The next time Colville came he found himself alone with Imogene, who
asked him what he had been doing all day.
"Oh, living along till evening. What have you?"
She did not answer at once, nor praise his speech for the devotion
implied in it. After a while she said: "Do you believe in courses of
reading? Mr. Morton has taken up a course of reading in Italian poetry.
He intends to master it."
"Does he?"
"Yes. Do you think something of the kind would be good for me?"
"Oh, if you thirst for conquest. But I should prefer to rest on my
laurels if I were you."
Imogene did not smile. "Mr. Morton thinks I should enjoy a course of
Kingsley. He says he's very earnest."
"Oh, immensely. But aren't you earnest enough already, my dear?"
"Do you think I'm too earnest?"
"No; I should say you were just right."
"You know better than that. I wish you would criticise me sometimes."
"Oh, I'd rather not."
"Why? Don't you see anything to criticise in me? Are you satisfied with
me in every way? You ought to think. You ought to think now. Do you
think that I am doing right in all respects? Am I all that I could be to
you, and to you alone? If I am wrong in the least thing, criticise me,
and I will try to be better."
"Oh, you might criticise back, and I shouldn't like that."
"Then you don't approve of a course of Kingsley?" asked the girl.
"Does that follow? But if you're going in for earnestness, why don't you
take up a course of Carlyle?"
"Do you think that would be better than Kingsley?"
"Not a bit. But Carlyle's so earnest that he can't talk straight."
"I can't make out what you mean. Wouldn't you like me to improve?"
"Not much," laughed Colville. "If you did, I don't know what I should
do. I should have to begin to improve too, and I'm very comfortable as I
am."
"I should wish to do it to--to be more worthy of you," grieved the girl,
as if deeply disappointed at his frivolous behaviour.
He could not help laughing, but he was sorry, and would have taken her
hand; she kept it from him, and removed to the farthest corner of the
sofa. Apparently, however, her ideal did not admit of open pique, and
she went on trying to talk seriously with him.
"You think, don't you, that we oughtn't to let a day pass without
storing away some thought--suggestion----"
"Oh, there's no hurry," he said lazily. "Life is rather a long
affair--if you live. There appears to be plenty of time, though people
say not, and I think it would be rather odious to make every day of use.
Let a few of them go by without doing anything for you! And as for
reading, why not read when you're hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn't you
hate to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?"
"Very well, then," said Imogene. "I shall not begin Kingsley."
"Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton's quite right. He will look at these
things more from your own point of view. All the Kingsley novels are in
the Tauchnitz. By all means do what he says."
"I will do what _you_ say."
"Oh, but I say nothing."
"Then I will do nothing."
Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman appeared.
Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt obliged to make him some
amends by a greater show of cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of
the effort, for he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy
for him to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and if
he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville tolerantly
reflected that some people seemed to be born so, and that he was
probably not artificial, as he had once imagined from the ecclesiastical
scrupulosity of his dress.
Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, and struck
some chords on it. At each stroke the young clergyman, whose eyes had
wandered a little toward her from the first, seemed to vibrate in
response. The conversation became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen joined
them. Then, by a series of illogical processes, the clergyman was
standing beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting beside
Colville on the sofa.
"Isn't there to be any Effie, to-night?" he asked.
"No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak with
you--about Imogene."
"Yes," said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he could have
chosen another topic.
"It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In less than a
fortnight we ought to have an answer."
"Well?" said Colville, with a strange constriction of the heart.
"Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband is
absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything."
"It isn't an uncommon American situation," said Colville, relieving his
tension by this excursion.
Mrs. Bowen ignored it. "I don't know how she may look at the affair. She
may give her assent at once, or she may decide that nothing has taken
place till--she sees you."
"I could hardly blame her for that," he answered submissively.
"It isn't a question of that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a question
of--others. Mr. Morton was here before you came, and I know he was
interested in Imogene--I am certain of it. He has come back, and he sees
no reason why he should not renew his attentions."
"No--o--o," faltered Colville.
"I wish you to realise the fact."
"But what would you----"
"I told you," said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that severity whose
recent absence Colville had found so comfortable, "that I can't advise
or suggest anything at all."
He was long and miserably silent. At last, "Did you ever think," he
asked, "did you ever suppose--that is to say, did you ever suspect
that--she--that Imogene was--at all interested in him?"
"I think she was--at one time," said Mrs. Bowen promptly.
Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle.
"But that is nothing," she went on. "People have many passing fancies.
The question is, what are you going to do now? I want to know, as Mr.
Morton's friend."
"Ah, I wish you wanted to know as _my_ friend, Mrs. Bowen!" A sudden
thought flashed upon him. "Why shouldn't I go away from Florence till
Imogene hears from her mother? That seemed to me right in the first
place. There is no tie that binds her to me. I hold her to nothing. If
she finds in my absence that she likes this young man better--" An
expression of Mrs. Bowen's face stopped him. He perceived that he had
said something very shocking to her; he perceived that the thing was
shocking in itself, but it was not that which he cared for. "I don't
mean that I won't hold myself true to her as long as she will. I
recognise my responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for all
this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any penalty. But
what I can't bear is that you should misunderstand me, that you
should--I have been so wretched ever since you first began to blame me
for my part in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I can't--I
_won't_--go back to that state of things. No; you have no right to
relent toward me, and then fling me off as you have tried to do
to-night! I have some feeling too--some rights. You shall receive me as
a friend, or not at all! How can I live if you----"
She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she forced herself
to her feet, and ran from the room.
The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the sensation
had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain seated, they went on with
their playing till he rose. Then Imogene called out, "Isn't Mrs. Bowen
coming back?"
"I don't know; I think not," answered Colville stupidly, standing where
he had risen.
She hastened questioning toward him. "What is the matter? Isn't she
well?"
Mr. Morton's face expressed a polite share in her anxiety.
"Oh yes; quite, I believe," Colville replied.
"She heard Effie call, I suppose," suggested the girl.
"Yes, yes; I think so; that is--yes. I must be going. Good night."
He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still there; but
he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, which Imogene hurried to
get. She sent word that she would join them presently. But Mr. Morton
said that it was late already, and he would beg Miss Graham to say
good-night for him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone.
She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. "Imogene, I have been
talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton."
The girl started and turned pale.
"It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may consent to your
engagement. Then you must be prepared to act."
"Act?"
"To make it known. Matters can't go on as they have been going. I told
Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at once. Don't try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly as I do. He is in love with you."
"Why ought he to know?" asked Imogene, doubtless with that impulse to
temporise which is natural to the human soul in questions of right and
interest. She sank into the chair beside which she had been standing.
"If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. Colville?"
"Yes," said the girl.
"And if she refuses?"
"He has my word. I will keep my word to him," replied Imogene huskily.
"Nothing shall make me break it."
"Very well, then!" exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. "We need not wait for your
mother's answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he ought to know at once.
Don't try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly as I
do. He is in love with you."
"Oh," moaned the girl.
"Yes; you can't deny it. And it's cruel, it's treacherous, to let him go
on thinking that you are free."
"I will never see him again."
"Ah! that isn't enough. He has a claim to know why. I will not let him
be treated so."
They were both silent. Then, "What did Mr. Colville say?" asked Imogene.
"He? I don't know that he said anything. He----" Mrs. Bowen stopped.
Imogene rose from her chair.
"I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too indelicate."
"And shall you let it go on so?"
"No. I will tell him myself."
"How will you tell him?"
"I will tell him if he speaks to me."
"You will let it come to that?"
"There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he."
"But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not help him."
Imogene trembled into her chair again.
"I see," said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, "how it will be at last. It will be
as it has been from the first." She began to walk up and down the room,
mechanically putting the chairs in place, and removing the disorder in
which the occupancy of several people leaves a room at the end of an
evening. She closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to shut, with a
clash that jarred the strings from their silence. "But I will do it, and
I wonder----"
"You will speak to him?" faltered the girl.
"Yes!" returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself in her
rapid movements. "It won't do for you to tell him, and you won't let Mr.
Colville."
"No, I can't," said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. "But I will
discourage him; I will not see him anymore." Mrs. Bowen silently
confronted her. "I will not see any one now till I have heard from
home."
"And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I will have
to make it. What shall it be?"
Imogene did not answer. She said: "I will not have any one know what is
between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard from home. If they try to
refuse, then it will be for him to take me against their will. But if he
doesn't choose to do that, then he shall be free, and I won't have him
humiliated a second time before the world. _This_ time _he_ shall be the
one to reject. And I don't care who suffers. The more I prize the
person, the gladder I shall be; and if I could suffer before everybody I
would. If people ever find it out, I will tell them that it was he who
broke it off." She rose again from her chair, and stood flushed and
thrilling with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out of the tortuous
complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief triumph, in which
she rejoiced as if it were enduring success. But she suddenly fell from
it in the dust. "Oh, what can I do for him? How can I make him feel more
and more that I would give up anything, everything, for him! It's
because he asks nothing and wants nothing that it's so hard! If I could
see that he was unhappy, as I did once! If I could see that he was at
all different since--since----Oh, what I dread is this smooth
tranquillity! If our lives could only be stormy and full of cares and
anxieties and troubles that I could take on myself, then, then I
shouldn't be afraid of the future! But I'm afraid they won't be so--no,
I'm afraid that they will be easy and quiet, and then what shall I do? O
Mrs. Bowen, do you think he cares for me?"
Mrs. Bowen turned white; she did not speak.
The girl wrung her hands. "Sometimes it seems as if he didn't--as if I
had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken me to save
me from the shame of knowing that I had made a mistake. Do you think
that is true? If you can only tell me that it isn't--Or, no! If it is
true, tell me that! _That_ would be real mercy."
The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this appeal. But she
gathered herself together rigidly. "How can I answer you such a thing as
that? I mustn't listen to you; you mustn't ask me." She turned and left
the girl standing still in her attitude of imploring. But in her own
room, where she locked herself in, sobs mingled with the laughter which
broke crazily from her lips as she removed this ribbon and that jewel,
and pulled the bracelets from her wrists. A man would have plunged from
the house and walked the night away; a woman must wear it out in her
bed.