Confidence

Mrs. Vivian fluttered away.

“It ‘s Angela,” she cried, and she stood there waiting and listening, smiling at Bernard, with her handkerchief pressed to her lips.

In a moment the girl came into the drawing-room, but on seeing Bernard she stopped, with her hand on the door-knob. Her mother went to her and kissed her.

“It ‘s Mr. Longueville, dearest—he has found us out.”

“Found us out?” repeated Angela, with a little laugh. “What a singular expression!”

She was blushing as she had blushed when she first saw him at Blanquais. She seemed to Bernard now to have a great and peculiar brightness—something she had never had before.

“I certainly have been looking for you,” he said. “I was greatly disappointed when I found you had taken flight from Blanquais.”

“Taken flight?” She repeated his words as she had repeated her mother’s. “That is also a strange way of speaking!”

“I don’t care what I say,” said Bernard, “so long as I make you understand that I have wanted very much to see you again, and that I have wondered every day whether I might venture—”

“I don’t know why you should n’t venture!” she interrupted, giving her little laugh again. “We are not so terrible, are we, mamma?—that is, when once you have climbed our five flights of stairs.”

“I came up very fast,” said Bernard, “and I find your apartment magnificent.”

“Mr. Longueville must come again, must he not, dear?” asked mamma.

“I shall come very often, with your leave,” Bernard declared.

“It will be immensely kind,” said Angela, looking away.

“I am not sure that you will think it that.”

“I don’t know what you are trying to prove,” said Angela; “first that we ran away from you, and then that we are not nice to our visitors.”

“Oh no, not that!” Bernard exclaimed; “for I assure you I shall not care how cold you are with me.”

She walked away toward another door, which was masked with a curtain that she lifted.

“I am glad to hear that, for it gives me courage to say that I am very tired, and that I beg you will excuse me.”

She glanced at him a moment over her shoulder; then she passed out, dropping the curtain.

Bernard stood there face to face with Mrs. Vivian, whose eyes seemed to plead with him more than ever. In his own there was an excited smile.

“Please don’t mind that,” she murmured. “I know it ‘s true that she is tired.”

“Mind it, dear lady?” cried the young man. “I delight in it. It ‘s just what I like.”

“Ah, she ‘s very peculiar!” sighed Mrs. Vivian.

“She is strange—yes. But I think I understand her a little.”

“You must come back to-morrow, then.”

“I hope to have many to-morrows!” cried Bernard as he took his departure.

CHAPTER XXIII

And he had them in fact. He called the next day at the same hour, and he found the mother and the daughter together in their pretty salon. Angela was very gentle and gracious; he suspected Mrs. Vivian had given her a tender little lecture upon the manner in which she had received him the day before. After he had been there five minutes, Mrs. Vivian took a decanter of water that was standing upon a table and went out on the balcony to irrigate her flowers. Bernard watched her a while from his place in the room; then she moved along the balcony and out of sight. Some ten minutes elapsed without her re-appearing, and then Bernard stepped to the threshold of the window and looked for her. She was not there, and as he came and took his seat near Angela again, he announced, rather formally, that Mrs. Vivian had passed back into one of the other windows.

Angela was silent a moment—then she said—

“Should you like me to call her?”

She was very peculiar—that was very true; yet Bernard held to his declaration of the day before that he now understood her a little.

“No, I don’t desire it,” he said. “I wish to see you alone; I have something particular to say to you.”

She turned her face toward him, and there was something in its expression that showed him that he looked to her more serious than he had ever looked. He sat down again; for some moments he hesitated to go on.

“You frighten me,” she said laughing; and in spite of her laugh this was obviously true.

“I assure you my state of mind is anything but formidable. I am afraid of you, on the contrary; I am humble and apologetic.”

“I am sorry for that,” said Angela. “I particularly dislike receiving apologies, even when I know what they are for. What yours are for, I can’t imagine.”

“You don’t dislike me—you don’t hate me?” Bernard suddenly broke out.

“You don’t ask me that humbly. Excuse me therefore if I say I have other, and more practical, things to do.”

“You despise me,” said Bernard.

“That is not humble either, for you seem to insist upon it.”

“It would be after all a way of thinking of me, and I have a reason for wishing you to do that.”

“I remember very well that you used to have a reason for everything. It was not always a good one.”

“This one is excellent,” said Bernard, gravely. “I have been in love with you for three years.”

She got up slowly, turning away.

“Is that what you wished to say to me?”

She went toward the open window, and he followed her.

“I hope it does n’t offend you. I don’t say it lightly—it ‘s not a piece of gallantry. It ‘s the very truth of my being. I did n’t know it till lately—strange as that may seem. I loved you long before I knew it—before I ventured or presumed to know it. I was thinking of you when I seemed to myself to be thinking of other things. It is very strange—there are things in it I don’t understand. I travelled over the world, I tried to interest, to divert myself; but at bottom it was a perfect failure. To see you again—that was what I wanted. When I saw you last month at Blanquais I knew it; then everything became clear. It was the answer to the riddle. I wished to read it very clearly—I wished to be sure; therefore I did n’t follow you immediately. I questioned my heart—I cross-questioned it. It has borne the examination, and now I am sure. I am very sure. I love you as my life—I beg you to listen to me!”

She had listened—she had listened intently, looking straight out of the window and without moving.

“You have seen very little of me,” she said, presently, turning her illuminated eye on him.