She went on writing; from time to time she tore up what she had written.
Effie softly took a book from the table, and perching herself on a stiff, high chair, bent over it and began to read.
Imogene sat by the hearth, where a small fire was pleasant in the indoor chill of an Italian house, even after so warm a day as that had been. She took some large beads of the strand she wore about her neck into her mouth, and pulled at the strand listlessly with her hand while she watched the fire. Her eyes wandered once to the child.
“What made you take such an uncomfortable chair, Effie?”
Effie shut her book over her hand. “It keeps me wakeful longer,” she whispered, with a glance at her mother from the corner of her eye.
“I don’t see why anyone should wish to be wakeful,” sighed the girl.
When Mrs. Bowen tore up one of her half-written pages Imogene started nervously forward, and then relapsed again into her chair. At last Mrs. Bowen seemed to find the right phrases throughout, and she finished rather a long letter, and read it over to herself. Then she said, without leaving her desk, “Imogene, I’ve been trying to write to your mother. Will you look at this?”
She held the sheet over her shoulder, and Imogene came languidly and took it; Mrs. Bowen dropped her face forward on the desk, into her hands, while Imogene was reading.
“Florence,
“Dear Mrs. Graham—I have some very important news to give you in regard to Imogene, and as there is no way of preparing you for it, I will tell you at once that it relates to her marriage.
“She has met at my house a gentleman whom I knew in Florence when I was here before, and of whom I never knew anything but good. We have seen him very often, and I have seen nothing in him that I could not approve. He is Mr. Theodore Colville, of Prairie des Vaches, Indiana, where he was for many years a newspaper editor; but he was born somewhere in New England. He is a very cultivated, interesting man; and though not exactly a society man, he is very agreeable and refined in his manners. I am sure his character is irreproachable, though he is not a member of any church. In regard to his means I know nothing whatever, and can only infer from his way of life that he is in easy circumstances.
“The whole matter has been a surprise to me, for Mr. Colville is some twenty-one or two years older than Imogene, who is very young in her feelings for a girl of her age. If I could have realised anything like a serious attachment between them sooner, I would have written before. Even now I do not know whether I am to consider them engaged or not. No doubt Imogene will write you more fully.
“Of course I would rather not have had anything of the kind happen while Imogene was under my charge, though I am sure you will not think I have been careless or imprudent about her. I interfered as far as I could, at the first moment I could, but it appears that it was then too late to prevent what has followed.
Imogene read the letter twice over, and then she said, “Why isn’t he a society man?”
Probably Mrs. Bowen expected this sort of approach. “I don’t think a society man would have undertaken to dance the Lancers as he did at Madam Uccelli’s,” she answered patiently, without lifting her head.
Imogene winced, but “I should despise him if he were merely a society man,” she said. “I have seen enough of them. I think it’s better to be intellectual and good.”
Mrs. Bowen made no reply, and the girl went on. “And as to his being older, I don’t see what difference it makes. If people are in sympathy, then they are of the same age, no difference how much older than one the other is. I have always heard that.” She urged this as if it were a question.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bowen.
“And how should his having been a newspaper editor be anything against him?”
Mrs. Bowen lifted her face and stared at the girl in astonishment. “Who said it was against him?”
“You hint as much. The whole letter is against him.”
“Imogene!”
“Yes! Every word! You make him out perfectly detestable. I don’t know why you should hate him, He’s done everything he could to satisfy you.”
Mrs. Bowen rose from her desk, putting her hand to her forehead, as if to soften a shock of headache that her change of posture had sent there. “I will leave the letter with you, and you can send it or not as you think best. It’s merely a formality, my writing to your mother. Perhaps you’ll see it differently in the morning. Effie!” she called to the child, who with her book shut upon her hand had been staring at them and listening intently. “It’s time to go to bed now.”
When Effie stood before the glass in her mother’s room, and Mrs. Bowen was braiding her hair and tying it up for the night, she asked ruefully, “What’s the matter with Imogene, mamma?”
“She isn’t very happy tonight.”
“You don’t seem very happy either,” said the child, watching her own face as it quivered in the mirror. “I should think that now Mr. Colville’s concluded to stay, we would all be happy again. But we don’t seem to. We’re—we’re perfectly demoralised!” It was one of the words she had picked up from Colville.
The quivering face in the glass broke in a passion of tears, and Effie sobbed herself to sleep.
Imogene sat down at Mrs. Bowen’s desk, and pushing her letter away, began to write.
“Florence, .
“Dear Mother—I enclose a letter from Mrs. Bowen which will tell you better than I can what I
