Part 58

Paul stayed at the hotel until a late hour, and went home, feeling lighter at heart than he had felt for many days. He was in love, and the passion had a very salutary effect upon his nature. His heart had been crushed down when he was a child, until he doubted whether he had any heart at all. His early sufferings had hardened his nature, and his cool strong mind had approved the process, so that he was well satisfied with his solitary condition and his loveless life. He had seen much of the world, and had known many women of all nations, but his immovable indifference was proverbial among his colleagues, and if he had ever entertained a passing fancy for any one, the fact was unknown to gossip. It might be supposed that this very coldness would have rendered him attractive to women, for it is commonly said, and with some truth, that they are sometimes drawn to those men who show them no manner of attention. But I think that the case is not always the same, and admits of very subtle distinctions. It is not a man's coldness that attracts a woman, but the belief that, though he is cold to others, he may soften towards herself; and this belief often rests on mere vanity, and often on the truth of the supposition. There are many men who systematically affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from a distance, to see if they can detect the slightest softening of manner towards other women; and when they have convinced themselves that they alone have the power to influence the frozen nature they admire, they very easily fall wholly in love. In general a man who is very cold and indifferent is not to be trusted. The chances are ten to one that he is playing the old and time-honored part for a definite purpose.

But there are those who play no part, nor need to affect any characteristic not theirs. When women find out that a man is really indifferent to all women, their disgust knows no bounds. So long as he is known to have loved any one in the past, or to love any one in the present, or to be even likely to love any one in the future, he may be pardoned. But if it is firmly believed that he is incapable of love, woman-kind arises in a body and abuses him in unmeasured terms. He is selfish. He is arrogant. He is so conceited that he thinks no one good enough for him. He is a stone, a prig, a hypocrite, a maniac, a monster, a statue, and especially he is a bore. In other words, he is a man's man, and not a woman's man; and unless it can be proved that his madness proceeds from disappointed love, even Dives in hell is not further removed from forgiveness than he. Men may admire his strength, his talents, his perseverance, and some friend will be found foolish enough to sing his praises to some woman of the world. She will answer the panegyrist with a blank stare, and will very likely say coldly, that he is a bore, or that he is very rude. No amount of praise or ingenious argument will extort an admission that the unfortunate man is worthy of human sympathy. And yet, he may be very human, after all. At all events, if we say with the Greek philosopher that a man shall not be called happy until he be dead, we should not allow that he is beyond the reach of love until the life has gone out of him, certainly not until he is sixty years of age at the very least.

Now Paul Patoff was not sixty years old when he found himself in the quiet English country house, and looked on his fair English cousin and loved her. He was, as the times go, a young man, just entered upon the prime of his life, just past the age when youth is considered foolish, and just reaching the time when it is considered desirable. The fact that he had not loved before was not likely to make his passion less strong now that it had come at last, and he knew it, as men generally understand themselves better when they are in love with a good woman. He asked himself, indeed, why he had so suddenly given himself up, heart and soul, to the lovely girl he had known only for a month; but such questions are necessarily futile, because the heart does not always go through the formality of asking the mind's consent before acting, and the mind consequently refuses to be called to account in a matter for which it is in no way responsible. It seemed to Paul very strange that after so many years of a busy life, in which no passion but ambition had played any part, he should all at once find his whole existence involved in a new and un-dreamed-of labyrinth of feeling. But though it was indeed a labyrinth, from which he did not even desire to escape, he acknowledged that the paths of it were full of roses, and that life in its winding walks was pleasanter than life outside.

The uncertainty of his position, however, disturbed his dreams, and even the pleasant hours he spent with Hermione, listening to her rippling laughter and gentle voice, were somewhat disturbed by the thought of the morrow, and of what the end would be. His own instinct would have led him to speak to Carvel at once and to have the matter settled, but another set of ideas argued that he should wait and see what happened, and if possible put off asking the fatal question until he had unraveled the mystery of his brother's disappearance. That Carvel could have believed him in any way implicated in the tragedy, and yet have asked him to his house, he knew to be impossible; but he knew also that the shadow of Alexander's fate hung over him, and now that there existed a chance of completely and brilliantly establishing his innocence before the world, he was unwilling to take so serious a step as formally proposing for Hermione's hand, until the long desired result should be reached. He had deeply felt the truth of what she had said to him in England,--that he should be able to silence hints like those Chrysophrasia had let fall, that he should place himself in such a position as to defy insults instead of being obliged to bear them quietly; and the conviction brought home to him by Hermione's words had resulted in his immediate departure, with the determination to fathom the mystery, and to clear himself forever, or to sacrifice his love in case of failure.

But he had not counted upon the visit of the Carvels to Constantinople. So long as he could not see Hermione, he had felt that it was possible to contemplate with some calmness the prospect of giving her up if he failed in his search. When Carvel had proposed to come out and had asked my advice, we had fancied ourselves on the verge of the final discovery, and with natural and pardonable enthusiasm Paul had joined me in urging John to bring his family at once. He had felt sure that the end was near, and he had wished that Hermione might arrive at the moment of his triumph. It would not be a complete triumph, he thought, unless she were there, and this idea showed how the man had changed under the influence of his love. In former times Paul Patoff would never have thought of anticipating success until he held it securely in his own hands; he would have worked silently, giving no sign, and when the result was obtained he would have presented it to the world with his coldest and most sarcastic stare, content in the thought that he had satisfied himself, and demanding no appreciation from others. To feel that he had succeeded was then the most delicious part of success. Now, he was so changed that he could not imagine success as being at all worth having unless Hermione were there to share it. No one else would do, and something of his exclusiveness might still be found in his desire for her sympathy, and for that of no one else. But the transformation was very great, and as he had realized it, he had understood the extent of his love for his cousin. The sensation was wholly novel, and he again asked himself what it meant, half doubting its reality, but never doubting that it would last forever,--in the highly contradictory spirit of a man who is in love for the first time.

Then Hermione arrived, and Paul awoke to find himself between two fires. To contemplate the possibility of not marrying Hermione, when she was in the same city, when he must see her and hear her voice every day of his life, was now out of the question. His love had grown ten times stronger in the separation of the last months, and he knew that it was now useless to think of putting it away. With a modesty not found in men who have loved many women, Paul discarded the idea that Hermione's happiness was as deeply concerned as his own. He did not understand how very much she loved him, and it would have seemed to his softened soul an outrageous piece of arrogance to suppose that she could not be quite as happy with some one else as with himself. But of his own feelings he had no doubt. It was perfectly clear that without Hermione life could never be worth living, and he found himself face to face with a most difficult question,--a true dilemma, from which there could be no issue unless he found his brother, or the evidences of his brother's death.

If the search proved fruitless, he was still in the position of a man who is liable to suspicion, and he had firmly resolved that he would not permit the woman he loved to marry a man who could be accused, however unjustly, of the crime of murder. On the other hand, he knew that while she was present in Constantinople he was not master of his feelings, hardly of his words; and he could not go away: first, because to go away would be to leave the search wholly in the hands of others; and secondly, because his presence was required at the embassy and his services were constantly in requisition. To abandon his career was a course he never contemplated for a moment. His personal resources were small, and his pay was now considerable, so that he depended upon it for the necessities of life. He had never been willing to touch his brother's money, either, and this honorable refusal had practically crushed all gossip about Alexander's disappearance; so that at the present time he was dependent upon himself. With the prospect of being a charge d'affaires in a short time, and of being chancellor of an embassy at forty, he believed that he could fairly propose to marry Hermione. But to do this he must abide by his career, a conclusion which effectually prevented his flying from danger and giving the inquiry entirely into my hands. With a keen sense of honor and a very strong determination on the one side, and all the force of his love for Hermione on the other, Paul's position was not an easy one, and he knew it.

Nor was his mind wholly at rest concerning his mother. He had seen her that afternoon, and had recognized that in the ordinary sense of the word, and in the common opinion of people on the subject, she was perfectly sane. She looked, moved, talked, ate, and dressed as though she were wholly in her right mind; but Paul was not satisfied. He had seen the old gleam of unreasoning anger in her eyes, when she had said that he knew Alexander could never be found; meaning, as Paul supposed, that he knew how the unfortunate man had come to his end. That this belief had been the cause and first beginning of her madness, he was convinced; and if the disturbing element was still present in her mind, it might assert itself again at any moment with direful results. He was willing, for the sake of argument, to believe that her idea was a delusion, and indeed he preferred to think so. He did not like the thought that his mother could seriously and sanely believe him to be a murderer, though she had given him reason enough for knowing how she had always disliked him. There was no affection between the mother and the son, there was not even much respect; but beyond respect and affection we recognize in the relations of a mother with her children a sort of universal law of fitness, embracing the few conditions without which there can be no relations at all between them. That a mother should dislike her child offends our feelings and our conceptions of human sympathy; but that a mother should wantonly and without evidence accuse her son of a fearful crime, and be his only accuser, is a sin against humanity itself, and our reason revolts against it as much as our heart.

It was hopeless to attempt an explanation of Madame Patoff's state of mind. Paul might have understood her better had he known how she talked and behaved when he was not present. John Carvel and his wife had indeed assured Paul that his mother was entirely sane, and had forgotten her resentment against him, speaking of him affectionately, and showing herself anxious to see him during the long journey. But there was one of the party who could have told a different story; who could have repeated some of her aunt's utterances, and could have described certain phases in her temper in such a way as would have surprised the rest. Madame Patoff had naturally chosen to confide in Hermione, for Hermione had first startled her into a confession of her sanity, and with her rested the secret of the last two years. On the occasion which Carvel had mentioned in his letter to me, when Madame Patoff had been surprised in a sensible conversation by her nurse, the old lady had shown very great presence of mind. She had recognized immediately that she was detected, and that she would find it extremely difficult in future to deceive the practiced eye of the vigilant Mrs. North. She was tired, too, in spite of what she said to Hermione, of the absolute seclusion in which she lived; not that she was wearied of mourning for Alexander, but because she had exhausted one way of expressing her grief. So, at least, it seemed to Hermione. Madame Patoff had therefore accepted the situation and made the best of it, declaring herself sane and entirely recovered. She had always contemplated the possibility of some such termination to her pretended madness, and was perhaps glad that it had come at last. She even found at first a pleasant relaxation in leading the life of an ordinary person, and she tried to join in the life of the family in such a way as to be no longer a burden or a source of anxiety to those she had capriciously sacrificed during a year and a half. But with Hermione she was not the same as with the rest. She was with her what she had been on the first day when Hermione had declared her love for Paul, and it appeared to the young girl that her aunt was in reality leading a double existence, being in one state when with the assembled family, and in quite another when she was alone with Hermione.

Madame Patoff was able to force herself upon her niece, for the young girl had given a promise not to betray her secret, and though often in hard straits to elude her father's questions without falling into falsehood, felt herself bound to her aunt, and obliged to submit to long conversations with her. It was a difficult position, and any one less honest than Hermione and less sensitively tactful would have found it hard to maintain the balance. She herself avoided carefully all mention of Paul, but her aunt delighted in talking of him. One of these conversations took place on the evening of their arrival in Constantinople, and may well serve as a specimen of the rest. When all the party had retired for the night, Madame Patoff came into Hermione's room and sat down, evidently with the intention of staying at least an hour. Hermione looked at her with a deprecating expression, being indeed very tired, and wishing that her aunt would put off her visit until the next day. She saw, however, that there was no hope of this, and submitted herself with a good grace.

"Are you not tired, aunt Annie?" asked the young girl.

"No, no, not very, my dear," said the old lady, smoothing her thick gray hair with her hand, and fixing her dark eyes on her niece's face. "Oh, Hermy, what a meeting!" she suddenly exclaimed. "If you knew how hard I tried to be kind to him, I am sure you would pity me. It is so hard, so hard!"

"It is the least you can do,--to treat him kindly," answered Hermione, somewhat coldly. "But I was very glad to see that you kissed him when we arrived."

"It was dreadfully hard to do it. The very sight of him freezes my blood. Oh, Hermy dear, how can you love him so much, when I love you as I do? It frightens me"----

"It does not frighten me, aunt Annie," said her niece. "I can say, when you love me as you do, how can you not love him?"

"It is not the same, my dear. How could I love him, knowing what I know?"

"You do not know it," answered Hermione very firmly, "and you must not suggest it to me. Sometimes I could almost think you were really mad, aunt Annie,--forgive me, I must say it. Not mad as you pretended to be, but mad on this one point. You have always hated poor Paul since he was a child, and you have treated him very unkindly. But you have no right to accuse him now, and I would not listen to you unless I believed that I could help to make you see him as you should."

Madame Patoff bent her head and hid her eyes in her hand, as though greatly distressed.

"I love you so much, dear Hermy--I cannot bear to think of your marrying him. You cannot understand me--I know--and you think me very unkind. But I hate him!" she cried, with a burst of uncontrollable anger. "Oh, how I hate him!"

Her hands had dropped from her face, and her dark eyes flashed wickedly as she stared at the young girl. Hermione was startled for a moment, but she also had learned a lesson of self-possession.

"Do you think that I am afraid when you look at me like that, aunt Annie?" she asked, very quietly.

Madame Patoff's features relaxed, and she laughed a little foolishly, as though ashamed of herself.

"No, child; why should you be afraid? I am only an unhappy old woman. I cannot speak to any one else."

"And you must not speak to me in that way," answered Hermione, in a gentle tone. "I love Paul with all my heart, and I cannot hear him abused by you, even though I know you are out of your mind when you say such things. I should be despicable if I listened to you."

"If I loved you less, dear," returned the old lady, "I might hate him less. Ah, if you could only have married Alexis,--if it could only have been the other way!"

"Hush!" exclaimed Hermione, almost roughly. "You are wishing that Paul were dead, instead of his brother. I will go away, if you talk like that."

She suited the action to the word, and rose to go towards the door. She knew her aunt very well. Madame Patoff changed her tone at once.

"Oh, don't go away, don't go away!" she cried nervously. "I will never speak of him again, if you will only stay with me."