|There were five days yet to run before the expiration of the fortnight
which Gwen had promised to give to the consideration of Hiram's
proposal, and in the course of those five days Gwen met her Yankee
admirer again, quite accidentally, on two separate occasions, though
both times in company with other people. Half insensibly to herself,
since the sudden collapse of that little bubble fancy about Colin
Churchill, she had begun to take a somewhat different view of poor
Hiram's earnest entreaty. Of course she didn't in the least intend to
say _yes_ to him at last, in spite of Cecca's timely disclosures; she
wasn't the sort of girl to go and throw herself into the arms of the
very first man who happened to ask her, for no better reason in
the world than merely because she had just met with a first serious
disappointment; but still, she couldn't help reflecting to herself how
deeply the young American was in love with her, and contrasting his
eager, single-hearted, childlike devotion with the English sculptor's
utter insensibility and curious indifference. Ah, yes, there could be no
denying that much at any rate, that Hiram Winthrop was most profoundly
and desperately in love with her. Love at first sight, too! How very
romantic! He had carried away her image for ever with him through all
these long weary years, ever since the day when he first met her,
so long ago, by the merest accident, beside the Lake of the Thousand
Islands.
A first serious disappointment, did she say? Well, well, that was really
making a great deal too much, even to herself, of a girl's mere passing
maidenly fancy. She had never herself been actually in love--not to say
exactly _in love_, you know--with Mr. Colin Churchill. Oh, no, she had
never gone so far as that, of course, even in her most unguarded
moments of self-abandoned day-dreaming. Girls will have their fancies,
naturally, and one can't prevent them; you think a particular young
man is rather nice, and rather handsome, and rather agreeable; and
you imagine to yourself that if he were to pay you any very marked
attentions, don't you know--well there, one can't help having one's
little personal preferences, anyhow, now can one? But as to saying she
was ever really _in love_ with Mr. Churchill--why, how can you possibly
ever be in love with a man who never for a single moment takes as much
as the slightest notice of you? And yet--how odd!--men and women must
certainly be very differently constituted in these respects, when one
comes to think of it; for that poor little Mr. Winthrop had been madly
in love with her for years and years, almost without her ever even so
much as for one moment discovering it or suspecting it!
Oh, no, she had never been in the least _in love_ with Mr. Colin
Churchill. And even if she had been (which she hadn't, but only--well,
what you may call rather struck with him, he was such a very clever
sculptor, and she was always so fond of artists' society)--but still,
even if she had been (just to put the case, you know), she couldn't
think of going on with it any further now, of course, for it wouldn't be
Christian to try and entice that poor little governess girl's lover away
from her, even if it hadn't been the case that she had been once upon a
time a common servant. Poor little thing! though it was a pity that Mr.
Churchill should ever think of throwing himself away on such an
utter little nonentity as she was, still it would be very hard on her
undoubtedly, if, after she had taken the trouble to raise herself as
much as she could into his position in life, she should go and lose her
lover after all, that she had so long been looking up to. Yes, in its
own way it was a very proper arrangement indeed that Mr. Churchill
should end at last by marrying the poor little dowdy governess.
And yet he was a very great sculptor, to be sure, and she, Gwen, had
always had a wonderful fancy for marrying an artist.
But Mr. Winthrop's landscapes were really very beautiful too; and after
all, painters are so very much more human in the end than those cold,
impassive, marble-hearted sculptors. And what a lonely life Mr. Winthrop
had always led! and how he seemed to yearn and hunger and thirst, as
he spoke to her, for warm living and human sympathy! He had never had a
sister, he said, and his mother, crushed and wearied by hard farm life
and his father's religious sternness, had died while he was still a mere
schoolboy. And he had never known anybody he could love but Gwen, except
only, of course, dear Mr. Audouin; and after all, say what you will of
it, a man, you know, a man is not a woman. Poor fellow, in her heart of
hearts she was really sorry for him. And what a rage papa would be in,
too, if only she were to accept him!
Papa would certainly be in a most dreadful temper; that was really quite
undeniable. Gwen hardly knew herself, in fact, what ever he would do
or say to her. He had a most unreasoning objection to artists in the
concrete, regarding them, in fact, as scarcely respectable, and he had
a still more unreasoning objection to all Americans, whom he hated, root
and branch, as a set of vulgar, obtrusive, upstart nobodies. To be sure,
Mr. Winthrop, now, was by no means obtrusive: quite the contrary; nor
was he even vulgar, though he _did_ certainly speak with a very faint
American accent; and as to his being a nobody, why, if it came to that,
of course it was papa himself who was really the nobody (though he _was_
a Howard-Russell and a colonel in the line), while Mr. Winthrop was a
very clever and interesting artist. So in fact, if,--just to put the
case again--she ever _did_ decide upon accepting him, she wasn't going
to stand any nonsense of that sort from papa, you know, and that was
just the long and the short of it.
With a girl of Gwen's high-spirited temperament it is probable that
Hiram could hardly have had a better ally in his somewhat hopeless suit
than this dim hypothetical consciousness on her part of the colonel's
decided objection to Hiram as a possible husband.
If you want very much to marry a girl like Gwen, suggest to her
incidentally, as you make your offer, that her parents will of course be
very much opposed to a marriage between you. If that doesn't decide her
to take your view of the matter, nothing on earth will, you may depend
upon it.
And so the fortnight sped away, and at the end of it, Hiram Winthrop
came up, as if by accident, one morning early to the Villa Panormi.
The earl and the colonel were having a quiet game, with their
after-breakfast cigars, in the billiard-room, and Hiram and Gwen had the
big salon entirely to themselves for their final interview.
As Hiram entered, hardly daring to hope, and pale with restrained
passion, Gwen had already made up her mind beforehand that she must say
no to him: but at the very sight of his earnest face and worn eyelids
her resolution suddenly faltered. He was desperately in love with
her:--that was certain; she could hardly find it in her heart to dismiss
him summarily. She would delay and temporise with him just for the
moment. Poor fellow, if she blurted it out to him too bluntly and
hastily, it might almost stun him. She would break her refusal to him
gently, very gently.
'Well, Miss Russell,' he said to her eagerly, taking her hand as he
entered with a faint hesitating pressure, 'you see I have come back for
my answer; but before you give it to me, for good or for evil, there
are one or two matters yet that I want to talk over with you very
particularly.'
Gwen trembled a little as she seated herself on the big centre ottoman,
and answered nervously, 'Well, Mr. Winthrop, then let me hear them.'
'I ought to plead for myself,' Hiram went on in a feverish voice,
looking down on the ground and then up in her face alternately every
half second. 'I ought to plead for myself with all my power, and all my
soul, and all my energy, Miss Russell; for though to you this is only a
matter of saying yes or no to one more suitor--and no doubt you have had
many--to me it is a matter of life and death, for I never in my life for
one moment imagined that I loved or could love any other woman; and if
you refuse me now, I never in my life shall love another. If you refuse
me, I shall lose heart altogether, and throw up this foolish painting
business at once and for ever, and go back again to drive the plough and
cut the corn once more in my own country. To that I have made my mind
up irrevocably; so I ought to plead for myself, seeing how much is at
stake, with all my heart and soul and energy.'
Gwen crumpled up the corners of the oriental antimacassar in her
tremulous fingers as she answered very softly, 'I should be sorry to
think you meant to do anything so unwise and so unjust to the world and
to yourself on my account, Mr. Winthrop.'
'I ought to plead for myself, and to plead only,' Hiram went on, like
one who has got a message to deliver and feels impelled to deliver it
without heed of interruptions. 'I ought to say nothing that might in any
way interfere with any faint chance I may possibly possess of winning
your favour. I know how little likely I am to succeed, and I can't bear
to make my own case seem still weaker and feebler to you. But, Miss
Russell, before you answer me--and I'm not going to let you answer me
yet, until you have heard me to the end fully--there are one or two
things more I feel constrained to say to you. I want to make you
understand exactly what you will have to do and to put up with if by any
chance you promise to marry me.' (Gwen blushed slightly at the word, so
seriously spoken, but could not take her eyes away from his earnest face
as he still went on rapidly speaking.) 'In the first place, I am a very
poor painter, and I have nothing on earth but my art to live upon.'
'If that were all,' Gwen said, unconsciously taking his part, as it
were, 'I don't think that to be an artist's wife, however poor he may
be, is a life that any woman on earth need be anything but proud of.'
'Thank you,' Hiram said fervidly, looking up at her once more with a
sudden gleam of newborn hope upon his pale worn countenance. 'Thank you,
thank you. I know you are one of those who can value art at its true
worth, and I was sure before I spoke that that at least need be no
barrier between us. And as I am an American, and as proud of my old
Puritan New England ancestry as any gentleman in old England could
possibly be of his Norman forefathers or his broad acres, I won't
pretend to apologise to you on the score of birth, or connections, or
social position. That is a thing, if you will excuse my saying so, Miss
Russell, that no American can under any circumstances stoop to do.
Your father is proud, I know; but every descendant of the New England
pilgrims is indeed in his own democratic way a great deal prouder.'
That was a point of view that, to say the truth, had never struck
Gwen before as even possible; still, as Hiram said it, so boldly and
unaffectedly, she felt in her heart that it was really nothing more than
the truth, and though she couldn't quite understand it or sympathise
with the feeling, she respected him for it, and admired his open
manliness in saying it so straightforwardly.
'But while I think nothing of what your own relations would doubtless
consider the disparity in our positions,' Hiram went on earnestly, 'I do
think a great deal of this--that I have at present absolutely no means
of my own upon which to marry. If you consent, as I begin to hope you
will consent, to be my wife, sooner or later, we may have to wait a long
long time, perhaps even for years, before we can marry. I have risked
everything upon my success as a painter. I have eaten up my capital to
keep myself alive through my student period. I can find no purchasers
now for the pictures I am painting. And I don't know whether the public
will ever care to buy them at all, because I can't make up my own mind,
even, whether I really am or am not a tolerable painter.'
'Upon that point, Mr. Winthrop,' Gwen said decidedly, 'I haven't myself
the very slightest doubt or hesitation. I _know_ you are a painter, and
a very touching one; and I'm sure the world must find it out some day,
sooner or later.'
Quite unconsciously to himself, Hiram was playing his own game in the
very surest possible manner by seeming to take sides for the moment
against himself, and so compelling Gwen, out of the mere necessities of
the conversation, to argue the case for the defence with all a woman's
momentary impetuosity.
'But I ought to have thought of all this before I ever spoke to you at
all,' he went on earnestly. 'I ought to have reflected how cruel it was
of me to ask you for a promise when I couldn't even tell whether I might
ever be in a position to enable you to perform it. It was wrong of me,
very wrong; and I felt angry with myself for having been led into doing
it, the minute after I left you. But I was betrayed into my confession
by the accidents of the moment. You must forgive me, because I had loved
you so long--and so silently. I wouldn't have spoken to you even then if
I hadn't imagined--it was ever so wrong and foolish of me, but still I
imagined--that you seemed just then to be a little more interested than
before in my work and my future. Oh, Miss Russell, I have loved you
desperately; and I ventured, therefore, in a moment of haste to tell you
that I loved you. But if you say _yes_ to me to-day, it may be years and
years, perhaps, before we can marry. I can't say when or how I may ever
begin to earn my livelihood at all by painting pictures.'
'If I really loved a man, Mr. Winthrop,' Gwen answered in a lower voice,
'I shouldn't be afraid to wait for him as long as ever circumstances
compelled it--if I really loved him. And apart altogether from that
question, which you say I am not at present to answer, I can't believe
that the world will be much longer yet in discovering that you have
genius--yes, I _will_ say genius. Mr. Churchill himself declares he is
quite certain you have real genius.
Hiram smiled and shook his head incredulously. 'Still,' he said, 'it is
at least some comfort to me to know that, putting the matter in its most
abstract form, you have no absolute objection to a long engagement. If
you loved a man, you would be ready to wait for him. I knew you would,
indeed, like every brave and true woman. I didn't doubt that you could
be steadfast enough to wait; I only doubted whether it would be just of
any man to beg you to wait under such more than doubtful circumstances.
But, remember, Miss Russell, I have this excuse to plead in my own case,
that it wasn't the passing fancy of a moment, but a love that has grown
with me into my very being. There is only one more consideration now
before I go on to ask you that final answer to my question, and it is
this. You must reflect whether you would be willing to brave the anger
of your father. I can't disguise from myself the fact that Colonel
Howard-Russell would be very ill satisfied at the idea of your waiting
to marry a penniless unknown American painter.'
Gwen looked at him proudly, almost defiantly, as she answered in a clear
bold tone, 'If I loved a man really, Mr. Winthrop, I would marry him and
wait for him as long as _I_ chose, even if my father cast me off for it
for ever the very next minute. If ever I marry I shall marry because
I have consulted my own heart, and not because I have consulted my
father.'
'I knew that too, 'Hiram answered, with just a touch of triumph in his
trembling voice. 'I only spoke to you about it because I thought it
right to clear the ground entirely for my final question. Then, Gwen,
Gwen, Gwen--I will call you Gwen for this once in my life, if I never
call you Gwen again as long as I live here; I have thought of you as
Gwen for all these years, and I will think of you so still, whatever
comes, till my dying minute--oh, Gwen, Gwen, Gwen, I ask you
finally--and all my life hangs upon the question--can you love me, will
you love me, do you love me?'
Gwen let him fold her passionately in his arms as she murmured twice,
almost inaudibly, 'I love you! I love you!'
Yes, yes, she couldn't any longer herself withstand the conviction. She
loved him. She loved him.
As for Hiram, the blood thrilled through his veins as though his heart
would burst for very fulness. The dream of his existence had come true
at last, and he cared for nothing else on earth now he had once heard
Gwen say with her own dear lips that she loved him, she loved him.