The Europeans

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"I have just returned from my journey," said Acton.

"Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to
sit.

"I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find
you there."

She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began
to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was
looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing
her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she
said. "It is too late to begin a visit."

"It 's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we need n't mind the
beginning."

She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her
low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?"
she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I have n't
been to the other house."

"Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?"

"I don't know how many days it is."

"You are tired of it," said Acton.

She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible
accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself."

"I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this
kind."

"It 's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your
journey."

"Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with
you."

"Now you are attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my
inconstancy with your own fidelity."

"I confess I never get tired of people I like."

"Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and
a sophisticated mind!"

"Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing
his place.

"Your going away--that is what has happened to me."

"Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked.

"If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of.
I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless."

Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at
last.

Madame Munster left her chair, and began to move about.

"Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again."

"You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you need n't be
afraid to say so--to me at least."

"You should n't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You
should encourage me."

"I admire your patience; that is encouraging."

"You should n't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are
disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I
had to suffer?"

"Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing.
"Nevertheless, we all admire your patience."

"You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence,
turning her back toward him.

"You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something
tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking
and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed
emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had
behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world
under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully,
modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that
simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial
talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set
herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to
the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and
pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright
need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and
that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto,
he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant,
suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell
him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be
its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what
you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about
the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you
lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so."

Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room;
now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be
the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a galant
homme--in saying so base a thing as that?"

"Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it
does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it
literally."

The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked.

This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least
bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there,
thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document
that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your
'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?"

Madame Munster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular
answer to my question!"

"Oh, it is n't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many
times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question,
on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time."

The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too
much!" she said.

This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had
indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned
to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled
through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough
he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in
doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is
there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any
more, let me amuse you!"

The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan
which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan
her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange to-night," she said,
with a little laugh.

"I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of
her. "Should n't you like to travel about and see something of the
country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know."

"With you, do you mean?"

"I should be delighted to take you."

"You alone?"

Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we
might go alone," he said.

"If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted."

"How do you mean--what I am?"

"If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If
you were not a queer Bostonian."

"If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect
insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better
come to Niagara."

"If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no
further expense. You amuse me very effectually."

He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with
her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then
he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document
to Germany?"

Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M;
auunster seemed, however, half to break it.

"I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said.

She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room
opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed
her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather
awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the
same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia.

"Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton.

"He was in Felix's studio," said Madame Munster. "He wanted to see his
sketches."

Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned
himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you had n't
much light."

"I had n't any!" said Clifford, laughing.

"Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here
and lighted it again."

Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left
the candle!"

Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better
go home."

"Well," said Clifford, "good night!"

"Have n't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from
a dangerous journey?" Acton asked.

"How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were"--and he
paused, looking at the Baroness again.

"You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning."

"Good night, clever child!" said Madame Munster, over her shoulder.

Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with
one of his little facetious growls, took his departure.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed
rather in a muddle."

Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The
matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here."

"If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that."

"He does n't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he 's in
love with me."

It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but
he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his
passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your
brother's paint-brushes."

Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented
that at the moment."

"Invented it? For what purpose?"

"He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to
see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's
painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse
him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh.

Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view
of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without
the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too
serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained
itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be
inconstant to poor Lizzie."

"To your sister?"

"You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton.

"Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she"--

"I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed
that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her."

"Ah, par exemple!" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next
time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed
of himself."

Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it."

"I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness.
"But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so
extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when
you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for
instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should
insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no
urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty
and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no
governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple,
in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of
the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the
point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain
exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that
had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It
seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note
of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother)
in her voice. If Madame Munster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely
mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her
without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing
at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he
must go.

"I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up
at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come
in."

"Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people!
I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum
woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have
visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good
night!"

Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good
night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified.

The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who
was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the
circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame
M; auunster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity,
finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the
young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he
went out and overtook him in the grounds.

"I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What
were you doing, last night, at Madame Munster's?"

Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with
a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked.

"That is exactly what I don't want to say."

"Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know
it perhaps I can't."

They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young
kinsman. "She said she could n't fancy what had got into you; you
appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her."

Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you
don't mean that!"

"And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the
house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under
pretext of looking at his sketches."

"Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again.

"Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?"

"Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the
discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I
thought you were my father."

"You knew some one was there?"

"We heard you coming in."

Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?"

"I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my
father."

"And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?"

"She told me to go--to go out by the studio."

Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he
would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?"

"Well," said Clifford, "father does n't like to see me there."

Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment
upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?"

"Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He has n't said so--in so many
words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying
him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too."

"To stop coming to see her?"

"I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows
everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own.

"Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?"

"She knew it was not father coming in."

"Then why did you go?"

Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And
besides, she told me to go, at any rate."

"Did she think it was I?" Acton asked.

"She did n't say so."

Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you did n't go," he presently said;
"you came back."

"I could n't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was
locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the
confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no
use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I
did n't want to be hiding away from my own father. I could n't stand
it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little
flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, did n't she?" Clifford added, in
the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently
clouded by the sense of his own discomfort.

"Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one
remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a
good deal annoyed."

"Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels
that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely
just in his impressions, "Eugenia does n't care for anything!"

Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at
last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added,
"Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the
Baroness?"

"No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand.






CHAPTER X

The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport
witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The
rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and
his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young,
without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is
to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he
most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a
cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her
residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at
divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began
with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room,
watching the long arm of a rose-tree that was attached to her piazza,
but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and
gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then,
in a gust of wind, the rose-tree scattered a shower of water-drops
against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a
menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame Munster put
on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and
summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and
whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her,
she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old
woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there
would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she
had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her
conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the
tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make
a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly
bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and
watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely
Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that
infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several
times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a
window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning
of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been
attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But to-day
her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon
itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly
profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the
moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and
turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying
failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent
why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she
had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had
been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from
the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the
social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for
growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to
inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of
vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we
may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of
exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she
felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore,
to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon
a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost
its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable.
"Surely je n'en suis pas la," she said to herself, "that I let it make
me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton should n't honor me with a
visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her
vexation.

Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet
from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek
and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his mustache. "Ah, you have a
fire," he said.

"Les beaux jours sont passes," replied the Baroness.

"Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself
before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands
behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an
expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color
even in the tints of a wet Sunday.

His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she
saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled
by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source
of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long
periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes
she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gayety, was
an affectation, a pose; but she was vaguely conscious that during the
present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never
yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was
presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt
that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this,
there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance
that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded
Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame Munster felt that there
was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was
delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one
of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable.
But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable.

"Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making les yeux doux at
the rain."

"With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix.

"How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain
in this lovely spot?"

Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?"

"'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you."

Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I am
happy," he said in his light, clear tone.

"And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude
Wentworth?"

"Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister.

The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you
like her?" she asked.

"Don't you?" Felix demanded.

The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the
gentleman who was asked if he liked music: 'Je ne la crains pas!'"

"She admires you immensely," said Felix.

"I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one."

"They should dislike you?"

Again Madame Munster hesitated. "They should hate me! It 's a measure of
the time I have been losing here that they don't."

"No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright
sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating.

"And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has
secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!"

Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's
affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune.
That may come--or it may not."

"Ah, well, it may! That 's the great point."

"It depends upon her father. He does n't smile upon our union. You know
he wants her to marry Mr. Brand."

"I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log."
Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of
the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with
mademoiselle?"

"By no means. I don't wish to do anything that 's disagreeable to Mr.
Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us."

"But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him."

"I want to please every one!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good
conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to
make love to Gertrude."