it was the middle of january. felicia stood at the salon window and looked out at the snow falling, falling in the deserted street. she was oppressed by the dead silence of things. there was not even a cheerful fire to crackle in the room, which was heated by the cold white porcelain stove in the corner. all the ladies had retired to their rooms, for their usual afternoon siesta, and there was not a sound in the house. she caught sight of a cab passing down the street, but it moved with a deathlike noiselessness over the snow. she half wished the driver would crack his whip, although she hated the maniacal pastime, dear to genevese cabmen, as much as schopenhauer himself. but he passed on, a benumbed, silent spectre, huddled up on his box.
nothing but stillness, dreariness, and desolation. the house seemed empty, the street empty, the world empty.
raine chetwynd had come and gone. for a brief season his hearty voice and cheery face had gladdened the little pension. he had come with his robustness of moral fibre, his culture, his broad knowledge of the world, and his vigorous manhood, and the pulse of the community seemed to beat stronger for it. in spite of the old man’s warning, they had all expected to see in the young “professor” a pale image of his father, minus the softening charm of age. but, instead, they had been presented with a type of blond, anglo-saxon comeliness—tall, deep-chested, fresh-coloured, with an open, attractive face, blue-eyed and fair-moustached, which, at first sight, seemed to belong to a thousand men who rowed and cricketed, and lived honest, unparticularized lives, but on closer examination showed itself to be that of a man who could combine thought and action, the scholar and the athlete, the man of intellectual breath and refinement, and the cheery, practical man of the world. he was a man, in the specific feminine sense. he had brought into the pension the influence that mrs. stapleton had insisted on, with such passionate bitterness, as being needful in any man’s life. each of the women had brightened under it, exhibiting instinctively the softer side of her nature. mme. popea had kept hidden from view the shapeless wrapper, adorned with cheap soiled lace, in which, much to frau schultz’s annoyance, she would now and then appear at déjeuner, and had tidied and curled her hair betimes, instead of leaving it till the late afternoon. in frau schultz a dignified urbanity had taken the place of peevish egotism. little miss bunter had perked up like a frozen sparrow warmed into life, and had chirruped merrily to her canaries. the only friction that his presence had caused, had arisen between mme. boccard and fraulein klinkhardt, who had broadly hinted a request to be placed next to him at table. a pretty quarrel had resulted from mme. boccard’s refusal; after which fraulein klinkhardt went to bed for a day, and mme. boccard called her softly, under her breath, a german crane, which appeared to afford her much relief.
it had been pleasant and comfortable to see a man again in the salon. it had broken the sense of isolation they carried with them, like lead in their hearts, all through the winter. then, too, he had been a man whom one and all could honestly respect. he had been open-hearted, frank with them all, showing, in a younger, fresher way, the charm of courtesy that distinguished his father. but naturally he had brought himself nearer to them, had not seemed placed in such remote moral and intellectual spheres.
besides, there had been a few festivities. old mr. chetwynd had given, in honour of his son’s visit, a christmas dinner, which had won him the heart of frau schultz. fraulein klinkhardt and herself had lavished more than their usual futile enthusiasm on a christmas tree, which, owing to raine, had something better than its customary succès d’estime. he had taken them to the theatre, made up skating parties at villeneuve, at the other side of the lake. some friends of his at lausanne had given a large dance, to which he had managed to escort felicia and katherine, under his father’s protection. a couple of undergraduates of his own college were there; they came a few days afterwards to geneva to see him; and that was another merry evening at the pension.
katherine stapleton had brightened, too, under the gaiety, and her eyes had lost for the time the touch of weariness that saddened her face in her gentler moods, and her laugh had rung true and fresh. there were many evident points of contact between herself and him, much that was complementary in each to the other.
one day he had said to her laughingly,—
“i have come round to the opinion—-which i had not at first—that you are the most incomprehensibly feminine thing i know.”
“and i,” she had replied, “to the afteropinion that you are the most comprehensibly masculine one.”
“is that why we get on so well together?”
“that is what i had meant to convey,” she had answered with a light laugh.
the rest of which conversation lingered long after his departure in katherine’s memory.
now he had gone, and life at the pension resumed its dreary, monotonous round. raine chetwynd would have been surprised had he known the change wrought by his departure.
felicia obviously shared in the general depression, and, like katherine, had memories of bright hours in which the sun seemed to shine exclusively for her own individual benefit. she thought of them wretchedly, as she stood by the window watching the flakes fall through the grey air.
a voice behind her caused her to start, though the words seemed to come out of some far distance. it was old mr. chetwynd. he had been somewhat ailing the last day or two, unable to go out. in a fit of restlessness, he had wandered down to the salon.
“lost in the snow?” he asked, coming to her side.
“yes,” she replied, with a half sigh. “i think so. quite. i was beginning to doubt whether i should find my way safe home again, and to grow almost tearful.”
“you have no business with low spirits, my dear,” he replied, with a smile. “you should leave that to old people. their hearts get lost in the snow sometimes, and when they feel them gradually getting stone-cold and frozen, then they may be excused for despairing.”
“what is to prevent it from being the same with young hearts?”
“the warm blood of their youth.”
“that may keep them warm, but it doesn’t prevent their being lost,” said felicia, argumentatively.
“well, what does it signify if you do go out of your way a little, when your legs are strong and your blood circulates vigorously?” he said cheerfully.
“but the young heart can get lost,” said felicia.
“i won’t chop logic with you, young lady. i am trying to teach you that youth is a glorious thing and ought to be its own happiness. i suppose it is attempting to teach the unlearnable. ah me! how beautiful it would be to be three and thirty again!”
“three and thirty! why, that is quite old!”
he looked at her with a touch of sadness and amusement, his head on one side.
“i suppose it is for you. i was forgetting. to me it is youth, the full prime of a man’s life, when the world is at his feet. later on he begins to feel it is on his shoulders. but at thirty-three—i was thinking of raine. that is his age.”
“have you heard from mr. chetwynd?” asked felicia, after a longish pause.
“oh, yes. he never keeps me long without news of him. there are only the two of us.”
“you seem very fond of one another,” said felicia.
“i am proud of my son, my dear, and he is foolish enough to be proud of his poor old daddy.”
his voice had grown suddenly very soft, and he spoke with the simplicity of old age.
his eyes looked out into the distance, their brightness veiled with a strange tenderness. felicia was touched, felt strongly drawn to him. she lost sense of the scholar of profound learning in that of the old man leaning on his son’s strong arm. and the son’s manhood grew in her eyes as the father’s waned.
“it is not many men,” he continued musingly, “that would have given up a christmas vacation and come all this way just to see an old, broken-down fellow like me.”
felicia stared out of the window, but she no longer saw the snow.
“you must miss him dreadfully.”
“i always do. we are much together in oxford. he always gives me at least a few minutes of his day.”
“how good of him. it must be beautiful for you.”
“a great happiness—yes, a great happiness!”
he too was looking out of the window, by felicia’s side, his hands behind his back, and likewise saw nothing. a spell of wistfulness was over them both—bound them unconsciously together.
“a tender-hearted fellow,” said the old man. “wonderfully sympathetic.”
“he seems to understand everyone so.”
“yes; that is raine’s way—he gets behind externals. i have missed him sadly since he left.”
“yes,” said felicia, softly.
“and i have been wishing for him all day.”
“so have i!” said felicia, under the spell.
her tone suddenly awakened the old man. his eyes flashed into intelligence as a darkened theatre can leap into light. the girl met them, recoiled a step at their brilliance, and shrank as if a search-light had laid bare her soul.
she had scarcely known what she had been saying. a quivering second. was there time to recover? she struggled desperately. if the tears had not come, she would have won. but they rose in a flood, and she turned away her head sharply, burning with shame.
the old man laid his thin hand on her shoulder, and bent round to look into her face.
“my dear little girl—my poor child!” he said gently, patting her shoulder.
for all her shrinking, she felt the tenderness of the touch. to have withdrawn from it would have been to repulse. but it added to her wretchedness. she could not speak, only cry, with the helpless consciousness that every second’s silence and every tear were issues whence oozed more and more of her secret.
“does raine know?” whispered the old man.
then she turned quickly, her brown eyes glistening, and found speech.
“he know? know what? oh, you must never tell him—never, never, never! he would think—and i couldn’t bear him to, although he will never see me again. and, please, mr. chetwynd, don’t think i have told you anything—i haven’t. of course, i only miss him—as every one does.”
felicia moved softly towards the door, longing for retreat. the old man followed at her side.
“forgive me, my dear,” he said, with a shadow of a smile round his lips. “i have been indiscreet, and leapt to wrong conclusions. raine is so bright that we all miss him—equally.”
she glanced at him. the smile found a watery reflection in her eyes. in another moment she was on the stairs, fleeing to the comfort of her own room.
the old man, left to himself, kicked open the door of the stove, drew up a chair, and spread his hands out before the glow.
“louis chetwynd,” he said to himself, “you are no better than an old fool.”
the subject was never touched upon again, but it seemed always afterwards to be in their thoughts when together. at first felicia was shy—felt the blood rise to her cheeks whenever the old man’s bright eyes were fixed upon her. but her involuntary admission had stirred a great tenderness in his heart. somehow he had always thought sadly of the possibility of raine marrying, although he had urged him to it many times. up to now he had been the first—or thought he had, which comes to the same thing—in same’s affections, and he could not yield that first place without a pang. and it would be to a woman not good enough for raine; that was certain. if he could only choose for him the paragon that was his equal, then the surrender would be less hard. but raine would choose for himself. it was a way even the most loving of sons had—one of the perversities of the scheme of things. now, felicia’s confession and his own feelings towards her supplied him with a happy solution to this vexed question. why should not raine marry felicia?
he used to argue it out with himself when his intellectual conscience told him he ought to be criticizing calvin’s condemnation of servetus, and pulverizing the learned beza. but he soothed it by reflecting that he was pursuing a philosophical method of inquiry. he put it syllogistically. girls do not fall in love with a man until he has given them good reason. felicia was in love with raine. therefore he had given her good reason. again, an honourable man does not give a girl such reasons unless he loves her.
raine was an honourable man. therefore he loved her. which was extremely satisfactory; and had it not been for the uneasy suspicion of a fallacy in his first major, he would have written off to raine there and then. in spite of the fallacy, however, he wove his old man’s web of romance, saw felicia married to raine, and surrendered his first place with great gladness. for he would be second in the hearts of two, which common arithmetic shows to be equal to first in the heart of one. and when he had definitely settled all this in his mind, he revoked the judgment he had previously passed upon himself, and felt distinctly gratified at his own tact and shrewdness. so the liking that he had conceived for felicia developed into a tenderer sentiment, of whose existence she gradually became aware, though naturally she remained in ignorance of its cause.
she fought fierce battles with herself during the next few weeks. if she were ever going to see him again, there would have been a fearful joy, a strange mingling of shame and dizzying hope to keep her heart excited. but as he had gone for ever out of her path, her common sense coming to the aid of her ashamedness strove to crush her futile fancies. they took a great deal of killing, however, especially as she found the friendship between raine’s father and herself growing daily stronger. she longed for the day of her release to come, when she could join her uncle and aunt in bermuda.
