Part 28 (1/2)
”With your indifference and my vanity and inconstancy? G.o.d send it be no castle of cards, Carus! Tell me, have you, too, a stinging curiosity concerning me? Do you desire to fathom my shallow spirit, to learn what every pa.s.sing smile might indicate, to understand me when I am silent, to comprehend me when I converse with others?”
”I--I have thought of these things, Elsin. Never having understood you--judging hastily, too--and being so intimately busy with the--the matters you know of--I never pursued my studies far--deeming you betrothed and--and----”
”A coquette?”
”A child, Elsin, heart-free and capricious, contradictory, imperious, and--and overyoung----”
”O Carus!”
”I meant no reproach,” I said hastily. ”A nectarine requires time, even though the sunlight paints it so prettily in all its unripe, flawless symmetry. And I have--I have lived all my life in sober company. My father was old, my mother placid and saddened by the loss of all her children save myself. I had few companions--none of my own age except when we went to Albany, where I learned to bear myself in company. At Johnson Hall, at Varick's, at Butlersbury, I was but a shy lad, warned by my parents to formality, for they approved little of the gaiety that I would gladly have joined in. And so I know nothing of women--nor did I learn much in New York, where the surface of life is so prettily polished that it mirrors, as you say, only one's own inquiring eyes.”
I seated myself cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the sweet face on the bed's edge framed by the chintz.
”Did you never conceive an affection?” she asked, watching me.
”Why, yes--for a day or two. I think women tire of me.”
”No, you tire of them.”
”Only when----”
”When what?”
”Nothing,” I said quietly.
”Do you mean when they fall in love with you?” she asked.
”They don't. Some have plagued me to delight in my confusion.”
”Like Rosamund Barry?”
I was silent.
”She,” observed Elsin musingly, ”was mad about you. No, you need not laugh or shrug impatiently--_I_ know, Carus; she was mad to have you love her! Do you think I have neither eyes nor ears? But you treated her no whit better than you treated me. That I am certain of--did you?”
”What do you mean?”
”_Did_ you?”
”Did I do what?”
”Treat Rosamund Barry kinder than you did me?”
”In what way?”
”Did you kiss her?”
”Never!”
”Would you say 'Never!' if you had?”