The implication of any such study as this is that the subject of it is
continuously if not exclusively occupied with the matter which is
supposed to make him interesting. But of course it was not so with
Hewson, who perhaps did not think of his apparition once in a fortnight,
or oftener, say, than he thought of the odd girl with whom for no reason,
except contemporaneity in his acquaintance, he associated with it. If he
never thought of the apparition without subconsciously expecting its
return, he equally expected when he thought of Miss Hernshaw that the
chances of society would bring them together again, and it was with no
more surprise than if the vision had intimated its second approach that
he one night found her name in the minute envelope which the footman
presented him at a house where he was going to dine, and realized that he
was appointed to take her out. It was a house where he rather liked to
go, for in that New York of his where so few houses had any distinctive
character, this one had a temperament of its own in so far that you might
expect to meet people of temperament there, if anywhere. They were indeed
held in a social solution where many other people of no temperament at
all floated largely and loosely about, but they were there, all the same,
and it was worth coming on the chance of meeting them, though the
indiscriminate hospitality of the hostess might let the evening pass
without promoting the chance. Now, however, she had unwittingly put into
Hewson’s keeping, for two hours at least, the very temperament that had
kept his fancy for the last half-year and more. He fairly laughed at
sight of the name on the little card, and hurried into the drawing-room,
where the first thing after greeting his hostess, he caught the wandering
look and vague smile of Mrs. Rock. The look and the smile became personal
to him, and she welcomed him with a curious resumption of the
confidential terms in which they had seemed to part that afternoon at St.
Johnswort. He thought that she was going to begin talking to him where
she had left off, about Rosalie, as she had called her, and he was
disappointed in the commonplaces that actually ensued. At the end of
these, however, she did say: “Miss Hernshaw is here with me. Have you
seen her?”
“Oh, yes,” Hewson returned, for he had caught sight of the girl in a
distant group, on his way up to Mrs. Rock, but in view of the affluent
opportunity before him had richly forborne trying even to make her bow to
him, though he believed she had seen him. “I am to have the happiness of
going out with her.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Mrs. Rock, “that is nice,” and then the people began
assorting themselves, and the man who was appointed to take Mrs. Rock
out, came and bowed Hewson away.
He hastened to that corner of the room where Miss Hernshaw was waiting,
and if he had been suddenly confronted with his apparition he could not
have experienced a deeper and stranger satisfaction than he felt as the
girl lifted up her innocent fierce face upon him.
It brought back that whole day at St. Johnswort, of which she, with his
vision, formed the supreme interest and equally the mystery; and it went
warmly to his heart to have her peremptorily abolish all banalities by
saying, “I was wondering if they were going to give me you, as soon as
you came in.”
She put her slim hand on his arm as she spoke, and he thought she must
have felt him quiver at her touch. “Then you were not afraid they were
going to give you me?” he bantered.
“No,” she said, “I wanted to talk with you. I wanted you to tell me what
Mrs. Rock said about me!”
“Just now? She said you were here.”
“No, I mean that day at St. Johnswort.”
Hewson laughed out for pleasure in her frankness, and then he felt a
gathering up of his coat-sleeve under her nervous fingers, as if (such a
thing being imaginable) she were going unwittingly to pinch him for his
teasing. “She said she wanted to explain you a little.”
“And then what!”
“And then nothing. She seemed to catch your eye, and she stopped.”
The fingers relaxed their hold upon that gathering up of his coat-sleeve.
“I won’t _be_ explained, and I have told her so. If I choose to act
myself, and show out my real thoughts and feelings, how is it any worse
than if I acted somebody else!”
“I should think it was very much better,” said Hewson, inwardly warned to
keep his face straight.