III
Twenty years earlier, when Mrs. Bowen was Miss Lina Ridgely, she used tobe the friend and confidante of the girl who jilted Colville. They werethen both so young that they could scarcely have been a year out ofschool before they left home for the year they were spending in Europe;but to the young man's inexperience they seemed the wisest and maturestof society women. His heart quaked in his breast when he saw themtalking and laughing together, for fear they should be talking andlaughing about him; he was even a little more afraid of Miss Ridgelythan of her friend, who was dashing and effective, where Miss Ridgelywas serene and elegant, according to his feeling at that time; but henever saw her after his rejection, and it was not till he read of hermarriage with the Hon. Mr. Bowen that certain vague impressions began todefine themselves. He then remembered that Lina Ridgely in many finelittle ways had shown a kindness, almost a compassion, for him, as forone whose unconsciousness a hopeless doom impended over. He perceivedthat she had always seemed to like him--a thing that had not occurred tohim in the stupid absorption of his passion for the other--and fragmentsof proof that she had probably defended and advocated him occurred tohim, and inspired a vain and retrospective gratitude; he abandonedhimself to regrets, which were proper enough in regard to Miss Ridgely,but were certainly a little unlawful concerning Mrs. Bowen.
As he walked away toward his hotel he amused himself with the conjecturewhether he, with his forty-one years and his hundred and eighty fivepounds, were not still a pathetic and even a romantic figure to thispretty and kindly woman, who probably imagined him as heart-broken asever. He was very willing to see more of her, if she wished; but withthe rain beginning to fall more thick and chill in the darkening street,he could have postponed their next meeting till a pleasanter eveningwithout great self-denial. He felt a little twinge of rheumatism in hisshoulder when he got into his room, for your room in a Florentine hotelis always some degrees colder than outdoors, unless you have fire in it;and with the sun shining on his windows when he went out after lunch, ithad seemed to Colville ridiculous to have his morning fire kept up. Thesun was what he had taken the room for. It was in it, the landlordassured him, from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon; and so,in fact, it was, when it shone; but even then it was not fully in it,but had a trick of looking in at the sides of the window, and paintingthe chamber wall with a delusive glow. Colville raked away the ashes ofhis fire-place, and throwing on two or three fagots of broom and pinesprays, he had a blaze that would be very pretty to dress by afterdinner, but that gave out no warmth for the present. He left it, andwent down to the reading-room, as it was labelled over the door, inhomage to a predominance of English-speaking people among the guests;but there was no fire there; that was kindled only by request, and heshivered at the bare aspect of the apartment, with its cold piano, itslocked bookcases, and its table, where the London _Times_, the _NeueFreie Presse_ of Vienna, and the _Italie_ of Rome exposed their titles,one just beyond the margin of the other. He turned from the door andwent into the dining-room, where the stove was ostentatiously roaringover its small logs and its lozenges of peat, But even here the fire hadbeen so recently lighted that the warmth was potential rather thanactual. By stooping down before the stove, and pressing his shoulderagainst its brass doors, Colville managed to lull his enemy, while hestudied the figures of the woman-headed, woman-breasted houndsdeveloping into vines and foliage that covered the frescoed trellisingof the quadrangularly vaulted ceiling. The waiters, in their veterandress-coats, were putting the final touches to the table, and the soundof voices outside the door obliged Colville to get up. The effortinvolved made him still more reluctant about going out to Mrs. Bowen's.
The door opened, and some English ladies entered, faintly acknowledging,provisionally ignoring, his presence, and talking of what they had beendoing since lunch. They agreed that it was really too cold in thechurches for any pleasure in the pictures, and that the Pitti Gallery,where they had those braziers, was the only place you could go withcomfort. A French lady and her husband came in; a Russian lady followed;an Italian gentleman, an American family, and three or four detached menof the English-speaking race, whose language at once became the law ofthe table.
As the dinner progressed from soup to fish, and from the _entree_ to theroast and salad, the combined effect of the pleasant cheer and theincreasing earnestness of the stove made the room warmer and warmer.They drank Chianti wine from the wicker-covered flasks, tied with tuftsof red and green silk, in which they serve table wine at Florence, andsaid how pretty the bottles were, but how the wine did not seem verygood.
"It certainly isn't so good as it used to be," said Colville.
"Ah, then you have been in Florhence before." said the French lady,whose English proved to be much better than the French that he began totalk to her in.
"Yes, a great while ago; in a state of pre-existence, in fact," he said.
The lady looked a little puzzled, but interested. "In a state ofprhe-existence?" she repeated.
"Yes; when I was young," he added, catching the gleam in her eye. "WhenI was twenty-four. A great while ago."
"You must be an Amerhican," said the lady, with a laugh.
"Why do you think so? From my accent?"
"Frhom your metaphysics too. The Amerhicans like to talk in that way."
"I didn't know it," said Colville.
"They like to strhike the key of personality; they can't endure notbeing interhested. They must rhelate everything to themselves or tothose with whom they are talking."
"And the French, no?" asked Colville.
The lady laughed again. "There is a large Amerhican colony in Parhis.Perhaps we have learned to be like you."
The lady's husband did not speak English, and it was probably what theyhad been saying that she interpreted to him, for he smiled, lookingforward to catch Colville's eye in a friendly way, and as if he wouldnot have him take his wife's talk too seriously.
The Italian gentleman on Colville's right was politely offering him thesalad, which had been left for the guests to pass to one another.Colville thanked him in Italian, and they began to talk of Italianaffairs. One thing led to another, and he found that his new friend, whowas not yet his acquaintance, was a member of Parliament, and arepublican.
"That interests me as an American," said Colville. "But why do you wanta republic in Italy?"
"When we have a constitutional king, why should we have a king?" askedthe Italian.
An Englishman across the table relieved Colville from the difficulty ofanswering this question by asking him another that formed talk about itbetween them. He made his tacit observation that the English, since hemet them last, seemed to have grown in the grace of facile speech withstrangers; it was the American family which kept its talk within itself,and hushed to a tone so low that no one else could hear it. Colville didnot like their mumbling; for the honour of the country, which we allhave at heart, however little we think it, he would have preferred thatthey should speak up, and not seem afraid or ashamed; he thought theEnglish manner was better. In fact, he found himself in an unexpectedlysocial mood; he joined in helping to break the ice; he laughed andhazarded comment with those who were new-comers like himself, and wasvery respectful of the opinions of people who had been longer in thehotel, when they spoke of the cook's habit of underdoing the vegetables.The dinner at the Hotel d'Atene made an imposing show on the _carte dujour_; it looked like ten or twelve courses, but in fact it was five,and even when eked out with roast chestnuts and butter into six, itseemed somehow to stop very abruptly, though one seemed to have hadenough. You could have coffee afterward if you ordered it. Colvilleordered it, and was sorry when the last of his commensals, slightlybowing him a good-night, left him alone to it.
He had decided that he need not fear the damp in a cab rapidly driven toMrs. Bowen's. When he went to his room he had his doubts about hisdress-coat; but he put it on, and he took the crush hat with which hehad provided himself in coming through London. That was a
part of thesocial panoply unknown in Des Vaches; he had hardly been a dozen timesin evening dress there in fifteen years, and his suit was as new as hishat. As he turned to the glass he thought himself personable enough, andin fact he was one of those men who look better in evening dress than inany other: the broad expanse of shirt bosom, with its three small studsof gold dropping, points of light, one below the other, softened hisstrong, almost harsh face, and balanced his rather large head. In hismorning coat, people had to look twice at him to make sure that he didnot look common; but now he was not wrong in thinking that he had an airof distinction, as he took his hat under his arm and stood before thepier-glass in his room. He was almost tempted to shave, and wear hismoustache alone, as he used to do: he had let his beard grow because hefound that under the lax social regimen at Des Vaches he neglectedshaving, and went about days at a time with his face in an offensivestubble. Taking his chin between his fingers, and peering closer intothe mirror, he wondered how Mrs. Bowen should have known him; she musthave remembered him very vividly. He would like to take off his beardand put on the youthfulness that comes of shaving, and see what shewould say. Perhaps, he thought, with a last glance at his toilet, he wasoverdoing it, if she were only to have a few people, as she promised. Heput a thick neckerchief over his chest so as not to provoke thatabominable rheumatism by any sort of exposure, and he put on his ulsterinstead of the light spring overcoat that he had gone about with allday.
He found that Palazzo Pinti, when you came to it, was rather a grandaffair, with a gold-banded porter eating salad in the lodge at the greatdoorway, and a handsome gate of iron cutting you off from the regionsabove till you had rung the bell of Mrs. Bowen's apartment, when itswung open of itself, and you mounted. At her door a man in modifiedlivery received Colville, and helped him off with his overcoat soskilfully that he did not hurt his rheumatic shoulder at all; there werehalf a dozen other hats and coats on the carved chests that stood atintervals along the wall, and some gayer wraps that exhaled a faint,fascinating fragrance on the chilly air. Colville experienced the slightexhilaration, the mingled reluctance and eagerness, of a man whoformally re-enters an assemblage of society after long absence from it,and rubbing his hands a little nervously together, he put aside theyellow Abruzzi blanket _portiere_, and let himself into the brilliantinterior.
Mrs. Bowen stood in front of the fire in a brown silk of subduedsplendour, and with her hands and fan and handkerchief tastefullycomposed before her. At sight of Colville she gave a slight start, whichwould have betrayed to him, if he had been another woman, that she hadnot really believed he would come, and came forward with a rustle andmurmur of pleasure to meet him; he had politely made a rush upon her, soas to spare her this exertion, and he was tempted to a long-forgottenfoppishness of attitude as he stood talking with her during the briefinterval before she introduced him to any of the company. She had beenhonest with him; there were not more than twenty-five or thirty peoplethere; but if he had overdone it in dressing for so small an affair, hewas not alone, and he was not sorry. He was sensible of a betterpersonal effect than the men in frock-coats and cut-aways were making,and he perceived with self-satisfaction that his evening dress was ofbetter style than that of the others who wore it; at least no one elsecarried a crush hat.--
At forty-one a man is still very much of a boy, and Colville wasobscurely willing that Mrs. Bowen, whose life since they last met at anevening party had been passed chiefly at New York and Washington, shouldsee that he was a man of the world in spite of Des Vaches. Before shehad decided which of the company she should first present him to, herdaughter came up to his elbow with a cup of tea and some bread andbutter on a tray, and gave him good-evening with charming correctness ofmanner. "Really," he said, turning about to take the cup, "I thought itwas you, Mrs. Bowen, who had got round to my side with a sash on. How doyou and Miss Effie justify yourselves in looking so bewitchingly alike?"
"You notice it, then?" Mrs. Bowen seemed delighted.
"I did every moment you were together to-day. You don't mind my havingbeen so personal in my observations?"
"Oh, not at all," said Mrs. Bowen, and Colville laughed.
"It must be true," he said, "what a French lady said to me at the_table-d'hote_ dinner to-night: 'the Amerhicans always strhike the noteof perhsonality.'" He neatly imitated the French lady's guttural accent.
"I suppose we do," mused Mis. Bowen, "and that we don't mind it in eachother. I wish _you_ would say which I shall introduce you to," she said,letting her glance stray invisibly over her company, where all thepeople seemed comfortably talking.
"Oh, there's no hurry; put it off till to-morrow," said Colville.
"Oh no; that won't do," said Mrs. Bowen, like a woman who has publicduties to perform, and is resolute to sacrifice her private pleasure tothem. But she postponed them a moment longer. "I hope you got homebefore the rain," she said.
"Yes," returned Colville. "That is, I don't mind a little sprinkling.Who is the Junonian young person at the end of the room?"
"Ah," said Mrs. Bowen, "you can't be introduced to _her_ first. But_isn't_ she lovely?"
"Yes. It's a wonderful effect of white and gold."
"You mustn't say that to her. She was doubtful about her dress, becauseshe says that the ivory white with her hair makes her look just likewhite and gold furniture."
"Present me at once, then, before I forget not to say it to her."
"No; I must keep you for some other person: anybody can talk to a prettygirl."
Colville said he did not know whether to smile or shed tears at thisembittered compliment, and pretended an eagerness for the acquaintancedenied him.
Mrs. Bowen seemed disposed to intensify his misery. "Did you ever see amore statuesque creature--with those superb broad shoulders and thatlittle head, and that thick braid brought round over the top? Doesn'ther face, with that calm look in those starry eyes, and that peculiarfall of the corners of the mouth, remind you of some of those exquisitegreat Du Maurier women? That style of face is very fashionable now: youmight think he had made it so."
"Is there a fashion in faces?" asked Colville.
"Why, certainly. You must know that."
"Then why aren't all the ladies in the fashion?"
"It isn't one that can be put on. Besides, every one hasn't got ImogeneGraham's figure to carry it off."
"That's her name, then--Imogene Graham. It's a very pretty name."
"Yes. She's staying with me for the winter. Now that's all I can allowyou to know for the present. Come! You must!"
"But this is worse than nothing." He made a feint of protesting as sheled him away, and named him to the lady she wished him to know. But hewas not really sorry; he had his modest misgivings whether he were equalto quite so much young lady as Miss Graham seemed. When he no longerlooked at her he had a whimsical impression of her being a heroic statueof herself.
The lady whom Mrs. Bowen left him with had not much to say, and she madehaste to introduce her husband, who had a great deal to say. He was anItalian, but master of that very efficient English which the Italiansget together with unimaginable sufferings from our orthography, andColville repeated the republican deputy's saying about a constitutionalking, which he had begun to think was neat.
"I might prefer a republic myself," said the Italian, "but I think thatgentleman is wrong to be a republican where he is, and for the present.The monarchy is the condition of our unity; nothing else could hold ustogether, and we must remain united if we are to exist as a nation. It'sa necessity, like our army of half a million men. We may not like it initself, but we know that it is our salvation." He began to speak of theeconomic state of Italy, of the immense cost of freedom and independenceto a people whose political genius enables them to bear quietly burdensof taxation that no other government would venture to impose. He spokewith that fond, that appealing patriotism, which expresses so much tothe sympathetic foreigner in Italy: the sense of great and painfuluncertainty of Italy's future through the compli
cations of diplomacy,the memory of her sufferings in the past, the spirit of quiet andinexhaustible patience for trials to come. This resolution, which isalmost resignation, poetises the attitude of the whole people; it madeColville feel as if he had done nothing and borne nothing yet.
"I am ashamed," he said, not without a remote resentment of theunworthiness of the republican voters of Des Vaches, "when I hear ofsuch things, to think of what we are at home, with all our resources andopportunities."
The Italian would have politely excused us to him, but Colville wouldhave no palliation of our political and moral nakedness; and he framed acontinuation of the letter he began on the Ponte Vecchio to the_Post-Democrat-Republican_, in which he made a bitterly ironicalcomparison of the achievements of Italy and America in the last tenyears.
He forgot about Miss Graham, and had only a vague sense of her splendouras he caught sight of her in the long mirror which she stood before. Shewas talking to a very handsome young clergyman, and smiling upon him.The company seemed to be mostly Americans, but there were a good manyevident English also, and Colville was dimly aware of a question in hismind whether this clergyman was English or American. There were three orfour Italians and there were some Germans, who spoke English.
Colville moved about from group to group as his enlarging acquaintanceled, and found himself more interested in society than he could everhave dreamed of being again. It was certainly a defect of the life atDes Vaches that people, after the dancing and love-making period, wentout rarely or never. He began to see that the time he had spent sobusily in that enterprising city had certainly been in some sensewasted.
At a certain moment in the evening, which perhaps marked itsadvancement, the tea-urn was replaced by a jug of the rum punch, mild orstrong according to the custom of the house, which is served at mostFlorentine receptions. Some of the people went immediately after, butthe young clergyman remained talking with Miss Graham.
Colville, with his smoking glass in his hand, found himself at the sideof a friendly old gentleman who had refused the punch. They joined intalk by a common impulse, and the old gentleman said, directly, "You arean American, I presume?"
His accent had already established the fact of his own nationality, buthe seemed to think it the part of candour to say, when Colville hadacknowledged his origin, "I'm an American myself."
"I've met several of our countrymen since I arrived," suggestedColville.
The old gentleman seemed to like this way of putting it. "Well, yes,we're not unfairly represented here in numbers, I must confess. But I'mbound to say that I don't find our countrymen so aggressive, so loud, asour international novelists would make out. I haven't met any of theirpeculiar heroines as yet, sir."
Colville could not help laughing. "I wish _I_ had. But perhaps theyavoid people of our years and discretion, or else take such a filialattitude toward us that we can't recognise them."
"Perhaps, perhaps," cried the old gentleman, with cheerful assent.
"I was talking with one of our German friends here just now, and hecomplained that the American girls--especially the rich ones--seem verycalculating and worldly and conventional. I told him I didn't know howto account for that. I tried to give him some notion of the ennoblinginfluences of society in Newport, as I've had glimpses of it."
The old gentleman caressed his elbows, which he was holding in the palmsof his hands, in high enjoyment of Colville's sarcasm. "Ah! very good!very good!" he said. "I quite agree with you, and I think the other sortare altogether preferable."
"I think," continued Colville, dropping his ironical tone, "that we'vemuch less to regret in their unsuspecting, unsophisticated freedom thanin the type of hard materialism which we produce in young girls,perfectly wide awake, disenchanted, unromantic, who prefer the worldlyvanities and advantages deliberately and on principle, recognisingsomething better merely to despise it. I've sometimes seen them----"
Mrs. Bowen came up in her gentle, inquiring way. "I'm glad that you andMr. Colville have made acquaintance," she said to the old gentleman.
"Oh, but we haven't," said Colville. "We're entire strangers."
"Then I'll introduce you to Rev. Mr. Waters. And take you away," sheadded, putting her hand through Colville's arm with a delicate touchthat flattered his whole being, "for your time's come at last, and I'mgoing to present you to Miss Graham."
"I don't know," he said. "Of course, as there is a Miss Graham, I can'thelp being presented to her, but I had almost worked myself up to thepoint of wishing there were none. I believe I'm afraid."
"Oh, I don't believe that at all. A simple schoolgirl like that!" Mrs.Bowen's sense of humour had not the national acuteness. She liked jokingin men, but she did not know how to say funny things back "You'll see,as you come up to her."
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