THE fun of it all was that Mrs. March was not deceived for an instant.
“Oh, nonsense!” she said, when she glanced at our pretty deception, which
we presented with perhaps too perfect seriousness. “Then you danced only
the first dance?”
“No, no!” Miss Gage protested. “I danced every dance as long as I
stayed.” She laughed with her handkerchief to her mouth and her eyes
shining above.
“Yes; I can testify to that, Mrs. March,” said Kendricks, and he laughed
wildly, too. I must say their laughter throughout was far beyond the
mirthfulness of the facts. They both protested that they had had the
best time in the world, and the gayest time; that I had been a mirror of
chaperons, and followed them round with my eyes wherever they went like a
family portrait; and that they were the most exemplary young couple at
the hop in their behaviour. Mrs. March asked them all about it, and she
joined in their fun with a hilarity which I knew from long experience
boded me no good.
When Kendricks had gone away, and Miss Gage had left us for the night
with an embrace, whose fondness I wondered at, from Mrs. March, an awful
silence fell upon us in the deserted parlour where she had waited up.
I knew that when she broke the silence she would begin with, “Well, my
dear!” and this was what she did. She added, “I hope you’re convinced
_now_!”
I did not even pretend not to understand. “You mean that they are in
love? I suppose that their we-ing and us-ing so much would indicate
something of the kind.”
“It isn’t that alone; everything indicates it. She would hardly let go
of him with her eyes. I wish,” sighed Mrs. March, and she let her head
droop upon her hand a moment, “I could be as sure of him as I am of her.”
“Wouldn’t that double the difficulty?” I ventured to suggest, though till
she spoke I had not doubted that it was the case.
“I should make you speak to him if I were sure of him; but as it is I
shall speak to her, and the sooner the better.”
“To-night?” I quaked.
“No; I shall let the poor thing have her sleep to-night. But the first
thing in the morning I shall speak, and I want you to send her up to me
as soon as she’s had her breakfast. Tell her I’m not well, and shall not
be down; I shall not close my eyes the whole night. And now,” she added,
“I want you to tell me everything that happened this evening. Don’t omit
a word, or a look, or a motion. I wish to proceed intelligently.”
I hope I was accurate in the history of the hop which I gave Mrs. March;
I am sure I was full. I think my account may be justly described as
having a creative truthfulness, if no other merit. I had really no wish
to conceal anything except the fact that I had not, in my utter
helplessness, even tried to get Miss Gage any other partners. But in the
larger interest of the present situation, Mrs. March seemed to have lost
the sense of my dereliction in this respect. She merely asked, “And it
was after you went back to the parlour, just before you came home, that
you wrote those names on her card?”
“Kendricks wrote half of them,” I said.
“I dare say. Well, it was very amusing, and if the circumstances were
different, I could have entered into the spirit of it too. But you see
yourself, Basil, that we can’t let this affair go any further without
dealing frankly with her. _You_ can’t speak to her, and _I must_. Don’t
you see?”
I said that I saw, but I had suddenly a wild wish that it were
practicable for me to speak to Miss Gage. I should have liked to have a
peep into a girl’s heart at just such a moment, when it must be quivering
with the unconfessed sense of love, and the confident hope of being
loved, but while as yet nothing was assured, nothing was ascertained. If
it would not have been shocking, if it would not have been sacrilegious,
it would have been infinitely interesting, and from an æsthetic point of
view infinitely important. I thought that I should have been willing to
undergo all the embarrassment of such an inquiry for the sake of its
precious results, if it had been at all possible; but I acquiesced that
it would not be possible. I felt that I was getting off pretty lightly
not to have it brought home to me again that I was the cause of all this
trouble, and that if it had not been for me there would have been, as far
as Mrs. March was concerned, no Miss Gage, and no love-affair of hers to
deal with. I debated in my mind a moment whether I had better urge her
to let me speak to Kendricks after all; but I forbore, and in the morning
I waited about in much perturbation, after I had sent Miss Gage to her,
until I could know the result of their interview. When I saw the girl
come away from her room, which she did rather trippingly, I went to her,
and found her by no means the wreck I had expected the ordeal to leave
her.
“Did you meet Miss Gage?” she asked.
“Yes,” I returned, with tremulous expectation.
“Well, don’t you think she looks perfectly divine in that gown? It’s one
of Mme. Cody’s, and we got it for thirty dollars. It would have been
fifty in New York, and it was, here, earlier in the season. I shall
always come here for some of my things; as soon as the season’s a little
past they simply _fling_ them away. Well, my dear!”
“Well, what?”
“I didn’t speak to her after all.”
“You didn’t! Don’t you think she’s in love with him, then?”
“Dead.”
“Well?”
“Well, I couldn’t somehow seem to approach the subject as I had expected
to. She was so happy, and so good, and so perfectly obedient, that I
couldn’t get anything to take hold of. You see, I didn’t know but she
might be a little rebellious, or resentful of my interference; but in the
little gingerly attempts I did make she was so submissive, don’t you
understand? And she was very modest about Mr. Kendricks’ attentions, and
so self-depreciatory that, well—”
“Look here, Isabel,” I broke in, “this is pretty shameless of you. You
pretend to be in the greatest kind of fidge about this girl; and you make
me lie awake all night thinking what you’re going to say to her; and now
you as much as tell me you were so fascinated with the modest way she was
in love that you couldn’t say anything to her against being in love on
our hands in any sort of way. Do you call this business?”
“Well, I don’t care if I _did_ encourage her—”
“Oh, you even encouraged her!”
“I _didn’t_ encourage her. I merely praised Mr. Kendricks, and said how
much you thought of him as a writer.”
“Oh! then you gave the subject a literary cast. I see! Do you think
Miss Gage was able to follow you?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“And what do you propose to do now?”
“I propose to do nothing. I think that I have done all my duty requires,
and that now I can leave the whole affair to you. It was your affair in
the beginning. I don’t see why I should worry myself about it.”
“It seems to me that this is a very strange position for a lady to take
who was not going to close an eye last night in view of a situation which
has not changed in the least, except for the worse. Don’t you think you
are rather culpably light-hearted all of a sudden?”
“I am light-hearted, but if there is any culpability it is yours, Basil.”
I reflected, but I failed to find any novelty in the fact. “Very well,
then; what do you propose that I should do?”
“I leave that entirely to your own conscience.”
“And if my conscience has no suggestion to make?”
“That’s your affair.”
I reflected again, and then I said, more than anything to make her
uncomfortable, I’m afraid: “I feel perfectly easy in my conscience,
personally, but I have a social duty in the matter, and I hope I shall
perform it with more fidelity and courage than you have shown. I shall
speak to Kendricks.”
She said: “That is just what you ought to do. I’m quite surprised.”
After this touch of irony she added earnestly, “And I do hope, my dear,
you will use judgment in speaking to him, and tact. You mustn’t go at it
bluntly. Remember that Mr. Kendricks is not at all to blame. He began
to show her attention to oblige us, and if she has fallen in love with
him it is our fault.”
“I shall handle him without gloves,” I said. “I shall tell him he had
better go away.”
I was joking, but she said seriously, “Yes; he must go away. And I don’t
envy you having to tell him. I suppose you will bungle it, of course.”
“Well, then, you must advise me,” I said; and we really began to consider
the question. We could hardly exaggerate the difficulty and delicacy of
the duty before me. We recognised that before I made any explicit demand
of him I must first ascertain the nature of the whole ground and then be
governed by the facts. It would be simple enough if I had merely to say
that we thought the girl’s affections were becoming engaged, and then
appeal to his eager generosity, his delicate magnanimity; but there were
possible complications on his side which must be regarded. I was to
ascertain, we concluded, the exact nature of the situation before I
ventured to say anything openly. I was to make my approaches by a series
of ambushes before I unmasked my purpose, and perhaps I must not unmask
it at all. As I set off on my mission, which must begin with finding
Kendricks at his hotel, Mrs. March said she pitied me. She called me
back to ask whether I thought I had really better do anything. Then, as
I showed signs of weakening, she drove me from her with, “Yes, yes! You
must! You must!”