He was ashamed, for inscrutable reasons, of the vivacity of his emotion, and he carried it off, superficially, by taking, still superficially, the humorous view of Madame Munster.
It was not at all true that he thought it very natural of her to have made this pious pilgrimage. It might have been said of him in advance that he was too good a Bostonian to regard in the light of an eccentricity the desire of even the remotest alien to visit the New England metropolis.
This was an impulse for which, surely, no apology was needed; and Madame Munster was the fortunate possessor of several New England cousins. In fact, however, Madame Munster struck him as out of keeping with her little circle; she was at the best a very agreeable, a gracefully mystifying anomaly.
He knew very well that it would not do to address these reflections too crudely to Mr. Wentworth; he would never have remarked to the old gentleman that he wondered what the Baroness was up to.
And indeed he had no great desire to share his vague mistrust with any one. There was a personal pleasure in it; the greatest pleasure he had known at least since he had come from China.
He would keep the Baroness, for better or worse, to himself; he had a feeling that he deserved to enjoy a monopoly of her, for he was certainly the person who had most adequately gauged her capacity for social intercourse. Before long it became apparent to him that the Baroness was disposed to lay no tax upon such a monopoly.
One day (he was sitting there again and playing with a fan) she asked him to apologize, should the occasion present itself, to certain people in Boston for her not having returned their calls.
"There are half a dozen places," she said; "a formidable list.
Charlotte Wentworth has written it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand. There is no ambiguity on the subject;
I know perfectly where I must go. Mr. Wentworth informs me that the carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in a pair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat.
And yet for three days I have been putting it off.
They must think me horribly vicious."
"You ask me to apologize," said Acton, "but you don't tell me what excuse I can offer."
"That is more," the Baroness declared, "than I am held to. It would be like my asking you to buy me a bouquet and giving you the money.
I have no reason except that--somehow--it 's too violent an effort.
It is not inspiring. Would n't that serve as an excuse, in Boston?
I am told they are very sincere; they don't tell fibs.
And then Felix ought to go with me, and he is never in readiness.
I don't see him. He is always roaming about the fields and sketching old barns, or taking ten-mile walks, or painting some one's portrait, or rowing on the pond, or flirting with Gertrude Wentworth."
"I should think it would amuse you to go and see a few people," said Acton. "You are having a very quiet time of it here.
It 's a dull life for you."
"Ah, the quiet,--the quiet!" the Baroness exclaimed. "That 's what I like.
It 's rest. That 's what I came here for. Amusement? I have had amusement.
And as for seeing people--I have already seen a great many in my life.
If it did n't sound ungracious I should say that I wish very humbly your people here would leave me alone!"
Acton looked at her a moment, and she looked at him.
She was a woman who took being looked at remarkably well.
"So you have come here for rest?" he asked.
"So I may say. I came for many of those reasons that are no reasons--don't you know?--and yet that are really the best: to come away, to change, to break with everything.
When once one comes away one must arrive somewhere, and I asked myself why I should n't arrive here."
"You certainly had time on the way!" said Acton, laughing.
Madame Munster looked at him again; and then, smiling:
"And I have certainly had time, since I got here, to ask myself why I came. However, I never ask myself idle questions.
Here I am, and it seems to me you ought only to thank me."
"When you go away you will see the difficulties I shall put in your path."
"You mean to put difficulties in my path?" she asked, rearranging the rosebud in her corsage.
"The greatest of all--that of having been so agreeable"--
"That I shall be unable to depart? Don't be too sure.
I have left some very agreeable people over there."
"Ah," said Acton, "but it was to come here, where I am!"
"I did n't know of your existence. Excuse me for saying anything so rude; but, honestly speaking, I did not. No," the Baroness pursued, "it was precisely not to see you--such people as you--that I came."
"Such people as me?" cried Acton.
"I had a sort of longing to come into those natural relations which I knew I should find here. Over there I had only, as I may say, artificial relations.
Don't you see the difference?"
"The difference tells against me," said Acton. "I suppose I am an artificial relation."
"Conventional," declared the Baroness; "very conventional."
"Well, there is one way in which the relation of a lady and a gentleman may always become natural," said Acton.
"You mean by their becoming lovers? That may be natural or not.
And at any rate," rejoined Eugenia, "nous n'en sommes pas la!"
They were not, as yet; but a little later, when she began to go with him to drive, it might almost have seemed that they were.
