"Yes. Lily has some shopping she _must_ do. I think we can get it at
Pazienti's in San Polo."
Again she tried to pierce him with her meaning. It seemed to him a
sudden advance from the position she had taken the night before in
regard to Miss Mayhew's not going out; but he could not understand his
wife's look, and he feared to misinterpret if he opposed her going. He
decided that she wished him for some reason to oppose the gondola, so he
said, "I think you'd better walk, if Lily isn't too tired."
"Oh, _I'm_ not tired at all!" she cried.
"I can go with you, in that direction, on my way to the library," he
added.
"Well, that will be very nice," said Mrs. Elmore, discontinuing her
look, and leaving her husband with an uneasy sense of wantonly assumed
responsibility.
"She can step into the Frari a moment, and see those tombs," he said. "I
think it will amuse her."
Lily broke into a laugh. "Is that the way you amuse yourselves in
Venice?" she asked; and Mrs. Elmore hastened to reassure her.
"That's the way Mr. Elmore amuses himself. You know his history makes
every bit of the past fascinating to him."
"Oh, yes, that history! Everybody is looking out for that," said Lily.
"Is it possible," said Elmore, with a pensive sarcasm in which an
agreeable sense of flattery lurked, "that people still remember me and
my history?"
"Yes, indeed!" cried Miss Mayhew. "Frank Halsey was talking about it the
night before I left. He couldn't seem to understand why I should be
coming to you at Venice, because he said it was a history of Florence
you were writing. It isn't, is it? You must be getting pretty near the
end of it, Professor Elmore."
"I'm getting pretty near the beginning," said Elmore sadly.
"It must be hard writing histories; they're so awfully hard to read,"
said Lily innocently. "Does it interest you?" she asked, with unaffected
compassion.
"Yes," he said, "far more than it will ever interest anybody else."
"Oh, I don't believe that!" she cried sweetly, seizing the occasion to
get in a little compliment.
Mrs. Elmore sat silent, while things were thus going against Miss
Mayhew, and perhaps she was then meditating the stroke by which she
restored the balance to her own favor as soon as she saw her husband
alone after breakfast. "Well, Owen," she said, "you've done it now."
"Done what?" he demanded.
"Oh, nothing, perhaps!" she answered, while she got on her things for
the walk with unusual gayety; and, with the consciousness of unknown
guilt depressing him, he followed the ladies upon their errand, subdued,
distraught, but gradually forgetting his sin, as he forgot everything
but his history. His wife hated to see him so miserable, and whispered
at the shop-door where they parted, "Don't be troubled, Owen! I didn't
mean anything."
"By what?"
"Oh, if you've forgotten, never mind!" she cried; and she and Miss
Mayhew disappeared within.
It was two hours later when he next saw them, after he had turned over
the book he wished to see, and had found the passage which would enable
him to go on with his work for the rest of the day at home. He was
fitting his key into the house-door when he happened to look up the
little street toward the bridge that led into it, and there, defined
against the sky on the level of the bridge, he saw Mrs. Elmore and Miss
Mayhew receiving the adieux of a distinguished-looking man in the
Austrian uniform. The officer had brought his heels together in the
conventional manner, and with his cap in his right hand, while his left
rested on the hilt of his sword, and pressed it down, he was bowing from
the hips. Once, twice, and he was gone.
The ladies came down the _calle_ with rapid steps and flushed faces, and
Elmore let them in. His wife whispered as she brushed by his elbow, "I
want to speak with you instantly, Owen. Well, now!" she added, when they
were alone in their own room and she had shut the door, "what do you say
_now_?"
"What do _I_ say now, Celia?" retorted Elmore, with just indignation.
"It seems to me that it is for _you_ to say something--or nothing."
"Why, you brought it on us."
Elmore merely glanced at his wife, and did not speak, for this passed
all force of language.
"Didn't you see me looking at you when I spoke of going out in a
gondola, at breakfast?"
"Yes."
"What did you suppose I meant?"
"I didn't know."
"When I was trying to make you understand that if we took a gondola we
could go and come without being seen! Lily _had_ to do her shopping. But
if you chose to run off on some interpretation of your own, was _I_ to
blame, I should like to know? No, indeed! You won't get me to admit it,
Owen."
Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation
between his set teeth.
"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried
Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving
her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words
were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to
tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to
depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty.
"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly.
"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing
that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added,
"Don't you think he was very handsome?"
"I couldn't judge, at such a distance."
"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was
disrespectful at all. He wasn't. He was everything that was delicate
and deferential."
"Did you ask him to walk home with you?"
Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long
breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous
insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will
be ready to do me _justice_. I ask nothing more." She waited for his
contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily
couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria
for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's
Square. I made Lily go on the Florian side, so as to avoid the officers
who were sitting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square and
past San Moïsè, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had never thought of how
the officers frequented the Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most
magnificent creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid officer!'
when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a sort of stop, and bowed very
low, and she whispered, 'It's my officer.' I didn't dream of his joining
us, and I don't think he did, at first; but after he took a second look
at Lily, it really seemed as if he couldn't help it. He asked if he
might join us, and I didn't say anything."
"Didn't say anything!"
"_No!_ How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and
confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the
Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into
society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there
is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?"
"No."
"Do you blame her?"
"No."
"Well, I don't see how _he_ was to blame."
"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to
all parties concerned."
Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure
she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did
not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she
pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German."
"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?"
"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very
polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of
encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted
from him very stiffly."
"Is it possible?"
"Owen, what _is_ there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated
with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or
speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was
wrong,--or didn't realize it."
"I dare say."
"What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed
over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance--one in
a hundred--of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?"
"Obviously, to join her and walk home with her."
"You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He
_looked_ like an American."
"He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call
them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon
you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much
self-respect, too much pride."
"What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very
naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out
against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over
here; and now, when a European _does_ do a simple, unaffected thing--"
Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your
being Americans--on your ignorance of the customs here--to take a
liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German
ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman."
"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when
Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very
much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that
I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but--he is desperate."
"Oh, indeed!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's
sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything
romantic in it?"
"I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I see it from his
standpoint as an adventure, to be bragged of and laughed over at the
mess-table and the caffè. I'm going to put a stop to it."
Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewildered. "Well, Owen," she
said, "I put the affair entirely in your hands."
Elmore never could decide upon just what theory his wife had acted; he
had to rest upon the fact, already known to him, of her perfect truth
and conscientiousness, and his perception that even in a good woman the
passion for manoeuvring and intrigue may approach the point at which
men commit forgery. He now saw her quelled and submissive; but he was by
no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, or that she
voluntarily acquiesced.
"All that I ask is that you won't do anything that you'll regret
afterward. And as for putting a stop to it, I fancy it's put a stop to
already. He's going back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that'll
probably be the last of him."
"Very well," said Elmore, "if that is the last of him, I ask nothing
better. I certainly have no wish to take any steps in the matter."
But he went out of the house very unhappy and greatly perplexed. He
thought at first of going to the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was
probably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar to that hostelry,
and of inquiring him out, and requesting him to discontinue his
attentions; but this course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than
comported with his present mood, and he turned aside to seek advice of
his consul. He found Mr. Hoskins in the best humor for backing his
quarrel. He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, stating that
the rumor of the approaching visit of the Alabama was unfounded; and he
was thus left with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands which
he was glad to contribute to the defence of Mr. Elmore's family from the
pursuit of this Austrian officer.
"This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore,"--he usually said "Elmore,"
but in his haughty frame of mind, he naturally threw something more of
state into their intercourse,--"a very simple affair, fortunately. All
that I have to do is to call on the military governor, and state the
facts of the case, and this fellow will get his orders quietly and
_definitively_. This war has sapped our influence in Europe,--there's no
doubt of it; but I think it's a pity if an American family living in
this city can't be safe from molestation; and if it can't, I want to
know the reason why."
This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and he thanked the consul.
At the same time he felt his own resentment moderated, and he said, "I'm
willing to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon."
"Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears out, that's the end of
it. I'll look in to-morrow, and see how you're getting along."
"Don't--don't give them the impression that I've--profited by your
kindness," suggested Elmore at parting.
"You haven't yet. I only hope you may have the chance."
"Thank you; I don't think _I_ do."
Elmore took a long walk, and returned home tranquillized and clarified
as to the situation. Since it could be terminated without difficulty and
without scandal in the way Hoskins had explained, he was not unwilling
to see a certain poetry in it. He could not repress a degree of sympathy
with the bold young fellow who had overstepped the conventional
proprieties in the ardor of a romantic impulse, and he could see how
this very boldness, while it had a terror, would have a charm for a
young girl. There was no necessity, except for the purpose of holding
Mrs. Elmore in check, to look at it in an ugly light. Perhaps the
officer had inferred from Lily's innocent frankness of manner that this
sort of approach was permissible with Americans, and was not amusing
himself with the adventure, but was in love in earnest. Elmore could
allow himself this view of a case which he had so completely in his own
hands; and he was sensible of a sort of pleasure in the novel
responsibility thrown upon him. Few men at his age were called upon to
stand in the place of a parent to a young girl, to intervene in her
affairs, and to decide who was and who was not a proper person to
pretend to her acquaintance.
Feeling so secure in his right, he rebelled against the restraint he had
proposed to himself, and at dinner he invited the ladies to go to the
opera with him. He chose to show himself in public with them, and to
check any impression that they were without due protection. As usual,
the pit was full of officers, and between the acts they all rose, as
usual, and faced the boxes, which they perused through their
_lorgnettes_ till the bell rang for the curtain to rise. But Mrs.
Elmore, having touched his arm to attract his notice, instructed him, by
a slow turning of her head, that Captain Ehrhardt was not there. After
that he undoubtedly breathed freer, and, in the relaxation from his
sense of bravado, he enjoyed the last acts of the opera more than the
first. Miss Mayhew showed no disappointment; and she bore herself with
so much grace and dignity, and yet so evidently impressed every one with
her beauty, that he was proud of having her in charge. He began himself
to see that she was pretty.