I don't know how deeply she flushed as she made, in the form of her
question, this avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial and
the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe; but was aware of the
colour of my own cheeks while I took my way to Stresa--a walk of half an
hour--in the attenuating night. The new and singular character in which
she had appeared to me produced in me an emotion that would have made
sitting still in a carriage impossible. This same stress kept me up
after I had reached my hotel; as I knew I shouldn't sleep it was useless
to go to bed. Long, however, as I deferred this ceremony, Archie had
not reappeared when the inn-lights began here and there to be dispensed
with. I felt even slightly anxious for him, wondering at possible
mischances. Then I reflected that in case of an accident on the lake,
that is of his continued absence from Baveno--Mrs. Pallant would already
have dispatched me a messenger. It was foolish moreover to suppose
anything could have happened to him after putting off from Baveno by
water to rejoin me, for the evening was absolutely windless and more
than sufficiently clear and the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had
unlimited confidence in his power to take care of himself in a much
tighter place. I went to my room at last; his own was at some distance,
the people of the hotel not having been able--it was the height of
the autumn season--to make us contiguous. Before I went to bed I had
occasion to ring for a servant, and I then learned by a chance enquiry
that my nephew had returned an hour before and had gone straight to
his own quarters. I hadn't supposed he could come in without my seeing
him--I was wandering about the saloons and terraces--and it had not
occurred to me to knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so now--I
was so anxious as to how I should find him; but I checked myself, for
evidently he had wanted to dodge me. This didn't diminish my curiosity,
and I slept even less than I had expected. His so markedly shirking our
encounter--for if he hadn't perceived me downstairs he might have looked
for me in my room--was a sign that Mrs. Pallant's interview with him
would really have come off. What had she said to him? What strong
measures had she taken? That almost morbid resolution I still seemed to
hear the ring of pointed to conceivable extremities that I shrank from
considering. She had spoken of these things while we parted there as
something she would do for me; but I had made the mental comment in
walking away from her that she hadn't done it yet. It wouldn't truly be
done till Archie had truly backed out. Perhaps it was done by this time;
his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. That was what I thought of most
of the night. I spent a considerable part of it at my window, looking
out to the couchant Alps. HAD he thought better of it?--was he making up
his mind to think better of it? There was a strange contradiction in the
matter; there were in fact more contradictions than ever. I had taken
from Louisa what she told me of Linda, and yet that other idea made me
ashamed of my nephew. I was sorry for the girl; I regretted her loss of
a great chance, if loss it was to be; and yet I hoped her mother's grand
treachery--I didn't know what to call it--had been at least, to her
lover, thoroughgoing. It would need strong action in that lady to
justify his retreat. For him too I was sorry--if she had made on him the
impression she desired. Once or twice I was on the point of getting into
my dressing-gown and going forth to condole with him. I was sure he
too had jumped up from his bed and was looking out of his window at the
everlasting hills.
But I am bound to say that when we met in the morning for breakfast he
showed few traces of ravage. Youth is strange; it has resources that
later experience seems only to undermine. One of these is the masterly
resource of beautiful blankness. As we grow older and cleverer we think
that too simple, too crude; we dissimulate more elaborately, but with an
effect much less baffling. My young man looked not in the least as if he
had lain awake or had something on his mind; and when I asked him what
he had done after my premature departure--I explained this by saying I
had been tired of waiting for him; fagged with my journey I had wanted
to go to bed--he replied: "Oh nothing in particular. I hung about the
place; I like it better than this one. We had an awfully jolly time
on the water. _I_ wasn't in the least fagged." I didn't worry him with
questions; it struck me as gross to try to probe his secret. The only
indication he gave was on my saying after breakfast that I should go
over again to see our friends and my appearing to take for granted he
would be glad to come too. Then he let fall that he'd stop at Stresa--he
had paid them such a tremendous visit; also that he had arrears of
letters. There was a freshness in his scruples about the length of his
visits, and I knew something about his correspondence, which consisted
entirely of twenty pages every week from his mother. But he soothed my
anxiety so little that it was really this yearning that carried me back
to Baveno. This time I ordered a conveyance, and as I got into it he
stood watching me from the porch of the hotel with his hands in his
pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw in the poor youth's
face the expression of a person slightly dazed, slightly foolish even,
to whom something disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as I observed
him, and I was on the point of saying "You had really better come with
me" when he turned away. He went into the house as to escape my call. I
said to myself that he had been indeed warned off, but that it wouldn't
take much to bring him back.
The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno described my friends as in a
summer-house in the garden, to which he led the way. The place at large
had an empty air; most of the inmates of the hotel were dispersed on
the lake, on the hills, in picnics, excursions, visits to the
Borromean Islands. My guide was so far right as that Linda was in
the summer-house, but she was there alone. On finding this the case
I stopped short, rather awkwardly--I might have been, from the way I
suddenly felt, an unmasked hypocrite, a proved conspirator against her
security and honour. But there was no embarrassment in lovely Linda; she
looked up with a cry of pleasure from the book she was reading and held
out her hand with engaging frankness. I felt again as if I had no right
to that favour, which I pretended not to have noticed. This gave no
chill, however, to her pretty manner; she moved a roll of tapestry
off the bench so that I might sit down; she praised the place as a
delightful shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, kinder; she
made her mother's awful talk about her a hideous dream. She told me
her mother was coming to join her; she had remained indoors to write
a letter. One couldn't write out there, though it was so nice in other
respects: the table refused to stand firm. They too then had pretexts
of letters between them--I judged this a token that the situation was
tense. It was the only one nevertheless that Linda gave: like Archie she
was young enough to carry it off. She had been used to seeing us always
together, yet she made no comment on my having come over without him. I
waited in vain for her to speak of this--it would only be natural; her
omission couldn't but have a sense. At last I remarked that my nephew
was very unsociable that morning; I had expected him to join me, but he
hadn't seemed to see the attraction.
"I'm very glad. You can tell him that if you like," said Linda Pallant.