CHAPTER XII

ETHEL’S IDEA OF A MAN

As a consequence of their meeting, Ethel became Phil’s pupil. Having

made his acquaintance at the Comtesse de Donjeon’s, she gave him a

“chance,” as grandma had told her to do. She ordered from him two

pictures according to ideas of her own: first, Eugénie young and

beautiful, present in the emperor’s cabinet at the reception of Rowrer,

the grandfather; then Miss Rowrer had him paint Eugénie aged and

broken, seated by the window and looking far away on the empty Place

of the Tuileries. Better and better satisfied, she ordered from him

grandma’s and her own portrait. These orders were enough to “launch”

Phil, as they say, and brought him other orders from the society

frequented by Miss Rowrer.

Ethel, before she came to Phil, had been working in the École des

Beaux-Arts; but there the studio seemed gloomy to her and she stifled

in it. Moreover, she was already rather tired of the Latin Quarter on

account of her fellow-countrymen whom she met there.

She had a grudge against some of them for imitating and even

exaggerating the most foolish faults of a certain class of students.

She did not approve their wearing their hair like a horse’s mane,

their velvet trousers and knit-woolen jackets, and their way of

carrying around with them boxes and brushes and canvases as if they

were sign-painters. And when she saw them seated on the curbstone

_terrasses_ before cafés, drinking in public and spitting everywhere

and puffing the smoke of their cigarettes into the faces of the

passers-by, it exasperated her. She had a desire to call out to them:

“Up! and go to work!”

As she did not like the art academies of the Quarter, she decided for

Phil’s studio. She had another reason for doing this. The École des

Beaux-Arts was too near, and Ethel needed exercise. In spite of the

enormous distance to Phil’s studio, she always went to it on foot—“to

keep myself in training,” she said. She came back the same way—to give

herself an appetite. Thus every morning she had four hours’ work and

two hours’ walk—just to keep “in shape.”

Ethel, one morning, was at the studio with Mlle. Yvonne de Grojean.

The model’s rest was over and they were beginning work again. The

concierge—the old man “of my time” and former inspector of the Louvre

roofs—mounted the table and posed before the girls dressed as a

Louis Quinze marquis. There was a pushing about of easels and chairs,

palettes were taken up, and at once the model was beset with remarks:

“Model—the head!”

“Model—the foot!”

“Model—smile!”

At this formal injunction the concierge bridled up, distorted his eyes,

twisted his lips, and swelled out his neck like a goiter.

Ethel and Mlle. Yvonne were not working from the Louis Quinze model.

Helia posed for them in a corner of the studio—the corner of “still

life.” She happened to be free that morning, as the figure of Morgana

which Phil was painting from her was nearly finished. Helia had come

down to the pupils’ studio to please Ethel, who greatly desired to do

a head of the Madonna from her.

Ethel and Mlle. Yvonne chatted together as they added touches to their

water-colors. Ethel was relating to her friend, Yvonne de Grojean, the

visit she had paid some time before to Phil’s private studio, where she

had seen the Duke of Morgania. She had also described the magnificent

decorative painting which Phil was finishing for the duke.

Their conversation was punctuated here and there by the remarks cried

out around them to the Louis Quinze marquis:

“Model—the eye!”

“Model—the mouth!”

“Really,” said Ethel, “that concierge is incorrigible. Why does he

persist in _not_ looking like the students’ drawings?”

Mlle. de Grojean at Ethel’s side laughed heartily.

“How droll you are!”

Helia smiled in spite of herself.

“The papers keep me in good humor,” Ethel answered. “I venture

there’s something in them again about Richard the Lion-hearted,” she

continued, pointing to a paper on the chair. “All sorts of bargains are

offered to me ever since that story—usually old mummies. No; there is

nothing about Richard to-day,” Ethel remarked, as she ran through the

head-lines. But she received her “pin-prick” all the same. In an open

letter some one attacked American society and the lack of solidity in

its family ties—signed, “H. Ochsenmaulsalatsfabrikant.” This annoyed

Miss Rowrer more than personal attack. She was amazed that people could

have such thoughts about her country.

“In your country,” was the conclusion of the Salatsfabrikant, “the

young men run after money and the young women after titles.”

“Personally I had the idea that titles were running after me,” thought

Ethel, who had had reasons for believing so during the three months in

which the duke had been paying her court.

She had already forgotten the open letter, but she kept on thinking of

the subject it had started up in her mind.

Ah, certainly not! Titles were not to be her aim in life. Most of

all, since her visit to the empress, she had promised herself to give

worldly grandeurs only the esteem they deserve. A title! A title no

more takes from a man’s qualities than it adds to them. The main thing

for a man is, not to be a duke or prince; it is, first and foremost—to

be a man!

Mlle. Yvonne was also painting a Madonna’s head from Helia. She wished

to make a medallion of it as a present for her mother. Helia took

pleasure in posing for these girls who were so kind to her.

Ethel, after seeing Helia at Phil’s the day after the Quat’z-Arts Ball,

had met her several times, and felt a very sincere sympathy for her.

She seemed to her to be “the right sort of girl.”

She had even proposed to send her to Chicago as a professor of physical

training in the Women’s University founded by her father. The situation

was brilliant, her future would be assured, and she would probably make

a very good marriage before long. Helia thanked her effusively—but

something kept her in Paris; and she added: “Paris alone gives the

consecration to artistes!”

Ethel knew that Helia was preparing a number which was to make a

sensation. Meanwhile, she had her little sister, and, so it seemed, was

paying for the old clown Cemetery out of pure goodness of soul. For the

time being she was pinched for money. Ethel would have been happy to

do her a kindness; but she knew that Helia would never accept anything

under any form whatsoever, not even a gift to Sœurette. A smile, yes!

a kind word, yes! an obligation, no!

It was the same with Suzanne, the model who sometimes posed for pupils,

and whose acquaintance Ethel had also made. This simplicity of manners,

which was at the foundation of their race, touched Ethel. She pardoned

the “pigmies” many things for the sake of these brave little hearts. An

acrobat and a model—what matters it? Character is everything!

“Model—time! Rest!”

There was a noise of palettes laid aside and pupils rising in their

places. The old marquis telescoped his neck into his laces and came

down from the table.

“You who are collecting mummies,” Yvonne de Grojean said, laughing, to

Ethel, “you ought to add the concierge; he is a type!”

“Don’t laugh, Yvonne,” said Ethel; “he would do very well in our hall

in Chicago; he’d give it an air of the old régime; there are heaps of

men like that in princely anterooms.”

Painting was over and they were now talking in the still-life corner.

Of the other students some were walking two by two, some were standing,

and others seated on the high stools; and some were grouped about

Mlle. Yvonne and Ethel, who was, in a way, their leader, by the social

position she held, and the prestige of her name. All around her they

conversed as in a parlor, amusing themselves with a passing broil

between the English Miss Arabella and Mlle. Yvonne.

“England should not allow it!” Miss Arabella had exclaimed, speaking of

some performance of French politics.

“French affairs concern us alone!” Mlle. Yvonne, usually so timid, had

retorted, as she raised her head whereon her hair was rolled like a

helmet.

Miss Rozenkrantz, a Swede with spectacles, made peace, as if by chance,

with her explanation of a new association in Stockholm—the “Women’s

Anti-Marriage League.”

“What are its articles?” Miss Rowrer asked.

“Absolute indifference to men—woman by herself in all and for

all—meetings—lectures to girls—mutual aid—unions.”

[Illustration: “Ethel, who was their leader”]

Conversation followed in which the Anti-Marriage League was discussed.

On such subjects Mlle. Yvonne did not speak. She listened with

astonishment to these young women from the countries of the North

talking among themselves of things on which she never touched: marriage

and anti-marriage—leagues—clubs—of all this she was ignorant.

Mlle. Yvonne was passing two months in Paris. It was the Comtesse de

Donjeon, a friend of the Grojean family, who had introduced her to Miss

Rowrer. The two young women were unlike both in education and ideas—and

they at once became great friends. But Mlle. Yvonne was shortly to

return to her old tranquil, provincial home, and she was enjoying her

last weeks in Paris. To-day, especially, she was delighted to hear them

talking freely before her, and, most of all, about marriage. For her it

was the escapade of a school-girl looking over the wall at the fruits

of a forbidden garden.

One thing, however, was troubling her. Her mother had not come back, as

she always did, to take her home. Doubtless there was some unforeseen

hindrance. She confided her disquiet to Ethel.

“Don’t worry; your mother will come. And even if she does not, you can

go away alone, I suppose.”

“What!” said Yvonne, “cross Paris all alone? You wouldn’t think of it!”

“But I do it!”

“That is true,” Yvonne said, blushing.

They were speaking in a low tone; the others were not listening, but

surrounded Miss Rozenkrantz.

“What is more natural than to go about alone?” Ethel said to Yvonne.

“What harm is there, _voyons_? You slander your fellow-countrymen—the

men of Paris are not tigers, I imagine. What danger is there?”

“Oh, none,” Yvonne admitted; “but they are said to be so gallant!”

“Gallant! An ill-bred fellow accosts you in the street and you say he

is gallant?”

“Not exactly, no,” Yvonne hastened to say; “it’s just the contrary.”

“Men such as that,” said Ethel, “are not men—that’s all!”

There was a moment of silence.

“Men who are not men—that must be another of Miss Ethel’s

pleasantries,” thought Yvonne.

Ethel looked at her water-color, throwing back her shoulders to

judge better of the effect. What she did not understand was that a

young woman like Yvonne should accommodate herself to such a state of

affairs—Yvonne, who but now, during the squabble with Miss Arabella,

had the decided air of some Gaulish Amazon. Why should she be so

timid with regard to such insolent dogs? She felt really a lofty and

protecting pity for this sister of an old country, nice as she was.

“Men such as that!” she began again, in a tone of contempt.

“Such as what?” Yvonne timidly asked. “Do you mean workmen, men with

blouses—those of whom you were just speaking—those who are not—”

“Who said anything like that?” replied Ethel. “Dress has nothing to do

with it.”

“It’s their profession, then?” Yvonne asked again; “or is it

nationality? The Englishman is different from the Frenchman—the

German—”

“Ochsenmaulsalatsfabrikant!” Ethel interrupted.

“All go to make up so many different types, I know,” Mlle. Yvonne

continued.

“It’s nothing of all that!” said Ethel, seriously. “When I say _a man_

I speak neither of an officer nor of a lawyer nor of a doctor nor

a workman nor a prince. Rich or poor, German, English, or French—it

doesn’t matter!”

The students had gathered round. They asked one another what Miss

Rowrer meant—who, then, is the _rara avis_ that is neither this nor

that—not a workman, not a prince?

Helia kept silence and listened. Which man? She had known one who

seemed to her frank and loyal, and gave her his word; and then—then he

had forgotten it! What meaning, then, was there in Miss Rowrer’s words?

But she understood perfectly, and she blushed for Phil when Ethel, to

signify those qualities of uprightness, equity, and honor—that respect

for one’s word once given—which she meant by “man,” repeated in a tone

of deepest conviction:

“I say A MAN!”

PART II

MORE THAN QUEEN

CHAPTER I

WANTED—A DUCHESS!

As he had himself said to Ethel the day of his visit to Phil’s studio,

Conrad di Tagliaferro, Duke of Morgania, was much to be pitied—he had

to quit Paris!

The duke reveled in the life of the Boulevard, losing himself amid the

crowd, climbing to the tops of omnibuses, taking a cab to the opera,

getting himself spoken of in the society news of the papers. He was

seen everywhere,—in salons and at the theater, at the clubs and at the

races. There was no ceremony for him, and he had no cares. Arriving in

Paris he put aside all the duties of his position as you might leave

a coat in the cloak-room. When he accepted a friend’s invitation he

always insisted that there should be no questions of etiquette.

“_Sans cérémonie_—it’s understood,” and he would add in Parisian slang,

“_au hazard de la fourchette_ [pot-luck]!”

However, there was a “but.” His people pestered him from afar in the

shape of two voivodes who had been delegated by his nobles, and who

followed him even to his late suppers like some twofold Banquo specter.

These delegates were in Paris to urge his return. The duke had been

lucky enough to avoid them until now; but their mere presence said

clearly enough that things were going wrong in Morgania.

Since the fabulous days of Morgana the unity of this little warlike

people had always been kept at its frontier, beneath the shadow of its

great red banner with the white cross facing barbarism; and it was from

that side the storm was muttering once again.

There were grave reports from Macedonia. Houses were being burned and

convoys pillaged. All the villages from Kassovo to Monastir were in

ebullition. Bands of bashi-bazouks had come as far as the Drina. It

would be necessary to go back. The duke saw it clearly—great events

were preparing.

“You were present, I believe,” the duke said to Caracal, “when I spoke

at Phil’s place of the old sorceress, who is a prophetess for some

and a saint for others, and has more influence in the country than

all the journalists in the world could have. This old woman predicts

the future. I assure you, Caracal, she foretells astonishing things,

absolutely amazing, and I myself have seen them realized many times

over. Just now she is upsetting the country with talk about the return

of Morgana.”

“But there’s no harm in that,” Caracal remarked.

“She excites the people, and it will end in war, that’s all!” answered

the duke, gravely. “Ah! the prophetess and her prophecies—they are a

load upon my back, I can tell you!”

“Why don’t you shut her up in a madhouse?”

“That’s more easily said than done,” observed the duke. “An old

woman adored by an entire people—you may not believe me, but—I assure

you—she’s stronger than I!”

Caracal looked at the duke to see if he was in earnest. But a duke’s

psychology was entirely beyond his ken, subtle observer as he was.

The duke’s animosity against the sorceress had a look of embroilment

between sovereigns.

While the prospect of all these troubles alienated the duke from

Morgania, so a creature dear to his heart attracted him homeward. This

was his only child, his son, the little Duke Adalbert. All the duke’s

affections were centered upon this son, after the death of the duchess.

It had not been a happy marriage. First of all, his wife had made him

take a dislike to his people. She was an Austrian archduchess—more than

an aristocrat, an Olympian; and the fall from the elegance of Vienna

life to severe duties in Morgania filled her with bitterness. She

detested her subjects, and they paid her back the compliment. Never had

a duchess been so unpopular.

Until then,—not to speak of the heroine who had founded the glory of

the house,—all the duchesses had had the gift of pleasing the people,

perhaps because most of them were themselves sprung from the people.

Love’s fancies had reigned in the house of Tagliaferro, and, thanks

to such spontaneousness of feeling, misalliances had not been rare.

Just as at the Austrian court Archduke Henry, the emperor’s nephew,

had espoused a dancing-girl who became Baroness Weideck, and before

him Archduke John had married the pretty Anna Plochel, a postmaster’s

daughter, so the Dukes of Morgania, with aristocratic loftiness, chose

their consorts wherever it seemed good to them.

Such duchesses the people of Morgania preferred to all others. It was

very important for the future of the house that she who was to succeed

the mother of Adalbert should possess all those qualities which make a

woman adorable—goodness, beauty, and valor.

In Morgania, where diplomatic refinements were unknown, there was

needed a young woman of new blood, bringing energy with her, and able

to revive confidence. There had been such in the ancestry of Duke

Conrad—heroines sprung from the people, daughters of the mountain or

the plain.

“You shall see their statues,” the duke said one day to Ethel, who had

come with her grandmother to see his collections—“that is, if you do

me the honor of stopping in Morgania when you make your Mediterranean

yacht tour.”

“It is a promise,” said Ethel.

“It will interest you, Miss Rowrer, to visit my stronghold. It

is one of the most ancient in Europe. The donjon at the entrance

is formidable. It was in 1221, when he returned from the Crusade

of Honorius III and Andrew II, King of Hungary, that my ancestor,

Enguerrand, had it built, along with the great hall used for the

people’s assemblages; for, to procure the necessary resources of his

expedition, he had been obliged to enfranchise the serfs.”

“He did well,” observed grandma.

“He could not have done better,” the duke replied. “Moreover, there

came out of it the Hall, which is a masterpiece.”

“The Hall, doubtless, is decorated with the arms and armor of the

epoch?—that will interest me greatly.”

“There are neither cuirasses nor gauntlets,” answered the duke;

“neither helmets nor the armor of knights on horseback, as in the

Tower of London or the Invalides in Paris. But such as it is, it will

interest you even more. It has something that will go straight to your

heart.”

“Really?” Ethel asked. “And what can that be?”

“This,” the duke went on. “The Walhalla of Bavaria has been built to

German heroes; our Hall is built to the glory, not of the heroes, but

of the heroines of Morgania. My ancestor, Enguerrand, consecrated his

Hall to the glorification of our women.”

“Ah!” Ethel exclaimed, deeply interested.

“A great idea!” said grandma. “America ought to have a hall like that

at Lincoln Park. We have our heroines, too—it would be full in little

time!”

“Madame Rowrer is right,” said the duke. “To be a heroine there is

no need to fight, sword in hand; the fulfilment of the civil and

moral virtues makes heroines, and devotedness and love have their own

martyrs. But I am going to show you an old engraving of the Hall.”

The duke rose and searched in a portfolio.

“Two characteristic features,” he continued, “strike one in feudalism:

individual energy and improvement in the condition of women. When Duke

Enguerrand went forth to look for war and adventures, my ancestress,

Bertha, remained in Morgania as the duke’s representative, clothed with

the right of administering justice, and charged, during his absence,

with the defense and honor of the country. Such sovereign power often

gave to the women of that time virtues which they had no opportunity of

exercising otherwise.

“When the knights and men-at-arms were gone to the Holy Land, only the

women remained at home. Then Hungary was invaded by the Mongols, who

ravaged everything down to the Adriatic. Morgania was on the point of

perishing; but Bertha the Horsewoman, as the people called her ever

after, scoured the country the whole winter long, leading convoys, and

bringing in supplies from Italy and mercenaries from Germany. Thus she

repelled the Mongols and saved Morgania from invasion, and the people

from famine.

“When the duke came back he found Morgania in mourning, for the duchess

had died at her task. Saint Morgana, the heroic ancestress, already had

her altars. The duke wished to consecrate the glory of the others as

well; and he built the Hall so that henceforth the people might gather

around their images under the saint’s protection. Dying he expressed

a wish that his descendants should dedicate the Hall to the glory of

their women. Here is the engraving,” the duke said, turning toward Miss

Rowrer and grandma.

[Illustration: “‘Here is the engraving’”]

“Indeed,” said Ethel, “all this interests me tremendously. So your

ancestor Enguerrand was the creator of women’s rights!”

Ethel and grandma examined the engraving. It represented an octagonal

hall of somber and massive aspect. The eight segments of the vaulted

roof were separated by stone ribbing that met in a fleuron, from which

hung an immense chandelier. The arches rested on eight columns. Between

two of these a solid wall had been built; it was covered with vestiges

of ancient painting. Stone steps mounted up to this wall, making a

platform on which there was a bench of carved wood.

“Let me be your guide,” said the duke. “This large wooden bench

against the wall between the two columns is the ducal throne. The

stuffs and cushions which cover it were brought from Tyre and Sidon by

Enguerrand.”

“That is very beautiful,” Ethel interrupted, “but it is your

heroines that interest me most—where are they in all this? Bertha the

Horsewoman, where is she?”

“Here—this statue,” the duke replied. “As you see, there are three

statues facing each other—first Bertha, then Thilda, the duchess who

killed Sultan Murad at Kroja with her own hand, and then Rhodaïs the

Slave. The fourth pedestal is still empty.”

“Was there a slave in your ancestry?” Ethel asked. “It is the name you

apply to Rhodaïs.”

“She was the daughter of a simple voivode,” said the duke. “She

accompanied to Venice the daughter of the King of Hungary, whose

kingdom had partly fallen under the power of the Turks. But they

were attacked by an Ottoman galley and every one was massacred except

Rhodaïs. As she trampled the Crescent under foot they chained her to

the rowers’ bench, from which she escaped only by a shipwreck. She

came back to Morgania, had the duke buy a galley in Venice, chose a

crew of hardy corsairs, and began a war without mercy against the Turks

who infested the coast. She put herself at the service of Don Juan of

Austria at the battle of Lepanto. My ancestor, Hugh XIII, made her his

duchess, and Philip II of Spain, as a recompense of her valor, gave her

the hereditary title, unknown till then, of Lady Knight of Malta.”

“That was a woman!” Ethel said. “With a duchess like Rhodaïs a people

could not perish! But Morgana, the fairy, the saint, in whose honor the

Hall was built—I do not see her?”

“On the contrary, she is everywhere. She lights up the Hall with her

rays,” the duke replied. “This engraving does not give the entrance

portal which overlooks city and sea and country. This portal was made

at Enguerrand’s return. It is like the entrance to an enchanted palace;

and by its magnificence and delicate ornamentation contrasts with the

general severity of the Hall. As in Gothic churches this portal sets

far back into the interior. An immense stained-glass window overlooks

it; and from this light falls in floods through one of the sides of the

vaulted roof, which was purposely suppressed.”

“I understand,” Ethel said. “Face to face with the ducal throne, your

ancestress Morgana dominates everything!”

“Yes,” continued the duke; “at eventide the setting sun enters the

interior of the Hall through this window, which represents the glorious

martyrdom of Morgana. You would say that her blood threw crimson stains

upon the throne itself and the glow of her miracle lighted up the whole

hall.”

“What about the fresco which has left traces on the wall behind the

throne? Was it, too, of some warlike deed?” Ethel asked.

“No; this one represented the legend of Morgana rising from the sea

and bringing in her arms what should be the fortune of Morgania. What

was it she was bringing in her arms? I know not. Morgana, it appears,

was represented in the fresco issuing from the sea, and covered with

seaweed.”

“Just as in the picture of Monsieur Phil,” remarked Ethel.

“Exactly so,” said the duke. “It was the moment I chose; and your

fellow-countryman has reconstructed it. In my next trip to Morgania

Monsieur Phil is to come to the castle and finish his picture on the

spot. Before then I shall have time to search through the archives, and

perhaps I shall find what it was Morgana was bringing in her arms.”

Thereupon Miss Rowrer and grandma went away. The duke remained alone.

He retired to his study—a den plastered with sporting photographs—and

sinking on a sofa lighted a cigarette and began dreaming as he followed

the light smoke with his eye.

“Morgana—she who was to come forth from the sea bringing fortune and

happiness in her arms—is it not Miss Rowrer landing in her yacht before

the castle? She, too, comes from the setting sun. She, too, brings

fortune. She, too, would be adored by the people. What a strange

coincidence! The old sorceress is not so crazy after all,” the duke

said to himself, “and there is nothing impossible in it! Whatever may

be the personal qualities and fabulous fortune of Miss Rowrer, a Duke

Tagliaferro is her equal. Through me she would be Duchess of Morgania,

Protectress of the Skipetars, Lady Knight of Malta, Princess of Kroja,

Queen of Antioch in the Holy Land, allied to the court of Prussia, and

cousin of the Hapsburgs. There is not an older nor a nobler house in

Europe.”

It made the duke’s head swim only to think of it. He was a descendant

of Hugh, the Frankish chief to whom Theodosius had given one of his

twelve duchies of the West, and since that time nothing—not even

Attila’s torrent, nor the Turks, nor Charles the V, nor so many

famines, nor so many wars—nothing had ever struck the sword from the

hands of his ancestors—nothing save the anger of the people against

Duke Adhemar, who was driven from the throne because he had delivered

up Morgana!

_I will maintain by the sword!_ This proud device had never proved

false, as the old iron-bound archives could witness. The duke felt

weary—weary with all the weariness and old with all the age of all his

ancestors; and his fingers had scarcely the strength to knock the ashes

from his cigarette.

What a youth his inheritance of glory had won for him! How he had

envied in other days the little peasants who ran barefoot along the

beach, whereas he, brought up by sad-faced priests in the old feudal

castle, was less free than a slave. Then came his marriage, which had

been settled for him for reasons of state, and the death of his father,

which gave him the administration of the duchy—an ungrateful task. No!

He had not lived! Enough of the gloomy palace and rude peasants! He

wished to live and to be amused—to be young for once in his life. He

would know happiness, at least!

The duke gazed at the blue curls of smoke floating as aimlessly as

himself. He had not even hoped for a marriage like this with Miss

Rowrer, having all the advantages of a royal marriage, without any of

its inconveniences. She would be one of the richest and most brilliant

sovereigns of Europe.

Never had life appeared sweeter to him than now. He was buoyed up with

hope and illusions. There was this marriage for the near future, and

meanwhile he could enjoy the little time he still had to pass in Paris.

This evening, for instance, he was to go with Caracal and meet Helia

behind the scenes of the Nouveau-Cirque. Perhaps he was thinking more

than he ought of Helia, but he wished to thank her before his departure

for having posed as Morgana.

A lackey broke in upon his reverie, handing the duke two

cartes-de-visite on a silver plate.

“Zrnitschka!”

“Bjelopawlitji!”

“The devil!” said the duke. “My two voivodes—my two kill-joys!”

Ah! those two sad-faced “ambassadors of the sorceress”—would they never

cease harassing him? The valet spoke:

“The gentlemen wish to have the honor of presenting their homage to

monseigneur.”

“Yes; I am acquainted with their homage,” the duke said, below his

voice, as he drew out his watch. “Half-past six, and Caracal is waiting

for me—and Helia, whom I have to see—”

“What answer shall I give these gentlemen?” asked the valet.

“How do I know!” answered the duke, vexed at being troubled while

thinking of so many things. “Tell them—oh, tell them I am having a

political interview—a tête-à-tête with the representative of a great

power!”

CHAPTER II

A PARISIAN DÉBUT

The duke, imposing and superb, was present; and Caracal, with his

monocle in his eye, was beside him. It was the first night of Helia.

If it had been a common first night at the Théâtre Français, the duke

would have thought himself dishonored by appearing before the second

act. But he wished to offer a rose to Helia, and so he, a gentleman,

had committed and made Caracal commit an unheard-of thing—they had

dined between seven and eight so as to arrive on time.

“You are interested in behind the scenes? Your presence greatly honors

us, monseigneur,” said the director of the Cirque as he passed by them.

Was he interested? He was more than that—he was enthralled.

First of all, Caracal suggested it was very chic to have the air of

paying court to Helia, who to-morrow would be celebrated as a star.

This would give an irresistible Don Juan mark to his ducal title.

“That will help me with Miss Rowrer,” thought the duke, who was pupil

and plaything of the clever Caracal. There was a single shadow in his

picture—Phil was not there!

Phil was to accompany Miss Rowrer to the American Club Exhibition; but

this touched the duke—oh, so very slightly. Miss Rowrer had a great

esteem for Phil, but pshaw! a poor devil of an artist was no rival

for him, a duke with his duchy, descended from fairies and queens and

saints! Against all this what could avail her innocent flirtation with

Phil?

The public had not yet come and the hall was empty. Here and there the

electric globes were lighting up; but the duke and Caracal beheld a

sight which helped them to pass the time. The sensational equestrienne,

the Marquesa de Guerrera, was coming down the steps, enameled and

rouged and resplendent with diamonds. Monseigneur gallantly held her

stirrup as she painfully climbed upon her horse. She dashed out on the

track in front of the empty benches for a short rehearsal. She asked

for the orchestra and the lights, to accustom her horse to the noise

and glitter. She was afraid he would take fright. She trembled at his

slightest shying.

“Take away that white paper—that program on the bench; take it away!

And do you applaud!” the Marquesa called to the stable-boys who

approached the ring.

“Applaud! to accustom him to the bravos!”

The horse began turning like a great mechanical plaything with a doll

on its back.

“The horse does all the work!” said Suzanne behind the duke. She had

just arrived with Helia and Sœurette, Helia’s little sister.

[Illustration: “Giving the Flower to the Child”]

“No, I assure you,” said Helia, “_haute école_ riding is difficult!”

The duke turned.

“How do you do, mesdemoiselles?” he said, lifting his hat.

“Monseigneur—” Helia began.

“Oh, monsieur,” Sœurette broke in, “it’s for me, isn’t it?—the pretty

rose?”

“Why—why—yes!” the duke answered, giving the flower to the child.

He remarked Helia’s surprise. She seemed troubled by his visit. It had

been the affair of a moment, but it was sufficient to hinder the duke,

who was no apt pupil of Caracal, from giving the rose to Helia.

“You lack nerve!” Caracal whispered in his ear.

“It will come!” answered monseigneur.

“I see the duke and Caracal,” Helia said to herself; “but Phil is not

here! It’s not very nice of him.”

The public was coming in. The equestrienne left off rehearsing, with

her hat over one ear.

“Come, we have to get ready,” said Helia. “Au revoir, messieurs!”

The benches were filling up. Against the dark shadows of the boxes

fans waved to and fro. The duke straightened up in the respectful space

which his title of monseigneur left around him. Near him was Cemetery,

the clown, waiting for Helia, whom he was to accompany in the ring. He

shook the yellow tresses of his wig and groaned constantly, complaining

of his aches and speaking of a return to his box to rub himself with

camphorated alcohol.

“Do you want me to go with you—I’ll rub you!” the duke said, Parisian

to the finger-tips, and hoping, if he rubbed the old clown’s spine,

that he would redeem in Caracal’s eyes the rose given to Sœurette.

“No, thank you, monseigneur. There is nothing to be done,” said the old

clown; “I, too, was famous, and now I’m only an old dog—ah!”

But no one listened to him.

The show began. In the ring the blond hair and doll face of Louise

Bingel whirled to the music of the orchestra, as she leaned over to

apply the whip to her horse’s neck with many a “Go!” and “Up!”

The public talked as it looked through the program. The real show

was to come later. It was not the “Gallinaro Family, somersaults,

bravourturnerin, tapis-tumblers,” nor “Miss Soho, the world’s greatest

I-don’t-know-what,” nor “Princess Colibri and her Prince-Consort”—no!

that which attracted the public was, first and foremost, Helia.

Discreet notes in the papers had given hopes that there would be

something “never seen before.” Some said she was a young girl of good

family, whom an irresistible vocation had drawn to the circus. Details,

too, were given of her career—in contradiction with one another, of

course.

What was not known, though, was how Helia had been working for months.

She was going to try a daring feat. Even the costume was to be new. To

her the nudity of the maillot seemed brutal.

[Illustration: Cemetery]

“Beauty is well, talent is better!” Cemetery, her professor in other

days, used to say; and she wished to be applauded for her art and not

for her beauty. Her wonderful gymnastic knowledge gave her the right to

attempt the feat.

She thought in gestures. She had in her the inborn love of grace and

physical force. With graceful movement she summed up a thousand things

which she could not have said; and she had the idea of reviving the

acrobatics of the ancients, just as others have reconstructed the songs

of old times, and the dance through the ages. One day at the Louvre she

had seen on a Greek vase an artistic dance which struck her. She had

spoken of it to Phil while posing for Morgana—for Helia saw Phil often.

In spite of all, she loved to be near him, and though Phil might

forget, on her side she felt her love for him only increase. She was

one of those proud hearts which love but once. In spite of all, she

believed in the sacredness of a sworn promise. Phil would come back to

her! Besides, Phil was a precious help in the work she was undertaking.

Together they consulted the “Recherches Historiques et Critiques sur

les Mimes et Pantomimes du Seigneur de Rivery.” Her head was full of

neurobatie, scheunobatie, and acrobatie. She dreamed of gymnastics and

the dance. She studied her movements in Phil’s studio, in the evening,

after his work.

He had a jointed lay-figure which she put in the proper poses, seeking

for effects in its curving and bending back. She cut out little

costumes and tried them on it. She went to the Library, and looked

through the boxes of the booksellers along the Quais. The instinct of

the beautiful guided her. She composed her number as she might compose

a poem.

The reverse of a Roman medal and an old engraving representing the

Genoese who descended the towers of Notre Dame, torch in hand, to

offer a crown to Queen Isabeau suggested ideas to her. A biography of

Madame Saqui, who was called the first acrobat of the empire, and whom

Napoleon entitled _mon enragée_, was very useful to her.

“Plato,” Phil said to her one day when they were studying together,

“Plato contends that gymnastics give grace to the movements of the

body, of which we ought to think even before adorning the mind.”

“Plato is wrong,” was Helia’s answer.

But she proved that he was right by the moral energy which physical

training had developed in her. For months she studied without let-up,

mastering rebellious muscles, beginning again, twenty times over, the

same thing, setting to work with all her heart and all her courage,

with clenched teeth and eyes shining with the pride of will. There was

despair in her mad energy.

“But you will kill yourself, Helia,” Phil said to her.

“Nonsense!” said Helia. “I will die or do it!”

“In other days,” she thought in her simplicity, “Phil did not like to

hear me speaking of my trade; but who knows?—he may change if I become

a _grande artiste_.”

That evening she was to present to the public the outcome of her

efforts.

Suzanne, in the dress of a pretty little Pierrette, was already in

the ring. With her usual go she was showing off trained rabbits. They

jumped through hoops, climbed up on her, and ate seeds from her hand.

It made a little interlude before Helia’s number.

At the entrance of the stables clowns and firemen, reporters and men of

sport made up a guard of honor. There was even an impresario from New

York, who spoke to Suzanne when she came out.

“Brava, mademoiselle! Ah! if you only knew how to sing!”

“If I only knew how to sing!—_Je t’écoute!_”

“Brava! brava! You’ll have a success in New York! You’ll come on the

stage, they’ll ask you if you know how to sing—and you’ll answer—how

was it you said it?”

“_Je t’écoute_ [I hear you].”

“That’s it! You must also bring in a little can-can—do you know how to

dance?”

“There’s a question for you!” And with the point of her elegant foot

Suzanne, scarcely seeming to touch it, sent the shining silk hat of the

impresario rolling on the ground.

“Brava! Perfect!” the impresario cried in an ecstasy of joy. “I’ve

found what I’m looking for—a typical French girl!”

There was silence. In the luminous void of the circus, high up in

the air there were shining things in nickel—trapezes—and a rope was

stretched down to the ring.

The orchestra burst forth. Helia kissed Sœurette and passed out with

a run before the duke and Caracal. Her mantle, left hanging as if by

chance, gave a glimpse of a rosy shoulder. On the threshold of the ring

she stopped and threw off the mantle. It was like the unveiling of a

statue.

She wore the short tunic of the dancers of Pergamus. The clinging stuff

was fastened at the shoulder and hung to a point on each side, leaving

arms and neck and the upper part of the breast uncovered; a light skirt

fell straight to the ankles.

Helia looked at the public long enough to smile and bow. Then, with

a quick spring, she leaped to the tightly stretched rope, and with

agile bare feet climbed up its incline to the platform in front of her

trapeze. The light brought out the whiteness of her skin and her red

cheeks, and glittered back from a little star-shaped jewel in the black

hair above her forehead.

There was a murmur of sympathy. The public applauded and cried:

“Brava!” Helia had done nothing yet, but the audience was already won.

The orchestra, after a moment’s silence, suddenly broke forth and Helia

began.

At first, to accustom the public to the notion of the movements, she

leaped upright on the trapeze, which swung over to the platform. This

had been foreseen. The three trapezes in their swing almost touched

each other. They were hung from light steel tubes and oscillated like

a single mechanism, without break or twist.

Helia, with infinite grace, went through a few exercises. It was the

Waking of the Goddess—the first astonished gestures of a statue called

to life by the inspiration of a Pygmalion. Then she let herself fall as

if overcome by dizziness, grasped the bar as she slipped down without

apparent shock, and—almost before the folds of her gown could fall back

gracefully—she was again on the trapeze, magnificent and at her ease.

She balanced herself gently and gave a backward leap to the platform.

The public broke forth in applause. It felt itself in the presence of a

healthy and robust art. This was no acrobat limited to one single task,

with legs heavy by dint of walking on the ball, or shoulders by walking

on the hands. But here was the accomplished gymnast—the all-round

artiste, with her muscles obedient and supple. In her they acclaimed

the poetry of the body and the melody of movement.

To give Helia a moment’s rest, Cemetery entered, stumbled at the

entrance of the ring, fell on his nose, rolled over, and pulled

himself up by the rope. His pantomime expressed delight and fear at the

spectacle, high above him, of this creature of light and beauty. His

pursed-up mouth and rounded eyes had the look of weeping. He walked out

scratching his wig.

The public laughed.

Helia made a sign and looked to the trapezes oscillating. Suddenly, to

a joyous strain, she leaped forward. The orchestra seemed to uphold

her in her flight. Nothing could be more graceful than the pose of

her skirt, which fluttered from her ankles like a pair of wings. Then

Helia leaped to the second trapeze just as the two bars almost touched.

Her hand grasped the steel tube with a sudden effort, which her art

concealed. Then, letting go, she continued her dizzy balancing and

leaped to the third trapeze, as calm as Fortune on her Wheel. She had

crossed the entire space of the circus at a single flight and fallen

upright on the other platform just as a wingless Victory finds rest on

the pediment of a temple.

“Hurrah! Brava! brava!”

Helia cast a look of triumph on the crowd.

“What an artiste!” the duke murmured. Could this really be she who but

a moment ago was talking like any comrade—this prodigy who was holding

the hall enthralled, and bringing in a crush to the door all the stable

crowd and artistes, gentlemen in evening dress, and the whole tumult of

clowns?

Sœurette looked at her “big sister” in wonder and delight, while her

lips seemed to murmur a prayer. Cemetery entered the ring again to

proclaim the distress of man and his unrealizable desires. He jumped

up to the rope, climbed a yard or two, and fell back flat on the

ground. _Poum!_ Come on! the goddess seemed to say to him. He tried

again, but from the height of his Olympus the leader of the orchestra

thundered him down with a stroke of the bass-drum, and he fell

again—_poum!_—remaining on his back with his four limbs wriggling in

the air. Then he dragged himself away, broken and bruised, with halting

leg and rubbing his shoulder, while above him Helia appeared as an

apparition, a shining form rid of the heaviness of the flesh.

[Illustration: At the Circus]

Her art astonished the public. There was no perceptible effort,—_Jarret

lâchés_, high leaps, whirls,—there was nothing of all that. She gave

the sensation of the “something never seen before.” Merely by the way

in which she touched her trapeze with the point of her bare feet, one

felt that she was free from rules—inventive, a genius. It was youth and

beauty, scorn of danger, and courage holding spellbound the crowd below

her.

Her artistic intelligence profited even by obstacles. Thus Helia

disdained the net; but the law imposed it. She found a means of making

it serve her own purposes.

Just as she was ending, a globe was passed up to her, and she placed

it on the bar. Then she stood upright on it, in the vast oscillations

of the trapeze. She was like a goddess soaring in space with the earth

under her feet.

Then Helia stopped motionless.

The orchestra ceased; the lights were extinguished; and suddenly, like

a star falling in the night, Helia fell down to the net.

There was a moment’s anguish, and then the lights and

orchestra—lightning and thunder—began again, as in a storm. Helia was

on the ground, offering, with a gesture, her heart to the crowd.

She was called back again and again. Bouquets were thrown to her—the

public would have her out once more! At last she retired, worn out,

and, putting off her stage-smile, she shook hands all round.

“There’ll be no bouquets left for the marquesa,” Suzanne said. “But her

horse may be accustomed, by this time, to the bravos!”

“You must be tired, Mademoiselle Helia?” the duke asked.

“It’s my trade,” said Helia. “We smile to the public all the same; it

would not be nice to show that it is work!”

And, with a gracious salutation to the duke, she went back to her

dressing-room.

“You haven’t invited her to supper!” Caracal remarked to the duke, when

she had gone.

“I didn’t think of it!”

“Are you going to wait till she comes down?”

“No,” said the duke, intimidated. “I shall see her later, I hope. Your

valet must attend to it. Let’s go now. There’s nothing to see after

Helia!”

CHAPTER III

PHIL, CHAMPION OF MISS ROWRER

“I’ll send her some flowers to-morrow,” the duke said, once they were

outside.

“Monseigneur,” replied Caracal, “allow me to tell you, you’ve been

below the mark all through!”

“That’s so!” agreed monseigneur.

“For a reigning duke,” Caracal went on, “a grand seigneur, a Parisian

in soul, to have such timidity! It was worth while dining at impossible

hours and passing evenings with a rheumatic clown, to wind up in

nothing!”

“I shall have my revenge!” the duke said. “This evening I did not—dare.”

“And the reason is this,” Caracal continued: “you’re in love with

Helia!”

“I!”

“Yes, monseigneur.”

“What an idea!”

Just then Caracal passed into the two-colored light of an apothecary’s

shop, red on one side and green on the other; his single eye-glass

darted a fantastic reflection on the duke. He might have been twin

brother to Mephistopheles.

“What a devil of a man!” thought the duke; “you can hide nothing from

him. He might easily be right!”

Caracal had not astonished him. In love? Perhaps he was, since others

were noticing it. It is true that Caracal was not exactly “others,”

powerful psychologist and searcher of hearts and brains as he was. But

even Caracal would have to confess himself beaten by a Duke of Morgania

parading with a circus star—that would be Parisian enough! He would

no longer accuse him of inheriting the prejudices of Morgania, nor of

believing in the predictions of the mad old witch!

The duke blushed at his own scruples. He envied Caracal’s effrontery.

“It is true,” he said to himself, “I have been below the mark all

through. For a grand seigneur like me to be as timid as a college-boy

is absurd. Helia ought to be for me simply an episode—a pastime—and

nothing more.”

All these ideas had come to him while he was lighting his cigarette,

and Caracal, red and green, was darting on him the reflection of his

monocle.

“In love with Helia?” the duke said aloud, flattered that Caracal had

such an opinion of him, “_ma foi_, why not?”

“You are quite right,” answered Caracal. “It will increase your

prestige. Besides, you’ll see her at supper. My valet will hand her the

invitation. Helia would rather go off alone, but she will come with us.

Phil will be of the party, too!”

“Well, come along! We have an hour to wait. Let’s go in somewhere,”

said the duke.

They were just coming into the Place Blanche. A café, through its open

doors, wrapped them round with the smell of alcohol. Before them a

red-winged mill seemed grinding fire and flame. Beyond, streets went

climbing up Montmartre, mountain of guano. Right and left, along the

Boulevard, incredible dens held out their blazing signs in line, like

the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin” of monstrous nights.

“Here is a cabaret artistique; let’s go in,” said Caracal; “it’s

immense!”

“Come on!” assented the duke.

The atmosphere, as of a den of animals, caught them by the throat. The

conversations were deafening, but the voice of the proprietor rose

above the clamor. He welcomed visitors, even ladies, with a torrent

of insults. It was the height of chic to receive his avalanche of

insolence with a smiling face.

“What do these two carrion come for?” he cried, pointing to Caracal and

the duke, who, in his surprise, was on the point of getting angry, to

the great joy of the public.

“Let’s sit in this corner; we can talk better,” Caracal said to him,

as much at his ease in this asphyxiating air as a fish in water. They

sat down and the brutal voice and the clamors of the public found

occupation elsewhere.

“Talk?” asked the duke. “What in the world should we talk about here?”

“About Helia,” answered Caracal; “here’s to your amours, monseigneur!”

And he raised the glass which a waiter, dressed like an Academician,

had brought him.

“Caracal!” said the duke, laughing, “we no longer live in the times

when kings espoused shepherdesses.”

“But dukes, monseigneur, still pay their court to danseuses,” Caracal

went on. “It’s a tendency of the aristocracy.”

“Why?” asked the duke.

“Because the common run of men, when they court a woman, make account

of what others think of her; whereas a grand seigneur doesn’t care for

the opinion of the public and chooses what pleases him.”

“That’s true!” said the duke.

“I can cite you a dozen examples,” Caracal continued. “There’s Clotilde

Loisset, the circus-rider, who is an Hungarian princess to-day; Chelli,

the danseuse, married to a Russian count who is Minister of State;

Lord Billy, betrothed to an equilibrist; the Countess of Landsfeldt,

Baroness Rosenthal—you know well who they were. And you see what they

are now, thanks to the caprice of some Highness! Grandees, monseigneur,

are like those kings who acknowledge no rank but that which they

themselves create.”

“Well said, Caracal!”

The duke, when his first surprise had passed, found it amusing to talk

confidentially in such a moral pig-pen. It was so amusing, even, that

he forgot to ask himself what possible interest Caracal could have to

see him in love with Helia.

“Will you come now, Caracal? Phil must be waiting for us.”

“Helia, too!” said Caracal.

They left the place.

“We are leaving just as it is becoming interesting,” Caracal sighed.

“It’s over there we are to meet,” he added, pointing to the terrace of

a café inundated with light.

They had not gone twenty steps before a voice called to them. It was

Phil’s.

“Good evening, Monsieur le Duc! Good evening, M. Caracal!”

“Good evening, Phil!” answered Caracal. “_Eh bien?_ How’s your American

Club exposition? Interesting? Painting in the grand style? American

painting, eh! eh! done by machinery, of course? I don’t say that for

you, _cher ami_!”

“And how is your novel, ‘The House of Glass’?” retorted Phil, leaving

painting for literature. “You were just now in search of human

documents. Don’t say no; I saw you! You’re always thinking about it?”

“Always, my dear friend, always! But what makes you think so?”

“Because you were looking in the gutter,” said Phil.

Caracal made a grimace; but when they got to the café his self-love

had a satisfaction which brought back his smiles. Before the terrace,

encumbered with people, his valet was awaiting him, telegrams in hand.

This valet was a part of his pride of life; a good fellow employed in

a shop all day long, and free in the evening. Caracal dressed him up

in a tail coat with gilt buttons, and a high hat, and had him bring his

correspondence to the café every night, as if he were a man overwhelmed

with invitations and billets-doux.

“Mademoiselle Helia will not come this evening,” the valet announced.

“Why not?” Caracal asked, interrupting the reading of his despatches,

which he had good reasons for knowing by heart.

“Mademoiselle Helia did not say why. Mademoiselle only said that she

would not come. She has gone out with M. Socrate.”

“Very well!” said Caracal, dismissing his valet.

“With Socrate! Poor Helia!” thought Phil.

“Well, messieurs, it will be less gay without a lady,” Caracal

observed; “but since we are here, let’s do Montmartre, will you?”

“Come with us,” said the duke.

So all three “did” Montmartre.

Caracal knew it all thoroughly. The cabaret was his home. He entered

offhand; he had his own manner of opening the door and bidding a

friendly good day to the proprietor amid the tables.

“There’s Caracal!” These words, pronounced in the smoke of these little

cafés by some _décadent_ accompanied by a painted girl, swelled his

heart with pride. Even the duke envied him this quasi-royalty which

Paris confers on its elect.

Caracal loved the cabaret _rosses_, where some rickety little monsieur

advances on the platform, opens his snarling mouth and, hammering his

words that not a syllable may be lost, narrates his little nastiness to

the public.

“It’s a new school,” Caracal explained. “Much more advanced than the

_décadents_! It’s educating the public up to itself little by little.

It has taken frankly for its flag the exact word in all its crudity.”

“Say, rather, the dirty word,” said Phil.

Wherever they went there was the same atmosphere of infection. You

would have said that, camping in modern Paris, there was a _ville

chaude_ of the Middle Ages, where “_vérolez très précieux_” made high

festival with ribald companions. The look of the places was repulsive.

In one they were served by mock galley-slaves dragging their chains

behind them. In another there were grave-diggers, and they sat by

coffins, and green flames burned inside of skulls.

“You, fever-patient, what do you take?” the waiter said to the

customer; “and you, consumptive? What do you drink, moribund?”

And then the fever-patient or the moribund—some ruddy young man from

Scotland—would answer timidly: “_Oune bock_.”

“That gives a high idea of Paris,” Phil said, as they went out. To

him it all seemed stupid. What a contrast for him, after an evening

passed with Ethel, were these pestiferous dives with their brute

public, like pigs at the fattening! The pitiful sight recalled to him

the weak-willed days of the past, the evenings at the Deux Magots, the

masterpieces drawn in pencil on café tables and wiped off with a rag.

Caracal made a study of the different cabarets, preferring this one to

that and drawing a dilettante’s distinctions between their poets and

singers.

“Such an one enunciates well. Have you heard his ballad of ‘The

Drunkard and the Rotting Dog’? That is art!”

And with an elegant gesture he fixed the monocle in his eye. Phil

examined Caracal and tried to discern in his face the low instincts,

the hatreds, the thumb-marks of degeneracy. He saw nothing but

self-satisfaction.

They had arrived at The Pustule, the latest _cabaret artistique_.

“Let’s go in!” Caracal proposed. “It shall be the last.”

“I shall leave you afterward,” said Phil.

They entered. A blonde girl, with a thin, colorless voice and childish

gestures and little smirks, was singing:

“Les bosquets du Bois d’Boulogne

Ous’ qu’on fait Zizi pan pan!”

Her place was taken by a _chansonnier rosse_, fat and bald. This one

began at once, in an aggressive tone, a political satire. What? there

was a couplet against Americans—Richard the Lion-hearted again, and

then a direct allusion to a certain American miss—in this sewer!

[Illustration: “Phil rose up, pale with anger”]

Phil rose up, pale with anger. He would have smashed things, and shut

the mouth of the fat brute bellowing on the stage; but suddenly he

thought that he might compromise Miss Rowrer. He sat down, clenching

his fist.

“I’d like to know who writes such infamous songs!” he said to Caracal.

“Bah, never mind! Calm yourself!” Caracal answered, with sudden

uneasiness. “Never mind; it’s not worth while. No one understands!”

“What a set of fools!” Phil went on. “I’m going away; I choke here!”

“We’ll go with you,” added the Duke of Morgania.

A moment later Phil took his leave of the duke and Caracal, to return

home. From the other side of the street he saw Caracal gesticulating

and explaining modern art to the duke. Fragmentary sentences reached

his ear: “_Chansonniers rosses_—off with all masks—the future of

poetry—poetry _voyez-vous_—just like the rose, sprouts from the

dunghill.”

CHAPTER IV

’TWIXT DOG AND POET

Phil went his way, leaving the duke and Caracal behind him.

He was angry with himself for having come. Especially he was frightened

at the feeling which had just been urging him to punish the singer on

the stage. There was something more in it than the natural indignation

of an upright heart in presence of a low action. He felt it a hundred

times more than he would have done for a personal insult. He stood

forth revealed to himself as the champion of Miss Rowrer.

On the whole, the verses were stupid rather than malignant; but it had

been stronger than he—an explosion, in a way, of a growing passion. He

resolved to stop short on this dangerous descent and not allow himself

to be lured on by an impossible love, the very thought of which seemed

to him worthy of blame.

Phil was not content with his evening, so well begun and so ill ended.

“They’ll not catch me again doing Montmartre with Caracal and the

duke,” he said to himself. “I was wrong to go there to-night. I have

become certain that Helia is letting herself be courted by Socrate.

To have come down like that—she whom I knew so reserved and sweet!

And I know something else, too. I have to stop flirting with Miss

Rowrer—perhaps even stop seeing her, poor fool that I am!”

And Phil went his way with lowered head, absorbed in his own

reflections.

Phil’s idea was right so far as Miss Rowrer was concerned. He might

really have been in danger. But he was mistaken in his appreciation

of Helia, for she had not quit the circus with Socrate. Socrate

had followed her, that was all—Suzanne having taken away Sœurette

immediately after the departure of the duke and Caracal. Helia, worn

out with fatigue, went away much later on the arm of old Cemetery.

She was full of deference for the man who had made her an artiste,

and she accompanied him back to his hotel. Socrate walked alongside,

without the least emotion at the sight of this Antigone protecting her

Œdipus; rather, he was furious that she should lose her time with such

a doddard; but he had nothing to say about it! Helia would not have

understood, and Socrate remembered spitefully that the duke and Caracal

were cooling their heels in vain expectation of her.

Afterward Socrate saw her home. He had so many things to say to

her—things he dared not utter.

However, at the moment of taking leave he expressed a wish to go in, in

order to speak more freely.

“No, thank you!” said Helia; “you would wake Sœurette, who is already

in bed.”

“But—”

“Besides, you have your own work.” And she shut the door in his face.

Socrate, in a rage, remained outside. What he could not say this

evening he would say to-morrow; so be it! But that he—Socrate, poet,

thinker, painter, sculptor, and musician—should be so treated by this

little mountebank—what a humiliation! He felt that he wanted to break

something. A wandering dog passed by, and with all his strength he gave

him a kick in the ribs.

“There, put that in your pocket!”

“And you take that!” And Socrate received a heavy blow, with which he

rolled to the ground.

It seemed to him as he fell that he flung out his arms to protect

himself, and that his fist came in contact with a head. When he was

stretched out on the pavement he saw standing on the curbstone a

man, motionless and looking at him. They were both in the light of a

street-lamp. Suddenly Socrate recognized Phil.

In fact, Phil had been coming down the street just as Socrate kicked

the poor animal. In his indignation Phil punished the brute, and then

immediately recognized in him Socrate, who, of course, so he thought,

was coming from Helia.

Socrate would have jumped on Phil, but he had neither knife nor

revolver. So he remained on the pavement, crazy with impotent rage.

Phil, remaining calm, picked up his hat, which had fallen in the

scuffle. He waited. But as the thinker contented himself with groaning,

he went his way without even a look behind.

“Helia! Helia!” he thought within himself, “that you should receive

such a creature!”

[Illustration: “Suddenly Socrate recognized Phil”]

CHAPTER V

LITTLE SISTER OF A STAR

The next day Helia was still sleeping when Sœurette aroused her. The

little one was trotting along the carpet in her bare feet, talking and

laughing to herself in the sunny room. It was her great happiness in

the morning to be up first and take her big sister by surprise. She

climbed on the bed and awoke her with a good kiss on the cheek.

“Ah, how you frightened me!” cried Helia, pretending fear.

Sœurette burst into laughter.

“Let me lie beside you; I’ll let you sleep!”

“Are you sleeping?” the little one asked a moment later. “Ah, you see,

you’re not sleeping. _Eh bien!_ tell me a story!”

“You know,” replied Helia, “if you’re not good you sha’n’t do the

trapeze to-day.”

This threat quieted Sœurette.

Helia did not wish to make a gymnast of her. Ah, no! She dreamed of

other things for her—anything except that! But she had taught her a few

turns to develop her, and the little girl took the greatest pleasure in

it.

Soon, won by the warmth of the bed, Sœurette fell asleep. Helia arose

gently and finished waking herself with an invigorating bath in cold

water. Then she put on her great peignoir, tying the girdle around

her waist. To keep herself supple she went through two or three of

her flections, bending herself backward, forward, turning her bust on

her haunches, breathing again and again long and deep. The sleeves of

her peignoir flew loose as she raised her arms, like a statuette from

Tanagra come to life.

Then she finished dressing, for she hated wrappers, in which the body

grows soft. She put on her apron, and made tea in the samovar which

Phil had given her, just as he had given Suzanne a splendid salad-bowl.

Tea was Helia’s triumph, as Suzanne’s was salad; there was no disputing

it!

The concierge brought up the fresh bread, the butter, and buns;

and she cut her _tartines_ thinking of other things. She would put

aside savings for Sœurette. She would teach her; have her taught the

piano—she scarcely knew what—but not her own trade! The beginnings were

too hard; yet if it had not been for her profession would she ever have

known Phil? It would have been better not, perhaps; who knows? She owed

him great joy—and grief as well! To think that he had not come to see

her first night at the _Cirque_!

The idea came to her that she might never live out her love-romance

to the end, and her heart swelled within her. But with a gesture she

put away these haunting thoughts, and finished preparing the bread and

butter. When the breakfast was ready she awoke her little sister.

“Up, and quickly, dear one! the tea is ready!”

Sœurette jumped from the bed, stuck her little feet into her big

sister’s slippers, and did not linger playing on the carpet.

Seated on a chair made higher by a great book which she would go

to turning over presently, she already had her nose in her cup. Her

favorite doll, Glanrhyd, was at Phil’s studio; he was to repaint the

face, which had been damaged by a fall. Other dolls were lying on

the floor, but they were not Glanrhyd! Glanrhyd had been given her by

Helia, who had cherished it ever since her own childhood. In spite of

its absence, Sœurette was greatly preoccupied with her bread and butter

and tea. She had scarcely the time to smile at her big sister and ask

her questions.

“What is that—that medal?”

Helia had just been taking out of her trunk and hanging on the wall

mementos of her life, to which she was much attached. Her little sister

was not acquainted with these objects.

“And that, and that?” Sœurette ran on, pointing to a gilt-paper wreath,

to a group of gymnasts with Helia in the foreground, to still other

things.

“And that?” she added, pointing to the photograph of a young girl

seated on a kind of throne with a young man at her feet.

“It’s you and Phil!” Sœurette remarked.

“That might be,” answered Helia. “Eat in peace, and keep quiet!”

“No; tell me first what that is?” Sœurette asked, pointing to another

photograph. “Barracks in a garden?”

“It’s not barracks, Sœurette; it’s the palace of the Duchess of

Glanrhyd, near London.”

“Is it the doll’s palace?”

“No,” Helia said; “but the duchess gave me the doll.”

“Do you know the duchess?”

“When I was in England long ago I played in her park at a benefit for

the Society for the Protection of Children and Prevention of Cruelty to

the Weak.”

“Oh, what is that, tell me—the protection of children?” Sœurette

demanded.

“I can’t explain to you; you would not understand.”

Helia looked at the photograph and remembered the day. “I will send you

a pretty present,” the duchess had said to her, caressing her with her

gloved hand. And, in fact, to Kennington Avenue, where Helia was then

living with Cemetery, they brought her a magnificent doll and pounds of

bonbons; but Helia enjoyed neither them nor the doll.

“It will fatten you!” Cemetery said, as he locked up the bonbons.

“There is no strength in them.” He put the doll in a cupboard, adding:

“You have no time to play, either, except on Sunday. Come, to work!”

“Say, big sister,” asked Sœurette, who was finishing her bun, “what is

cruelty to children? And is there cruelty to big persons? Tell me!”

“Come and kiss me. You will know later on; and now, go and play!”

“Say, big sister, Glanrhyd doesn’t come back. Must I write to her?”

“Write if you wish, darling.”

[Illustration: “‘To whom shall I write?’”]

This was quite an affair. Sœurette prepared her table behind a screen

in the “doll’s room”; but the paper was too large—Glanrhyd would never

be able to read it. Helia had to cut it down to the proper size. At

last, having got seated, Sœurette, by way of introduction, stuck out

her tongue, rolled her head from right to left, and began.

“Well, Sœurette is busy,” Helia said to herself. “She will leave me a

little peace.”

“Say, big sister, does a doll answer?”

“I don’t think so,” said Helia.

“Will Monsieur Phil answer?” Sœurette asked.

“Let Monsieur Phil alone. He has something else to do!”

“But, big sister, it used to be always Phil here and Phil there; you

weren’t afraid to speak of him!”

“Well, I won’t have it!” Helia replied after a moment’s silence.

“Why?”

“Because—”

“To whom shall I write, then?”

“I don’t know, my darling.”

Sœurette reflected for a moment, biting her penholder.

“How do you write ‘Little Jesus’—say? Is it one word or two words?”

“Good!” thought Helia. “Now she’s writing to the Little Jesus.”

But some one came to divert their attention. There was a knock at the

door, and Socrate came in with a cheek red and limping slightly.

Helia asked what was the matter.

“Oh, last evening, after leaving you, I had a fall. It is nothing,”

Socrate hastened to say, not wishing to tell of his affair with Phil;

and for a good reason.

“You must have hit something hard,” Helia said.

“Oh!” Socrate went on, in a rage at his red cheek and limping leg, “oh,

why are you always spoiling that little girl? Cakes and dolls! Cakes

only fatten her, and dolls are good only for Sunday!”

Helia was struck by the remark which brought back word for word

Cemetery’s observations. It was of no importance, of course; it was one

of Socrate’s jokes—the proof was that he was smiling. But it displeased

Helia, who had become very reserved with him, and distrusted him a

little. She esteemed him only for the nature of his work. It seemed to

Helia that by taking interest in an “intelligence” she redeemed in some

way the roughness of her trade as a gymnast. She raised herself in her

own eyes. So she helped Socrate, half through charity and half out of

pride.

Socrate, knowing Helia’s goodness, looked forward to the time when he

should have supplanted in her heart the remembrance of Phil. But he

soon discovered Helia’s real feelings, and was all the angrier because

he had to hide his wrath. When he described to her the plan of his next

poem, or the picture that he was always “going to do,” he was thinking

all the while of other things than his pictures and poems.

What! He was not to be the husband of Helia? She was to marry some one

else? And he, Socrate, would not have the signing of contracts with her

directors, the discussing of prices, and the pocketing of the money?

Some one else was to enjoy all that?

What a pleasant life his would be if he should marry Helia! Oh, it

was very simple. First of all, he’d set Sœurette to work, steady!

They might give her bonbons and dolls; they would all go under lock

and key, and then—to work! In the morning, while he would go to the

café and take his eye-opener, Helia and the little one would do their

dumb-bells, to get under way for rehearsal. And then—_ouste!_—three

hours’ exercise in the morning, and three in the afternoon. Then

he would show what was in him! He would encourage with a gesture or

threaten with a look; sometimes he might let fall a “Very good” for

Helia, or “It doesn’t go; begin again!” for the little one. In his

conception of himself as professor he had always a cigar between his

teeth, diamond buttons on his cuffs turned up to the elbows, and all

around him papers and notices talking of the glory of this wife of

his—the star.

To think that he was not to be Helia’s husband! The very idea made him

turn over in his head all sorts of sinister projects.

Socrate tried to be friendly with Sœurette.

“Good day, Mlle. Princesse! Will you kiss me, Mlle. Princesse?”

“No!” Sœurette answered. “Your red cheek makes me afraid. You look like

a bogy man!”

“Now, now, Sœurette!” Helia said. “Be polite, darling. M. Socrate fell

down; it wasn’t his fault. Don’t you know that poets walk along looking

at the stars?”

“Not at the stars, but at one star, Mlle. Helia. You know the one I

mean!”

“Now you are here, Socrate, you can do me a favor,” Helia interrupted,

not even listening to his compliments. “First, throw these letters for

me into the waste-basket.”

“Must I throw that of Mlle. la Princesse also? What is she writing

there? Can I see?”

“No!” Sœurette answered.

“Is it a secret? Well, I won’t insist,” Socrate said, and straightway

stretched his neck over the screen and read:

“To the Little Jesus: They say, Little Jesus, that up

there in heaven you have a wonderful bazaar, with all the

playthings which are in all the earth and some that are not.

There is no doubt of it, Little Jesus, is there? Well, then,

cure Glanrhyd and send me a little white dog—a curly one that

barks. I’d like to have a doll dressed for her wedding, and

a little china table service; and let it be pretty—very, very

pretty!”

“A letter to Little Jesus?” Socrate thought to himself. “There’s a

letter which won’t be delivered!”

Meanwhile Helia was reading her morning’s mail. There was nothing new

in it; she had received hundreds of such letters. “Mademoiselle, pardon

me, if I dare—” “Mademoiselle, will you allow an admirer of your talent

and your beauty—” And so on, and so forth.

Helia did not even read them through to the end. She blushed, not with

shame, but with pity for such foolish adorers.

“Do they take me for a toy? Into the basket!” And she held out the

letters to Socrate.

“Why, she is crazy!” Socrate thought. “All these letters—they’d be

magnificent for blackmailing!”

“You do wrong to destroy them!” Socrate said aloud. “Some of them are,

perhaps, in earnest.”

“How is that?” Helia said, looking at him. “What do you mean?”

“I—why—”

Helia’s uprightness disarmed him. She would never understand anything!

Was it possible to be so naïve? Socrate was exasperated by it.

“By dint of shutting yourself out from everybody, you’ll soon have no

more friends,” he said, trying to be insinuating. “Who knows if there’s

not a letter from the duke there?”

“And what then?” Helia said, as she arose.

“He is, perhaps, your best friend,” Socrate answered. “A powerful

protector like him—”

“What!”

“Of course, next to Monsieur Phil,” he went on, with the perspiration

starting out on his forehead. “But Monsieur Phil is too busy! They

say, even—” And Socrate hunted for a word with which to end his

embarrassment, and he had to be inventive and prompt.

“What is it they say?” Helia asked.

“That he is going to marry.”

Helia had too great a habit of controlling her nerves, too much mastery

of herself, and too much pride, to show her pain. Socrate had not the

pleasure of seeing her turn pale. She appeared to be taken up with

Sœurette, in her corner.

“Of course,” was Helia’s reply. “And now do this errand for me, will

you, Socrate? Here is the money,” she added, explaining what she

wished. “Pay—and keep what’s left over.”

She accompanied him to the door. Her limbs were trembling and she

seemed to walk on cotton. There was a roaring in her ears. She turned

and fell into a chair.

Phil was to marry! Everything seemed crumbling around her, her dreams

for the future, her castles in Spain, burying her in their ruins. Ah,

she could never recover from such a blow! In vain had she been long

awaiting it; she would never have believed it possible that Phil, so

gentle and good, would do her such harm! For him, too, she had, then,

been but a toy! He had amused himself with her! He had sworn marriage

to her, and because she was poor and needed to work,—at a trade which

she had not chosen, oh, no!—because she earned her living in a circus,

they had the right to look down on her! So she belonged to the public!

They could buy a ticket at the door and talk love to her between the

acts for a pastime, while oaths—yes, oaths taking Heaven for witness,

the oaths which were sworn to her—did not count!

Helia pronounced the last words aloud in a tone of indignation.

Sœurette looked up. She saw her big sister put her head in her hands

and weep silently.

For some time she had found that her sister was no longer the same.

Her child’s memory recalled to her a Helia full of joy and talking

always of Phil; a Helia who drew a circle with her pen at the end of

her letters, after applying her lips to the spot; a Helia who told her

beautiful stories and played and danced her in her arms, which were

so firm and gentle that she would have cast herself into them from a

belfry with closed eyes.

Sœurette tried to understand. Her little brain divined something

without knowing exactly what. First, they did not often see Monsieur

Phil. He was always very kind to her, Monsieur Phil,—and yet every

time her big sister saw him she was sad afterward. Why? Socrate, too,

made Helia sad. She was in trouble when he went away. What had he been

saying to her? And Phil, especially, what had he been doing to her big

sister?

Helia raised her head. She was as worn out as after her most violent

efforts. The suffering calmed her revolted pride. Sœurette saw her lie

back in her chair and close her eyes as if to sleep. But Helia did not

sleep. During those moments she saw again her entire life—the gloomy

childhood in which she could count her happy days, and then her youth,

in which Phil had loved her. Had she acted wrongly? What had she done

that could displease him? Perhaps it was a mistake to keep on in her

trade; but how was she to live? Phil was to have taken her out of it,

and he had not done so. And she meanwhile had been so proud to be an

artiste, believing that she would become his equal, poor fool that

she had been! Yes, it must be that! Phil, the student, was her equal:

the Phil who was now tasting glory was not. Then that other young girl

had come, so beautiful and good and rich, everybody said; and surely

amiable, and smelling of violets!

“No! no! no! It is not possible!” Helia murmured as she sat upright

in her chair. “No! I know Phil—he is a man! If he had done that, he

would turn away his head when he sees me, or he would come to ask my

forgiveness on his knees. But after the oath which he had sworn me, to

act like that—without shame and without remorse—no! Socrate is lying!”

Sœurette said nothing. Her instinct told her that all this did not

concern her; that her business was to keep quiet, and that big sisters

have cares which she could not understand. But she saw that Helia was

in trouble, in great trouble; and Sœurette wished to see her full

of joy, as she had once been. Her good little heart had a touching

inspiration. She drew a mark across her letter and ended it up as

follows:

“Little Jesus, keep your playthings for the poor, but tell

Phil to be good to my big sister, who used to play all the

while and tell me stories. Make him to be not so wicked, for

she cries often when she speaks about him. I put my kiss here

for you, Little Jesus.”

And Sœurette did as she had seen Helia do: before slipping the letter

into the envelop she placed a kiss at the end of it, and made a circle

with her pen all around the spot.

CHAPTER VI

THE OLD, OLD STORY

An automobile, with Miss Rowrer’s brother Will conducting it himself,

was rolling slowly along. Will had just arrived from America, to rest

in France from the worries of business. He had bought for his sister

this magnificent “forty-horse-power” machine; and, with a chauffeur

to indicate the way for him, he had the pleasure of taking Ethel and

grandma for a ride through Paris. That day, on the seats behind him,

there were his sister and grandma, and, facing them, the Duke of

Morgania alone.

“Oh, there’s Monsieur Phil!” Miss Rowrer said, as the auto stopped at

a crossing thronged with hucksters and good-wives in morning undress.

“Good day, Monsieur Phil!”

Phil was on the sidewalk, two steps from Miss Rowrer. He was in his

studio dress, a short coat over his sweater. He had come out to buy

something and was going home with a package done up in paper in his

hand. Hearing his name, he raised his head, recognized Miss Rowrer,

bowed, and then approached in visible embarrassment. The vizor of his

cap ill concealed the eye which Socrate had chanced to blacken with his

fist the night before.

“Our friend Phil does his own marketing,” Ethel said, laughing. “He is

right. I’ve heard from the Hon. Mr. Charley that nothing is equal to a

good beefsteak as a plaster for a black eye.”

“Well, I suppose I must tell you,” said Phil, not wishing that Miss

Rowrer should think he had fought with a lamp-post. “This is how

it happened: I got it last night while punishing a rough fellow for

ill-treating a poor dog.”

“Really? Then get in here with us, I beg of you,” said Ethel.

Phil excused himself,—his dress, his black eye.

“You’re all right as you are,” Ethel replied. “You’ll really oblige me

by coming with us”—and she seated him beside the duke.

“Your dress doesn’t trouble us, since it pleases you,” she

continued. “Be yourself, and look out at the world from the neck of a

sweater—there’ll always be people enough to look loftily over a choker.

If I were a man I would always defend the weak and pay no attention to

the rest. You’re all right as you are, Monsieur Phil.”

[Illustration: “He approached in visible embarrassment”]

Phil listened to Ethel with intense satisfaction. The duke chatted

with grandma. The good-fellowship which he saw growing up between Miss

Rowrer and Phil did not bother him. It was only the ordinary relations

between an American girl and boy—only the friendship of fellow country

people. The duke had for Phil that distant regard which nobles by race

have for professionals. To handle a tool, even such as the painter’s

brush or sculptor’s chisel,—to do something with one’s hands, be it

even a masterpiece,—lowers a man somewhat in their consideration.

Consequently Phil might defend strong or weak, or dog-martyrs, if it

amused him—it was a matter of no importance. The duke gave himself

up to the noble occupation of a cicerone of mark, who knew his Paris

thoroughly; and, as they passed, he pointed out the monuments to

grandma.

Phil, on his side, talked with Ethel _en camarade_, as the duke

said. What a pleasure such talks were to him! Where were now his fine

resolutions no longer to make himself the champion of Miss Rowrer,

and even to stop seeing her? He drifted along under the charm of her

words. From the day when, in the duke’s company, he had first met her

at the Comtesse de Donjeon’s, he had become one of the faithful at

her tea-parties. He often went to the Rue Servandoni; and, after the

commission for the empress’s portrait and Ethel’s entrance as a pupil

in his studio, they had had the most friendly relations.

Phil told her stories from bohemia that amused her. He narrated his

adventures in the provinces, including the little Saint John, with

his arrival in Paris and his visit to Poufaille and Suzanne; the

“comrades,” and Socrate, and the Deux-Magots; his reception at the

studio; and the welcome on the model’s table; and many other things

besides. But he said little about Helia’s stay in Paris when he was

a student. For that matter, he thought of it seldom; his memory was a

mist concerning it—it all seemed so far away to him.

With what pity he recalled the environment in which he had lived!

There were all his chance friends. Suzanne, who was really good, and

skeptical only because she had seen too early the bad side of life.

Poufaille was too simple; to have made an intimate friend of him would

have been to tie a cannon-ball to one’s leg. Charley was too much of a

bluffer. As to Helia—ah, Helia! He was grateful to her from the bottom

of his heart for the simple love which he had once had for her—a love

whose remembrance had protected him all through his first years in

Paris. For him it had been a romance, without reproach, candid and

loyal, and not a passion that would follow him through life like a

remorse. His romance—Phil was sure of it—had nothing in it that was not

noble. Yes, Helia would always have a place apart in his heart; she

would be a sweet memory. Forever, all through his life, she would be

his friend and he would forever be a brother to her.

But time had passed. Helia herself had changed. He saw it clearly

during her visit to him in his studio on the morrow of the

Quat’z-Arts Ball. Ah, how far away were the days when she had been his

sweetheart—how many things had passed since then! Now Ethel ruled in

his life. He felt himself very little in her presence. For her he had

the same admiration which Helia once had for him.

Miss Rowrer was the first society girl whom he had known; for he

had led a solitary life in the Chesapeake manor, and in Europe his

over-timidity had always held him socially aloof. During his years as

a student he had neither opportunity nor leisure. It was only now that

he began to understand the charm of the social world. The instincts

of his good breeding were awakened. Life seemed beginning for him; he

felt like a man back from exile. Contact with Miss Rowrer refined him,

and even his art was idealized. It was no longer physical beauty alone

which attracted him: there was the moral side; for Ethel put character

far above talent, and the two together above everything else.

After this automobile ride which his black eye had earned for him,

others followed. Usually Will, the brother, was himself the conductor,

as a matter of prudence. That intoxication of speed which gives weak

minds the illusion of energy was unknown to him. Once, however, he got

into the auto with them and allowed the mechanician to take charge.

It was a day when Mme. de Grojean and Mlle. Yvonne, her daughter, had

accepted the invitation to take a ride with them. After that Mlle.

Yvonne and her mother returned to their province, so that the most part

of the time Ethel and grandma had the company only of the duke or Phil,

and now and then of M. Caracal.

They saw Auteuil and Chantilly, and took part in an automobile gymkhana

for polo at the Bois de Boulogne. At the Longchamps races Miss Rowrer,

like a great favorite, was the target of the field-glasses. It was

there she met Charley, faultlessly correct, having stripped himself

for the day of his bohemian clothes. Charley, who knew Ethel, passed in

vain near her again and again to have her recognize him.

The automobilists were seen everywhere from Versailles to Vincennes.

The trip around the world was too commonplace. They made the trip

around Paris, passing its fifty-seven gates, past its ten railways,

its two waterways, through its two forests and more than thirty

_quartiers_, which sum up the luxury and industries of all the cities

of the world—London at La Râpée, Chicago at La Villette, Antwerp at the

Canal de l’Ourcq.

At St. Denis Caracal gave them the history of what they were seeing.

He showed them the effigies of kings mutilated in the Revolution, at

the time when Choisy-le-Roi changed its name to Choisy-sur-Seine and

Montmorency to Etienne, since there were no longer kings or nobles—“two

things they would have done better to keep,” the duke observed.

“They would probably still be here if they had been worth keeping,”

answered Ethel.

They dined in a tree at Robinson and rode on donkeys at

Romainville. The outings of Parisians in villages with charming

names—Marne-la-Coquette, Fontenay-aux-Roses, Les Lilas—were pleasing to

Ethel.

“Space opens up ideas! You will find it so, Monsieur le Duc, and you

too, Phil, if you do us the pleasure to hunt the moose on our Canadian

lands. How free one feels there—not a hedge, not a barrier between us

and the north pole!”

Caracal, for his part, cared little about space. He regretted the days

when the Boulevard was the only promenade. Tramways and railroads

seemed to him high treason against Paris—something like an invasion

of the coarse air of fields and woods into the artistic atmosphere of

cafés.

“No, no!” Miss Rowrer answered. “Leave things as they are—a little pure

air does no harm.”

“To be sure!” said grandma.

Caracal refused to be consoled.

“If this goes on,” he said, “Paris will soon be Paris no longer—that

something indefinable and apart; that hothouse which has made us the

neurasthenic and dislocated skipjacks that we are.”

“Well, if that’s your manner of loving Paris!” Ethel said, laughing.

“Really, you see things worse than they are!”

Caracal, perceiving he was on the wrong tack, stopped short.

“Just the contrary, you ought to be glad for something that is worth

more than hygiene—moral health,” Miss Rowrer continued. “Why should

people stay piled together when there is so much empty space around?

Tempers are embittered and bodies weakened. Give it space and air

and your Paris will cease to be what you would wish it to remain—a

hothouse full of dislocated skipjacks and _neurasthéniques_—such as our

up-to-date people are, according to you.”

“That’s a good one on Caracal,” thought Phil to himself.

Will, who was not conducting the auto that day, interrupted Ethel. He

spoke little, but he thought and then went straight to the point.

“Let us pardon Frenchmen because of Frenchwomen,” he said.

“You are right, Will,” replied Ethel. “I admire Frenchwomen—they

seem so superior to the men; for among the men there are some so

mean. Think of Vieillecloche printing such outrageous things in his

newspaper! Really, in his place I should be ashamed of myself! Who is

Vieillecloche, anyway?”

“He’s a remarkable duelist,” answered Caracal. “There are already five

dead men in his trail.”

“What a coward!” said Ethel. “I would wager that if he were hit with a

check, he would apologize to us!”

“Oh, let him alone!” said Will. “He does us no harm—the barking dog

doesn’t bite.”

“He’s annoying, all the same.”

“If it were my own case I would silence him!” Caracal declared.

“But could you do it?” asked Ethel. “It would be very kind of you

to do so. I can’t go anywhere at all without hearing ‘Richard the

Lion-hearted’ with smiles all around me. It haunts me. It almost spoils

my stay in Paris. Can you rid me of it, Monsieur Caracal?”

“I shall do so!” declared Caracal.

“I thank you!” said Miss Rowrer.

Caracal had just had a bright thought. He knew his friend Vieillecloche

would do whatever he wished, since the blackmailing scheme against the

Rowrers had not succeeded and no check had come or would come to close

his mouth. It would be just as well to look for something else. Caracal

would have himself attacked—he would turn aside the storm to himself

by taking up the defense of foreigners, to the apparent indignation

of Vieillecloche. In this noble combat against calumny he would stand

forth as a hero in the eyes of Ethel, like a St. George slaying the

dragon. The duke and Phil would have to look out for themselves. He

would know how to cover them with ridicule—them and their Helia—in some

good little newspaper _chronique_, sweet as honey, which Ethel might

read. For that matter, Phil had already a shot in his wing—he would

find it out in a few days and remember his cow painting!

“I will arrange all that this evening with Vieillecloche,” thought

Caracal. “I shall be well able to pay for a service like that if I

marry Miss Ethel.” Then aloud: “I shall do so—you can count on me, Miss

Rowrer!”

All this was but one of a thousand incidents of their trips.

“I have heard of _le dernier salon où l’on cause_ [the last salon for

conversation],” Ethel remarked. “I suppose it has disappeared, it is

so long since people began talking about it. Well, our auto takes its

place—it is the first auto _où l’on cause_.”

“When one listens to you, Miss Rowrer, one can say that wit runs the

streets,” added Caracal, gallantly.

Every moment some new observation sprang, bringing out individual

character.

For instance, a cab passed them noisily, the horse pounding along the

street and the driver lashing him.

“What a noise!” Will said. “Why are people so obstinate with their

hippomobiles? Why not put rubber on the wheels first, and then on the

horses’ shoes?”

Will calculated the chances of a company to be organized for this

purpose—so many horses in Europe, so many horseshoes rubbered,

investment of capital so much, revenue so much.

“They are ’way behind,” said grandma. “What an idea, to be driven about

in such dust-boxes!”

“What a picture to make!” said Phil. “That horse just now reared under

the rein with a movement as superb as any of the Parthenon. Behind

him was that theatrical poster representing a woman with her hair

floating—with her and the horse you might imagine a troupe of Amazons

under the blue sky of Greece! Only artists can enjoy things. They know

how to see!”

“The poor beast has lost a shoe, and the collar wounds him and the

cabman lashes him,” Ethel interrupted. “Poor animal, it makes me ill to

see him!”

Phil thought to himself, “That is what I ought to have seen!”

Apart from these excursions, he gave to Miss Rowrer, also, whatever

leisure was left him by his great picture of Morgana. At her request,

he accompanied her with Will and grandma in their visits to museums and

to the shops where they wished to buy pictures of the masters for their

palace on the Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.

Will had first visited the artists’ studios, thinking he would find

there a world free from the atmosphere of business. But the landscape

man tried to get him away from the portrait-painter, and professional

jealousy showed its teeth. They tried to pass off their “old stock”

on him; they spoke only of money. “For such a price I will do so and

so.” “If it is larger it will be dearer.” “A landscape without trees is

worth so much—with trees, twice as much!”

“If I’ve got to talk business,” Will thought, “I’d rather do it with

business men”; and he left the artists alone.