George was in the habit of going to see Mamie every afternoon, and the hours he spent with her were by far the most pleasant in his day. Mrs. Trimm had thoroughly understood her daughter’s nature when she had told George that the girl possessed that sort of charm which never wearies men because they can never find out exactly where it lies. It was not easy to imagine that any one should be bored in Mamie’s society. George returned day after day, expecting always that he must ultimately find the continual conversation a burden, but reassured each time by what he felt after he had been twenty minutes in the house. As he was not profoundly moved himself it seemed unnatural that these long meetings should not at last become an irksome and uninteresting duty, the conscientious performance of which would react to the disadvantage of his subsequent happiness. The spontaneity which had given so much freshness to their intercourse while they were living under the same roof, was gone now that George found himself compelled to live by rules of consideration for others, and he was aware of the fact each time he entered Mamie’s presence. Nevertheless her manner and voice exercised such a fascination over him as made him forget after a quarter of an hour that he and she were no longer in the country, and that he was no longer free to see her or not see her, as he pleased, independently of all formality and custom. Nothing could have demonstrated Mamie’s superiority over most young women of her age more clearly than this fact. The situation of affianced couples after their engagement is announced is very generally hard to sustain with dignity on either side, but is more especially a difficult one for the man. It is undoubtedly rendered more easy by the enjoyment of the liberty granted among Anglo-Saxons in such 367cases. But that freedom is after all only a part of our whole system of ideas, and as we all expect it from the first, we do not realise that our position is any more fortunate than that of the young French gentleman, who is frequently not allowed to exchange a single word with his bride until he has been formally affianced to her, and who may not talk to her without the presence of a third person until she is actually his wife. Under our existing customs a young girl must be charming indeed if her future husband can talk with her three hours every day during six weeks or two months and go away each time feeling that his visit has been too short. Neither animated conversation nor frequent correspondence have any right to be considered as tests of love. Love is not to be measured by the fluent use of words, nor by an easy acquaintance with agreeable topics, nor yet by lavish expenditure in postage-stamps. George knew all this, and was moreover aware in his heart that there was nothing desperately passionate in his affection; he was the more surprised, therefore, to find that the more he saw of Mamie Trimm, the more he wished to see of her.
“Do you think,” he said to her, on that same afternoon in November, “that all engaged couples enjoy their engagement as much as we do?”
“I am sure they do not,” Mamie answered. “Nobody is half as nice as we are!”
They were seated in a small boudoir that adjoined the drawing-room. The wide door was open and they could hear the pleasant crackling of the first wood fire that was burning in the larger room, though they could not see it. The air without was gloomy and grey, for the late Indian summer was over, and before long the first frosts would come and the first flakes of snow would be driven along the dry and windy streets. It was early in the afternoon, however, and though the light was cold and colourless and hard, there was plenty of it. Mamie was established in a short but very deep sofa, something 368resembling a divan, one small foot just touching the carpet, the other hidden from view, her head thrown back and resting against the tapestry upon the wall, one arm resting upon the end of the lounge, the little classic hand hanging over the edge, so near to George that he had but to put out his own in order to touch it. He was seated with his back to the door of the drawing-room, clasping his hands over one knee and leaning forward as he gazed at the window opposite. He smiled at Mamie’s answer.
“No, I am sure other people do not enjoy sitting together and talking during half the day, as we do,” he said. “I have often thought so. It is you who make our life what it is. It will always be you, with your dear ways——”
He stopped, seeking an expression which he could not find immediately.
“Have I dear ways?” Mamie asked with a little laugh. “I never knew it before—but since you say so——”
“It is only those who love us that know the best of us. We never know it ourselves.”
“Do you love me, George?” The question was put to him for the thousandth time. To her it seemed always new and the answer was always full of interest, as though it had never been given before.
“Very dearly.” George laid his hand upon her slender fingers and pressed them softly. He had abandoned the attempt to give her an original reply at each repetition of the inquiry.
“Is that all?” she asked, pretending to be disappointed, but smiling with her grey eyes.
“Can a man say more and mean it?” George inquired gravely. Then he laughed. “The other day,” he continued, “I was in a train on the Elevated Road. There was a young couple opposite to me—the woman was a little round fat creature with a perpetual smile, pretty teeth, and dressed in grey. They were talking in low 369tones, but I heard what they said. Baby language was evidently their strong point. He turned his head towards her with the most languishing lover-like look I ever saw. ‘Plumpety itty partidge, who does ‘oo love?’ he asked. ‘Zoo!’ answered the little woman with a smile that went all round her head like the equator on a globe.”
Mamie laughed as he finished the story.
“That represented their idea of conversation, what you call ‘dear ways.’ My dear ways are not much like that and yours are quite different. When I ask you if you love me, you almost always give the same answer. But then, I know you mean it dear, do you not?”
“There it is again!” George laughed. “Of course I do—only, as you say, my imagination is limited. I cannot find new ways of saying it. But then, you do not vary the question either, so that it is no wonder if my answers are a little monotonous, is it?”
“Are my questions monotonous? Do I bore you with them, George?”
“No, dear. I should be very hard to please if you bored me. It is your charm that makes our life what it is.”
“I wish I believed that. What is charm? What do you mean by it? It is not an intellectual gift, it is not a quality, a talent, nor accomplishment. I believe you tell me that I have it because you do not know what else to say. It is so easy to say to a woman ‘You are full of charm,’ when she is ugly and stupid and cannot play on the piano, and you feel obliged to be civil. I am sure that there is no such thing as charm. It is only an imaginary compliment. Why not tell me the truth?”
“You are neither ugly nor stupid, and I am sincerely glad that you leave the piano alone,” said George. “I could find any number of compliments to make, if that were my way. But it is not, of course. You have lots of good points, Mamie. Look at yourself in the glass if you do not believe it. Look at your figure, look at your eyes, at your complexion, at your hands—listen to your own voice——”
370“Do not talk nonsense, George. Besides, that is only a catalogue. If you want to please me you must compare all those things to beautiful objects. You must say that my eyes are like—gooseberries, for instance, my figure like—what shall I say?”
“Like Psyche’s,” suggested George.
“Or like an hour-glass, and my hands like stuffed gloves, and my skin like a corn starch pudding, and my voice like the voice of the charmer. That is the way to be complimentary. Poetry must make use of similes and call a spade an ace—as papa says. When you have done all that, and turned your catalogue into blank verse, tell me if there is anything left which you can call charm.”
“Charm,” George answered, “is what every man who loves a woman thinks she has—and if she has it all men love her. You have it.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed the young girl. “Can you get no nearer to a definition than that?”
“Can you define anything which you only feel and cannot see—heat for instance, or cold?”
“Heat makes one hot, and cold makes one shiver,” answered Mamie promptly.
“And charm makes a woman loved. That is as good an answer as yours.”
“I suppose I must be satisfied, especially as you say that it can only be felt and not seen. Besides, if it makes you love me, why should I care what it is called? Do you know what it really is? It is love itself. It is because I love you so much, so intensely, that I make you love me. There is no such thing as charm. Charm is either a woman’s love, or her readiness to love—one or the other.”
Mamie laughed softly and moved the hand that was hanging over the end of the sofa, as though seeking the touch of George’s fingers. He obeyed the little signal quite unconsciously.
“Who can that be?” Mamie asked, after a moment’s 371pause. She thought that she had heard a door open and that some one had entered the drawing-room. George listened a few seconds.
“Nobody,” he said. “It was only the fire.”
While the two had been talking, some one had really entered the large adjoining room as Mamie had suspected. Thomas Craik was not in the habit of making visits in the afternoon, but on this particular day he had found the process of being driven about in a closed brougham more wearisome than usual, and it had struck him that he might find Totty at home and amuse himself with teasing her in some way or other. Totty was expected every moment, the servant had said, and the discreet attendant had added that Mr. George and Miss Mamie were in the boudoir together. Mr. Craik said that he would wait in the drawing-room, to which he was accordingly admitted. He knew the arrangement of the apartment and took care not to disturb the peace of the young couple by making any noise. It would be extremely entertaining, he thought, to place himself so as to hear something of what they said to each other; he therefore stepped softly upon the thick carpet and took up what he believed to be a favourable position. His hearing was still as sharp as ever, and he did not go too near the door of the inner room lest Totty, entering suddenly, should suppose that he had been listening.
“So you think that I only love you because you love me,” said George. “You are not very complimentary to yourself.”
“I did not say that, though that was the beginning. You would never have begun to love me—George, I am sure there is some one in the next room!”
“It is impossible. Your mother would have come directly to us, and the servants would not have let any caller go in while she was out. Shall I look?”
“No—you are quite right,” Mamie answered. “It is only the crackling of the fire.” She was holding his hand and did not care to let it drop in order that he might satisfy her curiosity. “What was I saying?”
372“Something very foolish—about my not loving you.”
Thomas Craik listened for a while to their conversation, eagerly at first and then with an expression of weariness on his parchment face. He had been afraid to sit down, for fear of making a noise, and he found himself standing before a table, on which, among many other objects was placed the small Indian cabinet he had once given to his sister. Many years had passed since he had sent it to her, but his keen memory for details had not forgotten the secret drawer it contained, nor the way to open it. He looked at it for some time curiously, wondering whether Totty kept anything of value in it. Then it struck him that if she really kept anything concealed there, it would be an excellent practical joke to take out the object, whatever it might be, and carry it off. The idea was in accordance with that part of his character which loved secret and underhand dealings. The scene which would ensue when he ultimately brought the thing back would answer the other half of his nature which delighted in inflicting brutal and gratuitous surprises upon people he did not like. He laid his thin hands gently on the cabinet and proceeded to open it as noiselessly as he could.
Mamie’s sharp ears were not deceived this time, however. She bent forward and whispered to George.
“There is somebody there. Go on tiptoe and look from behind the curtain. Do not let them see you, or we shall have to go in, and that would be such a bore.”
George obeyed in silence, stood a moment peering into the next room, concealed by the hangings and then returned to Mamie’s side. “It is your Uncle Tom,” he whispered with a smile. “He is in some mischief, I am sure, for he is opening that Indian cabinet as though he did not want to be heard.”
“I will tell mamma, when she comes in—what fun it will be!” Mamie answered. “He must have heard us before, so that we must go on talking—about the weather.” Then raising her voice she began to speak of their future plans.
373Meanwhile Mr. Craik had slipped back the part of the cover which concealed the secret drawer, and had opened the latter. There was nothing in it but the document which Totty kept there. He quickly took it out and closed the cabinet again. Something in the appearance of the paper attracted his attention, and instead of putting it into his poc............