The Complete Works of Henry James

by Henry James

  “They see you!” said Bernard.

  “You say that as if I wished to run away,” Gordon answered. “I don’t want to run away; on the contrary, I want to speak to them.”

  “That ‘s easily done,” said Bernard, and they advanced to the two ladies.

  Mrs. Vivian and her daughter rose from their chairs as they came; they had evidently rapidly exchanged observations, and had decided that it would facilitate their interview with Gordon Wright to receive him standing. He made his way to them through the crowd, blushing deeply, as he always did when excited; then he stood there bare-headed, shaking hands with each of them, with a fixed smile, and with nothing, apparently, to say. Bernard watched Angela’s face; she was giving his companion a beautiful smile. Mrs. Vivian was delicately cordial.

  “I was sure it was you,” said Gordon at last. “We were just talking of you.”

  “Did Mr. Longueville deny it was we?” asked Mrs. Vivian, archly; “after we had supposed that we had made an impression on him!”

  “I knew you were in Paris—we were in the act of talking of you,” Gordon went on. “I am very glad to see you.”

  Bernard had shaken hands with Angela, looking at her intently; and in her eyes, as his own met them, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of mockery. At whom was she mocking— at Gordon, or at himself? Bernard was uncomfortable enough not to care to be mocked; but he felt even more sorry that Gordon should be.

  “We also knew you were coming—Mr. Longueville had told us,” said Mrs. Vivian; “and we have been expecting the pleasure of seeing Blanche. Dear little Blanche!”

  “Dear little Blanche will immediately come and see you,” Gordon replied.

  “Immediately, we hope,” said Mrs. Vivian. “We shall be so very glad.” Bernard perceived that she wished to say something soothing and sympathetic to poor Gordon; having it, as he supposed, on her conscience that, after having once encouraged him to regard himself as indispensable (in the capacity of son-in-law) to her happiness, she should now present to him the spectacle of a felicity which had established itself without his aid. “We were so very much interested in your marriage,” she went on. “We thought it so—so delightful.”

  Gordon fixed his eyes on the ground for a moment.

  “I owe it partly to you,” he answered. “You had done so much for Blanche. You had so cultivated her mind and polished her manners that her attractions were doubled, and I fell an easy victim to them.”

  He uttered these words with an exaggerated solemnity, the result of which was to produce, for a moment, an almost embarrassing silence. Bernard was rapidly becoming more and more impatient of his own embarrassment, and now he exclaimed, in a loud and jovial voice—

  “Blanche makes victims by the dozen! I was a victim last winter; we are all victims!”

  “Dear little Blanche!” Mrs. Vivian murmured again.

  Angela had said nothing; she had simply stood there, making no attempt to address herself to Gordon, and yet with no affectation of reserve or of indifference. Now she seemed to feel the impulse to speak to him.

  “When Blanche comes to see us, you must be sure to come with her,” she said, with a friendly smile.

  Gordon looked at her, but he said nothing.

  “We were so sorry to hear she is out of health,” Angela went on.

  Still Gordon was silent, with his eyes fixed on her expressive and charming face.

  “It is not serious,” he murmured at last.

  “She used to be so well—so bright,” said Angela, who also appeared to have the desire to say something kind and comfortable.

  Gordon made no response to this; he only looked at her.

  “I hope you are well, Miss Vivian,” he broke out at last.

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “Do you live in Paris?”

  “We have pitched our tent here for the present.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I find it no worse than other places.”

  Gordon appeared to desire to talk with her; but he could think of nothing to say. Talking with her was a pretext for looking at her; and Bernard, who thought she had never been so handsome as at that particular moment, smiling at her troubled ex-lover, could easily conceive that his friend should desire to prolong this privilege.

  “Have you been sitting here long?” Gordon asked, thinking of something at last.

  “Half an hour. We came out to walk, and my mother felt tired. It is time we should turn homeward,” Angela added.

  “Yes, I am tired, my daughter. We must take a voiture, if Mr. Longueville will be so good as to find us one,” said Mrs. Vivian.

  Bernard, professing great alacrity, looked about him; but he still lingered near his companions. Gordon had thought of something else. “Have you been to Baden again?” Bernard heard him ask. But at this moment Bernard espied at a distance an empty hackney-carriage crawling up the avenue, and he was obliged to go and signal to it. When he came back, followed by the vehicle, the two ladies, accompanied by Gordon, had come to the edge of the pavement. They shook hands with Gordon before getting into the cab, and Mrs. Vivian exclaimed—

  “Be sure you give our love to your dear wife!”

  Then the two ladies settled themselves and smiled their adieux, and the little victoria rumbled away at an easy pace, while Bernard stood with Gordon, looking after it. They watched it a moment, and then Gordon turned to his companion. He looked at Bernard for some moments intently, with a singular expression.

  “It is strange for me to see her!” he said, presently.

  “I hope it is not altogether disagreeable,” Bernard answered smiling.

  “She is delightfully handsome,” Gordon went on.

  “She is a beautiful woman.”

  “And the strange thing is that she strikes me now so differently,” Gordon continued. “I used to think her so mysterious—so ambiguous. She seems to be now so simple.”

  “Ah,” said Bernard, laughing, “that’s an improvement!”

  “So simple and so good!” Gordon exclaimed.

  Bernard laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder, shaking his head slowly.

  “You must not think too much about that,” he said.

  “So simple—so good—so charming!” Gordon repeated.

  “Ah, my dear Gordon!” Bernard murmured.

  But still Gordon continued.

  “So intelligent, so reasonable, so sensible.”

  “Have you discovered all that in two minutes’ talk?”

  “Yes, in two minutes’ talk. I should n’t hesitate about her now!”

  “It ‘s better you should n’t say that,” said Bernard.

  “Why should n’t I say it? It seems to me it ‘s my duty to say it.”

  “No—your duty lies elsewhere,” said Bernard. “There are two reasons. One is that you have married another woman.”

  “What difference does that make?” cried Gordon.

  Bernard made no attempt to answer this inquiry; he simply went on—

  “The other is—the other is—”

  But here he paused.

  “What is the other?” Gordon asked.

  “That I am engaged to marry Miss Vivian.”

  And with this Bernard took his hand off Gordon’s shoulder.

  Gordon stood staring.

  “To marry Miss Vivian?”

  Now that Bernard had heard himself say it, audibly, distinctly, loudly, the spell of his apprehension seemed broken, and he went on bravely.

  “We are to be married very shortly. It has all come about within a few weeks. It will seem to you very strange—perhaps you won’t like it. That ‘s why I have hesitated to tell you.”

  Gordon turned pale; it was the first time Bernard had ever seen him do so; evidently he did not like it. He stood staring and frowning.

  “Why, I thought—I thought,” he began at last—”I thought that you disliked her!”

  “I supposed so, too,” said Bernard. “But I have got ov
er that.”

  Gordon turned away, looking up the great avenue into the crowd. Then turning back, he said—

  “I am very much surprised.”

  “And you are not pleased!”

  Gordon fixed his eyes on the ground a moment.

  “I congratulate you on your engagement,” he said at last, looking up with a face that seemed to Bernard hard and unnatural.

  “It is very good of you to say that, but of course you can’t like it! I was sure you would n’t like it. But what could I do? I fell in love with her, and I could n’t run away simply to spare you a surprise. My dear Gordon,” Bernard added, “you will get used to it.”

  “Very likely,” said Gordon, dryly. “But you must give me time.”

  “As long as you like!”

  Gordon stood for a moment again staring down at the ground.

  “Very well, then, I will take my time,” he said. “Good-bye!”

  And he turned away, as if to walk off alone.

  “Where are you going?” asked Bernard, stopping him.

  “I don’t know—to the hotel, anywhere. To try to get used to what you have told me.”

  “Don’t try too hard; it will come of itself,” said Bernard.

  “We shall see!”

  And Gordon turned away again.

  “Do you prefer to go alone?”

  “Very much—if you will excuse me!”

  “I have asked you to excuse a greater want of ceremony!” said Bernard, smiling.

  “I have not done so yet!” Gordon rejoined; and marching off, he mingled with the crowd.

  Bernard watched him till he lost sight of him, and then, dropping into the first empty chair that he saw, he sat and reflected that his friend liked it quite as little as he had feared.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Bernard sat thinking for a long time; at first with a good deal of mortification—at last with a good deal of bitterness. He felt angry at last; but he was not angry with himself. He was displeased with poor Gordon, and with Gordon’s displeasure. He was uncomfortable, and he was vexed at his discomfort. It formed, it seemed to him, no natural part of his situation; he had had no glimpse of it in the book of fate where he registered on a fair blank page his betrothal to a charming girl. That Gordon should be surprised, and even a little shocked and annoyed—this was his right and his privilege; Bernard had been prepared for that, and had determined to make the best of it. But it must not go too far; there were limits to the morsel of humble pie that he was disposed to swallow. Something in Gordon’s air and figure, as he went off in a huff, looking vicious and dangerous—yes, that was positively his look—left a sinister impression on Bernard’s mind, and, after a while, made him glad to take refuge in being angry. One would like to know what Gordon expected, par exemple! Did he expect Bernard to give up Angela simply to save him a shock; or to back out of his engagement by way of an ideal reparation? No, it was too absurd, and, if Gordon had a wife of his own, why in the name of justice should not Bernard have one?

  Being angry was a relief, but it was not exactly a solution, and Bernard, at last, leaving his place, where for an hour or two he had been absolutely unconscious of everything that went on around him, wandered about for some time in deep restlessness and irritation. At one moment he thought of going back to Gordon’s hotel, to see him, to explain. But then he became aware that he was too angry for that— to say nothing of Gordon’s being too angry also; and, moreover, that there was nothing to explain. He was to marry Angela Vivian; that was a very simple fact—it needed no explanation. Was it so wonderful, so inconceivable, an incident so unlikely to happen? He went, as he always did on Sunday, to dine with Mrs. Vivian, and it seemed to him that he perceived in the two ladies some symptoms of a discomposure which had the same origin as his own. Bernard, on this occasion, at dinner, failed to make himself particularly agreeable; he ate fast— as if he had no idea what he was eating, and talked little; every now and then his eyes rested for some time upon Angela, with a strange, eagerly excited expression, as if he were looking her over and trying to make up his mind about her afresh. This young lady bore his inscrutable scrutiny with a deal of superficial composure; but she was also silent, and she returned his gaze, from time to time, with an air of unusual anxiety. She was thinking, of course, of Gordon, Bernard said to himself; and a woman’s first meeting, in after years, with an ex-lover must always make a certain impression upon her. Gordon, however, had never been a lover, and if Bernard noted Angela’s gravity it was not because he felt jealous. “She is simply sorry for him,” he said to himself; and by the time he had finished his dinner it began to come back to him that he was sorry, too. Mrs. Vivian was probably sorry as well, for she had a slightly confused and preoccupied look—a look from which, even in the midst of his chagrin, Bernard extracted some entertainment. It was Mrs. Vivian’s intermittent conscience that had been reminded of one of its lapses; her meeting with Gordon Wright had recalled the least exemplary episode of her life—the time when she whispered mercenary counsel in the ear of a daughter who sat, grave and pale, looking at her with eyes that wondered. Mrs. Vivian blushed a little now, when she met Bernard’s eyes; and to remind herself that she was after all a virtuous woman, talked as much as possible about superior and harmless things— the beauty of the autumn weather, the pleasure of seeing French papas walking about on Sunday with their progeny in their hands, the peculiarities of the pulpit-oratory of the country as exemplified in the discourse of a Protestant pasteur whom she had been to hear in the morning.

  When they rose from table and went back into her little drawing-room, she left her daughter alone for awhile with Bernard. The two were standing together before the fire; Bernard watched Mrs. Vivian close the door softly behind her. Then, looking for a moment at his companion—

  “He is furious!” he announced at last.

  “Furious?” said Angela. “Do you mean Mr. Wright?”

  “The amiable, reasonable Gordon. He takes it very hard.”

  “Do you mean about me?” asked Angela.

  “It ‘s not with you he ‘s furious, of course; it is with me. He won’t let me off easily.”

  Angela looked for a moment at the fire.

  “I am very sorry for him,” she said, at last.

  “It seems to me I am the one to be pitied,” said Bernard; “and I don’t see what compassion you, of all people in the world, owe him.”

  Angela again rested her eyes on the fire; then presently, looking up—

  “He liked me very much,” she remarked.

  “All the more shame to him!” cried Bernard.

  “What do you mean?” asked the girl, with her beautiful stare.

  “If he liked you, why did he give you up?”

  “He did n’t give me up.”

  “What do you mean, please?” asked Bernard, staring back at her.

  “I sent him away—I refused him,” said Angela.

  “Yes; but you thought better of it, and your mother had persuaded you that if he should ask you again, you had better accept him. Then it was that he backed out—in consequence of what I said to him on his return from England.”

  She shook her head slowly, with a strange smile.

  “My poor Bernard, you are talking very wildly. He did ask me again.”

  “That night?” cried Bernard.

  “The night he came back from England—the last time I saw him, until to-day.”

  “After I had denounced you?” our puzzled hero exclaimed, frowning portentously.

  “I am sorry to let you know the small effect of your words!”

  Bernard folded his hands together—almost devoutly—and stood gazing at her with a long, inarticulate murmur of satisfaction.

  “Ah! then, I did n’t injure you—I did n’t deprive you of a chance?”

  “Oh, sir, the intention on your part was the same!” Angela exclaimed.

  “Then all my uneasiness, all my remorse, were wasted?” he went on.

  But she
kept the same tone, and its tender archness only gave a greater sweetness to his sense of relief.

  “It was a very small penance for you to pay.”

  “You dismissed him definitely, and that was why he vanished?” asked Bernard, wondering still.

  “He gave me another ‘chance,’ as you elegantly express it, and I declined to take advantage of it.”

  “Ah, well, now,” cried Bernard, “I am sorry for him!”