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diff --git a/2299-h/2299-h.htm b/2299-h/2299-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e73d03 --- /dev/null +++ b/2299-h/2299-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2573 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Pandora, by Henry James</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pandora, by Henry James + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Pandora + + +Author: Henry James + + + +Release Date: February 1, 2015 [eBook #2299] +[This file was first posted on November 1, 1999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANDORA*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from 1922 MacMillan and Co. “Daisy Miller, +Pandora, The Patagonia and Other Tales” edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Proofed by David, Jeremy +Kwock and Uzma G.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>PANDORA<br /> +by Henry James</h1> +<h2>I</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has long been the custom of the +North German Lloyd steamers, which convey passengers from Bremen +to New York, to anchor for several hours in the pleasant port of +Southampton, where their human cargo receives many +additions. An intelligent young German, Count Otto +Vogelstein, hardly knew a few years ago whether to condemn this +custom or approve it. He leaned over the bulwarks of the +<i>Donau</i> as the American passengers crossed the +plank—the travellers who embark at Southampton are mainly +of that nationality—and curiously, indifferently, vaguely, +through the smoke of his cigar, saw them absorbed in the huge +capacity of the ship, where he had the agreeable consciousness +that his own nest was comfortably made. To watch from such +a point of vantage the struggles of those less fortunate than +ourselves—of the uninformed, the unprovided, the belated, +the bewildered—is an occupation not devoid of sweetness, +and there was nothing to mitigate the complacency with which our +young friend gave himself up to it; nothing, that is, save a +natural benevolence which had not yet been extinguished by the +consciousness of official greatness. For Count Vogelstein +was official, as I think you would have seen from the +straightness of his back, the lustre of his light elegant +spectacles, and something discreet and diplomatic in the curve of +his moustache, which looked as if it might well contribute to the +principal function, as cynics say, of the lips—the active +concealment of thought. He had been appointed to the +secretaryship of the German legation at Washington and in these +first days of the autumn was about to take possession of his +post. He was a model character for such a +purpose—serious civil ceremonious curious stiff, stuffed +with knowledge and convinced that, as lately rearranged, the +German Empire places in the most striking light the highest of +all the possibilities of the greatest of all the peoples. +He was quite aware, however, of the claims to economic and other +consideration of the United States, and that this quarter of the +globe offered a vast field for study.</p> +<p>The process of inquiry had already begun for him, in spite of +his having as yet spoken to none of his fellow-passengers; the +case being that Vogelstein inquired not only with his tongue, but +with his eyes—that is with his spectacles—with his +ears, with his nose, with his palate, with all his senses and +organs. He was a highly upright young man, whose only fault +was that his sense of comedy, or of the humour of things, had +never been specifically disengaged from his several other +senses. He vaguely felt that something should be done about +this, and in a general manner proposed to do it, for he was on +his way to explore a society abounding in comic aspects. +This consciousness of a missing measure gave him a certain +mistrust of what might be said of him; and if circumspection is +the essence of diplomacy our young aspirant promised well. +His mind contained several millions of facts, packed too closely +together for the light breeze of the imagination to draw through +the mass. He was impatient to report himself to his +superior in Washington, and the loss of time in an English port +could only incommode him, inasmuch as the study of English +institutions was no part of his mission. On the other hand +the day was charming; the blue sea, in Southampton Water, pricked +all over with light, had no movement but that of its infinite +shimmer. Moreover he was by no means sure that he should be +happy in the United States, where doubtless he should find +himself soon enough disembarked. He knew that this was not +an important question and that happiness was an unscientific +term, such as a man of his education should be ashamed to use +even in the silence of his thoughts. Lost none the less in +the inconsiderate crowd and feeling himself neither in his own +country nor in that to which he was in a manner accredited, he +was reduced to his mere personality; so that during the hour, to +save his importance, he cultivated such ground as lay in sight +for a judgement of this delay to which the German steamer was +subjected in English waters. Mightn’t it be proved, +facts, figures and documents—or at least watch—in +hand, considerably greater than the occasion demanded?</p> +<p>Count Vogelstein was still young enough in diplomacy to think +it necessary to have opinions. He had a good many indeed +which had been formed without difficulty; they had been received +ready-made from a line of ancestors who knew what they +liked. This was of course—and under pressure, being +candid, he would have admitted it—an unscientific way of +furnishing one’s mind. Our young man was a stiff +conservative, a Junker of Junkers; he thought modern democracy a +temporary phase and expected to find many arguments against it in +the great Republic. In regard to these things it was a +pleasure to him to feel that, with his complete training, he had +been taught thoroughly to appreciate the nature of +evidence. The ship was heavily laden with German emigrants, +whose mission in the United States differed considerably from +Count Otto’s. They hung over the bulwarks, densely +grouped; they leaned forward on their elbows for hours, their +shoulders kept on a level with their ears; the men in furred +caps, smoking long-bowled pipes, the women with babies hidden in +remarkably ugly shawls. Some were yellow Germans and some +were black, and all looked greasy and matted with the +sea-damp. They were destined to swell still further the +huge current of the Western democracy; and Count Vogelstein +doubtless said to himself that they wouldn’t improve its +quality. Their numbers, however, were striking, and I know +not what he thought of the nature of this particular +evidence.</p> +<p>The passengers who came on board at Southampton were not of +the greasy class; they were for the most part American families +who had been spending the summer, or a longer period, in +Europe. They had a great deal of luggage, innumerable bags +and rugs and hampers and sea-chairs, and were composed largely of +ladies of various ages, a little pale with anticipation, wrapped +also in striped shawls, though in prettier ones than the nursing +mothers of the steerage, and crowned with very high hats and +feathers. They darted to and fro across the gangway, +looking for each other and for their scattered parcels; they +separated and reunited, they exclaimed and declared, they eyed +with dismay the occupants of the forward quarter, who seemed +numerous enough to sink the vessel, and their voices sounded +faint and far as they rose to Vogelstein’s ear over the +latter’s great tarred sides. He noticed that in the +new contingent there were many young girls, and he remembered +what a lady in Dresden had once said to him—that America +was the country of the Mädchen. He wondered whether he +should like that, and reflected that it would be an aspect to +study, like everything else. He had known in Dresden an +American family in which there were three daughters who used to +skate with the officers, and some of the ladies now coming on +board struck him as of that same habit, except that in the +Dresden days feathers weren’t worn quite so high.</p> +<p>At last the ship began to creak and slowly bridge, and the +delay at Southampton came to an end. The gangway was +removed and the vessel indulged in the awkward evolutions that +were to detach her from the land. Count Vogelstein had +finished his cigar, and he spent a long time in walking up and +down the upper deck. The charming English coast passed +before him, and he felt this to be the last of the old +world. The American coast also might be pretty—he +hardly knew what one would expect of an American coast; but he +was sure it would be different. Differences, however, were +notoriously half the charm of travel, and perhaps even most when +they couldn’t be expressed in figures, numbers, diagrams or +the other merely useful symbols. As yet indeed there were +very few among the objects presented to sight on the +steamer. Most of his fellow-passengers appeared of one and +the same persuasion, and that persuasion the least to be +mistaken. They were Jews and commercial to a man. And +by this time they had lighted their cigars and put on all manner +of seafaring caps, some of them with big ear-lappets which +somehow had the effect of bringing out their peculiar facial +type. At last the new voyagers began to emerge from below +and to look about them, vaguely, with that suspicious expression +of face always to be noted in the newly embarked and which, as +directed to the receding land, resembles that of a person who +begins to perceive himself the victim of a trick. Earth and +ocean, in such glances, are made the subject of a sweeping +objection, and many travellers, in the general plight, have an +air at once duped and superior, which seems to say that they +could easily go ashore if they would.</p> +<p>It still wanted two hours of dinner, and by the time +Vogelstein’s long legs had measured three or four miles on +the deck he was ready to settle himself in his sea-chair and draw +from his pocket a Tauchnitz novel by an American author whose +pages, he had been assured, would help to prepare him for some of +the oddities. On the back of his chair his name was painted +in rather large letters, this being a precaution taken at the +recommendation of a friend who had told him that on the American +steamers the passengers—especially the ladies—thought +nothing of pilfering one’s little comforts. His +friend had even hinted at the correct reproduction of his +coronet. This marked man of the world had added that the +Americans are greatly impressed by a coronet. I know not +whether it was scepticism or modesty, but Count Vogelstein had +omitted every pictured plea for his rank; there were others of +which he might have made use. The precious piece of +furniture which on the Atlantic voyage is trusted never to flinch +among universal concussions was emblazoned simply with his title +and name. It happened, however, that the blazonry was huge; +the back of the chair was covered with enormous German +characters. This time there can be no doubt: it was modesty +that caused the secretary of legation, in placing himself, to +turn this portion of his seat outward, away from the eyes of his +companions—to present it to the balustrade of the +deck. The ship was passing the Needles—the beautiful +uttermost point of the Isle of Wight. Certain tall white +cones of rock rose out of the purple sea; they flushed in the +afternoon light and their vague rosiness gave them a human +expression in face of the cold expanse toward which the prow was +turned; they seemed to say farewell, to be the last note of a +peopled world. Vogelstein saw them very comfortably from +his place and after a while turned his eyes to the other quarter, +where the elements of air and water managed to make between them +so comparatively poor an opposition. Even his American +novelist was more amusing than that, and he prepared to return to +this author. In the great curve which it described, +however, his glance was arrested by the figure of a young lady +who had just ascended to the deck and who paused at the mouth of +the companionway.</p> +<p>This was not in itself an extraordinary phenomenon; but what +attracted Vogelstein’s attention was the fact that the +young person appeared to have fixed her eyes on him. She +was slim, brightly dressed, rather pretty; Vogelstein remembered +in a moment that he had noticed her among the people on the wharf +at Southampton. She was soon aware he had observed her; +whereupon she began to move along the deck with a step that +seemed to indicate a purpose of approaching him. Vogelstein +had time to wonder whether she could be one of the girls he had +known at Dresden; but he presently reflected that they would now +be much older than that. It was true they were apt to +advance, like this one, straight upon their victim. Yet the +present specimen was no longer looking at him, and though she +passed near him it was now tolerably clear she had come above but +to take a general survey. She was a quick handsome +competent girl, and she simply wanted to see what one could think +of the ship, of the weather, of the appearance of England, from +such a position as that; possibly even of one’s +fellow-passengers. She satisfied herself promptly on these +points, and then she looked about, while she walked, as if in +keen search of a missing object; so that Vogelstein finally +arrived at a conviction of her real motive. She passed near +him again and this time almost stopped, her eyes bent upon him +attentively. He thought her conduct remarkable even after +he had gathered that it was not at his face, with its yellow +moustache, she was looking, but at the chair on which he was +seated. Then those words of his friend came back to +him—the speech about the tendency of the people, especially +of the ladies, on the American steamers to take to themselves +one’s little belongings. Especially the ladies, he +might well say; for here was one who apparently wished to pull +from under him the very chair he was sitting on. He was +afraid she would ask him for it, so he pretended to read, +systematically avoiding her eye. He was conscious she +hovered near him, and was moreover curious to see what she would +do. It seemed to him strange that such a nice-looking +girl—for her appearance was really charming—should +endeavour by arts so flagrant to work upon the quiet dignity of a +secretary of legation. At last it stood out that she was +trying to look round a corner, as it were—trying to see +what was written on the back of his chair. “She wants +to find out my name; she wants to see who I am!” This +reflexion passed through his mind and caused him to raise his +eyes. They rested on her own—which for an appreciable +moment she didn’t withdraw. The latter were brilliant +and expressive, and surmounted a delicate aquiline nose, which, +though pretty, was perhaps just a trifle too hawk-like. It +was the oddest coincidence in the world; the story Vogelstein had +taken up treated of a flighty forward little American girl who +plants herself in front of a young man in the garden of an +hotel. Wasn’t the conduct of this young lady a +testimony to the truthfulness of the tale, and wasn’t +Vogelstein himself in the position of the young man in the +garden? That young man—though with more, in such +connexions in general, to go upon—ended by addressing +himself to his aggressor, as she might be called, and after a +very short hesitation Vogelstein followed his example. +“If she wants to know who I am she’s welcome,” +he said to himself; and he got out of the chair, seized it by the +back and, turning it round, exhibited the superscription to the +girl. She coloured slightly, but smiled and read his name, +while Vogelstein raised his hat.</p> +<p>“I’m much obliged to you. That’s all +right,” she remarked as if the discovery had made her very +happy.</p> +<p>It affected him indeed as all right that he should be Count +Otto Vogelstein; this appeared even rather a flippant mode of +disposing of the fact. By way of rejoinder he asked her if +she desired of him the surrender of his seat.</p> +<p>“I’m much obliged to you; of course not. I +thought you had one of our chairs, and I didn’t like to ask +you. It looks exactly like one of ours; not so much now as +when you sit in it. Please sit down again. I +don’t want to trouble you. We’ve lost one of +ours, and I’ve been looking for it everywhere. They +look so much alike; you can’t tell till you see the +back. Of course I see there will be no mistake about +yours,” the young lady went on with a smile of which the +serenity matched her other abundance. “But +we’ve got such a small name—you can scarcely see +it,” she added with the same friendly intention. +“Our name’s just Day—you mightn’t think +it <i>was</i> a name, might you? if we didn’t make the most +of it. If you see that on anything, I’d be so obliged +if you’d tell me. It isn’t for myself, +it’s for my mother; she’s so dependent on her chair, +and that one I’m looking for pulls out so +beautifully. Now that you sit down again and hide the lower +part it does look just like ours. Well, it must be +somewhere. You must excuse me; I wouldn’t disturb +you.”</p> +<p>This was a long and even confidential speech for a young +woman, presumably unmarried, to make to a perfect stranger; but +Miss Day acquitted herself of it with perfect simplicity and +self-possession. She held up her head and stepped away, and +Vogelstein could see that the foot she pressed upon the clean +smooth deck was slender and shapely. He watched her +disappear through the trap by which she had ascended, and he felt +more than ever like the young man in his American tale. The +girl in the present case was older and not so pretty, as he could +easily judge, for the image of her smiling eyes and speaking lips +still hovered before him. He went back to his book with the +feeling that it would give him some information about her. +This was rather illogical, but it indicated a certain amount of +curiosity on the part of Count Vogelstein. The girl in the +book had a mother, it appeared, and so had this young lady; the +former had also a brother, and he now remembered that he had +noticed a young man on the wharf—a young man in a high hat +and a white overcoat—who seemed united to Miss Day by this +natural tie. And there was some one else too, as he +gradually recollected, an older man, also in a high hat, but in a +black overcoat—in black altogether—who completed the +group and who was presumably the head of the family. These +reflexions would indicate that Count Vogelstein read his volume +of Tauchnitz rather interruptedly. Moreover they +represented but the loosest economy of consciousness; for +wasn’t he to be afloat in an oblong box for ten days with +such people, and could it be doubted he should see at least +enough of them?</p> +<p>It may as well be written without delay that he saw a great +deal of them. I have sketched in some detail the conditions +in which he made the acquaintance of Miss Day, because the event +had a certain importance for this fair square Teuton; but I must +pass briefly over the incidents that immediately followed +it. He wondered what it was open to him, after such an +introduction, to do in relation to her, and he determined he +would push through his American tale and discover what the hero +did. But he satisfied himself in a very short time that +Miss Day had nothing in common with the heroine of that work save +certain signs of habitat and climate—and save, further, the +fact that the male sex wasn’t terrible to her. The +local stamp sharply, as he gathered, impressed upon her he +estimated indeed rather in a borrowed than in a natural light, +for if she was native to a small town in the interior of the +American continent one of their fellow-passengers, a lady from +New York with whom he had a good deal of conversation, pronounced +her “atrociously” provincial. How the lady +arrived at this certitude didn’t appear, for Vogelstein +observed that she held no communication with the girl. It +was true she gave it the support of her laying down that certain +Americans could tell immediately who other Americans were, +leaving him to judge whether or no she herself belonged to the +critical or only to the criticised half of the nation. Mrs. +Dangerfield was a handsome confidential insinuating woman, with +whom Vogelstein felt his talk take a very wide range +indeed. She convinced him rather effectually that even in a +great democracy there are human differences, and that American +life was full of social distinctions, of delicate shades, which +foreigners often lack the intelligence to perceive. Did he +suppose every one knew every one else in the biggest country in +the world, and that one wasn’t as free to choose +one’s company there as in the most monarchical and most +exclusive societies? She laughed such delusions to scorn as +Vogelstein tucked her beautiful furred coverlet—they +reclined together a great deal in their elongated +chairs—well over her feet. How free an American lady +was to choose her company she abundantly proved by not knowing +any one on the steamer but Count Otto.</p> +<p>He could see for himself that Mr. and Mrs. Day had not at all +her grand air. They were fat plain serious people who sat +side by side on the deck for hours and looked straight before +them. Mrs. Day had a white face, large cheeks and small +eyes: her forehead was surrounded with a multitude of little +tight black curls; her lips moved as if she had always a lozenge +in her mouth. She wore entwined about her head an article +which Mrs. Dangerfield spoke of as a “nuby,” a +knitted pink scarf concealing her hair, encircling her neck and +having among its convolutions a hole for her perfectly +expressionless face. Her hands were folded on her stomach, +and in her still, swathed figure her little bead-like eyes, which +occasionally changed their direction, alone represented +life. Her husband had a stiff grey beard on his chin and a +bare spacious upper lip, to which constant shaving had imparted a +hard glaze. His eyebrows were thick and his nostrils wide, +and when he was uncovered, in the saloon, it was visible that his +grizzled hair was dense and perpendicular. He might have +looked rather grim and truculent hadn’t it been for the +mild familiar accommodating gaze with which his large +light-coloured pupils—the leisurely eyes of a silent +man—appeared to consider surrounding objects. He was +evidently more friendly than fierce, but he was more diffident +than friendly. He liked to have you in sight, but +wouldn’t have pretended to understand you much or to +classify you, and would have been sorry it should put you under +an obligation. He and his wife spoke sometimes, but seldom +talked, and there was something vague and patient in them, as if +they had become victims of a wrought spell. The spell +however was of no sinister cast; it was the fascination of +prosperity, the confidence of security, which sometimes makes +people arrogant, but which had had such a different effect on +this simple satisfied pair, in whom further development of every +kind appeared to have been happily arrested.</p> +<p>Mrs. Dangerfield made it known to Count Otto that every +morning after breakfast, the hour at which he wrote his journal +in his cabin, the old couple were guided upstairs and installed +in their customary corner by Pandora. This she had learned +to be the name of their elder daughter, and she was immensely +amused by her discovery. “Pandora”—that +was in the highest degree typical; it placed them in the social +scale if other evidence had been wanting; you could tell that a +girl was from the interior, the mysterious interior about which +Vogelstein’s imagination was now quite excited, when she +had such a name as that. This young lady managed the whole +family, even a little the small beflounced sister, who, with bold +pretty innocent eyes, a torrent of fair silky hair, a crimson +fez, such as is worn by male Turks, very much askew on top of it, +and a way of galloping and straddling about the ship in any +company she could pick up—she had long thin legs, very +short skirts and stockings of every tint—was going home, in +elegant French clothes, to resume an interrupted education. +Pandora overlooked and directed her relatives; Vogelstein could +see this for himself, could see she was very active and decided, +that she had in a high degree the sentiment of responsibility, +settling on the spot most of the questions that could come up for +a family from the interior.</p> +<p>The voyage was remarkably fine, and day after day it was +possible to sit there under the salt sky and feel one’s +self rounding the great curves of the globe. The long deck +made a white spot in the sharp black circle of the ocean and in +the intense sea-light, while the shadow of the smoke-streamers +trembled on the familiar floor, the shoes of fellow-passengers, +distinctive now, and in some cases irritating, passed and +repassed, accompanied, in the air so tremendously +“open,” that rendered all voices weak and most +remarks rather flat, by fragments of opinion on the run of the +ship. Vogelstein by this time had finished his little +American story and now definitely judged that Pandora Day was not +at all like the heroine. She was of quite another type; +much more serious and strenuous, and not at all keen, as he had +supposed, about making the acquaintance of gentlemen. Her +speaking to him that first afternoon had been, he was bound to +believe, an incident without importance for herself; in spite of +her having followed it up the next day by the remark, thrown at +him as she passed, with a smile that was almost fraternal: +“It’s all right, sir! I’ve found that old +chair.” After this she hadn’t spoken to him +again and had scarcely looked at him. She read a great +deal, and almost always French books, in fresh yellow paper; not +the lighter forms of that literature, but a volume of +Sainte-Beuve, of Renan or at the most, in the way of dissipation, +of Alfred de Musset. She took frequent exercise and almost +always walked alone, apparently not having made many friends on +the ship and being without the resource of her parents, who, as +has been related, never budged out of the cosy corner in which +she planted them for the day.</p> +<p>Her brother was always in the smoking-room, where Vogelstein +observed him, in very tight clothes, his neck encircled with a +collar like a palisade. He had a sharp little face, which +was not disagreeable; he smoked enormous cigars and began his +drinking early in the day: but his appearance gave no sign of +these excesses. As regards euchre and poker and the other +distractions of the place he was guilty of none. He +evidently understood such games in perfection, for he used to +watch the players, and even at moments impartially advise them; +but Vogelstein never saw the cards in his hand. He was +referred to as regards disputed points, and his opinion carried +the day. He took little part in the conversation, usually +much relaxed, that prevailed in the smoking-room, but from time +to time he made, in his soft flat youthful voice, a remark which +every one paused to listen to and which was greeted with roars of +laughter. Vogelstein, well as he knew English, could rarely +catch the joke; but he could see at least that these must be +choice specimens of that American humour admired and practised by +a whole continent and yet to be rendered accessible to a trained +diplomatist, clearly, but by some special and incalculable +revelation. The young man, in his way, was very remarkable, +for, as Vogelstein heard some one say once after the laughter had +subsided, he was only nineteen. If his sister didn’t +resemble the dreadful little girl in the tale already mentioned, +there was for Vogelstein at least an analogy between young Mr. +Day and a certain small brother—a candy-loving Madison, +Hamilton or Jefferson—who was, in the Tauchnitz volume, +attributed to that unfortunate maid. This was what the +little Madison would have grown up to at nineteen, and the +improvement was greater than might have been expected.</p> +<p>The days were long, but the voyage was short, and it had +almost come to an end before Count Otto yielded to an attraction +peculiar in its nature and finally irresistible, and, in spite of +Mrs. Dangerfield’s emphatic warning, sought occasion for a +little continuous talk with Miss Pandora. To mention that +this impulse took effect without mentioning sundry other of his +current impressions with which it had nothing to do is perhaps to +violate proportion and give a false idea; but to pass it by would +be still more unjust. The Germans, as we know, are a +transcendental people, and there was at last an irresistible +appeal for Vogelstein in this quick bright silent girl who could +smile and turn vocal in an instant, who imparted a rare +originality to the filial character, and whose profile was +delicate as she bent it over a volume which she cut as she read, +or presented it in musing attitudes, at the side of the ship, to +the horizon they had left behind. But he felt it to be a +pity, as regards a possible acquaintance with her, that her +parents should be heavy little burghers, that her brother should +not correspond to his conception of a young man of the upper +class, and that her sister should be a Daisy Miller <i>en +herbe</i>. Repeatedly admonished by Mrs. Dangerfield, the +young diplomatist was doubly careful as to the relations he might +form at the beginning of his sojourn in the United States. +That lady reminded him, and he had himself made the observation +in other capitals, that the first year, and even the second, is +the time for prudence. One was ignorant of proportions and +values; one was exposed to mistakes and thankful for attention, +and one might give one’s self away to people who would +afterwards be as a millstone round one’s neck: Mrs. +Dangerfield struck and sustained that note, which resounded in +the young man’s imagination. She assured him that if +he didn’t “look out” he would be committing +himself to some American girl with an impossible family. In +America, when one committed one’s self, there was nothing +to do but march to the altar, and what should he say for instance +to finding himself a near relation of Mr. and Mrs. P. W. +Day?—since such were the initials inscribed on the back of +the two chairs of that couple. Count Otto felt the peril, +for he could immediately think of a dozen men he knew who had +married American girls. There appeared now to be a constant +danger of marrying the American girl; it was something one had to +reckon with, like the railway, the telegraph, the discovery of +dynamite, the Chassepôt rifle, the Socialistic spirit: it +was one of the complications of modern life.</p> +<p>It would doubtless be too much to say that he feared being +carried away by a passion for a young woman who was not +strikingly beautiful and with whom he had talked, in all, but ten +minutes. But, as we recognise, he went so far as to wish +that the human belongings of a person whose high spirit appeared +to have no taint either of fastness, as they said in England, or +of subversive opinion, and whose mouth had charming lines, should +not be a little more distinguished. There was an effect of +drollery in her behaviour to these subjects of her zeal, whom she +seemed to regard as a care, but not as an interest; it was as if +they had been entrusted to her honour and she had engaged to +convey them safe to a certain point; she was detached and +inadvertent, and then suddenly remembered, repented and came back +to tuck them into their blankets, to alter the position of her +mother’s umbrella, to tell them something about the run of +the ship. These little offices were usually performed +deftly, rapidly, with the minimum of words, and when their +daughter drew near them Mr. and Mrs. Day closed their eyes after +the fashion of a pair of household dogs who expect to be +scratched.</p> +<p>One morning she brought up the Captain of the ship to present +to them; she appeared to have a private and independent +acquaintance with this officer, and the introduction to her +parents had the air of a sudden happy thought. It +wasn’t so much an introduction as an exhibition, as if she +were saying to him: “This is what they look like; see how +comfortable I make them. Aren’t they rather queer and +rather dear little people? But they leave me perfectly +free. Oh I can assure you of that. Besides, you must +see it for yourself.” Mr. and Mrs. Day looked up at +the high functionary who thus unbent to them with very little +change of countenance; then looked at each other in the same +way. He saluted, he inclined himself a moment; but Pandora +shook her head, she seemed to be answering for them; she made +little gestures as if in explanation to the good Captain of some +of their peculiarities, as for instance that he needn’t +expect them to speak. They closed their eyes at last; she +appeared to have a kind of mesmeric influence on them, and Miss +Day walked away with the important friend, who treated her with +evident consideration, bowing very low, for all his importance, +when the two presently after separated. Vogelstein could +see she was capable of making an impression; and the moral of our +little matter is that in spite of Mrs. Dangerfield, in spite of +the resolutions of his prudence, in spite of the limits of such +acquaintance as he had momentarily made with her, in spite of Mr. +and Mrs. Day and the young man in the smoking-room, she had fixed +his attention.</p> +<p>It was in the course of the evening after the scene with the +Captain that he joined her, awkwardly, abruptly, irresistibly, on +the deck, where she was pacing to and fro alone, the hour being +auspiciously mild and the stars remarkably fine. There were +scattered talkers and smokers and couples, unrecognisable, that +moved quickly through the gloom. The vessel dipped with +long regular pulsations; vague and spectral under the low stars, +its swaying pinnacles spotted here and there with lights, it +seemed to rush through the darkness faster than by day. +Count Otto had come up to walk, and as the girl brushed past him +he distinguished Pandora’s face—with Mrs. Dangerfield +he always spoke of her as Pandora—under the veil worn to +protect it from the sea-damp. He stopped, turned, hurried +after her, threw away his cigar—then asked her if she would +do him the honour to accept his arm. She declined his arm +but accepted his company, and he allowed her to enjoy it for an +hour. They had a great deal of talk, and he was to remember +afterwards some of the things she had said. There was now a +certainty of the ship’s getting into dock the next morning +but one, and this prospect afforded an obvious topic. Some +of Miss Day’s expressions struck him as singular, but of +course, as he was aware, his knowledge of English was not nice +enough to give him a perfect measure.</p> +<p>“I’m not in a hurry to arrive; I’m very +happy here,” she said. “I’m afraid I +shall have such a time putting my people through.”</p> +<p>“Putting them through?”</p> +<p>“Through the Custom-House. We’ve made so +many purchases. Well, I’ve written to a friend to +come down, and perhaps he can help us. He’s very well +acquainted with the head. Once I’m chalked I +don’t care. I feel like a kind of blackboard by this +time anyway. We found them awful in Germany.”</p> +<p>Count Otto wondered if the friend she had written to were her +lover and if they had plighted their troth, especially when she +alluded to him again as “that gentleman who’s coming +down.” He asked her about her travels, her +impressions, whether she had been long in Europe and what she +liked best, and she put it to him that they had gone abroad, she +and her family, for a little fresh experience. Though he +found her very intelligent he suspected she gave this as a reason +because he was a German and she had heard the Germans were rich +in culture. He wondered what form of culture Mr. and Mrs. +Day had brought back from Italy, Greece and Palestine—they +had travelled for two years and been everywhere—especially +when their daughter said: “I wanted father and mother to +see the best things. I kept them three hours on the +Acropolis. I guess they won’t forget +that!” Perhaps it was of Phidias and Pericles they +were thinking, Vogelstein reflected, as they sat ruminating in +their rugs. Pandora remarked also that she wanted to show +her little sister everything while she was comparatively unformed +(“comparatively!” he mutely gasped); remarkable +sights made so much more impression when the mind was fresh: she +had read something of that sort somewhere in Goethe. She +had wanted to come herself when she was her sister’s age; +but her father was in business then and they couldn’t leave +Utica. The young man thought of the little sister frisking +over the Parthenon and the Mount of Olives and sharing for two +years, the years of the school-room, this extraordinary +pilgrimage of her parents; he wondered whether Goethe’s +dictum had been justified in this case. He asked Pandora if +Utica were the seat of her family, if it were an important or +typical place, if it would be an interesting city for him, as a +stranger, to see. His companion replied frankly that this +was a big question, but added that all the same she would ask him +to “come and visit us at our home” if it +weren’t that they should probably soon leave it.</p> +<p>“Ah, you’re going to live elsewhere?” +Vogelstein asked, as if that fact too would be typical.</p> +<p>“Well, I’m working for New York. I flatter +myself I’ve loosened them while we’ve been +away,” the girl went on. “They won’t find +in Utica the same charm; that was my idea. I want a big +place, and of course Utica—!” She broke off as +before a complex statement.</p> +<p>“I suppose Utica is inferior—?” Vogelstein +seemed to see his way to suggest.</p> +<p>“Well no, I guess I can’t have you call Utica +inferior. It isn’t supreme—that’s +what’s the matter with it, and I hate anything +middling,” said Pandora Day. She gave a light dry +laugh, tossing back her head a little as she made this +declaration. And looking at her askance in the dusk, as she +trod the deck that vaguely swayed, he recognised something in her +air and port that matched such a pronouncement.</p> +<p>“What’s her social position?” he inquired of +Mrs. Dangerfield the next day. “I can’t make it +out at all—it’s so contradictory. She strikes +me as having much cultivation and much spirit. Her +appearance, too, is very neat. Yet her parents are complete +little burghers. That’s easily seen.”</p> +<p>“Oh, social position,” and Mrs. Dangerfield nodded +two or three times portentously. “What big +expressions you use! Do you think everybody in the world +has a social position? That’s reserved for an +infinitely small majority of mankind. You can’t have +a social position at Utica any more than you can have an +opera-box. Pandora hasn’t got one; where, if you +please, should she have got it? Poor girl, it isn’t +fair of you to make her the subject of such questions as +that.”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Vogelstein, “if she’s of +the lower class it seems to me +very—very—” And he paused a moment, as he +often paused in speaking English, looking for his word.</p> +<p>“Very what, dear Count?”</p> +<p>“Very significant, very representative.”</p> +<p>“Oh dear, she isn’t of the lower class,” +Mrs. Dangerfield returned with an irritated sense of wasted +wisdom. She liked to explain her country, but that somehow +always required two persons.</p> +<p>“What is she then?”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m bound to admit that since I was at home +last she’s a novelty. A girl like that with such +people—it <i>is</i> a new type.”</p> +<p>“I like novelties”—and Count Otto smiled +with an air of considerable resolution. He couldn’t +however be satisfied with a demonstration that only begged the +question; and when they disembarked in New York he felt, even +amid the confusion of the wharf and the heaps of disembowelled +baggage, a certain acuteness of regret at the idea that Pandora +and her family were about to vanish into the unknown. He +had a consolation however: it was apparent that for some reason +or other—illness or absence from town—the gentleman +to whom she had written had not, as she said, come down. +Vogelstein was glad—he couldn’t have told you +why—that this sympathetic person had failed her; even +though without him Pandora had to engage single-handed with the +United States Custom-House. Our young man’s first +impression of the Western world was received on the landing-place +of the German steamers at Jersey City—a huge wooden shed +covering a wooden wharf which resounded under the feet, an +expanse palisaded with rough-hewn piles that leaned this way and +that, and bestrewn with masses of heterogeneous luggage. At +one end; toward the town, was a row of tall painted palings, +behind which he could distinguish a press of hackney-coachmen, +who brandished their whips and awaited their victims, while their +voices rose, incessant, with a sharp strange sound, a challenge +at once fierce and familiar. The whole place, behind the +fence, appeared to bristle and resound. Out there was +America, Count Otto said to himself, and he looked toward it with +a sense that he should have to muster resolution. On the +wharf people were rushing about amid their trunks, pulling their +things together, trying to unite their scattered parcels. +They were heated and angry, or else quite bewildered and +discouraged. The few that had succeeded in collecting their +battered boxes had an air of flushed indifference to the efforts +of their neighbours, not even looking at people with whom they +had been fondly intimate on the steamer. A detachment of +the officers of the Customs was in attendance, and energetic +passengers were engaged in attempts to drag them toward their +luggage or to drag heavy pieces toward them. These +functionaries were good-natured and taciturn, except when +occasionally they remarked to a passenger whose open trunk stared +up at them, eloquent, imploring, that they were afraid the voyage +had been “rather glassy.” They had a friendly +leisurely speculative way of discharging their duty, and if they +perceived a victim’s name written on the portmanteau they +addressed him by it in a tone of old acquaintance. +Vogelstein found however that if they were familiar they +weren’t indiscreet. He had heard that in America all +public functionaries were the same, that there wasn’t a +different <i>tenue</i>, as they said in France, for different +positions, and he wondered whether at Washington the President +and ministers, whom he expected to see—to <i>have</i> to +see—a good deal of, would be like that.</p> +<p>He was diverted from these speculations by the sight of Mr. +and Mrs. Day seated side by side upon a trunk and encompassed +apparently by the accumulations of their tour. Their faces +expressed more consciousness of surrounding objects than he had +hitherto recognised, and there was an air of placid expansion in +the mysterious couple which suggested that this consciousness was +agreeable. Mr. and Mrs. Day were, as they would have said, +real glad to get back. At a little distance, on the edge of +the dock, our observer remarked their son, who had found a place +where, between the sides of two big ships, he could see the +ferry-boats pass; the large pyramidal low-laden ferry-boats of +American waters. He stood there, patient and considering, +with his small neat foot on a coil of rope, his back to +everything that had been disembarked, his neck elongated in its +polished cylinder, while the fragrance of his big cigar mingled +with the odour of the rotting piles, and his little sister, +beside him, hugged a huge post and tried to see how far she could +crane over the water without falling in. Vogelstein’s +servant was off in search of an examiner; Count Otto himself had +got his things together and was waiting to be released, fully +expecting that for a person of his importance the ceremony would +be brief.</p> +<p>Before it began he said a word to young Mr. Day, raising his +hat at the same time to the little girl, whom he had not yet +greeted and who dodged his salute by swinging herself boldly +outward to the dangerous side of the pier. She was indeed +still unformed, but was evidently as light as a feather.</p> +<p>“I see you’re kept waiting like me. +It’s very tiresome,” Count Otto said.</p> +<p>The young American answered without looking behind him. +“As soon as we’re started we’ll go all +right. My sister has written to a gentleman to come +down.”</p> +<p>“I’ve looked for Miss Day to bid her +good-bye,” Vogelstein went on; “but I don’t see +her.”</p> +<p>“I guess she has gone to meet that gentleman; he’s +a great friend of hers.”</p> +<p>“I guess he’s her lover!” the little girl +broke out. “She was always writing to him in +Europe.”</p> +<p>Her brother puffed his cigar in silence a moment. +“That was only for this. I’ll tell on you, +sis,” he presently added.</p> +<p>But the younger Miss Day gave no heed to his menace; she +addressed herself only, though with all freedom, to +Vogelstein. “This is New York; I like it better than +Utica.”</p> +<p>He had no time to reply, for his servant had arrived with one +of the dispensers of fortune; but as he turned away he wondered, +in the light of the child’s preference, about the towns of +the interior. He was naturally exempt from the common +doom. The officer who took him in hand, and who had a large +straw hat and a diamond breastpin, was quite a man of the world, +and in reply to the Count’s formal declarations only said, +“Well, I guess it’s all right; I guess I’ll +just pass you,” distributing chalk-marks as if they had +been so many love-pats. The servant had done some +superfluous unlocking and unbuckling, and while he closed the +pieces the officer stood there wiping his forehead and conversing +with Vogelstein. “First visit to our country, +sir?—quite alone—no ladies? Of course the +ladies are what we’re most after.” It was in +this manner he expressed himself, while the young diplomatist +wondered what he was waiting for and whether he ought to slip +something into his palm. But this representative of order +left our friend only a moment in suspense; he presently turned +away with the remark quite paternally uttered, that he hoped the +Count would make quite a stay; upon which the young man saw how +wrong he should have been to offer a tip. It was simply the +American manner, which had a finish of its own after all. +Vogelstein’s servant had secured a porter with a truck, and +he was about to leave the place when he saw Pandora Day dart out +of the crowd and address herself with much eagerness to the +functionary who had just liberated him. She had an open +letter in her hand which she gave him to read and over which he +cast his eyes, thoughtfully stroking his beard. Then she +led him away to where her parents sat on their luggage. +Count Otto sent off his servant with the porter and followed +Pandora, to whom he really wished to address a word of +farewell. The last thing they had said to each other on the +ship was that they should meet again on shore. It seemed +improbable however that the meeting would occur anywhere but just +here on the dock; inasmuch as Pandora was decidedly not in +society, where Vogelstein would be of course, and as, if +Utica—he had her sharp little sister’s word for +it—was worse than what was about him there, he’d be +hanged if he’d go to Utica. He overtook Pandora +quickly; she was in the act of introducing the representative of +order to her parents, quite in the same manner in which she had +introduced the Captain of the ship. Mr. and Mrs. Day got up +and shook hands with him and they evidently all prepared to have +a little talk. “I should like to introduce you to my +brother and sister,” he heard the girl say, and he saw her +look about for these appendages. He caught her eye as she +did so, and advanced with his hand outstretched, reflecting the +while that evidently the Americans, whom he had always heard +described as silent and practical, rejoiced to extravagance in +the social graces. They dawdled and chattered like so many +Neapolitans.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Count Vogelstein,” said Pandora, who +was a little flushed with her various exertions but didn’t +look the worse for it. “I hope you’ll have a +splendid time and appreciate our country.”</p> +<p>“I hope you’ll get through all right,” +Vogelstein answered, smiling and feeling himself already more +idiomatic.</p> +<p>“That gentleman’s sick that I wrote to,” she +rejoined; “isn’t it too bad? But he sent me +down a letter to a friend of his—one of the +examiners—and I guess we won’t have any +trouble. Mr. Lansing, let me make you acquainted with Count +Vogelstein,” she went on, presenting to her +fellow-passenger the wearer of the straw hat and the breastpin, +who shook hands with the young German as if he had never seen him +before. Vogelstein’s heart rose for an instant to his +throat; he thanked his stars he hadn’t offered a tip to the +friend of a gentleman who had often been mentioned to him and who +had also been described by a member of Pandora’s family as +Pandora’s lover.</p> +<p>“It’s a case of ladies this time,” Mr. +Lansing remarked to him with a smile which seemed to confess +surreptitiously, and as if neither party could be eager, to +recognition.</p> +<p>“Well, Mr. Bellamy says you’ll do anything for +<i>him</i>,” Pandora said, smiling very sweetly at Mr. +Lansing. “We haven’t got much; we’ve been +gone only two years.”</p> +<p>Mr. Lansing scratched his head a little behind, with a +movement that sent his straw hat forward in the direction of his +nose. “I don’t know as I’d do anything +for him that I wouldn’t do for you,” he responded +with an equal geniality. “I guess you’d better +open that one”—and he gave a little affectionate kick +to one of the trunks.</p> +<p>“Oh mother, isn’t he lovely? It’s only +your sea-things,” Pandora cried, stooping over the coffer +with the key in her hand.</p> +<p>“I don’t know as I like showing them,” Mrs. +Day modestly murmured.</p> +<p>Vogelstein made his German salutation to the company in +general, and to Pandora he offered an audible good-bye, which she +returned in a bright friendly voice, but without looking round as +she fumbled at the lock of her trunk.</p> +<p>“We’ll try another, if you like,” said Mr. +Lansing good-humouredly.</p> +<p>“Oh no it has got to be this one! Good-bye, Count +Vogelstein. I hope you’ll judge us +correctly!”</p> +<p>The young man went his way and passed the barrier of the +dock. Here he was met by his English valet with a face of +consternation which led him to ask if a cab weren’t +forthcoming.</p> +<p>“They call ’em ’acks ’ere, sir,” +said the man, “and they’re beyond everything. +He wants thirty shillings to take you to the inn.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein hesitated a moment. “Couldn’t you +find a German?”</p> +<p>“By the way he talks he <i>is</i> a German!” said +the man; and in a moment Count Otto began his career in America +by discussing the tariff of hackney-coaches in the language of +the fatherland.</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> went wherever he was asked, on +principle, partly to study American society and partly because in +Washington pastimes seemed to him not so numerous that one could +afford to neglect occasions. At the end of two winters he +had naturally had a good many of various kinds—his study of +American society had yielded considerable fruit. When, +however, in April, during the second year of his residence, he +presented himself at a large party given by Mrs. Bonnycastle and +of which it was believed that it would be the last serious affair +of the season, his being there (and still more his looking very +fresh and talkative) was not the consequence of a rule of +conduct. He went to Mrs. Bonnycastle’s simply because +he liked the lady, whose receptions were the pleasantest in +Washington, and because if he didn’t go there he +didn’t know what he should do; that absence of alternatives +having become familiar to him by the waters of the Potomac. +There were a great many things he did because if he didn’t +do them he didn’t know what he should do. It must be +added that in this case even if there had been an alternative he +would still have decided to go to Mrs. Bonnycastle’s. +If her house wasn’t the pleasantest there it was at least +difficult to say which was pleasanter; and the complaint +sometimes made of it that it was too limited, that it left out, +on the whole, more people than it took in, applied with much less +force when it was thrown open for a general party. Toward +the end of the social year, in those soft scented days of the +Washington spring when the air began to show a southern glow and +the Squares and Circles (to which the wide empty avenues +converged according to a plan so ingenious, yet so bewildering) +to flush with pink blossom and to make one wish to sit on +benches—under this magic of expansion and condonation Mrs. +Bonnycastle, who during the winter had been a good deal on the +defensive, relaxed her vigilance a little, became whimsically +wilful, vernally reckless, as it were, and ceased to calculate +the consequences of an hospitality which a reference to the back +files or even to the morning’s issue of the newspapers +might easily prove a mistake. But Washington life, to Count +Otto’s apprehension, was paved with mistakes; he felt +himself in a society founded on fundamental fallacies and +triumphant blunders. Little addicted as he was to the +sportive view of existence, he had said to himself at an early +stage of his sojourn that the only way to enjoy the great +Republic would be to burn one’s standards and warm +one’s self at the blaze. Such were the reflexions of +a theoretic Teuton who now walked for the most part amid the +ashes of his prejudices.</p> +<p>Mrs. Bonnycastle had endeavoured more than once to explain to +him the principles on which she received certain people and +ignored certain others; but it was with difficulty that he +entered into her discriminations. American promiscuity, +goodness knew, had been strange to him, but it was nothing to the +queerness of American criticism. This lady would discourse +to him <i>à perte de vue</i> on differences where he only +saw resemblances, and both the merits and the defects of a good +many members of Washington society, as this society was +interpreted to him by Mrs. Bonnycastle, he was often at a loss to +understand. Fortunately she had a fund of good humour +which, as I have intimated, was apt to come uppermost with the +April blossoms and which made the people she didn’t invite +to her house almost as amusing to her as those she did. Her +husband was not in politics, though politics were much in him; +but the couple had taken upon themselves the responsibilities of +an active patriotism; they thought it right to live in America, +differing therein from many of their acquaintances who only, with +some grimness, thought it inevitable. They had that +burdensome heritage of foreign reminiscence with which so many +Americans were saddled; but they carried it more easily than most +of their country-people, and one knew they had lived in Europe +only by their present exultation, never in the least by their +regrets. Their regrets, that is, were only for their ever +having lived there, as Mrs. Bonnycastle once told the wife of a +foreign minister. They solved all their problems +successfully, including those of knowing none of the people they +didn’t wish to, and of finding plenty of occupation in a +society supposed to be meagrely provided with resources for that +body which Vogelstein was to hear invoked, again and again, with +the mixture of desire and of deprecation that might have attended +the mention of a secret vice, under the name of a +leisure-class. When as the warm weather approached they +opened both the wings of their house-door, it was because they +thought it would entertain them and not because they were +conscious of a pressure. Alfred Bonnycastle all winter +indeed chafed a little at the definiteness of some of his +wife’s reserves; it struck him that for Washington their +society was really a little too good. Vogelstein still +remembered the puzzled feeling—it had cleared up somewhat +now—with which, more than a year before, he had heard Mr. +Bonnycastle exclaim one evening, after a dinner in his own house, +when every guest but the German secretary (who often sat late +with the pair) had departed: “Hang it, there’s only a +month left; let us be vulgar and have some fun—let us +invite the President.”</p> +<p>This was Mrs. Bonnycastle’s carnival, and on the +occasion to which I began my chapter by referring the President +had not only been invited but had signified his intention of +being present. I hasten to add that this was not the same +august ruler to whom Alfred Bonnycastle’s irreverent +allusion had been made. The White House had received a new +tenant—the old one was then just leaving it—and Count +Otto had had the advantage, during the first eighteen months of +his stay in America, of seeing an electoral campaign, a +presidential inauguration and a distribution of spoils. He +had been bewildered during those first weeks by finding that at +the national capital in the houses he supposed to be the best, +the head of the State was not a coveted guest; for this could be +the only explanation of Mr. Bonnycastle’s whimsical +suggestion of their inviting him, as it were, in carnival. +His successor went out a good deal for a President.</p> +<p>The legislative session was over, but this made little +difference in the aspect of Mrs. Bonnycastle’s rooms, which +even at the height of the congressional season could scarce be +said to overflow with the representatives of the people. +They were garnished with an occasional Senator, whose movements +and utterances often appeared to be regarded with a mixture of +alarm and indulgence, as if they would be disappointing if they +weren’t rather odd and yet might be dangerous if not +carefully watched. Our young man had come to entertain a +kindness for these conscript fathers of invisible families, who +had something of the toga in the voluminous folds of their +conversation, but were otherwise rather bare and bald, with stony +wrinkles in their faces, like busts and statues of ancient +law-givers. There seemed to him something chill and exposed +in their being at once so exalted and so naked; there were +frequent lonesome glances in their eyes, as if in the social +world their legislative consciousness longed for the warmth of a +few comfortable laws ready-made. Members of the House were +very rare, and when Washington was new to the inquiring secretary +he used sometimes to mistake them, in the halls and on the +staircases where he met them, for the functionaries engaged, +under stress, to usher in guests and wait at supper. It was +only a little later that he perceived these latter public +characters almost always to be impressive and of that rich racial +hue which of itself served as a livery. At present, +however, such confounding figures were much less to be met than +during the months of winter, and indeed they were never frequent +at Mrs. Bonnycastle’s. At present the social vistas +of Washington, like the vast fresh flatness of the lettered and +numbered streets, which at this season seemed to Vogelstein more +spacious and vague than ever, suggested but a paucity of +political phenomena. Count Otto that evening knew every one +or almost every one. There were often inquiring strangers, +expecting great things, from New York and Boston, and to them, in +the friendly Washington way, the young German was promptly +introduced. It was a society in which familiarity reigned +and in which people were liable to meet three times a day, so +that their ultimate essence really became a matter of +importance.</p> +<p>“I’ve got three new girls,” Mrs. Bonnycastle +said. “You must talk to them all.”</p> +<p>“All at once?” Vogelstein asked, reversing in +fancy a position not at all unknown to him. He had so +repeatedly heard himself addressed in even more than triple +simultaneity.</p> +<p>“Oh no; you must have something different for each; you +can’t get off that way. Haven’t you discovered +that the American girl expects something especially adapted to +herself? It’s very well for Europe to have a few +phrases that will do for any girl. The American girl +isn’t <i>any</i> girl; she’s a remarkable specimen in +a remarkable species. But you must keep the best this +evening for Miss Day.”</p> +<p>“For Miss Day!”—and Vogelstein had a stare +of intelligence. “Do you mean for Pandora?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Bonnycastle broke on her side into free amusement. +“One would think you had been looking for her over the +globe! So you know her already—and you call her by +her pet name?”</p> +<p>“Oh no, I don’t know her; that is I haven’t +seen her or thought of her from that day to this. We came +to America in the same ship.”</p> +<p>“Isn’t she an American then?”</p> +<p>“Oh yes; she lives at Utica—in the +interior.”</p> +<p>“In the interior of Utica? You can’t mean my +young woman then, who lives in New York, where she’s a +great beauty and a great belle and has been immensely admired +this winter.”</p> +<p>“After all,” said Count Otto, considering and a +little disappointed, “the name’s not so uncommon; +it’s perhaps another. But has she rather strange +eyes, a little yellow, but very pretty, and a nose a little +arched?”</p> +<p>“I can’t tell you all that; I haven’t seen +her. She’s staying with Mrs. Steuben. She only +came a day or two ago, and Mrs. Steuben’s to bring +her. When she wrote to me to ask leave she told me what I +tell you. They haven’t come yet.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein felt a quick hope that the subject of this +correspondence might indeed be the young lady he had parted from +on the dock at New York, but the indications seemed to point +another way, and he had no wish to cherish an illusion. It +didn’t seem to him probable that the energetic girl who had +introduced him to Mr. Lansing would have the entrée of the +best house in Washington; besides, Mrs. Bonnycastle’s guest +was described as a beauty and belonging to the brilliant +city.</p> +<p>“What’s the social position of Mrs. +Steuben?” it occurred to him to ask while he +meditated. He had an earnest artless literal way of putting +such a question as that; you could see from it that he was very +thorough.</p> +<p>Mrs. Bonnycastle met it, however, but, with mocking +laughter. “I’m sure I don’t know! +What’s your own?”—and she left him to turn to +her other guests, to several of whom she repeated his +question. Could they tell her what was the social position +of Mrs. Steuben? There was Count Vogelstein who wanted to +know. He instantly became aware of course that he +oughtn’t so to have expressed himself. Wasn’t +the lady’s place in the scale sufficiently indicated by +Mrs. Bonnycastle’s acquaintance with her? Still there +were fine degrees, and he felt a little unduly snubbed. It +was perfectly true, as he told his hostess, that with the quick +wave of new impressions that had rolled over him after his +arrival in America the image of Pandora was almost completely +effaced; he had seen innumerable things that were quite as +remarkable in their way as the heroine of the <i>Donau</i>, but +at the touch of the idea that he might see her and hear her again +at any moment she became as vivid in his mind as if they had +parted the day before: he remembered the exact shade of the eyes +he had described to Mrs. Bonnycastle as yellow, the tone of her +voice when at the last she expressed the hope he might judge +America correctly. <i>Had</i> he judged America +correctly? If he were to meet her again she doubtless would +try to ascertain. It would be going much too far to say +that the idea of such an ordeal was terrible to Count Otto; but +it may at least be said that the thought of meeting Pandora Day +made him nervous. The fact is certainly singular, but I +shall not take on myself to explain it; there are some things +that even the most philosophic historian isn’t bound to +account for.</p> +<p>He wandered into another room, and there, at the end of five +minutes, he was introduced by Mrs. Bonnycastle to one of the +young ladies of whom she had spoken. This was a very +intelligent girl who came from Boston and showed much +acquaintance with Spielhagen’s novels. “Do you +like them?” Vogelstein asked rather vaguely, not +taking much interest in the matter, as he read works of fiction +only in case of a sea-voyage. The young lady from Boston +looked pensive and concentrated; then she answered that she liked +<i>some</i> of them <i>very</i> much, but that there were others +she didn’t like—and she enumerated the works that +came under each of these heads. Spielhagen is a voluminous +writer, and such a catalogue took some time; at the end of it +moreover Vogelstein’s question was not answered, for he +couldn’t have told us whether she liked Spielhagen or +not.</p> +<p>On the next topic, however, there was no doubt about her +feelings. They talked about Washington as people talk only +in the place itself, revolving about the subject in widening and +narrowing circles, perching successively on its many branches, +considering it from every point of view. Our young man had +been long enough in America to discover that after half a century +of social neglect Washington had become the fashion and enjoyed +the great advantage of being a new resource in +conversation. This was especially the case in the months of +spring, when the inhabitants of the commercial cities came so far +southward to escape, after the long winter, that final +affront. They were all agreed that Washington was +fascinating, and none of them were better prepared to talk it +over than the Bostonians. Vogelstein originally had been +rather out of step with them; he hadn’t seized their point +of view, hadn’t known with what they compared this object +of their infatuation. But now he knew everything; he had +settled down to the pace; there wasn’t a possible phase of +the discussion that could find him at a loss. There was a +kind of Hegelian element in it; in the light of these +considerations the American capital took on the semblance of a +monstrous mystical infinite <i>Werden</i>. But they +fatigued Vogelstein a little, and it was his preference, as a +general thing, not to engage the same evening with more than one +newcomer, one visitor in the freshness of initiation. This +was why Mrs. Bonnycastle’s expression of a wish to +introduce him to three young ladies had startled him a little; he +saw a certain process, in which he flattered himself that he had +become proficient, but which was after all tolerably exhausting, +repeated for each of the damsels. After separating from his +judicious Bostonian he rather evaded Mrs. Bonnycastle, contenting +himself with the conversation of old friends, pitched for the +most part in a lower and easier key.</p> +<p>At last he heard it mentioned that the President had arrived, +had been some half-hour in the house, and he went in search of +the illustrious guest, whose whereabouts at Washington parties +was never indicated by a cluster of courtiers. He made it a +point, whenever he found himself in company with the President, +to pay him his respects, and he had not been discouraged by the +fact that there was no association of ideas in the eye of the +great man as he put out his hand presidentially and said, +“Happy to meet you, sir.” Count Otto felt +himself taken for a mere loyal subject, possibly for an +office-seeker; and he used to reflect at such moments that the +monarchical form had its merits it provided a line of heredity +for the faculty of quick recognition. He had now some +difficulty in finding the chief magistrate, and ended by learning +that he was in the tea-room, a small apartment devoted to light +refection near the entrance of the house. Here our young +man presently perceived him seated on a sofa and in conversation +with a lady. There were a number of people about the table, +eating, drinking, talking; and the couple on the sofa, which was +not near it but against the wall, in a shallow recess, looked a +little withdrawn, as if they had sought seclusion and were +disposed to profit by the diverted attention of the others. +The President leaned back; his gloved hands, resting on either +knee, made large white spots. He looked eminent, but he +looked relaxed, and the lady beside him ministered freely and +without scruple, it was clear, to this effect of his comfortably +unbending. Vogelstein caught her voice as he +approached. He heard her say “Well now, remember; I +consider it a promise.” She was beautifully dressed, +in rose-colour; her hands were clasped in her lap and her eyes +attached to the presidential profile.</p> +<p>“Well, madam, in that case it’s about the fiftieth +promise I’ve given to-day.”</p> +<p>It was just as he heard these words, uttered by her companion +in reply, that Count Otto checked himself, turned away and +pretended to be looking for a cup of tea. It wasn’t +usual to disturb the President, even simply to shake hands, when +he was sitting on a sofa with a lady, and the young secretary +felt it in this case less possible than ever to break the rule, +for the lady on the sofa was none other than Pandora Day. +He had recognised her without her appearing to see him, and even +with half an eye, as they said, had taken in that she was now a +person to be reckoned with. She had an air of elation, of +success; she shone, to intensity, in her rose-coloured dress; she +was extracting promises from the ruler of fifty millions of +people. What an odd place to meet her, her old shipmate +thought, and how little one could tell, after all, in America, +who people were! He didn’t want to speak to her yet; +he wanted to wait a little and learn more; but meanwhile there +was something attractive in the fact that she was just behind +him, a few yards off, that if he should turn he might see her +again. It was she Mrs. Bonnycastle had meant, it was she +who was so much admired in New York. Her face was the same, +yet he had made out in a moment that she was vaguely prettier; he +had recognised the arch of her nose, which suggested a fine +ambition. He took some tea, which he hadn’t desired, +in order not to go away. He remembered her <i>entourage</i> +on the steamer; her father and mother, the silent senseless +burghers, so little “of the world,” her infant +sister, so much of it, her humorous brother with his tall hat and +his influence in the smoking-room. He remembered Mrs. +Dangerfield’s warnings—yet her perplexities +too—and the letter from Mr. Bellamy, and the introduction +to Mr. Lansing, and the way Pandora had stooped down on the dirty +dock, laughing and talking, mistress of the situation, to open +her trunk for the Customs. He was pretty sure she had paid +no duties that day; this would naturally have been the purpose of +Mr. Bellamy’s letter. Was she still in correspondence +with that gentleman, and had he got over the sickness interfering +with their reunion? These images and these questions +coursed through Count Otto’s mind, and he saw it must be +quite in Pandora’s line to be mistress of the situation, +for there was evidently nothing on the present occasion that +could call itself her master. He drank his tea and as; he +put down his cup heard the President, behind him, say: +“Well, I guess my wife will wonder why I don’t come +home.”</p> +<p>“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” Pandora +benevolently asked.</p> +<p>“Well, she doesn’t go out much. Then she has +got her sister staying with her—Mrs. Runkle, from +Natchez. She’s a good deal of an invalid, and my wife +doesn’t like to leave her.”</p> +<p>“She must be a very kind woman”—and there +was a high mature competence in the way the girl sounded the note +of approval.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess she isn’t +spoiled—yet.”</p> +<p>“I should like very much to come and see her,” +said Pandora.</p> +<p>“Do come round. Couldn’t you come some +night?” the great man responded.</p> +<p>“Well, I’ll come some time. And I shall +remind you of your promise.”</p> +<p>“All right. There’s nothing like keeping it +up. Well,” said the President, “I must bid +good-bye to these bright folks.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein heard him rise from the sofa with his companion; +after which he gave the pair time to pass out of the room before +him. They did it with a certain impressive deliberation, +people making way for the ruler of fifty millions and looking +with a certain curiosity at the striking pink person at his +side. When a little later he followed them across the hall, +into one of the other rooms, he saw the host and hostess +accompany the President to the door and two foreign ministers and +a judge of the Supreme Court address themselves to Pandora +Day. He resisted the impulse to join this circle: if he +should speak to her at all he would somehow wish it to be in more +privacy. She continued nevertheless to occupy him, and when +Mrs. Bonnycastle came back from the hall he immediately +approached her with an appeal. “I wish you’d +tell me something more about that girl—that one opposite +and in pink.”</p> +<p>“The lovely Day—that’s what they call her, I +believe? I wanted you to talk with her.”</p> +<p>“I find she is the one I’ve met. But she +seems to be so different here. I can’t make it +out,” said Count Otto.</p> +<p>There was something in his expression that again moved Mrs. +Bonnycastle to mirth. “How we do puzzle you +Europeans! You look quite bewildered.”</p> +<p>“I’m sorry I look so—I try to hide it. +But of course we’re very simple. Let me ask then a +simple earnest childlike question. Are her parents also in +society?”</p> +<p>“Parents in society? D’où +tombez-vous? Did you ever hear of the parents of a +triumphant girl in rose-colour, with a nose all her own, in +society?”</p> +<p>“Is she then all alone?” he went on with a strain +of melancholy in his voice.</p> +<p>Mrs. Bonnycastle launched at him all her laughter.</p> +<p>“You’re too pathetic. Don’t you know +what she is? I supposed of course you knew.”</p> +<p>“It’s exactly what I’m asking +you.”</p> +<p>“Why she’s the new type. It has only come up +lately. They have had articles about it in the +papers. That’s the reason I told Mrs. Steuben to +bring her.”</p> +<p>“The new type? <i>What</i> new type, Mrs. +Bonnycastle?” he returned pleadingly—so conscious was +he that all types in America were new.</p> +<p>Her laughter checked her reply a moment, and by the time she +had recovered herself the young lady from Boston, with whom +Vogelstein had been talking, stood there to take leave. +This, for an American type, was an old one, he was sure; and the +process of parting between the guest and her hostess had an +ancient elaboration. Count Otto waited a little; then he +turned away and walked up to Pandora Day, whose group of +interlocutors had now been re-enforced by a gentleman who had +held an important place in the cabinet of the late occupant of +the presidential chair. He had asked Mrs. Bonnycastle if +she were “all alone”; but there was nothing in her +present situation to show her for solitary. She +wasn’t sufficiently alone for our friend’s taste; but +he was impatient and he hoped she’d give him a few words to +himself. She recognised him without a moment’s +hesitation and with the sweetest smile, a smile matching to a +shade the tone in which she said: “I was watching +you. I wondered if you weren’t going to speak to +me.”</p> +<p>“Miss Day was watching him!” one of the foreign +ministers exclaimed; “and we flattered ourselves that her +attention was all with us.”</p> +<p>“I mean before,” said the girl, “while I was +talking with the President.”</p> +<p>At which the gentlemen began to laugh, one of them remarking +that this was the way the absent were sacrificed, even the great; +while another put on record that he hoped Vogelstein was duly +flattered.</p> +<p>“Oh I was watching the President too,” said +Pandora. “I’ve got to watch <i>him</i>. +He has promised me something.”</p> +<p>“It must be the mission to England,” the judge of +the Supreme Court suggested. “A good position for a +lady; they’ve got a lady at the head over there.”</p> +<p>“I wish they would send you to my country,” one of +the foreign ministers suggested. “I’d +immediately get recalled.”</p> +<p>“Why perhaps in your country I wouldn’t speak to +you! It’s only because you’re here,” the +ex-heroine of the <i>Donau</i> returned with a gay familiarity +which evidently ranked with her but as one of the arts of +defence. “You’ll see what mission it is when it +comes out. But I’ll speak to Count Vogelstein +anywhere,” she went on. “He’s an older +friend than any right here. I’ve known him in +difficult days.”</p> +<p>“Oh yes, on the great ocean,” the young man +smiled. “On the watery waste, in the +tempest!”</p> +<p>“Oh I don’t mean that so much; we had a beautiful +voyage and there wasn’t any tempest. I mean when I +was living in Utica. That’s a watery waste if you +like, and a tempest there would have been a pleasant +variety.”</p> +<p>“Your parents seemed to me so peaceful!” her +associate in the other memories sighed with a vague wish to say +something sympathetic.</p> +<p>“Oh you haven’t seen them ashore! At Utica +they were very lively. But that’s no longer our +natural home. Don’t you remember I told you I was +working for New York? Well, I worked—I had to work +hard. But we’ve moved.”</p> +<p>Count Otto clung to his interest. “And I hope +they’re happy.”</p> +<p>“My father and mother? Oh they will be, in +time. I must give them time. They’re very young +yet, they’ve years before them. And you’ve been +always in Washington?” Pandora continued. “I +suppose you’ve found out everything about +everything.”</p> +<p>“Oh no—there are some things I <i>can’t</i> +find out.”</p> +<p>“Come and see me and perhaps I can help you. +I’m very different from what I was in that phase. +I’ve advanced a great deal since then.”</p> +<p>“Oh how was Miss Day in that phase?” asked a +cabinet minister of the last administration.</p> +<p>“She was delightful of course,” Count Otto +said.</p> +<p>“He’s very flattering; I didn’t open my +mouth!” Pandora cried. “Here comes Mrs. Steuben +to take me to some other place. I believe it’s a +literary party near the Capitol. Everything seems so +separate in Washington. Mrs. Steuben’s going to read +a poem. I wish she’d read it here; wouldn’t it +do as well?”</p> +<p>This lady, arriving, signified to her young friend the +necessity of their moving on. But Miss Day’s +companions had various things to say to her before giving her +up. She had a vivid answer for each, and it was brought +home to Vogelstein while he listened that this would be indeed, +in her development, as she said, another phase. Daughter of +small burghers as she might be she was really brilliant. He +turned away a little and while Mrs. Steuben waited put her a +question. He had made her half an hour before the subject +of that inquiry to which Mrs. Bonnycastle returned so ambiguous +an answer; but this wasn’t because he failed of all direct +acquaintance with the amiable woman or of any general idea of the +esteem in which she was held. He had met her in various +places and had been at her house. She was the widow of a +commodore, was a handsome mild soft swaying person, whom every +one liked, with glossy bands of black hair and a little ringlet +depending behind each ear. Some one had said that she +looked like the <i>vieux jeu</i>, idea of the queen in +<i>Hamlet</i>. She had written verses which were admired in +the South, wore a full-length portrait of the commodore on her +bosom and spoke with the accent of Savannah. She had about +her a positive strong odour of Washington. It had certainly +been very superfluous in our young man to question Mrs. +Bonnycastle about her social position.</p> +<p>“Do kindly tell me,” he said, lowering his voice, +“what’s the type to which that young lady +belongs? Mrs. Bonnycastle tells me it’s a new +one.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Steuben for a moment fixed her liquid eyes on the +secretary of legation. She always seemed to be translating +the prose of your speech into the finer rhythms with which her +own mind was familiar. “Do you think anything’s +really new?” she then began to flute. +“I’m very fond of the old; you know that’s a +weakness of we Southerners.” The poor lady, it will +be observed, had another weakness as well. “What we +often take to be the new is simply the old under some novel +form. Were there not remarkable natures in the past? +If you doubt it you should visit the South, where the past still +lingers.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein had been struck before this with Mrs. +Steuben’s pronunciation of the word by which her native +latitudes were designated; transcribing it from her lips you +would have written it (as the nearest approach) the Sooth. +But at present he scarce heeded this peculiarity; he was +wondering rather how a woman could be at once so copious and so +uninforming. What did he care about the past or even about +the Sooth? He was afraid of starting her again. He +looked at her, discouraged and helpless, as bewildered almost as +Mrs. Bonnycastle had found him half an hour before; looked also +at the commodore, who, on her bosom, seemed to breathe again with +his widow’s respirations. “Call it an old type +then if you like,” he said in a moment. “All I +want to know is what type it <i>is</i>! It seems +impossible,” he gasped, “to find out.”</p> +<p>“You can find out in the newspapers. They’ve +had articles about it. They write about everything +now. But it isn’t true about Miss Day. +It’s one of the first families. Her great-grandfather +was in the Revolution.” Pandora by this time had +given her attention again to Mrs. Steuben. She seemed to +signify that she was ready to move on. “Wasn’t +your great-grandfather in the Revolution?” the elder lady +asked. “I’m telling Count Vogelstein about +him.”</p> +<p>“Why are you asking about my ancestors?” the girl +demanded of the young German with untempered brightness. +“Is that the thing you said just now that you can’t +find out? Well, if Mrs. Steuben will only be quiet you +never will.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Steuben shook her head rather dreamily. +“Well, it’s no trouble for we of the Sooth to be +quiet. There’s a kind of languor in our blood. +Besides, we have to be to-day. But I’ve got to show +some energy to-night. I’ve got to get you to the end +of Pennsylvania Avenue.”</p> +<p>Pandora gave her hand to Count Otto and asked him if he +thought they should meet again. He answered that in +Washington people were always meeting again and that at any rate +he shouldn’t fail to wait upon her. Hereupon, just as +the two ladies were detaching themselves, Mrs. Steuben remarked +that if the Count and Miss Day wished to meet again the picnic +would be a good chance—the picnic she was getting up for +the following Thursday. It was to consist of about twenty +bright people, and they’d go down the Potomac to Mount +Vernon. The Count answered that if Mrs. Steuben thought him +bright enough he should be delighted to join the party; and he +was told the hour for which the tryst was taken.</p> +<p>He remained at Mrs. Bonnycastle’s after every one had +gone, and then he informed this lady of his reason for +waiting. Would she have mercy on him and let him know, in a +single word, before he went to rest—for without it rest +would be impossible—what was this famous type to which +Pandora Day belonged?</p> +<p>“Gracious, you don’t mean to say you’ve not +found out that type yet!” Mrs. Bonnycastle exclaimed with a +return of her hilarity. “What have you been doing all +the evening? You Germans may be thorough, but you certainly +are not quick!”</p> +<p>It was Alfred Bonnycastle who at last took pity on him. +“My dear Vogelstein, she’s the latest freshest fruit +of our great American evolution. She’s the self-made +girl!”</p> +<p>Count Otto gazed a moment. “The fruit of the great +American Revolution? Yes, Mrs. Steuben told me her +great-grandfather—” but the rest of his sentence was +lost in a renewed explosion of Mrs. Bonnycastle’s sense of +the ridiculous. He bravely pushed his advantage, such as it +was, however, and, desiring his host’s definition to be +defined, inquired what the self-made girl might be.</p> +<p>“Sit down and we’ll tell you all about it,” +Mrs. Bonnycastle said. “I like talking this way, +after a party’s over. You can smoke if you like, and +Alfred will open another window. Well, to begin with, the +self-made girl’s a new feature. That, however, you +know. In the second place she isn’t self-made at +all. We all help to make her—we take such an interest +in her.”</p> +<p>“That’s only after she’s made!” Alfred +Bonnycastle broke in. “But it’s Vogelstein that +takes an interest. What on earth has started you up so on +the subject of Miss Day?”</p> +<p>The visitor explained as well as he could that it was merely +the accident of his having crossed the ocean in the steamer with +her; but he felt the inadequacy of this account of the matter, +felt it more than his hosts, who could know neither how little +actual contact he had had with her on the ship, how much he had +been affected by Mrs. Dangerfield’s warnings, nor how much +observation at the same time he had lavished on her. He sat +there half an hour, and the warm dead stillness of the Washington +night—nowhere are the nights so silent—came in at the +open window, mingled with a soft sweet earthy smell, the smell of +growing things and in particular, as he thought, of Mrs. +Steuben’s Sooth. Before he went away he had heard all +about the self-made girl, and there was something in the picture +that strongly impressed him. She was possible doubtless +only in America; American life had smoothed the way for +her. She was not fast, nor emancipated, nor crude, nor +loud, and there wasn’t in her, of necessity at least, a +grain of the stuff of which the adventuress is made. She +was simply very successful, and her success was entirely +personal. She hadn’t been born with the silver spoon +of social opportunity; she had grasped it by honest +exertion. You knew her by many different signs, but +chiefly, infallibly, by the appearance of her parents. It +was her parents who told her story; you always saw how little her +parents could have made her. Her attitude with regard to +them might vary in different ways. As the great fact on her +own side was that she had lifted herself from a lower social +plane, done it all herself, and done it by the simple lever of +her personality, it was naturally to be expected that she would +leave the authors of her mere material being in the shade. +Sometimes she had them in her wake, lost in the bubbles and the +foam that showed where she had passed; sometimes, as Alfred +Bonnycastle said, she let them slide altogether; sometimes she +kept them in close confinement, resorting to them under cover of +night and with every precaution; sometimes she exhibited them to +the public in discreet glimpses, in prearranged attitudes. +But the general characteristic of the self-made girl was that, +though it was frequently understood that she was privately +devoted to her kindred, she never attempted to impose them on +society, and it was striking that, though in some of her +manifestations a bore, she was at her worst less of a bore than +they. They were almost always solemn and portentous, and +they were for the most part of a deathly respectability. +She wasn’t necessarily snobbish, unless it was snobbish to +want the best. She didn’t cringe, she didn’t +make herself smaller than she was; she took on the contrary a +stand of her own and attracted things to herself. Naturally +she was possible only in America—only in a country where +whole ranges of competition and comparison were absent. The +natural history of this interesting creature was at last +completely laid bare to the earnest stranger, who, as he sat +there in the animated stillness, with the fragrant breath of the +Western world in his nostrils, was convinced of what he had +already suspected, that conversation in the great Republic was +more yearningly, not to say gropingly, psychological than +elsewhere. Another thing, as he learned, that you knew the +self-made girl by was her culture, which was perhaps a little too +restless and obvious. She had usually got into society more +or less by reading, and her conversation was apt to be garnished +with literary allusions, even with familiar quotations. +Vogelstein hadn’t had time to observe this element as a +developed form in Pandora Day; but Alfred Bonnycastle hinted that +he wouldn’t trust her to keep it under in a +<i>tête-à-tête</i>. It was needless to +say that these young persons had always been to Europe; that was +usually the first place they got to. By such arts they +sometimes entered society on the other side before they did so at +home; it was to be added at the same time that this resource was +less and less valuable, for Europe, in the American world, had +less and less prestige and people in the Western hemisphere now +kept a watch on that roundabout road. All of which quite +applied to Pandora Day—the journey to Europe, the culture +(as exemplified in the books she read on the ship), the +relegation, the effacement, of the family. The only thing +that was exceptional was the rapidity of her march; for the jump +she had taken since he left her in the hands of Mr. Lansing +struck Vogelstein, even after he had made all allowance for the +abnormal homogeneity of the American mass, as really +considerable. It took all her cleverness to account for +such things. When she “moved” from +Utica—mobilised her commissariat—the battle appeared +virtually to have been gained.</p> +<p>Count Otto called the next day, and Mrs. Steuben’s +blackamoor informed him, in the communicative manner of his race, +that the ladies had gone out to pay some visits and look at the +Capitol. Pandora apparently had not hitherto examined this +monument, and our young man wished he had known, the evening +before, of her omission, so that he might have offered to be her +initiator. There is too obvious a connexion for us to fail +of catching it between his regret and the fact that in leaving +Mrs. Steuben’s door he reminded himself that he wanted a +good walk, and that he thereupon took his way along Pennsylvania +Avenue. His walk had become fairly good by the time he +reached the great white edifice that unfolds its repeated +colonnades and uplifts its isolated dome at the end of a long +vista of saloons and tobacco-shops. He slowly climbed the +great steps, hesitating a little, even wondering why he had +come. The superficial reason was obvious enough, but there +was a real one behind it that struck him as rather wanting in the +solidity which should characterise the motives of an emissary of +Prince Bismarck. The superficial reason was a belief that +Mrs. Steuben would pay her visit first—it was probably only +a question of leaving cards—and bring her young friend to +the Capitol at the hour when the yellow afternoon light would +give a tone to the blankness of its marble walls. The +Capitol was a splendid building, but it was rather wanting in +tone. Vogelstein’s curiosity about Pandora Day had +been much more quickened than checked by the revelations made to +him in Mrs. Bonnycastle’s drawing-room. It was a +relief to have the creature classified; but he had a desire, of +which he had not been conscious before, to see really to the end +how well, in other words how completely and artistically, a girl +could make herself. His calculations had been just, and he +had wandered about the rotunda for only ten minutes, looking +again at the paintings, commemorative of the national annals, +which occupy its lower spaces, and at the simulated sculptures, +so touchingly characteristic of early American taste, which adorn +its upper reaches, when the charming women he had been counting +on presented themselves in charge of a licensed guide. He +went to meet them and didn’t conceal from them that he had +marked them for his very own. The encounter was happy on +both sides, and he accompanied them through the queer and endless +interior, through labyrinths of bleak bare development, into +legislative and judicial halls. He thought it a hideous +place; he had seen it all before and asked himself what senseless +game he was playing. In the lower House were certain +bedaubed walls, in the basest style of imitation, which made him +feel faintly sick, not to speak of a lobby adorned with artless +prints and photographs of eminent defunct Congressmen that was +all too serious for a joke and too comic for a Valhalla. +But Pandora was greatly interested; she thought the Capitol very +fine; it was easy to criticise the details, but as a whole it was +the most impressive building she had ever seen. She proved +a charming fellow tourist; she had constantly something to say, +but never said it too much; it was impossible to drag in the wake +of a <i>cicerone</i> less of a lengthening or an irritating +chain. Vogelstein could see too that she wished to improve +her mind; she looked at the historical pictures, at the uncanny +statues of local worthies, presented by the different +States—they were of different sizes, as if they had been +“numbered,” in a shop—she asked questions of +the guide and in the chamber of the Senate requested him to show +her the chairs of the gentlemen from New York. She sat down +in one of them, though Mrs. Steuben told her <i>that</i> Senator +(she mistook the chair, dropping into another State) was a horrid +old thing.</p> +<p>Throughout the hour he spent with her Vogelstein seemed to see +how it was she had made herself. They walked about, +afterwards on the splendid terrace that surrounds the Capitol, +the great marble floor on which it stands, and made vague +remarks—Pandora’s were the most definite—about +the yellow sheen of the Potomac, the hazy hills of Virginia, the +far-gleaming pediment of Arlington, the raw confused-looking +country. Washington was beneath them, bristling and +geometrical; the long lines of its avenues seemed to stretch into +national futures. Pandora asked Count Otto if he had ever +been to Athens and, on his admitting so much, sought to know +whether the eminence on which they stood didn’t give him an +idea of the Acropolis in its prime. Vogelstein deferred the +satisfaction of this appeal to their next meeting; he was +glad—in spite of the appeal—to make pretexts for +seeing her again. He did so on the morrow; Mrs. +Steuben’s picnic was still three days distant. He +called on Pandora a second time, also met her each evening in the +Washington world. It took very little of this to remind him +that he was forgetting both Mrs. Dangerfield’s warnings and +the admonitions—long familiar to him—of his own +conscience. Was he in peril of love? Was he to be +sacrificed on the altar of the American girl, an altar at which +those other poor fellows had poured out some of the bluest blood +in Germany and he had himself taken oath he would never seriously +worship? He decided that he wasn’t in real danger, +that he had rather clinched his precautions. It was true +that a young person who had succeeded so well for herself might +be a great help to her husband; but this diplomatic aspirant +preferred on the whole that his success should be his own: it +wouldn’t please him to have the air of being pushed by his +wife. Such a wife as that would wish to push him, and he +could hardly admit to himself that this was what fate had in +reserve for him—to be propelled in his career by a young +lady who would perhaps attempt to talk to the Kaiser as he had +heard her the other night talk to the President. Would she +consent to discontinue relations with her family, or would she +wish still to borrow plastic relief from that domestic +background? That her family was so impossible was to a +certain extent an advantage; for if they had been a little better +the question of a rupture would be less easy. He turned +over these questions in spite of his security, or perhaps indeed +because of it. The security made them speculative and +disinterested.</p> +<p>They haunted him during the excursion to Mount Vernon, which +took place according to traditions long established. Mrs. +Steuben’s confederates assembled on the steamer and were +set afloat on the big brown stream which had already seemed to +our special traveller to have too much bosom and too little +bank. Here and there, however, he became conscious of a +shore where there was something to look at, even though conscious +at the same time that he had of old lost great opportunities of +an idyllic cast in not having managed to be more “thrown +with” a certain young lady on the deck of the North German +Lloyd. The two turned round together to hang over +Alexandria, which for Pandora, as she declared, was a picture of +Old Virginia. She told Vogelstein that she was always +hearing about it during the Civil War, ages before. Little +girl as she had been at the time she remembered all the names +that were on people’s lips during those years of +reiteration. This historic spot had a touch of the romance +of rich decay, a reference to older things, to a dramatic +past. The past of Alexandria appeared in the vista of three +or four short streets sloping up a hill and lined with poor brick +warehouses erected for merchandise that had ceased to come or +go. It looked hot and blank and sleepy, down to the shabby +waterside where tattered darkies dangled their bare feet from the +edge of rotting wharves. Pandora was even more interested +in Mount Vernon—when at last its wooded bluff began to +command the river—than she had been in the Capitol, and +after they had disembarked and ascended to the celebrated mansion +she insisted on going into every room it contained. She +“claimed for it,” as she said—some of her turns +were so characteristic both of her nationality and her own +style—the finest situation in the world, and was distinct +as to the shame of their not giving it to the President for his +country-seat. Most of her companions had seen the house +often, and were now coupling themselves in the grounds according +to their sympathies, so that it was easy for Vogelstein to offer +the benefit of his own experience to the most inquisitive member +of the party. They were not to lunch for another hour, and +in the interval the young man roamed with his first and fairest +acquaintance. The breath of the Potomac, on the boat, had +been a little harsh, but on the softly-curving lawn, beneath the +clustered trees, with the river relegated to a mere shining +presence far below and in the distance, the day gave out nothing +but its mildness, the whole scene became noble and genial.</p> +<p>Count Otto could joke a little on great occasions, and the +present one was worthy of his humour. He maintained to his +companion that the shallow painted mansion resembled a false +house, a “wing” or structure of daubed canvas, on the +stage; but she answered him so well with certain economical +palaces she had seen in Germany, where, as she said, there was +nothing but china stoves and stuffed birds, that he was obliged +to allow the home of Washington to be after all really +<i>gemüthlich</i>. What he found so in fact was the +soft texture of the day, his personal situation, the sweetness of +his suspense. For suspense had decidedly become his +portion; he was under a charm that made him feel he was watching +his own life and that his susceptibilities were beyond his +control. It hung over him that things might take a turn, +from one hour to the other, which would make them very different +from what they had been yet; and his heart certainly beat a +little faster as he wondered what that turn might be. Why +did he come to picnics on fragrant April days with American girls +who might lead him too far? Wouldn’t such girls be +glad to marry a Pomeranian count? And <i>would</i> they, +after all, talk that way to the Kaiser? If he were to marry +one of them he should have to give her several thorough +lessons.</p> +<p>In their little tour of the house our young friend and his +companion had had a great many fellow visitors, who had also +arrived by the steamer and who had hitherto not left them an +ideal privacy. But the others gradually dispersed; they +circled about a kind of showman who was the authorised guide, a +big slow genial vulgar heavily-bearded man, with a whimsical +edifying patronising tone, a tone that had immense success when +he stopped here and there to make his points—to pass his +eyes over his listening flock, then fix them quite above it with +a meditative look and bring out some ancient pleasantry as if it +were a sudden inspiration. He made a cheerful thing, an +echo of the platform before the booth of a country fair, even of +a visit to the tomb of the <i>pater patriæ</i>. It is +enshrined in a kind of grotto in the grounds, and Vogelstein +remarked to Pandora that he was a good man for the place, but was +too familiar. “Oh he’d have been familiar with +Washington,” said the girl with the bright dryness with +which she often uttered amusing things. Vogelstein looked +at her a moment, and it came over him, as he smiled, that she +herself probably wouldn’t have been abashed even by the +hero with whom history has taken fewest liberties. +“You look as if you could hardly believe that,” +Pandora went on. “You Germans are always in such awe +of great people.” And it occurred to her critic that +perhaps after all Washington would have liked her manner, which +was wonderfully fresh and natural. The man with the beard +was an ideal minister to American shrines; he played on the +curiosity of his little band with the touch of a master, drawing +them at the right moment away to see the classic ice-house where +the old lady had been found weeping in the belief it was +Washington’s grave. While this monument was under +inspection our interesting couple had the house to themselves, +and they spent some time on a pretty terrace where certain +windows of the second floor opened—a little rootless +verandah which overhung, in a manner, obliquely, all the +magnificence of the view; the immense sweep of the river, the +artistic plantations, the last-century garden with its big box +hedges and remains of old espaliers. They lingered here for +nearly half an hour, and it was in this retirement that +Vogelstein enjoyed the only approach to intimate conversation +appointed for him, as was to appear, with a young woman in whom +he had been unable to persuade himself that he was not +absorbed. It’s not necessary, and it’s not +possible, that I should reproduce this colloquy; but I may +mention that it began—as they leaned against the parapet of +the terrace and heard the cheerful voice of the showman wafted up +to them from a distance—with his saying to her rather +abruptly that he couldn’t make out why they hadn’t +had more talk together when they crossed the Atlantic.</p> +<p>“Well, I can if you can’t,” said +Pandora. “I’d have talked quick enough if you +had spoken to me. I spoke to you first.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I remember that”—and it affected him +awkwardly.</p> +<p>“You listened too much to Mrs. Dangerfield.”</p> +<p>He feigned a vagueness. “To Mrs. +Dangerfield?”</p> +<p>“That woman you were always sitting with; she told you +not to speak to me. I’ve seen her in New York; she +speaks to me now herself. She recommended you to have +nothing to do with me.”</p> +<p>“Oh how can you say such dreadful things?” Count +Otto cried with a very becoming blush.</p> +<p>“You know you can’t deny it. You +weren’t attracted by my family. They’re +charming people when you know them. I don’t have a +better time anywhere than I have at home,” the girl went on +loyally. “But what does it matter? My family +are very happy. They’re getting quite used to New +York. Mrs. Dangerfield’s a vulgar wretch—next +winter she’ll call on me.”</p> +<p>“You are unlike any Mädchen I’ve ever +seen—I don’t understand you,” said poor +Vogelstein with the colour still in his face.</p> +<p>“Well, you never <i>will</i> understand +me—probably; but what difference does it make?”</p> +<p>He attempted to tell her what difference, but I’ve no +space to follow him here. It’s known that when the +German mind attempts to explain things it doesn’t always +reduce them to simplicity, and Pandora was first mystified, then +amused, by some of the Count’s revelations. At last I +think she was a little frightened, for she remarked irrelevantly, +with some decision, that luncheon would be ready and that they +ought to join Mrs. Steuben. Her companion walked slowly, on +purpose, as they left the house together, for he knew the pang of +a vague sense that he was losing her.</p> +<p>“And shall you be in Washington many days yet?” he +appealed as they went.</p> +<p>“It will all depend. I’m expecting important +news. What I shall do will be influenced by +that.”</p> +<p>The way she talked about expecting news—and +important!—made him feel somehow that she had a career, +that she was active and independent, so that he could scarcely +hope to stop her as she passed. It was certainly true that +he had never seen any girl like her. It would have occurred +to him that the news she was expecting might have reference to +the favour she had begged of the President, if he hadn’t +already made up his mind—in the calm of meditation after +that talk with the Bonnycastles—that this favour must be a +pleasantry. What she had said to him had a discouraging, a +somewhat chilling effect; nevertheless it was not without a +certain ardour that he inquired of her whether, so long as she +stayed in Washington, he mightn’t pay her certain +respectful attentions.</p> +<p>“As many as you like—and as respectful ones; but +you won’t keep them up for ever!”</p> +<p>“You try to torment me,” said Count Otto.</p> +<p>She waited to explain. “I mean that I may have +some of my family.”</p> +<p>“I shall be delighted to see them again.”</p> +<p>Again she just hung fire. “There are some +you’ve never seen.”</p> +<p>In the afternoon, returning to Washington on the steamer, +Vogelstein received a warning. It came from Mrs. +Bonnycastle and constituted, oddly enough, the second juncture at +which an officious female friend had, while sociably afloat with +him, advised him on the subject of Pandora Day.</p> +<p>“There’s one thing we forgot to tell you the other +night about the self-made girl,” said the lady of infinite +mirth. “It’s never safe to fix your affections +on her, because she has almost always an impediment somewhere in +the background.”</p> +<p>He looked at her askance, but smiled and said: “I should +understand your information—for which I’m so much +obliged—a little better if I knew what you mean by an +impediment.”</p> +<p>“Oh I mean she’s always engaged to some young man +who belongs to her earlier phase.”</p> +<p>“Her earlier phase?”</p> +<p>“The time before she had made herself—when she +lived unconscious of her powers. A young man from Utica, +say. They usually have to wait; he’s probably in a +store. It’s a long engagement.”</p> +<p>Count Otto somehow preferred to understand as little as +possible. “Do you mean a betrothal—to take +effect?”</p> +<p>“I don’t mean anything German and +moonstruck. I mean that piece of peculiarly American +enterprise a premature engagement—to take effect, but too +complacently, at the end of time.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein very properly reflected that it was no use his +having entered the diplomatic career if he weren’t able to +bear himself as if this interesting generalisation had no +particular message for him. He did Mrs. Bonnycastle +moreover the justice to believe that she wouldn’t have +approached the question with such levity if she had supposed she +should make him wince. The whole thing was, like everything +else, but for her to laugh at, and the betrayal moreover of a +good intention. “I see, I see—the self-made +girl has of course always had a past. Yes, and the young +man in the store—from Utica—is part of her +past.”</p> +<p>“You express it perfectly,” said Mrs. +Bonnycastle. “I couldn’t say it better +myself.”</p> +<p>“But with her present, with her future, when they change +like this young lady’s, I suppose everything else +changes. How do you say it in America? She lets him +slide.”</p> +<p>“We don’t say it at all!” Mrs. Bonnycastle +cried. “She does nothing of the sort; for what do you +take her? She sticks to him; that at least is what we +<i>expect</i> her to do,” she added with less +assurance. “As I tell you, the type’s new and +the case under consideration. We haven’t yet had time +for complete study.”</p> +<p>“Oh of course I hope she sticks to him,” +Vogelstein declared simply and with his German accent more +audible, as it always was when he was slightly agitated.</p> +<p>For the rest of the trip he was rather restless. He +wandered about the boat, talking little with the returning +picnickers. Toward the last, as they drew near Washington +and the white dome of the Capitol hung aloft before them, looking +as simple as a suspended snowball, he found himself, on the deck, +in proximity to Mrs. Steuben. He reproached himself with +having rather neglected her during an entertainment for which he +was indebted to her bounty, and he sought to repair his omission +by a proper deference. But the only act of homage that +occurred to him was to ask her as by chance whether Miss Day +were, to her knowledge, engaged.</p> +<p>Mrs. Steuben turned her Southern eyes upon him with a look of +almost romantic compassion. “To my knowledge? +Why of course I’d know! I should think you’d +know too. Didn’t you know she was engaged? Why +she has been engaged since she was sixteen.”</p> +<p>Count Otto gazed at the dome of the Capitol. “To a +gentleman from Utica?</p> +<p>“Yes, a native of her place. She’s expecting +him soon.”</p> +<p>“I’m so very glad to hear it,” said +Vogelstein, who decidedly, for his career, had promise. +“And is she going to marry him?”</p> +<p>“Why what do people fall in love with each other +<i>for</i>? I presume they’ll marry when she gets +round to it. Ah if she had only been from the +Sooth—!”</p> +<p>At this he broke quickly in: “But why have they never +brought it off, as you say, in so many years?”</p> +<p>“Well, at first she was too young, and then she thought +her family ought to see Europe—of course they could see it +better <i>with</i> her—and they spent some time +there. And then Mr. Bellamy had some business difficulties +that made him feel as if he didn’t want to marry just +then. But he has given up business and I presume feels more +free. Of course it’s rather long, but all the while +they’ve been engaged. It’s a true, true +love,” said Mrs. Steuben, whose sound of the adjective was +that of a feeble flute.</p> +<p>“Is his name Mr. Bellamy?” the Count asked with +his haunting reminiscence. “D. F. Bellamy, so? +And has he been in a store?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what kind of business it was: it was +some kind of business in Utica. I think he had a branch in +New York. He’s one of the leading gentlemen of Utica +and very highly educated. He’s a good deal older than +Miss Day. He’s a very fine man—I presume a +college man. He stands very high in Utica. I +don’t know why you look as if you doubted it.”</p> +<p>Vogelstein assured Mrs. Steuben that he doubted nothing, and +indeed what she told him was probably the more credible for +seeming to him eminently strange. Bellamy had been the name +of the gentleman who, a year and a half before, was to have met +Pandora on the arrival of the German steamer; it was in +Bellamy’s name that she had addressed herself with such +effusion to Bellamy’s friend, the man in the straw hat who +was about to fumble in her mother’s old clothes. This +was a fact that seemed to Count Otto to finish the picture of her +contradictions; it wanted at present no touch to be +complete. Yet even as it hung there before him it continued +to fascinate him, and he stared at it, detached from surrounding +things and feeling a little as if he had been pitched out of an +overturned vehicle, till the boat bumped against one of the +outstanding piles of the wharf at which Mrs. Steuben’s +party was to disembark. There was some delay in getting the +steamer adjusted to the dock, during which the passengers watched +the process over its side and extracted what entertainment they +might from the appearance of the various persons collected to +receive it. There were darkies and loafers and hackmen, and +also vague individuals, the loosest and blankest he had ever seen +anywhere, with tufts on their chins, toothpicks in their mouths, +hands in their pockets, rumination in their jaws and diamond pins +in their shirt-fronts, who looked as if they had sauntered over +from Pennsylvania Avenue to while away half an hour, forsaking +for that interval their various slanting postures in the +porticoes of the hotels and the doorways of the saloons.</p> +<p>“Oh I’m so glad! How sweet of you to come +down!” It was a voice close to Count Otto’s +shoulder that spoke these words, and he had no need to turn to +see from whom it proceeded. It had been in his ears the +greater part of the day, though, as he now perceived, without the +fullest richness of expression of which it was capable. +Still less was he obliged to turn to discover to whom it was +addressed, for the few simple words I have quoted had been flung +across the narrowing interval of water, and a gentleman who had +stepped to the edge of the dock without our young man’s +observing him tossed back an immediate reply.</p> +<p>“I got here by the three o’clock train. They +told me in K Street where you were, and I thought I’d come +down and meet you.”</p> +<p>“Charming attention!” said Pandora Day with the +laugh that seemed always to invite the whole of any company to +partake in it; though for some moments after this she and her +interlocutor appeared to continue the conversation only with +their eyes. Meanwhile Vogelstein’s also were not +idle. He looked at her visitor from head to foot, and he +was aware that she was quite unconscious of his own +proximity. The gentleman before him was tall, good-looking, +well-dressed; evidently he would stand well not only at Utica, +but, judging from the way he had planted himself on the dock, in +any position that circumstances might compel him to take +up. He was about forty years old; he had a black moustache +and he seemed to look at the world over some counter-like expanse +on which he invited it all warily and pleasantly to put down +first its idea of the terms of a transaction. He waved a +gloved hand at Pandora as if, when she exclaimed “Gracious, +ain’t they long!” to urge her to be patient. +She was patient several seconds and then asked him if he had any +news. He looked at her briefly, in silence, smiling, after +which he drew from his pocket a large letter with an +official-looking seal and shook it jocosely above his head. +This was discreetly, covertly done. No one but our young +man appeared aware of how much was taking place—and poor +Count Otto mainly felt it in the air. The boat was touching +the wharf and the space between the pair inconsiderable.</p> +<p>“Department of State?” Pandora very prettily and +soundlessly mouthed across at him.</p> +<p>“That’s what they call it.”</p> +<p>“Well, what country?”</p> +<p>“What’s your opinion of the Dutch?” the +gentleman asked for answer.</p> +<p>“Oh gracious!” cried Pandora.</p> +<p>“Well, are you going to wait for the return trip?” +said the gentleman.</p> +<p>Our silent sufferer turned away, and presently Mrs. Steuben +and her companion disembarked together. When this lady +entered a carriage with Miss Day the gentleman who had spoken to +the girl followed them; the others scattered, and Vogelstein, +declining with thanks a “lift” from Mrs. Bonnycastle, +walked home alone and in some intensity of meditation. Two +days later he saw in a newspaper an announcement that the +President had offered the post of Minister to Holland to Mr. D. +F. Bellamy of Utica; and in the course of a month he heard from +Mrs. Steuben that Pandora, a thousand other duties performed, had +finally “got round” to the altar of her own +nuptials. He communicated this news to Mrs. Bonnycastle, +who had not heard it but who, shrieking at the queer face he +showed her, met it with the remark that there was now ground for +a new induction as to the self-made girl.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PANDORA***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2299-h.htm or 2299-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/9/2299 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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