IN WHICH HONORA WIDENS HER HORIZON
If it were not a digression, it might be interesting to speculate upon
the reason why, in view of their expressed opinions of Silverdale, both
the Vicomte and Mr. Spence remained during the week that followed.
Robert, who went off in the middle of it with his family to the seashore,
described it to Honora as a normal week. During its progress there came
and went a missionary from China, a pianist, an English lady who had
heard of the Institution, a Southern spinster with literary gifts, a
youthful architect who had not built anything, and a young lawyer
interested in settlement work.
The missionary presented our heroine with a book he had written about the
Yang-tse-kiang; the Southern lady suspected her of literary gifts; the
architect walked with her through the woods to the rustic shelter where
the Vicomte had kissed her hand, and told her that he now comprehended
the feelings of Christopher Wren when he conceived St. Paul's Cathedral,
of Michael Angelo when he painted the Sistine Chapel. Even the serious
young lawyer succumbed, though not without a struggle. When he had first
seen Miss Leffingwell, he confessed, he had thought her frivolous. He had
done her an injustice, and wished to acknowledge it before he left. And,
since she was interested in settlement work, he hoped, if she were going
through New York, that she would let him know. It would be a real
pleasure to show her what he was doing.
Best of all, Honora, by her unselfishness, endeared herself to her
hostess.
"I can't tell you what a real help you are to me, my dear," said that
lady. "You have a remarkable gift with people for so young a girl, and I
do you the credit of thinking that it all springs from a kind heart."
In the meantime, unknown to Mrs. Holt, who might in all conscience have
had a knowledge of what may be called social chemistry, a drama was
slowly unfolding itself. By no fault of Honora's, of course. There may
have been some truth in the quotation of the Vicomte as applied to her
--that she was destined to be loved only amidst the play of drama. If
experience is worth anything, Monsieur de Toqueville should have been an
expert in matters of the sex. Could it be possible, Honora asked herself
more than once, that his feelings were deeper than her feminine instinct
and, the knowledge she had gleaned from novels led her to suspect?
It is painful to relate that the irregularity and deceit of the life the
Vicomte was leading amused her, for existence at Silverdale was plainly
not of a kind to make a gentleman of the Vicomte's temperament and habits
ecstatically happy. And Honora was filled with a strange and
unaccountable delight when she overheard him assuring Mrs. Wellfleet, the
English lady of eleemosynary tendencies, that he was engaged in a study
at first hand of Americans.
The time has come to acknowledge frankly that it was Honora he was
studying--Honora as the type of young American womanhood. What he did not
suspect was that young American womanhood was studying him. Thanks to a
national System, she had had an apprenticeship; the heart-blood of
Algernon Cartwright and many others had not been shed in vain. And the
fact that she was playing with real fire, that this was a duel with the
buttons off, lent a piquancy and zest to the pastime which it had
hitherto lacked.
The Vicomte's feelings were by no means hidden processes to Honora, and
it was as though she could lift the lid of the furnace at any time and
behold the growth of the flame which she had lighted. Nay, nature had
endowed her with such a gift that she could read the daily temperature as
by a register hung on the outside, without getting scorched. Nor had
there been any design on her part in thus tormenting his soul. He had not
meant to remain more than four days at Silverdale, that she knew; he had
not meant to come to America and fall in love with a penniless
beauty--that she knew also. The climax would be interesting, if perchance
uncomfortable.
It is wonderful what we can find the time to do, if we only try. Monsieur
de Toqueville lent Honora novels, which she read in bed; but being in the
full bloom of health and of a strong constitution, this practice did not
prevent her from rising at seven to take a walk through the garden with
Mr. Holt--a custom which he had come insensibly to depend upon. And in
the brief conversations which she vouchsafed the Vicomte, they discussed
his novels. In vain he pleaded, in caressing undertones, that she should
ride with him. Honora had never been on a horse, but she did not tell him
so. If she would but drive, or walk-only a little way--he would promise
faithfully not to forget himself. Honora intimated that the period of his
probation had not yet expired. If he waylaid her on the stairs, he got
but little satisfaction.
"You converse by the hour with the missionaries, and take long promenades
with the architects and charity workers, but to me you will give
nothing," he complained.
"The persons of whom you speak are not dangerous," answered Honora,
giving him a look.
The look, and being called dangerous, sent up the temperature several
degrees. Frenchmen are not the only branch of the male sex who are
complimented by being called dangerous. The Vicomte was desolated, so he
said.
"I stay here only for you, and the coffee is slowly deranging me," he
declared in French, for most of their conversations were in that
language. If there were duplicity in this, Honora did not recognize it.
"I stay here only for you, and how you are cruel! I live for you--how,
the good God only knows. I exist--to see you for ten minutes a day."
"Oh, Vicomte, you exaggerate. If you were to count it up, I am sure you
would find that we talk an hour at least, altogether. And then, although
I am very young and inexperienced, I can imagine how many conquests you
have made by the same arts."
"I suffer," he cried; "ah, no, you cannot look at me without perceiving
it--you who are so heartless. And when I see you play at golf with that
Mr. Spence--!"
"Surely," said Honora, "you can't object to my acquiring a new
accomplishment when I have the opportunity, and Mr. Spence is so kind and
good-natured about it."
"Do you think I have no eyes?" he exclaimed. "Have I not seen him look at
you like the great animal of Joshua when he wants his supper? He is
without esprit, without soul. There is nothing inside of him but
money-making machinery."
"The most valuable of all machinery," she replied, laughingly.
"If I thought you believed that, Mademoiselle, if I thought you were like
so many of your countrywomen in this respect, I should leave to-morrow,"
he declared.
"Don't be too sure, Vicomte," she cautioned him.
If one possessed a sense of humour and a certain knowledge of mankind,
the spectacle of a young and successful Wall Street broker at Silverdale
that week was apt to be diverting. Mr. Spence held his own. He advised
the architect to make a specialty of country houses, and promised some
day to order one: he disputed boldly with the other young man as to the
practical uses of settlement work, and even measured swords with the
missionary. Needless to say, he was not popular with these gentlemen. But
he was also good-natured and obliging, and he did not object to repeating
for the English lady certain phrases which she called "picturesque
expressions," and which she wrote down with a gold pencil.
It is evident, from the Vicomte's remarks, that he found time to continue
Honora's lessons in golf--or rather that she found time, in the midst of
her manifold and self-imposed duties, to take them. And in this diversion
she was encouraged by Mrs. Holt herself. On Saturday morning, the heat
being unusual, they ended their game by common consent at the fourth hole
and descended a wood road to Silver Brook, to a spot which they had
visited once before and had found attractive. Honora, after bathing her
face in the pool, perched herself on a boulder. She was very fresh and
radiant.
This fact, if she had not known it, she might have gathered from Mr.
Silence's expression. He had laid down his coat; his sleeves were rolled
up and his arms were tanned, and he stood smoking a cigarette and gazing
at her with approbation. She lowered her eyes.
"Well, we've had a pretty good time, haven't we?" he remarked.
Lightning sometimes fails in its effect, but the look she flashed back at
him from under her blue lashes seldom misses.
"I'm afraid I haven't been a very apt pupil," she replied modestly.
"You're on the highroad to a cup," he assured her. "If I could take you
on for another week" He paused, and an expression came into his eyes
which was not new to Honora, nor peculiar to Mr. Silence. "I have to go
back to town on Monday."
If Honora felt any regret at this announcement, she did not express it.
"I thought you couldn't stand Silverdale much longer," she replied.
"You know why I stayed," he said, and paused again--rather awkwardly for
Mr. Spence. But Honora was silent. "I had a letter this morning from my
partner, Sidney Dallam, calling me back."
"I suppose you are very busy," said Honora, detaching a copper-green
scale of moss from the boulder.
"The fact is," he explained, "that we have received an order of
considerable importance, for which I am more or less responsible.
Something of a compliment--since we are, after all, comparatively young
men."
"Sometimes," said Honora, "sometimes I wish I were a man. Women are so
hampered and circumscribed, and have to wait for things to happen to
them. A man can do what he wants. He can go into Wall Street and fight
until he controls miles of railroads and thousands and thousands of men.
That would be a career!"
"Yes," he agreed, smilingly, "it's worth fighting for."
Her eyes were burning with a strange light as she looked down the vista
of the wood road by which they had come. He flung his cigarette into the
water and took a step nearer her.
"How long have I known you?" he asked.
She started.
"Why, it's only a little more than a week," she said.
"Does it seem longer than that to you?"
"Yes," admitted Honora, colouring; "I suppose it's because we've been
staying in the same house."
"It seems to me," said Mr. Spence, "that I have known you always."
Honora sat very still. It passed through her brain, without comment, that
there was a certain haunting familiarity about this remark; some other
voice, in some other place, had spoken it, and in very much the same
tone.
"You're the kind of girl I admire," he declared. "I've been watching
you--more than you have any idea of. You're adaptable. Put you down any
place, and you take hold. For instance, it's a marvellous thing to me how
you've handled all the curiosities up there this week."
"Oh, I like people," said Honora, "they interest me." And she laughed a
little, nervously. She was aware that Mr. Spence was making love, in his
own manner: the New fork manner, undoubtedly; though what he said was
changed by the new vibrations in his voice. He was making love, too, with
a characteristic lack of apology and with assurance. She stole a glance
at him, and beheld the image of a dominating man of affairs. He did not,
it is true, evoke in her that extreme sensation which has been called a
thrill. She had read somewhere that women were always expecting thrills,
and never got them. Nevertheless, she had not realized how close a bond
of sympathy had grown between them until this sudden announcement of his
going back to New York. In a little while she too would be leaving for
St. Louis. The probability that she would never see him again seemed
graver than she would have believed.
"Will you miss me a little?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she said breathlessly, "and I shall be curious to know how
your--your enterprise succeeds."
"Honora," he said, "it is only a week since I first met you, but I know
my own mind. You are the woman I want, and I think I may say without
boasting that I can give you what you desire in life--after a while. I
love you. You are young, and just now I felt that perhaps I should have
waited a year before speaking, but I was afraid of missing altogether
what I know to be the great happiness of my life. Will you marry me?"
She sat silent upon the rock. She heard him speak, it is true; but, try
as she would, the full significance of his words would not come to her.
She had, indeed, no idea that he would propose, no notion that his heart
was involved to such an extent. He was very near her, but he had not
attempted to touch her. His voice, towards the end of his speech, had
trembled with passion--a true note had been struck. And she had struck
it, by no seeming effort! He wished to marry her!
He aroused her again.
"I have frightened you," he said.
She opened her eyes. What he beheld in them was not fright--it was
nothing he had ever seen before. For the first time in his life, perhaps,
he was awed. And, seeing him helpless, she put out her hands to him with
a gesture that seemed to enhance her gift a thousand-fold. He had not
realized what he was getting.
"I am not frightened," she said. "Yes, I will marry you."
He was not sure whether--so brief was the moment!--he had held and kissed
her cheek. His arms were empty now, and he caught a glimpse of her poised
on the road above him amidst the quivering, sunlit leaves, looking back
at him over her shoulder.
He followed her, but she kept nimbly ahead of him until they came out
into the open golf course. He tried to think, but failed. Never in his
orderly life had anything so precipitate happened to him. He caught up
with her, devoured her with his eyes, and beheld in marriage a delirium.
"Honora," he said thickly, "I can't grasp it."
She gave him a quick look, and a smile quivered at the corners of her
mouth.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked.
"I am thinking of Mrs. Holt's expression when we tell her," said Honora.
"But we shan't tell her yet, shall we, Howard? We'll have it for our own
secret a little while."
The golf course being deserted, he pressed her arm.
"We'll tell her whenever you like, dear," he replied.
In spite of the fact that they drove Joshua's trotter to lunch--much too
rapidly in the heat of the day, they were late.
"I shall never be able to go in there and not give it away," he whispered
to her on the stairs.
"You look like the Cheshire cat in the tree," whispered Honora, laughing,
"only more purple, and not so ghostlike."
"I know I'm smiling," replied Howard, "I feel like it, but I can't help
it. It won't come off. I want to blurt out the news to every one in the
dining-room--to that little Frenchman, in particular."
Honora laughed again. Her imagination easily summoned up the tableau
which such a proceeding would bring forth. The incredulity, the chagrin,
the indignation, even, in some quarters. He conceived the household, with
the exception of the Vicomte, precipitating themselves into his arms.
Honora, who was cool enough herself (no doubt owing to the superior
training which women receive in matters of deportment), observed that his
entrance was not a triumph of dissimulation. His colour was high, and his
expression, indeed, a little idiotic; and he declared afterwards that he
felt like a sandwich-man, with the news printed in red letters before and
behind. Honora knew that the intense improbability of the truth would
save them, and it did. Mrs. Holt remarked, slyly, that the game of golf
must have hidden attractions, and regretted that she was too old to learn
it.
"We went very slowly on account of the heat," Howard declared.
"I should say that you had gone very rapidly, from your face," retorted
Mrs. Holt. In relaxing moods she indulged in banter.
Honora stepped into the breach. She would not trust her newly acquired
fiance to extricate himself.
"We were both very much worried, Mrs. Holt," she explained, "because we
were late for lunch once before."
"I suppose I'll have to forgive you, my dear, especially with that
colour. I am modern enough to approve of exercise for young girls, and I
am sure your Aunt Mary will think Silverdale has done you good when I
send you back to her."
"Oh, I'm sure she will," said Honora.
In the meantime Mr. Spence was concentrating all of his attention upon a
jellied egg. Honora glanced at the Vicomte. He sat very stiff, and his
manner of twisting his mustache reminded her of an animal sharpening its
claws. It was at this moment that the butler handed her a telegram,
which, with Mrs. Holt's permission, she opened and read twice before the
meaning of it came to her.
"I hope it is no bad news, Honora," said Mrs. Holt.
"It's from Peter Erwin," she replied, still a little dazed. "He's in New
York. And he's corning up on the five o'clock train to spend an hour with
me."
"Oh," said Susan; "I remember his picture on your bureau at Sutcliffe. He
had such a good face. And you told me about him."
"He is like my brother," Honora explained, aware that Howard was looking
at her. "Only he is much older than I. He used to wheel me up and down
when I was a baby. He was, an errand boy in the bank then, and Uncle Tom
took an interest in him, and now he is a lawyer. A very good one, I
believe."
"I have a great respect for any man who makes his own way in life," said
Mrs. Holt. "And since he is such an old friend, my dear, you must ask him
to spend the night."
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Bolt," Honora answered.
It was, however, with mingled feelings that she thought of Peter's
arrival at this time. Life, indeed, was full of strange coincidences!
There was a little door that led out of the house by the billiard room,
Honora remembered, and contrived, after luncheon, to slip away and reach
it. She felt that she must be alone, and if she went to her room she was
likely to be disturbed by Susan or Mrs. Joshua--or indeed Mrs. Holt
herself. Honora meant to tell Susan the first of all. She crossed the
great lawn quickly, keeping as much as possible the trees and masses of
shrubbery between herself and the house, and reached the forest. With a
really large fund of energy at her disposal, Honora had never been one to
believe in the useless expenditure of it; nor did she feel the intense
desire which a girl of another temperament might have had, under the same
conditions, to keep in motion. So she sat down on a bench within the
borders of the wood.
It was not that she wished to reflect, in the ordinary meaning of the
word, that she had sought seclusion, but rather to give her imagination
free play. The enormity of the change that was to come into her life did
not appall her in the least; but she had, in connection with it, a sense
of unreality which, though not unpleasant, she sought unconsciously to
dissipate. Howard Spence, she reflected with a smile, was surely solid
and substantial enough, and she thought of him the more tenderly for the
possession of these attributes. A castle founded on such a rock was not a
castle in Spain!
It did not occur to Honora that her thoughts might be more of the castle
than of the rock: of the heaven he was to hold on his shoulders than of
the Hercules she had chosen to hold it.
She would write to her Aunt Mary and her Uncle Tom that very afternoon
--one letter to both. Tears came into her eyes when she thought of them,
and of their lonely life' without her. But they would come on to New York
to visit her often, and they would be proud of her. Of one thing she was
sure--she must go home to them at once--on Tuesday. She would tell Mrs.
Holt to-morrow, and Susan to-night. And, while pondering over the
probable expression of that lady's amazement, it suddenly occurred to her
that she must write the letter immediately, because Peter Erwin was
coming.
What would he say? Should she tell him? She was surprised to find that
the idea of doing so was painful to her. But she was aroused from these
reflections by a step on the path, and raised her head to perceive the
Vicomte. His face wore an expression of triumph.
"At last," he cried, "at last!" And he sat down on the bench beside her.
Her first impulse was to rise, yet for some inexplicable reason she
remained.
"I always suspected in you the qualities of a Monsieur Lecoq," she
remarked. "You have an instinct for the chase."
"Mon dieu?" he said. "I have risked a stroke of the sun to find you. Why
should you so continually run away from me?"
"To test your ingenuity, Vicomte."
"And that other one--the stock-broker--you do not avoid him. Diable, I am
not blind, Mademoiselle. It is plain to me at luncheon that you have made
boil the sluggish blood of that one. As for me--"
"Your boiling-point is lower," she said, smiling.
"Listen, Mademoiselle," he pursued, bending towards her. "It is not for my
health that I stay here, as I have told you. It is for the sight of you,
for the sound of the music of that low voice. It is in the hope that you
will be a little kinder, that you will understand me a little better. And
to-day, when I learn that still another is on his way to see you, I could
sit still no longer. I do not fear that Spence,--no. But this other--what
is he like?"
"He is the best type of American," replied Honora. "I am sure you will be
interested in him, and like him."
The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders.
"It is not in America that you will find your destiny, Mademoiselle. You
are made to grace a salon, a court, which you will not find in this
country. Such a woman as you is thrown away here. You possess
qualities--you will pardon me--in which your countrywomen are lacking,
--esprit, imagination, elan, the power to bind people to you. I have read
you as you have not read yourself. I have seen how you have served
yourself by this famille Holt, and how at the same time you have kept
their friendship."
"Vicomte!" she exclaimed.
"Ah, do not get angry," he begged; "such gifts are rare--they are
sublime. They lead," he added, raising his arms, "to the heights."
Honora was silent. She was, indeed, not unmoved by his voice, into which
there was creeping a vibrant note of passion. She was a little
frightened, but likewise puzzled and interested. This was all so
different from what she had expected of him. What did he mean? Was she
indeed like that?
She was aware that he was speaking again, that he was telling her of a
chateau in France which his ancestors had owned since the days of Louis
XII; a grey pile that stood upon a thickly wooded height,--a chateau with
a banquet hall, where kings had dined, with a chapel where kings had
prayed, with a flowering terrace high above a gleaming river. It was
there that his childhood had been passed. And as he spoke, she listened
with mingled feelings, picturing the pageantry of life in such a place.
"I tell you this, Mademoiselle," he said, "that you may know I am not
what you call an adventurer. Many of these, alas! come to your country.
And I ask you to regard with some leniency customs which must be strange
to Americans. When we marry in France, it is with a dot, and especially
is it necessary amongst the families of our nobility."
Honora rose, the blood mounting to her temples.
"Mademoiselle," he cried, "do not misunderstand me. I would die rather
than hurt your feelings. Listen, I pray. It was to tell you frankly that
I came to this country for that purpose,--in order that I might live as
my ancestors have lived, with a hotel in Paris: But the chateau, grace a
dieu, is not mortgaged, nor am I wholly impoverished. I have soixante
quinze mille livres de rente, which is fifteen thousand dollars a year in
your money, and which goes much farther in France. At the proper time, I
will present these matters to your guardians. I have lived, but I have a
heart, and I love you madly. Rather would I dwell with you in Provence,
where I will cultivate the soil of my forefathers, than a palace on the
Champs Elysees with another. We can come to Paris for two months, at
least. For you I can throw my prospects out of the window with a light
heart. Honore--how sweet is your name in my language--I love you to
despair."
He seized her hand and pressed it to his lips, but she drew it gently
away. It seemed to her that he had made the very air quiver with feeling,
and she let herself wonder, for a moment, what life with him would be.
Incredible as it seemed, he had proposed to her, a penniless girl! Her
own voice was not quite steady as she answered him, and her eyes were
filled with compassion.
"Vicomte," she said, "I did not know that you cared for me--that way. I
thought--I thought you were amusing yourself."
"Amusing myself!" he exclaimed bitterly. "And you--were you amusing
yourself?"
"I--I tried to avoid you," she replied, in a low voice.
"I am engaged."
"Engaged!" He sprang to his feet. "Engaged! Ah, no, I will not believe
it. You were engaged when you came here?"
She was no little alarmed by the violence which he threw into his words.
At the same time, she was indignant. And yet a mischievous sprite within
her led her on to tell him the truth.
"No, I am going to marry Mr. Howard Spence, although I do not wish it
announced."
For a moment he stood motionless, speechless, staring at her, and then he
seemed to sway a little and to choke.
"No, no," he cried, "it cannot be! My ears have deceived me. I am not
sane. You are going to marry him--? Ah, you have sold yourself."
"Monsieur de Toqueville," she said, "you forget yourself. Mr. Spence is
an honourable man, and I love him."
The Vicomte appeared to choke again. And then, suddenly, he became
himself, although his voice was by no means natural. His elaborate and
ironic bow she remembered for many years.
"Pardon, Mademoiselle," he said, "and adieu. You will be good enough to
convey my congratulations to Mr. Spence."
With a kind of military "about face" he turned and left her abruptly, and
she watched him as he hurried across the lawn until he had disappeared
behind the trees near the house. When she sat down on the bench again,
she found that she was trembling a little. Was the unexpected to occur to
her from now on? Was it true, as the Vicomte had said, that she was
destined to be loved amidst the play of drama?
She felt sorry for him because he had loved her enough to fling to the
winds his chances of wealth for her sake--a sufficient measure of the
feelings of one of his nationality and caste. And she permitted, for an
instant, her mind to linger on the supposition that Howard Spence had
never come into her life; might she not, when the Vicomte had made his
unexpected and generous avowal, have accepted him? She thought of the
romances of her childish days, written at fever heat, in which ladies
with titles moved around and gave commands and rebuked lovers who slipped
in through wicket gates. And to think that she might have been a
Vicomtesse and have lived in a castle!
A poor Vicomtesse, it is true.