Yes, she evidently cared for him enough for this; and 'this' meant his arm about her, her hand in his, his eyes of devotion upon her, centre of his universe as she was. And 'this' had, after years of formality, incredibly indeed altered all their relation. But—to marry him—it meant all sorts of other things; it meant definitely giving up; it meant definitely taking on. What it meant taking on was Franklin's raylessness, Franklin's obscurity, Franklin's dun-colour—could a wife escape the infection? What it meant giving up was more vague, but it floated before her as the rose-coloured dream of her youth—the hero, the earnest, ardent hero, who was to light all life to rapture and significance. And, absurdly, while the drift of glamour and regret floated by, and while she sat with Franklin's arm about her, her hand in his, it seemed to shape itself for a moment into the gay, irresponsible face of Gerald Digby. Absurd, indeed; he was neither earnest nor ardent, and if he were he would never feel earnestness or ardour on her account. Franklin certainly responded, in that respect, to the requirements of her dream. Yet—ah, yet—he responded in no other. It was not enough to have eyes only for her. A hero should draw others' eyes upon him; should have rays that others could recognise. Althea was troubled, and she was also ashamed of herself, but whether because of that vision of Gerald Digby, or whether because she was allowing Franklin privileges never allowed before, she did not know. Only the profundity of reverence that beamed upon her from Franklin's eyes enabled her to regain her self-respect.
Smiling a little constrainedly, she drew her hand from his and rose. 'I mustn't bind myself,' she repeated, standing with downcast eyes before him, 'but I'll try; indeed, I'll try.'
'You want to be in love with me, if only you can manage it, don't you, dear?' he questioned; and to this she could truthfully reply, 'Yes, dear Franklin, I want to be in love with you.'
CHAPTER X.
Althea found, as she had hoped, that her whole situation was altered by the arrival of her suitor. A woman boasting the possession of even the most rayless of that species is in a very different category from the woman as mere unsought unit. As unit she sinks easily into the background, is merged with other unemphatic things, but as sought she is always in the foreground, not only in her own, but in others' eyes. Be she ever so unnoticeable, she then gains, at least, the compliment of conjecture. The significance of her personal drama has a universal interest; the issues of her situation are those that appeal forcibly to all.
Althea and her steady, sallow satellite, became the centre of a watchful circle; watchful and kindly. Even to others her charms became more apparent, as, indeed, they were more actual. To be loved and to live in the presence of the adorer is the most beautifying of circumstances. Althea bloomed under it. Her eyes became larger, sweeter, sadder; her lips softer; the mild fever of her indecision and of her sense of power burned dimly in her cheeks. As the centre of watchfulness she gained the grace of self-confidence.
Aunt Julia, observant and shrewd, smiled with half-ironic satisfaction. She had felt sure that Althea must come to this, and 'this,' she considered as on the whole fortunate for Althea. Anything, Aunt Julia thought, was better than to become a wandering old maid, and she had, moreover, the highest respect for Franklin Winslow Kane. As a suitor for one of her own girls he would, of course, have been impossible; but her girls she placed in a different category from Althea; they had the rights of youth, charm, and beauty.
The girls, for their part, though seeing Franklin as a fair object for chaff, conceived of him as wholly suitable. Though they chaffed him, they never did so to his disadvantage, and they were respectful spectators of his enterprise. They had the nicest sense of loyalty for serious situations.
And Miss Buckston was of all the most satisfactory in her attitude. Her contempt for the disillusions and impediments of marriage could not prevent her from feeling an altogether new regard for a person to whom marriage was so obviously open; moreover, she thought Mr. Kane highly interesting. She at once informed Althea that she always found American men vastly the superior in achievement and energy to the much-vaunted American woman, and Althea was not displeased. She was amused but gratified, when Miss Buckston told her what were Franklin's good qualities, and said that though he had many foolish democratic notions, he was more worth while talking to than any man she had met for a long time. She took every opportunity for talking to him about sociology, science, and international themes, and Althea even became a little irked by the frequency of these colloquies and tempted sometimes to withdraw Franklin from them; but the subtle flattery that Miss Buckston's interest in Franklin offered to herself was too acceptable for her to yield to such impulses. Yes, Franklin had a right to his air of careful elation; she had never been so near it. She had not again allowed him to kiss her—she was still rather ashamed when she remembered how often she had, on that one occasion, allowed him to kiss her; yet, in spite of her swift stepping back to discretion, she had never in all her life been so near to saying 'yes' to Franklin as during the eight or ten days after his arrival. And the fact that a third postcard from Helen expressed even further vagueness as to the chance of Gerald's being able to be with them that autumn at Merriston, added to the sense of inevitability. Althea had been for this time so absorbed in Franklin, his effect on others and on herself, that she had not felt, as she would otherwise have done, Helen's unsatisfactory attitude. Helen was at last coming, and she was fluttered at the thought of her coming, but she was far more able to cope with Helen; there was more self to do it with; she was stronger, more independent of Helen's opinion and of Helen's affection. But dimly she felt also—hardly aware she felt it—that she was a more effective self as the undecided recipient of Franklin's devotion than as his affianced wife. A rayless person, it seemed, could crown one with beams as long as one maintained one's distance from him; merged with him one shared his insignificance. To accept Franklin might be to shear them both of all the radiance they borrowed from each other.