Mrs. Merriam saw faint traces of tears in Mrs. Sylvestre's eyes when she returned from her call on the Bosworths, and speculated, with some wonder, as to what her exact mental condition was, but asked very few questions, feeling that, upon the whole, she would prefer to hear the version of the story given to Mr. Arbuthnot when he called. He did so the following evening, and, having seen the Bosworths in the interval, had comments of his own to make.
"It was very good in you to call so soon," he said to Agnes.
"I wished very much to call," she replied. "I could not have waited longer."
"You left a transcendent impression," said Arbuthnot. "Tom was very enthusiastic, and Kitty feels that all their troubles are things of the past."
"They talked to me a great deal of you," said Agnes. "I felt after hearing them that I had not known you very well—and wished that I had known you better."
She said it with a sweet gravity which he found strangely disturbing; but his reply did not commit him to any special feeling.
"They will prove fatal to me, I see," he said. "Don't allow them to prejudice you against me in that manner."
"I wish," she said, "that my friends might be prejudiced against me in the same way."
Then he revealed a touch of earnestness in spite of himself. They had both been standing upon the hearth, and he took a step toward her.
"For pity's sake," he said, "don't overrate me! Women are always too generous. Don't you see, you[Pg 413] will find me out, and then it will be worse for me than before."
She stood in one of her perfect, motionless attitudes, and looked down at the rug.
"I wish to find you out," she said, slowly. "I have done you injustice."
And then she turned away and walked across the room to a table where there were some books, and when she returned she brought one of them with her and began to speak of it. He always felt afterward that the memory of this "injustice," as she called it, was constantly before her, and he would have been more than human if he had not frequently wondered what it was. He could not help feeling that it had taken a definite form, and that she had been betrayed into it on the evening he had first spoken to her of the Bosworths, and that somehow his story had saved him in her eyes. But he naturally forbore to ask questions or even touch upon the subject, and thanked the gods for the good which befell him as a result of the evil he had escaped. And yet, as the time passed by, and he went oftener to the house, and found keener pleasure in each visit, he had his seasons of fearing that it was not all going to be gain for him; when he faced the truth, indeed, he knew that it was not all gain, and yet he was not stoic enough to turn his back and fly.
"It will cost!" he said to himself. "It will cost! But"—
And then he would set his lips together and be silent for an hour or so, and those of his acquaintance who demanded constant vivacity from him began to wonder among themselves if he was quite the fellow he had been. If the friendship was pleasant during the season, it was pleasanter when the gayeties ceased and the spring set in, with warmer air and sunshine, and leaves and blossoms in the parks. There was a softness in the atmosphere not conducive to sternness of purpose and self-denial. As he walked to and from his office he[Pg 414] found his thoughts wandering in paths he felt were dangerous, and once, unexpectedly meeting Mrs. Sylvestre when so indulging himself, he started and gained such sudden color that she flushed also, and, having stopped to speak to him, forgot what she had intended to say, and was a little angry, both with herself and him, when a confusing pause followed their greeting.
Their interest in the Bosworths was a tie between them which gave them much in common. Agnes went to see them often, and took charge of Kitty, watching over and caring for her in a tender, half-maternal fashion. Arbuthnot took private pleasure in contemplating. He liked to hear Kitty talk about her, and, indeed, had on more than one occasion led her with some dexterity into doing so. It was through Kitty, at last, that his mystery was solved for him.
This happened in the spring. There had been several warm days, one so unusually warm, at last, that in the evening Mrs. Sylvestre accepted his invitation to spend an hour or so on the river with him. On their way there they stopped to leave a basket of fruit for Tom, whose condition was far from being what they had hoped for, and while making their call Kitty made a remark which caused Arbuthnot's pulse to accelerate its pace somewhat.
"When you saw me crying on the street that night," she began, addressing Agnes. Arbuthnot turned upon her quickly.
"What night?" he asked.
"The night you took me into Lafayette Square," said Kitty; "Mrs. Sylvestre saw me, though I did not know it until yesterday. She was going to call on Mrs. Amory, and"—
Arbuthnot looked at Agnes; he could not have forborne, whatever the look had cost him. The color came into her cheek and died out.
"Did you?" he demanded.
[Pg 415]
"Yes," she answered, and rose and walked to the window, and stood there perfectly still.
Arbuthnot did not hear the remainder of Kitty's remarks. He replied to them blindly, and as soon as possible left his chair and went to the window himself.
"If you are ready, perhaps we had better go," he said.
They went out of the room and down the stairs in silence. He wanted to give himself time to collect his thoughts, and get the upper hand of a frantic feeling of passionate anger which had taken possession of him. If he had spoken he might have said something savage, which he would have repented afterward in sackcloth and ashes. His sense of the injustice he had suffered, however momentary, at the hands of this woman whose opinion he cared for, was natural, masculine, and fierce. He saw everything in a flash, and for a moment or so forgot all else in his bitterness of spirit. But his usual coolness came to the rescue when this moment was past, and he began to treat himself scornfully, as was his custom. There was no reason why she should not think ill of him, circumstances evidently having been against him, he said to himself; she knew nothing specially good of him; she had all grounds for regarding him as a creature with neither soul nor purpose nor particularly fixed principles, and with no other object in life than the gratification of his fancies; why should she believe in him against a rather black array in the form of facts? It was not agreeable, but why blame her? He would not blame her or indulge in any such personal folly. Then he glanced at her and saw that the color had not come back to her face. When he roused himself to utter a civil, commonplace remark or so, there was the sound of fatigue in her voice when she answered him, and it was very low. She did not seem inclined to talk, and he had the consideration to leave her to herself as much as possible until they reached the boat-house. He arranged her cushions and wraps in the boat with care and[Pg 416] dexterity, and, when he took the oars, felt that he had himself pretty well in hand. The river was very quiet, and the last glow of sunset red was slowly changing to twilight purple on the water; a sickle-shaped moon hung in the sky, and somewhere farther up the shore a night bird was uttering brief, plaintive cries. Agnes sat at the end of the boat, with her face a little turned away, as if she were listening to the sound. Arbuthnot wondered if she was, and thought again that she looked tired and a little pathetic. If he had known all her thoughts he would have felt the pathos in her eyes a thousand times more keenly.
She had a white hyacinth in her hand, whose odor seemed to reach him more powerfully at each stroke of the oars, and at last she turned and spoke, looking down at the flower.
"The saddest things that are left to one of a bitter experience," she said, in a low voice, "are the knowledge and distrust that come of it."
"They are very natural results," he replied, briefly.
"Oh, they are very hard!" she exclaimed. "They are very hard. They leave a stain on all one's life, and—and it can never be wiped away. Sometimes I think it is impossible to be generous—to be kind—to trust at all"—
Her voice broke; she put her hands up before her face, and he saw her tremble.
"One may have been innocent," she said, "and have believed—and thought no evil—but after one has been so stained"—
He stopped rowing.
"There is no stain," he said. "Don't call it one."
"It must be one," she said, "when one sees evil, and is suspicious, and on the alert to discover wrong. But it brings suffering, as if it were a punishment. I have suffered."
He paused a second and answered, looking backward over his shoulder.
[Pg 417]
"So did I—for a moment," he said. "But it is over now. Don't think of me."
"I must think of you," she said. "How could I help it?"
She turned a little more toward him and leaned forward, the most exquisite appeal in her delicate face, the most exquisite pathos in her unsteady voice.
"If I ask you to forgive me," she said, "you will only say that I was forgiven before I asked. I know that. I wish I could say something else. I wish—I wish I knew what to do."
He looked up the river and down, and then suddenly at her. The set, miserable expression of his face startled her, and caused her to make an involuntary movement.
"Don't do anything—don't say anything!" he said. "I can bear it better."
And he bent himself to his oars and rowed furiously.
She drew back, and turned her face aside. Abrupt as the words were, there was no rebuff in them; but there was something else which silenced her effectually. She was glad of the faint light, and her heart quickened, which last demonstration did not please her. She had been calm too long to enjoy any new feeling of excitement; she had liked the calmness, and had desired beyond all things that it should remain undisturbed.
"There is one prayer I pray every morning," she had once said to Bertha, earnestly. "It is that the day may bring nothing to change the tone of my life."
She had felt a little ripple in the current ever since the eventful night, and had regretted it sorely, and now, just for the moment, it was something stronger. So she was very still as she sat with averted face, and the hour spent upon the water was a singularly silent one.
When they returned home they found Colonel Tredennis with Mrs. Merriam, but just on the point of leaving her.
[Pg 418]
"I am going to see Amory," he said. "I have heard some news he will consider bad. The Westoria affair has been laid aside, and will not be acted upon this session, if at all. It is said that Blundel heard something he did not like, and interfered."
"And you think Mr. Amory will be very much disappointed?" said Agnes.
"I am afraid so," answered Tredennis.
"And yet," said Agnes, "it isn't easy to see why it should be of so much importance to him."
"He has become interested in it," said Mrs. Merriam. "That is the expression, isn't it? It is my opinion that it would be better for him if he were less so. I have seen that kind of thing before. It is like being bitten by a tarantula."
She was not favorably inclined toward Richard. His sparkling moods did not exhilarate her, and she had her private theories concerning his character. Tredennis she was very fond of; few of his moods escaped her bright eyes; few of the changes in him were lost upon her. When he went away this evening she spoke of him to Agnes and Arbuthnot.
"If that splendid fellow does not improve," she said, "he will begin to grow old in his prime. He is lean and gaunt; his eyes are dreary; he is beginning to have lines on his forehead and about his mouth. He is enduring something. I should be glad to be told what it is."
"Whatever he endured," said Agnes, "he would not tell people. But I think 'enduring' is a very good word."
"How long have you known him?" Mrs. Merriam asked of Arbuthnot.
"Since the evening after his arrival in Washington on his return from the West," was the reply.
"Was he like this then?" rather sharply.
Arbuthnot reflected.
"I met him at a reception," he said, "and he was not Washingtonian in his manner. My impression was that[Pg 419] he would not enjoy our society, and that he would finally despise us; but he looked less fagged then than he does now. Perhaps he begins to long for his daily Pi-ute. There are chasms which an effete civilization does not fill."
"You guess more than you choose to tell," was Mrs. Merriam's inward thought. Aloud she said:
"He is the finest human being it has been my pleasure to meet. He is the natural man. If I were a girl again I think I should make a hero of him, and be unhappy for his sake."
"It would be easy to make a hero of him," said Agnes.
"Very!" responded Arbuthnot. "Unavoidable, in fact." And he laid upon the table the bit of hyacinth he had picked up in the boat and brought home with him. "If I carry it away," was his private thought, "I shall fall into the habit of sitting and weakening my mind over it. It is weak enough already." But he knew, at the same time, that Colonel Tredennis had done something toward assisting him to form the resolution. "A trivial masculine vanity," he thought, "not unfrequently strengthens one's position."
In the meantime Tredennis went to Amory. He found him in the room which was, in its every part, so strong a reminder of Bertha. It wore a desolate look, and Amory had evidently been walking up and down it, pushing chairs and footstools aside carelessly, when he found them in his way. He had thrown himself, at last, into Bertha's own special easy-chair, and leaned back in it, with his hands thrown out over its padded arms. He had plainly not slept well the night before, and his dress had a careless and dishevelled look, very marked in its contrast with the customary artistic finish of his attire.
He sprang up when he saw Tredennis, and began to speak at once.
"I say!" he exclaimed, "this is terrible!"
"You have been disappointed," said Tredennis.
[Pg 420]
"I have been rui"—he checked himself; "disappointed isn't the word," he ended. "The whole thing has been laid aside—laid aside—think of it! as if it were a mere nothing; an application for a two-penny half-penny pension! Great God! what do the fellows think they are dealing with?"
"Who do you think is to blame?" said the colonel, stolidly.
"Blundel, by Jove!—Blundel, that fool and clown!" and he flung himself about the room, mumbling his rage and irritation.
"It is not the first time such a thing has happened," said Tredennis, "and it won't be the last. If you continue to interest yourself in such matters you will find that out, as others have done before you. Take my advice, and give it up from this hour."
Amory wheeled round upon him.
"Give it up!" he cried, "I can't give it up, man! It is only laid aside for the time being. Heaven and earth shall be moved next year—Heaven and earth! The thing won't fail—it can't fail—a thing like that; a thing I have risked my very soul on!"
He dashed his hand through his tumbled hair and threw himself into the chair again, quite out of breath.
"Ah, confound it!" he exclaimed, "I am too excitable! I am losing my hold on myself."
Tredennis rose from his seat, feeling some movement necessary. He stood and looked down at the floor. As he gazed up at him Amory entered a fretful mental protest against his size and his air of being able to control himself. He was plainly deep in thought even when he spoke, for his eyes did not leave the floor.
"I suppose," he said, "this is really no business of mine. I wish it was."
"What do you mean?" said Amory.
Tredennis looked up.
"If it were my business I would know more about it," he said.—"I would know what you mean, and[Pg 421] how deep you have gone into this—this accursed scheme."
The last two words had a sudden ring of intensity in their sound, which affected Amory tremendously. He sprang up again and began to pace the floor.
"Nothing ever promised so well," he said, "and it will turn out all right in the end—it must! It is the delay that drives one wild. It will be all right next season—when Bertha is here."
"What has she to do with it?" demanded Tredennis.
"Nothing very much," said Amory, restively; "but she is effective."
"Do you mean that you are going to set her to lobbying?"
"Why should you call it that? I am not going to set her at anything. She has a good effect, that is all. Planefield swears that if she had stayed at home and taken Blundel in hand he would not have failed us."
Tredennis looked at him stupefied. He could get no grasp upon him. He wondered if a heavy mental blow would affect him. He tried it in despair.
"Do you know," he said, slowly, "what people are beginning to say about Planefield?"
"They are always saying something of Planefield. He is the kind of man who is always spoken of."
"Then," said Tredennis, "there is all the more reason why his name should not be connected with that of an innocent woman."
"What woman has been mentioned in connection with him?"
"It has been said more than once that he is in love with—your wife, and that his infatuation is used to advance your interests."
Richard stopped on his walk.
"Then it is a confoundedly stupid business," he said, angrily. "If she hears it she will never speak to him again. Perhaps she has heard it; perhaps that was[Pg 422] why she insisted on going away. I thought there was something wrong at the time."
"May I ask," said Tredennis, "how it strikes you?"
"Me!" exclaimed Richard. "As the most awkward piece of business in the world, and as likely to do me more harm than anything else could."
He made a graceful, rapid gesture of impatience.
"Everything goes against me!" he said. "She never liked him from the first, and if she has heard this she will never be civil to him again, or to any of the rest of them. And, of course, she is an influence, in a measure; what clever woman is not? And why should she not use her influence in one way as well as another? If she were a clergyman's wife she would work hard enough to gain favors. It is only a trifle that she should make an effort to be agreeable to men who will be pleased by her civility. She would do it if there were nothing to be gained. Where are you going? What is the matter?" for Tredennis had walked to the table and taken his hat.
"I am going into the air," he answered; "I am afraid I cannot be of any use to you to-night. My mind is not very clear just now. I must have time to think."
"You look pale," said Amory, staring at him. "You look ghastly. You have not been up to the mark for months. I have seen that. Washington does not agree with you."
"That is it," was Tredennis' response. "Washington does not agree with me."
And he carried his hat and his pale and haggard countenance out into the night, and left Richard gazing after him, feverish, fretted, thwarted in his desire to pour forth his grievances and defend himself, and also filled with baffled amazement at his sudden departure.