"I think your mother's course was infamous," he said. "Did you suppose that I could possibly blame you for leaving her?"
Claire had dropped her head, now, so that he could see only the white curve of her forehead beneath its floss of waved and gold-tinted hair. And she spoke so low that he could just hear her, and no more.
"Yes, I thought you might blame me.... I was not sure.... Or, if not this, I feared that the way in which poor Father was buried might ... might make you feel as if I bore a stain—or at least that the disgrace of such a burial, and of having a mother who could commit so hard and bad an act, must reflect in shame upon myself."
If they had been alone together, Hollister would have answered this faint-voiced, hesitant speech by simply clasping Claire within his arms. But the place forbade any such fondly demonstrative course. He was forced to keep his glad impetuosity within conventional bounds; yet the glow on his face and the tremulous ardor of his tones betrayed how cogent a surge of feeling was threatening to sweep him, poor fellow, past all barriers of propriety.
As it was, he spoke some words which he afterward failed to remember, except in the sense that they were filled with fond, precipitate denial of all that Claire had said. He felt so dazed by the bliss that had rushed upon him as to fail, also, of recalling just how he and Claire left the populous piazza, and just how they reached the lonelier dusk of the shore. But the waves brought him rare music as he paced the sands a little later. His was the divine intoxication that may drug the warder, memory, but that wakes to no remorseful morrow....
Claire wondered to herself when she was alone, that night, at the suddenness of the whole rapid event. She had given her pledge to become Herbert Hollister's wife in the autumn. While she viewed her promise in every sort of light, it seemed to her sensible, discreet, even creditable. He was a gentleman, and she liked him very much. She had no belief, no premonition that she would ever like any one else better. She was far from telling herself that she did not love him. We have heard her call herself cold, and it had grown a fixed creed with her that she was exempted by some difference of temperament from the usual throes and fervors. He suited her admirably, in person, in disposition, in manners. She need never be ashamed of him; she might indeed be well proud of so gallant and handsome a husband. Her influence over him was great; she could doubtless sway, even mould him, just as she desired. And she would bear clearly in mind those warning words of Beverley Thurston's: she would use her power to good ends, though they might be ambitious ones. From a worldly stand-point, he was comfortably well off; his income was several thousands a year; he had told her so. With his youth and energy he might gain much more. She would stimulate, abet, encourage him toward the accomplishment of this purpose. He should always be glad of having chosen her. She would hold it constantly to heart that he should find in her a guide, a help, a devoted friend. And he, on his side, should aid her to win the place that she coveted, loving her all the better because she had achieved it.
When these rather curious meditations had ceased, she fell into a placid sleep. She had been wholly unconscious of the selfish pivot on which they turned. It had quite escaped her realization that they were singularly unsuited to the night of her betrothal. She had no conception of how little she was giving and how much she was demanding. She fell asleep with a perfectly good conscience, and a secret amused expectancy on the subject of Sophia's and Mrs. Bergemann's surprise when to-morrow should bring them the momentous tidings of her engagement.
But they were not so much surprised as she had anticipated. The attentions of Hollister had been brief, yet of telling earnestness. Sophia hugged her friend, and cried a little. "You mean old thing," she exclaimed, "to go and get engaged! Now, of course, you'll be getting married and leaving us."
"I'm afraid that's the natural consequence," said Claire, with a smile. Mrs. Bergemann pressed her to the portly bosom, and whispered confidentially, just after the kiss of congratulation: "He's a real ellergant gentleman. I think I know one when I see one, Claire. And don't you let Sophia set you against him. She better try and do half as well herself. She'll marry some adventuring pauper, if she ain't careful, I just do believe."
Claire felt a great inward amusement at the thought of Hollister being depreciated in her eyes by any light value which Sophia might set upon him. As it proved, however, Sophia soon learned to forgive him for the engagement, and to treat him very graciously. Before the summer had grown much older Claire and her lover began to be pointed out by the few other permanent boarders of the hotel, with that interest which clings like a rosy nimbus about the doings of all betrothed young people. They certainly made a very handsome couple, as they strolled hither and thither. But Claire's interest, on her own side, had been roused by certain little côteries that would often group at one end of the monster piazza. The ladies of these small assemblages were mostly very refined-looking persons, and many of the gentlemen reminded her of Hollister, though their coats, trousers, boots, and neck-ties not seldom bore an elaborated smartness unpossessed by his. They looked, in current idiom, as though they had come out of band-boxes, with their high, stiff collars, their silver-topped walking sticks, and their general air of polite indolence. The ladies, clad in lace-trimmed muslins and wearing long gloves that reached above their elbows, would hold chats with their gallants under the shade of big, cool-colored parasols. Claire was often pierced by a sense of their remarkable exclusiveness when she watched their dainty gatherings; and she watched them with a good deal of covert concern. Hollister could not even tell her any of the gentlemen's names. This caused her a sting of regret. She wanted him to be at least important enough for that. His ignorance argued him too unknown, too unnoted. One day, to her surprise, Claire perceived Mrs. Arcularius, her former august schoolmistress, seated amid a group of this select description. Mrs. Arcularius had lost none of her old majesty. It was still there, and it was an older majesty, by many new gray hairs, many acquired wrinkles. She was a stouter person, but the stoutness did not impair her dignity; she bore her flesh well.