Chapter 22

But Mrs. Fane astonished her by throwing down her handful of silver with unnecessary violence of clang and saying: "Look here, Olivia, I'd rather not talk about it any more. I've reasons. I can't take a hand in your affairs without being afraid that perhaps--perhaps--I--I--sha'n't play the game."

Olivia was silent, but she had much to think of.

It was a few days later still that she found herself in Rodney Temple's little office in the Gallery of Fine Arts. She had come ostensibly to tell him that everything had been arranged for the sale.

"Lemon and Company think that early in December would be the best time, as people are beginning then to spend money for Christmas. Mr. Lemon seems to think we've got a good many things the smaller connoisseurs will want. The servants are to go next Tuesday, so that if you and Cousin Cherry could take papa then--I'm to stay with Lulu Sentner; and I shall go from her house to be married--some day, when everything else is settled. Did you know that before Mr. Davenant went away he left a small bank account for papa?--two or three thousand dollars--so that we have money to go on with. Rupert wants to spend a week or two in New York and Washington, after which we shall come back here and pick up papa. He's not very keen on coming with us, but I simply couldn't--"

He nodded at the various points in her recital, blinking at her searchingly out of his kind old eyes.

"You look pale," he said, "and old. You look forty."

She surprised him by saying, with a sudden outburst: "Cousin Rodney, do you think it's any harm for a woman to marry one man when she's in love with another?" Before he had time to recover himself, she followed this question with a second. "Do you think it's possible for a person to be in love with two people at the same time?"

He understood now the real motive of her visit.

"I'm not a very good judge of love affairs," he said, after a minute's reflection. "But one thing I know, and it's this--that when we do our duty we don't have to bother with the question as to whether it's any harm or not."

"We may do our duty, and still make people unhappy."

"No; not unless we do it in the wrong way."

"So that if I feel that to go on and keep my word is the right thing--or rather the only thing--?"

"That settles it, dearie. The right thing _is_ the only thing--and it makes for everybody's happiness."

"Even if it seems that it--it _couldn't_?"

"I'm only uttering platitudes, dearie, when I say that happiness is the flower of right. No other plant can grow it; and that plant can't grow any other flower. When you've done the thing you feel you're called to do--the thing you couldn't refuse while still keeping your self-respect--well, then, you needn't be afraid that any one will suffer in the long run--and yourself least of all."

"In the long run! That means--"

"Oh, there may be a short run. I'm not denying that. But no one worth his salt would be afraid of it. And that, dearie," he added, blinking, "is all I know about love affairs."

There being no one in the gallery on which the office opened, she kissed him as she thanked him and went away. She walked homeward, taking the more retired streets through Cambridge and into Waverton, so as to be the more free for thinking. It was a relief to her to have spoken out. Oddly enough, she felt her heart lighter toward Davenant from the mere fact of having told some one, or having partially told some one, that she loved him.

When, on turning in at the gate of Tory Hill, she saw a taxicab standing below the steps of the main entrance, she was not surprised, since Ashley occasionally took one to run out from town. But when a little lady in furs and an extravagant hat stepped out to pay the chauffeur Olivia stopped to get her breath. If it hadn't been impossible she would have said--

But the taxicab whizzed away, and the little lady tripped up the steps.

Olivia felt herself unable to move. The motor throbbed past her, and out the gate, but she still stood incapable of going farther. It seemed long before the pent-up emotions of the last month or two, controlled, repressed, unacknowledged, as they had been, found utterance in one loud cry: "Aunt Vic!"

Not till that minute had she guessed her need of a woman, a Guion, one of her very own, a mother, on whose breast to lay her head and weep her cares out.

* * * * *

The first tears since the beginning of her trials came to Olivia Guion, as, with arms clasped round her aunt and forehead pressed into the little old lady's furs, she sat beside her on a packing-case in the hail. She cried then as she never knew before she was capable of crying. She cried for the joy of the present, for the trouble of the past, and for the relief of clinging to some one to whom she had a right. Madame de Melcourt would have cried with her, had it not been for the effect of tears on cosmetics.

"There, there, my pet," she murmured, soothingly. "Didn't you know your old auntie would come to you? Why didn't you cable? Didn't you know I was right at the end of the wire. There now, cry all you want to. It'll do you good. Your old auntie has come to take all your troubles away, and see you happily married to your Englishman. She's brought your _dot_ in her pocket--same old _dot!_--and everything. There now, cry. There's nothing like it."

XXII

Madame de Melcourt the chief novelty of American life, for the first few days at least, lay in the absence of any necessity for striving. To wake up in the morning into a society not keeping its heart hermetically shut against her was distinctly a new thing. Not to have to plan or push or struggle, to take snubs or repay them, to wriggle in where she was not wanted, or to keep people out where she had wriggled in, was really amusing. In the wide friendliness by which she found herself surrounded she had a droll sense of having reached some scholastic paradise painted by Puvis de Chavannes. She was even seated on a kind of throne, like Justitia or Sapientia, with all kinds of flattering, welcoming attentions both from old friends who could remember her when she had lived as a girl among them and new ones who were eager to take her into hospitable arms. It was decidedly funny. It was like getting into a sphere where all the wishes were gratified and there were no more worlds to conquer. It would pall in the end; in the end she would come to feel like a gourmet in a heaven where there is no eating, or an Englishman in some Blessed Isle where there is no sport; but for the moment it offered that refreshing change which strengthens the spirit for taking up the more serious things of life again. In any case, it put her into a good-humor of which the residents at Tory Hill were the first to feel the effect.

"Il est très bien, ton Anglais."

Olivia acknowledged this approval with a smile and a blush, as she went about the drawing-room trying to give it something of its former air. With the new turn of events it had become necessary to restore the house to a condition fit for occupancy. Madame de Melcourt had moved into it with her maid and her man, announcing her intention to remain till she got ready to depart. Her bearing was that of Napoleon making a temporary stay in some German or Italian palace for the purposes of national reorganization and public weal. At the present instant she was enthroned amid cushions in a corner of the sofa, watching Olivia dispose of such bric-à-brac as had not been too remotely packed away.

"I always say," the old lady declared, "that when an Englishman is chic he's very chic, and your Ashley is no exception. I don't wonder you're in love with him."

When seated the Marquise accompanied her words with little jerkings and perkings of her fluffy head, with wavings of the hands and rollings of the eyes--the corelatives of her dartings and dashings while on her feet.

It was easy for Olivia to keep her back turned, while she managed to say: "He thinks you don't like him."

Madame shrugged her shoulders. "I like him as well as I could like any Englishman. He's very smart. You can see at a glance he's some one. From what I'd heard of him--his standing by you and all that--I was afraid he might be an eccentric."

"Whom did you hear it from?"

"Oh, I heard it. There's nothing wonderful in that. A thing that's been the talk of Boston and New York, and telegraphed to the London papers--you don't suppose I shouldn't hear of it some time. And I came right over--just as soon as I was convinced you needed me."

Olivia looked round with misty eyes. "I shall never forget it, Aunt Vic, dear--nor your kindness to papa. He feels it more than he can possibly express to you--your taking what he did so--so gently."

"Ma foi! The Guions must have money. When it comes to spending they're not morally responsible. I'm the only one among them who ever had a business head; and even with me, if it hadn't been for my wonderful Hamlet and Tecla--But you can see what I am at heart--throwing two million francs into your lap as if it were a box of bonbons."

"I'm not sure that you ought, you know."

"And what about the Guion family honor and all that? Who's to take care of it if I don't? The minute I heard what had happened I held up my head and said, Everything may go so long as the credit of the Guion name is saved. N'est-ce pas? We can't live in debt to the old man who advanced your papa the money."

"He isn't an old man at all," Olivia explained, quickly.

"Ça ne fait rien. His age isn't the question. I suppose he lent the money expecting us to pay him back at a handsome rate of interest."

"No, he didn't. That's just it. He lent it to us--out of--out of--"

"Yes; out of what?"

"Out of pure goodness," she said, firmly.

"Fiddle-faddle! People don't do things out of pure goodness. The man who seems to is either a sentimentalist or a knave. If he's a sentimentalist, he does it for effect; if he's a knave, because it helps roguery. There's always some ax to grind."

"I think you'd have to make an exception of Mr. Davenant."

"Davenant? Is that his name? Yes, I believe your papa did tell me so--the boy Tom Davenant fished out of the slums."

With some indignation Olivia told the story of Davenant's birth and adoption. "So you see," she went on, "he has goodness in his blood. There's no reason why that shouldn't be inherited as much as--as insanity--or a taste for alcohol."

"Stuff, dear! The man or the boy, or whatever he is, calculated on getting something better than he gave. We must simply pay him off and get rid of him. Noblesse oblige."

"We may get rid of him, Aunt Vic, but we can never pay him off."

"He'll be paid off, won't he, if we return his loan at an interest of five--I'm willing to say six--per cent.?"

Olivia came forward, looking distressed. "Oh, I hope you won't, dear Aunt Vic. I mean about the five or six per cent. Give him back his money if you will, only give it back in the--in the princely way in which he let us have it."

"Well, I call that princely--six per cent."

"Oh, please, Aunt Vic! You'd offend him. You'd hurt him. He's just the sort of big, sensitive creature that's most easily wounded, and--"

"Tiens! You interest me. Stop fidgeting round the room and come and tell me about him. Sit down," she commanded, pointing to the other corner of the sofa. "There must be a lot I haven't heard."

If Olivia hesitated, it was chiefly because of her own eagerness to talk of him, to sing his praises. Since, however, she must sooner or later learn to do this with self-possession, she fortified herself to begin. With occasional interruptions from her aunt she told the tale as she understood it, taking as point of departure the evening when Davenant came to dine at Tory Hill, on his return from his travels round the world.

"So there was a time when you didn't like him," was Madame de Melcourt's first comment.

"There was a time when I didn't understand him."

"But when you did understand him you changed your mind."

"I couldn't help it."

"And did you change anything more than your--mind?"

There was so much insinuation in the cracked voice that Olivia colored, in spite of the degree in which she thought herself armed against all surprises. It was a minute or more before she was prepared with an answer.

"I changed my attitude toward him. Before that I'd been hostile and insolent, and then--and then--I grew humble. Yes, Aunt Vic--humble. I grew more than humble. I came to feel--well, as you might feel if you'd struck a great St. Bernard dog who'd been rescuing you in the snow. There's something about him that makes you think of a St. Bernard--so big and true and loyal--"

"Did you ever think he might be in love with you?"

She was ready for this question, and had made up her mind to answer it frankly. "Yes. I was afraid he was advancing the money on that account. I felt so right up to--to a few days ago."

"And what happened then?"

"Drusilla told me he'd said he--wasn't."

Madame de Melcourt let that pass. "Did you think he'd fallen in love with you all of a sudden when he came that night to dinner?"

She resolved to tell the whole truth. "I'd known him before. He asked me to marry him years ago. And something happened. I hardly know how to tell you. I didn't answer him."

"Didn't answer him?"

"I got up and walked away, right in the middle of--of what he was trying to tell me."

"Ti-ens! And you had to take his money after all?"

Olivia bowed her head.

"Ça c'est trop fort," the old lady went on. "You're quite right then when you say you'll never be able to pay him off, even if you get rid of him. But he's paid _you_ off, hasn't he? It's a more beautiful situation than I fancied. He didn't tell me that."

Olivia looked up. "He didn't tell you? Who?"

"Your papa," the old lady said, promptly. "It's perfectly lovely, isn't it? I should think when you meet him you must feel frightfully ashamed. Don't you?"

"I should if there wasn't something about him that--"

"And you'll never get over it," the old lady went on, pitilessly, "not even after you've married the other man. The humiliation will haunt you--toujours--toujours! N'est-ce pas? If it were I, I should want to marry a man I'd done a thing like that to--just to carry it off. But _you_ can't, can you? You've _got_ to marry the other man. Even if you weren't so horribly in love with him, you'd have to marry him, when he's stood by you like that. I should be ashamed of you if you didn't."

"Of course, Aunt Vic."

"If he were to back out that would be another thing. But as it is you've got to swallow your humiliation, with regard to this Davenant. Or, rather, you can't swallow it. You've simply got to live on it, so to speak. You'll never be able to forget for an hour of the day that you treated a man like that--and then took his money, will you? It isn't exactly like striking a St. Bernard who's rescuing you in the snow. It's like beating him first and then having him come and save you afterward. Oh, la la! Quelle drôle de chose que la vie! Well, it's a good thing we can return his money, at the least."

"You're so good about that, dear Aunt Vic. I didn't understand I was to have it when I couldn't see my way to--to--"

"To marry Berteuil. That's all over and done with. I see you weren't made for life in the real world. Anyhow," she added, taking a virtuous air, "when my word was passed it was passed. Not that your _dot_ will do you much good. It'll all have to go to settle the claims of this Mr.--By the way, where is he? Why doesn't he come and be paid?"

"He's out in Michigan, at a little place called Stoughton."

"Then send for him."

"I'm not sure we can get him. Cousin Cherry has written to him three times since he went away, and he doesn't answer."

"Cousin Cherry! What a goose! Who'd ever think she was the pretty Charlotte Hawke that Rodney Temple fell in love with. What's the matter with you, over here, that you all grow old at a minute's notice, so to speak? I never saw such a lot of frumps as the women who used to be my own contemporaries. Rodney and I were very good friends once. If I could only have settled down in humdrum old Waverton--but we'll let bygones be bygones, and send for your man."

"I'll ask Cousin Cherry to write to him again."

"Stuff, dear. That won't do any good. Wire him yourself, and tell him I'm here."

"Oh, but, Aunt Vic, dear."

With little perkings of the head and much rolling of the eyes the Marquise watched the warm color rise in Olivia's cheek and surge slowly upward to the temples. Madame de Melcourt made signs of trying to look anywhere and everywhere, up to the ceiling and down at the floor, rather than be a witness of so much embarrassment. She emphasized her discretion, too, by making a great show of seeing nothing in particular, toying with her rings and bracelets till Olivia had sufficiently recovered to be again commanded to send for Davenant.

"Tell him I'm here and that I want to have a look at him. Use my name so that he'll see it's urgent. Then you can sign the telegram with your own. Cousin Cherry! Stuff!"

* * * * *

Later that day Madame de Melcourt was making a confession to Rodney Temple.

"Oui, mon bon Rodney. It was love at first sight. The thing hadn't happened to me for years."

"Had it been in the habit of happening?"

"In the habit of happening--that's too much to say. I may have had a little toquade from time to time--I don't say no--of an innocence!--or nearly of an innocence!--Mais que voulez-vous?--a woman in my position!--a widow since I was so high!--and exposed to the most flattering attentions. You know nothing about it over here. L'amour est l'enfant de Bohème, as the song says, and, whatever you can say for Waverton and Cambridge and Boston, you'll admit--"

He leaned back in his rocking-chair with a laugh. "One does the best one can, Vic. We're children of opportunity as well as enfants de Bohème. If your chances have been more generous, and I presume more tempting, than ours, it isn't kind of you to come back and taunt us."

"Don't talk about tempting, Rodney. You can't imagine how tiresome those men become--always on the hunt for money--always trying to find a wife who'll support them without their having to work. I speak of the good people, of course. With the bourgeoisie it's different. They work and take care of their families like other people. Only they don't count. If I hadn't money--they'd slam the door on me like that." She indicated the violence of the act by gesture. "As it is, they smother me. There are three of them at Melcourt-le-Danois at this present moment--Anne Marie de Melcourt's two boys and one girl. They're all waiting for me to supply the funds with which they're to make rich marriages. Is it any wonder that I look upon what's done for my own niece as so much saved? Henry's getting into such a hole seemed to me providential--gives me the chance to snatch something away from them before they--and when it's to go ultimately to _him_--"

"The young fellow you've taken such a fancy to?"

"You'd have taken a fancy to him, too, if you'd known only men who make it a trade to ask all and give next to nothing in return. You'd be smitten to the core by a man who asks nothing and offers all, if he were as ugly as a gargoyle. But when he takes the form of a blond Hercules, with eyes blue as the myosotis, and a mustache--mais une moustache!--and with no idea whatever of the bigness of the thing he's doing! It was the thunderbolt, Rodney--le coup de foudre--and no wonder!"

"I hope you told him so."

"I was very stiff with him. I sent him about his business just like that." She snapped her fingers. "But I only meant it with reserves. I let him see how I had been wronged--how cruelly Olivia had misunderstood me--but I showed him, too, how I could forgive." She tore at her breast as though to lay bare her heart. "Oh, I impressed him--not all at once perhaps--but little by little--"

"As he came to know you."

"I wouldn't let him go away. He stayed at the inn in the village two weeks and more. It's an old chef of mine who keeps it. And I learned all his secrets. He thought he was throwing dust in my eyes, but he didn't throw a grain. As if I couldn't see who was in love with who--after all my experience! Ah, mon bon Rodney, if I'd been fifty years younger! And yet if I'd been fifty years younger, I shouldn't have judged him at his worth. He's the type to which you can do justice only when you've a standard of comparison, n'est-ce pas? It's in putting him beside other men--the best--even Ashley over there--that you see how big he is."

She tossed her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, sitting by the tea-table at the other end of the room. Mrs. Temple had again found errands of mercy to insure her absence.

"Il est très bien, cet Ashley," the Marquise continued, "chic--distinguished--no more like a wooden man than any other Englishman. Il est très bien--but what a difference!--two natures--the one a mountain pool, fierce, deep, hemmed in all round--the other the great sea. Voilà--Ashley et mon Davenant. And he helped me. He gave me courage to stand up against the Melcourt--to run away from them. Oh yes, we ran away--almost. I made a pretext for going to Paris--the old pretext, the dentist. They didn't suspect at my age--how should they?--or they wouldn't have let me come alone. Helie or Paul or Anne Marie would have come with me. Oh, they smother me! But we ran away. We took the train to Cherbourg, just like two eloping lovers--and the bateau de luxe, the _Louisiana_ to New York. Mais hélas!--"

She paused to laugh, and at the same time to dash away a tear. "At New York we parted, never to meet again--so he thinks. His work was done! He went straight to that funny place in Michigan to join his pal. He's there now--waiting to hear that Olivia has married her Englishman, as you might wait to hear that sentence of death on some one you were fond of had been carried out. Ah, mon Dieu, quel brave homme! I'm proud to belong to the people who produced him. I don't know that I ever was before."

"Oh, the world is full of brave fellows, when the moment comes to try them."

"Perhaps. I'm not convinced. What about _him_?" She flicked her hand again toward Ashley. "Would he stand a big test?"

"He's stood a good many of them, I understand. He's certainly been equal to his duty here."

"He's done what a gentleman couldn't help doing. That's something, but it's possible to ask more."

"I hope you're not going to ask it," he began, in some anxiety.

"He strikes me as a man who would grant what was wrung from him, while the other--my blond Hercules--gives royally, like a king."

"There's a soul that climbs as by a ladder, and there's a soul that soars naturally as a lark. I don't know that it matters which they do, so long as they both mount upward."

"We shall see."

"What shall we see? I hope you're not up to anything, Vic?"

With another jerk of her hand in the direction of Ashley and Drusilla, she said, "That's the match that should have--"

But the old man was out of his seat. "You must excuse me now, Vic. I've some work to do."

"Yes, be off. Only--"

She put her forefinger on her lips, rolling her eyes under the brim of her extravagant hat with an expression intended to exclude from their pact of confidence not only the other two occupants of the room, but every one else.

Olivia received the reply to her telegram: "Shall arrive in Boston Wednesday night."