Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in the
contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which had
been sent home from the tailor's just before Mr. Waters came in. The
coat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending to
lavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from Palazzo
Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk gauze
neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the time thought
very well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on his bed, it
seemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for his wear. He
ought to put on something as nearly analogous to sackcloth as a modern
stock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the grave
materials of his winter costume. But they were really insupportable in
this sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during his
sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs.
Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps
providential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, when
he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had been
loafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to her
to appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious she
always was herself!
As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which the
becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightly
tied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back to
admit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerful
before his glass. Should he shave? As once before, this important
question occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages of
figure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect would
cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part of
his face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of a
double chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, at
least till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for his
visit to brook the necessary delay.
He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in to
meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling.
"You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said Colville,
tracing the cause of her embarrassment to his summer splendour. "Where
is your mamma?"
"She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold of his
hand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us."
"By all means--not that I haven't had coffee already, though."
She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they went.
Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. "How are
you feeling to-day?" she asked, politely ignoring his finery.
"Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain of
the situation, "Of the best tailor's make in Florence."
"You look very well," she smiled.
"Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The trouble is that
I don't always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon a
lady."
"Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen.
"Don't refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried.
"Oh, is it for me too?"
This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy could
have brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but rather
heightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom,
that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear, and
a thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well with
all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived home
the betrothed of that excellent, that wholly unobjectionable young man,
Mr. Morton.
"Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked Mrs.
Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon.
"Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. They
forgot to offer us any ice at the _table d'hôte_ this evening."
"This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It's a compromise
with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa's this afternoon."
"I _thought_ you would come," whispered the child to Colville.
Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don't give
yourself away, Effie."
"Why, let us go to Giacosa's too," said Colville, taking the ice. "We
shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel ourselves
foreign. It's astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed the
tourists. I didn't see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I walked
down Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza della
Signoria and the Uffizzi. You've no idea how comfortable and home-like
it was--all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves, and the
objects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a good rest
after their winter's work."
Effie understood Colville's way of talking well enough to enjoy this;
her mother did not laugh.
"Walked?" she asked.
"Certainly. Why not?"
"You are getting well again. You'll soon be gone too."
"I've _got_ well. But as to being gone, there's no hurry. I rather think
I shall wait now to see how long you stay."
"We may keep you all summer," said Mrs. Bowen, dropping her eyelids
indifferently.
"Oh, very well. All summer it is, then. Mr. Waters is going to stay, and
he is such a very cool old gentleman that I don't think one need fear
the wildest antics of the mercury where he is."
When Colville had finished his ice, Mrs. Bowen led the way to the
salotto; and they all sat down by the window there and watched the
sunset die on San Miniato. The bronze copy of Michelangelo's David, in
the Piazzale below the church, blackened in perfect relief against the
pink sky and then faded against the grey while they talked. They were so
domestic that Colville realised with difficulty that this was an image
of what might be rather than what really was; the very ease with which
he could apparently close his hand upon the happiness within his grasp
unnerved him. The talk strayed hither and thither, and went and came
aimlessly. A sound of singing floated in from the kitchen, and Effie
eagerly asked her mother if she might go and see Maddalena. Maddalena's
mother had come to see her, and she was from the mountains.
"Yes, go," said Mrs. Bowen; "but don't stay too long."
"Oh, I will be back in time," said the child, and Colville remembered
that he had proposed going to Giacosa's.
"Yes; don't forget." He had forgotten it himself.
"Maddalena is the cook," explained Mrs. Bowen. "She sings ballads to
Effie that she learned from her mother, and I suppose Effie wants to
hear them at first hand."
"Oh yes," said Colville dreamily.
They were alone now, and each little silence seemed freighted with a
meaning deeper than speech.
"Have you seen Mr. Waters to-day?" asked Mrs. Bowen, after one of these
lapses.
"Yes; he came this afternoon."
"He is a very strange old man. I should think he would be lonely here."
"He seems not to be. He says he finds company in the history of the
place. And his satisfaction at having got out of Haddam East Village is
perennial."
"But he will want to go back there before he dies."
"I don't know. He thinks not. He's a strange old man, as you say. He has
the art of putting all sorts of ideas into people's heads. Do you know
what we talked about this afternoon?"
"No, I don't," murmured Mrs. Bowen.
"About you. And he encouraged me to believe--imagine--that I might speak
to you--ask--tell you that--I loved you, Lina." He leaned forward and
took one of the hands that lay in her lap. It trembled with a violence
inconceivable in relation to the perfect quiet of her attitude. But she
did not try to take it away. "Could you--do you love me?"
"Yes," she whispered; but here she sprang up and slipped from his hold
altogether, as with an inarticulate cry of rapture he released her hand
to take her in his arms.
He followed her a pace or two. "And you will--will be my wife?" he
pursued eagerly.
"Never!" she answered, and now Colville stopped short, while a cold
bewilderment bathed him from head to foot. It must be some sort of jest,
though he could not tell where the humour was, and he could not treat it
otherwise than seriously.
"Lina, I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you this
winter, and Heaven knows how long before!"
"Yes; I know that."
"And every moment."
"Oh, I know that too."
"Even if I had no sort of hope that you cared for me, I loved you so
much that I must tell you before we parted--"
"I expected that--I intended it."
"You intended it! and you do love me! And yet you won't--Ah, I don't
understand!"
"How could _you_ understand? I love you--I blush and burn for shame to
think that I love you. But I will never marry you; I can at least help
doing that, and I can still keep some little trace of self-respect. How
you must really despise me, to think of anything else, after all that
has happened! Did you suppose that I was merely waiting till that poor
girl's back was turned, as you were? Oh, how can you be yourself, and
still be yourself? Yes, Jenny Wheelwright was right. You are too much of
a mixture, Theodore Colville"--her calling him so showed how often she
had thought of him so--"too much for her, too much for Imogene, too much
for me; too much for any woman except some wretched creature who enjoys
being trampled on and dragged through the dust, as you have dragged me."
"_I_ dragged _you_ through the dust? There hasn't been a moment in the
past six months when I wouldn't have rolled myself in it to please you."
"Oh, I knew that well enough! And do you think that was flattering to
me?"
"That has nothing to do with it. I only know that I love you, and that I
couldn't help wishing to show it even when I wouldn't acknowledge it to
myself. That is all. And now when I am free to speak, and you own that
you love me, you won't--I give it up!" he cried desperately. But in the
next breath he implored, "_Why_ do you drive me from you, Lina?"
"Because you have humiliated me too much." She was perfectly steady, but
he knew her so well that in the twilight he knew what bitterness there
must be in the smile which she must be keeping on her lips. "I was here
in the place of her mother, her best friend, and you made me treat her
like an enemy. You made me betray her and cast her off."
"I?"
"Yes, you! I knew from the very first that you did not really care for
her, that you were playing with yourself, as you were playing with her,
and I ought to have warned her."
"It appears to me you did warn her," said Colville, with some resentful
return of courage.
"I tried," she said simply, "and it made it worse. It made it worse
because I knew that I was acting for my own sake more than hers, because
I wasn't--disinterested." There was something in this explanation,
serious, tragic, as it was to Mrs. Bowen, which made Colville laugh. She
might have had some perception of its effect to him, or it may have been
merely from a hysterical helplessness, but she laughed too a little.
"But why," he gathered courage to ask, "do you still dwell upon that?
Mr. Waters told me that Mr. Morton--that there was--"
"He is mistaken. He offered himself, and she refused him. He told me."
"Oh!"
"Do you think she would do otherwise, with you lying here between life
and death? No: you can have no hope from that."
Colville, in fact, had none. This blow crushed and dispersed him. He had
not strength enough to feel resentment against Mr. Waters for misleading
him with this _ignis fatuus_.
"No one warned him, and it came to that," said Mrs. Bowen. "It was of a
piece with the whole affair. I was weak in that too."
Colville did not attempt to reply on this point. He feebly reverted to
the inquiry regarding himself, and was far enough from mirth in resuming
it.
"I couldn't imagine," he said, "that you cared anything for me when you
warned another against me. If I could--"
"You put me in a false position from the beginning. I ought to have
sympathised with her and helped her instead of making the poor child
feel that somehow I hated her. I couldn't even put her on guard against
herself, though I knew all along that she didn't really care for you,
but was just in love with her own fancy for you, Even after you were
engaged I ought to have broken it off; I ought to have been frank with
her; it was my duty; but I couldn't without feeling that I was acting
for myself too, and I would not submit to that degradation. No! I would
rather have died. I dare say you don't understand. How could you? You
are a man, and the kind of man who couldn't. At every point you made me
violate every principle that was dear to me. I loathed myself for caring
for a man who was in love with me when he was engaged to another. Don't
think it was gratifying to me. It was detestable; and yet I did let you
see that I cared for you. Yes, I even _tried_ to make you care for
me--falsely, cruelly, treacherously."
"You didn't have to try very hard," said Colville, with a sort of cold
resignation to his fate.
"Oh no; you were quite ready for any hint. I could have told her for her
own sake that she didn't love you, but that would have been for my sake
too; and I would have told you if I hadn't cared for you and known how
you cared for me. I've saved at least the consciousness of this from the
wreck."
"I don't think it's a great treasure," said Colville. "I wish that you
had saved the consciousness of having been frank even to your own
advantage."
"Do you dare to reproach me, Theodore Colville? But perhaps I've
deserved this too."
"No, Lina, you certainly don't deserve it, if it's unkindness, from me.
I won't afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me before I
go?"
She sank into a chair in sign of assent. He also sat down. He had a dim
impression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he did not
venture to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his eyes upon as
much of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in a
vague outline of dark.
"I want to assure you, Lina--Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall call
you for the first and last time!--that I _do_ understand everything, as
delicately and fully as you could wish, all that you have expressed, and
all that you have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure your
ideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have struggled
to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy and stupid
selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my dearest love--you
must forgive me!--that if I didn't see everything at the time, I do see
it now, and that I prize the love you kept from me far more than any
love you could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It isn't
logic--it sounds more like nonsense, I am afraid--but you know what I
mean by it. You are more perfect, more lovely to me, than any being in
the world, and I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not win
you against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you say we
must part, I know that you speak from a finer discernment than mine, and
I submit. I will try to console myself with the thought of your love, if
I may not have you. Yes, I submit."
His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest art.
His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity, and
she rose also. "Remember," he said, "that I confess all you accuse me
of, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do--because you do
it." He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at her
side. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. "May I
kiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on the
lips.
"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go--"
"I am going."
Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen.
"Aren't you going to take--" She stopped and turned to her mother. She
must not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what her
gesture expressed.
Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage, and
play upon the mother's heart through the feelings of her child, though
there is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation by any
means. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and the
resistance. "Tell her," she said, and turned away.
"I can't go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping toward her for
the inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I am--going away, and I must say
good-bye."
The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she repeated.
"Yes--away from Florence. I'm afraid I shall not see you again."
The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless.
Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her, she
plunged her face against her mother's breast. "I can't _bear_ it!" she
sobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a storm
of cries and prayers.
Colville wavered.
"Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of a
woman who falls below her ideal of herself.