"No," said the girl coldly; "it will do very well. I don"t wish to trouble you so much."
"Oh, how can you speak so to me? Do you think that I blame Mr. Colville?
Is that it? I don"t ask you--I shall never ask you--how he came to remain, but I know that he has acted truthfully and delicately. I knew him long before you did, and no one need take his part with me." This was not perhaps what Mrs. Bowen meant to say when she began. "I have told you all along what I thought, but if you imagine that I am not satisfied with Mr. Colville, you are very much mistaken. I can"t burst out into praises of him to your mother: that would be very patronising and very bad taste. Can"t you see that it would?"
"Oh yes."
Mrs. Bowen lingered, as if she expected Imogene to say something more, but she did not, and Mrs. Bowen rose. "Then I hope we understand each other," she said, and went out of the room.
XVI
When Colville came in the morning, Mrs. Bowen received him. They shook hands, and their eyes met in the intercepting glance of the night before.
"Imogene will be here in a moment," she said, with a naturalness that made him awkward and conscious.
"Oh, there is no haste," he answered uncouthly. "That is, I am very glad of the chance to speak a moment with you, and to ask your--to profit by what you think best. I know you are not very well pleased with me, and I don"t know that I can ever put myself in a better light with you--the true light. It seems that there are some things we must not do even for the truth"s sake. But that"s neither here nor there. What I am most anxious for is not to take a shadow of advantage of this child"s--of Imogene"s inexperience, and her remoteness from her family. I feel that I must in some sort protect her from herself. Yes--that is my idea. But I have to do this in so many ways that I hardly know how to begin. I should be very willing, if you thought best, to go away and stay away till she has heard from her people, and let her have that time to think it all over again. She is very young--so much younger than I! Or, if you thought it better, I would stay, and let her remain free while I held myself bound to any decision of hers. I am anxious to do what is right.
At the same time"--he smiled ruefully--"there is such a thing as being so _dis_interested that one may seem _un_interested. I may leave her so very free that she may begin to suspect that I want a little freedom myself. What shall I do? I wish to act with your approval."
Mrs. Bowen had listened with acquiescence and intelligence that might well have looked like sympathy, as she sat fingering the top of her hand-screen, with her eyelids fallen. She lifted them to say, "I have told you that I will not advise yon in any way. I cannot. I have no longer any wish in this matter. I must still remain in the place of Imogene"s mother; but I will do only what you wish. Please understand that, and don"t ask me for advice any more. It is painful." She drew her lower lip in a little, and let the screen fall into her lap.
"I"m sorry, Mrs. Bowen, to do anything--say anything--that is painful to you," Colville began. "You know that I would give the world to please you----" The words escaped him and left him staring at her,
"What are you saying to me, Theodore Colville?" she exclaimed, flashing a full-eyed glance upon him, and then breaking into a laugh, as unnatural for her. "Really, I don"t believe you know!"
"Heaven knows I meant nothing but what I said," he answered, struggling stupidly with a confusion of desires which every man but no woman will understand. After eighteen hundred years, the man is still imperfectly monogamous. "Is there anything wrong in it?"
"Oh no! Not for you," she said scornfully.
"I am very much in earnest," he went on hopelessly, "in asking your opinion, your help, in regard to how I shall treat this affair."
"And I am still more in earnest in telling you that I will give you no opinion, no help. I forbid you to recur to the subject." He was silent, unable to drop his eyes from hers. "But for her," continued Mrs. Bowen, "I will do anything in my power. If she asks my advice I will give it, and I will give her all the help I can."
"Thank you," said Colville vaguely.
"I will not have your thanks," promptly retorted Mrs. Bowen, "for I mean you no kindness. I am trying to do my duty to Imogene, and when that is ended, all is ended. There is no way now for you to please me--as you call it--except to keep her from regretting what she has done."
"Do you think I shall fail in that?" he demanded indignantly.
"I can offer you no opinion. I can"t tell what you will do."
"There are two ways of keeping her from regretting what she has done; and perhaps the simplest and best way would be to free her from the consequences, as far as they"re involved in me," said Colville.
Mrs. Bowen dropped herself back in her armchair. "If you choose to force these things upon me, I am a woman, and can"t help myself. Especially, I can"t help myself against a guest."
"Oh, I will relieve you of my presence," said Colville. "I"ve no wish to force anything upon you--least of all myself." He rose, and moved toward the door.
She hastily intercepted him. "Do you think I will let you go without seeing Imogene? Do you understand me so little as that? It"s _too late_ for you to go! You know what I think of all this, and I know, better than you, what you think. I shall play my part, and you shall play yours. I have refused to give you advice or help, and I never shall do it. But I know what my duty to her is, and I will fulfil it. No matter how distasteful it is to either of us, you must come here as before. The house is as free to you as ever--freer. And we are to be as good friends as ever--better. You can see Imogene alone or in my presence, and, as far as I am concerned, you shall consider yourself engaged or not, as you choose. Do you understand?"
"Not in the least," said Colville, in the ghost of his old bantering manner. "But don"t explain, or I shall make still less of it."
"I mean simply that I do it for Imogene and not for you."
"Oh, I understand that you don"t do it for me."
At this moment Imogene appeared between the folds of the _portiere_, and her timid, embarra.s.sed glance from Mrs. Bowen to Colville was the first gleam of consolation that had visited him since he parted with her the night before. A thrill of inexplicable pride and fondness pa.s.sed through his heart, and even the compunction that followed could not spoil its sweetness. But if Mrs. Bowen discreetly turned her head aside that she need not witness a tender greeting between them, the precaution was unnecessary. He merely went forward and took the girl"s hand, with a sigh of relief. "Good morning, Imogene," he said, with a kind of compa.s.sionate admiration.
"Good morning," she returned half-inquiringly.
She did not take a seat near him, and turned, as if for instruction, to Mrs. Bowen. It was probably the force of habit. In any case, Mrs.
Bowen"s eyes gave no response. She bowed slightly to Colville, and began, "I must leave Imogene to entertain you for the present, Mr.--"
"No!" cried the girl impetuously; "don"t go." Mrs. Bowen stopped. "I wish to speak with you--with you and Mr. Colville together. I wish to say--I don"t know how to say it exactly; but I wish to know--You asked him last night, Mrs. Bowen, whether he wished to consider it an engagement?"
"I thought perhaps you would rather hear from your mother--"
"Yes, I would be glad to know that my mother approved; but if she didn"t, I couldn"t help it. Mr. Colville said he was bound, but I was not. That can"t be. I _wish_ to be bound, if he is."
"I don"t quite know what you expect me to say."
"Nothing," said Imogene. "I merely wished you to know. And I don"t wish you to sacrifice anything to us. If you think best, Mr. Colville will not see me till I hear from home; though it won"t make any difference with me _what_ I hear."
"There"s no reason why you shouldn"t meet," said Mrs. Bowen absently.
"If you wish it to have the same appearance as an Italian engagement----"
"No," said Mrs. Bowen, putting her hand to her head with a gesture she had; "that would be quite unnecessary. It would be ridiculous under the circ.u.mstances. I have thought of it, and I have decided that the American way is the best."
"Very well, then," said Imogene, with the air of summing up; "then the only question is whether we shall make it known or not to other people."
This point seemed to give Mrs. Bowen greater pause than any. She was a long time silent, and Colville saw that Imogene was beginning to chafe at her indecision. Yet he did not see the moment to intervene in a debate in which he found himself somewhat ludicrously ignored, as if the affair were solely the concern of these two women, and none of his.
"Of course, Mrs. Bowen," said the girl haughtily, "if it will be disagreeable to you to have it known----"
Mrs. Bowen blushed delicately--a blush of protest and of generous surprise, or so it seemed to Colville. "I was not thinking of myself, Imogene. I only wish to consider you. And I was thinking whether, at this distance from home, you wouldn"t prefer to have your family"s approval before you made it known."
"I am sure of their approval. Father will do what mother says, and she has always said that she would never interfere with me in--in--such a thing."
"Perhaps you would like all the more, then, to show her the deference of waiting for her consent."
Imogene started as if stopped short in swift career; it was not hard for Colville to perceive that she saw for the first time the reverse side of a magnanimous impulse. She suddenly turned to him.
"I think Mrs. Bowen is right," he said gravely, in answer to the eyes of Imogene. He continued, with a flicker of his wonted mood: "You must consider me a little in the matter. I have some small shreds of self-respect about me somewhere, and I would rather not be put in the att.i.tude of defying your family, or ignoring them."
"No," said Imogene, in the same effect of arrest.