Estelle hoped to hear her friend say to Gerald something to the effect that she was in no mood for a social call; but Aurora welcomed the visitor with unaffected warmth and sat down in her hat to talk with him.

So Estelle said primly that it was late, and she was tired; if they would excuse her, she would go to bed.

Aurora talked about Tom and nothing but Tom. Sweetly, sighfully, she spoke, as more than once before, of those many things he had done for her, but spoke of them this evening more amply; his care of her, a penniless patient, in that hospital where she woke up after a s.p.a.ce of unconsciousness; his unremitting kindness when she lived in his house and took care of his father, the dear old judge, who was sick three long years before he died; the proof of goodness more remarkable still which he gave after that.

A tremulous hope flickered up in Gerald that she would go on and tell him about the latter, perhaps filling in some of the lacunae which her history had for him. Much had come out in their many hours of talk, but he had found her circ.u.mspect with regard to certain parts of her life, and had never put a question. In one so frank, her avoidance appeared a result of dislike to remembering those unmentioned links in the chain of events.

But this evening again she stopped short of telling him what he would have liked to know--how Bewick was connected with her wealth. For it had come to her from no second husband: she had not been twice married.

She broke off with the words, "Oh, some time I'll tell you the whole story. I don't feel like it now. It always makes me so mad!"

If Aurora had been pledged to Bewick, thought Gerald, the most natural thing would have been to tell him of it this evening. In her expatiating upon all she owed to Bewick, Gerald felt a wish to explain how it was that without being engaged to him she could commit the impropriety of publicly weeping over his departure.

It seemed to Gerald rather late in the day for him to seek an excuse to call at the Hermitage; yet on the afternoon following Dr. Bewick's departure he sought for one--one having reference to Estelle. He took with him a propitiatory little volume containing translations of well-known poems by one Amiel. Estelle was regarded as being immensely interested in French; she daily translated themes back and forth from her own language into that of Moliere. These singularly neat and exact productions of Amiel's should delight--and disarm her.

Gerald did not dislike Estelle, far from it. He did justice to her as a good, true-hearted, self-improving American. Taken by herself, he felt for her decided regard; but taken in connection with Aurora he would sometimes have liked delicately to lift her between finger and thumb and drop her into a well.

When he entered the red-and-green room, the very least bit timidly, with his book in his hand, he perceived almost at once that something unusual was in the air, and the shades of feeling between himself and Estelle became for the moment of no importance.

Nothing was said at first of the cause for Aurora's air of repressed excitement, as she knit on a pink and white baby-jacket, or the cloudy annoyance puckering Estelle's brow as she st.i.tched on her silk tapestry.

The ladies might merely have been quarrelling, thought the visitor, and made himself as far as he could a soothing third, chatting with Estelle about Amiel and with Aurora about young Mrs. Sebastian, whose baby was to rejoice in the little garment half-finished between her hands.

"Gerald," Aurora interrupted him in the middle of a sentence, letting her hands and work drop in her lap, "something so queer and unpleasant has happened!"

He raised both eyebrows in solicitous partic.i.p.ation, and mutely questioned.

"It's about Charlie Hunt. I never would have imagined--you wouldn't either."

"My imagination, dear friend, is more far-reaching in some ways than yours," he quickly corrected her, "and has had more practice than yours in ways of unpleasantness. But do tell me what it is that has happened."

"Charlie Hunt! Charlie Hunt!" she repeated, like one unable to make herself believe a thing. "Charlie Hunt to turn nasty like that from one day to the next!"

"To turn----"

"He was here to dinner just two weeks ago and perfectly all right. We had a nice, long chat together on the sofa. But he didn't make his party-call quite as soon as he usually does, so when I saw him at Brenda's wedding I thought of course he'd come up and tell me how busy he'd been or some other taradiddle. But he didn't come near me. I was sort of surprised,--still, there were so many people there that he knew, and we didn't stay quite to the end, you remember. I didn't even think enough about it to mention it to Estelle. Well, this forenoon I went to the bank, and when I'd got my money, I happened to catch sight of Charlie, in the side-room, you know, where his desk is. I thought I'd like to speak to him. He's always wanted me to ask for him when I went to the bank, and I've done it more than once, and we've had five minutes' chat. I was just going to tease him a little bit about coming to see me so seldom nowadays, when he used to come so often, and ask about the lady in the case. There really is one, I guess. Italo told me.

So I asked the old boy--you know the one I mean, the old servant of the bank, who's always there, to tell Mr. Hunt that Mrs. Hawthorne would like to speak with him, and then I took a seat, and in a minute in came Charlie, with just his usual look.

"Now, I want to tell you that I've never had one unpleasant word with Charlie Hunt; I've always liked him real well. I put down my foot against letting him run me and my house, but there never was a word said about it. I balked, but I didn't kick. All along I've been just as nice to him as I know how, except just one moment, when I stuck a little pin into him the night of the _veglione_, not supposing that he'd ever know who did it.

"Well, I was sitting there at the table with the newspapers, and he came and stood near, without taking a chair, as if he hadn't much time to spare. I began to talk and joke about his cutting me dead at the wedding, and he listened and talked back in a common-enough way, only I noticed that he once or twice called me Mrs. Barton instead of Mrs.

Hawthorne. Now I must go back and tell you that some time ago when I was at the bank he casually asked me if I knew of any Mrs. Helen Barton in Florence, and he showed me two letters in the same handwriting, one addressed to the English bank, and the other to the American bank, Florence, that had been there at Hunt & Landini's for some time, and no one had called for and they didn't know what to do with. Now, the instant my eye lit on those letters I knew who'd written them, what was in them, and who they were meant for. All letters for Estelle and me, you know, are first sent to Estelle's house in East Boston, to be forwarded to us wherever we might be in Europe; but that letter had escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on Springfield Street,--the languishing kind of critter that I never could stand, who hadn't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I guessed she'd heard of my money and was writing me a sweet letter of congratulations, along with a hard-luck story. I'd have liked to get hold of her letter, but didn't exactly see how I could. I said to Charlie, 'Let me take it; perhaps I can find the one it's meant for among my acquaintances.' But he didn't seem to think that could be done; so there the matter dropped. I didn't care much. Iona Allen can look for some one nearer home to support her.

"Well, to go back. When Charlie Hunt had called me Mrs. Barton for the third time I realized from his way of doing it that it wasn't a slip of the tongue, and I stopped him short and said:

"'What makes you call me Mrs. Barton all of a sudden?'"

"'It's your name, isn't it?' he said, with a queer look.

"'No,' I came right out strong and bold. And I wasn't lying either. It isn't my name. I don't really know what my name is. It's Hawthorne as much as it's anything. Jim changed his name half a dozen times, and the name he married me under I found out wasn't his real name.

"Charlie Hunt stood there a moment as if thinking it over, looking at me with the meanest grin; then he said with that hateful, sarcastic look of a person who thinks he's being smart in getting back at you:

"'Is that as true,' he said, 'as that you never indulged in carnival humor masked as a crow?' Then I knew he'd somehow got on to the truth about that night at the _veglione_. But I wasn't going to give it away.

"'You know what you're driving at better than I do,' I said. And then I said: 'What's it all about? What's your game?' And he said, as if I'd been a common swindler that he'd found out:

"'What's yours?'

"Then I felt myself get mad.

"'You're a mean little pest,' I said, but between my teeth, and not so that any one but he could hear me. And 'You're an evil-minded little scalawag,' I said. 'You certainly don't know me if you think I've done anything in this world to be ashamed of. Go ahead,' I said; 'do what you please. Don't for one single instant think that I'm afraid of you or that you can do me any harm.' And I left him standing there, with his grin, and flounced out. But what do you think of it, Gerald? Why should Charlie Hunt behave like that to me?"

"I could judge better if I knew what you said to him at the _veglione_."

"It wasn't very bad. It might provoke him for a minute to know that it was I who said it, but it oughtn't to make him mad enough to bite. I went up to him, and I said close to his ear, in my good English:

"'You amusing little match-maker,' I said, 'what do you hope to get from your dusky friend marrying that _absard_ American? How much do you know about her?' I said. 'Are you even sure she's as rich as she seems?'

Then he said, polite but stiff:

"'You have the advantage of me, madam, in knowing what you're talking about. Pray go on with your tasteful pleasantries,' he said; 'I'm thinking I've heard your voice before.' Upon which I shut my mouth and dusted down the opera-house on Italo's arm. I was crazy that evening, I guess, with the crowd and excitement and all. When I get to training, I can't resist the impulse; I don't know where to stop. But that wasn't enough to make him want to stick a knife in me, was it? It was only fun.

It was true. He had seemed to be trying to manage me so's I'd take a fancy to Landini, and I couldn't for the life of me see what it mattered to him."

"I tell Aurora," came in Estelle, "that a little joke like that would rankle terribly in any but a real goodnatured man."

"My dear Aurora," said Gerald, excited and darkly flushed, "your little joke would not have had to contain a sting nearly as sharp to rouse against you such vanity as Hunt's, unless, let me add, there were some counterweight of self-interest to keep him back. It is known that Charlie has only some parts and habits of a human being, not all. One almost, in pure justice, cannot blame him. But scorn him--oh, as for that!... He could be with you day after day, and take all you would give, and at the end of a year feel no tie; he could hear you slandered, and not take your defence; he could make a joke at your expense, if one came into his mind that he thought sufficiently witty, and never have a sense of meanness! He would have had nothing to overcome. He would only learn better if he perceived some loss of consideration, and consequent advantage to himself. That would make him more cautious, but not make him more aware. And you cannot call him wicked any more than upon any occasion you could call him good. But he's d.a.m.nable!"

Consuming anger lighted up Gerald's face, his voice trembled with intensity of feeling, his vehemence now and then by jerks lifted his heels off the floor. "He is not properly a man at all," he went on to characterize his old schoolmate; "he is just an insect _en grand_.

He satisfies his instincts precisely as an insectivorous insect does--the rest are there to furnish something to his life. Nothing else, he knows nothing outside. Now that you have offended him he probably won't do you any great harm. He's not a devil, and the world he lives in does not tolerate anything very black. He'd injure himself in trying to injure you. But he'll do you what harm he easily and safely can. He's nothing big, he could do nothing big, he hasn't a pa.s.sion in him. He's like this: from the moment he had ceased to get any good of frequenting your house, even if you had not done the smallest thing to vex him, he would pa.s.s on a bit of gossip harmful to you for the simple glory of appearing for one moment a little better informed than the rest. No more than that. He would be capable of that; he wouldn't even have to hate you. For Charlie Hunt, as Leslie once perspicaciously said--Charlie Hunt has no real inside!"

Both women sat staring at Gerald, impressed by his heat. When he stopped, they continued for a minute in blank silence, revolving his words and readjusting their estimates, while their eyes traveled up and down, up and down the room, drawn after his figure that wrathily paced the floor.

"How do you suppose he found out about the black crow? For I'm perfectly sure he didn't know me at the time," said Aurora presently.

"That might easily enough happen in some roundabout way," said Estelle, "as long as Italo and Clotilde both knew it. They might let the cat out of the bag without intending to. He talks so much. Never knew such a talker. But what I want to know is how he knew your name was Barton."

"I've told you what I think. He's heard you call me Nell. Tom, too, called me Nell. That may have given him the hint. Then he simply opened Iona Allen's letter and read it. Something was in it, no doubt, that enabled him to put two and two together. Perhaps the name Bewick. Iona would have heard of that. She would write to say now I'd climbed out of poverty and hard work she knew I wouldn't mind lending a hand to an old friend not so fortunate. Something like that. She'd be sure to whine and beg. And Charlie Hunt, little bunch of meanness! would imagine he could hold over me the fact that I was poor once and what he would think low in the scale, because he thought I'd be ashamed of it. But no such thing. If I changed my name coming here, it wasn't on any such account as that. I'm gladder than ever now that I told Mrs. Foss all about it. I did, Gerald, quite soon after we first came, and she said, though it was in a way a mistake, she didn't see any real harm in it. As long as I'd begun that way, she said, better not make a sensation by changing back or saying anything about it. She thought my reasons were very natural.

It wasn't as if I were misleading anybody, or anybody were losing money by me. I'd have told you too, Gerald, in a minute, as far as wanting just to conceal anything goes. But Gerald and I"--she seemed to place the matter before an invisible judge and jury--"never talk together of ugly things, do we, Gerald? He's more delicate-minded by a good deal than I am. With him particularly, though we've been such intimate friends, I shrank from it. There's not much poetry about me, I know that, but there'd be even less if I had to have it known all I've been through. And since the first of our a.s.sociation we've always lived in a sweet sort of world, haven't we, Gerald? I'd be ready, just the same, to tell you the whole story any moment you wanted to hear...."

At Gerald's swift instinctive gesture, she went on without further considering the proposition she had made. "As I said before, I don't know what my own real front-door name is. I was born Goodwin. I married Barton, but Barton wasn't Jim's real name. Aurora Hawthorne is what I called myself when we were young ones and played ladies, Hat and I. I came over here to cut loose from all the bothers that had made the last year in Denver a nightmare. I didn't want to be connected with that dirty mess any more in anybody's mind or my own. I wanted it to be like taking a bath and starting new, feeling clean. Then, if I was Aurora Hawthorne, Hattie had to be Estelle Madison, which was her name in our old play-days. Neither of us thought of anything when we planned it but its being a grand lark. And at first, in hotels, what did it matter? But since we've been here and had friends, we've felt sorry more than once, because it seemed like telling a lie. And then we were afraid of things that might come up--just like this that has, in fact. But there wasn't anything to do about it. Because if we confessed now most anybody would think our reason for changing names must have been something disgraceful, just as it happens if a person who kills another by accident goes and hides the corpse, everybody takes it for granted it was murder. So, if Charlie Hunt tells--"

"I'm not nearly as much afraid of his telling that you are here under an a.s.sumed name," said Estelle, "as that you were the black crow, and it getting to the ears of Antonia and Co."

"Well, what could they do?"

"Spoil Florence for us pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid, Nell."

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Aurora, but after a moment added in a tone of lessened a.s.surance, "Bother!" and after another moment burst forth, with one hand clapped to her curly front hair: "To think that Tom was here yesterday, and this had to happen to-day, when he's half-way to Paris! I wish he hadn't gone. I wish I had him here to back me up."

"Why don't you telegraph for him?" suggested Estelle, eagerly.