She kept up a steady correspondence with Miss Dasomma, and that also was a great help to her. She had a note now and then from Mr. Vavasor, and that was no help. A little present of music was generally its pretext. He dared not trust himself to write to her about anything else—not from the fear of saying more than was prudent, but because, not even yet feeling to know what she would think about this or that, he was afraid of encountering her disapprobation. In music he thought he did understand her, but was in truth far from understanding her. For to understand a person in any one thing, we must at least be capable of understanding him in everything. Even the bits of news he ventured to send her, all concerned the musical world—except when he referred now and then to Cornelius he never omitted to mention his having been to his aunt's. Hester was always glad when she saw his writing, and always disappointed with the letter—she could hardly have said why, for she never expected it to go beyond the surfaces of things: he was not yet sufficiently at home with her, she thought, to lay open the stores of his heart and mind—as he would doubtless have been able to do more readily had he had a sister to draw him out!
Vavasor found himself in her absence haunted with her face, her form, her voice, her song, her music,—sometimes with the peace and power of her presence, and the uplifting influence she exercised upon him, It is possible for a man to fall in love with a woman he is centuries from being able to understand. But how the form of such a woman must be dwarfed in the camera of such a man's mind! It is the falsehood of the silliest poetry to say he defies the image of his beloved. He is but a telescope turned wrong end upon her. If such a man could see such a woman after her true proportions, and not as the puppet he imagines her, thinking his own small great-things of her, he would not be able to love her at all. To see how he sees her—to get a glimpse of the shrunken creature he has to make of her ere, through his proud door, he can get her into the straightened cellar of his poor, pinched heart, would be enough to secure any such woman from the possibility of falling in love with such a man. Hester knew that in some directions he was much undeveloped; but she thought she could help him; and had he thoroughly believed in and loved her, which he was not capable of doing, she could have helped him. But a vision of the kind of creature he was capable of loving—therefore the kind of creature he imagined her in loving her, would have been—to use a low but expressive phrase—a sickener to her.
At length, in one of his brief communications, he mentioned that his yearly resurrection was at hand—his butterfly-month he called it—when he ceased for the time to be a caterpillar, and became a creature of the upper world, reveling in the light and air of summer. He must go northward, he said; he wanted not a little bracing for the heats of the autumnal city. The memories of Burcliff drew him potently thither, but would be too sadly met by its realities. He had an invitation to the opposite coast which he thought he would accept. He did not know exactly where Paradise lay, but if he found it within accessible distance, he hoped her parents would allow him to call some morning and be happy for an hour or two.
Hester answered that her father and mother would be glad to see him, and if he were inclined to spend a day or two, there was a beautiful country to show him. If his holiday happened again to coincide with Corney's, perhaps they would come down together. If he cared for sketching, there was no end of picturesque spots as well as fine landscapes.
Of music or singing she said not a word.
By return of post came a grateful acceptance. About a week after, they heard from Cornelius that his holiday was not to make its appearance before vile November. He did not inform them that he sought an exchange with a clerk whose holiday fell in the said undesirable month.
CHAPTER XXV.
WAS IT INTO THE FIRE?
One lovely evening in the beginning of June, when her turn had come to get away a little earlier, Amy Amber thought with herself she would at last make an effort to find Miss Raymount. In the hurry of escaping from Burcliff she left her address behind, but had long since learned it from a directory, and was now sufficiently acquainted with London to know how to reach Addison square. Having dressed herself therefore in becoming style, for dress was one of the instincts of the girl—an unacquirable gift, not necessarily associated with anything noble—in the daintiest, brightest little bonnet, a well-made, rather gay print, boots just a little too auffallend, and gloves that clung closer to the small short hand than they had to cling to the bodies of the rodents from which they came, she set out for her visit.