CHAPTER VIII.

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The summer passed quickly away without bringing any new element into George’s life. He did not reject Johnson’s advice, but he did not follow it to the letter. His instinct was against the method suggested by his friend, and he felt that he had not the assurance to follow it out. He was too sensitive and proud to employ his courage in besieging persons who did not want him. Nevertheless he found work to do, and his position was improved, though his writings still failed to attract any attention. He had imagined that there was but a step from the composition of magazine articles to the making of a book, but he soon discovered the fallacy of the idea, and almost regretted the old days of “book-tasting.”

Meanwhile, his thoughts dwelt much on Constance, and he adorned the temple of his idol with everything upon which, figuratively speaking, he could lay his hands. Strange to say, her absence during the summer was a relief to him. It made the weakness of his position and the futility of his hopes seem less apparent, and it gave him time to make at least a step in the direction of success. He wrote to her, as often as he dared, and twice in the course of the summer she answered with short letters that had in his eyes a suspicious savour of kindness rather than of anything even distantly approaching to affection. Nevertheless those were great days in his calendar on which these missives came. The notes were read over every morning and evening until Constance returned, and were put in a place of safety during the day and night.

George looked forward with the greatest anxiety to Miss Fearing’s return. He had long felt that her sister’s antagonism was one of the numerous and apparently insurmountable obstacles that barred his path, and he dreaded lest Grace’s influence should, in the course of the long summer, so work upon Constance’s mind as to break the slender thread that bound her to him. As regards Grace’s intention he was by no means wrong. She lost no opportunity of explaining to Constance that her friendship for George Wood was little short of ridiculous, that the man knew he had no future and was in pursuit of nothing but money, that his writings showed that he belonged to the poorest class of amateurs, that men who were to succeed were always heard of from boyhood, at school, at college and in their first efforts and that Constance was allowing her good nature to get the better of her common-sense in encouraging such a fellow. In short there was very little that Grace left unsaid. But though George had foreseen all this, as Grace, on her part, had determined beforehand upon her course of action during the summer, neither Grace nor George had understood the effect that such talk would produce upon her whom it was meant to influence. There was in Constance’s apparently gentle nature an element of quiet resistance which, in reality, it was not hard to rouse. Like many very good and very conscientious people, she detested advice and abominated interference, even on the part of those she loved best. Her attachment for her sister was sincere in its way, though not very strong, and it did not extend to a blind respect for Grace’s opinions. Grace could be wrong, like other people, and Grace was hasty and hot-tempered, prejudiced and not free from a certain sort of false pride. These were assuredly not the defects of Constance’s character, at least in her own opinion.

Her opposition was aroused and she began to show it. Indeed, her two letters to George were both written immediately after conversations had taken place in which Grace had spoken of him with more than usual bitterness. She felt as though she owed him some reparation for the ill-treatment he got at her sister’s hands, and this accounted in part for the flavour of kindness which George detected in her words. The situation was further strained by the arrival of one of the periodicals which contained an article by him. The sisters both read it, and Constance was pleased with it. In an indirect way, too, she felt flattered, for it looked as though George were beginning to follow her advice.

“It is trash,” said Grace authoritatively, as she threw the magazine aside.

Constance allowed a full minute to elapse before she answered, during which she seemed to be intently watching the sail of a boat that was slowly working its way up the river. The two girls had paused between one visit and another to rest themselves in a place they owned upon the Hudson. The weather was intensely hot, and it was towards evening.

“It is not trash,” said Constance quietly. “You are quite mistaken. You are completely blinded by your prejudice.”

Grace was very much surprised, for it was unlike Constance to turn upon her in such a way.

“I think it is trash for two reasons,” she said, with a short laugh. “First, because my judgment tells me it is, and secondly because I know that George Wood could not possibly write anything else.”

“You can hardly deny that you are prejudiced after that speech. Do you know what you will do, if you go on in this way? You will make me fall in love with Mr. Wood and marry him, out of sheer contrariety.”

“Oh no!” laughed Grace. “You would not marry him. At the last minute you would throw him over, and then he would bring an action against you for breach of promise with a view to the damages.”

Constance suddenly grew very pale. She turned from the window where she was standing, crossed the small room and stood still before her sister.

“Do you mean that?” she asked very coldly.

Grace was frightened, for the first time in her life, but she did her best to hide it.

“What difference does it make to you, whether I mean it or not?” she inquired with a rather scornful smile.

“This difference—that if you think such things, you and I may as well part company before we quarrel any further.”

“Ah—you love him, then? I did not know.” Grace laughed nervously.

“I do not love him, but if I did I should not be ashamed to say so to you or to the whole world. But I like him very, very much, and I will not hear him talked of as you talk of him. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly. Nothing could be clearer,” said Grace with a contemptuous curl of the lip.

“Then I hope you will remember,” Constance answered.

Grace did remember. Indeed, for some time she could think of nothing else. It seemed clear enough to her that something more than friendship was needed to account for the emotion she had seen in her sister’s face. It was the first time in her recollection, too, that Constance had ever been really angry, and Grace was not inclined to rouse her anger a second time. She changed her tactics and ignored George Wood altogether, never mentioning him nor reading anything that he sent to Constance. But this mode of treating the question proved unsatisfactory, for it was clear that Wood wrote often, and there was nothing to prove that Constance did not answer all his letters. Fortunately the two sisters were rarely alone together during the rest of the summer, and their opportunities of disagreeing were not numerous. They were not in reality as fond of each other as the world thought, or as they appeared to be. Their natures were too different, and at the same time the difference was not of that kind in which each character seems to fill a want in the other. On the contrary the points in which they were unlike were precisely those which most irritated the other’s sensibilities. They had never before quarrelled nor been so near to a quarrel as they were in the course of the conversation just recorded, but they were in reality very far from being harmonious.

The devoted affection of their mother had kept them together while she had lived, and, to some extent, had survived her, the memory of her still exercising a strong influence over both. Constance, too, was naturally very pacific, and rarely resented anything Grace said, in jest or in earnest. Grace was often annoyed by what she called her sister’s sweetness, and it was that very quality which prevented the other from retaliating. She had now shown that she could turn, and fiercely, if once aroused, and Grace respected her the more for having shown that she had a temper.

Enough has been said to show that George’s fear that Constance would think less well of him through Grace’s influence, was without foundation. She even went so far as to send for him as soon as she returned to New York in the autumn. It was a strange meeting, for there was constraint on both sides, and at the same time each felt the necessity of showing the other that no change had taken place for the worse in their mutual relations.

Constance was surprised to find how very favourably George Wood compared with the men she had seen during the summer—men all more or less alike in her eyes, but nevertheless representing in her imagination the general type of what the gentleman is supposed to be, the type of the man of her own class, the mate of her own species. Grace had talked so much, in the early part of the season, of George’s inferior social position, of his awkward manner, and, generally, of his defects, that Constance had almost feared to find that she had been deceived at first and that there was a little truth in her sister’s words. One glance, one phrase of his, sufficed to set her mind at rest. He might have peculiarities, but they were not apparent in his way of dressing, of entering a room or of pronouncing the English language. He was emphatically what he ought to be, and she felt a keen pleasure in taking up her intercourse with him at the point where it had been interrupted more than four months earlier.

And now the exigencies of this history require that we should pass rapidly over the period that followed. It was an uneventful time for all concerned. George Wood worked with all his might and produced some very creditable papers on a variety of subjects, gradually attracting a certain amount of notice to himself, and advancing, as he supposed, as fast as was possible in his career. Success, of the kind he craved, still seemed very far away in the dim future, though there were not wanting those who believed that he might not wait long for it. Foremost among those was Constance Fearing. To her there was a vast difference between the anonymous scribbler of small notices whom she had known a year ago, and the promising young writer who appeared to her to have a reputation already, because most of her friends now knew who he was, had read one or more of his articles and were glad to meet him when occasion offered. She felt indeed that he had not yet found out his best talent, but her instinct told her that the time could not be very distant when it would break out of its own impulse and surprise the world by its brilliancy. That he actually possessed great and rare gifts she no longer doubted.

Next to Constance, the Sherrington Trimms were the loudest in their praise of George’s doings. Totty could talk of nothing else when she came to the house in Washington Square, and her husband never failed to read everything George wrote, and to pat him on the back after each fresh effort. Even George’s father began to relent and to believe that there might be something in literature after all. But he showed very little enthusiasm until, one day, an old acquaintance with whom he had not spoken for years, crossed the street and shook hands with him, congratulated him upon his boy’s “doing so well.” Then Jonah Wood felt that the load of anxiety he had borne for so many years was suddenly lifted from his shoulders. People thought his boy was “doing well”! He had not hoped to be told that spontaneously by any one for years to come. The dreary look began to fade out of his grey face, giving way to something that looked very like happiness.

George himself was the least appreciative of his own success. Even Johnson, who was sparing of praise in general, wrote occasional notes in his paper expressive of his satisfaction at his friend’s work and generally containing some bit of delicate criticism or learned reference that lent them weight and caused them to be reprinted into other newspapers.

So the winter came and went again and the month of May came round once more. George was with Constance one afternoon almost exactly a year from the day on which he had first told her of his love. Their relations had been very peaceful and pleasant of late, though George was not so often alone with her as in former times. The period of mourning for the girls’ mother was past and many people came to the house. George himself had gradually made numerous acquaintances and led a more social life than formerly, finding interest, as Johnson had predicted, in watching people instead of poring over books. He was asked to dinner by many persons who had known his father and were anxious to make amends for having judged him unjustly, and when they had once received him into their houses, they liked him and did what they could to show it. Moreover he was modest and reticent in regard to himself and talked well of current topics. Insensibly he had begun to acquire social popularity and to forget much of his boyish cynicism. He fancied that he went into society merely because it sometimes gave him an opportunity of meeting Constance, but he was too natural and young not to like it for itself.

“Shall we not go out?” he asked, when he found her alone in the drawing-room.

Constance looked up and smiled, as though she understood his thought. He was afraid that Grace would enter the room and spoil his visit, as had happened more than once, and Constance feared the same thing. Neither had ever said as much to the other, but there was a tacit understanding between them, and their intimacy had developed so far that Constance made no secret of wishing to be alone with him when he came to the house. She smiled in spite of herself and George smiled in return.

“Yes. We can take a turn in the Square,” she said. “It will be—cooler, you know.” A soft laugh seemed to explain the hesitation, and George felt very happy.

A few minutes later they were walking side by side under the great trees. Instinctively they kept away from the Fearings’ house—Grace might chance to be at the window.

“It was almost a year ago,” said George, suddenly.

“What?”

“That I told you I loved you. You think differently of me now, do you not?”

“A little differently, perhaps,” Constance answered. Then, feeling that she was blushing, she turned her face away and spoke rapidly. “Yes and no. I think more of you—that is to say, I think better of you. You have done so much in this year. I begin to see that you are more energetic than I fancied you were.”

“Does it seem to you as though what I have done has brought us any nearer together, you and me?”

“Nearer? Perhaps. I do not quite see how you mean.” The blush had disappeared, and she looked puzzled.

“I mean because I have begun—only begun—to make something like a position for myself. If I succeed I hope we shall seem nearer yet—nearer and nearer, till there shall be no parting at all.”

“I think you mistake a letter in the word—you talk as though you meant dearer, more than nearer—do you not?” Constance laughed, and blushed again.

“If I said that you were making love to me—to-day, as you said a year ago—would you answer that you meant it—as I did?”

“What impertinence!” exclaimed Constance still laughing lightly.

“No—but would you?”

“I cannot tell what I should do, if you said anything so outrageous!”

“I love you. Is that outrageous and impertinent?”

“N—o. You say it very nicely—almost too nicely. I am afraid you have said it before.”

“Often, though I cannot expect you to remember the exact number of repetitions. How would you say it—if you were obliged to say it? I have a good ear for a tune. I could learn your music.”

“Could you?” Constance hesitated while they paused in their walk and George looked into her eyes.

She saw something there that had not been present when he had first spoken, a year ago. He had seemed cold then, even to her inexperience. Now there was both passion and tenderness in his look, and there was sadness in his face.

“You do love me now,” she said softly. “I can see it.”

“And you, dear—will you not say the little words?”

Again she hesitated. Then she put out her hand and touched his very gently. “I hate you, sir,” she said. But she pronounced the syllables with infinite softness and delicacy, and the music of her voice could not have been more sweet if she had said “I love you, dear.” Then she laughed again.

“I could hear you say that very often, without being hurt,” said George tenderly.

“I only wanted to show you how I should say those other words—if I would,” she answered.

“Is that all? Well—if there is a just proportion between your hatred and your love and your way of expressing them, your love must be——” he stopped.

“Must be what?”

“As great as mine. I cannot find anything stronger than that to say—nor could you, if you knew.”

“So you love me, then. I wonder how long it will last? When did it begin?”

“The second time I saw you.”

“Love at second sight! How romantic—so much more original than at first sight, and so much more natural. No—you must not take my hand—there are people over there—and besides, there is no reason why you should. I told you I hated you. There—walk like a sensible being and talk about your work!”

“You are a strange creature, Constance.”

“Am I? Why do you call me Constance? I do not call you George—indeed I do not like the name at all.”

“Nor I, if you do not—you can call me Constantine if you like. That name would be more like yours.”

“I do not like my own. It makes me think of the odiously good little girls in story books. Besides, what is it? Why am I called Constance? Is it for the town in Switzerland? I was never there. Is it for the virtue I least possess?”

“As your sister is called Grace,” suggested George.

“Hush! Grace is a very graceful girl. Take it in that way, and leave her alone. Am I the English for Constantia? Come, give me an explanation! Talk! Say something! You are leaving the burden of the conversation to me, and then you are not even listening!”

“I was thinking of you—I always am. What shall I talk about? You are the only subject on which I could be at all eloquent.”

“You might talk about yourself, for a change,” suggested Constance.

“But you say you hate me, so that you would not find an account of me agreeable, would you?”

“I think my hatred could be made very accommodating, if you would talk pleasantly—even about yourself.”

“I would rather make love to you than talk.”

“I have no doubt you would, but that is just what I do not want you to do. Besides, you have done it before—without any result.”

“That is no reason for not trying again, is it?”

“Why try it at all?”

“Love is its own reason,” said George, “and it is the reason for most other things as well. I love you and I am not in search of reasons. I love you very, very much, with all my heart—so much that I do not know how to say it. My life is full of you. You are everywhere. You are always with me. In everything I have done since I have known you I have thought of you. I have asked myself whether this would please you, whether that would bring a smile to your dear face, whether these words or those would speak to your heart and be sweet to you. You are everything the world holds for me, the sun that shines, the air I breathe. Without the thought of you I could neither think nor work. If a man can grow great by the thought of woman’s love, you can make me one of the greatest—if men die of broken hearts you can kill me—you are everything to me—life, breath and happiness.”

Constance was silent. He spoke passionately, and there was an accent of truth in his low, vibrating voice, that went to her heart. For one moment she almost felt that she loved him in return, as she had often dreamed of loving. That he was even now more to her than any living being, she knew already.

“You like me,” he said presently. “You like me, you are fond of me, you have often told me that I am your best friend, the one of whom you think most. You let me come when I will, you let me say all that is in my heart to say, you let me tell you that I love you——”

“It is very sweet to hear,” said Constance softly.

“And it is sweet to say as well—dearest. Ah, Constance, say it once, say that it is more than friendship, more than liking, more than fondness that you feel. What can it cost you to say it?”

“Would it make you very happy?”

“It would make this world heaven.”

Constance stopped in her walk, drew back a little from his side, and looked at him.

“I will say it,” she said quietly. “I love you—yes, I do. No—do not start—it is not much to hear, you must not be too hopeful. I will tell you the truth—so, as we stand—no nearer. It is not friendship nor fondness, nor mere liking. It is love, but it is not what it should be. Do you know why I tell you? Because I care too much for your respect to let you think I am a miserable flirt, to let you think that I am encouraging you and drawing you on, without having the least heart in the matter. You must think me very conscientious. Perhaps I am. Yes, I have encouraged you, I have drawn you on, because I like to hear you say what you so often say of late, that you love me. It is very sweet to hear, as I told you just now. And, do you know? I wish I could say the same things to you, and feel them. But I do not love you enough, I am not sure of my love, it is greater to-day and less to-morrow, and I will not give you little where you give me so much. You know my secret now. You may hope, if you will. I am not deceiving you. I may love you more and more, and the day when I feel that it is all strong and true and whole and sound and unchangeable I will marry you. But I will not promise. I will not run the risk so long as I feel that my love may turn again into friendship next week—or next year. Do you see? Have you understood me? Is it all clear now?”

“I understand your words, dear, but not your heart. I thank you——”

“No. Do not thank me. Come, let us walk on, slowly. Do you know that it has been the same with you, though you will not admit it? You did not love me a year ago, as you do now, did you?”

“No. That was impossible. I love you more and more every day, every week, every month.”

“A year ago it would have been quite possible for you to have forgotten me and loved some other woman. You did not look at me as you do now. Your voice had not the same ring in it.”

“I daresay not—I have changed. I can feel it.”

“Yes, and it is because I have watched you changing in one way, that I am afraid I may change in the other.”

George was very much surprised and at the same time was made very happy by what she had told him. He had indeed suspected the truth, and it was not enough to have heard her say the words “I love you” in the calm and reasoning tone she had used. But on the other hand, there was something brilliantly honest about her confession, that filled him with hope and delight. If a woman so true once loved with all her heart, she would love longer and better and more truly than other women can. So at least thought George Wood, as he walked by her side beneath the trees in Washington Square, and glanced from time to time at her lovely blushing face.

“I thank you, dear, with all my heart,” he said after a long pause.

“There is little enough to thank me for. It seems to me that I could not have done less. Would it have been honest and right to let things go on as they were going without an explanation?”

“Perhaps not. But most women would have done nothing. I understand you better now, I think—if a man can ever understand a woman at all.”

“I do not understand myself,” Constance answered thoughtfully. “Promise me one thing,” she added, looking up quickly into his face.

“Anything in the world,” he said.

“Anything? Then promise me that what I have said to-day shall make no difference in the way we meet, and that you will behave just as you did before.”

“Indeed I will. What difference could it make? I do not see.”

“Well, it might. Remember that we are not engaged to be married——”

“Oh, that? Of course not. I am engaged to you, but you are not engaged to me. Is that it?”

“Better not think of any engagement at all. It can do no good. Love me if you will, but do not consider yourself bound.”

“If you will tell me how I can love you without feeling bound to you, perhaps I will try and obey your commands. It must be a very complicated thing.” George laughed happily.

“Well, do as you will,” said Constance. “Only be honest with me, as I have been with you. If a time comes when you feel that you love me less, tell me so frankly, and let there be an end. Will you?”

“Yes. I am not afraid. The day will never come.”

“Never is thought to be an old-fashioned word, I believe—like always. Will you do something else to please me—something to pay me for my honesty?”

“Anything—everything.”

“Write a book, then. It is time you did it.”

George did not answer at once. There was nothing which he really wished more to accomplish than what Constance asked of him, and yet, in spite of years of literary work and endless preparation, there was nothing for which he really felt himself less fitted. He was conscious that fragments of novels were constantly floating through his brain and that scenes formed themselves and conversations arranged themselves spontaneously in his mind when he least expected it; but everything was vague and unsettled, he had neither plot nor plan, neither the persons of the drama nor the scene of their action, neither beginning nor continuation, nor end. To promise to write a book now, this very year, seemed like madness. And yet he was beginning to fear lest he should put off the task until it should be too late. He was in his twenty-seventh year, and in his own estimation was approaching perilously near to thirty.

“Why do you ask me to do it now?” he inquired.

“Because it is time, and because if you go on much longer with these short things you will never do anything else.”

“I only do it as a preparation, as a step. Honestly, I do not feel that I know enough to write a good book, and I should be sorry to write a bad one.”

“Never mind. Make a beginning. It can do no harm to try. You have written a great deal lately and you can leave the magazines alone for a while. Shall I tell you what I would like?”

“Yes—what?”

“I would like you to write your book and bring the chapters as you write them, and read them to me one by one.”

“Would you really like that?”

“Indeed I would.”

“Then I will do it. I mean that I will try, for I am sure I cannot succeed. But—you did not think of that—where can we read without being interrupted? I do not propose to give your sister the benefit——”

“In Central Park—on fine days. There are quiet places there.”

“Will you go there with me alone?” George asked in some surprise.

“Yes. Why not? Have I not told you that I love you—a little?”

“I bless you for it, dear,” said George.

And so they parted.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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