returned Mr. Waters. "Once they affected me very deeply; but now I shall so soon know all about it that they don"t move me. But at times I think that if I were to live my life over again, I would prefer to be of some formal, some inflexibly ritualised, religion. At solemnities---weddings and funerals--I have been impressed with the advantage of the Anglican rite: it is the Church speaking to and for humanity--or seems so," he added, with cheerful indifference. "Something in its favour," he continued, after a while, "is the influence that every ritualised faith has with women. If they apprehend those mysteries more subtly than we, such a preference of theirs must mean a good deal. Yes; the other Protestant systems are men"s systems. Women must have form. They don"t care for freedom."
"They appear to like the formalist too, as well as the form," said Colville, with scorn not obviously necessary.
"Oh yes; they must have everything in the concrete," said the old gentleman cheerfully.
"I wonder where Mr. Morton met Mrs. Bowen first," said Colville.
"Here, I think. I believe he had letters to her. Before you came I used often to meet him at her house. I think she has helped him with money at times."
"Isn"t that rather an unpleasant idea?"
"Yes; it"s disagreeable. And it places the ministry in a dependent att.i.tude. But under our system it"s unavoidable. Young men devoting themselves to the ministry frequently receive gifts of money."
"I don"t like it," cried Colville.
"They don"t feel it as others would. I didn"t myself. Even at present I may be said to be living on charity. But sometimes I have fancied that in Mr. Morton"s case there might be peculiarly mitigating circ.u.mstances."
"What do you mean?"
"When I met him first at Mrs. Bowen"s I used to think that it was Miss Graham in whom he was interested----"
"I can a.s.sure you," interrupted Colville, "that she was never interested in him."
"Oh no; I didn"t suppose that," returned the old man tranquilly. "And I"ve since had reason to revise my opinion. I think he is interested in Mrs. Bowen."
"Mrs. Bowen! And you think that would be a mitigating circ.u.mstance in his acceptance of money from her? If he had the spirit of a man at all, it would make it all the more revolting."
"Oh no, oh no," softly pleaded Mr. Waters. "We must not look at these things too romantically. He probably reasons that she would give him all her money if they were married."
"But he has no right to reason in that way," retorted Colville, with heat. "They are not married; it"s ign.o.ble and unmanly for him to count upon it. It"s preposterous. She must be ten years older than he."
"Oh, I don"t say that they"re to be married," Mr. Waters replied. "But these disparities of age frequently occur in marriage. I don"t like them, though sometimes I think the evil is less when it is the wife who is the elder. We look at youth and age in a gross, material way too often. Women remain young longer than men. They keep their youthful sympathies; an old woman understands a young girl. Do you--or do I--understand a young man?"
Colville laughed harshly. "It isn"t _quite_ the same thing, Mr. Waters.
But yes; I"ll admit, for the sake of argument, that I don"t understand young men. I"ll go further, and say that I don"t like them; I"m afraid of them. And you wouldn"t think," he added abruptly, "that it would be well for me to marry a girl twenty years younger than myself."
The old man glanced up at him with innocent slyness. "I prefer always to discuss these things in an impersonal way."
"But you can"t discuss them impersonally with me; I"m engaged to Miss Graham. Ever since you first found me here after I told you I was going away I have wished to tell you this, and this seems as good a time as any--or as bad." The defiance faded from his voice, which dropped to a note of weary sadness. "Yes, we"re engaged--or shall be, as soon as she can hear from her family. I wanted to tell you because it seemed somehow your due, and because I fancied you had a friendly interest in us both."
"Yes, that is true," returned Mr. Waters. "I wish you joy." He went through the form of offering his hand to Colville, who pressed it with anxious fervour.
"I confess," he said, "that I feel the risks of the affair. It"s not that I have any dread for my own part; I have lived my life, such as it is. But the child is full of fancies about me that can"t be fulfilled.
She dreams of restoring my youth somehow, of retrieving the past for me, of avenging me at her own cost for an unlucky love affair that I had here twenty years ago. It"s pretty of her, but it"s terribly pathetic--it"s tragic. I know very well that I"m a middle-aged man, and that there"s no more youth for me. I"m getting grey, and I"m getting fat; I wouldn"t be young if I could; it"s a bore. I suppose I could keep up an illusion of youthfulness for five or six years more; and then if I could be quietly chloroformed out of the way, perhaps it wouldn"t have been so very bad."
"I have always thought," said Mr. Waters dreamily, "that a good deal might be said for abbreviating hopeless suffering. I have known some very good people advocate its practice by science."
"Yes," answered Colville. "Perhaps I"ve presented that point too prominently. What I wished you to understand was that I don"t care for myself; that I consider only the happiness of this young girl that"s somehow--I hardly know how--been put in my keeping. I haven"t forgotten the talks that we"ve had heretofore on this subject, and it would be affectation and bad taste in me to ignore them. Don"t be troubled at anything you"ve said; it was probably true, and I"m sure it was sincere.
Sometimes I think that the kindest--the least cruel--thing I could do would be to break with her, to leave her. But I know that I shall do nothing of the kind; I shall drift. The child is very dear to me. She has great and n.o.ble qualities; she"s supremely unselfish; she loves me through her mistaken pity, and because she thinks she can sacrifice herself to me. But she can"t. Everything is against that; she doesn"t know how, and there is no reason why. I don"t express it very well. I think n.o.body clearly understands it but Mrs. Bowen, and I"ve somehow alienated her."
He became aware that his self-abnegation was taking the character of self-pity, and he stopped.
Mr. Waters seemed to be giving the subject serious attention in the silence that ensued. "There is this to be remembered," he began, "which we don"t consider in our mere speculations upon any phase of human affairs; and that is the wonderful degree of amelioration that any given difficulty finds in the realisation. It is the antic.i.p.ation, not the experience, that is the trial. In a case of this kind, facts of temperament, of mere a.s.sociation, of union, work unexpected mitigations; they not only alleviate, they allay. You say that she cherishes an illusion concerning you: well, with women, nothing is so indestructible as an illusion. Give them any chance at all, and all the forces of their nature combine to preserve it. And if, as you say, she is so dear to you, that in itself is almost sufficient. I can well understand your misgivings, springing as they do from a sensitive conscience; but we may reasonably hope that they are exaggerated. Very probably there will not be the rapture for her that there would be if--if you were younger; but the chances of final happiness are great--yes, very considerable. She will learn to appreciate what is really best in you, and you already understand her. Your love for her is the key to the future. Without that, of course----"
"Oh, of course," interrupted Colville hastily. Every touch of this comforter"s hand had been a sting; and he parted with him in that feeling of utter friendlessness involving a man who has taken counsel upon the confession of half his trouble.
Something in Mrs. Bowen"s manner when he met her next made him think that perhaps Imogene had been telling her of the sympathy he had expressed for her ill-health. It was in the evening, and Imogene and Mr.
Morton were looking over a copy of _The Marble Faun_, which he had ill.u.s.trated with photographs at Rome. Imogene asked Colville to look at it too, but he said he would examine it later; he had his opinion of people who ill.u.s.trated _The Marble Faun_ with photographs; it surprised him that she seemed to find something novel and brilliant in the idea.
Effie Bowen looked round where she was kneeling on a chair beside the couple with the book, and seeing Colville wandering neglectedly about before he placed himself, she jumped down and ran and caught his hand.
"Well, what now?" he asked, with a dim smile, as she began to pull him toward the sofa. When he should be expelled from Palazzo Pinti he would really miss the worship of that little thing. He knew that her impulse had been to console him for his exclusion from the pleasures that Imogene and Mr. Morton were enjoying.
"Nothing. Just talk," she said, making him fast in a corner of the sofa by crouching tight against him.
"What about? About which is the pleasantest season?"
"Oh no; we"ve talked about that so often. Besides, of course you"d say spring, now that it"s coming on so nicely."
"Do you think I"m so changeable as that? Haven"t I always said winter when this question of the seasons was up? And I say it now. Shan"t you be awfully sorry when you can"t have a pleasant little fire on the hearth like this any more?"
"Yes; I know. But it"s very nice having the flowers, too. The gra.s.s was all full of daisies to-day--perfectly powdered with them."
"To-day? Where?"
"At the Cascine. And in under the trees there were millions of violets and crow"s-feet. Mr. Morton helped me to get them for mamma and Imogene.
And we stayed so long that when we drove home the daisies had all shut up, and the little pink leaves outside made it look like a field of red clover. Are you never going there any more?"
Mrs. Bowen came in. From the fact that there was no greeting between her and Mr. Morton, Colville inferred that she was returning to the room after having already been there. She stood a moment, with a little uncertainty, when she had shaken hands with him, and then dropped upon the sofa beyond Effie. The little girl ran one hand through Colville"s arm, and the other through her mother"s, and gripped them fast. "Now I have got you both," she triumphed, and smiled first into her face, and then into his.
"Be quiet, Effie," said her mother, but she submitted.
"I hope you"re better for your drive to-day, Mrs. Bowen. Effie has been telling me about it."
"We stayed out a long time. Yes, I think the air did me good; but I"m not an invalid, you know."
"Oh no."
"I"m feeling a little f.a.gged. And the weather was tempting. I suppose you"ve been taking one of your long walks."
"No, I"ve scarcely stirred out. I usually feel like going to meet the spring a little more than half-way; but this year I don"t, somehow."
"A good many people are feeling rather languid, I believe," said Mrs.
Bowen.
"I hope you"ll get away from Florence," said Colville.
"Oh," she returned, with a faint flush, "I"m afraid Imogene exaggerated that a little." She added, "You are very good."