Ruth, in a misery of wild light-headedness, responded as well as she
could to the civilities of her two travelling companions, while they
drove through narrow, animated streets. They reached the docks. There
lay the massive ship, its relentless black hulk resting abroadside, in
ominous expectation of some mysterious coming change. Ruth walked up
the white gangway. The turmoil, the excited crowd, the stolid
stewards,--lolling,--indifferent yet curious sentinels,--the ragged
throng of emigrants passing endlessly into the forecastle, the noise
of clanking wains and girders hoisting trunks and freight into mid air,
all, gave to her a sense of doom, of the finality of things in chaos....
Half an hour passed before she was able to go to her room. Telegrams
were handed to her, even flowers, fruit; thus rapidly does news spread;
she had to talk with friends of the Bolingbrokes come to bid them
God-speed, to look pleasant and pleased as everybody else did.
But when at last Ruth closed the door of her cabin behind her, she
took a little step forward and with a cry threw herself upon the couch.
Regardless of Paolina, who was already opening bags and unfolding
dresses, she permitted herself the luxury of a passionate outburst of
grief. A tornado of pent misery racked her; she pressed her face into
the linen pillow to deaden the sound of her sobbing, her hands against
her breast.
“Signorina, Signorina, do not feel so badly,” cried the good Italian
maid, dropping Ruth's lace and beribboned morning gown and running
towards her. “Oh, do not weep. It is very sad to have to leave our
lovely Italian land, so beautiful, so _carina_. But do not weep so! What
will the Signora Dor say if I allow you to make yourself ill? Think!
It is I who should be weeping. It is I who am leaving all behind me,
my country, my sister, my mother, and yet I do not weep.” But the tears
belied her words and welled from her eyes.
Ruth clasped the girl's hand affectionately. She felt grateful for the
warm Italian heart. Paolina at least was there, to keep her recollected
in the exquisite life she was forsaking. Why she was forsaking it, now
seemed to her an absolutely incomprehensible riddle. For the nonce she
could remember not one of her substantial reasons for doing so.
Paolina withdrew the pins from Ruth's hat, removed it from her hair and
put it away.
“You have crushed your pretty hat, Signorina,” she said, reproachfully.
Then, very much in the tone a mother would use to distract a child:
“You did not see how pale the Signor Pontycroft looked when he said
good-bye,” she added, “and Maria told me the Signora had not slept the
whole night, but kept going constantly to your door and listening to
know whether you were asleep. They love you very much. It must be good
to be loved so much,” the girl continued wistfully. “That must comfort
you. And you will soon come back to them, to Italy, when you have seen
your Signor uncle and your American home--for I am very sure they cannot
live without you.”
“Oh, Paolina, I am so unhappy,” Ruth said, simply. “But leave me,”
she smiled to the girl through her tears, “I will call you when I feel
better.”
Paolina turned to go, then came back, lifted Ruth's hand, kissed it. “I
hope you will pardon me, Signorina,” she added shyly, “_Scusi_, if I
say, we must always smile, it pleases God better.”
And Paolina left the room.
For a long while, Ruth, quite still, battled with her feelings. A fresh
passion of grief overtook her.... When at last it had spent itself, she
drew her Rosary, which she carried in the gold bag in her hand, from
its sheath. Slowly, the sweetness of the five decades passed into her
spirit, she felt comforted. Peace filled her heart. There was only, now
and then, the ache, where before there had been uncontrollable despair.
She stood up, bathed her face, rang for Paolina, and began removing the
tortoise-shell pins from her hair.
“Paolina,” she cried, as the maid entered the room. “Paolina,” she
twisted her hair again into its thick coil, “we are going to enjoy
ourselves now! No more tears, no more regrets. You are quite right. We
must smile to the good God if we wish Him to smile on us! Make haste and
give me a short skirt and a warm coat, and my cap and veil. I long to
get out and breathe the air and fill my eyes with a sight of the shores
of Italy.”
At dinner and during the rest of the evening, as they steamed down the
coast towards Naples, Ruth was an irresistible _precis_ of smiles and
vivacity. The Bolingbrokes were captivated.
“Richard,” the young Mrs. Bolingbroke told her lord when they were
alone together, “that Miss Adgate is a most charmin' girl. What was
that nonsense Mrs. Wilberton retailed about her runnin' away from Henry
Pontycroft whom she's hopelessly in love with? She is in love with no
man! You can't deceive me!” Mrs. Bolingbroke cried gaily. “It's easy
to see from the fun she's positively bubblin' over with that her heart
isn't weighted by any hopeless passion. She's never been in America
before she says, and it's the great adventure of her life.... She's
goin' to visit an old uncle, whom she's never seen but adores. Her
childlike enjoyment of doin' it quite alone (she has her maid with her)
and her eagerness about it, is quite fascinatin'. Although she is
so rich, she's evidently seen very little of the world,” said Mrs.
Bolingbroke, who happened to be a year Ruth's junior, but had the
feeling of knowing the world thoroughly from within and from without.
“Yes,” her husband answered guardedly; he remembered that a First
Secretary must show diplomatic reticence in his judgments, even to his
wife. “Yes, Miss Adgate does seem rather a decent sort. I dare say the
story is all a fabrication. She does seem a nice sort of unsophisticated
young creature and I dare say the story's all a fabrication. Just the
pretty charitable way people have of talking. I can see no objection to
your enjoying as much of her society as you like, Isabel.”
Thus it happened that safe in her husband's blessing upon the
friendship, Mrs. Bolingbroke, all unsuspected by Ruth, became her
champion.