He distinguished me, as the French say; he honoured me with his esteem
and, as the days elapsed, with no small share of his confidence.
Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his conversation was not
cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over
the financial prostration of our common country. “No, sir, business in
the United States is not what it once was,” he found occasion to remark
several times a day. “There’s not the same spring—there’s not the same
hopeful feeling. You can see it in all departments.” He used to sit by
the hour in the little garden of the pension with a roll of American
newspapers in his lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of his
long legs and reading the _New York Herald_. He paid a daily visit to
the American banker’s on the other side of the Rhône and remained there a
long time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet table in the
centre of the Salon des Etrangers and fraternising with chance
compatriots. But in spite of these diversions the time was heavy on his
hands. I used at times to propose him a walk, but he had a mortal horror
of any use of his legs other than endlessly dangling or crossing them,
and regarded my direct employment of my own as a morbid form of activity.
“You’ll kill yourself if you don’t look out,” he said, “walking all over
the country. I don’t want to stump round that way—I ain’t a postman!”
Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources. His wife and daughter, on
the other hand, it was to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that
couldn’t be apparent to an unobtrusive young man. They also sat a great
deal in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with folded hands,
taking in, to vague ends, material objects, and were remarkably
independent of most of the usual feminine aids to idleness—light
literature, tapestry, the use of the piano. They lent themselves to
complete displacement, however, much more than their companion, and I
often met them, in the Rue du Rhône and on the quays, loitering in front
of the jewellers’ windows. They might have had a cavalier in the person
of old M. Pigeonneau, who professed a high appreciation of their charms,
but who, owing to the absence of a common idiom, was deprived, in the
connexion, of the pleasures of intimacy. He knew no English, and Mrs.
Ruck and her daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of the
beautiful tongue which, as the old man endeavoured to impress upon them,
was pre-eminently the language of conversation.
“They have a tournure de princesse—a distinction suprême,” he said to me.
“One’s surprised to find them in a little pension bourgeoise at seven
francs a day.”
“Oh they don’t come for economy. They must be rich.”
“They don’t come for my beaux yeux—for mine,” said M. Pigeonneau sadly.
“Perhaps it’s for yours, young man. Je vous recommande la maman!”
I considered the case. “They came on account of Mr. Ruck because at
hotels he’s so restless.”
M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. “Of course he is, with such a wife
as that!—a femme superbe. She’s preserved in perfection—a miraculous
fraîcheur. I like those large, fair, quiet women; they’re often, dans
l’intimité, the most agreeable. I’ll warrant you that at heart Madame
Roque is a finished coquette.” And then as I demurred: “You suppose her
cold? Ne vous y fiez pas!”
“It’s a matter in which I’ve nothing at stake.”
“You young Americans are droll,” said M. Pigeonneau; “you never have
anything at stake! But the little one, for example; I’ll warrant you
she’s not cold. Toute menue as she is she’s admirably made.”
“She’s very pretty.”
“‘She’s very pretty’! Vous dites cela d’un ton! When you pay
compliments to Mees Roque I hope that’s not the way you do it.”
“I don’t pay compliments to Miss Ruck.”
“Ah, decidedly,” said M. Pigeonneau, “you young Americans are droll!”
I should have suspected that these two ladies wouldn’t especially commend
themselves to Madame Beaurepas; that as a maîtresse de salon, which she
in some degree aspired to be, she would have found them wanting in a
certain colloquial ease. But I should have gone quite wrong: Madame
Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new pensionnaires. “I’ve
no observation whatever to make about them,” she said to me one evening.
“I see nothing in those ladies at all déplacé. They don’t complain of
anything; they don’t meddle; they take what’s given them; they leave me
tranquil. The Americans are often like that. Often, but not always,”
Madame Beaurepas pursued. “We’re to have a specimen to-morrow of a very
different sort.”
“An American?” I was duly interested.
“Two Américaines—a mother and a daughter. There are Americans and
Americans: when you’re difficiles you’re more so than any one, and when
you’ve pretensions—ah, par exemple, it’s serious. I foresee that with
this little lady everything will be serious, beginning with her café au
lait. She has been staying at the Pension Chamousset—my concurrente, you
know, further up the street; but she’s coming away because the coffee’s
bad. She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don’t know what liquid
Madame Chamousset may dispense under that name, but we’ll do the best we
can for her. Only I know she’ll make me des histoires about something
else. She’ll demand a new lamp for the salon; vous allez voir cela. She
wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for herself and her daughter, tout
compris; and for their eleven francs they expect to be lodged like
princesses. But she’s very ‘ladylike’—isn’t that what you call it in
English? Oh, pour cela, she’s ladylike!”
I caught a glimpse on the morrow of the source of these portents, who had
presented herself at our door as I came in from a walk. She had come in
a cab, with her daughter and her luggage; and with an air of perfect
softness and serenity she now disputed the fare as she stood on the steps
and among her boxes. She addressed her cabman in a very English accent,
but with extreme precision and correctness. “I wish to be perfectly
reasonable, but don’t wish to encourage you in exorbitant demands. With
a franc and a half you’re sufficiently paid. It’s not the custom at
Geneva to give a pourboire for so short a drive. I’ve made inquiries and
find it’s not the custom even in the best families. I’m a stranger, yes,
but I always adopt the custom of the native families. I think it my duty
to the natives.”
“But I’m a native too, moi!” cried the cabman in high derision.
“You seem to me to speak with a German accent,” continued the lady.
“You’re probably from Basel. A franc and a half are sufficient. I see
you’ve left behind the little red bag I asked you to hold between your
knees; you’ll please to go back to the other house and get it. Very
well, si vous me manquez I’ll make a complaint of you to-morrow at the
administration. Aurora, you’ll find a pencil in the outer pocket of my
embroidered satchel; please write down his number—87; do you see it
distinctly?—in case we should forget it.”
The young lady so addressed—a slight fair girl holding a large parcel of
umbrellas—stood at hand while this allocution went forward, but
apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking about her in a listless
manner—looking at the front of the house, at the corridor, at Célestine
tucking back her apron in the doorway, at me as I passed in amid the
disseminated luggage; her mother’s parsimonious attitude seeming to
produce in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the
two ladies were placed on the same side of the table as myself and below
Mrs. Ruck and her daughter—my own position being on the right of Mr.
Ruck. I had therefore little observation of Mrs. Church—such I learned
to be her name—but I occasionally heard her soft distinct voice.
“White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. There’s none on the
table? Then you’ll please get some and remember to place a bottle of it
always here between my daughter and myself.”
“That lady seems to know what she wants,” said Mr. Ruck, “and she speaks
so I can understand her. I can’t understand every one over here. I’d
like to make that lady’s acquaintance. Perhaps she knows what _I_ want,
too: it seems so hard to find out! But I don’t want any of their sour
white wine; that’s one of the things I don’t want. I guess she’ll be an
addition to the pension.”
Mr. Ruck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church that evening in the
parlour, being presented to her by his wife, who presumed on the rights
conferred upon herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of the two
ladies. I seemed to make out that in Mrs. Church’s view Mrs. Ruck
presumed too far. The fugitive from the Pension Chamousset, as M.
Pigeonneau called her, was a little fresh plump comely woman, looking
less than her age, with a round bright serious face. She was very simply
and frugally dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. Ruck’s companions,
and had an air of quiet distinction which was an excellent defensive
weapon. She exhibited a polite disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck
might have to say, but her manner was equivalent to an intimation that
what she valued least in boarding-house life was its social
opportunities. She had placed herself near a lamp, after carefully
screwing it and turning it up, and she had opened in her lap, with the
assistance of a large embroidered marker, an octavo volume which I
perceived to be in German. To Mrs. Ruck and her daughter she was
evidently a puzzle; they were mystified beyond appeal by her frugal
attire and expensive culture. The two younger ladies, however, had begun
to fraternise freely, and Miss Ruck presently went wandering out of the
room with her arm round the waist of Miss Church. It was a warm evening;
the long windows of the salon stood wide open to the garden, and,
inspired by the balmy darkness, M. Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas,
a most obliging little woman who lisped and always wore a huge cravat,
declared they would organise a fête de nuit. They engaged in this
enterprise, and the fête developed itself on the lines of half a dozen
red paper lanterns hung about in the trees, and of several glasses of
_sirop_ carried on a tray by the stout-armed Célestine. As the occasion
deepened to its climax I went out into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau
was master of ceremonies.
“But where are those charming young ladies,” he cried, “Mees Roque and
the new-comer, l’aimable transfuge? Their absence has been remarked and
they’re wanting to the brilliancy of the scene. Voyez, I have selected a
glass of syrup—a generous glass—for Mees Roque, and I advise you, my
young friend, if you wish to make a good impression, to put aside one
which you may offer to the other young lady. What’s her name? Mees
Cheurche? I see; it’s a singular name. Ca veut dire ‘église,’
n’est-ce-pas? Voilà, a church where I’d willingly worship!”
Mr. Ruck presently came out of the salon, having concluded his interview
with the elder of the pair. Through the open window I saw that
accomplished woman seated under the lamp with her German octavo, while
Mrs. Ruck, established empty-handed in an armchair near her, fairly
glowered at her for fascination.
“Well, I told you she’d know what I want,” he promptly observed to me.
“She says I want to go right up to Appenzell, wherever that is; that I
want to drink whey and live in a high latitude—what did she call it?—a
high altitude. She seemed to think we ought to leave for Appenzell
to-morrow; she’d got it all fixed. She says this ain’t a high enough
lat—a high enough altitude. And she says I mustn’t go too high either;
that would be just as bad; she seems to know just the right figure. She
says she’ll give me a list of the hotels where we must stop on the way to
Appenzell. I asked her if she didn’t want to go with us, but she says
she’d rather sit still and read. I guess she’s a big reader.”
The daughter of this devotee now reappeared, in company with Miss Ruck,
with whom she had been strolling through the outlying parts of the
garden; and that young lady noted with interest the red paper lanterns.
“Good gracious,” she inquired, “are they trying to stick the flower-pots
into the trees?”
“It’s an illumination in honour of our arrival,” her companion returned.
“It’s a triumph over Madame Chamousset.”
“Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset,” I ventured to suggest, “they’ve
put out their lights—they’re sitting in darkness and lamenting your
departure.”
She smiled at me—she was standing in the light that came from the house.
M. Pigeonneau meanwhile, who had awaited his chance, advanced to Miss
Ruck with his glass of syrup. “I’ve kept it for you, mademoiselle,” he
said; “I’ve jealously guarded it. It’s very delicious!”
Miss Ruck looked at him and his syrup without making any motion to take
the glass. “Well, I guess it’s sour,” she dropped with a small shake of
her head.
M. Pigeonneau stood staring, his syrup in his hand; then he slowly turned
away. He looked about at the rest of us as to appeal from Miss Ruck’s
insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute on a bench.
“Won’t you give it to me?” asked Miss Church in faultless French.
“J’adore le sirop, moi.”
M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity and presented the glass with a very
low bow. “I adore good manners.”
This incident caused me to look at Miss Church with quickened interest.
She was not strikingly pretty, but in her charming irregular face was a
light of ardour. Like her mother, though in a less degree, she was
simply dressed.
“She wants to go to America, and her mother won’t let her”—Miss Sophy
explained to me her friend’s situation.
“I’m very sorry—for America,” I responsively laughed.
“Well, I don’t want to say anything against your mother, but I think it’s
shameful,” Miss Ruck pursued.
“Mamma has very good reasons. She’ll tell you them all.”
“Well, I’m sure I don’t want to hear them,” said Miss Ruck. “You’ve got
a right to your own country; every one has a right to their own country.”
“Mamma’s not very patriotic,” Aurora was at any rate not too spiritless
to mention.
“Well, I call that dreadful,” her companion declared. “I’ve heard there
are some Americans like that, but I never believed it.”
“Oh there are all sorts of Americans.”
“Aurora’s one of the right sort,” cried Miss Ruck, ready, it seemed, for
the closest comradeship.
“Are you very patriotic,” I asked of the attractive exile.
Miss Ruck, however, promptly answered for her. “She’s right down
homesick—she’s dying to go. If you were me,” she went on to her friend,
“I guess your mother would _have_ to take me.”
“Mamma’s going to take me to Dresden.”
“Well, I never heard of anything so cold-blooded!” said Miss Ruck. “It’s
like something in a weird story.”
“I never heard Dresden was so awful a fate,” I ventured to interpose.
Miss Ruck’s eyes made light of me. “Well, I don’t believe _you_’re a
good American,” she smartly said, “and I never supposed you were. You’d
better go right in there and talk to Mrs. Church.”
“Dresden’s really very nice, isn’t it?” I asked of her companion.
“It isn’t nice if you happen to prefer New York,” Miss Ruck at once
returned. “Miss Church prefers New York. Tell him you’re dying to see
New York; it will make him mad,” she went on.
“I’ve no desire to make him mad,” Aurora smiled.
“It’s only Miss Ruck who can do that,” I hastened to state. “Have you
been a long time in Europe?” I added.
“As long as I can remember.”
“I call that wicked!” Miss Ruck declared.
“You might be in a worse place,” I continued. “I find Europe very
interesting.”
Miss Ruck fairly snorted. “I was just _saying_ that you wanted to pass
for a European.”
Well, I saw my way to admit it. “Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian.”
Miss Ruck pounced straight. “Then you had better not come home. We know
how to treat your sort.”
“Were you born in these countries?” I asked of Aurora Church.
“Oh no—I came to Europe a small child. But I remember America a little,
and it seems delightful.”
“Wait till you see it again. It’s just too lovely,” said Miss Ruck.
“The grandest country in all the world,” I added.
Miss Ruck began to toss her head. “Come away, my dear. If there’s a
creature I despise it’s a man who tries to say funny things about his own
country.”
But Aurora lingered while she all appealingly put it to me. “Don’t you
think one can be tired of Europe?”
“Well—as one may be tired of life.”
“Tired of the life?” cried Miss Ruck. “Father was tired of it after
three weeks.”
“I’ve been here sixteen years,” her friend went on, looking at me as for
some charming intelligence. “It used to be for my education. I don’t
know what it’s for now.”
“She’s beautifully educated,” Miss Ruck guaranteed. “She knows four
languages.”
“I’m not very sure I know English!”
“You should go to Boston!” said our companion. “They speak splendidly in
Boston.”
“C’est mon rêve,” said Aurora, still looking at me. “Have you been all
over Europe,” I asked—“in all the different countries?”
She consulted her reminiscences. “Everywhere you can find a pension.
Mamma’s devoted to pensions. We’ve lived at one time or another in every
pension in Europe—say at some five or six hundred.”
“Well, I should think you had seen about enough!” Miss Ruck exhaled.
“It’s a delightful way of seeing Europe”—our friend rose to a bright high
irony. “You may imagine how it has attached me to the different
countries. I have such charming souvenirs! There’s a pension awaiting
us now at Dresden—eight francs a day, without wine. That’s so much
beyond our mark that mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma’s a
great authority on pensions; she’s known, that way, all over Europe.
Last winter we were in Italy, and she discovered one at Piacenza—four
francs a day. We made economies.”
“Your mother doesn’t seem to mingle much,” observed Miss Ruck, who had
glanced through the window at Mrs. Church’s concentration.
“No, she doesn’t mingle, except in the native society. Though she lives
in pensions she detests our vulgar life.”
“‘Vulgar’?” cried Miss Ruck. “Why then does she skimp so?” This young
woman had clearly no other notion of vulgarity.
“Oh because we’re so poor; it’s the cheapest way to live. We’ve tried
having a cook, but the cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to watch
her; that’s the way I passed my jeunesse—my belle jeunesse. We’re
frightfully poor,” she went on with the same strange frankness—a curious
mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism. “Nous n’avons pas le
sou. That’s one of the reasons we don’t go back to America. Mamma says
we could never afford to live there.”
“Well, any one can see that you’re an American girl,” Miss Ruck remarked
in a consolatory manner. “I can tell an American girl a mile off.
You’ve got the natural American style.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the natural American clothes,” said Aurora in
tribute to the other’s splendour.
“Well, your dress was cut in France; any one can see that.”
“Yes,” our young lady laughed, “my dress was cut in France—at Avranches.”
“Well, you’ve got a lovely figure anyway,” pursued her companion.
“Ah,” she said for the pleasantry of it, “at Avranches, too, my figure
was admired.” And she looked at me askance and with no clear poverty of
intention. But I was an innocent youth and I only looked back at her and
wondered. She was a great deal nicer than Miss Ruck, and yet Miss Ruck
wouldn’t have said that in that way. “I try to be the American girl,”
she continued; “I do my best, though mamma doesn’t at all encourage it.
I’m very patriotic. I try to strike for freedom, though mamma has
brought me up à la française; that is as much as one can in pensions.
For instance I’ve never been out of the house without mamma—oh never
never! But sometimes I despair; American girls do come out so with
things. I can’t come out, I can’t rush in, like that. I’m awfully
pinched, I’m always afraid. But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du
peu!”
I thought this young lady of an inspiration at least as untrammelled as
her unexpatriated sisters, and her despondency in the true note of much
of their predominant prattle. At the same time she had by no means
caught, as it seemed to me, what Miss Ruck called the natural American
style. Whatever her style was, however, it had a fascination—I knew not
what (as I called it) distinction, and yet I knew not what odd freedom.
The young ladies began to stroll about the garden again, and I enjoyed
their society until M. Pigeonneau’s conception of a “high time” began to
languish.
V
Mr. Ruck failed to take his departure for Appenzell on the morrow, in
spite of the eagerness to see him off quaintly attributed by him to Mrs.
Church. He continued on the contrary for many days after to hang about
the garden, to wander up to the banker’s and back again, to engage in
desultory conversation with his fellow boarders, and to endeavour to
assuage his constitutional restlessness by perusal of the American
journals. But it was at least on the morrow that I had the honour of
making Mrs. Church’s acquaintance. She came into the salon after the
midday breakfast, her German octavo under her arm, and appealed to me for
assistance in selecting a quiet corner.
“Would you very kindly,” she said, “move that large fauteuil a little
more this way? Not the largest; the one with the little cushion. The
fauteuils here are very insufficient; I must ask Madame Beaurepas for
another. Thank you; a little more to the left, please; that will do.
Are you particularly engaged?” she inquired after she had seated herself.
“If not I should like briefly to converse with you. It’s some time since
I’ve met a young American of your—what shall I call it?—affiliations.
I’ve learned your name from Madame Beaurepas; I must have known in other
days some of your people. I ask myself what has become of all my
friends. I used to have a charming little circle at home, but now I meet
no one I either know or desire to know. Don’t you think there’s a great
difference between the people one meets and the people one would like to
meet? Fortunately, sometimes,” my patroness graciously added, “there’s
no great difference. I suppose you’re a specimen—and I take you for a
good one,” she imperturbably went on—“of modern young America. Tell me,
then, what modern young America is thinking of in these strange days of
ours. What are its feelings, its opinions, its aspirations? What is its
_ideal_?” I had seated myself and she had pointed this interrogation
with the gaze of her curiously bright and impersonal little eyes. I felt
it embarrassing to be taken for a superior specimen of modern young
America and to be expected to answer for looming millions. Observing my
hesitation Mrs. Church clasped her hands on the open page of her book and
gave a dismal, a desperate smile. “_Has_ it an ideal?” she softly asked.
“Well, we must talk of this,” she proceeded without insisting. “Speak
just now for yourself simply. Have you come to Europe to any intelligent
conscious end?”
“No great end to boast of,” I said. “But I seem to feel myself study a
little.”
“Ah, I’m glad to hear that. You’re gathering up a little European
culture; that’s what we lack, you know, at home. No individual can do
much, of course; but one mustn’t be discouraged—every little so counts.”
“I see that you at least are doing your part,” I bravely answered,
dropping my eyes on my companion’s learned volume.
“Ah yes, I go as straight as possible to the sources. There’s no one
after all like the Germans. That is for digging up the facts and the
evidence. For conclusions I frequently diverge. I form my opinions
myself. I’m sorry to say, however,” Mrs. Church continued, “that I don’t
do much to spread the light. I’m afraid I’m sadly selfish; I do little
to irrigate the soil. I belong—I frankly confess it—to the class of
impenitent absentees.”
“I had the pleasure, last evening,” I said, “of making the acquaintance
of your daughter. She tells me you’ve been a long time in Europe.”
She took it blandly. “Can one ever be _too_ long? You see it’s _our_
world, that of us few real fugitives from the rule of the mob. We shall
never go back to that.”
“Your daughter nevertheless fancies she yearns!” I replied.
“Has she been taking you into her confidence? She’s a more sensible
young lady than she sometimes appears. I’ve taken great pains with her;
she’s really—I may be permitted to say it—superbly educated.”
“She seemed to me to do you honour,” I made answer. “And I hear she
speaks fluently four languages.”
“It’s not only that,” said Mrs. Church in the tone of one sated with
fluencies and disillusioned of diplomas. “She has made what we call _de
fortes études_—such as I suppose you’re making now. She’s familiar with
the results of modern science; she keeps pace with the new historical
school.”
“Ah,” said I, “she has gone much further than I!”
She seemed to look at me a moment as for the tip of the ear of irony.
“You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force me therefore to mention
the fact that I speak of such matters with a certain intelligence.”
“I should never dream of doubting it,” I returned, “but your daughter
nevertheless strongly holds that you ought to take her home.” I might
have feared that these words would practically represent treachery to the
young lady, but I was reassured by seeing them produce in her mother’s
placid surface no symptom whatever of irritation.
“My daughter has her little theories,” that lady observed; “she has, I
may say, her small fond illusions and rebellions. And what wonder! What
would youth be without its Sturm and Drang? Aurora says to herself—all
at her ease—that she would be happier in their dreadful New York, in
their dreary Boston, in their desperate Philadelphia, than in one of the
charming old cities in which our lot is cast. But she knows not what she
babbles of—that’s all. We must allow our children their yearning to make
mistakes, mustn’t we? But we must keep the mistakes down to as few as
possible.”
Her soft sweet positiveness, beneath which I recognised all sorts of
really hard rigours of resistance and aggression, somehow breathed a
chill on me. “American cities,” I none the less threw off, “are the
paradise of the female young.”
“Do you mean,” she inquired, “that the generations reared in those places
are angels?”
“Well,” I said resolutely, “they’re the nicest of all girls.”
“This young lady—what’s her odd name?—with whom my daughter has formed a
somewhat precipitate acquaintance: is Miss Ruck an angel and one of the
nicest of all? But I won’t,” she amusedly added, “force you to describe
her as she deserves. It would be too cruel to make a single exception.”
“Well,” I at any rate pleaded, “in America they’ve the easiest lot and
the best time. They’ve the most innocent liberty.”
My companion laid her hand an instant on my arm. “My dear young friend,
I know America, I know the conditions of life there down to the ground.
There’s perhaps no subject on which I’ve reflected more than on our
national idiosyncrasies.”
“To the effect, I see, of your holding them in horror,” I said a little
roughly.
Rude indeed as was my young presumption Mrs. Church had still her
cultivated patience, even her pity, for it. “We’re very crude,” she
blandly remarked, “and we’re proportionately indigestible.” And lest her
own refined strictures should seem to savour of the vice she deprecated
she went on to explain. “There are two classes of minds, you know—those
that hold back and those that push forward. My daughter and I are not
pushers; we move with the slow considerate steps to which a little
dignity may still cling. We like the old trodden paths; we like the old
old world.”
“Ah,” said I, “you know what you like. There’s a great virtue in that.”
“Yes, we like Europe; we prefer it. We like the opportunities of Europe;
we like the _rest_. There’s so much in that, you know. The world seems
to me to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without knowing in
the least where it’s going. ‘Whither?’ I often ask in my little quiet
way. But I’ve yet to learn that any one can tell me.”
“You’re a grand old conservative,” I returned while I wondered whether I
myself might have been able to meet her question.
Mrs. Church gave me a smile that was equivalent to a confession. “I wish
to retain a wee bit—just a wee bit. Surely we’ve done so much we might
rest a while; we might pause. That’s all my feeling—just to stop a
little, to wait, to take breath. I’ve seen so many changes. I want to
draw in, to draw in—to hold back, to hold back.”
“You shouldn’t hold your daughter back!” I laughed as I got up. I rose
not by way of closing our small discussion, for I felt my friend’s
exposition of her views to be by no means complete, but in order to offer
a chair to Miss Aurora, who at this moment drew near. She thanked me and
remained standing, but without at first, as I noticed, really facing her
parent.
“You’ve been engaged with your new acquaintance, my dear?” this lady
inquired.
“Yes, mamma,” said the girl with a sort of prompt sweet dryness.
“Do you find her very edifying?”
Aurora had a silence; then she met her mother’s eyes. “I don’t know,
mamma. She’s very fresh.”
I ventured a respectful laugh. “Your mother has another word for that.
But I must not,” I added, “be indigestibly raw.”
“Ah, vous m’en voulez?” Mrs. Church serenely sighed. “And yet I can’t
pretend I said it in jest. I feel it too much. We’ve been having a
little social discussion,” she said to her daughter. “There’s still so
much to be said. And I wish,” she continued, turning to me, “that I
could give you our point of view. Don’t you wish, Aurora, that we could
give him our point of view?”
“Yes, mamma,” said Aurora.
“We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point of view, don’t we,
dearest?” mamma demanded.
“Very fortunate indeed, mamma.”
“You see we’ve acquired an insight into European life,” the elder lady
pursued. “We’ve our place at many a European fireside. We find so much
to esteem—so much to enjoy. Don’t we find delightful things, my
daughter?”
“So very delightful, mamma,” the girl went on with her colourless calm.
I wondered at it; it offered so strange a contrast to the mocking freedom
of her tone the night before; but while I wondered I desired to testify
to the interest at least with which she inspired me.
“I don’t know what impression you ladies may have found at European
firesides,” I again ventured, “but there can be very little doubt of the
impression you must have made there.”
Mrs. Church got in motion to acknowledge my compliment. “We’ve spent
some charming hours. And that reminds me that we’ve just now such an
occasion in prospect. We’re to call upon some Genevese friends—the
family of the Pasteur Galopin. They’re to go with us to the old library
at the Hôtel de Ville, where there are some very interesting documents of
the period of the Reformation: we’re promised a glimpse of some
manuscripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you know, of the
dire Calvin. Here of course one can only speak of ce monsieur under
one’s breath, but some day when we’re more private”—Mrs. Church looked
round the room—“I’ll give you my view of him. I think it has a force of
its own. Aurora’s familiar with it—aren’t you, my daughter, familiar
with my view of the evil genius of the Reformation?”
“Yes, mamma—_very_,” said Aurora with docility—and also, as I thought,
with subtlety—while the two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the
Pasteur Galopin.