CHAPTER I.

ELLICE QUENTIN

_AND OTHER STORIES_

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE

AUTHOR OF 'GARTH' ETC.

_A NEW EDITION_

London

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

_PREFACE._

Conciseness, as distinguished from mere brevity, is a literary virtue;

and the novelist who can and will pack his stories into the smallest

space compatible with the adequate development of his idea, deserves

especially well of his readers. For he has a twofold temptation to

do otherwise. In the first place, diffuseness is easy to the writer;

it relieves him from the strain of too closely fixing his attention

upon the matter in hand; he may approach it gradually and tentatively,

and, as it were, teach himself what he wants to say by talking about

it. In the second place, the existing conditions of publication and

remuneration render it inadvisable, from a business point of view,

to aim at compactness; on the contrary, immediate profit is best

consulted by inflexibly diluting whatever idea may present itself,

into the largest bulk consistent with its remaining a recognisable

idea at all--or even, at a pinch, a little beyond this limit. Nor are

these the only objections that might be urged against short stories.

That novelist must be empty-headed indeed, who, in the course of a

thousand pages, does not occasionally generate something poignant and

effective; whereas, if he confine himself to fifty or a hundred, he may

conceivably escape the utterance of a single word worth listening to.

Again, the ordinary novel-reader, accustomed, in view of the shortness

of human life, to glance only at the heads and tails of paragraphs, and

to take the rest as read, may chance inadvertently to observe the same

practice with the short story; the consequence of which would be that

the most conscientiously condensed tale would appear the most vacuous

and insignificant.

Nevertheless, short story writing is a branch of the literary art

worth cultivating, if only to confirm the fact that many stories

which now appear long, would, if honestly written, turn out as short

as the shortest. It is not too much to say that nine-tenths of the

three-volume novels now published, if stripped of matter purely

superfluous and impertinent, would shrink into less than one-tenth

their present dimensions. The best hope for modern fictitious

literature, especially that written in the English language, lies in

the incontinent and unsparing application of the pruning-knife; not

only to relieve the increasing mental dyspepsia of readers, but to

discover to writers what their work is worth, when extricated from its

voluminous conventional wrappings.

The five stories comprised in the following pages were written, some

long ago, some recently, as the lack of homogeneity in their style

and conception sufficiently indicates. No writer who values his art

will permit himself to produce work which (at the time at least) he

would desire to see forgotten. As his mind grows, however, and his

experience widens, he constantly detects imperfections in that which

he had before deemed passable, and the impulse arises in him to blot

out or ignore everything anterior to what he now regards as his best

period. My critics would doubtless spare me the trouble of saying that

little harm would have resulted, in the present instance, had that

impulse been yielded to. But an author may, in some measure, justify

his soft-heartedness towards his offspring by pleading, first, that he

is not always the person best qualified to pronounce judgment on the

comparative merits of this or that child of his brain; and secondly,

that there is a faculty of youth as well as a faculty of maturity, and

that the former may occasionally evolve something which, though crude

in form, shall in substance be sounder than the products of later

years. It may furthermore be remarked that stories contributed (as all

of the present collection have been) to magazines, are liable, except

in special cases, to pass out of the author's control; whence it can

happen that material which he himself might feel inclined to reject,

may nevertheless make its appearance upon the responsibility of other

judges. It only remains for him in that case to hope that the public

will not see with his eyes.

LONDON: _August, 1880_.

CONTENTS.

ELLICE QUENTIN

THE COUNTESS'S RUBY

A LOVER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF

KILDHURM'S OAK

THE NEW ENDYMION

ELLICE QUENTIN.

I.

A man about thirty-four years of age was sitting a few years ago in his

bachelor rooms in one of the inns of court. It was a spring afternoon,

warm for the season; the window was open, and above the high-shouldered

brick buildings a glimpse of eastern sky appeared, with a pinkish flush

upon it, reflected from the sunset clouds in the opposite quarter of

the heavens. Through the window were also visible the boughs of a

tree upon which the bright green buds were beginning to unfold; and

a couple of sparrows were chirping to one another as they fluttered

from twig to twig. A muffled hush was in the air, peculiar to these

London enclosures, into which horses and vehicles seldom enter; the

roar of the great thoroughfare, though only a few rods distant, being

almost inaudible to the occupant of this quiet chamber; while the light

ticking of the clock upon the mantelpiece, and the twittering of the

birds, were both perceptible to him.

He sat heavily and motionlessly in his chair--a tall, powerfully-built

man with gloomy brow and a thick dark beard. In his right hand he

held an envelope, which had been torn open; but, after reading the

enclosure, he had mechanically put it back. The envelope bore the name

of Geoffrey Herne, in a woman's handwriting, and the London postmark.

About half an hour had gone by since Herne read the letter, during

which time he had been sitting as he was now, plunged in thought. His

meditations had not, however, been occupied all that time with the

subject of the letter; but certain passages in his past life had been

passing in review before his mind: passages in which Ellice Quentin

was the central figure. She was a slender girl when he first knew her,

looking taller than she was, with strange grey-green eyes, and a clear

but bright colour in her cheeks. Her face was very attractive to some

people, though it had no pretensions to regular beauty; the features

were delicately but oddly formed, indicating a refined and talented but

wayward and unaccountable nature. In her ordinary home life, and also

when she was in the company of those she did not like, she was silent,

repellent, and cold; but she not seldom in favouring circumstances

kindled into brilliance of talk and action; and there was a vein of

passion in her which was itself the secret of her frequent coldness.

Her lips, red as blood, were gracefully moulded and were perfectly

under her control; by subtle modulations she could render them

expressive of any emotion. Her figure was slight at this time, and

scarcely as fully developed as that of most girls of her age; but she

never made an ungainly movement, or fell into an awkward position; and

she had such a genius for costume that whatever she put on straightway

seemed to become an organic part of her. Her wrists were slender and

long, and her fingers tapered almost to a point: Geoffrey Herne had

felt their touch upon his face as soft as the thrill of delight that

at the same moment swept his heart. But that was not until many months

after their first meeting, which was unromantic enough; Mr. Quentin

having invited him to dinner to discuss some professional business

(Herne was a barrister). Ellice had treated him on this occasion with

undisguised superciliousness, somewhat to Herne's amusement at first;

for Mr. Quentin--an obese and ineffective elderly gentleman--though

he boasted of blue blood somewhere in his veins, was far from being

in a prosperous or dignified worldly condition; was very poor, in

fact, and thought of nothing but obtaining possession of some property

to which he had a very questionable claim. Meanwhile tradesmen used

to present their bills with annotations at the bottom, intimating a

desire more or less urgent to have them settled at once. Hereupon poor

Mr. Quentin would wince and splutter; but Ellice, leaning back in her

chair, with her hands folded on her lap, would meet his eye coldly

and narrowly, with a sarcastic smile curling one side of her lips.

Mr. Quentin would rather face a score of insolent creditors than that

little smile of his daughter's. For Ellice was a natural aristocrat

far more than an hereditary one--she was born for a life of luxury and

fastidious refinement, and her father could not help recollecting, at

these moments, that he had thrown away eighty thousand pounds of money

which should have been hers upon the turf; nor had he the consolation

of reflecting that Ellice was ignorant of this fact. Ignorant of

it! He sometimes shuddered to think how many facts discreditable to

him that cold, silent girl probably knew. She was not always silent

either; she could utter agonising remarks in a semi-jocose way. But

let us do the young lady justice. It was within Mr. Quentin's memory

that once, when he had returned home late at night, after a miserably

unsuccessful interview with his lawyers, and had let himself into the

house noiselessly with his latch-key, dreading to encounter Ellice's

unsympathetic look, he had suddenly felt two slender arms drawn tightly

about his neck in the darkness, and a hot and wet cheek pressed against

his own. At that the unfortunate man had broken into sobs; Ellice had

tried to soothe him, and sitting on his knee, with her head against his

shoulder, had spoken to him such words as he had not heard since he and

his dead wife were young. But after awhile she had fallen silent, and

in the midst of an incoherent monologue of his on the subject of his

wrongs and misadventures, she had risen abruptly and left him, with

only a curt good-night. She was a strange girl.

Geoffrey Herne's first impression of Ellice had not been particularly

favourable, and if she had behaved as most young ladies would have done

under the circumstances, he might probably have never bestowed a second

thought upon her. But her gratuitous arrogance, after amusing him for

awhile, began to pique him; and being possessed of an exceedingly keen

tongue and wit of his own, he was tempted to enter into conversation

with her. The dialogue which followed was probably worthy of a listener

more intelligent than Mr. Quentin; the upshot of it being (so far

as Herne was concerned) that he found it would require all his wit,

and more than all his temper, to hold his own fairly against this

oblique-eyed young lady, with her curving scarlet lips. They parted

that night on terms of almost open hostility, and Herne, as he went

homewards, more than once found his brows drawing together and his

lips compressed at the recollection of the things she had said to him.

'She is a lady, though--confound her impudence!' was the sum of his

mental comments. Her image was very vivid in his memory--unpleasantly

so, indeed; not only that, but the intonation of her voice--her way

of lifting back her head with a kind of haughty surprise when he

addressed her; the gesture of her hands and shoulders--all were present

to him. Moreover he recalled one or two instances in which she had

unmistakably had the better of him in the duel of words, and his face

grew hot anew with a really disproportionate vexation. He would rather

have made a fool of himself before the Lord Chief Justice of England

than before that slender girl of twenty. He then resolved that he

would avoid seeing her for the future; but he finally modified his

determination so far as to tell himself that he would first give her

such evidence of his superior qualities as should make her regret ever

having had the temerity to provoke him.

As it turned out, this was a much longer and more arduous enterprise

than he had anticipated; insomuch that after several months had

gone by he did not seem much nearer the consummation than at first.

The antagonism between him and Ellice had been--superficially, at

least--constant and unrelenting; but meanwhile he had incidentally come

to know her well, and he was too clear-sighted a man not to perceive

that she was beginning to be indispensable to him. The discovery

occasioned him much anxiety and inward struggle. His predilections

had for years been against marriage, and he certainly had little

encouragement to think that Ellice would ever dream of marrying him.

One day, however, after a peculiarly bitter passage-at-arms, he rose

and took up his hat to depart. He had something to say first, though,

which had been on his mind for a week or two past.

'You are going?' she said indifferently, or, rather, with an air as of

relief.

'Yes, I am going; and, as I shall probably not see you again, I will

say good-bye.'

'Oh! You have had enough of it at last?'

'I am going to Australia.'

She looked slowly up at him as he stood near her chair, and looked

slowly down again, while the colour gradually deepened in her cheeks.

'This is really the most entertaining thing I have heard from you in a

long time,' she said lightly after awhile.

'It is the part of wisdom not to outstay one's best witticism,'

returned Geoffrey in the same tone; 'so I'll be off at once. Good-bye.'

He held out his hand.

'Good-bye,' she answered coldly. But she did not look up, or move her

own hand.

'You won't shake hands?'

'What is the use, since we are never to meet again? If you are going,

you can go without that.'

'Well, I suppose I can,' said he; and after standing a moment, during

which she made no sign except to draw one deep breath, he turned and

walked with a heavy tread to the door.

'Mr. Herne!' he heard her say as he laid his hand upon the latch. He

looked round without speaking. She beckoned him to her with a movement

of the head and hand.

'Excuse me,' she said, 'but I think you--you have left something. Will

you come back here a moment?' There was a vibration in her voice that

was new to Geoffrey. He came back.

'You were going away without shaking hands,' she said, looking up at

him with a curious smile.

'You said that----'

'Oh, well, don't let us quarrel any more; I am tired of it. Here is my

hand.'

Geoffrey took it. How soft it was--and how cold! It lay lightly in the

embrace of his fingers, but he could perceive a slight tremulousness in

it, which seemed also to pervade her whole body.

'You spoke of my having left something----' he began at length.

Her hand suddenly became alive in his, and grasped it tightly. She

drew it to her cheek, that was as smooth as the petal of a lily; then

slowly turned her face until her lips rested on it. All the blood flew

tumultuously through Geoffrey's veins and sang in his ears. He was

on his knee beside her, and looking in her eyes, which met his for a

moment, and then sank.

'Now go to Australia!' she said in a whisper.

'Ellice--Ellice! Were you the thing I was leaving behind, my dear?' he

said, bending forwards till his lips touched hers.... After that there

could be no more misunderstandings.

Geoffrey Herne did not go to Australia, either alone, as he had

arranged to do, or with Ellice as his wife, as he perhaps might have

done; for at this time she would have followed him anywhere in the

world--or out of it. But it was decided that they should remain in

England, where Geoffrey had good practice as a barrister, in addition

to his settled income of six hundred pounds, and be married in

May--that is, in about six months. Mr. Quentin put on a portentous

aspect when he was first informed of the affair, protruding his under

lip and rubbing slowly behind his ear with his middle finger. He sighed

and muttered something about having once anticipated a 'more brilliant

future--no offence to you, Herne, of course--for his dear Ellice.' But

as a matter of fact he was by no means averse to the match, if he had

not actually done what he could to promote it. There is apt to be a

good deal of humbug inwoven in the characters of elderly men who have

seen better days and are not resigned to worse ones. Geoffrey perceived

that Mr. Quentin desired to make a merit of doing what really was

pleasing to him; and it was not in an expectant son-in-law's heart to

object to that. So matters on that side went smoothly.

To make the same remark regarding his relations with Ellice would be

a triumph of understatement. These two found heaven in each other. 'I

was made to love and to be loved,' she once said to him, as they sat

together in the little parlour on Christmas Eve. 'Be sure you make me

love you enough!'

'If you had told me to be sure to love you enough----'

She smiled and said, 'Never mind about that: that will be my affair.

But I must love so as to forget everything!' He was sitting on a low

stool at her feet, his head leaning against her side. She let one arm

fall about his neck, and her soft hand caressed his bearded cheek. 'As

I love you at this moment,' she continued, in a tender murmur.

He took her hand in his and kissed the soft palm. 'What is it you wish

to forget?' he asked presently.

'To tell you would be to remember.'

'But I wish to know.'

'I am not your wife yet: I shall not tell you.... I wish to forget that

I have only three dresses, and that you are not the eldest son of an

earl.'

Geoffrey leant back his head till he could see her face, and laughed.

'Don't! Worse things have happened,' she said quickly.

'Worse than what?'

'Nothing. Do you think me beautiful?'

'I love you too much to know whether you are beautiful or not. I used

to think you were beautiful some time ago, I believe.'

'You do not know what I can be yet. Loving you will make me seem

beautiful--even to you!'

'Is that why you want to love me?'

'I don't know. It suits me. I wanted it. I wanted many things, but that

most--at least now. Don't you sometimes think it would be wise to die?'

'I haven't thought so since I thought of going to Australia.'

'That isn't what I meant. This is a heavenly happiness; there cannot be

another so good; and yet I ... we might try others. Sometimes I feel as

if all the world would be too little for me.'

'I shall never want any other kind of happiness; I shall only want

more of this kind,' remarked Geoffrey, who did not know that Ellice

was opening to him deeper glimpses of her inner self than anyone--than

even she herself--had ever before been in the way of getting. He did

not know, and therefore, in the security of his well-being, he did not

look. But long afterwards he understood.

The weeks and the months went by, and the lives of the lovers grew to

be more than ever one delicious life. Ellice's prophecy proved true:

she did become more beautiful, in every way. Her moods, her silences,

her coldness, were gone; she was even-tempered, blithe and tender; her

singular eyes glowed with luxurious light; the curving of her lips was

eloquent of refined enticement.

'Did any woman ever love as I do?' she sometimes asked. 'Do I overflow

your heart?'

Geoffrey could have but one answer to such questions; and then she

would add, 'This is my world, darling; keep me in it!' When they parted

in the evening she would whisper to him, 'I do not like to have you

leave me; something might happen....' And Geoffrey, as he made his

nightly way back to London from the little Putney villa, would image

his coming married life in bright colours upon the darkness, and smile

to himself at what he took to be Ellice's wayward or superstitious

forebodings. 'I am not going to be one of those sentimental dastards

who are afraid of their own good luck,' he said comfortably to himself.

'Ellice is in the unsubstantial idealism of love as yet; when we really

come together she will forget her premonitions. Earthquakes do not

seek people out merely because they are happy; and it would be more

reasonable to suppose that those persons attract the lightning into

whose souls the iron has already entered. Ha! that is rather a neat

figure. I think that would be a good subject for a sonnet.'

This last observation will enable the reader to comprehend how

hopelessly in love Geoffrey must have been. But he was not even

embarrassed at his condition; he prided himself on it, as if no one

had ever thoroughly sounded the depths of the master passion before

him. No; neither poetry, romance, nor history were able to furnish

him with a parallel to his love; he had practically invented it. 'Not

that I take any credit to myself for that,' he would protest modestly

to solitude; 'no doubt there have been plenty of fellows who had as

much capacity for love as I--or nearly as much. But then I always have

the advantage of them in this--that I love Ellice! and that is enough

to make a Titan out of a pigmy.' In short, Geoffrey was well content,

and convinced that the universe must have been after all created by a

personal and benevolent God; though in his former days he had shared

the doubts of the late Mr. Mill and others on that subject. He even

found latent charms in poor old Mr. Quentin, who was the father of

all fascination, and must therefore have it in him somewhere. Mr.

Quentin talked about his 'claim' after dinner, with a sort of sapient

vapidity of tone and phrase; and pointed out to Geoffrey how probable

it was, after all, that his long-baffled hopes would be realised.

Geoffrey said that no doubt it was probable enough. He was thinking of

Ellice, and arguing that a world which could produce her could surely

produce so comparatively contemptible a miracle as the success of Mr.

Quentin's suit. It would be little less than a miracle if it occurred.

Geoffrey, who, from friendly motives, had at one time investigated

the matter almost as thoroughly as a solicitor could have done, knew

enough about it to know that. Nevertheless, he now, in the opulence

of his felicity, agreed with Mr. Quentin, that all might turn out as

he wished. Mr. Quentin, who had great faith in the judgments of those

who agreed with him, mentioned what Geoffrey had said to Ellice the

next morning. Ellice, who was lifting spoonfuls of coffee from her cup

and letting them trickle back again, replaced her spoon quietly in the

saucer on hearing this, and became meditative, with chin on hand and

downcast eyes.

'What would you do if you got this property, father?' she enquired

after a while.

'Take you up to London, and present you to our gracious Sovereign,

and let you mingle among those to whose rank in life you were born,'

replied he eloquently. 'As for myself,' he continued, lifting up his

double chin and settling his stock, 'I shall--should enter Parliament

and--and----'

'Give the State the benefit of your experience of unpaid tradesmen's

bills,' interposed Ellice sarcastically. It was the old tone, unused

by her since her betrothal; but a change seemed all at once to have

come over her. Her father's under lip fell, and he stared at her in a

piteously crest-fallen way. She pushed back her chair from the table,

folded her arms, and gazed intently at the fire. The silence lasted

some time. At length she said slowly, still keeping her eyes on the

fire, 'I hope, for both our sakes, you will never get it.'

'For both our sakes----?' began Mr. Quentin, with a remonstrative

emphasis on 'both'; but his daughter again interrupted him.

'When I say "both," I do not mean myself and you. But what absurdity

it all is!' she broke off with a short mocking laugh. 'I might as well

hope that the Queen will not come out here this afternoon, and take a

cup of tea with us.'

'Well, I must say, Ellice, that I don't understand all this,' exclaimed

Mr. Quentin, clearing his throat and pulling down his waistcoat with

the air of a man who feels he has been unfairly attacked. 'If you

care nothing for ease and dignity yourself, that is no reason why you

should grudge your father the means of--hm--comfort and consideration

appropriate to advancing years. And hereafter, when I am gone----'

Ellice put up her hand, and a curious smile crossed her lips. 'You

are too imaginative, father,' she said, in a quiet, but no longer

antagonistic, voice. 'I am very matter-of-fact, and I can see that if

what you wish came to pass, it would be the ruin of my happiness. And

I daresay you remember that when I am not in a good humour I am not

pleasant company. For heaven's sake do not let us mention this foolish

subject any more.'

She got up and went out of the room; and Mr. Quentin, after standing

for several minutes with his back to the fire, now putting his hands

beneath his coat tails, now thrusting them in his pockets, and now

inserting his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat in the jerky

manner of one whose composure and self-esteem have been exasperated,

pulled from his breast-pocket a large leather-covered memorandum-book,

opened it, and applied his thick nose diligently to its contents. After

a prolonged investigation, he closed it, and ejaculating 'Fifteen

thousand a year! and got by a fluke! Why mayn't a fluke transfer it

to me?--and then, I fancy, I should see my way to a better match for

Ellice than this affair with Herne,'--he buttoned his coat, took a

cheroot from the stand on the mantelpiece, lit it, sighed, and walked

out.

It is always a question whether, after all our efforts, calculations,

and precautions, the issue of events does not remain precisely as

much beyond prediction as would have been the case had we forborne to

disquiet ourselves. One grey, moist morning, towards the end of May,

and about three weeks before the predicted wedding-day, Ellice was

walking along one of the suburban roads that lead towards London, in

a state of unusual excitement. Her eyes were fixed in preoccupation,

her colour was high, and her lips occasionally moved, as if under the

influence of vivid thought. Presently the figure of Herne appeared

coming along in the opposite direction at his customary long, measured

stride. It was his habit when he took a holiday to walk out from London

to the Quentins' villa in Putney; and Ellice had expected to meet

him. To Geoffrey, however, the encounter was an unlooked-for pleasure;

and when he recognised Ellice from afar, he began to make gestures

expressive of satisfaction. He did not notice that she made no response

to them.

When they met he took her hand and kissed it. The road was only half a

country one; several houses were within sight, and he probably thought

that a warmer greeting would be open to objection. But Ellice raised

her eyes to his with a curiously intent look, in which there was a

subtly enlightening expression, readable only to a lover, and which

informed Geoffrey that he might follow the dictate of his heart. He was

not the man to neglect such a permission, and he stooped and kissed her

lips. At the same time he apprehended that some wheel or other must

be out of gear: women are seldom heedless of conventionality if their

minds are serene.

'Have you come to carry me home with you?' he asked jocosely.

'Let us walk towards London,' answered Ellice, slipping her hand

through his arm and causing him to turn. 'I am not going to be at home

to-day.'

'Where shall we go, then?'

'Anywhere! I don't care where. To London.'

'By all means. But then there is no necessity for walking. The train

will be quicker.'

'No; I prefer to walk--for the present,' said Ellice, speaking quickly

and nervously, and pressing her companion's arm between her hands.

'And how long may we be away?'

'I never wish to go back!'

Geoffrey's face suddenly became grave. Her tone and her whole manner

now confirmed him in his first suspicion--that something was wrong. He

glanced down at Ellice, rapidly passing in mental review all probable

or possible causes of the difficulty. At length he said:

'Have you had a row with your father?'

'Yes--no; that is no matter. I want to talk only about ourselves. Do

you love me?'

'If we are going to talk about that, it will take some time. One day is

not long enough for me to tell you how much I love you.'

'Do you love me enough to do anything for me, or with me?' She moved

her free hand down his sleeve to his hand, and repeated, 'Anything?'

'I love you: there is no stronger word or thing that I know of,'

replied Geoffrey, feeling, indeed, an immense gush of tenderness in his

heart, which his anxiety deepened.

She made no immediate answer, but Geoffrey felt that she was full of

restrained excitement, and he insensibly prepared himself for some kind

of shock. In this short space he recognised that there might be much

in Ellice which he had never known or comprehended.

'But there are so many things in the world!' she broke out suddenly

and vehemently. 'Why are they there unless we were meant to have some

relation to them? Wealth, and society, and power, and fame; to be able

to go where you like and do what you will; to carry out all that is in

your mind, without any hindrance from mean and contemptible obstacles

that degrade you as well as imprison you! How can one even love with

one's whole heart if all those things are wanting? Are you sure you

could, Geoffrey?'

'I don't expect to have perfection in everything,' replied he,

beginning to feel relieved; 'but the question is, whether all these

things you speak of are better worth having than love. Of course, it

would be pleasant to have both; but, as a matter of fact, most people

seem to get either the one or the other, and not both--except those

poor devils who get neither.'

'Oh, I know it--I know it. That is perfectly true, though I don't know

why it should be so--I don't think it ought to be so.' She relinquished

his arm, and began feverishly to pull off her gloves. 'It is hateful to

have to choose,' she added.

'Luckily, we are spared that pain, at all events,' remarked Geoffrey

with a smile.

Ellice stopped in her walk, and turning a little towards him, looked at

him attentively. She had the air of mentally putting some alternative

before herself, and deciding which course she would pursue. She then

walked on more slowly, with her eyes downcast.

'One thinks what one would do in such and such a case, even when it

does not actually come to pass,' she said. 'A great fortune is a great

thing--it is something real. Suppose you had to choose between a great

fortune and me?'

'It would be choosing between a great fortune and a greater. Of

course I should take the greater,' returned Geoffrey, feeling a

certain intellectual satisfaction in his answer. But Ellice pressed

her scarlet lips together, as if rejecting any merely complimentary

or epigrammatical evasion of her enquiry. She was, in fact, more in

earnest than he was, because he had come to the conclusion that she

was merely disquieting herself, as women sometimes will, about an

imaginary, not to say impossible, contingency. The best way to treat

such conduct was to laugh at it.

'But you are a man,' she resumed presently, 'and it would be different

with you, because when a man has not got a fortune, he always thinks he

can make one. But if you were a woman?'

'In that case I should get the man to decide for me.'

She came close to his side and once more took his arm. 'Yes,' she

said, speaking rapidly, 'yes, to feel that a thing is done and cannot

be undone. It is so terrible to wait, Geoffrey; something might

happen--you might die, or----Geoffrey, I wish it were done.'

'You wish what were done?' demanded he, looking down at her, while his

heart gave a bound.

She made no other reply than to meet his eyes intently, the colour

gradually overspreading her face.

'That we were married?' he asked at length, in a low tone.

She gave a sudden sigh; then a smile trembled across her lips for a

moment, but without affecting the earnestness of her brow.

'Then something has happened?' said Geoffrey, heavily and gravely.

'Tell me.'

'I have told you. What more can I say? I am afraid: I want to be safe!'

'I would have married you six months ago if you would have had me,'

said Geoffrey, almost coldly; for he dreaded lest passion should hurry

him on to do something which, while for the moment satisfying Ellice,

might in the end lead her to reproach him. It was difficult to think

clearly at such a juncture, and yet something must be thought and said

at once, for no lover can endure to seem in need of stimulus from his

mistress. 'Does your father know of this?' he asked.

'No; he would prevent it,' she answered excitedly. 'Geoffrey, do not

stop to think whether this is wise or foolish. Do not ask me.... We are

together. This is the time.'

'But unless we have a special licence--and that is impossible!'

'Impossible?'

'Ellice--you are not of age.'

She turned very pale, and slowly let go his arm. 'You should not have

thought of that--you do not love me.' She turned away, and her hands

fell to her sides.

Geoffrey made no reply; for, man of the world and strong though he was,

he was trembling all over, and could not trust his voice to speak.

'Good-bye,' said Ellice presently, still keeping her face averted.

'Look at me, my girl!' he exclaimed, taking hold of her wrist: and

at his touch she did look up at him for a moment with a singular

expression, half wayward and half winning, which he remembered vividly

for a long time afterwards. He continued: 'We cannot break the law. If

we love each other we can marry in three weeks----'

She raised her other hand quickly, and he stopped. After a pause she

said, 'Geoffrey, look at me--look in my eyes, dear. I love you--not in

three weeks, but--now.'

The tone in which the words were spoken made Geoffrey feel as if

his ordinary life were taken away from him, and a new, perverted,

delirious life put in its place. Instinctively, he sought self-defence

in incredulity; but it was in vain--there was no mistaking what her

eyes said, whatever construction might be forced upon her words. For

an instant, a fire sprang up in his own eyes; but then, with a savage

effort of the will, he dropped her wrist and said huskily:

'No!'

'Well, it is fate!' returned Ellice with a light sigh. Presently

she bit her lip, and gave a little laugh. 'How seriously we have

been taking things: anybody would suppose that we--meant something.

Good-bye, Geoffrey.'

'What do you mean by good-bye?'

'Nothing; only that I am going home, and that you are not to come

with me. Oh, you need not look solemn, or angry. But I must go alone,

really.'

'What----'

'And I will write to you to-morrow, and tell you why. Good-bye; we must

not do more than shake hands on this street corner, with that chemist's

shop opposite, and the waggon coming along. Good-bye until to-morrow.'

'This is strange!' was all that Geoffrey could mutter. She went away

from him, walking lightly and swiftly, turning her head towards the

right or the left occasionally, but never looking back. Presently he

saw something fall from her dress and flutter to the ground without her

noticing it; and after she had passed out of sight he walked slowly to

it, and picked it up. It was a little black bow. Geoffrey pinned it

inside his coat. The next day he received the following letter:

'You were quite right, Geoffrey, and I thank you. But I am going

to make you hate me and despise me even more than you did then. We

shall not marry in three weeks, or ever. It is better so. I suppose

I was destined to experience both--the love of the world as well

as your love; to try them both, I mean. I daresay I should never

have been contented else. I am a strange girl, as I have told you

before. It seems to me I have loved you as much as a woman can ever

love a man; and if yesterday--never mind, we will forget that. I

have not changed either, only that somehow yesterday seems ages

away from me. I do not understand myself, and I don't think I want

to. Perhaps marriage would not have come up to my ideal of it; and

I could not have borne to be disappointed in it--with you. Perhaps

I have had the sweetest that love can give. The other cannot be so

sweet, I know; but I must try it, too. It is fate!

'ELLICE.

'The person with whom we have been having the lawsuit about the

property died last week, and left the property to us, on condition that

I married his nephew.'

And at the bottom of the page was added: 'Do not hate me always.'

Geoffrey Herne took this shock with a serenity that surprised himself.

Indeed, he got so far as to say, after a few days, that he was glad

it had turned out so. Of course he never answered the letter, and he

never spoke to anyone of the episode of his engagement to Miss Quentin.

It had been known to but few of Herne's acquaintances; and if they

learnt the sequel they were all too considerate, or too cautious, to

discuss the matter with him, or in his presence. To tell the truth, he

was not a very genial companion. He had always had a biting tongue,

and now it had become almost venomous. Whenever he saw an opening for

saying a cruel witty thing, he said it unhesitatingly, and without

compunction, no matter if it were at the expense of his dearest friend.

'I must have my little joke,' he would reply if any remonstrance were

attempted. The men in his club began to fight rather shy of him; no

one could get the better of him in repartee, and he was noted for

never forgetting or forgiving a slight or an ill-turn, even if it

were unintentional. 'Herne will have his revenge if he waits a year

for it,' used to be said of him in reference to such affairs. It was

worth nobody's while to be his enemy, and nobody knew how to be his

friend. He saw very little of society; but he worked with vigour at his

profession, and every month added to his reputation as a barrister. 'He

will be Q.C. before he's forty if he keeps on,' was prophesied of him

by a certain learned judge, not given to reckless predictions. It was

evident, therefore, that his love-disappointment had done him no harm.

One day, contrary to his usual custom, he accepted an invitation to

a garden-party at Lady Feuilleton's suburban villa. It was a gentle

June afternoon, a year and a month after his last interview with Ellice

Quentin. A broad rectangular lawn, soft and deep to the foot, was

surrounded with tall limes and elms, whose voluminous leafiness cast

grateful shadows athwart the turf. Beneath the trees a path lay in

sunshine-fretted gloom. The house, with its balcony and open windows,

stood at one end of the lawn; at the opposite end a marquee had been

set up; a large sheet of canvas had moreover been pinned down upon an

area of the level turf as a dancing floor. Chairs of designs more or

less fantastic were placed in straggling groups along the shady side of

the lawn, and these were occupied by men and women in summer attire--it

was very warm--and bright-coloured parasols and fans made the scene

lively as well as lovely. When the music began the charm was complete.

Geoffrey Herne, however, appeared to feel particularly morose, and

spoke in a tone which, though punctiliously courteous, had a covert

sneer underneath it. In reality, he was perhaps not morose; on the

contrary, he may have felt a piteous forlornness at the heart, of

which he was ashamed, and which he desired to conceal. His hostess,

a vivacious, Parisian-looking little lady, was paying him special

attention, and chatted to him inveterately. At last Herne said he must

go home; Lady Feuilleton expostulated volubly, and ended by proposing

that he should accompany her into the house, and drink a glass of iced

claret-punch with her. Herne thought that would be as good a way as any

of preparing his escape, and therefore he complied. They entered the

parlour arm-in-arm. The change from sunlight to gloom rendered objects

almost undistinguishable, and Geoffrey tripped over something which

turned out to be the skirt of a lady's dress, and he made his apologies

without discerning the features of the lady to whom he was making them.

She had been sitting down--she rose hurriedly, but said nothing in

reply.

'Have you come for a freshener, too, Lady Feuilleton?' said a man's

voice, which, for some reason, immediately inspired Geoffrey with a

feeling of aversion and contempt.

'Who are you, pray?--Why, Mr. Amidon, I declare!' exclaimed the

hostess. 'And who is this with you? surely not your wife?'

'Incredible, but true!' replied the other, with a short cackling laugh.

'Dear me! what is society coming to! I'm so delighted--so good of you

to come. How do you do, dear? Oh! and let me introduce my friend Mr.

Geoffrey Herne--Mrs. Amidon. You ought to get on capitally together;

you are both so sarcastic! We came to get some iced punch: have you had

any? Well, you must join us. Dear me! Mr. Herne, can you lift that

jug? it's so heavy. Just a glass all round, and then I must run back to

my guests. What a lovely dress, dear!'

'Capital punch, upon my soul!' said Mr. Amidon, as he set down his

emptied glass. He and Lady Feuilleton chatted together for a minute

or two, laughing and fencing. He was a youngish-looking man, with a

flaxen moustache and pale grey eyes, rather red round the edges. His

complexion was not good, and when he laughed his chin retreated towards

his throat and he twisted his shoulders. Geoffrey stood looking at him

in silence. Mrs. Amidon had again sat down in a chair beside the table

and was fanning herself. Presently Mr. Amidon expressed an intention

of accompanying Lady Feuilleton back to the garden, and they went

out, leaving Mrs. Amidon and Geoffrey to 'become acquainted,' as Lady

Feuilleton put it. When they were gone, Mrs. Amidon closed her fan and

looked up.

'Will you sit down by me for a moment, Geoffrey?' she said.

'Of course you understand, Mrs. Amidon,' said he, 'that I should not

have come here if I had expected to meet you.'

'Then I am glad you did not know. I have wanted to meet you and talk

with you. And, after all, that proves me to be charitable; for people

generally dislike and avoid those whom they have injured.'

'Without calling your charity into question, Mrs. Amidon,' said

Geoffrey, 'I may be permitted to relieve you from the burden of

supposing that you have injured me. I should put it upon another

ground--that we are apt to shun those who have benefited us. In an

indirect way I may have benefited you, by keeping you occupied until

Mr. Amidon was ready to come forward.'

She was looking at him while he spoke with her head a little on one

side, her scarlet lips occasionally moving slightly. Now her eyelids

drooped, and she sighed.

'I have looked forward to this meeting often,' she said, 'and I was

prepared to hear you say worse things than that. Perhaps, after all,

you have not cared so much as I thought you would. I have no heart to

fight with you, Geoffrey, as we used to fight in----'

She paused. Her persistence in calling him Geoffrey produced an effect

upon him. The sound penetrated far into him, and set vibrating chords

which long neglect had scarcely rendered less sensitive. He was further

disturbed by her not attempting to defend herself: not that anything

could make her conduct defensible, but the blow that provokes no

return loses half its virtue to the striker. And, finally, it must

be confessed that her aspect and propinquity were not without their

influence. She was more fully developed, more beautiful than when he

saw her last; and there were slight modifications in her manner and

expression which were on the side of gentleness and sadness, and which

moved Geoffrey to unwilling sympathy. Perhaps she had suffered enough

to conciliate even his resentment.

'What do you think of Mr. Amidon?' she enquired presently.

'I have not had much opportunity of judging; but I should think,'

said Geoffrey, with diminishing bitterness, 'that he would be a very

suitable husband for you.' It struck him as peculiar that Ellice, in

spite of her culpability towards himself, did not shrink from meeting

his eyes, or from introducing topics of conversation which might have

been supposed at least as unwelcome to her as to him. But hers had

always been a strange and unaccountable character.

She opened and closed her fan, glanced out of the window towards the

sunlit lawn, then back at him, and said: 'Do you want to--leave me?'

A minute before Geoffrey had fancied that he did wish to leave her;

now, for some reason, he changed his mind, and dropped into a chair

opposite her.

'What do you want of me?' he asked.

'Do I look the same to you as when you saw me last?'

'You look better than you did then--handsomer--and you are more

expensively dressed. And, of course, the fact that you are one of the

leaders and ornaments of society has its effect upon me.'

'Geoffrey, it may not be often that we come across each other again;

why should we hold masks before our faces? We have been intimate. You

have not forgiven me for leaving you. You have said to yourself, "If

she had loved me she would have given up the world for me"; and so you

concluded that I was a hypocrite from the beginning. But if I had been

a hypocrite, I would have married you; or I would never have let you

know that I loved you.'

'Probably I don't understand you--and never did.'

'No man ever was your rival, Geoffrey; the world was your rival; but

yet you should not be jealous; because, though it drew me irresistibly,

it never drew that best part of me that was yours. I could not have

lived without the world--without longing for it; and I could not live

with the world without longing for----Forgive me!'

'Take care what you say now, Ellice! You touch fire!' exclaimed

Geoffrey in a suppressed growl, with a glow kindling under his gloomy

brows.

She rose quickly from her chair, moved close to him, and laid her hand

upon his.

'Burn me, then!' she answered, with a strange, tragic smile. And

while they confronted each other, she continued: 'My sin was that I

preferred living falsely with the world, to living falsely with you.'

'You made the world a bad place for me,' returned Geoffrey; but his

tone was no longer stern, and his hand now held hers. 'I had but one

love, unfortunately, and that was yours. But you have a husband.'

'I have a name,' she answered carelessly, 'which I wear as I wear this

hat, because it is the fashion. Only the one is called a husband and

the other a hat.'

'That is not the whole of it. You can change your hat to-morrow; but

there is only one way for a woman to get rid of a husband.'

'What difference about him, Geoffrey, if you will be my friend?'

'Your friend?' he repeated sharply, dropping her hand.

'Oh, do not be angry again!... no, no, not that! do not ask me to do

that!... I am not so selfish, nor so wicked, Geoffrey, as to wish you

to--to give up your life to what has not, after all, been wholly yours.

I am not worth that. I only ask that you should be my friend. Help me

to live so as to respect myself. What can I say? I know that what is

past cannot be recalled; you can never feel towards me as you might

have done if--if I had been less weak. But I am so lonely; I hoped you

could----'

'No: that won't do! nothing like that,' interrupted Geoffrey in a heavy

voice. 'I am not a monster of virtue and self-restraint, Ellice: and

I'm not a cur either. Do you suppose your husband would fall in with

this arrangement. And do you suppose that I would condescend to sneak

about his premises, having a secret understanding with his wife--secret

from him? It is true enough that there can no longer be a fresh and

pure love between you and me; but there can be no friendship--because,

for good or evil, I love you still! I can commit a crime, but I will

tell no lie, nor live one. Everything must be open and above board

between us and the world, or there must be nothing at all.'

'Oh, Geoffrey, this is terrible!' murmured Ellice, letting her folded

hands hang before her. In fact, she had not anticipated his attitude;

she was a woman who wanted much, but who was not, perhaps, willing

to go all lengths in order to get it. At the same time she could not

help admiring what he had said and liking him all the better for it;

and she certainly did not admire Mr. Amidon, or passionately like the

fashionable life which they led, and of which she had seen enough

clearly to comprehend its limitations. Nevertheless, a woman who has

achieved a position before the world will hesitate profoundly before

abandoning outward conventionality for avowed outlawry. Compromises

are more convenient. But how if a stubborn man persists in refusing to

stoop to compromise? The compromise was in itself reasonable in the

highest degree, if not also in the highest degree moral; but that

evidently made no impression on Geoffrey.

There was a sound of voices and laughter approaching the open window;

Lady Feuilleton and Mr. Amidon were coming back from the lawn. Ellice

took up her fan nervously, and passed a hand over her hair. She had

been able to entertain such reflections as the above, while the man

with whose soul she had played fast and loose was standing, as it were,

with the sword at his heart. He now spoke again; and the words in which

he began made her start, for it brought back to her memory another

scene of a year and a month before. Only this time he did not grasp her

wrist.

'Look at me, my girl! I will wait in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne

Hotel this evening from nine o'clock until eleven. If I see you there,

there will be no trouble in getting free from your husband. If not,

never try to see me again. You will have done worse than murder.'

The others came in, full of badinage and liveliness. Lady Feuilleton

protested that she believed Mr. Herne and Mrs. Amidon had been flirting.

'Quite the contrary,' returned Mrs. Amidon, smiling composedly. 'Only

we have been discovering that we knew each other long ago, and that I

have lost the wager we made as to which of us would be married first.

I will pay it now,' she added, taking a white rosebud from the vase on

the table. She went up to Geoffrey and slipped it into the button-hole

of his coat. As she did so, she murmured below her breath, with a

glance into his eyes:

'Before this fades----!'

And then Geoffrey, with a very brief adieu, went out.

There can be little doubt that, when Ellice did that, and said those

words, she was resolved to meet Geoffrey in the Lansdowne drawing-room,

between nine and eleven o'clock; and at all events she could not endure

to be left in an awkward or unpicturesque situation. But unfortunately

it was then only six in the afternoon; three hours in which to wait, to

reconsider, to doubt. It would be doing her injustice to say that there

was not a struggle. The struggle was even carried to such a pitch that,

at half-past nine, a hansom cab drove up to the corner of the street

below the Lansdowne Hotel, and a lady got out of it, veiled, with a

satchel in her hand. She paid the cabman, and then walked along towards

the hotel. The broad bay window of the drawing-room abutted upon the

sidewalk; a street lamp stood on the opposite side of the road. As the

lady passed the window she glanced up, and saw a man seated there with

a newspaper, which he was not reading, in his hand. Her knees trembled,

but she said to herself: 'If he looks out and recognises me, I will go

to him.' Even then he turned, slowly, and looked out; she stood still,

unable to move. He must have seen her; but he did not recognise her;

after a moment he turned away. Then she faced about, and ran back

along the sidewalk, with what feelings in her heart who can tell? The

hansom had not yet gone from the place where she left it; and she was

driven back to her house in Mayfair, where she was to receive some

distinguished guests.

II.

Geoffrey Herne's reflections were upon these matters, as he sat

in his chair on the spring day with which this story began. An

interval of two years had elapsed since he waited for Mrs. Amidon

in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne Hotel. During that period his

professional success had been rather on the wane. He was as clever

and sarcastic as ever--perhaps more so; but he neglected his work.

He was morose and indolent; the stimulus to achieve great things was

lacking. He conceived himself to have fathomed life and to have proved

it worthless. 'What is the odds what a man does? The devil is at the

bottom of it all!' he sometimes would remark. His more philosophical

and healthy-minded friends detected something petulant or childish in

this attitude of his; and the futility of their attempts to induce him

to 'throw it off' served to confirm them in their opinion. It should

be understood that nothing definite was known about what had occurred

further than that Herne had had a row with some woman. But other men

have had rows with women, and got over it.

The letter which Herne had just received and read was not long, though

it was sufficiently suggestive; and it may as well be given here:

'Dear Geoffrey,--I shall never see Mr. Amidon again. I wish to see

you at once. I know you must have had hard thoughts of me, but if

I had had you always with me, I should have always done what you

wish. It is when you leave me that I lose my strength. That is the

secret of all our trouble. When we are together I always have known

that I love you, and that I can never love anything but you; but

when we are parted, other thoughts come; sometimes I imagine that

love is all imagination. Geoffrey, I have never told you what I

did not know to be true. If you had only made me yours at first!

Even as I write to you at this moment, and think of my life since

I saw you last, I half doubt whether anything is real of what I

have felt for you; and yet they were the deepest feelings of all. I

seem fated not to be happy; and yet I have tried ways of happiness

more than most women. What is with me is real; what is away from

me--you--are like a dream. But you are a dream that I believe in

more than in reality; and I come to you in my trouble. Come and see

me this evening without fail. I remember what you said to me at

parting two years ago. At last I have done my part; I do not ask

you to do yours; but at least come to me.--Yours,

'ELLICE.'

Two years is a long time. Geoffrey had not forgotten Ellice, and her

evil influence upon his life had not ceased to be operative; but he

had ceased to feel the need of her personal presence. He had grown so

accustomed to the wrong of her desertion, that this had become more

necessary to him than she herself was. After a while we make friends

with our grievances, and would be at a loss were they suddenly removed.

An hour ago there was nothing that Geoffrey would have desired less

than to hear again from his lost Ellice.

Nor was this all. Within the last three weeks a new element had

come into Geoffrey's gloomy life. He had admitted it in a mood of

self-contemptuous indolence; but since then it had worked upon him

gently but powerfully, and was now on the way to make itself an

unlooked-for resource and consolation. It had aroused a sentiment of

gratitude in Geoffrey's heart, which, by-and-by, perhaps, would develop

into something warmer and more tender. It had invested his future with

a subdued but brightening light, so that he had doubtfully told himself

that his latter days might be happier than those which were passed.

Now, above all things, he wished for no change, no disturbance.

Nevertheless, it was at this moment that the change and disturbance had

come. He could feel, stealing subtly through his veins, a lawless and

reckless heat which he remembered but too well, though it had long been

a stranger to him. These written pages came from her, had been touched

by her hand, and caressed by her breath. From them seemed to proceed

an insidious mist, blinding his eyes to honour, and leading astray his

judgment. How great and unaccountable was her power over him! It had

not always been for evil--not so at first. No; at first it had been the

purest and loftiest emotion of his heart. But now that it was become

evil, it was not less strong: it was stronger.

Still, it might be resisted; it should, it must be resisted! Geoffrey

pulled himself out of his reverie, and stood upright. After glancing

confusedly first this way and then that, he went to the tall secretaire

between the windows, and unlocked one of its inner drawers. Out of

the drawer he took the black silk bow and the dried rosebud, which,

at different times, had come to him from Ellice. Of late he had often

thought of destroying these relics, but he had put off doing so,

adducing many arguments to justify himself in his procrastination. Now,

however, the thing must be done, if it were to be done at all. Geoffrey

brought them and laid them upon the letter which he had placed upon

the mantelpiece, after once more taking it from its envelope. After a

pause, he folded the letter about them, and grasped the little bundle

in his hand. The next moment he quickly replaced it on the mantelpiece

and faced towards the door. Had not some one knocked?

The knock was repeated. He strode heavily and wrathfully to the door,

and opened it There stood a woman, dressed in black, with a red rose in

her bosom. She immediately threw back her gauze veil, but before she

did so he had recognised her. Moreover, in spite of the utter surprise

of her appearance at this place and hour, it seemed to him that he had

been all along secretly expecting her. With a sort of dogged sullenness

he made way for her, and she came in without hesitation, and with

perfect grace.

'We are together again, Geoffrey,' she said, when he had closed the

door, facing him as he advanced towards her. She took a hand of his in

both hers, and added, 'Yes, you are real! You see, I would not wait. It

was not worth while to risk anything more.'

'You are too late, by some weeks,' answered he, looking over her head

at the wall.

'Why? Ah, you mean that--you don't care for me any more!' She let go

his hand, and looked at him askance. Geoffrey, though he was thinking

of far different things, noticed that she was paler than he had

remembered her, except that her lips were scarlet as ever, and to the

beauty of her face was superadded a depth of expression, distinct from

its natural feminine mysteriousness. He suddenly fetched a deep sigh,

like one who is oppressed, and then he walked to the mantelpiece, and

rested his elbow on it, and his head on his hand.

'It is not necessary,' said Ellice, after a pause. 'I did not even

expect it. I have done you too much harm--a great deal too much. But

it is partly for that reason that I came. Whatever there is left of me

belongs to you, if it can be of any use to you. I would like to die in

some way that would make you forgive me.'

'Forgiveness is a word which children use,' replied he; 'it is never

anything more than a word. The only thing I could not forgive you is,

that you have come in my way again.'

A light sparkled in Ellice's eyes, and she smiled a very little. For,

although the superficial significance of the words was repellent

enough, she could discern the essential, reluctant flattery underlying

them. It was not because she was odious to Geoffrey that he wished

her away; but because she was too much the contrary. She was safe,

therefore.

'Let us talk together this once,' she said, 'and afterwards, if you

like, you need never see me again. May I sit down here with you beside

me? How happy we might have been!'

'Do you wish me to remember that you are a married woman?' he demanded

sullenly. 'You seem to think that everything is a game and a plaything.

Can you alter or take back what you have been doing these last three

years? What have you done with your husband?'

'Do you remember a thing you said two years ago, Geoffrey, when I asked

you to be my friend? Well, there need be no secret now. I mean never

to see Mr. Amidon again. I don't care what society says or thinks. He

has made it impossible for me to live with him. I don't blame him, for

he never could have had much satisfaction out of me, poor creature. He

knew from the beginning that I cared nothing for him; it was merely

an arrangement on account of property, and I--I consented more for my

father's sake than----'

'You need not take the trouble to say that to me!' interrupted Geoffrey

with a harsh laugh.

'No; I will tell you the whole truth,' she said, leaning back in her

chair and surveying him attentively. 'I have always told you that, so

far as I knew it; but now, for the first time, I think I know it all. I

thought I needed something more than your love, but it was a mistake.

I had not had enough of it to know what it could be--that is all. Mr.

Amidon has at least taught me that; he has taught me by showing me all

that it is not. I used to think there were so many pleasant things

in the world, that no one pleasure--not even the pleasure of your

love--could make up for the loss of the others. But I have found that

no pleasure can be really enjoyed except through love; one might as

well save money for dresses by going without food. What is the use of

fine clothes if you are dead?'

'Do you intend to divorce your husband?'

Ellice looked down for a moment at her hands, then glanced up with a

smile and nodded.

'Does he know of it?'

'No. He does not know where I am at this moment. I left him suddenly

yesterday in Paris. But he cannot help himself; he has no defence.'

'Well, and after you have got your divorce--what then?'

Ellice was looking straight at Geoffrey when he asked this question,

and for all answer she gave him another of her strange, unexpected

smiles.

Geoffrey stood up; this scarcely disguised avowal that she believed her

power over him to be undiminished so far defeated itself as to give him

strength for at least temporary resistance. He took her letter with its

enfolded contents off the mantelpiece.

'Two years have made more difference with me than they seem to have

made with you,' he said. 'I don't pretend to be as fresh-hearted and

as ready to begin life over again now as I was then, and perhaps I can

give you the friendly counsel to-day which you expected of me that

afternoon at Lady Feuilleton's. You will make a great mistake, in my

opinion, in leaving your husband. He can be of more use to you than

anybody else can. The longer you live the more of that sort of help you

will need. You will find it more inconvenient to give up the world than

it was to give up me. My advice is that you take the next train back to

Paris.'

'I will go if you send me,' replied Ellice, rising with an unhurried

movement, and standing in slender gracefulness before him. 'If that

advice comes from your heart, Geoffrey, I will do even that for you, if

it will make you happier. But--will you be happier? Am I grown ugly and

hateful to you? Look at me, Geoffrey! You used to think my lips were

beautiful.'

'Look at this!' returned he, breaking out into fierceness. He unfolded

the letter, and showed her the black bow and the dried rosebud. 'These

came from you. I have kept them till now, but at the moment you came in

I was going to burn them, and let that part of my life be annihilated

with them; for I had begun a new life, which they dishonoured. Why do

you come now? You promised to come before that flower faded. Did you

think it was immortal?'

'You have kept it all this time,' said Ellice softly, drawing a deep

breath. 'Then, perhaps, it may not be too late to make it bloom again.

Shall we try, Geoffrey?'

His eyes and face glowed; he felt himself drawn towards her as by the

strong current of a river; their hands met, when, as if by some sudden

impulse independent of his own will, he uttered the words:

'We cannot; I am going to be married.'

At first it seemed as if this announcement had produced no effect

whatever upon Ellice. She continued to clasp Geoffrey's hands, and

her gaze was untroubled. But presently she began slowly to grow pale,

until her whole face was quite white, while her eyes darkened until

they appeared black. Her lips fell apart a little, and it was with

difficulty that she moved them to say: 'You--I did not hear. What was

it?'

Geoffrey did not speak again. It was with a conscious effort that he

held himself upright, and looked at her. He wished this were over.

Ellice now slipped her hands from his and drew them back against her

shoulders, as if they had touched something unwholesome; but all the

while she kept questioning him with a gaze half incredulous, half

wistful. At last, however, and all at once, the full significance

of what he had told her seemed to leap into her mind, charging her

features with a vivid and sinister expression, the like of which

Geoffrey had never seen in her before. It ended in her laughing

somewhat shrilly, and sitting down again in her chair. She felt

nervously for her handkerchief, and having got it, pressed it several

times to her mouth.

'You took me quite by surprise,' she began, in a thin voice. 'You

are really going to be married! How dramatically you brought it out!

Who--may I ask to whom?'

'No name that you have ever heard,' said Geoffrey stolidly.

'And you have been engaged to her long? You love her passionately, of

course?'

'We have been engaged about three weeks. She deserves the best love----'

'Yes--I didn't mean to pry into your tender affairs! Geoffrey, have you

kissed her--often, I mean?'

'Yes, a hundred times,' he answered, between his teeth.

Ellice gave an involuntary shudder, and made a gesture as if to shut

out what he had said from her ears. The emotion brought the blood

surging and tingling back to her face. She turned her head aside and

remained for some time with her gaze fixed upon the wall. Geoffrey

ventured to make no sign, for he had tried his resolution to the

uttermost, and knew too well where another struggle would leave him.

Yet, at heart, perhaps, he grudged himself a victory so much less sweet

than defeat would have been. At that moment Ellice was for him the

only woman in the world. He was ready to fall at her feet. He felt as

if all the outrage had been on his side and all the suffering on hers.

At last she got up, outwardly quiet, save for the deep flush in her

cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes, which travelled over Geoffrey

occasionally as she spoke, but never rested steadily upon him. 'You

have made me feel ashamed of myself,' she said. 'I think you should

have told me this news at first. No--I take that back. I broke in upon

you uninvited and--but it was because I thought--I did not think----You

must believe that I am not so unwomanly as to have done it if I had

known.' She paused, buttoning and unbuttoning her glove mechanically,

her lips moving silently. Finally she looked up and said in a fresher

tone: 'May I ask you one favour?'

Geoffrey moved his head in silent assent.

'I shall go away--I shall go back to-morrow evening,' she went on.

'You see I am wise enough to take your advice now. But I want very

much to see--this lady before I go. You need not be afraid; I should

say nothing that could pain her; but you can understand why I should

like to see her. I suppose I may tell you--for you must know it

already--that she is the only woman in the world whom I can feel an

interest in seeing. When I picture you to myself hereafter, I want to

be able to picture her too. Will you bring her to see me to-morrow,

before I go? Tell her that I am an old--acquaintance of yours; a

married woman, who feels an interest in what concerns your happiness.

Will you come with her?'

'Oh, Ellice,' said he, in a broken voice, 'I will come with her--or, if

you say so, I will come without her!'

She seemed to hesitate for an instant, drawing in her breath, and

sending him one swift and penetrating glance. But the next instant

she answered quite composedly, and as if she had not understood the

significance of his avowal. 'Oh, no, come with her; I should like to

see her! Thank you; now I will go; good-bye till to-morrow!' And before

he could take her hand in farewell, or find words to speak, she had

retreated to the door, opened it, and passed out.

It was dark when she departed. Geoffrey lit no lamp; but after locking

his door, he sat for many hours with his head on his hands; and

everywhere, standing forth against the gloom, he saw her slender supple

figure, her fascinating wayward face: the changes of her voice murmured

in his ears; and the desire of her ruled his heart and mind.

* * * * *

It was not with the feelings of a triumphant lover, proud to exhibit

his mistress to envious eyes, that Geoffrey Herne presented himself,

with the girl he was to marry, at Ellice's apartments the next day.

Not that Gertrude Hamilton was in any respect a bride to be ashamed

of. She was handsome, wholesome, and serene; full of kindliness and

common sense; pure in thought and upright in deed. She had given her

whole honest love to Geoffrey, moreover; and having done so, she had as

little thought of changing as the moon has of ceasing to be the earth's

satellite. So short a time ago as yesterday forenoon, Geoffrey had seen

his way to a life of sober happiness with her; but now he could only

think, 'She is not Ellice'; and he shunned to meet her quiet, confident

look, and could not respond frankly to her conversational advances.

He felt himself a cheat; and inwardly kept repeating to himself the

ominous question: 'How will it end? How will it end?'

Mrs. Amidon received her guests with a charm of cordiality that at once

produced a favourable impression upon Gertrude. She was dressed in a

flowing tea-gown of some oriental stuff which became her especially

well; there was colour in her cheeks, and her manner varied between

languor and what seemed restrained excitement; but a certain rare

feminine sweetness pervaded all. On the table by her side was a silver

salver, holding a decanter of wine and three glasses. These glasses,

which had already been filled to the brim with wine, were of Venetian

design, each one of a pattern different from the others. The room was

in half light and furnished sumptuously.

Ellice addressed almost all her questions and remarks to Gertrude;

never meeting the latter's eyes, but occasionally glancing at her with

great keenness. To Geoffrey she scarcely spoke; and when he addressed

her, she would reply to him, as it were, through Gertrude. Geoffrey

had noticed that she had avoided shaking hands with either of them at

meeting; and, as he sat observing her, the fantasy now and then seized

him that she was not a tangible human being of flesh and blood, but a

beautiful wraith. There was a refinement and a sensitiveness in her

gesture and aspect as of one who could scarcely have part in the vain,

self-seeking world: and yet what an odd commentary upon this appearance

her actual life (as far as one could know it) had been!

After a while she said, rising, and speaking with more vivacity than

she had shown before: 'Now I am going to ask you both to take a glass

of wine with me.'

Gertrude thanked her, but said she seldom took wine, unless for

medicinal purposes.

'Oh, but let me beg of you to make an exception this time,' returned

Ellice, with singular earnestness. 'I have set my heart--yes, my heart,

upon your drinking with me. Do not refuse me. I shall never have the

opportunity of asking another favour of you.' She took up the salver as

she spoke, and held it towards Gertrude, with the three glasses upon

it. 'Choose one,' she said. 'I am superstitious. I cannot let you off

from this. Take whichever you like.'

'Certainly, if it will oblige you,' said Gertrude, smiling. 'I suppose

they are all the same wine? I will take this.' And she took the

slenderest of the three glasses.

'The wine is the same,' observed Ellice, 'but the glasses sometimes

make a difference in the taste. Well, you have chosen; now, Geoffrey,

it lies between you and me.'

Her hands trembled a little as she presented the salver to him, so that

the glasses jingled, and some of the wine was spilt. 'Quick!' she said

in a whisper; and he took the glass with the curved brim and the snaky

stem. As she set down the salver her hand was steady again, and when

she raised the remaining glass between her fingers not a drop was spilt.

'You remember the last time we drank together, Geoffrey?' she said,

looking directly at him now for the first time. 'I shall never drink

wine in my life after this. I am glad you and Gertrude have chosen as

you have done. It is better--much better. You had your free choice, and

left this for me. I drink to your health, my friends.'

She drank her glass out, and set it down. The others followed her

example.

'It is very good wine, I'm sure,' remarked Gertrude.

'You will get no harm from it,' replied Ellice, tremulously and

smiling; 'nor will you, Geoffrey. And it will be good for me, too. You

will----' she began to tremble so violently that she could not stand,

and sank down in a chair. 'You will think--kindly of me?' she went on

in a scarcely audible voice. A strange alteration was rapidly creeping

over her features. Her lips quivered, her eyes dilated, and there was

a choking in her throat. Geoffrey, who, for the last few moments, had

kept his eyes fixed upon her searchingly, suddenly flung himself down

on his knees beside her with a hollow cry of anguish.

'Ellice! you have poisoned yourself,' he cried with thick utterance.

'Could you not have forgiven me enough to let me go too?'

'You--had your--chance; it was death--to one or other of us three,' she

answered with difficulty. 'Fate chose me. Oh! do not trouble me now; I

am content. Of what use have I ever been in the world? She is better

for you.'

'What is the matter? Can I be of any help?' enquired Gertrude, in

concern and perplexity.

For a minute Geoffrey made no reply. Then he rose stiffly, kissed the

dead woman's lips, and turning away from her, but not towards Gertrude,

answered heavily, 'None!'

THE COUNTESS'S RUBY.

I.

One hot August forenoon, some years ago, two men met at a certain point

of the coast of Normandy, and shook hands with mutual good-will.

The elder of these men had lived in the world about five-and-thirty

years; he had had losses, and successes as well; but the latter,

happening to have arrived a year or so after he had got tired of

waiting for them, found him grown a trifle soured and cynical, and

apt to carp at the sunshine which had withheld its warmth from his

bones until they had contracted an ineradicable chill. His bitterness

was perhaps more of the head than of the heart, but was none the

less observable on that account. He was an Englishman by birth, and

a born painter also--at least in his own opinion. He had begun his

career with the firm persuasion that his genius entitled him not only

to hang on the line at the Academy, but to be one of the hangmen.

The Royal Academicians did not immediately fall in with his views on

either point; and when, after many years, they relented, and gave his

picture the place of honour, and intimated their purpose of filling

with his name the first vacancy on their august roll, this lofty and

unforgiving gentleman made a bow and begged to be excused. He had

made his name known without the Academy's help; he had won pecuniary

independence in a land where the word of the Academy was not law; and

he would now, therefore, with all due respect to the members of that

body, see every mother's son of them at the deuce before he would have

anything to do with them. Such an ultimatum necessarily finished the

episode; the Academy preserved a dignified silence, and the lofty and

unforgiving gentleman continued to spend the best part of his time in

Paris, exhibiting every year in the Salon, and telling the story of

his quarrel with the English potentates to whomsoever cared to hear

an amusing anecdote caustically related. He was a lengthy, meagre,

harsh-featured personage, this same cynical artist, but he prided

himself on the Parisian polish of his manners and his French accent,

and he was, in fact, a good deal of a favourite in society.

The man who shook hands with the person above described was in most

respects as unlike him as could be imagined. To begin with, he was an

American; and, sentimental twaddle to the contrary notwithstanding,

there is no nationality so irreconcilable with the English, and so

incapable of sympathy with them, as that which styles itself American.

But this man, in addition to his Americanism, was full ten years the

junior of the other, and nearly the same number of inches shorter. His

face was smooth and almost boyish, handsome even to an unusual degree,

yet open to one criticism--that of being perfectly in harmony with the

figure of its owner. The world has seen many great men under six feet

high; but in them the countenance possessed the power or the nobility

that more than compensates for defective stature; and, in looking

upon it, the beholder quite forgot to be critical as to the greater

or less degree of its elevation above the earth's surface. In a word,

the face of this young American was the face of a short American--a

recommendation, doubtless, from the purely æsthetic standpoint, but

otherwise unfortunate. The lively blue eyes lacked depth and sternness;

the fine straight nose might well have been a thought longer or higher;

the mouth was too little and too academic in its curves; the forehead,

though capacious, lacked the fine and expressive modelling which

announces a master intellect. For the rest, this young American had a

clear, deep colour in his cheeks, such as any woman might have envied,

and the only fault of which was that no emotion had power either to

diminish or to heighten its intensity; soft dark hair, a small silky

moustache, and broad white teeth. The best feature in his face was

probably the chin, which betokened a vigorous and persistent will. In

figure he was square-shouldered, and rather plump than lean: his hands

and feet were small and well shaped. If the enumeration of these merely

physical details seems out of proportion with what was specified on

that score in the portrait of the Englishman, it should be remembered

that the younger man had as yet achieved little in the world beyond

this attractive personal appearance. His moral and social history

were yet to make. He was the son of a Boston millionaire; he had been

educated at Harvard College; he was courted and caressed in Beacon

Street drawing-rooms; and he had written quite a number of poems, odes,

lyrics, and sonnets, philosophical, commemorational, imaginative, and

erotic, which, reversing the natural sequence of states, first led a

brilliant butterfly life in newspapers and magazines, and afterwards

shut themselves up in the chrysalid of a gilt-edged, cloth-embossed

volume, whence they afterwards showed no symptom of emerging.

These two men, such as they are here shadowed forth, found themselves

face to face by the water's edge on that sultry August morning, and

greeted each other with hearty enough cordiality.

As if to compensate for their physical dissimilarity, they were dressed

almost precisely alike. Both had on shoes made of a flat sole of

plaited hemp, with stout linen uppers curiously embroidered with red

and blue braid, and laced round the ankle after the manner of the

ancient sandal. Both wore a kind of straw bonnet, high-crowned and

wide brimmed, clewed down on either side the face by a broad ribbon

tied under the chin. Neither possessed any other essential article of

clothing except a close-fitting tunic or set of tights, with the legs

and arms cut off close to the body. Over this was lightly thrown a long

mantle of Turkish-towel stuff. The tights were striped horizontally,

alternate white and blue for the Englishman, and red and white for the

American; and herein lay the sole distinction between their respective

costumes. It is true that the American's fitted much the more closely

and smoothly of the two; but that is neither here nor there.

In front of these simply-attired friends, and breaking in baby ripples

at their feet, stretched in slumbrous calm a pale and turquoise ocean,

destitute of any visible horizon. A tender haze which brooded in that

region so intermingled sea and air that distant ships seemed to sail in

the clouds, and clouds to voyage upon the water.

Behind them rose a mounded beach of purple shingle, uncomfortable to

tread upon, but invaluable as a bulwark against the incursion of high

tides into the low-lying village beyond. This village snuggled in the

valley formed between the two hills which abutted at either extremity

of the beach in precipitous cliffs, reflecting their pallid faces in

the molten surface of the summer sea.

Between the village and the beach, and surmounting the latter like

a fort, extended the casino parade, an embankment of masonry lying

parallel with the shore, and backed by the casino itself, long, low,

and flat-roofed, all windows and awnings. It contained a card room,

billiard room, restaurant and theatre, the last transmutable into a

ball room by the simple process of removing the pit seats.

The persons of whom I write were not alone by the water's edge; on the

contrary, they had scarcely more than elbow room. On either side of

them stood, chattered, and gesticulated a hundred human beings of both

sexes and all ages, arrayed more or less on the same general principle

already detailed. A hundred others paddled, plunged, and bobbed in the

pellucid element in front. Twice as many lounged, fluttered, and ogled

in serried groups in the rear--these last resplendent in the latest

Parisian fashions for the month of August. Down upon this gay scene of

colour, sparkle, and sound glowered the hot, lazy sun, longing for the

still nine-hours-distant time when he might cool his own sweltering

sides in the luxury of a sea bath.

Beyond the average range of the swimmers sped hither and thither a

score of light skiffs or canoes, whose occupants prudently wore their

bathing dresses and sat heedfully amidships as they plied their long

paddles. Finally, I may mention the diving-board, an infernal machine

of a thirty foot plank supported at a third of its length on the axle

of a tall pair of wheels, and so rolled into the water, to be rushed

up and jumped off of by dashing divers. That diving-board was a daily

thorn in the side of the English artist, who was not a dashing diver

and who would have greatly preferred to take to the water like a

duck--that is quietly and smoothly--but whom a false pride constrained

to mount that penitential plank morning after morning, and upset

himself off the end of it with an agonised effort--seldom or never

successful--to strike the water vertically. What fools sensible people

will make of themselves for the sake of being like the fools who are

ready-made!

It may as well be mentioned here, since the truth is sure to crop

out sooner or later, that the name of the cynical and Frenchified

English artist was Mr. Claude Campbell, and that he was, consequently,

no less a personage than myself, who write concerning him. Let this

confession put the reader on his guard against whatever exaggerative

or prejudicial statements he may fancy he detects in what I have told

or have yet to tell. I do not pretend to be an absolutely impartial

historian of events in which myself have been an actor. I promise

only to set down things as they appeared to me at the time, and leave

the reader to draw his own conclusions. Did I make the world, or

even organise human society? No; nor am I responsible for the logic

of events, which, on the other hand, has often struck me as being a

shocking bad system of logic.

As for the red-cheeked American, he was Jefferson Montgomery, Esquire,

of Boston, as aforesaid, and he shall speak for himself.

II.

'Hullo, Jeff! Just a year since we parted on Beacon Hill.'

'My _dear_ Campbell,' said Jeff, giving my hand a strong pressure,

while his blue eyes beamed and his white teeth flashed, 'this is

_really very nice_. Have you been here long?'

'Maybe a week.'

'A _week_? _Really!_ how _very strange_!'

As I do not intend to underline all Mr. Jeff's speeches, I will explain

here that he was one of those persons who choose their words with care,

and then bestow upon them a certain emphasis--an emphasis of breath--a

soft cough, so to say, intended merely to call your attention to the

word in question as an unexceptionable word. At first you wondered at

the speaker's earnestness; afterwards you begot a nervous oppression

of the breathing apparatus, referable to the obscure phenomena of

sympathetic affections. For my own part, the kind of conscientious

self-complacency of which I considered this idiosyncrasy of my friend

to be a symptom tended to arouse in me all my caustic and combative

instincts; and, inasmuch as the young poet was fertile in 'notions'

and resolute in upholding the same, our conversations were apt to

become discussions, and our discussions disputes. Our disputes had

never deepened into quarrels--we were too dissimilar for that--though

a listener might sometimes have found it difficult to make the

distinction. But to resume.

'Why strange?' was my enquiry.

'Why, that we shouldn't have encountered previously.'

'On the contrary, the strangeness is in our meeting at all. I came here

to make studies, and you, I suppose, to make conquests. How many so

far?'

'Oh, you old cynic! I don't know a soul in the place. It was an

accident my being here at all, and I've been doing nothing but admire

these lovely cliffs and the poetic scenery.'

'Poetic? That reminds me. Pardon my thoughtlessness, Jeff. You have

been wooing the muse, of course?'

'Well, I confess I have been attempting something; it's unfinished as

yet, but I hope it is fresh and strong; and I believe it to be original

in treatment as well as in idea. It will be my most ambitious effort so

far. A pagan maid falls in love with the Spirit of the Ocean, and a

poet is in love with her, and between these two loves----'

'She comes to the ground, or into the water. Which is it?'

'You are always so ready to mock, Campbell. But of course it doesn't

come from the heart; it's only your badinage. And really, don't you

think the conception fine? I should like to read you my description of

the pagan maid.'

'Portrait of anybody in particular?'

'Well, between you and me, Campbell, there _is_ a young lady here--I

don't know who she is, but she really does seem to be almost the type

I need--for my poem, I mean. A noble creature--the true grand pagan

style. You would like her; she would charm the artist equally with the

poet.'

'So you have been trotting up hill and down dale after a pagan, and

call it writing a poem on metaphysical abstractions! Do you never mean

to give up this sort of thing, my dear boy?'

'Really, what do you mean?'

'Dangling after women the way you do.'

'What an expression! Every cultivated man feels it his duty to love

woman and to frequent her society.'

'But why not choose out a representative woman and frequent the whole

sex in her person?'

'Do you advocate marriage, then?' asked the poet, his blue eyes

pensively interrogating the horizon.

'I say that, if you must make an ass of yourself at all, you should

confine yourself within the narrowest possible limits.'

'Have you ever contemplated matrimony, Campbell?'

'It is the last thing I should contemplate for myself.'

'You have never yearned for a counter-soul?'

'I don't know what you mean, but I venture to say I never have,' I

replied. 'But what would be folly in me would be philanthropy in you.'

Jeff heaved a long sigh. 'Let me whisper you a secret. You know my

papa made a fortune in the Crimean war. We had a contract to furnish

the Russians with briar-wood pipes. Well, Russia is now on the eve of

another conflict, and papa has sent me over to arrange the terms of

another contract.'

'But what has this to do with your getting married?'

'Why, the person who manages the business on the Russian side is

our old friend--the same who concluded the arrangements with papa

twenty-five years ago. Our relations have always remained intimate

and cordial. And immediately subsequent to the Russian war this

commissioner married, and--had--oh!'

The poet's voice died away; his eyes were fixed upon something a little

farther along the beach.

'There! there!' he murmured. 'Oh! is she not--divine?'

'Ha! that is your pagan, is it?'

'Going out in a canoe,' continued Jeff.

This young and strikingly handsome girl, of proportions almost

statuesque, was not seen by me now for the first time. I had, in

fact, noticed her shortly after my arrival in town, and had taken

that pleasure in observing her which an artist feels for whatever is

thoroughly picturesque. Who she was I knew no more than Jeff, and it

was not to be expected that another man's admiration of her should be

disagreeable to me; but some men are not any man, and I must admit that

the revelation of her identity with the subject of Jeff's rhapsodies

affected me unpleasantly. The girl's beauty, patent to me, was not of a

type to reveal itself to every careless and uneducated eye. But I will

not attempt to defend my feeling. I simply state it.

The young lady took her seat in the canoe and grasped the paddle, and

an elderly moustachioed gentleman pushed her off from shore. She was

dressed in a rather remarkable bathing suit of black, slashed with

scarlet; her round, firm arms were bare from the shoulder, and her legs

from the knee; her hair was gathered up in the customary oilskin cap.

With two or three vigorous strokes she sent her skiff well out beyond

the crowd of bathers.

When I turned again towards Jeff I found he was no longer at my side;

he was walking up the diving board, on the end of which he balanced

himself a moment and then launched himself head foremost into the

water, which closed over him with scarce a ripple. Presently his head

appeared some distance beyond the spot at which he had entered, and

he began swimming seaward with vigorous strokes. He was directly in

the wake of the fair pagan, who, unaware of his pursuit, was paddling

leisurely towards the thickening haze on the horizon, herself and her

canoe mirrored distinctly on the glassy surface.

'Does he propose to overtake her and make her hear his poetry

_tête-à-tête_ in twelve fathoms of water?' I asked myself. 'At any

rate, he resembles Byron in his swimming powers. And how neatly the

fellow took the water! Let me see if I can't acquit myself as well as a

Boston republican.'

With a sudden access of valour I snatched off my peignoir and cast it

behind me, and, without stopping to see where it fell, I mounted the

fatal plank with deliberate steps, saw the treacherous element smile

for a moment beneath me, shut my eyes, and let myself go.

III.

I foresaw, in that instant of time which intervened between my last

foot leaving the plank and my head reaching the water, that I was going

to make a failure more than usually ignominious. A sounding thwack,

taking effect along the entire length of my frame, and a painfully

tingling sensation, only partly the result of shame, immediately

apprised me that my prophetic instinct had not been at fault. I sank,

however, and I was glad to sink; for though I dislike having my head

under water, my wounded self-esteem made me dread putting it out again.

Much as I have seen and suffered, and callous though I have become to

most of the attacks of destiny, upon some points I am still sensitive.

In a decent suit of clothes and a dignified attitude I can sustain

almost any misfortune; but if my personal appearance be laughable, or

my position a false one, my soul has much ado to maintain her constancy.

Need was, however, that I should emerge at last, and up I bobbed

accordingly. I swam about moodily and unsociably during my customary

fifteen minutes; and such was the dejection of my spirits that the

water seemed colder than usual, and as I waded my way up a steep

incline of the shingle on my way out, there was a tendency to

convulsive shudderings in the muscles of my lower jaw. Chilled,

humiliated, and conscious that I cut a ridiculous figure before a

fashionable and merciless world, I only wished to seize my peignoir,

wrap it round me, and vanish from the view and memory of mankind. Some

men are cowed by one thing, some by another; and, once cowed, a man is

no better than a whipped schoolboy, and feels far less respectable.

I hastened, then, to hide my discomfiture in my peignoir; but at that

moment the certainty flashed upon me that I knew not where my peignoir

was. I had omitted to note the place where I had laid it down: all

places on a shingle beach are alike, especially when that beach is

crowded to the water's edge.

I was standing face to face with the crowd, dressed in the curtailment

of costume already described, which, hanging in dripping folds about

my meagre form, rendered grotesque that which by nature was ungainly

merely. For the first time in my life I regretted my six feet of

stature; at five feet I should have felt less defenceless as well as

appeared less conspicuous. There I stood before the world, shivering,

lost, and helpless.

What was I to do? It was a pressing question, for every moment rendered

the situation not only physically but morally more intolerable.

Should I return to the water, whence I came?

Too late! Not only would I catch my death--a minor evil--but the world

by this time knew that I had started to come out, and by detecting the

cowardice of my retreat would render it cowardice thrown away.

Should I steal the first peignoir that came to hand and fly? Hundreds

were scattered about. It was but reaching forth my hand.

No, I could not steal: not because I was too honest--far from it; a

cowed man is beyond the reach of scruples--but because I lacked the

courage to be a thief. I feared detection, and knew I lacked the

effrontery to brazen out the robbery.

Should I pretend I never had a peignoir, and stalk insouciantly through

the crowd and up to the beach as I was?

Impossible. I had not the spirits for such a _tour de force_ in the

first place, and in the second I had not the figure for it. Moreover,

the _mairie_ had issued edicts against bathers promenading without

peignoirs, and the thought of being arrested by a squad of gendarmes

and marched in my present condition to a lock up was not to be

contemplated.

I must, therefore, either stand where I was until my peignoir came

to me or institute a deliberate search after my peignoir. To search,

perhaps for hours, amidst a wilderness of spotless hostile skirts and

immaculate shrinking pantaloons for a peignoir scarcely distinguishable

from any other peignoir, and which, too, might have already been

appropriated by some person more heedless (or more self-possessed)

than myself! Decidedly there are times in a man's life when he is

forced to avow that Providence has omitted to endow human beings with

the only boon really worth their having--the power, namely, of instant

and unobtrusive self-annihilation.

My search began. I went to a peignoir and examined it; it was not mine.

With shaking limbs I blundered towards another a few yards off; it was

not mine. At this juncture I heard, and affected not to hear, a titter

of laughter. With my heart full of murder and suicide I pounced upon a

peignoir quite near at hand. It was the same I had examined first. My

brain began to reel.

'Monsieur!' said a gentle voice near me. 'Pardon, Monsieur!'

Could such words be addressed to me? As I tottered on the shifting

pebbles, throwing dazed glances here and there, I became aware that a

lady, middle-aged and of noble demeanour, was standing beside me with a

folded peignoir in her hands.

'Pardon, but did Monsieur chance to be searching for anything?' she

asked in French.

'My peignoir----'

'I have perceived that Monsieur dropped this upon entering the water:

it shall be his perhaps?' and with a smile too truly polite even to

seem compassionate this angel of mature years placed my own identical

peignoir in my arms.

I clutched it as Macbeth clutched the phantom dagger; only more

fortunate than the thane, I felt it in my grasp. Some part of my senses

returned to me.

'Madame,' I stuttered as well as my chattering teeth would let me, 'you

come from doing me the greatest favour woman can confer upon man. I

shall never forget it. I thank you, madame, from the depths of my soul,

and I salute you with the most distinguished gratitude and respect.'

The doer of this noble action bowed and smiled graciously, and I, with

my peignoir about me, stalked boldly through the crowd to my toilet

cabin. The distance was not great, but such was the glow of gratitude

in my heart that by the time I arrived there I was not only warm but

almost dry. Nor did the effect of this kindness stop at my skin; my

immortal part, as Jeff might have called it, was sweetened and exalted;

never, that I could remember, had I been succoured so opportunely or

in such poignant need. Be that lady who she might she was worthy of

all homage, and if it would have done her any good I believe that,

confirmed bachelor though I was, I would have offered her my hand and

heart as soon as I had finished my toilet.

But I trusted to my good genius to find me some better way of requiting

her favour. It is sad to reflect how few ways there are of obliging

our fellow-creatures. People would do more for one another but for the

difficulty of finding something at once practical and practicable to

do.

The first thing that attracted my notice, when I issued from my cabin

and returned to the beach, was that the haze, which all the morning had

lain along the horizon, had now thickened greatly and advanced upon the

shore. Nothing was visible at twenty paces, and the fog, shone through

by the sun, drifted softly over the bustling crowd, which was already

beginning to stream homewards.

It was a pretty spectacle, but one likely to be regarded with different

feelings by an Englishman safe on dry land and an American lost in

twelve fathoms of water. Jeff had not come back to shore, and being out

of sight of land, it necessarily followed that he was lost. The danger

was graver than might at first sight have appeared, for the swimmer had

had time to get fully a mile out to sea, and at that distance there

were strong currents which might sweep him away altogether. I scanned

the white blank before me with anxious eyes, but it revealed nothing.

Poor Jeff!

I began to experience that uncomfortable sensation occasioned by

knowing a friend to be in peril, and feeling the necessity of doing

something to rescue him. More grievous but more convenient is it when

the inevitable occurs at once, and saves us the annoyance of suspense.

I could have sorrowed heartily and sincerely over the poor poet's

drowned body laid out upon the shingle, but there was no satisfaction

in taking measures to ascertain whether or not the corpse were an

accomplished fact--to postpone, in other words, the luxury of grief for

the anguish of action.

A group of sailors were collected round a boat at the water's edge,

which they seemed to be on the point of launching. A lady was

haranguing them earnestly. As I approached I recognised her as the

heroine of my late adventure with the peignoir. She was saying--

'It was in that direction that I last saw her. She is already, perhaps,

a kilomètre distant. There is no time to lose, mind you. Behold me

distracted.'

Here was my opportunity; I could kill both my birds with one stone.

I stepped forward with raised hat, and placed myself at the disposal

of feminine distress. Having respectfully recalled myself to her

recollection, I begged to be honoured with the distinction of being

permitted to promote the alleviation of the anxiety under which she

appeared to be labouring.

She thanked me with ardour, but to inconvenience me would desolate her.

Having received at her hands a favour beyond estimation, I should

expire of chagrin in the case of being refused the privilege of

testifying in some degree the depth and liveliness of my recognition.

Madame hereupon vouchsafed to inform me that Mademoiselle her daughter

had paddled away with herself into the fog, and there was fear that

she be lost in unknown oceans.

I had divined as much as this, but I was careful not to say so; nor

did I open my mouth on the subject of Jeff. It was sufficient for me

to perceive that Jeff and the young lady in the case were probably not

far apart, and that to find one would be to find both. Meanwhile I

would not deprive Madame of the gratification of believing that I was

acting in her interests only. So, entreating her to be tranquil and to

expect my return with her daughter in less than a quarter of an hour,

I clambered into the boat with all possible dignity and despatch and

bade my men shove off. Madame observed my departure with eyes that were

genuinely moist.

It was a tolerably mild piece of heroism. Had I been ten years younger

I might have wished that the waves had been running mountains high,

but at thirty-five--the age of sense and of feeling combined--I was

better pleased with the conditions as they were. I was not in love

with anybody, and wished only to combine courtesy and good breeding

with the fulfilment of a private duty. It had gratified me to observe,

in my brief conversation with Madame, her appreciation of the altered

aspect of one whom she had first known as an idiot and a scarecrow: not

to mention his fluency in speaking the language of the most polished

people in the world. I admired, too, the kindly ingenuity with which

Fate had brought me acquainted with the mamma of the beautiful pagan,

and under circumstances so promising.

But it is unsafe to call Fate good-humoured: it spoils her temper.

Our boat was barely afloat when an event occurred which rendered our

proposed voyage unnecessary. Somehow or other, without noise and

without premonition, the fog rolled swiftly back to the horizon whence

it came; and there was Mademoiselle not more than a hundred yards from

shore. She was paddling in with admirable coolness and indifference;

and close behind her I was happy to see the black head and rosy visage

of the poet, who was swimming on his back with every appearance of ease

and comfort.

IV.

I hastened to get on shore again and offer to Madame my

congratulations. She replied that her obligations to Monsieur were none

the less. His courtesy, his chivalry, had been such as one never sees

paralleled.

Monsieur, covered with confusion at consideration so undeserved,

changes the subject by calling the attention of Madame to the charming

picture made by Mademoiselle in approaching the beach. Had he had his

sketch-book with him, he would have been tempted to make a little

drawing of Mademoiselle.

Ah! Monsieur was, then, an artist? Madame, and Mademoiselle likewise,

were all given to artists. They had made purchase of several pictures

during their residence in Paris.

Monsieur will venture to call himself an artist, and will, furthermore,

have the assurance to make Madame acquainted with his name--M. Claude

Campbell, at the service of Madame.

But truly! and did Monsieur Campbell happen to know this Campbell,--he,

the great Campbell, he who painted this picture divine which exhibited

itself at the last Salon, and was entitled the 'Ruined Rampart'?

Monsieur, even in blushing and being overwhelmed, assures Madame that

he is that same fortunate Campbell whose unworthy effort Madame comes

from qualifying with such generosity.

Great God! Monsieur is he, then, indeed that sublime, that adored man

of genius? What happy chance! What charming _rencontre_! But in this

case Madame hopes that the name of the Countess Semaroff will be to

Monsieur not altogether unfamiliar?

Oh! Heaven! Is it possible that Monsieur is so happy as to kiss the

hand of the noble lady who deigned to constitute herself the purchaser

of the above-mentioned 'Ruined Rampart'? Monsieur is of a verity

transported.

The Countess Semaroff observes that Mademoiselle--the Countess Almara

in effect--will partake of her mamma's enchantment in meeting Monsieur

Campbell, of whose genius she is an ardent admirer.

Our rude and artless talk was suspended at this point by the

disembarkation of the Countess Almara. Apprehending that the simplicity

of her costume might render my immediate presentation undesirable,

I exchanged a cordial _au revoir_ with the Countess Semaroff and

discreetly withdrew. The beautiful pagan, after exchanging a few

sentences with her mother, the latter speaking earnestly and the

former laughingly, proceeded to take her turn upon the diving-board,

and acquitted herself in a manner truly admirable. She dove like a

plummet, and her white feet flashed beneath the surface as succinctly

as a mermaid's tail. Up she came again, fresh and dripping, within a

few yards of my returned prodigal, the Boston poet; but no signal of

recognition that I could detect passed between them. To suppose that

the ardent and romantic Jefferson had failed to improve the occasion

of being isolated from the world under such peculiar circumstances

with the subject of his late rhapsodies seemed to me, however, highly

improbable. But the young Countess had doubtless played discretion

under the watchful maternal eye; and Jeff, perhaps, intended to conceal

his escapade from my friendly inquisition. I was resolved nevertheless

to penetrate his reticence, and promised myself the pleasure of

listening to an entertaining story over our _déjeuner_. As to my own

accidental introduction to the Countess mother, and the unexpected tie

between us, I judged it advisable to forbear mentioning it just at

present.

The poet reached his depth and waded ashore. I stepped forward to meet

him, raising my cap.

'Captain Webb, I presume?'

'Oh--but, Campbell!' exclaimed he with an ineffable look, 'was she not

heavenly?'

'Postpone your ecstasies; you'll be a rheumatic cripple for life as it

is. Do you know you've been in an hour?'

'It doesn't seem ten minutes--and yet I have lived a lifetime too!'

'You have water on the brain. Do you know where your peignoir is?'

Somewhat to my mortification, he did know, and, as he threw it over his

shoulders, remarked placidly, 'But really I'm not in the least cold.

Men of my age have hearts, Campbell, and a heart on fire keeps the

blood warm under all circumstances.'

'It takes a Bostonian to have a heart warranted to burn under water for

an hour.'

'And then,' he continued without heeding me, 'did not a goddess keep

the flame alive with her ambrosial breath?'

'Decidedly he must have had an adventure,' thought I. 'But despatch

your toilet, young man, and then you shall _déjeuner_ with me, and

we'll have chablis and cigarettes.'

'I shall be most happy, indeed. I won't be a moment dressing,' said

the poet beamingly; and he dodged into his cabin.

'Pathetic little youth!' thought I as I paced the parade to and fro.

'Good fellow at bottom, but so soft!--the sort of creature that men

trample on and women make game of. He has that most offensive of

qualities--inoffensiveness. But, luckily for his peace of mind, he

idolises himself, and is too slow-witted to comprehend the contempt of

other people. After all, his self-conceit has as much justification as

anybody's. He sees a pretty face when he looks in the glass, writes

pretty verses with conscientious rhymes, utters pretty sentiments, and

uses pretty phrases. How is he to know that the world reads all this

prettiness without the _r_? But Providence, in emptying his skull, has

mercifully filled his pockets. With ten thousand pounds a year he can

buy something. What he can't buy is the ability to win for a wife such

a woman as this young countess. Is he in love with her? He thinks so,

no doubt, and means to make himself poetically miserable about her.

His type of men are for ever losing their hearts miles above the reach

of their heads. He has been getting off some inane namby-pambyism to

her this morning, disgusting or amusing her as the case may be, and

has come off serene in the conviction of having made a delightful

impression. And now--confound him!--he will be for prosecuting the

acquaintance and expecting me to back him up. What shall I do? It

would be friendly to dissuade him from having anything more to say to

them; but he's obstinate and won't be dissuaded. Well, the spectacle

of such a wooing can't fail to be entertaining, and, since I can't

prevent it, why shouldn't I enjoy it? To augment excitement I might

give Mademoiselle Almara a quiet hint to tip him an occasional dose

of encouragement. Poor Jeff! Ah! here he comes! Now let us watch him

expand under the influence of chablis.'

The unsuspecting poet took my arm, and we set out for my lodgings.

'How charming the Old World is,' he remarked presently.

'You are an American, and everything here delights you by contrast.'

'But I'm patriotic--very. I'm a descendant of the Puritans, and my

forefathers fought on Bunker Hill.'

'Yes, you Yankees are always bringing up the men of '76, whom, were

you to meet them on Beacon Street to-day, you would cut dead. Since

you have really contrived to civilise yourselves a little in the last

century, why do you insist upon falling back on the reputations of a

parcel of tagrag farmers who were shot ages before you were born? If I

were a Yankee I'd keep mum about them.'

'Ah, you may talk, but at least you know America is the greatest

country on earth,' rejoined my friend with unruffled good-humour. 'I'm

sure you were delighted with your visit last year.'

'I confess to some scenery; beyond that one sees in the States only

things which he thanks Heaven he hasn't got at home. America makes

Europeans grateful and contented.'

'I defy you to put your finger on one feature of civilisation here that

does not exist in a superior form in the States. There now!'

'To begin with, then, why did you take the trouble to come over here to

get a wife, if there are more desirable wives to be had in Boston?'

'How did you know that?'

'How? Have I heard anything from you this morning except about pagan

goddesses?'

'Oh, you mean her? Yes; oh, yes!'

'Good heavens! does the man mean to insinuate that he has any other

woman in this hemisphere in his eye?'

'Why, to tell you the truth, my father sent me over here just for that

very purpose--that and the pipes.'

'What and the pipes?'

'To meet the young lady I am going to marry.'

'And is your beautiful pagan the young lady you are to marry, pray?'

'Ah! I just wish she was!' said Jeff very ruefully.

'This is becoming interesting, my young friend. But here's my house:

we'll have our breakfast, and then a consultation over our wine. Come

in.'

V.

I repressed my curiosity during the meal, but when we had settled down

to our second bottle and the cigarettes I fixed my eyes on my companion

and said--

'Well?'

'Did you see that dive?' asked he.

'Hers?'

'Hers of course. Everything I say or do means her, now and for ever,

one and inseparable!' cried Jeff, upon whom the wine was evidently

beginning to work.

'But what about the other young lady----?'

'Sink the other young lady, sir! I never have seen her, and I never

want to.'

'Well, then, about the pagan. Did the fog reveal your souls to one

another?'

'Now, Campbell, I wish you would please not chaff,' said Jeff

seriously. 'I don't like a man to be always cynical. Is there really

nothing sacred to you anywhere? We Bostonians are not brought up so;

and this is a sacred subject to me.'

'Not more so than to me, my dear fellow. You shan't have cause to

complain of me again.'

'I accept your apology,' said Jeff with dignity. 'Your health.'

We emptied our glasses.

'Who was that handsome middle-aged lady you were talking with?' Jeff

asked.

The question rather took me aback. 'You are more the traditional

Yankee than I had imagined; you pretend to tell a story and only ask a

question. As for that lady, I never saw her before in my life. I should

fancy her a Pole or an Austrian. But do get on with your story.'

'There is no real story with a beginning, middle, and end. Real life

doesn't arrange itself in that way.'

'There is always a middle, at any rate.'

'I will plunge _in medias res_, then. Did you observe her paddling out?'

'To be sure I did.'

'And did you divine her object?'

'Well, as to that----'

'My dear Campbell, don't you see that it was a case of _fugit inter

salices_? She paddled out in order that I might pursue her.'

'Oh! How did you find out that?'

'By intuition,' cried the poet enthusiastically. 'We are in such

complete sympathy, she and I, that I feel what she feels. A motion of

the shoulder, a turn of the neck, a flirt of the paddle, all bear a

secret meaning to my eye. Why, for a quarter of an hour after starting

out this morning, I could see nothing but her back; and you know there

isn't ordinarily much--conversation in a person's back.'

'I believe you are right, Jeff.'

'But in this case,' he continued warmly, 'I saw through her back all

that was going on in her mind.'

'Poetic insight. I have heard of it before, but never knew it to act so

powerfully as it does with you.'

'Yes; and, in proof that I'm not mistaken, she did just what I knew she

would do beforehand.'

'And what was that?'

'How good this chablis is! The first thing she did was to paddle

straight out to sea. She did that to try my faith.'

'Did she succeed?'

'A poet's faith can move mountains,' said Jeff, a little

inconsequently. 'Had I been as others--had I been less terribly in

earnest--I should have got discouraged or offended and given up the

chase. But that is not the Puritan style. I kept right on, and at last

I forced her to alter her tactics.'

'And all this through the back of her head? Wonderful!'

'Well, so she altered her tactics, and--what do you think?'

'I haven't a glimmering.'

'She stopped--short,' said Jeff, leaning across the table with his blue

eyes wide open and speaking in an impressive undertone; 'and there she

sat perfectly still, with her back still turned towards me.'

'So that you might continue to read her thoughts?'

'Campbell, I trust you are not scoffing?'

'My dear fellow----'

'You are my friend, but there are some things----'

'Nothing injures friendship so much as unjust suspicions, Jeff,' I

said, with a solemnity almost equalling his own. He softened at once.

'Forgive me, old fellow; I was hasty. The blood of Bunker Hill, you

know. Well, and so I gained upon her--and here's her health, Campbell.'

'Bumpers!' said I; and again we set down our glasses empty. I began to

feel a little warmed up myself.

'At last I was within ten yards of her. Just then I ran into one of

those horrid blue jelly-fish, and it startled me so that I made a

splash, and she----'

'Turned round?' I suggested, for he had paused agitatedly.

'Any other woman would have turned round: she did not. She started

perceptibly, dipped her paddle on the right side of the canoe, and shot

diagonally towards the left. For a moment I saw her in profile.'

'Well, didn't she tip you a wink? I beg your pardon, Jeff, upon my

word. I mean, did she not, at the moment of the profile, bend upon you

a smile or a glance of encouragement?'

'What encouragement did I need? Besides, the time for encouragement had

not yet come; I was still at the period of probation.'

'Her tacking, then, was a fresh trial of your constancy?'

'Not of my constancy--that was already confirmed--but of another

quality, my self-respect. Respect, Campbell, is ever the basis of true

love. This was a most critical juncture in our acquaintance. Had I

slavishly followed her tack I should have lost more ground morally than

I gained materially. No, I did not tack; I kept straight on, and, as

she had paused again, I was soon beyond her. It was at that supreme

moment that we found ourselves enveloped in the fog--alone together,

between sea and heaven!'

'Jeff, this is becoming exciting.'

'I kept on. By-and-by, however, I stopped. I could now barely detect

the outlines of her canoe through the pallid film of mist; but anon the

outlines grew distincter--she was approaching!

Right on she came with graceful strength,

And paused within a paddle's length,

A moment eye to eye they stayed,

The poet and the pagan maid.'

'Jeff, this is poetry.'

'A verse I composed at the time. Do you like it?'

'Can you ask? But this suspense is wearing me out. Do, pray, come to

the point.'

'What point, dear Campbell?'

'Hang it! the point of contact.'

'Sir, I fail to understand you,' said the majestic Jeff.

'Gammon! Who understands better than a poet the dramatic necessity of

a point of contact? Here are your characters lost--I mean, here are

your poet and your pagan maid lost in your fog, and staying eye to

eye. Beyond reach of outside help, you are all in all to each other.

"Bonjour, Countess." "Bonjour, Monsieur." "We appear to be lost." "I

fear you are fatigued," she says. "The delight of conversing with the

Countess Almara would suffice to restore me, were that the case."

"Perhaps, if you were to rest your hand on the gunwale," she continues.

"You overwhelm me," murmur you. "Nay, I would keep you from being

overwhelmed," she smiles. "You are my guiding star!" you exclaim.

"If I only knew whither to guide you. And mamma will be so anxious,"

she sighs. "Knows the Countess Semaroff that we are together?" you

enquire. Just at this instant another of those horrid blue jelly-fish

comes along, causing you to give another splash and sink. She screams,

stretches out her hand to save you; you catch it, press it impulsively

to your lips.... Well, there's your point of contact. Now go ahead.'

The close and serious attention which Jeff had given to this sally of

mine had stimulated me to make it as absurd as possible, and may be

that last glass of chablis had something to do with my sprightliness.

But in proportion as I warmed Jeff seemed to cool; he leaned his cheek

upon his hand, and directed a profound gaze into the bottom of his

empty wine-glass. At length he muttered these singular words--

'How curiously things come out!'

'But what happened after you kissed her hand?'

'I didn't kiss it,' sighed the poet.

'Not after accepting the support of her canoe?'

'I didn't accept it; she didn't offer it.'

'Nor speak about it at all?'

'She said nothing; I said nothing; neither of us said anything.'

'Then why, in the name of stupefaction, did you take the trouble to get

lost in the fog with her? Better have stayed on shore.'

'Had I known the Countess Semaroff was there, perhaps I should,' said

Jeff, looking up.

I coloured in spite of myself. I, a man of five-and-thirty, had been

carried away to reveal to this boy the secret of my acquaintance with

these ladies. I should now have no excuse to offer for not introducing

him. Verily that chablis cut both ways. I hastened to revert to our

original topic.

'So there was no point of contact after all?'

'Not what you would call such, O you English materialist,' said the

poet eloquently. 'But our points of view are so incompatible. Is not

the soul more than the body? and, if so, is not a look of the eyes more

than a touch of the hand? Our spirits met, Campbell, though our earthly

frames held aloof.'

'But would your spirits have met any less had your earthly frames

behaved in a more materialistic and intelligible way?'

Jeff shook his head dreamily.

'You are of those who know not how to enjoy the rose upon its stalk.

You must needs cull it and insert it in your _boutonnière_. You are

not sensitive enough to apprehend the rarest delight of the _grande

passion_--that of regarding the beloved object in her intact state ere

the pure sphere of her personality has been invaded by materialistic

approach.'

'Well, Jeff, it's evident you know more about women than I do. But,

admitting what you say, I still maintain (provided your intentions with

the Countess are really serious) that you are not taking the nearest

way to a matrimonial issue. The flesh is sluggish, but it has its

compensations.'

The inspired Bostonian took his cigarette between two fingers and waved

it in an illustrative manner as he said--

'Suppose, dear Campbell, you were starting on a journey through a

delicious tract of country--a winding valley, say--and suppose, before

setting out, you climbed a hill commanding this valley, and took a

bird's-eye view of your proposed route. Would you enjoy that journey

more or less for having anticipated it spiritually by that glance?'

'Ha! methinks I conceive you. Your psychological business is merely a

sort of barmecide feast, designed to whet the palate for solid viands

to follow. Having brought the transcendental part of your love-making

to a happy issue, you now propose to pursue the game upon a practical

basis?'

Jeff blew a serene cloud and regarded me with a complacent smile.

'Yes, I mean to marry her now,' said he.

'And leave the other without even a bird's-eye view?'

'By-the-by, I must tell you about that. You know I was saying this

morning that the Russian commissioner, our friend, had married. Well,

he had a daughter, and this daughter and I were by our respective papas

destined for each other.'

'I see--a union of policy, like those of the royal families of Europe.'

'To me the idea of utilising the sacred covenant of marriage in the

interest of mere business always seemed horrible and revolting. I told

my father so.'

'And he, I'll venture to say, told you you were a sentimental young

idiot.'

'If that had been all----' said Jeff, wagging his head significantly.

'Well, what was there more?'

'Only this. After I had protested one day, with all the eloquence I

could muster, against the cold-blooded inhumanity of binding down two

fresh young souls, who had never seen each other, to such a contract,

he replied (you remember his dogmatic, high-handed way), "Either you

marry her or you live on three hundred pounds per annum."'

'In that case,' said I, not without a secret feeling of relief, 'you

certainly won't marry the pagan maid?'

'Why not?'

'Because, to go no further, you won't get her to take you at three

hundred pounds per annum. You don't know what living on such an income

means. I do; and I can tell you that, even without a wife and children,

it's no joke.'

'But, dear Campbell, you seem to forget that I love her.'

'Take the advice of a man who has seen more of the world than you have,

and forget it yourself. I am talking seriously now, Jeff, and for your

good. You do not love this Countess Almara, and, to be frank with you,

it is not possible that she ever should care for you. You have a strong

will; use it on the side of common sense and--filial piety. Where were

you to meet your intended?'

'Paris was the rendezvous appointed, but----'

'Pack up your traps and be off to Paris this very afternoon.'

'But it wasn't for a week yet that----'

'Never mind. Get away from here; that's the main point. Don't remain

within reach of temptation.'

'Campbell, this is not temptation; it's a foregone conclusion. I am

going to marry the Countess Almara. Our meeting here was fated. I shall

not go to Paris.'

'But I tell you the Countess Almara won't have you.'

Jeff was silent awhile. Presently he looked up and said--

'How do you know she won't?'

'Well--never mind,' I thought it prudent to reply.

There was another silence. Suddenly Jeff said, 'Campbell, if I went to

Paris would you go with me?'

This turn embarrassed me again. It would not exactly suit my

convenience to go to Paris that afternoon. There were some things I

wanted to--attend to. I wondered whether my young friend was becoming

suspicious.

'Could I be of any service to you there?' I enquired.

'After all I don't know that you could,' said he after a moment's

reflection. 'Besides, thanking you all the same for your advice, dear

Campbell, I've made up my mind to stay here. I can never love, much

less marry, any other woman than the Countess Almara.'

There was a certain element of nobility in the placid obstinacy of the

young fellow, who was committing the amazing folly of resigning ten

thousand a year for the sake of a girl to whom he had never spoken, and

until the last two or three days never seen, that touched me a little

and made me resolve not to let him ruin himself without another effort

to save him.

'Jeff, you are an ass,' I said bluntly. 'Your brain has been addled

with the pursuit of what you are pleased to imagine poetry, until you

have grown to believe that a man can live on love and lyrics instead

of on beefsteak and bullion. You say you can never love any but the

Countess Almara; I say it is, at all events, your duty to try. Go to

Paris, and at least make the acquaintance of the young lady your father

has selected for you. If you find her unlovable, at all events that

will be some satisfaction.'

'Thank you very much, Campbell, but I can't, really.'

'You persist in running your head against a wall?'

Jeff smiled mildly and said nothing.

'All right; _liberavi animam meam_. I wash my hands of you. One thing:

I can't take the responsibility of giving you an introduction.'

'You know them both, then?'

'Well, I have not been presented to the young lady yet, but----'

'I shall be happy to present you when I know her myself,' said Jeff

forgivingly; 'and when we are married I trust you and I will be better

friends than ever.'

'Oh! fathomless self-conceit and fatuity of Bostonian youth!' I

muttered to myself as I lit a final cigarette and preceded the poet to

the door. 'Poor Jeff! upon my soul I am sorry for him!'

And when we parted outside I shook his hand with a feeling not far

removed from respect mingling with my impatience, and I watched him

walk away with the kindly hope that the Providence which presides over

children and fools might keep a beneficent eye upon the poor little

poet.

VI.

I was in rather an ill-humour that afternoon. After a short turn about

the town I returned to my _atelier_ and tried to paint; but colour

had lost its harmony for me, and composition its meaning. I took up

Balzac's _Deux Frères_, and plunged into the details of the miseries

of Agatha, the villainy of Philip, and the genius of Joseph; but the

appalling truth of the picture depressed and irritated me. I stretched

myself on the lounge and gave way to moody reverie. I pictured to

myself a man five-and-thirty years of age, who had had his romance

and got cured of it a dozen summers ago, who piqued himself on his

sceptical and unimpassive temperament, who had fallen into confirmed

bachelorhood, who was prolific of cynical and pro-Malthusian doctrines

to erotic young fellows under thirty, and whose eminence in the world

of art was due to the unalloyed devotion of both heart and brain which

he had hitherto lavished upon it. I asked myself what was the fitting

punishment for such a man's apostasy from his principles.

'Such a man,' I answered myself, 'is not fit to be trusted abroad. I

condemn him to pack up his traps and go home, and I give him two hours

to complete his preparations for starting.'

The clock--the tall Norman clock with its round face of embossed brass

and its huge slow-swinging pendulum--struck half-past three. I got up

and rung the bell. Presently a withered old lady appeared, in a black

gown, white cap and apron, neat blue stockings, and low shoes.

'Madame Enault,' I said, 'I shall leave you this afternoon. That a

porter be here at five o'clock to take my baggage to the diligence;

and, if you please, that we make up our little accounts.'

Madame Enault was crushed. She was sent to grass! Monsieur going to

leave that very day even?

'Perfectly.'

Monsieur had perhaps encountered something to miscontent him?

Madame Enault would do anything in her power to render things more

satisfactory to Monsieur.

'Madame misconstrues me. It is that affairs demand my departure.'

'Monsieur will he pardon Madame Enault?'

'But without doubt.'

'Monsieur will, then, recollect that, in coming here, he was so good

as to engage the rooms for six weeks, whereas only one week has

elapsed....'

'You are completely in reason, Madame, and you will be paid for the

whole six weeks precisely as if I had remained.'

Madame drops a curtsey and will instantly apprise a porter of

Monsieur's intentions.

I now proceeded to pack my trunks and painting gear, and then, it being

a little after four, I sallied forth for a farewell stroll on the

parade.

It was a magnificent afternoon. A fresh cool breeze had replaced the

lazy calm of the morning. The horizon line and the profile of the

cliffs were defined sharp and clear. Great white castellated clouds

sailed across the blue, and rhythmic waves came tumbling in frothy

profusion along the beach. The whole scene was like a shout of joy,

and it had never spoken so feelingly to me as now that I was saying

good-bye to it.

As I turned away after a long look seaward, I met the Countess Semaroff

and her daughter face to face.

I bowed. Madame smiled and gave me her hand, and before withdrawing it

she looked at her daughter and said--

'My very dear, this is Monsieur Campbell. Ah, Monsieur, it has been a

dream of my daughter to meet you.'

'I trust Mademoiselle will not find in me an illustration of the

proverb, "Songe mensonge,"' I said, clumsily enough.

Mademoiselle smiled slightly, as courtesy required, but all the while

her eyes rested upon me searchingly and doubtfully, as though to

satisfy herself whether I were to be believed in or distrusted, whether

she might expect to find in the artist the complement and justification

of his works. No kind of look, perhaps, is so difficult to sustain

with composure as this. The most redoubtable artist is conscious that

the inspiration of his best efforts comes from a source superior to

himself, in comparison with which the average level of his thoughts

and motives makes but a sorry show. The merciless and undisguised

inquisition of an ardent and unsophisticated young woman is thus apt

to become not a little trying, especially when the inquisitrix is

furnished with such a pair of eyes as nature had endowed the Countess

Almara withal.

Indeed, strange and striking in other respects as was the beauty of the

young Countess, it was her eyes that individualised her and rendered

her a paragon among women. Large and perfectly black they were--so

black that it was a wonder to see them so full of light. The iris was

of breadth so unusual that, like a black sun between two clouds, its

upper and lower rims were infringed upon by the imperial eyelids.

The human eye, as every portrait painter knows, has in itself but a

narrow range of expression: it is the setting that imports. Now, the

Countess Almara's upper eyelid was falconlike--straight above the

pupil, and falling away thence towards the cheek in a long sweeping

curve--a bold, lavish eyelid, indicative of keen intelligence and a

noble temper. In singular contrast with this was the lower lid, most

sensitively and changefully fashioned, responsive to every shifting

emotion, sad, mirthful, wistful, pleasurable, tender; this it was that

betrayed the woman, as the other announced the countess. Like the

shimmer of light upon water, the delicate nerves in this region were

never at rest; here, as upon a photographic plate, was legible the

impress of each word or unuttered thought. Thus it might be affirmed of

the Countess Almara that she had two eyes where other women have but

one; and certainly she was able to do four times more execution with

her pair than most daughters of Eve can accomplish.

There was a fine unconventionality in the cast of her features which

was in itself an element of life. The low and broad forehead terminated

in far-reaching and strongly defined eyebrows. The nose, long and

finely chiselled, especially about the nostrils, descended from between

the eyes in a line which, towards the end, had just enough of an upward

tendency to redeem it from classic tameness. Tameness, in fact, is the

word most expressive of everything that the young Countess was not.

Her mouth was generous; the upper lip, short and slender, lay like a

coral snake upon the full and voluptuously moulded lip below; thence

curved forth the chin, clean cut and mettlesome, which she habitually

carried high, and to which she communicated movements of fascinating

wilfulness. Her profile, as a whole, was therefore of the concave

rather than the convex order, and possessed a charmingly wild, barbaric

quality, by no means inconsistent with a thorough refinement.

Of her grand figure I have already spoken. Her bearing was elastic and

vigorous, yet pervaded always by the subtle and inevitable dignity of a

high-bred lady. A kind of scarlet barret-cap surmounted the heavy black

coil of her hair; and she wore a close-fitting dress of black serge,

with a scarlet bow fluttering at the throat and a scarlet belt around

the waist. It was a costume simple to severity, but in which she looked

diabolically handsome. Her only ornaments on this occasion were two

broad hoops of gold in her ears, and, on her left hand, an antique ring

with an enormous ruby in it. Such a ruby not one lady in a thousand

would dare to put on; it must have come to her, I thought, from the

tomb of some early royal ancestress. It harmonised well with what I

took to be the essential character of the Countess Almara.

Here, however, has been more than enough of personal description, which

is never so futile as when it attempts to catch the secret of a lovely

woman's charm. As an artist I have dwelt upon details which to the

ordinary eye would have combined for the production of a single effect

more or less acutely pleasurable. I looked at her with the instinctive

longing which an artist feels to interpret beauty upon canvas; and

the critical admiration of my glance met and partly disconcerted the

critical inquiry of her own.

'I have much happiness in speaking to Monsieur Campbell,' she said

after a moment in a deep fresh voice. 'To me it is not as if I were

speaking to a stranger.'

We walked on slowly, the young Countess between her mother and me. I

felt a childish desire to utter something brilliant and profound; and,

knowing by experience that such a wish is always fatal to the deed, I

took refuge in the intensity of commonplace.

'Mademoiselle finds this place enjoyable?'

'After the city, truly, yes.'

'Paris is indeed hot in this month.'

'It is from St. Petersburg that we come here.'

'Mademoiselle the Countess is, then, a Russian?'

Here the elder lady interposed with a smile, 'Not altogether Russian,

monsieur. For my part, I am a Circassian. My father was attached to the

Court of the Czar after the conquest of our poor country. I was married

among our conquerors--what will you? For Almara, she may be called the

Reconciliation, is it not?'

'If all quarrels could find such reconciliation----' I began.

The Countess Semaroff laughed good-naturedly. 'There, you are

_spirituel_; one sees you have lived much in Paris,' she was kind

enough to say.

'But it is not in the _salons_ of Paris that you have found the

power to conceive your pictures. I refer not to the execution--the

_technique_--all that which labour and experience may acquire; but

it is the thought, look you, the life that is in your work; and this

can be found not in any city, not in any society, but only in the man

himself who feels, who sees.'

It was the young Countess who spoke thus, and with an energy of

tone and expression that caused those nerves of self-approbation

which are situated somewhere in the back part of a man's throat to

thrill pleasantly. I had not expected to find in so young a woman an

appreciation at once so earnest and intelligent.

'You have studied art yourself?' I said to her.

'Behold, my very dear, you will permit that I sit on the bench and read

my letter while you and Monsieur Campbell have your little debate. When

you are fatigued you shall rejoin me. Go, then.' And with this the good

Countess established herself upon a seat sheltered from the breeze,

but which we would pass and repass at every turn of our promenade. Our

conversation continued.

'I do not name myself student; I am a lover,' said the Countess Almara.

'My life has not been a school; it has been a passion. I cannot talk

learnedly, as do many; I know not the names of things; but I know what

reaches my heart: that I understand and never forget.'

'It is, then, that your heart has taught you more than the heads of

many students teach them.'

'I should like to believe that,' she exclaimed with animation. 'I like

not to be told, "You must believe this; you must say that." I would

believe and say because I cannot help it. Figure to yourself that my

life has not been altogether after the convenances. A child, I lived in

a grand château beside a lake; beyond the lake was a mountain, and on

all sides a forest. I had a gun, I hunted, and I swam and rowed upon

the lake, and I had my horses and my dogs. To sew, to play with dolls,

look you, I cared not for it. I am not as the French, not even as the

Russians; like my mother, I am Circassian; yes, I am more Circassian

than she instead of less.'

'I believe it well. But later you left this château--you travelled?'

'I have been to many places and seen much society, and I have learned

to behave _comme il faut_ and to speak the French. But it is only a

little comedy that I act; I feel that within me remains always the

little girl of the lake and forest, but dressed differently, and with a

face that does not tell the truth, as then. I can look happy when I am

sad, and grave when I wish to laugh.'

'But you are happier than you were before?'

'Oh, for example, behold a question of difficulty,' said the Countess,

shrugging her shoulders. 'One is never happy as in childhood; but,

in fine, one finds a way to be happy. To love what is beautiful is

happiness, but then it is a happiness full of all that is most sad.'

'It is not often that one has discovered that truth at your age,

mademoiselle.'

'But it is true, is it not? For beauty dies; or if not beauty, then the

eye, the soul, that has enjoyed it. Why was it ever shown to us? It

only makes us long for what never comes, for what can never be.'

This gloomy philosophy, uttered by one who should have seen as yet

only the sunshine of life, roused me to attempt what, for me, was

the anomaly of vindicating the more hopeful view. Some platitude I

brought forth about the soul finding in another world the fulfilment

of unsatisfied aspirations, and I asked her whether she doubted

immortality.

We were leaning on the broad wooden railing of the promenade, looking

seaward. The Countess was turning her ring absently on her forefinger.

'There ought to be immortality,' said she, 'to recompense us, not for

what we have suffered in the world, but for what we have enjoyed!'

'Yes, you could not have hit upon a stronger argument,' returned I

after a moment's thought.

'Is it strong enough?'

'Strong enough certainly to justify hope.'

'Ah, my God, one hopes without any justification at all. You conceive,

monsieur, I am not of those who believe all we are told of the holy

Greek Church. To believe, and after all to be deceived! I could not

bear it. I have not found anyone so wise as to make all doubts seem

foolish. But I have found many things that tell me, "Destiny mocks

you." Yes,' she added, turning towards me with a kind of fierceness in

her look, 'yes, destiny mocks me.'

'This girl has sustained some terrible injustice in her life,' I

thought to myself. 'It glows in her words like the fire in her ruby.'

After a pause she spoke again.

'Figure to yourself, monsieur, a life that feels itself strong and

capable of all enjoyments and aspirations; and this life, in the midst

of its joy and freedom, one day meets its destiny, which says, "You

are a slave: your aspirations are ashes; your joy shall make you weep;

you shall become all that you despise. If you struggle to be free, you

shall but dig your dungeon deeper. So it shall be to the end; but I do

not forbid you to hope." Well, is not that mockery?'

'Destiny has not that power over us. I who speak to you have suffered,

mademoiselle, but I have not found that suffering degrades. It chills,

perhaps.'

'Ah, you speak of men. I am a woman; it is another thing that! But

behold me who discourse thus to you, who see me for the first time--who

think me mad.'

'Oh, Countess!...'

'Do you know why I say to you these things, which I have said before

to no one--to no one, Monsieur Campbell? It is because they grew in

my mind as I looked at your picture--your picture, that is now mine

as well. Many hours have I looked at it, and I said, "The man who has

conceived that he has known what are the secrets of life. If I meet

him I will tell him these secrets of mine; he is worthy to hear them.

He can interpret mysteries." But your interpretation is profound,

monsieur; not everyone can read it.'

'If I could always paint for such as you, Countess, I might some day

realise my ideal.'

She stood meditatively, her hands hanging folded and her eyes dreaming.

'When I saw that picture,' she said at length, 'I felt that it was

the picture of my soul. There she sits within her rampart, which was

once whole and sound. But now there is a breach, and that breach will

never be built up again--never, never. Once the enemy has entered; and

though for years and years she may watch and guard, yet at some hour,

some moment even, her eyes will droop and her hand waver.... Then he

springs and clutches her, and it is ended. See him where he lurks

there outside among the bushes. He waits; he is sure. And she--regard

that terror in her eyes. Monsieur, it is a sublime thing to be a great

painter.'

She held out her hand to me impulsively; there were tears in her

eyes, but she smiled them away with a wilful defiance. Our hands just

touched; then she withdrew hers. 'You see I have not had your picture

for nothing; I have looked at it,' she said.

I was deeply touched. 'You have seen through it into the heart that

conceived it.'

'Let us talk of other things,' she exclaimed abruptly in a lighter

tone. 'Come, let us walk, else madame my mother will think again that I

am lost.'

We resumed our promenade accordingly, but for awhile in silence.

'You look at my ruby. Do you find it handsome?' She had been turning

and twisting the ring upon her finger, and my eyes had more than once

been drawn to it. Almost as soon as she had spoken she slipped the ring

off and laid it in my hand.

'It is a real antique,' I said, concealing the surprise this sudden act

inspired in me. 'It is an heirloom in your family, perhaps?'

'It is a magic ring; there is a spell connected with it,' said the

Countess, laughing.

'Let me not be the breaker of the spell,' I rejoined, holding it

towards her. But instead of taking it from me, she extended her long

taper finger, and I put the ring on it.

'There, you have put it on, and now it will never come off,' she said

with a strange smile. 'It is the ring of my destiny.'

'Yours should be a rich destiny, then.'

'Yes, I shall be rich; I shall make a figure in the world,' she replied

still smiling. 'Nevertheless the spell is a curse; for so long as I

wear the ring I must be miserable, and if I lose it I shall be wicked.'

'Is there no third alternative?'

'There was, but now the moment is passed. That is your fault, monsieur.'

'My fault?'

'If, when I gave you the ring just now, and it was in your power, you

had flung it far, far away into the sea, then the curse would have left

me, and I should have been free always.'

'If that be all I'll soon set you at liberty. Give me the ring.'

She shook her head. 'It is now too late. Such a chance can come only

once. Have I not told you destiny mocks always? Behold my mother who

beckons us.'

We approached Madame, who took her daughter's hand affectionately in

hers. 'My very dear, we dine to-day at half-past four; we must make our

toilette early. But, my God! how your hand is cold, my child. You have

been chilled by that fog this morning.'

The Countess Almara laughed. 'It was not I; it was that poor young man

with the black hair and the blue eyes who was swimming so far out;

that he should have been chilled I could believe it. In effect it was

droll,' she continued, turning to me. 'Figure yourself this little

man--he was very little--little like that,' and she held her palm about

four feet from the ground. 'Well, he swims out a fine distance, even as

far as I go in the canoe. When the fog comes I hear a splash; I look

round; I perceive this unfortunate infant. I think he shall be drowned,

and I go towards him to preserve him. Then I see that this infant it is

a man; and this man he seems to fear me more than to be drowned, for he

swims away when I approach. So I return towards the shore, but slowly,

so that he may see me and follow me; and, in fine, when we are nearly

arrived the fog dissolves itself, and behold us.'

'Do you by hazard know this gentleman?' inquired the Countess Semaroff

of me. 'He has the air of an Englishman.'

'No; he is an American,' I answered with a touch of prevarication.

'Ah, these Americans, how I hate them!' murmured the Countess Almara.

Madame rose with a shrug of her shoulders. 'We shall have the pleasure

of seeing Monsieur Campbell at the dance this evening?'

'Without doubt--that is--no. I am to depart by the diligence even at

the present hour.'

'Depart to-day? Impossible! After having met Monsieur to lose him so

soon!'

'Madame, I am desolated, but--affairs.'

'You will not go to-day,' said the Countess Almara, in a voice so low

it could have been audible only to myself.

'Perhaps, indeed, I could manage to postpone for a few days----' I

resumed, still addressing myself to Madame.

'Good. We remain here but a few days longer ourselves; and when we go

you shall accompany us. That will be charming. Is it agreed?'

'Madame, a thousand acknowledgments.'

'Till this evening, then.'

I bowed low. The Countess Almara laid her hand in mine, our eyes met,

her lips seemed to form the word 'Merci,' but she did not utter it

aloud; then she turned brusquely and followed her mother, and they were

soon out of sight.

VII.

I drew a long breath, stroked my beard thoughtfully, looked at my

watch, and set out at a brisk pace for my lodgings. Before I had gone

far I heard my name called, and turning, saw Mr. Jefferson Montgomery,

who signalled to me with one gloved hand while with the other he lifted

his hat in adieu to an elderly gentleman with a tremendous sweep of

moustachios. My friend now hastened towards me, his white teeth

flashing, his blue eyes beaming, and with a general air of prosperity

and benevolence.

'I am so glad to see you, dear Campbell. But they told me you were

going to leave us. Surely you're not?'

'What an idea! I shall be here at least a week.'

Jeff took my arm with perfect cordiality and good faith. I did not want

him, but there was nothing for it but to let the poor little man come.

Arrived at my house, I sent him upstairs while I stopped to have a word

with my landlady.

'Madame Enault, I shall be able to remain another week.'

Madame Enault was delighted, but would Monsieur pardon her?

'Freely and completely. What then?'

Only that, since Monsieur's notice to leave another monsieur had

engaged the rooms, and Madame Enault had agreed with him for a month.

'Then let him know that you misunderstood me and that he must go

elsewhere.'

To a marvel; only, alas! this gentleman had deposited the hire of the

rooms in advance.

'You will return his deposit to him.'

Perfectly, but that, having had a heavy bill to meet, Madame Enault had

been constrained to pay the money away.

'Ah! and Madame requires me to supply her with the cash in question?'

Monsieur had exactly divined the necessity that unfortunately existed.

Providence had treated me too well for me to be severe with so thrifty

and unimpeachable a landlady; accordingly a financial transaction took

place, the porter was remanded, and I went upstairs.

'And so you have been introduced,' said Jeff. He was reclining

Adonis-like upon the lounge, exquisitely dressed.

'To whom do you refer?'

'Now don't be English and reticent. Whom should I mean but my countess?

I do so want to hear your opinion of her.'

I could not help laughing a little, for to be seriously angry with the

bard of Beacon Street was not easy.

'Unless you wish to write yourself down irrevocably an ass, my

dear boy, you will not again apply the possessive pronoun to the

Countess Almara. It sounds much as if a horse-fly should speak of his

proprietorship of a four-in-hand.'

'My dear Campbell, you are really impolite.'

'I know it, and I hold you responsible for forcing me to address you

with such brutality. I'm not accustomed to it.'

'How you do go on!' sighed Jeff, wiping his eyebrows with his cambric

handkerchief. 'One never knows when you're in earnest. But really don't

you think we shall make a first-rate match?'

'Gracious Powers! Do you know that there are probably not two men

living for whom the Countess Almara would not be more than a match?'

'Exactly. In fact, there is only one who could mate with her on equal

terms, and--well, I happen to be he.' Jeff uttered this with perfect

modesty and conviction.

'My young friend, your chances with that young lady are not hopeless;

they are ridiculous. She actually cannot maintain gravity at the

thought of you. Must I reveal that she speaks of the "pauvre enfant,"

that she is convinced you are only four feet high, and that she

declares she frightened you terribly in the fog this morning? Eloquent

looks and sympathy of souls indeed!' and I laughed rudely.

'I don't believe a word you say,' replied Jeff, laughing also. 'But

there is one thing that I do begin to believe.'

'What is that?'

'That I've got a rival, eh? ha, ha, ha!'

'You have an entirely too lively imagination,' was my cold reply.

'Ah, Campbell, you are very deep--very. If I were less sure of my

countess than I am I declare I should feel uneasy.'

'Merely for curiosity's sake, where do you find encouragement?'

'You were in earnest, then, when you said this morning that you knew

less than I about women? Your difficulty is, probably, that you regard

woman as a species of man, when in fact no woman who amounts to

anything has a particle of masculinity about her. They may pretend to

it sometimes, just to bamboozle fellows who are inexperienced; but they

drop it in the presence of a man who sees through them.'

'Through their backs. I understand.'

'Exactly. Well, then, my countess, when I have my eye upon her, is her

simple womanly self, because she knows my insight is unerring; but with

you I'll wager she talks literature, and art, and morals, and things of

that kind, eh?'

'I will not deny it, Jeff.'

'Of course she did, and why? Because she knew she could make you

believe she really cared for such things; and, womanlike, she couldn't

resist humbugging you.'

'And her laughing at you, her contemptuous allusions to your stature

and so forth were also impositions upon my naïve ignorance of the sex?'

'Indeed, my dear Campbell, they were.'

'It is me, then, and not you that she considers ridiculous?'

'At all events you can see that it's not me,' said Jeff leniently.

'Why, just consider the points in me which she professed to consider

laughable. My height! Now the last thing a woman bothers herself

about in a man is his height. When there is a question of physical

attractions, she looks first at his shoulders, then at his eyes, then

at his feet and hands, then at his chin. If these please her his height

may take care of itself; and if you won't mind my saying it, the less

it has to take care of the better. Look at Napoleon Bonaparte, Martin

Luther, Frederick the Great, Benjamin Franklin, Plato, General Grant.

Why, pretty nearly everybody who has stood a head and shoulders above

his generation has been under five feet eight.'

'Bravo, Jeff! You are both eloquent and sagacious. Beacon Street should

be proud of you.'

'Knowledge of this kind is a matter of temperament and intuition.

Experience can but confirm what the soul has already divined; and if

the previous divination do not exist, age and experience are just so

much to the bad, if you won't mind my saying so. And so she ridiculed

the fog incident?'

'She alluded to it with an apparent spice of humour,' I said

diffidently.

'Dear girl,' murmured the poet tenderly. 'That seeming ridicule was

almost as direct an avowal of affection as a modest woman could have

made. That mutual voiceless self-revelation of ours, which my dear

Campbell professes to discredit, has evidently stirred my Countess to

her depths. It has aroused the potent germs of the master passion of

her life. She trembles to confess herself to herself; how, then, could

she do otherwise than veil herself from a stranger? and what better

veil than a simulated mirth and mockery? But really now you don't need

me to tell you this; it's the A, B, C of the feminine nature.'

'Jeff, you puzzle me; you are either more or less than human. At all

events you are an incarnate solution of the old problem how to make the

best of it. Well, what are your proximate intentions?'

'To dance the "Boston" with her this evening.'

'You will be at the ball, then?'

'Indeed, yes. Shall not you?'

'I shall; for since you are definitely resolved upon playing the

donkey, I want to be in a position to hear your opening bray.'

'At ten o'clock, then; but it will be a variation upon _A Midsummer

Night's Dream_,' answered the poet with imperturbable geniality; and so

we parted.

VIII.

The ball--or rather the _soirée dansante_--was announced for nine

o'clock, and at thirty minutes after that hour I passed through the

doorway.

An oblong hall, the floor space framed in on three sides by an

embankment of benches, with the orchestra on the fourth. This orchestra

comprised a piano, two violins, and a trombone, all in evening dress.

The assembly to whom this unexceptionable quartette discoursed was by

no means so rigorously attired. There were coats and trousers of all

hues, and skirts and waists of all fashions and degrees of lowness.

The scene was a motley one, but all incongruities were harmonised by

the universal element of uncompromising enjoyment, pervading black and

grey, high and low alike, and animating the heels and heads of the

spectators upon the benches as well as the actual performers upon the

floor. The orchestra sawed and thrummed with hearty good-will, and the

lamps on their brackets and the windows in their frames jarred and

rattled to the rhythmic fall of feet. In the pauses of the dance and

clatter the roar of the surf came in through the open door upon the

wings of the cool salt breeze.

The most polished people in the world dance, if not ideally, at least

really. There is no languishing, no shilly-shallying, but downright

roundabout, vigorous hard work. A Frenchman who has danced over night

must needs feel the effects of it on getting up in the morning; and as

for his partner, who has danced for herself and for him on two separate

counts, it is a wonder she ever gets up at all. Their scheme of a waltz

is simple and telling, being based upon the primitive principle of

planetary motion--revolution round their own axis and revolution round

their orbit. This double motion is kept up with mechanical regularity

until nature--or more frequently the orchestra--gives way. The orbit

of one couple being the orbit of all, the general effect of a lively

waltz is of a voluntary human whirlpool composed of self-centred

_tête-à-tête_ eddies. By centrifugal law the centre of the whirlpool

remains empty.

A moment's inspection of this whirlpool satisfied me that it did not

contain the Countess Almara. As I was proceeding to a scrutiny of the

benches the _frou-frou_ of a crisp skirt along the aisle caused me to

turn and find my face within eighteen inches of the clear firm cheek

of the beautiful pagan. She and her mother passed without appearing to

see me; and they were followed by a military-looking personage of some

fifty years of age, bald-headed, broad-shouldered, and bulky, whom I

fancied I had noticed once or twice before. After seeing the ladies

into their seats he returned past me up the aisle and went out.

Presently I came down, exchanged greetings with my friends, and sat in

a vacant seat near the Countess Almara. Her manner was distraught and

preoccupied; her smile only came from her lips, and though she looked

me in the face occasionally with a certain intentness, she seemed

scarcely to see me or to comprehend my words.

Her personal appearance was more diabolically handsome than ever. As

usual, her colours were black and red, but, being in silk, they were

exceptionally effective. There was a glimpse of warm white neck and

smooth rounded arms; her hair, coiled on the top of her head, revealed

the graceful bend of the nape. Her bracelet and necklace matched the

earrings of the morning, and beneath the delicate film of her glove was

discernible the form of the great ruby.

'Might I have the honour of this dance?'

'Not yet, not yet. In this moment I feel myself unable. Let us rather

talk. I am not myself; you see it. Listen to the sea. My God! how it

roars! I wish I were out on it in my canoe with the great waves.'

I laughed to disguise the concern which her manifest agitation caused

me.

'In that case, mademoiselle, you would be without the advantage of my

society; and I doubt whether my little friend Montgomery even would

venture to swim after you on such a night as this.'

'Oh, he is your friend, then, this Monsieur Mont--Mont-go-merie? And

I have spoken of him to you slightingly. I did not know, and I am

foolish; I speak without forethought. You will forget it? Yes.'

'If anyone should apologise it is I, for not having warned you

beforehand of our tender relations. But be reassured; Monsieur

Montgomery is a poet, and intends making you the heroine of an epic. If

you are gracious to him this evening he will forgive you anything.'

'It is not of him that I shall demand pardon,' said the Countess with

the slightest imaginable intonation of scorn. 'But he is your friend,

and you shall see how I will be polite.' She breathed and moved

nervously, her thoughts being evidently absorbed in some subject

foreign enough to anything I could guess. Her eyes were restless, and

she fanned her flushed cheeks in vain.

'What day is this?' she demanded suddenly.

'The fifteenth of August.'

'I shall remember it always--always.'

The hand that held the fan drooped, and, seemingly by accident, touched

my own. The momentary glance that swept my face showed an inward

trouble and appeal, and, if I read it aright, a something deeper and

more passionate beyond. With the unexpectedness that was one of her

characteristics she rose to her feet.

'Come, I feel better at present: let us dance; come.'

In her preoccupation she had not perceived that the music had ceased

some minutes, and the dancers all left the floor.

'What hast thou, then, dear one?' inquired the Countess Semaroff,

looking up indolently through her eye-glasses.

Almara perceived her blunder, and I could mark a pulsation of anger

pass through her body while she muttered behind her teeth, 'That I am

imbecile!'

'Don't you find it very warm here? Suppose we take a turn to the door,'

I suggested. She thanked me with a look, exchanged a glance and a word

with her mother, and taking my arm, we began to move down the aisle.

Presentiments, though commonly deceptive, do nevertheless exist. Just

at this time I had a presentiment that some crisis was impending. If

I could secure a few minutes' privacy with the young Countess, I was

resolved to tell her a secret which already burned within me, though I

myself had not known it until this very evening. But I felt conviction,

I felt confidence, and I felt that there was no time like the present.

Events the most insignificant upset purposes the most momentous. There

were two doors to the hall, and in order to reach the one at which

we were aiming it was necessary to cross the floor. As we stepped on

the floor at one side a couple of gentlemen appeared on the other;

we met in the very centre of the hall, but it was not until I felt

the Countess press my arm that I thought to notice who either of

the gentlemen was. To my ineffable annoyance I then recognised the

infatuated Jeff leaning on the arm of the bulky gentleman with the

moustachios, who was positively in the act of introducing him to my

partner.

The Countess seemed as much taken by surprise as myself. She returned

Jeff's elaborate obeisance with a grand curtsey, and then stood erect

and silent, her hand still resting within my arm. The music struck up

another waltz.

'May I have the honour of this dance?' inquired Jeff with his sweetest

emphasis.

I waited to hear the Countess say she was engaged and to pass on with

her; but after an instant's pause she slowly relinquished my arm, and

uttering the conventional words, 'Je veux bien,' she resigned herself

to the triumphant Bostonian.

Then, when it was too late, I realised that our engagement had been for

the previous dance, and not for this one, if indeed there had been any

definite engagement at all, and that, as I had heard Jeff's request

in silence, the Countess had been forced to suppose that I desired we

should part. It was one of those absurd misapprehensions which occur in

ball-rooms as well as in other places, but which I had never found so

vexatious as in the present instance.

Meantime Jeff and she had eddied away from me; another couple,

revolving up from behind, came into collision with me. I felt myself in

a false position, and beat a retreat to the Countess Semaroff, beside

whom I seated myself with the gloomy grin of a baffled man.

But the Countess made herself particularly gracious and entertaining,

and I was perforce obliged to give her a good deal of attention, though

my real interest was monopolised by the proceedings of Jeff and his

partner. Jeff was undoubtedly the best dancer in the room, and the

'Boston' step which he danced was not only more graceful and easy than

the ordinary whirligig, but, by the device of 'reversing,' enabled him

to perform his evolutions undisturbed in that vacant centre of the

merry-go-round which has been already described. This proficiency of

his contributed to the sum of my misfortunes for that evening. I am

not myself a good dancer, and I therefore shrank from affording the

Countess Almara an opportunity of comparing Jeff's performance with

my own. I resolved not to dance at all, and to trust to luck for an

opportunity of getting a few minutes' private conversation with her.

But the stars in their courses fought against me on this night of

August 15. Madame introduced me to the military gentleman, who turned

out to be her husband, and he and I presently fell into an animated

political discussion. When Jeff and his partner returned they took

seats on the further side of the Countess, and it was almost impossible

for me to appropriate so much as a glance from those eyes which

now held so large a portion of my world's light. I could mark her

forced attention to the poet's vapourings; I could divine her secret

disgust, and I understood that she endured this petty martyrdom from a

mistaken idea of making me reparation for her slight upon him. But I

was practically incapacitated for either explanation or consolation.

The intangible trammels of society and etiquette are as strong as the

thread that bound Fenrir, and I finally made up my mind that I might as

well go home.

'Before you go, dear Monsieur Campbell,' said the Countess Semaroff

with a glance at the Count, 'we will venture to entreat of you a great

favour.'

'I despair of expressing to you the extent of the obligation which your

condescension would impose upon us,' added the Count with his bland,

impassive politeness.

'Am I really, then, so fortunate as to be able to contribute in any way

to the pleasure of the Count and Countess? What happiness!'

'Behold how it becomes ravishing!' exclaimed the Countess. 'Almara, my

very dear, Monsieur Campbell will perhaps consent.'

The young Countess had been sitting with her hands folded listlessly

in her lap, absorbed apparently in her own thoughts, which were who

knows how far removed from the confiding chit-chat which poor Jeff was

babbling at her ear. She now raised her head and turned her eyes upon

me. The deep sentiment contained in that look would have drawn from me,

had she required it, the sacrifice even of that happiness which was to

be the substance of my life. She said not a word.

'Thou must ask Monsieur; do thou ask him, Almara,' continued the

Countess, smiling, 'since it concerns thee.'

'Is it that you would paint a portrait of me?' said Almara simply.

'Merely a sketch, dear monsieur,' put in the mother persuasively. 'The

opportunity may not again occur for us. It is not often one has the

fortune to meet Monsieur Campbell.'

'And there can be but one Monsieur Campbell in the world,' added the

Count with a bow.

'Something at all events--a likeness merely--a work of three days,'

subjoined Madame earnestly.

I had had time to suppress the first impulse of delight, and to command

my face to an expression of polite affability. In this so-called favour

I recognised the agency of the Countess Almara. To the father and

mother it meant securing a likeness of their daughter from the hand of

the first portrait-painter of the day; but to that painter and to that

daughter it meant hours spent in comparatively undisturbed enjoyment of

one another's society--hours of silent sympathies, of low-spoken words

that sounded little but meant much; hours that would count for years in

the progress of a mutual understanding where each sought to reveal all

and withhold nothing.

'It will give me great pleasure to sketch Mademoiselle,' said I. 'Four

or five sittings will suffice. To-morrow, after the bath, we will speak

further on the subject. At present I must retire. Madame the Countess,

monsieur, mademoiselle, _au revoir_.'

'Good-night, Campbell,' spoke up Jeff as I moved away. 'Thank you ever

so much; but you must expect to find me a severe critic. _Au revoir._'

IX.

But our drama was not to reach its conclusion without a modicum of the

tragic element, and this modicum was to be introduced by no less heroic

a character than the little poet of Beacon Hill.

It is yet early to point the moral of my tale; but I may remark that

we are not seldom helped along the path of life, and even have our

true direction pointed out to us, by ineffective obstacles. The person

or circumstance obstructing us first arouses us to appreciate the

advantages of a course which we might else never have thought of, or,

having thought of, might have lacked energy to pursue.

In this sense it may be said that I owed my introduction to the

Countess Almara, and still more the colour which that acquaintance

immediately assumed, to the unintentional influence of my Boston

friend. His vague rhapsodies first drew my attention to a woman whom

I had till then admired without appreciating her. His transcendental

love-making had shown me how truly she was lovable, and his infatuated

pursuit of her had stimulated me to a decision whose gravity might else

have given me pause. Left to myself, I should doubtless have fallen in

love, but I should have been a great deal longer about it. At the age

of five-and-thirty the passions are more enduring than in youth, but

do not ordinarily kindle so readily. Jeff was the match that set me

afire, and he the goad that drove me at a pace which surprised myself.

But I do not care to dwell upon this phase of my romance. To have been

the rival of one you contemn is unpleasant, and the superior nature

cannot avoid remorse in looking back upon such a contest.

However, the sittings began and fulfilled all our

anticipations--Almara's and mine. The further I penetrated into her

mind and heart the richer did these appear. Our speech and bearing

still observed a chivalrous sort of ceremony towards one another; we

did not as yet permit ourselves to be frankly lovers. But our reserve

was only an instinctive device for gaining a deeper realisation of

our happiness. Strong natures often illustrate this paradox: they are

repelled for a time by the intensity of their attraction to each other.

Moreover, we were never left entirely to ourselves; the customs of

Continental etiquette are immovable, and so was the Countess Semaroff

from my _atelier_ or from the little antechamber opening out of it.

But the restraint was purely formal, and even added to the zest of our

enjoyment by giving it the air of being something to intrigue for. It

may not be creditable to human nature, but it is a fact that the most

precious gifts of love are the smuggled ones.

But why did I not declare the state of affairs at once to the Count and

Countess, and thus settle a question of such vital moment to me? In the

first place, I could plead the lover's excuse--the desire to keep the

secret of his heart for a time veiled, even from her he loved. But,

besides this, I felt uncertain how the avowal would be received, not

by Almara herself--I was sure of her--but by her parents. A marriage

between even an eminent artist and a woman of noble birth is not an

everyday occurrence; and I felt the prudence of sounding the views of

the Count and Countess on this subject before putting my fate to the

touch. In case of refusal, indeed, I should not hesitate to take Almara

in spite of them, feeling as I did that our love would be compensation

for all losses; and it may be that I contemplated the possibility of a

hostile turn of the die with something like a pleasurable thrill. A man

likes to prove his power in the teeth of obstacles; and, as I looked

at Almara's proud and passionate beauty, I thought how grand would be

the response to the summons of her heart. It would be almost a pity to

forego that spectacle.

Another source of my hesitation had to do with the mystery which still

continued to invest my beautiful sitter--that mystery which seemed

concentrated in her ruby. What it might be I knew not; Almara quietly

but resolutely foiled all my attempts to lead the conversation up to

the subject. Of course I was not able, situated as we were, to make

any serious attack upon her reserve; but it was evident that her secret

would probably remain a secret until all concealments were finally

at an end between us. All that troubled me in the matter was a fear

lest it should turn out to be a hindrance to our union; but, as time

went on, this apprehension faded from my mind. Almara was gradually

losing those traces of depression and anxiety which she had betrayed

in our first interviews. The sunnier side of her character came out;

she chatted with gaiety and abandon; the shadow of pain and revolt

was passing away. She still turned and twisted the heavy ring upon

her finger, but now rather caressingly than impatiently. And once, I

remember, as she and I and the rest, including Jeff, were sitting after

sundown round a table outside the casino, laughing, gossiping, admiring

the afterglow along the western horizon, and sipping iced coffee out of

tall glasses, on this evening of the last day but one of the sittings

I saw her lift her hand to her lips with one of those unexpected

movements of hers and bestow a quick kiss upon the ruby. No one seemed

to notice this strange gesture, which indeed was so managed as to have

escaped any eye less keen than a lover's. What was the meaning of it?

Almara's glance met mine; for a moment she seemed disconcerted, but the

next moment laughed and said saucily--

'Monsieur Campbell, do you know a cure for burnt fingers?'

The next day at noon the last sitting was over. I sat alone in the

_atelier_, adding the finishing touches to the portrait. At four

o'clock the whole party, not forgetting Jeff, were to be present for

the 'private view.'

No one, not even Almara, had thus far been permitted to see the

picture; and as for my Boston friend, I had not suffered him even to

be present at any of the sittings. Besides that the little man had a

disturbing effect upon me I wished these hours to be as far as possible

sacred to my sitter and myself--oases of serene communion uninvaded by

Bostonian ineptitudes. On the other hand, I must plead guilty to having

used Jeff (or allowed Almara to use him) outside the studio in a manner

perhaps inconsistent with the strict loyalty of friendship.

No definite words had passed between her and me on the subject, but,

by a tacit agreement, the unsuspecting poet was made to do duty as a

blind. Almara, in short, made show of a particular and sentimental

interest in him, thus closing people's eyes to the state of feeling

between ourselves. She acted her part so well, and the delighted

Jeff so purred and beamed under her condescension, that I sometimes

felt remorse. He deserved it, no doubt; it would teach him a lesson;

and yet I disliked seeing even Jeff make such a fool of himself. The

fact that he would have scouted my representations, had I sought to

enlighten him, did not remove my responsibility. Almara did not seem

to share my scruples; women never look at these things as men do. She

fascinated Jeff without mercy; they canoed, dived, and danced together.

A stronger brain than his might have failed to detect any insincerity

in her manner. Perhaps, indeed, she was not for the time being any less

sincere with him than she was with me. The histrionic side of a woman's

nature is generally strong, and is sometimes developed to such a pitch

that what they enact seems as real to them as what they are in sober

earnest about.

About half an hour before the time appointed for receiving my visitors

there was a knock at my door, and Jeff came in. He was as neat,

complacent, and pretty as a miniature on ivory. I had just put the last

touch to the canvas, and was standing back in thoughtful contemplation

of the work.

'Well, how do you like it?' I asked him after the first words.

'Campbell, I am almost satisfied; and that, from me, is the highest

eulogy that can be bestowed upon you.'

'You never told me that you were the final umpire in art criticism.'

'Oh, I only pretend to be the final umpire on the subject of Almara.'

'Come, Jeff, let this farce have an end,' said I, laying my hand kindly

on his shoulder. 'From this hour you must give up your pretensions in

that quarter. To use the homely phrase, the Countess Almara is meat

for--Well, let us say for your elders.'

'Oh, my dear fellow, not at all; we suit each other perfectly. But I

knew we should; you remember my telling you so? I should think you

would have noticed it this week past yourself.'

'What I have noticed, my poor Jeff, has caused me more than one twinge

of conscience. You must try and forgive me. The fact is, the Countess

Almara and I----'

The poet interrupted me with an arch laugh.

'Twinge of conscience, did you say? Twinge of jealousy you mean. My

dear old Campbell, if I have anything to forgive, I forgive it with

all my heart. But my object in coming here so early was to ask you to

forgive me.'

'Ah, I fancy I understand you, and I admit having thought you rather

reprehensible on that score. Considering that your father made that

provisional arrangement regarding your income in case you thwarted his

wishes----'

'Yes, but that was only in case I----'

'In case you married anyone but the lady he had selected for you.

Exactly. And you decided that you preferred the Countess to the income.'

'Really you are mistaken, Campbell. I have no idea of risking my

income. I know the value of money.'

'All I was going to say was that you have not been acting quite

ingenuously towards the Count and Countess Semaroff, not to speak of

their daughter. They look upon you as a young gentleman able to dispose

of ten thousand pounds a year. Now, if you had proposed to them for her

hand without letting them know----'

'Propose to them for it? But, my dear Campbell, that was all settled

from the beginning.'

'Do you mean to say they have admitted you as a suitor?'

'Why, what else could I mean?'

'And you omitted to tell them that in case you married her, you would

have but three hundred pounds income?'

'Indeed, I told them nothing of the sort. Why should I?'

'Because an honest man in your place would have told them!' I replied

coldly. 'You are sailing under false colours. You are giving yourself

out to be a millionaire when you have only the salary of a clerk.'

'But isn't a clerk with ten thousand a year a pretty decent

millionaire?'

'But you will have ten thousand a year only as long as you are

unmarried.'

'That is so far the case that, after I'm married, I shall have twenty

thousand a year--my wife's income added to my own.'

'Well, Montgomery, I don't care to beat about the bush with you. If

you can reconcile your conduct with your own code of honesty it's no

concern of mine. But as regards the Countess Almara--I am going to

marry her myself.'

'You? Oh, you are joking.'

'I have loved her from the first; she loves me----'

'Oh! I say! ha, ha, ha! Has she told you so?'

'We have not openly declared ourselves in so many words--you are

welcome to whatever consolation that may afford you--but there are

other means of coming to an understanding than by words.'

'Well, that is true, at any rate: it is for that I came to ask your

pardon, Campbell. But really was it not in great measure your own

fault?'

'Upon my word, Montgomery, I fail to catch your drift.'

'Well--the long and short of it is she's been flirting with you.'

'With me? You surprise me.'

'You see she didn't want you to suspect our engagement. You remember

that first conversation you had with her, when she made those allusions

to my height, and said she hated Americans, and so on?'

I made a sign of assent.

'When she said those absurd things, though only in fun, she did not

know that I was her intended; and when, a few hours later, we found

each other out, she naturally felt annoyed at having spoken of me to a

stranger in such terms. You understand?'

'Pray go on,' I said, taking up my palette and brushes and standing

before the canvas, so that my face was turned from the speaker.

'So she begged her mother and me not to let you suspect; and the more

thoroughly to lull your suspicions (and also because the girl is a born

flirt, as all feminine women are) she--just--you know what--made love

to you in a mild way, I suppose.'

Jeff paused. 'The man is mad--raving mad!' I muttered, still making

pretence of retouching my background. Jeff flowed on.

'Of course a man like you, a man of the world, a great artist, and

getting on in the forties--of course I knew you'd only be amused, and

would take nothing seriously; and you know you scoffed at the notion of

matrimony when I asked you about it. But still she can be so attractive

when she chooses that latterly I began to fear you might be the least

bit fetched, after all. I told Allie I'd never forgive her if it turned

out so.'

'Told--_who_?'

'Allie--Almara, you know. We always called each other "Allie" and

"Jeffie" in our letters.'

'Letters? You corresponded, then?'

'Regularly--for the last five years.'

'I see; and--and so it's been a settled thing--but--is this your first

meeting?'

'Yes, and that is what made it so amusing. It had been arranged, you

know, that I was to meet them in Paris on the 20th----'

'Meet whom? You must excuse me, but you have such an unsystematic way

of imparting your information. I'm a bit confused.'

'To meet the Semaroffs. The Count is the Russian commissioner with whom

we are in treaty about the cigarette-holders. We were to be formally

betrothed in Paris, Allie and I----'

'Would you mind calling her the Countess Almara in speaking of her to

me? I--I have unpleasant associations with the other name. Go on.'

'The point is that, happening to stop here on my way, I was a good deal

taken with the "beautiful pagan," without of course knowing who she

was; and I might have made myself very unhappy about her if it hadn't

been for you.'

'Eh?'

'Yes, a fact. The first I knew of my pagan maid being one and the same

with Allie--Countess, I mean--was your mentioning her name to me that

first day at breakfast. Don't you remember my remarking how strangely

things came out? It was accident our both happening to be here, but it

was you who made us known to each other. Wasn't it curious?'

'Very curious, very amusing, the whole thing--ha, ha! And so that story

about the three hundred a year was--part of your poem, I suppose?'

'Not at all. But the Countess Almara being my papa's selection, I

risked nothing in marrying her. I tried to explain it to you at the

time, but you pitched into me so, and insisted upon my leaving her and

marrying somebody else, that at last, just for the fun of the thing, I

allowed you to believe that I was really as great a fool as you took me

for.'

Hereupon ensued a pause of some minutes. Jeff, I believe, lit a

cigarette. What I did I have no recollection; but I must have remained

standing before the easel. At length I felt that Jeff was standing

behind me.

'It couldn't be better, really,' he said. 'They'll like it so much at

home.'

'Beg pardon?'

'It's to go to Boston, you know, to give papa and mamma an idea of how

their daughter-in-law looks. Ah! you've put in the ring, too. I'm glad

of that. Handsome ruby, isn't it?'

'An antique. Such rings are not made nowadays.'

'Except by Tiffany; he manufactures them after the antique models. I

got this at his store in New York six months ago, and paid fifteen

hundred dollars for it. By the way, my dear Campbell, how much will

this sketch be?'

'Hum, let me see. How long have I been over it?'

'Just six days.'

'Well, then, I'll let it go for six thousand pounds. I don't care to

make money out of friends.'

The smoke of Jeff's cigarette got into his windpipe; and while he was

coughing the door opened, and the two countesses, followed by the

Count, came in.

After the portrait had been criticised and the compliments exchanged I

drew near to Almara, who was standing apart from the others, near the

easel.

'Countess, permit my congratulations.'

There was a slight involuntary quivering of the eyebrows and of the

corner of her mouth, and she kept her eyes upon the portrait as she

said in a low tone--

'You know it, then?'

'Your future husband has just told me.'

She shifted her position a little, and began to blush slowly.

'I have included a portrait of the ruby, you observe,' I went on. 'Are

you satisfied with it?'

'Very well--excellent,' she said mechanically.

'I was not sure whether you might prefer to have it omitted. That

evening on the beach--you remember,--you seemed to wish it out of the

way. I will conjure it away even now, if you say the word,' and I took

up the palette and brushes.

There was a pause: she understood me; the colour gradually left her

face, which she still kept averted. At length, with a perceptible

effort, she said--

'It had better remain.'

'I think so too,' I said, laying down the palette. The company was now

prepared to depart.

'Before you go, Countess, I wish--merely out of curiosity--that you

would tell me one thing.'

'Well, monsieur?'

'Are you an angel or a devil?'

Then at last she raised her face, pale as marble, and her black eyes

met mine in a quiet, strange look. She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

'I know not--well, I am a woman. Adieu. You will not forget me.' And

there, at all events, she spoke no more than truth.

The modest price which I had put upon my portrait appeared to overtax

the resources of Beacon Street, and the work remained upon my hands.

That night Madame Enault's chimney caught fire--an occurrence

unprecedented in the middle of August. I explained that I had burnt up

some rubbish, which had proved to be remarkably inflammable, and made

the fullest apologies; but the good lady's nerves did not recover their

tone until after the exhibition of tincture of argentum--a sound dose.

This, so far as I can recollect, was the last noticeable episode of my

summer holiday.

A LOVER IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.

I.

At first, I simply laughed the idea to scorn. I refused to regard

it, even for a moment, in a serious light. I jested with myself

about it, and became positively witty on the subject. I let slip no

opportunity to cast ridicule upon it. My chief regret was that I had

no acquaintance in town to whom I could expatiate on the complete

absurdity of the suggestion. In default of this, I took out of my

toilet drawer the nine square inches of cracked mirror before which I

was accustomed to do my shaving and cravat-tying, and, gazing curiously

at the heavy-browed, rugged-featured visage therein reflected, I

sarcastically inquired of it how soon it intended getting its portrait

painted on ivory, and hung in a locket round a fair lady's neck? I

entreated it, with sardonic humour, to give an example of a winning

smile--of an ardent glance--of a beseeching gaze. Then I threw myself

in my chair, put my feet upon my table, filled my rankest pipe with my

strongest tobacco, and while I smoked and lolled, I bade myself, with

a hoarse chuckle of mockery, amend the rudeness and unconventionality

of my manners, and abandon all selfish and offensive habits. In

short, I did everything to prove the folly and groundlessness of this

preposterous notion--except to forget it.

So went matters the first day. The following morning I arose to find

myself quite as firm as before, but somewhat less disposed towards

jocosity. I abused my imbecility with as much vigour as yesterday,

but with fewer quips and humours. I began to see that, for such a

fool as I had proved myself, stringent means were best; I ought to be

too much ashamed of the affair to laugh at it or treat it lightly.

Accordingly, I went about all day with a sour and malignant expression

of countenance: whenever old Joanna, the maidservant, happened to

venture into my apartments, I growled like a dangerous dog at her:

and I gave her my orders that no visitor was to be admitted, and no

letters or messages were to be brought up, in a tone of such energy and

menace, that you would have thought my privacy was as important and as

liable to intrusion as Chancellor Bismarck's: instead of which, the

only person I knew in Dresden, after my six months' residence there,

was the German-American banker; and it was not likely that he would

give himself the trouble to visit me--no, indeed! for my whole yearly

revenue (not including the sums received for my pictures, because I

had never yet sold any) did not reach fifteen hundred thalers; and

though I knew that at least twelve per cent. of this sum went into my

German-American friend's pocket under the name of 'commission,' yet

even that _douceur_ would not suffice to bring him a mile and a half

away into the outskirts of the Neustadt, and up three flights of dark

and devious staircases, to pay me a complimentary call. However, had

he, in spite of probability, actually made his appearance, I should not

have hesitated, in my then state of mind, to kick him downstairs again.

Well, that day passed, and was followed by a restless and weary night;

and I awoke in the morning to confront the fact that my attack had now

lasted no less than forty-two mortal hours, and, so far from abating,

showed every symptom of being on the increase.

I was now seriously alarmed. Here was I grappling with an insidious

and potent enemy, who apparently knew all my weak places, and how to

take advantage of them, but of the proper methods of defending myself

against whom I was fatally and completely ignorant. I had done what I

could, only to prove that I could do nothing: and in this case, doing

nothing was not a negative but a positive evil. The more I pondered

over my helplessness, the more disturbed did I become. What did it all

mean? What should I do? What was to be the end of it?

I ate my breakfast of coffee and rolls in silence and humility: old

Joanna had no cause whatever to complain of violent manifestations from

me. I spoke to her submissively and gently. I even entertained the

question whether it might not be prudent to lay the case before her

and entreat her advice upon it. But shame prevented me; I could not

steel myself to endure her gaze of incredulity deepening into contempt.

No--as I had struggled in the solitude of my own heart, so in the same

solitude would I suffer and submit. If I was really to become a slave,

let me at least conceal my fetters. Joanna could not succour me, for

she had never made the resolutions and embraced the principles that

I had--only to see them, at this late day, violated and broken. In a

word, I determined to hold my peace and to put the best face possible

upon my discomfiture.

By the time I had arrived at this decision it was already afternoon,

and my customary walking hour was at hand. Should I go out as usual,

or not? I had refrained from going yesterday, but no good effects had

come of my forbearance. On the other hand, if I found reason to remain

at home to-day, the same reason would be in as good force to-morrow,

and the day after; and the logical result must be that I should never

go out at all. Now this was a prospect which I could not bring myself

to contemplate. In the first place, I was naturally of an active and

energetic temperament, and my health demanded plenty of vigorous

exercise in the open air. Secondly, although my pride was fain to

put up with the lot of a slave, I was scarcely as yet prepared to

regard myself as a prisoner likewise: and finally, if I did go out,

the chances were a hundred or perhaps a thousand to one that I did

not meet her. Moreover, what if I did? I could not well be worse off

than I was now; and there might be a remote possibility that a more

deliberate scrutiny of the object of my infatuation would tend to my

disenchantment.

Since I have thus betrayed my secret, I may as well pause here and make

a thorough confession. Yes--there could be no doubt about it; I--Thomas

Wyndham--was in love at last, and that, too, with a woman I did not

know and who did not know me. Nothing could have been more inopportune,

nothing more undesirable, nothing more impossible--but nothing was

more certain! I loved. It had come upon me no less abruptly than

overwhelmingly. A chance encounter in the street--a look--an indrawn

breath--and I, who up to my five-and-twentieth birthday had laughed at

scars, now felt a wound which not all the drowsy syrups of the East

could medicine. There was no palliating feature in the case; it was not

only love, it was love at first sight; it was not only love at first

sight, it was love unrequited. And once more, the lover was Tom Wyndham!

But I perceive that some further explanation will be necessary.

Although, then, as has been intimated, I had existed in this great,

beautiful, and seductive world during more than a quarter of a century,

I had remained all that time heart-whole; and though my immunity had

never happened to cost me an effort, it was none the less in accordance

with a certain hard-and-fast rule which I had long ago laid down for

my guidance throughout life. This rule was, to uphold, at all times

and against all comers, the dogma that a bachelor life was, for Tom

Wyndham, the only proper, expedient, and dignified one. Marriage,

so far as I was concerned, was against both my principles and my

interest. I was an artist, to begin with, and in my opinion it was

the duty of every true artist to live for his art alone, jealously

eschewing whatever might tend to divide or alienate his devotion.

His transactions with the sex, if any transactions there must be,

should be strictly in the way of business; he might paint them, but

never woo them. But beyond this, I was (or so I had fondly imagined)

constitutionally and impenetrably proof against female fascinations.

Like the famous Duke of Gloster, I was not formed for sportive tricks,

nor made to court an amorous looking-glass. In other words, I had

always been noted for my awkwardness and infelicity in women's society;

and I could not doubt that I was as tiresome and oppressive to them as

they were always terrible and often hateful to me. Here, then, were

good and sufficient obstacles enough against matrimonial entanglements;

and there were others behind. I was as poor as I was unattractive; I

was destitute of the faculty of money-making, and I was as incapable

of winning a rich wife by my personal merits as I should have been

of living upon her bounty afterwards. In short, and not to multiply

objections, confirmed bachelorhood was my category by every law,

moral, mental, and material; notwithstanding which, I had committed

the inconceivable imbecility of losing my heart and head at the same

moment, and ... but it is enough that I lost my temper at the time; to

lose it over again now would be undignified.

Let me rather record a few particulars of my previous history. My

father had been a wealthy Englishman; he married the daughter of a

rich American planter. My mother died when I, her only child, was but

a few years old. My father returned to England after her death, and I

was brought up there in the lap of luxury. I was sent to Rugby, and

thence to Cambridge; and it was there I first met my cousin Floyd

Wyndham--the son of my father's younger brother. We were as different

as white and black, but we were the greatest friends in the world.

There never was such a lovable fellow as Floyd, and he was the most

popular man in our College, and, indeed, wherever he went. He had all

the social graces and instincts that I lacked; it was as inevitable to

him to charm people as it was to me to repel them; and the best of it

was, his success never cost him the least effort--on the contrary, he

rather turned up his nose at it. What he saw to like in me I'm sure I

cannot imagine; but all the same he did love me with his whole heart,

and would have done anything in the world to oblige me. Dear old Floyd!

with your lazy blue eyes, your quiet, audacious manner, your drawl and

your fun: what a contrast you were to me, to be sure!

I never knew anything of his family, there being some misunderstanding

or other between my father and his; but our rooms at the College were

contiguous, and we were together every day. There was a picture on the

wall over his mantelpiece--a portrait of our maternal grandmother,

and a lovelier face no painter ever drew. Whenever I dropped in to

have a chat with Floyd, I used to sit where I could keep that face in

view; it was the only woman's face I ever ventured or cared to look

twice at. Floyd used to laugh, and say it was like me to be spoony

on my own grandmother: adding, that he had a little sister growing

up who was going to be exactly like her, and that I had better begin

paying my addresses to her immediately. But, jesting aside, I honestly

believe that the memory of that portrait had a good deal to do with my

bachelorhood. As for Floyd's sister, I never had seen her or had the

opportunity of testing her alleged resemblance.

About the middle of our third year at Cambridge, something happened.

My father had a stroke of paralysis. I was summoned home, to find him

speechless and helpless. I was not yet of age, and the property was

under the management of our business agents--as, in fact, it had been

during the last ten years. While I was waiting to see whether or not

the malady were going to take a dangerous turn, a letter came from

America; which I, my father being as he was, opened and read. It told

me that my American grandfather was dead, and that his estates, valued

at over a million of dollars, were bequeathed (with certain conditions

which I need not specify) to myself.

This bequest gave me no pleasure, for I already had far more money than

I knew what to do with. As I folded up the letter, the thought entered

my mind, 'I wish Floyd had it!' For my cousin, who was intended by

nature for another Monte Cristo, possessed barely more than sufficient

means to keep up appearances withal. 'And why shouldn't he have it?'

was my next inspiration; and with that I sat down in a chair to think

it over.

If I were skilled in that sort of thing I dare say I might write a very

interesting passage here. But since I am not, I will tell the upshot

of my meditations in the fewest words possible. I made over my bequest

to Floyd, arranging matters in such a way that he should be under the

impression that it came to him direct from the testator, without my

intervention. I said nothing about what I had done either to our own

business agents, Messrs. Frisby and Faust, or to my father, who was not

in a condition to hear anything yet. Everything being settled, and my

father appearing to be on the mending hand, I went back to Cambridge,

and dropped in quietly at Floyd's rooms.

The dear old boy was in great spirits, though, as his manner was, he

showed little of it on the surface; but he told me what had happened,

and I congratulated him with an artful assumption of surprise. He was

going to start for America in a month, and 'run' his estate himself,

leaving his father and sister in England. 'That sort of life wouldn't

do for them, you know,' said he, leaning back against the mantelpiece

and putting his hands in his pockets. 'But it'll suit me first-rate; I

rather guess I'll make just about the everlastingest tip-top planter

ever you see! Of course,' he added in his usual tone, 'the governor and

Sis will come in for their full share of the plunder all the same: I

mean to settle a hundred thousand sterling on her the first thing.'

We talked together till the small hours of the morning, and I must say

I had never enjoyed an evening so much in my life. Floyd was just the

fellow to be rich, and I had had the good luck to make him so without

his being aware of it. At last we shook hands and said good-night,

little thinking that we were not to meet again. But next morning came

the telegram announcing my father's death. I went home by the next

train. After the funeral came the crash. Old Mr. Frisby, the senior

partner of the firm of our agents, came to me in a pitiable state of

shame and anguish, with the news that Faust had stolen nearly the whole

of my fortune, and had absconded none knew whither. If I realised what

was left, it would amount to barely eight thousand pounds. In other

words instead of being heir to twelve thousand a year, I must content

myself with about two hundred and fifty.

I took pains to keep Floyd from any knowledge of my sudden poverty,

because, especially should it ever chance to leak out that his estate

was a present from me, I knew well enough what his generous heart would

prompt him to do. So I let him sail for the New World without seeing me

again. He remained on that side of the Atlantic; and after writing me

one letter, which, upon reflection, I thought it best not to answer, we

became lost to each other, so far as any communication was concerned.

Nevertheless, I always thought of him as my dear and only friend, and I

never doubted that I was as dear to him as he to me.

I may as well add, lest I should acquire a reputation for generosity

which I was far from deserving, that my changed fortunes troubled me

very little. In fact, I rather enjoyed the new order of things. I had

always fancied I could paint pictures, and cherished a secret ambition

to live by my brush. Here, then, was my opportunity. I went on the

Continent; became a student of the Quartier Latin in Paris; wandered

thence to Italy; and so, after several years of careless Bohemian

existence, I found myself at length in Dresden. I hired part of a small

third _étage_ on the Bautznerstrasse, set up my easel, and divided my

time between that, the Gallery, and the music gardens. For six months

all went well; then happened the event whereof I am now to write, and

which threatened to upset my plans, my ambition, my self-respect and my

peace of mind. And now, my digressions having run themselves out, I can

no longer put off recounting the mortifying particulars.

Really, now I am in for it, there seems to be next to nothing to tell.

I had left my rooms, as usual, about half-past two in the afternoon,

and passing through the Neustadt, I crossed the old bridge, and

entered the Altstadt by way of the Georgen Thor. At the window of the

Porzellan-Fabrik I stopped to look at a beautiful painted vase which

was on exhibition within. While I was standing there, a lady and

gentleman passed, and the lady, catching sight of the vase, made her

companion pause while she examined it. I knew that this was occurring,

though I did not turn my head to look. But as I was about to withdraw,

I happened to see the dim reflection of the lady's face in the

broad pane of the window. It struck me as being a face with which I

was familiar. I turned, startled and by no means pleased, and gazed

straight at her. The suddenness of my movement attracted her attention,

and she returned my look for a moment. Did I know her! I turned red,

pulled off my hat, and made my awkward obeisance. All I got in return

for it was a half-puzzled, half-repellent glance of non-recognition.

She was right, of course; I did not know her, after all. I must have

been of a fine crimson by this time! But stop--could I be mistaken? Did

I not know her?... Yes!--No!...

I suffered a misery of embarrassment and shame during these few

moments. That is a good phrase of the Easterns--'My heart turned to

water within me!' I appreciated it then in its full significance. I

shall never know what I said or did, or how I escaped. When I came

to myself I was walking rapidly along an _allée_ of the Grosser

Garten, muttering to myself with a kind of helpless iteration,

'Fool--fool--fool!'

As for my apparent recognition of her, it was perfectly inexplicable

to me, turn it which way I would. I could neither account for having

supposed that I did know her, nor for having been mistaken in my

supposition. It was easy to say that I had never in my life met, much

less been acquainted, with any young lady answering to her description:

but it was just as undeniable that every feature in her face was as

familiar to me as the Dresden Madonna or the Venus of Milo. Here were

two certainties, in irreconcilable conflict with each other, and it was

my unlucky lot to have stumbled between them. I began to have serious

doubts whether I were not bewitched--whether my head were quite right.

Could it be that my solitary habits, my unsociableness, my taciturnity,

had begun to affect my reason? I am not exaggerating my feeling in the

least. A genuine logical paradox is about the most appalling thing

that can confront a man in this world. Leaving all consideration of

my embarrassment and awkwardness out of the question, the predicament

of being at odds--so to speak--with possibility, was beyond measure

distressing.

However, I cooled down at last, and, wisely resolving to give

the mystery time to resolve itself, I bent my steps towards the

concert-ground and sat down at one of the vacant tables. The band

struck up one of Mozart's Sinfonies. I was just beginning to forget

my troubles in the music, when a slight stir near me attracted my

notice, and looking round, what was my dismay to behold approaching

the identical personages of my late adventure! Guided by fate, they

sauntered on until they reached the very next table to my own. It

happened to be the only disengaged one in the vicinity. They did not

seem to see me at all; and after a few moments' deliberation, they sat

down.

I have not yet attempted to describe them. The gentleman was a

fine-looking old fellow of sixty or thereabouts, with ruddy cheeks,

black eyes, and a broad white beard. He appeared to be, and evidently

was, a well to-do English squire. The young lady, his daughter, is not

so easily to be disposed of; in fact, it is folly to attempt describing

her at all. Her father's face, though of a fine type, had nothing in

it peculiar or remarkable; hers, on the contrary, was a face which,

once seen, could never be forgotten or confounded with any other. Its

contour was at once strong and delicate; and the maidenly dignity

of the expression was tempered by the scarcely subdued sparkle of

frolicsome spirits in the long blue eyes. Of crisp, golden-brown hair

she had more than she well knew what to do with; it was packed and

twisted all over her lovely head, with little regard to fashionable

effect, but with a result of lavish splendour which I was unfashionable

enough to prefer. Her complexion was darker than the colour of her

eyes warranted; it had a glowing depth and intensity that Titian would

have loved to imitate; so that, although you would not have called her

cheek high-coloured, it made all other women's cheeks look dull and

ineffectual. Her lips were clear red, and unspoken eloquence dwelt in

their curves. In figure she was tall, alert, and somewhat slender.

Inadequate as I perceive this attempt at portraiture to be, I

scarcely needed a glance at her, as she sat at that neighbouring

table, to inform myself of every detail of her appearance. Her image

seemed to have been present to my inner consciousness before I met

her--to employ a metaphysical periphrasis for what was to me a very

certain and definite fact. An hour previous to our encounter before

the Porzellan Handlung, I could have taken my pencil and sketched the

outline of her features as accurately as now that she was before me.

The only difference between her and this strange anticipation of her

(or whatever it was) in my mind was, as I now had leisure to observe,

that her hair and eyes were a good many shades lighter than those of my

forecast. The eyes that I had thought of were dark grey, almost black,

and the crisp locks a deep lustreless brown.

The band was playing the second movement of the Sinfonie, and while the

music lasted, she sat in quiet and pleased attention, her chin resting

on her half-opened hand, and her glance directed musingly towards the

little group of statuary that stands at the outer extremity of the

concert-ground. The old gentleman, meanwhile, studied the programme

and took a pull or two at the schoppen of beer which the kellner had

brought him. When at length the intermission came, the two engaged in

conversation, and then all the sparkle and mischievous charm of the

young lady's face came to the surface; and if she had been beautiful

before, her loveliness was now well-nigh intolerable. Presently the old

gentleman lit a cigar, and, getting up from the table, walked off to

smoke it, leaving his daughter temporarily alone.

It will not be necessary for me to observe at this point, that I was

already in love: although I do not think I had yet realised the fact

myself. Never having experienced any sensations of the kind before, I

perhaps failed to attribute to them their full significance. But an

incident which now occurred informed my ignorance. A guttural voice

from somewhere behind me made itself heard above the low hum of general

conversation round about. 'Ach Herrje!' it exclaimed, in a tone of

impertinent admiration, 'was für eine Schönheit!'

I turned about in pure amazement, unable to believe that any human

being could have the audacity to launch his impudence against this

gracious paragon. But I could not doubt the evidence of my own senses.

An overgrown young lieutenant of cavalry was sitting at a table close

by, his hands resting on the hilt of his long sabre, and his pale-blue

prominent eyes fixed insolently upon my young lady--I say, upon _mine_!

There was in his manner an insufferable swagger and self-complacent

conceit which would have been hard enough to put up with at any time,

but which under these circumstances made my hands turn cold and my face

hot with ire. I knew something of the fellow--he was a certain Von

Wurst, reputed to be immensely rich, and he occupied the first _étage_

of the same building whose sky parlour was dedicated to my muse. He

had a scandalous reputation in Dresden as a gambler and libertine; and

if I had never troubled myself to verify the reports of his ill-fame

heretofore, I had not the least hesitation about believing the worst of

them now.

But just as I was on the point of obeying the impulse I was under to

clutch him by the scruff of the neck and kick him out of the grounds,

it came upon me like a blow in the face that I had no business to

interfere. Von Wurst had as yet done nothing actively unlawful, and the

mere expression of his impertinent admiration was not a warrant for a

perfect stranger to both parties, like myself, to pick a quarrel with

him. Moreover, the young lady's father was not far off, and could be

summoned in case of need; and finally, she herself did not appear to be

frightened. She took not the slightest notice of Von Wurst, for, though

looking straight towards him, her glance seemed to pass over him or

through him without informing her of his existence--in a way which, had

there been a grain of manly decency in his composition, would have made

him wish the earth to swallow him: and nothing but a slight disdainful

quiver of her upper lip betrayed that she had heard his remark at all.

I restrained my wrath, therefore, as best I might, and contented

myself with turning round in my chair and staring at the lieutenant in

as offensive and insulting a manner as I could.

He noticed my behaviour, and doubtless divined the cause of it: and

by way of showing, perhaps, how little he cared for my displeasure,

he presently summoned the kellner and sent him off for a bouquet of

flowers. The man soon returned with a very large and showy one.

'Take it to that Fräulein there,' said Von Wurst, with a leer of

defiance at me, 'and present it to her with my compliments.'

The man looked rather frightened at this commission, but obeyed

nevertheless, and laid the bouquet before the young lady with a

deprecatory air and an inarticulate murmur.

By this time the attention of most of the people round about had been

attracted, and everyone watched with interest to see what the young

lady would do. As for me, I was pretty nearly at the end of my tether,

and only awaited the first symptom of distress on her part to take the

lieutenant by the throat. He could probably have settled me with one

hand, but at the moment I forgot to think of that.

Amidst a general pause of suspense, the young lady quietly took up the

bouquet and examined it critically. The colour in her cheeks deepened

a shade, and her eyes sparkled beneath their lashes, but otherwise

she betrayed no signs of uneasiness or indignation. At length she

laid the flowers down, put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out her

pocket-book.

The kellner shifted nervously from one leg to the other, and glanced

hurriedly towards Von Wurst, whose insolent smile was losing itself in

an expression of something like bewilderment.

The young lady opened the pocket-book, and took out of it a gold piece

of the value of six thalers. Handing it to the astonished kellner, she

said in German and in a low even tone, which was distinctly audible to

all the curious listeners:

'I am not accustomed to buy flowers of pedlars, but I suppose this

person must be very much in want of money, since he offers them to me

in this way; so I will take them out of charity. Give him this, please,

and send him away.'

There was dead silence for a moment; but as the unfortunate kellner

turned to perform his new orders, one or two persons snickered,

and others joined in, and almost immediately there was a universal

explosion of derisive mirth at the gallant lieutenant's expense.

'Sacrament!' stuttered he, jumping to his feet, his clumsy features

of a dull crimson hue, while he strove by an enraged stare to awe

the laughers into silence. But it was in vain; others, hearing the

uproar, hurried to the spot, and soon added their quota to the chorus

of contemptuous merriment; and at last even the kellner pricked up

the courage of numbers, and as he laid down the gold coin upon the

lieutenant's table, he suffered a broad grin to make itself visible

on his countenance likewise. At this juncture the white-bearded

old gentleman came shouldering through the crowd, in a tempest of

apprehension and wrath; on finding his daughter safe, he stood with

one arm in hers, glaring round on every side in search of a foe. But

the only individual who might have answered to that term had by this

time taken his departure, pursued by the taunts and jeers of the whole

assembly. And then the young lady, who, while unprotected, had borne

herself so firmly, suddenly bent her lovely face against her father's

shoulder and burst into tears. As he led her away, a low murmur of

sympathy and admiration followed her; for although a Dresden crowd is

in general anything but a gallant one, their hearts were thoroughly

taken captive for once. For my part, my mind was a medley of emotions;

I remained seated at my table with my head in my hands, unable to think

coherently. Whether Mozart's Sinfonie was played to the end or not I

am unable to say; at all events, I heard nothing of it. But towards

evening I found myself at home; and then began the futile struggle

against love and fate which I have already described.

I have also stated how, on the third day, resigning myself with the

best grace I could to the inevitable, I prepared to make my customary

afternoon stroll. I had accordingly put on my well-worn Tyrolese hat,

and, grasping my walking-stick, was just about to issue forth--when a

loud ringing at the hall entrance, soon followed by a firm step along

the passage and a resounding knock at my own door, made me pause.

'Can it be the old gentleman?' flashed across my mind, and the thought

fetched the heart into my mouth. 'Idiot!' I exclaimed the next instant,

'of course it can only be a messenger from that scoundrel Von Wurst,

with an invitation to a duel. And by Heaven!' I added, flinging the

door open savagely, 'there's no man in the world I shall have so much

pleasure in shooting!'

II.

'Hold hard there, stranger!' cried a deep laughing voice, penetrated

by a preposterous Yankee accent. 'You'd better keep your shirt on, I

guess. If carving livers is your game, I'm thar; but----'

'Floyd!'

'Hullo, Tom! Ha, ha, ha! Why, you looked as wicked as a catamount for a

moment.--Dear old chap, how goes it?'

We had grasped hands; but the next instant we threw our arms round each

other, and hugged each other like a couple of Germans.

Floyd had grown an enormous moustache and was as thin and almost as

brown as an Indian; but he was the same old Floyd, lazy, audacious, and

full of fun. We sat down and gazed at one another in silence for more

than a minute.

'How did you get here?' I asked at length.

'Well, I dropped round from the plantation. Tired of niggers--thought

I'd take a rest. Want my portrait painted.'

'I never was so glad to see a fellow in my life!'

'So I thought, from the way you opened that door.'

'Six years since we parted, Floyd!'

'We never parted at all, if I remember right. You sneaked out of

it--too proud to say good-bye to a purse-proud aristocrat like me, I

suppose. Much obliged to you for the legacy, all the same.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nothing particular. I only found you out about three months ago.

However, we'll come to that presently. Been enjoying yourself?'

'Oh, I'm all right--at least, until within the last two or three days,'

I added, a little embarrassed.

'Ah! Well, you know you always were an eccentric chap; and it looks as

if you hadn't changed much, so far as that goes. When a man with twelve

thousand a year in the three-per-cents. takes to living in a German

attic on six shillings a day, and painting pictures that won't sell for

a living ... eh?'

'The fact is, I lost a good deal of money--after you left, you know:

and--well, I see you must have heard something about it.'

'Me? Oh, no, don't imagine such a thing,' returned Floyd, with a lazy

sparkle in his long mischievous eyes. 'I never hear anything, and

never suspect anything; I just take things as they come, and never

stop to ask where they come from. It wouldn't do, you see; I have such

extraordinary luck. It isn't every man, I guess, who would have the

luck to inherit a fortune of a million or so from a fellow who didn't

know of his existence--and who thought all the time he was leaving it

to somebody else. But, bless you! I think nothing of a thing like that.'

'What sort of a notion have you got into your head now?'

'A notion that you're a hypocrite, for one thing. But never mind for

the present; time enough for me to walk into you to-morrow. I say, Tom,

haven't you anything to wet a fellow's whistle with? Where I hail from,

strangers liquor up when they meet.'

I laughed and rang for beer, which happened to be the only beverage at

that moment subject to my orders. Old Joanna brought in bottles and

glasses on a tray, and as she set the tray down, I observed that there

was a note upon it, in a rather soiled envelope, though ornamented

with a handsome monogram. I took no further notice of it at the time,

my mind being occupied with other thoughts. The hints which Floyd had

dropped made me uneasy. I could not doubt that he had by some means

either found out the whole truth about my transfer of my grandfather's

bequest, or at least learned enough of the circumstances to enable him

to ask me very pertinent questions. And inasmuch as I possessed nothing

of his command of countenance and readiness of wit and self-possession,

it was plain that I was destined to let the cat out of the bag whenever

he chose to make me do so. Be that as it might, I was resolved to allow

of no readjustment of the property; and as I had reason to believe that

my tenacity of purpose was fully equal to his, whatever my inferiority

otherwise, I consoled myself as well as the case allowed.

Meanwhile Floyd had produced a gigantic cigar-case, which seemed to be

the only thing in the way of luggage that he had brought with him, and

held it towards me. The cigar which I laid hold of proved to be upwards

of six inches in length and thick in proportion, while the aroma which

proceeded from it, even before it was lighted, was such as would have

made the least enthusiastic smoker devoutly bless his stars.

'They're wretched little things, I know,' murmured Floyd, as he stuck

one of these brobdingnags into the corner of his mouth, and scratched

a match. 'As a general thing, of course, I only smoke them before

breakfast, or between courses at dinner. My regular weeds--the big

ones--are in my trunk at the "Saxe." Raised 'em myself. Well, now go

ahead, Tom, old man; let's see what sort of an account you can give of

your adventures since the old Cambridge days--eh?'

Now my rejoicing at Floyd's unexpected arrival had been twofold: first,

I was glad to see him for his own sake; secondly, because of the

sympathy and advice which no man was better qualified than he to give

me in my present love difficulty. In a word, I regarded him as sent by

Providence especially to be made a confidant of. His proposal that I

should give an account of myself since our last meeting afforded me a

good opening whereby to lead comfortably up to the intended revelation.

Such topics, when one is really serious and in earnest, require to be

softly approached as well as delicately handled; and it seemed to me,

now that I was actually face to face with my confession, that I could

not begin too far back or work my way along too circumspectly.

Accordingly, I made my start in the extreme distance, and gossiped

away volubly enough; but after a while I perceived that I was making

very little headway. I dilated on unimportant matters, and was no

nearer the crucial question than when I began. Instead of preparing

Floyd's mind for what was to come, I was leading him off on entirely

discordant lines of thought--if, indeed, he were attending at all to

my narrative, and not rather following out a train of ideas of his own,

under cover of the smoke-wreaths he was coiling about him.

Irritated at length both with myself and with him, I broke short off in

the current of talk and said abruptly:

'By the way, Floyd, you haven't told me yet how you happened to turn up

here in Dresden.'

'Ah--yes--is that all, then? A very interesting story too, my boy,' he

grunted, with a yawn; and throwing his arms above his head, he indulged

in a hearty stretch. It was too evident that he had not listened

to a word. What, then, could be the subject of his extraordinary

preoccupation?

'Ah--what was that you asked me? Oh, how I came here. Well, you know I

wanted to find you.... But come, Tom, since you've made a clean breast

of it, so will I. I'll make you my confidant, old fellow. The fact is,

I'm here in a threefold capacity--as a friend, as a brother, and as

a----humph!'

'A what?'

Floyd rose to his feet and sauntered to the window. A pot of heliotrope

stood upon the sill, and he pulled off the largest cluster of blossoms,

and began abstractedly to pick away the flowers. I began to have my

suspicions as to what he meant, but I said nothing. After a pause he

continued, keeping his face turned towards the window:

'Well, you see it's this way. In the first place, I decided to come

over here on your account--the reason why I'll tell you presently.

Then, thought I, I shall see Gwendolen (that's my sister, you know),

whom I haven't met for I don't know how many years; and instead of

letting her know I'm coming, I'll give her a surprise-party; appear

before her unexpectedly--she falls into my arms with a shriek--and all

that. Now, after my dear old governor's death----'

'Is he dead, Floyd?'

'Eighteen months ago--yes. Well, after that she wrote me that she was

going to live at her uncle's--our mother's brother--a good fellow, I

believe, though I never saw him. So, as soon as I landed in Liverpool,

I went straight there. They weren't at home, and the house was locked

up. I made inquiries, and was told that they had started on their

travels about three months before, and the fellow in charge of the

house said he believed they had intended to take a run on the Continent

first and then go to America.'

'To give you a surprise-party, I suppose?'

'Yes. However, I thought I'd try the Continent first, for I knew you

must be somewhere thereabouts, and I couldn't go back to America

without you in any case. So I crossed over to Paris, and began

beating up the ground carefully. By-and-by I came across some obscure

intelligence about you; but not a word could I hear about Miss

Gwendolen. I'm pretty well convinced, now, that she is this moment on

my plantation in Maryland.'

'What a pity! I should like to have seen her, too.'

'Oh, I mean you shall some day, Tom; I'm told she's good-looking,

though I can't speak to that on my own knowledge; in fact, if she is,

she must be very much changed from the scrawny, freckled little fidget

she used to be seven years ago. However, she's out of the question just

at present. But....'

'You've accounted for yourself as a friend and a brother; now for the

other thing--the "humph"?'

'You know, Tom,' said Floyd after some hesitation, knocking the ash

from his cigar with the remains of the heliotrope blossom--'you know I

never was like some fellows--susceptible--always falling in love, and

all that sort of thing--eh?'

I could not help grinning at this exordium. Floyd, so long as my

acquaintance with him had lasted, had been without exception the

most fickle and incorrigible flirt I ever saw. He was always in and

out of love, and his longest attachment seldom lasted six weeks. The

effrontery with which he now recommended himself to my admiration as a

model of continence in this respect was too much for even my gravity.

'I've known very few fellows like you, at all events,' was my

non-committal reply; 'and from what I do know, I should think it very

probable your time might have come, at last.'

'Well--only this is no laughing matter, mind you, Tom,' said Floyd,

turning round upon me with a countenance of extreme solemnity--'it's

very natural you shouldn't quite understand how a man like myself feels

when his heart is really touched for the first time; you've always been

out of the way of such things, you know--you never took to women. But

my whole soul is in this affair; it's a matter of life and death, I

might say----'

At this point I could restrain myself no longer, but laughed openly.

Floyd was so categorically reproducing the old Floyd of college days,

who was wont to rave precisely thus about each latest mistress of his

fancy, that the depths of mirth were stirred within me. He was a good

deal annoyed at first; but finally the corners of his moustache began

to twitch, and his imperturbable good nature to reassert itself. 'I

am in earnest, though, this time,' he persisted, when gravity was

restored. 'You know, we're not boys any longer, Tom. You must allow a

man to have one serious feeling before he dies.'

'So I do, Floyd; it was only the old associations that tickled me;

and also another thing, that will surprise you when you hear it. But

first--go on with your yarn. Who and what is she?'

'I haven't an idea!'

'You don't know?'

'All I know is, Tom, that I have seen her, and that I adore her. I have

never been able to get speech of her, or even so much as find out her

name. If she were like other girls, I'd soon scrape an acquaintance;

but she awes me and abashes me, and I'd no more think of being

unceremonious with her than with her Majesty Queen Victoria. I must get

presented in regular form or not at all. But nobody seems to know her;

she seems to be travelling incog. They never stop at hotels, but always

go to private lodgings, so there's nothing to be learnt through feeing

waiters. I first caught sight of her in Paris, and have been trotting

round at her heels ever since, sometimes losing her for a while, but

not for long. Yesterday, though, I thought she had given me the slip

finally; but by accident I heard it rumoured that some one answering

her description had taken the train from Berlin southwards four days

ago. I came on here, on speculation; got here early this morning; and

sure enough I had a glimpse of her as she drove by in her carriage, not

three hours since.'

'By Jove, Floyd!...' said I musingly; and paused.

'That's my yarn, so far as it's gone.'

I rose, and joined him at the window, and we both leaned over the sill

and gazed thoughtfully down on the street beneath. The coincidence that

the objects of our respective adoration should both happen to be in

town at the same time, impressed me. It confirmed me, too, in my design

of making Floyd my confidant, as he had made me his. Our destinies were

entangled and the fact that his predicament of not knowing so much as

the name of his mistress was identical with my own, encouraged me to

proceed. Exactly what I expected to gain from my confession, I did

not pause to consider. Matrimony must, of course, be as much against

my principles now as it had been yesterday; nevertheless, somehow or

other, the magnetism of Floyd's presence had the effect of causing

me at least to reconsider the matter. It might be worth my while,

at all events, to hear his opinion upon it: it would be an opinion

founded upon good sense and knowledge of the world. The chances were,

I reflected, that he would but confirm my own views as to my unfitness

for the married state: had he not already insinuated as much, while

ignorant of my infatuation? I would speak out, then, fearlessly: and I

would speak at once.

'Floyd----'

The loud rattling of a carriage over the stones beneath interrupted

me. We both looked down, and at the sight which met our eyes we both

started. Floyd was the first to speak.

'Quick! look there, Tom,' cried he, catching my arm with more of

excitement in his manner than I had ever before known him to betray;

'look, man, there she is!'

'She?' I cried; 'why, how did you know her?'

'Know her? Know the woman I adore?'

'You--adore----'

'She's the one I've been telling you about--the one I love! O you

beauty!' and he kissed his audacious hand at the retreating carriage.

I left the window without a word, and walked to my chair. The truth was

revealed; Floyd's 'she' was mine: we both loved the same woman! The

carriage had contained three persons--the white-bearded old gentleman;

another old gentleman who, from the hurried glance I had obtained of

him, reminded me very much of Mr. Frisby, our former business agent;

and last and above all, the lovely heroine of the Concert-garden

adventure.

Floyd still remained at the window, gazing down the street after the

vanished vehicle: and I took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded

me to hastily review my position, and decide what course of action I

ought to pursue. It was to be noted, in the first place, that although

I had been made aware of the insoluble dead-lock between my friend and

myself, he was entirely ignorant of it. The accident of his having been

beforehand in exclaiming at sight of the carriage had made all the

difference. Had my tongue been an instant quicker, he, and not I, would

have been the disconsolate one. It was fate: and I reflected, with

perhaps a moment's bitterness, that fate had always been as kind to him

as she had been unkind to me.

But this unworthy mood did not last. If it was no fault of mine that

I was unlucky, certainly Floyd's good fortune was no fault of his.

And as for the present affair, I ought (consistently with myself) to

rejoice rather than grieve at the turn it had taken. If I did not wish

to marry, my disinclination now bade fair to be respected; destiny

was working on my side, after all. I ought to esteem it a happiness,

moreover, that it had fallen to my lot not only to endow my best

friend with a fortune, but with a wife likewise: and to do him these

favours, too, without his suspecting that it was from my hand they

were received. All this, I say, was very delightful from the moral

point of view; but I will not be so uncandid as to pretend that, at the

first blush, I was at all delighted. On the contrary, I felt, for the

first time, that I was by no means so averse from marriage as I had

supposed: and that my only chance of happiness in that relation was

now passing away before my eyes. True, the chance had at the best been

but a slight one; few things were less probable than that I, without

money, influence, or personal attractions, could ever have won so fair

a prize as that which I had dreamed of. Yet I perceived that I would

have striven to win it with all my strength. I recognised the folly and

insincerity of my apparent reluctance. I had dallied with my great

opportunity while it had been mine, and now that it was for ever lost,

I saw my mistake. Well--Floyd would have her; be it so. At least, I

would not play the dog in the manger with him. I will act as I know he

would have acted in my place; and though it might be with a bad grace

at first, I must trust to time and reason to reconcile me.

'Wasn't she divine?' sighed Floyd, slowly withdrawing himself from the

window and returning to his chair. He took a deep draught from his

beer-schoppen, selected another huge cigar from the cigar-case, lit it,

and sighed once more.

'You don't know her--do you?' he next inquired, turning a lazy glance

upon me.

'What do you mean? I know nobody here.'

'I was only thinking,' rejoined Floyd, without observing my confusion,

'how nice it would have been if you could have introduced us. Though,

to be sure, no one could know a girl like that without falling in love

with her himself; so maybe it's better for me as it is--eh? ha, ha, ha!'

'Ha, ha! I see--you dread a possible rival in me--ha, ha!'

'Dread isn't exactly the word, Tom, old fellow,' said Floyd, in a

changed tone, perhaps fancying (for his perceptions were as acute as

his heart was generous) that his jesting allusion had hurt my feelings.

'If you were in love with this girl, I would give up my chance to

you in a moment--and do all a man could to promote your success too.

You know what I think of you, Tom; but, hang it! we're Anglo-Saxons;

we can't be always bursting into tears and swearing that we love one

another! But I know what you've done for me; and I mean to do something

for you, when my time comes.'

'All right, Floyd,' said I hastily. 'Only don't talk as if you owed me

anything,' I added presently; 'because you don't.'

'Oh, I don't mean to go to work strictly on the debit and credit

principle,' he answered with a smile. 'But--since we've got to talking

in this vein somehow, we may as well have it out and done with it. I

found out, quite by accident, the little _ruse_ you played off on me

six years ago. I stumbled upon the revelation only three months back.

And that led to my discovering your poverty. Altogether, Tom, it took

the wind out of me for a moment.'

'Remember one thing,' I interposed; 'it wasn't until after I had done

that, that the robbery came to light. I expected to be richer than

you----'

'I know--I understand. But now, use your imagination for a moment,

and put yourself in my place. If I had enriched you beyond the dreams

of avarice, and then turned out a pauper myself, you would not feel

exactly comfortable, I take it. And if, in the course of six years, you

had proved yourself a good steward of the property, and had increased

its value by upwards of one-half, wouldn't you consider it no more than

a fair and even thing, conducive to the comfort and respect of both

parties, to make that increase over to me, with your best bow, and so

live happily ever after? Eh, Tom?'

'Thanks, Floyd; that's all reasonable enough, and the only reason I

don't say yes to it is this: I am a great deal better off as I am.

Money would not do me a bit of good--quite the contrary. I like to feel

that I have none of that kind of responsibility, and I like to imagine

that I must work for a living. Of course, it is nothing more than

imagination, for my income supplies me with all I need. But it is good

for me to have an occupation, and to feel some sort of obligation to

pursue it. I'm naturally prone to the blues--and if I had nothing to do

but to lie back and enjoy myself, I should have them all the time. We

are constituted differently, that's all. But--thanks, all the same.'

Floyd lay calmly back in his chair, and puffed half-a-dozen

smoke-wreaths ceiling-wards ere he spoke again.

'If you think,' he then said, 'that I have been doing nothing all

these years except sit still and enjoy myself, you are confoundedly

mistaken. I have worked like a horse--though I mayn't look like it now.

The possession of this fortune has made all the difference between my

being an industrious and productive member of the community, and a

good-for-nothing, lazy detrimental--as I should have been without it.

No, Tom: trust me, riches do not mean idleness: they haven't with me,

and they wouldn't with you. And think, old fellow--you have made a man

as well as a millionaire of me: you cannot, surely you cannot, mean to

leave me under such an infernal weight of obligation. Do be human, Tom.

You have been generous all your life; don't begin to be selfish in the

worst kind of fashion at this late day--and at my expense!'

'Give me a little time to think, Floyd,' said I, feeling very

miserable. 'To-morrow or next day. Remember that I'm an old bachelor,

and very much set in my ways.' But the fact was, the new complication

about the love-affair, which of course I was unable to explain, made it

more than ever difficult for me to entertain Floyd's proposal. I had a

wild idea of escaping--hiding myself where no ingenuity could find me

out.

'An old bachelor, eh?' exclaimed my friend; 'why, I hope you don't call

yourself so very old, for I'm at least a year further gone than you,

and I don't consider myself "set" at all. "Ripe" is the fitter word, I

take it. But _apropos_ of this, there's something I'd like to say to

you, Tom; it's presuming on your friendship, I know, and maybe I ought

not to venture. But it's on my mind.'

'Out with it!'

'It's a little idyl--a bit of a romance, you know, that I had imagined.

I hoped to take you back to America with me, when I went, and I

expected my sister would come too. Well, she's there already. But I

thought, don't you see, that you would meet and perhaps see a good deal

of each other; and I'm certain she's a girl of fine character, though

she may very likely be no great beauty to look at; and of course she

has half of all I own, and will probably decide to settle down over

there; and I'll defy any woman who knows what you are to help falling

in love with you.'

Floyd was actually stammering and getting red in the face. I never

felt my heart so go out to a man, before or since. Dear old Floyd! how

little he knew what an impossibility he was proposing.

'I'm not a marrying man, Floyd,' was all I was able to reply at the

moment; but I knew that he understood, from my tone and look, how

deeply his suggestion had touched me.

After this ensued a rather long silence. At last he remarked,

carelessly taking up the note which old Joanna had brought in with the

beer, and which I had quite forgotten.

'Apparently I'm to take your assertion that you know nobody in town

with a reservation. This looks like an invitation from some of the

upper ten. The monogram is big enough.'

'An invitation?--that can't be.' On opening the envelope, however, I

found that he was right. It was an invitation to a private fancy ball,

at the house of no less a person than my banker.

'It's very strange; I never spoke ten words to him in my life, and my

balance is none of the largest. It's to-night, too--short notice!'

'He didn't want to give you time to refuse. Of course you'll go. Let me

look at it--"Mr. Wyndham and friend"--that means me. We'll go together.'

A good deal to my own surprise, I found that Floyd's proposal was by

no means so distasteful as I should have supposed. The truth was, I

much needed some distraction. This fancy ball would serve to pass away

what otherwise bade fair to be a very uncomfortable evening. After a

little discussion, therefore, I consented to accompany him thither; and

as evening was already coming on, we sallied forth to procure dominos.

A few hours later saw us ensconced in a drosky, and rattling over the

uneven pavements to our destination.

'I shouldn't wonder, by the way,' remarked Floyd, as we alighted, 'if

that divine creature were to be there.'

Had this suggestion been advanced earlier, it would have made

an important modification in my plans; but it was now too late

to draw back. I bethought myself, too, that it was highly

improbable--considering how short a time she had been in town--that

she should have received an invitation; and if the worst came to

the worst, I could slip away whenever I chose. We went on up the

illuminated staircase, therefore, and having delivered our credentials

to the doorkeeper--a warrior of the sixteenth century, armed cap-à-pie

in panoply of proof--we advanced to pay our respects to the host and

hostess of the occasion, who smiled to us in the guise of Nutcracker

and Sugardolly.

'It is the greatest pleasure that I meet you,' said the former,

in broken English, but with entire cordiality, holding my hand

affectionately as he spoke. 'We have too little seen of you here--you

are too much to yourself. It shall be our hope that you now do us

the honour very often. You shall find some of your compatriots here

to-night, I think, all very anxious to enjoy the favour of your

presentation. Dear sir, till our next meet!'

Meanwhile, Madame Sugardolly was saying something equally civil to

Floyd. That was natural enough; his wealth and consequent importance

were probably well known; but I was at a loss to understand such

a sudden access of flattering attention to me. I was nobody, and

accustomed to be treated accordingly. Could my worthy banker be

labouring under the delusion that I was somebody else?

Leaving this question to solve itself, I took Floyd's arm, and we

threaded our way slowly through the brilliantly and grotesquely

attired crowd. Many a quaint and graceful figure was there, but none

with which either of us was familiar. I saw that Floyd was keeping a

keen look out for some one, and had no difficulty in guessing who it

might be. But we made the circuit of all the rooms in vain. We drifted

at length into the haven of a small side-room, curtained off from the

other apartments by a heavy _portière_ hanging across the doorway.

Lights were burning in it, and a comfortable sofa stood at one end, but

there was no one there. It was a discovery of our own.

'Tell you what we'll do, old chap,' said Floyd. 'It is now eleven

o'clock. Let us separate here, and pursue our several fortunes for the

space of an hour; after which--that is, at twelve precisely--we will

rendezvous in this room and compare notes. What say you?'

I made no objections, and we separated accordingly, he going in one

direction and I in the opposite one. For my own part, however, I had

no fancy to seek adventures, and happening to come upon a convenient

entrance of a window, I took refuge within the shadow of the curtains,

and there fell into a brown study. There was one aspect of the affair

in which my cousin and I were involved which had latterly begun to

disquiet me not a little. It was this:--I could not believe that he

was entirely and thoroughly in earnest. I had a misgiving, which I

could not rid myself of, and which his every word and act tended to

confirm, that he was not seriously in love at all, but was merely

amusing himself (as he had done a hundred times before) with the

pretence of being so. If I were correct in my suspicion, then the game

which was fun to him was death to me. And yet, what could I do? Unless

I knew for an absolute certainty that this view of the case were a true

one, I could not in honour lift a finger to avert the consequence;

and absolute certainty, in a matter of this kind, was unattainable.

The upshot of my brown study was therefore a conviction of my own

helplessness: and as I arrived at it, I raised my eyes to the clock,

and saw it wanted but two or three minutes of the appointed hour.

Edging along through the press as rapidly as I could, I soon came to

the curtained doorway, and pushing aside the _portière_, I went in. The

room was still empty--Floyd had not yet returned.

'Is it possible he can have met her?'--thought I.

Even as the thought came, I heard a low, distinct woman's voice,

apparently close at hand; and following it, a coarse, guttural one.

I knew both, and all the blood in my veins tingled. Looking about, I

noticed for the first time that the room I was in opened into another,

the door of which was also closed by a _portière_. The next moment I

had thrown it open and stood within.

I saw the young lady crouched away in the farther corner of the room,

her face pale, her lips set, her eyes sparkling; and before her, with

his back towards me, I saw the overgrown bulk of Von Wurst. He was

attempting to get his arm round her waist, at the same time thrusting

forward his coarse face to kiss her.

As her glance met mine, a light of relief entered into her face which,

even at that crisis, filled me with a grand tremor of unreasoning

delight. Von Wurst saw it too, and seemed at once to divine what had

happened. He faced about immediately, his hand clutching at the hilt of

his sabre.

But before he could draw it from its sheath, I had thrown myself

upon him, and seizing him by the collar of his uniform and by one of

his epaulettes, I exerted all my strength and flung him violently

backwards. He staggered, but did not fall. I perceived that the fellow

had been drinking, and was in a mood to commit any violence or outrage.

His face was red, and the veins of his forehead were swelled with

passion.

With an oath he drew his sabre, and delivered his point full at my

throat. The movement was so rapid that I was prepared neither to parry

nor to avoid it, and it would have gone hard with me; but before the

keen steel could quite reach me, my right arm was caught by two slender

nervous hands, and I was dragged forcibly to one side. Von Wurst,

overbalanced by the weight of his own thrust, stumbled forward; the

sheath of his sabre tripped him up, he whirled round and fell heavily

on his back, striking his head as he did so against the sharp corner of

the porcelain stove. The blow stunned him, and he lay motionless.

And there stood I, unhurt, saved by her whom I had saved, and who still

clung to my arm, panting and tremulous. It was a moment worth more than

a lifetime: it was but a moment.

As I turned towards her, she let go my arm, smiled faintly, and sat

down upon the nearest chair.

'I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure,' said she.

'I think the obligation is on my side,' I answered, as awkwardly as

possible.

'Oh no--I thank you--I thank you!' Her eyes fell upon the insensible

lieutenant, and she shuddered. 'Do you think he's dead? He deserves to

be hurt as badly as possible, but not quite killed--I shouldn't want

that: I should have to think of him then, you know.'

Several hours later, I bethought myself to smile at this conceit; but

at the time I was quite too much embarrassed and excited to think of

such a thing. Moreover, I was very badly frightened, and that for a

cause sufficiently whimsical, namely, that I was hopelessly entangling

myself with the woman to whom Floyd had a prior and superior claim.

Unless I escaped at once, I knew I should never get away at all--until

I had asked her to love me, and she had refused point-blank. And that

would be too late for my self-respect. Oh, Floyd! why could you not

love somebody else!

'I think I must go now if you will excuse me,' I stammered. 'I have an

engagement.'

'But I can't be left alone with _that_!' she exclaimed piteously, at

the same time indicating the unfortunate lieutenant with her foot. I

forgave him from that moment. 'Won't you wait with me in the other room

until my uncle comes back?' she continued: 'he should have been here

before this.'

Her uncle; not her father then!

She had risen and taken my arm; I gave myself up for lost. As we drew

aside the curtain to go into the outer room, the curtain of the door

opposite was simultaneously pulled aside, and in came--first, the

white-bearded old gentleman; second, Floyd; third, a military gentleman

in the uniform of a colonel; and fourth and last, my old friend Mr.

Frisby.

'Here she is!' cried the old gentleman. 'Gwendolen, my dear, allow me

to make you acquainted with your brother, Mr. Floyd Wyndham. Who is

this gentleman? can this be----'

'My cousin, Mr. Thomas Wyndham,' interposed Floyd, with a solemn bow.

'Gwenny, your most devoted!' He took her by both shoulders, and kissed

her on the forehead and cheek. At the same time he glanced over her

shoulder at me with an expression in his eyes, half comical, half

rueful. But I was as yet too much bewildered to understand.

'She's better-looking than I expected,' he remarked to me. 'The image

of that old picture of her grandmother that used to hang over my

mantelpiece at College--recollect?--only her hair and eyes are lighter.'

Then, in a flash, I comprehended the mystery of the recognition. But I

had no time to dwell upon it then. The old uncle was shaking me by the

hand, congratulating me on something, I knew not what, and introducing

the Colonel and Mr. Frisby. The latter almost embraced me.

'My dear Mr. Thomas, I am so glad--so glad! My warmest congratulations

also--what? you haven't heard. Why, we have recovered nearly your whole

fortune, my dear sir. Faust, the absconder, has been at last arrested.

You are a rich man again. So glad, so glad!'

I was speechless. I could only turn from one to another, with a dazed

look, as of one half asleep.

At this juncture the curtain of the inner room was again drawn aside,

and lo! the lieutenant with his sword drawn, but with an expression

anything but warlike on his pasty and woe-begone features. On seeing

his colonel, he trembled visibly, and saluted with a shaking hand.

'Ha, sir, you are here, are you?' exclaimed the Colonel grimly. 'I

have been told about you, Herr Faust. Yes, sir, you will dispense with

the "von" for the future and spell your name correctly--you are the

son of a swindler and a convict. To-morrow you will appear before a

court-martial. We shall see, sir, what shall be done to a fellow who

disgraces his uniform by insulting ladies and--but go, sir!--Ladies and

gentlemen,' added the old officer, turning to us and bowing, 'pardon me

that I so much forget myself.'

After the poor lieutenant had slunk away, the conversation had become

general, and numberless were the questions asked and the explanations

volunteered. But I have only a dim and hazy recollection of what was

said. I kept as far away from Miss Gwendolen as possible, and scarcely

looked at her; but for all that, she was the only person in the room

whose every word and motion I felt and saw. I did not know whether to

commiserate Floyd, or to envy him. Perhaps he scarcely knew himself,

at first. But since, a few years afterwards, he married the beautiful

Miss Maryland, of Baltimore, and has been the happiest of husbands

ever since, I have ceased to feel anxious or conscience-smitten on his

account.

Shall I go on and tell you how it all turned out? My wife, who is

leaning over my shoulder as I write these last words, says, 'No.' And I

submit; for once, years ago, when she was a Miss Wyndham, she made me

the happiest of mankind by saying, 'Yes.'

KILDHURM'S OAK.

CHAPTER I.

OLD LADY MAINWARING.

I see by the papers that this grand old lady is dead. She had passed

her eighty-ninth birthday. Born in a year when Warren Hastings was

still on his trial for high crimes and misdemeanours, the only child

of Sir Philip Kildhurm of Kildhurm Tower, she was married at seventeen

to Captain Frank Mainwaring, of His Britannic Majesty's Navy--a man

who enjoyed the distinction of being wounded at Trafalgar. Captain

Mainwaring (knighted in 1811 on acceding to his uncle's estates) died

in 1840; he left two sons and a daughter. Both the sons died in the

cholera epidemic of 1832, unmarried. The daughter was wedded to a

gentleman of family and estate, and accompanied him to India, where he

held some official position. But his whole family (several children

had been born) were murdered in the Sepoy outbreak. Thus it came about

that, for the last twenty years, Lady Mainwaring has been the sole

survivor of her race; and now she is gone, they are extinct.

She was a grand, serene old lady: with a noble face, whose beauty time

could not altogether take away, and a majestic figure that scarcely

stooped beneath the weight of fourscore years and nine. Her eyes were

remarkable--large, black, and keen, and innocent of spectacles to the

very end; but her hair, famous two generations since for its sable

luxuriance, became in later times snow-white, although the long arched

eyebrows kept their former hue. A wonderful old lady: endowed to the

last with singular personal fascination, her manner the perfection of

gentle dignity, in looking at her, or listening to the inflections of

her low deep voice, you felt that hers was a spirit of no ordinary

capacities and powers. But she was the descendant of no ordinary

ancestry. Several of her progenitors had been endowed with gifts of the

kind that modern science is always no less quick to explain away than

slow to explain, but in which the folk of a less sophisticated age did

powerfully and potently believe. I am not at this moment concerned to

enter upon a discussion of supernatural phenomena, so called, beyond

remarking that no physiologist can pretend to any right to be heard

at all on the subject: the credulity which can believe witchcraft and

sorcery to be the bugbears of a diseased imagination being too gross to

command attention. Reasonable people believe that the human body has

a soul; that there is a spiritual sight answering to the bodily sight;

and that when this spiritual sight is opened, it must inevitably behold

the objects of a spiritual world. Concerning the spiritual world two

or three facts, at least, are self-evident. Being a world of the mind,

only the laws of the mind can hold sway there; it is therefore free

from the trammels of space and time. Further, it is a world of real

substance, in contradistinction to the apparent substantiality of the

world of matter. Thus far logic carries us; and we do not at present

need to go farther. For if man, living as to his body in the material

world, lives at the same time as to his spirit in the spiritual world,

then prophecy, soothsaying, second-sight, or whatever 'miracle'

involves the transgression of no spiritual principle, becomes only the

corollary of our theorem. The wonder-workers of old are justified. As

for the Charlatans, they are not tricksters merely, but profaners,

whose doom is spiritual death.

It was not unknown to some of the more intimate of Lady Mainwaring's

friends that she possessed abnormal powers; and though she was

constitutionally reserved in her communications, she occasionally came

out with some noteworthy utterance on the subject. But if she saw and

knew things beyond the ordinary scope, these influenced her spiritual

rather than her material existence. She was well poised; there was

no one-sidedness in her character; the spirit was so soundly and

healthily wedded to the body that neither was in excess; they performed

their several functions in such harmony that one was seldom engaged

apart from the other. But although this was happily the case with

Lady Mainwaring, it had been otherwise with some of her ancestors.

They could not walk the world with even and measured steps, but ever

and anon plunged or soared into abysses which no mortal plummet has

sounded. In Lady Mainwaring's later years, a spirit of sweet and

dignified garrulity occasionally inspired her, under the influence of

which she would relate to discreet and sympathetic ears many strange

particulars both of her own and of her forefathers' history. Now that

she is gone, I am at liberty to reproduce some of these communications;

giving them, so far as is possible, a connected and consecutive form.

Her singularly fascinating narrative faculty, however, I cannot

pretend to imitate. She was full of unrhymed and unwritten poetry of

an elevated and mystic stamp. She had no ambition to be a writer, and

after all she could never have done herself justice on paper. Whoever

had listened to the subdued melody of her tones, flexible, various,

controlled, and reflecting every emotional phase of the tale as it was

told; whoever had felt the blood shrink to his heart at crises of the

story, marked by a slight movement of her long white hands, a quiver

of the black brows, an unexpected hush in the voice--whoever had had

experience of this would have known that it was not to be sought on any

printed page. Yet there was nothing histrionic in Lady Mainwaring's

demeanour. A person sitting a dozen yards away from her could not have

distinguished a word she said, and would scarcely have perceived that

she was making use of gestures to enforce her meaning. It needed a

close eye to catch all the subtle play of that venerable countenance.

The story I have compiled begins at a period now distant; yet the

series of events appears compact and coherent. What fact is there more

tough and undeniable than an oak in an English park? Yet, firmly rooted

though it be among the things of to-day, its beginnings date back a

thousand years; it is a creature of the Dark Ages, a contemporary of

legendary heroes and heroines, giants and fairies. It is a tangible

proof of the mysterious past; but, in bringing vanished ages into

the light of the passing moment, it takes from them the very reality

whereof they testify.