The first sunday that followed Robert Acton’s return from Newport
witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed.
The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth
and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young,
without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is
to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he
most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a
cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during
her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant
at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I
began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room,
watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza,
but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake
and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and
then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of
water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of
human movement—a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold;
Madame Münster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to
have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of
whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a
source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production
of a crackling flame. This old woman’s name was Azarina. The Baroness
had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her
talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But
Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African;
she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She
knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs,
Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour’s
entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had
thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not
met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without
his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza;
but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness,
since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight
sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of
irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it
appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it
suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have
done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon
a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon
that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American
relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this
enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest
distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions.
Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present,
had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague
continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose
fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to
see herself surrounded—a species of vegetation for which she carried a
collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her
chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a
certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied
swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of
rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the
American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth
wall of rock was insurmountable. _“Surely je n’en suis pas là,”_ she
said to herself, “that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert
Acton shouldn’t honor me with a visit!” Yet she was vexed that he had
not come; and she was vexed at her vexation.
Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the
wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his
cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. “Ah, you
have a fire,” he said.
_“Les beaux jours sont passés,”_ replied the Baroness.
“Never, never! They have only begun,” Felix declared, planting himself
before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands
behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with
an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of
rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday.
His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what
she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was
puzzled by many things, but her brother’s disposition was a frequent
source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there
were long periods during which she gave her attention to other
problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his
eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely
conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly
successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not
known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his
disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him
that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element
of comfort about Felix—the assurance that he would not interfere. He
was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her
brother, and Madame Münster felt that there was a great propriety,
every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond
of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in
the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking
of anything uncomfortable.
“Dear brother,” said Eugenia at last, “do stop making _les yeux doux_
at the rain.”
“With pleasure. I will make them at you!” answered Felix.
“How much longer,” asked Eugenia, in a moment, “do you propose to
remain in this lovely spot?”
Felix stared. “Do you want to go away—already?”
“‘Already’ is delicious. I am not so happy as you.”
Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. “The fact is I _am_
happy,” he said in his light, clear tone.
“And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude
Wentworth?”
“Yes!” said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister.
The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, “Do you
like her?” she asked.
“Don’t you?” Felix demanded.
The Baroness was silent a moment. “I will answer you in the words of
the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _‘Je ne la crains
pas!’’_”
“She admires you immensely,” said Felix.
“I don’t care for that. Other women should not admire one.”
“They should dislike you?”
Again Madame Münster hesitated. “They should hate me! It’s a measure of
the time I have been losing here that they don’t.”
“No time is lost in which one has been happy!” said Felix, with a
bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating.
“And in which,” rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, “one has
secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!”
Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. “I have secured
Gertrude’s affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her
fortune. That may come—or it may not.”
“Ah, well, it _may!_ That’s the great point.”
“It depends upon her father. He doesn’t smile upon our union. You know
he wants her to marry Mr. Brand.”
“I know nothing about it!” cried the Baroness. “Please to put on a
log.” Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening
of the flame. Presently his sister added, “And you propose to elope
with mademoiselle?”
“By no means. I don’t wish to do anything that’s disagreeable to Mr.
Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us.”
“But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him.”
“I want to please everyone!” exclaimed Felix, joyously. “I have a good
conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to
make love to Gertrude.”
“So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!”
Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. “You say you are not
afraid of her,” he said. “But perhaps you ought to be—a little. She’s a
very clever person.”
“I begin to see it!” cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no
rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At
last, with an altered accent, Madame Münster put another question. “You
expect, at any rate, to marry?”
“I shall be greatly disappointed if we don’t.”
“A disappointment or two will do you good!” the Baroness declared.
“And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?”
“It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to
Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world.”
“Ah, like me, when I came here!” said the Baroness, with a little
laugh.
“No, not like you,” Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a
certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her
chair, and he also got up. “Gertrude is not at all like you,” he went
on; “but in her own way she is almost as clever.” He paused a moment;
his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition
to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the
lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright
surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its
proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the
Baroness, and then he kissed her. “I am very much in love with
Gertrude,” he said. Eugenia turned away and walked about the room, and
Felix continued. “She is very interesting, and very different from what
she seems. She has never had a chance. She is very brilliant. We will
go to Europe and amuse ourselves.”
The Baroness had gone to the window, where she stood looking out. The
day was drearier than ever; the rain was doggedly falling. “Yes, to
amuse yourselves,” she said at last, “you had decidedly better go to
Europe!” Then she turned round, looking at her brother. A chair stood
near her; she leaned her hands upon the back of it. “Don’t you think it
is very good of me,” she asked, “to come all this way with you simply
to see you properly married—if properly it is?”
“Oh, it will be properly!” cried Felix, with light eagerness.
The Baroness gave a little laugh. “You are thinking only of yourself,
and you don’t answer my question. While you are amusing yourself—with
the brilliant Gertrude—what shall I be doing?”
_“Vous serez de la partie!”_ cried Felix.
“Thank you: I should spoil it.” The Baroness dropped her eyes for some
moments. “Do you propose, however, to leave me here?” she inquired.
Felix smiled at her. “My dearest sister, where you are concerned I
never propose. I execute your commands.”
“I believe,” said Eugenia, slowly, “that you are the most heartless
person living. Don’t you see that I am in trouble?”
“I saw that you were not cheerful, and I gave you some good news.”
“Well, let me give you some news,” said the Baroness. “You probably
will not have discovered it for yourself. Robert Acton wants to marry
me.”
“No, I had not discovered that. But I quite understand it. Why does it
make you unhappy?”
“Because I can’t decide.”
“Accept him, accept him!” cried Felix, joyously. “He is the best fellow
in the world.”
“He is immensely in love with me,” said the Baroness.
“And he has a large fortune. Permit me in turn to remind you of that.”
“Oh, I am perfectly aware of it,” said Eugenia. “That’s a great item in
his favor. I am terribly candid.” And she left her place and came
nearer her brother, looking at him hard. He was turning over several
things; she was wondering in what manner he really understood her.
There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said,
and there was what she meant, and there was something, between the two,
that was neither. It is probable that, in the last analysis, what she
meant was that Felix should spare her the necessity of stating the case
more exactly and should hold himself commissioned to assist her by all
honorable means to marry the best fellow in the world. But in all this
it was never discovered what Felix understood.
“Once you have your liberty, what are your objections?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t particularly like him.”
“Oh, try a little.”
“I am trying now,” said Eugenia. “I should succeed better if he didn’t
live here. I could never live here.”
“Make him go to Europe,” Felix suggested.
“Ah, there you speak of happiness based upon violent effort,” the
Baroness rejoined. “That is not what I am looking for. He would never
live in Europe.”
“He would live anywhere, with you!” said Felix, gallantly.
His sister looked at him still, with a ray of penetration in her
charming eyes; then she turned away again. “You see, at all events,”
she presently went on, “that if it had been said of me that I had come
over here to seek my fortune it would have to be added that I have
found it!”
“Don’t leave it lying!” urged Felix, with smiling solemnity.
“I am much obliged to you for your interest,” his sister declared,
after a moment. “But promise me one thing: _pas de zèle!_ If Mr. Acton
should ask you to plead his cause, excuse yourself.”
“I shall certainly have the excuse,” said Felix, “that I have a cause
of my own to plead.”
“If he should talk of me—favorably,” Eugenia continued, “warn him
against dangerous illusions. I detest importunities; I want to decide
at my leisure, with my eyes open.”
“I shall be discreet,” said Felix, “except to you. To you I will say,
Accept him outright.”
She had advanced to the open doorway, and she stood looking at him. “I
will go and dress and think of it,” she said; and he heard her moving
slowly to her apartments.
Late in the afternoon the rain stopped, and just afterwards there was a
great flaming, flickering, trickling sunset. Felix sat in his
painting-room and did some work; but at last, as the light, which had
not been brilliant, began to fade, he laid down his brushes and came
out to the little piazza of the cottage. Here he walked up and down for
some time, looking at the splendid blaze of the western sky and saying,
as he had often said before, that this was certainly the country of
sunsets. There was something in these glorious deeps of fire that
quickened his imagination; he always found images and promises in the
western sky. He thought of a good many things—of roaming about the
world with Gertrude Wentworth; he seemed to see their possible
adventures, in a glowing frieze, between the cloud-bars; then of what
Eugenia had just been telling him. He wished very much that Madame
Münster would make a comfortable and honorable marriage. Presently, as
the sunset expanded and deepened, the fancy took him of making a note
of so magnificent a piece of coloring. He returned to his studio and
fetched out a small panel, with his palette and brushes, and, placing
the panel against a window-sill, he began to daub with great gusto.
While he was so occupied he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowly come
down from Mr. Wentworth’s house, nursing a large folded umbrella. He
walked with a joyless, meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon
the ground. Felix poised his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by
a sudden impulse, as he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and
signaled to him—the palette and bunch of brushes contributing to this
effect.
Mr. Brand stopped and started; then he appeared to decide to accept
Felix’s invitation. He came out of Mr. Wentworth’s gate and passed
along the road; after which he entered the little garden of the
cottage. Felix had gone back to his sunset; but he made his visitor
welcome while he rapidly brushed it in.
“I wanted so much to speak to you that I thought I would call you,” he
said, in the friendliest tone. “All the more that you have been to see
me so little. You have come to see my sister; I know that. But you
haven’t come to see me—the celebrated artist. Artists are very
sensitive, you know; they notice those things.” And Felix turned round,
smiling, with a brush in his mouth.
Mr. Brand stood there with a certain blank, candid majesty, pulling
together the large flaps of his umbrella. “Why should I come to see
you?” he asked. “I know nothing of Art.”
“It would sound very conceited, I suppose,” said Felix, “if I were to
say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something.
You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to
that. I suppose a minister has no need for Art, eh?”
“He has need for good temper, sir,” said Mr. Brand, with decision.
Felix jumped up, with his palette on his thumb and a movement of the
liveliest deprecation. “That’s because I keep you standing there while
I splash my red paint! I beg a thousand pardons! You see what bad
manners Art gives a man; and how right you are to let it alone. I
didn’t mean you should stand, either. The piazza, as you see, is
ornamented with rustic chairs; though indeed I ought to warn you that
they have nails in the wrong places. I was just making a note of that
sunset. I never saw such a blaze of different reds. It looks as if the
Celestial City were in flames, eh? If that were really the case I
suppose it would be the business of you theologians to put out the
fire. Fancy me—an ungodly artist—quietly sitting down to paint it!”
Mr. Brand had always credited Felix Young with a certain impudence, but
it appeared to him that on this occasion his impudence was so great as
to make a special explanation—or even an apology—necessary. And the
impression, it must be added, was sufficiently natural. Felix had at
all times a brilliant assurance of manner which was simply the vehicle
of his good spirits and his good will; but at present he had a special
design, and as he would have admitted that the design was audacious, so
he was conscious of having summoned all the arts of conversation to his
aid. But he was so far from desiring to offend his visitor that he was
rapidly asking himself what personal compliment he could pay the young
clergyman that would gratify him most. If he could think of it, he was
prepared to pay it down. “Have you been preaching one of your beautiful
sermons today?” he suddenly asked, laying down his palette. This was
not what Felix had been trying to think of, but it was a tolerable
stop-gap.
Mr. Brand frowned—as much as a man can frown who has very fair, soft
eyebrows, and, beneath them, very gentle, tranquil eyes. “No, I have
not preached any sermon today. Did you bring me over here for the
purpose of making that inquiry?”
Felix saw that he was irritated, and he regretted it immensely; but he
had no fear of not being, in the end, agreeable to Mr. Brand. He looked
at him, smiling and laying his hand on his arm. “No, no, not for
that—not for that. I wanted to ask you something; I wanted to tell you
something. I am sure it will interest you very much. Only—as it is
something rather private—we had better come into my little studio. I
have a western window; we can still see the sunset. _Andiamo!_” And he
gave a little pat to his companion’s arm.
He led the way in; Mr. Brand stiffly and softly followed. The twilight
had thickened in the little studio; but the wall opposite the western
window was covered with a deep pink flush. There were a great many
sketches and half-finished canvasses suspended in this rosy glow, and
the corners of the room were vague and dusky. Felix begged Mr. Brand to
sit down; then glancing round him, “By Jove, how pretty it looks!” he
cried. But Mr. Brand would not sit down; he went and leaned against the
window; he wondered what Felix wanted of him. In the shadow, on the
darker parts of the wall, he saw the gleam of three or four pictures
that looked fantastic and surprising. They seemed to represent naked
figures. Felix stood there, with his head a little bent and his eyes
fixed upon his visitor, smiling intensely, pulling his moustache. Mr.
Brand felt vaguely uneasy. “It is very delicate—what I want to say,”
Felix began. “But I have been thinking of it for some time.”
“Please to say it as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Brand.
“It’s because you are a clergyman, you know,” Felix went on. “I don’t
think I should venture to say it to a common man.”
Mr. Brand was silent a moment. “If it is a question of yielding to a
weakness, of resenting an injury, I am afraid I am a very common man.”
“My dearest friend,” cried Felix, “this is not an injury; it’s a
benefit—a great service! You will like it extremely. Only it’s so
delicate!” And, in the dim light, he continued to smile intensely. “You
know I take a great interest in my cousins—in Charlotte and Gertrude
Wentworth. That’s very evident from my having traveled some five
thousand miles to see them.” Mr. Brand said nothing and Felix
proceeded. “Coming into their society as a perfect stranger I received
of course a great many new impressions, and my impressions had a great
freshness, a great keenness. Do you know what I mean?”
“I am not sure that I do; but I should like you to continue.”
“I think my impressions have always a good deal of freshness,” said Mr.
Brand’s entertainer; “but on this occasion it was perhaps particularly
natural that—coming in, as I say, from outside—I should be struck with
things that passed unnoticed among yourselves. And then I had my sister
to help me; and she is simply the most observant woman in the world.”
“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Brand, “that in our little circle two
intelligent persons should have found food for observation. I am sure
that, of late, I have found it myself!”
“Ah, but I shall surprise you yet!” cried Felix, laughing. “Both my
sister and I took a great fancy to my cousin Charlotte.”
“Your cousin Charlotte?” repeated Mr. Brand.
“We fell in love with her from the first!”
“You fell in love with Charlotte?” Mr. Brand murmured.
“_Dame!_” exclaimed Felix, “she’s a very charming person; and Eugenia
was especially smitten.” Mr. Brand stood staring, and he pursued,
“Affection, you know, opens one’s eyes, and we noticed something.
Charlotte is not happy! Charlotte is in love.” And Felix, drawing
nearer, laid his hand again upon his companion’s arm.
There was something akin to an acknowledgment of fascination in the way
Mr. Brand looked at him; but the young clergyman retained as yet quite
enough self-possession to be able to say, with a good deal of
solemnity, “She is not in love with you.”
Felix gave a light laugh, and rejoined with the alacrity of a maritime
adventurer who feels a puff of wind in his sail. “Ah, no; if she were
in love with me I should know it! I am not so blind as you.”
“As I?”
“My dear sir, you are stone blind. Poor Charlotte is dead in love with
_you!_”
Mr. Brand said nothing for a moment; he breathed a little heavily. “Is
that what you wanted to say to me?” he asked.
“I have wanted to say it these three weeks. Because of late she has
been worse. I told you,” added Felix, “it was very delicate.”
“Well, sir”—Mr. Brand began; “well, sir——”
“I was sure you didn’t know it,” Felix continued. “But don’t you see—as
soon as I mention it—how everything is explained?” Mr. Brand answered
nothing; he looked for a chair and softly sat down. Felix could see
that he was blushing; he had looked straight at his host hitherto, but
now he looked away. The foremost effect of what he had heard had been a
sort of irritation of his modesty. “Of course,” said Felix, “I suggest
nothing; it would be very presumptuous in me to advise you. But I think
there is no doubt about the fact.”
Mr. Brand looked hard at the floor for some moments; he was oppressed
with a mixture of sensations. Felix, standing there, was very sure that
one of them was profound surprise. The innocent young man had been
completely unsuspicious of poor Charlotte’s hidden flame. This gave
Felix great hope; he was sure that Mr. Brand would be flattered. Felix
thought him very transparent, and indeed he was so; he could neither
simulate nor dissimulate. “I scarcely know what to make of this,” he
said at last, without looking up; and Felix was struck with the fact
that he offered no protest or contradiction. Evidently Felix had
kindled a train of memories—a retrospective illumination. It was
making, to Mr. Brand’s astonished eyes, a very pretty blaze; his second
emotion had been a gratification of vanity.
“Thank me for telling you,” Felix rejoined. “It’s a good thing to
know.”
“I am not sure of that,” said Mr. Brand.
“Ah, don’t let her languish!” Felix murmured, lightly and softly.
“You _do_ advise me, then?” And Mr. Brand looked up.
“I congratulate you!” said Felix, smiling. He had thought at first his
visitor was simply appealing; but he saw he was a little ironical.
“It is in your interest; you have interfered with me,” the young
clergyman went on.
Felix still stood and smiled. The little room had grown darker, and the
crimson glow had faded; but Mr. Brand could see the brilliant
expression of his face. “I won’t pretend not to know what you mean,”
said Felix at last. “But I have not really interfered with you. Of what
you had to lose—with another person—you have lost nothing. And think
what you have gained!”
“It seems to me I am the proper judge, on each side,” Mr. Brand
declared. He got up, holding the brim of his hat against his mouth and
staring at Felix through the dusk.
“You have lost an illusion!” said Felix.
“What do you call an illusion?”
“The belief that you really know—that you have ever really
known—Gertrude Wentworth. Depend upon that,” pursued Felix. “I don’t
know her yet; but I have no illusions; I don’t pretend to.”
Mr. Brand kept gazing, over his hat. “She has always been a lucid,
limpid nature,” he said, solemnly.
“She has always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a
touchstone. But now she is beginning to awaken.”
“Don’t praise her to me!” said Mr. Brand, with a little quaver in his
voice. “If you have the advantage of me that is not generous.”
“My dear sir, I am melting with generosity!” exclaimed Felix. “And I am
not praising my cousin. I am simply attempting a scientific definition
of her. She doesn’t care for abstractions. Now I think the contrary is
what you have always fancied—is the basis on which you have been
building. She is extremely preoccupied with the concrete. I care for
the concrete, too. But Gertrude is stronger than I; she whirls me
along!”
Mr. Brand looked for a moment into the crown of his hat. “It’s a most
interesting nature.”
“So it is,” said Felix. “But it pulls—it pulls—like a runaway horse.
Now I like the feeling of a runaway horse; and if I am thrown out of
the vehicle it is no great matter. But if _you_ should be thrown, Mr.
Brand”—and Felix paused a moment—“another person also would suffer from
the accident.”
“What other person?”
“Charlotte Wentworth!”
Mr. Brand looked at Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then
his eyes slowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was
secretly struck with the romance of the situation. “I think this is
none of our business,” the young minister murmured.
“None of mine, perhaps; but surely yours!”
Mr. Brand lingered still, looking at the ceiling; there was evidently
something he wanted to say. “What do you mean by Miss Gertrude being
strong?” he asked abruptly.
“Well,” said Felix meditatively, “I mean that she has had a great deal
of self-possession. She was waiting—for years; even when she seemed,
perhaps, to be living in the present. She knew how to wait; she had a
purpose. That’s what I mean by her being strong.”
“But what do you mean by her purpose?”
“Well—the purpose to see the world!”
Mr. Brand eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said
nothing. At last he turned away, as if to take leave. He seemed
bewildered, however; for instead of going to the door he moved toward
the opposite corner of the room. Felix stood and watched him for a
moment—almost groping about in the dusk; then he led him to the door,
with a tender, almost fraternal movement. “Is that all you have to
say?” asked Mr. Brand.
“Yes, it’s all—but it will bear a good deal of thinking of.”
Felix went with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk
away into the thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to
rectify itself. “He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed—and
enchanted!” Felix said to himself. “That’s a capital mixture.”