Chapter 6
That evening, in the gardens of the Kursaal, he renewed acquaintance with
Angela Vivian. Her mother came, as usual, to sit and listen to the music,
accompanied by Blanche Evers, who was in turn attended by Captain
Lovelock. This little party found privacy in the crowd; they seated
themselves in a quiet corner in an angle of one of the barriers of the
terrace, while the movement of the brilliant Baden world went on around
them. Gordon Wright engaged in conversation with Mrs. Vivian, while
Bernard enjoyed an interview with her daughter. This young lady
continued to ignore the fact of their previous meeting, and our hero said to
himself that all he wished was to know what she preferred — he would
rigidly conform to it. He conformed to her present programme; he had
ventured to pronounce the word Siena the evening before, but he was
careful not to pronounce it again. She had her reasons for her own
reserve; he wondered what they were, and it gave him a certain pleasure
to wonder. He enjoyed the consciousness of their having a secret together,
and it became a kind of entertaining suspense to see how long she would
continue to keep it. For himself, he was in no hurry to let the daylight in;
the little incident at Siena had been, in itself, a charming affair; but Miss
Vivian's present attitude gave it a sort of mystic consecration. He thought
she carried it off very well — the theory that she had not seen him before;
last evening she had been slightly confused, but now she was as
self-possessed as if the line she had taken were a matter of conscience.
Why should it be a matter of conscience? Was she in love with Gordon
Wright, and did she wish, in consequence, to forget — and wish him not to
suspect — that she had ever received an expression of admiration from
another man? This was not likely; it was not likely, at least, that Miss
Vivian wished to pass for a prodigy of innocence; for if to be admired is
to pay a tribute to corruption, it was perfectly obvious that so handsome a
girl must have tasted of the tree of knowledge. As for her being in love
with Gordon Wright, that of course was another affair, and Bernard did
not pretend, as yet, to have
an opinion on this point, beyond hoping very
much that she might be.
He was not wrong in the impression of her good looks that he had
carried away from the short interview at Siena. She had a charmingly
chiselled face, with a free, pure outline, a clear, fair complexion, and the
eyes and hair of a dusky beauty. Her features had a firmness which
suggested tranquillity, and yet her expression was light and quick, a
combination — or a contradiction — which gave an original stamp to her
beauty. Bernard remembered that he had thought it a trifle
bold
; but he now perceived that this had been but a vulgar
misreading of her dark, direct, observant eye. The eye was a charming
one; Bernard discovered in it, little by little, all sorts of things; and Miss
Vivian was, for the present, simply a handsome, intelligent, smiling girl.
He gave her an opportunity to make an allusion to Siena; he said to her
that his friend told him that she and her mother had been spending the
winter in Italy.
Oh yes,
said Angela Vivian;
we were in the far
south; we were five months at Sorrento.
And nowhere else?
We spent a few days in Rome. We usually prefer the quiet
places; that is my mother's taste.
It was not your mother's taste, then,
said Bernard,
that brought you to Baden?
She looked at him a moment.
You mean that Baden is not quiet?
Longueville glanced about at the moving, murmuring crowd, at the
lighted windows of the Conversation-house, at the great orchestra perched
up in its pagoda.
This is not my idea of absolute tranquillity.
Nor mine, either,
said Miss Vivian.
I am not
fond of absolute tranquillity.
How do you arrange it, then, with your mother?
Again she looked at him a moment, with her clever, slightly
mocking smile.
As you see. By making her come where I wish.
You have a strong will,
said Bernard.
I see
that.
No. I have simply a weak mother. But I make sacrifices too,
sometimes.
What do you call sacrifices?
Well, spending the winter at Sorrento.
Bernard began to laugh, and then he told her she must have had a
very happy life —
to call a winter at Sorrento a sacrifice.
It depends upon what one gives up,
said Miss Vivian.
What did you give up?
She touched him with her mocking smile again.
That is not a very civil question, asked in that way.
You mean that I seem to doubt your abnegation?
You seem to insinuate that I had nothing to renounce. I gave
up — I gave up —
and she looked about her, considering a
little —
I gave up society.
I am glad you remember what it was,
said Bernard.
If I have seemed uncivil, let me make it up. When a woman speaks
of giving up society, what she means is giving up admiration. You can
never have given up that — you can never have escaped from it. You must
have found it even at Sorrento.
It may have been there, but I never found it. It was very
respectful — it never expressed itself.
That is the deepest kind,
said Bernard.
I prefer the shallower varieties,
the young girl
answered.
Well,
said Bernard,
you must remember that
although shallow admiration expresses itself, all the admiration that
expresses itself is not shallow.
Miss Vivian hesitated a moment.
Some of it is impertinent,
she said, looking straight at
him, rather gravely.
Bernard hesitated about as long.
When it is impertinent it is shallow. That comes to the same
thing.
The young girl frowned a little.
I am not sure that I understand — I am rather stupid. But you
see how right I am in my taste for such places as this. I have to come here
to hear such ingenious remarks.
You should add that my coming, as well, has something to do
with it.
Everything!
said Miss Vivian.
Everything? Does no one else make ingenious remarks?
Does n't my friend Wright?
Mr. Wright says excellent things, but I should not exactly call
them ingenious remarks.
It is not what Wright says; it 's what he does. That 's the
charm!
said Bernard.
His companion was silent for a moment.
That 's not usually a
charm; good conduct is not thought pleasing.
It surely is not thought the reverse!
Bernard exclaimed.
It does n't rank — in the opinion of most people — among the
things that make men agreeable.
It depends upon what you call agreeable.
Exactly so,
said Miss Vivian.
It all depends on
that.
But the agreeable,
Bernard went on —
it is n't after
all, fortunately, such a subtle idea! The world certainly is agreed to think
that virtue is a beautiful thing.
Miss Vivian dropped her eyes a moment, and then, looking up,
Is it a charm?
she asked.
For me there is no charm without it,
Bernard declared.
I am afraid that for me there is,
said the young girl.
Bernard was puzzled — he who was not often puzzled. His companion
struck him as altogether too clever to be likely to indulge in a silly
affectation of cynicism. And yet, without this, how could one account for
her sneering at virtue?
You talk as if you had sounded the depths of vice!
he
said, laughing.
What do you know about other than virtuous
charms?
I know, of course, nothing about vice; but I have known
virtue when it was very tiresome.
Ah, then it was a poor affair. It was poor virtue. The best
virtue is never tiresome.
Miss Vivian looked at him a little, with her fine discriminating eye.
What a dreadful thing to have to think any virtue poor!
This was a touching reflection, and it might have gone further had
not the conversation been interrupted by Mrs. Vivian's appealing to her
daughter to aid a defective recollection
of a story about a Spanish family
they had met at Biarritz, with which she had undertaken to entertain
Gordon Wright. After this, the little circle was joined by a party of
American friends who were spending a week at Baden, and the
conversation became general.
