Part 18 (1/2)
”Know about them!” I cried, a little dramatically. ”What do you mean?
No, I don't!”
”Why, what's the matter, Albert?” she queried. ”I haven't charged them with midnight a.s.sa.s.sination, or anything like that! Only, it seems that he has been making love to her, for some time, in his cool and self-contained way. I've known it, and she's been perfectly conscious, that I knew; but never said anything to me of it, and seemed unwilling even to approach the subject. But to-night Cecil and I found her out in the canopied seat by the fountain, and I knew something was the matter, and sent Cecil away. Something told me that Mr. Cornish was concerned in it, and I asked her at once where he went.
”'He is gone!' said she. 'I don't know where he is, and I don't care! I wish I might never see him any more!'
”You may imagine my surprise. When a young woman uses such language about a man, it is a certainty that she isn't voicing her true feelings, or that it isn't a normal love affair. So I wormed out of her that he had made her an offer.”
”'Well,' said I, 'if, as I infer from your conversation, you have refused him, there's an end of the matter; and you need not worry about seeing him any more.'
”'But,' said she, 'Alice, I haven't refused him!'
”That took me aback a little,” went on Alice, ”for I had other plans for her; so I said: 'You haven't accepted the fellow, have you?'
”'Oh, no, no!' said she, in a sort of quivery way, 'but what right have you to speak of him in that way?' And that is all I could get out of her. She was so unreasonable and disconnected in her talk, and the others came out, and I tell you what, Albert Barslow, that man Cornish will do evil yet, among us! I have always thought so!”
”I don't see any ground for any such prediction,” said I, ”in anything you have told me. Her inability to make up her mind--”
”Means that there's something wrong,” said my wife dogmatically. ”It means that he has some sinister influence over her, as he has over almost everybody, with those coal-black eyes of his and his satanic ways. And worse than all else, it means that he'll finally get her, in spite of herself!”
”Pshaw!” said I.
”Go away, Albert!” said she, ”or we shall quarrel. Go back and find my fan--I left it on the mantel in the library. The house is lighted yet; and I was going to send you back anyhow. Kiss me, and go, please.”
I felt that if Alice had had in her memory my vision of the supper at Auriccio's, she would have been confirmed in her fears; but to me, in spite of the memory, they seemed absurd. My only apprehension was that she might be right as to the final outcome, to the wreck of Jim's hopes.
I did not take the matter at all seriously, in fact. I think we men must usually have such an affair worked out to some conclusion, for weal or woe, before we regard it otherwise than lightly. That was the reason that Giddings's distraught condition was only a matter of laughter to all of us. And as something like this pa.s.sed through my mind, Giddings himself collared me as I crossed the street.
”Old man!” said he, ”congratulate me! It's all right, Barslow, it's all right.”
”Up on the battlements, are you?” said I. ”Well, I congratulate you, Giddings; and don't make such an a.s.s of yourself, please, any more. I never noticed until this evening what a fine girl Laura is. You're really a very fortunate fellow indeed!”
”You never noticed it!” said he with utter scorn. ”Well, if--”
”It's late,” said I. ”Come and see me in the morning! Good-night.”
I went in at the front door of the house. It stood wide open, as if the current of guests pa.s.sing out had removed its tendency to swing shut. It seemed lonely now, inside, with all the decorations of the a.s.sembly still in place in the empty hall. I pa.s.sed into the library, and found Jim sitting idly in a great leather chair. He seemed not to see me; or if he did, he paid no attention. I went to the mantel, picked up Alice's fan, and turned to Jim.
”Sit down,” said he.
”Having a sort of 'oft in the stilly night' experience, Jim, or a case of William the Conqueror on the Field of Hastings?”
”Yes,” said he. ”Something like that.”
”Well, your house-warming has been a success, Jim,” said I, ”though a fellow wouldn't think so to look at you. And the house is faultless. I envy you the house, but the ability to plan and furnish it still more. I didn't think it was in you, old man! Where did you learn it all?”
”You may have the house, if you want it, Al,” said he. ”I don't think it's going to be of any use to me.”
”Why, Jim,” said I, seeing that it was something more than a mere mood with him, ”what is it? Has anything gone wrong?”