"If I were to judge at all, I should say you were likely to do a greater wrong than any you have committed."
"I don"t understand you."
"Miss Graham is a young girl, and I have no doubt that the young clergyman--what was his name?"
"Morton. Do you think--do you suppose there was anything in that?"
demanded Colville, with eagerness, that a more humorous observer than Mr. Waters might have found ludicrous. "He was an admirable young fellow, with an excellent head and a n.o.ble heart. I underrated him at one time, though I recognised his good qualities afterward; but I was afraid she did not appreciate him."
"I"m not so sure of that," said the old man, with an astuteness of manner which Colville thought authorised by some sort of definite knowledge.
"I would give the world if it were so!" he cried fervently.
"But you are really very much more concerned in something else."
"In what else?"
"Can"t you imagine?"
"No," said Colville; but he felt himself growing very red in the face.
"Then I have no more to say."
"Yes, speak!" And after an interval Colville added, "Is it anything about--you hinted at something long ago--Mrs. Bowen?"
"Yes;" the old man nodded his head. "Do you owe her nothing?"
"Owe her nothing? Everything! My life! What self-respect is left me!
Immeasurable grat.i.tude! The homage of a man saved from himself as far as his stupidity and selfishness would permit! Why, I--I love her!" The words gave him courage. "In every breath and pulse! She is the most beautiful and gracious and wisest and best woman in the world! I have loved her ever since I met her here in Florence last winter. Good heavens! I must have always loved her! But," he added, falling from the rapture of this confession, "she simply loathes _me_!"
"It was certainly not to your credit that you were willing at the same time to marry some one else."
"Willing! I wasn"t willing! I was bound hand and foot! Yes--I don"t care what you think of my weakness--I was not a free agent. It"s very well to condemn one"s-self, but it may be carried too far; injustice to others is not the only injustice, or the worst. What I was willing to do was to keep my word--to prevent that poor child, if possible, from ever finding out her mistake."
If Colville expected this heroic confession to impress his listener he was disappointed. Mr. Waters made him no reply, and he was obliged to ask, with a degree of sarcastic impatience, "I suppose you scarcely blame me for that?"
"Oh, I don"t know that I blame people for things. There are times when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less skill to play upon a man than any other instrument. Most of us, in fact, go sounding on without any special application of breath or fingers, repeating the tunes that were played originally upon other men. It appears to me that you suffered yourself to do something of the kind in this affair. We are a long time learning to act with common-sense or even common sanity in what are called matters of the affections. A broken engagement may be a bad thing in some cases, but I am inclined to think that it is the very best thing that could happen in most cases where it happens. The evil is done long before; the broken engagement is merely sanative, and so far beneficent."
The old gentleman rose, and Colville, dazed by the recognition of his own cowardice and absurdity, did not try to detain him. But he followed him down to the outer gate of the hotel. The afternoon sun was pouring into the piazza a sea of glimmering heat, into which Mr. Waters plunged with the security of a salamander. He wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, a sack coat of black alpaca, and loose trousers of the same material, and Colville fancied him doubly defended against the torrid waves not only by the stored cold of half a century of winters at Haddam East Village, but by an inner coolness of spirit, which appeared to diffuse itself in an appreciable atmosphere about him. It was not till he was gone that Colville found himself steeped in perspiration, and glowing with a strange excitement.
XXIII
Colville went back to his own room, and spent a good deal of time in the contemplation of a suit of clothes, adapted to the season, which had been sent home from the tailor"s just before Mr. Waters came in. The coat was of the lightest serge, the trousers of a pearly grey tending to lavender, the waistcoat of cool white duck. On his way home from Palazzo Pinti he had stopped in Via Tornabuoni and bought some silk gauze neckties of a tasteful gaiety of tint, which he had at the time thought very well of. But now, as he spread out the whole array on his bed, it seemed too emblematic of a light and blameless spirit for his wear. He ought to put on something as nearly a.n.a.logous to sackcloth as a modern stock of dry-goods afforded; he ought, at least, to wear the grave materials of his winter costume. But they were really insupportable in this sudden access of summer. Besides, he had grown thin during his sickness, and the things bagged about him. If he were going to see Mrs.
Bowen that evening, he ought to go in some decent shape. It was perhaps providential that he had failed to find her at home in the morning, when he had ventured thither in the clumsy attire in which he had been loafing about her drawing-room for the past week. He now owed it to her to appear before her as well as he could. How charmingly punctilious she always was herself!
As he put on his new clothes he felt the moral support which the becomingness of dress alone can give. With the blue silk gauze lightly tied under his collar, and the lapels of his thin coat thrown back to admit his thumbs to his waistcoat pockets, he felt almost cheerful before his gla.s.s. Should he shave? As once before, this important question occurred to him. His thinness gave him some advantages of figure, but he thought that it made his face older. What effect would cutting off his beard have upon it? He had not seen the lower part of his face for fifteen years. No one could say what recent ruin of a double chin might not be lurking there. He decided not to shave, at least till after dinner, and after dinner he was too impatient for his visit to brook the necessary delay.
He was shown into the salotto alone, but Effie Bowen came running in to meet him. She stopped suddenly, bridling.
"You never expected to see me looking quite so pretty," said Colville, tracing the cause of her embarra.s.sment to his summer splendour. "Where is your mamma?"
"She is in the dining-room," replied the child, getting hold of his hand. "She wants you to come and have coffee with us."
"By all means--not that I haven"t had coffee already, though."
She led the way, looking up at him shyly over her shoulder as they went.
Mrs. Bowen rose, napkin in lap, and gave him a hand of welcome. "How are you feeling to-day?" she asked, politely ignoring his finery.
"Like a new man," he said. And then he added, to relieve the strain of the situation, "Of the best tailor"s make in Florence."
"You look very well," she smiled.
"Oh, I always do when I take pains," said Colville. "The trouble is that I don"t always take pains. But I thought I would to-night, in upon a lady."
"Effie will feel very much flattered," said Mrs. Bowen.
"Don"t refuse a portion of the satisfaction," he cried.
"Oh, is it for me too?"
This gave Colville consolation which no religion or philosophy could have brought him, and his pleasure was not marred, but rather heightened, by the little pangs of expectation, bred by long custom, that from moment to moment Imogene would appear. She did not appear, and a thrill of security succeeded upon each alarm. He wished her well with all his heart; such is the human heart that he wished her arrived home the bretrothed of that excellent, that wholly un.o.bjectionable young man, Mr. Morton.
"Will you have a little of the ice before your coffee?" asked Mrs.
Bowen, proposing one of the moulded creams with her spoon.
"Yes, thank you. Perhaps I will take it in place of the coffee. They forgot to offer us any ice at the _table d"hote_ this evening."
"This is rather luxurious for us," said Mrs. Bowen. "It"s a compromise with Effie. She wanted me to take her to Giacosa"s this afternoon."
"I _thought_ you would come," whispered the child to Colville.
Her mother made a little face of mock surprise at her. "Don"t give yourself away, Effie."
"Why, let us go to Giacosa"s too," said Colville, taking the ice. "We shall be the only foreigners there, and we shall not even feel ourselves foreign. It"s astonishing how the hot weather has dispersed the tourists. I didn"t see a Baedeker on the whole way up here, and I walked down Via Tornabuoni across through Porta Rosso and the Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizzi. You"ve no idea how comfortable and home-like it was--all the statues loafing about in their shirt sleeves, and the objects of interest stretching and yawning round, and having a good rest after their winter"s work."
Effie understood Colville"s way of talking well enough to enjoy this; her mother did not laugh.
"Walked?" she asked.
"Certainly. Why not?"
"You are getting well again. You"ll soon be gone too."