Gordon asked him no questions for twenty-four hours after his return,
then suddenly he began:
“Well, have n’t you something to say to me?”
It was at the hotel, in Gordon’s apartment, late in the afternoon.
A heavy thunder-storm had broken over the place an hour before, and
Bernard had been standing at one of his friend’s windows, rather idly,
with his hands in his pockets, watching the rain-torrents dance upon
the empty pavements. At last the deluge abated, the clouds began to
break--there was a promise of a fine evening. Gordon Wright, while the
storm was at its climax, sat down to write letters, and wrote half a
dozen. It was after he had sealed, directed and affixed a postage-stamp
to the last of the series that he addressed to his companion the
question I have just quoted.
“Do you mean about Miss Vivian?” Bernard asked, without turning round
from the window.
“About Miss Vivian, of course.” Bernard said nothing and his companion
went on. “Have you nothing to tell me about Miss Vivian?”
Bernard presently turned round looking at Gordon and smiling a little.
“She ‘s a delightful creature!”
“That won’t do--you have tried that before,” said Gordon. “No,” he added
in a moment, “that won’t do.” Bernard turned back to the window, and
Gordon continued, as he remained silent. “I shall have a right to
consider your saying nothing a proof of an unfavorable judgment. You
don’t like her!”
Bernard faced quickly about again, and for an instant the two men looked
at each other.
“Ah, my dear Gordon,” Longueville murmured.
“Do you like her then?” asked Wright, getting up.
“No!” said Longueville.
“That ‘s just what I wanted to know, and I am much obliged to you for
telling me.”
“I am not obliged to you for asking me. I was in hopes you would n’t.”
“You dislike her very much then?” Gordon exclaimed, gravely.
“Won’t disliking her, simply, do?” said Bernard.
“It will do very well. But it will do a little better if you will tell
me why. Give me a reason or two.”
“Well,” said Bernard, “I tried to make love to her and she boxed my
ears.”
“The devil!” cried Gordon.
“I mean morally, you know.”
Gordon stared; he seemed a little puzzled.
“You tried to make love to her morally?”
“She boxed my ears morally,” said Bernard, laughing out.
“Why did you try to make love to her?”
This inquiry was made in a tone so expressive of an unbiassed
truth-seeking habit that Bernard’s mirth was not immediately quenched.
Nevertheless, he replied with sufficient gravity--
“To test her fidelity to you. Could you have expected anything else? You
told me you were afraid she was a latent coquette. You gave me a chance,
and I tried to ascertain.”
“And you found she was not. Is that what you mean?”
“She ‘s as firm as a rock. My dear Gordon, Miss Vivian is as firm as the
firmest of your geological formations.”
Gordon shook his head with a strange positive persistence.
“You are talking nonsense. You are not serious. You are not telling me
the truth. I don’t believe that you attempted to make love to her.
You would n’t have played such a game as that. It would n’t have been
honorable.”
Bernard flushed a little; he was irritated.
“Oh come, don’t make too much of a point of that! Did n’t you tell me
before that it was a great opportunity?”
“An opportunity to be wise--not to be foolish!”
“Ah, there is only one sort of opportunity,” cried Bernard. “You
exaggerate the reach of human wisdom.”
“Suppose she had let you make love to her,” said Gordon. “That would
have been a beautiful result of your experiment.”
“I should have seemed to you a rascal, perhaps, but I should have saved
you from a latent coquette. You would owe some thanks for that.”
“And now you have n’t saved me,” said Gordon, with a simple air of
noting a fact.
“You assume--in spite of what I say--that she is a coquette!”
“I assume something because you evidently conceal something. I want the
whole truth.”
Bernard turned back to the window with increasing irritation.
“If he wants the whole truth he shall have it,” he said to himself.
He stood a moment in thought and then he looked at his companion again.
“I think she would marry you--but I don’t think she cares for you.”
Gordon turned a little pale, but he clapped his hands together.
“Very good,” he exclaimed. “That ‘s exactly how I want you to speak.”
“Her mother has taken a great fancy to your fortune and it has rubbed
off on the girl, who has made up her mind that it would be a pleasant
thing to have thirty thousand a year, and that her not caring for you is
an unimportant detail.”
“I see--I see,” said Gordon, looking at his friend with an air of
admiration for his frank and lucid way of putting things.
Now that he had begun to be frank and lucid, Bernard found a charm in
it, and the impulse under which he had spoken urged him almost violently
forward.
“The mother and daughter have agreed together to bag you, and Angela, I
am sure, has made a vow to be as nice to you after marriage as possible.
Mrs. Vivian has insisted upon the importance of that; Mrs. Vivian is a
great moralist.”
Gordon kept gazing at his friend; he seemed positively fascinated.
“Yes, I have noticed that in Mrs. Vivian,” he said.
“Ah, she ‘s a very nice woman!”
“It ‘s not true, then,” said Gordon, “that you tried to make love to
Angela?”
Bernard hesitated a single instant.
“No, it is n’t true. I calumniated myself, to save her reputation. You
insisted on my giving you a reason for my not liking her--I gave you
that one.”
“And your real reason--”
“My real reason is that I believe she would do you what I can’t help
regarding as an injury.”
“Of course!” and Gordon, dropping his interested eyes, stared for some
moments at the carpet. “But it is n’t true, then, that you discovered
her to be a coquette?”
“Ah, that ‘s another matter.”
“You did discover it all the same?”
“Since you want the whole truth--I did!”
“How did you discover it?” Gordon asked, clinging to his right of
interrogation.
Bernard hesitated.
“You must remember that I saw a great deal of her.”
“You mean that she encouraged you?”
“If I had not been a very faithful friend I might have thought so.”
Gordon laid his hand appreciatively, gratefully, on Bernard’s shoulder.
“And even that did n’t make you like her?”
“Confound it, you make me blush!” cried Bernard, blushing a little in
fact. “I have said quite enough; excuse me from drawing the portrait of
too insensible a man. It was my point of view; I kept thinking of you.”
Gordon, with his hand still on his friend’s arm, patted it an instant in
response to this declaration; then he turned away.
“I am much obliged to you. That ‘s my notion of friendship. You have
spoken out like a man.”
“Like a man, yes. Remember that. Not in the least like an oracle.”
“I prefer an honest man to all the oracles,” said Gordon.
“An honest man has his impressions! I have given you mine--they pretend
to be nothing more. I hope they have n’t offended you.”
“Not in the least.”
“Nor distressed, nor depressed, nor in any way discomposed you?”
“For what do you take me? I asked you a favor--a service; I imposed it
on you. You have done the thing, and my part is simple gratitude.”
“Thank you for nothing,” said Bernard, smiling. “You have asked me a
great many questions; there is one that in turn I have a right to ask
you. What do you propose to do in consequence of what I have told you?”
“I propose to do nothing.”
This declaration closed the colloquy, and the young men separated.
Bernard saw Gordon no more that evening; he took for granted he had gone
to Mrs. Vivian’s. The burden of Longueville’s confidences was a heavy
load to carry there, but Bernard ventured to hope that he would deposit
it at the door. He had given Gordon his impressions, and the latter
might do with them what he chose--toss them out of the window, or let
them grow stale with heedless keeping. So Bernard meditated, as he
wandered about alone for the rest of the evening. It was useless to
look for Mrs. Vivian’s little circle, on the terrace of the
Conversation-house, for the storm in the afternoon had made the place so
damp that it was almost forsaken of its frequenters. Bernard spent the
evening in the gaming-rooms, in the thick of the crowd that pressed
about the tables, and by way of a change--he had hitherto been almost
nothing of a gambler--he laid down a couple of pieces at roulette. He
had played but two or three times, without winning a penny; but now he
had the agreeable sensation of drawing in a small handful of gold.
He continued to play, and he continued to win. His luck surprised and
excited him--so much so that after it had repeated itself half a dozen
times he left the place and walked about for half an hour in the outer
darkness. He felt amused and exhilarated, but the feeling amounted
almost to agitation. He, nevertheless, returned to the tables, where he
again found success awaiting him. Again and again he put his money on
a happy number, and so steady a run of luck began at last to attract
attention. The rumor of it spread through the rooms, and the crowd about
the roulette received a large contingent of spectators. Bernard felt
that they were looking more or less eagerly for a turn of the tide; but
he was in the humor for disappointing them, and he left the place, while
his luck was still running high, with ten thousand francs in his pocket.
It was very late when he returned to the inn--so late that he forbore
to knock at Gordon’s door. But though he betook himself to his own
quarters, he was far from finding, or even seeking, immediate rest. He
knocked about, as he would have said, for half the night--not because he
was delighted at having won ten thousand francs, but rather because all
of a sudden he found himself disgusted at the manner in which he
had spent the evening. It was extremely characteristic of Bernard
Longueville that his pleasure should suddenly transform itself into
flatness. What he felt was not regret or repentance. He had it not
in the least on his conscience that he had given countenance to the
reprehensible practice of gaming. It was annoyance that he had passed
out of his own control--that he had obeyed a force which he was unable
to measure at the time. He had been drunk and he was turning sober. In
spite of a great momentary appearance of frankness and a lively relish
of any conjunction of agreeable circumstances exerting a pressure to
which one could respond, Bernard had really little taste for giving
himself up, and he never did so without very soon wishing to take
himself back. He had now given himself to something that was not
himself, and the fact that he had gained ten thousand francs by it was
an insufficient salve to an aching sense of having ceased to be his own
master. He had not been playing--he had been played with. He had been
the sport of a blind, brutal chance, and he felt humiliated by having
been favored by so rudely-operating a divinity. Good luck and bad luck?
Bernard felt very scornful of the distinction, save that good luck
seemed to him rather the more vulgar. As the night went on his disgust
deepened, and at last the weariness it brought with it sent him to
sleep. He slept very late, and woke up to a disagreeable consciousness.
At first, before collecting his thoughts, he could not imagine what
he had on his mind--was it that he had spoken ill of Angela Vivian? It
brought him extraordinary relief to remember that he had gone to bed in
extreme ill-humor with his exploits at roulette. After he had dressed
himself and just as he was leaving his room, a servant brought him a
note superscribed in Gordon’s hand--a note of which the following proved
to be the contents.
“Seven o’clock, A.M.
“My dear Bernard: Circumstances have determined me to leave Baden
immediately, and I shall take the train that starts an hour hence. I am
told that you came in very late last night, so I won’t disturb you for
a painful parting at this unnatural hour. I came to this decision last
evening, and I put up my things; so I have nothing to do but to take
myself off. I shall go to Basel, but after that I don’t know where, and
in so comfortless an uncertainty I don’t ask you to follow me. Perhaps
I shall go to America; but in any case I shall see you sooner or later.
Meanwhile, my dear Bernard, be as happy as your brilliant talents should
properly make you, and believe me yours ever,
“G.W.
“P.S. It is perhaps as well that I should say that I am leaving in
consequence of something that happened last evening, but not--by any
traceable process--in consequence of the talk we had together. I may
also add that I am in very good health and spirits.”
Bernard lost no time in learning that his friend had in fact departed
by the eight o’clock train--the morning was now well advanced; and then,
over his breakfast, he gave himself up to meditative surprise. What had
happened during the evening--what had happened after their conversation
in Gordon’s room? He had gone to Mrs. Vivian’s--what had happened there?
Bernard found it difficult to believe that he had gone there simply to
notify her that, having talked it over with an intimate friend, he gave
up her daughter, or to mention to the young lady herself that he had
ceased to desire the honor of her hand. Gordon alluded to some definite
occurrence, yet it was inconceivable that he should have allowed himself
to be determined by Bernard’s words--his diffident and irresponsible
impression. Bernard resented this idea as an injury to himself, yet
it was difficult to imagine what else could have happened. There was
Gordon’s word for it, however, that there was no “traceable” connection
between the circumstances which led to his sudden departure and the
information he had succeeded in extracting from his friend. What did he
mean by a “traceable” connection? Gordon never used words idly, and he
meant to make of this point an intelligible distinction. It was this
sense of his usual accuracy of expression that assisted Bernard in
fitting a meaning to his late companion’s letter. He intended to
intimate that he had come back to Baden with his mind made up to
relinquish his suit, and that he had questioned Bernard simply from
moral curiosity--for the sake of intellectual satisfaction. Nothing was
altered by the fact that Bernard had told him a sorry tale; it had not
modified his behavior--that effect would have been traceable. It
had simply affected his imagination, which was a consequence of the
imponderable sort. This view of the case was supported by Gordon’s
mention of his good spirits. A man always had good spirits when he had
acted in harmony with a conviction. Of course, after renouncing the
attempt to make himself acceptable to Miss Vivian, the only possible
thing for Gordon had been to leave Baden. Bernard, continuing to
meditate, at last convinced himself that there had been no explicit
rupture, that Gordon’s last visit had simply been a visit of farewell,
that its character had sufficiently signified his withdrawal, and that
he had now gone away because, after giving the girl up, he wished
very naturally not to meet her again. This was, on Bernard’s part,
a sufficiently coherent view of the case; but nevertheless, an hour
afterward, as he strolled along the Lichtenthal Alley, he found himself
stopping suddenly and exclaiming under his breath--“Have I done her
an injury? Have I affected her prospects?” Later in the day he said to
himself half a dozen times that he had simply warned Gordon against an
incongruous union.