East Angels Part 96

"I am ashamed," Garda murmured.

"Ashamed?"

"Ashamed of being _glad_."

Margaret went swiftly away, she almost seemed to flee. Garda, standing on her lighted threshold, heard her door close. Then she heard the sound of the bolt within, as it was shot sharply forward.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

"Did you ever hear of anything so absurd?" said Aunt Katrina. "How she will look at sea!--Those prunello gaiters of hers on deck when the wind blows!"

"Jolly old soul," commented Lanse. He was playing solitaire, and had paused reflectively with a card in his hand while he gazed at the spread-out piles before him. "Jolly old soul!--I am glad she is going to see something at last, before she dies."

"What expressions you do use, Lanse! one would think she was ninety. As for seeing, she'll see nothing but Garda Thorne, and have her hands full at that."

"Her eyes, you mean," said Lanse, slipping his card deftly upon a pile which contained already its legal three, and fitting the edges accurately as he did so to those of the card beneath, in order to cheat himself with the greater skill.

Aunt Katrina's comments were based upon some recent tidings. Betty had journeyed down to East Angels that afternoon in the black boat of Uncle Cato to convey to her dearest Kate a wonderful piece of news: Garda had suddenly decided to go abroad for the winter--to Italy, and she had written from New York, where she was staying with Lish-er and Trude, to beg Betty to come north immediately and go with her, "like the dear, kind old aunt" that she was. Betty's mind, driven into confusion by this sudden proposal, was a wild mixture of the sincerest regrets at leaving dear Kate, of the sincerest gratification at this proof of Garda's attachment, and the sincerest (and most dreadful) apprehensions concerning the ocean pa.s.sage.

Garda's second visit at East Angels--a very short one--had terminated only six weeks before; at that time she had no intention of going to Italy. This, then, was some sudden new idea, and Lanse had amused himself imagining causes for it. He imagined them on such a scale of splendor, however, that Aunt Katrina declared at last that she could listen to no more of them; they were too ridiculously silly.

She brought herself to listen, however, when, four months later, Betty, having survived a recrossing of the ocean, came down to East Angels, with the lion carpet-bag, to tell "everything" to her friend.

Poor Betty had been so homesick in foreign lands that Garda had not had the heart to detain her longer. "And she said that she had hoped I would stay with her a long time, perhaps always," narrated Betty. "And of course I enjoyed being in New York ever so much, of course; and Rome too--Rome was so instructive. But then you know, as I told the dear child, Rome is _not_ my home, nor can I make it so at my age, of course."

"It's not age; it's experience," said Kate.

"Very likely you're right, Kate; but then, you know, I've had so little experience; since I came from Georgia with Mr. Carew, ever so many years ago, I've never put my foot outside of Florida until now, and I suppose I've grown like those Swiss exiles we read about, who can't hear that call for cows, you know, that Ranz something, without getting _so_ homesick, though to everybody else it's a dreadfully yelling sound,--though I ought to say, too, that as we've next to no cows in Florida, the comparison isn't a _very_ good one; but then there were next to no cows in Rome either, for that matter, though it was there that a cow brought up little Castor and Pollux, who built the city--no, no, I'm mistaken, that was Romulus and Remus; Castor and Pollux tamed the horses on the Quirinal; but in either case it shows that the milk must have been good, because they were so strong, you know."

"_Are_ we talking of milk, Elizabeth?" asked Kate, in despair.

"Of course not," answered Elizabeth, good-naturedly; "how could you think so? I know you never cared for milk in the least, Kate, and I shouldn't be likely, therefore, to bring it up.--And right there in the Forum I'd see my own flower-garden. And in the Colosseum I'd see our little church here, and even hear the bell."

"Absurd!" said Kate.

"I reckon it was absurd," Betty agreed, though wiping her eyes at the same time. "And at the Vatican, there among the statues, Kate--do you know I was always seeing likenesses to you."

"Oh, well--_that_," responded Kate, as if there might be grounds for a.s.sociations of that nature. "And Garda Thorne, by this time, I suppose, is living there _quite_ alone?" she went on, comfortably.

"Oh no; she has a companion, Madame Clementer."

"Clementi," said Lanse; "I know her--an American, Miss Morris. He ran through all her money."

"Yes, that is the one; the Bogarduses arranged it by letter; they know her very well."

"She's a cousin of theirs, and a very nice woman; about fifty-five.

Nothing could be more respectable," Lanse went on, glancing with an amused eye at Aunt Katrina's unwilling face. "You were there some time, Mrs. Carew; I suppose you saw some men?"

"The population seemed to me to consist princ.i.p.ally of men," Betty answered, navely; "the streets were always crowded with them."

"That's because the Italian women don't knock about. But some of these men came to see you, I suppose?"

"Oh, you mean gentlemen? Yes, a good many came; but for my part, _I_ was always gladdest to see Adolfo Torres. _He_ wasn't so foreign."

"Is _he_ there?" said Lanse, with a delighted laugh; "has he followed her all that distance? Bravo for Adolfo!"

"I don't see where he got the money to go," remarked Aunt Katrina, with one of her well-bred sniffs.

Betty flushed at this. "Mr. Torres has property, Kate," she said, with dignity. Then her usual humble sincerity came back to her. "I don't reckon it's much," she went on. "I've no idea where he stayed, nor anything about it; but I'm sure, whenever he came to see _us_, he always looked like a dignified gentleman."

"Naturally," said Lanse. "Because that is what he is. Well, I give him my vote."

As this conversation was beginning, word was brought to Margaret that Mr. Winthrop was in the drawing-room, and wished to see her. Celestine was the messenger.

"Has he come to stay? You and Looth must put the east room in order, then," said the mistress of the house. "Have you told the others?"

"Yes'm," said Celestine, disappearing.

When Margaret entered the drawing-room, twenty minutes later, Winthrop was there alone. Celestine had told n.o.body. Minerva Poindexter, meanwhile, sweeping a remote corridor, had had a tussle with her conscience; and gagged it.

"No one here?" said Margaret in surprise. "Where are the others?"

"I didn't come to see the others," Winthrop answered.

Though many months had elapsed since their last meeting, no greeting pa.s.sed between them beyond this; they did not even shake hands. She had seen upon entering that angry feelings had possession of him, that this time he would not go through any of the forms. This made her only the more anxious to keep to them strictly herself.

"I hope you have come to stay with us a while," she said.

He paid no attention to this. "Shall we go out--to the garden, or somewhere? I wish to see you alone."

"We couldn't well be more alone than this, could we?" she answered, looking about the room.

"But they may interrupt us. If they do, I shall ask you very soon to come out, and you must come." He crossed the room and closed the door.

"You got my letter?"

"I was answering it when you came."

"I didn't want a written answer. It came over me, after I had sent mine, that I knew just what you would write in reply--the very words. Not that you have written so often; in two years and a half I think three notes of six lines each would about sum it up. But I know every written phrase of yours just the same; so I have come to get an answer in person--a more sensible and reasonable one."

She did not say, "There will be nothing more reasonable." It was what was in her thoughts; but it seemed wiser not to express her thoughts now.

"How changed you are!" he said; "even in eighteen months so much changed."

"No one here sees such a change." She faced his gaze proudly.