From the moment of mutual revelation, the relations between Katherine and Felicia underwent a change, not the less appreciable for being subtle. This was inevitable. In fact, Felicia had dreaded the first confidential talk as much as she dreaded the arrival of Raine. But these things are infinitely simpler than we are apt to imagine, by reason of the mere habit of human intercourse. The hours that they spent together at first, passed outwardly as pleasantly as before. But Katherine was more reserved, limited the conversation as much as possible to the ephemeral concrete, and Felicia, keeping a guard over herself, lost somewhat in simplicity of manner. Imperceptibly, however, they drifted apart, and saw less of one another. A tendency towards misjudgment of Katherine was a necessary consequence of the sense of indelicacy under which the girl chafed. The rare utterances of feeling or opinion that the other gave vent to, instead of awakening her sympathy, aroused undefined instincts of antagonism. She sought the old scholar's society more and more, boldly put into execution a project she had long rather tremulously contemplated, and established herself as his amanuensis.
When he saw her, with inky fingers and ruffled hair, copying out his crabbed manuscript, he would thank her for her self-sacrifice. But Felicia would look up fervently and shake her head.
“You can't tell what a blessed relief it is, Mr. Chetwynd.”
So the old man accepted her services gratefully; though, if the truth were known, the trained man of letters, who was accustomed to do everything himself with minute care, was sorely put to it at times as to how to occupy his fair secretary—especially as she, with the conscientiousness of her sex, insisted on scrupulously filling up every moment of the time she devoted to his service.
But Katherine smiled sadly and comprehendingly at Felicia's ingenuous strategical movement.
“It seems rather a pity you never thought of it before,” she said, one day, kindly. “Regular occupation is a great blessing; it prevents one from growing lackadaisical.”
“Yes,” replied Felicia, falling in with her tone; “I am afraid I was beginning to get into evil ways.”
With the advent of summer, there was much bustle in the pension, bringing relations into greater harmony. The chatter of millinery filled the air. Ladies ran up against each other in shops, rendered mutual advice, and grew excited over the arrival of each other's parcels.
“One touch ofchiffonmakes the whole world kin,” said Katherine, who looked upon matters with a satirical, yet kindly eye.
She was drawn perforce into the movement, being consulted on all sides as to matching of shades and the suitability of hats. She bought outright an entire wardrobe for Miss Bunter, who begged her to go shopping with her, and then sat helpless by the counter, fingering mountains of materials. Even Frau Schultz was softened. But she was the only one who did not consult Katherine. She took Felicia into her confidence, and exhibited, among other seasonable vestments, a blood-coloured blouse, covered with mauve spots as large as two-franc pieces, which she pronounced to be very genteel. Every one had something new to wear for the summer. Mme. Popea scattered scraps of stuff about her room, in a kind of libationary joy. The little dressmaker, bristling with pins, haunted the landings, when not within the little cabinet assigned to her, from outside whose door could be unceasingly heard the sharp tearing of materials and the droning buzz of the sewing-machine.
Summer changes took place in the pension itself. The storey above, which was let unfurnished during the winter, was incorporated, as usual, into the general establishment. There was a week of cleaning, during which the house was given over to men in soft straw hats and blue blouses. And then a week of straightening, when new curtains were put up, and floors rewaxed, and dingy coverings removed from chairs and sofas, which burst out resplendent in bright green velvet. The latter proceedings were superintended by an agile young man in alpaca sleeves and green baize apron. It was the summer waiter, who had emerged from the mysterious limbo where summer waiters hibernate, and was resuming his duties, apparently at the point he had left them at the end of the previous season. Mme. Boccard and he conversed at vast distances, which was trying to those who did not see how the welfare of the pension was being thereby furthered. In her quiet moments, the good lady was busy sending out prospectuses and answering replies to advertisements and applications. She went about smiling perspiringly at the prospect of a successful season.
The first new guests to arrive were M. le Commandant Porniclion and his wife. He was a stout-hearted old Gascon, a veteran of Solferino and Gravelotte, who talked in a great voice and with alarming gestures of blood and battles, and obeyed his little brown wife like a lamb. His friend, Colonel Cazet, was coming with his wife later on. For some years they had been regular summer boarders of Mme. Boccard. The next arrival was a middle-aged man, called Skeogh, who had commercial business in Geneva. At the first he caused disappointment through adding up figures in a little black book at meal times. But Frau Schultz found him a most superior person, after listening to a confidential account of the jute market, in which commodity she seemed to have been vaguely interested at one period of her life. Whereupon she talked to him about Lottchen, and he put away the black book.
“Quelle Sirène!” cried Mme. Popea, in wicked exultation.
The next to come was Raine Chetwynd. The old man went to the railway-station in the morning to meet him, and bore him back in triumph.
“Oh, Raine, my dear, dear boy,” he said, watching him consuming the coffee andpetit painhe had ordered up to his room, “you can't tell how I have longed to see you again.”
“Well, you shall not exile yourself any longer,” said Raine, heartily. “I am going to carry you back to Oxford. The place is a howling wilderness without you. If I could remember the names of all who sent appealing messages to you, it would be a list as long as Leporello's. And you mustn't live away from me again, dad.”
“No,” replied the old man; “but you see I couldn't have done this work as well in Oxford, could I?”
“It's a noble work,” said Raine, with the scholar's instinct.
“Yes,” replied the old man with a sigh; “it wanted doing, it wanted doing. And I think I have done it very well.”
“I must overhaul your scrip, while I am here. Let me have a look at it.”
“Don't bother about it yet, my boy. Finish your coffee. Let me ring for some more. You must be tired after your long journey.”
“Tired?” laughed Raine. “Oh dear no, and I can go on quite well till breakfast. I only want to see what kind of stuff you have been doing since I have been away.”
The professor went to his drawer and pulled out the manuscript, his heart glowing at Raine's loving interest in his work—a never-failing source of pride and comfort.
“Here it is, nearly finished.”
Raine took the scrip from him and turned over the pages, with a running commentary on the scope within which the subject was treated. At last he uttered an exclamation of surprise, laid the book on his knee and looked up at his father.
“Hullo! what is all this?”
The old man peeped over his shoulder.
“That is my secretary's writing,” he explained; “Miss Graves, you remember her, don't you?”
“Of course; but—”
“Well, she will insist upon it, Raine; she comes in for a couple of hours a day. It pleases her, really, and I can't help it.”
“What a dear little soul she must be,” said Raine.
“Ah! she is, my boy; every day she seems to wind a fresh thread round my heart. We shall have to take her back to Oxford with us, eh, Raine?”
He laughed softly, took up the manuscript and put it tenderly away again in the drawer, while Raine lit his pipe. The latter did not suspect the hint that his father had meant to convey, but he took advantage of the short pause that followed to change the conversation.
It was Mme. Boccard's arrangement that Raine should take Katherine's place next to his father, and thus have her as his neighbour. It would disappoint M. le Professeur if he were separated from hispetite amie, Miss Graves, and she was sure that Mrs. Stapleton would not mind.
“Make any arrangement you please,” Katherine had replied, with some demureness.
Whereupon Mme. Boccard thanked her, and wished that everybody was as gentle and easy to deal with, and Katherine had smiled inwardly, at the same time despising herself a little for doing so, as is the way with women.
As for Felicia, the disposition of seats caused her painful embarrassment. She dared not look at Katherine, lest she should read the welcome in her eyes; she dared not look at Raine, lest the trouble in her own should betray her. She kept them downcast, listening to Raine's voice with a burning cheek and beating heart. Only when the meal was over, and the old man detained her in conversation by the window, and Raine came up to them, did she summon up courage to meet his glance fully.
“So the professor has caught you in his dusty web, Miss Graves,” he said, smiling. “You were very sweet to let yourself be caught.”
“Oh! I walked in of my own accord, I assure you,” replied Felicia, “and you have no idea what trouble I had. He wants to dismiss me at the present moment. Do plead for me, Mr. Chetwynd. Of course, I know I should be in the way in the professor's room now—oh! yes, I should, that is quite settled—but I want him to give me something to do by myself.”
“I will try my best for you, Miss Graves,” said Raine; “but you don't know what an unnatural, hard-hearted—”
“Oh, Mr. Chetwynd!” said Felicia.
“Well, my dear,” said the old man, “you must have your way. It was only for your own sake I suggested it. I am always so afraid of making you weary—and it is very, very dry stuff—but your help is invaluable, my dear. It will be the same as usual, then. Only I think I shall cut down the time to half, as I, too, am going to be lazy now.”
“Now you will see what real laziness is, Miss Graves,” said Raine. “Do you know my father's idea of leisure?—what remains of a day after nine hours' work. Seven he calls laziness; six is abject sloth.”
“Ah! not now, Raine,” said the old man, “not now.”
He turned to go. The two younger people's eyes met, both touched by the same thing—the pathos of old age that sounded in the old man's words.
“How you must love him!” said Felicia, in a low voice.
“I do,” replied Raine, earnestly; “and it makes me happy to see that he has not been unloved during my absence. I feel more about what you have done for him than I can say.”
He smiled, involuntarily put out his hand, and pressed hers that she gave him. Then they parted, he to follow his father, she to go to her room serener and happier than she had been for many days, and to weave a wondrous web out of a few gracious words, a smile, and a pressure of the hand. If it were possible—if it were only possible! There would be no shame then—or only just that of it to raise joy with a leaven of tremulousness.
Meanwhile Raine sat in his father's room, and continued the interrupted gossip. But towards three o'clock the old man's eyes grew heavy, as he leaned his head back in the armchair. He struggled to keep them open for Raine's sake, but at last the latter rose with a smile.
“Why, you are sleepy, dad!”
“Yes,” murmured the old man, apologetically. “It's a new habit I have contracted—I must break myself of it gradually. I suppose I am getting old, Raine. You won't think it unkind of me will you? Just forty winks, Raine.”
“Have your nap out comfortably,” said the young man.
He fetched a footstool, arranged a cushion with singular tenderness behind the old man, and left him to his sleep. Then he went out for a stroll through the town.
It was a hot, sunny day. At the end of the street, the gate of the Jardin Anglais stood invitingly open. Raine entered, and came upon the enclosed portion of the Quai that forms the promenade, pleasant with its line of shady seats under the trees on one side, and the far-stretching lake on the other. He paused for awhile, and leant over the balustrade to light a cigarette and to admire the view—the cloudless sky, the deep blue water flecked with white sails, the imposing mass of the hotels on the Quai du Mont Blanc, the busy life on the bridge, beneath which the Rhone flows out of the lake. He drew in a long breath. Somehow it was more exhilarating than his college gardens. The place was not crowded, as the tourist season had not yet set in. But the usual number of nurses and children scattered themselves promiscuously along the path, and filled the air with shrill voices. Raine, continuing his stroll, had not gone many steps when he perceived, far ahead, a lady start from her seat and run to pick up a child that had fallen down. On advancing farther, he saw that it was Mrs. Stapleton, who had got the child on her knees and was tenderly wiping the little gravel-scratched hands, while the nurse, who had come up, stood by phlegmatic.
It was a pretty sight, instinct with feminine charm, and struck gratefully on the man's senses. Katherine looked very fresh and delicate in her sprigged lilac blouse, plain serge skirt, and simple black straw hat, and the attitude in which she bent down to the chubby, tearful face under the white sun-bonnet was very graceful and womanly. She kissed the child and handed it to its nurse as Raine came up. She greeted him with a smile.
“Quite a catastrophe—but she will forget all about it in half an hour. It must be delightful to be a child.”
“If all hurts are so promptly and tenderly healed, I should think it must be,” said Raine.
“Thank you,” she said, with an upward glance; “that is a pretty compliment.” Raine bowed, laughed his acknowledgments, and with a word of request, sat down by her side.
“Is this a haunt of yours?” he asked.
“Yes, I suppose it is. It is so near the pension—and I love the open air.”
“So do I. That is another point of contact. We discovered a good many, if you remember, at Christmas. What have you been doing since then?”
“Forgetting a good many old lessons, and trying to teach myself a few new ones. Or, if you like, making bricks without straw—trying to live a life without incidents.”
“Which less epigrammatically means that you have had a dull, cheerless time. I am sorry. You have been here all the winter and spring?”
“Yes. Where else should I have been?”
“In a happier place,” said Raine. “You don't seem made to lead this monotonous existence.”
“Oh! I suppose I am, since I am leading it. Human beings, like water, find their own level. The Pension Boccard seems to be mine.”
“You smile, as if you liked it,”, he said, rather puzzled.
“Would you have me cry to you?”
“Perhaps not on the day of my coming, but afterwards, I wish you would.”
She flashed a glance at him, the lightning reconnoitre of woman ever on the defensive. But the sight of his strong, frank face and kind eyes reassured her. She was silent for a moment, dreaming a vivid day-dream. She was taking him at his word, crying with her face on his shoulder and his arm around her. It was infinite comfort. But she quickly roused herself.
“Don't you know your Burton? A kind man once pointed it out to me—'As much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping, as of a goose going barefoot.' It was the same that told me a woman cried to hide her feelings.”
“That kind of epigram can be made like match-boxes at twopence farthing a gross,” said Raine, impatiently. “You have only to dress up an old adage with a mask of spite.”
“You haven't changed,” she said with a smile. “You are just the same as when you left.”
“More so,” he said, enigmatically. “Much more so. Then I thought it would do you good to cry. Now I wish you would. I suppose it seems odd I should say this to you. You must forgive me.”
“But why should I cry when I have no trouble?” she asked, disregarding his apology. “Besides, I don't go about bewailing my lot in life. Do you think I am unhappy?”
“Yes,” he replied, bluntly, “I do. I'll tell you what made me first think so. It was at the theatre at Christmas, when we saw 'Denise.' I was watching your face in repose.”
“It is a painful play,” she said, quietly, but her lip quivered a little, and a faint flush came into her cheek. “Besides, I was very happy that evening.”
He was sitting sideways on the bench, watching her with some earnestness. She was drawing scrawls on the gravel with the point of her parasol. Both started when they heard a harsh voice addressing them.
“Ach! You are here. Is it not a beautiful afternoon?”
It was Frau Schultz who spoke. Felicia was by her side. Raine rose to his feet, took off his hat, and uttered a pleasant commonplace of greeting. But Frau Schultz put her hand on Felicia's arm and moved away.
“We will not detain you. I am going to the dentist, and Miss Graves is accompanying me.”
So Raine lifted his hat again and resumed his seat.
“That is rough on Miss Graves,” he said, watching their retiring figures and noting the contrast between the girl's slim waist and the elder woman's broad, red and mauve spotted back. “But she is a sweet-natured girl. Isn't she?”
“Yes,” assented Katherine. “He will be a happy man who wins her.”
“You are right there,” he replied in his downright way, unconscious of the questioning pain that lay behind the woman's calm grey eyes. “Few people, I should think, could know her without loving her. Life is touching to see the relations between herself and my father.”
“You will see a great deal of her, for that reason.”
“I hope so,” he said, brightly.
Again Katherine kept down the question that struggled to leap into her eyes. There was a short silence, during which she turned idly over the leaves of the book that was in her lap. It was “Diana of the Crossways.”
“A noble book,” he said, glancing at the title. “But I never quite understand how Diana sold the secret.”
“No?” said Katherine, “I think I can tell you.”
And so she gave him of her woman's knowledge of her sex, and the time passed pleasantly, till she judged it prudent to bid him farewell.
“Ach so!” said Frau Schultz as soon as they were out of earshot, “she has begun already. It is not decent. In a little while he will become quite entangled.”
Felicia looked away and did not speak. The other went on,—
“She might have waited a fortnight, a week, and done it gradually. But the very first day—”
“Please don't let us discuss it,” said Felicia wearily.
“But I will discuss it; I am a virtuous woman, and I don't like to see such things. He is too good to fall a victim. I shall speak to the professor.”
“Do you think a gentleman like the professor would listen to you, Frau Schultz?” asked Felicia, scarcely veiling her disgust.
This was a new idea to Frau Schultz. She turned it over with some curiosity, and metaphorically sniffed at it. Then she left it alone, to Felicia's relief, and the rest of their conversation passed without allusion to the subject.
But her comments upon the meeting in the Jardin Anglais made an unpleasant impression upon the girl, revived the memory of the previous indictment of Katherine which she had rebutted with such indignation. But now, she could not regard Katherine with the same feelings of loyalty. On the contrary, the growing distrust and antagonism seemed to have come to a head. The instinct of combat was aroused in her for the first time, and she began to dislike Katherine with a younger woman's strong, active dislike.
Unconsciously to herself, the atmosphere of the pension had tainted the purity of her judgment. She had learned that little knowledge of things evil which is so dangerous. Katherine was not to her merely a rival, loving Raine Chetwynd with a fair, pure love like her own, but a scheming woman, one of those to whom love is a pastime, occupation, vanity—she knew not what—but still a thing unhonoured and conferring no honour on the man. And, as the days went on, this attitude became more definite, gaining stability in measure as the woman within her took the place of the child. The thought, too, took shape: why should she not use maidenly means to keep him by her side, when Katherine used unworthy ones? And with the thought her ashamedness wore off, and she began to battle bravely for her love.
Katherine could not help noticing these signs of active rivalry. At first she was hurt. She would have dearly liked to retain Felicia's friendship. But what could she do?
She was in her room one morning when the sound of a carriage drawing up in the street below, struck upon her ear. Out of idle curiosity she stepped upon the little balcony and looked down. Old Mr. Chetwynd, Raine and Felicia were going out for a drive. She watched them settle themselves laughingly in their places, and smiled not unkindly at Felicia's young radiant face. But as they drove off, Felicia glanced up, caught sight of her, and the expression changed. Its triumph smote Katherine with a sense of pain. She retired from the balcony wearily. A vague fancy came to her to go away from Geneva, to leave the field open for Felicia. She dallied with it for a moment. And then the fierce reaction set in.
No. A thousand times no. Why should she be quixotic? Whoever in the world had acted quixotically towards her? Her life had been wrecked—up to now, without one gleam of light in any far-off haven. She had been tossed about by the waves, an idle derelict. Only lately had hope come. It was a wild, despairing hope, at the best—but it had kept her alive for the past six months Why should she give way to this young girl—untouched, untroubled save by this one first girlish fancy? All the world was before her, waiting with its tributes to throw at the feet of her youth and fairness and charm. In a few months she would go out into it again, leave the Pension Boccard and its narrowing life for ever. In a year it would be but a memory, Raine Chetwynd but a blushing episode. Many men would love her. She would have her pick of the noblest. Why should she herself then yield her single frail hope to her who had so many fair ones?
She clung with passionate insistence to this self-justification. Since her lot of loneliness had fallen upon her, she had accepted it implicitly, never sought to form ties of even the most delicate and ephemeral nature. She had contemplated the grey, loveless, lonely stretch of future years as the logical consequence of the past, and sometimes its stern inevitableness crushed her. Life for life, which had the greater need of joy—her own or that of the young girl? The law of eternal justice seemed to ring answer in her heart—as it has rung in the heart of every daughter of Hagar since the world began.
Late that evening she was standing on the balcony outside the salon. They had passed a merry evening. A concert-singer from London, who had arrived the day before, had good-naturedly sung for them. Old Mr. Chetwynd had been witty and charming. Commandant Pornichon had told, with Gascon verve, stories of camp and war. Raine had talked and laughed in his wholehearted way. Everyone had been gay, good-tempered. Felicia had been in buoyant mood, adding her fresh note to the talk; had even addressed to her a few laughing words. One by one all had left the salon. The last had been Mme. Popea, who had remained for a quiet chatter with her about the events of the evening. She was alone now, in the moonlight, feeling less at war with herself than during the day. Laughter and song are good for the heart. She leant her cheek on her elbow and mused. Perhaps she was a wicked woman to try to come between a girl and her happiness. After all, would not the sacrifice of self be a noble thing?
But suddenly she heard the salon door open and an entering footstep that caused her heart to leap within her. With an incontrollable impulse she moved and showed herself at the window.
“How delightful to find you!” exclaimed Raine. “I came almost on a forlorn hope.”
“I stayed to sentimentalize a little in the moonlight,” said Katherine. “I thought you had gone to thecafé.”
“No; I have been sitting with my father,” he said, pulling a chair on to the balcony and motioning her to it. “And then, when I left him, I thought it would be pleasant to talk to you—so I came. I have not had a word with you all day.”
“I have missed our argument too,” admitted Katherine. “So you had a pleasant expedition?”
“Very,” said Raine. “But I wished you had been there.”
“You had your father and Felicia.”
“That was the worst of it,” he said laughingly. “They are so much in love with one another, that I was the third that makes company nought.”
He talked about the drive to Vevey, the habits and customs of the Swiss, digressed into comparisons between the peasant classes of various countries. Katherine, who had wandered over most of the beaten track in Europe, supplied his arguments with illustrations. She loved to hear him talk. His knowledge was wide and accurate, his criticisms vigorous. The strength of his intellectual fibre alone differentiated him, in her eyes, from ordinary men. His vision was so clear, his touch upon all subjects so firm, and yet, at need, so delicate; she felt herself so infinitely little of mind compared with him. They talked on till past midnight; but long ere that the conversation had drifted around things intimately subjective.
As they parted for the night at the end of Katherine's corridor, she could not help saying to him somewhat humbly,—
“Thank you for the talks. You do not know how I value them. They lift me into a different atmosphere.”
Raine looked at her a little wonderingly. Her point of view had never occurred to him. Thoroughly honest and free from vanity of every kind, he could not even now quite comprehend it.
“It is you who raise me,” he replied. “To talk with you is an education in all fine and delicate things. How many women do you think there are like you?”
His words rang soothingly in her ear until she slept. In the morning she seemed to wake to a newer conception of life.
And as the days went by, and their talks alone together on the balcony, in the Jardin Anglais, and where not, deepened in intimacy, and the nature of the man she loved unfolded itself gradually like a book before her perceptive feminine vision, this conception broadened into bolder, clearer definition. Hitherto she had been fiercely maintaining her inalienable right to whatever chance of happiness offered itself in her path. Now she felt humbled, unworthy, a lesser thing than he, and her abasement brought her a sweet, pure happiness. At first she had loved him, she scarce knew why, because he was he, because her heart had leapt towards him. But now the self-chastening brought into being a higher love, tender and worshipping, such as she had dreamed over in a lonely woman's wistful reveries. She lost the sense of rivalry with Felicia, strove in unobtrusive ways to win back her friendship. But Felicia, sweet and effusive to others, to Katherine remained unapproachable.
At last a great womanly pity arose in Katherine's heart. The victory that she was ever becoming more conscious of gaining awakened all her generous impulses and tendernesses. Her love for Raine had grown too beautiful a thing to allow of unworthy thrills of triumph.
For the rest, it was a happy sunlit time. The past faded into dimness. She lived from day to day blinded to all but the glowing radiance of her love.
Raine met her one day going with a basket on her arm up the streets of the old town by the cathedral. He had fallen into the habit of joining her with involuntary unceremoniousness when she was alone, and it did not occur to her as anything but natural that he should join her now and walk by her side. At the door of the basement where Jean-Marie and his wife dwelt, she paused.
“This is the end of my journey. My old people live here.”
“I am quite envious of them,” said Raine.
He had scarcely spoken, when the old woman hobbled across the road from one of the opposite houses, and came up to Katherine with smiling welcome in the wrinkles of her old, lined face.
She had not expected madame so soon after her last visit. It was Jean-Marie who was going to be happy. Would Madame enter? And Monsieur? Was he the brother of Madame?
Katherine explained, with a bright flush on either cheek and a quick little glance of embarrassment at Raine, who laughed and added his word of explanation. He was a great friend of Madame's. She had often spoken to him of Jean-Marie.
The old woman looked at him, the eternal feminine in her not dulled by years, and liked his smiling face.
“If I could dare to ask Monsieur if he would condescend to enter with Madame—?”
He sought a permissive glance from Katherine, and accepted the invitation.
“I did not mean—” began Katherine in a low voice as they were following the old woman down the dark stairs.
“It will delight me,” replied Raine. “Besides, I shall envy them no longer.”
After a few moments her embarrassment wore off, as she saw the old paralytic's first Swiss shyness melt away under Raine's charm. It was Raine's way, as the old professor had said once to Felicia, to get behind externals and to set himself in sympathy with all whom he met. And Katherine, though she had not heard this formulated, felt the truth unconsciously. He talked as if he had known Jean-Marie from infancy. To listen to him one would have thought it was the simplest thing in the world to entertain an ignorant old Swiss peasant. Katherine had never loved him so much as she did that hour.
She was full of the sense of it when they were in the street again—of his tenderness, simplicity, human kindness.
“How they adore you!” he said suddenly.
The words and tone startled her. The aspect she herself had presented was the last thing in her thoughts. The tribute, coming from him in the midst of her silent adoration of him himself, brought swiftly into play a range of complex feelings and the tears to her eyes. He could not help noticing their moisture.
“What a tender heart you have!” he said in his kind way, falling into inevitable error.
“It is silly of me,” she replied with a bright smile.
She could not undeceive him. Often a woman by reason of her sex has to receive what she knows is not her due. But she compensates the eternal justice of things by giving up more of her truest self to the man. A few moments later, however, on their homeward walk, she tried to be conscientious.
“I cannot bear you to praise me—as you do sometimes.”
“Why?”
A man, even the most sympathetic, is seldom satisfied unless he has reasons for everything. Katherine, in spite of her seriousness, smiled at the masculine directness. She replied somewhat earnestly,—
“Because I do not deserve it in the first place, and in the second, it means so much more, coming from you.”
“I said that those old folks adore you, and that you are tender-hearted,” he answered conclusively; “and both facts are true, and it would be a bad day for anyone but yourself who gainsaid them.”
Of the development of human phenomena, two truisms may be stated. First, a man can seldom gauge its progress, the self of to-day differing so infinitely little from the self of yesterday. And secondly, the climax is seldom reached by a man's own initiative. He seems blindly and unconsciously to depend upon that law of averages which assigns an indefinite number of external contingencies to act upon and to complete any given process.”
Raine had jotted down this among some rough notes for a series of lectures in Metaphysics he was preparing, when his father's voice broke a silence that had lasted nearly an hour.
“I am reading that letter you wrote to ——.”
“Which letter?” asked Raine.
As the old man did not reply at first, but continued reading the letter which he held out before him, Raine closed his note-book, and went round behind his father's chair, and looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, that one. You must have thought me idiotic. I half fancy I did it to puzzle you.”
“I wasn't puzzled, my dear boy. I guessed. And does the magnet still attract?”
It was the first time he had referred to the matter. His voice was a little husky as he asked the question—it seemed to be a liberty that he was taking with Raine. He looked up at him deprecatingly, touching the hand that was on his shoulder.
“Don't think me an inquisitive old man,” he added, smiling to meet the affectionate look on his son's face.
“Yes, I am attracted—very much,” said Raine. “More than I had conceived possible.”
“I am so glad—she too is drawn to you, Raine.”
“I think so too—sometimes. At others she baffles me.”
“You would like to know for certain?”
“Of course,” said Raine with a laugh. There seemed a humorous side to the discussion. The loved old face wore an expression of such concern.
“Then, Raine—if you really love her—I can tell you—she has given you her heart, my son. I had it from her own lips.”
The laugh died away from Raine's eyes. With a quick movement, he came from behind his father and stood facing him, his brows knitted.
“What do you mean, father?” he asked very earnestly.
“Felicia—she is only waiting, Raine.”
“Felicia!”
“Yes. Who else?”
Raine passed his hand through his hair and walked to and fro about the room, his hands dug deep in his pockets. The old man followed him with his eyes, anxiously, not comprehending.
Suddenly Raine stopped short before him.
“Father, I haven't been a brute. I haven't trifled with her. I never suspected it. I liked her for her own sake, because she is a bright, likeable girl—and I am fond of her for your sake. But I have never, to my knowledge, led her to suppose—believe me.”
And then the old man saw his plans for Raine's future fall in desolation round him like a house of cards.
“I don't understand,” he said rather piteously, “if she is the attraction—”
“It is not little Felicia.”
“Ah!” said the old man, with the bitter pang of disappointment.
He rested his head on his hand, dejectedly.
“I had set my heart upon it. That was why, the first day you came, I spoke of her coming back to Oxford with us. Poor little girl! Heaven knows what will happen to her, when I tell her.”
“Tell her! You mustn't do that, dad. She must learn it for herself. It will be best for her. I will be very careful—very careful—she will see—and her pride will come to her help. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go away—for an indefinite time. Rogers and three men are climbing in Switzerland. I shall pack up my things and go and join them to-morrow; I have a list of their dates.”
He searched for it among the papers in his pocket-book.
“Chamonix! Their being so close will be a good excuse. When I come back—it will only be for a short time—this break will make it easier to modify my attitude.”
“Let us think what would be best,” said the professor with an old man's greater slowness of decision.
“I have made up my mind,” said Raine. “I go to-morrow.”
Just then a rap was heard at the door, and a moment afterwards Felicia appeared, bringing her daily task of copy. She handed the professor the manuscript—and while he looked through it mechanically, she stood like a school-girl before her master, with clasped hands, waiting pleasurably for the little word of praise.
“There is going to be a specially gorgeousfêteon the lake to-night, Mr. Chetwynd,” she said brightly, turning to Raine.
“Won't it be like the other one?”
“Oh, much more so! There is a royal Duke of somewhere or other staying at the National, and the municipality mean to show him what they can do. I am so fond of thesefêtes venétiennes. You're coming, aren't you, professor?”
“I don't know, my dear,” replied the old man. “The night air isn't good for me.” Then he added, closing the manuscript, “It is beautifully done. I shall grudge giving it to the printers.”
“But you'll get it all back again,” said Felicia. “Send it to me afterwards, and I'll bind it up beautifully with blue ribbon.”
She gave them each a little nod of farewell and tripped lightly out of the room. The two men looked at each other, rather sadly.
“Oh, Raine—is it too late? Couldn't you?”
“No, dad,” said Raine. “I am afraid other things are too serious.”
Later in the day he opened his note-book and his eye fell upon the last fragment he had scribbled. He threw it upon his dressing-table with an exclamation of impatience. The personal application of his aphorisms was too sudden and obvious to be pleasant.
There was no doubt now in his mind as to the face that attracted him to Geneva. It had vanished on the first day of his arrival, when he had seen Katherine comforting the hurt child. He was conscious too that it had been Katherine all along, at Oxford, whose memory had haunted him, that he had only evoked that of Felicia in order to enable him to deceive himself. He had practised the self-delusion systematically, whenever his thoughts had drifted away from the work and interests that surrounded him. He had made light of the matter, treated it jestingly, grown angry when it obtruded itself seriously on his thoughts. For he had shrunk, with the instinctive fear of a man of strong nature, from exposing to the touch a range of feelings which had once brought him great sorrow. To love meant to bring into play a man's emotions, infinitely deeper than those of a boy, and subject to far more widely-reaching consequences. For this reason he had mocked at the idea of being in love with Katherine, had forced himself, since the power that drew him to Geneva could not be disregarded, to consider Felicia as an equal component, and at the time of his light confidence to Mrs. Monteith, had almost persuaded himself that he was indulging in a whimsical holiday fancy.
But he could delude himself no longer. From the first meeting he knew that it was not the young girl, but the older, deeper-natured woman that had stirred him. He had felt kindly and grateful to her for his father's sake; but there his feelings had stopped. Whereas, with Katherine, he had been drifting, he knew not whither. The process of subjective development had been brought suddenly to its climax by his father's words. He realized that he loved Katherine.
To fly away from Geneva at this moment was particularly unpleasant—necessitating almost the rending of his heart-strings. But as he had decided, he sent a telegram to Rogers at Chamonix, secured a place in the next morning's diligence, and packed his Gladstone-bag and knapsack. He was sincerely sorry for Felicia. No decent, honest man can learn that a girl has given him her heart in vain, without a certain amount of pain and perplexity.
“And to think that I have been such a blind idiot as never even to suspect it?” he exclaimed with a vicious jerk of the bag-strap, which burst it, and thereby occasioned a temporary diversion.
“I passed you this afternoon and you did not see me,” said Felicia as they were going in to dinner. “You were in the diligence office.”
“Yes,” said Raine, “I was engaging a seat to Chamonix. I am going climbing with some Oxford people.”
“When do you start?”
“To-morrow,” said Raine. “I think I may be away some weeks.”
He could not help noticing the look of disappointment in her eyes, and the little downward droop of her lips. He felt himself a brute for telling her so abruptly. However, he checked the impulse, which many men, in a similar position, have obeyed, out of mistaken kindness, to add a few consoling words as to his return, and took advantage of the general bustle of seat-taking to leave her and go to his place at the opposite side of the table.
Many new arrivals had come to the pension during the last few days. Colonel Cazet and his wife had joined their friends the Pornichons; several desultory tourists, whose names no one knew, made their appearance at meal-times, and vanished immediately afterwards. When questioned concerning them, Mme. Boccard would reply:
“Oh, des Américains!” as if that explained everything.
In addition to these, Mr. Skeogh, the commercial gentleman who had surrendered to Frau Schultz's seductions, had this evening introduced a friend who was passing through Geneva. By virtue of his position as visitor of a guest, Mme. Boccard placed him at the upper end of the table between Frâulein Klinkhardt and Mme. Popea, instead of giving him a seat at the foot, by herself, where new arrivals sat, and whence, by the rules of the pension, they worked their way upwards, according to seniority.
There were twenty-one guests that night. Mme. Boccard turned a red, beaming face to them, disguising with smiles the sharp directing glances kept ever upon the summer waiter and his assistant. The air was filled with a polyglot buzz, above which could be heard the great voices of the old soldiers and the shrill accents of the Americans fresh from the discovery of Chillon. At the head of the table, however, where the older house-party were gathered, reigned a greater calm. Both Mr. Chetwynd and Felicia were silent. Raine conversed in low tones with Katherine, on America, where she had lived most of her younger life. She very rarely alluded to her once adopted nationality, preferring to be recognized as an Englishwoman, but Raine was recording his impressions of a recent visit to New York, and her comments upon his criticisms were necessary. Around them the general topic was thefête venétiennethat was to take place on the lake. To Mr. Skeogh, who had never seen one, Frau Schultz gave hyperbolic description. Mr. Wanless, a grizzled and tanned middle-aged man, with a cordless eyeglass and a dark straggling moustache, who had travelled apparently all over the world, rather pooh-poohed the affair as childish, and, in a lull in the talk, was heard describing a Nautch-dance to Mme. Popea.
It seemed commonplace enough, this pension dinner-party. Hundreds such were at that moment in progress all through Switzerland, differing from each other as little as the loads of any two consecutive London omnibuses on the same route. Yet to more than one person it was ever memorable.
Little Miss Bunter, who sat next to Felicia, had grown happier of late. The summer had warmed her blood. Also she had lately received an eight-page letter from Burmah which had brought her much consolation. There was a possibility, it hinted, of the marriage taking place in the spring. She had already consulted Katherine as to the trousseau, and had made cuttings fromModern Societyof the description of fashionable weddings during the past two months. Having these hopes within her, and one of the new dresses chosen by Katherine, without, she looked much fresher than usual this evening. Her sandy hair seemed less lifeless, her complexion less sallow. She did not speak much, being constitutionally timid. Her opinions were such weak, frail things, that she was afraid of sending them forth into the rough world. But she listened with animated interest to the various conversations. Raine's talk particularly interested her. She had a vague idea that she was improving her mind.
“It struck me,” Raine was saying, “that culture in America was chiefly in the hands of the women—more so even than it is in our own strictly business circles. And nearly all New York is one great business circle.”
“Were you long in the States, sir?” asked Mr. Skeogh, who had been silent for some time.
“Oh no,” said Raine, looking over towards him, “only a few weeks. My remarks are from the merest superficial impressions.”
“It is a fine country,” said Mr. Skeogh.
Raine acquiesced politely.
“I do not like the country,” said Frau Schultz, thus making the topic a fairly general one. “There is no family life. The women are idle. They are not to my taste.”
“What a blessing!” murmured Katherine in a low voice, to which Raine replied by an imperceptible smile. But aloud she said: “I don't think American women are idle. They give their wits and not their souls to housekeeping. So they order their husbands' dinners and see to the washing of their babies just as well as other women; but they think that these are duties that any rational creature can perform without letting them absorb their whole interests in life.”
“A woman's duty is to be a good housewife,” said Frau Schultz dictatorially, in her harshest accent. “In Germany it is so.”
“But is not the party of progress in Germany trying to improve the position of women?” asked Mr. Wanless with a securing grip of his eyeglass.
“It cannot be improved,” said Frau Schultz.
“That is a matter of opinion,” replied Mr. Wanless. “When elegant ladies haveDamen-lectüreespecially written for them, and when peasant women are harnessed to a cart by the side of the cow, while the husband walks behind smoking his cigar—I think a little improvement is necessary somewhere.”
He spoke in a clear, authoritative voice, commanding attention.
“Have you been in Germany?” asked Frau Schultz.
“I have been all over the world—travelled continuously for twenty years. Somehow the position of women has interested me. It is an index to the sociology of a country.”
“Which is the most interesting one you know from that point of view?” asked old Mr. Chetwynd, who had been following the conversation.
“Burmah,” replied Mr. Wanless. “It is the anomaly of the East. Germany could learn many lessons from her.”
“Is the position of women very high there?” asked Miss Bunter, timidly, the mention of Burmah having stimulated her interest to the pitch of speaking.
“Oh yes!” returned Mr. Wanless, laughing. “A wife is the grey mare there with a vengeance.”
A faint flush came into Miss Bunter's cheek.
“But it does not matter to the English people who live there, does it?”
Mr. Wanless assured her, amid the general smile, that English people carried their own laws and customs with them. Miss Bunter relapsed into a confused yet pleased silence. The talk continued, became detached and desultory again. Miss Bunter no longer listened, but nerved herself up to a great effort. At last, when a lull came, she moistened her lips with some wine, and leant across the table, catching the traveller's eye.
“Have you lived long in Burmah?”
“Yes. I have just come from an eighteen-months' stay there.”
“I wonder if you ever met a Mr. Dotterel there?”
“I know a man of that name,” said Mr. Wanless, smiling. “But Burmah is an enormous place, you know. My friend is an F. J. Dotterel—Government appointment—stationed at Bhamo!”
“That's him,” cried Miss Bunter, in suppressed and ungrammatical excitement. “How extraordinary you should know him! He is a great friend of mine.”
“A very good fellow,” said Mr. Wanless. “His wife and himself were very kind to me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Bunter. “His wife? It can't be the same—my friend is not married.”
“Oh yes he is,” laughed the traveller pleasantly. “There is only one F. J. Dotterel in the Government service at Bhamo. Married out there. Got three or four jolly little children.”
She looked at him for a moment haggardly, and grew white to the lips. The loss of blood made her face look pinched and death-like. She tried to utter some words, but only a few inarticulate sounds came from her throat. There was a moment's intense silence, every one around her knowing what had happened. Then she swayed sideways, and Felicia caught her in her arms.
She had fainted. The table rose in confusion. Amid a hubbub of voices was heard Mme. Popea's explaining to Mr. Wanless the nature of his indiscretion.
“I will carry her to her room,” said Raine, lifting her thin body in his arms. “Come and help me,” he added, signing with his head to Felicia and Katherine.
They followed him out and upstairs. He laid her down on her bed.
“You know what to do, don't you?” he said to Katherine, as he left the two with the unconscious lady.
“Poor thing. It will break her heart,” whispered Katherine, as she busied herself with the hooks and eyes and laces.
“I don't much believe in the fragility of women's hearts,” said Felicia.
“Why do you say that, Felicia?” said Katherine gently. “You know that you don't mean it.”
“Oh!” said Felicia with a little inflexion of superciliousness, “I generally say what I mean.”
Katherine did not reply, reading her well enough by her own general knowledge of human nature. We often contradict our own common sense and better impulses, for the unprofitable satisfaction of contradicting our enemy.
So when poor Miss Bunter opened her eyes and recovered consciousness, feeling sick and giddy and cold, and, seizing Felicia's hand, broke into miserable crying and sobbing, Katherine judged it wiser to leave the two of them alone together, without any further offer to share Felicia's ministrations.
When she entered the salon a little later, she found most of the party preparing to go out to see the illuminations. The little tragedy was still being discussed, and Katherine was beset by questioners. Little Miss Bunter's love story had long been common property in the pension, as she had told it to each of the ladies in the very strictest confidence.
The exodus of the guests began. Mme. Popea ran out of the room and quickly returned to Katherine's side.
“Mademoiselle Graves will not come,” she said, buttoning her glove. “Could not you go and persuade her?”
“I fear I should be of no use, Mme. Popea,” said Katherine. “I will ask Mr. Chetwynd.”
“Ah! Then she will come,” laughed Mme. Popea—and she hurried out after the Pornichons, who had asked her to accompany them.
Katherine passed by the few remaining people, chiefly ladies, standing about the room in hats and wraps, to meet Raine, who was just coming in from the balcony, where he had been smoking.
“I hear that Felicia won't go to thefête. Don't you think you could persuade her? It would do her good. She has been looking forward to it so much.”
But Raine shook his head and looked down at her, tugging his blonde moustache. It was an embarrassing request. Katherine half divined, and forbore to press the matter. She had already somewhat sacrificed her tact to her conscience.
“But you, yourself? Are you not coming?” he asked.
“No; I think I'll stay in. I feel rather too sorry for that poor little body.”
“You had better come. The brightness will cheer you.”
“I don't think I should care for it,” she replied, with her hand to her bosom, fingering a dark red rose in her dress.
Suddenly the flower fell from its stalk to the ground. She started slightly, from the unexpectedness, and, when Raine stooped and picked it up, held out her hand for it, palm upwards. But he disregarded her action and retained the rose.
“Do come!” he pleaded.
She glanced at him, met his eyes. A wave of emotion passed through her, seeming for the moment to lift her off her feet. Why should she refuse? She knew perfectly well that she would give her soul to go with him through fire and water to the ends of the earth. But she dreaded lest he should know it.
“Would you really like me to come?”
“You know I should.”
She went to put on her things. Raine stepped on to the balcony to wait for her. He could see the pale reflection of the illuminations, and hear the noise of the people, and the faint sound of music broken by the cracking of a cabman's whip in the street below. For a moment his surroundings seemed to him unreal, as they do to a man gliding over the edge of a precipice.
“I wonder what is going to happen?” he said to himself.