noel had been at home a month. he had opened his law office and gone hard to work, and his friends complained that they saw but little of him. he had learned from the dallases, before parting with them at the wharf, that they were expecting to go to housekeeping in his own city, and he had asked them to send him their address when they were established.
so far, it had not come, and he was beginning to fear he had lost sight of them when one day he met them on the street. she, at least, was glad to see him, and when she gave the address and asked him to call, the husband, in his dull way, echoed the invitation.
the next evening he went to the house, which was in an unfashionable quarter, but very charming, tasteful and homelike. as he sat down in the pretty drawing-room some living objects caught his eye, and to his great amusement he saw that the rug in front of the open fire was occupied by a picturesque group composed of a maltese cat and four kittens. the mother, who was an unusually large and imposing specimen of her kind, was seated very erect, her front feet straight before her, evidently making an effort to enjoy a nap, which her offspring were engaged in thwarting, after the most vigorous fashion. they were all exactly alike, distinguishable only by the ribbons—blue, green, yellow and red—which ornamented their necks and were tied in bows under their chins. the mother had a garland composed of these four colors around her neck, upon which hung a little silver bell. noel had been watching this pretty sight, with a fascinated gaze, and was so preoccupied with their gambols that he failed to hear a soft footstep approaching, and did not turn to look until mrs. dallas was standing quite near him, holding out her hand.
she was dressed in a gown of a peculiar dim shade of blue that fell in free, straight folds about her, confined by a loose silver girdle round the waist. it clothed her beautiful body in a way that satisfied the soul of the artist who stood and looked at her, uttering light words about the cat and kittens and inaugurating a conversation that immediately put them at ease.
it was evident that she was glad to see him. she told him so at once. her husband, she said, had wanted her to go to the theatre, but she had been every night for so long that she was tired of it, and had just decided to stay at home. was mr. dallas then such an infatuated theatre-goer? noel asked. oh, yes, he always wanted to go every night, she said. it seemed to be a confirmed habit with him, and she was sorry to say she did not care for it much, though she usually went with him. noel knew that the season was not fairly opened yet, and reflecting upon the bills advertised at the various theatres, he could but wonder at the man’s choice of entertainments.
presently dallas entered and greeted him civilly, though with his usual apathetic manner, and said he was glad he had come in, as he could keep mrs. dallas company, as he was going to the theatre. mrs. dallas looked a little surprised at this announcement and suggested his postponing the theatre, so that he might not miss mr. noel’s visit, but he answered that mr. noel he knew would excuse him, and turned to leave the room. as he did so he stepped on one of the kittens which cried out pitifully. it had been an accident, of course, but he might have shown some compunction, which he utterly failed to do. the little creature hopped away on three feet, and mrs. dallas, with pretty foreign words of pity, followed it and brought it to the fireside where she sat down with it on her lap, and stroked and soothed it, laying the wounded little paw against her lips and making, what seemed to noel, munificent atonement for the injury inflicted by her husband.
as the kitten settled down contentedly purring in its mistress’ silken lap, the front door closed behind mr. dallas, and turning to his hostess, noel for the first time addressed her in her native tongue, asking the abrupt question, “how are you?”
she lifted her golden eyes to his a moment, and then dropped them under the scrutiny of his gaze, which he felt, the next instant, to have been inconsiderate.
“a little homesick, i dare say,” he went on, looking down at the kitten, “that was to be expected.”
“even when one never had a home?” she asked. “the nearest thing to it that i have had was the convent where i was educated. the sisters were very good to me. it was a sweet home, and of course i do miss it at times.”
“perhaps you had a dear friend there among the sisters, or possibly the pupils.”
“oh, yes,” she said, “a dear girl friend—nina her name was. she was a year younger than i, and was not permitted to leave the convent to see me married. she was heartbroken. we had always planned that the one first married was to take the other to live with her. her parents are both dead.”
“ah, then when she leaves school she will come to you, no doubt,” said noel. “that will be delightful for you.”
“i don’t know. it is not certain. no, i don’t think she will do that,” said his companion, evidently in some confusion. “the fact is i have not written to her—i couldn’t. i don’t know what she will think of me, but i cannot write to her. i have tried in vain. i fear she will be hurt, but i have done no more than send her a brief note to tell her she must not judge me by the frequency of my letters—that i love her just the same—but i seem really not to know what to write. it is all so strange—the new country and the changes—and everything being so different—and i feel she would want a full and interesting letter, which i cannot yet compose myself to write. this seems very strange, but it will be different in time, will it not? you don’t think this feeling of being in such a strange, strange land, as if it couldn’t be real, and couldn’t be i—myself—will last always, do you? it will surely pass away. oh, if you knew how i long to feel at home—to feel it is a place where i am to stay! i feel all the time that i must be just on the way to somewhere, and that i have just stopped here a little while. but i have not. it is my home and i am to spend my life here. i try to tell myself that all day long and make myself believe it, but i cannot. i often fear it will distress my husband that i feel so, but he has not found it out, i’m glad to say. he seems so quiet and satisfied, that i feel ashamed to feel so restless. it will go away in time, will it not? it is perhaps because i am a foreigner and this is a strange land that the feeling is so strong, but it was almost the same when we were in italy. sometimes i am afraid i have not a contented disposition, and that i will make myself unhappy always by it, and perhaps my husband too, if he should find it out. sometimes i cry to think how wrong it is of me. my father told me it was my duty to be happy, with a kind, good husband to take care of me, and i know i ought, but i feel so homesick—for, i don’t know what—for nina and the sisters and the convent. oh,” she broke off suddenly, “i do hope you will forgive me. it is very [pg 29]silly to talk to you so, all about myself, but i have had no one to speak to—at least no one but my husband, and i could not tell him all these feelings that i ought to be ashamed of. i know it is my duty to be satisfied and not feel homesick, but you think it will pass away after a while, do you not?”
what was he to say? the truth was very plain to him that it would never pass, but go on growing worse and worse, as gradually she came to know her own soul better and to understand herself, in the light of the new relationship she had entered into. in the case of most women the revelation she had so unconsciously made to him of the insufficiency of her marriage would have been unwomanly, and perhaps it was even so in her, but it was so only in the sense of being childlike. she was really no more than a child, and more ignorant of the world than many a child of ten. what did she know about marriage or the needs of her own soul? evidently nothing, and some day he saw before her a terrible awakening from this trance of ignorance. his heart literally ached for her as he sought diligently in his mind for some way to help her and could find not one. the only thing was to let her talk freely, to encourage her by a gentle friendly interest, such as a girl friend might have shown, and to give her the relief of expression for these vague troubles and perplexities which, when uttered, seemed intangible and entirely inexplicable to her. not once did she so much as imply any reproach to her husband, and it was plain that she felt unconscious of any ground for complaint. she alluded to him frequently and always most kindly, and laid at her own door the entire fault of her discontent.
noel spoke little, but led her gently on to talk as freely as she chose. often she would pause and remind herself that she was doing wrong to take up his whole visit with talk about herself, but it was evident it never once occurred to her that she had been guilty of any self-betrayal which she should not have made. he saw her utter loyalty to her husband, even in thought, and it made [pg 31]his blood boil to think of his stupid insensibility to the possession he had in such a wife.
gradually he was able to soothe her—or perhaps it was the relief of utterance that made her presently seem more light-hearted. noel pronounced a great many platitudes in an insincere effort to persuade her that things would get better, and somehow they seemed to give her comfort for the moment. as if to put the subject by, she called the big cat to her, snapping her fine slim fingers, and saying, “come, grisette”; and the creature jumped into her lap with the obedience of a well-trained dog. then she enticed the kittens to follow, one by one, until they were all in her lap playing with her ribbons, catching at her little embroidered handkerchief with their soft paws, and rolling over in high glee. she talked to them as if they had been children, petted and chided them in the prettiest way, and then put them down, one by one, with a kiss on each little soft head that made noel half angry and wholly pitying. it was so touching to see her tenderness, her longing to expend the great store of love within her—and to see her, too, so utterly without an object for it.
the cat and kittens having returned to their place on the rug, noel proffered a request he had been wanting to put all the evening and asked her to sing. he had found out on the steamer that she possessed an extraordinarily beautiful voice. her face, which had grown brighter, clouded suddenly.
“i cannot,” she answered. “i don’t sing at all. my husband got me a piano, thinking it would please me, but i have not opened it. i was afraid he would be disappointed, but he has not noticed it. i used to be sorry he was not fond of music, but this makes me glad.”
“do you really mean that you are going to give up singing? if you do you must let me assure you that it would be very wrong, a wrong to others, to let such a voice as yours be silent.”
“oh, do not tell me that,” she said, “i want not to do anything wrong, but indeed i cannot sing. i have tried it sometimes when i sit alone, and it is always the same thing—i choke so i cannot sing. i will get over it, but don’t ask me to sing yet.”
he could not say another word, especially as the tears were evidently near her eyes, and seeing that the hour was late and her husband, for whose return he had expected to wait, was delayed, he got up to take his leave.
“vill you not vait for robert?” she said, speaking for the first time in english and showing already a greater ease in its use. “he vill not be late. i haf not know him to remain so long as this, since i am here.”
noel smiled to hear her, but shook his head.
“no,” he answered, “i must go now, but first i want to get you to give me a promise.” he put out his hand as he spoke, and she placed hers in it with the confidence of a child.
“you are in a strange land,” he said, “but i don’t want you to feel that you are altogether among strangers. you may have some need of friends—trouble or sickness or some of the things that are always happening in this sad world, may come to you. i trust not. i hope to god they may let you go by, but we can never tell what will come to us, and i want you to promise me that if you are ever in need of a friend you will write to me. your husband may be ill, or something like that,” he added hurriedly, fearing he had ventured too far, though she showed no sign of thinking so. “and if it is a thing in which you want a woman’s help, i have sisters and a mother and they shall come to you. will you promise me this?”
“i vill. oh, i vill promise truly,” she said. “but vill you not come more?”
“oh, perhaps so, now and then,” he said hurriedly. he could not tell her he had resolved not to, but that was the fixed determination which had been the result of this evening’s experiences. he saw her needs of help and tenderness so clearly and he longed so to answer them that the very intensity of that longing was a warning to him. if he had been a younger man, or she an older woman, he might not have come to this hard resolution, but he was experienced enough to know that there was danger in such a companionship as he was tempted to enter into. if she had been older and better acquainted with the world that also might have made a difference, but it would have been exactly the same thing as taking advantage of the unknowingness of a child. then again, in the third place, if her husband had been careful of her, or even suspicious and jealous, he might have thought it some one’s else affair than his, and allowed himself the delight of this acquaintanceship, guarding and loving her like a brother, but none of these supposititious cases was so. the matter as it stood threw the whole responsibility upon him, and, as a man of honor, he could see but one course open to him.
so he stood and held her by the hand with a feeling that she was his little sister, struggling with another feeling that she was not, and took a long look at her lovely face. how he yearned to paint it, and perhaps, for the asking, he might!
“one thing more,” he said at last, feeling that he must get it over, “i have never heard your first name, will you not tell me what it is?”
“christine,” she said, and as he repeated it gently she exclaimed:
“oh, it is truly a pleasant thing to hear it. i have not heard it since so long a time. robert do say it is too, vat you call—i forget, but he call me chrissy, and my own name do seem a thing forgot.”
“good-night, christine,” he said, feeling sure he might venture this once, “and do not think i have forgotten you, if you don’t see me soon. i am very busy—my friends claim my spare time—i live very far away, but if you are ever in any trouble, little or big, and you or your husband should need me, send a line to my club, and i will come the instant i receive it. good-by, be a good, brave girl, and don’t forget me.”
during all these parting words she had let him hold her little hand. he wanted to kiss it before dropping it, for it seemed to him unlikely that he would ever touch it again. he resisted this, however, and merely said good-by again and left her.
looking back before he closed the front door he could see her in the pretty drawing-room seated on the rug before the fire, her silk draperies crushed beneath her, and holding all the kittens in her lap, the mother-cat sitting by, and looking on contentedly. it was upon this picture that he closed the door.
just outside he met dallas, who apologized for being late. he had stayed for the ballet, he said, knowing his wife was not alone. he asked noel to come again, but got no very satisfactory response.
