CONSTANCE WARING had not been enjoying herself in Bordighera. Her amusement indeed came to an end with the highly exciting yet disagreeable scene which took place between herself and young Gaunt the day before he went away. It is late to recur to this, so much having passed in the meantime; but it really was the only thing of note that happened to her. The blank negative with which she had met his suit, the air of surprise, almost indignation, with which his impassioned appeal was received, confounded poor young Gaunt. He asked her, with a simplicity that sprang out of despair, “Did you not know then? Were you not aware? Is it possible that you were not—prepared?”
“For what, Captain Gaunt?” Constance asked, fixing him with a haughty look.
He returned that look with one that would have cowed a weaker woman. “Did you not know that I—loved you?” he said.
Even she quailed a little. “Oh, as for that, Captain Gaunt!—a man must be responsible for his own follies of that kind. I did not ask you to—care for me, as you say. I thought, indeed, that you would have the discretion to see that anything of the kind between us was out of the question.”
“Why?” he asked, almost sternly; and Constance hesitated a little, finding it perhaps not so easy to reply.
“Because,” she said after a pause, with a faint flush, which showed that the effort cost her something—“because—we belong to two different worlds—because all our habits and modes of living are different.” By this time she began to grow a little indignant that he should give her so much trouble. “Because you are Captain Gaunt, of the Indian service, and I am Constance Waring,” she said, with angry levity.
He grew deadly red with fierce pride and shame.
“Because you are of the higher class, and I of the lower,” he said. “Is that what you mean? Yet I am a gentleman, and one cannot well be more.”
To this she made no reply, but moved away from where she had been standing to listen to him, and returned to her chair. They were on the loggia, and this sudden movement left him at one end, while she returned to the other. He stood for a time following her with his eyes; then, having watched the angry abandon with which she threw herself into her seat, turning her head away, he came a little closer with a certain sternness in his aspect.
“Miss Waring,” he said, “notwithstanding the distance between us, you have allowed me to be your—companion for some time past.”
“Yes,” she said. “What then? There was no one else, either for me or for you.”
“That, then, was the sole reason?”
“Captain Gaunt,” she cried, “what is the use of all this? We were thrown in each other’s way. I meant nothing more; if you did, it was your own fault. You could not surely expect that I should marry you and go to India with you? It is absurd—it is ridiculous,” she cried, with a hot blush, throwing back her head. He saw with suddenly quickened perceptions that the suggestion filled her with contempt and shame. And the young man’s veins tingled as if fire was in them; the rage of love despised shook his very soul.
“And why?” he cried—“and why?” his voice tremulous with passion. “What is ridiculous in that? It may be ridiculous that I should have believed in a girl like you. I may have been a vain weak fool to do it, not to know that I was only a plaything for your amusement; but it never could be ridiculous to think that a woman might love and marry an honourable man.”
He paused several times to command his voice, and she listened impatient, not looking at him, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“It would be ridiculous in me,” she cried. “You don’t know me, or you never would have dreamt—— Captain Gaunt, this had better end. It is of no use lashing yourself to fury, or me either. Think the worst of me you can; it will be all the better for you—it will make you hate me. Yes, I have been amusing myself; and so, I supposed, were you too.”
“No,” he said, “you could not think that.”
She turned round and gave him one look, then averted her eyes again, and said no more.
“You did not think that,” he cried, vehemently. “You knew it was death to me, and you did not mind. You listened and smiled, and led me on. You never checked me by a word, or gave me to understand—— Oh,” he cried, with a sudden change of tone, “Constance, if it is India, if it is only India, you have but to hold up a finger, and I will give up India without a word.”
He had suddenly come close to her again. A wild hope had blazed up in him. He made as though he would throw himself at her feet. She lifted her hand hurriedly to forbid this action.
“Don’t!” she cried, sharply. “Men are not theatrical nowadays. It is nothing to me whether you go to India or stay at home. I have told you already I never thought of anything beyond friendship. Why should not we have amused each other, and no harm? If I have done you any harm, I am sorry; but it will only be for a very short time.”
He had turned away, stung once more into bitterness, and had tried to say something in reply; but his strength had not been equal to his intention, and in the strong revulsion of feeling, the young man leant against the wall of the loggia, hiding his face in his hands.
There was a little pause. Then Constance turned round half stealthily to see why there was no reply. Her heart perhaps smote her a little when she saw that attitude of despair. She rose, and, after a moment’s hesitation, laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. “Captain Gaunt, don’t vex yourself like that. I am not worth it. I never thought that any one could be so much in earnest about me.”
“Constance,” he cried, turning round quickly upon her, “I am all in earnest. I care for nothing in the world but you. Oh, say that you were hasty—say that you will give me a little hope!”
She shook her head. “I think,” she said, “that all the time you must have mistaken me for Frances. If I had not come, you would have fallen in love with her, and she with you.”
“Don’t insult me, at least!” he cried.
“Insult you—by saying that my sister——! You forget yourself, Captain Gaunt. If my sister is not good enough for you, I wonder who you think good enough. She is better than I am; far better—in that way.”
“There is only one woman in the world for me; I don’t care if there was no other,” he said.
“That is benevolent towards the rest of the world,” said Constance, recovering her composure. “Do you know,” she said, gravely, “I think it will be much better for you to go away. I hope we may eventually be good friends; but not just at present. Please go. I should like to part friends; and I should like you to take a parcel for Frances, as you are going to London; and to see my mother. But, for heaven’s sake, go away now. A walk will do you good, and the fresh air. You will see things in their proper aspect. Don’t look at me as if you could kill me. What I am saying is quite true.”
“A walk,” he repeated with unutterable scorn, “will do me good!”
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “It will do you a great deal of good. And change of air and scene will soon set you all right. Oh, I know very well what I am saying. But pray, go now. Papa will make his appearance in about ten minutes; and you don’t want to make a confidant of papa.”
“It matters nothing to me who knows,” he said; but all the same he gathered himself up and made an effort to recover his calm.
“It does to me, then,” said Constance. “I am not at all inclined for papa’s remarks. Captain Gaunt, good-bye. I wish you a pleasant journey; and I hope that some time or other we may meet again, and be very good friends.”
She had the audacity to hold out her hand to him calmly, looking into his eyes as she spoke. But this was more than young Gaunt could bear. He gave her a fierce look of passion and despair, waved his hand without touching hers, and hurried headlong away.
Constance stood listening till she heard the door close behind him; and then she seated herself tranquilly again in her chair. It was evening, and she was waiting for her father for dinner. She had taken her last ramble with the Gaunts that afternoon; and it was after their return from this walk that the young soldier had rushed back to inform her of the letters which called him at once to London, and had burst forth into the love-tale which had been trembling on his lips for days past. She had known very well that she could not escape—that the reckoning for these innocent pleasures would have to come. But she had not expected it at that moment, and had been temporarily taken by surprise. She seated herself now with a sigh of relief, yet regret. “Thank goodness, that’s over,” she said to herself; but she was not quite comfortable on the subject. In the first place, it was over, and there was an end of all her simple fun. No more walks, no more talks skirting the edge of the sentimental and dangerous, no more diplomatic exertions to keep the victim within due limits—fine exercises of power, such as always carry with them a real pleasure. And then, being no more than human, she had a little compunction as to the sufferer. “He will get over it,” she said to herself; change of air and scene would no doubt do everything for him. Men have died, and worms have eaten them, &c. Still, she could not but be sorry. He had looked very wretched, poor fellow, which was complimentary; but she had felt something of the self-contempt of a man who has got a cheap victory over an antagonist much less powerful than himself. A practised swordsman (or woman) of Society should not measure arms with a merely natural person, knowing nothing of the noble art of self-defence. It was perhaps a little—mean, she said to herself. Had it been one of her own species, the duel would have been as amusing throughout, and no harm done. This vexed her a little, and made her uneasy. She remembered, though she did not in general care much about books or the opinion of the class of nobodies who write them, of some very sharp things that had been said upon this subject. Lady Clara Vere de Vere had not escaped handling; and she thought that after it Lady Clara must have felt small, as Constance Waring did now.
But then, on the other hand, what could be more absurd than for a man to suppose, because a girl was glad enough to amuse herself with him for a week or two, in absolute default of all other society, that she was ready to marry him, and go to India with him! To India! What an idea! And it had been quite as much for his amusement as for hers. Neither of them had any one else: it was in self-defence—it was the only resource against absolute dulness. It had made the time pass for him as well as for her. He ought to have known all along that she meant nothing more. Indeed Constance wondered how he could be so silly as to want to have a wife and double his expenses, and bind himself for life. A man, she reflected, must be so much better off when he has only himself to think of. Fancy him taking her bills on his shoulders as well as his own! She wondered, with a contemptuous laugh, how he would like that, or if he had the least idea what these bills would be. On the whole, it was evident, in every point of view, that he was much better out of it. Perhaps even by this time he would have been tearing his hair, had she taken him at his word. But no. Constance could not persuade herself that this was likely. Yet he would have torn his hair, she was certain, before the end of the first year. Thus she worked herself round to something like self-forgiveness; but all the same there rankled at her heart a sense of meanness, the consciousness of having gone out in battle-array and vanquished with beat of drum and sound of trumpet an unprepared and undefended adversary, an antagonist with whom the struggle was not fair. Her sense of honour was touched, and all her arguments could not content her with herself.
“I suppose you have been out with the Gaunts again?” Waring said, as they sat at table, in a dissatisfied tone.
“Yes; but you need never put the question to me again in that uncomfortable way, for George Gaunt is going off to-morrow, papa.”
“Oh, he is going off to-morrow? Then I suppose you have been honest, and given him his congé at last?”
“I honest? I did not know I had ever been accused of picking and stealing. If he had asked me for his congé, he should have had it long ago. He has been sent for, it seems.”
“Then has the congé not yet been asked for? In that case we shall have him back again, I suppose?” said her father, in a tone of resignation, and with a shrug of his shoulders.
“No; for his people will be away. They are going to Switzerland, and the Durants are going to Homburg. Where do you mean to go, when it is too hot to stay here?”
He looked at her half angrily for a moment. “It is never too hot to stay here,” he said; then, after a pause, “We can move higher up among the hills.”
“Where one will never see a soul—worse even than here!”
“Oh, you will see plenty of country-folk,” he said—“a fine race of people, mountaineers, yet husbandmen, which is a rare combination.”
Constance looked up at him with a little moue of mingled despair and disdain.
“With perhaps some romantic young Italian count for you to practise upon,” he said.
Though the humour on his part was grim and derisive rather than sympathetic, her countenance cleared a little. “You know, papa,” she said, with a faintly complaining note, “that my Italian is very limited, and your counts and countesses speak no language but their own.”
“Oh, who can tell? There may be some poor soldier on furlough who has French enough to—— By the way,” he added, sharply, “you must remember that they don’t understand flirtation with girls. If you were a married woman, or a young widow——”
“You might pass me off as a young widow, papa. It would be amusing—or at least it might be amusing. That is not a quality of the life here in general. What an odd thing it is that in England we always believe life to be so much more amusing abroad than at home.”
“It is amusing—at Monte Carlo, perhaps.”
Constance made another moue at the name of Monte Carlo, from the sight of which she had not derived much pleasure. “I suppose,” she said, impartially, “what really amuses one is the kind of diversion one has been accustomed to, and to know everybody: chiefly to know everybody,” she added, after a pause.
“With these views, to know nobody must be bad luck indeed!”
“It is,” she said, with great candour; “that is why I have been so much with the Gaunts. One can’t live absolutely alone, you know, papa.”
“I can—with considerable success,” he replied.
“Ah, you! There are various things to account for it with you,” she said.
He waited for a moment, as if to know what these various things were; then smiled to himself a little angrily at his daughter’s calm way of taking his disabilities for granted. It was not till some time after, when the dinner had advanced a stage, that he spoke again. Then he said, without any introduction, “I often wonder, Constance, when you find this life so dull as you do——”
“Yes, very dull,” she said frankly,—“especially now, when all the people are going away.”
“I wonder often,” he repeated, “my dear, why you stay; for there is nothing to recompense you for such a sacrifice. If it is for my sake, it is a pity, for I could really get on very well alone. We don’t see very much of each other; and till now, if you will pardon me for saying so, your mind has been taken up with a pursuit which—you could have carried on much better at home.”
“You mean what you are pleased to call flirtation, papa? No, I could not have carried on that sort of thing at home. The conditions are altogether different. It is difficult to account for my staying, when, clearly, you don’t consider me of any use, and don’t want me.”
“I have never said that. Of course I am very glad to have you. It is in the bond, and therefore my right. I was regarding the question solely from your point of view.”
Constance did not answer immediately. She paused to think. When she had turned the subject over in her mind, she replied, “I need not tell you how complicated one’s motives get. It takes a long time to make sure which is really the fundamental one, and how it works.”
“You are a philosopher, my dear.”
“Not more than one must be with Society pressing upon one as it does, papa. Nothing is straightforward nowadays. You have to dig quite deep down before you come at the real meaning of anything you do; and very often, when you get hold of it, you don’t quite like to acknowledge it, even to yourself.”
“That is rather an alarming preface, but very just too. If you don’t like to acknowledge it to yourself, you will like still less to acknowledge it to me?”
“I don’t quite see that: perhaps I am harder upon myself than you would be. No; but I prefer to think of it a little more before I tell you. I have a kind of feeling now that it is because—but you will think that a shabby sort of pride—it is because I am too proud to own myself beaten, which I should do if I were to go back.”
“It is a very natural sort of pride,” he said.
“But it is not all that. I must go a little deeper still. Not to-night. I have done as much thinking as I am quite able for to-night.”