, waiting + till he should be strong enough to see them. It was Mrs. + Bowen who told him this with an air which she visibly strove + to render non-committal and impersonal, but which betrayed, + nevertheless, a faint apprehension for the effect upon him. + The attitude of Imogene and her mother was certainly not one + to have been expected of people holding their nominal + relation to him, but Colville had been revising his + impressions of events on the day of his accident; Imogene's + last look came back to him, and he could not think the + situation altogether unaccountable. + </p> + <p> + "Have I been here a long time?" he asked, as if he had not + heeded what she told him. + </p> + <p> + "About a fortnight," answered Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "And Imogene—how long has she been away?" + </p> + <p> + "Since they knew you would get well." + </p> + <p> + "I will see them any time," he said quietly. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think you are strong enough?" + </p> + <p> + "I shall never be stronger till I have seen them," he + returned, with a glance at her. "Yes; I want them to come + to-day. I shall not be excited; don't be troubled—if + you were going to be," he added. "Please send to them at + once." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen hesitated, but after a moment left the room. She + returned in half an hour with a lady who revealed even to + Colville's languid regard evidences of the character which + Mrs. Bowen had attributed to Imogene's mother. She was a + large, robust person, laced to sufficient shapeliness, and + she was well and simply dressed. She entered the room with a + waft of some clean, wholesome perfume, and a quiet + temperament and perfect health looked out of her clear, + honest eyes—the eyes of Imogene Graham, though the + girl's were dark and the woman's were blue. When Mrs. Bowen + had named them to each other, in withdrawing, Mrs. Graham + took Colville's weak left hand in her fresh, strong, right, + and then lifted herself a chair to his bedside, and sat down. + </p> + <p> + "How do you do to-day, sir?" she said, with a touch of + old-fashioned respectfulness in the last word. "Do you think + you are quite strong enough to talk with me?" + </p> + <p> + "I think so," said Colville, with a faint smile. "At least I + can listen with fortitude." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Graham was not apparently a person adapted to joking. "I + don't know whether it will require much fortitude to hear + what I have to say or not," she said, with her keen gaze + fixed upon him. "It's simply this: I am going to take Imogene + home." + </p> + <p> + She seemed to expect that Colville would make some reply to + this, and he said blankly, "Yes?" + </p> + <p> + "I came out prepared to consent to what she wished, after I + had seen you, and satisfied myself that she was not mistaken; + for I had always promised myself that her choice should be + perfectly untrammelled, and I have tried to bring her up with + principles and ideas that would enable her to make a good + choice." + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Colville again. "I'm afraid you didn't take her + temperament and her youth into account, and that she + disappointed you." + </p> + <p> + "No; I can't say that she did. It isn't that at all. I see no + reason to blame her for her choice. Her mistake was of + another kind." + </p> + <p> + It appeared to Colville that this very sensible and judicial + lady found an intellectual pleasure in the analysis of the + case, which modified the intensity of her maternal feeling in + regard to it, and that, like many people who talk well, she + liked to hear herself talk in the presence of another + appreciative listener. He did not offer to interrupt her, and + she went on. "No, sir, I am not disappointed in her choice. I + think her chances of happiness would have been greater, in + the abstract, with one nearer her own age; but that is a + difference which other things affect so much that it did not + alarm me greatly. Some people are younger at your age than at + hers. No, sir, that is not the point." Mrs. Graham fetched a + sigh, as if she found it easier to say what was not the point + than to say what was, and her clear gaze grew troubled. But + she apparently girded herself for the struggle. "As far as + you are concerned, Mr. Colville, I have not a word to say. + Your conduct throughout has been most high-minded and + considerate and delicate." + </p> + <p> + It is hard for any man to deny merits attributed to him, + especially if he has been ascribing to himself the opposite + demerits. But Colville summoned his dispersed forces to + protest against this. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, no, no," he cried. "Anything but that. My conduct has + been selfish and shameful. If you could understand + all—" + </p> + <p> + "I think I do understand all—at least far more, I + regret to say, than my daughter has been willing to tell me. + And I am more than satisfied with you. I thank you and honour + you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; don't say that," pleaded Colville. "I really can't + stand it." + </p> + <p> + "And when I came here it was with the full intention of + approving and confirming Imogene's decision. But I was met at + once by a painful and surprising state of things. You are + aware that you have been very sick?" + </p> + <p> + "Dimly," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + "I found you very sick, and I found my daughter frantic at + the error which she had discovered in + herself—discovered too late, as she felt." Mrs. Graham + hesitated, and then added abruptly, "She had found out that + she did not love you." + </p> + <p> + "Didn't love me?" repeated Colville feebly. + </p> + <p> + "She had been conscious of the truth before, but she had + stifled her misgivings insanely, and, as I feel, almost + wickedly, pushing on, and saying to herself that when you + were married, then there would be no escape, and she + <i>must</i> love you." + </p> + <p> + "Poor girl! poor child! I see, I see." + </p> + <p> + "But the accident that was almost your death saved her from + that miserable folly and iniquity. Yes," she continued, in + answer to the protest in his face, "folly and iniquity. I + found her half crazed at your bedside. She was fully aware of + your danger, but while she was feeling all the remorse that + she ought to feel—that any one could feel—she was + more and more convinced that she never had loved you and + never should. I can give you no idea of her state of mind." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you needn't! you needn't! Poor, poor child!" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, a child indeed. If it had not been for the pity I felt + for her—But no matter about that. She saw at last that + if your heroic devotion to her"—Colville did his best + to hang his pillowed head for shame—"if your present + danger did not awaken her to some such feeling for you as she + had once imagined she had; if they both only increased her + despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed + hopeless. She was simply distracted. I had to tear her away + almost by force. She has had a narrow escape from + brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to + <i>demand</i>"—Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and + calm, was rising to the hysterical key—"her release + from a fate that would be worse than death for such a girl. I + mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. She esteems + you, she respects you, she admires you, she likes you; + but—" Mrs. Graham pressed her lips together, and her + eyes shone. + </p> + <p> + "She is free," said Colville, and with the words a mighty + load rolled from his heart. "There is no need to demand + anything." + </p> + <p> + "I know." + </p> + <p> + "There hasn't been an hour, an instant, during—since + I—we—spoke together that I wouldn't have released + her if I could have known what you tell me now." + </p> + <p> + "Of course!—of course!" + </p> + <p> + "I have had my fears—my doubts; but whenever I + approached the point I found no avenue by which we could + reach a clearer understanding. I could not say much without + seeming to seek for myself the release I was offering her." + </p> + <p> + "Naturally. And what added to her wretchedness was the + suspicion at the bottom of all that she had somehow forced + herself upon you—misunderstood you, and made you say + and do things to spare her that you would not have done + voluntarily." This was advanced tentatively. In the midst of + his sophistications Colville had, as most of his sex have, a + native, fatal, helpless truthfulness, which betrayed him at + the most unexpected moments, and this must now have appeared + in his countenance. The lady rose haughtily. She had + apparently been considering him, but, after all, she must + have been really considering her daughter. "If anything of + the kind was the case," she said, "I will ask you to spare + her the killing knowledge. It's quite enough for <i>me</i> to + know it. And allow me to say, Mr. Colville, that it would + have been far kinder in you—" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, <i>think,</i> my dear madam!" he exclaimed. "How + <i>could</i> I?" + </p> + <p> + She did think, evidently, and when she spoke it was with a + generous emotion, in which there was no trace of pique. + </p> + <p> + "You couldn't. You have done right; I feel that, and I will + trust you to say anything you will to my daughter." + </p> + <p> + "To your daughter? Shall I see her?" + </p> + <p> + "She came with me. She wished to beg your forgiveness." + </p> + <p> + Colville lay silent. "There is no forgiveness to be asked or + granted," he said, at length. "Why should she suffer the pain + of seeing me?—for it would be nothing else. What do you + think? Will it do her any good hereafter? I don't care for + myself." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know what to think," said Mrs. Graham. "She is a + strange child. She may have some idea of reparation." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, beseech her from me not to imagine that any reparation + is due! Where there has been an error there must be blame; + but wherever it lies in ours, I am sure it isn't at her door. + Tell her I say this; tell her that I acquit her with all my + heart of every shadow of wrong; that I am not unhappy, but + glad for her sake and my own that this has ended as it has." + He stretched his left hand across the coverlet to her, and + said, with the feebleness of exhaustion, "Good-bye. Bid her + good-bye for me." + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Graham pressed his hand and went out. A moment after the + door was flung open, and Imogene burst into the room. She + threw herself on her knees beside his bed. "I will + <i>pray</i> to you!" she said, her face intense with the + passions working in her soul. She seemed choking with words + which would not come; then, with an inarticulate cry that + must stand for all, she caught up the hand that lay limp on + the coverlet; she crushed it against her lips, and ran out of + the room. + </p> + <p> + He sank into a deathly torpor, the physical refusal of his + brain to take account of what had passed. When he woke from + it, little Effie Bowen was airily tiptoeing about the room, + fondly retouching its perfect order. He closed his eyes, and + felt her come to him and smooth the sheet softly under his + chin. Then he knew she must be standing with clasped hands + admiring the effect. Some one called her in whisper from the + door. It closed, and all was still again. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XXII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XXII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Colville got himself out of the comfort and quiet of Mrs. + Bowen's house as soon as he could. He made the more haste + because he felt that if he could have remained with the + smallest trace of self-respect, he would have been glad to + stay there for ever. + </p> + <p> + Even as it was, the spring had advanced to early summer, and + the sun was lying hot and bright in the piazzas, and the + shade dense and cool in the narrow streets, before he left + Palazzo Pinti; the Lung' Arno was a glare of light that + struck back from the curving line of the buff houses; the + river had shrivelled to a rill in its bed; the black + cypresses were dim in the tremor of the distant air on the + hill-slopes beyond; the olives seemed to swelter in the sun, + and the villa walls to burn whiter and whiter. At evening the + mosquito began to wind his tiny horn. It was the end of May, + and nearly everybody but the Florentines had gone out of + Florence, dispersing to Villa Reggio by the sea, to the hills + of Pistoja, and to the high, cool air of Siena. More than + once Colville had said that he was keeping Mrs. Bowen after + she ought to have got away, and she had answered that she + liked hot weather, and that this was not comparable to the + heat of Washington in June. She was looking very well, and + younger and prettier than she had since the first days of + their renewed acquaintance in the winter. Her southern + complexion enriched itself in the sun; sometimes when she + came into his room from outdoors the straying brown hair + curled into loose rings on her temples, and her cheeks glowed + a deep red. + </p> + <p> + She said those polite things to appease him as long as he was + not well enough to go away, but she did not try to detain him + after his strength sufficiently returned. It was the blow on + the head that kept him longest. After his broken arm and his + other bruises were quite healed, he was aware of physical + limits to thinking of the future or regretting the past, and + this sense of his powerlessness went far to reconcile him to + a life of present inaction and oblivion. Theoretically he + ought to have been devoured by remorse and chagrin, but as a + matter of fact he suffered very little from either. Even in + people who are in full possession of their capacity for + mental anguish one observes that after they have undergone a + certain amount of pain they cease to feel. + </p> + <p> + Colville amused himself a good deal with Effie's endeavours + to entertain him and take care of him. The child was with him + every moment that she could steal from her tasks, and her + mother no longer attempted to stem the tide of her devotion. + It was understood that Effie should joke and laugh with Mr. + Colville as much as she chose; that she should fan him as + long as he could stand it; that she should read to him when + he woke, and watch him when he slept. She brought him his + breakfast, she petted him and caressed him, and wished to + make him a monster of dependence and self-indulgence. It + seemed to grieve her that he got well so fast. + </p> + <p> + The last night before he left the house she sat on his knee + by the window looking out beyond the firefly twinkle of + Oltrarno, to the silence and solid dark of the solemn company + of hills beyond. They had not lighted the lamps because of + the mosquitoes, and they had talked till her head dropped + against his shoulder. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen came in to get her. "Why, is she asleep?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes. Don't take her yet," said Colville. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rustled softly into the chair which Effie had left + to get into Colville's lap. Neither of them spoke, and he was + so richly content with the peace, the tacit sweetness of the + little moment, that he would have been glad to have it + silently endure forever. If any troublesome question of his + right to such a moment of bliss obtruded itself upon him, he + did not concern himself with it. + </p> + <p> + "We shall have another hot day to-morrow," said Mrs. Bowen at + length. "I hope you will find your room comfortable." + </p> + <p> + "Yes: it's at the back of the hotel, mighty high, and wide, + and no sun ever comes into it except when they show it to + foreigners in winter. Then they get a few rays to enter as a + matter of business, on condition that they won't detain them. + I dare say I shall stay there some time. I suppose you will + be getting away from Florence very soon. + </p> + <p> + "Yes. But I haven't decided where to go yet." + </p> + <p> + "Should you like some general expression of my gratitude for + all you've done for me, Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "No; I would rather not. It has been a great + pleasure—to Effie." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, a luxury beyond the dreams of avarice." They spoke in + low tones, and there was something in the hush that suggested + to Colville the feasibility of taking into his unoccupied + hand one of the pretty hands which the pale night-light + showed him lying in Mrs. Bowen's lap. But he forbore, and + only sighed. "Well, then, I will say nothing. But I shall + keep on thinking all my life." + </p> + <p> + She made no answer. + </p> + <p> + "When you are gone, I shall have to make the most of Mr. + Waters," he said. + </p> + <p> + "He is going to stop all summer, I believe." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes. When I suggested to him the other day that he might + find it too hot, he said that he had seventy New England + winters to thaw out of his blood, and that all the summers he + had left would not be more than he needed. One of his friends + told him that he could cook eggs in his piazza in August, and + he said that he should like nothing better than to cook eggs + there. He's the most delightfully expatriated compatriot I've + ever seen." + </p> + <p> + "Do you like it?" + </p> + <p> + "It's well enough for him. Life has no claims on him any + more. I think it's very pleasant over here, now that + everybody's gone," added Colville, from a confused + resentfulness of collectively remembered Days and Afternoons + and Evenings. "How still the night is!" + </p> + <p> + A few feet clapping by on the pavement below alone broke the + hush. + </p> + <p> + "Sometimes I feel very tired of it all, and want to get + home," sighed Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Well, so do I." + </p> + <p> + "I can't believe it's right staying away from the country so + long." People often say such things in Europe. + </p> + <p> + "No, I don't either, if you've got anything to do there." + </p> + <p> + "You can always make something to do there." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes." Some young young men, breaking from a street near + by, began to sing. "We shouldn't have that sort of thing at + home." + </p> + <p> + "No," said Mrs. Bowen pensively. + </p> + <p> + "I heard just such singing before I fell asleep the night + after that party at Madame Uccelli's, and it filled me with + fury." + </p> + <p> + "Why should it do that?" + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. It seemed like voices from our + youth—Lina." + </p> + <p> + She had no resentment of his use of her name in the tone with + which she asked: "Did you hate that so much?" + </p> + <p> + "No; the loss of it." + </p> + <p> + They both fetched a deep breath. + </p> + <p> + "The Uccellis have a villa near the baths of Lucca," said + Mrs. Bowen. "They have asked me to go." + </p> + <p> + "Do you think of going?" inquired Colville. "I've always + fancied it must be pleasant there." + </p> + <p> + "No; I declined. Sometimes I think I will just stay on in + Florence." + </p> + <p> + "I dare say you'd find it perfectly comfortable. There's + nothing like having the range of one's own house in summer." + He looked out of the window on the blue-black sky. + </p> + <p> + "'And deepening through their silent + spheres,<br> + Heaven over heaven rose the night,'" + </p> + <p><br> + he quoted. "It's wonderful! Do you remember how I used to + read <i>Mariana in the South</i> to you and poor Jenny? How + it must have bored her! What an ass I was!" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said Mrs. Bowen breathlessly, in sympathy with his + reminiscence rather than in agreement with his + self-denunciation. + </p> + <p> + Colville broke into a laugh, and then she began to laugh to; + but not quite willingly as it seemed. + </p> + <p> + Effie started from her sleep. "What—what is it?" she + asked, stretching and shivering as half-wakened children do. + </p> + <p> + "Bed-time," said her mother promptly, taking her hand to lead + her away. "Say good-night to Mr. Colville." + </p> + <p> + The child turned and kissed him. "Good night," she murmured. + </p> + <p> + "Good night, you sleepy little soul!" It seemed to Colville + that he must be a pretty good man, after all, if this little + thing loved him so. + </p> + <p> + "Do you always kiss Mr. Colville good-night?" asked her + mother when she began to undo her hair for her in her room. + </p> + <p> + "Sometimes. Don't you think it's nice?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes; nice enough." + </p> + <p> + Colville sat by the window a long time thinking Mrs. Bowen + might come back; but she did not return. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Waters came to see him the next afternoon at his hotel. + </p> + <p> + "Are you pretty comfortable here?" he asked. + </p> + <p> + "Well, it's a change," said Colville. "I miss the little one + awfully." + </p> + <p> + "She's a winning child," admitted the old man. "That + combination of conventionality and <i>naïveté</i> + is very captivating. I notice it in the mother." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, the mother has it too. Have you seen them to-day?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; Mrs. Bowen was sorry to be out when you came." + </p> + <p> + "I had the misfortune to miss them. I had a great mind to go + again to-night." + </p> + <p> + The old man said nothing to this. "The fact is," Colville + went on, "I'm so habituated to being there that I'm rather + spoiled." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, it's a nice place," Mr. Waters admitted. + </p> + <p> + "Of course I made all the haste I could to get away, and I + have the reward of a good conscience. But I don't find that + the reward is very great." + </p> + <p> + The old gentleman smiled. "The difficulty is to know + conscience from self-interest." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, there's no doubt of it in my case," said Colville. "If + I'd consulted my own comfort and advantage, I should still be + at Palazzo Pinti." + </p> + <p> + "I dare say they would have been glad to keep you." + </p> + <p> + "Do you really think so?" asked Colville, with sudden + seriousness. "I wish you would tell me why. Have you any + reason—grounds? Pshaw! I'm absurd!" He sank back into + the easy-chair from whose depths he had pulled himself in the + eagerness of his demand, and wiped his forehead with his + handkerchief. "Mr. Waters, you remember my telling you of my + engagement to Miss Graham?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes." + </p> + <p> + "That is broken off—if it were ever really on. It was a + great mistake for both of us—a tragical one for her, + poor child, a ridiculous one for me. My only consolation is + that it was a mistake and no more; but I don't conceal from + myself that I might have prevented it altogether if I had + behaved with greater wisdom and dignity at the outset. But + I'm afraid I was flattered by an illusion of hers that ought + to have pained and alarmed me, and the rest followed + inevitably, though I was always just on the point of escaping + the consequences of my weakness—my wickedness." + </p> + <p> + "Ah, there is something extremely interesting in all that," + said the old minister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be + figured under the old idea of a compact with the devil. His + debtor was always on the point of escaping, as you say, but I + recollect no instance in which he did not pay at last. The + myth must have arisen from man's recognition of the + inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, + which even repentance cannot avert. Goethe tries to imagine + an atonement for Faust's trespass against one human soul in + his benefactions to the race at large; but it is a very + cloudy business." + </p> + <p> + "It isn't quite a parallel case," said Colville, rather + sulkily. He had, in fact, suffered more under Mr. Waters's + generalisation than he could from a more personal philosophy + of the affair. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; I didn't think that," consented the old man. + </p> + <p> + "And I don't think I shall undertake any extended scheme of + drainage or subsoiling in atonement for my little dream," + Colville continued, resenting the parity of outline that grew + upon him in spite of his protest. They were both silent for a + while, and then Colville cried out, "Yes, yes; they are + alike. <i>I</i> dreamed, too, of recovering and restoring my + own lost and broken past in the love of a young soul, and it + was in essence the same cruelly egotistic dream; and it's + nothing in my defence that it was all formless and undirected + at first, and that as soon as I recognised it I abhorred it." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes, it is," replied the old man, with perfect + equanimity. "Your assertion is the hysterical excess of + Puritanism in all times and places. In the moral world we are + responsible only for the wrong that we intend. It can't he + otherwise." + </p> + <p> + "And the evil that's suffered from the wrong we didn't + intend?" + </p> + <p> + "Ah, perhaps that isn't evil." + </p> + <p> + "It's pain!" + </p> + <p> + "It's pain, yes." + </p> + <p> + "And to have wrung a young and innocent heart with the + anguish of self-doubt, with the fear of wrong to another, + with the shame of an error such as I allowed, perhaps + encouraged her to make—" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," said the old man. "The young suffer terribly. But they + recover. Afterward we don't suffer so much, but we don't + recover. I wouldn't defend you against yourself if I thought + you seriously in the wrong. If you know yourself to be, you + shouldn't let me." + </p> + <p> + Thus put upon his honour, Colville was a long time + thoughtful. "How can I tell?" he asked. "You know the facts; + you can judge." + </p> + <p> + "If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to + do a greater wrong than any you have committed." + </p> + <p> + "I don't understand you." + </p> + <p> + "Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the + young clergyman—what was his name?" + </p> + <p> + "Morton. Do you think—do you suppose there was anything + in that?" demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more + humorous observer than Mr. Waters might have found ludicrous. + "He was an admirable young fellow, with an excellent head and + a noble heart. I underrated him at one time, though I + recognised his good qualities afterward; but I was afraid she + did not appreciate him." + </p> + <p> + "I'm not so sure of that," said the old man, with an + astuteness of manner which Colville thought authorised by + some sort of definite knowledge. + </p> + <p> + "I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently. + </p> + <p> + "But you are really very much more concerned in something + else." + </p> + <p> + "In what else?" + </p> + <p> + "Can't you imagine?" + </p> + <p> + "No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in + the face. + </p> + <p> + "Then I have no more to say." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it + anything about—you hinted at something long + ago—Mrs. Bowen?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?" + </p> + <p> + "Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is + left me! Immeasurable gratitude! The homage of a man saved + from himself as far as his stupidity and selfishness would + permit! Why, I—I love her!" The words gave him courage. + "In every breath and pulse! She is the most beautiful and + gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I have loved + her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Good + heavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, + falling from the rapture of this confession, "she simply + loathes <i>me</i>!" + </p> + <p> + "It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at + the same time to marry some one else." + </p> + <p> + "Willing! I wasn't willing! I was bound hand and foot! + Yes—I don't care what you think of my weakness—I + was not a free agent. It's very well to condemn one's-self, + but it may be carried too far; injustice to others is not the + only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was to + keep my word—to prevent that poor child, if possible, + from ever finding out her mistake." + </p> + <p> + If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his + listener he was disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, + and he was obliged to ask, with a degree of sarcastic + impatience, "I suppose you scarcely blame me for that?" + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I don't know that I blame people for things. There are + times when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this + way or that, without control of our own movements. Hamlet was + able to browbeat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his + business of the pipe; but if they had been in a position to + answer they might have told him that it required far less + skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of + us, in fact, go sounding on without any special application + of breath or fingers, repeating the tunes that were played + originally upon other men. It appears to me that you suffered + yourself to do something of the kind in this affair. We are a + long time learning to act with common-sense or even common + sanity in what are called matters of the affections. A broken + engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am + inclined to think that it is the very best thing that could + happen in most cases where it happens. The evil is done long + before; the broken engagement is merely sanative, and so far + beneficent." + </p> + <p> + The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the + recognition of his own cowardice and absurdity, did not try + to detain him. But he followed him down to the outer gate of + the hotel. The afternoon sun was pouring into the piazza a + sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plunged with + the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama + hat, a sack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the + same material, and Colville fancied him doubly defended + against the torrid waves not only by the stored cold of half + a century of winters at Haddam East Village, but by an inner + coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself in an + appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone + that Colville found himself steeped in perspiration, and + glowing with a strange excitement. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XXIII"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XXIII + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of + time in the contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to + the season, which had been sent home from the tailor's just + before Mr. Waters came in. The coat was of the lightest + serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending to lavender, the + waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from Palazzo + Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk + gauze neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at + the time thought very well of. But now, as he spread out the + whole array on his bed, it seemed too emblematic of a light + and blameless spirit for his wear. He ought to put on + something as nearly analogous to sackcloth as a modern stock + of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the grave + materials of his winter costume. But they were really + insupportable in this sudden access of summer. Besides, he + had grown thin during his sickness, and the things bagged + about him. If he were going to see Mrs. Bowen that evening, + he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps + providential that he had failed to find her at home in the + morning, when he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in + which he had been loafing about her drawing-room for the past + week. He now owed it to her to appear before her as well as + he could. How charmingly punctilious she always was herself! + </p> + <p> + As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which + the becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk + gauze lightly tied under his collar, and the lapels of his + thin coat thrown back to admit his thumbs to his waistcoat + pockets, he felt almost cheerful before his glass. Should he + shave? As once before, this important question occurred to + him. His thinness gave him some advantages of figure, but he + thought that it made his face older. What effect would + cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower + part of his face for fifteen years. No one could say what + recent ruin of a double chin might not be lurking there. He + decided not to shave, at least till after dinner, and after + dinner he was too impatient for his visit to brook the + necessary delay. + </p> + <p> + He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came + running in to meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling. + </p> + <p> + "You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said + Colville, tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his + summer splendour. "Where is your mamma?" + </p> + <p> + "She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold + of his hand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us." + </p> + <p> + "By all means—not that I haven't had coffee already, + though." + </p> + <p> + She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as + they went. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of + welcome. "How are you feeling to-day?" she asked, politely + ignoring his finery. + </p> + <p> + "Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the + strain of the situation, "Of the best tailor's make in + Florence." + </p> + <p> + "You look very well," she smiled. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The + trouble is that I don't always take pains. But I thought I + would to-night, in upon a lady." + </p> + <p> + "Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, is it for me too?" + </p> + <p> + This gave Colville consolation which no religion or + philosophy could have brought him, and his pleasure was not + marred, but rather heightened, by the little pangs of + expectation, bred by long custom, that from moment to moment + Imogene would appear. She did not appear, and a thrill of + security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well with + all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her + arrived home the bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly + unobjectionable young man, Mr. Morton. + </p> + <p> + "Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked + Mrs. Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her + spoon. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the + coffee. They forgot to offer us any ice at the <i>table + d'hôte</i> this evening." + </p> + <p> + "This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a + compromise with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's + this afternoon." + </p> + <p> + "I <i>thought</i> you would come," whispered the child to + Colville. + </p> + <p> + Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don't + give yourself away, Effie." + </p> + <p> + "Why, let us go to Giacosa's too," said Colville, taking the + ice. "We shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not + even feel ourselves foreign. It's astonishing how the hot + weather has dispersed the tourists. I didn't see a Baedeker + on the whole way up here, and I walked down Via Tornabuoni + across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza della Signoria and + the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and home-like it + was—all the statues loafing about in their shirt + sleeves, and the objects of interest stretching and yawning + round, and having a good rest after their winter's work." + </p> + <p> + Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to + enjoy this; her mother did not laugh. + </p> + <p> + "Walked?" she asked. + </p> + <p> + "Certainly. Why not?" + </p> + <p> + "You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too." + </p> + <p> + "I've <i>got</i> well. But as to being gone, there's no + hurry. I rather think I shall wait now to see how long you + stay." + </p> + <p> + "We may keep you all summer," said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her + eyelids indifferently. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going + to stay, and he is such a very cool old gentleman that I + don't think one need fear the wildest antics of the mercury + where he is." + </p> + <p> + When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to + the salotto; and they all sat down by the window there and + watched the sunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of + Michelangelo's David, in the Piazzale below the church, + blackened in perfect relief against the pink sky and then + faded against the grey while they talked. They were so + domestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was + an image of what might be rather than what really was; the + very ease with which he could apparently close his hand upon + the happiness within his grasp unnerved him. The talk strayed + hither and thither, and went and came aimlessly. A sound of + singing floated in from the kitchen, and Effie eagerly asked + her mother if she might go and see Maddalena. Maddalena's + mother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, go," said Mrs. Bowen; "but don't stay too long." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I will be back in time," said the child, and Colville + remembered that he had proposed going to Giacosa's. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; don't forget." He had forgotten it himself. + </p> + <p> + "Maddalena is the cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings + ballads to Effie that she learned from her mother, and I + suppose Effie wants to hear them at first hand." + </p> + <p> + "Oh yes," said Colville dreamily. + </p> + <p> + They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted + with a meaning deeper than speech. + </p> + <p> + "Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?" asked Mrs. Bowen, after + one of these lapses. + </p> + <p> + "Yes; he came this afternoon." + </p> + <p> + "He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be + lonely here." + </p> + <p> + "He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history + of the place. And his satisfaction at having got out of + Haddam East Village is perennial." + </p> + <p> + "But he will want to go back there before he dies." + </p> + <p> + "I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you + say. He has the art of putting all sorts of ideas into + people's heads. Do you know what we talked about this + afternoon?" + </p> + <p> + "No, I don't," murmured Mrs. Bowen. + </p> + <p> + "About you. And he encouraged me to + believe—imagine—that I might speak to + you—ask—tell you that—I loved you, Lina." + He leaned forward and took one of the hands that lay in her + lap. It trembled with a violence inconceivable in relation to + the perfect quiet of her attitude. But she did not try to + take it away. "Could you—do you love me?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes," she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from + his hold altogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture + he released her hand to take her in his arms. + </p> + <p> + He followed her a pace or two. "And you will—will be my + wife?" he pursued eagerly. + </p> + <p> + "Never!" she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while + a cold bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be + some sort of jest, though he could not tell where the humour + was, and he could not treat it otherwise than seriously. + </p> + <p> + "Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you + this winter, and Heaven knows how long before!" + </p> + <p> + "Yes; I know that." + </p> + <p> + "And every moment." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I know that too." + </p> + <p> + "Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved + you so much that I must tell you before we parted—" + </p> + <p> + "I expected that—I intended it." + </p> + <p> + "You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you + won't—Ah, I don't understand!" + </p> + <p> + "How could <i>you</i> understand? I love you—I blush + and burn for shame to think that I love you. But I will never + marry you; I can at least help doing that, and I can still + keep some little trace of self-respect. How you must really + despise me, to think of anything else, after all that has + happened! Did you suppose that I was merely waiting till that + poor girl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can you be + yourself, and still be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was + right. You are too much of a mixture, Theodore + Colville"—her calling him so showed how often she had + thought of him so—"too much for her, too much for + Imogene, too much for me; too much for any woman except some + wretched creature who enjoys being trampled on and dragged + through the dust, as you have dragged me." + </p> + <p> + "<i>I</i> dragged <i>you</i> through the dust? There hasn't + been a moment in the past six months when I wouldn't have + rolled myself in it to please you." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was + flattering to me?" + </p> + <p> + "That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, + and that I couldn't help wishing to show it even when I + wouldn't acknowledge it to myself. That is all. And now when + I am free to speak, and you own that you love me, you + won't—I give it up!" he cried desperately. But in the + next breath he implored, "<i>Why</i> do you drive me from + you, Lina?" + </p> + <p> + "Because you have humiliated me too much." She was perfectly + steady, but he knew her so well that in the twilight he knew + what bitterness there must be in the smile which she must be + keeping on her lips. "I was here in the place of her mother, + her best friend, and you made me treat her like an enemy. You + made me betray her and cast her off." + </p> + <p> + "I?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really + care for her, that you were playing with yourself, as you + were playing with her, and I ought to have warned her." + </p> + <p> + "It appears to me you did warn her," said Colville, with some + resentful return of courage. + </p> + <p> + "I tried," she said simply, "and it made it worse. It made it + worse because I knew that I was acting for my own sake more + than hers, because I wasn't—disinterested." There was + something in this explanation, serious, tragic, as it was to + Mrs. Bowen, which made Colville laugh. She might have had + some perception of its effect to him, or it may have been + merely from a hysterical helplessness, but she laughed too a + little. + </p> + <p> + "But why," he gathered courage to ask, "do you still dwell + upon that? Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton—that + there was—" + </p> + <p> + "He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He + told me." + </p> + <p> + "Oh!" + </p> + <p> + "Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here + between life and death? No: you can have no hope from that." + </p> + <p> + Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed + him. He had not strength enough to feel resentment against + Mr. Waters for misleading him with this <i>ignis fatuus</i>. + </p> + <p> + "No one warned him, and it came to that," said Mrs. Bowen. + "It was of a piece with the whole affair. I was weak in that + too." + </p> + <p> + Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly + reverted to the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough + from mirth in resuming it. + </p> + <p> + "I couldn't imagine," he said, "that you cared anything for + me when you warned another against me. If I could—" + </p> + <p> + "You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought + to have sympathised with her and helped her instead of making + the poor child feel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even + put her on guard against herself, though I knew all along + that she didn't really care for you, but was just in love + with her own fancy for you, Even after you were engaged I + ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank with + her; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I + was acting for myself too, and I would not submit to that + degradation. No! I would rather have died. I dare say you + don't understand. How could you? You are a man, and the kind + of man who couldn't. At every point you made me violate every + principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for caring + for a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to + another. Don't think it was gratifying to me. It was + detestable; and yet I did let you see that I cared for you. + Yes, I even <i>tried</i> to make you care for + me—falsely, cruelly, treacherously." + </p> + <p> + "You didn't have to try very hard," said Colville, with a + sort of cold resignation to his fate. + </p> + <p> + "Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told + her for her own sake that she didn't love you, but that would + have been for my sake too; and I would have told you if I + hadn't cared for you and known how you cared for me. I've + saved at least the consciousness of this from the wreck." + </p> + <p> + "I don't think it's a great treasure," said Colville. "I wish + that you had saved the consciousness of having been frank + even to your own advantage." + </p> + <p> + "Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps + I've deserved this too." + </p> + <p> + "No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's + unkindness, from me. go?" + </p> + <p> + She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He + had a dim impression that he could talk better if he took her + hand, but he did not venture to ask for it. He contented + himself with fixing his eyes upon as much of her face as he + could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in a vague outline of + dark. + </p> + <p> + "I want to assure you, Lina—Lina, my love, my dearest, + as I shall call you for the first and last time!—that I + <i>do</i> understand everything, as delicately and fully as + you could wish, all that you have expressed, and all that you + have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure your ideals + of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have + struggled to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy + and stupid selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, + my dearest love—you must forgive me!—that if I + didn't see everything at the time, I do see it now, and that + I prize the love you kept from me far more than any love you + could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It + isn't logic—it sounds more like nonsense, I am + afraid—but you know what I mean by it. You are more + perfect, more lovely to me, than any being in the world, and + I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not win you + against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you + say we must part, I know that you speak from a finer + discernment than mine, and I submit. I will try to console + myself with the thought of your love, if I may not have you. + Yes, I submit." + </p> + <p> + His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the + subtlest art. His submission was the best defence. He rose + with a real dignity, and she rose also. "Remember," he said, + "that I confess all you accuse me of, and that I acknowledge + the justice of what you do—because you do it." He put + out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at her + side. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. + "May I kiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him + kiss her on the lips. + </p> + <p> + "Good-bye," she whispered. "Go—" + </p> + <p> + "I am going." + </p> + <p> + Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen. + </p> + <p> + "Aren't you going to take—" She stopped and turned to + her mother. She must not remind Mr. Colville of his + invitation; that was what her gesture expressed. + </p> + <p> + Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his + advantage, and play upon the mother's heart through the + feelings of her child, though there is no doubt that he was + tempted to prolong the situation by any means. Perhaps Mrs. + Bowen divined both the temptation and the resistance. "Tell + her," she said, and turned away. + </p> + <p> + "I can't go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping + toward her for the inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I + am—going away, and I must say good-bye." + </p> + <p> + The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she + repeated. + </p> + <p> + "Yes—away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you + again." + </p> + <p> + The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood + motionless. Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had + suddenly flashed upon her, she plunged her face against her + mother's breast. "I can't <i>bear</i> it!" she sobbed out; + and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a storm + of cries and prayers. + </p> + <p> + Colville wavered. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous + voice of a woman who falls below her ideal of herself. + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p><a name="XXIV"><!--Marker--></a> + <h2> + XXIV + </h2><br> + <br> + + <p> + In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit + themselves with the severest of wives, there were times after + their marriage when Colville accused Lina of never really + intending to drive him away, but of meaning, after a + disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of his tested + self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the appearance + of Effie was not a <i>coup de théâtre</i> + contrived beforehand, it was an accident of no consequence + whatever; that if she had not come in at that moment, her + mother would have found some other pretext for detaining him. + This is a point which I would not presume to decide. I only + know that they were married early in June before the syndic + of Florence, who tied a tricolour sash round his ample waist + for the purpose, and never looked more paternal or venerable + than when giving the sanction of the Italian state to their + union. It is not, of course, to be supposed that Mrs. + Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville + may have thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony + took place in the English chapel, the assistant clergyman + officiating in the absence of the incumbent, who had already + gone out of town. + </p> + <p> + The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home + to Palazzo Pinti with the party, the single and singularly + honoured guest at their wedding feast, for which Effie Bowen + went with Colville to Giacosa's to order the ices in person. + She has never regretted her choice of a step father, though + when Colville asked her how she would like him in that + relation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she + reconciled herself to it; as to him she had no misgivings. He + has sometimes found himself the object of little jealousies + on her part, but by promptly deciding all questions between + her and her mother in Effie's favour he has convinced her of + the groundlessness of her suspicions. + </p> + <p> + In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the + Colvilles spent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their + fellow-sojourners returned from the <i>villeggiatura</i> in + the fall, however, they had turned their faces southward, and + they are now in Rome, where, arriving as a married couple, + there was no inquiry and no interest in their past. + </p> + <p> + It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene + has been the grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or + very much to blame; even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a + thing that happened, but one would rather it had not + happened. + </p> + <p> + Last winter, however, Mrs Colville received a letter from + Mrs. Graham which suggested, if it did not impart, + consolation. "Mr. Morton was here the other day, and spent + the morning. He has a parish at Erie, and there is talk of + his coming to Buffalo." + </p> + <p> + "Oh, Heaven grant it!" said Colville, with sudden piety. + </p> + <p> + "Why?" demanded his wife. + </p> + <p> + "Well, I wish she was married." + </p> + <p> + "You have nothing whatever to do with her." + </p> + <p> + It took him some time to realise that this was the fact. + </p> + <p> + "No," he confessed; "but what do you think about it?" + </p> + <p> + "There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will + keep on long enough—But if it isn't Mr. Morton, it will + be some one else—some <i>young</i> person." + </p> + <p> + Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. "I + hope so," he said. "<i>I</i> have married a young person, and + it would only be fair." + </p> + <p> + This magnanimity was irresistible. + </p> + <p> + THE END. + + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + <p> + + </p> + +<PRE> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INDIAN SUMMER *** + +This file should be named 8insm10h.htm or 8insm10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8insm11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8insm10ah.htm + + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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