"Your sister has not come this evening. You must have seen her at home," said Mr. Wentworth.
"Yes. I proposed to her to come. She declined."
"Lizzie, I suppose, was expecting a visitor," said the old man, with a kind of solemn slyness.
"If she was expecting Clifford, he had not turned up."
Mr. Wentworth, at this intelligence, closed the "North American Review" and remarked that he had understood Clifford to say that he was going to see his cousin. Privately, he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no news of his son, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening: an unnatural course of a summer night, especially when accompanied with disingenuous representations.
"You must remember that he has two cousins," said Acton, laughing.
And then, coming to the point, "If Lizzie is not here," he added, "neither apparently is the Baroness."
Mr. Wentworth stared a moment, and remembered that queer proposition of Felix's. For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wished that Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston.
"The Baroness has not honored us tonight," he said.
"She has not come over for three days."
"Is she ill?" Acton asked.
"No; I have been to see her."
"What is the matter with her?"
"Well," said Mr. Wentworth, "I infer she has tired of us."
Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless; he found it impossible to talk with Mr. Wentworth. At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat and said that he thought he would "go off."
It was very late; it was ten o'clock.
His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment.
"Are you going home?" he asked.
Acton hesitated, and then answered that he had proposed to go over and take a look at the Baroness.
"Well, you are honest, at least," said Mr. Wentworth, sadly.
"So are you, if you come to that!" cried Acton, laughing.
"Why should n't I be honest?"
The old man opened the "North American" again, and read a few lines.
"If we have ever had any virtue among us, we had better keep hold of it now," he said. He was not quoting.
"We have a Baroness among us," said Acton. "That 's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame Munster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside.
He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind.
There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame Munster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual.
It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise.
But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment.
She was not smiling; she seemed serious.
"Mais entrez donc!" she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her.
But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand.
"Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour."
"I have just returned from my journey," said Acton.
"Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit.
"I went first to the other house," Acton continued.
"I expected to find you there."
She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again.
"I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said.
"It is too late to begin a visit."
"It 's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we need n't mind the beginning."
She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her.
"We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I have n't been to the other house."
"Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?"
"I don't know how many days it is."
"You are tired of it," said Acton.
She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded.
"That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself."
"I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind."
"It 's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey."
"Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you."
"Now you are attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity."
"I confess I never get tired of people I like."
"Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!"
"Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place.
"Your going away--that is what has happened to me."
"Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked.
"If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your ****** a note of.
I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless."
Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last.
Madame Munster left her chair, and began to move about.
"Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again."
"You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you need n't be afraid to say so--to me at least."
"You should n't say such things as that," the Baroness answered.
"You should encourage me."
"I admire your patience; that is encouraging."
"You should n't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?"
"Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing.
"Nevertheless, we all admire your patience."
"You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him.