As Ida approached the hotel,Van Berg and Stanton saw her,and the latter hastened down the steps to join her.
"Why,Ida!"he exclaimed,"where have you been?I've searched for you high and low.""You had no right to do so,sir,"she said coldly,as she passed on.
"Wait a moment,Ida,please.I wish to speak with you--to ask your pardon--to apologize in the strongest terms."She would not break again her ominous silence,but continued on with bowed head,up the steps,and through the hall.Stanton,to save appearances before the guests who were near,walked at her side,but her manner chilled and embarrassed him so greatly,that only as she was about to enter her room did he again address her,and now entreatingly:
"Ida,won't you speak to me?"
"No!"was her stern,brief response;and she locked her door against him.
"Van,"said Stanton gloomily,"I'd give a year's income if I had not spoken to my cousin as I did last night.She'll never forgive me.It seems as if my words had turned her into ice,she is so cold and calm;and yet her eyes were red with weeping.I have strange misgivings about the girl.""Yes,Ik,"said the artist,gloomily,"we have both made an unpardonable blunder.If Miss Burton cannot thaw her out,I shall not dare to try.""With her usual perversity,"replied Stanton,"she dislikes Miss Burton,and I doubt if she will listen to her.""I have great faith in her tact and genuine goodwill.It was wonderful how quickly she brought Mr.Mayhew under her genial spells.She has promised to see your cousin this evening.""I'm sorry,"said Stanton,gloomily,"that it should have been at your request rather than mine.But I suppose your wishes are becoming omnipotent with her.""No,Ik;I regret to say that they weigh with her only as those of a friend,"was Van Berg's quiet response.
"Well,well,Van,bear with me,for I'm in a devil of a scrape."Even Miss Burton's efforts could not brighten the clouded faces that gathered at the supper-table.In truth,her attempts were brief and fitful,for she seemed absorbed in thought herself.She heard Mrs.Mayhew whisper to Stanton,"If I were a perfect stranger she could not keep me at a greater distance.I can do nothing with her or for her."To their surprise,Ida quietly walked in and took her place.Her face was very grave and very pale;the traces of her grief were still apparent,and they caused in Van Berg the severest compunction.
She was now dressed richly,but plainly and unobtrusively.Her manner was quiet and self-possessed,but there was an expression of desperate trouble in her eyes that soon filled Van Berg with a strong and increasing uneasiness.She returned his bow politely,but distantly.Poor Stanton scarcely dared to look towards her.At supper,on the previous evening,he had taken no pains to conceal his contempt and displeasure;now he was unable to hid his embarrassment and fear.As in the parlor on the previous evening so now again,there was an element in Ida Mayhew's appearance or in herself that caused deep disquietude.
"I'm very glad,Ida,you've changed your mind and come down,"began Mrs.Mayhew,volubly.
"I have not changed my mind,"she replied,with such sad,stern emphasis that they all involuntarily looked at her for a moment.
Poor Mrs.Mayhew was so quenched and depressed that she did not venture to speak again.
Only Miss Burton was able to maintain her self-possession and tact,and she was intently but unobtrusively studying Miss Mayhew.Her college-life had made her acquainted with so many strange feminine problems that she had the nerve and experience of a veteran,but she could not penetrate the dark mystery in which Ida had now shrouded herself.Resolving,however,that she would not succumb to the chill and restraint that paralyzed the others,she persisted in conversing with her in simple,natural tones.
Ida replied in perfect courtesy and not with unnecessary brevity,but if her words were polished,they were also as cold and hard as ice.Nothing that Miss Burton said could bring the glimmer of a smile athwart her features that were growing so thin and transparent that even an approach to a pleasant thought would have lighted them up with a momentary gleam.Miss Burton found her task a difficult one.
"She affected me as strangely,"she afterwards said to Van Berg,"as if a dead maiden were sitting at my side,who had still,by some horrible mystery,the power of speech."As for Van Berg,he had hitherto supposed that his quiet,well-bred ease would be equal to every social emergency,but he now found himself tongue-tied and embarrassed to the last degree.He could not speak to the woman whom he felt he had so deeply wronged in his thoughts and manner,and who was also well aware of the fact.
He felt that he had no right to speak to her until he had first asked and secured her forgiveness.This could not be done in public,and he greatly doubted whether she ever would pardon him.
As a chivalric man of honor,he was overwhelmed with a sense of the insult he had unwittingly offered to the maiden opposite him,who now appeared as if mortally wounded.Beyond a few forced remarks to Stanton and Miss Burton,he made a show of eating his supper in silence.But he longed to escape from his present ordeal,and resolved to leave the table as soon as appearances permitted.
One thing in Ida's manner perplexed him greatly.She now looked at him as if he were an object,scrupling not to meet his eye with her strange,unwavering gaze.There was nothing of the haughty indifference which she had manifested the evening before in her occasional glances.She rather looked as one who is trying to fix an object in his memory that he may carry an accurate picture of it away with him.
The thought crossed his mind more than once,"We have wakened our Undine's sleeping mind with a vengeance,but have jostled it so rudely that I fear the frail article is hopelessly shattered."Miss Burton tried once more to make the conversation general,but her effort ended rather disastrously.