MRS. BARODA was a
little provoked to learn that her husband expected his friend, Gouvernail, up
to spend a week or two on the plantation.
They had entertained a
good deal during the winter; much of the time had also been passed in New
Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation. She was looking forward to a
period of unbroken rest, now, and undisturbed tête-a-tête with her husband,
when he informed her that Gouvernail was coming up to stay a week or two.
This was a man she had
heard much of but never seen. He had been her husband's college friend; was now
a journalist, and in no sense a society man or "a man about town,"
which were, perhaps, some of the reasons she had never met him. But she had
unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind. She pictured him tall, slim,
cynical; with eye-glasses, and his hands in his pockets; and she did not like
him. Gouvernail was slim enough, but he wasn't very tall nor very cynical;
neither did he wear eye- glasses nor carry his hands in his pockets. And she
rather liked him when he first presented himself.
But why she liked him
she could not explain satisfactorily to herself when she partly attempted to do
so. She could discover in him none of those brilliant and promising traits
which Gaston, her husband, had often assured her that he possessed. On the
contrary, he sat rather mute and receptive before her chatty eagerness to make
him feel at home and in face of Gaston's frank and wordy hospitality. His
manner was as courteous toward her as the most exacting woman could require;
but he made no direct appeal to her approval or even esteem.
Once settled at the
plantation he seemed to like to sit upon the wide portico in the shade of one
of the big Corinthian pillars, smoking his cigar lazily and listening attentively
to Gaston's experience as a sugar planter.
"This is what I
call living," he would utter with deep satisfaction, as the air that swept
across the sugar field caressed him with its warm and scented velvety touch. It
pleased him also to get on familiar terms with the big dogs that came about
him, rubbing themselves sociably against his legs. He did not care to fish, and
displayed no eagerness to go out and kill grosbecs when Gaston proposed doing
so.
Gouvernail's
personality puzzled Mrs. Baroda, but she liked him. Indeed, he was a lovable,
inoffensive fellow. After a few days, when she could understand him no better
than at first, she gave over being puzzled and remained piqued. In this mood
she left her husband and her guest, for the most part, alone together. Then
finding that Gouvernail took no manner of exception to her action, she imposed
her society upon him, accompanying him in his idle strolls to the mill and
walks along the batture. She persistently sought to penetrate the reserve in
which he had unconsciously enveloped himself.
"When is he
going--your friend?" she one day asked her husband. "For my part, he
tires me frightfully."
"Not for a week
yet, dear. I can't understand; he gives you no trouble."
"No. I should like
him better if he did; if he were more like others, and I had to plan somewhat
for his comfort and enjoyment."
Gaston took his wife's
pretty face between his hands and looked tenderly and laughingly into her
troubled eyes. They were making a bit of toilet sociably together in Mrs.
Baroda's dressing-room.
"You are full of
surprises, ma belle," he said to her. "Even I can never count upon
how you are going to act under given conditions." He kissed her and turned
to fasten his cravat before the mirror.
"Here you
are," he went on, "taking poor Gouvernail seriously and making a
commotion over him, the last thing he would desire or expect."
"Commotion!"
she hotly resented. "Nonsense! How can you say such a thing? Commotion,
indeed! But, you know, you said he was clever."
"So he is. But the
poor fellow is run down by overwork now. That's why I asked him here to take a
rest."
"You used to say
he was a man of ideas," she retorted, unconciliated. "I expected him
to be interesting, at least. I'm going to the city in the morning to have my
spring gowns fitted. Let me know when Mr. Gouvernail is gone; I shall be at my
Aunt Octavie's."
That night she went and
sat alone upon a bench that stood beneath a live oak tree at the edge of the
gravel walk.
She had never known her
thoughts or her intentions to be so confused. She could gather nothing from
them but the feeling of a distinct necessity to quit her home in the morning.
Mrs. Baroda heard
footsteps crunching the gravel; but could discern in the darkness only the
approaching red point of a lighted cigar. She knew it was Gouvernail, for her
husband did not smoke. She hoped to remain unnoticed, but her white gown
revealed her to him. He threw away his cigar and seated himself upon the bench
beside her; without a suspicion that she might object to his presence.
"Your husband told
me to bring this to you, Mrs. Baroda," he said, handing her a filmy, white
scarf with which she sometimes enveloped her head and shoulders. She accepted
the scarf from him with a murmur of thanks, and let it lie in her lap.
He made some
commonplace observation upon the baneful effect of the night air at the season.
Then as his gaze reached out into the darkness, he murmured, half to himself:
"'Night of south winds--night of the large few
stars!
Still nodding night--'" She made no
reply to this apostrophe to the night, which, indeed, was not addressed to her.
Gouvernail was in no
sense a diffident man, for he was not a self-conscious one. His periods of
reserve were not constitutional, but the result of moods. Sitting there beside
Mrs. Baroda, his silence melted for the time.
He talked freely and
intimately in a low, hesitating drawl that was not unpleasant to hear. He
talked of the old college days when he and Gaston had been a good deal to each
other; of the days of keen and blind ambitions and large intentions. Now there
was left with him, at least, a philosophic acquiescence to the existing
order--only a desire to be permitted to exist, with now and then a little whiff
of genuine life, such as he was breathing now.
Her mind only vaguely
grasped what he was saying. Her physical being was for the moment predominant.
She was not thinking of his words, only drinking in the tones of his voice. She
wanted to reach out her hand in the darkness and touch him with the sensitive
tips of her fingers upon the face or the lips. She wanted to draw close to him
and whisper against his cheek--she did not care what--as she might have done if
she had not been a respectable woman.
The stronger the
impulse grew to bring herself near him, the further, in fact, did she draw away
from him. As soon as she could do so without an appearance of too great
rudeness, she rose and left him there alone.
Before she reached the
house, Gouvernail had lighted a fresh cigar and ended his apostrophe to the
night.
Mrs. Baroda was greatly
tempted that night to tell her husband--who was also her friend--of this folly
that had seized her. But she did not yield to the temptation. Beside being a
respectable woman she was a very sensible one; and she knew there are some
battles in life which a human being must fight alone.
When Gaston arose in
the morning, his wife had already departed. She had taken an early morning
train to the city. She did not return till Gouvernail was gone from under her
roof.
There was some talk of
having him back during the summer that followed. That is, Gaston greatly
desired it; but this desire yielded to his wife's strenuous opposition.
However, before the
year ended, she proposed, wholly from herself, to have Gouvernail visit them
again. Her husband was surprised and delighted with the suggestion coming from
her.
"I am glad, chère
amie, to know that you have finally overcome your dislike for him; truly he did
not deserve it."
"Oh," she
told him, laughingly, after pressing a long, tender kiss upon his lips, "I
have overcome everything! you will see. This time I shall be very nice to
him."