CHAPTER XI.
SOME AFTER-DINNER CONVERSATION.
Night in the garden of the Villa Rossignol was as night is nowhere else.The cool dusk softened the somewhat stilted formality of the flower-bedsand winding walks, and mercifully blurred the uncompromising stiffnessof the paved terrace, flanked by marble urns, and giving, in three broadsteps, upon the lawn. At this season the air was neither warm nor chill,but so deliciously adjusted that, as it moved, its touch on the cheeksand forehead was like that of a woman's fingers. The stillness wasemphasized rather than disturbed by a tiny tinkle of water, falling fromledge to ledge of a rockery hidden in the trees, and the sound, hardlyless liquid, of a nightingale, rehearsing, pianissimo, snatches of themelody that midnight would hear in full. The darkness seemed to dripperfume: for the little seats and summer-houses, cunningly hidden hereand there among the _bosquets_, were veritable bowers of roses, and thenew grass and foliage had that fresh June smell which July, with itsdust and scorching suns, so soon turns stale.
The women were on the terrace now; the men inside. Through the windowsof the west wing, open from floor to ceiling to the soft night air, thebig dining-table gleamed with linen, silver, and crystal, in notungraceful disarray, and above it hung a thin haze of blue-gray smoke,through which the shirt-bosoms and white waistcoats of the men stoododdly out, seeming to have no relation to their owners, whose faces werecut off by the deep-red candle-shades from the light, and so from theview of those outside. Now and again their laughter came out through thewindows in rollicking little gusts, and immediately thereafter the hazeof smoke was reinforced.
"What an amusing time they always seem to have, once they're rid of us!"said Mrs. Ratchett, almost resentfully. "If one could be a fly, now, andperch in comfort, upside down, upon the ceiling--"
"One would get a vast deal of tobacco-smoke into one's lungs," put inMrs. Carnby, "and a vast store of unrepeatable anecdotes into one'smemory. I really can't approve of your project, Ethel, and I'm convincedthat, to your particular style of beauty, it would be most unbecoming toperch--particularly upside down!"
"Oh, the men!" exclaimed old Mrs. Lister, with a kind of ecstaticwriggle. "What _do_ you suppose?--but of course we shall never know--Idare say we'd be quite shocked--but it sounds entertaining--and theysay, you know, that the cleverest stories--and Mr. Radwalader must bean adept--if only we _could_--!"
"For my part," observed Madame Palffy majestically, "I have no desire tooverhear anything in the nature of _double entendre_."
"Oh, shade of Larousse!" murmured Mrs. Carnby into her coffee-cup."Where _did_ the creature learn her French? Shall we take a littlewalk?" she added aloud, turning to Margery.
"Why, yes--with pleasure, Mrs. Carnby," answered the girl, with a quickstart. Her eyes had been fixed upon an indistinct form beyond the windowof the dining-room, which was the person of Mr. Andrew Vane.
For a few moments they trod the winding gravel path in silence. Then, asa clump of shrubbery hid the house from view, she stopped impulsively,and laid her hand on the arm of her hostess.
"Fairy godmother--" she began.
"Now, my dear girl," interrupted Mrs. Carnby, "don't say anything you'llbe sorry for afterwards. I'm a very vain, weak, silly, gossipy oldwoman--but I _am_ a woman, Margery, and that means that I often seethings I'm not meant to see, and which I wish I hadn't. Don't give meyour confidence just because you feel that I may have guessed--"
"I _know_ you've guessed, Mrs. Carnby!" broke in Margery, "and, afterall, it's just as well, because I must speak to some one. I feel,somehow, as if I'd lost my way, and I think I'm a little frightened.I've always been very sure of myself till now, very confident of myability to judge what was the right thing to do, and to get on withoutadvice. But now--it's different. I'm unhappy."
Mrs. Carnby slid her arm across the girl's shoulders.
"Go on, my dear," she said. "I didn't mean that I wasn't willing tolisten--only that I wouldn't like to feel that I was surprising yourconfidence."
"First of all," said Margery, "and in spite of everybody's kindness tome, I'm afraid I hate this new life, which is so different fromeverything I've learned to know and love. I hate all this pretence andposing which we're carrying on, day after day, among people who smirkbefore our faces and ridicule us behind our backs; and I'm coming tohate myself worst of all. I want my life to be better than that of abutterfly among a lot of wasps! In America I hadn't time to stop andthink whether I was happy or not, and I've read somewhere that that isjust what true happiness means. Everything was very natural and simpleover there. I used to wake up wanting to sing, and life seemed to beginall over again every morning. And then, without the least warning, cameto me--what you've guessed, you know. I was sure of it at once. Therewas nothing said, but one feels such things, don't you think?--feelsthem coming, just as one feels the dawn sometimes, even while it's stillquite dark? I had a little hint or two--just enough to make me confidentand happier than ever. I knew there were reasons for his not speaking:I guessed at his grandfather, and a very little thought showed me thatit could do no harm to wait. I wanted him to be sure, just as sure as Iwas. I was even content to come away and leave him. I _knew_, you see,and I saw it was only a question of time. I never doubted for a momenthow it would end, and so I wasn't the least bit surprised when he camethrough the _salon_ door, that Sunday in Paris. I thought--I was _sure_he'd come for me. I could have shouted, I was so happy, Mrs. Carnby! Ihad to turn away and pretend to be admiring some roses, I remember,because I felt that I was smiling--no, _grinning_--and just at nothing!Well--"
She paused, with a catch in her throat, and then went on determinedly.
"I've--I've been waiting ever since. We're good friends, almost _too_good friends, but there's something missing, something gone. I'm afraidyou'll hardly understand me if I say that ever since last summer inBeverly I've felt that he belonged to me--all of him--every bit.Now--well, I can't feel that way any longer. It is just as if I weresharing him with somebody or something, and not getting the better oreven the larger part. I've heard--well, you know how gossip goes! I'veheard that there was another girl. He's been seen with her, often andoften. People might have spared me, if they'd known: but of course theydidn't; and so I've picked up fragments and fragments of talk, andevery one has cut me like a knife. In the midst of all this, he came tome and asked me--no! he asked me nothing, but I knew what he meant. Iput him off. I felt that I must have time to think. But the moment fordecision has come. He may ask me again at any time. What shall I say?Fairy godmother, what _shall_ I say? I _want_ to trust him! I want tostake my confidence in him against all the gossip in the world. And yetif he's only asking me because he thinks I expect it, if he reallydoesn't _want_ me--"
"He _does_ want you!" said Mrs. Carnby. "I could shake you, Margery.You're _so_ far off the track, and at the same time you make it so hardto show you why. Let me see."
She hesitated, biting her lips.
"Look here," she continued suddenly. "Suppose you had a baby brother,for example, and you loved him better than all the world, and you knewthat, in his baby way, he felt the same love for you, and you shouldcarry him, all of a jump, into the next room, and plant him down infront of a ten-foot Christmas-tree, all blazing with candles and glassballs and whatchercallems--cornucopias--would you be surprised if hehadn't any use for you for at least an hour? No, you wouldn't--not a bitof it! You'd think it quite natural. Well, there you are! You areyourself, and baby brother's Andrew Vane, and the Christmas tree'sParis: and you'll just have to wait, that's all, till he's throughblinking and sucking his thumb!"
"Oh, Mrs. Carnby!" said Margery, laughing in spite of herself. "Can'tyou see that, much as I am afraid of Paris for my own sake, I'm moreafraid of it for his?"
"My dear," said Mrs. Carnby, with a change of tone, "nowadays one'sforced to take rather a liberal view of things. There are only a fewdelusions left, and love's not one of them--more's the pity! The bestflowers, Margery--and I grant you love is one of the _very_ best-
-arebrought to perfection by methods which it's not always pleasant tofollow in detail. There's a deal of hacking and pruning and fertilizingand cross-breeding with ignobler growths to be gone through with beforeone obtains a satisfactory result. It's like the most inviting dishesserved up by one's _chef_: if we had the dangerous curiosity to pry intoall the stages of their preparation, I doubt if very many of them wouldstand the test and prove so tempting, after all. That's the way with aman. When he brings us his love, we have to accept it, without inquiringtoo closely how it has come to be. You won't think me vain if I say allmen can't be Jeremy Carnbys? When they know _how_ to love, more oftenthan not it's because they've learned; and as to how they _learned_,it's for our own good not to be too inquisitive. Usually, my dear, itmeans another woman, and not a woman one would be apt to call upon, atthat."
"Mrs. Carnby!"
"Yes. Don't be provincial, Margery. I've no patience with the whitewashbusiness. It's better at all times to look things squarely in the face,even if doing so makes--er--your eyes water! There's hardly a womanhappily married to-day who hasn't been preceded, and rather profitablypreceded, I venture to say, by another woman--and not a very good womaneither. She's there in the background, but we have to ignore her, and bythe time we notice her at all it's more than likely she has ceased to beimportant. She's been the method of preparing the dish, that's all, thefertilizer which has made the rose of love possible. She has taught theman what neither you nor any girl in the least like you could teachhim--the things which are not worth while! We get the better part. Shehas burned up the chaff. We get the wheat."
Margery had tightly locked her hands.
"Fairy godmother," she said, "you don't want me to believe that, do you?You don't want me to be only the whim of a man's changed fancy, thething on which he practises all he has learned from--from--"
"I would to Heaven I could _make_ a man fit for you!" answered Mrs.Carnby, drawing the girl close to her, "but, since I can't do that, Iwant you to see things in their true light, and to learn that charitybegins in the same place which is called a woman's sphere, and thatlove, from her standpoint, is little more than forgiveness on theendless instalment plan!"
"But Andrew--" said Margery eagerly.
"Andrew Vane is only a man," said Mrs. Carnby sententiously. "He can'tbe made out a seraph even by the fact that you--er--"
"Love him," supplemented the girl brokenly. "I see what you mean. Iwould have given anything in the world to have saved him from this,and--it's too late, already."
"Nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Mrs. Carnby. "Now's the time when heneeds you most. If you couldn't win him away from any woman that everlived, good or bad, you wouldn't be Margery Palffy! Bless me! I must begetting back to the others, my dear. Now don't take this too much toheart. It's all coming out right in the end. These things are onlytemporary, at worst. Be brave, Margery."
"Oh--brave!" answered Margery, flinging up her chin. "Yes, I shall bethat. Don't fear but that I shall know how to handle the situation now.And--thank you, fairy godmother. I'll wait here a few minutes, if youdon't mind, and just--_think_!"
As she walked toward the villa again, Mrs. Carnby compressed her lips.
"Now there's a deal of common sense in that girl," she said to herself."She must have inherited it from her grandparents!"
But, with all her shrewdness, she had never more hopelessly complicateda situation.
For a time Margery lingered, compelled by the need of reflection and thebeauty of the night. All about her the blue-black darkness, eloquentwith the breath of the roses and the fluting of the now-emboldenednightingale, sighed and turned in its sleep, as if it dreamed ofpleasant things. Paris, with its frivolities, its sins, its sorrows, andits snares, was like some uneasy, half-forgotten dream. The brand hadtouched the girl, but as yet it had no more than stung, it had notseared. The sword quivered, but the thread yet held. The mercifulgarment of the calm, sweet night yet smothered, like sleep beforeawakening, the bitterness of full reality. The moment was one of thoseoases in the desert of disillusion which, with the crystal clamour offalling water, the cool shade of widespread foliage, and the odour offresh, moist earth, alone make tolerable the journey of the caravan.
So it was that Margery was able to speak naturally, with the knowledgeof having herself well in hand, as a step crunched on the gravel nearby, and Andrew flung his cigarette upon the path, where it spawned in aquantity of tiny points of light, which gloomed immediately intonothingness.
"How extravagant you are! Surely you must know by this time that I don'tmind smoke in the least. I was just about to go in."
"Not yet for a moment, please," said Andrew. "Let's come into thislittle arbour. There's something I want to say."
He pointed, as he spoke, to a small marble-columned seat in theshrubbery, buried under a great hood of climbing rose-vines in fullbloom. For an instant only the girl hesitated. Then she led the wayresolutely, gathering her light shawl more closely about her shoulders,with something like a shiver, despite the warmth of the still Juneevening. For a little they sat in silence. When Andrew spoke, it waswith an abruptness which told of embarrassment.
"You remember, perhaps, what you said to me the other day inParis--about fighting a good fight, and keeping the faith? Will you tellme just what you meant by that? It's been haunting me, lately. When yousaid that the influence of Paris made you afraid for those--for thosefor whom you might care, did you mean--_me_?"
He laid his hand on hers, as he asked the question, but she drew awayslightly, and he straightened himself again, with a little puzzledfrown.
"Please don't ask me to answer that," she said, after a moment."Whatever I meant, it can make no difference now."
"No difference, Margery? Do you want me to understand that you were notin earnest--that you really didn't care?"
"I haven't said that," answered the girl wearily. "I said it could makeno difference now, now that the mischief's done."
"I'm afraid I don't understand you," said Andrew slowly.
"Oh, pray don't let's discuss it. I've no right to question you."
"No right?"
"No right at all, and, as a matter of fact, when I said that I didn'tmean to. Perhaps I _was_ thinking of you, in part. I'm sorry I presumed.Only one doesn't like to see one's friends make fools of themselves--andthat's what most men do in Paris, isn't it? Never mind. It's like ourgolf at Beverly. I prefer to have you play the game, and keep your owntally."
"The game?" demanded Andrew. "What game? What do you mean?"
"Oh, the game that all men play--the game in which we have no part, ofwhich we must not even speak or hear, we women who respect ourselves.Don't let's talk of it. We're supposed to be friends, and for thatreason I'll overlook what you don't absolutely force me to see. That'smy part, isn't it?--to pretend I don't understand, even when I do? And Ido--I _do_! I'm not cynical, but neither am I a fool. I've lived inParis only a little while, but long enough to know that when one says'boys will be boys' it sometimes means--oh, more than putty-blowers, andcoming indoors with wet feet, and pulling out the parrot'stail-feathers!"
She stopped abruptly, with a perception that she was overdoing herassumption of unconcern, that she was talking wildly, that her voice hadtaken on an unnatural strain.
"I don't understand you in the least," said Andrew deliberately, "or atleast I'm sure that what you seem to be saying isn't what you reallymean. I can't believe that after all that has been--after all I havehoped was going to be--why, Margery, I came out here--no, I came all theway from America, to ask you--"
"_Don't!_"
Margery had risen with the word, and now, leaning against one of themarble columns of the little arbour, was looking away into the gloom.
"I want to believe in you," she added. "Leave me that, at least. Playthe game, Andy--play the game!"
"The game--the game--the game!" exclaimed Andrew. "What is all thisyou're saying, Margery? What are you accusing me of? Is it possible youdon't know I love you--that I've a
lways loved you, ever since first Isaw you? I'd have asked you long ago, at Beverly, but my grandfatherbegged me, almost commanded me, to wait. We were both so young. Hewanted me to make sure. And, although I knew that I should never change,I felt he was right. I wanted you to have your chance, to come out, tosee a little bit of life, before I tried to bind you to any promise. Andwhen I heard that you were not coming back to America this year, thatyou _had_ come out, and were the beauty and the belle of the Colonyhere, I knew that it was time to make a try for you, unless I was tolose you forever. So I came over here to tell you this--to ask you tomarry me. And now--in Heaven's name, what _is_ it, Margery? What haschanged you? What do you mean by all this? If there is anything I canexplain--"
The girl turned to him, with a little, piteous gesture.
"Have I asked you for an explanation?" she said. "Do I need one--since I_know_? You say you'd have asked me long ago. Well, then, I ask you--whydidn't you? Why didn't you ask me before it was too late? Why didn't youask me while yet you had something to offer me which I could haveaccepted gratefully--your innocence, your purity, the best of all thatwas in you, and to which I had a right, do you hear?--a right! Whydidn't you speak then, before you'd thrown all these away, sold yourbirthright, and become like all the rest? Do you come to me _now_--now,with another woman's kisses on your lips, and God only knows what of theimpurity she has taught you in your heart? Do you come to me like that,and expect me to welcome you, to accept the fact that I am your secondchoice after a woman whose name you would not mention to me--"
"Margery--Margery!"
"Do you deny it? Do you deny that you were with her--when?--yesterday?Oh, be true at least to _one_ thing, whatever it be--if not to the faithyou owed me, if all you've been telling me is true, then to the womanyou've preferred before me--to your mistress, to your mistress, AndrewVane!"
Andrew fell back a step, putting up his hands as if to ward off a blow.
"It was for this," he faltered, "that you told me to come here--to askyou anything I chose?"
"You know better than that!" said Margery firmly.
"Then Mrs. Carnby has been telling you--"
"Mrs. Carnby has told me nothing except what I knew--or, rather, triednot to know--before. It isn't from her I learned. The truth has come tome bit by bit, and I've fought against it as it came, trying to believein you to the very last."
"And you think--"
"Yes--yes! I think--I _know_! How quick you were to refer to Mrs.Carnby! She knows, of course--everybody knows--even I! Well, I don'twant to criticise you or blame you. You've forced me into it by makingme part of all this. Now, all I ask of you is to respect me, to leave meout of what you choose to do in future, and not to mock the name of lovewith this pitiful fancy for me--a fancy so trivial and so idle that itcouldn't even hold you back from transgression. I ask you to go back toher, or, if you're tired of her already, at least not to come to me. I'mdifferent from these other women, who can laugh at such things, andgloss them over, and forget them. I demand of the man who asks me tomarry him the selfsame thing that he demands of me. I demand that heshall be pure!"
The girl's voice broke suddenly, and she pressed her cheek against oneof the marble columns of the little arbour, battling against theinsistence of her tears.
"You must forgive me," she said presently. "I have no right to speak asI have done, but--if you've guessed the reason, that is part of myhumiliation and my shame. Will you go now? I want to be alone."
"How can I?" said Andrew slowly. "How can I leave you, even for an hour,while you think as you do? It would mean that all was over between usforever."
"All _is_ over," answered Margery, "as much over as if you or I had beendead for twenty years!"
"Listen to me!" exclaimed Andrew hotly. "And you shall have the truth,if that's what you want. There _is_ such a woman--yes! But she is nomore a part of my life than that bird out there. She has been anincident, nothing more. You had only to ask me, and I would never haveseen her again. You have only to ask me now--"
"Ah, stop!" broke in Margery. "Don't make me despise you!"
"_Margery!_" He had stumbled forward blindly into this abortiveexplanation, remembering for the moment nothing but his own knowledge ofthe truth. Now, as she checked him, a sickening sense of what his wordsmust signify to her swept down upon him, and he covered his face withhis hands.
"I don't know how to put it," he murmured. "I don't know what to say."
"You have said quite enough," replied Margery. Her voice was quite cool,quite steady now. "I have asked you once to leave me. Will you please gonow--at once?"
Andrew dropped his hands, and searched her face with his eyes. There wasno trace in it of any emotion beyond a slight contempt.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that this is the end?"
"The end?" she repeated. "The end--er--of _what_?"
With that he left her.