XXII.
VANE, however, did not carry his analysis quite so far as this. He found that it was unreal; there he stopped; the why was too heavy a burden for him. He was ready and anxious enough to make it real; but still, all through his life, the substance of life itself had kept eluding him, and left the shadow in his hand.
Many of the girls (at Cinerea every woman under thirty is a girl)—many of the girls were reading novels, American summer stories, written by girls about other girls, and revelling in the summer life of girls. Vane borrowed some of these and read them. They were so prettily written, so charming, so awfully true, he was told; and he liked not to confess that they gave him but a little passing amusement, which was followed by much mental depression. It was all true and real, then? Was Vane himself something of a prig? John Haviland did not think so. But these stories seemed to him more immoral, or at all events, more corrupting, than many a French romance ending in adultery. There was in them an ignorance of all that is highest in life, a calm, self-satisfied acceptance of a petty standard. The strength of crime implies the strength of virtue, but the negation of both is hopelessness. In defence of Vane, it might be said that he was really not in the mood for pleasure at this time.
The straw-ride was unanimously declared to be a great success. Miss Morse brought her volume of Mérimée along and read it to her young man in the woods. Her young man for the afternoon, that is; she had no special young man. The chaperone was the beautiful Mrs. Miles Breeze, of Baltimore; she arrived suddenly, in the nick of time to go; and Vane could see that Miss Morse was much elated at being under the wing of so real a social personage. Ned Eddy was with her. When the company paired off and scattered in the woods, Vane fell to the lot of a Miss Gibbs, of Philadelphia, a still newer acquaintance to whom Miss Storrs had introduced him. Miss Gibbs had a volume of Rossetti’s poems with her, and Vane read to her the “Last Confession” under the pine trees. For many a foreigner, it would have been his first. But the hearts of American young men are (very properly) bound in triple brass. Miss Gibbs also knew Miss Thomas. She seemed relieved when she gathered from Vane that Miss Storrs was an acquaintance of a few hours, and Misses Morse and Westerhouse of the morning only. Evidently, thought Vane, there were distinctions if not differences. Miss Gibbs combined much good-breeding with her fascinations; and a dangerous savoir faire.
The next day he went to walk with a dark-haired girl in the morning, and to drive with a yellow-haired widow in the afternoon. In the evening he found himself drifting on the lake in a boat with Miss Gibbs. Any one of these beauties would have been termed, by a Frenchman, adorable; and probably he would have ventured to adore. Other boats with similar couples were scattered over the lake, no one too near another. As far as Vane could judge, it seemed to be considered the proper thing for every young man to simulate the deepest love for his companion of the hour. It was a sort of private theatrical, with the out-door night for a stage; a midsummer night’s dream, of which the theme was let’s pretend we’re lovers. He was here alone with Miss Gibbs under circumstances which in France would have compelled him to marry her; and it was doubtful whether she would even remember him as an acquaintance, in the city, a few weeks later.
He was glad to admit that there was something very creditable in the fact that the thing was possible. Still this trifling, this mild but continuous drugging of the affections, must have its demoralizing effect. It was part result and part cause of that same unreality. The only real thing about the hotel was the stock-ticker; and even there, the stock that it registered was water. It was all very amusing. Yet the fancy continually recurred of Miss Thomas, in this situation, though he, of all men, would have had no right to be displeased; for had she not definitely told him he had none? Still, it was hard to divest himself of a certain sense of property in her; he had mentally appropriated her for so long.
He was plashing carelessly with his oars, and watching the sheen of moonlight on the outline of his companion’s fair face, suffering himself for a moment to wonder how the same light would have fallen in Winifred’s blue eyes, when Miss Gibbs again spoke of her.
“I had a letter from your friend Miss Thomas, to-day,” said she. The deuce she had! thought Vane; so she corresponds with Miss Gibbs, does she? Vane was disgusted with himself for thinking so much about the girl, and here he was caught thinking of her again.
He pulled a few nervous strokes. How could he see the letter without exciting Miss Gibbs’ curiosity? He managed it, finally, and read the letter. He was secretly relieved to find that the note was quite formal and was simply to tell Miss Gibbs that she need not forward a piece of embroidery which had been left behind. More surprising was the news that Miss Thomas was coming back. Vane made himself doubly attentive to Miss Gibbs; and as each man walked back with his lady, and said to her a long good night on the hotel piazza, implying all the sorrow of a Romeo in parting from a Juliet, Vane was secretly wondering what the deuce he was to do. “What the deuce!” was again the phrase he mentally used. He did not wish to see the girl again—that was certain enough; but it was decidedly undignified to run away. There was really a sort of fatality in their meeting.