Part 83

"Yes, papa," answered Hermione, meekly.

"Hermy, do you mean to marry Paul, or not? Don't be nervous, my child, but think the matter over before you answer. If you mean to have him, I have no objection to the match; but if you do not mean to, I would like to know. That is all. You know you spoke to me about it in England before we left home. Things have been going on a long time now, and yet Paul has said nothing to me about it."

It was impossible to put the matter more clearly than this, and Hermione knew it. She said nothing for some minutes, but sat staring out of the window at the dark water, where the boats moved slowly about, each bearing a little light at the bow. Far down the quay a band was playing the eternal Stella Confidente, which has become a sort of national air in Turkey. The strains floated in through the window, and the young girl struggled hard to concentrate her thoughts, which somehow wound themselves in and out of the music in a very irrelevant manner.

"Must I answer now, papa?" she asked at last, almost desperately.

"My dear," replied the inexorable John, in kind tones, "I cannot see why you should not. You are probably in very much the same state of mind to-night as you were in yesterday, or as you will be in to-morrow. It is better to settle the matter and be done with it. I do not believe that a fortnight, a month, or even a longer time will make any perceptible difference in your ideas about this matter." He puffed at his cigar, and again looked at his daughter.

"Hermy," he continued, after another interval of silence, "if you do not mean to marry Paul, you are treating him very badly. You are letting that idiot of a brother of his make love to you from morning till night."

"Oh, papa! How can you!" exclaimed Hermione, who was not accustomed to hearing any kind of strong language from her father.

"Idiot,--yes, my dear, that expresses it very well. He is my nephew, and I have a right to call him an idiot if I please. I believe the fellow wears stays, and curls his hair with tongs. He has a face like a girl, and he talks unmitigated rubbish."

"I thought you liked him, papa," objected Hermione. "I do not think he is at all as silly as you say he is. He is very agreeable."

"I have no objection to him," retorted John Carvel. "I tolerate him. Toleration is not liking. He fascinated us all for a day or two, but it did not last long; that sort of fascination never does."

There was another long pause. The band had finished the Stella Confidente, and ran on without stopping to the performance of the drinking chorus in the Traviata. Hermione twisted her fingers together, and bit her lips. Her father's opinion of Alexander was a revelation to her, but it carried weight with it, and it aroused a whole train of recollections in her mind, culminating in the accident of the afternoon. She remembered vividly what she had felt during those long minutes before Alexander had recovered consciousness, and she knew that her feelings bore not the slightest relation to love. She had been terrified, and had blamed herself, and had thought of his mother; but the idea that he might be dead had not hurt her as it would have done had she loved him. She had felt no wild grief, no awful sense of blankness; the tears which had risen to her eyes had been tears of pity, of genuine sorrow, but not of despair. She tried to think what she would have felt had she seen Paul lying dead before her, and the mere idea sent a sharp thrust through her heart that almost frightened her.

"Well, my dear," said John, at last, "can you give me an answer? Do you mean to marry Paul or Alexander, or neither?"

"Not Alexander,--oh, never!" exclaimed Hermione. "I never thought of such a thing."

"Paul, then?"

"Papa, dear," said the young girl, after a moment's hesitation, "I will tell you all about it. When Paul came, I firmly intended to marry him. Then I began to know Alexander--and--well, I was very wrong, but he began to make pretty phrases, and to talk of loving me. Of course I told him he was very foolish, and I laughed at him. But he only went on, and said a great deal more, in spite of me. Then I thought that because I could not stop him I was interested in him. Paul wanted to speak to you, but I would not let him. I did not feel that my conscience was quite clear. I was not sure that I should always love him. Do you see? I think I love him, really, but Alexander interests me."

"But you never for a moment thought of marrying Alexander? You said so just now."

"Oh, never! I laughed at him, and he amused me,--nothing more than that."

"Then I don't quite see"--began John Carvel, who was rather puzzled by the explanation.

"Of course not. You are a man,--how can you understand? I will promise you this, papa: if I cannot make up my mind in a week, I will tell Paul so."

"How will a week help you, my dear? Ever so many weeks have passed, and you are still uncertain."

"I am sure that a week will make all the difference. I think I shall have decided then. I am in earnest, dear papa," she added, gravely. "Do you think I would willingly do anything to hurt Paul?"

"No, my dear, I don't," answered John Carvel. "Only--you might do it unwillingly, you know, and as far as he is concerned it would come to very much the same thing." And with this word of warning the interview ended.

When I went home to dinner, I found Gregorios Balsamides seated on the wooden bench under the honeysuckle outside my door. He had escaped from the dust and heat of Pera, and had come to spend the night, sure of finding a hearty welcome at my kiosk on the hill. I sat down beside him, and he began asking me questions about the people who had arrived, giving me in return the news and gossip of Pera.

"You have a very pretty place here," he said. "A man I knew took it last summer, and used to give tea-parties and little fetes in the evening. It is easy to string lanterns from one tree to another, and it makes a very pretty effect. It is a mild form of idiocy, it is true,--much milder than the prevailing practice of dancing in-doors, with the thermometer at the boiling point."

"It is not a bad idea," I answered. "We will experiment upon our friends the Carvels in a small way. I will ask them and the Patoffs to come here next Saturday. Can you come, too?"

The thing was settled, and Gregorios promised to be of the party. We dined, and sat late together, talking long before we went to bed. Gregorios is a soldier, and does not mind roughing it a little; so he slept on the divan, and declared the next day that he had slept very well.

XXIII.

Madame Patoff had not received the news of Alexander's accident with indifference, and it had been necessary that he should assure her himself that he was not seriously hurt before she could be quieted. He had been badly stunned, however, and his head gave him much pain during several days, as was natural enough. He spent most of his time on the sofa in his mother's sitting-room, and she would sit for hours talking to him and trying to soothe his pain. The sympathy between the two seemed strengthened, and it was strange to see how, when together, their manner changed. The relation between the mother and the spoiled child is a very peculiar one, and occupies an entirely separate division in the scale of human affections; for while the mother's love in such a case is sincere, though generally founded on a mere capricious preference, the over-indulged affection of the child breeds nothing but caprice and a ruthless desire to see that caprice satisfied. Madame Patoff loved Alexander so much that the belief in his death had driven her mad; he on his side loved his mother because he knew that in all cases, just and unjust, she would defend him, take his part, and help him to get what he wanted. But he never missed her when they were separated, and he never took any pains to see her unless in so doing he could satisfy some other wish at the same time. He was selfish, willful, and obstinate at two-and-thirty as he had been at ten years of age. His mother was willful, obstinate, and capricious, but as far as he was concerned she was incapable of selfishness.