"Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But—" she pointed at the driver-"HE knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?" She took out her purse. "It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class people. He saw it all." Tapping Phaethon's back with her guide-book, she said, "Silenzio!" and offered him a franc.
"Va bene," he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him.
There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity, which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a moment they realized vast possibilities of good.
The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that, even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers, through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin.
"Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I—I thought I was developing."
"Do not cry, dearest. Take your time."
"I have been obstinate and silly—worse than you know, far worse. Once by the river—Oh, but he isn't killed—he wouldn't be killed, would he?"
The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she thought it must be near to every one.
"I trust not. One would always pray against that."
"He is really—I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before. But this time I'm not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like some one in a book."
"In a book?"
"Heroes—gods—the nonsense of schoolgirls."
"And then?"
"But, Charlotte, you know what happened then."
Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to her. All the way back Lucy's body was shaken by deep sighs, which nothing could repress.
"I want to be truthful," she whispered. "It is so hard to be absolutely truthful."
"Don't be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it over before bed-time in my room."
So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased, and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone she was sure of—Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and love.
The luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be carefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence they would disentangle and interpret them all.
"At last," thought she, "I shall understand myself. I shan't again be troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don't know what."
Miss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to her the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with commendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage. When it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became rather hysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all events to accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett had recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of gentle reproach:
"Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my room, and I will give a good brush to your hair."
With some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the girl. Then Miss Bartlett said "So what is to be done?"
She was unprepared for the question. It had not occurred to her that she would have to do anything. A detailed exhibition of her emotions was all that she had counted upon.
"What is to be done? A point, dearest, which you alone can settle."
The rain was streaming down the black windows, and the great room felt damp and chilly, One candle burnt trembling on the chest of drawers close to Miss Bartlett's toque, which cast monstrous and fantastic shadows on the bolted door. A tram roared by in the dark, and Lucy felt unaccountably sad, though she had long since dried her eyes. She lifted them to the ceiling, where the griffins and bassoons were colourless and vague, the very ghosts of joy.
"It has been raining for nearly four hours," she said at last.
Miss Bartlett ignored the remark.
"How do you propose to silence him?"
"The driver?"
"My dear girl, no; Mr. George Emerson."
Lucy began to pace up and down the room.
"I don't understand," she said at last.
She understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely truthful.
"How are you going to stop him talking about it?"
"I have a feeling that talk is a thing he will never do."
"I, too, intend to judge him charitably. But unfortunately I have met the type before. They seldom keep their exploits to themselves."
"Exploits?" cried Lucy, wincing under the horrible plural.
"My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? Come here and listen to me. I am only gathering it from his own remarks. Do you remember that day at lunch when he argued with Miss Alan that liking one person is an extra reason for liking another?"
"Yes," said Lucy, whom at the time the argument had pleased.
"Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man, but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his deplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no farther on with our question. What do you propose to do?"
An idea rushed across Lucy's brain, which, had she thought of it sooner and made it part of her, might have proved victorious.
"I propose to speak to him," said she.
Miss Bartlett uttered a cry of genuine alarm.
"You see, Charlotte, your kindness—I shall never forget it. But—as you said—it is my affair. Mine and his."
"And you are going to IMPLORE him, to BEG him to keep silence?"
"Certainly not. There would be no difficulty. Whatever you ask him he answers, yes or no; then it is over. I have been frightened of him. But now I am not one little bit."
"But we fear him for you, dear. You are so young and inexperienced, you have lived among such nice people, that you cannot realize what men can be—how they can take a brutal pleasure in insulting a woman whom her sex does not protect and rally round. This afternoon, for example, if I had not arrived, what would have happened?"
"I can't think," said Lucy gravely.
Something in her voice made Miss Bartlett repeat her question, intoning it more vigorously.
"What would have happened if I hadn't arrived?"
"I can't think," said Lucy again.
"When he insulted you, how would you have replied?"
"I hadn't time to think. You came."
"Yes, but won't you tell me now what you would have done?"
"I should have—" She checked herself, and broke the sentence off. She went up to the dripping window and strained her eyes into the darkness. She could not think what she would have done.