A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories. William Dean Howells
Elmore continued inarticulate, but he made a low, miserable sibillation between his set teeth.
"Such presumption, such perfect audacity I never saw in my life!" cried Mrs. Elmore, fleetly changing the subject in her own mind, and leaving her husband to follow her as he could. "It was outrageous!" Her words were strong, but she did not really look affronted; and it is hard to tell what sort of liberty it is that affronts a woman. It seems to depend a great deal upon the person who takes the liberty.
"That was the man, I suppose," said Elmore quietly.
"Yes, Owen," answered his wife, with beautiful candor, "it was." Seeing that he remained unaffected by her display of this virtue, she added, "Don't you think he was very handsome?"
"I couldn't judge, at such a distance."
"Well, he is perfectly splendid. And I don't want you to think he was disrespectful at all. He wasn't. He was everything that was delicate and deferential."
"Did you ask him to walk home with you?"
Mrs. Elmore remained speechless for some moments. Then she drew a long breath, and said firmly: "If you won't interrupt me with gratuitous insults, Owen, I will tell you all about it, and then perhaps you will be ready to do me justice. I ask nothing more." She waited for his contrition, but proceeded without it, in a somewhat meeker strain: "Lily couldn't get her things at Pazienti's, and we had to go to the Merceria for them. Then of course the nearest way home was through St. Mark's Square. I made Lily go on the Florian side, so as to avoid the officers who were sitting at the Quadri, and we had got through the square and past San Moïsè, as far as the Stadt Gratz. I had never thought of how the officers frequented the Stadt Gratz, but there we met a most magnificent creature, and I had just said, 'What a splendid officer!' when she gave a sort of stop and he gave a sort of stop, and bowed very low, and she whispered, 'It's my officer.' I didn't dream of his joining us, and I don't think he did, at first; but after he took a second look at Lily, it really seemed as if he couldn't help it. He asked if he might join us, and I didn't say anything."
"Didn't say anything!"
"No! How could I refuse, in so many words? And I was frightened and confused, any way. He asked if we were going to the music in the Giardini Pubblici; and I said No, that Miss Mayhew was not going into society in Venice, but was merely here for her health. That's all there is of it. Now do you blame me, Owen?"
"No."
"Do you blame her?"
"No."
"Well, I don't see how he was to blame."
"The transaction was a little irregular, but it was highly creditable to all parties concerned."
Mrs. Elmore grew still meeker under this irony. Indignation and censure she would have known how to meet; but his quiet perplexed her: she did not know what might not be coming. "Lily scarcely spoke to him," she pursued, "and I was very cold. I spoke to him in German."
"Is German a particularly repellent tongue?"
"No. But I was determined he should get no hold upon us. He was very polite and very respectful, as I said, but I didn't give him an atom of encouragement; I saw that he was dying to be asked to call, but I parted from him very stiffly."
"Is it possible?"
"Owen, what is there so wrong about it all? He's clearly fascinated with her; and as the matter stood, he had no hope of seeing her or speaking with her except on the street. Perhaps he didn't know it was wrong—or didn't realize it."
"I dare say."
"What else could the poor fellow have done? There he was! He had stayed over a day, and laid himself open to arrest, on the bare chance—one in a hundred—of seeing Lily; and when he did see her, what was he to do?"
"Obviously, to join her and walk home with her."
"You are too bad, Owen! Suppose it had been one of our own poor boys? He looked like an American."
"He didn't behave like one. One of 'our own poor boys,' as you call them, would have been as far as possible from thrusting himself upon you. He would have had too much reverence for you, too much self-respect, too much pride."
"What has pride to do with such things, my dear? I think he acted very naturally. He acted upon impulse. I'm sure you're always crying out against the restraints and conventionalities between young people, over here; and now, when a European does do a simple, unaffected thing—"
Elmore made a gesture of impatience. "This fellow has presumed upon your being Americans—on your ignorance of the customs here—to take a liberty that he would not have dreamed of taking with Italian or German ladies. He has shown himself no gentleman."
"Now there you are very much mistaken, Owen. That's what I thought when Lily first told me about his speaking to her in the cars, and I was very much prejudiced against him; but when I saw him to-day, I must say that I felt that I had been wrong. He is a gentleman; but—he is desperate."
"Oh, indeed!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Elmore, shrinking a little under her husband's sarcastic tone. "Why, Owen," she pleaded, "can't you see anything romantic in it?"
"I see nothing but a vulgar impertinence in it. I see it from his standpoint as an adventure, to be bragged of and laughed over at the mess-table and the caffè. I'm going to put a stop to it."
Mrs. Elmore looked daunted and a little bewildered. "Well, Owen," she said, "I put the affair entirely in your hands."
Elmore never could decide upon just what theory his wife had acted; he had to rest upon the fact, already known to him, of her perfect truth and conscientiousness, and his perception that even in a good woman the passion for manœuvring and intrigue may approach the point at which men commit forgery. He now saw her quelled and submissive; but he was by no means sure that she looked at the affair as he did, or that she voluntarily acquiesced.
"All that I ask is that you won't do anything that you'll regret afterward. And as for putting a stop to it, I fancy it's put a stop to already. He's going back to Peschiera this afternoon, and that'll probably be the last of him."
"Very well," said Elmore, "if that is the last of him, I ask nothing better. I certainly have no wish to take any steps in the matter."
But he went out of the house very unhappy and greatly perplexed. He thought at first of going to the Stadt Gratz, where Captain Ehrhardt was probably staying for the tap of Vienna beer peculiar to that hostelry, and of inquiring him out, and requesting him to discontinue his attentions; but this course, upon reflection, was less high-handed than comported with his present mood, and he turned aside to seek advice of his consul. He found Mr. Hoskins in the best humor for backing his quarrel. He had just received a second dispatch from Turin, stating that the rumor of the approaching visit of the Alabama was unfounded; and he was thus left with a force of unexpended belligerence on his hands which he was glad to contribute to the defence of Mr. Elmore's family from the pursuit of this Austrian officer.
"This is a very simple affair, Mr. Elmore,"—he usually said "Elmore," but in his haughty frame of mind, he naturally threw something more of state into their intercourse—"a very simple affair, fortunately. All that I have to do is to call on the military governor, and state the facts of the case, and this fellow will get his orders quietly and definitively. This war has sapped our influence in Europe—there's no doubt of it; but I think it's a pity if an American family living in this city can't be safe from molestation; and if it can't, I want to know the reason why."
This language was very acceptable to Elmore, and he thanked the consul. At the same time he felt his own resentment moderated, and he said, "I'm willing to let the matter rest if he goes away this afternoon."
"Oh, of course," Hoskins assented, "if he clears out, that's the end of it. I'll look in to-morrow, and see how you're getting along."
"Don't—don't give them the impression that