The frail, amber-tinted little dragon-flies of the South came hovering over the lotus bloom that edged the basin; long, narrow-shaped butterflies whose velvet-black wings were barred with brilliant stripes of canary yellow fluttered across the forest aisle; now and then a giant papilio sailed high under the arched foliage on tiger-striped wings of chrome and black, or a superb butterfly in pearl white and malachite green came flitting about the sparkle-berry bloom.
The girl nodded toward it. "That is a scarce butterfly here," she said. "Gray would be excited. I wish we had his net here."
"It is the Victorina, isn't it?" he asked, watching the handsome, nervous-winged creature which did not seem inclined to settle on the white flowers.
"Yes, the Victorina steneles. Are you interested?"
"The generation I grew up with collected," he said. "I remember my cabinet, and some of the names. But I never saw any fellows of this sort in the North."
"Your memory is good?"
"Yes," he said, "for what I care about"he looked up at her"for those I care about my memory is good, I never forget kindnessnor confidence givennor a fault forgiven."
She bent forward, elbows on knees, chin propped on both linked hands.
"Do you understand now," she said, "why I could not afford the informality of our first meeting? What you have heard about me explains why I can scarcely afford to discard convention, does it not, Mr. Hamil?"
She went on, her white fingers now framing her face and softly indenting the flushed skin:
"I don't know who has talked to you, or what you have heard; but I knew by your expressionthere at the swimming-poolthat you had heard enough to embarrass you andand hurt me very, very keenly."
"Calypso!" he broke out impulsively; but she shook her head. "Let me tell you if it must be told, Mr. Hamil.... Father and mother are dreadfully sensitive; I have only known about it for two years; two years ago they told mehad to tell me.... Wellit still seems hazy and incredible.... I was educated in a French conventif you know what that means. All my life I have been guardedsheltered from knowledge of evil; I am still unprepared to comprehend And I am still very ignorant; I know that.... So you see how it was with me; a girl awakened to such self-knowledge cannot grasp it entirelycannot wholly convince herself except at momentsat night. Sometimeswhen a crisis threatensand one has lain awake long in the dark"
She gathered her knees in her arms and stared at the patch of sunlight that lay across the hem of her gown, leaving her feet shod in gold.
"I don't know how much difference it really makes to the world. I suppose I shall learnif people are to discuss me. How much difference does it make, Mr. Hamil?"
"It makes none to me"
"The world extends beyond your pleasant comradeship," she said. "How does the world regard a woman of no originwhose very name is a charity"
"Shiela!"
"W-what?" she said, trying to smile; and then slowly laid her head in her hands, covering her face.
She had given way, very silently, for as he bent close to her he felt the tearful aroma of her uneven breaththe feverish flush on cheek and hand, the almost imperceptible tremor of her slender bodyrather close to him now.
When she had regained her composure, and her voice was under command, she straightened up, face averted.
"You are quite perfect, Mr. Hamil; you have not hurt me with one misguided and well-intended word. That is exactly as it should be between usmust always be."
"Of course," he said slowly.
She nodded, still looking away from him. "Let us each enjoy our own griefs unmolested. You have yours?"
"No, Shiela, I haven't any griefs."
"Come to me when you have; I shall not humiliate you with words to shame your intelligence and my own. If you suffer you suffer; but it is well to be near a friendnot too near, Mr. Hamil."
"Not too near," he repeated.
"No; that is unendurable. The counter-irritant to grief is sanity, not emotion. When a woman is a little frightened the presence of the unafraid is what steadies her."
She looked over her shoulder into the water, reached down, broke off a blossom of wild hyacinth, and, turning, drew it through the button-hole of his coat.
"You certainly are very sweet to me," she said quietly. And, laughing a little: "The entire family adores you with pillsand I've now decorated you with the lovely curse of our Southern rivers. Butthere are no such things as weeds; a weed is only a miracle in the wrong place.... Wellshall we walk and moralise or remain here and make cat-cradle conversation? You are looking at me very solemnly."
"I was thinking"
"What?"
"That, perhaps, I never before knew a girl as well as I know you."
"Not even Miss Suydam?"
"Lord, no! I never dreamed of knowing herI mean her real self. You understand, she and I have always taken each other for grantednever with any genuine intimacy."
"Oh! Andthisoursis genuine intimacy?"
"Is it not?"
For a moment her teeth worried the bright velvet of her lip, then meeting his gaze:
"I mean to behonestwith you," she said with a tremor in her voice; but her regard wavered under his. "I mean to be," she repeated so low he scarcely heard her. Then with a sudden animation a little strained: "When this winter has become a memory let it be a happy one for you and me. And by the same token you and I had better think about dressing. You don't mind, do you, if I take you to meet Mrs. Ascott?she was Countess de Caldelis; it's taken her years to secure her divorce."
Hamil remembered the little dough-faced, shrimp-limbed count when he first came over with the object of permitting somebody to support him indefinitely so that later, in France, he could in turn support his mistresses in the style to which they earnestly desired to become accustomed.
And now the American girl who had been a countess was back, a little wiser, a little harder, and more cynical, with some of the bloom rubbed off, yet much of her superficial beauty remaining.
"Alida Ascott," murmured Shiela. "Jessie was a bridesmaid. Poor little girl!I'm glad she's free. There were no children," she said, looking up at Hamil; "in that case a decent girl is justified! Don't you think so?"
"Yes, I do," he said, smiling; "I'm not one of those who believe that such separations threaten us with social disintegration."
"Nor I. Almost every normal woman desires to live decently. She has a right to. All young girls are ignorant. If they begin with a dreadful but innocent mistake does the safety of society require of them the horror of lifelong degradation? Then the safety of such a society is not worth the sacrifice. That is my opinion."
"That settles a long-vexed problem," he said, laughing at her earnestness.
But she looked at him, unsmiling, while he spoke, hands clasped in her lap, the fingers twisting and tightening till the rose-tinted nails whitened.
Men have only a vague idea of women's ignorance; how naturally they are inclined to respond to a man; how the dominating egotism of a man and his confident professions and his demands confuse them; how deeply his appeals for his own happiness stir them to pity.... They have heard of loveand they do not know. If they ever dream of it it is not what they have imagined when a man suddenly comes crashing through the barriers of friendship and stuns them with an incoherent recital of his own desires. And yet, in spite of the shock, it is with them instinctive to be kind. No woman can endure an appeal unmoved; except for them there would be no beggars; their charity is not a creed: it is the essence of them, the beginning of all things for themand the end.