weariness; here he came upon Miss Stowe. There seemed to be no one in
the garden save themselves--at least, no one whom they knew; only a few
stray tourists wandering about, with Baedeker, Horner, and Hare. The
world of fashion was at the Cascine that day, where races were going on.
Morgan did not feel like talking; he exchanged the usual phrases with
Miss Stowe, and then prepared to pass on. But she said, gently, "Are you
going now? If not, why not stroll awhile with me?"
After this, as he mentally observed, of course he was forced to stroll
awhile. But, on the whole, he found himself entertained, because his
companion gave him an attention which was almost devout. Its
seriousness, indeed, compelled him to be serious likewise, and made him
feel as though he were in an atmosphere combining the characteristics of
a church and a school; he was partly priest, partly pedagogue, and the
sensation was amusing. She asked him what he liked best in Florence; and
she called it, gravely, "enchanting Florence."
"Giotto and Botticelli," he answered.
"I wish you would be in earnest; I am in earnest."
"With all the earnestness in the world, Miss Stowe, I could only repeat
the same reply."
"What is it you find to like in them? Will you tell me?"
"It would take an age--a full half-hour; you would be quite tired out.
Women are so much quicker in their mental processes than we are that you
would apprehend what I was going to say before I could get it out; you
would ascend all the heights, scour all the plains, and arrive at the
goal before I came even in sight, where you would sit waiting, patiently
or impatiently, as I, slowly and with mortified perception, approached."
"Yes, we are quick; but we are superficial. I wish you would tell me."
He glanced at her; she was looking at him with an expression in her eyes
which was extremely earnest. "I cannot deliver a discourse while
walking," he said. "I require a seat."
"Let us go to the amphitheatre; I often sit there for a while on the
stone benches under the old statues. I like to see them standing around
the circle; they are so serenely indifferent to the modern
pencil-scrawlings on their robes, so calmly certain that their time will
come again."
"What you say is entirely charming. Still, I hardly think I can talk to
the statues. I must have something more--more secluded." He was aware
that he was verging upon a slight impertinence; but he wished to see
whether she would accede--what she would do. He made no effort to find
the seclusion of which he spoke; he left that to her.
She hesitated a moment; then, "We might go to a seat there is under a
tree at the top of the slope," she said. "It is a pleasant place."
He assented; and they went up the path by the side of the tall, stately
hedges, and past the fountain and the great statue of Abbondanza. The
stone bench was not one of those sought for; it was not in front, but on
the western side. It commanded a view of the city below, with the Duomo
and Giotto's lovely bell-tower; of the fruit-trees, all in flower on the
outskirts; of the treetops of the Cascine, now like a cloud of golden
smoke with their tender brown leaflets, tasselled blossoms, and winged
seeds; of the young grain, springing greenly down the valley; and the
soft, velvety mountains rising all around. "How beautiful it is!" she
said, leaning back, closing her parasol and folding her hands.
"Beautiful--yes; but barren of human interest save to those who are
going to sell the fruit, or who depend upon the growth of the grain. The
beauty of art is deeper; it is all human."
"I must be quite ignorant about art," she answered, "because it does not
impress me in that way; I wish it did. I wish you would instruct me a
little, Mr. Morgan."
"Good!" he thought. "What next?" But although he thought, he of course
was obliged to talk also, and so he began about the two art masters he
had mentioned. He delivered quite an epic upon Giotto's two little
frescos in the second cloister of Santa Maria Novella, and he openly
preferred the third there--the little Virgin going up the impossible
steps--to Titian's splendid picture of the same subject, in Venice. He
grew didactic and mystic over the round Botticelli of the Uffizi and the
one in the Prometheus room at the Pitti; he invented as he went along,
and amused himself not a little with his own unusual flow of language.
His companion listened, and now and then asked a question. But her
questions were directed more towards what he thought of the pictures
(after a while he noticed this), and what impressions they made upon
him, than to the pictures themselves or their claims to celebrity. As
he went on he made some slight attempts to diverge a little from the
subject in hand, and skirt, if ever so slightly, the borders of
flirtation; he was curious to see if she would follow him there. But she
remained unresponsive; and, while giving no sign of even perceiving his
digressions, she brought him back to his art atmosphere, each time he
left it, with a question or remark very well adapted for the purpose; so
well, indeed, that it could not have been by chance.
She declined his escort homeward, pretexting a visit she wished to pay;
but she said, of her own accord, that she would sing for him the next
time he came. He knew this was a favor she did not often grant; Madame
Ferri had so informed him.
He went, without much delay; and she sang several songs in the dusky
corner where her piano stood while he sat near. The light from the wax
candles at the other end of the large room, where Miss Harrison was
knitting, did not penetrate here; but she said she liked to sing in a
semi-darkness, as she had only a twilight voice. It was in truth not at
all powerful; but it was sweet and low, and she sang with much
expression. Trafford Morgan liked music; it was not necessary to make up
a conviction or theory about that; he simply had a natural love for it,
and he came more than once to hear Miss Stowe sing.
In the meantime Miss Harrison continued to like "the grandson of old
Adam," and again invited him to drive. A month went by, and, by the end
of it, he had seen in one way and another a good deal of these two
ladies. The "later manner" (as he mentally called it) of Miss Stowe
continued; when they were in company, she was as she had been
originally, but when they were unobserved, or by themselves, she gave
him the peculiar sober attention which he did not quite comprehend. He
had several theories about it, and varied between them. He was a man who
did not talk of persons, who never told much. If questioned, while
answering readily and apparently without reserve, it was noticed
afterwards that he had told nothing. He had never spoken of Sicily, for
instance, but had talked a good deal of Sweden. This reticence, so
exasperating to many women, seemed agreeable to Miss Stowe, who herself
did not tell much, or talk of persons--that is, generally. One person
she talked about, and with persistence. Morgan was hardly ever with her
that she did not, sooner or later, begin to talk to him about himself.
Sometimes he was responsive, sometimes not; but responsive or
unresponsive, in society or out of it, he had talked, all told, a goodly
number of hours with Miss Stowe when May attained its zenith and the
season waned.
The tourists had gone to Venice; the red gleam of guide-books along the
streets and the conscientiousness of woollen travelling-dresses in the
galleries were no longer visible. Miss Stowe now stepped over the
boundary-line of her caution a little; many of the people she knew had
gone; she went with Trafford to the Academy and the Pitti; she took him
into cool, dim churches, and questioned him concerning his creed; she
strolled with him through the monastery of San Marco, and asked what his
idea was of the next world. She said she liked cloisters; she would like
to walk in one for an hour or two every day.
He replied that there were a number of cloisters in Florence; they might
visit them in succession and pace around quietly. The effect would be
heightened if she would read aloud, as they paced, short sentences from
some ancient, stiff-covered little book like _De Contemptu Mundi_.
"Ah," she said, "you are not in earnest. But I am!"
And she seemed to be; he said to himself that he had hardly had a look
or word from her which was not only earnest, but almost portentously so.
She now began to do whatever he asked her to do, whether it was to sing
Italian music or to read Dante's _Vita Nuova_, both of which she had
said she did not like. It is probable that he asked her to do a number
of things about this time which he did not especially care for, simply
to see if she would comply; she always did.
"If she goes on in this sort of way," he thought, "never showing the
least opposition, or personal moods different from mine, I really don't
know where we shall end!"
But at last she did show both. It was in the evening, and she was at the
piano; after one or two ballads he asked her to sing a little English
song he had found among her music, not printed, but in manuscript.
"Oh, that is nothing," she said, putting out her hand to take it from
him. "I will sing this of Schumann's instead; it is much prettier."
But he maintained his point. "I like this better," he said. "I like the
name--of course it is impossible, but it is pleasant--'Semper Fidelis.'"
She took it, looked at it in silence for a moment, and then, without
further reply, began to sing. There was nothing remarkable in the words
or the music; she did not sing as well as usual, either; she hurried the
time.
"SEMPER FIDELIS
"Dumb and unchanged my thoughts still round thee hover,
Nor will be moved;
E'en though I strive, my heart remains thy lover,
Though unbeloved;
Yet there is sad content in loyalty,
And, though the silent gift is naught to thee,
It changes never--
Faithful forever."
This was the verse; but at the fifth line she faltered, stopped, and
then, rising abruptly, left the room.
"Margaret is very uneven at times," said Miss Harrison, apologetically,
from her easy-chair.
"All interesting persons are uneven," he replied. He went over and took
a seat beside his hostess, remaining half an hour longer; but as he went
back to his hotel he said to himself that Miss Stowe had been for many
weeks the most even woman he had ever known, showing neither variation
nor shadow of turning. She had been as even as a straight line.
On this account her sudden emotion made an impression upon him. The next
day he mentioned that he was going to Trieste.
"Not Venice?" said Miss Harrison. "I thought everybody went to Venice."
"Venice," he replied, "is pre-eminently the place where one needs either
an actual, tangible companionship of the dearest sort, or a memory like
it. I, who have neither, keep well away from Venice!"
"I rather think, Mr. Morgan, that you have had pretty much what you
wanted, in Venice or elsewhere," said Miss Harrison, with a dry humor
she sometimes showed. Here she was called from the room to see a poor
woman whom she befriended; Miss Stowe and Morgan were left alone.
He was looking at her; he was noting what effect, if any, the tidings of
his departure (he had named to-morrow) would have upon her. She had not
been conventional; would she resort to conventionality now?
Her gaze was bent upon the floor; after a while she looked up. "Where
shall you be this summer?" she said, slowly. "Perhaps we shall be there
too." Her eyes were fixed upon his face, her tone was hardly above a
whisper.
Perhaps it was curiosity that made him do what he did; whether it was or
not, mingled with it there was certainly a good deal of audacity. He
rose, went to her, and took her hand. "Forgive me," he said; "I am in
love with some one else."
It implied much. But had not her manner implied the same, or more?
She rose; they were both standing now.
"What do you mean!" she demanded, a light coming into her eyes--eyes
usually abstracted, almost dull.
"Only what I have said."
"Why should you say it to me?"
"I thought you might be--interested."
"You are mistaken. I am not in the least interested. Why should I be?"
"Are you not a little unkind?"
"Not more unkind than you are insolent."
She was very angry. He began to be a little angry himself.
"I ask your pardon with the deepest humility, Miss Stowe. The insolence
of which you accuse me was as far as possible from my mind. If I thought
you might be somewhat interested in what I have told you, it was because
you have honored me with some small share of your attention during the
past week or two; probably it has spoiled me."
"I have; and for a month or two, not a week or two. But there was a
motive--It was an experiment."
"You have used me for experimental purposes, then?"
"Yes."
"I am immensely grateful to have been considered worthy of a part in an
experiment of yours, even although a passive one. May I ask if the
experiment is ended?"
"It is."
"Since when? Since I made that confession about some one else?"
Miss Stowe's face was pale, her dark eyes were brilliant. "I knew all
the while that you were in love--hopelessly in love--with Mrs. Lovell,"
she said, with a proud smile. "That was the reason that, for my
experiment, I selected _you_."
A flush rose over his face as she spoke. "You thought you would have the
greater triumph?" he asked.
"I thought nothing of the kind. I thought that I should be safe, because
you would not respond."
"And you did not wish me to respond?"
"I did not."
"Excuse me--we are speaking frankly, are we not?--but do you not
contradict yourself somewhat? You say you did not wish me to respond;
yet, have you not tried to make me?"
"That was not my object. It was but a necessary accompaniment of the
experiment."
"And if I _had_ responded?" he said, looking at her.
"I knew you could not. I knew quite well--I mean I could imagine quite
well--how much you loved Beatrice. But it has all been a piece of folly
upon my part--I see it now." She turned away, and went across to the
piano. "I wish you would go now," she said, in a low voice, vaguely
turning over the music. "_I_ cannot, because my aunt will think it
strange to find me gone."
Instead of obeying her, he crossed the room and stood beside her; and
then he saw in the twilight that her eyes were full of tears and her
lips quivering, in spite of her effort to prevent it.
"Margaret," he said, suddenly, and with a good deal of feeling in his
voice, "I am not worth it! Indeed I am not!" And again he touched her
hand.
But she drew it from him. "Are you by any chance imagining that my tears
are for _you_?" she said, in a low tone, but facing him like a creature
at bay. "Have you interpreted me in that way? I have a right to know;
speak!"
"I am at a loss to interpret you," he said, after a moment's silence.
"I will tell you the whole, then--I must tell you; your mistake forces
it from me." She paused, drew a quick breath, and then went on, rapidly:
"I love some one else. I have been very unhappy. Just after you came I
received a letter which told me that he was soon to be married; he _is_
married now. I had an illness in consequence. You may remember my
illness? I made up my mind then that I would root out the feeling if
possible, no matter at what cost of pain and effort and long patience.
You came in my way. I knew you were deeply attached elsewhere--"
"How did you know it?" he said. He was leaning against the piano
watching her; she stood with her hands folded, and pressed so tightly
together that he could see the force of the pressure.
"Never mind how; but quite simply and naturally. I said to myself that I
would try to become interested in you, even if only to a small degree; I
would do everything in my power to forward it. It would be an acquired
interest; still, acquired interests can be deep. People can become
interested in music, in pictures, in sports, in that way; why not, then,
in persons also, since they are more human?"
"That is the very reason--because they are too human," he answered.
But she did not heed. "I have studied you; I have tried to find the good
in you; I have tried to believe in you, to idealize you. I have given
every thought that I could control to you, and to you alone, for two
long months," she said, passionately, unlocking her hands, reddened with
their pressure against each other, and turning away.
"It has been a failure?"
"Complete."
"And if you had succeeded?" he asked, folding his arms as he leaned
against the piano.
"I should have been glad and happy. I should never have seen _you_
again, of course; but at least the miserable old feeling would have been
laid at rest."
"And its place filled by another as miserable!"
"Oh no; it could never have been _that_," she said, with an emphasis of
scorn.
"You tried a dangerous remedy, Margaret."
"Not so dangerous as the disease."
"A remedy may be worse than a disease. In spite of your scornful tone,
permit me to tell you that if you had succeeded at all, it would have
been in the end by loving me as you loved--I mean love--this other man.
While I, in the meantime, am in love (as you are kind enough to inform
me--hopelessly) with another woman! Is Beatrice a friend of yours?"
"My dearest friend."
"Has it never occurred to you that you were playing towards her rather a
traitorous part?"
"Never."
"Supposing, during this experiment of yours, that I had fallen in love
with you?"
"It would have been nothing to Beatrice if you had," responded Mrs.
Lovell's friend instantly and loyally, although remembering, at the same
moment, that Fiesole blush. Then, in a changed voice, and with a proud
humility which was touching, she added, "It would have been quite
impossible. Beatrice is the loveliest woman in the world; any one who
had loved _her_ would never think of me."
At this moment Miss Harrison's voice was heard in the hall; she was
returning.
"Good-bye," said Morgan. "I shall go to-morrow. You would rather have me
go." He took her hand, held it an instant, and then raised it to his
lips. "Good-bye," he said, again. "Forgive me, Margaret. And do not
entirely--forget me."
When Miss Harrison returned they were looking at the music on the piano.
A few moments later he took leave.
"I am sorry he has gone," said Miss Harrison. "What in the world is he
going to do at Trieste? Well, so goes life! nothing but partings! One
thing is a consolation, however--at least, to me; the grandson of old
Adam did not turn out a disappointment, after all."
"I do not think I am a judge," replied Miss Stowe.
* * * * *
In June Miss Harrison went northward to Paris, her niece accompanying
her. They spent the summer in Switzerland; in the autumn returned to
Paris; and in December went southward to Naples and Rome.
Mrs. Lovell had answered Margaret's letter in June. The six weeks of
yachting had been charming; the yacht belonged to an English gentleman,
who had a country-seat in Devonshire. She herself, by-the-way, might be
in Devonshire during the summer; it was so quiet there. Could not Miss
Harrison be induced to come to Devonshire? That would be _so_
delightful. It had been extremely difficult to wear deep mourning at
sea; but of course she had persisted in it. Much of it had been
completely ruined; she had been obliged to buy more. Yes--it _was_
amusing--her meeting Trafford Morgan. And so unexpected, of course. Did
she like him? No, the letter need not be returned. If it troubled her to
have it, she might destroy it; perhaps it was as well it should be
destroyed. There were some such pleasant qualities in English life;
there was not so much opportunity, perhaps, as in America--"That blush
meant nothing, then, after all," thought the reader, lifting her eyes
from the page, and looking musingly at a picture on the wall. "She said
it meant only a lack of iron; and, as Beatrice always tells the truth,
she did mean that, probably, and not irony, as I supposed." She sat
thinking for a few moments, and then went back to the letter: There was
not so much opportunity, perhaps, as in America; but there was more
stability, more certainty that things would continue to go on. There
were various occurrences which she would like to tell; but she never
wrote that sort of thing, as Margaret knew. If she would only come to
Devonshire for the summer--and so forth, and so forth.
But Beatrice did sometimes write "that sort of thing," after all. During
the next February, in Rome, after a long silence, Margaret received a
letter from her which brought the tidings of her engagement. He was an
Englishman. He had a country-seat in Devonshire. He owned a yacht.
Beatrice seemed very happy. "We shall not be married until next winter,"
she wrote. "I would not consent, of course, to anything earlier. I have
consistently endeavored to do what was right from the beginning, and
shall not waver now. But by next January there can be no criticism, and
I suppose that will be the time. How I wish you were here to advise me
about a hundred things! Besides, I want you to know him; you will be
sure to like him. He is"--and so forth, and so forth.
"She is following out her destiny," thought the reader in Rome.
In March Miss Harrison found the Eternal City too warm, and moved
northward as far as Florence. Madame Ferri was delighted to see them
again; she came five times during the first three days to say so.
"You will find _so_ many whom you knew last year here again as well as
yourselves," she said, enthusiastically. "We shall have some of our
_charming_ old reunions. Let me see--I think I can tell you." And she
ran over a list of names, among them that of "Mr. Morgan."
"What, not the grandson of Adam?" said Miss Harrison.
"He is not _quite_ so old as that, is he?" said Madame Ferri, laughing.
"It is the one who dined with you several times last year, I
believe--Mr. Trafford Morgan. I shall have great pleasure in telling him
this very day that you are here."
"Do you know whether he is to remain long?" said Miss Stowe, who had not
before spoken.
"I am sorry to say he is not; Mr. Morgan is always an addition, I
think--don't you? But he told me only yesterday that he was going this
week to--to Tarascon, I think he said."
"Trieste and Tarascon--he selects the most extraordinary places!" said
Miss Harrison. "The next time it will be Tartarus."
Madame Ferri was overcome with mirth. "_Dear_ Miss Harrison, you are
_too_ droll! _Isn't_ she, dear Miss Stowe?"
"He probably chooses his names at random," said Miss Stowe, with
indifference.
The next day, at the Pitti, she met him. She was alone, and returned his
salutation coldly. He was with some ladies who were standing near,
looking at the "Madonna of the Chair." He merely asked how Miss Harrison
was, and said he should give himself the pleasure of coming to see her
very soon; then he bowed and returned to his friends. Not long
afterwards she saw them all leave the gallery together.
Half an hour later she was standing in front of one of Titian's
portraits, when a voice close beside her said, "Ah! the young man in
black. You are not admiring it?"
There had been almost a crowd in the gorgeous rooms that morning. She
had stood elbow to elbow with so many persons that she no longer noticed
them; Trafford Morgan had been able, therefore, to approach and stand
beside her for several minutes without attracting her recognition. As he
spoke she turned, and, in answer to his smile, gave an even slighter bow
than before; it was hardly more than a movement of the eyelids. Two
English girls, with large hats, sweet, shy eyes, and pink cheeks, who
were standing close beside them, turned away towards the left for a
minute to look at another picture.
"Do not treat me badly," he said. "I need kindness. I am not very
happy."
"I can understand that," she answered. Here the English girls came back
again.
"I think you are wrong in admiring it," he said, looking at the
portrait; "it is a quite impossible picture. A youth with that small,
delicate head and face could never have had those shoulders; they are
the shoulders of quite another type of man. This is some boy whom Titian
wished to flatter; but he was artist enough to try and hide the flattery
by that overcoat. The face has no calm; you would not have admired it
in life."
"On the contrary, I should have admired it greatly," replied Miss Stowe.
"I should have adored it. I should have adored the eyes."
"Surely there is nothing in them but a sort of pugnacity."
"Whatever it is, it is delightful."
The English girls now turned away towards the right.
"You are quite changed," he said, looking at her.
"Yes, I think I am. I am much more agreeable. Every one will tell you
so; even Madame Ferri, who is obliged to reconcile it with my having
been always more agreeable than any one in the world, you know. I have
become lighter. I am no longer heavy."