A Spirit in Prison Part 86

"Madre has seemed different lately," she said--"been different. I am sure she has. What is it?"

As the girl spoke, and looked keenly at him with her bright, searching eyes, a thought came, like a flash, upon Artois--a thought that almost frightened him. He could not tell it to Vere, and almost immediately he thrust it away from his mind. But Vere had seen that something had come to him.

"You know what it is!" she said.

"I don't know."

"Monsieur Emile!"

Her voice was full of reproach.

"Vere, I am telling you the truth," he said, earnestly. "If there is anything seriously troubling your mother I do not know what it is. She has sorrows, of course. You know that."

"This is something fresh," the girl said. She thrust forward her little chin decisively. "This is something new."

"It cannot be that," Artois said to himself. "It cannot be that."

To Vere he said: "Sleeplessness is terribly distressing."

"Well--but only one night."

"Perhaps there have been others."

In reply Vere said:

"Monsieur Emile, you remember this morning, when we were in the garden, and mother called?"

"Yes."

"Do you know, the way she called made me feel frightened?"

"We were so busy talking that the sudden sound startled us."

"No, it wasn't that."

"But when we came your mother was smiling--she was perfectly well. You let your imagination--"

"No, Monsieur Emile, indeed I don't."

He did not try any more to remove her impression. He saw that to do so would be quite useless.

"I should like to speak to Gaspare," Vere said, after a moment's thought.

"Gaspare! Why?"

"Perhaps you will laugh at me! But I often think Gaspare understands Madre better than any of us, Monsieur Emile."

"Gaspare has been with your mother a very long time."

"Yes, and in his way he is very clever. Haven't you noticed it?"

Artois did not answer this. But he said:

"Follow your instincts, Vere. I don't think they will often lead you wrong."

At tea-time Hermione came from her bedroom looking calm and smiling.

There was something deliberate about her serenity, and her eyes were tired, but she said the little rest had done her good. Vere instinctively felt that her mother did not wish to be observed, or to have any fuss made about her condition, and Artois took Vere's cue. When tea was over, Artois said:

"Well, I suppose I ought to be going."

"Oh no," Hermione said. "We asked you for a long day. That means dinner."

The cordiality in her voice sounded determined, and therefore formal.

Artois felt chilled. For a moment he looked at her doubtfully.

"Well, but, Hermione, you aren't feeling very well."

"I am much better now. Do stay. I shall rest, and Vere will take care of you."

It struck him for the first time that she was becoming very ready to subst.i.tute Vere for herself as his companion. He wondered if he had really offended or hurt her in any way. He even wondered for a moment whether she was not pleased at his spending the summer in Naples--whether, for some reason, she had wished, and still wished, to be alone with Vere.

"Perhaps Vere will get sick of looking after an--an old man," he said.

"You are not an old man, Monsieur Emile. Don't tout!"

"Tout?"

"Yes, for compliments about your youth. You meant me, you meant us both, to say how young you are."

She spoke gayly, laughingly, but he felt she was cleverly and secretly trying to smooth things out, to cover up the difficulty that had intruded itself into their generally natural and simple relations.

"And your mother says nothing," said Artois, trying to fall in with her desire, and to restore their wonted liveliness. "Don't you look upon me as almost a boy, Hermione?"

"I think sometimes you seem wonderfully young," she said.

Her voice suggested that she wished to please him, but also that she meant what she said. Yet Artois had never felt his age more acutely than when she finished speaking.

"I am a poor companion for Vere," he said, almost bitterly. "She ought to be with friends of her own age."

"You mean that I am a poor companion for you, Monsieur Emile. I often feel how good you are to put up with me in the way you do."

The gayety had gone from her now, and she spoke with an earnestness that seemed to him wonderfully gracious. He looked at her, and his eyes thanked her gently.

"Take Emile out in the boat, Vere," Hermione said, "while I read a book till dinner time."

At that moment she longed for them to be gone. Vere looked at her mother, then said:

"Come along, Monsieur Emile. I'm sorry for you, but Madre wants rest."