Down the avenue there came to them, with the opening of thedoor, the voice of Owen's motor. It was the signal whichhad interrupted their first talk, and again, instinctively,they drew apart at the sound. Without a word Darrow turnedback into the room, while Sophy Viner went down the stepsand walked back alone toward the court.
At luncheon the presence of the surgeon, and the non-appearance of Madame de Chantelle--who had excused herselfon the plea of a headache--combined to shift theconversational centre of gravity; and Darrow, under shelterof the necessarily impersonal talk, had time to adjust hisdisguise and to perceive that the others were engaged in thesame re-arrangement. It was the first time that he had seenyoung Leath and Sophy Viner together since he had learned oftheir engagement; but neither revealed more emotion thanbefitted the occasion. It was evident that Owen was deeplyunder the girl's charm, and that at the least sign from herhis bliss would have broken bounds; but her reticence wasjustified by the tacitly recognized fact of Madame deChantelle's disapproval. This also visibly weighed onAnna's mind, making her manner to Sophy, if no less kind,yet a trifle more constrained than if the moment of finalunderstanding had been reached. So Darrow interpreted thetension perceptible under the fluent exchange ofcommonplaces in which he was diligently sharing. But he wasmore and more aware of his inability to test the moralatmosphere about him: he was like a man in fever testinganother's temperature by the touch.
After luncheon Anna, who was to motor the surgeon home,suggested to Darrow that he should accompany them. Effie wasalso of the party; and Darrow inferred that Anna wished togive her step-son a chance to be alone with his betrothed.
On the way back, after the surgeon had been left at hisdoor, the little girl sat between her mother and Darrow, andher presence kept their talk from taking a personal turn.
Darrow knew that Mrs. Leath had not yet told Effie of therelation in which he was to stand to her. The prematuredivulging of Owen's plans had thrown their own into thebackground, and by common consent they continued, in thelittle girl's presence, on terms of an informalfriendliness.
The sky had cleared after luncheon, and to prolong theirexcursion they returned by way of the ivy-mantled ruin whichwas to have been the scene of the projected picnic. Thiscircuit brought them back to the park gates not long beforesunset, and as Anna wished to stop at the lodge for news ofthe injured child Darrow left her there with Effie andwalked on alone to the house. He had the impression thatshe was slightly surprised at his not waiting for her; buthis inner restlessness vented itself in an intense desirefor bodily movement. He would have liked to walk himselfinto a state of torpor; to tramp on for hours through themoist winds and the healing darkness and come backstaggering with fatigue and sleep. But he had no pretextfor such a flight, and he feared that, at such a moment, hisprolonged absence might seem singular to Anna.
As he approached the house, the thought of her nearnessproduced a swift reaction of mood. It was as if an intenservision of her had scattered his perplexities like morningmists. At this moment, wherever she was, he knew he wassafely shut away in her thoughts, and the knowledge madeevery other fact dwindle away to a shadow. He and she lovedeach other, and their love arched over them open and ampleas the day: in all its sunlit spaces there was no cranny fora fear to lurk. In a few minutes he would be in her presenceand would read his reassurance in her eyes. And presently,before dinner, she would contrive that they should have anhour by themselves in her sitting-room, and he would sit bythe hearth and watch her quiet movements, and the way thebluish lustre on her hair purpled a little as she bent abovethe fire.
A carriage drove out of the court as he entered it, and inthe hall his vision was dispelled by the exceedinglysubstantial presence of a lady in a waterproof and a tweedhat, who stood firmly planted in the centre of a pile ofluggage, as to which she was giving involved but luciddirections to the footman who had just admitted her. Shewent on with these directions regardless of Darrow'sentrance, merely fixing her small pale eyes on him while sheproceeded, in a deep contralto voice, and a fluent Frenchpronounced with the purest Boston accent, to specify thedestination of her bags; and this enabled Darrow to give herback a gaze protracted enough to take in all the details ofher plain thick-set person, from the square sallow facebeneath bands of grey hair to the blunt boot-toes protrudingunder her wide walking skirt.
She submitted to this scrutiny with no more evidence ofsurprise than a monument examined by a tourist; but when thefate of her luggage had been settled she turned suddenly toDarrow and, dropping her eyes from his face to his feet,asked in trenchant accents: "What sort of boots have you goton?"Before he could summon his wits to the consideration of thisquestion she continued in a tone of suppressed indignation:
"Until Americans get used to the fact that France is underwater for half the year they're perpetually risking theirlives by not being properly protected. I suppose you'vebeen tramping through all this nasty clammy mud as if you'dbeen taking a stroll on Boston Common."Darrow, with a laugh, affirmed his previous experience ofFrench dampness, and the degree to which he was on his guardagainst it; but the lady, with a contemptuous snort,rejoined: "You young men are all alike----"; to which sheappended, after another hard look at him: "I suppose you'reGeorge Darrow? I used to know one of your mother's cousins,who married a Tunstall of Mount Vernon Street. My name isAdelaide Painter. Have you been in Boston lately? No? I'msorry for that. I hear there have been several new housesbuilt at the lower end of Commonwealth Avenue and I hopedyou could tell me about them. I haven't been there forthirty years myself."Miss Painter's arrival at Givre produced the same effect asthe wind's hauling around to the north after days of languidweather. When Darrow joined the group about the tea-tableshe had already given a tingle to the air. Madame deChantelle still remained invisible above stairs; but Darrowhad the impression that even through her drawn curtains andbolted doors a stimulating whiff must have entered.
Anna was in her usual seat behind the tea-tray, and SophyViner presently led in her pupil. Owen was also there,seated, as usual, a little apart from the others, andfollowing Miss Painter's massive movements and equallysubstantial utterances with a smile of secret intelligencewhich gave Darrow the idea of his having been in clandestineparley with the enemy. Darrow further took note that thegirl and her suitor perceptibly avoided each other; but thismight be a natural result of the tension Miss Painter hadbeen summoned to relieve.
Sophy Viner would evidently permit no recognition of thesituation save that which it lay with Madame de Chantelle toaccord; but meanwhile Miss Painter had proclaimed her tacitsense of it by summoning the girl to a seat at her side.
Darrow, as he continued to observe the newcomer, who wasperched on her arm-chair like a granite image on the edge ofa cliff, was aware that, in a more detached frame of mind,he would have found an extreme interest in studying andclassifying Miss Painter. It was not that she said anythingremarkable, or betrayed any of those unspoken perceptionswhich give significance to the most commonplace utterances.
She talked of the lateness of her train, of an impendingcrisis in international politics, of the difficulty ofbuying English tea in Paris and of the enormities of whichFrench servants were capable; and her views on thesesubjects were enunciated with a uniformity of emphasisimplying complete unconsciousness of any difference in theirinterest and importance. She always applied to the Frenchrace the distant epithet of "those people", but she betrayedan intimate acquaintance with many of its members, and anencyclopaedic knowledge of the domestic habits, financialdifficulties and private complications of various persons ofsocial importance. Yet, as she evidently felt noincongruity in her attitude, so she revealed no desire toparade her familiarity with the fashionable, or indeed anysense of it as a fact to be paraded. It was evident thatthe titled ladies whom she spoke of as Mimi or Simone orOdette were as much "those people" to her as the bonnewho tampered with her tea and steamed the stamps off herletters ("when, by a miracle, I don't put them in the boxmyself.") Her whole attitude was of a vast grim toleranceof things-as-they-came, as though she had been somewonderful automatic machine which recorded facts but had notyet been perfected to the point of sorting or labellingthem.
All this, as Darrow was aware, still fell short ofaccounting for the influence she obviously exerted on thepersons in contact with her. It brought a slight relief tohis state of tension to go on wondering, while he watchedand listened, just where the mystery lurked. Perhaps, afterall, it was in the fact of her blank insensibility, aninsensibility so devoid of egotism that it had no hardnessand no grimaces, but rather the freshness of a simplermental state. After living, as he had, as they all had, forthe las............