“Stop where you are, Bee. I never went out into the world under false pretences. A man is a cad when he does that.”
“I shall not stop for you, nor anyone but my parents,” said Bee, in a splendid flush of anger, her countenance glowing, her eyes blazing. “Stand out of my way. Oh, if that is all, and you want to make a scene for the edification of the tourists, I can go in by the other door.”
And she did so, leaving Charlie standing flushed and angry, but quite unable, it need scarcely be said, to coerce his sister. To make an attempt of this kind, which comes to nothing, is confusing and humiliating. He looked round angrily for a moment to see if it were possible to intercept her, then, yielding to necessity, sat down where Betty, eager and full of a thousand questions, sat calling for explanations. That is the good of a family party, there is always someone ready to hear what you have to say.
Bee went at once to the English-speaking waiter, and asked for Mr. Leigh, whom the man, curious as all lookers-on are at a social drama going on under their eyes, declared to be still in his room. She sent him off instantly with a message, and stood in the hall awaiting his return, angry and brave, like the rose in George Herbert’s poem, yet soon getting shamefaced and troubled, as the people coming and going, travellers, visitors, attendants, stared at her and brushed against her as they passed. Bee never forgot all her life the gleam of the river at the foot of the steps, of which she had a glimpse through the doorway—the Rhine barges slowly crossing that little space of vision, the little boats flitting across the gleam of the rosy morning, and the strong flowing tide, the figures going up and down breaking the prospect.
The man came back to her after a time, looking half sympathetic, half malicious, with the message that the gentleman was just going out.
“Just going out!” She repeated the words half-consciously. “Was it Aubrey that sent her that message? Aubrey—who yesterday would not let her out of his sight, who followed her everywhere, saw every sign she made, heard every word almost before it was spoken!” The surprise and the pang together made her heart sick. She could not rush upstairs and knock at his door and call him out imperatively, to tell her immediately what it all meant—at least, though it occurred to her that this would be the most natural thing to do, she did not. Intimidated by the circumstances, by the half impertinence of the waiter, by the stare of the people about, she reflected for a moment breathlessly that he must come out this way, and that if she remained there she must see him. But Bee’s instinct of a young woman, now for the first time awakened, made her shrink from this. When she was only a little girl, so very short a time ago, she did not mind who looked at her, who pushed past her. But now everything was different!
She went away, still holding her head high that nobody (above all not Charlie, who was watching her through the glass of the verandah) should guess that her courage was drooping, and going into the deserted sitting-room, where last night that blow had fallen upon her, sat down and wrote to her lover a hurried little note:
“Oh, Aubrey, what is the matter? Have you deserted me without a word? Do you think I am like them, to take up any report? I don’t know what report there is—I don’t know what it is, this terrible thing that has come between us. What is it? I will take your word and nobody else’s. I don’t believe you have done anything that is wrong. Aubrey! come and tell me out of your own mouth. I told mamma last night I would hear nothing unless you were there; but you were gone away, they said. And now you send me word that you are going out and can’t see me. Going out and can’t see me! What does it all mean?
“If it is some fad of honour, of not seeing me against their will—though I do think your first duty is to me, Aubrey, before anyone else in the world—but if it should be so, mamma will be down here at twelve o’clock—and I invite you to meet her, to hear what is said, to answer for yourself and for me. If you have done anything wrong, what does that matter? Don’t we all do wrong? And why should it come between you and me? Am I without sin that I should throw stones at you? Aubrey, you can’t throw everything away without a word. You can’t desert me without a word. I can bear anything—anything, rather than this.
“Your Bee——.”