Part 30 (2/2)

Mrs. Gregory hadn't understood me. ”Oh, if you really can keep her away, you're welcome!”

”I only meant,” I explained to the ladies, ”that you don't really begin to see her till you have seen her: it's afterward, when you're out of reach of the spell.” And I told them of the interview which I had not been able to tell to Miss Josephine and Miss Eliza. ”I doubt if it lasted more than four minutes,” I a.s.sured them.

”Up the river?” repeated Mrs. Gregory

”At the landing,” I repeated. And the ladies consulted each other's expressions. But that didn't bother me any more.

”And you can admire her?” Mrs. Weguelin persisted.

”May I tell you exactly, precisely?”

”Oh, do!” they both exclaimed.

”Well, I think many wise men would find her immensely desirable--as somebody else's wife!”

At this remark Mrs. Weguelin dropped her eyes, but I knew they were dancing beneath their lids. ”I should not have permitted myself to say that, but I am glad that it has been said.”

Mrs. Gregory turned to her companion. ”Shall we call to-morrow?”

”Don't you feel it must be done?” returned Mrs. Weguelin, and then she addressed me. ”Do you know a Mr. Beverly Rodgers?”

I gave him a golden recommendation and took my leave of the ladies.

So they were going to do the handsome thing; they would ring the Cornerlys' bell; they would cross the interloping threshold, they would recognize the interloping girl; and this meant that they had given it up. It meant that Miss Eliza had given it up, too, had at last abandoned her position that the marriage would never take place. And her own act had probably drawn this down upon her. When the trustee of that estate had told her of the apparent failure of the phosphates, she had hailed it as an escape for her beloved John, and for all of them, because she made sure that Hortense would never marry a virtually penniless man. And when the work went on, and the rich fortune was unearthed after all, her influence had caused that revelation to be delayed because she was so confident that the engagement would be broken. But she had reckoned without Hortense; worse than that, she had reckoned without John Mayrant; in her meddling attempt to guide his affairs in the way that she believed would be best for him, she forgot that the boy whom she had brought up was no longer a child, and thus she unpardonably ignored his rights as a man. And now Miss Josephine's disapproval was vindicated, and her own casuistry was doubly punished. Miss Rieppe's astute journey of investigation--for her purpose had evidently become suspected by some of them beforehand--had forced Miss Eliza to disclose the truth about the phosphates to her nephew before it should be told him by the girl herself; and the intolerable position of apparent duplicity precipitated two wholly inevitable actions on his part; he had bound himself more than ever to marry Hortense, and he had made a furious breach with his Aunt Eliza. That was what his letter had contained; this time he had banished himself from that house. What was his Aunt Eliza going to do about it? I wondered. She was a stiff, if indiscreet, old lady, and it certainly did not fall within her view of the proprieties that young people should take their elders to task in furious letters. But she had been totally in the wrong, and her fault was irreparable, because important things had happened in consequence of it; she might repent the fault in sackcloth and ashes, but she couldn't stop the things. Would she, then, honorably wear the sackcloth, or would she dishonestly s.h.i.+rk it under the false issue of her nephew's improper tone to her? Women can justify themselves with more appalling skill than men.

One drop there was in all this bitter bucket, which must have tasted sweet to John. He had resigned from the Custom House: Juno had got it right this time, though she hadn't a notion of the real reason for John's act. This act had been, since morning, lost for me, so to speak, in the shuffle of more absorbing events; and it now rose to view again in my mind as a telling stroke in the full-length portrait that all his acts had been painting of the boy during the last twenty-four hours.

Notwithstanding a meddlesome aunt, and an arriving sweetheart, and imminent wedlock, he hadn't forgotten to stop ”taking orders from a negro” at the very first opportunity which came to him; his phosphates had done this for him, at least, and I should have the pleasure of correcting Juno at tea.

But I did not have this pleasure. They were all in an excitement over something else, and my own different excitement hadn't a chance against this greater one; for people seldom wish to hear what you have to say, even under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, and never when they have anything to say themselves. With an audience so hotly preoccupied I couldn't have sat on Juno effectively at all, and therefore I kept it to myself, and attended very slightly to what they were telling me about the Daughters of Dixie.

I bowed absently to the poetess. ”And your poem?” I said. ”A great success, I am sure?”

”Why, didn't you hear me say so?” said the upcountry bride; and then, after a smile at the others, ”I'm sure your flowers were graciously accepted.”

”Ask Miss Josephine St. Michael,” I replied.

”Oh, oh, oh!” went the bride. ”How would she know?”

I gave myself no pains to improve or arrest this tiresome joke, and they went back to their Daughters of Dixie; but it is rather singular how sometimes an utterly absurd notion will be the cause of our taking a step which we had not contemplated. I did carry some flowers to Miss La Heu the next day. I was at some trouble to find any; for in Kings Port shops of this kind are by no means plentiful, and it was not until I had paid a visit to a quite distant garden at the extreme northwestern edge of the town that I lighted upon anything worthy of the girl behind the counter. The Exchange itself was apt to have flowers for sale, but I hardly saw my way to buying them there, and then immediately offering them to the fair person who had sold them to me. As it was, I did much better; for what I brought her were decidedly superior to any that were at the Exchange when I entered it at lunch time.

They were, as the up-country bride would have put it, ”graciously accepted.” Miss La Heu stood them in water on the counter beside her ledger. She was looking lovely.

”I expected you yesterday,” she said. ”The new Lady Baltimore was ready.”

”Well, if it is not all eaten yet--”

”Oh, no! Not a slice gone.”

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