"Well, I want to get away too."
"It has been such a racket. Listen to the dear birds."
"Yes, our noise isn't so good as theirs," said Nick. "I feel as if I had
been married and had shoes and rice thrown after me," he went on. "But
not to you, Julia--nothing so good as that."
Julia made no reply; she only turned her eyes on the ornamental water
stretching away at their right. In a moment she exclaimed, "How nasty
the lake looks!" and Nick recognised in her tone a sign of that odd
shyness--a perverse stiffness at a moment when she probably but wanted
to be soft--which, taken in combination with her other qualities, was so
far from being displeasing to him that it represented her nearest
approach to extreme charm. _He_ was not shy now, for he considered this
morning that he saw things very straight and in a sense altogether
superior and delightful. This enabled him to be generously sorry for his
companion--if he were the reason of her being in any degree
uncomfortable, and yet left him to enjoy some of the motions, not in
themselves without grace, by which her discomfort was revealed. He
wouldn't insist on anything yet: so he observed that her standard in
lakes was too high, and then talked a little about his mother and the
girls, their having gone home, his not having seen them that morning,
Lady Agnes's deep satisfaction in his victory, and the fact that she
would be obliged to "do something" for the autumn--take a house or
something or other.
"I'll lend her a house," said Mrs. Dallow.
"Oh Julia, Julia!" Nick half groaned.
But she paid no attention to his sound; she only held up her review and
said: "See what I've brought with me to read--Mr. Hoppus's article."
"That's right; then _I_ shan't have to. You'll tell me about it." He
uttered this without believing she had meant or wished to read the
article, which was entitled "The Revision of the British Constitution,"
in spite of her having encumbered herself with the stiff, fresh
magazine. He was deeply aware she was not in want of such inward
occupation as periodical literature could supply. They walked along and
he added: "But is that what we're in for, reading Mr. Hoppus? Is it the
sort of thing constituents expect? Or, even worse, pretending to have
read him when one hasn't? Oh what a tangled web we weave!"
"People are talking about it. One has to know. It's the article of the
month."
Nick looked at her askance. "You say things every now and then for which
I could really kill you. 'The article of the month,' for instance: I
could kill you for that."
"Well, kill me!" Mrs. Dallow returned.
"Let me carry your book," he went on irrelevantly. The hand in which she
held it was on the side of her on which he was walking, and he put out
his own hand to take it. But for a couple of minutes she forbore to give
it up, so that they held it together, swinging it a little. Before she
surrendered it he asked where she was going.
"To the island," she answered.
"Well, I'll go with you--and I'll kill you there."
"The things I say are the right things," Julia declared.
"It's just the right things that are wrong. It's because you're so
political," Nick too lightly explained. "It's your horrible ambition.
The woman who has a salon should have read the article of the month. See
how one dreadful thing leads to another."
"There are some things that lead to nothing," said Mrs. Dallow.
"No doubt--no doubt. And how are you going to get over to your island?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't there a boat?"
"I don't know."
Nick had paused to look round for the boat, but his hostess walked on
without turning her head. "Can you row?" he then asked.
"Don't you know I can do everything?"
"Yes, to be sure. That's why I want to kill you. There's the boat."
"Shall you drown me?" she asked.
"Oh let me perish with you!" Nick answered with a sigh. The boat had
been hidden from them by the bole of a great tree which rose from the
grass at the water's edge. It was moored to a small place of embarkation
and was large enough to hold as many persons as were likely to wish to
visit at once the little temple in the middle of the lake, which Nick
liked because it was absurd and which Mrs. Dallow had never had a
particular esteem for. The lake, fed by a natural spring, was a liberal
sheet of water, measured by the scale of park scenery; and though its
principal merit was that, taken at a distance, it gave a gleam of
abstraction to the concrete verdure, doing the office of an open eye in
a dull face, it could also be approached without derision on a sweet
summer morning when it made a lapping sound and reflected candidly
various things that were probably finer than itself--the sky, the great
trees, the flight of birds. A man of taste, coming back from Rome a
hundred years before, had caused a small ornamental structure to be
raised, from artificial foundations, on its bosom, and had endeavoured
to make this architectural pleasantry as nearly as possible a
reminiscence of the small ruined rotunda which stands on the bank of the
Tiber and is pronounced by _ciceroni_ once sacred to Vesta. It was
circular, roofed with old tiles, surrounded by white columns and
considerably dilapidated. George Dallow had taken an interest in it--it
reminded him not in the least of Rome, but of other things he liked--and
had amused himself with restoring it. "Give me your hand--sit there and
I'll ferry you," Nick said.
Julia complied, placing herself opposite him in the boat; but as he took
up the paddles she declared that she preferred to remain on the
water--there was too much malice prepense in the temple. He asked her
what she meant by that, and she said it was ridiculous to withdraw to an
island a few feet square on purpose to meditate. She had nothing to
meditate about that required so much scenery and attitude.
"On the contrary, it would be just to change the scene and the _pose_.
It's what we have been doing for a week that's attitude; and to be for
half an hour where nobody's looking and one hasn't to keep it up is just
what I wanted to put in an idle irresponsible day for. I'm not keeping
it up now--I suppose you've noticed," Nick went on as they floated and
he scarcely dipped the oars.
"I don't understand you"--and Julia leaned back in the boat.
He gave no further explanation than to ask in a minute: "Have you people
to dinner to-night?"
"I believe there are three or four, but I'll put them off if you like."
"Must you _always_ live in public, Julia?" he continued.
She looked at him a moment and he could see how she coloured. "We'll go
home--I'll put them off."
"Ah no, don't go home; it's too jolly here. Let them come, let them
come, poor wretches!"
"How little you know me," Julia presently broke out, "when, ever so
many times, I've lived here for months without a creature!"
"Except Mrs. Gresham, I suppose."
"I have had to have the house going, I admit."
"You're perfect, you're admirable, and I don't criticise you."
"I don't understand you!" she tossed back.
"That only adds to the generosity of what you've done for me," Nick
returned, beginning to pull faster. He bent over the oars and sent the
boat forward, keeping this up for a succession of minutes during which
they both remained silent. His companion, in her place, motionless,
reclining--the seat in the stern was most comfortable--looked only at
the water, the sky, the trees. At last he headed for the little temple,
saying first, however, "Shan't we visit the ruin?"
"If you like. I don't mind seeing how they keep it."
They reached the white steps leading up to it. He held the boat and his
companion got out; then, when he had made it fast, they mounted together
to the open door. "They keep the place very well," Nick said, looking
round. "It's a capital place to give up everything in."
"It might do at least for you to explain what you mean." And Julia sat
down.
"I mean to pretend for half an hour that I don't represent the burgesses
of Harsh. It's charming--it's very delicate work. Surely it has been
retouched."
The interior of the pavilion, lighted by windows which the circle of
columns was supposed outside and at a distance to conceal, had a vaulted
ceiling and was occupied by a few pieces of last-century furniture,
spare and faded, of which the colours matched with the decoration of the
walls. These and the ceiling, tinted and not exempt from indications of
damp, were covered with fine mouldings and medallions. It all made a
very elegant little tea-house, the mistress of which sat on the edge of
a sofa rolling her parasol and remarking, "You ought to read Mr.
Hoppus's article to me."
"Why, is _this_ your salon?" Nick smiled.
"What makes you always talk of that? My salon's an invention of your
own."
"But isn't it the idea you're most working for?"
Suddenly, nervously, she put up her parasol and sat under it as if not
quite sensible of what she was doing. "How much you know me! I'm not
'working' for anything--that you'll ever guess."
Nick wandered about the room and looked at various things it
contained--the odd volumes on the tables, the bits of quaint china on
the shelves. "They do keep it very well. You've got charming things."
"They're supposed to come over every day and look after them."
"They must come over in force."
"Oh no one knows."
"It's spick and span. How well you have everything done!"
"I think you've some reason to say so," said Mrs. Dallow. Her parasol
was now down and she was again rolling it tight.
"But you're right about my not knowing you. Why were you so ready to do
so much for me?"
He stopped in front of her and she looked up at him. Her eyes rested
long on his own; then she broke out: "Why do you hate me so?"
"Was it because you like me personally?" Nick pursued as if he hadn't
heard her. "You may think that an odd or positively an odious question;
but isn't it natural, my wanting to know?"
"Oh if you don't know!" Julia quite desperately sighed.
"It's a question of being sure."
"Well then if you're not sure----!"
"Was it done for me as a friend, as a man?"
"You're not a man--you're a child," his hostess declared with a face
that was cold, though she had been smiling the moment before.
"After all I was a good candidate," Nick went on.
"What do I care for candidates?"
"You're the most delightful woman, Julia," he said as he sat down beside
her, "and I can't imagine what you mean by my hating you."
"If you haven't discovered that I like you, you might as well."
"Might as well discover it?"
She was grave--he had never seen her so pale and never so beautiful. She
had stopped rolling her parasol; her hands were folded in her lap and
her eyes bent on them. Nick sat looking at them as well--a trifle
awkwardly. "Might as well have hated me," she said.
"We've got on so beautifully together all these days: why shouldn't we
get on as well for ever and ever?" he brought out. She made no answer,
and suddenly he said: "Ah Julia, I don't know what you've done to me,
but you've done it. You've done it by strange ways, but it will serve.
Yes, I hate you," he added in a different tone and with his face all
nearer.
"Dear Nick, dear Nick----!" she began. But she stopped, feeling his
nearness and its intensity, a nearness now so great that his arm was
round her, that he was really in possession of her. She closed her eyes
but heard him ask again, "Why shouldn't it be for ever, for ever?" in a
voice that had for her ear a vibration none had ever had.
"You've done it, you've done it," Nick repeated.
"What do you want of me?" she appealed.
"To stay with me--this way--always."
"Ah not this way," she answered softly, but as if in pain and making an
effort, with a certain force, to detach herself.
"This way then--or this!" He took such pressing advantage of her that he
had kissed her with repetition. She rose while he insisted, but he held
her yet, and as he did so his tenderness turned to beautiful words. "If
you'll marry me, why shouldn't it be so simple, so right and good?" He
drew her closer again, too close for her to answer. But her struggle
ceased and she rested on him a minute; she buried her face in his
breast.
"You're hard, and it's cruel!" she then exclaimed, shaking herself free.
"Hard--cruel?"
"You do it with so little!" And with this, unexpectedly to Nick, Julia
burst straight into tears. Before he could stop her she was at the door
of the pavilion as if she wished to get immediately away. There,
however, he stayed her, bending over her while she sobbed, unspeakably
gentle with her.
"So little? It's with everything--with everything I have."
"I've done it, you say? What do you accuse me of doing?" Her tears were
already over.
"Of making me yours; of being so precious, Julia, so exactly what a man
wants, as it seems to me. I didn't know you could," he went on, smiling
down at her. "I didn't--no, I didn't."
"It's what I say--that you've always hated me."
"I'll make it up to you!" he laughed.
She leaned on the doorway with her forehead against the lintel. "You
don't even deny it."
"Contradict you _now_? I'll admit it, though it's rubbish, on purpose to
live it down."
"It doesn't matter," she said slowly; "for however much you might have
liked me you'd never have done so half as much as I've cared for you."
"Oh I'm so poor!" Nick murmured cheerfully.
With her eyes looking at him as in a new light she slowly shook her
head. Then she declared: "You never can live it down."
"I like that! Haven't I asked you to marry me? When did you ever ask
me?"
"Every day of my life! As I say, it's hard--for a proud woman."
"Yes, you're too proud even to answer me."
"We must think of it, we must talk of it."
"Think of it? I've thought of it ever so much."
"I mean together. There are many things in such a question."
"The principal thing is beautifully to give me your word."
She looked at him afresh all strangely; then she threw off: "I wish I
didn't adore you!" She went straight down the steps.
"You don't adore me at all, you know, if you leave me now. Why do you
go? It's so charming here and we're so delightfully alone."
"Untie the boat; we'll go on the water," Julia said.
Nick was at the top of the steps, looking down at her. "Ah stay a
little--_do_ stay!" he pleaded.
"I'll get in myself, I'll pull off," she simply answered.
At this he came down and bent a little to undo the rope. He was close to
her and as he raised his head he felt it caught; she had seized it in
her hands and she pressed her lips, as he had never felt lips pressed,
to the first place they encountered. The next instant she was in the
boat.
This time he dipped the oars very slowly indeed; and, while for a period
that was longer than it seemed to them they floated vaguely, they mainly
sat and glowed at each other as if everything had been settled. There
were reasons enough why Nick should be happy; but it is a singular fact
that the leading one was the sense of his having escaped a great and
ugly mistake. The final result of his mother's appeal to him the day
before had been the idea that he must act with unimpeachable honour. He
was capable of taking it as an assurance that Julia had placed him under
an obligation a gentleman could regard but in one way. If she herself
had understood it so, putting the vision, or at any rate the
appreciation, of a closer tie into everything she had done for him, the
case was conspicuously simple and his course unmistakably plain. That is
why he had been gay when he came out of the house to look for her: he
could be gay when his course was plain. He could be all the gayer,
naturally, I must add, that, in turning things over as he had done half
the night, what he had turned up oftenest was the recognition that Julia
now had a new personal power with him. It was not for nothing that she
had thrown herself personally into his life. She had by her act made him
live twice as intensely, and such an office, such a service, if a man
had accepted and deeply tasted it, was certainly a thing to put him on
his honour. He took it as distinct that there was nothing he could do in
preference that wouldn't be spoiled for him by any deflexion from that
point. His mother had made him uncomfortable by bringing it so heavily
up that Julia was in love with him--he didn't like in general to be told
such things; but the responsibility seemed easier to carry and he was
less shy about it when once he was away from other eyes, with only
Julia's own to express that truth and with indifferent nature all
about. Besides, what discovery had he made this morning but that he also
was in love?
"You've got to be a very great man, you know," she said to him in the
middle of the lake. "I don't know what you mean about my salon, but I
_am_ ambitious."
"We must look at life in a large, bold way," he concurred while he
rested his oars.
"That's what I mean. If I didn't think you could I wouldn't look at
you."
"I could what?"
"Do everything you ought--everything I imagine, I dream of. You _are_
clever: you can never make me believe the contrary after your speech on
Tuesday, Don't speak to me! I've seen, I've heard, and I know what's in
you. I shall hold you to it. You're everything you pretend not to be."
Nick looked at the water while she talked. "Will it always be so
amusing?" he asked.
"Will what always be?"
"Why my career."
"Shan't I make it so?"
"Then it will be yours--it won't be mine," said Nick.
"Ah don't say that--don't make me out that sort of woman! If they should
say it's me I'd drown myself."
"If they should say what's you?"
"Why your getting on. If they should say I push you and do things for
you. Things I mean that you can't do yourself."
"Well, won't you do them? It's just what I count on."
"Don't be dreadful," Julia said. "It would be loathsome if I were
thought the cleverest. That's not the sort of man I want to marry."
"Oh I shall make you work, my dear!"
"Ah _that_----!" she sounded in a tone that might come back to a man
after years.
"You'll do the great thing, you'll make my life the best life," Nick
brought out as if he had been touched to deep conviction. "I daresay
that will keep me in heart."
"In heart? Why shouldn't you be in heart?" And her eyes, lingering on
him, searching him, seemed to question him still more than her lips.
"Oh it will be all right!" he made answer.
"You'll like success as well as any one else. Don't tell me--you're not
so ethereal!"
"Yes, I shall like success."
"So shall I! And of course I'm glad you'll now be able to do things,"
Julia went on. "I'm glad you'll have things. I'm glad I'm not poor."
"Ah don't speak of that," Nick murmured. "Only be nice to my mother. We
shall make her supremely happy."
"It wouldn't be for your mother I'd do it--yet I'm glad I like your
people," Mrs. Dallow rectified. "Leave them to me!"
"You're generous--you're noble," he stammered.
"Your mother must live at Broadwood; she must have it for life. It's not
at all bad."
"Ah Julia," her companion replied, "it's well I love you!"
"Why shouldn't you?" she laughed; and after this no more was said
between them till the boat touched shore. When she had got out she
recalled that it was time for luncheon; but they took no action in
consequence, strolling in a direction which was not that of the house.
There was a vista that drew them on, a grassy path skirting the
foundations of scattered beeches and leading to a stile from which the
charmed wanderer might drop into another division of Mrs. Dallow's
property. She said something about their going as far as the stile, then
the next instant exclaimed: "How stupid of you--you've forgotten Mr.
Hoppus!"
Nick wondered. "We left him in the temple of Vesta. Darling, I had other
things to think of there."
"I'll send for him," said Julia.
"Lord, can you think of him now?" he asked.
"Of course I can--more than ever."
"Shall we go back for him?"--and he pulled up.
She made no direct answer, but continued to walk, saying they would go
as far as the stile. "Of course I know you're fearfully vague," she
presently resumed.
"I wasn't vague at all. But you were in such a hurry to get away."
"It doesn't signify. I've another at home."
"Another summer-house?" he more lightly suggested.
"A copy of Mr. Hoppus."
"Mercy, how you go in for him! Fancy having two!"
"He sent me the number of the magazine, and the other's the one that
comes every month."
"Every month; I see"--but his manner justified considerably her charge
of vagueness. They had reached the stile and he leaned over it, looking
at a great mild meadow and at the browsing beasts in the distance.
"Did you suppose they come every day?" Julia went on.
"Dear no, thank God!" They remained there a little; he continued to look
at the animals and before long added: "Delightful English pastoral
scene. Why do they say it won't paint?"
"Who says it won't?"
"I don't know--some of them. It will in France; but somehow it won't
here."
"What are you talking about?" Mrs. Dallow demanded.
He appeared unable to satisfy her on this point; instead of answering
her directly he at any rate said: "Is Broadwood very charming?"
"Have you never been there? It shows how you've treated me. We used to
go there in August. George had ideas about it," she added. She had never
affected not to speak of her late husband, especially with Nick, whose
kinsman he had in a manner been and who had liked him better than some
others did.
"George had ideas about a great many things."
Yet she appeared conscious it would be rather odd on such an occasion to
take this up. It was even odd in Nick to have said it. "Broadwood's just
right," she returned at last. "It's neither too small nor too big, and
it takes care of itself. There's nothing to be done: you can't spend a
penny."
"And don't you want to use it?"
"We can go and stay with _them_," said Julia.
"They'll think I bring them an angel." And Nick covered her white hand,
which was resting on the stile, with his own large one.
"As they regard you yourself as an angel they'll take it as natural of
you to associate with your kind."
"Oh _my_ kind!" he quite wailed, looking at the cows.
But his very extravagance perhaps saved it, and she turned away from him
as if starting homeward, while he began to retrace his steps with her.
Suddenly she said: "What did you mean that night in Paris?"
"That night----?"
"When you came to the hotel with me after we had all dined at that place
with Peter."
"What did I mean----?"
"About your caring so much for the fine arts. You seemed to want to
frighten me."
"Why should you have been frightened? I can't imagine what I had in my
head: not now."
"You _are_ vague," said Julia with a little flush.
"Not about the great thing."
"The great thing?"
"That I owe you everything an honest man has to offer. How can I care
about the fine arts now?"
She stopped with lighted eyes on him. "Is it because you think you _owe_
it--" and she paused, still with the heightened colour in her cheek,
then went on--"that you've spoken to me as you did there?" She tossed
her head toward the lake.
"I think I spoke to you because I couldn't help it."
"You _are_ vague!" And she walked on again.
"You affect me differently from any other woman."
"Oh other women----! Why shouldn't you care about the fine arts now?"
she added.
"There'll be no time. All my days and my years will be none too much for
what you expect of me."
"I don't expect you to give up anything. I only expect you to do more."
"To do more I must do less. I've no talent."
"No talent?"
"I mean for painting."