After the door had closed, Helen stood a moment by the table, motionless. Then she sat down by the feeble light of the taper and wrote upon a sheet of paper her husband"s address and one word--"forgiven." She looked at the writing fixedly for a minute or two, and then rang the bell.
"Have this telegram sent at once, please, and bring me a lamp and dinner," she said to the servant.
With the lamp came Archie, following it with a sort of interest, as children do.
"You must have been in the dark ever so long, mother," he said, and just then he saw her white face. "You are not looking all right," he observed.
Helen smiled, from force of habit, rather wearily. The servant began to set the table, moving stealthily, as though he were meditating some sudden surprise which never came. He was a fairly intelligent Swiss, with an immense pink face and very small blue eyes.
Helen watched him for a moment, and sighed. The man was intellectually her son"s superior, and she knew it. Any one else might have smiled at the thought, as grotesque, but it had for her the cruel vividness of a misfortune that had saddened all of her life which her husband had not embittered. She envied, for her son, the poor waiter"s little powers of mental arithmetic and memory.
"What"s the matter, mother?" asked Archie, who sat looking at her.
"Nothing, dear," she answered, rousing herself, and smiling wearily again. "I am a little tired, perhaps. It has been a hot day."
"Has it? I didn"t notice. I never do--at least, not much. I say, mother, let"s go home! I"m tired of Europe, and I know you are. Let"s all go home together--we and the Wimpoles."
"We shall be going home soon," said Helen.
"I thought you meant to go to Carlsbad first. Wasn"t it to Carlsbad we were going?"
"Yes, dear. But--here comes dinner--we will talk about it by and by."
They sat down to table. In hotels abroad Helen always dined in her rooms, for she was never quite sure of Archie. He seemed strangely unconscious of his own defect of mind, and was always ready to enter boldly into conversation with his neighbours at a foreign hotel dinner table. His childish ignorance had once or twice caused her such humiliation as she did not feel called upon to bear again.
"I don"t know why we shouldn"t talk about it now," began Archie, when he had eaten his soup in silence, and the servant was changing his plate.
"We shall be alone, after dinner," answered his mother.
"Oh, the waiter doesn"t care! He"ll never see us again, you know, so why shouldn"t we say anything we like before him?"
Mrs. Harmon looked at her son and shook her head gravely, which was an admonition he always understood.
"Did you see anything you liked, to-day?" she asked incautiously, by way of changing the conversation.
"Rather!" exclaimed Archie, promptly. "I met Sylvia Strahan--jukes!"
Helen shuddered, as she saw the look in his face and the glitter in his eyes.
"I wish you could remember not to say "jukes" every other minute, Archie," she said, for the thousandth time.
"Do you think Sylvia minds when I say "jukes"?" asked the young man, suddenly.
"I am sure she thinks it a very ugly and senseless word."
"Does she? Really?" He was silent for a few moments, pondering the question. "Well," he resumed at last, in a regretful tone, "I"ve always said it, and I like it, and I don"t see any harm in it. But, of course, if Sylvia doesn"t like it, I"ve got to give it up, that"s all. I"m always going to do what Sylvia likes, now, as long as I live. And what you like, too, mother," he added as an apologetic and dutiful afterthought. "But then, you"re pretty sure to like the same things, after all."
"You really must not go on in this way about Sylvia, my dear," said Helen. "It is too absurd."
Archie"s heavy brows met right across his forehead as he looked up with something like a glare in his eyes, and his voice was suddenly thick and indistinct, when he answered.
"Don"t call it absurd, mother. I don"t understand what it is, but it"s stronger than I am. I don"t want anything but Sylvia. Things don"t amuse me any more. It was only to-day--"
He stopped, for he was going to tell her how he had found no pleasure in his toys, neither in the blocks, nor in the tin soldiers, nor in the little papier-mache lady and gentleman in the painted cart. But he thought she did not know about them, and he checked himself in a sudden shame which he had never felt before. A deep red blush spread over his dark face, and he looked down at his plate.
"I"m a man, now," he said, through his teeth, in a rough voice.
After that, he was silent for a time, but Helen watched him nervously.
She, too, saw that he was a man, with almost less than a boy"s mind, and her secret terror grew. She could not eat that evening, but he did not notice her. They dined quickly and then they sat down together, as they usually did, quite near to each other and side by side. She could sometimes teach him little things which he remembered, when everything was quiet. He generally began to talk of something he had seen, and she always tried to make him understand it and think about it. But this evening he said nothing for a long time, and she was glad of his silence. When she thought of the telegram she had sent, she had a sharp pain at her heart, and once or twice she started a little in her chair.
But Archie did not notice her.
"I say, mother," he began, looking up, "what becomes of all the things one forgets? Do they--do they go to sleep in one"s head?"
Mrs. Harmon looked at him in surprise, for it was by far the most thoughtful question he had ever asked. She could not answer it at once, and he went on.
"Because you always tell me to try and remember, and you think I could remember if I tried hard enough. Then you must believe the things are there. You wouldn"t expect me to give you what I hadn"t got, would you?
That wouldn"t be fair."
"No, certainly not," answered his mother, considerably puzzled.
"Then you really think that I don"t forget. You must think I don"t remember to remember. Something like that. I can"t explain what I mean, but you understand."
"I suppose so, my dear. Something like that. Yes, perhaps it is just as you say, and things go to sleep in one"s head and one has to wake them up. But I know that I can often remember things I have forgotten if I try very hard."
"I can"t. I say, mother, I suppose I"m stupid, though you never tell me so. I know I"m different from other people, somehow. I wish you would tell me just what it is. I don"t want to be different from other people. Of course I know I could never be as clever as you, nor the colonel. But then you"re awfully clever, both of you. Father used to call me an idiot, but I"m not. I saw an idiot once, and his eyes turned in, and he couldn"t shut his mouth, and he couldn"t talk properly."
"Are you sure that your father ever called you an idiot, Archie?"
Helen"s lips were oddly pale, and her voice was low. Archie laughed in a wooden way.
"Oh, yes! I"m quite sure," he said. "I remember, because he hit me on the back of the head with the k.n.o.b of his stick when he said so. That was the first time. Then he got into the way of saying it. I wasn"t very big then."
Helen leaned back and closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw the word "forgiven" as she had written it after his name,--"Henry Harmon, New York. Forgiven." It had a strange look. She had not known that he had ever struck the boy cruelly.
"Why did you never tell me?" she asked slowly.
"Oh, I don"t know. It would have been like a cry-a-baby to go running to you. I just waited."
Helen did not guess what was coming.
"Did he strike you again with the k.n.o.b of his stick?" she asked.
"Lots of times, with all sorts of things. Once, when you were off somewhere for two or three days on a visit, he came at me with a poker.
That was the last time. I suppose he had been drinking more than usual."
"What happened?" asked Helen.
"Oh, well, I"d grown big then, and I got sick of it all at once, you know. He never tried to touch me again, after that."