Georginas Reasons | Page 9

had guessed anything yet,--she had succeeded perfectly in
doing what she wished,--and her father and mother believed--as Mrs.
Portico had believed,--had n't she?--that, any time the last year,
Raymond Beuyon was less to her than he had been before. Well, so he
was; yes, he was. He had gone away--he was off, Heaven knew
where--in the Pacific; she was alone, and now she would remain alone.
The family believed it was all over,--with his going back to his ship,
and other things, and they were right: for it was over, or it would be
soon.
Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
she had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame. If the
good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more, she

would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
with dilated eyes,--her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,--and
exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and
wiped her forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things
she didn't understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that
they should have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they
flattered themselves she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him),
when she was really only making it impossible she should belong to
any one else. And with this, her inconsequence, her capriciousness, her
absence of motive, the way she contradicted herself, her apparent belief
that she could hush up such a situation forever! There was nothing
shameful in having married poor Mr. Benyon, even in a little church at
Harlem, and being given away by a paymaster. It was much more
shameful to be in such a state without being prepared to make the
proper explanations. And she must have seen very little of her husband;
she must have given him up--so far as meeting him went--almost as
soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs. Gressie herself told Mrs.
Portico (in the preceding October, it must have been) that there now
would be no need of sending Georgina away, inasmuch as the affair
with the little navy man--a project in every way so unsuitable--had
quite blown over?
"After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,"
Georgina explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the
mystery more dense.
"I don't see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!"
"We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up.
Of course we were really more intimate,--I saw him differently,"
Georgina said, smiling.
"I should think so! I can't for the life of me see why you were n't
discovered."
"All I can say is we weren't No doubt it's remarkable. We managed
very well,--that is, I managed,--he did n't want to manage at all. And
then, father and mother are incredibly stupid!"

Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
that she had n't a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few
more details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from
Brooklyn to Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps
knew, there was another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary
press of work, requiring more oversight He had remained there several
months, during which he had written to her urgently to come to him,
and during which, as well, he had received notice that he was to rejoin
his ship a little later. Before doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a
few weeks to wind up his work there, and then she had seen him--well,
pretty often. That was the best time of all the year that had elapsed
since their marriage. It was a wonder at home that nothing had then
been guessed; because she had really been reckless, and Benyon had
even tried to force on a disclosure. But they were stupid, that was very
certain. He had besought her again and again to put an end to their false
position, but she did n't want it any more than she had wanted it before.
They had rather a bad parting; in fact, for a pair of lovers, it was a very
queer parting indeed. He did n't know, now, the thing she had come to
tell Mrs. Portico. She had not written to him. He was on a very long
cruise. It might be two years before he returned to the United States. "I
don't care how long he stays away," Georgina said, very simply.
"You haven't mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don't
remember," Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
"Oh, yes; I loved him!"
"And you have got over that?"
Georgina hesitated a moment. "Why,