"She's always wanting the docta." Clementina lifted her eyes and looked
very coldly at him.
"If I were you I'd go up right away," he said, boldly.
She felt that she ought to resent his interference, but the mild entreaty
of his pale blue eyes, or the elder-brotherly injunction of his smile,
forbade her. "Did she ask for me?"
"No."
"I'll go to her," she said, and she kept herself from smiling at the long
sigh of relief he gave as she passed him on the stairs.
Mrs. Lander began as soon as she entered her room, "Well, I was just
wonderin' if you was goin' to leave me here all day alone, while you
staid down the'e, carryin' on with that simpleton. I don't know what's
got into the men."
"Mr. Hinkle has gone for the docta," said Clementina, trying to get into
her voice the kindness she was trying to feel.
"Well, if I have one of my attacks, now, you'll have yourself to thank
for it."
By the time Dr. Tradonico appeared Mrs. Lander was so much better that in
her revulsion of feeling she was all day rather tryingly affectionate in
her indirect appeals for Clementina's sympathy.
"I don't want you should mind what I say, when I a'n't feelin' just
right," she began that evening, after she had gone to bed, and Clementina
sat looking out of the open window, on the moonlit lagoon.
"Oh, no," the girl answered, wearily.
Mrs. Lander humbled herself farther. "I'm real sorry I plagued you so,
to-day, and I know Mr. Hinkle thought I was dreadful, but I couldn't help
it. I should like to talk with you, Clementina, about something that's
worryin' me, if you a'n't busy."
"I'm not busy, now, Mrs. Lander," said Clementina, a little coldly, and
relaxing the clasp of her hands; to knit her fingers together had been
her sole business, and she put even this away.
She did not come nearer the bed, and Mrs. Lander was obliged to speak
without the advantage of noting the effect of her words upon her in her
face. "It's like this: What am I agoin' to do for them relations of Mr.
Landa's out in Michigan?"
"I don't know. What relations?"
"I told you about 'em: the only ones he's got: his half-sista's children.
He neva saw 'em, and he neva wanted to; but they're his kin, and it was
his money. It don't seem right to pass 'em ova. Do you think it would
yourself, Clementina?"
"Why, of cou'se not, Mrs. Lander. It wouldn't be right at all."
Mrs. Lander looked relieved, and she said, as if a little surprised, "I'm
glad you feel that way; I should feel just so, myself. I mean to do by
you just what I always said I should. I sha'n't forget you, but whe'e
the'e's so much I got to thinkin' the'e'd ought to some of it go to his
folks, whetha he ca'ed for 'em or not. It's worried me some, and I guess
if anything it's that that's made me wo'se lately."
"Why by Mrs. Landa," said the girl, "Why don't you give it all to them?"
"You don't know what you'a talkin' about," said Mrs. Lander, severely.
"I guess if I give 'em five thousand or so amongst'em, it's full moa than
they eve' thought of havin', and it's moa than they got any right to.
Well, that's all right, then; and we don't need to talk about it any moa.
Yes," she resumed, after a moment, "that's what I shall do. I hu'n't eva
felt just satisfied with that last will I got made, and I guess I shall
tear it up, and get the fust American lawyer that comes along to make me
a new one. The prop'ty's all goin' to you, but I guess I shall leave five
thousand apiece to the two families out the'e. You won't miss it, any,
and I presume it's what Mr. Landa would expect I should do; though why he
didn't do it himself, I can't undastand, unless it was to show his
confidence in me."
She began to ask Clementina how she felt about staying in Venice all
summer; she said she had got so much better there already that she
believed she should be well by fall if she stayed on. She was certain
that it would put her all back if she were to travel now, and in Europe,
where it was so hard to know how to get to places, she did not see how
they could pick out any that would suit them as well as Venice did.
Clementina agreed to it all, more or less absentmindedly, as she sat
looking into the moonlight, and the day that had begun so stormily ended
in kindness between them.
The next morning Mrs. Lander did not wish to go out, and she sent
Clementina and Hinkle together as a proof that they were all on good
terms again. She did not spare the girl this explanation in his presence,
and when they were in the gondola he felt that he had to say, "I was
afraid you might think I was rather meddlesome yesterday."
"Oh, no," she answered. "I was glad you did."
"Yes," he returned, "I thought you would be afterwards." He looked at her
wistfully with his slanted eyes and his odd twisted smile and they both
gave way in the same conscious laugh. "What I like," he explained
further, "is to be understood when I've said something that doesn't mean
anything, don't you? You know anybody can understand you if you really
mean something; but most of the time you don't, and that's when a friend
is useful. I wish you'd call on me if you're ever in that fix."
"Oh, I will, Mr. Hinkle," Clementina promised, gayly.
"Thank you," he said, and her gayety seemed to turn him graver. "Miss
Clementina, might I go a little further in this direction, without
danger?"
"What direction?" she added, with a flush of sudden alarm.
"Mrs. Lander."
"Why, suttainly!" she answered, in quick relief.
"I wish you'd let me do some of the worrying about her for you, while I'm
here. You know I haven't got anything else to do!"
"Why, I don't believe I worry much. I'm afraid I fo'get about her when
I'm not with her. That's the wo'st of it."
"No, no," he entreated, "that's the best of it. But I want to do the
worrying for you even when you're with her. Will you let me?"
"Why, if you want to so very much."
"Then it's settled," he said, dismissing the subject.
But she recurred to it with a lingering compunction.
"I presume that I don't remember how sick she is because I've neva been
sick at all, myself."
"Well," he returned, "You needn't be sorry for that altogether. There are
worse things than being well, though sick people don't always think so.
I've wasted a good deal of time the other way, though I've reformed,
now."
They went on to talk about themselves; sometimes they talked about
others, in excursions which were more or less perfunctory, and were
merely in the way of illustration or instance. She got so far in one of
these as to speak of her family, and he seemed to understand them. He
asked about them all, and he said he believed in her father's unworldly
theory of life. He asked her if they thought at home that she was like
her father, and he added, as if it followed, "I'm the worldling of my
family. I was the youngest child, and the only boy in a flock of girls.
That always spoils a boy."
"Are you spoiled?" she asked.
"Well, I'm afraid they'd be surprised if I didn't come to grief
somehow--all but--mother; she expects I'll be kept from harm."
"Is she religious?"
"Yes, she's a Moravian. Did you ever hear of them?" Clementina shook her
head. "They're something like the Quakers, and something like the
Methodists. They don't believe in war; but they have bishops."
"And do you belong to her church?"
"No," said the young man. "I wish I did, for her sake. I don't belong to
any. Do you?"
"No, I go to the Episcopal, at home. Perhaps I shall belong sometime. But
I think that is something everyone must do for themselves." He looked a
little alarmed at the note of severity in her voice, and she explained.
"I mean that if you try to be religious for anything besides religion, it
isn't being religious;--and no one else has any right to ask you to be."
"Oh, that's what I believe, too," he said, with comic relief. "I didn't
know but I'd been trying to convert you without knowing it." They both
laughed, and were then rather seriously silent.
He asked, after a moment, in a fresh beginning, "Have you heard from Miss
Milray since you left Florence?"
"Oh, yes, didn't I tell you? She's coming here in June."
"Well, she won't have the pleasure of seeing me, then. I'm going the last
of May."
"I thought you were going to stay a month!" she protested.
"That will be a month; and more, too."
"So it will," she owned.
"I'm glad it doesn't seem any longer--say a year--Miss Clementina!"
"Oh, not at all," she returned. "Miss Milray's brother and his wife are
coming with her. They've been in Egypt."
"I never saw them," said Hinkle. He paused, before he added, "Well, it
would seem rather crowded after they get here, I suppose," and he
laughed, while Clementina said nothing.