Part 5

Vane bit his lip, and clenched his fingers, which had been dangerously near hers. At first he did not know what to reply.

"As for the handkerchief, you shall surely take it some time. I will give it to you when you are married."

She blushed deeply. "Thank you," she said, "I would rather have a new one, then. But it is time for me to go home--or--I think I should like an ice first. Will you get me one?"

When Vane returned, two or three men were about her. She took the ice, but, after tasting it, put it aside indifferently. "I really think I must be going now," she said, giving her arm to one of her companions.

Vane was determined not to be outdone, so he went to find her carriage, and had the pleasure of shutting the door himself; the two other men standing by. "Good night," said he, in a low tone. She made no reply until he had got back to the sidewalk; then, "Good night, every one!" she called out as the horses sprang away, restive with the cold. Vane went back to the supper-room to get a glass of champagne, and then walked home.

After this, he decided to leave the course of events with her. He had surely told her, as plainly as a man could tell a woman, that he loved her. He had also told her that he would ask her to marry him whenever she wished--whenever she would forgive him a rude question for which his love was the best possible excuse. So two months passed without his speaking to her seriously. But he felt well assured that he loved her.

XIV.

ONE day in June, Vane sat in his office with two notes open on the desk before him. One was from Mrs. Levison Gower, inviting him to make one of a moonlight picnic party. They were to be conveyed up the Hudson in Mr. Gower's steam-launch, land just above Yonkers, take possession of a grove, and have dinner there for no other reason than that they might dine with much more convenience and propriety on the deck of the yacht. The other note before Vane was from Dr. Kérouec, in Brittany, announcing a serious change in the condition of his mother.

He had already decided to take the next steamer for Havre. He had been making his preparations all the day; but for some reason had postponed answering Mrs. Gower's note. And now he was face to face with a strong desire to see Miss Thomas once more before he went away. And, after all, why should he not go? His mother had been ill for so many years, and he felt that she would still be ill for so many years more; and Mrs. Gower's party was to be the day before the departure of his steamer. He knew that Miss Thomas would be there. He had quite decided not to call at her house again; he had not called there for the last two months; but he longed for a glimpse of her face to take away with him. It might be so long before he came back, and so many things might happen while he was gone.

Miss Thomas was the first person Vane saw, standing by the entrance, as he went on board the yacht. She was evidently looking for some one; but when she saw Vane, she turned away. Vane kept up a rapid conversation with his hostess until a lady arrived whom he knew, when he walked with her to the other side of the yacht. Meantime he could see that Miss Thomas was covertly watching his movements, and talking with no one. Her eyes seemed to follow him wherever he went; but he was careful not to get within speaking distance.

After many delays, caused by languid guests, late hampers, and the vacillations of Mrs. Gower herself, the little steamer cast off and proceeded up the river. Mrs. Gower took command in the yacht, extending her jurisdiction, as Vane observed, quite to the limit of the pilot's politeness. At first, owing to the smells of the manufacturing establishments which lined the river, and divers distasteful sights about the wharves, but little attention was paid to the scenery; but when the city was left behind, and the western shore grew bolder, Nature was rewarded with all the adjectives of feminine enthusiasm. Vane heard less of this, however, as conversation grew more general. When due appreciation of the Hudson's beauties had been shown, the company broke up into groups of two or three camp-stools, and every little clump fell to discussing its neighbors. Here and there was a group of two--a male and female--oblivious of neighbors and discussing each other. The Palisades looked on in silence. It seemed to Vane that the occasion was only saved from insignificance by the presence of Miss Thomas.

When they touched shore at the grove appointed for the picnic, most of the ladies and gentlemen, eager to land as if it had been an ocean voyage, crowded to the gangway. Mrs. Gower felt it her duty to show the way, and skilfully forced a passage through her guests, Vane, who was at that moment busied with the duty of protecting her, following in her wake. Her rapid motion caused a sort of eddy in which Vane moved behind her without much effort; so that, looking about him, he saw Miss Thomas beside him. Her companion was a young man with an eye-glass, looking like a student in college, the consciousness of his own merits continually at war with the world's estimate of them; so that the unceasing struggle of a proper self-assertion left him little breath for words. In one of the pauses of his conversation, Miss Thomas turned rapidly to Vane.

"Are you never going to speak to me again?"

"Have you forgiven me yet?"

This little interchange of questions was so quick that it hardly could have been noticed by any one. Miss Thomas turned back to her companion before he had even time to miss her attention; and indeed his mind was fully occupied in grappling for his next remark; while Vane was incontinently swept over the gang-plank in the vortex of Mrs. Gower.

She certainly looked very pretty that day, thought Vane, as he walked up the hill with the latter lady; but he was sure now that he had no mind to be refused by her. Better even the present than that. She had on another soft, clinging dress, of ivory white, which only lent an added charm to her skin of whiter ivory, the dead black hair, and those wonderful violet--"Ah--oh, yes," said Vane to Mrs. Gower; and then, seeing this lady laugh, "Yes, very funny--hah!"

"I was telling you of Mrs. Grayling's sad experience in Rome," said Mrs. Gower, demurely; "but I fear you were not thinking of her."

Vane vowed to keep a tighter rein on his thoughts thereafter; and they came to a little glade in the wood, where the servants were laying table-cloths on the turf. The dinner was very gay. Some ladies screamed when a daddy-longlegs ran into the lobster salad, but an occasional pine-needle, falling into a glass of champagne, seemed but to add to its flavor. It was considered _de rigueur_ to sit upon the grass; but most of the men found it very awkward to assume attitudes of any decorative value, and the college student in particular was heard to wonder audibly how the deuce the Romans did it. After the feast, the company divided itself into couples and scattered in the woods. Miss Thomas did not leave the table; and Mrs. Gower felt obliged to wait for the last. Wemyss stayed with her. As Vane passed behind Miss Thomas, she called him to her.

"I have something to tell you to-day."

"Will not some other time do?" said Vane, "I am getting a glass of wine for Mrs. Gower." The girl looked at him, but did not seem to take offence.

"I may never tell you, if I do not tell you to-day," she answered, seriously, in a low voice. Vane looked at her surprised; she bore his gaze for half a second, and then let her own eyes drop. The student was looking on with parted lips. "Oh, Mr. Bronson," said she, immediately, "I wish you would get me a glass of champagne--and seltzer, too!" She said the "too" with an inflection that made it sound like _do_.

The youth departed on his errand; and Vane also left, saying that he would be back in a moment; but he was saved a double journey by observing that some one else had brought Mrs. Gower her wine and had taken his seat beside her. Vane returned to Miss Thomas, passing rapidly over in his mind what had happened in the four months since he had asked her that fatal question, and trying to decide upon a course of action for himself. She had made no effort to have him speak to her before to-day. But by her presence the picnic was quite saved from insignificance.

"I have come back, Miss Thomas," he said, seriously. "What can you have to tell me?"

Miss Thomas looked at the tent, before which Bronson was standing--waiting for her seltzer. Most of the guests had left the place, and the servants were clearing away the dinner. The moon was just rising.

"Will you not come for a walk?" said Vane. Miss Thomas gave him her hand, and he helped her to her feet. "I am forgetting your wine," he said, afterwards. He was ill at ease and nervous.

"You know that I never drink wine at parties," she answered; and just as Bronson came back to the place where she had been sitting, they disappeared in the forest. Bronson had a long neck supported by a very stiff standing collar, and when his dignity was compromised he had a way of throwing back his head and resting his chin upon the points of his collar. He did this now, and the Adam's apple in his throat worked prominently. Then, after looking gravely a moment at the seat which had been Miss Thomas's, as if to be satisfied that she had really gone, he drank the champagne himself and went back to the tent, where he found a male acquaintance, to whom he proposed a smoke. "It is such a relief to get away for a minute from the women," he murmured, as he threw himself on the grass and rolled a cigarette. "By the way, did you see that little girl I was with? Nice dress, you know--quiet little thing. Well, by gad, sir, I believe there's something up between her and that fellow Vane."

XV.

AFTER they left the place of the dinner, Miss Thomas walked on for some time in silence, and Vane had inwardly resolved not to be the first to break their peace of mind. The woods, being part of a private estate, had received some care. There was no underbrush, and they were walking in a well-kept path. The moon was now high enough to make a play of light among the leafage and to outline with a silver tracery the smooth twigs and trunks of the trees before them.

Vane was silently wondering what Miss Thomas could mean. He became strangely self-possessed and cautious, and it occurred to him that this was the sort of clear-sightedness a man would have who was gambling and playing for a very large amount. He thought to himself that this was just the way fellows usually got married. Vane had been brought up to suppose that the proper way to reach a young lady's heart, or at least her hand, was through the judgment of her parents; but, somehow, this did not seem to be necessary in New York, certainly not with Miss Thomas; and he felt that there was a danger of his asking Miss Thomas, to-night, to become Mrs. Vane. And, after all, he felt to-night that it was by no means certain that he wished Mrs. Vane to have been Miss Baby Thomas.

The long silence became embarrassing, but Vane did not quite know what to say, and Miss Thomas had apparently no desire to say anything. The path they were in led up to a low stone wall in a sort of clearing on the side of the hill, with a distant view of the Hudson. Vane assisted Miss Thomas over the wall, and then, getting over it himself, sat down upon it. The girl sat down beside him. Both looked at the river.

"What did you have to say to me?" said Vane, at last.

"I wished to tell you that I had forgiven your question," Miss Thomas answered in a low, quiet voice, looking away from him across the water.

"Entirely?"

"Entirely, from the heart."

Vane certainly did have a thrill of pleasurable excitement at this speech. It was the sort of glow, the tingling feeling about the waist he had felt when about to mount a strange horse whose temper he had not tested. He looked at the girl. She was half sitting, half leaning, against the wall. Her flowing dress had caught the sheen of the moon, and the white figure shone brightly against the dark leaves. She might have been a naiad or a wood-nymph, and yet there was a subtle feminine presence about her. With some girls you can associate on terms of fellowship, make companions of them, perhaps even sit on the fence in the moonlight and talk to them amicably, as to another man. But you could never forget that Miss Thomas was a woman.

"I was really very much hurt," she said, "and I think you ought to have begged my pardon."

"I did," said Vane, "and I told you I had the best possible excuse."

"But you never told me what the excuse was." The young man sat on a lower stone than hers, and, as he looked up to her, the radiance fell full upon her face, and he saw the moon reflected in her eyes.

Why should he doubt this girl? Had he not been deeply in love with her? And, after all, had she not borne herself, in all their relations, as he would have wished her to, as he would have wished her to be, supposing that she cared for him? She had often been right in being offended with him, but she was too gentle to be long angry--she was lovely in forgiving. Had he not plainly let her know what should be the signal for him to declare his love? Was not this as much encouragement as any woman would give? Strangely enough, now that he was sure of her he almost doubted of himself.

"Do you really ask me to tell you of my excuse?" said Vane, and he felt a little ashamed of himself for the prevaricating question. "Do you not know?"

Miss Thomas said nothing, but made a slight motion of her dress. Vane bit his lip, and felt that this was cowardly. The moon had gone into a cloud, but he fancied, from the position of her head, that she was looking at him with her large eyes. Her dress seemed to have a light of its own, which made her form still visible in the darkness. Suddenly he pictured to himself the way his conduct would look to her if she really cared for him, and he felt sure that she did, and he knew that she attracted him more than any woman he had ever met.

"Because I love you, Winifred," said Vane, and he laid his hand on hers.

"Oh--h," sighed the girl with a sort of shudder, as if he had given her pain, "I am so sorry." Vane caught his breath. "Oh, I am so sorry!" Vane pressed her little hand convulsively. "Oh, I never thought it was this. Why did you tell me? Why did you not leave it unsaid? Now I shall lose you for always." Her voice broke in a sob.

"Do you mean that you will not marry me? Do you mean that you do not love me? You must know how I have loved you." Vane covered her hand with kisses. Miss Thomas seemed to be unconscious of this, but went on in a sort of cry, asking him to forgive her. "Do you mean that there is no hope?" said he, gravely.

"Oh, no! none. You know how much I like you, but I can never marry you. You will forget all this, will you not?" There was a long silence between them, but her hand still lay in his. Meantime the sky had grown black in front of them. Vane was straining his eyes to see her face. There was a flash of lightning, and he saw that her cheek was wet with tears. Some large drops of rain came pattering down among the leaves.

"We must hurry back," said Vane suddenly, dropping her hand. She rose silently and followed him along the path. In a few moments they got back to the place of supper. They were the first to arrive, but in a moment they heard voices in the shrubbery.

"You will try and forget this evening, will you not?" said Miss Thomas, hurriedly. "Try and be as if it had never happened. And oh, tell me, are you very unhappy?"

"I am very sorry," said he, "but I am going to-morrow to France." Miss Thomas made a movement of surprise, but there was no time for more to be said, as the thunderstorm was really upon them, and every one was hastening to the river. On the boat Vane found Miss Thomas a seat, and then went alone to the bow. He was very unhappy. He had not fancied that he would be so unhappy. He was very much disappointed, and, perhaps, a little angry. Coming up from the wharf in New York he was, as a matter of course, put in the same carriage with Miss Thomas. There were two other people with them, and Vane endeavored to act light comedy, but was not well seconded by the girl herself, who was silent and very pale. They went to Mrs. Gower's house for supper, but all the women were wet, and most of the men ill-tempered, and the party broke up early. Vane took his leave at once, and went back to his lodgings to finish his packing for the voyage. As soon as he had done he went immediately to bed and fell asleep late in the night, having as a latest waking thought the consciousness that he had for many months been making a fool of himself.

XVI.

THIS was still the most marked flavor in his self-consciousness the next morning, and when he rode to the wharf, when he entered the cabin decked with flowers as if for a funeral, even when they steamed out to sea, the bitter aftertaste of folly did not leave him. He was in the mid-Atlantic before his self-communings began to be mitigated by his sense of humor. Truly there had been no need to consider quite so nicely his duties to Miss Thomas. He had thought himself too far involved to retreat gracefully without a proposal. He had felt compelled to precipitate matters. He had feared to wound her deeply otherwise, though conscious, at the time, that his offer was rather magnanimous than passionate. He had had a continual fear of compromising her, too old-fashioned a reverence for woman, too European a sense of honor. He had done her too much honor. Apparently she had not considered him in so serious a light, this American.

That he had been a most unconscionable ass Vane knew very well. This conviction, however, is a sentiment we can easily bear while it is unshared by others, and, fortunately, none of Vane's friends were so clearly convinced of it. None of his friends knew much about this affair.

After all, he had almost given a sigh of relief when the welcome words of freedom came to her lips. He was well out of it. It had been a very sharp little skirmish, and he was not sorry that he had escaped in good order, heart and honor whole. At this point Vane again appeared to himself as an ass, but he only smiled at the apparition. Fortunate affairs those, which vanish with a laugh! So he dismissed the matter from his mind.

When Vane landed at Havre the whole thing seemed like a dream. There was the familiar chalk cliff and the wide estuary, and the people seated on little, iron, painted chairs, in the cafés, reading _Figaro_, just as he had left them, with nothing changed but the date in the newspaper. A certain flippancy lurks in the sky of France, or was the flippancy _là-bas_ in America? Vane was not quite sure.

He had had no letter from the doctor since that first one received in New York. Indeed there had been no way for one to have reached him before his arrival in Havre, and he was not sure that the doctor knew in which steamer he was crossing. But Vane was anxious to get to Rennes. Instead of going up one side of the river and down the other by rail, he decided to make a cut across the country, so he took the ferry for Trouville. The place was full of people--people such as you find anywhere, people such as you might see in Newport or New York--and Vane hastened to leave it. He found a diligence driven by an old man in a blue blouse, that took the country people and their eggs and chickens to and from the market at Trouville, and retained a seat on the outside. They left the watering-place at sunset, and, after driving a few miles along the beach--the fashionable drive--by the painted pavilions and villas, they struck inland through the grass uplands still fragrant with the hay.

I do not want to make anything tragic of Vane's arrival at Rennes. It was hardly that to him. He had taken the midnight mail from Caen after a six hours' journey in the sweet July evening; and when he arrived in Rennes in the morning his mother was dead and had been buried, and the priests in the great cathedral, even then, were saying masses for her soul. The old physician, like few physicians, but like all old Bretons, was an ardent Catholic, and had sought to secure to his patient one surreptitious chance of salvation before his heretic friend arrived. "Yes, my son," said he, "at the last she died, _tout doucement_, it is now three weeks. She never recovered herself, though I had the abbé with her and the Presence by her side. She never knew you or me, thou dost remember, and at the end she died silently, and spoke not at all. Ah! mon pauvre ami, quelle sainte femme!" cried the doctor, forgetting that he had never known Mrs. Vane in her right mind.

The masses, thought Vane, would do no harm, and he stayed two or three weeks with Dr. Kérouec in his old house near Rennes.

The doctor, though growing old, was very busy. He had numberless charitable meetings in the afternoons, and his practice took up the mornings. His evenings were usually passed with Vane and the abbé over tric-trac and boston. The doctor was the head of many benevolent clubs, "Sociétés de Consommation," and such like. He knew to a unit how many poor people had consumed the society's soup, for each of the past forty years, in Rennes, and seemed to derive much satisfaction from these figures and their annual increase. He never spoke again to Vane of the young lady with the dot, and it turned out that she had married M. le Vicomte's son.

Meantime Vane wandered through the rosy lanes, and the country came to him with a sense of rest. Life's silent woods are so near its highways, after all! And Vane had been a boy in this country, and it had a glamour for him; and, truly, it is a sweet corner in the world. He had gone out of it into all that was great and new, and now he came back to it, like a foot-worn pilgrim, with nothing but his staff and scrip. And as he thought this, he was passing a great army of the peasantry, not all peasantry, for many a lady, too, was walking amid the wooden shoes. Before the long procession, among the crucifixes, was carried the ermine banner of Queen Anne. It was the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes. He looked after them curiously, so earnestly they marched, chanting their simple aves and their litanies to St. Anne of Auray. But they did not walk to Gascony, but only to the railway, whence they went by special train.

Vane did not feel deeply his mother's death. Indeed it hardly seemed that she could have died so lately; it was rather as if she had been dead many years. All the old seemed to have faded away out of his life, and everything new was rather unreal. As for Baby Thomas, she was either forgotten completely or dismissed with a slighting half-memory. The older love was as much in his mind and its ghost was as real a figure as this memory of yesterday. He walked over to Monrepos one afternoon when the doctor had a meeting at his house. The place was rented by an English family, and some stout girls were playing lawn tennis, while a comely youth, lying lazily on the grass, looked on critically over a short pipe. Vane sat on the walk and began to poke pebbles with his stick again. He had succeeded; and the result was emptiness. Why could not this poor sordid success have come sooner,--and his father, and so his mother, might have been alive to-day.

XVII.

WHEN he got home (Dr. Kérouec's house he called _home_) he found two American letters. One was a business letter, but on the other he recognized the familiar delicate angles of Miss Thomas's writing. He was displeased at this. The note was like some petty daily duty busying one in an hour of insight--like the call of the prompter in some stupid play. It changed all, even to the language of his thought. What the deuce can she have to say in a letter? he said to himself. He thought he had done with her.