"No; she seems to take everything amiss that I do," said Colville.
"She has no right to do that," cried Imogene. "I"m sure that you"re always considering her, and proposing to do things for her. I won"t let you humble yourself, as if you had wronged her."
"Oh, I don"t call it humbling. I--I should only be too happy if I could do _anything that was agreeable to her."
"Very well, I will tell her," said the girl haughtily. "Shall you object to my joining you in your amus.e.m.e.nts, whatever they are? I a.s.sure you I will be very un.o.btrusive."
"I don"t understand all this," replied Colville. "Who has proposed to exclude you? Why did you tell me anything about Mrs. Bowen if you didn"t want me to say or do something? I supposed you did; but I"ll withdraw the offensive proposition, whatever it was."
"There was nothing offensive. But if you pity her so much, why can"t you pity me a little?"
"I didn"t know anything was the matter with you. I thought you were enjoying yourself----"
"Enjoying? Keeping you up at dances till you drop asleep whenever you sit down? And then coming home and talking to a person who won"t mention your name! Do you call that enjoying? I can"t speak of you to any one; and no one speaks to me----"
"If you like, I will talk to you on the subject," Colville essayed, in dreary jest.
"Oh, don"t joke about it! This perpetual joking, I believe it"s that that"s wearing me out. When I come to you for a little comfort in circ.u.mstances that drive me almost distracted, you want to amuse Mrs.
Bowen, and when I ask to be allowed to share in the amus.e.m.e.nt, you laugh at me! If you don"t understand it all, I"m sure _I_ don"t."
"Imogene!"
"No! It"s very strange. There"s only one explanation. You don"t care for me."
"Not care for you!" cried Colville, thinking of his sufferings in the past fortnight.
"And I would have made any--_any_ sacrifice for you. At least I wouldn"t have made you show yourself a mean and grudging person if you had come to me for a little sympathy."
"O poor child!" he cried, and his heart ached with the sense that she really was nothing but an unhappy child. "I do sympathise with you, and I see how hard it is for you to manage with Mrs. Bowen"s dislike for me.
But you mustn"t think of if. I dare say it will be different; I"ve no doubt we can get her to look at me in some brighter light. I--" He did not know what he should urge next; but he goaded his invention, and was able to declare that if they loved each other they needed not regard any one else. This flight, when accomplished, did not strike him as very original effect, and it was with a dull surprise that he saw it sufficed for her.
"No; no one!" she exclaimed, accepting the plat.i.tude as if it were now uttered for the first time. She dried her eyes and smiled. "I will tell Mrs. Bowen how you feel and what you"ve said, and I know she will appreciate your generosity."
"Yes," said Colville pensively; "there"s nothing I won"t _propose_ doing for people."
She suddenly clung to him, and would not let him go. "Oh, what is the matter?" she moaned afresh. "I show out the worst that is in me, and only the worst. Do you think I shall always be so narrow-minded with you? I thought I loved you enough to be magnanimous. _You_ are. It seemed to me that our lives together would be grand and large; and here I am, grovelling in the lowest selfishness! I am worrying and scolding you because you wish to please some one that has been as good as my own mother to me. Do you call that n.o.ble?"
Colville did not venture any reply to a demand evidently addressed to her own conscience.
But when she asked if he really thought he had better go away, he said, "Oh no; that was a mistake."
"Because, if you do, you shall--to punish me."
"My dearest girl, why should I wish to punish you?"
"Because I"ve been low and mean. Now I want you to do something for Mrs.
Bowen--something to amuse her; to show that we appreciate her. And I don"t want you to sympathise with me at all. When I ask for your sympathy, it"s a sign that I don"t deserve it."
"Is that so?"
"Oh, be serious with me. I mean it. And I want to beg your pardon for something."
"Yes; what"s that?"
"Can"t you guess?"
"No."
"You needn"t have" your lapels silk-lined. You needn"t wear _boutonnieres_."
"Oh, but I"ve had the coat changed."
"No matter! Change it back! It isn"t for me to make you over. I must make myself over. It"s my right, it"s my sacred privilege to conform to you in every way, and I humble myself in the dust for having forgotten it at the very start. Oh, _do_ you think I can ever be worthy of you? I _will_ try; indeed I will! I shall not wear my light dresses another time! From this out, I shall dress more in keeping with you. I boasted that I should live to comfort and console you, to recompense you for the past, and what have I been doing? Wearying and degrading you!"
"Oh no," pleaded Colville. "I am very comfortable. I don"t need any compensation for the past. I need--sleep. I"m going to bed tonight at eight o"clock, and I am going to sleep twenty-four hours. Then I shall be fresh for Mrs. Fleming"s ball."
"I"m not going," said Imogene briefly.
"Oh yes, you are. I"ll come round to-morrow evening and see."
"No. There are to be no more parties."
"Why?"
"I can"t endure them."
She was looking at him and talking at him, but she seemed far aloof in the abstraction of a sublime regret; she seemed puzzled, bewildered at herself.
Colville got away. He felt the pathos of the confusion and question to which he left her, but he felt himself powerless against it. There was but one solution to it all, and that was impossible. He could only grieve over her trouble, and wait; grieve for the irrevocable loss which made her trouble remote and impersonal to him, and submit.
XVIII
The young clergyman whom Colville saw talking to Imogene on his first evening at Mrs. Bowen"s had come back from Rome, where he had been spending a month or two, and they began to meet at Palazzo Pinti again.
If they got on well enough together, they did not get on very far. The suave house-priest manners of the young clergyman offended Colville; he could hardly keep from sneering at his taste in art and books, which in fact was rather conventional; and no doubt Mr. Morton had his own reserves, under which he was perfectly civil, and only too deferential to Colville, as to an older man. Since his return, Mrs. Bowen had come back to her _salon_. She looked haggard; but she did what she could to look otherwise. She was always polite to Colville, and she was politely cordial with the clergyman. Sometimes Colville saw her driving out with him and Effie; they appeared to make excursions, and he had an impression, very obscure, that Mrs. Bowen lent the young clergyman money; that he was a superst.i.tion of hers, and she a patron of his; he must have been ten years younger than she; not more than twenty-five.
The first Sunday after his return, Colville walked home with Mr. Waters from hearing a sermon of Mr. Morton"s, which they agreed was rather well judged, and simply and fitly expressed.
"And he spoke with the authority of the priest," said the old minister.
"His Church alone of all the Protestant Churches has preserved that to its ministers. Sometimes I have thought it was a great thing."
"Not always?" asked Colville, with a smile.
"These things are matters of mood rather than conviction with me,"