"But if you didn't--"

"I didn't because I lost my temper a little. It seemed to me that the time had come to speak to her plainly."

"Plainly generally means severely. I think severity will never have much effect upon Garda; if you are severe, you will only lose your influence."

"My influence!--I don't know that I have any. What is your idea of Edgarda Thorne?" he said, suddenly. "I don't know that I have ever asked you. Very likely you won't tell."

"I will tell exactly, so far as I know it myself--my idea," replied Margaret. "One cannot have a very definite idea of a girl of sixteen."

"I beg your pardon; to me she seems a remarkably definite person."

"She is, in one way. I think she is very warm-hearted. I think she is above petty things; I have never seen any girl who went so little into details. Mentally, I think her very clever, though she is also indolent.

Her frankness would be the most remarkable thing about her were it not for her beauty, which is more remarkable still; it is her beauty, I think, that makes her, young as she is, so 'definite,' as you call it."

"We seem to have much the same idea of her," said Winthrop. "I shouldn't have thought it possible," he added.

"That we should agree in anything?" said Margaret, with a faint smile.

"No, not that; but a woman so seldom has the same idea of another woman that a man has. And--if you will allow me to say it--I think the man's idea often the more correct one, for a woman will betray (confide, if you like the term better) more of her inner nature, her real self, to a man, when she knows him well and likes him, than she ever will to any woman, no matter how well she may know and like her."

Margaret concurred in this.

"So you agree with me there too? Another surprise! What I have said is true enough, but women generally dispute it."

"What you have said is true, after a fashion," Margaret answered. "But the inner feelings you speak of, the real self, which a woman confides to the man she likes rather than to a woman, these are generally her ideal feelings, her ideal self; what she thinks she feels, or hopes to feel, rather than the actual feeling; what she wishes to be, rather than what she is. She may or may not attain her ideal; but in the mean time she is judged, by those of her own s.e.x at least, according to her present qualities, what she has already attained; what she is practically, and every day."

"So you think it is her ideals that Garda has confided to me? What sort of an ideal was Lucian Spenser!"

"Garda is an exception; she has no ideals."

"Oh! don't make her out so disagreeable."

"I couldn't make her out disagreeable even if I should try," answered Margaret. "All I mean is that her nature is so easy, so sunny, that it has never occurred to her to be discontented; and if you are contented you don't have ideals."

"Now you are making her out self-complacent."

"No, only simple; richly natural and healthy. She puts the rest of us (women, I mean) to shame--the rest of us with our complicated motives, and involved consciences."

"I hope you don't mean to say that Garda has no conscience?"

Margaret looked up; she saw that he was smiling. "She has quite enough for her happiness," she answered, smiling too.

But in spite of the smile he detected a melancholy in her tone. And this he instantly resented. For he would never allow that it was owing to her conscientiousness--her conscience, in short--that Margaret Harold's married life had been what it was; that sort of conscientiousness was odious.

"Don't imagine that I admire conscience," he remarked. "Too much of it makes an arid desert of a woman's life. A woman of that sort, too, makes her whole family live in the desert!"

Margaret made no reply to this. She left him and went to find Mrs.

Rutherford.

"Of course if it is Garda, little Garda," that lady replied, with a sort of sardonic playfulness which she had lately adopted, "I couldn't dream of objecting." She had given up open opposition since Winthrop's suggestion that Margaret could have, if she should wish it, a home of her own. The suggestion had been very disagreeable, not only in itself (the possibility of such a thing), but also because it cut so completely across her well-established position that it was an immense favor on her part to give Margaret a home. The favor implied, of course, a following grat.i.tude; and Margaret's grat.i.tude had been the broad cushion upon which Mrs. Rutherford had been comfortably seated for seven years. Take it away, and she would be reduced to making objections--objections (if it should really come to that) to Margaret's departure; and what objections could she make? She would never admit that her niece's presence had become necessary to her comfort; and to say that she was too young and attractive to be at the head of a house of her own, this would not accord at all with her accustomed way of speaking of her--a way which had carried with it the implication (though not in actual words) that she was neither. For some reason, the youth of other women was always an offence to Mrs. Rutherford.

However, she was skilful in reducing that attraction. Up to twenty, girls, of course, were "silly," "uninteresting." After that date, they all sprang immediately, in her estimation, to be "at least twenty-five,"

and well on the road, both in looks and character, to old-maidhood. If they married, it was even easier; for in a few months they were sure to become "so faded and changed, poor things," that one would scarcely know them; and, with a little determination, this stage could be kept along for fifteen or twenty years. Only when they were over forty did Mrs.

Rutherford begin to admit the possibility of their being rather attractive; in this lady's opinion, all the really "superb" women were several years even beyond that.

"I shall not be long away this time," Margaret had responded.

"Oh, enjoy your new plaything; it won't last!" said the aunt, still sportive.

Margaret reached East Angels before sunset. Mrs. Carew told her that Garda was down at the landing.

"I've been down there three times myself; in fact, I've just got back,"

said Betty, who looked flushed by these excursions. "The truth is, I fancy she doesn't want to talk--she's cried so; and so of course I don't stay, of course. And then, no sooner do I get back here, than I think perhaps she's lonely, and down I go again. I don't mind the walk in the _least_, though it _is_ a little warm to-day, but Carlos Mateo seems to have taken a spite against me, for every single time, both going and coming, he has chased me the whole length of the live-oak avenue--just as soon as we were out of Garda's sight; and I'm _so_ afraid he'll reach down and nip my ankles, that I _run_. However, I don't mind it at all, _really_; and when I came up this last time I thought the best thing I could do would be to try and get up something nice for Garda's supper; she's touched nothing since morning, and so much crying is dreadfully exhausting, of course. I'm right glad you've come, you'll be such a comfort to her; and now _I_ will devote my time (I reckon it'll take it all) to that Raquel, who certainly is the most tiresome; the only manner of means, Mrs. Harold, by which I can get what I want this evening is to keep going out to the kitchen and pretend to be merely looking in for a moment or two in a friendly sort of way, as though she were an old servant of my own, and talk about other matters, and then just allude to the supper at the end casually, as one may call it; by keeping this up an hour and a half _more_ (I've already been out three times) I _may_ get some faint approach to what I'm after. You see I'm only a Georgian, not a Spaniard! And to think of what poor little Mistress Thorne must have gone through with her--she, not even a Southerner! Oh dear! she must have suffered. But a good many of us have suffered," continued Betty, suddenly breaking down and bursting into tears. "I'm sure I don't know why I cry now, Mrs. Harold, any more than any other time; I'm ashamed of myself, really I am. But--sometimes--I--cannot--help it!" And for a few moments the stout, ruddy-faced woman sobbed bitterly. In truth she had suffered; she had seen her brothers, her husband's brothers, her young nephews, her own fortune and theirs, swept off by war, together with the hopes and beliefs which had been as real to her as life itself. She had never reasoned much, or argued, but she had felt. The unchangeable sweetness of her disposition, which had kept her from growing bitter, had not been a sign of quick forgetfulness; poor Betty's heart ached often, and never, never forgot.

"I didn't think you could be so sympathetic, my dear," she said, navely, to Margaret, as she wiped her eyes. "Thank you; I can see now why Garda's so fond of you." She pressed Margaret's hand, kissed her, and, still shaken by her sudden emotion, went out for another encounter with Raquel.

Margaret found Garda on the bench at the landing. She looked pale and exhausted, and was glad to lay her head on her northern friend's shoulder and tell her all her grief. It was a surprising sort of sorrow--she expressed it freely as usual; there was no manifestation of wounded pride in it, no anger that she had been so soon forgotten, or jealousy of the person whom Lucian had married; she seemed, indeed, scarcely to remember the person whom Lucian had married. All she remembered was that now she should probably not see him again, or soon again; and this was the cause of all her tears--disappointment in the hope of having the pleasure, the entertainment, of his presence. For it all came back to that, her amus.e.m.e.nt; the rich share of enjoyment that had been taken from her; even Lucian himself she did not dwell upon save as he was a.s.sociated with this, save as he could give her the delight of looking at him (she announced this as a great delight), could charm her with the versatility of his talk. "I have never seen any one half so beautiful"--"n.o.body _ever_ made me laugh so"--these two declarations she repeated over and over again; Margaret could have laughed herself had the grief which accompanied them been less real. But there was nothing feigned in the heavy eyes, and the sobs which came every now and then, shaking the girl's whole frame.

She remained at East Angels two days. During this time, while she was very gentle with Garda, she did not try to "bring her to reason," as Winthrop had suggested; but she did try the method of simple listening, and found it very efficacious.

Garda, unrebuffed, unchilled, and frank as always, let out all her thoughts, all her feelings; she said some very astonishing things--astonishing, that is, to her hearer; but then she was herself an astonishing girl, an unusual girl. The end of it was that the unusual girl clung more closely than ever to her friend, and that she soon became calmer, pa.s.sive if not happy. Winthrop, coming down to East Angels on the second day, found her so, and took counsel with Margaret, after she had returned home, over the change; he expressed the opinion that very soon she would have forgotten all about it. In this he was mistaken; the days pa.s.sed, and Garda remained in the same pa.s.sive condition. She was gentle with every one; to Margaret and Winthrop she was affectionate. But in spite of her bloom--for her color came back as soon as the tears ceased--in spite of her rich youthfulness, she had the appearance of a person who has stopped, who does not care, who has lost interest and lets the world go by. This could not make her look older; but it did give her a strange expression.

"A mourning child is worse than a mourning woman," said Winthrop to Margaret, emphatically. "It's unnatural."

"Garda isn't a child," she answered.

"Since when have you come to that conclusion?"

She hesitated. "I think, perhaps, I have never fully understood her. I don't know that I understand her even now."

"Oh, 'understand'--as if she were a sphinx, poor little girl! One thing is certain," he added, rather contradictorily, "if she loses her simplicity, she loses all her charm."

"Not all, I think."

"Yes, all to me."

"You cannot see what she finds to admire in Lucian Spenser; that is what vexes you."

"I am not in the least vexed. She fancied her own fancy, her own imagination; that was all."

"Garda has very little imagination."

"How you dislike her!" said Winthrop, looking straight into her eyes.

To his surprise he almost thought he saw them falter. "On the contrary, I am much attached to her," she answered, letting her glance drop; "I shall grow very fond of her, I see that. It was nothing against her to say that she has little imagination. If she had had more, would she have been so contented here? I think it has been very fortunate."

"Yes, she has certainly been contented," said Winthrop. "I like that."