XX.
The next morning Alice was walking slowly along the road toward the fishing village, when she heard rapid, plunging strides down the wooded hillside on her right. She knew them for Mavering"s, and she did not affect surprise when he made a final leap into the road, and shortened his pace beside her.
"May I join you, Miss Pasmer?"
"I am only going down to the herring-houses," she began.
"And you"ll let me go with you?" said the young fellow. "The fact is--you"re always so frank that you make everything else seem silly--I"ve been waiting up there in the woods for you to come by.
Mrs. Pasmer told me you had started this way, and I cut across lots to overtake you, and then, when you came in sight, I had to let you pa.s.s before I could screw my courage up to the point of running after you.
How is that for open-mindedness?"
"It"s a very good beginning, I should think."
"Well, don"t you think you ought to say now that you"re sorry you were so formidable?"
"Am I so formidable?" she asked, and then recognised that she had been trapped into a leading question.
"You are to me. Because I would like always to be sure that I had pleased you, and for the last twelve hours I"ve only been able to make sure that I hadn"t. That"s the consolation I"m going away with. I thought I"d get you to confirm my impression explicitly. That"s why I wished to join you."
"Are you--were you going away?"
"I"m going by the next boat. What"s the use of staying? I should only make bad worse. Yesterday I hoped But last night spoiled everything.
"Miss Pasmer,"" he broke out, with a rush of feeling, "you must know why I came up here to Campobello."
His steps took him a little ahead of her, and he could look back into her face as he spoke. But apparently he saw nothing in it to give him courage to go on, for he stopped, and then continued, lightly: "And I"m going away because I feel that I"ve made a failure of the expedition. I knew that you were supremely disgusted with me last night; but it will be a sort of comfort if you"ll tell me so."
"Oh," said Alice, "everybody thought it was very brilliant, I"m sure."
"And you thought it was a piece of buffoonery. Well, it was. I wish you"d say so, Miss Pasmer; though I didn"t mean the playing entirely. It would be something to start from, and I want to make a beginning--turn over a new leaf. Can"t you help me to inscribe a good resolution of the most iron-clad description on the stainless page? I"ve lain awake all night composing one. Wouldn"t you like to hear it?"
"I can"t see what good that would do," she said, with some relenting toward a smile, in which he instantly prepared himself to bask.
"But you will when I"ve done it. Now listen!"
"Please don"t go on." She cut him short with a return to her severity, which he would not recognise.
"Well, perhaps I"d better not," he consented. "It"s rather a long resolution, and I don"t know that I"ve committed it perfectly yet. But I do a.s.sure you that if you were disgusted last night, you were not the only one. I was immensely disgusted myself; and why I wanted you to tell me so, was because when I have a strong pressure brought to bear I can brace up, and do almost anything," he said, dropping into earnest. Then he rose lightly again, and added, "You have no idea how unpleasant it is to lie awake all night throwing dust in the eyes of an accusing conscience."
"It must have been, if you didn"t succeed," said Alice drily.
"Yes, that"s it--that"s just the point. If I"d succeeded, I should be all right, don"t you see. But it was a difficult case." She turned her face away, but he saw the smile on her cheek, and he laughed as if this were what he had been trying to make her do. "I got beaten. I had to give up, and own it. I had to say that I had thrown my chance away, and I had better take myself off." He looked at her with a real anxiety in his gay eyes.
"The boat goes just after lunch, I believe," she said indifferently.
"Oh yes, I shall have time to get lunch before I go," he said, with bitterness. "But lunch isn"t the only thing; it isn"t even the main thing, Miss Pasmer."
"No?" She hardened her heart.
He waited for her to say something more, and then he went on. "The question is whether there"s time to undo last night, abolish it, erase it from the calendar of recorded time--sponge it out, in short--and get back to yesterday afternoon." She made no reply to this. "Don"t you think it was a very pleasant picnic, Miss Pasmer?" he asked, with pensive respectfulness.
"Very," she answered drily.
He cast a glance at the woods that bordered the road on either side.
"That weird forest--I shall never forget it."
"No; it was something to remember," she said.
"And the blueberry patch? We mustn"t forget the blueberry patch."
"There were a great many blueberries."
She walked on, and he said, "And that bridge--you don"t have that feeling of having been here before?"
"No."
"Am I walking too fast for you, Miss Pasmer?"
"No; I like to walk fast."
"But wouldn"t you like to sit down? On this wayside log, for example?"
He pointed it out with his stick. "It seems to invite repose, and I know you must be tired."
"I"m not tired."
"Ah, that shows that you didn"t lie awake grieving over your follies all night. I hope you rested well, Miss Pasmer." She said nothing. "If I thought--if I could hope that you hadn"t, it would be a bond of sympathy, and I would give almost anything for a bond of sympathy just now, Miss Pasmer. Alice!" he said, with sudden seriousness. "I know that I"m not worthy even to think of you, and that you"re whole worlds above me in every way. It"s that that takes all heart out of me, and leaves me without a word to say when I"d like to say so much. I would like to speak--tell you--"
She interrupted him. "I wish to speak to you, Mr. Mavering, and tell you that--I"m very tired, and I"m going back to the hotel. I must ask you to let me go back alone."
"Alice, I love you."
"I"m sorry you said it--sorry, sorry."
"Why?" he asked, with hopeless futility.
"Because there can be no love between us--not friendship even--not acquaintance."
"I shouldn"t have asked for your acquaintance, your friendship, if--"
His words conveyed a delicate reproach, and they stung her, because they put her in the wrong.
"No matter," she began wildly. "I didn"t mean to wound you. But we must part, and we must never see each other again:"
He stood confused, as if he could not make it out or believe it. "But yesterday--"
"It"s to-day now."
"Ah, no! It"s last night. And I can explain."
"No!" she cried. "You shall not make me out so mean and vindictive. I don"t care for last night, nor for anything that happened." This was not true, but it seemed so to her at the moment; she thought that she really no longer resented his a.s.sociation with Miss Anderson and his separation from herself in all that had taken place.