Charlotte and Mr. Brand had not returned when they reached the house; but the Baroness had come to tea, and Robert Acton also, who now regularly asked for a place at this generous repast or made his appearance later in the evening.
Clifford Wentworth, with his juvenile growl, remarked upon it.
"You are always coming to tea nowadays, Robert," he said.
"I should think you had drunk enough tea in China."
"Since when is Mr. Acton more frequent?" asked the Baroness.
"Since you came," said Clifford. "It seems as if you were a kind of attraction."
"I suppose I am a curiosity," said the Baroness.
"Give me time and I will make you a salon."
"It would fall to pieces after you go!" exclaimed Acton.
"Don't talk about her going, in that familiar way," Clifford said.
"It makes me feel gloomy."
Mr. Wentworth glanced at his son, and taking note of these words, wondered if Felix had been teaching him, according to the programme he had sketched out, to make love to the wife of a German prince.
Charlotte came in late with Mr. Brand; but Gertrude, to whom, at least, Felix had taught something, looked in vain, in her face, for the traces of a guilty passion. Mr. Brand sat down by Gertrude, and she presently asked him why they had not crossed the pond to join Felix and herself.
"It is cruel of you to ask me that," he answered, very softly.
He had a large morsel of cake before him; but he fingered it without eating it. "I sometimes think you are growing cruel," he added.
Gertrude said nothing; she was afraid to speak. There was a kind of rage in her heart; she felt as if she could easily persuade herself that she was persecuted. She said to herself that it was quite right that she should not allow him to make her believe she was wrong.
She thought of what Felix had said to her; she wished indeed Mr. Brand would marry Charlotte. She looked away from him and spoke no more.
Mr. Brand ended by eating his cake, while Felix sat opposite, describing to Mr. Wentworth the students' duels at Heidelberg.
After tea they all dispersed themselves, as usual, upon the piazza and in the garden; and Mr. Brand drew near to Gertrude again.
"I did n't come to you this afternoon because you were not alone," he began; "because you were with a newer friend."
"Felix? He is an old friend by this time."
Mr. Brand looked at the ground for some moments. "I thought I was prepared to hear you speak in that way," he resumed.
"But I find it very painful."
"I don't see what else I can say," said Gertrude.
Mr. Brand walked beside her for a while in silence; Gertrude wished he would go away. "He is certainly very accomplished.
But I think I ought to advise you."
"To advise me?"
"I think I know your nature."
"I think you don't," said Gertrude, with a soft laugh.
"You make yourself out worse than you are--to please him,"
Mr. Brand said, gently.
"Worse--to please him? What do you mean?" asked Gertrude, stopping.
Mr. Brand stopped also, and with the same soft straight-forwardness, "He does n't care for the things you care for--the great questions of life."
Gertrude, with her eyes on his, shook her head. "I don't care for the great questions of life. They are much beyond me."
"There was a time when you did n't say that," said Mr. Brand.
"Oh," rejoined Gertrude, "I think you made me talk a great deal of nonsense.
And it depends," she added, "upon what you call the great questions of life.
There are some things I care for."
"Are they the things you talk about with your cousin?"
"You should not say things to me against my cousin, Mr. Brand," said Gertrude. "That is dishonorable."
He listened to this respectfully; then he answered, with a little vibration of the voice, "I should be very sorry to do anything dishonorable.
But I don't see why it is dishonorable to say that your cousin is frivolous."
"Go and say it to himself!"
"I think he would admit it," said Mr. Brand. "That is the tone he would take. He would not be ashamed of it."
"Then I am not ashamed of it!" Gertrude declared.
"That is probably what I like him for. I am frivolous myself."
"You are trying, as I said just now, to lower yourself."
"I am trying for once to be natural!" cried Gertrude passionately.
"I have been pretending, all my life; I have been dishonest; it is you that have made me so!" Mr. Brand stood gazing at her, and she went on, "Why should n't I be frivolous, if I want?
One has a right to be frivolous, if it 's one's nature. No, I don't care for the great questions. I care for pleasure--for amusement.
Perhaps I am fond of wicked things; it is very possible!"
Mr. Brand remained staring; he was even a little pale, as if he had been frightened. "I don't think you know what you are saying!" he exclaimed.
"Perhaps not. Perhaps I am talking nonsense. But it is only with you that I talk nonsense. I never do so with my cousin."
"I will speak to you again, when you are less excited," said Mr. Brand.
"I am always excited when you speak to me. I must tell you that--even if it prevents you altogether, in future. Your speaking to me irritates me. With my cousin it is very different.
That seems quiet and natural."
He looked at her, and then he looked away, with a kind of helpless distress, at the dusky garden and the faint summer stars.
After which, suddenly turning back, "Gertrude, Gertrude!" he softly groaned. "Am I really losing you?"
She was touched--she was pained; but it had already occurred to her that she might do something better than say so.
It would not have alleviated her companion's distress to perceive, just then, whence she had sympathetically borrowed this ingenuity.
"I am not sorry for you," Gertrude said; "for in paying so much attention to me you are following a shadow--you are wasting something precious.
There is something else you might have that you don't look at--something better than I am. That is a reality!" And then, with intention, she looked at him and tried to smile a little.
He thought this smile of hers very strange; but she turned away and left him.