Several times during the twenty-four hours the old Baroness would ask when the guest was expected.
“We are in mourning, Ursula,” she said. “I hope you will not forget that we are in mourning. I think you went out of it too soon for your father-in-law. But perhaps your customs are different.” (This was a standing, oft-repeated grievance.) “However, it is barely nine months since your husband died.”
“It is six,” replied Ursula; “I shall not forget.”
“The young man does not seem too anxious, certainly,” interposed Aunt Louisa, over her crochet. “You ask him, and he doesn’t reply. I prefer the days of chivalry.”
“But you don’t remember the age of chivalry, Aunt Louisa,” said Ursula, whose patience was distinctly overwrought. She objected to hearing her own innermost thought thus clearly stated by the Freule.
“No; I was born fifty-seven years ago; I am in no way ashamed of it,” replied Aunt Louisa, coolly. “But what has that to do with the subject? You must be very unimaginative, Ursula, or have read very little. If you weren’t so careless about your books, and didn’t let them get dog-eared (as you do), I should lend you Madame de Roncevalles’ book on ‘The Decline of European Manners.’ It is wonderfully interesting. It proves from the fossil remains that the cave-dwellers, at their cannibal banquets, always ate the women first.”
“Louisa, it is time I had my piquet,” objected the Dowager, who never forgot her game. She had taken the old Baron’s place as Louisa’s partner, and somehow considered the continuation of this time-honored institution as an almost religious tribute to her lord.
Under the reproachful wonder of her two companions, Ursula began to remember with increasing clearness that her impression of Theodore van Helmont had been decidedly unfavorable. She had not been able to understand her husband’s admiration; but then, Otto and she so seldom sympathized. She remembered a grave young man, an awkward man, one of those irritating people who were always judging themselves, and had a logical reason for everything they did. There are people who constantly seem to be standing aside to look themselves down, superciliously, from head to foot. She wished more than ever that she had not sent her telegram. But, unfortunately for most of us, it is easy to say “Come,” and impossible to say “Don’t.”
The only time she had met this cousin was on the occasion of those Christmas festivities, when the house was full of guests. It was a time on which she could not bear to dwell. For it was then that Gerard—
She stopped suddenly when the thought of all this first rushed back upon her. Since her illness it seemed as if the past had been locked away in a cupboard with many partitions, where its several incidents lay, not forgotten, but unrecalled. One by one, at the touch of Chance, the various doors flew open, and some memory, sweet or painful, would leap forth from a seeming nowhere into the light.