Mrs. Carstyle was one of the women who make refinement vulgar. Sheinvariably spoke of her husband as Mr. Carstyle and, though she had butone daughter, was always careful to designate the young lady by name. Atluncheon she had talked a great deal of elevating influences and ideals,and had fluctuated between apologies for the overdone mutton and affectedsurprise that the bewildered maid-servant should have forgotten to servethe coffee and liqueurs as usual.
Vibart was almost sorry that he had come. Miss Carstyle was stillbeautiful--almost as beautiful as when, two days earlier, against theleafy background of a June garden-party, he had seen her for the firsttime--but her mother's expositions and elucidations cheapened her beautyas sign-posts vulgarize a woodland solitude. Mrs. Carstyle's eye wasperpetually plying between her daughter and Vibart, like an empty cab inquest of a fare. Miss Carstyle, the young man decided, was the kind ofgirl whose surroundings rub off on her; or was it rather that Mrs.Carstyle's idiosyncrasies were of a nature to color every one withinreach? Vibart, looking across the table as this consolatory alternativeoccurred to him, was sure that they had not colored Mr. Carstyle; butthat, perhaps, was only because they had bleached him instead. Mr.Carstyle was quite colorless; it would have been impossible to guess hisnative tint. His wife's qualities, if they had affected him at all, hadacted negatively. He did not apologize for the mutton, and he wandered offafter luncheon without pretending to wait for the diurnal coffee andliqueurs; while the few remarks that he had contributed to theconversation during the meal had not been in the direction of abstractconceptions of life. As he strayed away, with his vague oblique step, andthe stoop that suggested the habit of dodging missiles, Vibart, who wasstill in the age of formulas, found himself wondering what life could beworth to a man who had evidently resigned himself to travelling with hisback to the wind; so that Mrs. Carstyle's allusion to her daughter's lackof advantages (imparted while Irene searched the house for anundiscoverable cigarette) had an appositeness unintended by the speaker.
"If Mr. Carstyle had chosen," that lady repeated, "we might have had ourcity home" (she never used so small a word as town) "and Ireen could havemixed in the society to which I myself was accustomed at her age." Hersigh pointed unmistakably to a past when young men had come to luncheon tosee her.
The sigh led Vibart to look at her, and the look led him to the unwelcomeconclusion that Irene "took after" her mother. It was certainly not fromthe sapless paternal stock that the girl had drawn her warm bloom: Mrs.Carstyle had contributed the high lights to the picture.
Mrs. Carstyle caught his look and appropriated it with the complacency ofa vicarious beauty. She was quite aware of the value of her appearance asguaranteeing Irene's development into a fine woman.
"But perhaps," she continued, taking up the thread of her explanation,"you have heard of Mr. Carstyle's extraordinary hallucination. Mr.Carstyle knows that I call it so--as I tell him, it is the most charitableview to take."
She looked coldly at the threadbare sofa and indulgently at the young manwho filled a corner of it.
"You may think it odd, Mr. Vibart, that I should take you into myconfidence in this way after so short an acquaintance, but somehow I can'thelp regarding you as a friend already. I believe in those intuitivesympathies, don't you? They have never misled me--" her lids droopedretrospectively--"and besides, I always tell Mr. Carstyle that on thispoint I will have no false pretences. Where truth is concerned I aminexorable, and I consider it my duty to let our friends know that ourrestricted way of living is due entirely to choice--to Mr. Carstyle'schoice. When I married Mr. Carstyle it was with the expectation of livingin New York and of keeping my carriage; and there is no reason for our notdoing so--there is no reason, Mr. Vibart, why my daughter Ireen shouldhave been denied the intellectual advantages of foreign travel. I wishthat to be understood. It is owing to her father's deliberate choice thatIreen and I have been imprisoned in the narrow limits of Millbrooksociety. For myself I do not complain. If Mr. Carstyle chooses to placeothers before his wife it is not for his wife to repine. His course may benoble--Quixotic; I do not allow myself to pronounce judgment on it, thoughothers have thought that in sacrificing his own family to strangers he wasviolating the most sacred obligations of domestic life. This is theopinion of my pastor and of other valued friends; but, as I have alwaystold them, for myself I make no claims. Where my daughter Ireen isconcerned it is different--"
It was a relief to Vibart when, at this point, Mrs. Carstyle's dischargeof her duty was cut short by her daughter's reappearance. Irene had beenunable to find a cigarette for Mr. Vibart, and her mother, with beamingirrelevance, suggested that in that case she had better show him thegarden.
The Carstyle house stood but a few yards back from the brick-pavedMillbrook street, and the garden was a very small place, unless measured,as Mrs. Carstyle probably intended that it should be, by the extent of herdaughter's charms. These were so considerable that Vibart walked back andforward half a dozen times between the porch and the gate, before hediscovered the limitations of the Carstyle domain. It was not till Irenehad accused him of being sarcastic and had confided in him that "thegirls" were furious with her for letting him talk to her so long at hisaunt's garden-party, that he awoke to the exiguity of his surroundings;and then it was with a touch of irritation that he noticed Mr. Carstyle'sinconspicuous profile bent above a newspaper in one of the lower windows.Vibart had an idea that Mr. Carstyle, while ostensibly reading the paper,had kept count of the number of times that his daughter had led hercompanion up and down between the syringa-bushes; and for some undefinablereason he resented Mr. Carstyle's unperturbed observation more than hiswife's zealous self-effacement. To a man who is trying to please a prettygirl there are moments when the proximity of an impartial spectator ismore disconcerting than the most obvious connivance; and something aboutMr. Carstyle's expression conveyed his good-humored indifference toIrene's processes.
When the garden-gate closed behind Vibart he had become aware that hispreoccupation with the Carstyles had shifted its centre from the daughterto the father; but he was accustomed to such emotional surprises, andskilled in seizing any compensations they might offer.
II
The Carstyles belonged to the all-the-year-round Millbrook of paper-mills,cable-cars, brick pavements and church sociables, while Mrs. Vance, theaunt with whom Vibart lived, was an ornament of the summer colony whosebig country-houses dotted the surrounding hills. Mrs. Vance had, however,no difficulty in appeasing the curiosity which Mrs. Carstyle's enigmaticutterances had aroused in the young man. Mrs. Carstyle's relentlessveracity vented itself mainly on the "summer people," as they were called:she did not propose that any one within ten miles of Millbrook should keepa carriage without knowing that she was entitled to keep one too. Mrs.Vance remarked with a sigh that Mrs. Carstyle's annual demand to have herposition understood came in as punctually as the taxes and the water-rates.
"My dear, it's simply this: when Andrew Carstyle married her years ago--Heaven knows why he did; he's one of the Albany Carstyles, you know, andshe was a daughter of old Deacon Ash of South Millbrook--well, when hemarried her he had a tidy little income, and I suppose the bride expectedto set up an establishment in New York and be hand-in-glove with the wholeCarstyle clan. But whether he was ashamed of her from the first, or forsome other unexplained reason, he bought a country-place and settled downhere for life. For a few years they lived comfortably enough, and she hadplenty of smart clothes, and drove about in a victoria calling on thesummer people. Then, when the beautiful Irene was about ten years old, Mr.Carstyle's only brother died, and it turned out that he had made away witha lot of trust-property. It was a horrid business: over three hundredthousand dollars were gone, and of course most of it had belonged towidows and orphans. As soon as the facts were made known, Andrew Carstyleannounced that he would pay back what his brother had stolen. He sold hiscountry-place and his wife's carriage, and they moved to the little housethey live in now. Mr. Carstyle's income is probably not as large as hiswife would like to have it thought, and though I'm told he puts aside, agood part of it every year to pay off his brother's obligations, I fancythe debt won't be discharged for some time to come. To help things alonghe opened a law office--he had studied law in his youth--but though he issaid to be clever I hear that he has very little to do. People are afraidof him: he's too dry and quiet. Nobody believes in a man who doesn'tbelieve in himself, and Mr. Carstyle always seems to be winking at youthrough a slit in his professional manner. People don't like it--his wifedoesn't like it. I believe she would have accepted the sacrifice of thecountry-place and the carriage if he had struck an attitude and talkedabout doing his duty. It was his regarding the whole thing as a matter ofcourse that exasperated her. What is the use of doing something difficultin a way that makes it look perfectly easy? I feel sorry for Mrs.Carstyle. She's lost her house and her carriage, and she hasn't beenallowed to be heroic."
Vibart had listened attentively.
"I wonder what Miss Carstyle thinks of it?" he mused.
Mrs. Vance looked at him with a tentative smile. "I wonder what youthink of Miss Carstyle?" she returned,
His answer reassured her.
"I think she takes after her mother," he said.
"Ah," cried his aunt cheerfully, "then I needn't write to your mother,and I can have Irene at all my parties!"
Miss Carstyle was an important factor in the restricted socialcombinations of a Millbrook hostess. A local beauty is always a usefuladdition to a Saturday-to-Monday house-party, and the beautiful Irene wasserved up as a perennial novelty to the jaded guests of the summer colony.As Vibart's aunt remarked, she was perfect till she became playful, andshe never became playful till the third day.
Under these conditions, it was natural that Vibart should see a good dealof the young lady, and before he was aware of it he had drifted into theanomalous position of paying court to the daughter in order to ingratiatehimself with the father. Miss Carstyle was beautiful, Vibart was young,and the days were long in his aunt's spacious and distinguished house; butit was really the desire to know something more of Mr. Carstyle that ledthe young man to partake so often of that gentleman's overdone mutton.Vibart's imagination had been touched by the discovery that this littlehuddled-up man, instead of travelling with the wind, was persistentlyfacing a domestic gale of considerable velocity. That he should have paidoff his brother's debt at one stroke was to the young man a conceivablefeat; but that he should go on methodically and uninterruptedlyaccumulating the needed amount, under the perpetual accusation of Irene'sinadequate frocks and Mrs. Carstyle's apologies for the mutton, seemed toVibart proof of unexampled heroism. Mr. Carstyle was as inaccessible asthe average American parent, and led a life so detached from thepreoccupations of his womankind that Vibart had some difficulty in fixinghis attention. To Mr. Carstyle, Vibart was simply the inevitable young manwho had been hanging about the house ever since Irene had left school; andVibart's efforts to differentiate himself from this enamored abstractionwere hampered by Mrs. Carstyle's cheerful assumption that he was theyoung man, and by Irene's frank appropriation of his visits.
In this extremity he suddenly observed a slight but significant change inthe manner of the two ladies. Irene, instead of charging him with beingsarcastic and horrid, and declaring herself unable to believe a word hesaid, began to receive his remarks with the impersonal smile which he hadseen her accord to the married men of his aunt's house-parties; while Mrs.Carstyle, talking over his head to an invisible but evidently sympatheticand intelligent listener, debated the propriety of Irene's accepting aninvitation to spend the month of August at Narragansett. When Vibart,rashly trespassing on the rights of this unseen oracle, remarked that afew weeks at the seashore would make a delightful change for MissCarstyle, the ladies looked at him and then laughed.
It was at this point that Vibart, for the first time, found himselfobserved by Mr. Carstyle. They were grouped about the debris of a luncheonwhich had ended precipitously with veal stew (Mrs. Carstyle explainingthat poor cooks always failed with their sweet dish when there wascompany) and Mr. Carstyle, his hands thrust in his pockets, his leanbaggy-coated shoulders pressed against his chair-back, sat contemplatinghis guest with a smile of unmistakable approval. When Vibart caught hiseye the smile vanished, and Mr. Carstyle, dropping his glasses from thebridge of his thin nose, looked out of the window with the expression of aman determined to prove an alibi. But Vibart was sure of the smile: it hadestablished, between his host and himself, a complicity which Mr.Carstyle's attempted evasion served only to confirm.
On the strength of this incident Vibart, a few days later, called at Mr.Carstyle's office. Ostensibly, the young man had come to ask, on hisaunt's behalf, some question on a point at issue between herself and theMillbrook telephone company; but his purpose in offering to perform theerrand had been the hope of taking up his intercourse with Mr. Carstylewhere that gentleman's smile had left it. Vibart was not disappointed. Ina dingy office, with a single window looking out on a blank wall, he foundMr. Carstyle, in an alpaca coat, reading Montaigne.
It evidently did not occur to him that Vibart had come on business, andthe warmth of his welcome gave the young man a sense of furnishing thelast word in a conjugal argument in which, for once, Mr. Carstyle had comeoff triumphant.
The legal question disposed of, Vibart reverted to Montaigne: had Mr.Carstyle seen young So-and-so's volume of essays? There was one onMontaigne that had a decided flavor: the point of view was curious. Vibartwas surprised to find that Mr. Carstyle had heard of young So-and-so.Clever young men are given to thinking that their elders have never gotbeyond Macaulay; but Mr. Carstyle seemed sufficiently familiar with recentliterature not to take it too seriously. He accepted Vibart's offer ofyoung So-and-so's volume, admitting that his own library was not exactlyup-to-date.
Vibart went away musing. The next day he came back with the volume ofessays. It seemed to be tacitly understood that he was to call at theoffice when he wished to see Mr. Carstyle, whose legal engagements did notseriously interfere with the pursuit of literature.
For a week or ten days Mrs. Carstyle, in Vibart's presence, continued totake counsel with her unseen adviser on the subject of her daughter'svisit to Narragansett. Once or twice Irene dropped her impersonal smile totax Vibart with not caring whether she went or not; and Mrs. Carstyleseized a moment of tete-a-tete to confide in him that the dear childhated the idea of leaving, and was going only because her friend Mrs.Higby would not let her off. Of course, if it had not been for Mr.Carstyle's peculiarities they would have had their own seaside home--atNewport, probably: Mrs. Carstyle preferred the tone of Newport--and Irenewould not have been dependent on the charity of her friends; but as itwas, they must be thankful for small mercies, and Mrs. Higby was certainlyvery kind in her way, and had a charming social position--forNarragansett.
These confidences, however, were soon superseded by an exchange, betweenmother and daughter, of increasingly frequent allusions to the delights ofNarragansett, the popularity of Mrs. Higby, and the jolliness of herhouse; with an occasional reference on Mrs. Carstyle's part to theprobability of Hewlett Bain's being there as usual--hadn't Irene heardfrom Mrs. Higby that he was to be there? Upon this note Miss Carstyle atlength departed, leaving Vibart to the undisputed enjoyment of herfather's company.
Vibart had at no time a keen taste for the summer joys of Millbrook, andthe family obligation which, for several months of the year, kept him athis aunt's side (Mrs. Vance was a childless widow and he filled theonerous post of favorite nephew) gave a sense of compulsion to the lightoccupations that chequered his leisure. Mrs. Vance, who fancied herselflonely when he was away, was too much engaged with notes, telegrams andarriving and departing guests, to do more than breathlessly smile upon hispresence, or implore him to take the dullest girl of the party for a drive(and would he go by way of Millbrook, like a dear, and stop at the marketto ask why the lobsters hadn't come?); and the house itself, and theguests who came and went in it like people rushing through a railway-station, offered no points of repose to his thoughts. Some houses arecompanions in themselves: the walls, the book-shelves, the very chairs andtables, have the qualities of a sympathetic mind; but Mrs. Vance'sinterior was as impersonal as the setting of a classic drama.
These conditions made Vibart cultivate an assiduous exchange of booksbetween himself and Mr. Carstyle. The young man went down almost daily tothe little house in the town, where Mrs. Carstyle, who had now an air ofreceiving him in curl-papers, and of not always immediately distinguishinghim from the piano-tuner, made no effort to detain him on his way to herhusband's study.
III
Now and then, at the close of one of Vibart's visits, Mr. Carstyle put ona mildewed Panama hat and accompanied the young man for a mile or two onhis way home. The road to Mrs. Vance's lay through one of the most amiablesuburbs of Millbrook, and Mr. Carstyle, walking with his slow uneagerstep, his hat pushed back, and his stick dragging behind him, seemed totake a philosophic pleasure in the aspect of the trim lawns and opulentgardens.
Vibart could never induce his companion to prolong his walk as far as Mrs.Vance's drawing-room; but one afternoon, when the distant hills lay bluebeyond the twilight of overarching elms, the two men strolled on into thecountry past that lady's hospitable gateposts.
It was a still day, the road was deserted, and every sound came sharplythrough the air. Mr. Carstyle was in the midst of a disquisition onDiderot, when he raised his head and stood still.
"What's that?" he said. "Listen!"
Vibart listened and heard a distant storm of hoof-beats. A moment later, abuggy drawn by a pair of trotters swung round the turn of the road. It wasabout thirty yards off, coming toward them at full speed. The man whodrove was leaning forward with outstretched arms; beside him sat a girl.
Suddenly Vibart saw Mr. Carstyle jump into the middle of the road, infront of the buggy. He stood there immovable, his arms extended, his legsapart, in an attitude of indomitable resistance. Almost at the same momentVibart realized that the man in the buggy had his horses in hand.
"They're not running!" Vibart shouted, springing into the road andcatching Mr. Carstyle's alpaca sleeve. The older man looked aroundvaguely: he seemed dazed.
"Come away, sir, come away!" cried Vibart, gripping his arm. The buggyswept past them, and Mr. Carstyle stood in the dust gazing after it.
At length he drew out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He was verypale and Vibart noticed that his hand shook.
"That was a close call, sir, wasn't it? I suppose you thought they wererunning."
"Yes," said Mr. Carstyle slowly, "I thought they were running."
"It certainly looked like it for a minute. Let's sit down, shall we? Ifeel rather breathless myself."
Vibart saw that his friend could hardly stand. They seated themselves on atree-trunk by the roadside, and Mr. Carstyle continued to wipe hisforehead in silence.
At length he turned to Vibart and said abruptly:
"I made straight for the middle of the road, didn't I? If there had beena runaway I should have stopped it?"
Vibart looked at him in surprise.
"You would have tried to, undoubtedly, unless I'd had time to drag youaway."
Mr. Carstyle straightened his narrow shoulders.
"There was no hesitation, at all events? I--I showed no signs of--avoidingit?"
"I should say not, sir; it was I who funked it for you."
Mr. Carstyle was silent: his head had dropped forward and he looked likean old man.
"It was just my cursed luck again!" he exclaimed suddenly in a loud voice.
For a moment Vibart thought that he was wandering; but he raised his headand went on speaking in more natural tones.
"I daresay I appeared ridiculous enough to you just now, eh? Perhaps yousaw all along that the horses weren't running? Your eyes are younger thanmine; and then you're not always looking out for runaways, as I am. Do youknow that in thirty years I've never seen a runaway?"
"You're fortunate," said Vibart, still bewildered.
"Fortunate? Good God, man, I've prayed to see one: not a runawayespecially, but any bad accident; anything that endangered people's lives.There are accidents happening all the time all over the world; whyshouldn't I ever come across one? It's not for want of trying! At one timeI used to haunt the theatres in the hope of a fire: fires in theatres areso apt to be fatal. Well, will you believe it? I was in the Brooklyntheatre the night before it burned down; I left the old Madison SquareGarden half an hour before the walls fell in. And it's the same way withstreet accidents--I always miss them; I'm always just too late. Last yearthere was a boy knocked down by a cable-car at our corner; I got to mygate just as they were carrying him off on a stretcher. And so it goes. Ifanybody else had been walking along this road, those horses would havebeen running away. And there was a girl in the buggy, too--a mere child!"
Mr. Carstyle's head sank again.
"You're wondering what this means," he began after another pause. "I was alittle confused for a moment--must have seemed incoherent." His voicecleared and he made an effort to straighten himself. "Well, I was a damnedcoward once and I've been trying to live it down ever since."
Vibart looked at him incredulously and Mr. Carstyle caught the look with asmile.
"Why not? Do I look like a Hercules?" He held up his loose-skinned handand shrunken wrist. "Not built for the part, certainly; but that doesn'tcount, of course. Man's unconquerable soul, and all the rest of it ...well, I was a coward every inch of me, body and soul."
He paused and glanced up and down the road. There was no one in sight.
"It happened when I was a young chap just out of college. I was travellinground the world with another youngster of my own age and an older man--Charles Meriton--who has since made a name for himself. You may have heardof him."
"Meriton, the archaeologist? The man who discovered those ruined Africancities the other day?"
"That's the man. He was a college tutor then, and my father, who had knownhim since he was a boy, and who had a very high opinion of him, had askedhim to make the tour with us. We both--my friend Collis and I--had animmense admiration for Meriton. He was just the fellow to excite a boy'senthusiasm: cool, quick, imperturbable--the kind of man whose hand isalways on the hilt of action. His explorations had led him into all sortsof tight places, and he'd shown an extraordinary combination ofcalculating patience and reckless courage. He never talked about hisdoings; we picked them up from various people on our journey. He'd beeneverywhere, he knew everybody, and everybody had something stirring totell about him. I daresay this account of the man sounds exaggerated;perhaps it is; I've never seen him since; but at that time he seemed to mea tremendous fellow--a kind of scientific Ajax. He was a capitaltravelling-companion, at any rate: good-tempered, cheerful, easily amused,with none of the been-there-before superiority so irritating toyoungsters. He made us feel as though it were all as new to him as to us:he never chilled our enthusiasms or took the bloom off our surprises.There was nobody else whose good opinion I cared as much about: he was thebiggest thing in sight.
"On the way home Collis broke down with diphtheria. We were in theMediterranean, cruising about the Sporades in a felucca. He was taken illat Chios. The attack came on suddenly and we were afraid to run the riskof taking him back to Athens in the felucca. We established ourselves inthe inn at Chios and there the poor fellow lay for weeks. Luckily therewas a fairly good doctor on the island and we sent to Athens for a sisterto help with the nursing. Poor Collis was desperately bad: the diphtheriawas followed by partial paralysis. The doctor assured us that the dangerwas past; he would gradually regain the use of his limbs; but his recoverywould be slow. The sister encouraged us too--she had seen such casesbefore; and he certainly did improve a shade each day. Meriton and I hadtaken turns with the sister in nursing him, but after the paralysis hadset in there wasn't much to do, and there was nothing to prevent Meriton'sleaving us for a day or two. He had received word from some place on thecoast of Asia Minor that a remarkable tomb had been discovered somewherein the interior; he had not been willing to take us there, as the journeywas not a particularly safe one; but now that we were tied up at Chiosthere seemed no reason why he shouldn't go and take a look at the place.The expedition would not take more than three days; Collis wasconvalescent; the doctor and nurse assured us that there was no cause foruneasiness; and so Meriton started off one evening at sunset. I walkeddown to the quay with him and saw him rowed off to the felucca. I wouldhave given a good deal to be going with him; the prospect of dangerallured me.
"'You'll see that Collis is never left alone, won't you?' he shouted backto me as the boat pulled out into the harbor; I remembered I ratherresented the suggestion.
"I walked back to the inn and went to bed: the nurse sat up with Collis atnight. The next morning I relieved her at the usual hour. It was a sultryday with a queer coppery-looking sky; the air was stifling. In the middleof the day the nurse came to take my place while I dined; when I went backto Collis's room she said she would go out for a breath of air.
"I sat down by Collis's bed and began to fan him with the fan the sisterhad been using. The heat made him uneasy and I turned him over in bed, forhe was still helpless: the whole of his right side was numb. Presently hefell asleep and I went to the window and sat looking down on the hotdeserted square, with a bunch of donkeys and their drivers asleep in theshade of the convent-wall across the way. I remember noticing the bluebeads about the donkeys' necks.... Were you ever in an earthquake? No? I'dnever been in one either. It's an indescribable sensation ... there's aDay of Judgment feeling in the air. It began with the donkeys waking upand trembling; I noticed that and thought it queer. Then the driversjumped up--I saw the terror in their faces. Then a roar.... I remembernoticing a big black crack in the convent-wall opposite--a zig-zag crack,like a flash of lightning in a wood-cut.... I thought of that, too, at thetime; then all the bells in the place began to ring--it made a fearfuldiscord.... I saw people rushing across the square ... the air was full ofcrashing noises. The floor went down under me in a sickening way and thenjumped back and pitched me to the ceiling ... but where was the ceiling?And the door? I said to myself: We're two stories up--the stairs are justwide enough for one.... I gave one glance at Collis: he was lying in bed,wide awake, looking straight at me. I ran. Something struck me on the headas I bolted downstairs--I kept on running. I suppose the knock I got dazedme, for I don't remember much of anything till I found myself in avineyard a mile from the town. I was roused by the warm blood running downmy nose and heard myself explaining to Meriton exactly how it hadhappened....
"When I crawled back to the town they told me that all the houses near theinn were in ruins and that a dozen people had been killed. Collis wasamong them, of course. The ceiling had come down on him."
Mr. Carstyle wiped his forehead. Vibart sat looking away from him.
"Two days later Meriton came back. I began to tell him the story, but heinterrupted me.
"'There was no one with him at the time, then? You'd left him alone?'
"'No, he wasn't alone.'
"'Who was with him? You said the sister was out.'
"'I was with him.'
"'You were with him?'
"I shall never forget Meriton's look. I believe I had meant to explain, toaccuse myself, to shout out my agony of soul; but I saw the uselessness ofit. A door had been shut between us. Neither of us spoke another word. Hewas very kind to me on the way home; he looked after me in a motherly waythat was a good deal harder to stand than his open contempt. I saw the manwas honestly trying to pity me; but it was no good--he simply couldn't."
Mr. Carstyle rose slowly, with a certain stiffness.
"Shall we turn toward home? Perhaps I'm keeping you."
They walked on a few steps in silence; then he spoke again.
"That business altered my whole life. Of course I oughtn't to have allowedit to--that was another form of cowardice. But I saw myself only withMeriton's eyes--it is one of the worst miseries of youth that one isalways trying to be somebody else. I had meant to be a Meriton--I saw I'dbetter go home and study law....
"It's a childish fancy, a survival of the primitive savage, if you like;but from that hour to this I've hankered day and night for a chance toretrieve myself, to set myself right with the man I meant to be. I want toprove to that man that it was all an accident--an unaccountable deviationfrom my normal instincts; that having once been a coward doesn't mean thata man's cowardly... and I can't, I can't!"
Mr. Carstyle's tone had passed insensibly from agitation to irony. He hadgot back to his usual objective stand-point.
"Why, I'm a perfect olive-branch," he concluded, with his dry indulgentlaugh; "the very babies stop crying at my approach--I carry a sort ofmillennium about with me--I'd make my fortune as an agent of the PeaceSociety. I shall go to the grave leaving that other man unconvinced!"
Vibart walked back with him to Millbrook. On her doorstep they met Mrs.Carstyle, flushed and feathered, with a card-case and dusty boots.
"I don't ask you in," she said plaintively, to Vibart, "because I can'tanswer for the food this evening. My maid-of-all-work tells me that she'sgoing to a ball--which is more than I've done in years! And besides, itwould be cruel to ask you to spend such a hot evening in our stuffy littlehouse--the air is so much cooler at Mrs. Vance's. Remember me to Mrs.Vance, please, and tell her how sorry I am that I can no longer includeher in my round of visits. When I had my carriage I saw the people Iliked, but now that I have to walk, my social opportunities are morelimited. I was not obliged to do my visiting on foot when I was younger,and my doctor tells me that to persons accustomed to a carriage noexercise is more injurious than walking."
She glanced at her husband with a smile of unforgiving sweetness.
"Fortunately," she concluded, "it agrees with Mr. Carstyle."
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