Hewson ate the meal before him, and it was a very good one, as from time
to time he noted, in a daze which was as strange a confusion of the two
consciousnesses as he had ever experienced. Whatever the convention was
between Miss Hernshaw and Mrs. Rock with regard to the matter in hand, or
lately in hand, it dropped, after a few uninterested inquiries from Mrs.
Rock, who was satisfied, or seemed so, to know that Miss Hernshaw had got
at the worst. She led the talk to other things, like the comparative
comforts and discomforts of the line to Genoa and the line to Liverpool;
and Hewson met her upon these polite topics with an apparent fulness of
interest that would have deceived a much more attentive listener.
All the time he was arguing with Miss Hernshaw in his nether
consciousness, pleading with her to keep her away from the fact that he
had himself bought St. Johnswort, until he could frame some fitting
form in which to tell her that he had bought it. With his outward eyes,
he saw her drooping on the opposite side of the table, and in spite of
her declaration that she wanted her breakfast, making nothing of it,
after the preliminary melon, while to his inward vision she was
passionately refusing, by every charming perversity, to be tempted
away from the subject.
As the Cunard boats always get in on Saturday, this morrow of their
arrival was naturally Sunday; and after a while Hewson fancied symptoms
of going to church in Mrs. Rock. She could not have become more vague
than she ordinarily was, but her wanderings were of a kind of devotional
character. She spoke of the American church in Rome, and asked Hewson if
he knew the rector. Then, when he said he was afraid he was keeping her
from going to church, she said she did not know whether Rosalie intended
going. At the same time she rose from the table, and Hewson found that he
should not be allowed to sit down again, unless by violence. He had to go
away, and he went, as little at ease in his mind as he very well could
be.
He was no sooner out of the house than he felt the necessity of
returning. He did not know how or when Miss Hernshaw would write to St.
John, but that she would do so, he did not at all doubt, and then, when
the truth came out, what would she think of him? He did not think her a
very wise person; she seemed to him rather a wild and whirling person in
her ideals of conduct, an unbridled and undisciplined person; and yet he
was aware of profoundly and tenderly respecting her as a creature of the
most inexpugnable innocence and final goodness. He could not bear to have
her feel that he had trifled with her. There had not been many meetings
between them, but each meeting had been of such event that it had
advanced their acquaintance far beyond the point that it could have
reached through weeks of ordinary association. From the first there had
been that sort of intimacy which exists between spirits which encounter
in the region of absolute sincerity. She had never used the least of
those arts which women use in concealing the candor of their natures from
men unworthy of it; she had not only practiced her rule of instant and
constant veracity, but had avowed it, and as it were, invited his
judgment of it. Hitherto, he had met her half-way at least, but now he
was in the coil of a disingenuousness which must more and more trammel
him from her, unless he found some way to declare the fact to her.
This ought to have been an easy matter, but it was not easy; upon
reflection it grew rather more difficult. Hewson did not see how he could
avow the fact, which he wished to avow, without intolerable awkwardness;
without the effect of boasting, without putting upon her a burden which
he had no right to put. To be sure, she had got herself in for it all by
her divine imprudence, but she had owned her error in that as promptly as
if it had been the blame of some one else. Still Hewson doubted whether
her magnanimity was large enough to go round in the case of a man who
tried to let his magnanimity come upon her with any sort of dramatic
surprise. This was what he must seem to be doing if he now left her to
learn from another how he had kept St. John from loss by himself assuming
the chance of depreciation in his property. But if he went and told her
that he had done it, how much better for him would that be?
He took a long, unhappy walk up into the Park, and then he walked back to
the Walholland. By this time he thought Mrs. Rock and Miss Hernshaw must
have been to church, but he had not the courage to send up his name to
them. He waited about in the region of the dining-room, in the senseless
hope that it would be better for him to surprise them on their way to
luncheon, and trust to some chance for introducing his confession, than
to seek a direct interview with Miss Hernshaw. But they did not come to
luncheon, and then Hewson had the clerk send up his card. Word came back
that the ladies would see him, and he followed the messenger to Mrs.
Rock’s apartment, where if he was surprised, he was not disappointed to
be received by Miss Hernshaw alone.
“Mrs. Rock is lying down,” she explained, “but I thought that it might be
something important, and you would not mind seeing me.”
“Not at all,” said Hewson, with what seemed to him afterwards superfluous
politeness, and then they both waited until he could formulate his
business, Miss Hernshaw drooping forward, and looking down in a way that
he had found was most characteristic of her. “It _is_ something
important--at least it is important to me. Miss Hernshaw, may I ask
whether you have done anything--it seems a very unwarrantable
question--about St. Johnswort?”
“About buying it?”
“Yes. It will be useless to make any offer for it.”
“Why will it be useless to do that?”
“Because--because I have bought it myself.”
“You have bought it?”
“Yes; when he came to me last night, and made those
representations--Well, in short, I have bought the place.”
“To save him from losing money by that--story?”
“Well--yes. I ought to have told you the fact this morning, as soon as
you said you would buy the place. I know that you like people to be
perfectly truthful. But--I couldn’t--without seeming to--brag.”
“I understand,” said Miss Hernshaw.
“I took the risk of your writing to St. John; but then I realized that if
he answered and told you what I ought to have told you myself, it would
make it worse, and I came back.”
“I don’t know whether it would have made it worse; but you have come too
late,” said Miss Hernshaw. “I’ve just written to Mr. St. John.”
They were both silent for what Hewson thought a long time. At the end of
it, he asked, “Did you--you must excuse me--refer to me at all?”
“No, certainly not. Why should I?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that it would have mattered.” He was silent
again, with bowed head; when he looked up he saw tears in the girl’s
eyes.
“I suppose you know where this leaves me?” she said gently.
“I can’t pretend that I don’t,” answered Hewson. “What can I do?”
“You can sell me the place for what it cost you.”
“Oh, no, I can’t do that,” said Hewson.
“Why do you say that? It isn’t as if I were poor; but even then you
wouldn’t have the right to refuse me if I insisted. It was my fault that
it ever came out about St. Johnswort. It might have come out about you,
but the harm to Mr. St. John--I did that, and why should you take it upon
yourself?”
“Because I was really to blame from the beginning to the end. If it had
not been for my pitiful wish to shine as the confidant of mystery,
nothing would have been known of the affair. Even when you asked me that
night if it had not happened at St. Johnswort, I know now that I had a
wretched triumph in saying that it had, and I was so full of this that I
did not think to caution you against repeating what I had owned.”
“Yes,” said the girl, with her unsparing honesty, “if you had given
me any hint, I would not have told for the world. Of course I did not
think--a girl wouldn’t--of the effect it would have on the property.”
“No, you wouldn’t think of that,” said Hewson. Though he agreed with
her, he would have preferred that she should continue to blame herself;
but he took himself severely in hand again. “So, you see, the fault was
altogether mine, and if there is to be any penalty it ought to fall upon
me.”
“Yes,” said Miss Hernshaw, “and if there has been a fault there ought to
be a penalty, don’t you think? It would have been no penalty for me to
buy St. Johnswort. My father wouldn’t have minded it.” She blushed
suddenly, and added, “I don’t mean that--You may be so rich that--I think
I had better stop.”
“No, no!” said Hewson, amused, and glad of the relief. “Go on. I will
tell you anything you wish to know.”
“I don’t wish, to know anything,” said Miss Hernshaw, haughtily.
Her words seemed to put an end to an interview for which there was no
longer any excuse.
Hewson rose. “Good-by,” he said, and he was rather surprised at her
putting out her hand, but he took it gratefully. “Will you make my adieux
to Mrs. Rock? And excuse my coming a second time to trouble you!”
“I don’t see how you could have helped coming,” said Miss Hernshaw, “when
you thought I might write to Mr. St. John at once.”
Whether this implied excuse or greater blame, Hewson had to go away with
it as her final response, and he went away certainly in as great
discomfort as he had come. He did not feel quite well used; it seemed to
him that hard measure had been dealt him on all sides, but especially by
Miss Hernshaw. After her futile effort at reparation to St. John she had
apparently withdrawn from all responsibility in the matter. He did not
know when he was to see her again, if ever, and he did not know what he
was to wait for, if anything.
Still he had the sense of waiting for something, or for some one, and he
went home to wait. There he perceived that it was for St. John, who did
not keep him waiting long. His nervous ring roused Hewson half an hour
after his return, and St. John came in with a look in his greedy eyes
which Hewson rightly interpreted at the first glance.
“See here, Hewson,” St. John said, with his habitual lack of manners. “I
don’t want to get you in for this thing at St. Johnswort. I know why you
offered to buy the place, and though of course you are the original cause
of the trouble, I don’t feel that it’s quite fair to let you shoulder the
consequences altogether.”
“Have I been complaining?” Hewson asked, dryly.
“No, and that’s just it. You’ve behaved like a little man through it all,
and I don’t like to take advantage of you. If you want to rue your
bargain, I’ll call it off. I’ve had some fresh light on the matter, and I
believe I can let you off without loss to myself. So that if it’s me
you’re considering--”
“What’s your fresh light?” asked Hewson.
“Well,” said St. John, and he swallowed rather hard, as if it were a
pill, “the fact is, I’ve had another offer for the place.”
“A better one?”
“Well, I don’t know that I can say that it is,” answered St. John, saving
his conscience in the form of the words.
Hewson knew that he was lying, and he had no mercy on him. “Then I
believe I’ll stick to my bargain. You say that the other party hasn’t
bettered my offer, and so I needn’t withdraw on your account. I’m not
bound to withdraw for any other reason.”
“No, of course not.” St. John rubbed his chin, as if hesitating to eat
his words, however unpalatable; but in the end he seemed not to find it
possible. “Well,” he said, disgustedly, as he floundered up to take his
leave, “I thought I ought to come and give you the chance.”
“It’s very nice of you,” said Hewson, with a smile that made itself a
derisive grin in spite of him, and a laugh of triumph when the door had
closed upon St. John.