In obedience to Clare's expressed wish, Johnstone made no mention that
evening of the rather serious adventure on the Salerno road. They had
fallen into the habit of shaking hands when they bade each other
good-night. When it was time, and the two ladies rose to withdraw,
Johnstone suddenly wished that Clare would make some little sign to
him--the least thing to show that this particular evening was not
precisely what all the other evenings had been, that they were drawn a
little closer together, that perhaps she would change her mind and not
dislike him any more for that unknown reason at which he could not even
guess.
They joined hands, and his eyes met hers. But there was no unusual
pressure--no little acknowledgment of a common danger past. The blue
eyes looked at him straight and proudly, without softening, and the
fresh lips calmly said good-night. Johnstone remained alone, and in a
singularly bad humour for such a good-tempered man. He was angry with
Clare for being so cold and indifferent, and he was ashamed of himself
for wishing that she would admire him a little for having knocked down a
tipsy carter. It was not much of an exploit. What she had done had been
very much more remarkable. The man would not have killed him, of course,
but he might have given him a very dangerous wound with that ugly
clasp-knife. Clare's frock was cut to pieces on one side, and it was a
wonder that she had escaped without a scratch. He had no right to expect
any praise for what he had done, when she had done so much more.
To tell the truth, it was not praise that he wanted, but a sign that she
was not indifferent to him, or at least that she no longer disliked him.
He was ashamed to own to himself that he was half in love with a young
girl who had told him that she did not like him and would never even be
his friend. Women had not usually treated him in that way, so far. But
the fact remained, that she had got possession of his thoughts, and made
him think about his actions when she was present. It took a good deal to
disturb Brook Johnstone's young sleep, but he did not sleep well that
night.
As for Clare, when she was alone, she regretted that she had not just
nodded kindly to him, and nothing more, when she had said good-night.
She knew perfectly well that he expected something of the sort, and
that it would have been natural, and quite harmless, without any
possibility of consequence. She consoled herself by repeating that she
had done quite right, as the vision of Lady Fan rose distinctly before
her in a flood of memory's moonlight. Then it struck her, as the vision
faded, that her position was a very odd one. Personally, she liked the
man. Impersonally, she hated and despised him. At least she believed
that she did, and that she should, for the sake of all women. To her, as
she had known him, he was brave, kind, gentle in manner and speech,
boyishly frank. As she had seen him that once, she had thought him
heartless, cowardly, and cynical. She could not reconcile the two, and
therefore, in her thoughts, she unconsciously divided him into two
individualities--her Mr. Johnstone and Lady Fan's Brook. There was very
little resemblance between them. Oddly enough, she felt a sort of pang
for him, that he could ever have been the other man whom she had first
seen. She was getting into a very complicated frame of mind.
They met in the morning and exchanged greetings with unusual coldness.
Brook asked whether she were tired; she said that she had done nothing
to tire her, as though she resented the question; he said nothing in
answer, and they both looked at the sea and thought it extremely dull.
Presently Johnstone went off for a walk alone, and Clare buried herself
in a book for the morning. She did not wish to think, because her
thoughts were so very contradictory. It was easier to try and follow
some one else's ideas. She found that almost worse than thinking, but,
being very tenacious, she stuck to it and tried to read.
At the midday meal they exchanged commonplaces, and neither looked at
the other. Just as they left the dining-room a heavy thunderstorm broke
overhead with a deluge of rain. Clare said that the thunder made her
head ache, and she disappeared on pretence of lying down. Mrs. Bowring
went to write letters, and Johnstone hung about the reading-room, and
smoked a pipe in the long corridor, till he was sick of the sound of his
own footsteps. Amalfi was all very well in fine weather, he reflected,
but when it rained it was as dismal as penny whist, Sunday in London, or
a volume of sermons--or all three together, he added viciously, in his
thoughts. The German family had fallen back upon the guide book,
Mommsen's _History of Rome_, and the _Gartenlaube_. The Russian invalid
was presumably in his room, with a teapot, and the two English old maids
were reading a violently sensational novel aloud to each other by turns
in the hotel drawing-room. They stopped reading and got very red, when
Johnstone looked in.
It was a dreary afternoon, and he wished that something would happen.
The fight on the preceding day had stirred his blood--and other things
perhaps had contributed to his restless state of mind. He thought of
Clare's torn frock, and he wished he had killed the carter outright. He
reflected that, as the man was attacking him with a knife, he himself
would have been acquitted.
Late in the afternoon the sky cleared and the red light of the lowering
sun struck the crests of the higher hills to eastward. Brook went out
and smelled the earth-scented air, and the damp odour of the
orange-blossoms. But that did not please him either, so he turned back
and went through the long corridor to the platform at the back of the
hotel. To his surprise he came face to face with Clare, who was walking
briskly backwards and forwards, and saw him just as he emerged from the
door. They both stood still and looked at each other with an odd little
constraint, almost like anxiety, in their faces. There was a short,
awkward silence.
"Well?" said Clare, interrogatively, and raising her eyebrows a very
little, as though wondering why he did not speak.
"Nothing," Johnstone answered, turning his face seaward. "I wasn't
going to say anything."
"Oh!--you looked as though you were."
"No," he said. "I came out to get a breath of air, that's all."
"So did I. I--I think I've been out long enough. I'll go in." And she
made a step towards the door.
"Oh, please, don't!" he cried suddenly. "Can't we walk together a little
bit? That is, if you are not tired."
"Oh no! I'm not tired," answered the young girl with a cold little
laugh. "I'll stay if you like--just a few minutes."
"Thanks, awfully," said Brook in a shy, jerky way.
They began to walk up and down, much less quickly than Clare had been
walking when alone. They seemed to have nothing to say to each other.
Johnstone remarked that he thought it would not rain again just then,
and after some minutes of reflection Clare said that she remembered
having seen two thunderstorms within an hour, with a clear sky between,
not long ago. Johnstone also thought the matter over for some time
before he answered, and then said that he supposed the clouds must have
been somewhere in the meantime--an observation which did not strike
either Clare or even himself as particularly intelligent.
"I don't think you know much about thunderstorms," said Clare, after
another silence.
"I? No--why should I?"
"I don't know. It's supposed to be just as well to know about things,
isn't it?"
"I dare say," answered Brook, indifferently. "But science isn't exactly
in my line, if I have any line."
They recrossed the platform in silence.
"What is your line--if you have any?" Clare asked, looking at the ground
as she walked, and perfectly indifferent as to his answer.
"It ought to be beer," answered Brook, gravely. "But then, you know how
it is--one has all sorts of experts, and one ends by taking their word
for granted about it. I don't believe I have any line--unless it's in
the way of out-of-door things. I'm fond of shooting, and I can ride
fairly, you know, like anybody else."
"Yes," said Clare, "you were telling me so the other day, you know."
"Yes," Johnstone murmured thoughtfully, "that's true. Please excuse me.
I'm always repeating myself."
"I didn't mean that." Her tone changed a little. "You can be very
amusing when you like, you know."
"Thanks, awfully. I should like to be amusing now, for instance, but I
can't."
"Now? Why now?"
"Because I'm boring you to madness, little by little, and I'm awfully
sorry too, for I want you to like me--though you say you never will--and
of course you can't like a bore, can you? I say, Miss Bowring, don't you
think we could strike some sort of friendly agreement--to be friends
without 'liking,' somehow? I'm beginning to hate the word. I believe
it's the colour of my hair or my coat--or something--that you dislike
so. I wish you'd tell me. It would be much kinder. I'd go to work and
change it--"
"Dye your hair?" Clare laughed, glad that the ice was broken again.
"Oh yes--if you like," he answered, laughing too. "Anything to please
you."
"Anything 'in reason'--as you proposed yesterday."
"No--anything in reason or out of it. I'm getting desperate!" He laughed
again, but in his laughter there was a little note of something new to
the young girl, a sort of understreak of earnestness.
"It isn't anything you can change," said Clare, after a moment's
hesitation. "And it certainly has nothing to do with your appearance, or
your manners, or your tailor," she added.
"Oh well, then, it's evidently something I've done, or said," Brook
murmured, looking at her.
But she did not return his glance, as they walked side by side; indeed,
she turned her face from him a little, and she said nothing, for she was
far too truthful to deny his assertion.
"Then I'm right," he said, with an interrogation, after a long pause.
"Don't ask me, please! It's of no importance after all. Talk of
something else."
"I don't agree with you," Brook answered. "It is very important to me."
"Oh, nonsense!" Clare tried to laugh. "What difference can it make to
you, whether I like you or not?"
"Don't say that. It makes a great difference--more than I thought it
could, in fact. One--one doesn't like to be misjudged by one's friends,
you know."
"But I'm not your friend."
"I want you to be."
"I can't."
"You won't," said Brook, in a lower tone, and almost angrily. "You've
made up your mind against me, on account of something you've guessed
at, and you won't tell me what it is, so I can't possibly defend myself.
I haven't the least idea what it can be. I never did anything
particularly bad, I believe, and I never did anything I should be
ashamed of owning. I don't like to say that sort of thing, you know,
about myself, but you drive me to it. It isn't fair. Upon my word, it's
not fair play. You tell a man he's a bad lot, like that, in the air, and
then you refuse to say why you think so. Or else the whole thing is a
sort of joke you've invented--if it is, it's awfully one-sided, it seems
to me."
"Do you really think me capable of anything so silly?" asked Clare.
"No, I don't. That makes it all the worse, because it proves that you
have--or think you have--something against me. I don't know much about
law, but it strikes me as something tremendously like libel. Don't you
think so yourself?"
"Oh no! Indeed I don't. Libel means saying things against people,
doesn't it? I haven't done that--"
"Indeed you have! I mean, I beg your pardon for contradicting you like
that--"
"Rather flatly," observed Clare, as they turned in their walk, and their
eyes met.
"Well, I'm sorry, but since we are talking about it, I've got to say
what I think. After all, I'm the person attacked. I have a right to
defend myself."
"I haven't attacked you," answered the young girl, gravely.
"I won't be rude, if I can help it," said Brook, half roughly. "But I
asked you if you disliked me for something I had done or said, and you
couldn't deny it. That means that I have done or said something bad
enough to make you say that you will never be my friend--and that must
be something very bad indeed."
"Then you think I'm not squeamish? It would have to be something very,
very bad."
"Yes."
"Thank you. Well, I thought it very bad. Anybody would, I should fancy."
"I never did anything very, very bad, so you must be mistaken," answered
Johnstone, exasperated.
Clare said nothing, but walked along with her head rather high, looking
straight before her. It had all happened before her eyes, on the very
ground under her feet, on that platform. Johnstone knew that he had
spoken roughly.
"I say," he began, "was I rude? I'm awfully sorry." Clare stopped and
stood still.
"Mr. Johnstone, we sha'n't agree. I will never tell you, and you will
never be satisfied unless I do. So it's a dead-lock."
"You are horribly unjust," answered Brook, very much in earnest, and
fixing his bright eyes on hers. "You seem to take a delight in
tormenting me with this imaginary secret. After all, if it's something
you saw me do, or heard me say, I must know of it and remember it, so
there's no earthly reason why we shouldn't discuss it."
There was again that fascination in his eyes, and she felt herself
yielding.
"I'll say one thing," she said. "I wish you hadn't done it!"
She felt that she could not look away from him, and that he was getting
her into his power. The colour rose in her face.
"Please don't look at me!" she said suddenly, gazing helplessly into his
eyes, but his steady look did not change.
"Please--oh, please look away!" she cried, half-frightened and growing
pale again.
He turned from her, surprised at her manner.
"I'm afraid you're not in earnest about this, after all," he said,
thoughtfully. "If you meant what you said, why shouldn't you look at
me?"
She blushed scarlet again.
"It's very rude to stare like that!" she said, in an offended tone.
"You know that you've got something--I don't know what to call it--one
can't look away when you look at one. Of course you know it, and you
ought not to do it. It isn't nice."
"I didn't know there was anything peculiar about my eyes," said Brook.
"Indeed I didn't! Nobody ever told me so, I'm sure. By Jove!" he
exclaimed, "I believe it's that! I've probably done it before--and
that's why you--" he stopped.
"Please don't think me so silly," answered Clare, recovering her
composure. "It's nothing of the sort. As for that--that way you have of
looking--I dare say I'm nervous since my illness. Besides--" she
hesitated, and then smiled. "Besides, do you know? If you had looked at
me a moment longer I should have told you the whole thing, and then we
should both have been sorry."
"I should not, I'm sure," said Brook, with conviction. "But I don't
understand about my looking at you. I never tried to mesmerise any
one--"
"There is no such thing as mesmerism. It's all hypnotism, you know."
"I don't know what they call it. You know what I mean. But I'm sure it's
your imagination."
"Oh yes, I dare say," answered the young girl with affected
carelessness. "It's merely because I'm nervous."
"Well, so far as I'm concerned, it's quite unconscious. I don't know--I
suppose I wanted to see in your eyes what you were thinking about.
Besides, when one likes a person, one doesn't think it so dreadfully
rude to look at them--at him--I mean, at you--when one is in earnest
about something--does one?"
"I don't know," said Clare. "But please don't do it to me. It makes me
feel awfully uncomfortable somehow. You won't, will you?" she asked,
with a sort of appeal. "You would make me tell you everything--and then
I should hate myself."
"But I shouldn't hate you."
"Oh yes, you would! You would hate me for knowing."
"By Jove! It's too bad!" cried Brook. "But as for that," he added
humbly, "nothing would make me hate you."
"Nothing? You don't know!"
"Yes, I do! You couldn't make me change my mind about you. I've grown
to--to like you a great deal too much for that in this short time--a
great deal more than is good for me, I believe," he added, with a sort
of rough impulsiveness. "Not that I'm at all surprised, you know," he
continued with an attempt at a laugh. "One can't see a person like you,
most of the day, for ten days or a fortnight, without--well, you know,
admiring you most tremendously--can one? I dare say you think that might
be put into better English. But it's true all the same."
A silence followed. The warm blood mantled softly in the girl's fair
cheeks. She was taken by surprise with an odd little breath of
happiness, as it were, suddenly blowing upon her, whence she knew not.
It was so utterly new that she wondered at it, and was not conscious of
the faint blush that answered it.
"One gets awfully intimate in a few days," observed Brook, as though he
had discovered something quite new.
She nodded, but said nothing, and they still walked up and down. Then
his words made her think of that sudden intimacy which had probably
sprung up between him and Lady Fan on board the yacht, and her heart was
hardened again.
"It isn't worth while to be intimate, as you call it," she said at last,
with a little sudden sharpness. "People ought never to be intimate,
unless they have to live together--in the same place, you know. Then
they can't exactly help it, I suppose."
"Why should they? One can't exactly intrench oneself behind a wall with
pistols and say 'Be my friend if you dare.' Life would be very
uncomfortable, I should think."
"Oh, you know what I mean! Don't be so awfully literal."
"I was trying to understand," said Johnstone, with unusual meekness. "I
won't, if you don't want me to. But I don't agree with you a bit. I
think it's very jolly to be intimate--in this sort of way--or perhaps a
little more so."
"Intimate enemies? Enemies can be just as intimate as friends, you
know."
"I'd rather have you for my intimate enemy than not know you at all,"
said Brook.
"That's saying a great deal, Mr. Johnstone."
Again she was pleased in a new way by what he said. And a temptation
came upon her unawares. It was perfectly clear that he was beginning to
make love to her. She thought of her reflections after she had seen him
alone with Lady Fan, and of how she had wished that she could break his
heart, and pay him back with suffering for the pain he had given another
woman. The possibility seemed nearer now than then. At least, she could
easily let him believe that she believed him, and then laugh at him and
his acting. For of course it was acting. How could such a man be
earnest? All at once the thought that he should respect her so little
as to pretend to make love to her incensed her.
"What an extraordinary idea!" she exclaimed rather scornfully. "You
would rather be hated, than not known!"
"I wasn't talking generalities--I was speaking of you. Please don't
misunderstand me on purpose. It isn't kind."
"Are you in need of kindness just now? You don't exactly strike one in
that way, you know. But your people will be coming in a day or two, I
suppose. I've no doubt they'll be kind to you, as you call it--whatever
that may mean. One speaks of being kind to animals and servants, you
know--that sort of thing."
Nothing can outdo the brutality of a perfectly unaffected young girl
under certain circumstances.
"I don't class myself with either, thank you," said Brook, justly
offended. "You certainly manage to put things in a new light sometimes.
I feel rather like that mule we saw yesterday."
"Oh--I thought you didn't class yourself with animals!" she laughed.
"Have you any particular reason for saying horridly disagreeable
things?" asked Brook coldly.
There was a pause.
"I didn't mean to be disagreeable--at least not so disagreeable as all
that," said Clare at last. "I don't know why it is, but you have a
talent for making me seem rude."
"Force of example," suggested Johnstone.
"No, I'll say that for you--you have very good manners."
"Thanks, awfully. Considering the provocation, you know, that's an
immense compliment."
"I thought I would be 'kind' for a change. By the bye, what are we
quarrelling about?" She laughed. "You began by saying something very
nice to me, and then I told you that you were like the mule, didn't I?
It's very odd! I believe you hypnotise me, after all."
"At all events, if we were not intimate, you couldn't possibly say the
things you do," observed Brook, already pacified.
"And I suppose you would not take the things I say, so meekly, would
you?"
"I told you I was a very mild person," said Johnstone. "We were talking
about it yesterday, do you remember?"
"Oh yes! And then you illustrated your idea of meekness by knocking down
the first man we met."
"It was your fault," retorted Brook. "You told me to stop his beating
the mule. So I did. Fortunately you stopped him from sticking a knife
into me. Do you know? You have awfully good nerves. Most women would
have screamed and run up a tree--or something. They would have got out
of the way, at all events."
"I think most women would have done precisely what I did," said Clare.
"Why should you say that most women are cowards?"
"I didn't," answered Brook. "But I refuse to quarrel about it. I meant
to say that I admired you--I mean, what you did--well, more than
anything."
"That's a sweeping sort of compliment. Am I to return it?" She glanced
at him and smiled.
"You couldn't, with truth."
"Of course I could. I don't remember ever seeing anything of that sort
before, but I don't believe that anybody could have done it better. I
admired you more than anything just then, you know." She laughed once
more as she added the last words.
"Oh, I don't expect you to go on admiring me. I'm quite satisfied, and
grateful, and all that."
"I'm glad you're so easily satisfied. Couldn't we talk seriously about
something or other? It seems to me that we've been chaffing for half an
hour, haven't we?"
"It hasn't been all chaff, Miss Bowring," said Johnstone. "At least, not
on my side."
"Then I'm sorry," Clare answered. They relapsed into silence, as they
walked their beat, to and fro. The sun had gone down, and it was already
twilight on that side of the mountains. The rain had cooled the air, and
the far land to southward was darkly distinct beyond the purple water.
It was very chilly, and Clare was without a shawl, and Johnstone was
hatless, but neither of them noticed that it was cool. Johnstone was the
first to speak.
"Is this sort of thing to go on for ever, Miss Bowring?" he asked
gravely.
"What?" But she knew very well what he meant.
"This--this very odd footing we are on, you and I--are we never going to
get past it?"
"Oh--I hope not," answered Clare, cheerfully. "I think it's very
pleasant, don't you? And most original. We are intimate enough to say
all sorts of things, and I'm your enemy, and you say you are my friend.
I can't imagine any better arrangement. We shall always laugh when we
think of it--even years hence. You will be going away in a few days, and
we shall stay here into the summer and we shall never see each other
again, in all probability. We shall always look back on this time--as
something quite odd, you know."
"You are quite mistaken if you think that we shall never meet again,"
said Johnstone.
"I mean that it's very unlikely. You see we don't go home very often,
and when we do we stop with friends in the country. We don't go much
into society. And the rest of the time we generally live in Florence."
"There is nothing to prevent me from coming to Florence--or living
there, if I choose."
"Oh no--I suppose not. Except that you would be bored to death. It's not
very amusing, unless you happen to be fond of pictures, and you never
said you were."
"I should go to see you."
"Oh--yes--you could call, and of course if we were at home we should be
very glad to see you. But that would only occupy about half an hour of
one day. That isn't much."
"I mean that I should go to Florence simply for the sake of seeing you,
and seeing you often--all the time, in fact."
"Dear me! That would be a great deal, wouldn't it? I thought you meant
just to call, don't you know?"
"I'm in earnest, though it sounds very funny, I dare say," said
Johnstone.
"It sounds rather mad," answered Clare, laughing a little. "I hope you
won't do anything of the kind, because I wouldn't see you more than
once or twice. I'd have headaches and colds and concerts--all the things
one has when one isn't at home to people. But my mother would be
delighted. She likes you tremendously, you know, and you could go about
to galleries together and read Ruskin and Browning--do you know the
Statue and the Bust? And you could go and see Casa Guidi, where the
Brownings lived, and you could drive up to San Miniato, and then, you
know, you could drive up again and read more Browning and more Ruskin.
I'm sure you would enjoy it to any extent. But I should have to go
through a terrific siege of colds and headaches. It would be rather hard
on me."
"And harder on me," observed Brook, "and quite fearful for Mrs.
Bowring."
"Oh no! She would enjoy every minute of it. You forget that she likes
you."
"You are afraid I should forget that you don't."
"I almost--oh, a long way from quite! I almost liked you yesterday when
you thrashed the carter and tied him up so neatly. It was beautifully
done--all those knots! I suppose you learned them on board of the yacht,
didn't you?"
"I've yachted a good deal," said Brook.
"Generally with that party?" inquired Clare.
"No. That was the first time. My father has an old tub he goes about
in, and we sometimes go together."
"Is he coming here in his 'old tub'?"
"Oh no--he's lent her to a fellow who has taken her off to Japan, I
believe."
"Japan! Is it safe? In an 'old tub'!"
"Oh, well--that's a way of talking, you know. She's a good enough boat,
you know. My father went to New York in her, last year. She's a steamer,
you know. I hate steamers. They are such dirty noisy things! But of
course if you are going a long way, they are the only things."
He spoke in a jerky way, annoyed and discomfited by her forcing the
conversation off the track. Though he was aware that he had gone further
than he intended, when he proposed to spend the winter in Florence.
Moreover, he was very tenacious by nature, and had rarely been seriously
opposed during his short life. Her persistent refusal to tell him the
cause of her deep-rooted dislike exasperated him, while her frank and
careless manner and good-fellowship fascinated him more and more.
"Tell me all about the yacht," she said. "I'm sure she is a beauty,
though you call her an old tub."
"I don't want to talk about yachts," he answered, returning to the
attack in spite of her. "I want to talk about the chances of seeing you
after we part here."
"There aren't any," replied the young girl carelessly. "What is the name
of the yacht?"
"Very commonplace--'Lucy,' that's all. I'll make chances if there are
none--"
"You mustn't say that 'Lucy' is commonplace. That's my mother's name."
"I beg your pardon. I couldn't know that. It always struck me that it
wasn't much of a name for a yacht, you know. That was all I meant. He's
a queer old bird, my father; he always says he took it from the Bride of
Lammermoor, Heaven knows why. But please--I really can't go away and
feel that I'm not to see you again soon. You seem to think that I'm
chaffing. I'm not. I'm very serious. I like you very much, and I don't
see why one should just meet and then go off, and let that be the
end--do you?"
"I don't see why not," exclaimed Clare, hating the unexpected longing
she felt to agree with him, and tell him to come and stay in Florence as
much as he pleased. "Come--it's too cold here. I must be going in."