Paul stayed at the hotel until a late hour, and went home, feeling
lighter at heart than he had felt for many days. He was in love, and the
passion had a very salutary effect upon his nature. His heart had been
crushed down when he was a child, until he doubted whether he had any
heart at all. His early sufferings had hardened his nature, and his cool
strong mind had approved the process, so that he was well satisfied with
his solitary condition and his loveless life. He had seen much of the
world, and had known many women of all nations, but his immovable
indifference was proverbial among his colleagues, and if he had ever
entertained a passing fancy for any one, the fact was unknown to gossip.
It might be supposed that this very coldness would have rendered him
attractive to women, for it is commonly said, and with some truth, that
they are sometimes drawn to those men who show them no manner of
attention. But I think that the case is not always the same, and admits
of very subtle distinctions. It is not a man's coldness that attracts a
woman, but the belief that, though he is cold to others, he may soften
towards herself; and this belief often rests on mere vanity, and often
on the truth of the supposition. There are many men who systematically
affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in
the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray
at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman
whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and
with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from
a distance, to see if they can detect the slightest softening of manner
towards other women; and when they have convinced themselves that they
alone have the power to influence the frozen nature they admire, they
very easily fall wholly in love. In general a man who is very cold and
indifferent is not to be trusted. The chances are ten to one that he is
playing the old and time-honored part for a definite purpose.
But there are those who play no part, nor need to affect any
characteristic not theirs. When women find out that a man is really
indifferent to all women, their disgust knows no bounds. So long as he
is known to have loved any one in the past, or to love any one in the
present, or to be even likely to love any one in the future, he may be
pardoned. But if it is firmly believed that he is incapable of love,
woman-kind arises in a body and abuses him in unmeasured terms. He is
selfish. He is arrogant. He is so conceited that he thinks no one good
enough for him. He is a stone, a prig, a hypocrite, a maniac, a monster,
a statue, and especially he is a bore. In other words, he is a man's
man, and not a woman's man; and unless it can be proved that his madness
proceeds from disappointed love, even Dives in hell is not further
removed from forgiveness than he. Men may admire his strength, his
talents, his perseverance, and some friend will be found foolish enough
to sing his praises to some woman of the world. She will answer the
panegyrist with a blank stare, and will very likely say coldly, that he
is a bore, or that he is very rude. No amount of praise or ingenious
argument will extort an admission that the unfortunate man is worthy of
human sympathy. And yet, he may be very human, after all. At all events,
if we say with the Greek philosopher that a man shall not be called
happy until he be dead, we should not allow that he is beyond the reach
of love until the life has gone out of him, certainly not until he is
sixty years of age at the very least.
Now Paul Patoff was not sixty years old when he found himself in the
quiet English country house, and looked on his fair English cousin and
loved her. He was, as the times go, a young man, just entered upon the
prime of his life, just past the age when youth is considered foolish,
and just reaching the time when it is considered desirable. The fact
that he had not loved before was not likely to make his passion less
strong now that it had come at last, and he knew it, as men generally
understand themselves better when they are in love with a good woman. He
asked himself, indeed, why he had so suddenly given himself up, heart
and soul, to the lovely girl he had known only for a month; but such
questions are necessarily futile, because the heart does not always go
through the formality of asking the mind's consent before acting, and
the mind consequently refuses to be called to account in a matter for
which it is in no way responsible. It seemed to Paul very strange that
after so many years of a busy life, in which no passion but ambition had
played any part, he should all at once find his whole existence involved
in a new and un-dreamed-of labyrinth of feeling. But though it was
indeed a labyrinth, from which he did not even desire to escape, he
acknowledged that the paths of it were full of roses, and that life in
its winding walks was pleasanter than life outside.
The uncertainty of his position, however, disturbed his dreams, and even
the pleasant hours he spent with Hermione, listening to her rippling
laughter and gentle voice, were somewhat disturbed by the thought of the
morrow, and of what the end would be. His own instinct would have led
him to speak to Carvel at once and to have the matter settled, but
another set of ideas argued that he should wait and see what happened,
and if possible put off asking the fatal question until he had
unraveled the mystery of his brother's disappearance. That Carvel could
have believed him in any way implicated in the tragedy, and yet have
asked him to his house, he knew to be impossible; but he knew also that
the shadow of Alexander's fate hung over him, and now that there existed
a chance of completely and brilliantly establishing his innocence before
the world, he was unwilling to take so serious a step as formally
proposing for Hermione's hand, until the long desired result should be
reached. He had deeply felt the truth of what she had said to him in
England,--that he should be able to silence hints like those
Chrysophrasia had let fall, that he should place himself in such a
position as to defy insults instead of being obliged to bear them
quietly; and the conviction brought home to him by Hermione's words had
resulted in his immediate departure, with the determination to fathom
the mystery, and to clear himself forever, or to sacrifice his love in
case of failure.
But he had not counted upon the visit of the Carvels to Constantinople.
So long as he could not see Hermione, he had felt that it was possible
to contemplate with some calmness the prospect of giving her up if he
failed in his search. When Carvel had proposed to come out and had asked
my advice, we had fancied ourselves on the verge of the final discovery,
and with natural and pardonable enthusiasm Paul had joined me in urging
John to bring his family at once. He had felt sure that the end was
near, and he had wished that Hermione might arrive at the moment of his
triumph. It would not be a complete triumph, he thought, unless she were
there, and this idea showed how the man had changed under the influence
of his love. In former times Paul Patoff would never have thought of
anticipating success until he held it securely in his own hands; he
would have worked silently, giving no sign, and when the result was
obtained he would have presented it to the world with his coldest and
most sarcastic stare, content in the thought that he had satisfied
himself, and demanding no appreciation from others. To feel that he had
succeeded was then the most delicious part of success. Now, he was so
changed that he could not imagine success as being at all worth having
unless Hermione were there to share it. No one else would do, and
something of his exclusiveness might still be found in his desire for
her sympathy, and for that of no one else. But the transformation was
very great, and as he had realized it, he had understood the extent of
his love for his cousin. The sensation was wholly novel, and he again
asked himself what it meant, half doubting its reality, but never
doubting that it would last forever,--in the highly contradictory spirit
of a man who is in love for the first time.
Then Hermione arrived, and Paul awoke to find himself between two fires.
To contemplate the possibility of not marrying Hermione, when she was in
the same city, when he must see her and hear her voice every day of his
life, was now out of the question. His love had grown ten times stronger
in the separation of the last months, and he knew that it was now
useless to think of putting it away. With a modesty not found in men who
have loved many women, Paul discarded the idea that Hermione's happiness
was as deeply concerned as his own. He did not understand how very much
she loved him, and it would have seemed to his softened soul an
outrageous piece of arrogance to suppose that she could not be quite as
happy with some one else as with himself. But of his own feelings he had
no doubt. It was perfectly clear that without Hermione life could never
be worth living, and he found himself face to face with a most difficult
question,--a true dilemma, from which there could be no issue unless he
found his brother, or the evidences of his brother's death.
If the search proved fruitless, he was still in the position of a man
who is liable to suspicion, and he had firmly resolved that he would not
permit the woman he loved to marry a man who could be accused, however
unjustly, of the crime of murder. On the other hand, he knew that while
she was present in Constantinople he was not master of his feelings,
hardly of his words; and he could not go away: first, because to go away
would be to leave the search wholly in the hands of others; and
secondly, because his presence was required at the embassy and his
services were constantly in requisition. To abandon his career was a
course he never contemplated for a moment. His personal resources were
small, and his pay was now considerable, so that he depended upon it for
the necessities of life. He had never been willing to touch his
brother's money, either, and this honorable refusal had practically
crushed all gossip about Alexander's disappearance; so that at the
present time he was dependent upon himself. With the prospect of being a
_charge d'affaires_ in a short time, and of being chancellor of an
embassy at forty, he believed that he could fairly propose to marry
Hermione. But to do this he must abide by his career, a conclusion which
effectually prevented his flying from danger and giving the inquiry
entirely into my hands. With a keen sense of honor and a very strong
determination on the one side, and all the force of his love for
Hermione on the other, Paul's position was not an easy one, and he knew
it.
Nor was his mind wholly at rest concerning his mother. He had seen her
that afternoon, and had recognized that in the ordinary sense of the
word, and in the common opinion of people on the subject, she was
perfectly sane. She looked, moved, talked, ate, and dressed as though
she were wholly in her right mind; but Paul was not satisfied. He had
seen the old gleam of unreasoning anger in her eyes, when she had said
that he knew Alexander could never be found; meaning, as Paul supposed,
that he knew how the unfortunate man had come to his end. That this
belief had been the cause and first beginning of her madness, he was
convinced; and if the disturbing element was still present in her mind,
it might assert itself again at any moment with direful results. He was
willing, for the sake of argument, to believe that her idea was a
delusion, and indeed he preferred to think so. He did not like the
thought that his mother could seriously and sanely believe him to be a
murderer, though she had given him reason enough for knowing how she had
always disliked him. There was no affection between the mother and the
son, there was not even much respect; but beyond respect and affection
we recognize in the relations of a mother with her children a sort of
universal law of fitness, embracing the few conditions without which
there can be no relations at all between them. That a mother should
dislike her child offends our feelings and our conceptions of human
sympathy; but that a mother should wantonly and without evidence accuse
her son of a fearful crime, and be his only accuser, is a sin against
humanity itself, and our reason revolts against it as much as our heart.
It was hopeless to attempt an explanation of Madame Patoff's state of
mind. Paul might have understood her better had he known how she talked
and behaved when he was not present. John Carvel and his wife had indeed
assured Paul that his mother was entirely sane, and had forgotten her
resentment against him, speaking of him affectionately, and showing
herself anxious to see him during the long journey. But there was one of
the party who could have told a different story; who could have repeated
some of her aunt's utterances, and could have described certain phases
in her temper in such a way as would have surprised the rest. Madame
Patoff had naturally chosen to confide in Hermione, for Hermione had
first startled her into a confession of her sanity, and with her rested
the secret of the last two years. On the occasion which Carvel had
mentioned in his letter to me, when Madame Patoff had been surprised in
a sensible conversation by her nurse, the old lady had shown very great
presence of mind. She had recognized immediately that she was detected,
and that she would find it extremely difficult in future to deceive the
practiced eye of the vigilant Mrs. North. She was tired, too, in spite
of what she said to Hermione, of the absolute seclusion in which she
lived; not that she was wearied of mourning for Alexander, but because
she had exhausted one way of expressing her grief. So, at least, it
seemed to Hermione. Madame Patoff had therefore accepted the situation
and made the best of it, declaring herself sane and entirely recovered.
She had always contemplated the possibility of some such termination to
her pretended madness, and was perhaps glad that it had come at last.
She even found at first a pleasant relaxation in leading the life of an
ordinary person, and she tried to join in the life of the family in such
a way as to be no longer a burden or a source of anxiety to those she
had capriciously sacrificed during a year and a half. But with Hermione
she was not the same as with the rest. She was with her what she had
been on the first day when Hermione had declared her love for Paul, and
it appeared to the young girl that her aunt was in reality leading a
double existence, being in one state when with the assembled family, and
in quite another when she was alone with Hermione.
Madame Patoff was able to force herself upon her niece, for the young
girl had given a promise not to betray her secret, and though often in
hard straits to elude her father's questions without falling into
falsehood, felt herself bound to her aunt, and obliged to submit to long
conversations with her. It was a difficult position, and any one less
honest than Hermione and less sensitively tactful would have found it
hard to maintain the balance. She herself avoided carefully all mention
of Paul, but her aunt delighted in talking of him. One of these
conversations took place on the evening of their arrival in
Constantinople, and may well serve as a specimen of the rest. When all
the party had retired for the night, Madame Patoff came into Hermione's
room and sat down, evidently with the intention of staying at least an
hour. Hermione looked at her with a deprecating expression, being indeed
very tired, and wishing that her aunt would put off her visit until the
next day. She saw, however, that there was no hope of this, and
submitted herself with a good grace.
"Are you not tired, aunt Annie?" asked the young girl.
"No, no, not very, my dear," said the old lady, smoothing her thick gray
hair with her hand, and fixing her dark eyes on her niece's face. "Oh,
Hermy, what a meeting!" she suddenly exclaimed. "If you knew how hard I
tried to be kind to him, I am sure you would pity me. It is so hard, so
hard!"
"It is the least you can do,--to treat him kindly," answered Hermione,
somewhat coldly. "But I was very glad to see that you kissed him when we
arrived."
"It was dreadfully hard to do it. The very sight of him freezes my
blood. Oh, Hermy dear, how can you love him so much, when I love you as
I do? It frightens me"----
"It does not frighten me, aunt Annie," said her niece. "I can say, when
you love me as you do, how can you not love him?"
"It is not the same, my dear. How could I love him, knowing what I
know?"
"You do not know it," answered Hermione very firmly, "and you must not
suggest it to me. Sometimes I could almost think you were really mad,
aunt Annie,--forgive me, I must say it. Not mad as you pretended to be,
but mad on this one point. You have always hated poor Paul since he was
a child, and you have treated him very unkindly. But you have no right
to accuse him now, and I would not listen to you unless I believed that
I could help to make you see him as you should."
Madame Patoff bent her head and hid her eyes in her hand, as though
greatly distressed.
"I love you so much, dear Hermy--I cannot bear to think of your marrying
him. You cannot understand me--I know--and you think me very unkind. But
I hate him!" she cried, with a burst of uncontrollable anger. "Oh, how I
hate him!"
Her hands had dropped from her face, and her dark eyes flashed wickedly
as she stared at the young girl. Hermione was startled for a moment, but
she also had learned a lesson of self-possession.
"Do you think that I am afraid when you look at me like that, aunt
Annie?" she asked, very quietly.
Madame Patoff's features relaxed, and she laughed a little foolishly, as
though ashamed of herself.
"No, child; why should you be afraid? I am only an unhappy old woman. I
cannot speak to any one else."
"And you must not speak to me in that way," answered Hermione, in a
gentle tone. "I love Paul with all my heart, and I cannot hear him
abused by you, even though I know you are out of your mind when you say
such things. I should be despicable if I listened to you."
"If I loved you less, dear," returned the old lady, "I might hate him
less. Ah, if you could only have married Alexis,--if it could only have
been the other way!"
"Hush!" exclaimed Hermione, almost roughly. "You are wishing that Paul
were dead, instead of his brother. I will go away, if you talk like
that."
She suited the action to the word, and rose to go towards the door. She
knew her aunt very well. Madame Patoff changed her tone at once.
"Oh, don't go away, don't go away!" she cried nervously. "I will never
speak of him again, if you will only stay with me."
Hermione turned and came back, and saw that her threat had for the
present produced its effect, as it usually did. Madame Patoff had
indeed a strange affection for her niece, and the latter knew how to
manage her by means of it. At the mere idea of Hermione's leaving her in
anger, the aunt softened and became docile.
"I did not mean it, child," she said, dolefully. "I am always so
unhappy, so dreadfully wretched, that I say things I do not altogether
mean. I am not quite myself to-night, either. Coming here, to the place
where my poor boy was lost, has upset my nerves; and, really, your aunt
Chrysophrasia is so very tactless. She always was like that. I remember
the way in which she treated my poor husband before we were married. It
was she who made all the quarrel, you know. It broke up my life at the
very beginning, and we two sisters never saw each other again. I do not
know what would have become of me if my husband had not loved me as he
did. He was so kind to me, always, and he sympathized in all my feelings
and ideas. If he had only lived, how different it might all have been!"
Hermione thought so, too; reflecting that if Paul's father had been
alive during the time when he was growing up, the unfortunate boy would
have been spared a vast deal of suffering, and Madame Patoff would
perhaps have been held in check. Her character was not of the kind which
could safely be left to its own development, for she called her caprices
justice and her obstinacy principle, a mode of viewing life not
conducive to much permanent satisfaction when not modified by the
salutary restraint of a more sensible companion. But Hermione was glad
that her aunt was willing to talk of anything except Paul, and
encouraged her to continue, though she had heard again and again Madame
Patoff's account of her own life and of the family quarrels. By
carefully listening and watching her, it was possible to keep her from
reaching the point at which Hermione was always obliged to protest that
she would not hear more.
It may be judged from this scene that the young girl's position was not
an easy one. She was beginning to feel that Madame Patoff's hatred for
Paul approached in reality much nearer to insanity than the affected
apathy she had assumed before Hermione discovered the imposition; but,
nevertheless, the young girl felt that, sane or not sane, she could
allow no one to cast a slur on the name of the man she loved. She was
glad, indeed, that Madame Patoff did not make her hatred and her
suspicion topics for conversation with the rest of the family, and she
was willing to suffer much in order that her aunt might confide in her
alone, and behave herself with propriety and dignity before the others.
But when Madame Patoff overstepped the limits Hermione had set for her,
the old lady invariably found herself checked and even frightened by the
authoritative manner of her niece. The anxiety, however, and the
constant annoyance to which she was subjected, together with the sorrow
of the separation from Paul, had told upon the girl's strength, and it
was no wonder that she had grown thinner during the last months. Her
young character was forming itself under terrible difficulties, and it
was well that she inherited more of her father's good sense and courage
than of her mother's meekness and gentleness under all circumstances.
Hermione looked back and tried to remember what she had been six months
ago, but she hardly recognized herself in the picture called up by her
memories. She thought of her ignorance about her aunt's state, and of
how she had sometimes felt sad and sorry for the old lady, but had on
the whole not found that her presence in the house materially changed
her own smooth life. She looked further back, and remembered as in a
dream her first London season. She had not enjoyed herself; she had been
oppressed rather than delighted by the crowds, the lights, the whirl of
a life she could not understand, the terrors of presentation, the men
suddenly brought up to her, who bowed and immediately whirled her away
amongst a crowd of young people, all spinning madly round, and knowing
each other probably as little as she knew her partner of the moment. It
had all been strange to her, and she realized with pleasure that she
should not be obliged to go through it again this year. Her mother was
not a worldly woman, and had not inspired her, while still in the
schoolroom, with a mad desire for the world. Hermione was an only
daughter, and there was no reason for hastening her marriage; nor had
she ever been told, as many young girls are, that she must marry well,
and if possible in her first season. She saw many men in the round of
parties to which she was taken, but she found it hard to remember the
names of even a few of them. They had been presented, had danced with
her, had perhaps danced with her again somewhere else, and had dropped
out of her existence without inspiring in her the smallest interest.
Now, after nearly a year, she would not have known their faces. Some had
talked to her, but their language was not hers; it was the jargon of
society, the petty gossip, the eternal chatter of people and people's
doings. Her answers were vague, and when she asked a question about a
book, about an idea, about a fact, the faultlessly correct young men
smiled sweetly, and answered that they did not understand that sort of
thing. Towards the end of the season, when the first surprise of
watching the moving crowds, the dancing, the women's gowns, and the
men's faces, had worn out, Hermione had regarded the whole thing as an
inexpressible bore, and had returned with delight to the quiet life at
Carvel Place, glad that her father's position and tastes did not lead
him to keep open house, as some of his neighbors did, and that she was
allowed to read and to be quiet, and to do everything she liked.
Then her real life had begun, and her character, untouched and unchanged
by what she had seen in a London season, had suddenly come under the
influence of another character, strong, dominant, and apparently good,
but in the eyes of the young girl eminently mysterious. She had known
Paul Patoff as one knows people in the midst of a small family party in
a country house, and he had at first repelled her, as he repelled many
people; but soon, very soon, she thought, the feeling of repulsion had
grown to be a curiosity to know the man's history, the secret of his
coldness towards his mother, and of his hard and cynical expression.
From such interest as she felt for him, it was but a step to love, and
the step was soon taken. The nearer she came to him, the more she felt
the power of his fascination, and the more she wondered that every one
else did not see it as she saw it, and yield to it as she yielded to it.
Then had come the afternoon in the park; the joy of those few hours; the
scene at dinner on the same evening; the revelation she had extracted
from Cutter; the discovery that her aunt was sane; her interview with
Paul, and his sudden departure, wounded by her speech;--all these events
following on each other in less than four-and-twenty hours. From that
day she knew that she had changed much, and she realized the strength of
her love for Paul. And on that day, also, had begun her annoyances with
Madame Patoff, her constant defense of the son against the accusations
of the mother, and her own fears lest she should be playing a double
part. She had suffered much by the separation from Paul; she suffered
more whenever her aunt fell into her passionate way of abusing him, and
she felt that her faculties were overstrained when she was in the
society of her strange relative. But Madame Patoff loved her, and her
affection was so evident to Hermione that she found it hard to cut her
speeches short with a sharp word, however painful it might be to her to
listen to them. Of late she had adopted the practice of treating her as
she did on the first night, assuming that her hatred was very nearly an
insanity in itself, and managing her almost like a child, threatening to
leave her when she said too much, and bringing her to her senses by
seeming to withdraw her affection. Indeed, there was something
exaggerated in Madame Patoff's love for the girl, as there appeared to
be in everything she really felt. With the other members of the
household she behaved with perfect self-possession, but when she was
alone with Hermione she laid aside all her assumed calm, and spoke
unreasonably about her son, as though it gave her pleasure; always
submitting, however, to the rebuke which Hermione invariably
administered on such occasions. But the idea that whenever she was alone
with her aunt something of the kind was sure to occur made Hermione
nervous, so that she avoided an interview whenever she could.