Since that visit paid by the Baroness Munster to Mrs. Acton, of which some account was given at an earlier stage of this narrative, the intercourse between these two ladies had been neither frequent nor intimate. It was not that Mrs. Acton had failed to appreciate Madame M; auunster’s charms; on the contrary, her perception of the graces of manner and conversation of her brilliant visitor had been only too acute. Mrs. Acton was, as they said in Boston, very “intense,” and her impressions were apt to be too many for her. The state of her health required the restriction of emotion; and this is why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal arm-chair, very few visitors, even of the soberest local type, she had been obliged to limit the number of her interviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her imagination — Mrs. Acton’s imagination was a marvel — all that she had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent the Baroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from her garden and baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and the Baroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. On the day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been made, Eugenia determined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a “visite d’adieux;” so it was that, to herself, she qualified her enterprise. It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on the Monday morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton. To his own consciousness, evidently he was “keeping away;” and as the Baroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle’s, whither, for several days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia’s seclusion; certain intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural part of the graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a life. Gertrude especially held these periods in honor; she wondered what Madame M; auunster did at such times, but she would not have permitted herself to inquire too curiously.

The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours’ brilliant sunshine had dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late afternoon, proposing to walk to Mrs. Acton’s, exposed herself to no great discomfort. As with her charming undulating step she moved along the clean, grassy margin of the road, beneath the thickly-hanging boughs of the orchards, through the quiet of the hour and place and the rich maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of a sort of luxurious melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness of attaching herself to places — even when she had begun with a little aversion; and now, with the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly toward this well-wooded corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were so beautiful and one’s ambitions were so pure. Mrs. Acton was able to receive her; but on entering this lady’s large, freshly-scented room the Baroness saw that she was looking very ill. She was wonderfully white and transparent, and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. But she flushed a little — like a young girl, the Baroness thought — and she rested her clear, smiling eyes upon those of her visitor. Her voice was low and monotonous, like a voice that had never expressed any human passions.

“I have come to bid you good-by,” said Eugenia. “I shall soon be going away.”

“When are you going away?”

“Very soon — any day.”

“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Acton. “I hoped you would stay — always.”

“Always?” Eugenia demanded.

“Well, I mean a long time,” said Mrs. Acton, in her sweet, feeble tone. “They tell me you are so comfortable — that you have got such a beautiful little house.”

Eugenia stared — that is, she smiled; she thought of her poor little chalet and she wondered whether her hostess were jesting. “Yes, my house is exquisite,” she said; “though not to be compared to yours.”

“And my son is so fond of going to see you,” Mrs. Acton added. “I am afraid my son will miss you.”

“Ah, dear madame,” said Eugenia, with a little laugh, “I can’t stay in America for your son!”

“Don’t you like America?”

The Baroness looked at the front of her dress. “If I liked it — that would not be staying for your son!”

Mrs. Acton gazed at her with her grave, tender eyes, as if she had not quite understood. The Baroness at last found something irritating in the sweet, soft stare of her hostess; and if one were not bound to be merciful to great invalids she would almost have taken the liberty of pronouncing her, mentally, a fool. “I am afraid, then, I shall never see you again,” said Mrs. Acton. “You know I am dying.”

“Ah, dear madame,” murmured Eugenia.

“I want to leave my children cheerful and happy. My daughter will probably marry her cousin.”

“Two such interesting young people,” said the Baroness, vaguely. She was not thinking of Clifford Wentworth.

“I feel so tranquil about my end,” Mrs. Acton went on. “It is coming so easily, so surely.” And she paused, with her mild gaze always on Eugenia’s.

The Baroness hated to be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so far as Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners. “Ah, madame, you are too charming an invalid,” she rejoined.

But the delicacy of this rejoinder was apparently lost upon her hostess, who went on in her low, reasonable voice. “I want to leave my children bright and comfortable. You seem to me all so happy here — just as you are. So I wish you could stay. It would be so pleasant for Robert.”

Eugenia wondered what she meant by its being pleasant for Robert; but she felt that she would never know what such a woman as that meant. She got up; she was afraid Mrs. Acton would tell her again that she was dying. “Good-by, dear madame,” she said. “I must remember that your strength is precious.”

Mrs. Acton took her hand and held it a moment. “Well, you have been happy here, have n’t you? And you like us all, don’t you? I wish you would stay,” she added, “in your beautiful little house.”

She had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the hall, to show her down-stairs; but the large landing outside her door was empty, and Eugenia stood there looking about. She felt irritated; the dying lady had not “la main heureuse.” She passed slowly down-stairs, still looking about. The broad staircase made a great bend, and in the angle was a high window, looking westward, with a deep bench, covered with a row of flowering plants in curious old pots of blue china-ware. The yellow afternoon light came in through the flowers and flickered a little on the white wainscots. Eugenia paused a moment; the house was perfectly still, save for the ticking, somewhere, of a great clock. The lower hall stretched away at the foot of the stairs, half covered over with a large Oriental rug. Eugenia lingered a little, noticing a great many things. “Comme c’est bien!” she said to herself; such a large, solid, irreproachable basis of existence the place seemed to her to indicate. And then she reflected that Mrs. Acton was soon to withdraw from it. The reflection accompanied her the rest of the way down-stairs, where she paused again, making more observations. The hall was extremely broad, and on either side of the front door was a wide, deeply-set window, which threw the shadows of everything back into the house. There were high-backed chairs along the wall and big Eastern vases upon tables, and, on either side, a large cabinet with a glass front and little curiosities within, dimly gleaming. The doors were open — into the darkened parlor, the library, the dining-room. All these rooms seemed empty. Eugenia passed along, and stopped a moment on the threshold of each. “Comme c’est bien!” she murmured again; she had thought of just such a house as this when she decided to come to America. She opened the front door for herself — her light tread had summoned none of the servants — and on the threshold she gave a last look. Outside, she was still in the humor for curious contemplation; so instead of going directly down the little drive, to the gate, she wandered away towards the garden, which lay to the right of the house. She had not gone many yards over the grass before she paused quickly; she perceived a gentleman stretched upon the level verdure, beneath a tree. He had not heard her coming, and he lay motionless, flat on his back, with his hands clasped under his head, staring up at the sky; so that the Baroness was able to reflect, at her leisure, upon the question of his identity. It was that of a person who had lately been much in her thoughts; but her first impulse, nevertheless, was to turn away; the last thing she desired was to have the air of coming in quest of Robert Acton. The gentleman on the grass, however, gave her no time to decide; he could not long remain unconscious of so agreeable a presence. He rolled back his eyes, stared, gave an exclamation, and then jumped up. He stood an instant, looking at her.

“Excuse my ridiculous position,” he said.

“I have just now no sense of the ridiculous. But, in case you have, don’t imagine I came to see you.”

“Take care,” rejoined Acton, “how you put it into my head! I was thinking of you.”

“The occupation of extreme leisure!” said the Baroness. “To think of a woman when you are in that position is no compliment.”

“I did n’t say I was thinking well!” Acton affirmed, smiling.

She looked at him, and then she turned away.

“Though I did n’t come to see you,” she said, “remember at least that I am within your gates.”

“I am delighted — I am honored! Won’t you come into the house?”

“I have just come out of it. I have been calling upon your mother. I have been bidding her farewell.”

“Farewell?” Acton demanded.

“I am going away,” said the Baroness. And she turned away again, as if to illustrate her meaning.

“When are you going?” asked Acton, standing a moment in his place. But the Baroness made no answer, and he followed her.

“I came this way to look at your garden,” she said, walking back to the gate, over the grass. “But I must go.”

“Let me at least go with you.” He went with her, and they said nothing till they reached the gate. It was open, and they looked down the road which was darkened over with long bosky shadows. “Must you go straight home?” Acton asked.

But she made no answer. She said, after a moment, “Why have you not been to see me?” He said nothing, and then she went on, “Why don’t you answer me?”

“I am trying to invent an answer,” Acton confessed.

“Have you none ready?”

“None that I can tell you,” he said. “But let me walk with you now.”

“You may do as you like.”

She moved slowly along the road, and Acton went with her. Presently he said, “If I had done as I liked I would have come to see you several times.”

“Is that invented?” asked Eugenia.

“No, that is natural. I stayed away because”—

“Ah, here comes the reason, then!”

“Because I wanted to think about you.”

“Because you wanted to lie down!” said the Baroness. “I have seen you lie down — almost — in my drawing-room.”

Acton stopped in the road, with a movement which seemed to beg her to linger a little. She paused, and he looked at her awhile; he thought her very charming. “You are jesting,” he said; “but if you are really going away it is very serious.”

“If I stay,” and she gave a little laugh, “it is more serious still!”

“When shall you go?”

“As soon as possible.”

“And why?”

“Why should I stay?”

“Because we all admire you so.”

“That is not a reason. I am admired also in Europe.” And she began to walk homeward again.

“What could I say to keep you?” asked Acton. He wanted to keep her, and it was a fact that he had been thinking of her for a week. He was in love with her now; he was conscious of that, or he thought he was; and the only question with him was whether he could trust her.

“What you can say to keep me?” she repeated. “As I want very much to go it is not in my interest to tell you. Besides, I can’t imagine.”

He went on with her in silence; he was much more affected by what she had told him than appeared. Ever since that evening of his return from Newport her image had had a terrible power to trouble him. What Clifford Wentworth had told him — that had affected him, too, in an adverse sense; but it had not liberated him from the discomfort of a charm of which his intelligence was impatient. “She is not honest, she is not honest,” he kept murmuring to himself. That is what he had been saying to the summer sky, ten minutes before. Unfortunately, he was unable to say it finally, definitively; and now that he was near her it seemed to matter wonderfully little. “She is a woman who will lie,” he had said to himself. Now, as he went along, he reminded himself of this observation; but it failed to frighten him as it had done before. He almost wished he could make her lie and then convict her of it, so that he might see how he should like that. He kept thinking of this as he walked by her side, while she moved forward with her light, graceful dignity. He had sat with her before; he had driven with her; but he had never walked with her.

“By Jove, how comme il faut she is!” he said, as he observed her sidewise. When they reached the cottage in the orchard she passed into the gate without asking him to follow; but she turned round, as he stood there, to bid him good-night.

“I asked you a question the other night which you never answered,” he said. “Have you sent off that document — liberating yourself?”

She hesitated for a single moment — very naturally. Then, “Yes,” she said, simply.

He turned away; he wondered whether that would do for his lie. But he saw her again that evening, for the Baroness reappeared at her uncle’s. He had little talk with her, however; two gentlemen had driven out from Boston, in a buggy, to call upon Mr. Wentworth and his daughters, and Madame Munster was an object of absorbing interest to both of the visitors. One of them, indeed, said nothing to her; he only sat and watched with intense gravity, and leaned forward solemnly, presenting his ear (a very large one), as if he were deaf, whenever she dropped an observation. He had evidently been impressed with the idea of her misfortunes and reverses: he never smiled. His companion adopted a lighter, easier style; sat as near as possible to Madame Munster; attempted to draw her out, and proposed every few moments a new topic of conversation. Eugenia was less vividly responsive than usual and had less to say than, from her brillian............