Watch and Ward

VII

ON arriving at the landing-place of the European steamer Hubert found the passengers filing ashore from the tug-boat in which they had been transferred from the ship. He instructed himself, as he took his place near the gangway, to allow for change in Nora’s appearance; but even with this allowance, none of the various advancing ladies seemed to be Nora. Suddenly he found himself confronted with a fair stranger, a smile, and an outstretched hand. The smile and the offered hand of course proclaimed the young lady’s identity. Yet in spite of them, Hubert stood amazed. Verily, his allowance had been small. But the next moment, “Now you speak,” he said, “I recognize you”; and the next he had greeted Mrs. Keith, who immediately followed her companion; after which he ushered the two ladies, with their servant and their various feminine impedimenta, into a carriage. Mrs. Keith was to return directly to her own house, where, hospitable even amid prospective chaos, she invited Hubert to join them at dinner. He had, of course, been obliged to inform Nora off-hand of the cause of Roger’s absence, though as yet he made light of his illness. It was agreed, however, that Nora should remain with her companion until she had communicated with her guardian.

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Entering Mrs. Keith’s drawing-room a couple of hours later, Hubert found the young girl on her knees before the hearth. “I’m rejoicing,” she said, “in the first honest fire I’ve seen since I left home.” He sat down near by, and in the glow of the firelight he noted her altered aspect. A year, somehow, had made more than a year’s difference. Hubert, in his intercourse with women, was accustomed to indulge in a sort of still, cool contemplation which, as a habit, found favor according to the sensibility of the ladies touching whom it was practised. It had been intimated to him more than once, in spite of his cloth, that just a certain turn of the head made this a license. But on this occasion his gaze was all respectful. He was lost in admiration. Yes, Nora was beautiful! Her beauty struck him the more that, not having witnessed the stages quick and fine by which it had come to her, he beheld now as a sudden revelation the consummate result. She had left home a simple maiden of common gifts, with no greater burden of loveliness than the slender, angular, neutral grace of youth and freshness; yet here she stood, a woman turned, perfect, mature, superb! It was as if she had bloomed into golden ripeness in the potent sunshine of a great contentment; as if, fed by the sources of aesthetic delight, her nature had risen calmly to its uttermost level and filled its measured space with a deep and lucid flood. A singular harmony and serenity seemed to pervade her person. Her beauty lay in no inordinate perfection of individual features, but in the deep sweet fellowship which reigned between smile and step and glance and tone. The total effect was an impression of the simplest and yet most stately loveliness. “Pallas Athene,” said Hubert to himself, “sprang full-armed, we are told, from the brain

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of Jove. What a pity! What an untruth! She was born in the West, a plain, fair child; she grew through years and pinafores and all the changes of slow-coming comeliness. Then one fine day she was eighteen and she wore a black silk dress of Paris!” Meanwhile Pallas Athene had been asking about Roger. “Shall I see him to-morrow, at least?” she demanded.

“I doubt it; he’ll not get out for a number of days.”

“But I can easily go to him. Dearest Roger! How things never turn out as we arrange them! I had arranged this meeting of ours to perfection! He was to dine with us here, and we were to talk, talk, talk, till midnight, and then I was to go home with him; and there we were to stand leaning on the banisters at his room door, and talk, talk, talk till morning.”

“And where was I to be?” asked Hubert.

“I hadn’t arranged for you. But I expected to see you tomorrow. To-morrow I shall go to Roger.”

“If the doctor allows,” said Hubert.

Nora rose to her feet. “You don’t mean to say, Hubert, that it’s as bad as that ?” She frowned a little and bent her eyes eagerly on his face. Hubert heard Mrs. Keith’s voice in the hall; in a moment their tete-a-tete would be at an end. Instead of answering her question – “Nora,” he said, in his deepest, lowest voice, “you’re beautiful!” He caught her startled, unsatisfied glance; then he turned and greeted Mrs. Keith. He had not pleased Nora, evidently; it was premature. So to efface the solemnity of his speech, he repeated it aloud; “I tell Nora she is beautiful!”

“Bah!” said Mrs. Keith; “you needn’t tell her; she knows it.” Nora smiled unconfusedly. “O, say it all the same!”

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“Wasn’t it the French ambassador, in Rome,” Mrs. Keith demanded, “who attacked you in that fashion? He asked to be introduced. There’s an honor! ` Mademoiselle, vous etes parfaitement belle.’ “

“Frenchwomen, as a rule, are not parfaitement belles,” said Nora.

Hubert was a lover of the luxuries and splendors of life. He had no immediate personal need of them; he could make his terms with narrow circumstances; but his imagination was a born aristocrat. He liked to be reminded that certain things were, – ambassadors, ambassadorial compliments, old-world drawing-rooms, with duskily moulded ceilings. Nora’s beauty, to his vision, took a deeper color from this homage of an old starred and gartered diplomat. It was sound, it had passed the ordeal. He had little need at table to play at discreet inattention. Mrs. Keith, preoccupied with her housekeeping and the “dreadful state” in which her freshly departed tenants had left her rooms, indulged in a tragic monologue and dispensed with responses. Nora, looking frankly at Hubert, consoled their hostess with gentle optimism; and Hubert returned her looks, wondering. He mused upon the mystery of beauty. What sudden gift had made her fair? She was the same tender slip of girlhood who had come trembling to hear him preach a year before; the same, yet how different! And how sufficient she had grown, withal, to her beauty! How with the added burden had come an added strength, – with the greater charm a greater force, – a force subtle, sensitive, just faintly self-suspecting. Then came the thought that all this was Roger’s, – Roger’s investment, Roger’s property! He pitied the poor fellow, ly-

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ing senseless and helpless, instead of sitting there delightedly, drawing her out and showing her off. After dinner Nora talked little, partly, as he felt, from anxiety about her friend, and partly because of that natural reserve of the altered mind when confronted with old associations. He would have been glad to believe that she was taking pensive note of his own appearance. He had made his mark in her mind a twelvemonth before. Innumerable scenes and figures had since passed over it; but his figure, Nora now discovered, had not been trampled out. Fixed there indelibly, it had grown with the growth of her imagination. She knew that she had vastly changed, and she had wondered ardently whether Hubert would have lost favor with difference. Would he suffer by contrast with people she had seen? Would he seem graceless, colorless, common? Little by little, as his presence defined itself, it became plain to her that the Hubert of the past had a lease of the future. As he rose to take his leave, she begged him to let her write a line to Roger, which he might carry.

“He’ll not be able to read it,” said Hubert.

Nora mused. “I’ll write it, nevertheless. You’ll place it by his bedside, and the moment he is better he will find it at hand.” When she had left the room, Mrs. Keith demanded tribute. “Haven’t I done well? Haven’t I made a charming girl of her?” “She does you vast credit,” said Hubert, with a mental res-

ervation.

“O, but wait awhile! You’ve not seen her yet. She’s tired and anxious about your cousin. Wait till she comes out. My dear Mr. Lawrence, she’s perfect. She lacks nothing, she has nothing too much. You must do me justice. I saw it all in the rough,

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and I knew just what it wanted. I wish she were my daughter: you should see great doings! And she’s as good as gold! It’s her nature. After all, unless your nature’s right, what are you?” But before Hubert could reply to this little spasm of philosophy, Nora reappeared with her note.

The next morning Mrs. Keith went to call officially upon her mother-in-law; and Nora, left alone and thinking much of Roger’s condition, conceived an intense desire to see him. He had never been so dear to her as now, and no one’s right to be with him was equal to hers. She dressed hastily and repaired to the little dwelling they were to have so cosily occupied. She was admitted by her old friend Lucinda, who, between trouble and wonder, found a thousand things to say. Nora’s beauty had never received warmer tribute than the affectionate marvellings of this old woman who had known her early plainness so well. She led her into the drawing-room, opened the windows and turned her about in the light, patted her braided tresses, and rejoiced with motherly unction in her tallness and straightness and elegance. Of Roger she spoke with tearful eyes. “It would be for him to see you, my dear,” she said; “he’d not be disappointed. You’re better than his brightest dreams. O, I know all about it! He used to talk to me evenings, after you were in bed. `Lucinda, do you think she’s pretty? Lucinda, do you think she’s plain? Lucinda, do you dress her warm? Lucinda, have you changed her shoes? And mind, Lucinda, take good care of her hair; it’s the only thing we’re sure of!’ Yes, my dear, you’ve me to thank for these big braids. Would he feel sure of you now, poor man? You must keep yourself in cotton-wool till he recovers. You’re like a picture; you ought to be enclosed

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in a gilt frame and stand against the wall.” Lucinda begged, however, that Nora would not insist upon seeing him; and her great reluctance betraying his evil case, Nora consented to wait. Her own slight experience could avail nothing. “He’s flighty,” said Lucinda, “and I’m afraid he wouldn’t recognize you. If he shouldn’t, it would do you no good; and if he should, it would do him none; it would increase his fever. He’s bad, my dear, he’s bad; but leave him to me! I nursed him as a baby; I nursed him as a boy; I’ll nurse him as a man grown. I’ve seen him worse than this, with the scarlet fever at college, when his poor mother was dying at home. Baby, boy, and man, he’s always had the patience of a saint. I’ll keep him for you, Miss Nora, now I’ve seen you! I shouldn’t dare to meet him in heaven, if I were to let him miss you!”

When Lucinda had returned to her bedside duties, Nora wandered about the house with a soundless tread, taking melancholy note of the preparations Roger had made for her return. His choice, his taste, his ingenuity, were everywhere visible. The best beloved of her possessions from the old house in the country had been transferred hither and placed in such kindly half-lights as would temper justice with mercy; others had been replaced at a great cost. Nora went into the drawingroom, where the blinds were closed and the chairs and sofas shrouded in brown linen, and sat sadly revolving possibilities. How, with Roger’s death, loneliness again would close about her; how he was her world, her strength, her fate! He had made her life; she needed him still to watch his work. She seemed to apprehend, as by a sudden supernatural light, the strong essence of his affection, his wisdom, his alertness, his masterly

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zeal. In the perfect stillness of the house she could almost hear his tread on the stairs, hear his voice utter her name with that tender adjustment of tone which conveyed a benediction in a commonplace. Her heart rose to her throat; she felt a passionate desire to scream. She buried her head in a cushion to stifle the sound; her silent tears fell upon the silk. Suddenly she heard a step in the hall; she had only time to brush them away before Hubert Lawrence came in. He greeted her with surprise. “I came to bring your note,” he said; “I didn’t expect to find you.”

“Where can I better be?” she asked, with intensity. “I can do nothing here, but I should look ill elsewhere. Give me back my note, please. It doesn’t say half I feel.” He returned it and stood watching her while she tore it in bits and threw it into the empty fireplace. “I have been wandering over the house,” she added. “Everything tells me of poor Roger.” She felt an indefinable need of protesting of her affection for him. “I never knew till now,” she said, “how much I loved him. I’m sure you don’t know him, Hubert; not as I do. I don’t believe any one does. People always speak of him with a little air of amusement. Even Mrs. Keith is witty at his expense. But I know him; I grew to know him in thinking of him while I was away. There’s more of him than the world knows or than the world would ever know, if it was left to his modesty and the world’s stupidity!” Hubert made her a little bow, for her eloquence. “But I mean to put an end to his modesty. I mean to say, `Come, Roger, hold up your head and speak out your mind and do yourself common justice.’ I’ve seen people without a quarter of his goodness who had twenty times his assurance and his

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