“You think, don’t you, that we oughtn’t to let a day pass without storing away some thought—suggestion—”
“Oh, there’s no hurry,” he said lazily. “Life is rather a long affair—if you live. There appears to be plenty of time, though people say not, and I think it would be rather odious to make every day of use. Let a few of them go by without doing anything for you! And as for reading, why not read when you’re hungry, just as you eat? Shouldn’t you hate to take up a course of roast beef, or a course of turkey?”
“Very well, then,” said Imogene. “I shall not begin Kingsley.”
“Yes, do it. I dare say Mr. Morton’s quite right. He will look at these things more from your own point of view. All the Kingsley novels are in the Tauchnitz. By all means do what he says.”
“I will do what you say.”
“Oh, but I say nothing.”
“Then I will do nothing.”
Colville laughed at this too, and soon after the clergyman appeared. Imogene met him so coldly that Colville felt obliged to make him some amends by a greater show of cordiality than he felt. But he was glad of the effort, for he began to like him as he talked to him; it was easy for him to like people; the young man showed sense and judgment, and if he was a little academic in his mind and manners, Colville tolerantly reflected that some people seemed to be born so, and that he was probably not artificial, as he had once imagined from the ecclesiastical scrupulosity of his dress.
Imogene ebbed away to the piano in the corner of the room, and struck some chords on it. At each stroke the young clergyman, whose eyes had wandered a little toward her from the first, seemed to vibrate in response. The conversation became incoherent before Mrs. Bowen joined them. Then, by a series of illogical processes, the clergyman was standing beside Imogene at the piano, and Mrs. Bowen was sitting beside Colville on the sofa.
“Isn’t there to be any Effie, tonight?” he asked.
“No. She has been up too much of late. And I wished to speak with you—about Imogene.”
“Yes,” said Colville, not very eagerly. At that moment he could have chosen another topic.
“It is time that her mother should have got my letter. In less than a fortnight we ought to have an answer.”
“Well?” said Colville, with a strange constriction of the heart.
“Her mother is a person of very strong character; her husband is absorbed in business, and defers to her in everything.”
“It isn’t an uncommon American situation,” said Colville, relieving his tension by this excursion.
Mrs. Bowen ignored it. “I don’t know how she may look at the affair. She may give her assent at once, or she may decide that nothing has taken place till—she sees you.”
“I could hardly blame her for that,” he answered submissively.
“It isn’t a question of that,” said Mrs. Bowen. “It’s a question of—others. Mr. Morton was here before you came, and I know he was interested in Imogene—I am certain of it. He has come back, and he sees no reason why he should not renew his attentions.”
“No‑o‑o,” faltered Colville.
“I wish you to realise the fact.”
“But what would you—”
“I told you,” said Mrs. Bowen, with a full return of that severity whose recent absence Colville had found so comfortable, “that I can’t advise or suggest anything at all.”
He was long and miserably silent. At last, “Did you ever think,” he asked, “did you ever suppose—that is to say, did you ever suspect that—she—that Imogene was—at all interested in him?”
“I think she was—at one time,” said Mrs. Bowen promptly.
Colville sighed, with a wandering disposition to whistle.
“But that is nothing,” she went on. “People have many passing fancies. The question is, what are you going to do now? I want to know, as Mr. Morton’s friend.”
“Ah, I wish you wanted to know as my friend, Mrs. Bowen!” A sudden thought flashed upon him. “Why shouldn’t I go away from Florence till Imogene hears from her mother? That seemed to me right in the first place. There is no tie that binds her to me. I hold her to nothing. If she finds in my absence that she likes this young man better—” An expression of Mrs. Bowen’s face stopped him. He perceived that he had said something very shocking to her; he perceived that the thing was shocking in itself, but it was not that which he cared for. “I don’t mean that I won’t hold myself true to her as long as she will. I recognise my responsibility fully. I know that I am answerable for all this, and that no one else is; and I am ready to bear any penalty. But what I can’t bear is that you should misunderstand me, that you should—I have been so wretched ever since you first began to blame me for my part in this, and so happy this past fortnight that I can’t—I won’t—go back to that state of things. No; you have no right to relent toward me, and then fling me off as you have tried to do tonight! I have some feeling too—some rights. You shall receive me as a friend, or not at all! How can I live if you—”
She had been making little efforts as if to rise; now she forced herself to her feet, and ran from the room.
The young people looked up from their music; some wave of the sensation had spread to them, but seeing Colville remain seated, they went on with their playing till he rose. Then Imogene called out, “Isn’t Mrs. Bowen coming back?”
“I don’t know; I think not,” answered Colville stupidly, standing where he had risen.
She hastened questioning
