He extended his arms in a dramatic fashion, not outward, but downward, stiff and straight, and declared: “I don’t know what I shall do without you.
Is there no hope for me at all?”
An artist in all the graces of sex—histrionic, plastic, many-faceted—Berenice debated for the fraction of a minute what she should do and say.
She did not love the Lieutenant as he loved her by any means, and somehow this discovery concerning her mother shamed her pride, suggesting an obligation to save herself in one form or another, which she resented bitterly.
She was sorry for his tactless proposal at this time, although she knew well enough the innocence and virtue of the emotion from which it sprung.
“Really, Mr. Braxmar,” she replied, turning on him with solemn eyes, “you mustn’t ask me to decide that now.
I know how you feel.
I’m afraid, though, that I may have been a little misleading in my manner.
I didn’t mean to be.
I’m quite sure you’d better forget your interest in me for the present anyhow.
I could only make up my mind in one way if you should insist.
I should have to ask you to forget me entirely.
I wonder if you can see how I feel—how it hurts me to say this?”
She paused, perfectly poised, yet quite moved really, as charming a figure as one would have wished to see—part Greek, part Oriental—contemplative, calculating.
In that moment, for the first time, Braxmar realized that he was talking to some one whom he could not comprehend really.
She was strangely self-contained, enigmatic, more beautiful perhaps because more remote than he had ever seen her before.
In a strange flash this young American saw the isles of Greece, Cytherea, the lost Atlantis, Cyprus, and its Paphian shrine. His eyes burned with a strange, comprehending luster; his color, at first high, went pale.
“I can’t believe you don’t care for me at all, Miss Berenice,” he went on, quite strainedly.
“I felt you did care about me.
But here,” he added, all at once, with a real, if summoned, military force, “I won’t bother you.
You do understand me. You know how I feel.
I won’t change.
Can’t we be friends, anyhow?”
He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling now that she was putting an end to what might have been an idyllic romance.
“Of course we can,” she said.
“I hope I shall see you again soon.”
After he was gone she walked into the adjoining room and sat down in a wicker chair, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her chin in her hands.
What a denouement to a thing so innocent, so charming!
And now he was gone.
She would not see him any more, would not want to see him—not much, anyhow.
Life had sad, even ugly facts.
Oh yes, yes, and she was beginning to perceive them clearly.
Some two days later, when Berenice had brooded and brooded until she could endure it no longer, she finally went to Mrs. Carter and said:
“Mother, why don’t you tell me all about this Louisville matter so that I may really know?
I can see something is worrying you.
Can’t you trust me?
I am no longer a child by any means, and I am your daughter.
It may help me to straighten things out, to know what to do.”
Mrs. Carter, who had always played a game of lofty though loving motherhood, was greatly taken aback by this courageous attitude.
She flushed and chilled a little; then decided to lie.
“I tell you there was nothing at all,” she declared, nervously and pettishly.
“It is all an awful mistake.
I wish that dreadful man could be punished severely for what he said to me. To be outraged and insulted this way before my own child!”
“Mother,” questioned Berenice, fixing her with those cool, blue eyes, “why don’t you tell me all about Louisville?
You and I shouldn’t have things between us.
Maybe I can help you.”
All at once Mrs. Carter, realizing that her daughter was no longer a child nor a mere social butterfly, but a woman superior, cool, sympathetic, with intuitions much deeper than her own, sank into a heavily flowered wing-chair behind her, and, seeking a small pocket-handkerchief with one hand, placed the other over her eyes and began to cry.
“I was so driven, Bevy, I didn’t know which way to turn.
Colonel Gillis suggested it. I wanted to keep you and Rolfe in school and give you a chance.
It isn’t true—anything that horrible man said.