Confidence [32]
"He ought to have locked us up and said nothing about it."
"It 's not so easy to lock you up," said Bernard. "I know Wright has great influence with you, but you are after all independent beings."
"I am not an independent being. If my mother and Mr. Wright were to agree together to put me out of harm's way they could easily manage it."
"You seem to have been trying something of that sort," said Bernard. "You have been so terribly invisible."
"It was because I thought you had designs upon us; that you were watching for us--to take care of us."
"You contradict yourself! You said just now that you believed I had left Baden."
"That was an artificial--a conventional speech. Is n't a lady always supposed to say something of that sort to a visitor by way of pretending to have noticed that she has not seen him?"
"You know I would never have left Baden without coming to bid you good-bye," said Bernard.
The girl made no rejoinder; she stood looking out at the little sunny, slanting, rough-paved German street.
"Are you taking care of us now?" she asked in a moment. "Has the operation begun? Have you heard the news, mamma?" she went on. "Do you know that Mr. Wright has made us over to Mr. Longueville, to be kept till called for? Suppose Mr. Wright should never call for us!"
Mrs. Vivian left her writing-table and came toward Bernard, smiling at him and pressing her hands together.
"There is no fear of that, I think," she said. "I am sure I am very glad we have a gentleman near us. I think you will be a very good care-taker, Mr. Longueville, and I recommend my daughter to put great faith in your judgment." And Mrs. Vivian gave him an intense--a pleading, almost affecting-- little smile.
"I am greatly touched by your confidence and I shall do everything I can think of to merit it," said the young man.
"Ah, mamma's confidence is wonderful!" Angela exclaimed. "There was never anything like mamma's confidence. I am very different; I have no confidence. And then I don't like being deposited, like a parcel, or being watched, like a curious animal. I am too fond of my liberty."
"That is the second time you have contradicted yourself," said Bernard. "You said just now that you were not an independent being."
Angela turned toward him quickly, smiling and frowning at once.
"You do watch one, certainly! I see it has already begun." Mrs. Vivian laid her hand upon her daughter's with a little murmur of tender deprecation, and the girl bent over and kissed her. "Mamma will tell you it 's the effect of agitation," she said--"that I am nervous, and don't know what I say. I am supposed to be agitated by Mr. Wright's departure; is n't that it, mamma?"
Mrs. Vivian turned away, with a certain soft severity.
"I don't know, my daughter. I don't understand you."
A charming pink flush had come into Angela's cheek and a noticeable light into her eye. She looked admirably handsome, and Bernard frankly gazed at her. She met his gaze an instant, and then she went on.
"Mr. Longueville does n't understand me either. You must know that I am agitated," she continued. "Every now and then I have moments of talking nonsense. It 's the air of Baden, I think; it 's too exciting. It 's only lately I have been so. When you go away I shall be horribly ashamed."
"If the air of Baden has such an effect upon you," said Bernard, "it is only a proof the more that you need the solicitous attention of your friends."
"That may be; but, as I told you just now, I have no confidence-- none whatever, in any one or anything. Therefore, for the present, I shall withdraw from the world--I shall seclude myself. Let us go on being quiet, mamma. Three or four days of it have been so charming. Let the parcel lie till it 's called for. It is much safer it should n't be touched at all. I shall assume that, metaphorically speaking, Mr. Wright, who, as you have intimated, is our earthly providence, has turned the key upon us. I am locked up. I shall not go out, except upon the balcony!" And with this, Angela