Mr. Morton’s face expressed a polite share in her anxiety.
“Oh yes; quite, I believe,” Colville replied.
“She heard Effie call, I suppose,” suggested the girl.
“Yes, yes; I think so; that is—yes. I must be going. Good night.”
He took her hand and went away, leaving the clergyman still there; but he lingered only for a report from Mrs. Bowen, which Imogene hurried to get. She sent word that she would join them presently. But Mr. Morton said that it was late already, and he would beg Miss Graham to say good night for him. When Mrs. Bowen returned Imogene was alone.
She did not seem surprised or concerned at that. “Imogene, I have been talking to Mr. Colville about you and Mr. Morton.”
The girl started and turned pale.
“It is almost time to hear from your mother, and she may consent to your engagement. Then you must be prepared to act.”
“Act?”
“To make it known. Matters can’t go on as they have been going. I told Mr. Colville that Mr. Morton ought to know at once.”
“Why ought he to know?” asked Imogene, doubtless with that impulse to temporise which is natural to the human soul in questions of right and interest. She sank into the chair beside which she had been standing.
“If your mother consents, you will feel bound to Mr. Colville?”
“Yes,” said the girl.
“And if she refuses?”
“He has my word. I will keep my word to him,” replied Imogene huskily. “Nothing shall make me break it.”
“Very well, then!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowen. “We need not wait for your mother’s answer. Mr. Morton ought to know, and he ought to know at once. Don’t try to blind yourself, Imogene, to what you see as plainly as I do. He is in love with you.”
“Oh,” moaned the girl.
“Yes; you can’t deny it. And it’s cruel, it’s treacherous, to let him go on thinking that you are free.”
“I will never see him again.”
“Ah! that isn’t enough. He has a claim to know why. I will not let him be treated so.”
They were both silent. Then, “What did Mr. Colville say?” asked Imogene.
“He? I don’t know that he said anything. He—” Mrs. Bowen stopped.
Imogene rose from her chair.
“I will not let him tell Mr. Morton. It would be too indelicate.”
“And shall you let it go on so?”
“No. I will tell him myself.”
“How will you tell him?”
“I will tell him if he speaks to me.”
“You will let it come to that?”
“There is no other way. I shall suffer more than he.”
“But you will deserve to suffer, and your suffering will not help him.”
Imogene trembled into her chair again.
“I see,” said Mrs. Bowen bitterly, “how it will be at last. It will be as it has been from the first.” She began to walk up and down the room, mechanically putting the chairs in place, and removing the disorder in which the occupancy of several people leaves a room at the end of an evening. She closed the piano, which Imogene had forgot to shut, with a clash that jarred the strings from their silence. “But I will do it, and I wonder—”
“You will speak to him?” faltered the girl.
“Yes!” returned Mrs. Bowen vehemently, and arresting herself in her rapid movements. “It won’t do for you to tell him, and you won’t let Mr. Colville.”
“No, I can’t,” said Imogene, slowly shaking her head. “But I will discourage him; I will not see him anymore.” Mrs. Bowen silently confronted her. “I will not see anyone now till I have heard from home.”
“And how will that help? He must have some explanation, and I will have to make it. What shall it be?”
Imogene did not answer. She said: “I will not have anyone know what is between me and Mr. Colville till I have heard from home. If they try to refuse, then it will be for him to take me against their will. But if he doesn’t choose to do that, then he shall be free, and I won’t have him humiliated a second time before the world. This time he shall be the one to reject. And I don’t care who suffers. The more I prize the person, the gladder I shall be; and if I could suffer before everybody I would. If people ever find it out, I will tell them that it was he who broke it off.” She rose again from her chair, and stood flushed and thrilling with the notion of her self-sacrifice. Out of the tortuous complexity of the situation she had evolved this brief triumph, in which she rejoiced as if it were enduring success. But she suddenly fell from it in the dust. “Oh, what can I do for him? How can I make him feel more and more that I would give up anything, everything, for him! It’s because he asks nothing and wants nothing that it’s so hard! If I could see that he was unhappy, as I did once! If I could see that he was at all different since—since—Oh, what I dread is this smooth tranquillity! If our lives could only be stormy and full of cares and anxieties and troubles that I could take on myself, then, then I shouldn’t be afraid of the future! But I’m afraid they won’t be so—no, Mrs. Bowen, do you think he cares for me?”
Mrs. Bowen turned white; she did not speak.
The girl wrung her hands. “Sometimes it seems as if he didn’t—as if I had forced myself on him through a mistake, and he had taken me to save me from the shame of knowing that I had made a mistake. Do you think that is true? If you can only tell me that it isn’t—Or, no! If it is true, tell me that! That would be real mercy.”
The other trembled, as if physically beaten upon by this appeal. But she gathered herself together rigidly. “How can I answer you such a thing as that? I mustn’t listen to you; you mustn’t ask me.”
