The Bostonians, Vol. I

'Converted to Miss Tarrant, decidedly.'

'You are not to belong to any Miss Tarrant; you are to belong to me,' Mrs. Luna said, having thought over her Southern kinsman during the twenty-four hours, and made up her mind that he would be a good man for a lone woman to know. Then she added: 'Did you come here to meet her—the inspirational speaker?'

'No; I came to bid your sister good-bye.'

'Are you really going? I haven't made you promise half the things I want yet. But we will settle that in New York. How do you get on with Olive Chancellor?' Mrs. Luna continued, making her points, as she always did, with eagerness, though her roundness and her dimples had hitherto prevented her from being accused of that vice. It was her practice to speak of her sister by her whole name, and you would have supposed, from her usual manner of alluding to her, that Olive was much the older, instead of having been born ten years later than Adeline. She had as many ways as possible of marking the gulf that divided them; but she bridged it over lightly now by saying to Basil Ransom; 'Isn't she a dear old thing?'

This bridge, he saw, would not bear his weight, and her question seemed to him to have more audacity than sense. Why should she be so insincere? She might know that a man couldn't recognise Miss Chancellor in such a description as that. She was not old—she was sharply young; and it was inconceivable to him, though he had just seen the little prophetess kiss her, that she should ever become any one's 'dear.' Least of all was she a 'thing'; she was intensely, fearfully, a person. He hesitated a moment, and then he replied: 'She's a very remarkable woman.'

'Take care—don't be reckless!' cried Mrs. Luna. 'Do you think she is very dreadful?'

'Don't say anything against my cousin,' Basil answered; and at that moment Miss Chancellor re-entered the room. She murmured some request that he would excuse her absence, but her sister interrupted her with an inquiry about Miss Tarrant.

'Mr. Ransom thinks her wonderfully charming. Why didn't you show her to me? Do you want to keep her all to yourself?'

Olive rested her eyes for some moments upon Mrs. Luna, without speaking. Then she said: 'Your veil is not put on straight, Adeline.'

'I look like a monster—that, evidently, is what you mean!' Adeline exclaimed, going to the mirror to rearrange the peccant tissue.

Miss Chancellor did not again ask Ransom to be seated; she appeared to take it for granted that he would leave her now. But instead of this he returned to the subject of Verena; he asked her whether she supposed the girl would come out in public—would go about like Mrs. Farrinder?

'Come out in public!' Olive repeated; 'in public? Why, you don't imagine that pure voice is to be hushed?'

'Oh, hushed, no! it's too sweet for that. But not raised to a scream; not forced and cracked and ruined. She oughtn't to become like the others. She ought to remain apart.'

'Apart—apart?' said Miss Chancellor; 'when we shall all be looking to her, gathering about her, praying for her!' There was an exceeding scorn in her voice. 'If I can help her, she shall be an immense power for good.'

'An immense power for quackery, my dear Miss Olive!' This broke from Basil's lips in spite of a vow he had just taken not to say anything that should 'aggravate' his hostess, who was in a state of tension it was not difficult to detect. But he had lowered his tone to friendly pleading, and the offensive word was mitigated by his smile.

She moved away from him, backwards, as if he had given her a push. 'Ah, well, now you are reckless,' Mrs. Luna remarked, drawing out her ribbons before the mirror.

'I don't think you would interfere if you knew how little you understand us,' Miss Chancellor said to Ransom.

'Whom do you mean by 'us'—your whole delightful sex? I don't understand you, Miss Olive.'

'Come away with me, and I'll explain her as we go,' Mrs. Luna went on, having finished her toilet.

Ransom offered his hand in farewell to his hostess; but Olive found it impossible to do anything but ignore the gesture. She could not have let him touch her. 'Well, then, if you must exhibit her to the multitude, bring her on to New York,' he said, with the same attempt at a light treatment.

'You'll have me in New York—you don't want any one else!' Mrs. Luna ejaculated, coquettishly. 'I have made up my mind to winter there now.'

Olive Chancellor looked from one to the other of her two relatives, one near and the other distant, but each so little in sympathy with her, and it came over her that there might be a kind of protection for her in binding them together, entangling them with each other. She had never had an idea of that kind in her life before, and that this sudden subtlety should have gleamed upon her as a momentary talisman gives the measure of her present nervousness.

'If I could take her to New York, I would take her farther,' she remarked, hoping she was enigmatical.

'You talk about 'taking' her, as if you were a lecture-agent. Are you going into that business?' Mrs. Luna asked.

Ransom could not help noticing that Miss Chancellor would not shake hands with him, and he felt, on the whole, rather injured. He paused a moment before leaving the room—standing there with his hand on the knob of the door. 'Look here, Miss Olive, what did you write to me to come and see you for?' He made this inquiry with a countenance not destitute of gaiety, but his eyes showed something of that yellow light—just momentarily lurid—of which mention has been made. Mrs. Luna was on her way downstairs, and her companions remained face to face.

'Ask my sister—I think she will tell you,' said Olive, turning away from him and going to the window. She remained there, looking out; she heard the door of the house close, and saw the two cross the street together. As they passed out of sight her fingers played, softly, a little air upon the pane; it seemed to her that she had had an inspiration.

Basil Ransom, meanwhile, put the question to Mrs. Luna. 'If she was not going to like me, why in the world did she write to me?'