Arethusa"s own nod of affirmation to the question was so violent that it shook out several hairpins.
"Well, we"ll see about it. Suppose you eat some lunch now, and you"ll feel much better. Then we can talk it over."
"I don"t want any lunch!" Arethusa raised her head and looked tragically up into the kind face which was bending over her, "I want to go home now, today. I want," and a deep sob shook her voice again, "I want Aunt "Senath!"
"But you can"t possibly go to-day, Arethusa," it was Ross who spoke this time. "There are no more trains that you could take to-day, except one that gets you home at midnight; none until to-morrow morning.
Will," smiling slightly, "will to-morrow morning be soon enough to leave us? Do you think you can continue to put up with us for that little bit of a while longer?"
But his daughter made no sort of response to this attempt at levity; her face was soberness itself.
"Couldn"t you tell me what is troubling you, dear?" Elinor"s sweet voice was all sympathy. "Could I help you in any way? You know I"d gladly do all I can. And perhaps, if you tell me...."
Then the grey eyes filled with tears once more, some of which brimmed clear over; but Arethusa shook her head to that kind offer to share the burden of her woe. She could not tell Elinor about it. It would be absolutely impossible.
She could not tell anyone about it.
She would not be able to tell even Miss Asenath whom she wanted so intensely. But since she was the very tiniest sc.r.a.p she had snuggled close up to Miss Asenath on her couch when troubles came. And she wanted (oh, how terribly she wanted it!) to snuggle up on that couch right now; and it was so very far away! Miss Asenath had somehow always understood things which were hard to put in words, without Arethusa having to make any effort to put them in words. And in her present miserable state, she felt that Miss Asenath, with her gentle understanding, was the only person in the whole world who would be able to make her feel less miserable without having to be told what had specifically caused the misery. No matter how much Miss Eliza had ever punished her for misdeeds in the past, no matter how bad she might have been, Miss Asenath had always loved and wanted Arethusa to come and snuggle up to her that the sorrow might be comforted into nothing. No childish disgrace of former years had ever been black enough to change her feeling for the culprit.
Arethusa clung to the thought of Miss Asenath.
But lacking her right at this moment, she continued to sit on the floor at Elinor"s feet, and Elinor"s kind hand lovingly patted her back into a certain semblance of composure. George stood disapprovingly over by the pantry door. There were times for everything, considered George, and any mealtime was the time to be eating. An excellent lunch was getting cold while Miss Arethusa sat on the floor; good food was being wasted.
"Miss Arethusa"s soup will be quite cold," he suggested, after a few moments. George was an old family servant, and he had Certain Privileges. "Shall I bring another plate?"
"So it is!" exclaimed Elinor. "Yes, suppose you do, George. And, Arethusa dear, you must really eat your lunch. Or breakfast, if you"d rather call it what it is for you. I think it will make you feel much better."
But Arethusa was all unresponsive to Elinor"s tiny bit of friendly levity also; her face was still sober. Yet she obediently got up from the floor and seated herself at the table to eat the steaming plate of soup which George immediately brought. And it went down her throat much easier than she had imagined any sort of food would go; her throat had seemed so contracted and full of painful lumps. As she ate, her healthy young appet.i.te began to a.s.sert itself, and she finished all of her soup and made a very good meal besides. Some of the color came back into her white face.
After lunch, Ross took her into the library with him. He could not bear to see her so strange and quiet and he hated that curious look of misery so foreign to her young eyes.
"Suppose you tell _me_ about it, daughter, couldn"t you?" he asked, when he had settled her comfortably in a big chair in front of the fire and seated himself on the arm of it with one of his arms protectingly across the back.
Arethusa wept stormily again.
But she could not possibly tell him about it.
For he was certain to be terribly angry with her, and no telling what he might do to Mr. Bennet. Fathers surely had some way of punishing men for Disgraced Daughters. It was not that any lingering affection for Mr. Bennet made her thus anxious to shield him from any consequences which might be legitimately his for the way he had acted; but everyone might hear of it then, and incidentally.... It might reach Miss Eliza.
Ross could not help smiling as he looked down at his daughter, sitting there with the warm firelight playing over her. She looked so young, so altogether young, with her slimness and her tumbled hair, and her childishly quivering red mouth, for all that great unhappiness in her eyes. And even if she would not tell him the exact nature of her trouble, Ross was almost positive that he knew what it was. He was well acquainted with Mr. Bennet, and with Arethusa and Arethusa"s worship of Mr. Bennet, and he had had for some time a rather shrewd idea that Mr.
Bennet really thought a great deal of Arethusa. He knew also what sometimes happened at dances, especially in rose bowers as romantic as those that were always a feature of the January Cotillion; Ross had been to dances himself, in his day, where there had been the equivalent of Romantic Rose Bowers, in moons and balconies. It was all the same.
He also knew very well just what Miss Eliza"s ideas were about such things, he knew that most of this unhappiness over what had happened was really due to Miss Eliza"s rearing; yet Ross was not going to say a word which would disclose all of this varied knowledge of his.
Further knowledge he was positive he possessed was that Arethusa would recover before very long. If she really insisted on going back to the Farm, Timothy was there to help in the recovery. He would undoubtedly be of a.s.sistance along this line. This last thought almost made Ross laugh aloud.
But Ross was not so aware as he imagined he was of just the way his daughter felt. For it did not occur to him, for an instant, that Arethusa"s whole idea of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet had changed; that now she saw him, instead of as the one Perfect Human Being in a very faulty world, as a Ravening Wolf ranging within the supposedly Safe Folds of Society seeking whom he might Devour, all unknown to the parents of his Innocent Victims; that she felt so deeply humiliated at having misunderstood Mr. Bennet"s Intentions, and at having misconstrued them to be as Matrimonial as her own; and so deeply disgraced at being Kissed by him, such a Man as he had proved himself to be; and so completely terror-stricken at the Bare Idea of Miss Eliza finding out the very least bit of all this: that Arethusa could almost have been torn limb from limb to have kept such knowledge from her aunt.
No, Ross"s understanding did not extend itself to any of this.
But he sat in front of the wood fire with her, in the same big chair with his arm around her, silently, as seemed to suit her mood; and every now and then he patted her a little on the shoulder, as lovingly as Elinor had patted her, to let her know that she was to feel sure of his sympathy, even if she could not bring herself to confide in him, and that he was still right there, and at her service, whenever she should want him. Arethusa loved to have him with her; it was delightful, just the two of them together so cozily; but every one of his soft fatherly pats brought her near to tears as she felt it, for she knew herself so very unworthy to receive it.
George appeared in the library about half-past three, bearing under one arm an enormous flower box and in the other hand a card-tray with one small white slip of cardboard upon it.
"Mr. Bennet to see Miss Arethusa," he announced.
Arethusa sprang up, almost overturning Ross.
"Who did you say, George?"
"Mr. Bennet." He extended the card-tray, and then the flower box.
"I _won"t_ see Mr. Bennet!" exclaimed Arethusa, all over pride at once, and drawing herself up.
"Very well, Miss Arethusa."
George turned to go, but Ross stopped him.
"Wait just a moment, George. Are you quite sure, daughter, that you hadn"t better see him?"
Arethusa"s eyes flashed.
"_I won"t see him_, Father! I ... I...." she fairly choked over the words, her utterance was so intense, "_I hate him_! I never want to see him again as long as I live!"
George looked inquiringly at Mr. Worthington; this was no message for him to be carrying to the gentleman in the reception room.
"Tell Mr. Bennet, George," said Ross, in answer to the look, for he knew that the butler wished the conventions observed on every occasion, and he was half smiling as he said it, "Tell Mr. Bennet that Miss Arethusa wishes to be excused."
George bowed,--this was much better--and disappeared.
Arethusa waited, standing poised with a queer little expression of strained attention, until she heard the front door close; then she sighed, a soft sigh unmistakably of relief.
Mr. Bennet turned away from the Worthington House uncertainly. He was half of a mind to go right straight back and try to see Arethusa once more. He was very sorry about last night. He was remorsefully sorry, when the day had fully come. He would not have thought that Arethusa would be inclined to view such an episode as she so very evidently had.
And yet, on further intensive consideration, he realized that if he had stopped beforehand to give any real thought to it, at all, he might have known that she would take it in just the way she had.
There was nothing really horrid about Mr. Bennet. It is to be doubted if he had ever had a really horrid thought in all his life; but he could not help looking like a man in a collar advertis.e.m.e.nt and he was born with his manner. He was not himself to blame if young and impressionable things feminine insisted upon falling in love with him.
Who could blame him for accepting such admiration and attempting, at times, what might be considered as a slight return? Most of us like to be admired. Mr. Bennet"s biggest fault was that he was a little selfish; right now, it was no larger cloud on the horizon of his perfection than might be compared to the palm of one"s hand, but owing to all this admiration he so constantly received, and the fact that he did not have to exert himself very much to make a cause for popularity, the little cloud was growing.
But Mr. Bennet was really almost as unhappy over this affair as Arethusa herself, after he went over it again very carefully, in the garish light of perspective. Yet he had thought of course he would be permitted to explain at his call this afternoon; that is, explain in so far as he could explain. Which would surely make it all right. He was even prepared to explain to Ross, if it was necessary, and although Mr.
Bennet realized that it would not put him in such a very good light in the eyes of Arethusa"s father, he felt that Mr. Worthington might understand. And to explain to Ross and to appear so undignified as he was bound to appear, would have been a very hard thing for Mr. Bennet to do, but he was quite prepared to do it; so anxious he was to straighten out this very Miserable Business.
Then Mr. Bennet, as he sorrowfully walked in all the bravery of a most careful toilette made especially for this important call, remembered the little air of dignity with which Arethusa had mentioned marriage.
He was genuinely fond of Arethusa. If it had not been for that little cloud of selfishness, no bigger than the palm of one"s hand, which was keeping him so much in love with Mr. Bennet, he might have been really in love with her. But there was not quite enough room for Arethusa, although she had crowded into his heart enough for him to give a great deal of thought to her.
"She"s a dear," he said aloud, "a perfect dear! And I"m just as sorry as the deuce! But any other girl...."
And he poked his slender cane so deep in between the bricks of the old-fashioned sidewalk of this conservative neighborhood that it was wrenched out of his hand and stood there quivering, and in his pre-occupation with the idea of Arethusa he had gone on without it before he realized.
But then ... Arethusa was not any other girl, and she had had an Aunt Eliza.