"Oh, of course," said the girl. After a constraint which she marked by rather a long silence, she added, "How strange a roomful of talking sounds, doesn"t it? Just like a great caldron boiling up and bubbling over. Wouldn"t you like to know what they"re all saying?"
"Oh, it"s quite bad enough to see them," replied Colville frivolously.
"I think a company of gentlemen with their hats off look very queer, don"t you?" she asked, after another interval.
"Well, really," said Colville, laughing, "I don"t know that the spectacle ever suggested any metaphysical speculations to me. I rather think they look queerer with their hats on."
"Oh yes."
"Though there is not very much to choose. We"re a queer-looking set, anyway."
He got himself another cup of tea, and coming back to her, allowed her to make the efforts to keep up the conversation, and was not without a malicious pleasure in her struggles. They interested him as social exercises which, however abrupt and undexterous now, were destined, with time and practice, to become the finesse of a woman of society, and to be accepted, even while they were still abrupt and undexterous, as touches of character. He had broken up that coldness with which she had met him at first, and now he let her adjust the fragments as she could to the new situation. He wore that air of a gentleman who has been talking a long time to a lady, and who will not dispute her possession with a new-comer.
But no one came, though, as he cast his eyes carelessly over the company, he found that it had been increased by the accession of eight or ten young fellows, with a refreshing light of originality in their faces, and little touches of difference from the other men in their dress.
"Oh, there are the Inglehart boys!" cried the girl, with a flash of excitement.
There was a sensation of interest and friendliness in the company as these young fellows, after their moment of social intimidation, began to gather round the pictures, and to fling their praise and blame about, and talk the delightful shop of the studio.
The sight of their fresh young faces, the sound of their voices, struck a pang of regret that was almost envy to Colville"s heart.
Imogene followed them with eager eyes. "Oh," she sighed, "shouldn"t you like to be an artist?"
"I should, very much."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I forgot. I knew you were an architect."
"I should say I used to be, if you hadn"t objected to my perfects and preterits."
What came next seemed almost an accident.
"I didn"t suppose you cared for my objections, so long as I amused you."
She suddenly glanced at him, as if terrified at her own words.
"Have you been trying to amuse me?" he asked.
"Oh no. I thought----"
"Oh, then," said Colville sharply, "you meant that I was amusing myself with you?" She glanced at him in terror of his divination, but could not protest. "Has any one told you that?" he pursued, with sudden angry suspicion.
"No, _no_ one," began Imogene. She glanced about her, frightened. They stood quite alone where they were; the people had mostly wandered off into the other rooms. "Oh, don"t--I didn"t mean--I didn"t intend to say anything----"
"But you have said something--something that surprises me from _you_, and hurts me. I wish to know whether you say it from yourself."
"I don"t know--yes. That is, not----Oh, I wish Mrs. Fleming----"
She looked as if another word of pursuit would put it beyond her power to control herself.
"Let me take you to Mrs. Fleming," said Colville, with freezing _hauteur_; and led the way where the top of Mrs. Fleming"s bonnet still showed itself. He took leave at once, and hastily parting with his host, found himself in the street, whirled in many emotions. The girl had not said that from herself, but it was from some woman; he knew that by the directness of the phrase and its excess, for he had noticed that women who liked to beat about the bush in small matters have a prodigious straightforwardness in more vital affairs, and will even call grey black in order clearly to establish the presence of the black in that colour.
He could hardly keep himself from going to Palazzo Pinti.
But he contrived to go to his hotel instead, where he ate a moody dinner, and then, after an hour"s solitary bitterness in his room, went out and pa.s.sed the evening at the theatre. The play was one of those fleering comedies which render contemptible for the time all honest and earnest intention, and which surely are a whiff from the bottomless pit itself. It made him laugh at the serious strain of self-question that had mingled with his resentment; it made him laugh even at his resentment, and with its humour in his thoughts, sent him off to sleep in a sottish acceptance of whatever was trivial in himself as the only thing that was real and lasting.
He slept late, and when Paolo brought up his breakfast, he brought with it a letter which he said had been left with the porter an hour before.
A faint appealing perfume of violet exhaled from the note, and mingled with the steaming odours of the coffee and boiled milk, when Colville, after a glance at the unfamiliar handwriting of the superscription, broke the seal.
"DEAR MR. COLVILLE,--I don"t know what you will think of my writing to you, but perhaps you can"t think worse of me than you do already, and anything will be better than the misery that I am in. I have not been asleep all night. I hate myself for telling you, but I do want you to understand how I have felt. I would give worlds if I could take back the words that you say wounded you. I didn"t mean to wound you. n.o.body is to blame for them but me; n.o.body ever breathed a word about you that was meant in unkindness.
"I am not ashamed of writing this, _whatever_ you think, and I will sign my name in full. IMOGENE GRAHAM."
Colville had commonly a good appet.i.te for his breakfast, but now he let his coffee stand long un-tasted. There were several things about this note that touched him--the childlike simplicity and directness, the generous courage, even the imperfection and crudity of the literature.
However he saw it afterward, he saw it then in its true intention. He respected that intention; through all the sophistications in which life had wrapped him, it awed him a little. He realised that if he had been younger he would have gone to Imogene herself with her letter. He felt for the moment a rush of the emotion which he would once not have stopped to examine, which he would not have been capable of examining.
But now his duty was clear; he must go to Mrs. Bowen. In the n.o.blest human purpose there is always some admixture, however slight, of less n.o.ble motive, and Colville was not without the willingness to see whatever embarra.s.sment she might feel when he showed her the letter, and to invoke her finest tact to aid him in re-a.s.suring the child.
She was alone in her drawing-room, and she told him in response to his inquiry for their health that Imogene and Effie had gone out to drive.
She looked so pretty in the quiet house dress in which she rose from the sofa and stood, letting him come the whole way to greet her, that he did not think of any other look in her, but afterward he remembered an evidence of inner tumult in her brightened eyes.
He said, smiling, "I"m so glad to see you alone," and this brought still another look into her face, which also he afterward remembered. She did not reply, but made a sound in her throat like a bird when it stirs itself for flight or song. It was a strange, indefinite little note, in which Colville thought he detected trepidation at the time, and recalled for the sort of expectation suggested in it. She stood waiting for him to go on.
"I have come to get you to help me out of trouble."
"Yes?" said Mrs. Bowen, with a vague smile. "I always supposed you would be able to help yourself out of trouble. Or perhaps wouldn"t mind it if you were in it."
"Oh yes, I mind it very much," returned Colville, refusing her banter, if it were banter. "Especially this sort of trouble, which involves some one else in the discomfort." He went on abruptly: "I have been held up to a young lady as a person who was amusing himself with her, and I was so absurd as to be angry when she told me, and demanded the name of my friend, whoever it was. My behaviour seems to have given the young lady a bad night, and this morning she writes to tell me so, and to take all the blame on herself, and to a.s.sure me that no harm was meant me by any one. Of course I don"t want her to be distressed about it. Perhaps you can guess who has been writing to me."
Colville said all this looking down, in a fashion he had. When he looked up he saw a severity in Mrs. Bowen"s pretty face, such as he had not seen there before.
"I didn"t know she had been writing to you, but I know that you are talking of Imogene. She told me what she had said to you yesterday, and I blamed her for it, but I"m not sure that it wasn"t best."
"Oh, indeed!" said Colville. "Perhaps you can tell me who put the idea into her head?"
"Yes; I did."
A dead silence ensued, in which the fragments of the situation broken by these words revolved before Colville"s thought with kaleidoscopic variety, and he pa.s.sed through all the phases of anger, resentment, wounded self-love, and accusing shame.
At last, "I suppose you had your reasons," he said simply.
"I am in her mother"s place here," she replied, tightening the grip of one little hand upon another, where she held them laid against the side of her waist.
"Yes, I know that," said Colville; "but what reason had you to warn her against me as a person who was amusing himself with her? I don"t like the phrase; but she seems to have got it from you; I use it at third hand."
"I don"t like the phrase either; I didn"t invent it."
"You used it."
"No; it wasn"t I who used it. I should have been glad to use another, if I could," said Mrs. Bowen, with perfect steadiness.
"Then you mean to say that you believe I"ve been trifling with the feelings of this child?"