"Oh, yes, indeed!" Ruth chimed in. "How glad I am we couldn't get off—we would have missed the ride on the Ferris Wheel, the cream of the whole correspondence."
It was a relief when he discovered that they had no intention of sallying forth for that enjoyment until after the early supper of the little hostelry. There was a possibility that something might occur in the interval—rain, wind, earthquake, he hardly cared, so keen, so nettling was his irritation, and his desire to obstruct their fell purpose, to keep them within doors, decorously spending the evening in conversation with their own exclusive party, or, so long as the little blue parlour remained open for the general use of the guests of the hotel, a quiet game of bridge, in its quasi retirement. Mrs. Laniston and he were often partners at this delectable pastime, and the two girls delighted to combine their science, luck, even chicanery, against them. The delay restored his equanimity for the nonce, but his look of annoyance had been so palpable that Mrs. Laniston thought a remonstrance in order, when she could speak aside to one of the young ladies.
"I wouldn't insist on the Ferris Wheel," she said to Lucia, as they walked through the ladies' parlour; the verandah had become unpleasantly crowded; the evening intermission had supervened at the fair; the wickets were closed; the lamps were not yet lighted, and the sunset glow was dulling into twilight. However removed from the normal estate of mankind, the living skeleton and the fat lady must eat, rest a bit, quench their thirst, and sigh against the ridicule of Fate. It was one of the unadvertised features of the show, considered amusing or pathetic according to the individual temperament of the spectator, that the fat lady, who, poor soul, had not her nerves under the best control, burst into tears, ever and anon, and her mountain of flesh shook and trembled with sobs. She had an æsthetic mind, and was sensitive to ridicule and the wonderment of the crowd, and would fain have been beautiful and admired rather than have filled her purse with gold. She needed a respite to bathe her eyes and readjust her tawdry finery, and hearken to the consolations of her attendant. The boa constrictor, gorged, had coiled up, and was lost in the torpor of digestion and the recuperation of sleep. The spielers had cast aside their horns; one or two were in the drug store, busy in swallowing the unpalatable vaseline for their throats; the Ferris Wheel was empty and still for the nonce; the rural visitors of the more prosperous class who could sustain the added expense of the hotel, detained also by the storm in the mountains, were trooping up the steps and sauntering along the verandah. Their ladies were ensconced in numbers in the rocking chairs of the large parlour. It had occurred to Jardine that the garden walks were probably solitary and attractive at this hour, and he suggested repairing thither. As the party emerged into the fragrant flowery paths, Mrs. Laniston continued her aside to her niece.
"I fancy Mr. Jardine considers the Ferris Wheel undignified."
"There is no question of dignity about it," said Lucia coldly. "It is the simple amusement of a simple little fair. If we see fit to break the monotony of our detention at New Helvetia by visiting a countryside fête, new to our experience, and so far interesting, and by participating in such a degree as pleases us, it is not an appropriate subject for his criticism."
Mrs. Laniston was struck with the justice of this observation. "But don't be too independent," she admonished the young lady, for Mr. Jardine was a very good match from a worldly point of view.
"I do not need his assistance to preserve my dignity," she retorted. Thus she walked on with her head held very high, and an added stateliness of carriage that comported well with her fine height and her slender, willowy figure.
The sunset glow was still reddening among the dark, luxuriant shrubs. In the few locust trees the wreaths of honeysuckle vines, that clambered up to the lowest boughs and festooned the space from one to another, were in the fall blooming—all the world was pervaded with that sweet reminiscent fragrance of spring. There were late roses, too, of an old-fashioned kind, pink and white, and one, "the giant of battles," had dark-red velvet petals, and an odour as of an exquisite distillation of all the hoarded sweetness and sunshine of summer; it furnished a rich note of colour to Lucia's brown hair, where it clung with its thorns and leaves with as artless an effect as if it had been blown thither by the breeze, coming more freshly now from the dusky reaches of the east. The sky was still perceptibly a faint blue, but here and there the crystalline scintillation of a white star trembled, and the red was fast dying out of the west. As the party, two by two, paced slowly along the pleached alleys, Jardine became aware of a change in Lucia's manner toward him. In one instant every other consideration was annulled. With absent, reflective eyes he meditated for a moment, fumbling mentally for the cause. Then, with the quickened divination of a lover, he surmised the betrayal of his disaffection, and Mrs. Laniston's politic admonition. He did not realise that she prudently considered his eligibility, but only that she feared that it might not prove agreeable to go about pleasuring in a humble way with an escort who openly scorned the simple diversion. Despite Mrs. Laniston's bland graciousness, he was indignant that she should have interfered. His fastidiousness had fallen from him as if he had never entertained so finicky a disdain, as it seemed to him now. Rather than displease Lucia, than incur her resentment, he would have taken a turn on Ixion's wheel—the safe and healthful revolution of the monster circumference glimpsed over the hotel roof was, indeed, a minute sacrifice to afford her the girlish fun, the simple pleasure she found, like a child, in simple things. It was her unspoiled taste, he now said to himself, her fund of good humour, her indulgent, uncritical attitude toward the humble folk, that could forbear ridicule, and share their pleasure in little things—all added a grace to her metropolitan experience, her travel, her culture; she saw good in everything, because she saw the reflection of her own warm heart, and her own pure mind.
Jardine was not unskilled in casuistry. It would have been his instinct to cast himself on his knees at her feet, and beg her forgiveness, if so much as the glance of his eye had offended her, but he knew that confession fixes the fault in mind, and a fault that is condoned is not so obliterated as one that is, in effect, denied. There are some affronts that will not be expunged by pardon. To be tired of her amusement, to question her dignity, to repine at escorting her wherever she might list to go, to scorn the subject that interested her—he would not throw himself on her generosity with this score against him. He would annul, disavow, disprove the impression. He suddenly turned, as he walked slowly along with Mrs. Laniston, and, standing in the path, impeding the progress of the two young ladies, he looked straight at Lucia with warning eyes.
"Now, I don't want to say anything disagreeable," he cast down his glance at the dial of his watch which he held in his hand, "but that wind from the east is freshening very considerably. It may bring rain, and you two may risk your ride in the Ferris Wheel if you postpone any preparations you may have to make till after supper."