Nancy spent the evening in the Valley of Humiliation, Barth spent it in the office with the Lady. “But what did you say to irritate her?” the Lady asked at length, when Barth, by devious courses, had brought the conversation around to Nancy.
“Oh, nothing. I wouldn’t irritate Miss Howard for any consideration,” he returned eagerly.
“But she was irritated.”
“Y—es; but I didn’t do it.”
The Lady smiled. Liking Barth as she did, she could still realize that his point of view might be antagonistic to a girl like Nancy. Moreover, she too had seen Barth, that noon. She too had wondered at the unaccountable elation of his manner; and she had recorded the impression that, when a narrow Britisher begins to expand his limits, the broad American would better make haste to seek shelter.
“Tell me all about it,” she said kindly.
Barth’s feigned arrogance of manner had fallen from him; it was a most humble-minded Britisher who stood before the Lady, and the Lady pitied him. Barth’s eyes looked tired; the corners of his mouth drooped, and dejection sat heavy upon him.
The Lady turned a chair about until it faced her own.
“Sit down and tell me all about it, Mr. Barth,” she repeated.
Barth obeyed. Later, alone in his room, he wondered how it was that he had been betrayed into speaking so frankly to a comparative stranger; yet even then he felt no regrets. A petted younger son, he had been too long deprived of feminine companionship and understanding. Now that it was offered, he accepted it eagerly. Moreover, Barth was by no means the first lonely youth to pour the story of his woes into the Lady’s ear.
Seated with the light falling full upon his honest, boyish face, he plunged at once into his confession, with the absolute unreserve that only a man customarily reserved can show.
“It is just a case of Miss Howard,” he said bluntly. “She is an American, and not at all like the girls I have known, treats you like a good fellow one minute, and freezes you up the next. I can’t seem to understand her at all.”
“What makes you try?” the Lady asked.
It never seemed to occur to the young fellow to blush, as he answered,—
“Because I like her a great deal better than any other girl I ever saw.”
In spite of herself, the Lady smiled at the unqualified terms of his reply.
“It hasn’t taken you long to find it out.”
“No. But what’s the use of waiting to make up your mind about a thing of that sort?” Barth responded, as he plunged his hands into his trouser pockets. “You like a person, or else you don’t. I like Miss Howard; but, by George, I can’t understand her in the least!”
“Is there any use of trying?” the Lady inquired.
Barth stared at her blankly.
“Oh, rather! How else would I know how to get on with her?”
“But, by your own story, you don’t succeed in getting on with her.”
Barth closed the circle of her argument.
“No. Because I can’t seem to understand her.”
“Are you sure she understands herself?”
“Oh, yes. Miss Howard is very clever, you know.”
“Perhaps. It doesn’t always follow. And are you sure she cares to have you understand her?”
The young Englishman winced at the question.
“What should she have against me?” he asked directly.
“I am not saying that she has anything,” the Lady answered, in swift evasion. “Sometimes it is to their best friends that girls show their most contradictory sides.”
“Oh. You mean it is one of her American ways?”
“Yes, if you choose to call it that.”
Barth shook his head.
“Miss Howard is very American,” he observed a little regretfully.
The Lady smiled.
“And, my dear boy, so are you very British.”
“Of course. I mean to be,” Barth answered quietly.
“And perhaps Miss Howard finds it hard to understand your British ways.”
Barth looked perplexed.
“Oh, no. I think not,” he said slowly. “She never acts at all embarrassed, when she is with me. In fact,” he laughed deprecatingly; “I am generally the one to be embarrassed, when we are together.”
There was a short pause. Then Barth continued thoughtfully, as if from the heart of his reverie,—
“And I didn’t like her especially, at first. She seemed a bit—er—cocksure and—er—energetic. Now I am beginning to like her more and more.”
“Have you seen much of her?”
Barth shook his head.
“No. It is only once that we have had any real talk together. That was yesterday, at the library. It’s a queer old place, and one talks there in spite of one’s self. We had a good time. But generally those other fellows are around in the way.”
The Lady raised her brows interrogatively.
“Mr. Brock and that Frenchman,” Barth explained. “They are always with her; they haven’t any hesitation in coming into the drawing-room and carrying her off, just as I am getting ready to talk to her.”
A blot on the Lady’s account book demanded her full attention for a moment. Then she looked up at Barth again.
“Why don’t you try the same tactics?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why don’t you carry her off, just as Mr. Brock is getting ready to talk to her?”
“Because he is so quick that he gets right about it, before I have time to begin. Mr. Brock has a good deal of the American way, himself,” Mr. Cecil Barth added, with an accent of extreme disfavor.
The Lady smiled again.
“I think you’ll have to develop some American ways, yourself, Mr. Barth,” she suggested.
Again the note of dejection came into his voice.
“I tried. Tried it, this afternoon.”
“And?” she said interrogatively.
“It was all wrong.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I thought I did it just as Mr. Brock does. I went into the drawing-room and found them together, just the way he has so often found us. I began to talk to her just as he does, only of course I wouldn’t think of chaffing her. You know he chaffs her, and she can’t seem to make him stop,” Barth added, in hasty explanation.
“What did you talk to her about?” the Lady queried.
“That’s just it. I didn’t get started talking at all. I just asked her if she wouldn’t like to talk.”
Once more the Lady bent over the blot.
“What did you invite her to talk about?” she asked quietly.
“Sainte Anne-de-Beaupré and all that.”
There was a pause. Then,—
“Go on,” said the Lady.
“We’d been talking about it in the library, just the afternoon before, and she seemed interested, asked about my accident and my nurse and all. Really, we were just beginning to get on capitally, when she had to go. I thought the best thing to do would be to begin where we left off; but she turned very cross, wouldn’t say a word to me and finally picked up her books and walked out of the room. I don’t see what I could have done to displease her.” And, putting on his glasses, Barth stared at the Lady with disconsolate, questioning blue eyes.
The Lady laughed a little. Nevertheless, she felt a deep longing to scold Nancy, to give Fate a sound box on the ear and to take Mr. Cecil Barth into her motherly embrace. She liked his frankness, liked the under note of respect which mingled in his outspoken admiration for Nancy. She could picture the whole scene: Barth’s nervous assumption of ease confronted with the nonchalant assurance of Brock, Nancy’s hidden amusement at the tentative request for polite conversation, and her open consternation at the subject which Barth had proposed for discussion. It was funny. She looked upon the scene with the eyes of Nancy and Brock, yet her whole womanly sympathy lay with the Englishman, an open-hearted, tongue-tied alien in a land of easy speech. Barth’s hand reste............