He went on with her in silence; he was much more affected by what she had told him than appeared. Ever since that evening of his return from Newport her image had had a terrible power to trouble him.
What Clifford Wentworth had told him--that had affected him, too, in an adverse sense; but it had not liberated him from the discomfort of a charm of which his intelligence was impatient.
"She is not honest, she is not honest," he kept murmuring to himself.
That is what he had been saying to the summer sky, ten minutes before.
Unfortunately, he was unable to say it finally, definitively; and now that he was near her it seemed to matter wonderfully little.
"She is a woman who will lie," he had said to himself.
Now, as he went along, he reminded himself of this observation; but it failed to frighten him as it had done before.
He almost wished he could make her lie and then convict her of it, so that he might see how he should like that. He kept thinking of this as he walked by her side, while she moved forward with her light, graceful dignity. He had sat with her before; he had driven with her; but he had never walked with her.
"By Jove, how comme il faut she is!" he said, as he observed her sidewise.
When they reached the cottage in the orchard she passed into the gate without asking him to follow; but she turned round, as he stood there, to bid him good-night.
"I asked you a question the other night which you never answered," he said.
"Have you sent off that document--liberating yourself?"
She hesitated for a single moment--very naturally.
Then, "Yes," she said, simply.
He turned away; he wondered whether that would do for his lie.
But he saw her again that evening, for the Baroness reappeared at her uncle's. He had little talk with her, however; two gentlemen had driven out from Boston, in a buggy, to call upon Mr. Wentworth and his daughters, and Madame Munster was an object of absorbing interest to both of the visitors.
One of them, indeed, said nothing to her; he only sat and watched with intense gravity, and leaned forward solemnly, presenting his ear (a very large one), as if he were deaf, whenever she dropped an observation. He had evidently been impressed with the idea of her misfortunes and reverses: he never smiled. His companion adopted a lighter, easier style; sat as near as possible to Madame Munster; attempted to draw her out, and proposed every few moments a new topic of conversation.
Eugenia was less vividly responsive than usual and had less to say than, from her brilliant reputation, her interlocutor expected, upon the relative merits of European and American institutions; but she was inaccessible to Robert Acton, who roamed about the piazza with his hands in his pockets, listening for the grating sound of the buggy from Boston, as it should be brought round to the side-door. But he listened in vain, and at last he lost patience. His sister came to him and begged him to take her home, and he presently went off with her.
Eugenia observed him leaving the house with Lizzie; in her present mood the fact seemed a contribution to her irritated conviction that he had several precious qualities.
"Even that mal-elevee little girl," she reflected, "makes him do what she wishes."
She had been sitting just within one of the long windows that opened upon the piazza; but very soon after Acton had gone away she got up abruptly, just when the talkative gentleman from Boston was asking her what she thought of the "moral tone" of that city. On the piazza she encountered Clifford Wentworth, coming round from the other side of the house.
She stopped him; she told him she wished to speak to him.
"Why did n't you go home with your cousin?" she asked.
Clifford stared. "Why, Robert has taken her," he said.
"Exactly so. But you don't usually leave that to him."
"Oh," said Clifford, "I want to see those fellows start off.
They don't know how to drive."
"It is not, then, that you have quarreled with your cousin?"
Clifford reflected a moment, and then with a simplicity which had, for the Baroness, a singularly baffling quality, "Oh, no; we have made up!" he said.
She looked at him for some moments; but Clifford had begun to be afraid of the Baroness's looks, and he endeavored, now, to shift himself out of their range. "Why do you never come to see me any more?" she asked.
"Have I displeased you?"
"Displeased me? Well, I guess not!" said Clifford, with a laugh.
"Why have n't you come, then?"
"Well, because I am afraid of getting shut up in that back room."
Eugenia kept looking at him. "I should think you would like that."
"Like it!" cried Clifford.
"I should, if I were a young man calling upon a charming woman."
"A charming woman is n't much use to me when I am shut up in that back room!"
"I am afraid I am not of much use to you anywhere!" said Madame M; auunster.
"And yet you know how I have offered to be."
"Well," observed Clifford, by way of response, "there comes the buggy."
"Never mind the buggy. Do you know I am going away?"
"Do you mean now?"
"I mean in a few days. I leave this place."
"You are going back to Europe?"
"To Europe, where you are to come and see me."
"Oh, yes, I 'll come out there," said Clifford.
"But before that," Eugenia declared, "you must come and see me here."
"Well, I shall keep clear of that back room!" rejoined her ****** young kinsman.
The Baroness was silent a moment. "Yes, you must come frankly--boldly.
That will be very much better. I see that now."
"I see it!" said Clifford. And then, in an instant, "What 's the matter with that buggy?" His practiced ear had apparently detected an unnatural creak in the wheels of the light vehicle which had been brought to the portico, and he hurried away to investigate so grave an anomaly.
The Baroness walked homeward, alone, in the starlight, asking herself a question. Was she to have gained nothing--was she to have gained nothing?