_January 28_, Hotel San Domenico, Taormina.
I'm going to write it all down just as it happened, and see how it looks
in black and white. Then perhaps I can judge better whether I've been
very weak and undignified, and a lot of other things which I've always
been sure I never would be, under any provocation; or whether I've done
what no normal girl could help doing.
It's the sort of thing one couldn't possibly tell anybody, not even
one's dearest school-friend. I did promise Elise Astley that if I ever
got engaged, she should be told exactly what He said, and what I said,
but then I didn't know how differently one would feel about it
afterwards; besides, I'm _not_ engaged. I only--no, this isn't the way I
meant to begin. I am afraid I'm getting a good deal mixed. I must
be--more concise.
_Note 1._ If I think when I come to read this over that I have not
demeaned myself like a self-respecting, patriotic American girl, I will
tear this up and write a letter to--a Certain Person.
_Note 2._ If, on the contrary, I decide, on mature deliberation, that I
could not have acted otherwise, I will keep this always in the secret
drawer of my writing-desk, where I can take it out and look at it at
least once every year until I am an old woman--ever so much older than
Aunt Mary.
When Jimmy Payne suddenly hurled himself at me out of a cab (just as
Aunt Mary and I and a donkey were trailing disconsolately down from
Mola) and exploded into fireworks calculated to blow my poor Lightning
Conductor into fragments, I threw cold water on his Roman candles and
rockets.
All the same, though, I felt as if I had been dipped first into boiling
hot, then freezing cold water myself. I couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't
believe any of Jimmy's sensational accusations of Brown, and I defended
him whenever Jimmy would let me get in a word edgewise. But when he told
me that Dad had come half across the world from New York to Sicily on
the strength of his statements, I was _wild_--partly with anger and
partly with anxiety to see my dear old Angel "immediately if not
sooner."
I don't remember a word Jimmy said to me, driving down to Sir Edward
Haines', where Dad had gone expecting to find me. I've just a hazy
recollection of being hurried through a beautiful garden; I knew that
poor Lady Brighthelmston (piteously worried about her son) and a rather
common girl and her father, whom we'd stumbled across in Blois, were
with us. Their cab had come behind ours. I saw Dad in the distance,
talking to Brown, who looked less like a hired _chauffeur_ than ever,
and then--then came the thunderbolt.
It was almost as difficult to believe at first that he had tricked me by
pretending to be Brown, when he was really Mr. Winston, as it would
have been to believe Jimmy Payne's penny-dreadful stories. But you can't
go on doubting when a virtuous old lady claims a man as her own son. I
had to accept the fact that he was Jack Winston.
For an instant I felt as if it were a play, and I were someone in the
audience, looking on. It didn't seem real, or to have anything to do
with me. Then I caught his eyes. They were saying, "Do forgive me"; and
with that I realized how much there was to forgive. He had made me
behave like a perfect little fool, giving him good advice and
tips--actually _tips_!--telling him (or very nearly) that he was "quite
like a gentleman," and hundreds of other outrageous things which all
rushed into my mind, as they say your whole past life does when you are
drowning.
I gave him a glance--quite a short one, because I could hardly look him
in the face, thinking of those tips and other things.
Then I turned away, and began talking to Dad; but very likely I talked
great nonsense, for I hadn't the least idea what I was saying, except
that I kept exclaiming the same five words over and over, like a
phonograph doll: "I _am_ glad to see you! I _am_ glad to see you!"
Perhaps I had presence of mind enough to invite the dear thing to take a
stroll with me, for the sake of escaping from Brown; for, anyway, I woke
up from a sort of dream, to find myself walking into a summer-house
alone with Dad.
"Don't you think," he was saying, "that you treated Mr. Winston rather
rudely?"
"Rudely?" I repeated. "How has he treated _me_, I should like to know?"
"If you really would like to know," returned Dad, in that nice, calming
way he has which, even when you are ruffled up, makes you feel like a
kitty-cat being stroked, "I don't see, girlie dear, that you have so
very much to complain of. I've been having a chat with him, and if he
tells the truth, he appears to have served you pretty well. But perhaps
you will say he doesn't tell the truth as to that?"
"Oh, he _served_ me well enough--too well," said I. "But let's not speak
of him. I want to talk about you."
"There's plenty of time for that," said Dad. "I've come to stay--for a
while. Before we begin on me, let's thrash out this matter of Mr.
Winston."
"It deserves to be thrashed," I remarked, trying to laugh. But I've
heard things that sounded more like laughs than that. I hoped Dad didn't
notice it was wobbly.
"He's told me the whole story," went on Dad, "so perhaps I'm in a
position to judge better than you. Women are supposed to have no
abstract sense of justice, but I thought my girl was different. You hear
what Winston has got to say first, and then you can send him to the
right-about if you please."
"I don't see anything abstract in that. It's purely personal," said I.
"Mr. Winston can't expect me to hear him, or even to see him, again."
"He hopes, not expects, as a chap feels about going to heaven," said
Dad. "I'll fetch him, and you can get it over."
"Do nothing of the kind!" I exclaimed. "Let him stay with his mother."
"I guess I'm competent to entertain his mother for a few minutes,"
suggested Dad. "She's a very pleasant-looking lady."
I would have stopped him if I could; but when I saw he was determined, I
just shut my lips tight, and let him go. What I meant to do was to whisk
out as soon as his back was turned, so that when Mr. Winston should
come, he would find me gone. There was no danger he wouldn't understand
why; and a decided action like that on my part would settle everything
for the future.
But as I got to the door I saw him, not six feet distant. He must either
have been on the way to the summer-house when Dad left me, or else he'd
been waiting close by. Anyhow, evidently he and Dad couldn't have said
two words to each other; there hadn't been time; and there was Dad
marching off as if to find and "entertain" Lady Brighthelmston. I should
almost have had to push past Mr. Winston, if I'd persisted in escaping,
which would have looked childish, so quickly I resolved to stand my
ground--in the summer-house--and face it out. My heart was beating so
fast I could hardly think, and I had to tell myself crossly, with a sort
of mental shake, that after all _he_ was the guilty one, not I, before I
could catch at even a decent amount of _savoir faire_.
Naturally, as it was the only thing to be said, his lips asked the same
question his eyes had asked before. "Can you forgive me?"
I always thought Brown's voice one of the nicest things about him,
unless perhaps his eyes; and both were at their very nicest now. I
hadn't realized, till he came to me, how much I should _want_ to forgive
him. I did want to, awfully, but I felt it would never do; and I think I
must have been commendably dignified as I answered: "The hardest
possible thing for a woman to forgive a man is making her ridiculous."
"But then," he cut in, quite boldly, "I don't ask you to forgive me for
a sin I haven't committed, only for those I have."
"You _have_ made me ridiculous," I insisted.
"I fancied it was myself; but I didn't mind that, or anything else which
gave me a chance of being near you, even under false pretences. It is
for deceiving you that I ask to be forgiven. I lived a good many lies as
Brown, but honestly, I believe I never told one. Do forgive me. I
sha'n't be able to bear my life if you don't."
"I can't forgive you," I said again.
"Then punish me first and forgive me afterwards--very soon. I deserve
that you should do both."
"I think you do deserve the first, but I don't quite see how or why you
deserve the second."
"Because I worship you, and would rather be your servant than be king of
a country in which you didn't live."
"Oh!" I couldn't say another word, for thinking of Brown being in love
with me, and there being no reason why I shouldn't let myself love him
too--except, of course, one's self-respect after all that had happened.
But just for an instant I didn't think about that last part; and I was
so surprised, and so happy--or so shocked and so unhappy (I couldn't be
sure which; only, whatever the sensation was, it was very violent), that
I was speechless.
Brown took advantage of that, and talked a great deal more. I tried to
look away from him, but I simply couldn't. He held my eyes, and after he
had told me whole chapters about his thoughts and feelings since the
very first day of our meeting, it occurred to me that he was holding my
hands too--both of them. I am not sure he hadn't been doing it for some
time before I found out, but it was his kissing the hands which brought
me to myself.
It seemed too extraordinary that Brown should be doing that--almost as
if I were dreaming. And to be perfectly frank with myself, it was an
exquisite dream; because such strange things can happen in dreams, and
you don't seem to mind a bit. Luckily, he didn't know this; and I
snatched my hands away, exclaiming: "Mr. Winston!"
"Don't call me that," he begged. "Call me Brown."
"But you are not Brown."
"I love you just as much as when I was Brown, and more. If you only knew
what thousands of times I have longed to tell you, and the heavenly
relief it is to do it at last!"
"You have no more right now. Less, even; for Brown _seemed_ honest."
"If Brown had forgotten himself, and--and kissed the hem of your dress,
what would you have done?"
"I--don't know," was my feeble answer.
"You would have sent him away."
"No--I don't think I could have done that. I--I depended on Brown so
much. I used--to wonder how I should ever get on without him."
"Don't get on without him. I'll be your _chauffeur_ all my days, if
those are the only terms on which you'll take me back. But are there no
other terms? What I want is--"
"What?" I couldn't resist asking when he paused.
"Everything!"
Something in his face, his eyes, his voice--his whole self, I
suppose--carried me off my feet into deep water. I just let myself go, I
was so frightfully happy. I knew now that I had been in love with Brown
for months and had been miserable and restless because he was--only
Brown.