"Not for myself."
"You put me on very short allowance of conjecture."
"I will not let you trifle with the matter!" she cried. "You have made
me speak, when a word, a look, ought to have been enough. Oh, I didn't
think you had the miserable vanity to wish it!"
Colville stood thinking a long time and she waiting. "I see that
everything is at an end. I am going away from Florence. Good-bye, Mrs.
Bowen." He approached her, holding out his hand. But if he expected to
be rewarded for this, nothing of the kind happened. She shrank swiftly
back.
"No, no. You shall not touch me."
He paused a moment, gazing keenly at her face, in which, whatever other
feeling showed, there was certainly no fear of him. Then with a slight
bow he left the room.
Mrs. Bowen ran from it by another door, and shut herself into her own
room. When she returned to the salotto, Imogene and Effie were just
coming in. The child went to lay aside her hat and sacque; the girl,
after a glance at Mrs. Bowen's face, lingered inquiringly.
"Mr. Colville came here with your letter, Imogene."
"Yes," said Imogene faintly. "Do you think I oughtn't to have written
it?"
"Oh, it makes no difference now. He is going away from Florence."
"Yes?" breathed the girl.
"I spoke openly with him."
"Yes?"
"I didn't spare him. I made him think I hated and despised him."
Imogene was silent. Then she said, "I know that whatever you have done,
you have acted for the best."
"Yes, I have a right that you should say that--I have a right that you
should always say it. I think he has behaved very foolishly, but I don't
blame him----"
"No! I was to blame."
"I don't _know_ that he was to blame, and I won't let you think he was."
"Oh, he is the best man in the world!"
"He gave up at once; he didn't try to defend himself. It's nothing for
you to lose a friend at your age; but at mine----"
"I _know_ it, Mrs. Bowen."
"And I wouldn't even shake hands with him when he was going; I----"
"Oh, I don't see how you could be so hard!" cried Imogene. She put up
her hands to her face, and broke into tears. Mrs. Bowen watched her, dry
eyed, with her lips parted, and an intensity of question in her face.
"Imogene," she said at last, "I wish you to promise me one thing."
"Yes."
"Not to write to Mr. Colville again."
"No, no; indeed I won't, Mrs. Bowen!" The girl came up to kiss her; Mrs.
Bowen turned her cheek.
Imogene was going from the room, when Mrs. Bowen spoke again. "But I
wish you to promise me this only because you don't feel sure of yourself
about him. If you care for him--if you think you care for him--then I
leave you perfectly free."
The girl looked up, scared. "No, no; I'd rather you wouldn't leave me
free--you mustn't; I shouldn't know what to do."
"Very well, then," said Mrs. Bowen.
They both waited a moment, as if each were staying for the other to
speak. Then Imogene asked, "Is he--going soon?"
"I don't know," said Mrs. Bowen. "Why should he want to delay? He had
better go at once. And I hope he will go home--as far from Florence as
he can. I should think he would _hate_ the place."
"Yes," said the girl, with a quivering sigh; "it must be hateful to
him." She paused, and then she rushed on with bitter self-reproach. "And
I--_I_ have helped to make it so! O Mrs. Bowen, perhaps it's _I_ who
have been trifling with _him_. Trying to make him believe--no, not trying
to do that, but letting him see that I sympathised--Oh, do you think I
have?"
"You know what you have been doing, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with the
hardness it surprises men to know women use with each other, they seem
such tender creatures in the abstract. "You have no need to ask me."
"No, no."
"As you say, I warned you from the first."
"Oh yes; you did."
"I couldn't do more than hint; it was too much to expect----"
"Oh, yes, yes."
"And if you couldn't take my hints, I was helpless."
"Yes; I see it."
"I was only afraid of saying too much, and all through that miserable
veglione business I was trying to please you and him, because I was
afraid I _had_ said too much--gone too far. I wanted to show you that I
disdained to be suspicious, that I was ashamed to suppose that a girl of
your age could care for the admiration of a man of his."
"Oh, I didn't care for his admiration. I admired _him_--and pitied him."
Mrs. Bowen apparently would not be kept now from saying all that had
been rankling in her breast. "I didn't approve of going to the veglione.
A great many people would be shocked if they knew I went; I wouldn't at
all like to have it known. But I was not going to have him thinking that
I was severe with you, and wanted to deny you any really harmless
pleasure."
"Oh, who could think that? You're only too good to me. You see," said
the girl, "what a return I have made for your trust. I knew you didn't
want to go to the veglione. If I hadn't been the most selfish girl in
the world I wouldn't have let you. But I did. I _forced_ you to go, and
then, after we got there, I seized every advantage, and abused your
kindness till I wonder I didn't sink through the floor. Yes; I ought to
have refused to dance--if I'd had a spark of generosity or gratitude I
would have done it; and I ought to have come straight back to you the
instant the waltz was done. And now see what has come of it! I've made
you think he was trifling with me, and I've made him think that I'm a
false and hollow-hearted thing."
"You know best what you have done, Imogene," said Mrs. Bowen, with a
smiling tearfulness that was somehow very bitter. She rose from the
sofa, as if to indicate that there was no more to be said, and Imogene,
with a fresh burst of grief, rushed away to her own room.
She dropped on her knees beside her bed, and stretched out her arms upon
it, an image of that desolation of soul which, when we are young, seems
limitless, but which in later life we know has comparatively narrow
bounds beyond the clouds that rest so blackly around us.