When she returned with her companion to the establishment in Tenth
Street she saw two notes lying on the table in the hall; one of which
she perceived to be addressed to Miss Chancellor, the other to herself.
The hand was different, but she recognised both. Olive was behind her on
the steps, talking to the coachman about sending another carriage for
them in half an hour (they had left themselves but just time to dress);
so that she simply possessed herself of her own note and ascended to her
room. As she did so she felt that all the while she had known it would
be there, and was conscious of a kind of treachery, an unfriendly
wilfulness, in not being more prepared for it. If she could roll about
New York the whole afternoon and forget that there might be difficulties
ahead, that didn't alter the fact that there _were_ difficulties, and
that they might even become considerable--might not be settled by her
simply going back to Boston. Half an hour later, as she drove up the
Fifth Avenue with Olive (there seemed to be so much crowded into that
one day), smoothing her light gloves, wishing her fan were a little
nicer, and proving by the answering, familiar brightness with which she
looked out on the lamp-lighted streets that, whatever theory might be
entertained as to the genesis of her talent and her personal nature, the
blood of the lecture-going, night-walking Tarrants did distinctly flow
in her veins; as the pair proceeded, I say, to the celebrated
restaurant, at the door of which Mr. Burrage had promised to be in
vigilant expectancy of their carriage, Verena found a sufficiently gay
and natural tone of voice for remarking to her friend that Mr. Ransom
had called upon her while they were out, and had left a note in which
there were many compliments for Miss Chancellor.
"That's wholly your own affair, my dear," Olive replied, with a
melancholy sigh, gazing down the vista of Fourteenth Street (which they
happened just then to be traversing, with much agitation), toward the
queer barrier of the elevated railway.
It was nothing new to Verena that if the great striving of Olive's life
was for justice she yet sometimes failed to arrive at it in particular
cases; and she reflected that it was rather late for her to say, like
that, that Basil Ransom's letters were only his correspondent's
business. Had not his kinswoman quite made the subject her own during
their drive that afternoon? Verena determined now that her companion
should hear all there was to be heard about the letter; asking herself
whether, if she told her at present more than she cared to know, it
wouldn't make up for her hitherto having told her less. "He brought it
with him, written, in case I should be out. He wants to see me
to-morrow--he says he has ever so much to say to me. He proposes an
hour--says he hopes it won't be inconvenient for me to see him about
eleven in the morning; thinks I may have no other engagement so early as
that. Of course our return to Boston settles it," Verena added, with
serenity.
Miss Chancellor said nothing for a moment; then she replied, "Yes,
unless you invite him to come on with you in the train."
"Why, Olive, how bitter you are!" Verena exclaimed, in genuine surprise.
Olive could not justify her bitterness by saying that her companion had
spoken as if she were disappointed, because Verena had not. So she
simply remarked, "I don't see what he can have to say to you--that would
be worth your hearing."
"Well, of course, it's the other side. He has got it on the brain!" said
Verena, with a laugh which seemed to relegate the whole matter to the
category of the unimportant.
"If we should stay, would you see him--at eleven o'clock?" Olive
inquired.
"Why do you ask that--when I have given it up?"
"Do you consider it such a tremendous sacrifice?"
"No," said Verena good-naturedly; "but I confess I am curious."
"Curious--how do you mean?"
"Well, to hear the other side."
"Oh heaven!" Olive Chancellor murmured, turning her face upon her.
"You must remember I have never heard it." And Verena smiled into her
friend's wan gaze.
"Do you want to hear all the infamy that is in the world?"
"No, it isn't that; but the more he should talk the better chance he
would give me. I guess I can meet him."
"Life is too short. Leave him as he is."
"Well," Verena went on, "there are many I haven't cared to move at all,
whom I might have been more interested in than in him. But to make him
give in just at two or three points--that I should like better than
anything I have done."
"You have no business to enter upon a contest that isn't equal; and it
wouldn't be, with Mr. Ransom."
"The inequality would be that I have right on my side."
"What is that--for a man? For what was their brutality given them, but
to make that up?"
"I don't think he's brutal; I should like to see," said Verena gaily.
Olive's eyes lingered a little on her own; then they turned away,
vaguely, blindly, out of the carriage-window, and Verena made the
reflexion that she looked strangely little like a person who was going
to dine at Delmonico's. How terribly she worried about everything, and
how tragical was her nature; how anxious, suspicious, exposed to subtle
influences! In their long intimacy Verena had come to revere most of her
friend's peculiarities; they were a proof of her depth and devotion, and
were so bound up with what was noble in her that she was rarely provoked
to criticise them separately. But at present, suddenly, Olive's
earnestness began to appear as inharmonious with the scheme of the
universe as if it had been a broken saw; and she was positively glad she
had not told her about Basil Ransom's appearance in Monadnoc Place. If
she worried so about what she knew, how much would she not have worried
about the rest! Verena had by this time made up her mind that her
acquaintance with Mr. Ransom was the most episodical, most superficial,
most unimportant of all possible relations.
Olive Chancellor watched Henry Burrage very closely that evening; she
had a special reason for doing so, and her entertainment, during the
successive hours, was derived much less from the delicate little feast
over which this insinuating proselyte presided, in the brilliant public
room of the establishment, where French waiters flitted about on deep
carpets and parties at neighbouring tables excited curiosity and
conjecture, or even from the magnificent music of _Lohengrin_, than from
a secret process of comparison and verification, which shall presently
be explained to the reader. As some discredit has possibly been thrown
upon her impartiality it is a pleasure to be able to say that on her
return from the opera she took a step dictated by an earnest
consideration of justice--of the promptness with which Verena had told
her of the note left by Basil Ransom in the afternoon. She drew Verena
into her room with her. The girl, on the way back to Tenth Street, had
spoken only of Wagner's music, of the singers, the orchestra, the
immensity of the house, her tremendous pleasure. Olive could see how
fond she might become of New York, where that kind of pleasure was so
much more in the air.
"Well, Mr. Burrage was certainly very kind to us--no one could have been
more thoughtful," Olive said; and she coloured a little at the look with
which Verena greeted this tribute of appreciation from Miss Chancellor
to a single gentleman.
"I am so glad you were struck with that, because I do think we have been
a little rough to him." Verena's _we_ was angelic. "He was particularly
attentive to you, my dear; he has got over me. He looked at you so
sweetly. Dearest Olive, if you marry him----!" And Miss Tarrant, who was
in high spirits, embraced her companion, to check her own silliness.
"He wants you to stay there, all the same. They haven't given _that_
up," Olive remarked, turning to a drawer, out of which she took a
letter.
"Did he tell you that, pray? He said nothing more about it to me."
"When we came in this afternoon I found this note from Mrs. Burrage. You
had better read it." And she presented the document, open, to Verena.
The purpose of it was to say that Mrs. Burrage could really not
reconcile herself to the loss of Verena's visit, on which both she and
her son had counted so much. She was sure they would be able to make it
as interesting to Miss Tarrant as it would be to themselves. She, Mrs.
Burrage, moreover, felt as if she hadn't heard half she wanted about
Miss Tarrant's views, and there were so many more who were present at
the address, who had come to her that afternoon (losing not a minute, as
Miss Chancellor could see) to ask how in the world they too could learn
more--how they could get at the fair speaker and question her about
certain details. She hoped so much, therefore, that even if the young
ladies should be unable to alter their decision about the visit they
might at least see their way to staying over long enough to allow her to
arrange an informal meeting for some of these poor thirsty souls. Might
she not at least talk over the question with Miss Chancellor? She gave
her notice that she would attack her on the subject of the visit too.
Might she not see her on the morrow, and might she ask of her the very
great favour that the interview should be at Mrs. Burrage's own house?
She had something very particular to say to her, as regards which
perfect privacy was a great consideration, and Miss Chancellor would
doubtless recognise that this would be best secured under Mrs. Burrage's
roof. She would therefore send her carriage for Miss Chancellor at any
hour that would be convenient to the latter. She really thought much
good might come from their having a satisfactory talk.
Verena read this epistle with much deliberation; it seemed to her
mysterious, and confirmed the idea she had received the night
before--the idea that she had not got quite a correct impression of this
clever, worldly, curious woman on the occasion of her visit to
Cambridge, when they met her at her son's rooms. As she gave the letter
back to Olive she said, "That's why he didn't seem to believe we are
really leaving to-morrow. He knows she had written that, and he thinks
it will keep us."
"Well, if I were to say it may--should you think me too miserably
changeful?"
Verena stared, with all her candour, and it was so very queer that Olive
should now wish to linger that the sense of it, for the moment, almost
covered the sense of its being pleasant. But that came out after an
instant, and she said, with great honesty, "You needn't drag me away for
consistency's sake. It would be absurd for me to pretend that I don't
like being here."
"I think perhaps I ought to see her." Olive was very thoughtful.
"How lovely it must be to have a secret with Mrs. Burrage!" Verena
exclaimed.
"It won't be a secret from you."
"Dearest, you needn't tell me unless you want," Verena went on, thinking
of her own unimparted knowledge.
"I thought it was our plan to divide everything. It was certainly mine."
"Ah, don't talk about plans!" Verena exclaimed, rather ruefully. "You
see, if we _are_ going to stay to-morrow, how foolish it was to have
any. There is more in her letter than is expressed," she added, as Olive
appeared to be studying in her face the reasons for and against making
this concession to Mrs. Burrage, and that was rather embarrassing.
"I thought it over all the evening--so that if now you will consent we
will stay."
"Darling--what a spirit you have got! All through all those dear little
dishes--all through _Lohengrin_! As I haven't thought it over at all,
you must settle it. You know I am not difficult."
"And would you go and stay with Mrs. Burrage, after all, if she should
say anything to me that seems to make it desirable?"