Mr. Erwin entered about the completion of her preparations, and without
turning round from her glass she said, “I want you to think of the worst
thing you can, Henshaw. I don't see how I'm ever to lift up my head
again.” As if this word had reminded her of her head, she turned it from
side to side, and got the effect in the glass, first of one ear-ring,
and then of the other. Her husband patiently waited, and she now
confronted him. “You may as well know first as last, Henshaw, and I want
you to prepare yourself for it. Nothing can be done, and you will
just have to live through it. Lydia--has come over--on that
ship--alone,--with three young men,--and not the shadow--not the
ghost--of another woman--on board!” Mrs. Erwin gesticulated with her
hand-glass in delivering the words, in a manner at once intensely
vivid and intensely solemn, yet somehow falling short of the due tragic
effect. Her husband stood pulling his mustache straight down, while
his wife turned again to the mirror, and put the final touches to
her personal appearance with hands which she had the effect of having
desperately washed of all responsibility. He stood so long in this
meditative mood that she was obliged to be peremptory with his image in
the glass. “Well?” she cried.
“Why, my dear,” said Mr. Erwin, at last, “they were all Americans
together, you know.”
“And what difference does that make?” demanded Mrs. Erwin, whirling from
his image to the man again.
“Why, of course, you know, it isn't as if they were--English.” Mrs.
Erwin flung down three hair-pins upon her dressing-case, and visibly
despaired. “Of course you don't expect your countrymen--” His wife's
appearance was here so terrible that he desisted, and resumed by saying,
“Don't be vexed, my dear. I--I rather like it, you know. It strikes me
as a genuine bit of American civilization.”
“American civilization! Oh, Henshaw!” wailed Mrs. Erwin, “is it possible
that after all I've said, and done, and lived, you still think that any
one but a girl from the greenest little country place could do such a
thing as that? Well, it is no use trying to enlighten English people.
You like it, do you? Well, I'm not sure that the Englishman who
misunderstands American things and likes them isn't a little worse than
the Englishman who misunderstands them and dislikes them. You _all_
misunderstand them. And would you like it, if one of the young men had
been making love to Lydia?”
The amateur of our civilization hesitated and was serious, but he said
at last, “Why, you know, I'm not surprised. She's so uncommonly pretty.
I--I suppose they're engaged?” he suggested.
His wife held her peace for scorn. Then she said, “The gentleman is of a
very good Boston family, and would no more think of engaging himself
to a young girl without the knowledge of her friends than you would.
Besides, he's been in Europe a great deal.”
“I wish I could meet some Americans who hadn't been in Europe,” said Mr.
Erwin. “I should like to see what you call the simon-pure American. As
for the young man's not engaging himself, it seems to me that he didn't
avail himself of his national privileges. I should certainly have done
it in his place, if I'd been an American.”
“Well, if you'd been an American, you wouldn't,” answered his wife.
“Why?”
“Because an American would have had too much delicacy.”
“I don't understand that.”
“I know you don't, Henshaw. And there's where you show yourself an
Englishman.”
“Really,” said her husband, “you're beginning to crow, my dear. Come,
I like that a great deal better than your cringing to the effete
despotisms of the Old World, as your Fourth of July orators have it.
It's almost impossible to get a bit of good honest bounce out of an
American, nowadays,--to get him to spread himself, as you say.”
“All that is neither here nor there, Henshaw,” said his wife. “The
question is how to receive Mr. Staniford--that's his name--when he
comes. How are we to regard him? He's coming here to see Lydia, and she
thinks he's coming to propose.”
“Excuse me, but how does she regard him?”
“Oh, there's no question about that, poor child. She's _dead_ in love
with him, and can't understand why he didn't propose on shipboard.”
“And she isn't an Englishman, either!” exulted Mr. Erwin. “It appears
that there are Americans and Americans, and that the men of your nation
have more delicacy than the women like.”
“Don't be silly,” said his wife. “Of course, women always think what
they would do in such cases, if they were men; but if men did what women
think they would do if they were men, the women would be disgusted.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. Her feeling in the matter is no guide.”
“Do you know his family?” asked Mr. Erwin.
“I think I do. Yes, I'm sure I do.”
“Are they nice people?”
“Haven't I told you they were a good Boston family?”
“Then upon my word, I don't see that we've to take any attitude at all.
I don't see that we've to regard him in one way or the other. It quite
remains for him to make the first move.”
As if they had been talking of nothing but dress before, Mrs. Erwin
asked: “Do you think I look better in this black mexicaine, or would you
wear your écru?”
“I think you look very well in this. But why--He isn't going to propose
to you, I hope?”
“I must have on something decent to receive him in. What time does the
train from Trieste get in?”
“At three o'clock.”
“It's one, now. There's plenty of time, but there isn't any too much.
I'll go and get Lydia ready. Or perhaps you'll tap on her door, Henshaw,
and send her here. Of course, this is the end of her voice,--if it is
the end.”
“It's the end of having an extraordinarily pretty girl in the house.
I don't at all like it, you know,--having her whisked away in this
manner.”
Mrs. Erwin refused to let her mind wander from the main point. “He'll be
round as soon as he can, after he arrives. I shall expect him by four,
at the latest.”
“I fancy he'll stop for his dinner before he comes,” said Mr. Erwin.
“Not at all,” retorted his wife, haughtily. And with his going out of
the room, she set her face in a resolute cheerfulness, for the task of
heartening Lydia when she should appear; but it only expressed misgiving
when the girl came in with her yachting-dress on. “Why, Lydia, shall you
wear that?”
Lydia swept her dress with a downward glance.
“I thought I would wear it. I thought he--I should seem--more natural
in it. I wore it all the time on the ship, except Sundays. He said--he
liked it the best.”
Mrs. Erwin shook her head. “It wouldn't do. Everything must be on a new
basis now. He might like it; but it would be too romantic, wouldn't it,
don't you think?” She shook her head still, but less decisively. “Better
wear your silk. Don't you think you'd better wear your silk? This is
very pretty, and the dark blue does become you, awfully. Still, I don't
know--_I_ don't know, either! A great many English wear those careless
things in the house. Well, _wear_ it, Lydia! You _do_ look perfectly
killing in it. I'll tell you: your uncle was going to ask you to go
out in his boat; he's got one he rows himself, and this is a boating
costume; and you know you could time yourselves so as to get back just
right, and you could come in with this on--”
Lydia turned pale. “Oughtn't I--oughtn't I--to be here?” she faltered.
Her aunt laughed gayly. “Why, he'll ask for _me_, Lydia.”
“For you?” asked Lydia, doubtfully.
“Yes. And I can easily keep him till you get back. If you're here by
four--”
“The train,” said Lydia, “arrives at three.”
“How did you know?” asked her aunt, keenly.
Lydia's eyelids fell even lower than their wont.
“I looked it out in that railroad guide in the parlor.”
Her aunt kissed her. “And you've thought the whole thing out, dear,
haven't you? I'm glad to see you so happy about it.”
“Yes,” said the girl, with a fluttering breath, “I have thought it out,
and _I believe him_. I--” She tried to say something more, but could
not.
Mrs. Erwin rang the bell, and sent for her husband. “He knows about it,
Lydia,” she said.
“He's just as much interested as we are, dear, but you needn't be
worried. He's a perfect post for not showing a thing if you don't want
him to. He's really quite superhuman, in that,--equal to a woman. You
can talk Americanisms with him. If we sat here staring at each other
till four o'clock,--he _must_ go to his hotel before he comes here; and
I say four at the earliest; and it's much more likely to be five or six,
or perhaps evening,--I should die!”
Mr. Erwin's rowing was the wonder of all Venice. There was every reason
why he should fall overboard at each stroke, as he stood to propel the
boat in the gondolier fashion, except that he never yet had done so. It
was sometimes his fortune to be caught on the shallows by the falling
tide; but on that day he safely explored the lagoons, and returned
promptly at four o'clock to the palace.
His wife was standing on the balcony, looking out for them, and she
smiled radiantly down into Lydia's anxiously lifted face. But when
she met the girl at the head of the staircase in the great hall, she
embraced her, and said, with the same gay smile, “He hasn't come yet,
dear, and of course he won't come till after dinner. If I hadn't been as
silly as you are, Lydia, I never should have let you expect him sooner.
He'll want to go to his hotel: and no matter how impatient he is, he'll
want to dress, and be a little ceremonious about his call. You know
we're strangers to him, whatever _you_ are.”
“Yes,” said Lydia, mechanically. She was going to sit down, as she was;
of her own motion she would not have stirred from the place till he
came, or it was certain he would not come; but her aunt would not permit
the despair into which she saw her sinking.
She laughed resolutely, and said, “I think we must give up the little
sentimentality of meeting him in that dress, now. Go and change it,
Lydia. Put on your silk,--or wait: let me go with you. I want to try
some little effects with your complexion. We've experimented with the
simple and familiar, and now we'll see what can be done in the way of
the magnificent and unexpected. I'm going to astonish the young man with
a Venetian beauty; you know you look Italian, Lydia.”
“Yes, he said so,” answered Lydia.
“Did he? That shows he has an eye, and he'll appreciate what we are
going to do.”
She took Lydia to her own room, for the greater convenience of her
experiments, and from that moment she did not allow her to be alone; she
scarcely allowed her to be silent; she made her talk, she kept her in
movement. At dinner she permitted no lapse. “Henshaw,” she said, “Lydia
has been telling me about a storm they had just before they reached
Gibraltar. I wish you would tell her of the typhoon you were in when you
first went out to India.” Her husband obeyed; and then recurring to the
days of his civil employment in India, he told stories of tiger-hunts,
and of the Sepoy mutiny. Mrs. Erwin would not let them sit very long
at table. After dinner she asked Lydia to sing, and she suffered her to
sing all the American songs her uncle asked for. At eight o'clock she
said with a knowing little look at Lydia, which included a sub-wink
for her husband, “You may go to your café alone, this evening, Henshaw.
Lydia and I are going to stay at home and talk South Bradfield gossip.
I've hardly had a moment with her yet.” But when he was gone, she took
Lydia to her own room again, and showed her all her jewelry, and passed
the time in making changes in the girl's toilette.
It was like the heroic endeavor of the arctic voyager who feels the
deadly chill in his own veins, and keeps himself alive by rousing his
comrade from the torpor stealing over him. They saw in each other's eyes
that if they yielded a moment to the doubt in their hearts they were
lost.
At ten o'clock Mrs. Erwin said abruptly, “Go to bed, Lydia!” Then the
girl broke down, and abandoned herself in a storm of tears. “Don't cry,
dear, don't cry,” pleaded her aunt. “He will be here in the morning, I
know he will. He has been delayed.”
“No, he's not coming,” said Lydia, through her sobs.
“Something has happened,” urged Mrs. Erwin.
“No,” said Lydia, as before. Her tears ceased as suddenly as they had
come. She lifted her head, and drying her eyes looked into her aunt's
face. “Are you ashamed of me?” she asked hoarsely.
“Ashamed of you? Oh, poor child--”
“I can't pretend anything. If I had never told you about it at all, I
could have kept it back till I died. But now--But you will never hear
me speak of it again. It's over.” She took up her candle, and stiffly
suffering the compassionate embrace with which her aunt clung to her,
she walked across the great hall in the vain splendor in which she had
been adorned, and shut the door behind her.