CHAPTER XXVII.
For the next few weeks Barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found New York quite all that she had painted it. To Robert she now vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good company,—or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by an effort of will. Yet she held him on the chilly side of that frontier which separates the lover from the comrade. He was her favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy themselves warned from the field. And he was kept restless, tormented, jealous. He was made to feel—as others were allowed to think—that his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and familiar memories. But the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new friends,—among whom Cary Patten, Jerry Waite, and young Paget caused him especial worry,—Barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the merest acquaintance. The utmost that he durst claim at any time was a certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers. She danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at her eyes. Yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one but Cary Patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where she was put on the defensive. Cary Patten was promptly dismissed. But when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest boyishness, his sanguine boldness. Cary, applying one of those general rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of Barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce him to despair! And Barbara, when afterward she came to think of it, liked Cary Patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat.
Meanwhile Barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was in flat contradiction to her wonted directness. She was carefully avoiding, in Robert's presence, a discussion of those political questions with which the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, was then seething. This was easier than it would have been even a few weeks before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its smooth observances. Barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable discussion with Robert. She knew he was identified with the Tory party, but she did not know how far. And she feared her own heat of partisanship not less than his resolution—which she called obstinacy. So, by tacit consent, she and Robert gave wide berth to the perilous theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and darker between them. Presently the apprehension that it was an impending peril to their relation drove Robert to speak, precipitately, on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day.
They had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the drawing-room. Barbara was in high good humour; and Robert seized the moment to ask leave to return that same evening.
"I'm sorry, Robert! I'd love to have you come," she replied. "But I've promised the evening to Cary Patten. He wants to bring his fiddle and try over some new music with me."
Robert's face darkened.
"Cary Patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural exaggeration.
"What nonsense! You know that's not true, Robert. He's not here half as much as you are. But if he were, what of it? He's very good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's much more entertaining than you, Robert!"
Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked. She felt that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits to manage it.
"Barbara,—my lady,—my lady,—I love you!" he said, very quietly.
"Of course, Robert! I know that," she answered, with composure, smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists. Yet in some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his arms. His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.
"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second Westings!"
"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words. "But, of course, I have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed true to her at the moment.
He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding her wrists as he was. He flung them from him, drew back a step, and searched her face with a desperate look.
"And you—you do not love me at all!"
Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.
"No, Robert, I don't love you—not in the way you mean. I'm not in love with you, you know. But I do care a lot for you, more than for almost any one else!"
They had both forgotten—for it was weeks away—how Barbara had felt about the imaginary unknown lady.
That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things. He thought at once of Cary Patten. Pain and jealous madness struggled together in his breast, strangling him.
"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the door. "I shall leave to-night!"
"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply. "Come back at once!"
He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility, but showed no sign of obeying.
"Come back to me!" she commanded. And he, being a courteous gentleman, obeyed.
"What is it, lady?"
"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.
No answer occurred to him as necessary. He looked at her inquiringly, his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard. Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way. She certainly could not let him go. Yet she certainly did not love him enough to give up her freedom for him,—to sacrifice all the enchanting experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated vanity.
"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I couldn't possibly get along without you? I don't love you, but I do love you to love me, you know. I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget me, and love some other woman,—some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who could love you and make you happy. I need you to love me. Though I know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"
Robert stood motionless. The storm raging up and down within him turned him to steel on the surface. From a dry throat he tried to speak clearly and with moderation.
"You said—'almost!' Who is it—you care more for?—Cary Patten?"
Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with a fine assumption of glee.
"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed. "It was Uncle Bob, of course, that I was thinking of when I said that. I love Uncle Bob better than any one else in the world,—far better than I love you, Robert, I can tell you that. But I care for you almost as much as for Aunt Hitty. Cary Patten! Why, he and these other nice men who are making things so pleasant for me, they are just new friends. I like them, that's all. You are altogether different, you know. But I'm just not in love with you,—and so you talk of going away and spoiling everything for me. I don't call that loving me, Robert,—not as I would love a girl if I were a man. But it's not my fault if I'm not in love myself, is it? I'm sorry,—but I don't believe I can love, really, the way you mean! Cary Patten, indeed! Why, he's just a boy,—a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"
"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all gone. He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them. All this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was, a very foolish one.
"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision. "Trying wouldn't make me. And I don't think I want to, anyhow. I want to enjoy myself here while I can. And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not bother me. Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me so—too often! And don't ask me to love you. And don't go and be lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was making believe because you were cross at me. So, don't be horrid!"
This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement. He knew he would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of its injustice.
"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my lady," said he, doggedly. "The trouble is, I don't want to. And I sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I don't care. I love you, that's all—better than anything else in heaven or earth. And I shall make you love me, my lady!"
This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.
"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that made his heart jump. "I sha'n't try to prevent you. I'll even like you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute and let me dress."
"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow. That he should go in this temper did not please her ladyship at all.
"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.
"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.
"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!" She held out her hand to him again. This time he kissed it with what she considered a more fitting warmth.
"And, Robert, don't forget that I am very, very good to you, far more so than you deserve. I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of the others, not to flirt with the other girls. Cary Patten may be as lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me! Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."
"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile. "A great honour, indeed,—though a superfluous one!"
"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection," said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.