As a matter of fact, Canby didn’t understand it himself. In his reflections, of which there were many during this eventful week, he hotly denied the possibility of his becoming enamored, at the age of forty-one years, of a nineteen-year-old child. So he called her: child. He played tennis with her, he took her motoring and motor-boating, he sat with her for hours at a time in the gardens or on the piazza of Roselawn, listening to her prattle and looking at her. Mostly he looked at her; the delight of it was never-ending, for her beauty was of the kind that could withstand long inspection and the fierce rays of the sun and the flushed cheeks of exertion; and not only withstand these things, but profit by them. He enjoyed hearing her talk almost as much as looking at her; her queer turns of expression, her simple, frank philosophy of the working-girl, her innocent delight in the luxuries of wealth as exhibited at Roselawn, even her occasional moody silences, when nothing would get a word from her.
There were occasional broad lapses from what Canby’s world considered good form, but they merely served to amuse him and attract him the more by their piquancy, especially as there was never any touch of vulgarity in anything she did; her gestures, her tones, her dress — none was ever in the slightest degree offensive. She seemed of different mould from the Italian peasant girls.
One night, without being questioned, she spoke of her parentage. Her mother had been a French actress; her father, a Hungarian office-holder. Both had been dead some years, and Nella, left practically penniless, had come to America at the age of fourteen; so far as she knew she had not a relative in the world. Her father she remembered scarcely at all, but her mother had been very beautiful.
The attitude — or attitudes, for there were many of them — which she assumed toward Canby interested and piqued him. She would ask him scores of questions on some subject — the theatre, for instance, or the great hotels of the world capitals — and hang with delightful breathless attention on his words, like a curious child; and the next moment she would snub him on no provocation whatever and subtly withdraw herself. She never alluded to the incident of the snake and the moment she had been held in his arms; neither did Canby, but it was often in his mind. They were together hours of every day; though when they went motoring or out on the river Canby would take the Italian girls along for the sake of appearances. Telling himself that it was absurd for a man of his age to use formal address with a young girl in her teens, he called her by her first name, and she made no objection. Thus the days flew by until only one remained of their two-weeks vacation.
“So you return to New York tomorrow,” Canby was saying. It was an hour after lunch and they were together in the garden, strolling aimlessly about from one shady spot to another; the day was too hot for tennis. Over near the fountain, some distance away, Rose and Mildred were seated on a bench with their hostess, who was reading aloud from a novel.
The girl, who had been in one of her silent moods since luncheon, nodded without speaking. She was dressed in white from head to foot — linen dress and canvas shoes — and, bareheaded, carried a blue parasol. The blue eyes did not sparkle with their usual life; they were serious, even a little sombre, as she bent them on the path before her.
“I’m sorry you’re going,” Canby continued, “deeply sorry. I’ve enjoyed your visit immensely.”
Still she was silent; but presently she sent him a quick glance, then looked away again before she spoke:
“You’ve been very kind to me — to all of us. And — something else. After the first day I thought you liked me; that is, I thought you were interested in me — that I... I pleased you. And I was a little — not afraid, but disturbed, because I know how rich men treat poor girls. So I want to thank you for not being — for being nice to me.”
“Good heavens, you needn’t thank me for not being a brute!” Canby exclaimed.
“I do, anyway.” Suddenly she looked up at him and laughed. “You wouldn’t have been much to blame — would you? — after the way I acted that night when I saw the snake.”
“You were frightened,” said Canby gruffly.
“Yes. Ugh, I hate them so, and fear them! But I really believe I threw my arms around you, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“How funny! I never did that before to any man; but then, of course, you’re so old.”
“Of course,” he agreed without enthusiasm.
“Well, it’s all over now. Tomorrow I go back to that smelly flat and the sorting-room and standing up all day long and Mr. Horowitz who shouts at you... But it’s fun, anyway, to work. I really don’t mind it, only it gets tiresome, and there are so many beautiful things you can’t have.”
“And to Tony,” came from Canby.
“What — to Tony?”
“You go back to Tony.”
“Oh!” She laughed and he caught a flash from her eyes. “I’d forgotten all about him. Tant mieux! But he’ll begin to make love to me again, I suppose.”
A little later they joined the others near the fountain, and were greeted with short nods, for page 280 of the novel had just been reached and things were exciting. Nella Somi sat down to listen, and Canby, feeling restless, wandered aimlessly about the paths. He had a project in mind and he was impatient to set it afoot.
He was not over-satisfied with himself. He had been astonished and enraged that morning to find three gray hairs in his head; and the discovery was singularly inopportune, inasmuch as his friend Garrett Linwood had been congratulating him only the evening before on the preservation of his youth. He reflected somewhat pityingly that Linwood himself was really getting quite old; a few years more now and he would be sixty. Three score! By comparison with that patriarchal figure he, Canby, was highly jejune. Something within him whispered, “Still youthful enough to be a fool, and too old to enjoy your folly.”
He snorted impatiently. Who spoke of folly? Could ever man be too old to feel the charm of innocence and beauty and health and youth, when all were combined in one rare adorable creature? To contemplate folly as a result of that charm was another matter. Canby did not contemplate it.
Presently he wandered back to the house; and later, hours later it seemed to him, his sister and her guests, having finished the novel, followed him. Canby, in the library, heard them in the hall; he heard talking of packing and their footsteps as they began to mount the stairs. In a moment he was at the door of the library calling up:
“Janet! Will you come down here a minute?”
When his sister entered the library a few minutes later he closed the door behind her; then suddenly forgot how he had decided to begin.
“They go back tomorrow?” he said finally, jerking his head in the direction of the stairs.
His sister replied that her guests were to take the nine-thirty train the following morning.
“Miss Somi also?”
“Of course.”
Canby cleared his throat. “I was wondering, Janie, if you hadn’t noticed anything unusual about her.”
“About Nella Somi?”
“Yes.”
“I have.” The woman of experience, veteran of a dozen society campaigns and a thousand skirmishes, turned a quizzical eye on her bachelor brother. “Nella is an extraordinarily clever girl; one of the cleverest girls, in fact, that I have ever seen.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Canby returned impatiently. “Of course she’s clever; that is, she’s not a fool. I mean, don’t you think she’s unusual?”
“Cleverness is unusual.”
“But don’t you think she’s different, different from her cl— No, to the devil with class! But she strikes me as being intelligent and refined far beyond the ordinary girl, of any class whatever. Her outlook on life is sensible. Her mind is pure. She is attractive personally. She is neither impudent nor ignorant. She has the soul of an artist; she loves beautiful things without gushing over them. There’s no silly sentiment about her. And she is brave; she’s alone in the world, and she looks at life cheerfully.”