"I am sorry for that," said Angela. "I particularly dislike receiving apologies, even when I know what they are for. What yours are for, I can't imagine."
"You don't dislike me—you don't hate me?" Bernard suddenly broke out.
"You don't ask me that humbly. Excuse me therefore if I say I have other, and more practical, things to do."
"You despise me," said Bernard.
"That is not humble either, for you seem to insist upon it."
"It would be after all a way of thinking of me, and I have a reason for wishing you to do that."
"I remember very well that you used to have a reason for everything. It was not always a good one."
"This one is excellent," said Bernard, gravely. "I have been in love with you for three years."
She got up slowly, turning away.
"Is that what you wished to say to me?"
She went toward the open window, and he followed her.
"I hope it does n't offend you. I don't say it lightly—it 's not a piece of gallantry. It 's the very truth of my being. I did n't know it till lately—strange as that may seem. I loved you long before I knew it—before I ventured or presumed to know it. I was thinking of you when I seemed to myself to be thinking of other things. It is very strange—there are things in it I don't understand. I travelled over the world, I tried to interest, to divert myself; but at bottom it was a perfect failure. To see you again—that was what I wanted. When I saw you last month at Blanquais I knew it; then everything became clear. It was the answer to the riddle. I wished to read it very clearly—I wished to be sure; therefore I did n't follow you immediately. I questioned my heart—I cross-questioned it. It has borne the examination, and now I am sure. I am very sure. I love you as my life—I beg you to listen to me!"
She had listened—she had listened intently, looking straight out of the window and without moving.
"You have seen very little of me," she said, presently, turning her illuminated eye on him.
"I have seen enough," Bernard added, smiling. "You must remember that at Baden I saw a good deal of you."
"Yes, but that did n't make you like me. I don't understand."
Bernard stood there a moment, frowning, with his eyes lowered.
"I can imagine that. But I think I can explain."
"Don't explain now," said Angela. "You have said enough; explain some other time." And she went out on the balcony.
Bernard, of course, in a moment was beside her, and, disregarding her injunction, he began to explain.
"I thought I disliked you—but I have come to the conclusion it was just the contrary. In reality I was in love with you. I had been so from the first time I saw you—when I made that sketch of you at Siena."
"That in itself needs an explanation. I was not at all nice then—I was very rude, very perverse. I was horrid!"
"Ah, you admit it!" cried Bernard, with a sort of quick elation.
She had been pale, but she suddenly blushed.
"Your own conduct was singular, as I remember it. It was not exactly agreeable."
"Perhaps not; but at least it was meant to be. I did n't know how to please you then, and I am far from supposing that I have learned now. But I entreat you to give me a chance."
She was silent a while; her eyes wandered over the great prospect of Paris.
"Do you know how you can please me now?" she said, at last. "By leaving me alone."
Bernard looked at her a moment, then came straight back into the drawing-room and took his hat.
"You see I avail myself of the first chance. But I shall come back to-morrow."
"I am greatly obliged to you for what you have said. Such a speech as that deserves to be listened to with consideration. You may come back to-morrow," Angela added.
On the morrow, when he came back, she received him alone.
"How did you know, at Baden, that I did n't like you?" he asked, as soon as she would allow him.
She smiled, very gently.
"You assured me yesterday that you did like me."
"I mean that I supposed I did n't. How did you know that?"
"I can only say that I observed."
"You must have observed very closely, for, superficially, I rather had the air of admiring you," said Bernard.
"It was very superficial."
"You don't mean that; for, after all, that is just what my admiration, my interest in you, were not. They were deep, they were latent. They were not superficial—they were subterranean."
"You are contradicting yourself, and I am perfectly consistent," said Angela. "Your sentiments were so well hidden that I supposed I displeased you."
"I remember that at Baden, you used to contradict yourself," Bernard answered.
"You have a terrible memory!"
"Don't call it terrible, for it sees everything now in a charming light—in the light of this understanding that we have at last arrived at, which seems to shine backward—to shine full on those Baden days."
"Have we at last arrived at an understanding?" she asked, with a grave directness which Bernard thought the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"It only depends upon you," he declared; and then he broke out again into a protestation of passionate tenderness. "Don't put me off this time," he cried. "You have had time to think about it; you have had time to get over the surprise, the shock. I love you, and I offer you everything that belongs to me in this world." As she looked at him with her dark, clear eyes, weighing this precious vow and yet not committing herself—"Ah, you don't forgive me!" he murmured.
She gazed at him with the same solemn brightness.
"What have I to forgive you?"
This question seemed to him enchanting. He reached forward and took her hands, and if Mrs. Vivian had come in she would have seen him kneeling at her daughter's feet.
But Mrs. Vivian remained in seclusion, and Bernard saw her only the next time he came.
"I am very happy, because I think my daughter is happy," she said.
"And what do you think of me?"
"I think you are very clever. You must promise me to be very good to her."
"I am clever enough to promise that."
"I think you are good enough to keep it," said Mrs. Vivian. She looked as happy as she said, and her happiness gave her a communicative, confidential tendency. "It is very strange how things come about—how the wheel turns round," she went on. "I suppose there is no harm in my telling you that I believe she always cared for you."
"Why did n't you tell me before?" said Bernard, with almost filial reproachfulness.
"How could I? I don't go about the world offering my daughter to people—especially to indifferent people."
"At Baden you did n't think I was indifferent. You were afraid of my not being indifferent enough."
Mrs. Vivian colored.
"Ah, at Baden I was a little too anxious!"
"Too anxious I should n't speak to your daughter!" said Bernard, laughing.
"At Baden," Mrs. Vivian went on, "I had views. But I have n't any now—I have given them up."
"That makes your acceptance of me very flattering!" Bernard exclaimed, laughing still more gaily.
"I have something better," said Mrs. Vivian, laying her finger-tips on his arm. "I have confidence."
Bernard did his best to encourage this gracious sentiment, and it seemed to him that there was something yet to be done to implant it more firmly in Angela's breast.
"I have a confession to make to you," he said to her one day. "I wish you would listen to it."
"Is it something very horrible?" Angela asked.
"Something very horrible indeed. I once did you an injury."
"An injury?" she repeated, in a tone which seemed to reduce the offence to contemptible proportions by simple vagueness of mind about it.
"I don't know what to call it," said Bernard. "A poor service—an ill-turn."
Angela gave a shrug, or rather an imitation of a shrug; for she was not a shrugging person.
"I never knew it."
"I misrepresented you to Gordon Wright," Bernard went on.
"Why do you speak to me of him?" she asked rather sadly.