A young couple came strolling down the avenue who to Westover's artistic
eye first typified grace and strength, and then to his more personal
perception identified themselves as Genevieve Vostrand and Jeff Durgin.
They faltered before one of the benches beside the mall, and he seemed
to be begging her to sit down. She cast her eyes round till they must
have caught the window of her mother's apartment; then, as if she felt
safe under it, she sank into the seat and Jeff put himself beside her.
It was quite too early yet for the simple lovers who publicly notify
their happiness by the embraces and hand-clasps everywhere evident in
our parks and gardens; and a Boston pair of social tradition would not
have dreamed of sitting on a bench in Commonwealth Avenue at any hour.
But two such aliens as Jeff and Miss Vostrand might very well do so; and
Westover sympathized with their bohemian impulse.
Mrs. Vostrand and he watched them awhile, in talk that straggled away
from them, and became more and more distraught in view of them. Jeff
leaned forward, and drew on the ground with the point of his stick;
Genevieve held her head motionless at a pensive droop. It was only their
backs that Westover could see, and he could not, of course, make out
a syllable of what was effectively their silence; but all the same he
began to feel as if he were peeping and eavesdropping. Mrs. Vostrand
seemed not to share his feeling, and there was no reason why he should
have it if she had not. He offered to go, but she said, No, no; he must
not think of it till Genevieve came in; and she added some banalities
about her always scolding when she had missed one of his calls; they
would be so few, now, at the most.
“Why, do you intend to go so soon?” he asked.
She did not seem to hear him, and he could see that she was watching
the young people intently. Jeff had turned his face up toward Genevieve,
without lifting his person, and was saying something she suddenly shrank
back from. She made a start as if to rise, but he put out his hand in
front of her, beseechingly or compellingly, and she sank down again.
But she slowly shook her head at what he was saying, and turned her face
toward him so that it gave her profile to the spectators. In that light
and at that distance it was impossible to do more than fancy anything
fateful in the words which she seemed to be uttering; but Westover chose
to fancy this. Jeff waited a moment in apparent silence, after she had
spoken. He sat erect and faced her, and this gave his profile, too. He
must have spoken, for she shook her head again; and then, at other words
from him, nodded assentingly. Then she listened motionlessly while he
poured a rapid stream of visible but inaudible words. He put out his
hand, as if to take hers, but she put it behind her; Westover could see
it white there against the belt of her dark dress.
Jeff went on more vehemently, but she remained steadfast, slowly shaking
her head. When he ended she spoke, and with something of his own energy;
he made a gesture of submission, and when she rose he rose, too. She
stood a moment, and with a gentle and almost entreating movement she put
out her hand to him. He stood looking down, with both his hands resting
on the top of his stick, as if ignoring her proffer. Then he suddenly
caught her hand, held it a moment; dropped it, and walked quickly away
without looking back. Genevieve ran across the lawn and roadway toward
the house.
“Oh, must, you go?” Mrs. Vostrand said to Westover. He found that he had
probably risen in sympathy with Jeff's action. He was not aware of
an intention of going, but he thought he had better not correct Mrs.
Vostrand's error.
“Yes, I really must, now,” he said.
“Well, then,” she returned, distractedly, “do come often.”
He hurried out to avoid meeting Genevieve. He passed her, on the public
stairs of the house, but he saw that she did not recognize him in the
dim light.
Late that night he was startled by steps that seemed to be seeking their
way up the stairs to his landing, and then by a heavy knock on his door.
He opened it, and confronted Jeff Durgin.
“May I come in, Mr. Westover?” he asked, with unwonted deference.
“Yes, come in,” said Westover, with no great relish, setting his door
open, and then holding onto it a moment, as if he hoped that, having
come in, Jeff might instantly go out again.
His reluctance was lost upon Jeff, who said, unconscious of keeping his
hat on: “I want to talk with you--I want to tell you something--”
“All right. Won't you sit down?”
At this invitation Jeff seemed reminded to take his hat off, and he put
it on the floor beside his chair. “I'm not in a scrape, this time--or,
rather, I'm in the worst kind of a scrape, though it isn't the kind that
you want bail for.”
“Yes,” Westover prompted.
“I don't know whether you've noticed--and if you haven't it don't
make any difference--that I've seemed to--care a good deal for Miss
Vostrand?”
Westover saw no reason why he should not be frank, and said: “Too much,
I've fancied sometimes, for a student in his Sophomore year.”
“Yes, I know that. Well, it's over, whether it was too much or too
little.” He laughed in a joyless, helpless way, and looked deprecatingly
at Westover. “I guess I've been making a fool of myself--that's all.”
“It's better to make a fool of one's self than to make a fool of some
one else,” said Westover, oracularly.
“Yes,” said Jeff, apparently finding nothing more definite in the oracle
than people commonly find in oracles. “But I think,” he went on, with
a touch of bitterness, “that her mother might have told me that she was
engaged--or the same as engaged.”
“I don't know that she was bound to take you seriously, or to suppose
you took yourself so, at your age and with your prospects in life. If
you want to know,”--Westover faltered, and then went on--“she began to
be kind to you because she was afraid that you might think she didn't
take your coming home second-cabin in the right way; and one thing led
to another. You mustn't blame her for what's happened.”
Westover defended Mrs. Vostrand, but he did not feel strong in her
defence; he was not sure that Durgin was quite wrong, absurd as he had
been. He sat down and looked up at his visitor under his brows.
“What are you here for, Jeff? Not to complain of Mrs. Vostrand?”
Jeff gave a short, shamefaced laugh. “No, it's this you're such an old
friend of Mrs. Vostrand's that I thought she'd be pretty sure to
tell you about it; and I wanted to ask--to ask--that you wouldn't say
anything to mother.”
“You are a boy! I shouldn't think of meddling with your affairs,” said
Westover; he got up again, and Jeff rose, too.
Before noon the next day a district messenger brought Westover a letter
which he easily knew, from, the now belated tall, angular hand, to be
from Mrs. Vostrand. It announced on a much criss-crossed little sheet
that she and Genevieve were inconsolably taking a very sudden departure,
and were going on the twelve-o'clock train to New York, where Mr.
Vostrand was to meet them. “In regard to that affair which I mentioned
last night, he withdraws his objections (we have had an overnight
telegram), and so I suppose all will go well. I cannot tell you how
sorry we both are not to see you again; you have been such a dear, good
friend to us; and if you don't hear from us again at New York, you will
from the other side. Genevieve had some very strange news when she came
in, and we both feel very sorry for the poor young fellow. You must
console him from us all you can. I did not know before how much she was
attached to Gigi: but it turned out very fortunately that she could say
she considered herself bound to him, and did everything to save Mr. D.'s
feelings.”