How beautifully it had all worked out in the end, James reflected; how wisely the progress of things was ordained! How fortunate it was that his first futile passion for Beatrice had not been allowed to develop and bear ill-conceived fruit! Now that he almost went so far as to despise himself for that passion as unworthy both of himself and of her. What had he fallen in love with there? A lip, a cheek, a pair of eyes, a noble poise of a head, a thing to win and kiss and at last squeeze in his arms—nothing more! He had set her up as the image of a false, fleshly ideal, an empty Victorian husk of an ideal, a sentimental, boyish, calfish vision of womanhood. How paltry that image looked when compared to that newer one combining the attributes of friend, comrade, fellow-worker, kin of his mind and spirit! His first image had done injustice to its material counterpart, to be sure; Beatrice had turned out to be far different from the alluring but empty creature he had pictured her. She was a being with a will, ideas, powers, purposes of her own. Well, all the better—for Harry! How admirably suited she was to Harry! What a pair they would make, with their two keen minds, their active ambitions, their fine, dynamic personalities! The thought furnished almost as pleasing a mental picture as that of his union with a small blue-eyed person at this very moment covered by the sloping gray roof he had already taken pains to pick out from the ranks of its fellows....
The contemplation of material things brought a slight diminution of pleasure. When one came down to solid facts, things were not going quite so well as could be desired. Harry was at this moment kiting unconcernedly about the continent of Europe and his match with Beatrice seemed, as far as James could make out, as much in the air as ever. Also, his own actual relation with Madge was not entirely satisfactory. That was due chiefly to sordid facts, no doubt; he could not expect to have the freedom of meeting and speech he naturally desired with a governess in a friend's house. Still, in the two or three conversations he had been able to arrange with her during the past three weeks he had been conscious of an unfamiliar spirit of elusiveness. Once, he remembered, she had gone so far as to bring the subject of conversation round to impersonal things with something little short of rudeness, just as he was getting started on something that particularly interested him, too....
Plenty of time for that, though; it would never do to hurry things. He arose from his rock and stretched himself, lifting his arms high above his head in the cool evening air with a sense of strength and ease. There was nothing to worry about; things were fundamentally all right; ends would meet and issues right themselves, all in due time.
It was time, or very nearly time, for Aunt Selina's evening meal, so he started off at a brisk pace down the hill, whistling softly and cheerfully to himself. He thought of Aunt Selina, how pleased she would be with it all, when she knew. Good old soul! He remembered how pointedly she had asked him to spend his month's vacation with her when she told him she had taken a house at Bar Harbor for the summer; could it be that she suspected anything? Perhaps she had, perhaps not; it had all worked in very conveniently with Madge being at Gilsons', at any rate. Let her and every one else suspect what they wished; it did not matter much. Nothing did matter much, when you came to that, except that small person in white linen and lawn who had flouted him when he had last seen her and whom he would show what was what, he promised himself, on the next favorable opportunity....
"Thank God for Madge," he breathed softly to himself as he walked on and the peace of the evening descended more deeply around him; "oh, thank God for Madge!"
CHAPTER VI
A LONG CHAPTER. BUT THEN, LOVE IS LONG
Aunt Selina was almost the only person with whom Harry spoke during the interval between his last interview with Madge and his departure for foreign parts. He was living in the old house now, so he could not very well avoid seeing her. At the last moment, with his overcoat on and his hat in his hand, he sought out his aunt, and found her in a small room on the ground floor known as the morning-room, going over her accounts.
"Good-by, Aunt Selina," he said. "I'm going to sail for Europe on the first steamer I can get, so I shan't see you for some time."