“It will create obligations. We shall be expected to see so many people and do so many things. But I am glad to have it if you like it. I am proud to bring you something. I would give you everything in the world if I could. I am yours, and what I have is yours, to do with as you like. But you must never feel indebted to me, for there is no indebtedness. I can’t quite explain what I mean, but it humiliates me even to think of giving between you and me. The money is ours, that is all, and therefore yours. You will control it and give me an allowance for dresses. I say this now because I don’t want to speak of it again. You understand, don’t you, Philibert? Let’s not talk of it any more, ever.”
Such was her attitude, such was her idea, and all he had to do was to let himself be loved.
But I don’t like to think about Philibert in his relation to Jane. I wish I could leave him out of the story altogether.
In the meantime Mrs. Carpenter, while highly gratified that her plans had worked out so well, was nevertheless a little taken aback at the extravagant turn they were taking. She may well have been more then a little worried at Jane’s going ahead at such a pace. There was no comfort for Izzy now in conferring with Philibert. The shape of the triangle had changed. The coveted man had drawn away from her and was as close now to her daughter as he had once been to her. She found herself no longer the strong base that held them together. They could exist now without her. And Philibert began very delicately to make her feel this. His manner conveyed—“You have done your part, and very well on the whole, but still you know it’s finished. You’re really no use to me now. I shan’t of course go back on my bargain. You shall have your share of the fun. Only don’t bother me by continually making mysterious signs. You will only succeed in awakening her suspicions and wearing out my patience.”
Poor Jane, it would have taken more than her mother’s irritable gaiety to rouse her suspicions. If any one in those days had come to her with a full recital of the truth, she would not have believed a word of it. And when her Uncle Bradford did come in his capacity of trustee to have a look at the fiancé, she flew into a rage with the good man at the first sign of his disapproval. I did not see Bradford Forbes. I never saw him. Jane tells me that he was a large heavy man with a strong American accent, a rosy face and a pince-nez. I should like to have seen him. I should like to have seen the image of Philibert reflected in those eyeglasses. The sight would have been edifying.
Mr. Forbes had said to Jane—“Well, I don’t think much of your little Dude. I’d rather you had taken some one more your own size. I guess he can’t come much higher than your shoulder.” And Jane had flown at him like a wild cat and had told him that he had no business to make fun of her lover, who was the most important man in Paris and a million times cleverer than anybody from their home town. If her Uncle Bradford had had any hope of dissuading her from the step she was about to take he seems to have abandoned it then and there. He could find out nothing positively wrong with the head of the house of Joigny. The little Marquis proved satisfactorily that though his income was pitiful he had no debts. And when Mr. Forbes pointed out to him that there could be nothing in the way of a marriage settlement, Silas Carpenter’s will making such an alienation of property impossible, Philibert had taken his breath away by the graceful ease with which he accepted the situation. How was the kind shrewd American citizen to know that Philibert already had the will by heart, and long ago had accepted the inconvenience and risk of hanging on to his wife’s property by hanging on to her? He made a better impression in their hour’s talk than Jane’s uncle wanted to admit to himself. The good man was obliged to fade away as he had come, and float off like some wistful porpoise across the Atlantic leaving behind him only light ephemeral bubbles of amused disapproval. All the same he had done enough to make Jane very angry and obstinate and produce from her hand a long letter to her Aunt Patty in which she inveighed against the obtuse narrow-mindedness of the entire American nation. Patience Forbes seems not to have answered this letter. She had sent Jane a note by her uncle of terse affection and grim good wishes, but her correspondence with her niece during the months preceding and following the marriage almost entirely ceased. I imagine that after listening to her brother’s account of the man in Paris who was to claim her Jane, she was filled with foreboding, and being powerless chose to remain silent. And Jane was too happy to wonder why her aunt did not write to her. She did not often think of the Grey House during those days.