“I appreciate your motives,” said the other. “But you may surely trust to my discretion, Sylvia. Mr. van Tuiver has recovered himself, and there is no longer any need for you to avoid him.”
He was a much changed man, went on “Queen Isabella”; so chastened that his best friends hardly knew him. He had become a most fascinating figure, a sort of superior Werther; his melancholy became him. He had been really admirable in his behavior, and Sylvia owed it to him to give him a chance to show her that he could control himself, to show his friends that she had not dismissed him with contempt. There was a charming party on board the yacht; it included van Tuiver’s aunt, Mrs. Harold Cliveden, of whom Sylvia had surely heard; also her niece, Miss Vaillant, and Lord Howard Annersley, who was engaged to her. Sylvia had probably not seen the accounts of this affair, but it was most romantic. The girl pleaded that her father was ill and needed her. But he might come too, said Mrs. Winthrop; the diversion would benefit him. So at last Sylvia consented to go to lunch.
§ 16
Van Tuiver came to fetch them on the following day. He looked his new rôle of a leisure-class Werther, and acted up to it quite touchingly. He was perfect in his attitude toward his guests, carefully omitting all reference to personal matters, and confining his conversation to the yachting-trip and the party on board—especially to Lord Howard. Sylvia said that she had never met a Lord before, and it would seem like a fairy-story to her. The other was careful to explain that Lord Howard was not a fortune-hunter, but a friend of his. So Sylvia furbished up her weapons—but put most of them away when she got on board, and found out what a very commonplace young man his lordship was.
It was necessary to extend a return invitation, so Uncle Mandeville took the party automobiling along the coast, and spread a sumptuous picnic-luncheon. Then the next day Sylvia let herself be inveigled on a moonlight sailing-trip; and so it came about that she was cornered in the bow of the boat, with van Tuiver at her side, declaring in trembling accents that he had tried to forget her, that he could not live without her, that if she did not give him some hope he would take his life.
She was intensely annoyed, and answered him in monosyllables, and took refuge with Lord Howard, who showed signs of forgetting that he was already in the midst of a romance. She vowed that she would accept no more invitations, and that van Tuiver would never deceive her in that way again. This last with angry emphasis to Mrs. Winthrop, who, perceiving that something had gone wrong, took her aside as the party was breaking up.
“Queen Isabella’s” lovely face showed intense distress. “Oh, these men!” she cried. “Sylvia, what can we do with them?” And when Sylvia, taken aback by this appeal, was silent, the other continued, pleadingly, “You must be loyal to your sex, and help me! We all have to manage men!”
“But what do you want me to do?” asked the girl. “Marry him?”
She meant this for the extreme of sarcasm; and great was her surprise when Mrs. Winthrop caught her hand and exclaimed, “My dear, I want you to do just that!”
“But then—what becomes of my fineness of spirit?” cried Sylvia, with still more withering sarcasm.