The servant who opened the door for Leslie on this softly brilliant June
morning, being well accustomed to admitting her, obligingly anticipated
her question, "Are the ladies at home?"
"The _signorina_ is in the _salottino_," he said. From which
Leslie understood that the person whom she chiefly had come to see was
out. It did not really matter, for she had time to wait. Aurora was
likely to come back for lunch.
She released the man from attendance by a little wave of her hand,
"Never mind announcing me!" and directed her footsteps toward the tall
white-and-gold door standing partly open.
On her way to it she picked up off the floor a small lawn handkerchief.
The ball-room impressed her anew as being very vast, very empty,
furnished almost solely as it was by the sparkling chandeliers, every
pendant of which to-day was gay with reflections of the green and
flowery and sun-washed outdoors.
She turned toward the _salottino_, remotely wondering by what
chance Estelle was preferring it to the favorite red and green
sitting-room upstairs. The _salottino_ had utility when a party was
going on, but to sit and embroider or study French surrounded by all
those fountains of love....
A sharp bark preceded the tumbling out through the _salottino_ door
of a little white mop on feet. Upon recognizing Leslie, this performed
evolutions expressive of great joy.
She had stopped to pat the excited little swirl of silk when Estelle
came forward to see who was there.
With delighted good mornings the women exchanged the foreign salute,
which Leslie had adopted and Estelle submitted to, a mere touching of
cheeks while the lips kiss the air.
They sat down on the rococo settee to talk, Leslie, quick of eye,
wondering what had happened to give Estelle that unusual air, an air
of--no, it was indefinable. Excitement had a share in it, and possibly
chagrin, and, it almost seemed, exaltation. The chief thing about it,
however, was that she was trying to conceal it; doing her best, but it
was a poor best, to appear natural. Leslie graciously allowed her to
suppose she was succeeding, and entered at once upon the reason for her
early call.
"I really think, Estelle, that the villa at Antiniano would suit Aurora.
As for you, I am positive, my dear, that you would adore it. It is a
little out of the thick of things, but has a very fine view of the sea,
also a very pretty garden. Certain conveniences, of course, it hasn't,
but, then, you mustn't expect those of an Italian villa. I saw Madame
Rossi yesterday, and she said she wished you would make an excursion to
Antiniano to see for yourselves. She is sure you would be charmed. One
request she would make: that the peasant family be allowed to continue
in their little corner of the house, where they wouldn't be the least in
your way, and then that the little donkey should be allowed to remain in
the stable. But in return you could use him, she said."
"Ride him?"
"Yes, or harness him. For the country, why not, my dear? They are ever
so strong little beasts."
Estelle began to laugh, presumably at the picture of Aurora on
donkey-back, or, with herself, exhilarating the country-side by the
vision of them drawn in a donkey-cart. Leslie joined in her merriment,
but expostulatingly, and, warned by a note in Estelle's laugh, watched
her with suspicion while it developed into a nervous cackle. She saw her
cover her eyes with one hand, and with the other vainly feel in her
pocket. She was crying. Leslie tendered the little handkerchief found on
the floor, and knew then that it had dried tears before on that same
day. She waited, tactfully silent, merely placing a condoling hand over
her friend's.
"I might as well tell you," Estelle got out, when her crying fit
permitted her to speak, "that Aurora isn't going to take any villa at
Antiniano this summer.... She's gone away."
"Gone away? What do you mean?" asked Leslie, surprised into a very
complete blankness of expression.
"What I say." And in her incalculable frame of mind Estelle again was
laughing. "Oh, I don't know which to do, whether to laugh or cry!" she
explained, with eyes bright at once from laughter and from tears. "One
moment I laugh, next moment I cry. I feel as if I were walking in my
sleep. I guess what I need is a nerve-pill."
"You say that Aurora has gone away. Where?"
"Where Gerald pleases, I guess. She's gone with him."
"With Gerald? Now, my dear friend, please explain. You laugh, you cry.
You say Aurora has gone away with Gerald. Please collect yourself and
tell me what it means. 'Gone away with Gerald.' How do you mean gone
away with him?"
"I mean they have eloped, or as good as."
"No, no; people don't elope when there is neither an inconvenient
husband, nor unamenable parents, nor any possible reason why they should
not have each other if they wish to."
"I wonder what you would call it, then. As late as twelve o'clock last
night I didn't know a thing about it, and this morning early they left
together in a carriage, with her trunk strapped on the back."
Leslie lifted her hands to her temples and pressed them as if to keep
her head from a dangerous expansion with the size of the new idea that
must find a home there.
"So it was in earnest!" she said aloud, yet as if speaking to herself.
"Mother has won her bet, and I have lost. Well,"--she tossed her head
and faced Estelle,--"I am glad of it. We knew, of course, that there was
something, and we felt that nothing nicer could happen than that they
should make a match of it. Mother prophesied they would. But I did not
believe it. I was afraid of Gerald--that disposition in him to consider
too finely, to halt on the brink, that negative, renunciatory way he has
settled into. I thought the thing would end in mere philandering. I am
glad"--she threw the weight of conviction on the word,--"glad it hasn't!
I don't see, my dear Estelle, what you can find to cry about."
"Is that the way it strikes you?"
"My dear, I couldn't say which I thought the luckier, Gerald to get
Aurora, or Aurora to get Gerald."
"You surprise me. To me it seems just about the riskiest combination
that could be imagined. I have felt it all along. Those two have no more
in common, I have said, than a bird and a fish."
"Nonsense, my dear girl! Nonsense!"
"I have heard him get so impatient with her because simply she didn't
pronounce a word right. I've seen him so annoyed he nearly trembled
trying to choke it down."
"But did she mind? I mean, his impatience?"
"I can't say she did; but--"
"There you have it. They are marvelously suited. Listen and let me talk
to you for your comfort. This, do you hear, is exactly the most
delightful thing that could have happened. Haven't you noticed that
complex natures are rather given to uniting with simple ones, and
finding happiness with them? An artist--how often!--marries his model, a
philosopher marries a peasant."
"Go on!" sighed Estelle. "Go on! I love you for making me feel better!"
Her eyes moistened again in an almost luxurious melancholy.
"One of the reasons for mother and me wishing for this consummation was
the broadening of life it would afford Gerald. Gerald doesn't think
about money. Aurora's money, all the same, will do a lot for him in
making possible his getting away from here, where the truth is he
stagnates. Then, too, she will cure him of his morbidness. He sees red
if one so much as breathes the suggestion that his art is morbid. But of
course it is."
"Aurora said they might go to live in Paris, because she thought it
would be good for his art."
"Now that's what I want to hear about. Go on and tell me what Aurora
said and what happened between midnight and their extraordinary
elopement, as you call it. But, first of all, why, in the name of common
sense, did they elope? From what did they elope?"
"From me, I guess. I don't see what else. Oh, yes, I do. From the talk
there would be. But principally, I suspect, he hurried her into it to
make sure of her, for she, too, had her moments of doubting the wisdom
of what she was doing. That much I know. They had only been engaged two
weeks, and all that time I didn't even know they were engaged. I hadn't
been nice about Gerald, I feel bound to confess, so she thought best not
to tell me. She didn't want to hear how I would take it, we've been so
used to speaking our minds to each other. He came oftener than ever and
stayed longer, till it got so I made a point of getting up and making an
excuse to leave the room. It was my way of being spiteful. But Nell
didn't take it up with me in private, as I expected she would. They were
tickled to death to have me leave the room, I can see now. She went
around the house singing an Easter carol and fixing flowers in the
vases, with a look of cheerfulness apart from me that made her seem like
a stranger. I was pretty sore, I can tell you, but I wouldn't speak of
it. I don't know how I thought it would end. Funny, I can't remember how
everything looked so short a time ago as yesterday, but I know I was
eaten up with mean thoughts. I went to bed last night thinking to
myself, 'Well, Nell Goodwin, if you think I'm going to stand much more
of this, you're mistaken. There'll be some plain talk before long.' And
I fell asleep. First thing I knew I was awake, looking to see who'd come
into my room. And there was Nell in her night-dress, holding her hand
round the candle so it wouldn't shine in my eyes. I simply can't tell
you what it was like,--the candle lighting nothing but her made her seem
like a vision in the middle of a glory. Nobody can know how fond I am of
Nell, what friends we've been since little bits of girls. All I could
think of was that she'd come to make up with me, she couldn't wait
another minute. It would have been just like her. And while I waited for
her to speak first, I thought with my heart just melting what a lovely
big thing she is, with that sort of fair look to her neck, and those
warm cheeks, and something so kind about her from head to foot. She put
down the candle and, instead of going into explanations, bent over and
gave me a good hug. And I said, hugging back: 'You better had, you
horrid thing! You better had!' Then she sat down on the bed. 'Hat,' she
said, 'I was going to do a mean thing, but I'm not going to do it. I was
going to slip away without a word, but I'm going to tell you the whole
story. I'm going to marry Gerald,' she said.
"Then she went on to tell me, and what do you think, I didn't say one
word in objection, not one! Because I could see she was dead in love,
and what was the use except to spoil her happiness, and I didn't want
to. She told me how they'd decided it would be just as well not to wait,
but take a short cut. If they stayed in Florence, she said, she'd feel
they must have a big wedding and ask all their friends, and then she
should have to have a trousseau; it would all take lots of time, and
Gerald would so hate the fuss and the chatter. So they'd made up their
minds to go off to Leghorn without a word to anybody,--whose business is
it anyhow but their own?--and be married just as soon as it could be
done, where they wouldn't get so much as the echo of any remarks on
their haste or the way they preferred to do. She'll be staying with Mrs.
Johns till the ceremony. She said she should write your mother from
there. Then she showed me Gerald's ring that she'd been wearing on a
chain round her neck where I wouldn't see it, and she talked about
Gerald's wonderfulness. She's perfectly wrapped up in him. All I hope is
he appreciates it."
"His inducing her to elope with him would seem to indicate some warmth
of feeling on his part. The suggestion can hardly have come from her."
"You're right. I guess it's as bad with him as with her. She talked
about the wonderfulness of his love, such as she never could have
believed, and never could deserve. She said she could be happy with
Gerald in a garret that let the snow leak in. Oh, they're both crazy.
What do you think she gave as one reason for this haste? 'Life is
short,' she said, 'and love is long!' Gerald must have said it to her
before she said it to me, but what do you think of it? 'Life is short
and love is long!'"
"Do you mean"--asked Leslie, with the least touch of severity,--"that I
ought to share in a cynical view of that saying? I can't, my dear
Estelle. There are my father and mother, you know. In their quiet way
they bear out the idea that love may be as long as life."
"Yes, of course," said Estelle hurriedly, with a faint air of shame. "My
father and mother, too, make a united couple."
"My belief is that when two people marry who are in love as they ought
to be, and who in addition are good--By good I think I mean people--"
Leslie, with her look of wisdom beyond her years, paused to take a
survey of life, "--people who have a sense of the other person's rights,
and, as a matter of heart, not principle, feel the other's claims just a
little more strongly than their own--in the case of such people, when
the passion they marry on dies out with their growing older, as we
generally see it do, something takes its place that deserves the name of
love every bit as much."
"Aurora is good," said Estelle, from her soul. "You would never know how
good unless you had stood in need of kindness."
"Gerald is good, too," said Leslie, with an effect of more impartiality
but no less positiveness. "He would disdain to be anything else."
"What is wrong with me is that I'm selfish, I guess," said Estelle,
looking contrite, "and don't like having to give her up to him, after
all the beautiful things we'd planned together. What I ought to feel is
nothing but thankfulness for her having such a chance of happiness, and
then thankfulness for all she did, trying to make up for her desertion."
Without transition, Estelle went back to the story of the past night.
"You can imagine there wasn't any more sleep for that spell. I got up,
and we went to her room, where she had all the lights lighted and was in
the middle of packing her trunk. She only took one, and about a quarter
of her things. Gerald's going to design wonderful costumes for her, the
style he prefers. I could see she's ready to do just anything to please
him. I'd already noticed how she'd altered her way of doing her hair,
but wasn't smart enough to recognize the signs!... While she was at work
packing she planned for my summer,--that I'm to invite Mademoiselle
Durand to go traveling with me, so I can improve my French at the same
time as give that poor hard-working creature a real vacation and treat.
Then when they go to Venice, she wants me to join them, and the three of
us have a regular jamboree. Then next winter, after I've got home, she
wants me to go to Colorado to visit the Grand Canyon and see the great
sights of my native country before settling down again in East Boston.
She made me a present of Ami."
"Ami?"
"I've changed his name from Busteretto. Don't you like it better? Little
Tweetums! He's the only darling I've got left!" She pressed a kiss on
the warm top of his head. "She made me a present of all the clothes and
things she wasn't taking with her. She made me a present of everything
in this house that we didn't find in it when we took it--turned it all
over to me to do what I please with. And I'm sure I don't know what I
shall do with it all unless I set up a store. Anything you see and think
you'd like to have, please say so."
"She gave you all these things? Do you mean it?" asked Leslie, surprised
despite what she had already known of Aurora.
"Yes, and along with the things, of course, the responsibility of
settling up everything, dismissing the servants, sending Livvy back to
New York. Such a job! Luckily, there's no hurry; the lease doesn't
expire until October. When you came I'd been sort of looking round. I
was just wondering what to do about this Fountain of Love. Nell paid a
frightful lot for these four panels. I'd been trying to see if they
could be carefully peeled off and the wall behind restored, and while I
was looking the sight of that winter scene broke me all up. It doesn't
tell a very cheerful tale, you know, this series of pictures. After what
I'd just been through, saying good-by to them, it worked on me like a
bad omen."
"Don't be foolish. Then you saw Gerald, too, before they left?"
"Yes. I could have done without, but she'd have been hurt. So I shook
hands, and managed to wish him joy. He was nice, but, then, Gerald
always is that. I've never for a moment said anything different. He said
he wanted me to feel that I hadn't lost a sister, but acquired a
brother. Just as they were driving off I remembered something, and
called after Nell, 'What about your portrait?' for I couldn't think she
meant to give me that along with the rest. Gerald said before she could
speak, 'Take it away!' And Nell said right off, 'Oh, yes. Keep it,
Hattie; keep it!' That lovely portrait he painted of her! I don't see
how she could bear to part with it. But, of course, now she has him she
can have as many portraits as she wants. Come and tell me what you
think, whether it would be safe to pack it, frame and all, or better to
unframe it, or, better still, to take the canvas off the stretcher and
roll it."
Accordingly, they left the room of the cupids and garlands, traversed
the vasty ball-room where the chandeliers, like two huge ear-rings,
divided up the light into twinkling diamond and rainbow showers, entered
the drawing-room of the dignified sixteenth-century chairs, which from
the first had suffered an undeserved neglect, and passed thence into the
familiar parlor of the multitudinous baubles and the grand piano and the
portrait; performing in the contrary direction the pilgrimage on which,
at a period which seemed so immemorably far as to have become legendary,
Gerald had followed Aurora walking before him with a light.
They stood beneath the portrait, and with the image present to their
minds of painter and sitter hasting on their way to be wed, saw this
equivocal masterpiece with a difference. Not Aurora alone looked forth
from the canvas,--throat of lily, cheek of rose, heaven-blue eyes, smile
and ringlets of immitigable sunniness. Gerald, self-depicted in every
subtle brush-stroke, looked, too.
"It takes sober, solid, careful people to be interesting when they
commit a rashness," thought Leslie. Then, with a little surge of envy in
her well-regulated breast, "To be swept off one's feet," she thought,
"how educative it must be, how enlarging."
But a doubt fell, shadow-like, across her vision of future fortunes. If
a person never found it possible to fall in love with those who fell in
love with her, would it necessarily follow that the Some One she should
someday love would regard her with coldness?
Estelle gazed upward at the portrait with a wistful, well-nigh solemn
look. Not being able, hampered by a dog in her arms, to clasp her hands,
she expressed the same impulse by clasping the dog close to her breast
in token that her wishes for her dearest friend's good were more than
wishes, were a prayer.
She felt a hand laid lightly on her forearm.
"You needn't be afraid," said Leslie, "they'll be happy."
THE END
[Transcriber's Note: As originally published, this book had two
consecutive chapters labeled as "CHAPTER XV." Chapter numbers have
been resequenced in this text.]