"I warn you against yourself," he went on. His anger had cooled now, and melancholy had replaced it. "You have some fine traits, but there is an actual curse hanging over you, and as a curse it will surely fall, unless by the act of your own will you change it into a blessing. It is more than half the consequence of your land and your time, but it is due in part, also, to your special nature. In other countries the women whom fate has placed as it has placed you, are never stung by ambition like yours. They are born bourgeoises, and such they are contented to remain. If they possess any ambition, it is to adorn the sphere in which their destinies have set them, and this alone. They long for no new worlds to conquer; their small world is enough, but it is not too small to hold a large store of honest pride. All over Europe one finds it thus. But in America the affair is quite different. Here, both women and men have what is called 'push.' Not seldom it is a really noble discontent; I am not finding fault with it in all cases. But in yours, Claire Twining, I maintain that it will turn out a dowry of bitter risk if not woful disaster. I exhort you to be careful, to be very careful, lest it prove the latter. Don't let your American 'push' impel you into swamps and quicksands. Don't let it thrust you away from what is true and sterling in yourself. Be loyal to it as a good impulse, and it will not betray and confound you like a bad one. You can do something so much better than to wreck your life; you can make it a force, a guidance, a standard, a leadership. You can keep conscience and self-respect clean, and yet shine with a far surer and more lasting brilliancy on this account.... Think of my counsel; I shall not besiege you with any more; no doubt I have given you too much, and with too slight a warrant, already.... Good-by. If I should never see you again, I shall always hope for you until I hear ill news of you. And if bright news reaches me, I shall be vain enough to tell myself that we have not met, talked, argued—even quarreled, perhaps—without the gain on your own side of happy and valued results." ...
Thurston passed from the room, swiftly, and yet not seeming to use the least haste, before Claire, strongly impressed and with her wrath at a vanishing point, could collect herself for the effort of any coherent sort of reply.
She had caught one very clear glimpse of his face just as he disappeared. His hazel eyes, troubled, yet quiet, had momentarily dwelt with great fixity on her own. As she afterward recalled this parting vision of a face grown so familiar through recent weeks, it appeared to her solely in imaginative terms. It ceased to be a face; it became a reproach, a remonstrance, an advice, an entreaty.
Immediately after his exit she sank into a chair, feeling his late words ring through mind and heart. She had never liked him so much as at that moment.
She had a sense that he meant to avoid seeing her again. But she did not realize through how much vivid novelty of experience she must pass before they once more met. If any such prescience had reached her, she would have gone out into the hall and plucked him by the sleeve, begging him to return, filled with conciliatory designs, eager that he should abandon all thought of permanent farewell.
But as it was, she let the hall-door close behind him, and sat staring at the floor and saying within her own thoughts: "He is right. I am in danger. I can save myself if I choose. And I will save myself in time!"
She clenched both hands as they drooped at either side, and her eyes flashed softly below their shading lids.
XI.
She was wholly unprepared for the intelligence, a few days later, that Thurston had gone, in the most sudden manner, to Europe. The Bergemanns, mother and daughter, were both amazed by the departure of their legal adviser, without a premonitory word from him on the subject and apparently at such brief notice. Claire, in the midst of her own consternation, sharply dreaded lest some suspicion should dawn upon them that she was concerned in this precipitate change. But if Mrs. Bergemann let fall any hint that such was her belief, it was made in the hearing of Sophia alone; and the latter had scouted from the first, as we know, all idea that Thurston's regard for her friend could partake of lover-like tenderness. The letter which he had written to his client, announcing that he had sailed, gave no reason for this abrupt course. It was a letter somewhat copious in other respects, however, and made thoroughly plain the fact that the partner of him who wrote it would in every way defend and supervise the interests of Mrs. Bergemann. "I shall probably be abroad a number of months," ran Thurston's written words, "but during that time rest sure that all details of the slightest importance with respect to your affairs shall be safely communicated through Mr. Chadwick."