Chapter V: Part II: I (2)

“Yes,” said Mrs. Joscelyn, with a sigh, “she was very obstinate and as close as wax. But I have always had an idea that he was not a lover, because, in the first place, she said so--and Aimée always told the truth--and, in the second place, because she never seemed to have any fancy for lovers, like other girls.--You know, Lydia, how often you have remarked that Aimée was so old-fashioned in this respect.”

“Yes,” assented Lydia, “but, as Percy says, Aimée is deep, and I don’t really feel that I know very much about her. As for the matter of the locket, though,” added the speaker with a sudden gleam of intuition, “that was as likely as not one of Fanny Meredith’s tricks. She was an outrageous flirt!”

“If I thought so!” exclaimed Percy Joscelyn, with a start. His eyes flashed as he spoke. Many a score had he to pay Fanny Meredith, who in truth took a malicious pleasure in frustrating his attempts to establish a claim upon Aimée; and if it were possible to bring anything out of the past against her, how delighted he would be to use it remorselessly! “But there is not the least proof of such a thing,” he said, almost resentfully, to his sister.

“No; it was only an idea that occurred to me,” she replied; “but I know what Fanny Berrien was, and I believe that, if you could induce Aimée to speak, you would find that it was so.”

“Then, in that case,” said the major, “you don’t believe the man was Aimée’s lover at all?”

“It does not matter what she believes,” Percy somewhat rudely interposed. “Opinions, without any ground of proof, amount to nothing. I know what I saw, and I know that the fellow has eyes only for Aimée now; and that Mrs. Meredith, as I have already said, encourages him by every means in her power.”

“Then,” said the major, sharply, “one thing is certain: Aimée can not be allowed to go out with the Merediths.”

“How will you prevent it?” Percy asked. “The last thing advisable is to force her to declare her independence of us, and any ill-judged attempt at control would do this. Nothing would please Mrs. Meredith better than to prompt her to such a course. No; watchfulness is our only resource--watchfulness, and perhaps stratagem. If it were possible to leave Venice now--”

“That would be the best thing,” said the major, “only--ah--what is to prevent this objectionable person from following us?”

“If that were all,” said Percy, “I should leave at once, and trust to luck or the shortness of his purse to prevent his following. But the real objection is that we could not be certain that Aimée would consent to go; and we could neither force her to do so nor leave her with the Merediths. So, departure is not to be thought of. We must fight the thing out by watchfulness and stratagem, as I have said.”

“Watchfulness--yes,” said his father, “that is plain, and of course necessary; but what stratagem do you propose?”

“I propose, for one thing, that some person shall always take charge of Mr. Kyrle, and prevent him from devoting himself to Aimée.”

“But how is any one to take charge of Mr. Kyrle--without his consent?” asked Mrs. Joscelyn, feebly.

“A man’s consent is always taken for granted where a lady is concerned,” young Joscelyn answered. “Lydia, here, might be equal to the delicate task, I think. All that is required is that she shall quietly take possession of Mr. Kyrle on all occasions, and make it impossible for him to attach himself to Aimée.--It is a task after your own heart,” he went on, addressing his sister with more than the suspicion of a brotherly sneer in his tone “I have seen you on many occasions monopolize men very much against their will. Do you think you can manage the same thing with Kyrle?”

A flush rose to her cheek and was visible through the powder that covered it. “You are as insulting as usual,” she said.

“On the contrary, I am most flattering,” he returned, suavely--for he felt that Lydia’s assistance was essential at this juncture of affairs. “Only a woman of rare powers can do these things. A stupid woman or a clumsy woman can never succeed in them. It requires a peculiar tact to take possession of a man and keep him fastened to your side whether he likes or not.”

“I understand perfectly all that you mean to imply,” she said, coldly; “and if I do this thing it is not out of regard for you or your plans, but because I have an object of my own in it.”

“Whatever your object,” her brother replied, “only _do_ the thing, and I shall be satisfied, and never doubt your powers again.”

V.

But while the family council was thus laying plans for keeping Aimée and her old acquaintance apart, Fortune, which sometimes takes up weapons and fights for those who have neither heart nor power to fight for themselves, had most unexpectedly brought them together.

It was quite early in the morning, soon after he had taken that light collation which on the Continent is called the first breakfast, that Kyrle, sauntering on the Piazza and asking himself whether he should fulfill his engagement of calling on Mrs. Meredith, or whether he should, more sensibly, leave Venice, these old entanglements, and new perils, behind him, suddenly perceived a lady, accompanied by her maid, just entering the great portal of the cathedral. He had not sat behind that figure the day before and studied it in vain. He recognized at once the elegant outlines, the graceful carriage, and without a moment’s hesitation he followed her into the church, as he had long ago followed her into the Florida orange grove.

Who does not know by sight or by fame that wonderful interior in whose darkness lies hid the spoils of the Orient, and whose ancient pavement in its undulations seems to imitate the waves of the sea that cradles it? Kyrle knew it well; but just now he was not thinking of gorgeous mosaics, or marvelous carving, of columns of verd-antique, jasper, or porphyry; his eyes were searching the gloom of the vast edifice for the figure which had entered a few minutes before, and some time elapsed before he discovered what he sought, in a chapel where a priest was saying mass and a small congregation were assembled.

As he drew near the chapel, struck by the infinitely picturesque scene--the rich, jewel-incrusted altar, the priest in his golden vestments, the contrasts of rank and costume in the forms kneeling on the pavement--he suddenly saw Aimée, her maid on one side, on the other a Venetian girl with a black lace shawl thrown over such red-gold hair as Titian painted, while a shaft of sunlight from some high, remote window brought out the delicate fairness of her face from the shadowy obscurity around. Satisfied with having found the object of his search, Kyrle paused, and, leaning against a pillar, waited until the service was over and those who had assisted thereat were dispersing. Then he stepped from the shadow of the pillar and presented himself to Aimée. She looked a little surprised, but greeted him quietly, and together they walked toward the entrance.

“I was about to remark that I am fortunate to meet you,” Kyrle said presently, “but one should pay a sacred edifice the compliment of being strictly truthful while within its walls, shouldn’t one? And the truth in this case is that I saw you come in and followed you. I am thinking of leaving Venice to-day.”

If he had intended to surprise her by the announcement, he must have been disappointed by the calmness with which she replied: “You are leaving Venice to-day? Is not that sooner than you anticipated?”

“I had made no plans,” he answered. “When I paused here, I did not intend to linger more than a few days. And now, though I am strongly tempted to remain, I--Well, I think I had better go.”

Almost every one has had occasion to learn more than once in life the extreme difficulty of keeping all trace of strong feeling out of the voice. Kyrle was conscious of being somewhat exasperated with himself and Fate, as he uttered the last words, and naturally the inflection of his tone betrayed the feeling. Aimée glanced at him quickly--involuntarily, it appeared--and in the light of that glance there suddenly flashed upon him an understanding of what interpretation she might give to his words. Her eyes seemed to say, “Ah, is _that_ it!” But before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to know how to explain himself, she had looked away again and was saying in her clear, low voice: “If you think it best, of course you are right to go. And one should not attempt to change your resolution.”

“No one is likely to attempt to change it,” he replied, with a slight laugh. “But I think you misunderstand me a little,” he added, after a pause, with a sudden impulse of candor. “We were once thrown together very singularly; I am sure you do not forget this any more than I do. Therefore, since we are not strangers, will you let me speak to you frankly?”

“Surely, if you wish to do so,” she answered; but he saw that she looked a little startled.

“Do not be afraid,” he said, quietly. “I have no intention of saying anything that you need hesitate to hear. But may I ask you to sit down for a moment?”

They were now in the _atrium_, or inner porch of the church. Aimée hesitated for an instant, then, turning to her maid, said in French:

“Go to the Merceria and make the purchases of which you spoke. I will wait for you here.”

“Oui, mademoiselle,” replied the girl, without the change of a feature, and forthwith departed.

Kyrle could hardly believe his good fortune, but as Aimée sat down on one of the stone benches fixed against the wall, he said, gratefully:

“You are very kind--as kind as I remember you of old. And I have no more forgotten how kind you were then, than I have ceased to thank Heaven for the message you so bravely brought me.”

She looked up at him and he saw in her face that she was astonished.

“But--” she began, and then paused.

“But you thought that I meant something else a minute ago,” he said. “You thought I meant that I found it best to go because I felt the old attraction reviving. Is it not so?”

She dropped her eyes. “Was it not natural that I should think so?” she asked.

“Perhaps it was natural,” he answered, “but you were mistaken. My only sentiment with regard to that past folly is one of sincerest thankfulness for my escape. The last time we sat like this together--have you forgotten the evening in the orange grove?--I told you that my fancy for Fanny Berrien was dead, killed by her duplicity to me and her selfishness toward you. I may have been a little melodramatic, but I meant exactly what I said. From that day to this her memory has not cost me a pang. As for Mrs. Meredith, she is a very pretty and amusing person, who acted altogether according to her kind, and to whom for her conduct toward myself I bear no malice whatever. On the contrary, my sentiment toward her is one of lively gratitude--although I have never forgiven her for her conduct toward you.”

Aimée had lifted her eyes now, and was looking at him again very steadily. It was as if she were deciding in her own mind the question of his sincerity. Then she said, with her old simplicity and directness:

“But why do you wish to tell this to me?”

“Because,” he answered, “whether I go or whether I stay, I do not wish you to regard me as the victim of a hopeless passion for the wife of Mr. Meredith.”

“I should scarcely have thought that,” she answered; “but it was surely natural to fancy that you might remember--with pain--”

“Oh, no; it is no matter for pain,” he said, as she hesitated--“only for a light-comedy smile and sigh. Fancies of that sort come and go like dreams. One must know many of them before one learns what love really is.”

She turned her dark, meditative eyes away from him. On one side was the interior of the marvelous old church, gleaming with marbles and precious stones; on the other the sunshiny Piazza, with its graceful arcades and flocks of sheeny pigeons. She looked toward the last as she said:

“I do not think I like such an idea.”

“You?” he said, quickly. “No; how could _you_ like it? It is not meant to apply to natures like yours.”

“Is it not?” she asked, with a smile. “But how can you tell that, when you know nothing of my nature?”

“Do you think I know nothing of your nature?” he asked, smiling also. “If I had time, and you did not consider me too presumptuous, I might prove the contrary, for you forget all that you showed me once--all the courage, the unselfishness, the humility. But I do not forget. And has no one ever told you that you carry your soul on your lips and your heart in your eyes?”

“No,” she replied, “I do not remember that any one ever told me so before--at least not exactly. But perhaps Fanny means the same thing when she tells me that my face is ‘ridiculously transparent.’”

“It is only a different way of stating the same thing,” said Kyrle, and then they both laughed.

“But seriously,” said he, after a moment, conscious of a very pleasant sense of _camaraderie_ with this beautiful companion, “have you no idea how you revealed yourself to me at that last meeting of ours under the orange trees? How I can see you this moment, as you were then--such a delicate, childlike creature, but with a strength of resolution against which I arrayed all _my_ strength in vain! And then, when you opened your heart and told me the sad story of your life, and how it was gratitude which made you so resolute--do you think I could ever forget anything so touching? Many a time, in the years which have passed since then, I have thought of that scene, and said to myself, ‘God bless that child wherever she may be, for she has a heart as tender as it is brave!’”

Something in his voice told her that he was speaking genuinely, without the least insincerity or thought of effect, and she could not but give him a grateful glance from the same dark eyes which had impressed him with their wonderful power of expression on the occasion of which he spoke. “You are very kind,” she said, trying to speak lightly, “to have remembered an obstinate child so long!”

“You were certainly very obstinate,” he said; “but how brave you were! To think of your having had the courage to go alone to the sea wall that night, and to think of the selfishness and cowardice that sent you! Pardon me for asking the question, but has no opportunity ever occurred for you to set yourself right in that matter?”

She shook her head. “How could it?” she asked. “Fanny has never had the courage to tell her husband the truth. But nothing disagreeable has arisen from it--to me, I mean,” she added, a little hurriedly. “You know you were afraid of that.”

“Yes,” he said. “I am very glad that you have never been annoyed; still, it is a shame that such a belief should be in the mind of any one with regard to you.”

He spoke out, quickly and hotly, the indignation that on this subject was always within him and ready to find expression; but he was sorry the next moment for the words when he saw a swift blush rise into her face, as with the sudden realization of what the belief was to which he alluded. Angry with himself, he went on hastily:

“This being so--I mean, the burden of Mrs. Meredith’s conduct being still borne by you--I feel that I am bound to abstain on my part from anything which might cause you the least annoyance; and so I have determined to go away. There shall not be the least misapprehension about you, arising from any act of mine.”

So much was truth; but, like many other people, Kyrle did not find it advisable to tell all the truth. He could not say, “Also, I am going, because if I stay I shall fall in love with you, and that will never do, for I am a poor man, and you are a rich woman.” But this was in his mind, even while the temptation was growing greater every instant to forget both of these stubborn facts. Aimée was silent for a moment, and then--for the old courage, as well as the old simplicity, was still strong in her--she looked at him with her brave, direct glance, and said:

“If this is your reason for leaving Venice, I hope that you will not think of going. Your presence does not cause me the least annoyance; and I should be more sorry than I can tell you if mine were such an annoyance to you that we could not even remain in the same city. For, do you think I forget that if you are in a false position, it was my obstinacy that placed, or at least kept you there? How earnestly you appealed to me, and I could not yield! And are you now to be the sufferer by being driven away from this heavenly place? No, Mr. Kyrle, there is no justice in that. I will not allow it!”

He could have smiled at the energy with which she spoke, partly because he read in it the old generous spirit, taking no heed or thought of herself, and partly because, in urging him to remain, she proved that she so little suspected the chief reason why departure seemed to him necessary. What he would have answered it is hard to say, for at that moment the maid, bearing some packages, made her appearance, and Aimée, rousing to the consciousness that there was something very unconventional in this prolonged conversation, rose rather hastily, bade him good-morning, and walked away.

* * * * *

“Going to leave Venice?” said Fanny Meredith. “What an absurd idea! What do you mean by it?”

The time was two hours later than when, standing in the shadow of the cathedral porch, Kyrle had watched Aimée cross the sunshine-flooded Piazza; and the place was the privacy of Mrs. Meredith’s sitting-room in the Grand Hotel. The two people who occupied it were alone together for the first time since they had parted as lovers; but it is safe to say that this thought was not in the mind of either of them. Kyrle, leaning back in a deep chair, was gazing absently out of the window at the beautiful proportions of Santa Maria della Salute just across the Grand Canal, while Mrs. Meredith, with her pretty brows knitted, was gazing at _him_.

“I mean,” he said slowly, in reply to her last words, “that I think it is the only wise course open to me.”

She threw herself back with an impatient gesture. “You are as incomprehensible as ever!” she exclaimed. “Now, what on earth do you mean by the only wise course open to you?”

“Briefly, then,” said Kyrle, “you were shrewd enough to observe last night that I am in danger of falling in love with Miss Vincent--”

“Oh, no,” said Fanny, shaking her head, “I observed that the thing was already accomplished.”

“There you are mistaken,” said he; “it is not already accomplished. Or if it were,” he added, lamely, “there is the more reason for my going away, since I only expose myself to useless pain by remaining.”

“But why useless pain?” asked she. “Have you so faint a heart that you are afraid of Percy Joscelyn as a rival?”

“Not at all,” answered he, calmly. “But it is quite impossible for me to become his rival. Have you not told me that Miss Vincent is a great heiress?”

“Yes; she has a large fortune in her own right, and without any restrictions--happy girl!”

“I hope it may prove for her happiness,” said Kyrle, rather gloomily, “but it is an effectual bar to any hope on my part. A newspaper correspondent would hardly be a fit _parti_ for such an heiress.”

“And whose fault is it that you are a newspaper correspondent?” asked Mrs. Meredith, with a malice born of past recollections. “But, in my opinion, that is all nonsense,” she went on, briskly. “Birth and social position are the things to be considered, rather than a mere accident of money.”

“The accident of money is what the world considers,” said he, “and I must consider it also. For myself, I have perhaps thought of it too little. If so, I am punished by finding it now an insuperable barrier between myself and the woman I might love.”

Fanny opened her lips to speak, but apparently thought better of it before any words escaped. She closed them again and sat silent for a moment, evidently reflecting. Then she looked at Kyrle with an expression of resigned regret.

“I remember how ob--that is, determined you are,” she said; “so I suppose there is nothing to be gained by arguing the matter. But since your mind is so fully made up, why should you run away? I thought that was the resource of weakness and indecision.”

“No doubt it is,” said he, falling into the artful trap, “and I felt very weak last night, I assure you. But, after all, there is no reason why I should go at once--” looking out at the enchanting sea and sky, and remembering Aimée’s last words. “A day or two can not matter, and it is nobody’s affair but my own if I choose to pay for present pleasure by future pain.”

“Oh, dear, no--not anybody’s affair at all,” said Fanny. “And then, you can so easily take another trip to Egypt and forget all about it. I really wish you would stay,” she added, persuasively. “We might have such a pleasant time wandering about Venice! And a man need not abjure the society of a woman because he thinks her too rich to marry.”

“No, certainly not,” said Lennox, though he knew in his heart that this was sophistry. “Well, at least I will not go to-day. I will stay as long as I first intended--that is, two or three days longer.”

“How nice of you!” said Fanny, with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. “And you will also stay to breakfast?”

“You are very kind, but not to-day. If you are going anywhere this afternoon, however, and will allow me to join you--”

“We are going out to the Lido. Meet us there, and we can all return together. And one word--don’t mind the incivility of the Joscelyns. They are uncivil because they are afraid of you.”

“I am very well aware of that,” said he, with a smile. Then his heart sank, and his voice also, as he added, “But if they only knew it, they have no cause for fear.”

“They are wiser than to believe that. And so am I,” thought Fanny; but she took very good care not to utter her thought aloud.

VI.

Somewhat to Mrs. Meredith’s and also to Kyrle’s own surprise, he had no incivility to encounter from any of the Joscelyns when he joined their party on the Lido that afternoon. The heads of the family received him courteously, if stiffly, and Miss Joscelyn greeted him like an old friend. Indeed, by what means he could not for the life of him tell, she soon managed to monopolize his attention, calling upon him for the little services which no gentleman can refuse to render to a woman, and presently drawing him aside from the rest of the party to walk with her on the beach, while she discoursed to him of many things in heaven and earth which did not interest him in the least. His judgment upon her, meanwhile, was uncompromising.

“A mass of silliness and affectation,” he said to himself, but in this he did her some injustice. She was not only less silly than he imagined--possessing, in fact, a good deal of shrewdness--but at the present time she had an object in view in her discursive conversation which his irritated and distracted mind was far from perceiving.

For it is to be feared that, had pearls of wit and wisdom dropped from her lips, they would have fallen on equally inattentive ears. Kyrle had said sternly to himself, while on his way to the Lido, that he would be very careful not to devote himself to Aimée; that, because she had asked him to remain in Venice, he was the more bound not to cause her the faintest shadow of annoyance by attentions that might be misconstrued; and that he would only allow himself the pleasure of seeing and of talking to her, as any other chance acquaintance might. But to renounce voluntarily some happiness for which Nature longs is one thing, and to have it forcibly placed beyond reach by outside agency is another. Even if the happiness in question is no more than looking into a pair of soft, dark eyes, and listening to ordinary sentences uttered in a sweet voice, one may be supported in voluntary renunciation by a sense of virtue which is altogether lacking in feeling that the matter is taken out of one’s own power. So Kyrle chafed inwardly against the quiet but resolute hold of Miss Joscelyn upon his attention, even while he said to himself that it was in a degree what he had intended, and that he was glad of an opportunity to prove to these people what an absurd fiction it was that he had ever been Aimée’s lover.

Yet all the time he was conscious of an insistent desire, the hunger of the heart which comes with love, to renew the charm of that half hour in the _atrium_ of St. Mark’s, to take up the thread of conversation where they had dropped it, and feel again that sense of sympathy and comradeship, of understanding and being understood, which had quickened all his being into new life. And, instead of this, he was pacing the beach with Lydia Joscelyn, and lending half an ear to what he called in his own mind empty twaddle.

Twaddle it might be, but empty--that is, devoid of meaning--it was not. Lydia, with an art which did her credit, approached slowly but surely to the point she had distinctly in view; and presently she touched it.

“Percy tells me that you sing beautifully, Mr. Kyrle,” she said. “He declares that he never heard anything finer than your singing in the gondola last night. You must come out with us to-night and let me hear you. I adore fine singing. I wonder that Aimée never mentioned that you had such a fine voice.”

Kyrle, roused from partial abstraction by the sound of Aimée’s name, fell unconsciously into the trap. “I do not think that Miss Vincent knew anything about my voice,” he replied, “so it would have been difficult for her to say anything about it.”

“No!” said his companion, opening her eyes. “I thought I had understood that you were _quite_ old friends.”

This roused him thoroughly, for the tone implied much more than the words. The indignation which was ever ready to be excited on this point rose within him, as it had risen before that day. He determined that nothing should induce him to lend his aid to Fanny Berrien’s deception, and allow these people to fancy injurious things of Aimée. Miss Joscelyn was a little startled by the haughtiness of his glance as he turned it on her.

“I could esteem nothing more of an honor,” he said, stiffly, “than to have been either an old or a new friend of Miss Vincent. But, in point of fact, our acquaintance in the past was very slight, as your knowledge that she was quite a child at the time might inform you.”

“Oh!” said Miss Joscelyn. Even her self-possession had need to recover itself after this _douche_ of cold water. But, while she exclaimed mentally that he was a perfect churl, her resentment was accompanied by a sense of triumph. “There _is_ a mystery,” she thought, “and I am sure that Fanny Meredith is at the bottom of it!” With a laudable desire of probing further, therefore, she went on:

“We have all misunderstood a little, then,” she said, with some significance. “There has been an impression created--not so much by Aimée as by Mrs. Meredith--that you were friends in a very particular sense. I think,” she added, with an air of carefully weighing her words, “that it is a pity such an impression should be allowed to remain, if it does Aimée an injustice.”

“If such an impression exists,” said Kyrle, with emphasis, “it certainly does Miss Vincent the greatest injustice, and should not be permitted to remain. I repeat that my acquaintance with her was very slight, and that I thought of her only as a child, though I was struck by some qualities very remarkable in a child, which she displayed.”

“It is singular, since your acquaintance with her was so slight, that you should have been able to discover these qualities,” observed Miss Joscelyn, innocently, “for Aimée is _very_ reserved, very secretive, one may say, in her nature.”

“There were circumstances which called out the qualities,” said Kyrle, briefly; for he began to understand that he was being subjected to a process vulgarly known as pumping, and he had no idea of either gratifying Miss Joscelyn’s curiosity or betraying Fanny Meredith’s secret, unless defense of Aimée should make the last absolutely necessary.

“It is rather difficult to imagine what circumstances calculated to draw out remarkable qualities could have thrown together a shy child like Aimée and a young man like yourself,” said Miss Joscelyn, musingly. She glanced at him, and since the expression of his face said plainly that he declined to be communicative regarding these circumstances, she proved her talent for cross-examination by a swift and unexpected diversion:

“What a very attractive girl Fanny Berrien was at that time! Speaking of your acquaintance with Aimée reminds me that it was during that winter in Florida she became engaged to Mr. Meredith. It was said that she jilted another man shamefully--some one to whom she had been engaged a long time--in order to marry him.”

“Very likely,” responded Kyrle, feeling bound to make some comment. “I should imagine that Mrs. Meredith was never inclined to limit herself in strings to her bow.”

“She was always a dreadful flirt!” said Lydia, shaking her head with an air of virtuous reprobation. “I fancy Mr. Meredith does not know a quarter of her escapades.”

“Are we not always informed that, where ignorance is bliss, only folly would desire to be wise?” replied Kyrle, impatiently. “But shall we not return to your party? I think I see some one waving to us.”

Some one was indeed waving energetically and when they reached the group they found them in readiness to embark on the return voyage. In fact, the Merediths, Aimée, and Percy Joscelyn already filled one gondola. Fanny met Kyrle’s crestfallen look with a mocking gleam in her eye.

“All things do _not_ come to him who waits too long,” she said, oracularly. “Had you been a little earlier, I might have offered you a place with us; but now you will have to return as you came, alone, unless Lydia allows you to recline at her feet.”

“We shall be very happy if Mr. Kyrle will come with us,” said the major, blandly.

But Mr. Kyrle declined, more emphatically than was necessary. His own gondola was waiting, he said, and (this the merest and vaguest politeness), since he was alone, could he not offer a seat to any one?

Miss Joscelyn and her brother exchanged glances, and then the young lady sweetly spoke: “Since you are so kind, Mr. Kyrle--it really _is_ too bad for you to have to return alone--and as there are only two comfortable seats in a gondola, I will give mine to papa and come with you.”

She held out her hand to be assisted into the boat, and Kyrle, mentally anathematizing his own politeness, muttered that he was “delighted,” Fanny Meredith laughed rather irrelevantly, and they all pushed off.

What a picture it was when they were floating on the wide lagoon, with Venice rising before them out of the shining waters, its domes and towers enveloped in the golden haze of sunset, like some dream of fancy, too magically fair for reality! In such an hour and scene, who does not long for sympathetic companionship? Poor Kyrle at least did, as instinctively he glanced toward the gondola that held Aimée, and thought how different all this glory of earth and sky, all the enchanted loveliness of the most poetical spot on earth, would have appeared to him had he been able to see it reflected in her eyes.

* * * * *

“Upon my word, Lydia, you astonished me this afternoon!” Mr. Percy Joscelyn condescended to say to his sister that evening. “I really had no idea of your ability before. You managed the situation perfectly. I never saw anything better done than the way you took possession of Kyrle.” He laughed softly. “The fellow’s face, when he stepped into his gondola, was a study!”

Lydia flushed at the laugh. She was pleased to be commended--to have proved conclusively that she had power to do what she had undertaken; but her vanity suffered under the imputation that she had forced herself upon an unwilling man. No woman likes to feel this. Even if it be a fact, she conceals it as far as possible from herself, and never forgives the person who thrusts it brutally before her.

“I did not find it at all difficult to monopolize Mr. Kyrle, as you call it,” she said, with a tone of offense in her voice. “He did not seem to object to being monopolized. And about Aimée--I have found out just what I expected--he never was her lover at all.”

“How do you know?” asked her brother, eagerly.

“Because he told me so. Oh, you need not laugh! I was not foolish enough to ask the question as a question; I made him tell me what I wanted to know without his hardly being aware that he was telling it. I think I remember all the conversation. It was like this--”

She proceeded to give a fairly accurate report of it, to which Percy listened with the keenest attention, and, when she finished, admitted that her conclusions were probably right.

“I agree with you that it was most likely some tricky game of Fanny Berrien’s, in which she used Aimée as a blind,” he said. “And, late in the day as it is, there is nothing I should like so much as to get on the track of it and expose her. But we have no proof--none whatever--for you say this fellow will not speak, and we know that Aimée will not.”

“He may speak--that is, he may give me information without intending to do so, as he did this afternoon,” Lydia calmly replied. “I don’t despair of finding out the whole thing; but, after all, it has no great bearing on the present state of affairs.”

“More than you imagine,” her brother said. “A hold on Mrs. Meredith would be the most useful thing possible to me just now. If, as I don’t doubt, this man was an old lover of hers, she has not only deceived her husband with regard to him, but she is now bringing him forward as a suitor for Aimée. Give me one iota of proof of the story we both believe, and I will go to her and say: ‘You have probably still sufficient influence over Mr. Kyrle to send him away.’ If not, I shall have the pleasure of telling Mr. Meredith the story of your love affair with him in the past. Get me the proof, Lydia--give me the power to say this--and there is nothing you can ask me that I will not do for you.”

“I will do my best,” said Lydia, “but absolute proof is difficult to get, you know. One may be perfectly certain, and yet not have that.”

“I know,” Percy answered. “But anything that would give me a hold over that woman--” He broke off in his speech, but the intensity of his tone boded little good to Fanny Meredith should that hold over her be obtained. “One thing, at least, is certain,” he resumed after a moment--“the man explicitly denied to you that he had ever been Aimée’s lover.”

“Explicitly and emphatically.”

“Then that point is number one secured. This is a good beginning. Continue the work, Lydia, and let us see how long Mr. Kyrle will allow himself to be monopolized.”

VII.

Mr. Kyrle allowed himself to be monopolized almost unresistingly for several days. Not indeed as completely as at the Lido, but to a degree sufficient to prevent any satisfactory intercourse with Aimée. A sudden passion for excursions seemed to have seized the Joscelyns, who had hitherto seen as little as possible of the different places in which they had unwillingly sojourned, and who had seemed quite insensible to any claims of art or history upon their attention. Now, however, they discovered that the neighborhood of Venice abounded in places of interest; and Lydia arranged one excursion after another to the adjacent islands, excursions which Kyrle was invited to join, and during which he was carefully kept as much as possible apart from Aimée.

The tactics by which this was managed were beautifully simple. He found himself sitting by Miss Joscelyn’s side in a gondola, carrying her shawl, offering her his arm whenever the need for an arm arose, without in the least understanding how it all came about. But one of the lookers-on understood perfectly, and laughed to herself with an amusement not untinctured by malice. “He declined my aid,” Mrs. Meredith thought, “so I shall leave him to Lydia’s mercy. A man, poor creature, is so helpless in such a case!”

This man was certainly very helpless. There was not in him any of the tincture of brutality which exists in men who can release themselves from such a position by the simplest and most direct methods. He could not be deaf when a woman asked for assistance; he could not refuse to hold a parasol over her when she requested him to do so, nor leave her alone when, falling behind the others, she pleaded fatigue and begged to “rest a little.” They were all threadbare artifices, but still strong enough to hold one who to the instincts of a gentleman in such matters added a certain hopelessness with regard to his own affairs. For, after all, he said to himself, he had made up his mind not to compromise Aimée by attentions of a loverlike character, and it was well that Lydia Joscelyn should help him to keep this somewhat difficult resolution.

But it was a resolution which every day became more difficult, as every day the charm that breathed from her presence laid deeper hold upon him. Despite the vigilance of the Joscelyns, they had occasional opportunities for conversation, and every such opportunity seemed to him to strengthen that impression of a rare individuality which she had from their first acquaintance made upon him. Now and then there were glimpses of thoughts and feelings that lay usually hidden under the gentle composure with which she met the world; and these glimpses, he had a fancy, were given only to him. One of these rare occasions occurred on an excursion to one of the islands, where they encountered another group of tourists, who, proving to be acquaintances, distracted for a time the attention of the rest of the party and so made it possible for him to find Aimée alone. She was sitting, when he discovered her, under the shadow of the cloisters belonging to the ancient and partially deserted monastic building they were supposed to be examining, gazing seaward; and as he approached unobserved, he was struck by the wistful, almost sad expression of her face. The expression vanished as she became conscious of his presence; only a slight shadow still lingered in her eyes as she turned them on him. But she spoke, with a smile:

“Does a scene like this,” she said, indicating the wide, beautiful marine picture spread before them, “ever rouse in you the expectation of seeing a sail rise up from ‘the underworld’ bringing some wonderful good fortune to you? I am always expecting it. I never look at an ocean horizon without saying to myself, ‘When will my sail come?’”

“I thought,” he said, as he sat down beside her, “that your sail had come, bearing what most people consider the best of good fortune.”

“You mean money?” she asked. “Yes, that came to me, and I am not so ungrateful as to underrate its value, though I can not say it has done much for me; but I am not thinking of anything so prosaic, in looking for my fairy sail. That will bring--ah, I know not what, but something that will give a different meaning to life. All things seem possible there”--she waved her hand toward the distant meeting-place of sea and sky; “one feels as if everything for which one longs might come out of that mysterious distance.”

“But if the magic fortune delays, why not go in search of it?” Kyrle asked, smiling at the fancifulness of the talk. “Shall we embark? Behind that dim line we may find all that we have lacked in life awaiting us.”

She shook her head. “No,” she answered; “I have no heart to search the unknown. I am one of those who can only sit on the shore and wait the coming of the sail, however much it may delay.”

Something in her tone, an unconscious echo of the sadness still lurking in her eyes, made Kyrle realize more fully than he had ever done before that her life was certainly not happy. How, indeed, could happiness in any positive degree exist in such an environment as hers? Physical well-being, the comfort and luxury of wealth were hers; but what besides, what love for the tender heart, what sympathy for the aspiring mind? No wonder that the dark, wistful eyes sought the horizon for the magic sail that should bring some meaning into her colorless days. A rush of pity made speech impossible to him for several minutes, and with pity came a longing like a passion to seize and bear her away from the odious people who surrounded and preyed upon her, into the sunshine of such a full and generous existence as her nature craved. It was the force of repression which he had to exert upon himself which made his voice sound almost stern, as he said:

“The most of us can do little more than sit on the shore and wait for sails that long delay in their coming. But I fear that what we chiefly look for them to bring is that prosaic fortune which you despise.”

“Oh, no,” she answered, quickly, “I am not so foolish nor, as I have said, so ungrateful as to despise wealth. But if I do not rate its power as high as most people seem to do, that is natural. My fortune has really brought me very little personal good. I have often thought that I should have been happier without it. Yet that seems ungrateful; and my family would think it sheer profanity,” she added, with a smile.

“I wish,” said Kyrle, with an energy that was fairly startling, “I wish to Heaven that I were a rich man! Shall I tell you what I would do? It is understood that we are in fairyland, you know. I would have a yacht--a very sea-gull for swiftness and beauty--at my bidding, and I would take you--”

“Oh, here she is!” said a voice at a little distance--the far from welcome voice of Percy Joscelyn. “Aimée, we are waiting for you.”

* * * * *

It chanced that Kyrle was thinking of this conversation and all that it had suggested the next day as, having left the party in a church engaged in inspecting, with blank amazement, some frescoes of Carpaccio which Mr. Ruskin has held up to the admiration of the world, he went out on the little piazza before the church and sat down on the steps which led down to the canal, to wait for them. As he sat there in the soft Venetian sunlight he was of two moods--one to go quickly, at once, out of a temptation which had become overmastering; the other, to cast all scruples to the winds, and show these people--who fancied, forsooth, that their stratagems and devices had any power to restrain him--how little such barriers of straw would stand in his way did he once resolve to take that way. Some one, who came quietly out of the church and sat down beside him, thought that at this moment he looked more like the old, masterful Lennox Kyrle than he had looked since she had seen him under these new conditions.

“I wonder,” said Fanny Meredith, “if you are by this time aware that you are a very foolish man?”

He turned and looked at her. “I have been aware of it for a long time,” he answered, quietly.

“And is not the knowledge of folly the beginning of wisdom? Are you not sorry now that you refused my good offices?”

“Did I refuse them? I am not sure of it. But, if so, the reason holds good now as then, which made it impossible for me to accept them. You urged me to come forward as a suitor to your cousin, and I told you that I was too poor a man to think of doing so. My position has not changed since then.”

“But if you don’t see the folly of _that_, you are not at the beginning of wisdom,” said she, impatiently. “Why, according to your fancy, only rich people should ever marry rich people; when, on the contrary, it should really be the other way! The proper equalizing of wealth demands that rich persons should marry poor ones.”

He was not in a mirthful mood, but to refrain from laughing at this was impossible. “It is a new thing for you to appear in the character of a political economist,” he said. “Your theory is well enough, and I find no fault with those who practice it. But I must decline to be one of the poor persons who aid in the equalization of wealth by such means.”

“Well, _I_ am one of them,” said Fanny, quite unabashed, turning a diamond ring round on her finger so that its flashing splendor lent emphasis to the assertion, “and I can assure you that it is a very good means. Pride is the matter with you,” she went on, remorselessly, “and I call it a very selfish thing--much worse than the mercenary spirit, which I presume you feel very virtuous in despising! You don’t deny that you are in love with Aimée; you dare not say that she is not worth a thousand times more than her fortune; and yet you are prepared to let _her_ go, for the sake of the money you profess to hold in such scorn, and because the Joscelyns might call you a fortune-hunter.”

This was certainly very plain speech, and contained a kernel of truth which struck Kyrle sharply. “If I have held money in scorn,” he said, “it has only been with regard to myself. I know well what its value is in the eyes of others. And it is true that I think too much of my own pride, perhaps; but this is a point on which I have always been peculiarly sensitive--”

“As if I did not know that!” she interposed, with a note of that curious old resentment against his culpable indifference to mercenary considerations in her voice. “You were so afraid of being suspected of paying court to your uncle, that you behaved outrageously to him. Oh, it was a very fine thing to show your spirit, your independence, your scorn of groveling souls that cared for money! So you lost a fortune which a little compliance with an old man’s whims would have secured to you; and now you are enjoying the fine results thereof, and preparing to be guilty of the same folly, only in an aggravated form, over again!”

Some people, leaning in the windows of one of the tall, old houses across the canal, and watching the little scene curiously, remarked among themselves that the pretty foreign lady seemed to be a terrible scold, and that the poor man--her husband, probably--had little to say under her rating. “He has deserved it, no doubt,” remarked one woman, enlightened by her own experience. “It is a case of jealousy, most likely.”

“What a vindictive creature you are!” Kyrle was meanwhile saying, with a smile. “Why can not my old follies--for which, as you justly observe, I am now suffering--be allowed to rest? I grant you that I was foolish, impracticable, full of pride--”

“As you are yet,” she interpolated.

“Granted again. But a fortune-hunter--to be suspected of seeking a woman for her wealth--that is something I should feel very deeply. Yet Miss Vincent is indeed worth so much more than her fortune, that to speak of it in connection with her seems an insult. If she were only rid of it--”

“But she is not,” said practical Fanny; “and you can hardly expect her to give it or throw it away in order to oblige you.”

“I expect nothing,” he answered impatiently. “And I do not understand why you should talk as if I had only to put out my hand and grasp a prize which I am sure would, under any circumstances, be far beyond my reach.”

“Your humility does you credit,” she said. “But in my opinion there is no reason why you should not grasp the prize if you would only resolve to make the effort. It is not on your own account that I urge you in this manner,” she added, quickly, “but because I want to rescue Aimée. You do not understand, and _she_ hardly understands, in what a bondage she is held. If those people can prevent it, she will never marry anybody, unless it be Percy Joscelyn. By every possible means they keep suitors away from her; and if I had not been here, you would never have been allowed to approach her near enough to bow to her. Through me you have a chance that no other man has had before. But if you are so blind, if you throw it away for a mere scruple, if you think more of your own pride than of saving her--then you may go! I have nothing more to say to you.”

She rose as she uttered the last words, and Kyrle, who had listened to the latter part of her speech with amazement, could scarcely believe that it was Fanny Meredith who was leaving him with such an air of dignity. He rose too, and made a step after her. There was a sensible quickening of interest among the heads at the windows opposite, as the scene promised to become more dramatic. “It must be a lover’s quarrel,” some one suggested. “If he were her husband he would not follow her.”

“Stop a minute,” Kyrle said. “If you have nothing more to say to me, at least let me say something to you. I have never looked at the matter in exactly the light in which you have put it. But if you will have patience, if you will give me a little time to consider, I will tell you my final decision before to-day is ended.”

“In your place, I would tell mine in five minutes,” said Fanny, scornfully.

“Very likely,” said he, humbly, “but you must make allowances for the slowness of the masculine mind. Can I see you--will you be at home this afternoon?”

“No,” she replied, after a moment’s consideration, “for Mr. Meredith would likely be at home also, and we could not speak freely. But you may meet me at the top of the Campanile about sunset.”

She had hardly said this, and Kyrle had no more than time to assent, when Miss Joscelyn emerged from the church and came toward them with an air of surprise.

“I have been wondering what had become of Mr. Kyrle,” she said. “You really should not have kept him from studying those extraordinary frescoes of Carpaccio.”