IX.

In the respite which followed the dismissal of Andersen, the English

painter, Rose-Black, visited the Elmores as often as the servant, who

had orders in his case to say that they were _impediti_, failed of her

duty. They could not always escape him at the caffè, and they would have

left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had

driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances,

instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more

offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem;

he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the

London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of

his compatriots, that we were going to the dogs.

"What do you really make of him, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore, after an

evening that, in its improbable discomfort, had passed quite like a

nightmare.

"Well, I've been thinking a good deal about him. I have been wondering

if, in his phenomenal way, he is not a final expression of the national

genius,--the stupid contempt for the rights of others; the tacit denial

of the rights of any people who are at English mercy; the assumption

that the courtesies and decencies of life are for use exclusively

towards Englishmen."

This was in that embittered old war-time: we have since learned how

forbearing and generous and amiable Englishmen are; how they never take

advantage of any one they believe stronger than themselves, or fail in

consideration for those they imagine their superiors; how you have but

to show yourself successful in order to win their respect, and even

affection.

But for the present Mrs. Elmore replied to her husband's perverted

ideas, "Yes, it must be so," and she supported him in the ineffectual

experiment of deferential politeness, Christian charity, broad humanity,

and savage rudeness upon Rose-Black. It was all one to Rose-Black.

He took an air of serious protection towards Mrs. Elmore, and often gave

her advice, while he practised an easy gallantry with Lily, and ignored

Elmore altogether. His intimacy was superior to the accidents of their

moods, and their slights and snubs were accepted apparently as

interesting expressions of a civilization about which he was insatiably

curious, especially as regarded the relations of young people. There was

no mistaking the fact that Rose-Black in his way had fallen under the

spell which Elmore had learned to dread; but there was nothing to be

done, and he helplessly waited. He saw what must come; and one evening

it came, when Rose-Black, in more than usually offensive patronage,

lolled back upon the sofa at Miss Mayhew's side, and said, "About

flirtations, now, in America,--tell me something about flirtations.

We've heard so much about your American flirtations. We only have them

with married ladies, on the continent, and I don't suppose Mrs. Elmore

would think of one."

"I don't know what you mean," said Lily. "I don't know anything about

flirtations."

This seemed to amuse Rose-Black as an uncommonly fine piece of American

humor, which was then just beginning to make its way with the English.

"Oh, but come, now, you don't expect me to believe that, you know. If

you won't tell me, suppose you show me what an American flirtation is

like. Suppose we get up a flirtation. How should you begin?"

The girl rose with a more imposing air than Elmore could have imagined

of her stature; but almost any woman can be awful in emergencies. "I

should begin by bidding you good-evening," she answered, and swept out

of the room.

Elmore felt as if he had been left alone with a man mortally hurt in

combat, and were likely to be arrested for the deed. He gazed with

fascination upon Rose-Black, and wondered to see him stir, and at last

rise, and with some incoherent words to them, get himself away. He dared

not lift his gaze to the man's eyes, lest he should see there some

reflection of the pain that filled his own. He would have gone after

him, and tried to say something in condolence, but he was quite helpless

to move; and as he sat still, gazing at the door through which

Rose-Black disappeared, Mrs. Elmore said quietly:--

"Well, really, I think that ought to be the last of him. You see, she's

quite able to take care of herself when she knows her ground. You can't

say that she has thrown the brunt of this affair upon you, Owen."

"I am not so sure of that," sighed Elmore. "I think I suffer less when I

do it than when I see it. It's horrible."

"He deserved it, every bit," returned his wife.

"Oh, I dare say," Elmore granted. "But the sight even of justice isn't

pleasant, I find."

"I don't understand you, Owen. How can you care so much for this

impudent wretch's little snub, and yet be so indifferent about refusing

Captain Ehrhardt?"

"I'm not indifferent about it, my dear. I know that I did right, but I

don't know that I could do right under the same circumstances again."

In fact there were times when Elmore found almost insupportable the

absolute conclusion to which that business had come. It is hard to

believe that anything has come to an end in this world. For a time,

death itself leaves the ache of an unsatisfied expectation, as if

somehow the interrupted life must go on, and there is no change we make

or suffer which is not denied by the sensation of daily habit. If

Ehrhardt had really come back from the vague limbo to which he had been

so inexorably relegated, he might only have restored the original

situation in all its discomfort and apprehension; yet maintaining, as he

did, this perfect silence and absence, he established a hold upon

Elmore's imagination which deepened because he could not discuss the

matter frankly with his wife. He weakly feared to let her know what was

passing in his thoughts, lest some misconception of hers should turn

them into self-accusal or urge him to some attempt at the reparation

towards which he wavered. He really could have done nothing that would

not have made the matter worse, and he confined himself to speculating

upon the character and history of the man whom he knew only by the

incoherent hearsay of two excited women, and by the brief record of hope

and passion left in the notes which Lily treasured somewhere among the

archives of a young girl's triumphs. He had a morbid curiosity to see

these letters again, but he dared not ask for them; and indeed it would

have been an idle self-indulgence: he remembered them perfectly well.

Seeing Lily so indifferent, it was characteristic of him, in that safety

from consequences which he chiefly loved, that he should tacitly

constitute himself, in some sort, the champion of her rejected suitor,

whose pain he luxuriously fancied in all its different stages and

degrees. His indolent pity even developed into a sort of self-righteous

abhorrence of the girl's hardness. But this was wholly within himself,

and could work no sort of harm. If he never ventured to hint these

feelings to his wife, he was still further from confessing them to Lily;

but once he approached the subject with Hoskins in a well-guarded

generality relating to the different kinds of sensibility developed by

the European and American civilization. A recent suicide for love which

excited all Venice at that time--an Austrian officer hopelessly

attached to an Italian girl had shot himself--had suggested their talk,

and given fresh poignancy to the misgivings in Elmore's mind.

"Well," said Hoskins, "those Dutch are queer. They don't look at women

as respectfully as we do, and they mix up so much cabbage with their

romance that you don't know exactly how to take them; and yet here you

find this fellow suffering just as much as a white man because the

girl's folks won't let her have him. In fact, I don't know but he

suffered more than the average American citizen. I think we have a great

deal more common sense in our love-affairs. We respect women more than

any other people, and I think we show them more true politeness; we let

'em have their way more, and get their finger into the pie right along,

and it's right we should: but we don't make fools of ourselves about

them, as a general rule. We know they're awfully nice, and they know we

know it; and it's a perfectly understood thing all round. We've been

used to each other all our lives, and they're just as sensible as we

are. They like a fellow, when they do like him, about as well as any of

'em; but they know he's a man and a brother after all, and he's got ever

so much human nature in him. Well, now, I reckon one of these Dutch

chaps, the first time he gets a chance to speak with a pretty girl,

thinks he's got hold of a goddess, and I suppose the girl feels just so

about him. Why, it's natural they should,--they've never had any chance

to know any better, and your feelings _are_ apt to get the upper hand of

you, at such times, anyway. I don't blame 'em. One of 'em goes off and

shoots himself, and the other one feels as if she was never going to get

over it. Well, now, look at the way Miss Lily acted in that little

business of hers: one of these girls over here would have had her head

completely turned by that adventure; but when she couldn't see her way

exactly clear, she puts the case in your hands, and then stands by what

you do, as calm as a clock."

"It was a very perplexing thing. I did the best I knew," said Elmore.

"Why, of course you did," cried Hoskins, "and she sees that as well as

you or I do, and she stands by you accordingly. I tell you, that girl's

got a cool head."

In his soul Elmore ungratefully and inconsistently wished that her heart

were not equally cool; but he only said, "Yes, she is a good and

sensible girl. I hope the--the--other one is equally resigned."

"Oh, _he_'ll get along," answered Hoskins, with the indifference of one

man for the sufferings of another in such matters. We are able to offer

a brother very little comfort and scarcely any sympathy in those unhappy

affairs of the heart which move women to a pretty compassion for a

disappointed sister. A man in love is in no wise interesting to us for

that reason; and if he is unfortunate, we hope at the farthest that he

will have better luck next time. It is only here and there that a

sentimentalist like Elmore stops to pity him; and it is not certain that

even he would have sighed over Captain Ehrhardt if he had not been the

means of his disappointment. As it was, he came away, feeling that

doubtless Ehrhardt had "got along," and resolved at least to spend no

more unavailing regrets upon him.

The time passed very quietly now, and if it had not been for Hoskins,

the ladies must have found it dull. He had nothing to do, except as he

made himself occupation with his art, and he willingly bestowed on them

the leisure which Elmore could not find. They went everywhere with him,

and saw the city to advantage through his efforts. Doors, closed to

ordinary curiosity, opened to the magic of his card, and he showed a

pleasure in using such little privileges as his position gave him for

their amusement. He went upon errands for them; he was like a brother,

with something more than a brother's pliability; he came half the time

to breakfast with them, and was always welcome to all. He had the gift

of extracting comfort from the darkest news about the war; he was a

prophet of unfailing good to the Union cause, and in many hours of

despondency they willingly submitted to the authority of his greater

experience, and took heart again.

"I like your indomitable hopefulness, Hoskins," said Elmore, on one of

those occasions when the consul was turning defeat into victory.

"There's a streak of unconscious poetry in it, just as there is in your

taking up the subjects you do. I imagine that, so far as the judgment of

the world goes, our fortunes are at the lowest ebb just now--"

"Oh, the world is wrong!" interrupted the consul. "Those London papers

are all in the pay of the rebels."

"I mean that we have no sort of sympathy in Europe; and yet here you

are, embodying in your conception of 'Westward' the arrogant faith of

the days when our destiny seemed universal union and universal dominion.

There is something sublime to me in your treatment of such a work at

such a time. I think an Italian, for instance, if his country were

involved in a life and death struggle like this of ours, would have

expressed something of the anxiety and apprehension of the time in it;

but this conception of yours is as serenely undisturbed by the facts of

the war as if secession had taken place in another planet. There is

something Greek in that repose of feeling, triumphant over circumstance.

It is like the calm beauty which makes you forget the anguish of the

Laocoön."

"Is that so, Professor?" said Hoskins, blushing modestly, as an artist

often must in these days of creative criticism. He seemed to reflect

awhile before he added, "Well, I reckon you're partly right. If we ever

did go to smash, it would take us a whole generation to find it out. We

have all been raised to put so much dependence on Uncle Sam, that if the

old gentleman really did pass in his checks we should only think he was

lying low for a new deal. I never happened to think it out before, but

I'm pretty sure it's so."

"Your work wouldn't be worth half so much to me if you had 'thought it

out,'" said Elmore. "It's the unconsciousness of the faith that makes

its chief value, as I said before; and there is another thing about it

that interests and pleases me still more."

"What's that?" asked the sculptor.

"The instinctive way in which you have given the figure an entirely

American quality. There was something very familiar to me in it, the

first time you showed it, but I've only just been able to formulate my

impression: I see now that while the spirit of your conception is Greek,

you have given it, as you ought, the purest American expression. Your

'Westward' is no Hellenic goddess: she is a vivid and self-reliant

American girl."

At these words, Hoskins reddened deeply, and seemed not to know where to

look. Mrs. Elmore had the effect of escaping through the door into her

own room, and Miss Mayhew ran out upon the balcony. Hoskins followed

each in turn with a queer glance, and sat a moment in silence. Then he

said, "Well, I reckon I must be going," and went rather abruptly,

without offering to take leave of the ladies.

As soon as he was gone, Lily came in from the balcony, and whipped into

Mrs. Elmore's room, from which she flashed again in swift retreat to her

own, and was seen no more; and then Mrs. Elmore came back, with a

flushed face, to where her husband sat mystified.

"My dear," he said gravely, "I'm afraid you've hurt Mr. Hoskins's

feelings."

"Do you think so?" she asked; and then she burst into a wild cry of

laughter. "O, Owen, Owen! you will kill me yet!"

"Really," he replied with dignity, "I don't see any occasion in what I

said for this extraordinary behavior."

"Of course you don't, and that's just what makes the fun of it. So you

found something familiar in Mr. Hoskins's statue from the first, did

you?" she asked. "And you didn't notice anything particular in it?"

"Particular, particular?" he demanded, beginning to lose his patience at

this.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "couldn't you see that it was Lily, all over

again?"

Elmore laughed in turn. "Why, so it is; so it is! That accounts for

everything that puzzled me. I don't wonder my maunderings amused you. It

_was_ ridiculous, to be sure! When in the world did she give him the

sittings, and how did you manage to keep it from me so well?"

"Owen!" cried his wife, with terrible severity. "You don't think that

Lily would _let_ him put her into it?"

"Why, I supposed--I didn't know--I don't see how he could have done it

unless--"

"He did it without leave or license," said Mrs. Elmore. "We saw it all

along, but he never 'let on,' as he would say, about it, and we never

meant to say anything, of course."

"Then," replied Elmore, delighted with the fact, "it has been a purely

unconscious piece of cerebration."

"Cerebration!" exclaimed Mrs. Elmore, with more scorn than she knew how

to express. "I should think as much!"

"Well, I don't know," said Elmore, with the pique of a man who does not

care to be quite trampled under foot. "I don't see that the theory is so

very unphilosophical."

"Oh, not at all!" mocked his wife. "It's philosophical to the last

degree. Be as philosophical as you please, Owen; I shall love you still

the same." She came up to him where he sat, and twisting her arm round

his face, patronizingly kissed him on top of the head. Then she released

him, and left him with another burst of derision.