Ships That Pass In The Night | Page 3

little, and the morning after her arrival, she strolled out by herself, investigating the place where she was about to spend six months. She was dragging herself along, when she met the Disagreeable Man. She stopped him. He was not accustomed to be stopped by any one, and he looked rather astonished.
"You were not very cheering last night," she said to him.
"I believe I am not generally considered to be lively," he answered, as he knocked the snow of his boot.
"Still, I am sorry I spoke to you as I did," she went on frankly. "It was foolish of me to mind what you said."
He made no reference to his own remark, and passing on his way again, when he turned back and walked with her.
"I have been here nearly seven years," he said and there was a ring of sadness in his voice as he spoke, which he immediately corrected. "If you want to know anything about the place, I can tell you. If you are able to walk, I can show you some lovely spots, where you will not be bothered with people. I can take you to a snow fairy-land. If you are sad and disappointed, you will find shining comfort there. It is not all sadness in Petershof. In the silent snow forests, if you dig the snow away, you will find the tiny buds nestling in their white nursery. If the sun does not dazzle your eyes, you may always see the great mountains piercing the sky. These wonders have been a happiness to me. You are not too ill but that they may be a happiness to you also."
"Nothing can be much of a happiness to me," she said, half to herself, and her lips quivered. "I have had to give up so much: all my work, all my ambitions."
"You are not the only one who has had to do that," he said sharply. "Why make a fuss? Things arrange themselves, and eventually we adjust ourselves to the new arrangement. A great deal of caring and grieving, phase one; still more caring and grieving, phase two; less caring and grieving, phase three; no further feeling whatsoever, phase four. Mercifully I am at phase four. You are at phase one. Make a quick journey over the stages."
He turned and left her, and she strolled along, thinking of his words, wondering how long it would take her to arrive at his indifference. She had always looked upon indifference as paralysis of the soul, and paralysis meant death, nay, was worse than death. And here was this man, who had obviously suffered both mentally and physically, telling her that the only sensible course was to learn not to care. How could she learn not to care? All her life long she had studied and worked and cultivated herself in every direction in the hope of being able to take a high place in literature, or, in any case, to do something in life distinctly better than what other people did. When everything was coming near to her grasp, when there seemed a fair chance of realizing her ambitions, she had suddenly fallen ill, broken up so entirely in every way, that those who knew her when she was well, could scarcely recognize her now that she was ill. The doctors spoke of an overstrained nervous system: the pestilence of these modern days; they spoke of rest, change of work and scene, bracing air. She might regain her vitality; she might not. Those who had played themselves out must pay the penalty. She was thinking of her whole history, pitying herself profoundly, coming to the conclusion, after true human fashion, that she was the worst-used person on earth, and that no one but herself knew what disappointed ambitions were; she was thinking of all this, and looking profoundly miserable and martyr-like, when some one called her by her name. She looked round and saw one of the English ladies belonging to the Kurhaus; Bernardine had noticed her the previous night. She seemed in capital spirits, and had three or four admirers waiting on her very words. She was a tall, handsome woman, dressed in a superb fur-trimmed cloak, a woman of splendid bearing and address. Bernardine looked a contemptible little piece of humanity beside her. Some such impression conveyed itself to the two men who were walking with Mrs. Reffold. They looked at the one woman, and then at the other, and smiled at each other, as men do smile on such occasions.
"I am going to speak to this little thing," Mrs. Reffold had said to her two companions before they came near Bernardine. "I must find out who she is, and where she comes from. And, fancy, she has come quite alone. I have inquired. How hopelessly