They stood by the edge of the river, on the road that runs along from pier to pier. Katharine laid her hand upon Ralston’s arm, and felt how it drew her gently close to him, and glancing at his face she loved it better than ever in the red evening light.
The sun was going down between two clouds, the one above him, the other below, grey and golden, behind Brooklyn bridge, and behind the close-crossing pencil masts and needle yards of many vessels. From the river rose the white plumes of twenty little puffing tugs and ferry-boats far down in the distance. Between the sun’s great flattened disk and the lovers’ eyes passed a great three-masted schooner, her vast main and mizzen set, her foresail and jib hauled down, being towed outward. It was very still, for the dock hands had gone home.
“I love you, dear,” said Katharine, softly.
But Ralston answered nothing. Only his right hand drew her left more closely to his side.
Katharinehad been intimate with Hester Crowdie from the time when they had both been children, though Hester was several years older than she. Possibly the friendship had been one of Katharine’s mistakes. For his part, Ralston, as has been seen, did not place great confidence in the married woman’s nature, and if he did not tell Katharine exactly what he thought, it was not from lack of conviction but because he felt that the conviction itself was intuitive rather than logical. Men, as well as women, have intuitions which they cannot explain, but they are much more inclined to conceal them than women are, because they have been taught not to trust to them. They judge others, and especially they judge women, from small facts which they are often ashamed of seeming to value so highly. At least, when they analyze their feelings about any given woman, it often happens that their reasoning leads up to some detail which, standing alone, must and does appear altogether insignificant. It is not easy to decide whether such very small causes among the realities actually produce the whole consequence whichaffects the mind, or whether man’s view of woman and woman’s view of man, as distinguished from the judgments each forms upon his and her own sex, is not dependent upon a very subtle sense of truth, acting by paths shorter than logical deduction.
In illustration and as an example it may be noticed that the eyes of the majority of persons convey the consciousness of numbers precisely, up to a certain point, without any operation of counting. Most people can say at a glance, of any small group of objects, that there are two, three, four, or even seven. With almost all individuals, counting, and counting from the beginning, becomes necessary when there are eight or more objects together. For though the eye embraces seven, as seven, it cannot embrace seven out of eight and count one more to make up the number. If there is any counting it must be done from the very beginning.
Similarly, in reading rapidly, there are many who do not read every word. Their eyes and intelligence seize upon and comprehend blocks of words and even of lines, by a series of spasmodic leaps, as it were, after each one of which there is a pause of very short and hardly perceptible duration. Those who have been obliged to read very quickly, such as readers of manuscripts, and especially professional critics of second-class literature, are perfectly well aware of this faculty. Such men often read through and judge several volumes in a day, afact which would not be possible if they had to read each word of every sentence. It is not well done, as Dr. Johnson would have said, but we are surprised to see it done at all. The result, in the modern phrase, is not judgment, but tasting. But it is a result, all the same. By force of a habit which cannot by any means be acquired by every one, words and even blocks of words to a great number have become to such a reader as symbols, which convey to his mind an idea all at once. There is no doubt but that by easy stages real symbols could, in our ordinary books, take the place of long sentences, and convey meaning without words at all. All forms of religion have made use of such symbols, and there is no reason why they could not be used in printing, though there may be excellent reasons why they should not be adopted. But in reading, as in counting, when the meaning of a whole sentence is not understood at a glance, it becomes necessary to read it from the beginning, word by word, or by shorter blocks of words, just as it is necessary to spell out a single word, such as a name, if it is not familiar at first sight, and is not made up of familiar syllables.
And in this way, perhaps, the mind of one individual judges the whole personality of another, without going through any form of analysis or any enumeration of qualities and defects. The instinctive attraction of opposite sexes for oneanother sharpens the faculties of all living creatures, and hence it may possibly be, that men generally understand women better than men, and the converse, that women are better judges of men than they are of other women. It is often true that the combined judgment passed by a man and woman in consultation upon any individual is vague and worthless, though in rare cases where a profound and wide-reaching sympathy really exists, such joint judgment is the best in the world.
This may be a mere theory, or it may be the truth, but at all events it seems simpler to believe that what we call intuition is founded upon some such appreciation of each individual as a symbol representing a set of thoughts, than to suppose that it is a sort of sixth sense, sometimes amounting to second sight. Every one may judge of that out of his own experience.
Ralston, who was familiar enough with the character of his family in all its branches, thought that he saw in Hester Crowdie a sort of modification of the same love of possession which made a miser of Alexander Junior, and which, if opposed, would be as ruthless and as dangerous. He might have been willing to admit that he had a share of the same peculiarity, quality, or defect, himself. The tenacity of his love for Katharine proved that he had it. But as he disliked Crowdie so sincerely, Hester’s passion for her husband seemed abnormal in hiseyes. He fancied that if it were crossed or thwarted she would be capable of going to any extremity for its sake. Her friendship for Katharine, in his opinion, might be turned to hatred at a moment’s notice.
The friendship of a passionate woman who seeks an outlet for the confidences of her overflowing nature, rather than the companionship and mutual respect which friendship means, if it means anything, is always selfish and generally dangerous. It has no elements of stability in it. When she has no more confidences to make she is silent, not companionable. When she has exhausted sympathy by the often repeated tale of her own minor experiences or of her woes, real or imaginary, and when the response of the worn-out listener grows more dull or slow, she believes that she has exhausted also her friend’s heart, that it is shallow and arid, and she turns away in disgust and disappointment, seeking a kindred soul. And that is the end of many friendships between women. As often as not, they are founded upon the irresistible desire to make confidences, experienced by one or both of the fancied friends, and they come to an end when confidence no longer elicits sympathy. There is neither the simple delight in companionship which requires no emotion, nor the active intellectual principle on both sides which finds pleasure in the free trade of thought without subjectionto the exigent tariff which exacts the duty of pity or admiration and unhesitatingly excludes those who have neither to pay, from intellectual commerce.
The less impulsive, the less passionate woman of the two, she who receives all this outpouring of the shallow but easily agitated soul, is the one who is imposed upon. Until she has had experience, she believes in sufferings and joys commensurate with the words which express both, and even greater. Her pity is really excited; her admiration is genuine; she sheds tears sympathetic, and glows with pride vicarious. Her slow nature is roused, and its activity continues after the truth begins to dawn upon her. Then, all at once, she finds out that truth, and suffers the rude shock which a less stable being would scarcely feel. She is the one who suffers. The other merely wonders why her confidences no longer interest her friend, and lets them boil over in a new direction. Not knowing what real friendship means, she who loses it loses nothing. What she misses is the pity and also the admiration which helped her to pity and admire herself, and she can get both elsewhere. But the stronger, more silent woman, broods over her disenchantment and loses her belief in human nature, which is the key to human happiness, as faith in God is the key to heaven. She will not easily be drawn into such friendship again, and is quick to scoff at it in others.
For the disenchantment of broken friendship is less violent but more deep-reaching than the disenchantment of broken love-faith. Love is for the one, friendship is, or may be, for the many. There is no natural reason why any man or woman whom we meet, should never become our friend. To lose faith in human nature may sometimes render love impossible. But though one woman have betrayed us, and though we say in our heart that men and women are faithless in love, yet we have not therefore said that all humanity is faithless in all that which makes up friendship.
Friendship is more composite than love, and becomes more and more so with advancing years, as the whole of life, which made such a hugely noble impression upon our young sight, is dissected, bit by bit, before the weary eyes that have seen it too long, and before the tribunal of a heart that has known bitterness. Friendship, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. The rending of it shows them as they are, and they are not beautiful.
Katharine had of late gone through events which had tended to destroy the whole-heartedness of her view of the world and its people. Within the past six months her character had developed, if it had not changed, and if she was more in earnest about her realities, she was harder in judging her imaginings and in testing anything in the nature of an ideal which presented itself to her moralvision. She would have made a firmer friend now, than formerly, but her friendship was also much harder to obtain.
She was, doubtless, quite truthful to herself in what she thought of her own mother, for instance. They were altogether reconciled for the present, and outwardly their intercourse was what it had been before Mrs. Lauderdale’s unreasoning envy had almost brought about a permanent estrangement. But the fact remained that the estrangement had come, though it had also gone again, and Katharine felt that it might possibly some day return. The childlike faith, the belief that her mother could do nothing wrong, which is one of childhood’s happiest tenets, was destroyed forever. Her mother, henceforth, was as other women were in her eyes, nearer to her, by the natural bonds that bound the two together and by the necessary intercourse of daily life, but not in heart nor in real sympathy. Katharine asked herself coldly what an affection could be worth which could hate its object out of pure vanity; and the answer was that it could not be worth much. But she never underrated its true value in the newly discovered proof of its fallibility.
Evidently, she was going far—too far, perhaps, for justice and certainly too far for happiness. And she applied her conclusion not only to her own mother, but to all handsome mothers who hadpretty daughters. The first breath of envy would poison any mother’s love she thought, and the memories of her own childhood were poisoned retrospectively by the bitterness of the present. She was at that stage of growth when generalities have a force which they have never acquired before and which they soon lose, as life’s hailstorm of exceptions batters them out of shape. Out of isolated facts she made them, and made of them rules, and of rules, laws.
As for her father’s conduct, it had been less unexpected, though it had hurt her even more, because it had crossed her own path so much more rudely and directly. But it had helped to destroy other illusions, and in a way to undermine something which was not an illusion at all. She had always believed in his courage and manliness, and both had, in her opinion, broken down. No man could be brave, she felt, who treated any woman as her father had treated her, and the mere thought of the past scenes of violence sent a thrill of pain to her injured arm. No man could be manly who could wish to sacrifice his daughter as she considered that he had wished to sacrifice her—to sell her, as she said in her anger.
There was injustice in this. Archibald Wingfield was one of the most desirable and desired young men in New York. Having made up his mind that Katharine should not marry Ralston,Alexander Junior could hardly have done better for her than he did in trying to bring about a match with Wingfield. But there Katharine was influenced by her love for John, which made her look upon the mere suggestion of a rival as an insult hardly to be forgiven.
The deeper and less apparent wound in her belief was the more dangerous, though she did not know it. Alexander Junior had always professed to act upon the most rigid religious principles, and though Katharine did not sympathize with the form of worship in which she had been brought up, and had at one time been strongly inclined to become a Roman Catholic, as her mother was, she had, nevertheless, accorded a certain degree of admiration to her father’s unbending and uncompromising consistency. There was no gentleness and no consolation in such religion, she thought, but she could not help admiring its strength and directness. She had said, too, that her father was faithful in his love for her mother, a fact which seemed suddenly to have lost its weight in her eyes at present. But of late he had done many things which Katharine was sure could not be justified by any religion whatsoever, and had shown tendencies which, if his religion had ever been real, should, in her view, have been stamped out or wholly destroyed long ago. His avarice was one of them, his cruelty to herself another, hisattempt to injure John Ralston in Mr. Beman’s opinion was a third. And all these tendencies were as strong as himself and could not be easily hidden nor charitably overlooked. Not knowing the real strength of any great passion, she could not realize that there might have been a conflict in her father’s heart. To children, real sin seems as monstrous as real virtue seems to those who have sinned often, and in respect of real sin, Katharine was yet but a child. She saw a man doing wrong, who said that he acted in accordance with the principles of his religion. She overlooked his temptations, she ignored his struggles, she said that he was bad and called his religion a fiction.
The direct consequence was that such convictions as she had herself were undermined and shaken and almost ruined, and the moral disturbance affected her in all the relations of life, except, perhaps, in her love for John Ralston, which grew stronger as other things failed.
With regard to her friendship for Hester, however, it had not, as yet, suffered any rude shock.
Katharineand Hester had seen but little of one another during the battle of the will, and a certain awkwardness and reticence had appeared between them, which Katharine attributed altogether to the question of the fortune. As has been seen, however, it had another source on Hester’s side, and one much more likely to produce results that might hurt one or the other or both of them. As for Katharine, it was characteristic of her that she attempted to return to the former cordiality of their relations as soon as the matter of the inheritance had been settled.
She found Hester cold and unsympathetic, but she excused her on the ground of the family dispute, and of the very great disappointment the Crowdies must have suffered from the decision of the court. The conversation turned upon indifferent matters and languished, as they sat together in the pretty little room at the front of the house. It was late in the afternoon, and the smell of the spring came in through the open windows.
“It’s getting very dull in New York,” saidHester, after a long pause. “I think we shall go out of town soon, this year.”
She suppressed a yawn with her diaphanous hand, as she leaned back in her corner of the sofa, staring vacantly at an etching which hung on the opposite wall, and wishing that Katharine would go. Then she rang the bell, having thought of tea as a possible antidote to dulness.
“I suppose we shall go away, too,” said Katharine, wondering what the summer was to be like.
The servant came, and got his orders, and went out, and Hester almost yawned again.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, half apologetically. “I’m so sleepy.”
“You’ll be all right after you’ve had some tea,” answered Katharine, trying to think of something pleasant to say, and finding nothing.
“I hope so,” observed the elder woman. “This is awful. I’m conscious of being dreadfully dull.”
“It’s probably the reaction,” suggested Katharine.
There was another long pause. The sound of a carriage passing along the street came in through the windows, but scarcely seemed to break the silence. Presently the servant returned—a highly respectable, elderly butler with very white hair, answering to the name of Fletcher. He set down the tea and departed noiselessly and with dignity. He had formerly been butler at the Ralstons’ fora number of years, but Mrs. Ralston had reduced her establishment after her husband’s death.
“What reaction did you mean?” asked Hester, idly, as she made the tea.
“Oh—I meant the natural reaction after the tremendous excitement we’ve all been living in for so long.”
“Oh!” ejaculated her companion, rather coldly. “I see,” she continued after a pause, during which she had made a busy little clatter with the tea things, “you mean because we hoped to get the money and didn’t—therefore, I’m sleepy. That doesn’t sound very sensible.”
“Well—not as you put it,” answered Katharine, with a short laugh of embarrassment.
She had determined to attack the subject boldly, so as to break the ice once and for always. Hester’s aggressive answer put her out.
“How would you put it?” enquired the latter, leaning back again and waiting for the tea to draw. “Explain! I’m awfully dull to-day.”
“Don’t you think it’s natural?” asked Katharine. “It’s of no use to deny that we’ve all been tremendously excited during the last fortnight, and now the excitement has stopped. One’s nerves run down—that sort of thing, you know—and then one’s tired and feels depressed.”
“The depression’s natural—in our case,” answered Hester, lifting the cover and looking intothe teapot in a futile way, as though she would see whether the tea were strong enough.
“Yes,” said Katharine, thoughtfully. “Do you know, dear? It seems to me as though you were thinking that it was my fault, in a way.”
“What? That I’m depressed? Don’t be silly! Do you like it strong? I’ve forgotten. It’s about right now, I should think.”
“A little water, please—no cream—one lump of sugar—thanks. No,” she continued, a little impatiently, “you know perfectly well what I mean, if you’ll only understand. I suppose that’s rather Irish—” she laughed again.
“It’s Greek to me!” replied Hester, smartly, as she poured out her own cup of tea. “You’re trying to say something—why don’t you say it?”
It began to be clear to Katharine that there were more difficulties in the way of what she was attempting to do, than she had dreamt of. She had expected that Hester would be quite ready to meet her half way, instead of intrenching herself behind an absurd and pretended misunderstanding, as she was doing. The best way seemed to be to enter into an explanation at once. She sipped her tea thoughtfully and then began again.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I mean,” she said; “so that you’ll see it as I do. I’m afraid that this question of money has come between you and me.And if it has, I’m very sorry, because I’m very fond of you, Hester.”
“Well—I’m fond of you,” answered Hester, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t see why the money should make any difference.”
“I hope it doesn’t. Only—I’m afraid it does, in spite of what you say. I don’t feel as though we could ever be again exactly what we’ve always been until now. But it’s not fair, Hester. It’s not just. You know very well that if I could have done anything to make the will good, I would have done it. I couldn’t. What could I do? It’s simply a misfortune that we were on opposite sides of the fight—or our people were. I’m not exactly what you’d call gushing, I suppose—indeed, I know I’m not. But it hurts me to think that we’re to be like strangers, because three men couldn’t agree about a signature. It’s unnatural. It’s not right. I came here to-day, meaning to say so—and I’m glad I’ve had the courage to say it without waiting any longer. But if we’re only to know each other—in a general way like distant cousins—why, it’s better to acknowledge it at once. It shan’t come from me—that’s all. But I’d rather be prepared for it, you know.”
“So far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to fight,” said Hester, coolly. “I don’t see any reason why we should. Of course we don’t throw ourselves into each other’s arms and cry with delight everytime we meet, like schoolgirls. We’ve outgrown that. But as for my quarrelling with you because your father’s inherited a fortune when I ought to have had a part of it—it’s too ridiculous. You would have had a share, too, under the will. Then you ought to quarrel with your own father, much more than with me. Isn’t that common sense?”
“Yes—I suppose it is. But you don’t say it exactly as though—”
Katharine stopped short. She was afraid of seeming impulsive, as many people of self-contained natures are. She knew that she was not herself very expansive, as a rule, in her expressions of affection. But Hester was, and the change from her former manner to her present coldness was startling. One may miss in others what one would not have in oneself, and one may resent another’s refusal to give it. The regret of missing anything is not measured by its value, but by the strength of the habit its presence has created. Men liberated after years of captivity have missed their chains. The Irish woman in the typical story complained that her husband no longer beat her. She missed it.
“I’ll say it in any way you like,” answered Hester, hardly. “It seems to me that we’re just as good friends as ever. I see no difference.”
“I do,” answered Katharine. “And there’s always going to be a difference, now,” she added, regretfully.
She was conscious that in some unaccountable way the positions had been reversed with regard to her character and her friend’s. It should naturally have been the more passionate, expansive, sensitive woman who should be almost begging that the old friendship might not be forgotten, and Katharine herself, the colder of the two, the one by far less easily carried away by passing emotions, should have been giving the assurance that nothing was changed. It was incomprehensible to her, as well it might be, since there was a cause for Hester’s behaviour which lay very far from the question of money, though the coldness which the latter had caused was helping to make matters worse.
“I suppose we’re outgrowing each other,” suggested Hester, who was more or less anxious to account for the change, since Katharine was laying such great stress upon it. “You know that’s the way of the world,” she added, tritely. “People are ever so fond of each other for a long time, and then all at once they find out that they’re not what they were, you know, and that they don’t really care.”
“Oh—do you look at it in that way?” Katharine’s voice and manner changed, for she was hurt. “But don’t you think this outgrowing, as you call it, has been rather sudden? It’s only about three weeks since we were talking quite differently. It can’t be more, I’m sure.”
“Isn’t it?” asked Hester, indifferently. “Really, it seems ever so long since we sat here and told each other things.”
There is a beautiful vagueness about the language of a woman when she wishes to have something forgotten.
“It seems long to me, too,—in another way,” answered Katharine. “It’s far off—like a good many things that happened then.”
Hester made no answer to this remark, but leaned back against her cushion and meditatively nibbled the edge of a ginger-snap.
“Of course,” said Katharine, “if you want it all to end here, I’m not going to cry and behave like the schoolgirl you talked about—”
“No,” interrupted Hester, munching her biscuit audibly; “it isn’t worth it.”
“Once upon a time we should both have thought it was,” answered the young girl. “But when a thing like friendship’s gone—it’s gone, that’s all, and there’s nothing more to be said about it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so silly, my dear!” exclaimed Hester, who, having swallowed the remains of the ginger-snap, suddenly realized that she might at least bury her intimacy with a protest to the effect that it was not dead. “You really go on as though we were lovers, and I had betrayed you. In the first place it doesn’t follow, because we’re grown up and not exactly what weused to be, that there’s no friendship between us. We can go on just the same as ever, even if we talk differently and gush less, and we can see just as much of each other as we always did. You’ve got some idea or other into your head about my being cold, because I’m sleepy and dull to-day. Probably the next time we meet it will be just the opposite, and you’ll think me too gushing.”
So long as Hester had made no serious pretence of anything more than she felt, confining herself more or less to generalities and vaguely saying that she desired no break, Katharine had remained calm, but something in the last speech seemed to ring outrageously false, and the blood slowly rose to her throat and ebbed again without reaching her cheeks.
“Don’t pretend!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got to get at the truth to-day, if we’re ever to get at it at all.”
Hester raised her beautiful eyebrows, as delicately and finely marked as though they had been drawn with pen and ink.
“My dear child!” she answered, with real or affected surprise. “Don’t fly into little pink rages like that.”
“I’m not in a rage,” protested Katharine. “And if I were, I shouldn’t be pink—I never am. But I don’t want you to pretend things you don’t feel. We’ve never pretended much with each other, andI don’t want to begin now. It’s over and done for. Let’s make up our minds to it and be sensible. I don’t see that there’s anything else to be done. But don’t let’s pretend things. I hate that.”
“Not half so much as I do, my dear,” said Hester, airily, as though to close the discussion. “I don’t see the slightest good in talking about it any more. You’ve got it into your head that I’ve changed. If you believe it, you know it, for Mr. Griggs says that—”
“Do leave Mr. Griggs alone!” cried Katharine, irritably. “It isn’t a mere idea, either. You said we’d outgrown each other. I’m not conscious of having grown a head taller in the last three weeks. But so far as talking about it goes, you’re quite right. Only—” her voice changed again and took a gentler tone—“let’s part friends, Hester, for the sake of all that has been.”
“Why, of course!” exclaimed Hester, with insincere frankness. “That is, if you insist upon parting, as you call it. But I declare! we might just as well be a pair of lovers quarrelling, you know. It’s just about as sensible, on the whole.”
“I suppose things mean more to me than they do to you,” answered Katharine, with sudden coldness. “Friendship—like everything else—like—”
She was going to say ‘like love,’ but checked herself. In that at least she felt that she must have been mistaken. Whatever else she might think ofHester, she knew that she was almost insanely in love with her husband. At the very moment when the words were on her lips the thought flashed through her mind, that with Hester it might be the half-desperate, all-absorbing passion which was draining her of all capacity for any other attachment. Katharine thought of herself and of her love for Ralston, and felt more real sympathy for her friend just then than she had felt for many a day.
As she ceased speaking she heard the hall door opened and shut again, just outside the sitting-room, and a moment later she heard Crowdie’s soft voice, low and sweet, humming to himself as he began to ascend the stairs. As she turned to Hester, as though to continue speaking, she saw how the pale face had changed in a moment. Every faculty was strained to catch the faint echo of the melody, the deep eyes gleamed, there was colour in the transparent cheeks, the dewy lips were just parted. There was nothing unreal nor affected in that.
Katharinecould not keep the expression of curiosity out of her eyes as she watched Hester Crowdie. The woman’s whole manner had changed in an instant, and she seemed to be another person. She seemed trying to hold her breath to catch the distant and ever retreating sound of her husband’s voice. The colour in her pale cheeks heightened and paled and heightened again in visible variations. Her slender throat fluttered with quick pulsations like that of a singing bird or a chameleon, and her deep eyes were filled with light. Katharine even fancied that the little ringlets of soft brown hair trembled and waved like the leaves of a sensitive plant, impossible as it was. Hester’s whole being was all at once intensely alive, intensely sensitive, intensely brilliant. A few minutes earlier she had been leaning back against her cushion, suppressing a yawn from time to time, saying cold and disagreeable things, pale, cool, diaphanous.
Katharine moved slightly, and the white hand was upon hers instantly, with a light touch of warning, as though to silence her, lest a singlefaint echo of Crowdie’s voice should fail to reach Hester’s ears.
The young girl wondered whether she herself ever behaved so strangely when John Ralston was near, and whether any one sitting beside her could see his presence reflected in her eyes. She did not know, though she believed herself, as she really was, colder and less quick to show what she felt. The last note died away as Crowdie ascended the staircase and got out of hearing, and Hester sank back against her cushion again. The colour faded from her cheek, the light died in her eyes, and her throat was quiet. The bloodless hands just met on her knees, and the tips of the slight fingers tapped one another nervously two or three times, and then lay quite still.
There had been something in the quickly succeeding changes which struck Katharine as not exactly human, though she could have found no other word with which to describe better the phases of the passing sensitiveness she had witnessed. But it had been more like the infinitive sensitiveness of nature than the ordinary responses of an impressionable woman. Katharine had thought of the sensitive plant, for she had seen many in hot-houses and had often played with them, softly stroking the fern-like plumes made by the two rows of tiny oval leaves, and delighting to see how they rose and waved, and tried to find andfollow her finger. And she thought, too, of stories she had heard about the behaviour of animals before an earthquake, a great storm, or any terrible convulsion of nature. She had never before quite understood that, but it was clear to her now.
At the same time she felt a strong sympathy for Hester, and for the love which was so unmistakable and real. It was impossible for her to comprehend how such love could exist for such a man as Crowdie, whom she herself thought so strangely repulsive, though she could find nothing to say against him. It could only be explained on the ground of an elective affinity, mysterious in its source, but most manifest in its results. She had never been allowed to read Goethe’s great book, but the title of it had always meant something to her, and represented a set of ideas which she used in order to explain the inexplicable. It was true, also, so far as she could see, that between Hester and Crowdie the affinity was mutual and almost equally strong, and Katharine thought with an unpleasant sensation of the way Crowdie sometimes smiled at his wife. Of course, she thought, if one did not object to a certain amount of womanliness in a man’s looks and manner, nor to a pale, pear-shaped face with intensely red lips, nor to a figure which altogether lacked masculine dignity—if one could forget all those things and consider what Crowdie must seem to a blind woman, forinstance, and if one could forgive a certain insolent softness of speech which now and then was his, why, then, Crowdie was one of the most charming of men. There was no word but that one. Take him all in all,—his remarkable power as a portrait painter, developed by study and real industry, his exquisite voice and perfect taste in singing—so perfect that there was not a trace of that art which it is art’s mission to conceal—his conversation, which was often brilliant and almost always interesting,—taking him all in all, thought Katharine, and quite apart from his appearance, he was a marvellously gifted man. She had never known a man like him. Paul Griggs was not to be despised as a judge of men, for he had seen and known many who were worth knowing, and Paul Griggs liked Crowdie and was intimate with him. It was true that no other man of Katharine’s acquaintance liked him, but Griggs’ opinion might outweigh that of many just men. But when she thought of Crowdie’s appearance, she marvelled how any woman could love him. There was something about it which thrilled her painfully, like a strong, bad taste—yet not so as to hinder her from feeling sympathy for Hester, in spite of all the latter had said during the past half hour.
“How you love him!” she exclaimed, when the voice had died away, and Hester leaned back again in her seat.
The words were spoken impulsively and half unconsciously—the natural expression of the young girl’s wonder. But Hester’s eyes turned quickly, with a suspicious glance which Katharine did not see and could not have understood.
“Well—is there any harm in my loving my husband?” asked Hester, in a tone of unmistakable resentment.
Katharine turned and looked at her in surprise, not realizing that she could possibly have given offence.
“Harm! why no—no more harm than there is in my saying so—nor than I meant, when I spoke. Why, are you angry?”
“I’m not angry. Why did you say it, though—and just then? I want to know.”
She fixed her eyes on Katharine, and a little colour came back suddenly to her cheeks, just where it had been while Crowdie was singing—as a transparent glass, that has been heated red in the flame and has cooled, flushes where it had flushed before, almost as soon as it is brought to the fire.
“Why did I say it?” repeated Katharine, surprised. “I don’t know, I’m sure. It was a very natural remark. Everybody knows that you love your husband very much. I suppose it struck me particularly at that moment. How strange of you to take offence!”
“I’m not offended. I only want to know why you said it just then. Did I change colour—or what?”
“A little colour came into your face—yes. It’s very becoming,” added Katharine, by way of propitiation.
“Yes—I know. You needn’t tell me that I’m generally too pale. Were my eyes different from usual?”
“They were very bright, with a far-away look at the same time—as though you saw him through the wall.”
“Do you think any one would have noticed how I looked? I mean—any one sitting near me, as you are?”
“I should think so—yes,” answered Katharine, without much hesitation. “I only said what any one would have thought who happened to see you just then. I didn’t think there was any harm in it. I shall certainly never say it again, since you’re displeased.”
“Oh—that doesn’t matter!” exclaimed Hester, with a little scornful laugh. “As we’re not to be friends any more, you can displease me as much as you like now. It doesn’t matter in the least!”
“How strange you are, Hester!” Katharine said, thoughtfully. “I don’t in the least understand you.”
“We never really understood each other,” repliedHester. “We only thought we did. But—as I say—since we’re not to be friends any more, it’s of no consequence.”
“You can’t say that—that we never understood each other,” said Katharine. “It’s not true.”
“Oh yes, it is! We never understood—never, what I mean by understanding. So I blush, and stare, and behave like a schoolgirl, when Walter comes in singing! I didn’t know it. I am glad you’ve told me, for I don’t like to do foolish things in public.”
“I don’t think it’s always foolish to show what one feels. It’s better to feel something, and show it, than to feel nothing at all.”
“I should think so!” Hester laughed rather contemptuously again, and glanced at Katharine’s face.
The young girl moved, as though she were about to rise,—the little preliminary movement which most women make, as a clock gives warning five minutes before it strikes. It is often a tentative measure, and there is some expectation on the part of her who moves that her friend will make at least a show of detaining her. When she does not mean to do so, she herself generally moves a little, which precipitates matters. If men could understand this, they would more often be able to understand whether they are wanted any longer or not. But, instead, they rarely give warning, butseize their hats, in countries where it is manners to carry them, and rise with one movement, giving the lady no choice about detaining them or not.
On the present occasion, as soon as Katharine moved, Hester did likewise, sitting up straight, and pushing the small tea-table a little away from her, in order to make room for herself to rise. Katharine did not fail to notice the fact, and got up at once.
“I’m sorry we can’t make it up, Hester,” she said, regretfully. “I’m sorry if we’re both changed so much in such a short time. I shouldn’t have thought it possible.”
“The world’s full of surprises,” observed Hester, rising and slipping out from behind the tea-table.
“Oh—really, Hester!” exclaimed Katharine, impatiently. “You needn’t make it worse by saying such things as that, you know!”
“What things? Isn’t it true, my dear? I’m sure I’ve found the world a very surprising place to live in. Haven’t you?”
Katharine said nothing, but turned her face away a little, and made haste over her gloves, which she had forgotten to put on before rising, in her sudden haste to get away. Hester looked down at the tea-table, and absently took up a teaspoon and moved a little leaf that lay in the bottom of the empty cup. Katharine was only just beginning to use her right hand a little, andhad difficulty in buttoning the glove on her left. She tried once or twice, and then turned to Hester.
“I wish you’d button it for me,” she said. “I can’t do anything with my right hand, it’s so weak.”
She held out her left, and Hester bent over it. But before she had fastened two buttons, she started, and looked at the door. Her quick ear had caught her husband’s footfall as he came downstairs again, doubtless in search of her. She paused, and held her breath, listening, though he was not singing now. The footsteps came nearer, the handle of the door turned, and Crowdie entered the room.
“Oh—Miss Lauderdale!” he exclaimed. Then he smiled at Hester, who held out her hand, and he touched it with his lips, in a foreign fashion. “You’re not going away?” he asked, turning to Katharine again. “Just as I’ve come in. Do sit down again! Now, please give me a cup of tea, Hester—I’m tired and thirsty—and I’ve been awfully bored. Do sit down, Miss Lauderdale! Just a minute, to please me!”
“Well—I would,” answered Katharine, affecting a hesitation she did not feel, in order not to seem ungracious. “I would—but I really must be going. I’ve been here ever so long, already.”
“Yes—but you’ve got another welcome to wear out—mine,” he said, letting his voice soften and dwell on the last word.
“I really think Katharine’s in a hurry,” said Hester, who was pale.
Katharine glanced at her in some surprise. She had never in her life been so plainly told to go away, and she was inclined to resent the rudeness. She might never enter the house again, but she did not choose to be turned out of it by a woman who a few weeks earlier had professed with protestations that she was her dearest and closest friend.
“You can’t be in such a hurry as all that,” objected Crowdie, who supposed that Katharine had really said that she was pressed for time. “Besides, I’ve got something to show you.”
“Have you?” asked Katharine, suddenly glad of an excuse for staying a few moments, in spite of Hester’s anxiety to get rid of her.
Hester looked at her husband in surprise, and her finely chiselled lips moved and almost trembled.
“What do you mean, Walter?” she asked, in an uncertain tone.
“Oh—don’t you know? That head of poor uncle Robert, I did last night. I want to show it to Miss Lauderdale—she knew his face better than any of us.”
Katharine tried to detect a shade of irony in the words; but they were spoken quite naturally, without the least underthought.
“I should like to see it,” she answered, quietly, after an instant’s silence.
“I’ll get it,” said Crowdie, “if you don’t mind waiting a minute. It’s in your dressing-room, isn’t it, Hester?” he asked, turning to his wife. “You were looking at it last night, just before you went to bed. I did it late in the evening,” he added, explaining to Katharine.
“Certainly,” she replied. “I’ll wait while you get it. I should really like to see it.”
Crowdie left the room, and her eyes followed him, and she disliked the undulating, feminine swing of his walk. He was badly made, having low, sloping shoulders, and being heavy about the waist, though he was not stout. He left the door open, and the two women waited in silence, not looking at one another. A moment later they heard Crowdie moving about overhead, where Hester’s dressing-room was situated, corresponding with the sitting-room in which they were. Hester listened intently, her eyes turned upwards towards the ceiling, as though they could help her to hear.
“He can’t find it,” she said. “I’d better go and help him—he’ll never find it alone.”
She made a step towards the door, paused, and listened again. The wrathful instinct grew stronger in Katharine. She imagined that Hester had thought of going upstairs in order to escape from the unpleasantness of being alone with her a little longer.
“If you’d finish buttoning my glove,” she said, calmly, “I’ll go without waiting. I’m very sorry, but I can’t do it myself.”
Hester’s eyebrows twitched irritably, but she bent over the outstretched hand, for she could not do otherwise. A moment later Crowdie’s footstep was heard on the stairs again, and he came in through the open door.
“I’ve hunted everywhere!” he exclaimed. “I can’t think where you’ve put it. I wish you’d go and find it for me, dear. It’s awfully stupid of me, I know!”
“Oh—I know just where it is,” answered Hester. “You must have seen it—why, I set it up on the toilet-table, on one side of the looking-glass, turned to the light.”
“Well—it’s not there now,” said Crowdie, “because I’ve just looked.”
“I’m sure it’s there,” replied Hester, going towards the door. “Nobody could have moved it.”
“Go and see, darling—I assure you I’ve looked everywhere for it, and I don’t believe it’s in the room at all.”
It was one of those absurd little discussions which occur between two people, the one who has seen, and the other who believes. Hester left the room rather impetuously, being absolutely sure that she was right. She, also, left the door open behind her.
“Can’t I button your glove for you?” asked Crowdie. “I saw that Hester was doing it when I came in.”
Crowdie’s touch was intensely disagreeable to Katharine, but she held out her hand to him, in spite of the fact. Just then, she felt that she should almost prefer to let him do it, rather than let Hester help her. She was standing in the middle of the room, half turned away from the door.
“I thought you would like to see the sketch,” said Crowdie, fastening the button nearest to her wrist with his deft, pointed fingers, skilful as any woman’s. “I did it on a board last night—just a crayon thing from memory, with an old photograph to help me. Hester thought it was very like. If you approve of it, I’ll paint a picture from it.”
“I wish you would!” answered Katharine. “There never was anything good of him—I should so like to have something—”
She checked herself, having momentarily forgotten that Crowdie had been a very heavy loser, through his wife, by the decision in the case of the will, and that he could hardly be expected to make a present to one of her family, under the circumstances.
“Why do you hesitate?” he asked, pausing at the last button and looking into her face.
“Oh—because—I don’t know!” She was a little embarrassed. “I was afraid I’d spoken as though I meant to ask for the sketch.”
“You didn’t!” laughed Crowdie, softly. “You’re going to have it anyway. I made it for you.”
“I don’t believe that,” answered Katharine, quickly, but smiling. “You’re only trying to help me out of my rudeness. But it’s very generous of you to think of giving me anything, after all that’s happened.”
“Why? Do you mean about the will? Really, Miss Lauderdale, if you think I’m that sort of person—”
He stopped and laughed again, so naturally and easily that she hardly doubted his sincerity. His womanish eyes looked innocently into hers. He held her left wrist in both his hands, just as he had paused in the act of buttoning the glove.
Overhead, Hester’s light footstep was audible in the short silence that followed, as she moved about the room, searching for the sketch, which had evidently not been in the place where she had left it.
“Besides,” added Crowdie, after a short pause, “you’re not your father. And if you were,” he continued, lightly, “that wouldn’t be a reason for being horrid. The law decided it, and I suppose the law was right. Mr. Lauderdale didn’t make the law, and it gave him his rights. Hester and Ishall get along just as well on what we’ve always had. I don’t complain. Of course it would be nice to buy Greek islands, and play with marble palaces and Oriental luxury. But after all, I’m a painter. I suppose it’s an assumption, or a boast, or something. But I don’t care—before you—I like painting, and I should always paint, and I should always want to sell my pictures, if I had a hundred millions. What could Hester and I do with five or six hundred thousand a year? That would have been about our share. I shouldn’t feel like myself, if I didn’t earn money by what I do. I suppose you can’t understand that, can you?”
“Oh yes, I can,” answered Katharine, quickly. “I understand it, and I like it in you. It’s because you’re not an amateur that you feel like that.”
“I’m not exactly an amateur,” said Crowdie, with a smile. “As for the sketch, or the picture, if I paint it, they’re yours. You were the old gentleman’s favourite, and it’s right that you should have a portrait of him—that is—if you’ll accept it.”
“Thank you very much. I don’t know about taking it, exactly—it’s much too generous of you.”
She knew what Crowdie’s work was worth, for he was a very successful man at portrait painting, and he had never seemed to care much for any other variety of the art. He was more or less ofa specialist in his own department, but so far as he went, he brought an amount of experience and a richness of conception to bear upon what he did, which had carried him beyond most rivals. Possibly he had not in him the stuff which makes the greatest artists—the manly, ascetic, devoted nature which has in it a touch of the fanatic, the absolute concentration of all faculties upon a single but many-sided task. He was, in a way, the product of the age, an artist and a good one, but a specialist—an expert in the painting of portraits. All his gifts favoured and strengthened the tendency.
“I don’t see anything generous in offering you one of my daubs!” he laughed, in answer to what Katharine had said last. “Hester can’t find it—I knew it wasn’t where she said it was,” he added, after a short pause, during which he listened for his wife’s footstep.
“Please button the last button, too,” said Katharine, who had listened also, but had heard nothing. “You’re so awfully clever at it.”
“Am I?” he asked, still smiling. “This is evidently my day of grace and favour in your royal eyes.”
His beautiful voice had an inflection of something like tenderness in it, which displeased Katharine. She pushed his hands lightly with hers as he held it, to remind him of what he was doing.
“Please button it!” she said, a littleimperiously, and looking at the button in question as she spoke, but quite conscious of his eyes.
He inclined his head dutifully, after gazing at her an instant longer, and then bent over the hand again and quietly slipped the button through the button-hole, touching it very delicately and in evident fear of tightening the glove so as to pinch her arm. Gloves with buttons chanced to be the fashion just then, in an interval between two fits of the Biarritz gauntlet. When he had performed the little operation, he glanced at each of the others in turn, touching each with his finger, while Katharine watched him carelessly. Then, before she could withdraw her hand, he bent his head a little more and lightly kissed the button at her wrist, releasing it instantly.
Katharine drew it back almost before he had let it go, with a quick movement of displeasure.
“Don’t do that!” she cried, in a low voice.
But as he raised his head Crowdie turned ashy pale. Even his lips lost some of their over-brilliant colour, and his eyes lost their light. Hester had descended the stairs noiselessly and stood in the open door, her face whiter than his. As their glances met, she dropped the sheet of pasteboard she held in one hand by her side, and steadied herself against the door-post. Katharine turned quickly and saw her. It did not strike the young girl that such agitation could be due to havingseen what Crowdie had done. Katharine herself had been annoyed, but, after all, it was an innocent offence, she thought, especially for a man who had lived long abroad, and could not be supposed to attach much importance to the act of touching a glove with his lips, when he had been long familiar with the custom of kissing a lady’s hand instead of shaking it at meeting and parting, if the hand were offered to him.
“Why, Hester!” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
“No—it’s nothing,” answered Hester, twisting her lips to form the words. “Here’s the drawing. I ran—I’m out of breath.”
She held it out as she spoke, and Crowdie took it from her mechanically. His hand trembled as he did so, for he was a coward. Hester turned from them both and went to the open window. She lifted one hand and rested it on the sash at the level of her head. They could not see that the other was pressed to her heart, for she kept the elbow close to her side. Crowdie was still pale and trembling, and he glanced uneasily towards her, as he held up the drawing to Katharine to look at.
“Give it to me,” said the young girl, unconsciously speaking in a low voice. “Your hand shakes.”
She began to wonder exactly what had takenplace, and could find no explanation except Crowdie’s small offence. Instantly, she understood that Hester was desperately jealous of her. It sometimes takes longer to understand such things in real life, when they are very far from one’s thoughts, than to guess them from the most meagre description of what has taken place. Katharine almost laughed when she realized the truth. She looked intently at the drawing.
“It’s wonderfully like!” she exclaimed, feeling that matters would be worse if she did not express some admiration of the work, though she found it hard to concentrate her attention upon the familiar features. “Especially the”—she did not know what she was saying—“the beard,” she added, completing her sentence.
“Ah, yes—the beard—as you say,” responded Crowdie, in a rather tremulous tone, and glancing at his wife’s figure. Then he laughed very nervously. “Yes—the beard’s like, isn’t it?” he said.
“Oh, very!” answered Katharine, looking quickly at Hester and then intently at the pasteboard again. “Every hair—”
“Yes.” And Crowdie tried to laugh again, as though it would help him. “There are hairs in the pasteboard, too—sticking up here and there—it helps the illusion, doesn’t it?”
“Why, so there are!” Katharine looked at thedrawing in silence for a moment and collected herself. “The expression’s very good,” she said. “I like a picture when the eyes look right at you.”
She raised her own mechanically as she spoke, and she realized how white he was. She held out the drawing to him.
“Thanks, so much,” she said. “I’m glad to have seen it. It was so good of you. I really must be going now. It’s getting late.”
He took the drawing and laid it carefully upon the table, with the instinctive forethought of the artist for the safety of his work.
“Good-bye, Hester,” said Katharine, moving a step towards the window.
Hester turned abruptly. There were deep shadows under her eyes, and there was a bright colour in her face now, but not like that which had come to it when her husband had passed the door, singing. As she stood with her back against the bright light of the window, however, Katharine could hardly distinguish her features.
“Oh—good-bye,” said Hester in a strange, cold voice, not moving and not holding out her hand.
But Katharine extended her own, for she entirely refused to be treated as though she had injured her friend, just as a little while earlier, she had chosen to stay a few minutes rather than to take a hint so broad that it sounded like an order to go. She went nearer to the window.
“Good-bye, Hester,” she repeated, holding out her hand in such a way that Hester could not refuse to take it.
And Hester took it, but dropped it again instantly. Katharine nodded quietly, turned, nodded again to Crowdie in exactly the same way, and passed out through the open door, calmly and proudly, being quite sure that she had done nothing to be ashamed of. She knew, at the moment, that all hope of ever renewing her friendship was gone, at least for the present, and she regretted the fact to the last minute, and was willing to show that she did. Hester’s behaviour had been incomprehensible from the first, and it was still a mystery to Katharine when she left the house. One thing only was clear, and that was the woman’s uncontrollable jealousy during the little scene which had taken place. The idea of connecting that jealousy with former events never crossed the young girl’s mind, and of finding an original cause for it in the fact of Crowdie’s having sung at Mrs. Bright’s on a certain evening three weeks earlier. Still less could she have guessed that it had begun long ago, during the preceding winter, when she had sat for her portrait in Crowdie’s studio, while Hester lay extended upon the divan where she could watch her husband’s face, and note every passing look of admiration that crossed it, as he of necessity studied the features of his model. Such an idea was altogethertoo far removed from Katharine, in her ignorance of human nature—as far as Hester’s passion for her husband, which went beyond the limits of what the young girl had ever dreamed of in its excessive sensitiveness.
Katharine closed the front door behind her and went out into the street. As she descended the neat white stone steps she was close to the open windows of the little sitting-room and could have heard anything which might have been said within. But no sound of voices reached her. She could not help glancing over her shoulder towards the window, as she turned away, and she could see that Hester was still standing with her back to it, as she had stood when Katharine had insisted upon taking leave of her.
She walked slowly homewards, wondering what was taking place since she had left the two together, and going over in her mind the details of the scene. She remembered Crowdie’s face very distinctly. She was not sure that she had ever in her life seen a man badly frightened before, and it had produced a very vivid impression upon her at the time. And she recalled the picture of Hester, standing in the doorway, the pasteboard at her feet, and her hand raised to support herself against the doorway. She had heard of ‘domestic tragedies,’ as they are called in the newspapers, and she wondered whether they ever began in that way.
HesterCrowdieheard Katharine’s footfall outside, and did not move from her position at the window until she had listened to the last retreating echo of the young girl’s light step upon the pavement. It was very still after that, for Lafayette Place is an unfrequented corner—a quiet island, as it were, round which the great rivers of traffic flow in all directions. Only now and then a lumbering van thunders through it, to draw up at the great printing establishment at the southeast corner, or a private carriage rolls along and stops, with a discreet clatter, at the Bishop’s House, on the west side, almost opposite the Crowdies’ dwelling.
But as Hester stood in silence, with her back to the window, her eyes rested with a fixed look on her husband’s face. He was pale, and his own beautiful eyes had lost their self-possessed calm. He looked at her, but his glance shifted quickly from one point to another—from her throat to her shoulder, from her hair to the window behind her—in a frightened and anxious way, avoiding her steady gaze.
What he had done was harmless enough, if not altogether innocent, in itself. That there had been something not exactly right about it, or about the way in which he had done it, was indirectly proved by Katharine’s own quick displeasure. But he knew, himself, how much it had meant to Hester, over, above and beyond any commonly simple interpretation which might be put upon it. His face and manner showed that he knew it, long before she spoke the first word of what was to come.
“Walter!”
She uttered his name in a low tone that quivered with the pain she felt, full of suffering, and reproach, and disappointment. Instantly his eyes fell before hers, but he answered nothing. He looked at his own white hand as it rested on the back of a chair.
“Look at me!” she said, almost sharply, with a rising intonation.
He looked up timidly, and a slight flush appeared on his pale forehead, but not in his cheeks.
“I don’t know why you make such a fuss about nothing,” he said, in the colourless voice of a frightened boy, caught in mischief before he has had time to invent an excuse.
“Don’t use such absurd words!” cried Hester, with sudden energy. “It’s bad enough as it is. You love her. Say so! Be a man—be done with it!”
“I certainly won’t say that,” answered Crowdie, regaining a little self-possession under the exaggerated accusation. “It wouldn’t be true.”
“I’ve seen—I know!” She turned from him again and rested her forehead on her hands against the raised sash of the window.
He gained courage, when he no longer felt her eyes upon him, and he found words.
“You’ve no right to say that I love Katharine Lauderdale,” he said. “You saw what I did, and all I did. Well—what harm was there in kissing her hand—not her hand, her glove, when I had fastened it?”
“What harm!” she repeated, in a low voice, without turning to him, and moving her head a little against her hands.
“Yes—what harm was there, I ask? Wasn’t it a perfectly natural thing to do? Haven’t you seen me—”
“Natural!” Hester turned again very quickly and came forward two steps into the room. “Natural!” she repeated. “Yes—that’s it—it was natural—oh, too natural! What else could you do? Buttoning her glove—her hand in yours—and you, loving her—you kissed it! Ah, yes,—I know how natural it was! And you tell me there was no harm in it! What’s harm, then? What does the word mean to you? Nothing? Is there no harm in hurting me?”
“But Hester, love—”
“And as though you did not know it—as though you had not turned white when you saw me at the door there, looking at you! If there were no harm, you needn’t have been afraid of me. You’d have smiled instead of getting pale; you’d have held her hand still, instead of dropping it, and you’d have kissed it again, to show me how little it meant. No harm, indeed!”
“Your face was enough to scare any one, sweetheart. I thought you were ill and were going to faint.”
He spoke softly now, in his golden voice, and threw more persuasion into the thin excuse than its words held.
“Don’t—don’t!” she cried. “You’re tearing love to pieces with every word you say—if you know what you’re saying! I tell you I’ve seen, and I know! This is the end—not the beginning. I saw it beginning long ago—last winter, when she sat to you day after day, and I lay in my corner and watched you watching her, and your eyes lighting up, and that smile of yours that was only for me—”
“But I was painting her portrait—I had to look at her—”
“Not like that! Oh, no, not like that! There’s no reason, there never was any reason, why you should look at any woman like that—as you’velooked at me. What a fool I was to let it go on, to trust myself, to believe that I could be the only woman in the world for you! And then, the other day, when you sang to her before all those people; do you remember what you once promised me? Do you remember at all that you swore to me by all you held sacred that you’d never, never sing, unless I were there to hear you? How you told me that your voice was mine, and only for me, and for no one else, because that at least you could keep for me, though you couldn’t keep your art and make that all mine, too? And then you sang to her—I know, for they told me—you sang my song, the one I loved, from Lohengrin! Why did you do that?”
“Why—I told you the other day—we talked of it, don’t you remember? Why do you go back to it now, dear?”
“Because it’s part of it all,” she cried, passionately. “Because it was only one of so many things that have all led up to this that you’ve done now. I told you how I hated her, the other day, and I made you say that you hated her, too, though you didn’t want to say it. But you did, and you meant it for a little minute—just while it lasted. But you can’t hate her when she’s here—you can’t because you love her, and one can’t hate and love at the same time, though I do—but that’s different. You love her, Walter! You love her—you love her—”
“You’re beside yourself, darling,” said Crowdie, softly. “Don’t talk like this! Be reasonable! Listen to me, sweet!”
He knelt down beside her as she threw herself into a low chair, and he tried to take her hands. But she drew them away, wringing them as though to shake something from her fingers, and turning her face from him, as she clasped the back of the chair on the opposite side.
“No, no!” she cried, quivering all over. “I’m not mad. I know what I’m saying—God knows, I wish I didn’t.”
Her voice sank to a whisper, and her head fell against her hands. Crowdie laid one of his upon her arm, and she quivered again, like a nervous thoroughbred. Crowdie’s own voice was full of soft pleading as he spoke to her.
“My sweet—my precious! Listen to me, love; don’t think I don’t love you, not even for one instant, nor that I ever loved you even a little less. Hester, look at me, darling—don’t turn your face away as though you were always going to be angry—it’s all a wretched mistake, dear! Won’t you try and believe me?”
But Hester would not turn to him.
“What has she got that I haven’t?” she asked, in a low monotonous tone, as though speaking to herself.
“Nothing, beloved—not half of all you have, not a quarter nor a hundredth part—”
“Yes—she’s more beautiful, I suppose,” continued Hester, speaking into the chair as she buried her face. “But surely that’s all—oh, what is it? What else is it that she has, and that I haven’t, and that you love in her?”
“But I don’t love her—I don’t care for her—I don’t even like her—I hate her since she’s come between you and me, dear.”
“No—you love her. I’ve seen it in your eyes—you can’t hide it in your eyes. You do! You love her!” she cried, suddenly raising her face and turning upon him for a moment, then looking away again almost instantly. “Oh, what has she got that I haven’t? What’s her secret—oh, what is it?”
Crowdie bent over her shoulder and kissed the stuff of her frock softly.
“Darling! Don’t make so much of so very little!” he whispered, close to her ear. “I tell you I love you, sweet—you must believe me—you shall believe me! I’ll kiss you till you do.”
“No!” she exclaimed, almost fiercely. “You shan’t kiss me!”
And she rose with a spring, and left him kneeling beside the empty chair. He struggled to his feet, cut by the ridicule of his own attitude. But he could not move easily and swiftly as she could, being badly made. She stood back, looking at him over the chair, and her eyes flashed angrily. He moved towards her, but she drew further back.
“Don’t come near me!” she cried. “I won’t let you touch me!”
“Hester!” His voice trembled as he uttered her name.
“No—I know what you can do with your voice! I don’t believe you any longer—you’ve spoken to her just like that—you’ve called her Katharine, just as you call me Hester! Oh no, no! It’s all false—it doesn’t ring true any more. Go—I don’t want to see you—I don’t want to know you’re here—”
But still he tried to get nearer to her with pleading eyes that were beginning to light up as he moved, making his feet slide upon the carpet, rather than walking.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t come near me! If you touch me—I’ll kill you!”
Her hands went out to resist him, and her low, passionate cry of warning vibrated in the little room. Crowdie was startled, even then, and he paused, checked as though cold water had been thrown in his face. Then, very much discomfited, he turned and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket, began to walk up and down, passing and repassing her as she stood back against the fireplace. Her eyes followed him fiercely, and she breathed audibly with a quick, sob-like breath, with parted lips, between her teeth.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” he said, ina tone of a man who is at his wit’s end and is debating with himself.
“Say nothing—go—what could you say?”
“I could say a great many things,” he answered, growing calm again in the attempt to argue the case. “In the first place, it’s all a piece of the most extraordinary exaggeration on your part—the whole thing—pretending that a man can’t kiss a girl’s glove without being in love with her! As though there had been any secret about it! Why, the door was wide open—of course you might have come in at any moment, just as you did. And then—the way you talk! You couldn’t be more angry if I’d run away with the girl. Besides—she can’t abide me. I only did it to tease her, and she didn’t like it a bit—upon my word, you’re making a crime out of the merest chaff. It’s not like you to be so unreasonable.”
He stopped in his walk and stood opposite to her, near the chair in which she had sat.