"That she wasn't any more to him than a bird that was singing near us; that he'd never see her again if I asked him."
"And you sent him away after that! Good heavens, my dear, that was the moment of all others when you should have said 'I believe you!' For he was telling you the truth—I'll stake my intelligence on it. It was the supreme evidence of his reliance upon you, the supreme test of your love. And you failed. Appearances? Yes, of course! And what are appearances? Nothing in the world but a perpetual reminder that we're not omniscient. Margery—you've got to call him back."
Margery made no reply.
"You owe that much to him, and you owe it to me. We've both of us been in the wrong, and you must give us a chance to set things right. If you can't take him as he is, then ask him to tell you exactly what his relations have been with this woman, and act on his answer as you see fit. I can't criticise you for doing as you think right, if only you're acting on the truth; but the truth you must have! At present you're depending upon a lot of hearsay, upon the criminally thoughtless cynicism of a gossipy old woman, and on your own rash conclusions. My dear girl, you know I love you—love you better than anything in the world, except Jeremy? Well, then, do this for me."
"Very well," answered Margery wearily, "but it's no use, Mrs. Carnby."
That morning she telegraphed Andrew to come back to her—and there was no reply.
Thereafter the subject had not been mentioned either by the girl or her hostess. For the first time there lay a little barrier of restraint between them, which Mrs. Carnby, with all her tact, found it impossible to pass, or even clearly to define. Her customary confidence in herself stood back aghast. Any further interference, she knew, might well be set down as idle meddling. She had done her best—and failed.
Day by day she saw Margery grow paler and thinner. The old gaiety was slipping from her, flashing forth at more and more infrequent intervals, like the flame of an untended lamp, brightening more feebly, ever and anon, before it dies away. But there was nothing to be said or done. The little touches of endearment and sympathy with which women often fill the place of words, passed between them, but too often these negative interpreters of their hidden thoughts caused the girl's eyes to fill. At Mrs. Carnby's earnest entreaty, she prolonged her visit, and was glad of the seclusion of the villa, the long idle days, the evenings at billiards or backgammon with Jeremy, and the still warm nights when, through sleepless hours, reverie had free rein. Curiously enough, and despite Andrew's neglect of her, her former tenderness for him returned and grew. The first passion of her resentment having passed, she was learning to make the ample and even obstinate allowances of the woman who has seen love in her grasp, and had it snatched away. At the moment of her rejection of him, there had been nothing within her range of vision but the spectre of cruel and humiliating wrong. But now a thousand little appealing reminiscences came back to woo and to persuade her. The old days at Beverly; the boy-and-girl companionship wherefrom had sprung the first flower of her love; the high hopefulness of their young attitude; the bashful acknowledgment of unspoken understanding with which they parted; the long months of separation, when her unhappiness in her new surroundings was silver-shot with prescience of his coming; that coming itself, and the joyous significance of it—all these worked upon her night and day. She was learning to forget the little hints of gossip whereby she first began to doubt him, and even the terrible frankness of Mrs. Carnby's words, which had seemed to confirm all her worst suspicions. She felt that if only she had been given the time which now was hers, she would have been able to adjust these matters, reduce the gossip to its proper place of insignificance, and see, as now she saw, the vast and supreme importance of their love. Now it was herself, not him, she blamed for his silence. She had indeed not "given him a fighting chance." She had insulted him, and, at the end, sent him about his business with a heartless sneer. Mrs. Carnby's words came back to her—"love is little more than forgiveness on the endless instalment plan!"—and she had not been willing to forgive him, even when perhaps there had been nothing to forgive. She would turn restlessly, watching the dawn brightening against her window. Ah, kind God, what would she not forgive him now! What difference could anything that had been make, if only she could hear his voice again, and see him bending over the music of "The Persian Garden," and know that for all time he was hers!
"Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say:
Yes—but where leaves the rose of yesterday?"
Mrs. Carnby was not alone in her perception of the change in Margery. Jeremy mentioned it, one night, as they were dressing for dinner.