When it drew nearer they saw that it was a woman. Harriet gave a great gasp of relief. A moment later it had come quite close to them. And both saw simultaneously that the woman wore a white feather and a scarlet shawl.
She passed them suspiciously; she was an independent-looking, weather-beaten female of some forty wintry winters—all angles and frost. After a moment she halted, and hesitatingly retraced her steps.
The last glow paled away from the horizon. In the ashen grayness it even seemed to Ursula that the little breeze from the marshes blew cold. The long road lay motionless, gradually shortening into night.
“A fine evening, young ladies,” said the red-shawled female, stopping abruptly near them, and suddenly opening an enormous parasol; “but it’s getting late.”
“It’s not much beyond eight,” replied Ursula, for want of an answer.
“Nine minutes,” said the female, with precision. “Nine full minutes past 8P.M.Perhaps I may remark to you, ladies, that this spot is unhealthy after sunset—very particularly unhealthy. The back-sillies, as modern science calls them, come up from the water and produce injurious smells. If I were you I should be careful—very particularly careful.” She turned on one heel, but suddenly bethought herself.
“I,” she said, nodding her head—the white feather waved—“am compelled by the call of duty to remain. I am waiting for some one—an engagement.” She spoke the last word with triumphant pomposity. Its double meaning evidently furnished her extreme satisfaction. She repeated it twice, and jingled a small reticule depending from a cotton-gloved wrist.
“I know of a case,” she went on immediately, seeing that neither girl moved or spake,“when a young person (much of your age) spent an evening out here in this wood. Her reasons for doing so I distinctly decline to enter into. They were not laudable, you may be sure; no young girl’s would be. Well, she caught the myasthma and died. Shedied.”
“THE GIRLS WALKED ON IN SILENCE”
“THE GIRLS WALKED ON IN SILENCE”
All the time she was holding forth the speaker peered anxiously to right and left in the darkness.
“Duty,” she added, “as I told you, compels me to remain. But I do so at the risk of my health.”
“You lying old humbug!” said a deep voice behind her in the darkness. “Then what have you got that red shawl on for, eh?”
The victim to duty spun round as if shot.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, Maria?” she said. “I know whatyou’rehere for. Spying, spying; that’s your errand, you nasty, envious thing.”
“Then you’re wrong, that’s all. I’m here on a fool’s errand of my own, like yourself.”
A short, fat woman stepped into the faint reflection of a distant lantern, and they saw that she also wore a red shawl! Not even courtesy could describe this lady as of “uncertain age.”
“Seems to me,” she continued, “you and I needn’t have been so mighty close with each other. Nor you needn’t have crowed over me as you did, Isabella. I don’t see that your lover was so much smarter than mine.”
“Oh, Harriet, come away,” whispered Ursula, breaking a long silence.
Harriet laughed hoarsely. “No,” she said, “I’m going to see this comedy out.”
“And as for those young ladies there,” Maria went on, “they’ve as much right to be here as we have—at least, the one with the red shawl over her arm has. Yes, my dear, you needn’t try to smuggle it away behind your neighbor. You’re here from a sense of duty, as much as ever my friend Isabella is. I wonder how many more of us have answered this advertisement?”
“One more has,” said a young voice, and a pretty, fair little creature, looking like a dress-maker’s assistant, stole from behind a tree into the ring.
“That makes five of us,” announced the fat woman, with anod to Ursula. “It was mean of you yonder to be ashamed of your colors. Well, men were deceivers ever, and, girls, we’ve been once more deceived.”
“It was I advertised first, not he,” said the pretty girl, defiantly.
“So did I,” Harriet admitted. “We may as well be fair.”
“Well, so did I, if it comes to that,” declared the fat woman. “And so did you, Isabella; we needn’t ask you. And so did that featherless girl, I dare say. I don’t see that it makes much difference. And it was Romeo de Lieven, was it, as told you all to come here?”
“All,” said the whole chorus. They had gradually drawn nearer to one of the rare street lamps which make a dismal haze at far intervals along the dark road. They stood in a circle, with unconsciously uplifted parasols, and all around them was the soft night, and the little wind, and the damp smell of the water.
“Then the best thing you can do is to go home again. Come along, Isabella, you can sing me the praises of your lover as we go.”
“I solemnly swear,” said the sour spinster, in sepulchral tones, “never to trust a man again. Ah, I could tell you a story—”
“There’s no time for that now,” interrupted her friend, briskly. “As for solemnly swearing, I don’t object. Ladies, you see what they are, these men. Imagine what would have happened to you if this Romeo had come, and any of you’d married him. No, Romeo, we will not marry. Let us promise, each one of us, after to-night’s experience, to turn our backs on them forever.”
All of them, except Ursula, lifted their arms on high. In chorus they sang out, “We promise,” and even as they did so a vehicle suddenly loomed through the darkness, a high trap, devoid of carriage lights, occupied by three or four officers in uniform.
“Way there, please,” said a voice which Ursula recognized. The women scattered on one side, all looking up involuntarily. The dim light of the lantern fell full on their faces, and, for one instant, Gerard saw Ursula’s features quite plainly. She shrankback; how she hoped that he had not recognized her! She thought not.
The dog-cart passed down the road, and presently the young men were heard laughing heartily. This masculine hilarity seemed to exasperate the buxom Maria.
“Let us bind ourselves,” she said, “to meet together next year, at this spot and this hour, and to prove to each other that each has kept her word.”
“We promise,” said the others, in taking leave.
But, when the anniversary came round, be it noted here, Maria marched to her solitary vigil. The two younger women had broken their vow, and the weather-beaten spinster much wanted them to believe that she had broken hers.
Not a word was exchanged between the two girls on their homeward way. Ursula felt heartily relieved when she found herself once more safe in the drawing-room. Harriet had a headache, and Ursula poured out tea. Mynheer Mopius took an opportunity of praising her concoction as a set-off against Harriet’s.
“Of course it’s her fault,” he argued, “not that of the tea. How could it be?—best Java imported.”
“Uncle Jacóbus,” began Ursula, emboldened by this approval, “I don’t care about the opera to-morrow. I’d as lief stay at home.” Her hand trembled, and she blushed crimson.
Mynheer Mopius set down his teacup cautiously, for it was best Japan. “Well, of all the deceiving minxes!” he said. “And to hear her go on this afternoon in the carriage! Ursula, youareinsincere.”
Mevrouw Mopius sat quite motionless. Her niece did not venture to glance her way.
“Well, of course,” said Mynheer, in the silence, “youmust know. I’m not such a fool as to waste my money, and no thanks for my pains. After I’d sent round to the stationer’s, too, for the book of words you said you would like to have. I’m very much disappointed in you, Ursula. I can’t make it out.”
“Operas aren’t really good,” piped Mevrouw Mopius’s tremulous voice.“They’re not a bit like real life. I never had anything happen to me like an opera.”
Mynheer Mopius slapped his knee. “I have it,” he cried; “it’s some religious nonsense of your father’s. Well, if it don’t rise to the surface quicker, there can’t be much of it. Come along, wife, I can’t bear to think of her. Come along; let’s play and sing.”
Mevrouw Mopius staggered to her feet. Ursula remained in the half-light of the front room. Husband and wife spent the rest of the evening at the piano.
“Dear love, for thee I would lay down my li-i-ife,For without thee what would that life avail?If thy hand but lift the fatal kni-i-ife,I smile, I faint, and bid sweet death all hail,”
“Dear love, for thee I would lay down my li-i-ife,For without thee what would that life avail?If thy hand but lift the fatal kni-i-ife,I smile, I faint, and bid sweet death all hail,”
sang Mynheer Mopius. And Ursula listened. And Mevrouw Mopius played.
OTTO’S WOOING
“Plush,” said the Baroness van Helmont, addressing her silken favorite, “it is a terrible thing to have an incompatible child.”
Plush made no answer, but from the other end of the room came Otto’s reply: “I can’t help it, mother. I suppose you made me what I am.”
“I? Never in my life. I could not have produced anything so strong. Plush and I, we are in harmony; we take the same view of existence.”
She languidly entangled her fingers in the meshes of her darling’s soft white hair. The lapdog, on her crimson cushion, laid two delicate little slender-wristed paws, that looked as if encased in a perfect fit ofpeau de Suède, over a bright black button of a nose. The pair of them, lady and lapdog, looked born to undulate.
“You are resolved, then,” continued the Baroness, “to return to Java as soon as you again get tired of us.”
“Tired of you! Mother!” His emotion made him both unable and unwilling to say more.
“Tired or not, in a few months you will once more leave us. Otto, it will break your father’s heart.”
This prophecy Otto considered a decidedly doubtful one.
“I never understood why you first went,” continued the Baroness.“Gerard stays. Everybody I know stays. Fifteen years ago you must suddenly resolve to learn gentleman-farming in Germany. It sounds so silly, ‘gentleman-farming.’ They call it ‘economy’ over there—I suppose the name pleased you—and after a year or two you came back and said it couldn’t be done without plenty of money. A charming economy. It is as good as a farce!”
“That is true, Otto, is it not?” she added, petulantly, after a pause.
“Quite true,” he replied, helplessly, sitting forward on a little boudoir chair, his brown hands hanging joined between his heavy legs.
“Well, then, after that you must hurry away to plant tea in the Indies, as if there were not enough common people to do that! And doing it, too. I never heard of a break-down in the tea-supply. And now you have been busied there for a dozen years, and what’s the profit to you or to any one? You’re no richer, and tea’s not even cheaper. So you’ve benefited neither your neighbor nor yourself.” The Baroness sighed. Plush sighed also, her whole little pink-tinted body a sob of lethargic content.
“But I’ve been earning an honest living,” burst out Otto, desperately. It was all so useless; he had said it so often before! “At least I’ve not been droning through my whole life, spending father’s money, and knowing all the time that in fact there was no money to spend. Of course, I’d hoped to come back richer from India, but you can’t understand about the crisis in the tea-trade, mother.”
“No, indeed,” said the Baroness.
“At any rate, however, I’ve paid my way. I’ve not lived, as Gerard does, in a constant entanglement of bills and loans. I don’t depend for my daily bread on the mercy of the Jews.”
“Nor does Gerard, thank Heaven! though he may for his daily champagne!” cried the Baroness, her irrepressible sprightliness bubbling uppermost.“And the Jews, as your father always says, are a dispensation of Providence for the survival of the fittest. He doesn’t mean themselves. They keep the old families above water till smoother times work round again. Look at the Van Utrechts, for instance; the only son tried to commit suicide for want of a friendly Jew! And four months later he married a Rotterdam oil-merchant’s daughter. That’s what Gerard will do; only, in his case, I do hope and pray that the man who made the money will be a generation farther off. And on the mother’s side.” The Baroness sank back reflectively, and, for the hundredth time, a procession of ticketed young ladies passed before her pale blue eyes.
“Otto,” she said, “you know the desire of our hearts. It is that you marry Helena van Trossart. Then we should say, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’”
“Catch my father saying that,” cried Otto, roughly, with holy horror in his honest eyes.
The Baroness stopped him by an imperious gesture.
“I don’t know what you mean, Otto,” she said. “Please don’t be profane. Yes, I desire above all things to see this marriage consummated. Gerard will do well in any case. And, after all, it is you who will one day be Baron Helmont of the Horst. You, our first, our eldest.” She checked herself, holding out her thin white hand, and her eyes were full of love.
Otto took the hand in his own and kissed it.
“You mighttry, Otto,” continued the Baroness. “You don’t know her; she was a child when you went away. There is no sense in your refusing to find out whether you could like her or not. The marriage would end all difficulties for good, and you could remain with us.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Otto, heavily.
“Supposing you were to go to Drum to-day, and see them. You might stay over their dance, which is to-morrow night. It would be a pretty attention. I feel sure the coast is clear, and she thinks you interesting. She told me so herself, when they dined here; she considers your life one long romance.”
“Romance is the word,” said Otto. “Well, mother, I’m willing to go.” He took up theGraphicfrom a side-table, and silence brooded over the trio till the Baron came in.
“My dear,” said the Baron, eagerly, his eyes alight, “I must just show you this; the carrier brought it. It’s Feuillet’sJeune Homme Pauvre, with the original drawings by Mouchot. Isn’t it charming? I had it over from Fontaine.”
The Baroness took the volume, disturbing Plush.
“Yes,” she replied, as she turned over the pages. “It’s very nice. But I can’t help preferring my old friend, Johannot.”
“How unkind!” said the Baron, plaintively,“Johannot couldn’t be expected to illustrate everything, especially not the books that were written after he died.”
He turned to his son.
“I sha’n’t show it to you, Otto, for you’d only ask how much it cost.”
“Oh, don’t,” interposed the Baroness.
“And yet this is quite a bargain. Only 625 francs, and the binding by David.”
“My dear, I don’t care. Besides, I have forgotten already.”
“Lucky woman,” the Baron laughed. “I, at least, must remember till it’s paid. What’s the matter, Jan?”—this to a servant who appeared in the open door. “You can clear away the papers on the library floor.”
“There’s a poor woman at the kitchen entrance asking to see you, sir,” said the man. “She says you know all about her. Her name is Vrouw Klop, from the cottages by Horstwyk Mill.”
“I never heard of the creature in my life!” cried the Baron.
“I know her,” remarked Mevrouw, quietly. “Her husband drinks.”
“Saving your presence, Mevrouw,” said Jan, without moving a muscle, “she says her husband’s been dead these seven years.”
“Well, if he had lived, he’d have drunk,” replied the Baroness, indifferently. “And, besides, if she’s been a widow so long she must have children earning something.”
Otto got up and walked towards the window.
“Send her away,” exclaimed the Baron. “It’s like her insolence, asking for me!”
“She says she has a letter from the Burgomaster, mynheer,” gently persisted the servant. Menials are always pamperedly insolent to mendicants or aggressively sympathetic regarding them. They are never indifferent.
“Then why didn’t you bring it up? Why doesn’t she go to the relieving officer? I can’t be bothered. There, give her a twopenny bit, and let her go.”
Otto stood at the window, looking out.
“The people are unendurable,” said the Baron, as the servantdeparted. “Always wanting something, and always asking for it. As if it were our duty to supply unlimited gin!”
“Yes,” replied the Baroness, “and the respectable poor never beg. This illustration is charming, Theodore; I think it is the best of all. What a sweet face the girl has!”
She held up the beautiful blue morocco volume to the light.
Otto stood at the window, looking out.
Helena van Trossart belonged to one of the most influential families in Holland. Her mother had been a sister of the Baron van Helmont; both mother and father were long since dead. She lived with an uncle and aunt on the other side, Trossarts, like herself, and rich, like herself, with Trossart money. The uncle and aunt were childless, and affectionately interested in their beautiful heiress, of whom they felt proud to think as the greatestpartiin the province. The Baroness was portly and comfortable; she had never known any but comfortable people all her life. The Baron, a fine old gentleman with silver-striped hair, was concerned in the government of the country, which means that he occupied his time in procuring lucrative posts for his wife’s poor relations, of whose poverty he lived in monotonous dread.
The fine old double mansion which the Van Trossarts inhabited stood on a green canal behind a sombre row of chestnuts. Grass grew between the paving-stones, and iron chains swung heavily from post to post. Not a street boy passed but pulled those chains. The street boy of Holland is unparalleled in Europe, a pestilence that walketh in darkness, and a destruction that wasteth at noonday, but here you could hardly take offence at him, for he imparted an element of liveliness to as dead a corner as dull respectability could desire to dwell in. The outside of the house wore that aspect of dignified dilapidation which is characteristic of hereditary wealth. Inside nothing was new, except in Helena’s apartments, nor was anything worn out.
“Mamma,” said the Freule Helena—she called her foster-mother “mamma”—“I have a note from Gerard. He asks whether he may bring Otto round to lunch in half an hour’s time. Otto, it appears, has turned up for the day. The orderly is waiting. I suppose I had better say yes.”
“Stop a moment while I ring and ask how many pigeons there are,” replied the Baroness, who was eminently practical.
“You wouldn’t keep them away because of that!” cried Helena, laughing.
“Indeed I should. Gerard detests cold meat. And there’s nothing a man resents like getting what he doesn’t eat in a house where his tastes are known. You’ve asked people enough unexpectedly already.”
“Only Georgetta van Troyen and her brother. That was to escape a tête-à-tête with Mechteld van Weylert. We shall be quite a small party.”
“I don’t mind large parties, like to-morrow’s,” replied Mevrouw van Trossart, turning from a confabulation with her confidential maid. “Well, tell them to come. Ann, just say to the man, ‘My compliments, and the Jonkers[E]are welcome.’ You are terribly gay, child; you can’t bear a moment of quiet.”
“Dear mamma, did you want me to sit all the afternoon opposite Maggie van Weylert? Confess though she is your niece, you would not do it yourself. With some women conversation is just contradiction. And there are few people outside this house, except Gerard, I care to be alone with. No guest, or a number, that is my view.”
“Gerard would feel flattered,” replied the Baroness, smiling over her plump hands. “You had better not tell him, or he will ask you to afford him the opportunity of being alone together for life.”
“How terrible! Mamma, you are perfectly ruthless. There is not a creature in the world, not even myself, I am fond enough of for that. Besides, surely one should never marry a man one likes to be alone with; it is the most fatal way of dying to society at once.” She laughed, and threw back the yellow curls from her blue-veined forehead; she was all pink and gold, like a bunch of wild rose and laburnum.“What I should like to do,” she went on, “would be to marry Otto, and flirt with Gerard and other people. But, of course, it would be horribly improper, and it couldn’t be done.”
“Don’t be silly,” remonstrated the Baroness van Trossart, trying to frown. “You are getting too old, Nellie, for saying things you ought to be ashamed of. Now go and get ready.”
“I am half Otto’s age,” replied the girl, rising.
“That may be. But aningénueshould die at nineteen. We women, my dear, are inverted butterflies, and marriage is our chrysalis, as your future mother-in-law said the other night. I can’t imagine where she gets her sayings from, I suppose she reads them somewhere. But neither she nor I would like to see a Baroness van Helmont who wasingénue.”
Helena paused in the doorway. “Would you like me,” she asked, “some day, to be Baroness van Helmont?”
“My dear, you might be a worse thing. Personally, if you ask me, I should certainly prefer Otto, little as I know of him, to Gerard. Of Gerard I should say, ‘Pour le badinage, bon. Pour le mariage, non.’ And then, Otto is the better match, the future Baron. You two could restore, together, the glories of the Horst.”
Helena had stood listening, thoughtfully. Thought did not suit her soft-featured, facile face.
“But you must do what you like, and decide for yourself,” added her aunt, “as, with your character, you certainly will.”
“I thought I was so yielding,” protested Helena.
“You are, my dear, except when you care.”
“Then it’s you that have spoiled me,” answered Helena, tripping off.
The Baroness looked after her. “Dear girl,” she said to herself. “It will end in her marrying Gerard, I fancy. The book-writers may say what they like, but the woman who can, always marries for love.”
A few minutes later her husband came in. “My dear,” he said,“some of my papers are missing. I wish you would tell Mary to mind what she’s about.”
“Yes, my dear,” she replied, without looking up. Some of his papers were always missing. He always grumbled. It had come with his appointment to the high government post. For the first month or two she had fretted; then she had understood that it was part of his new importance, and she had returned to her old comfortable life. “Both the Helmonts are coming to lunch,” she said, “and one or two other people.”
“I don’t care who’s coming to lunch. I wish you minded more about my papers. They’re of very particular moment.”
“I do mind. I shall tell some one to find them at once on your table, for I’ve no doubt that they’re there. Mademoiselle”—this in French to a swarthy little lady who came gliding in—“would you mind looking for some papers Monsieur has left on his table—official papers—a dirty yellow, you know.”
“But how on earth”—began the state functionary.
“Oh, she’ll find them. She knows what your papers are like. How do you do, Georgette? Where is Willie?”
“On the stairs, I believe,” replied the young lady thus addressed, “flirting with the Freule van Weylert.”
“We should all have said ‘of course,’ Freule,” declared Gerard’s voice behind her, “had you omitted the name of the lady. Even Willie could not teach the Freule van Weylert to flirt.”
Otto was bowing silently beside his brother, with a specially deep bow for Mademoiselle Papotier, Helena’s quondam governess, who had returned, bearing the lost papers, to be welcomed by their owner with a grunt. As a rule, nobody but Helena took any notice of Mademoiselle Papotier.
They all went in to luncheon, a medley of exceptionally noisy and exceptionally silent elements. The old Baron took his seat at the head of the table, and immediately fixed his keen eyes on his food. Opposite him sat the French lady, coquettish in movements and apparel, pouring out coffee, of which no one partook. The mistress of the house strove vainly to converse with her niece Van Weylert, an angular and awkward young girl, or to draw out her other neighbor, Otto, who sat with his attention glumly concentrated on the fair object of his visit. The rest of the company were uproariously merry, led on by Gerard and his pink brother-officer, young Willie van Troyen.
Otto was wondering whatever had induced him to come. Yet, at the bottom of his heart, he knew very well. It was not so much his mother’s affectionate expostulation as the thought, ever present within him, never expressed: What will become of the Horst when my father dies? What, indeed? He had never loved the old home as he loved it since his return.
“You are coming to my dance to-morrow, I hope, Mynheer van Helmont?” said his hostess. He awoke as from a reverie. “Oh yes,” he said, “I hope so. I intend to stay at Drum for a day or two.” He was still watching his cousin; the Baroness followed his gaze, and then their eyes met.
A shout of laughter went up from the opposite side of the table. The old Baron lifted his brows.
“In my time,” he said to the shaking mass of pink muslin beside him, “we weren’t half as funny as you young people seem to be.”
“Weren’t you?” retorted Georgette van Troyen. “How slow you must have been! Too bad, not even to have had a good time in your youth! But isn’t this too amusing, this story that Willie is telling?”
The Baron returned hastily to his omelet.
“Isn’t it too amusing?” cried the young girl, appealing to Otto.
“I haven’t heard it,” said the latter; at which they all roared again. Willie was in high spirits, though Gerard was endeavoring to arrest his narration.
“Do shut up, Troy; we’ve had quite enough of it,” growled Gerard.
“No, indeed, I am mistress here!” cried Helena, her eyes sparkling with merriment. “Go on, Mynheer van Troyen; you and the Captain had agreed on the wager. And you answered the advertisements; and what happened then? The advertisements,” she called across to Otto in explanation, “were from young ladies in search of a husband.”
“From ladies,” corrected the little officer, who looked like a bibulous cherub.“Well, we got replies to our letters, and we wrote again, arranging a meeting. We convened all the aspirants—there were four of them—at the same spot, and, of course, the same hour, and we bade them dress up in red shawls and white feathers. And when we drove past, taking Gerard and another man as umpires, there they were, the whole four of them; I think there were even more!”
Renewed shrieks of laughter greeted the final sally.
“It’s too killing!” cried Helena, the tears on her cheeks. “And what were they doing? Tearing each other’s eyes out?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t wait to see. They were making a great noise, screaming at each other. I had won my champagne, and I went and drank it. I always knew these advertisements were perfectly genuine.”
“But the letters,” interposed Georgette. “You must show Helena the letters, Willie.”
“No, no, he mustn’t,” cried Gerard, energetically. “I’m sick of the whole business. Do let’s talk of something else.”
“But I’m not,” protested Helena. “It’s new to me. How selfish you are, Gerard. Don’t you think it’s awfully amusing, Otto? I’m sure you want to hear more.”
“I only want to hear one thing,” said Otto, gravely, bending forward, “and that is what Mynheer van Troyen is going to do with those letters?”
“Why, keep them, of course,” replied Willie.
“It is no business of mine, Mynheer; I have not the honor, like my brother, of being your friend. But if I were umpire, I should insist on those letters being given up and burned.”
“I suppose you don’t approve of the whole joke?” cried Gerard, hotly, forcing back his own better misgivings, swift in defence of his chum.
“It is not my province to express an opinion. Certainly not here. It is not a thing I should have done myself.”
“And the girls who advertised?” continued Gerard. “We only answered advertisements. What of them?”
“Poor things!” said Otto, softly.
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Helena.“I think it’s great fun; and for the girls, too. I should like to try the plan. Some day we must do it, Georgette. It’s a capital way of getting a husband. What freedom it leaves in the choice!”
“Surely you are not restricted, Freule,” said Willie. “You have but to fling your handkerchief wheresoever you will.”
“Oh, but I am restricted,” she replied; “for instance, I could never marry you.”
“Alas, I am sure of it,” he answered; “but why not?”
“Imagine what a combination! Helen of Troy![F]Who could live up to such an appellation?”
“You could,” he replied, fatuously. But she was not listening to him; she was looking across the table at Otto. “What a reputation!” she said. “Who could live up to it? But why was she called Hélène de Trois? There was Menelaus”—she counted on her fingers—“and Paris. But I forget who the third lover was.”
That evening Otto appeared again in the drawing-room at the Manor-house. His mother gave a cry of surprise. For a moment her heart stood still.
“I don’t care for Helena Trossart,” said Otto. “Her conversation is a perpetual dance on the tight-rope of propriety.”
“My dear boy,” replied his father, “how natural! Consider the continuous pleasure of keeping your balance.”
“Well,” said Otto, “it seems to me she came some very positive croppers. However, I’m no judge.”
He left the room; his mother ran after him.
“You haven’t asked her, Otto?” she gasped. “She hasn’t rejected you?”
“Oh no,” he said, and shut the door.
AN INDELIBLE STAIN
The next day dawned for Ursula in unclouded brightness. Those few of us who remember a youth no longer ours will forgive her the excess of an expectancy she was unable to curb by experience. She was going to an entertainment at one of the great houses of Drum. She had never been to anything so magnificent before. And Gerard, whom she had known all her life, was to be there to make things smooth for her. A slight difficulty about a chaperon had been most pleasantly removed. The Freule van Trossart had on the preceding afternoon left a card for Juffrouw Rovers, with a note saying that if she cared to come and dine before the party, she could be present at it afterwards as a house guest, under the Baroness’s wing. Ursula had accepted gladly, by no means impervious to so much condescension, and, altogether, she felt very well satisfied indeed. The night before she had written a glorious letter to her father; she had said nothing of her aunt’s ill health.
At 9A.M.there was tranquil jubilation, at 10A.M.there was sudden dismay. “I can’t wear it like this,” Ursula was saying to Harriet, with whom she had come to terms on a basis of mutual oblivion. She sat on the floor, a brown heap of perplexity. Her simple evening dress lay on the bed, with a round stain, as of grease, distressingly displayed upon its breast. It was a frock of crushed-strawberry crepon, with ripe-strawberry silk ribbons.
“No, you can’t,” asserted Harriet, full of interest and sympathy. Harriet was in her element.“You must manage to get some more of that crimson lace for the front. How can it have happened, Ursula? Something must have oozed out in your trunk.”
“But colored lace is so difficult to match,” wailed Ursula.
“So it is. Never mind. We must try.” And the two girls sallied forth on that most hopeless of errands, the only form of shopping no woman enjoys, “the matching” of colors. In every shop they entered their little scrap was held up against an incongruous variety of tints, and they were informed by the assistant that it was “exactly the shade.” One especially truthful person qualified her recommendation of a moderate scarlet by the statement that “really it was as near as you could get.” But all, without exception, were pertly offended when the girls crept hopelessly, though resolutely, away.
“It’s no use,” said Harriet at last, as they retraced their steps. But even while she spoke a sudden inspiration struck her. “Do you know what you’ll have to do, Ursula? It’s V-shaped now; well, you’ll have to make it into a low-neck.”
“Oh, I don’t like that,” cried the pastor’s daughter, reddening.
“There’s no choice left to you. How stupid of me not to think of it before. It’ll look much nicer, too.”
“But supposing we matched the ribbons?” suggested Ursula, holding out.
“You never could in this primitive place. They’re a very peculiar color. Besides, if you covered up all that space with ribbon, you’d look like a prize cow. No, the top’ll have to come off, and we must see about a dress-maker at once. There’s no time to lose.”
They turned down a by-street.
“Let us cross to the square,” said Harriet. “It’s no use taking the little woman that works for me; we must get the best help we can.”
A few moments later they entered—not without a feeling of awe, especially on Harriet’s part—the largest establishment of its kind in Drum.
“Call Miss Adeline,” said the smart personage who had listened to their piteous tale.“We don’t usually alter garments not made by ourselves. Still—”
Both of the girls gave a sudden gasp, for in the person of Miss Adeline, who came forward at this moment from far-back recesses, both simultaneously recognized the fair little maiden of the tryst.
“Mynheer Mopius, Villa Blanda,” said the black-silk manager. “Very well. Perhaps Miss Adeline had better accompany you at once. There certainly is no time to be lost.”
With feelings utterly indescribable the three walked off together.
A few moments later, Harriet having fled, Ursula sat helping the dress-maker in the oppressive silence of the “second best spare room.” The click of the scissors was becoming insupportable. Even the occasional rustle of the pendent frock seemed a relief.
“I think we have met before,” said Ursula, at last, very gently.
“Really, Juffrouw? A great many ladies come to our place,” replied the girl, bending over her work.
For a moment Ursula felt nonplussed, but her pity rose paramount.
“You know what I mean,” she said, rather sternly. And then she went on to talk about the folly and wickedness of female initiative in matters matrimonial, and her little lecture broadened into its third well-rounded sentence—
“And you,” burst in the girl, fiercely, “a rich young lady in a fine house, well looked after. You!”
So Ursula had to incriminate her absent friend, lest her moral go awry. She found a politely incredulous listener, and began to realize that, with her, it was a case of “caught together, hung together,” as the Germans say. If only Gerard had not observed her!
“I can assure you,” she said, continuing her homily, though rather disconcerted by the sudden change of front, “that I should never lift a finger to get married for the sake of being married. Every woman may rejoice if God sends her an honest lover and enables her to love that lover. But merely to be able to say ‘I am somebody’s wife!’ I cannot understand any woman wanting that”—this under the stress of her own inculpation—“I cannot understand what for.”
She opened her big dark eyes, and looked innocently interrogative.
“Can’t you, Juffrouw?” said the kneeling dress-maker, taking the pins from between her lips. “Well, I can. There’s reasons would make a girl willing to beanyman’s wife as long as she was only married. And one of them’s mine.” She spoke bitterly, and shut her lips with a snap, as she rose from fitting on the frock.
Suddenly Ursula understood.
She was not given to emotion, still less to showing it; perhaps her nerves had been wrought on by the previous strain; now, quite unexpectedly to herself, she burst into tears.
The girl quivered, stared, and, sinking on to a cane-bottomed chair, began crying too, but in a soft, self-pitying way, while speaking all the time.
“You think me a bad, wicked creature,” she sobbed, “but I’m not, I’m not. I didn’t know, and he promised to marry me. There was never any doubt of his marrying me. I’m not as bad as you think, and I was certain he loved me. And I was desperate, and I put in the advertisement. I wish I were married or dead.” She stopped crying for a moment. “When the time comes,” she said, earnestly, “I shall be one or the other.” And then she fell to sobbing afresh.
Ursula had dried her eyes.
“My dear,” she said, “if he promised to marry you, perhaps he will.”
“Oh no, he won’t. I know now, and understand things different. He’s a gentleman. He’d marry me if he was not.”
“For I’m sure he loved me,” she added, softly.
Ursula was trembling from head to foot. Shielded and sheltered through all her simple girlhood, she had never come into contact, whether by actual experience or in literature, with any such vision of shame as this. She compared her own happy, unshadowed life with the struggle of the girl before her. And, full of compassion, she thanked God for the difference. For, to the very backbone which held her erect, she was womanly and pure.
She had forgotten all about the pressing needs of her toilet,but the dress-maker had not. Adeline caught up the frock, and began silently, sullenly sewing.
“If I could but do anything for you,” said Ursula, meditatively.
“You can’t. Only don’t gibe at me. Gibe at the men of your own class. This one, they tell me, is going to be married. I dare sayyou’dmarry him if you could.”
“Never! never!” said Ursula, with quiet passion.
“Well, I don’t care whom he marries. It won’t be me. I’ll tell you how I know for certain. You seem to be good, you do, and you mean well. It’s not me alone he’s ruined. Do you know”—she laid down her work on her lap—“I believe it was he who brought us all together the other night. I believe he is Romeo de Lieven.”
“But why?” asked Ursula, incredulously. “Certainly, the young lady down-stairs—”
“Oh, don’t tell me, Juffrouw. We all deny. Women always do. But you remember a carriage passing along the road? There were officers in it. It flashed across me at once that they had come to see their handiwork. And he was driving.”
The room swam round before Ursula’s eyes. She closed them hastily, and leaned back in her easy-chair. She could think of nothing distinctly; but she could hear the clock ticking solemnly on. She longed for some one to stop it. As for herself, she knew that she was incapable of moving, body or soul. In a lightning flash she had realized two facts undreamed before—the first, that she was very fond of Gerard van Helmont; the second, that she scorned him forth from her heart forever.
When at last she opened her eyes she saw the other girl intently watching her. There was a quiet sneer in the dress-maker’s gaze before which Ursula shrank affrighted. She understood immediately how her elaborate self-exoneration had crumbled away. This creature had perceived that Gerard was personally known to her. In the wretched girl’s estimation she was doubtless one rival out of many. She shuddered.
“Yes,” said Mademoiselle Adeline,“we all deny. I think, Miss, if you left me to myself, I could finish this dress a great deal better.”
Ursula dragged herself together and crept from the room.
While this uncomfortable interview was in progress, the chief subject of its interest was complacently installed among the thousand elegances of his cousin’s sitting-room, on a low stool almost at her feet. He looked a little more extensively red than usual, and his blue eyes were restless; but otherwise he showed no signs of trepidation. Yet he had resolved that this day should decide his fate. His mother’s by-play about Otto was becoming a nuisance.
That morning he had risen, after tranquil sleep, and carelessly studied himself in the glass. Of course, he was good-looking—very good-looking. Experience had taught him that quite as much as ocular demonstration. It was the perfect grace of his gracelessness which made women adore him.
He had eaten a hearty breakfast as usual, but he had drunk two more cups of tea and a glass of brandy. That is a man’s way of realizing that the crisis has come.
“My dear Gerard,” said Helena, “you are dull, while the rest of the family are flurried. People talk about the day after the festival;my‘Katzenjammers’ come ten hours before. I shall ring for Mademoiselle Papotier; she always amuses me.”
“Do,” said Gerard, surlily, glad of any postponement.
“That is charming. You could not have said that ‘do’ more naturally had we been husband and wife. Do I bore you? Then amuse yourself elsewhere. But don’t even expect me to ring the bell.” She jumped up lightly as she spoke and ran past him to the bell-pull.
“I don’t like Mademoiselle Papotier,” said Gerard. “She has taught you a number of things you needn’t have known. If you read books like that”—he pointed toUne Vieupon the table—“it’s her doing. I wish you wouldn’t, Helena. Men don’t like it.”
She came back to her seat: “Oh, but that is still more charming,” she said,“especially from your lips. You would have me restrict my reading so that I might the better enjoy your conversation. I won’t hear a word against my dear Papotier. She brightened my youth with eighteenth-century romances, and she cheers my old age by nineteenth-century novels. She is a dear.”
Undeniably, the heiress’s education had been a peculiar one. Her governess’s tissue-paper rosette of a soul had never given forth more natural odors than patchouly. The Baroness van Trossart could have told you how, when Helena was an eight-year-old little girl, she had come upon the child slapping her ball up and down in the court-yard, and occasionally muttering the same words over and over again.
“What on earth are you saying, my dear?” the Baroness had inquired.
And Helena had looked up with sparkling eyes: “And his beautiful head,” she had spouted, without stopping her ball-bumping, “went bounding three times across the marble, while repeating three times the sweet name of ‘Zaïre’! Isn’t it lovely? He was dead, you know; they had just cut it off.” And she had run away.
The Baroness had shaken her head. “It sounds like Scudéry,” she had said. But she was comfortable. She was not going to object to Mademoiselle Papotier.
“I shall read what I like,” repeated the heiress, provokingly. “And when I am married, I shall go to what plays I choose. I like impropriety on paper. Paper or boards. And so do you, Gerard, et plus que çà. You, of all people! I believe you are laughing at me.”
“No, by thunder, I’m not,” he cried, violently. “I don’t pretend to be a saint—far from it; but there’s not a lover in the world would like to remember that the girl he’s engaged to has read Maupassant.”
She looked at him for a moment with that sweet mixture of mocking tenderness which a man’s eyes can never assume; then she said to her maid, who had answered the bell,
“No, thank you; I want nothing. I rang by mistake.”
“But you are not”—she began, and checked herself. “So Otto is coming to my party to-night,” she said.
She enjoyed his responsive scowl.
“No, Otto is not coming,” he answered. “His Highness has gone off in a huff. About that hoax of Willie’s, I imagine, but his huffs are not easy to classify. Mind you, I don’t defend the trick. I think it was rather a low thing to do.”
“To Van Troyen it merely represented so much champagne,” she replied. “I like Otto; he is eminently estimable and—and worthy. He, at least, would never have told me not to read Maupassant.”
“No,” sneered Gerard, “he would never have heard of him.”
“Just so. There is nothing more delightful than a husband who is absolutely ignorant of everything. With him, at least, one runs a chance, even in this age, of unreasoning jealousy. And unreasoning jealousy must be delightful. Like mustard. What is the use of a man who keeps saying, ‘The vices are my share; the virtues are yours. And each of us has got what he ought to have’? Gerard, rather than a husband who said to me, ‘Of course, I am faithless; let us talk of something else,’ I would have a husband who said, ‘You are faithless. I am going to kill you,’ and did it.”
“It could only be done once,” replied Gerard, languidly. “My dear child, you have been to Verdi’s ‘Othello.’ Evidently you want to be worshipped not wisely but too well. I don’t think Otto would tell you that you are faithless. I fancy you’d have to jog him a bit.”
“Otto! I wasn’t thinking of Otto. I believe you are jealous of Otto.”
“Yes, I am. I’ll tell you why, if you like, immediately. I have a note here from my mother, received this morning; shall I read it to you?”
“If it concerns me,” she said, negligently.
“It concerns you very nearly. My mother tells me to ask whether you would care to come down to the house with me to-morrow, and stay for a few days. You understand what that means, Helen, as well as I do!”
“Yes, I understand,” she answered, and with a sudden impulse she caught up the “Maupassant” at her elbow and flung it into a corner of the room.
“So that, knowing the comedy you are expected to take part in, you can foresee and forego the conclusion. I should say, if it is to be only farce, why act it at all?”
She popped out the tips of her little feet and looked down at them.
“The best way to avoid all complications,” he went on, “would be to arrive at the Manor-house—engaged.”
She lifted her eyes from the ground and fixed them steadily on his face.
“Let me telegraph to my mother that you are coming engaged.” His voice broke down.
“But how will you know?” she asked, laughing.
“Let me knowfirst.” He bent forward. “Oh, my darling, my beauty.” He caught her two hands, and, like the passionate young fool he was, covered them with kisses. “My darling, how happy they will all be at home.”
Even at that moment the naïve selfishness of this last exclamation amused her. She said nothing, however, prolonging the sweetest silence a woman ever knows.
“Gerard,” she said, some minutes later, looking up at him as he bent over her. “You have forgotten that the girl you are engaged to has read Maupassant.”
“Yes,” he answered, “I have forgotten. I shall never remember.”
He went back to his rooms to dress for dinner, highly delighted. He was very much attached to his cousin. And she was the greatest heiress in the province.
ONE HOUR OF HAPPINESS
Ursula descended from a cab in the full light of the early summer evening, and hurried away into the Van Trossarts’ gloomy hall. Her shoulders blushed as the footman took her wrap. It felt like undressing.
“Juffrouw Rovers,” said the Baroness, beaming like a crimson sun, “I am glad you have come. My niece is—is occupied. Take off your gloves, my dear, and help me to arrange these flowers.”
Ursula had looked round in terror for Gerard. She must dine with himen famille, perhaps sit next to him. There was no help for it. Yet she trembled to think of him. To her simple maidenhood, familiar with sermons on sin in the abstract, he was a sudden incarnation of infamy.
The Baroness buzzed and bubbled over her flower-trays, her fat arms all dimples, her fat cheeks all smiles. She chattered about this evening’s party, which was Helena’s party—“as if anybody in Drum would give a dance in July!”—but Helena was so gay she could never sit still for an hour: a nice dance she would lead her husband if only the husband himself was addicted to pleasure. Well, old people were apt to get dull. No wonder Helena fared farther in search of diversion. And she laughed to herself, and winked to herself (a difficult, but by no means impossible, proceeding) while talking to Ursula in the pragmatical cackle with which hens of all ages surround a new-laid matrimonial egg.
Ursula, who was barely acquainted with the Freule van Trossart, could only display a perfunctory interest in that young lady’s possible prospects. Harriet had told her that, accordingto rumor, the Freule was “as good as engaged” to a young politician.
“It is a living romance,” the Freule’s clear voice was heard saying on the landing, “and a thousand times more amusing, ma vieille, than all your dressed-up dead ones together.”
She came into the room with her arm through that of her shrivelled governess, Gerard bringing up the rear. The little Frenchwoman looked depressed as she slid away into a corner. The fat Baroness rustled across to her in a perfect crackle of crimson. “My dear Papotier, is it not delightful?” she said, with tears in her eyes.
“Mon Dieu, madame, yes,” replied the governess, “it is the first chapter.” And, to herself, she added, “For me it is the last.”
Ursula shook hands with Gerard, but a thick curtain had fallen between them; she was surprised by the aloofness of his manner, even while she herself stiffened to a cold “good-day.”
How contented and complacent he looked! She watched him as he sat opposite her at table, between the Baroness and the Freule. How prosperous and pleasing! Yes, truly, there was a law for the humble and a license for the high! It was a gloriously simple thing to be born to impurity, like the old Greek gods. What nonsense her good father went preaching about “sin”! The world knew no such thing. It knew only a small hub of pleasure reserved for the rich, and a wide zone all round it of hunger and crime. She felt very bitter; she glanced down with a sensation of physical disgust on the fingers which had touched his, unwilling to break her bread with them.
Her French was rusty, and out of repair; she did not feel up to much conversation with the prim little portrait of the past on her right; the master of the house, on her other side, was sufficiently, but not amply, polite. There is no human insolence such as that indifferent politeness which barely fits—like a glove one size too small.
There were only the six of them; but the fascinating little heiress was a host in herself. Ursula had heard much of her vivacity; she concluded, notwithstanding, that the prospect of the evening’s pleasure must be abnormally augmenting it.Lovely the girl undeniably was, frail, and golden-haired, in a cloud of white over blue, like the sky, and a treble row of pearls. Ursula’s grave brown face looked very quiet compared with the other’s delicate, clear-veined features; you might have said a Madonna of the Annunciation, and an immature Venus Anadyomene.
“Ursula,” thought Gerard, “is just a nice-looking rustic.” As for him, she wondered how he dared to sit beside, and speak to, this white-robed virgin. It seemed as if toads must drop from his full red lips. Well, it was no business of hers. And perhaps—perhaps she was wronging him all the time, this good-natured friend of her childhood! Perhaps he intended to marry Mademoiselle Adeline, if only his parents would let him. He was waiting, perhaps, for an opportunity—who knows?—perhaps—
The thought gave her great comfort. Of the truth of the story she could not harbor a doubt, for the girl before leaving had shown her a photograph, worn by a ribbon round the neck.
She noticed that the atmosphere seemed full of a ripple of merriment: asides, which courtesy only kept just above whispers, innuendos, sudden glances,mots à double entente. She felt even more awkward than she would have done under ordinary circumstances. And soon she felt exceedingly miserable. Perhaps her kind-hearted hostess noticed it.
“Helena, we must drink to your health,” cried the Baroness, her ample bosom swelling under its laces, like a crested wave.“Yes, my dear Gerard, you needn’t look at me like that; see how your neighbor is laughing. As Juffrouw Rovers does us the favor of dining here to-day, she will increase that favor, I feel certain, by keeping a secret—an absolute secret—for forty-eight hours. I cannot let this meal pass as if nothing had happened. You must know, Juffrouw Rovers, that it is my dear niece’s birthday—her first birthday into a new life. In other words, she is engaged to her cousin Gerard, who is an old friend of yours, so I need not praise him. And we are going to drink their healths, and wish them long life and prosperity.”
Afterwards Ursula had a faint recollection of having spilled some champagne on the table-cloth. For the moment her whole strength was concentrated in a wild prayer for outward calm. These people would imagine she cared for Gerard. It was not that—my God, not that!
Fortunately the others were busy lifting their glasses; all during dinner Gerard had scarcely looked her way. She stared round the table in a dazed manner. She felt sick.
“The strawberries are not good this year,” she heard Baron Trossart’s grumpy voice saying. “I am not surprised Miss Rovers doesn’t care to eat them.” She hastily returned to her dessert. “No, I must beg of you. Joris, bring this lady a clean plate.”
It was the strawberries, then, that interested her? So much the better.
“How I envy your father, Gerard,” continued the Baron. “It is two years now since we have been at Trossartshage. The fruit cannot bear the transport; we have tried both water and rail. But the cares of state, you know, the cares of state! A man sacrifices himself for his country, and his country repays him with ingratitude.”
This last sentence was an allusion to a recent article in a small paper which reproached the authorities—in this case Baron Trossart—with not having cleared out a canal before the warm weather came. Nobody ever complained of the ceaseless flow of nephews and brothers-in-law. That, as we all know, is a part of the constitution. Were it not so, the “eminent politician” would be a thing of the past.
“Papa,” interrupted Helena, wilfully, “please don’t be gloomy. I’m engaged.”
“Well, there’s cause enough for gloom in that,” he replied. “I’m as jealous of Gerard as”—he looked round—“as Mademoiselle Papotier.”
“Ah! do not speak of it to me!” cried the Frenchwoman. “I could slaughter Monsieur Gerard if I met him in war.”
“That’s the last place where you’ll meet me,” exclaimed Gerard, laughing. Helena had suddenly blanched.
“War!” she said.“How horrible! No, we will have no fighting. Juffrouw Rovers, would you have the courage to marry a soldier?”
Across Ursula’s brain flashed a vision of a dog-cart filled with uproarious malevolence.
“No, I should not like to marry an officer,” she replied.
Her words—perhaps, still more, her unconscious manner—seemed to sting Gerard. He flushed.
“Juffrouw Rovers is never particularly brave,” he said. “She is too soft-hearted. The last time I saw her, she was showing thewhite feather, as now.”
The words were a challenge. And, unconsciously, his manner betrayed as much; it was too significant.
Helena looked from one to the other: “What is it?” she asked. “What does it mean, Juffrouw Rovers? Gerard, what is the joke?”
“Joke? None. Ask Juffrouw Rovers.”
“So I have, but she doesn’t tell me.”
“Then you may be sure it is a little secret between Ursula and me, whichIshall keep. I am not responsible for what she may do.”
She had the good taste not to press the subject, but she reverted to it as soon as she found herself alone with her lover.
“Gerard, what is this silly secret between you and Miss Rovers?”
“My dear child, how inquisitive you are! I thought you liked secrets.”
“Yes, when one is in them. I told you I should be jealous.”
“Of Ursula! How ridiculous! Utterly absurd! Ursula!”
“Well, I dare say I shall often be absurd. At any rate, Gerard, you would please me by not calling her ‘Ursula.’ She is not a relation of yours.”
“But I have known her all my life. I used to drag her in a go-cart.”
“I know. And it seems to me you behave very strangely for people who have always been intimate. You seem suddenly afraid of each other since this afternoon.”
“I am afraid of—that is, bored by—every girl but one since this afternoon. I am exceedingly bored by the prospect before me to-night. Don’t let’s spoil the one hour of happiness left us.”
“The one hour! How tragic that sounds!” she laughed.
“To-morrow we will go down to the Manor-house; there will be more hours there in the moonlight on the terrace. Say again that you love me, Nellie.”
“Yes, I love you,” she replied; and her voice was some soul-voice, quite different from her usual high-pitched tones. “I have loved you for a long time,” she added; and then, suddenly, with the old every-day ring: “There, I had made up my mind not to tell you that before our golden wedding. Papotier says a girl should never tell it at all, because the confession is ill-advised; and mamma says she certainly shouldn’t, because the feeling, if there, was a thing to be ashamed of.”
“Ashamed of love? But, my dearest?”
“No, I should never be ashamed of loving any one. Not even a footman.”
“Thank you,”sotto voce, from Gerard.
“We must bear the consequences of our virtues. I can’t understand any one’s being ashamed of ‘love.’ Can you?”
“I can’t understand any man’s keeping quiet his love for you. I want to shout out mine on the house-tops! Now that Ursula knows—I mean Juffrouw Rovers—why not proclaim the engagement to-night?”
“And your mother?”
So they whiled away the time on the veranda, looking down into the garden, where a large marquee had been put up for the dancers, with a music-tent and strings of Chinese lanterns. Meanwhile the Baroness lay back dozing in little audible gasps, and Ursula sat looking at photographs of Italy with Mademoiselle Papotier, who had forgotten all the names.
“Yes, that is Pavia,” said Mademoiselle Papotier. “Or perhaps it’s Pisa. I think it must be Pisa, because of the crooked tower.”
“Oh, that’s only the photograph,” replied Ursula, listlessly; “the angle’s wrong.”
“Do you think so? Look at the turtle-doves billing and cooing. Isn’t it sweet?”
Mademoiselle nodded towards the veranda, with keen scrutiny of her companion’s face. Ursula blushed again, that terrible tell-tale blush.
“And this place with all the boats,” she said, “I suppose is Venice?”
The guests began to arrive, and Mevrouw van Trossart pushed her cap across from the right to the left. It was quite a young people’s entertainment, more or less impromptu, and Ursula, already so greatly distressed by her toilet, noticed that many of the girls were more simply dressed than she. The acuteness of annoyance about this deadened, for a time, the sick anxiety at her heart.
She went out into the garden; she had fancied the fête would mean music and refreshments and fireworks; she now suddenly saw that the marquee was prepared for dancing. There had been no intimation, that she knew, on her card. She had never learned the art.
“May I have the first valse?” asked Willie van Troyen, who had just been introduced, for that purpose, by the Baroness.
“I don’t dance,” she said, pulling at her gloves. “I didn’t know people were going to.”
“They often do,” said Willie, “don’t they, at a dance?” He laughed heartily; he thought that was rather witty. And he betook himself to some one else.
So Ursula sat in a corner of the tent, or out on a bench, and was a bore.
The Baroness “made” talk with her from time to time in laborious sentences, and one or two other elderly people tried the same experiment. All the time, as she sat there disconsolate, one question was burning at her brain: How must I act regarding Gerard? Must I save this innocent girl or must I not? Sometimes the girl was Adeline, more often Helena, but the question remained the same.
“And this is your first party?” said a good-natured man. “I don’t think you seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“Oh, don’t let Mevrouw hear you say that!” she cried, in alarm. The Baroness happened to be passing. Yes, undoubtedly, Ursula was a drag.
“Come out into the garden,” said Gerard, stopping before her, “it’s tremendously hot here. I’ve kept this dance free for you; we’ll sit it out.” She rose and obeyed him.
Helena came out of the room where her uncle and his cronies were playing whist, with closed windows, her whole figure was a-sparkle with happiness. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked of her own Papotier. “The weather is perfect, the garden is perfect, the music is perfect. I don’t think we ever had such a pleasant party before.”
“It is your own joy,ma chérie,” said the governess, drawing her pupil to the dark staircase window, where she, Mademoiselle, stood watching the dancers. She pointed to a corner, half-hidden by a willow, in which Gerard and Ursula could be dimly descried. “That is the prologue, my child, to your romance,” she said. “Make haste to get on to the story.”
“Mademoiselle!”
“Hush! I watched her at dinner, when Madame the Baroness spoke. I have watched them since. It is nothing, my dear; it is even delightful—a compliment. But your lover must put a full-stop to the prologue. Perhaps he is doing it now. Creep behind, if you will, and hear what they say.”