"With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix.
"How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?"
Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?"
" 'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you."
Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I am happy," he said in his light, clear tone.
"And do you propose to spend your life in ****** love to Gertrude Wentworth?"
"Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister.
The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked.
"Don't you?" Felix demanded.
The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music:
'Je ne la crains pas!'"
"She admires you immensely," said Felix.
"I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one."
"They should dislike you?"
Again Madame Munster hesitated. "They should hate me!
It 's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't."
"No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating.
"And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!"
Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune.
That may come--or it may not."
"Ah, well, it may! That 's the great point."
"It depends upon her father. He does n't smile upon our union.
You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand."
"I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log."
Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame.
Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?"
"By no means. I don't wish to do anything that 's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us."
"But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him."
"I want to please every one!" exclaimed Felix, joyously.
"I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude."
"So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!"
Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little.
She 's a very clever person."
"I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, ****** no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence.
At last, with an altered accent, Madame Munster put another question.
"You expect, at any rate, to marry?"
"I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't."
"A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared.
"And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?"
"It seems to me I am a very good American already.
But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world."
"Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh.
"No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever."
He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it.
His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight.
He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her.
"I am very much in love with Gertrude," he said.
Eugenia turned away and walked about the room, and Felix continued.
"She is very interesting, and very different from what she seems.
She has never had a chance. She is very brilliant.
We will go to Europe and amuse ourselves."
The Baroness had gone to the window, where she stood looking out.
The day was drearier than ever; the rain was doggedly falling.
"Yes, to amuse yourselves," she said at last, "you had decidedly better go to Europe!" Then she turned round, looking at her brother.
A chair stood near her; she leaned her hands upon the back of it.
"Don't you think it is very good of me," she asked, "to come all this way with you simply to see you properly married--if properly it is?"
"Oh, it will be properly!" cried Felix, with light eagerness.
The Baroness gave a little laugh. "You are thinking only of yourself, and you don't answer my question. While you are amusing yourself--with the brilliant Gertrude--what shall I be doing?"
"Vous serez de la partie!" cried Felix.
"Thank you: I should spoil it." The Baroness dropped her eyes for some moments. "Do you propose, however, to leave me here?" she inquired.
Felix smiled at her. "My dearest sister, where you are concerned I never propose. I execute your commands."
"I believe," said Eugenia, slowly, "that you are the most heartless person living. Don't you see that I am in trouble?"
"I saw that you were not cheerful, and I gave you some good news."
"Well, let me give you some news," said the Baroness.
"You probably will not have discovered it for yourself.
Robert Acton wants to marry me."
"No, I had not discovered that. But I quite understand it.
Why does it make you unhappy?"
"Because I can't decide."
"Accept him, accept him!" cried Felix, joyously. "He is the best fellow in the world."
"He is immensely in love with me," said the Baroness.
"And he has a large fortune. Permit me in turn to remind you of that."
"Oh, I am perfectly aware of it," said Eugenia.
"That 's a great item in his favor. I am terribly candid."
And she left her place and came nearer her brother, looking at him hard. He was turning over several things; she was wondering in what manner he really understood her.
There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and there was what she meant, and there was something, between the two, that was neither.