From the moment of mutual revelation, the relations between Katherine and Felicia underwent a change, not the less appreciable for being subtle. This was inevitable. In fact, Felicia had dreaded the first confidential talk as much as she dreaded the arrival of Raine. But these things are infinitely simpler than we are apt to imagine, by reason of the mere habit of human intercourse. The hours that they spent together at first, passed outwardly as pleasantly as before. But Katherine was more reserved, limited the conversation as much as possible to the ephemeral concrete, and Felicia, keeping a guard over herself, lost somewhat in simplicity of manner. Imperceptibly, however, they drifted apart, and saw less of one another. A tendency towards misjudgment of Katherine was a necessary consequence of the sense of indelicacy under which the girl chafed. The rare utterances of feeling or opinion that the other gave vent to, instead of awakening her sympathy, aroused undefined instincts of antagonism. She sought the old scholar’s society more and more, boldly put into execution a project she had long rather tremulously contemplated, and established herself as his amanuensis.
When he saw her, with inky fingers and ruffled hair, copying out his crabbed manuscript, he would thank her for her selfsacrifice. But Felicia would look up fervently and shake her head.
“You can’t tell what a blessed relief it is, Mr. Chetwynd.”
So the old man accepted her services gratefully; though, if the truth were known, the trained man of letters, who was accustomed to do everything himself with minute care, was sorely put to it at times as to how to occupy his fair secretary—especially as she, with the conscientiousness of her sex, insisted on scrupulously filling up every moment of the time she devoted to his service.
But Katherine smiled sadly and comprehendingly at Felicia’s ingenuous strategical movement.
“It seems rather a pity you never thought of it before,” she said, one day, kindly. “Regular occupation is a great blessing; it prevents one from growing lackadaisical.”
“Yes,” replied Felicia, falling in with her tone; “I am afraid I was beginning to get into evil ways.”
With the advent of summer, there was much bustle in the pension, bringing relations into greater harmony. The chatter of millinery filled the air. Ladies ran up against each other in shops, rendered mutual advice, and grew excited over the arrival of each other’s parcels.
“One touch of chiffon makes the whole world kin,” said Katherine, who looked upon matters with a satirical, yet kindly eye.
She was drawn perforce into the movement, being consulted on all sides as to matching of shades and the suitability of hats. She bought outright an entire wardrobe for Miss Bunter, who begged her to go shopping with her, and then sat helpless by the counter, fingering mountains of materials. Even Frau Schultz was softened. But she was the only one who did not consult Katherine. She took Felicia into her confidence, and exhibited, among other seasonable vestments, a blood-coloured blouse, covered with mauve spots as large as two-franc pieces, which she pronounced to be very genteel. Every one had something new to wear for the summer. Mme. Popea scattered scraps of stuff about her room, in a kind of libationary joy. The little dressmaker, bristling with pins, haunted the landings, when not within the little cabinet assigned to her, from outside whose door could be unceasingly heard the sharp tearing of materials and the droning buzz of the sewing-machine.
Summer changes took place in the pension itself. The storey above, which was let unfurnished during the winter, was incorporated, as usual, into the general establishment. There was a week of cleaning, during which the house was given over to men in soft straw hats and blue blouses. And then a week of straightening, when new curtains were put up, and floors rewaxed, and dingy coverings removed from chairs and sofas, which burst out resplendent in bright green velvet. The latter proceedings were superintended by an agile young man in alpaca sleeves and green baize apron. It was the summer waiter, who had emerged from the mysterious limbo where summer waiters hibernate, and was resuming his duties, apparently at the point he had left them at the end of the previous season. Mme. Boccard and he conversed at vast distances, which was trying to those who did not see how the welfare of the pension was being thereby furthered. In her quiet moments, the good lady was busy sending out prospectuses and answering replies to advertisements and applications. She went about smiling perspiringly at the prospect of a successful season.
The first new guests to arrive were M. le Commandant Porniclion and his wife. He was a stout-hearted old Gascon, a veteran of Solferino and Gravelotte, who talked in a great voice and with alarming gestures of blood and battles, and obeyed his little brown wife like a lamb. His friend, Colonel Cazet, was coming with his wife later on. For some years they had been regular summer boarders of Mme. Boccard. The next arrival was a middle-aged man, called Skeogh, who had commercial business in Geneva. At the first he caused disappointment through adding up figures in a little black book at meal times. But Frau Schultz found him a most superior person, after listening to a confidential account of the jute market, in which commodity she seemed to have been vaguely interested at one period of her life. Whereupon she talked to him about Lottchen, and he put away the black book.
“Quelle Sirène!” cried Mme. Popea, in wicked exultation.
The next to come was Raine Chetwynd. The old man went to the rail way-station in the morning to meet him, and bore him back in triumph.
“Oh, Raine, my dear, dear boy,” he said, watching him consuming the coffee and petit pain he had ordered up to his room, “you can’t tell how I have longed to see you again.”
“Well, you shall not exile yourself any longer,” said Raine, heartily. “I am going to carry you back to Oxford. The place is a howling wilderness without you. If I could remember the names of all who sent appealing messages to you, it would be a list as long as Leporello’s. And you mustn’t live away from me again, dad.”
“No,” replied the old man; “but you see I couldn’t have done this work as well in Oxford, could I?”
“It’s a noble work,” said Raine, with the scholar’s instinct.
“Yes,” replied the old man with a sigh; “it wanted doing, it wanted doing. And I think I have done it very well.”
“I must overhaul your scrip, while I am here. Let me have a look at it.”
“Don’t bother about it yet, my boy. Finish your coffee. Let me ring for some more. You must be tired after your long journey.”
“Tired?” laughed Raine. “Oh dear no, and I can go on quite well till breakfast. I only want to see what kind of stuff you have been doing since I have been away.”
The professor went to his drawer and pulled out the manuscript, his heart glowing at Raine’s loving interest in his work—a never-failing source of pride and comfort.
“Here it is, nearly finished.”
Raine took the scrip from him and turned over the pages, with a running commentary on the scope within which the subject was treated. At last he uttered an exclamation of surprise, laid the book on his knee and looked up at his father.
“Hullo! what is all this?”
The old man peeped over his shoulder.
“That is my secretary’s writing,” he explained; “Miss Graves, you remember her, don’t you?”
“Of course; but—”
“Well, she will insist upon it, Raine; she comes in for a couple of hours a day. It pleases her, really, and I can’t help it.”
“What a dear little soul she must be,” said Raine.
“Ah! she is, my boy; every day she seems to wind a fresh thread round my heart. We shall have to take her back to Oxford with us, eh, Raine?”
He laughed softly, took up the manuscript and put it tenderly away again in the drawer, while Raine lit his pipe. The latter did not suspect the hint that his father had meant to convey, but he took advantage of the short pause that followed to change the conversation.
It was Mme. Boccard’s arrangement that Raine should take Katherine’s place next to his father, and thus have her as his neighbour. It would disappoint M. le Professeur if he were separated from his petite amie, Miss Graves, and she was sure that Mrs. Stapleton would not mind.
“Make any arrangement you please,” Katherine had replied, with some demureness.
Whereupon Mme. Boccard thanked her, and wished that everybody was as gentle and easy to deal with, and Katherine had smiled inwardly, at the same time despising herself a little for doing so, as is the way with women.
As for Felicia, the disposition of seats caused her painful embarrassment. She dared not look at Katherine, lest she should read the welcome in her eyes; she dared not look at Raine, lest the trouble in her own should betray her. She kept them downcast, listening to Raine’s voice with a burning cheek and beating heart. Only when the meal was over, and the old man detained her in conversation by the window, and Raine came up to them, did she summon up courage to meet his glance fully.
“So the professor has caught you in his dusty web, Miss Graves,” he said, smiling. “You were very sweet to let yourself be caught.”
“Oh! I walked in of my own accord, I assure you,” replied Felicia, “and you have no idea what trouble I had. He wants to dismiss me at the present moment. Do plead for me, Mr. Chetwynd. Of course, I know I should be in the way in the professor’s room now—oh! yes, I should, that is quite settled—but I want him to give me something to do by myself.”
“I will try my best for you, Miss Graves,” said Raine; “but you don’t know what an unnatural, hard-hearted—”
“Oh, Mr. Chetwynd!” said Felicia.
“Well, my dear,” said the old man, “you must have your way. It was only for your own sake I suggested it. I am always so afraid of making you weary—and it is very, very dry stuff—but your help is invaluable, my dear. It will be the same as usual, then. Only I think I shall cut down the time to half, as I, too, am going to be lazy now.”
“Now you will see what real laziness is, Miss Graves,” said Raine. “Do you know my father’s idea of leisure?—what remains of a day after nine hours’ work. Seven he calls laziness; six is abject sloth.”
“Ah! not now, Raine,” said the old man, “not now.”
He turned to go. The two younger people’s eyes met, both touched by the same thing—the pathos of old age that sounded in the old man’s words.
“How you must love him!” said Felicia, in a low voice.
“I do,” replied Raine, earnestly; “and it makes me happy to see that he has not been unloved during my absence. I feel more about what you have done for him than I can say.”
He smiled, involuntarily put out his hand, and pressed hers that she gave him. Then they parted, he to follow his father, she to go to her room serener and happier than she had been for many days, and to weave a wondrous web out of a few gracious words, a smile, and a pressure of the hand. If it were possible—if it were only possible! There would be no shame then—or only just that of it to raise joy with a leaven of tremulousness.
Meanwhile Raine sat in his father’s room, and continued the interrupted gossip. But towards three o’clock the old man’s eyes grew heavy, as he leaned his head back in the armchair. He struggled to keep them open for Raine’s sake, but at last the latter rose with a smile.
“Why, you are sleepy, dad!”
“Yes,” murmured the old man, apologetically. “It’s a new habit I have contracted—I must break myself of it gradually. I suppose I am getting old, Raine. You won’t think it unkind of me will you? Just forty winks, Raine.”
“Have your nap out comfortably,” said the young man.
He fetched a footstool, arranged a cushion with singular tenderness behind the old man, and left him to his sleep. Then he went out for a stroll through the town.
It was a hot, sunny day. At the end of the street, the gate of the Jardin Anglais stood invitingly open. Raine entered, and came upon the enclosed portion of the Quai that forms the promenade, pleasant with its line of shady seats under the trees on one side, and the far-stretching lake on the Other. He paused for awhile, and leant over the balustrade to light a cigarette and to admire the view—the cloudless sky, the deep blue water flecked with white sails, the imposing mass of the hotels on the Quai du Mont Blanc, the busy life on the bridge, beneath which the Rhone flows out of the lake. He drew in a long breath. Somehow it was more exhilarating than his college gardens. The place was not crowded, as the tourist season had not yet set in. But the usual number of nurses and children scattered themselves promiscuously along the path, and filled the air with shrill voices. Raine, continuing his stroll, had not gone many steps when he perceived, far ahead, a lady start from her seat and run to pick up a child that had fallen down. On advancing farther, he saw that it was Mrs. Stapleton, who had got the child on her knees and was tenderly wiping the little gravel-scratched hands, while the nurse, who had come up, stood by phlegmatic.
It was a pretty sight, instinct with feminine charm, and struck gratefully on the man’s senses. Katherine looked very fresh and delicate in her sprigged lilac blouse, plain serge skirt, and simple black straw hat, and the attitude in which she bent down to the chubby, tearful face under the white sun-bonnet was very graceful and womanly. She kissed the child and handed it to its nurse as Raine came up. She greeted him with a smile.
“Quite a catastrophe—but she will forget all about it in half an hour. It must be delightful to be a child.”
“If all hurts are so promptly and tenderly healed, I should think it must be,” said Raine.
“Thank you,” she said, with an upward glance; “that is a pretty compliment.” Raine bowed, laughed his acknowledgments, and with a word of request, sat down by her side.
“Is this a haunt of yours?” he asked.
“Yes, I suppose it is. It is so near the pension—and I love the open air.”
“So do I. That is another point of contact. We discovered a good many, if you remember, at Christmas. What have you been doing since then?”
“Forgetting a good many old lessons, and trying to teach myself a few new ones. Or, if you like, making bricks without straw—trying to live a life without incidents.”
“Which less epigrammatically means that you have had a dull, cheerless time. I am sorry. You have been here all the winter and spring?”
“Yes. Where else should I have been?”
“In a happier place,” said Raine. “You don’t seem made to lead this monotonous existence.”
“Oh! I suppose I am, since I am leading it. Human beings, like water, find their own level. The Pension Boccard seems to be mine.”
“You smile, as if you liked it,”, he said, rather puzzled.
“Would you have me cry to you?”
“Perhaps not on the day of my coming, but afterwards, I wish you would.”
She flashed a glance at him, the lightning reconnoitre of woman ever on the defensive. But the sight of his strong, frank face and kind eyes reassured her. She was silent for a moment, dreaming a vivid day-dream. She was taking him at his word, crying with her face on his shoulder and his arm around her. It was infinite comfort. But she quickly roused herself.
“Don’t you know your Burton? A kind man once pointed it out to me—‘As much pity is to be taken of a woman weeping, as of a goose going barefoot.’ It was the same that told me a woman cried to hide her feelings.”
“That kind of epigram can be made like match-boxes at twopence farthing a gross,” said Raine, impatiently. “You have only to dress up an old adage with a mask of spite.”
“You haven’t changed,” she said with a smile. “You are just the same as when you left.”
“More so,” he said, enigmatically. “Much more so. Then I thought it would do you good to cry. Now I wish you would. I suppose it seems odd I should say this to you. You must forgive me.”
“But why should I cry when I have no trouble?” she asked, disregarding his apology. “Besides, I don’t go about bewailing my lot in life. Do you think I am unhappy?”
“Yes,” he replied, bluntly, “I do. I’ll tell you what made me first think so. It was at the theatre at Christmas, when we saw ‘Denise.’ I was watching your face in repose.”
“It is a painful play,” she said, quietly, but her lip quivered a little, and a faint flush came into her cheek. “Besides, I was very happy that evening.”
He was sitting sideways on the bench, watching her with some earnestness. She was drawing scrawls on the gravel with the point of her parasol. Both started when they heard a harsh voice addressing them.
“Ach! You are here. Is it not a beautiful afternoon?”
It was Frau Schultz who spoke. Felicia was by her side. Raine rose to his feet, took off his hat, and uttered a pleasant commonplace of greeting. But Frau Schultz put her hand on Felicia’s arm and moved away.
“We will not detain you. I am going to the dentist, and Miss Graves is accompanying me.”
So Raine lifted his hat again and resumed his seat.
“That is rough on Miss Graves,” he said, watching their retiring figures and noting the contrast between the girl’s slim waist and the elder woman’s broad, red and mauve spotted back. “But she is a sweet-natüred girl. Isn’t she?”
“Yes,” assented Katherine. “He will be a happy man who wins her.”
“You are right there,” he replied in his downright way, unconscious of the questioning pain that lay behind the woman’s calm grey eyes. “Few people, I should think, could know her without loving her. Life is touching to see the relations between herself and my father.”
“You will see a great deal of her, for that reason.”
“I hope so,” he said, brightly.
Again Katherine kept down the question that struggled to leap into her eyes. There was a short silence, during which she turned idly over the leaves of the book that was in her lap. It was “Diana of the Crossways.”
“A noble book,” he said, glancing at the title. “But I never quite understand how Diana sold the secret.”
“No?” said Katherine, “I think I can tell you.”
And so she gave him of her womans knowledge of her sex, and the time passed pleasantly, till she judged it prudent to bid him farewell.