Walter Anthon departed the next morning at an early hour, leaving behind him, in a fluent, spiteful little note, his last words to his sister. He now made the final washing of his hands in her case, and having pointed out the path of true wisdom and decency, he left her to profit by the lesson. Mrs. Wilbur tossed Molly the note. “See what a rupture you have made, Molly, between brother and sister!”
“The little beast! He wants you to marry Erard! I didn’t think he was as bad as that, or I should have added a fifthly to my sermon.”
“Perhaps he is right,” Mrs. Wilbur asserted drearily.
She wondered where Erard was these days. He had not written her from Rome, thus attempting to discipline her for her revolt by neglect. She did not know that he had returned to Florence, that he was quietly biding his time, nor that Walter Anthon had seen him before he had come to her on his last diplomatic errand. Indeed, that errand had been but a part of Walter’s scheme, the plan of which had already been worked out in the rooms on the Piazza San Spirito. The two men had come to an understanding, during an hour of vague fencing: young Anthon was to strike first, and then after a decent interval Erard was to conclude the matter.
In the meantime letters from the outside world penetrated Mrs. Wilbur’s silence, like little voices talking over her divorce. Strangely, the most moving one was from Mrs. Anthon. “That loud Mrs. Stevans has the house your father’s money helped to build. They are to be married in London, the papers say, and when they get back in the fall they expect to do the house all over and put in all the pictures and rubbish she’s collected. Her photograph was in the Sunday Thunderer last week—as big and coarse looking as ever.... I feel old now, Ada, and it seems as though, after all I have done for my children, I weren’t wanted in the world. Your brother John’s wife doesn’t like me, and now you are gone, there’s no place to go to except a hotel, and that doesn’t seem quite respectable. But it won’t be for long....”
As she read this letter, something like remorse came over Mrs. Wilbur for her harsh and unsympathetic treatment of her mother. Since the talk in the Boboli gardens with Jennings several illuminating ideas had altered her conception of life. It could not be denied that this mother was silly and vulgar. But to be foolish, to be common, was not the most hideous crime for pitiable human beings to commit, she had begun to realize. And what had she gained by her struggle for escape? She was drifting now, uncertainly. Drifting, her life must be, if she continued her effort; drifting on into a declassé milieu, where she would amuse herself with the gossip and fritter of art, where her sole object would be to enjoy and pass away the years. She had learned well what that kind of European life was like.
Thus a week, two weeks passed. Jennings was to leave for America in another fortnight. Erard was yet to be heard from, and she was sure that the day was not far off when he would show his hand. At times the idea of the tie that bound her to him exhaled a strange kind of corrupt fascination. How he had dominated her! What was there inside of him? She felt a reckless curiosity to explore the dark, private places of his soul, to touch his clammy self more closely, and to know the worst.
At last Erard appeared late one evening. Molly and Jennings had gone out in search of a cool breeze. As Mrs. Wilbur lay in the moonlight on the terrace, she heard a soft step on the road below the wall. It crept on around the corner, and the sound disappeared. She knew it was Erard. Soon she heard his quiet, positive, yet catlike tread on the terrace. She could feel his movement behind her; he was gaining, coming closer at last, and she lay passive, wondering what the outcome would be.
“You are quite alone?” Erard greeted her questioningly.
“Yes,” she murmured, without betraying either interest or surprise in his presence. She took it for granted that he had just returned from Rome.