CHAPTER XXX

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_ Some three evenings after he received this last report of
the progress of affairs in Paris, Bernard, upon whom the burden
of exile sat none the more lightly as the days went on,
turned out of the Strand into one of the theatres. He had been
gloomily pushing his way through the various London densities--
the November fog, the nocturnal darkness, the jostling crowd.
He was too restless to do anything but walk, and he had been
saying to himself, for the thousandth time, that if he had
been guilty of a misdemeanor in succumbing to the attractions
of the admirable girl who showed to such advantage in letters
of twelve pages, his fault was richly expiated by these days
of impatience and bereavement. He gave little heed to the play;
his thoughts were elsewhere, and, while they rambled,
his eyes wandered round the house. Suddenly, on the other
side of it, he beheld Captain Lovelock, seated squarely
in his orchestra-stall, but, if Bernard was not mistaken,
paying as little attention to the stage as he himself had done.
The Captain's eyes, it is true, were fixed upon the scene;
his head was bent a little, his magnificent beard rippled over
the expanse of his shirt-front. But Bernard was not slow to see
that his gaze was heavy and opaque, and that, though he was
staring at the actresses, their charms were lost upon him.
He saw that, like himself, poor Lovelock had matter for reflection
in his manly breast, and he concluded that Blanche's ponderous
swain was also suffering from a sense of disjunction.
Lovelock sat in the same posture all the evening, and that his
imagination had not projected itself into the play was proved
by the fact that during the entractes he gazed with the same dull
fixedness at the curtain. Bernard forebore to interrupt him;
we know that he was not at this moment socially inclined,
and he judged that the Captain was as little so, inasmuch as causes
even more imperious than those which had operated in his own case
must have been at the bottom of his sudden appearance in London.
On leaving the theatre, however, Bernard found himself detained
with the crowd in the vestibule near the door, which, wide open
to the street, was a scene of agitation and confusion.
It had come on to rain, and the raw dampness mingled itself
with the dusky uproar of the Strand. At last, among the press
of people, as he was passing out, our hero became aware that
he had been brought into contact with Lovelock, who was walking
just beside him. At the same moment Lovelock noticed him--
looked at him for an instant, and then looked away.
But he looked back again the next instant, and the two men
then uttered that inarticulate and inexpressive exclamation
which passes for a sign of greeting among gentlemen
of the Anglo-Saxon race, in their moments of more acute
self-consciousness.

"Oh, are you here?" said Bernard. "I thought you were in Paris."

"No; I ain't in Paris," Lovelock answered with some dryness.
"Tired of the beastly hole!"

"Oh, I see," said Bernard. "Excuse me while I put up my umbrella."

He put up his umbrella, and from under it, the next moment, he saw
the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom.
When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter
superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. This communication ran
as follows:

"I believe you are making a fool of me. In Heaven's name,
come back to Paris! G. W."

Bernard hardly knew whether to regard these few words
as a further declaration of war, or as an overture to peace;
but he lost no time in complying with the summons they conveyed.
He started for Paris the next morning, and in the evening,
after he had removed the dust of his journey and swallowed
a hasty dinner, he rang at Mrs. Vivian's door. This lady and her
daughter gave him a welcome which--I will not say satisfied him,
but which, at least, did something toward soothing the still
unhealed wounds of separation.

"And what is the news of Gordon?" he presently asked.

"We have not seen him in three days," said Angela.

"He is cured, dear Bernard; he must be. Angela has been wonderful,"
Mrs. Vivian declared.

"You should have seen mamma with Blanche," her daughter said, smiling.
"It was most remarkable."

Mrs. Vivian smiled, too, very gently.

"Dear little Blanche! Captain Lovelock has gone to London."

"Yes, he thinks it a beastly hole. Ah, no," Bernard added,
"I have got it wrong."

But it little mattered. Late that night, on his return
to his own rooms, Bernard sat gazing at his fire. He had not
begun to undress; he was thinking of a good many things.
He was in the midst of his reflections when there came
a rap at his door, which the next moment was flung open.
Gordon Wright stood there, looking at him--with a gaze which
Bernard returned for a moment before bidding him to come in.
Gordon came in and came up to him; then he held out his hand.
Bernard took it with great satisfaction; his last feeling had been
that he was very weary of this ridiculous quarrel, and it was an
extreme relief to find it was over.

"It was very good of you to go to London," said Gordon,
looking at him with all the old serious honesty of his eyes.

"I have always tried to do what I could to oblige you,"
Bernard answered, smiling.

"You must have cursed me over there," Gordon went on.

"I did, a little. As you were cursing me here, it was permissible."

"That 's over now," said Gordon. "I came to welcome you back.
It seemed to me I could n't lay my head on my pillow without
speaking to you."

"I am glad to get back," Bernard admitted, smiling still.
"I can't deny that. And I find you as I believed I should."
Then he added, seriously--"I knew Angela would keep us
good friends."

For a moment Gordon said nothing. Then, at last--

"Yes, for that purpose it did n't matter which of us should marry her.
If it had been I," he added, "she would have made you accept it."

"Ah, I don't know!" Bernard exclaimed.

"I am sure of it," said Gordon earnestly--almost argumentatively.
"She 's an extraordinary woman."

"Keeping you good friends with me--that 's a great thing.
But it 's nothing to her keeping you good friends with
your wife."

Gordon looked at Bernard for an instant; then he fixed his eyes
for some time on the fire.

"Yes, that is the greatest of all things. A man should value his wife.
He should believe in her. He has taken her, and he should keep her--
especially when there is a great deal of good in her. I was a great fool
the other day," he went on. "I don't remember what I said. It was
very weak."

"It seemed to me feeble," said Bernard. "But it is quite within a man's
rights to be a fool once in a while, and you had never abused of the license."

"Well, I have done it for a lifetime--for a lifetime."
And Gordon took up his hat. He looked into the crown of it
for a moment, and then he fixed his eyes on Bernard's again.
"But there is one thing I hope you won't mind my saying.
I have come back to my old impression of Miss Vivian."

"Your old impression?"

And Miss Vivian's accepted lover frowned a little.

"I mean that she 's not simple. She 's very strange."

Bernard's frown cleared away in a sudden, almost eager smile.

"Say at once that you dislike her! That will do capitally."

Gordon shook his head, and he, too, almost smiled a little.

"It 's not true. She 's very wonderful. And if I did dislike her,
I should struggle with it. It would never do for me to dislike
your wife!"

After he had gone, when the night was half over, Bernard, lying awake a while,
gave a laugh in the still darkness, as this last sentence came back to him.

On the morrow he saw Blanche, for he went to see Gordon.
The latter, at first, was not at home; but he had a quarter
of an hour's talk with his wife, whose powers of conversation
were apparently not in the smallest degree affected by anything
that had occurred.

"I hope you enjoyed your visit to London," she said.
"Did you go to buy Angela a set of diamonds in Bond Street?
You did n't buy anything--you did n't go into a shop?
Then pray what did you go for? Excuse my curiosity--
it seems to me it 's rather flattering. I never know anything
unless I am told. I have n't any powers of observation.
I noticed you went--oh, yes, I observed that very much;
and I thought it very strange, under the circumstances.
Your most intimate friend arrived in Paris, and you choose
the next day to make a little tour! I don't like to see you
treat my husband so; he would never have done it to you.
And if you did n't stay for Gordon, you might have staid for Angela.
I never heard of anything so monstrous as a gentleman rushing
away from the object of his affection, for no particular purpose
that any one could discover, the day after she has accepted him.
It was not the day after? Well, it was too soon, at any rate.
Angela could n't in the least tell me what you had gone for;
she said it was for a 'change.' That was a charming reason!
But she was very much ashamed of you--and so was I; and at last
we all sent Captain Lovelock after you to bring you back.
You came back without him? Ah, so much the better; I suppose
he is still looking for you, and, as he is n't very clever,
that will occupy him for some time. We want to occupy him;
we don't approve of his being so idle. However, for my own part,
I am very glad you were away. I was a great deal at Mrs. Vivian's,
and I should n't have felt nearly so much at liberty to go
if I had known I should always find you there making love
to Mademoiselle. It would n't have seemed to me discreet,--
I know what you are going to say--that it 's the first time
you ever heard of my wishing to avoid an indiscretion.
It 's a taste I have taken up lately,--for the same reason
you went to London, for a 'change.' " Here Blanche paused
for an appreciable moment; and then she added--"Well, I must say,
I have never seen anything so lovely as Mrs. Vivian's influence.
I hope mamma won't be disappointed in it this
time."

When Bernard next saw the other two ladies, he said to them that he was
surprised at the way in which clever women incurred moral responsibilities.

"We like them," said Mrs. Vivian. "We delight in them!"

"Well," said Bernard, "I would n't for the world have it on my conscience
to have reconciled poor Gordon to Mrs. Blanche."

"You are not to say a word against Blanche," Angela declared.
"She 's a little miracle."

"It will be all right, dear Bernard," Mrs. Vivian added,
with soft authority.

"I have taken a great fancy to her," the younger lady went on.

Bernard gave a little laugh.

"Gordon is right in his ultimate opinion. You are very strange!"

"You may abuse me as much as you please; but I will never hear a word
against Mrs. Gordon."

And she never would in future; though it is not recorded that Bernard availed
himself in any special degree of the license offered him in conjunction
with this warning.

Blanche's health within a few days had, according to her own account,
taken a marvellous turn for the better; but her husband appeared
still to think it proper that they should spend the winter beneath
a brilliant sun, and he presently informed his friends that they had
at last settled it between them that a voyage up the Nile must be,
for a thoroughly united couple, a very agreeable pastime. To perform
this expedition advantageously they must repair to Cairo without delay,
and for this reason he was sure that Bernard and Angela would easily
understand their not making a point of waiting for the wedding.
These happy people quite understood it. Their nuptials were to be
celebrated with extreme simplicity. If, however, Gordon was not able
to be present, he, in conjunction with his wife, bought for Angela,
as a bridal gift, a necklace of the most beautiful pearls the Rue de
la Paix could furnish; and on his arrival at Cairo, while he waited
for his dragoman to give the signal for starting, he found time,
in spite of the exactions of that large correspondence which has
been more than once mentioned in the course of our narrative,
to write Bernard the longest letter he had ever addressed to him.
The letter reached Bernard in the middle of his honeymoon.

 

THE END.
'Confidence' by Henry James. _


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