"No, Lina, you certainly don"t deserve it, if it"s unkindness, from me.
I won"t afflict you with my presence: but will you listen to me before I go?"
She sank into a chair in sign of a.s.sent. He also sat down. He had a dim impression that he could talk better if he took her hand, but he did not venture to ask for it. He contented himself with fixing his eyes upon as much of her face as he could make out in the dusk, a pale blur in a vague outline of dark.
"I want to a.s.sure you, Lina--Lina, my love, my dearest, as I shall call you for the first and last time!--that I _do_ understand everything, as delicately and fully as you could wish, all that you have expressed, and all that you have left unsaid. I understand how high and pure your ideals of duty are, and how heroically, angelically, you have struggled to fulfil them, broken and borne down by my clumsy and stupid selfishness from the start. I want you to believe, my dearest love--you must forgive me!--that if I didn"t see everything at the time, I do see it now, and that I prize the love you kept from me far more than any love you could have given me to the loss of your self-respect. It isn"t logic--it sounds more like nonsense, I am afraid--but you know what I mean by it. You are more perfect, more lovely to me, than any being in the world, and I accept whatever fate you choose for me. I would not win you against your will if I could. You are sacred to me. If you say we must part, I know that you speak from a finer discernment than mine, and I submit. I will try to console myself with the thought of your love, if I may not have you. Yes, I submit."
His instinct of forbearance had served him better than the subtlest art.
His submission was the best defence. He rose with a real dignity, and she rose also. "Remember," he said, "that I confess all you accuse me of, and that I acknowledge the justice of what you do--because you do it." He put out his hand and took the hand which hung nerveless at her side. "You are quite right. Good-bye." He hesitated a moment. "May I kiss you, Lina?" He drew her to him, and she let him kiss her on the lips.
"Good-bye," she whispered. "Go--"
"I am going."
Effie Bowen ran into the room from the kitchen.
"Aren"t you going to take--" She stopped and turned to her mother. She must not remind Mr. Colville of his invitation; that was what her gesture expressed.
Colville would not say anything. He would not seize his advantage, and play upon the mother"s heart through the feelings of her child, though there is no doubt that he was tempted to prolong the situation by any means. Perhaps Mrs. Bowen divined both the temptation and the resistance. "Tell her," she said, and turned away.
"I can"t go with you to-night, Effie," he said, stooping toward her for the inquiring kiss that she gave him. "I am--going away, and I must say good-bye."
The solemnity of his voice alarmed her. "Going away!" she repeated.
"Yes--away from Florence. I"m afraid I shall not see you again."
The child turned from him to her mother again, who stood motionless.
Then, as if the whole calamitous fact had suddenly flashed upon her, she plunged her face against her mother"s breast. "I can"t _bear_ it!" she sobbed out; and the reticence of her lamentation told more than a storm of cries and prayers.
Colville wavered.
"Oh, you must stay!" said Lina, in the self-contemptuous voice of a woman who falls below her ideal of herself.
XXIV
In the levities which the most undeserving husbands permit themselves with the severest of wives, there were times after their marriage when Colville accused Lina of never really intending to drive him away, but of meaning, after a disciplinary ordeal, to marry him in reward of his tested self-sacrifice and obedience. He said that if the appearance of Effie was not a _coup de theatre_ contrived beforehand, it was an accident of no consequence whatever; that if she had not come in at that moment, her mother would have found some other pretext for detaining him. This is a point which I would not presume to decide. I only know that they were married early in June before the syndic of Florence, who tied a tricolour sash round his ample waist for the purpose, and never looked more paternal or venerable than when giving the sanction of the Italian state to their union. It is not, of course, to be supposed that Mrs. Colville was contented with the civil rite, though Colville may have thought it quite sufficient. The religious ceremony took place in the English chapel, the a.s.sistant clergyman officiating in the absence of the inc.u.mbent, who had already gone out of town.
The Rev. Mr. Waters gave away the bride, and then went home to Palazzo Pinti with the party, the single and singularly honoured guest at their wedding feast, for which Effie Bowen went with Colville to Giacosa"s to order the ices in person. She has never regretted her choice of a step father, though when Colville asked her how she would like him in that relation she had a moment of hesitation, in which she reconciled herself to it; as to him she had no misgivings. He has sometimes found himself the object of little jealousies on her part, but by promptly deciding all questions between her and her mother in Effie"s favour he has convinced her of the groundlessness of her suspicions.
In the absence of any social pressure to the contrary, the Colvilles spent the summer in Palazzo Pinti. Before their fellow-sojourners returned from the _villeggiatura_ in the fall, however, they had turned their faces southward, and they are now in Rome, where, arriving as a married couple, there was no inquiry and no interest in their past.
It is best to be honest, and own that the affair with Imogene has been the grain of sand to them. No one was to blame, or very much to blame; even Mrs. Colville says that. It was a thing that happened, but one would rather it had not happened.
Last winter, however, Mrs. Colville received a letter from Mrs. Graham which suggested, if it did not impart, consolation. "Mr. Morton was here the other day, and spent the morning. He has a parish at Erie, and there is talk of his coming to Buffalo."
"Oh, Heaven grant it!" said Colville, with sudden piety.
"Why?" demanded his wife.
"Well, I wish she was married."
"You have nothing whatever to do with her."
It took him some time to realise that this was the fact.
"No," he confessed; "but what do you think about it?"
"There is no telling. We are such simpletons! If a man will keep on long enough--But if it isn"t Mr. Morton, it will be some one else--some _young_ person."
Colville rose and went round the breakfast table to her. "I hope so," he said. "_I_ have married a young person, and it would only be fair."
This magnanimity was irresistible.
THE END.