Since that visit paid by the Baroness Munster to Mrs. Acton, of which some account was given at an earlier stage of this narrative, the intercourse between these two ladies had been neither frequent nor intimate. It was not that Mrs. Acton had failed to appreciate Madame M; auunster's charms; on the contrary, her perception of the graces of manner and conversation of her brilliant visitor had been only too acute.
Mrs. Acton was, as they said in Boston, very "intense," and her impressions were apt to be too many for her.
The state of her health required the restriction of emotion; and this is why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal arm-chair, very few visitors, even of the soberest local type, she had been obliged to limit the number of her interviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her imagination--
Mrs. Acton's imagination was a marvel--all that she had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent the Baroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from her garden and baskets of beautiful fruit.
Felix had eaten the fruit, and the Baroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages.
On the day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been made, Eugenia determined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a "visite d'adieux;" so it was that, to herself, she qualified her enterprise. It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on the Monday morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton.
To his own consciousness, evidently he was "keeping away;" and as the Baroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle's, whither, for several days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design.
Mr. Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia's seclusion; certain intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural part of the graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a life. Gertrude especially held these periods in honor; she wondered what Madame M; auunster did at such times, but she would not have permitted herself to inquire too curiously.
The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours' brilliant sunshine had dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late afternoon, proposing to walk to Mrs. Acton's, exposed herself to no great discomfort.
As with her charming undulating step she moved along the clean, grassy margin of the road, beneath the thickly-hanging boughs of the orchards, through the quiet of the hour and place and the rich maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of a sort of luxurious melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness of attaching herself to places--even when she had begun with a little aversion; and now, with the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly toward this well-wooded corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were so beautiful and one's ambitions were so pure.
Mrs. Acton was able to receive her; but on entering this lady's large, freshly-scented room the Baroness saw that she was looking very ill.
She was wonderfully white and transparent, and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. But she flushed a little--like a young girl, the Baroness thought--and she rested her clear, smiling eyes upon those of her visitor. Her voice was low and monotonous, like a voice that had never expressed any human passions.
"I have come to bid you good-by," said Eugenia.
"I shall soon be going away."
"When are you going away?"
"Very soon--any day."
"I am very sorry," said Mrs. Acton. "I hoped you would stay--always."
"Always?" Eugenia demanded.
"Well, I mean a long time," said Mrs. Acton, in her sweet, feeble tone.
"They tell me you are so comfortable--that you have got such a beautiful little house."
Eugenia stared--that is, she smiled; she thought of her poor little chalet and she wondered whether her hostess were jesting.
"Yes, my house is exquisite," she said; "though not to be compared to yours. "
"And my son is so fond of going to see you," Mrs. Acton added.
"I am afraid my son will miss you."
"Ah, dear madame," said Eugenia, with a little laugh, "I can't stay in America for your son!"
"Don't you like America?"
The Baroness looked at the front of her dress. "If I liked it--that would not be staying for your son!"
Mrs. Acton gazed at her with her grave, tender eyes, as if she had not quite understood. The Baroness at last found something irritating in the sweet, soft stare of her hostess; and if one were not bound to be merciful to great invalids she would almost have taken the liberty of pronouncing her, mentally, a fool.
"I am afraid, then, I shall never see you again," said Mrs. Acton.
"You know I am dying."
"Ah, dear madame," murmured Eugenia.
"I want to leave my children cheerful and happy.
My daughter will probably marry her cousin."
"Two such interesting young people," said the Baroness, vaguely.
She was not thinking of Clifford Wentworth.
"I feel so tranquil about my end," Mrs. Acton went on.
"It is coming so easily, so surely." And she paused, with her mild gaze always on Eugenia's.
The Baroness hated to be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so far as Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners.
"Ah, madame, you are too charming an invalid," she rejoined.
But the delicacy of this rejoinder was apparently lost upon her hostess, who went on in her low, reasonable voice.
"I want to leave my children bright and comfortable.
You seem to me all so happy here--just as you are.
So I wish you could stay. It would be so pleasant for Robert."
Eugenia wondered what she meant by its being pleasant for Robert; but she felt that she would never know what such a woman as that meant.
She got up; she was afraid Mrs. Acton would tell her again that she was dying. "Good-by, dear madame," she said.
"I must remember that your strength is precious."
