"How can you help her doing it? If she thinks anything is right, she
can't help doing it. Who could?"
Colville thought to himself that he could have said; but he was silent.
At the moment he was not equal to so much joke or so much truth; and
Imogene went on--
"She'd be all the more strenuous about it if it were disagreeable, and
rather than accept any relief from _me_ she would die."
"Is she--unkind to you?" faltered Colville.
"She is only _too_ kind. You can feel that she's determined to be
so--that she's said she will have nothing to reproach herself with, and
she won't. You don't suppose Mrs. Bowen would be unkind to any one she
disliked?"
"Ah, I didn't know," sighed Colville.
"The more she disliked them, the better she would use them. It's because
our engagement is so distasteful to her that she's determined to feel
that she did nothing to oppose it."
"But how can you tell that it's distasteful, then?"
"She lets you feel it by--not saying anything about it."
"I can't see how--"
"She never speaks of you. I don't believe she ever mentions your name.
She asks me about the places where I've been, and about the
people--every one but you. It's very uncomfortable."
"Yes," said Colville, "it's uncomfortable."
"And if I allude to letters from home, she merely presses her lips
together. It's perfectly wretched."
"I see. It's I whom she dislikes, and I would do anything to please her.
She must know that," mused Colville aloud. "Imogene!" he exclaimed, with
a sudden inspiration. "Why shouldn't I go away?"
"Go away?" she palpitated. "What should I do?"
The colours faded from his brilliant proposal. "Oh, I only meant till
something was settled--determined--concluded; till this terrible
suspense was over." He added hopelessly, "But nothing can be done!"
"I proposed," said Imogene, "that we should all go away. I suggested Via
Reggio--the doctor said she ought to have sea air--or Venice; but she
wouldn't hear of it. No; we must wait."
"Yes, we must wait," repeated Colville hollowly. "Then nothing can be
done?"
"Why, haven't you said it?"
"Oh yes--yes. I can't go away, and you can't. But couldn't we do
something--get up something?"
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean, couldn't we--amuse her somehow? help her to take her mind off
herself?"
Imogene stared at him rather a long time. Then, as if she had satisfied
herself in her own mind, she shook her head. "She wouldn't submit to
it."
"No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do," said Colville.
"She has no right to do that," cried Imogene. "I'm sure that you're
always considering her, and proposing to do things for her. I won't let
you humble yourself, as if you had wronged her."
"Oh, I don't call it humbling. I--I should only be too happy if I could
do _anything_ that was agreeable to her."
"Very well, I will tell her," said the girl haughtily. "Shall you object
to my joining you in your amusements, whatever they are? I assure you I
will be very unobtrusive."
"I don't understand all this," replied Colville. "Who has proposed to
exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about Mrs. Bowen if you didn't
want me to say or do something? I supposed you did; but I'll withdraw
the offensive proposition, whatever it was."
"There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, why can't you
pity me a little?"
"I didn't know anything was the matter with you. I thought you were
enjoying yourself----"
"Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever you
sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won't mention
your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can't speak of you to any one;
and no one speaks to me----"
"If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville essayed, in
dreary jest.
"Oh, don't joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it's that
that's wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in
circumstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs.
Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amusement, you laugh
at me! If you don't understand it all, I'm sure _I_ don't."
"Imogene!"
"No! It's very strange. There's only one explanation. You don't care for
me."
"Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the
past fortnight.
"And I would have made any--_any_ sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn't
have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come
to me for a little sympathy."
"O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she
really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and
I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen's dislike for me.
But you mustn't think of it. I dare say it will be different; I've no
doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I--" He did
not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was
able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any
one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very
original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed
for her.
"No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the platitude as if it were now
uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell
Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you've said, and I know she will
appreciate your generosity."
"Yes," said Colville pensively; "there's nothing I won't _propose_ doing
for people."
She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the
matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and
only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with
you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_ are. It
seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here
I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding
you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own
mother to me. Do you call that noble?"
Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to
her own conscience.
But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said,
"Oh no; that was a mistake."
"Because, if you do, you shall--to punish me."
"My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?"
"Because I've been low and mean. Now I want you to do something for Mrs.
Bowen--something to amuse her; to show that we appreciate her. And I
don't want you to sympathise with me at all. When I ask for your
sympathy, it's a sign that I don't deserve it."
"Is that so?"
"Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your pardon for
something."
"Yes; what's that?"
"Can't you guess?"
"No."
"You needn't have your lapels silk-lined. You needn't wear
_boutonnières_."
"Oh, but I've had the coat changed."
"No matter! Change it back! It isn't for me to make you over. I must
make myself over. It's my right, it's my sacred privilege to conform to
you in every way, and I humble myself in the dust for having forgotten
it at the very start. Oh, _do_ you think I can ever be worthy of you? I
_will_ try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light dresses another
time! From this out, I shall dress more in keeping with you. I boasted
that I should live to comfort and console you, to recompense you for the
past, and what have I been doing? Wearying and degrading you!"
"Oh no," pleaded Colville. "I am very comfortable. I don't need any
compensation for the past. I need--sleep. I'm going to bed tonight at
eight o'clock, and I am going to sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall
be fresh for Mrs. Fleming's ball."
"I'm not going," said Imogene briefly.
"Oh yes, you are. I'll come round to-morrow evening and see."
"No. There are to be no more parties."
"Why?"
"I can't endure them."
She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far aloof in
the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed puzzled, bewildered at
herself.
Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and question to
which he left her, but he felt himself powerless against it. There was
but one solution to it all, and that was impossible. He could only
grieve over her trouble, and wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss which
made her trouble remote and impersonal to him, and submit.