LXVI.

The rough weather which made Berlin almost uninhabitable to Mrs. March had such an effect with General Triscoe at Weimar that under the orders of an English-speaking doctor he retreated from it altogether and went to bed.  Here he escaped the bronchitis which had attacked him, and his convalesence left him so little to complain of that he could not always keep his temper.  In the absence of actual offence, either from his daughter or from Burnamy, his sense of injury took a retroactive form; it centred first in Stoller and the twins; then it diverged toward Rose Adding, his mother and Kenby, and finally involved the Marches in the same measure of inculpation; for they had each and all had part, directly or indirectly, in the chances that brought on his cold.

He owed to Burnamy the comfort of the best room in the hotel, and he was constantly dependent upon his kindness; but he made it evident that he did not over-value Burnamy’s sacrifice and devotion, and that it was not an unmixed pleasure, however great a convenience, to have him about.  In giving up his room, Burnamy had proposed going out of the hotel altogether; but General Triscoe heard of this with almost as great vexation as he had accepted the room.  He besought him not to go, but so ungraciously that his daughter was ashamed, and tried to atone for his manner by the kindness of her own.

Perhaps General Triscoe would not have been without excuse if he were not eager to have her share with destitute merit the fortune which she had hitherto shared only with him.  He was old, and certain luxuries had become habits if not necessaries with him.  Of course he did not say this to himself; and still less did he say it to her.  But he let her see that he did not enjoy the chance which had thrown them again in such close relations with Burnamy, and he did pot hide his belief that the Marches were somehow to blame for it.  This made it impossible for her to write at once to Mrs. March as she had promised; but she was determined that it should not make her unjust to Burnamy.  She would not avoid him; she would not let anything that had happened keep her from showing that she felt his kindness and was glad of his help.

Of course they knew no one else in Weimar, and his presence merely as a fellow-countryman would have been precious.  He got them a doctor, against General Triscoe’s will; he went for his medicines; he lent him books and papers; he sat with him and tried to amuse him.  But with the girl he attempted no return to the situation at Carlsbad; there is nothing like the delicate pride of a young man who resolves to forego unfair advantage in love.

The day after their arrival, when her father was making up for the sleep he had lost by night, she found herself alone in the little reading-room of the hotel with Burnamy for the first time, and she said:  “I suppose you must have been all over Weimar by this time.”