He forbore to ask her his question again--she might tell him at her
convenience. But the days passed by, and she never told him--she had
her own reasons. Bernard talked with her very often; conversation formed
indeed the chief entertainment of the quiet little circle of which
he was a member. They sat on the terrace and talked in the mingled
starlight and lamplight, and they strolled in the deep green forests and
wound along the side of the gentle Baden hills, under the influence of
colloquial tendencies. The Black Forest is a country of almost unbroken
shade, and in the still days of midsummer the whole place was covered
with a motionless canopy of verdure. Our friends were not extravagant
or audacious people, and they looked at Baden life very much from the
outside--they sat aloof from the brightly lighted drama of professional
revelry. Among themselves as well, however, a little drama went
forward in which each member of the company had a part to play. Bernard
Longueville had been surprised at first at what he would have called
Miss Vivian’s approachableness--at the frequency with which he
encountered opportunities for sitting near her and entering into
conversation. He had expected that Gordon Wright would deem himself to
have established an anticipatory claim upon the young lady’s attention,
and that, in pursuance of this claim, he would occupy a recognized place
at her side. Gordon was, after all, wooing her; it was very natural
he should seek her society. In fact, he was never very far off; but
Bernard, for three or four days, had the anomalous consciousness of
being still nearer. Presently, however, he perceived that he owed this
privilege simply to his friend’s desire that he should become acquainted
with Miss Vivian--should receive a vivid impression of a person in
whom Gordon was so deeply interested. After this result might have been
supposed to be attained, Gordon Wright stepped back into his usual place
and showed her those small civilities which were the only homage that
the quiet conditions of their life rendered possible--walked with her,
talked with her, brought her a book to read, a chair to sit upon, a
couple of flowers to place in the bosom of her gown, treated her, in a
word, with a sober but by no means inexpressive gallantry. He had
not been making violent love, as he told Longueville, and these
demonstrations were certainly not violent. Bernard said to himself
that if he were not in the secret, a spectator would scarcely make the
discovery that Gordon cherished an even very safely tended flame. Angela
Vivian, on her side, was not strikingly responsive. There was nothing
in her deportment to indicate that she was in love with her systematic
suitor. She was perfectly gracious and civil. She smiled in his face
when he shook hands with her; she looked at him and listened when he
talked; she let him stroll beside her in the Lichtenthal Alley; she
read, or appeared to read, the books he lent her, and she decorated
herself with the flowers he offered. She seemed neither bored nor
embarrassed, neither irritated nor oppressed. But it was Bernard’s
belief that she took no more pleasure in his attentions than a pretty
girl must always take in any recognition of her charms. “If she ‘s
not indifferent,” he said to himself, “she is, at any rate,
impartial--profoundly impartial.”
It was not till the end of a week that Gordon Wright told him exactly
how his business stood with Miss Vivian and what he had reason to expect
and hope--a week during which their relations had been of the happiest
and most comfortable cast, and during which Bernard, rejoicing in
their long walks and talks, in the charming weather, in the beauty and
entertainment of the place, and in other things besides, had not ceased
to congratulate himself on coming to Baden. Bernard, after the first
day, had asked his friend no questions. He had a great respect for
opportunity, coming either to others or to himself, and he left Gordon
to turn his lantern as fitfully as might be upon the subject which was
tacitly open between them, but of which as yet only the mere edges had
emerged into light. Gordon, on his side, seemed content for the moment
with having his clever friend under his hand; he reserved him for final
appeal or for some other mysterious use.
“You can’t tell me you don’t know her now,” he said, one evening as the
two young men strolled along the Lichtenthal Alley--“now that you have
had a whole week’s observation of her.”
“What is a week’s observation of a singularly clever and complicated
woman?” Bernard asked.
“Ah, your week has been of some use. You have found out she is
complicated!” Gordon rejoined.
“My dear Gordon,” Longueville exclaimed, “I don’t see what it signifies
to you that I should find Miss Vivian out! When a man ‘s in love, what
need he care what other people think of the loved object?”
“It would certainly be a pity to care too much. But there is some excuse
for him in the loved object being, as you say, complicated.”
“Nonsense! That ‘s no excuse. The loved object is always complicated.”
Gordon walked on in silence a moment.
“Well, then, I don’t care a button what you think!”
“Bravo! That ‘s the way a man should talk,” cried Longueville.
Gordon indulged in another fit of meditation, and then he said--
“Now that leaves you at liberty to say what you please.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, you are ridiculous!” said Bernard.
“That ‘s precisely what I want you to say. You always think me too
reasonable.”
“Well, I go back to my first assertion. I don’t know Miss Vivian--I mean
I don’t know her to have opinions about her. I don’t suppose you wish
me to string you off a dozen mere banalites--‘She ‘s a charming
girl--evidently a superior person--has a great deal of style.’”
“Oh no,” said Gordon; “I know all that. But, at any rate,” he added,
“you like her, eh?”
“I do more,” said Longueville. “I admire her.”
“Is that doing more?” asked Gordon, reflectively.
“Well, the greater, whichever it is, includes the less.”
“You won’t commit yourself,” said Gordon. “My dear Bernard,” he added,
“I thought you knew such an immense deal about women!”
Gordon Wright was of so kindly and candid a nature that it is hardly
conceivable that this remark should have been framed to make Bernard
commit himself by putting him on his mettle. Such a view would imply
indeed on Gordon’s part a greater familiarity with the uses of irony
than he had ever possessed, as well as a livelier conviction of the
irritable nature of his friend’s vanity. In fact, however, it may be
confided to the reader that Bernard was pricked in a tender place,
though the resentment of vanity was not visible in his answer.
“You were quite wrong,” he simply said. “I am as ignorant of women as a
monk in his cloister.”
“You try to prove too much. You don’t think her sympathetic!” And as
regards this last remark, Gordon Wright must be credited with a certain
ironical impulse.
Bernard stopped impatiently.
“I ask you again, what does it matter to you what I think of her?”
“It matters in this sense--that she has refused me.”
“Refused you? Then it is all over, and nothing matters.”
“No, it is n’t over,” said Gordon, with a positive head-shake. “Don’t
you see it is n’t over?”
Bernard smiled, laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder and patted it a
little.
“Your attitude might almost pass for that of resignation.”
“I ‘m not resigned!” said Gordon Wright.
“Of course not. But when were you refused?”
Gordon stood a minute with his eyes fixed on the ground. Then, at last
looking up,
“Three weeks ago--a fortnight before you came. But let us walk along,”
he said, “and I will tell you all about it.”
“I proposed to her three weeks ago,” said Gordon, as they walked along.
“My heart was very much set upon it. I was very hard hit--I was deeply
smitten. She had been very kind to me--she had been charming--I thought
she liked me. Then I thought her mother was pleased, and would have
liked it. Mrs. Vivian, in fact, told me as much; for of course I spoke
to her first. Well, Angela does like me--or at least she did--and I see
no reason to suppose she has changed. Only she did n’t like me enough.
She said the friendliest and pleasantest things to me, but she thought
that she knew me too little, and that I knew her even less. She made a
great point of that--that I had no right, as yet, to trust her. I told
her that if she would trust me, I was perfectly willing to trust her;
but she answered that this was poor reasoning. She said that I was
trustworthy and that she was not, and--in short, all sorts of nonsense.
She abused herself roundly--accused herself of no end of defects.”
“What defects, for instance?”
“Oh, I have n’t remembered them. She said she had a bad temper--that
she led her mother a dreadful life. Now, poor Mrs. Vivian says she is an
angel.”
“Ah yes,” Bernard observed; “Mrs. Vivian says that, very freely.”
“Angela declared that she was jealous, ungenerous, unforgiving--all
sorts of things. I remember she said ‘I am very false,’ and I think she
remarked that she was cruel.”
“But this did n’t put you off,” said Bernard.
“Not at all. She was making up.”
“She makes up very well!” Bernard exclaimed, laughing.
“Do you call that well?”
“I mean it was very clever.”
“It was not clever from the point of view of wishing to discourage me.”
“Possibly. But I am sure,” said Bernard, “that if I had been present at
your interview--excuse the impudence of the hypothesis--I should have
been struck with the young lady’s--” and he paused a moment.
“With her what?”
“With her ability.”
“Well, her ability was not sufficient to induce me to give up my idea.
She told me that after I had known her six months I should detest her.”
“I have no doubt she could make you do it if she should try. That ‘s
what I mean by her ability.”
“She calls herself cruel,” said Gordon, “but she has not had the cruelty
to try. She has been very reasonable--she has been perfect. I agreed
with her that I would drop the subject for a while, and that meanwhile
we should be good friends. We should take time to know each other better
and act in accordance with further knowledge. There was no hurry, since
we trusted each other--wrong as my trust might be. She had no wish that
I should go away. I was not in the least disagreeable to her; she liked
me extremely, and I was perfectly free to try and please her. Only I
should drop my proposal, and be free to take it up again or leave it
alone, later, as I should choose. If she felt differently then, I should
have the benefit of it, and if I myself felt differently, I should also
have the benefit of it.”
“That ‘s a very comfortable arrangement. And that ‘s your present
situation?” asked Bernard.
Gordon hesitated a moment.
“More or less, but not exactly.”
“Miss Vivian feels differently?” said Bernard.
“Not that I know of.”
Gordon’s companion, with a laugh, clapped him on the shoulder again.
“Admirable youth, you are a capital match!”
“Are you alluding to my money?”
“To your money and to your modesty. There is as much of one as of the
other--which is saying a great deal.”
“Well,” said Gordon, “in spite of that enviable combination, I am not
happy.”
“I thought you seemed pensive!” Bernard exclaimed. “It ‘s you, then, who
feel differently.”
Gordon gave a sigh.
“To say that is to say too much.”
“What shall we say, then?” his companion asked, kindly.
Gordon stopped again; he stood there looking up at a certain
particularly lustrous star which twinkled--the night was cloudy--in an
open patch of sky, and the vague brightness shone down on his honest and
serious visage.
“I don’t understand her,” he said.
“Oh, I ‘ll say that with you any day!” cried Bernard. “I can’t help you
there.”
“You must help me;” and Gordon Wright deserted his star. “You must keep
me in good humor.”
“Please to walk on, then. I don’t in the least pity you; she is very
charming with you.”
“True enough; but insisting on that is not the way to keep me in good
humor--when I feel as I do.”
“How is it you feel?”
“Puzzled to death--bewildered--depressed!”
This was but the beginning of Gordon Wright’s list; he went on to say
that though he “thought as highly” of Miss Vivian as he had ever done,
he felt less at his ease with her than in the first weeks of their
acquaintance, and this condition made him uncomfortable and unhappy.
“I don’t know what ‘s the matter,” said poor Gordon. “I don’t know what
has come between us. It is n’t her fault--I don’t make her responsible
for it. I began to notice it about a fortnight ago--before you came;
shortly after that talk I had with her that I have just described to
you. Her manner has n’t changed and I have no reason to suppose that
she likes me any the less; but she makes a strange impression on me--she
makes me uneasy. It ‘s only her nature coming out, I suppose--what you
might call her originality. She ‘s thoroughly original--she ‘s a kind
of mysterious creature. I suppose that what I feel is a sort of
fascination; but that is just what I don’t like. Hang it, I don’t want
to be fascinated--I object to being fascinated!”
This little story had taken some time in the telling, so that the two
young men had now reached their hotel.
“Ah, my dear Gordon,” said Bernard, “we speak a different language. If
you don’t want to be fascinated, what is one to say to you? ‘Object to
being fascinated!’ There ‘s a man easy to satisfy! Raffine, va!”
“Well, see here now,” said Gordon, stopping in the door-way of the inn;
“when it comes to the point, do you like it yourself?”
“When it comes to the point?” Bernard exclaimed. “I assure you I don’t
wait till then. I like the beginning--I delight in the approach of it--I
revel in the prospect.”
“That’s just what I did. But now that the thing has come--I don’t revel.
To be fascinated is to be mystified. Damn it, I like my liberty--I like
my judgment!”
“So do I--like yours,” said Bernard, laughing, as they took their
bedroom candles.