WHEREAT CYNICS AND MATRONS MAY SMILE INCREDULOUS.
When Natalie returned, Leonard was occupying his old seat in the Square,
a different man from the man she had met in the earlier morning. He had
been shocked, grieved, even terrified, and above all ashamed; yet joy
mingled with his grief, and his consciousness of new manhood was not
without its glory; and, withal, his breast was filled with a flood of
tremulous tenderness for the woman, and a longing for her forgiveness.
His emotions were sufficiently confusing to be vexing, and he had
striven to give the matter a jaunty aspect. Young men will be young men,
even when students of divinity, and he had heard more than one tale of
kisses. He had not much liked such tales, nor the bragging and
assumption of their tellers; still, a few hours since, he would have
seen no great offense in kissing a pretty woman; but a few hours since
he had not known anything about the matter. He was sure now that the
rakes of his college days, the boasters and conquerors, had been as
ignorant as he. Otherwise they could not have told of their deeds; the
thing he had done he could tell no man.
And so, though he had but kissed a woman, he felt that kissing a woman
was a wonderful thing; and he failed in the attempt to look upon the
matter airily, as of a little affair that would have in the future a
flavor of roguishness. It was not a matter to be treated lightly; his
grief and the stabs of conscience were too sharp for that--yet he had no
remorse. He was not minded to repeat the act; he had fled from such
repetition, and he would not repeat it; neither would he regret it. It
should be a memory, a secret for hidden shame, for hidden pride, for
grief, for joy.
He intercepted Natalie as she descended from the carriage, and, in a
brief interview in the hotel parlor, learned of her intention to return
at once to Miss Claghorn. The carriage was waiting, there was no reason
for delaying her departure; there was nothing to do but to call the
maid, and he dispatched a servant to do that. He volunteered to see to
the immediate transmission of the luggage of the travelers to
Easthampton, and made thereof an excuse for leaving before the maid
reappeared; and when once without the hotel door, and on his way to the
station, he breathed a sigh as of one relieved of a load.
Some days passed and Leonard had not appeared at Easthampton. One
morning he received the following note from Paula:
"Dear Leonard--I suppose you are very busy in these last days
of the term, and we all excuse your neglect of us. I shall be
at the Hampton station on Thursday, having promised to see
Natalie's maid (who don't speak English) on the evening train
for New York. Perhaps you can meet me and return with me to
dinner. Cousin Alice hopes you will."
He was careful not to find Paula until the train had gone, and he had
assured himself that Berthe was among the passengers. Then he appeared.
"Why, Leonard," exclaimed Paula, "have you been ill?" The tone was full
of concern. He shrank as if he had been struck.
"No," he said; "a little anxious--troubled."
"Over your freckled, gawky, thickshod theologues; what a pity you're not
in the Church!"
This kind of outburst on the part of the speaker usually made Leonard
laugh. To-night his laugh sounded hollow. "I suppose your Episcopalian
students wear kids and use face powder," he said.
"There's no harm in kid gloves; inner vileness----"
"Is very bad, Paula; we'll not discuss it."
They walked across the Square, on the other side of which she had left
the carriage. She looked up to his face to seek an explanation of the
irritation discoverable in his tone; she noted that his hat was drawn
down over his eyes in a way very unusual. They walked on in silence.
"You will come with me?" she asked, when they had reached the carriage.
"Not to-night. You are right, I am not very well; it is nothing, I will
come out this week. Has Natalie discharged her maid?"
"Not for any fault. Mrs. Leon was very glad to get Berthe, and as
Natalie is situated----"
"I see. I hope she is comfortable with Cousin Achsah."
"They hit it off astonishingly well. The fact is, nobody could help
loving Natalie--I am surprised that you have not been to see her."
"I know I have seemed negligent. I have a good excuse. Where, in New
York, does Mrs. Leon live?"
"At the Fifth Avenue Hotel," she replied, wondering at the question.
"Well," he said, after a pause, and treating her answer as though, like
his question, it was of no real interest. "I must not keep you here. You
don't mind going home alone?"
"I should be glad of your company; aside from that, I don't mind."
"Then, good-bye," touching her hand for an instant. "Make my excuses to
Mrs. Joe; I have been really very busy. Home, James." He closed the
carriage door and walked rapidly away, leaving Paula vexed, to sink back
in the soft seat and to wonder.
He walked across the Square to the region of shops and entered a large
grocery store--at this time of day, deserted. "Could you give me a bill
for fifty dollars?" he asked of the cashier.
"I believe I can, Professor," replied the official, drawing one from the
desk, and exchanging it for the smaller bills handed him by Leonard, who
thanked him and went out. That night he enclosed the single bill in an
envelope, and addressed it to Mademoiselle Berthe, in care of Mrs. Leon.
As he could have told no man why he had done this, so he could not tell
himself why. Cynics and matrons may smile incredulous, but the kiss he
had given and received had wrought an upheaval in this man's soul. He
who defers his kissing until he has reached maturity has much to learn,
and if the learning comes in a sudden burst of light in still and quiet
chambers, that have until now been dark, the man may well be dazzled.
He did not think her sordid. He hoped she would understand that he sent
her that which he believed would be of use to her. But when, a week
later, he received a little box and found within it an exquisite pin,
which he, unlearned in such matters, still knew must have cost a large
part of the sum he had sent her, he was pleased, and a thrill passed
through him. Like him, she would remember, nor in her mind would there
be any thought but one of tenderness for a day that could never come
again. It would be a fair memory that would trouble him no more, but
would remain forever fair, of her who had opened to him the portals of a
new and beautiful world.