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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Beautiful Miss Brooke, by Louis Zangwill
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Beautiful Miss Brooke
+
+
+Author: Louis Zangwill
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2010  [eBook #34404]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/beautifulmissbro00zangiala
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+SOME PRESS OPINIONS
+
+Of "Z. Z.'s" Previous Work.
+
+
+          _Daily Chronicle_ (London).--In all modern fiction
+          there is no novel which contains a more able and
+          finished analysis of character. It is a serious
+          contribution to literature.
+
+          _Echo_ (London).--His work reveals a grand
+          dramatic instinct There are indeed possibilities
+          of fine work in "Z. Z.," and we may anticipate
+          valuable studies of life in the immediate future.
+          Mr. Louis Zangwill should cut a pretty figure in
+          latter-day fiction.
+
+          _Academy_ (London).--A few masterful novelists
+          like "Z. Z." have it in their power to attain to a
+          complete achievement.
+
+          _Daily Telegraph_ (London).--One of the ablest
+          works of recent fiction.
+
+          _Illustrated London News._--One of the cleverest
+          novels of the day.
+
+          _Graphic_ (London).--The new novel by "Z. Z." is a
+          tragedy of which the power can not possibly be
+          denied. Never for one moment does the author lose
+          his grip.
+
+          _Weekly Sun_ (London).--He is one of the forces to
+          be counted with in contemporary literature. Great
+          qualities have gone to the making of his book, and
+          with these qualities Mr. Louis Zangwill is bound
+          to travel far.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+By "Z. Z."
+Author of A Drama in Dutch,
+The World and a Man, Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+D. Appleton and Company
+1897
+
+Copyright, 1897,
+D. Appleton and Company.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEAUTIFUL MISS BROOKE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+THE opening bars of a waltz sounded through the house above the
+irregular murmur of conversation, bearing their promise and summons
+along festal corridors and into garlanded nooks and alcoves. Paul
+Middleton drew a breath of relief as the girl to whom he had been
+talking was carried off to dance, for she had bored him intolerably. The
+refreshment room, crowded a moment ago, was thinning down, and, glad of
+the respite, he took another sandwich and slowly sipped the remainder of
+his coffee. His humour was of the worst. If his hostess had not been his
+mother's oldest friend, he would never have allowed himself to be
+persuaded to accept her invitation after he had once decided to decline
+it. Why had his mother so persisted, when she knew very well he was
+looking forward to playing in an important chess match? Certainly the
+evening so far had not compensated him for the pleasure he had thus
+missed.
+
+He had been chafing the whole time, and intermittently he had played
+with the idea of slipping out and taking a hansom down to the chess
+club. But he had ticked off five dances on Celia's programme--Celia was
+of course Celia--and he was to take her to supper. Moreover, on his
+arrival at the small-and-early, Mrs. Saxon had led him round--he feeling
+that his amiable expression made him a hypocrite--and, mechanically
+repeating his request for the pleasure of a dance, he had scrawled his
+name on several programmes with scarcely a glance at their owners. It
+was, however, more particularly his engagements with Celia, and one or
+two other girls he knew well, that had made him stay on. Once more he
+glanced at his watch. It was getting well on towards midnight now, and
+the issue of the chess match must already have been decided. After some
+speculation as to the winning side, he resigned himself to finishing the
+evening where he was.
+
+At the best of times Paul Middleton's interest in the ballroom was only
+lukewarm. He frankly professed not to care about it at all, and, though
+he was in the habit of dancing every dance, he looked upon himself more
+as a spectator than a participator on such rare occasions as he accepted
+cards for. He had no favourite partners. Into the inner and intimate
+life of that circle of light made for human pleasure he could never
+enter; he had always shrunk from exploring its labyrinth of flirtation,
+coquetry, and petty manoeuvring, the very thought of the intricacies
+of which affrighted his plain-sailing temperament. To him one girl in a
+ballroom was much the same as another--a green, white, or pink gown with
+sometimes an eye-glass attached. He knew very well, though--if only from
+his mother having instilled it into him--that no such indifference
+attached to him, a young man of twenty-three, who was absolute master of
+at least eleven thousand pounds a year, and not without claim to other
+merits.
+
+Becoming aware that the music was in full swing upstairs, he began to
+think it was high time to look for his partner. But the name "Brooke" on
+his programme, which he made out with some difficulty, called up no
+picture, no living personality. He could not even recollect the moment
+when he had written it, and it did not appear he had made any note to
+help him identify the girl. His last partner had had to be pointed out
+to him by Mrs. Saxon, and he did not care to trouble her again.
+"Besides," he reflected, "this Miss Brooke, whoever she is, will most
+likely be hidden away in some nook or other and will be only too glad
+not to be hunted up."
+
+He had almost made up his mind to skip the dance when there came into
+the room an old schoolfellow, more or less a friend of his. The two
+interchanged a word. Thorn, it appeared, wanted a whisky and soda before
+going home. He had to turn in early to be in good form for the morrow's
+cricket. It was the first match of the season, and he was anxious to do
+brilliantly. Paul took the opportunity of asking him if, by any chance,
+he knew or had danced with a Miss Brooke.
+
+"The beautiful Miss Brooke you mean, don't you?" asked Thorn.
+
+Paul explained he didn't know which Miss Brooke he meant, but that he
+ought to be dancing with _a_ Miss Brooke. Any girl who answered to that
+name would satisfy him.
+
+"Well, if the one you mean, or don't mean, is the one I mean, she's just
+outside the door talking to a big Yankee chap. I never heard of her
+before to-night, but she's a stunning girl. She's the daughter of some
+American millionaire, a railway king, or something of that sort--at
+least everybody says so. I tried to get a dance with her, but I wasn't
+in luck. I envy you. Good-night, old boy!"
+
+"I suppose, then, _I_ must consider myself in luck," thought Paul,
+staying yet a moment as he caught sight of his full reflection in a
+glass. It was a medium, slightly built figure that met his gaze, easy
+and graceful of carriage. The face was fair with a tiny light beard--the
+silken hair cut short, the features intelligent, the eyes grey, the
+teeth beautiful. A suspicion of a freckle here and there did not seem
+unsuited to the type of complexion. The survey seemed to please him, and
+he stepped forward with the intention of taking possession of "the
+beautiful Miss Brooke."
+
+Thorn's indication proved correct. To his surprise Miss Brooke seemed to
+recognise him as he approached, for she welcomed him with a smile, from
+which he deduced, moreover, that she must have been waiting for him. He
+had a general sense of enchantment and diaphanousness, of a delicate
+harmony of colour-tones; an impression as of an idealised figure that
+had stepped out of a decorative painting. He wondered how he had escaped
+the impression at the time of his introduction to her, and, despite her
+smile, he was chilled by a doubt that it might, after all, be some other
+Miss Brooke on whose programme he had written. Of the man she had been
+talking to he scarcely took any note at all, beyond verifying he was a
+"big Yankee." He took her up to the dancing-room, and they began
+waltzing. Paul considered himself a pretty good dancer, and there were
+even moments when he could conscientiously say he was enjoying himself.
+But somehow he found himself going badly with Miss Brooke. Things seemed
+to be wrong at the very start. There was an uncomfortable drag. Paul was
+compelled to take enormous steps to counteract it, and after a dozen
+turns both agreed to give it up.
+
+"You dance the English step, of course, Mr. Middleton," she observed as
+they sauntered round. Her American accent was of the slightest, and few
+as were the words she had so far spoken, they seemed to Paul subtly to
+vibrate with a pleasant friendliness. Her voice was sweet and clear,
+with an under-quality of softness and caress. The suggestion that there
+were waltz steps other than the one he was wont to dance was new to him.
+
+"I suppose mine is the English step," he replied, "though I never heard
+of any other. Is yours very different?"
+
+"Oh, yes. We Americans really waltz, whilst you English just go round
+and round and round, with your stiff legs for all the world like a pair
+of compasses."
+
+Paul could not agree with her, and patriotically proceeded to defend the
+English waltz, surprised to find himself expending oratory on so trivial
+a subject. He asserted it was not the mere monotonous turning to which
+Miss Brooke would reduce it, but that a spirit went with it; whereupon
+Miss Brooke shook her head, declaring she had shown the American step to
+a good many English people, and, no matter how sceptical before, they
+had vowed, one and all, never to dance the English step again.
+
+They had wandered away from the mass of rotating figures and taken
+possession of a couple of seats in a corner outside the dancing-room.
+Paul had now an opportunity of observing Miss Brooke more narrowly.
+Other partners he had already forgotten. He could hardly have identified
+them again. So far as he was concerned, they had got completely lost in
+the crowd from which they had temporarily emerged. But of Miss Brooke he
+felt sure a perfectly definite picture would remain in his mind. What
+struck him most at once was a certain spirit of frank good humour that
+seemed to exhale from her, that made him feel, even with her first few
+words, as if she were merely resuming an interrupted conversation with
+him. Her manner suggested the natural falling-into-step by the side of
+an established friend, overtaken _en route_, and it was hard for him to
+realise this was really their first talk together.
+
+Paul had never danced with an American girl before, else he would have
+been aware of the incompatibility of their steps. His notions of the
+American girl--or at least the American girl that comes to Europe--were
+of the vaguest. He had in the course of his existence met perhaps two or
+three of the class, but he had never really talked to them. He had heard
+the American girl spoken of--praised, damned, or tolerated; he had read
+about her push and businesslike qualities; and a short time since he had
+seen the type portrayed on the stage--a dashing, masterful creature, a
+piece of egotism incarnate, with a twang as pronounced as her
+self-assertiveness, a terrible determination, and an equally terrible
+assurance of carrying it through. But he had never thought about her
+coherently; never consciously crystallized these more or less
+contradictory notions of her that had come to him in so scattered and
+chaotic a fashion. It was quite certain, however, that Miss Brooke had
+nothing in common with the monstrosity that had given so much delight to
+that English audience, and raised in it a due consciousness of its own
+virtue of modest moderation. Nor could he associate her with the
+dreadfully improper and unabashable person he had heard more than one
+British matron declare the American girl to be.
+
+Miss Brooke did not address her words to the floor, but sitting with her
+chair at an angle to his, looking straight at him as she spoke. Paul
+found the ordeal a fascinating but sufficiently trying one. He had no
+chance against this wonderful girlish face, with its sparkling blue eyes
+and its subtle quality of sincerity and spirituality; tantalising by the
+charm of its smile, which suggested moments of wickedness and kissing,
+and provoking by its air of unawareness of its calm-destroying powers.
+He was conscious, too, of a long, white neck rising above a pair of
+well-knit shoulders, out of a mass of white fluffy trimmings, in which
+were set with careless art a few deep-red velvet flowers. On her
+forehead lay two roguish curls that moved freely, and each temple was
+covered by a bewitching lock, whose end curled inwards toward the ear.
+At the back her hair was drawn right up into curls, leaving the whole
+neck free, and showing the contour of the gracefully-poised head. Her
+white gown seemed woven of some fairy substance, embroidered with myriad
+gold spots, and encircled round the waist with three golden bands. The
+pink, round flesh of the upper arm showed firm and cool through the web
+of the sleeve that met the long white glove at the elbow. The bodice
+followed closely the modelling of the bust, and the skirt swept
+downwards, ending in a mass of foam-like fluff amid which nestled the
+tips of two neat shoes. Altogether a superb girl, dainty and supple,
+without any suggestion of fragility.
+
+The comparative merits of the English and American waltzes were still
+occupying their attention.
+
+"Now, tell me, Mr. Middleton," she asked, after enthusiastically
+descanting on the pleasure and grace of the "long glide," "haven't I
+really converted you?"
+
+"I want very much to be converted, but your waltz seems formidable. I am
+afraid of it."
+
+"I'm sure it would not take you long to learn. Cannot I really coax you
+into a promise to try it? I enjoy making converts--I have missionary
+tendencies in the blood."
+
+"That's interesting. Because there are tendencies in my blood, too.
+Anti-missionary ones, however. To be true to the family tradition, I'm
+not sure whether I ought not resist your coaxings."
+
+"Which I'm sure you're not going to do." Her face took on an expression
+of mock imploration. "But, tell me, how far back does your tradition
+go, and how did it arise?"
+
+"It began with my grandfather, whose pet idea was that the energy and
+money spent on missions should be employed at home for the raising of
+the lower classes. My father went a step further by deciding the
+particular form in which the lower classes should reap the benefit, and
+he died with the hope that the dream of two generations should be
+realised by me."
+
+"There is quite a touch of poetry in what you tell me," said Miss
+Brooke. "My family history is more prosaic, but it has a dash of
+adventure in it. The missionary hobby began with my great-grandfather,
+who was devoted, body and soul, to it--certainly body, for he was eaten
+by cannibals. Poor savages!"
+
+"Poor savages!" echoed Paul, for the moment supposing Miss Brooke meant
+to throw doubts on her ancestor's digestibility.
+
+"Yes, for grandfather went out to preach to them! A very mean revenge, I
+call that."
+
+"How do you reconcile that statement with your own missionary leanings?"
+asked Paul, thinking it strange a railway king should be the son of an
+earnest missionary, and vaguely speculating whether the millionaire was
+in the habit of giving large sums to "revenge" his grandfather.
+
+"Oh, as a woman I have the right to make contradictory statements. 'Tis
+a valuable right, and I find it very convenient not to yield it up,
+though I _did_ learn logic at college."
+
+"But surely it must be ever so much nicer to triumph by logic."
+
+"If one were only sure of triumphing! But I am really in no difficulty,
+so you will not get an exhibition of logic to-night. My missionary
+tendencies are purely a matter of instinct, my anti-missionary ones a
+matter of sentiment. Do not instinct and sentiment pull different ways
+in human beings? Confess, Mr. Middleton, don't you often _want_ to do
+things you _feel_ you ought not?"
+
+"More often I don't want to do things I feel I ought to."
+
+"That is a piece of new humour."
+
+"I meant the inversion seriously. But I'm glad to find that we are
+agreed at least in sentiment."
+
+"And I do try and turn the instinct into useful channels. Americans, you
+know, never let force run to waste. Now, you _will_ learn that waltz,
+won't you, Mr. Middleton? Promise me quickly, as some one is coming to
+take me to dance. There comes the top of his head."
+
+"Dear me, has the next dance come round already!" ejaculated Paul. "You
+may consider me a sincere convert," he added quickly, "if--if you will
+spare me another dance."
+
+"If you can find one," she replied; and, slipping her programme into his
+hand, she rose in response to the smile of the newcomer. To Paul's
+surprise, the man was the same from whom he had carried off Miss Brooke
+only a minute or two ago, as it appeared to him. Which fact caused him
+now to take keen notice of him. "The fellow" was quite six feet high,
+and of slim, supple build. His face was dark, and, to Paul,
+distinctively American. He wore a short pointed beard and a
+carefully-trimmed moustache. His black hair somewhat eccentrically hung
+down in lines cut to the same length. His eyes gleamed with an almost
+unnatural brightness, and his teeth showed themselves polished and
+white.
+
+"Write thick over somebody else's name." Paul was conscious of Miss
+Brooke speaking to him in almost a whisper; then in a moment she had
+bowed and moved off. He could not help feeling angry with the man for
+taking her away, and his displeasure showed itself in his face. There
+seemed, too, something proprietorial in the way "the confounded fellow"
+walked off with her, and a thousand foolish conjectures hustled in his
+brain. However, he remembered he had Miss Brooke's programme, which,
+together with her last injunction, formed a comforting assurance she
+had taken him into special favour. It had been decidedly nice to
+talk to this girl, who seemed just the sort of person--simple and
+straightforward despite her wonderful charm--he felt he could get on
+with, and it gave him pleasure to picture her again sitting by his side,
+fresh, cool, sweet, and surpassingly beautiful.
+
+After lingering a little he went into the ballroom again. Miss Brooke's
+figure alone drew his eye--the rest of the world was a mere dancing
+medley. She was obviously enjoying her dance, and Paul found himself
+envying her partner his easy mastery of the American waltz step. He
+could not help observing now what a superb note she struck in that
+crowd. He could see, too, she was being noticed, and divined talk about
+her by many moving lips.
+
+He found an opportunity of returning her programme, which she received
+with a marked look of surprise that changed into a smile of thanks. Paul
+was much puzzled. Her manner seemed to make it appear that she had
+dropped the programme and he had picked it up. He rather resented this,
+till it occurred to him she had slipped it into his hand so as not to be
+seen by her present cavalier, and probably she had played this little
+comedy because she did not want to rouse his suspicion. Paul's fears
+that the man might be something to her were reawakened, but they were
+palliated by a sense of triumph over him. Had not Miss Brooke played a
+part--for his sake?
+
+Mrs. Saxon passed near him and stopped to talk to him a moment. He made
+absent-minded replies--indeed, five minutes later he recalled that he
+had said something particularly foolish and hated himself. In this mood
+he sought cousin Celia and took her to supper. He examined her more
+critically now, finding her handsome, solid, and only passably
+interesting. He noted, too, that her manner lacked sprightliness and
+enthusiasm, and that the things she talked about didn't interest him in
+the least. He found himself apologising again and again for not having
+heard what she said. That was whenever there were questions for him to
+answer. He had, however, enough wit left to feel it was fortunate she
+did not ask questions more frequently. Meanwhile his eye wandered
+constantly towards a little table some distance off, which Miss Brooke
+and her American friend had all to themselves, the other two covers
+being as yet unappropriated. Once or twice he became aware that Celia's
+eye was following his. He saw a gleam of understanding flash across her
+face, followed by a flush whose meaning was obvious. But somehow he felt
+reckless.
+
+An hour later he was with Miss Brooke again. At her laughing suggestion
+they had found a hiding-place, more "towards the upper regions," in
+order to keep out of the way of the man whose name had been written
+over, and who, indeed, never appeared. Miss Brooke was admiring an
+exquisite little painting of a picturesque boy looking over a rude
+wooden bridge on to a small stream. The work, which hung just opposite
+them, bore a well-known French signature, and had attracted her
+attention at once. The enthusiasm with which she spoke of the artist
+led Paul to inquire if she herself painted.
+
+"I try to," she answered self-deprecatingly. "I am appallingly
+interested in my work. I always lose myself when talking about it."
+
+She was evidently serious, and Paul was glad to have struck such a mood,
+which promised possibilities of intimate conversation.
+
+"You have taken up art seriously?" he asked.
+
+"One must do something to fill one's life," she replied, with
+unmistakable earnestness; and set Paul musing about the inability of
+fortune to compensate for a want of purpose in life, as he had, indeed,
+felt long ago. That a woman, however, should give expression to the
+sentiment surprised him. Her next words astonished him still more.
+
+"I have always been ambitious, and I might have achieved something in
+art if I hadn't wasted so many years trying other things."
+
+"But, surely you must find the knowledge you have acquired worth
+having."
+
+"I would willingly exchange it all for two years' progress in my work.
+The mistakes began by poppa discovering I was a musical genius, and as I
+was just mad to do something big in the world, I believed him. The next
+discovery was mine--that I was a great writer, and when, two years after
+that, an artist friend declared some sketches of mine were full of
+inspiration, my enthusiasm for writing fizzed out immediately, and I
+rushed into painting, and over to Paris to study. Of course, I'm only in
+the student stage, but my professor has given me distinct encouragement.
+In my heart I really believe I should succeed if only----" She broke off
+with a curious laugh, but went on almost immediately: "If only I don't
+transfer my enthusiasm to sculpture before long. You see I know my
+little ways. Besides, the temptation to change is as strong as it
+possibly can be. It would be such a distinction to have completed the
+round of the arts."
+
+"Poetry would still be left untouched."
+
+"Oh, I've written poetry as well. That was part and parcel of my
+literary mania."
+
+"And naturally expired with it."
+
+"No. Let me confess. Poetry is the one thing I keep up in order to be
+able to feel I am made of fine stuff. It's the one unsaleable thing I
+devote my time to, and without it I should feel utterly ignoble. With
+all my ambition to achieve greatness, I am quite unable to say how much
+of my enthusiasm is due to the hope of accompanying dollars."
+
+Paul was startled for a moment, then laughed in high amusement at the
+idea of a railway king's daughter eking out her income by Art.
+
+"I mean it. I'm not as noble as I look, but thank you for the compliment
+all the same. If I have allowed myself any illusions on the point, they
+were all dissipated when I heard of the price a Salon picture sold for
+last year. My feeling of envy was too naked to be mistaken--naked and
+unashamed. I don't know if you've ever experienced the sort of
+thing--whether you've ever written poetry to keep your self-respect."
+
+"I fear writing poetry would be no test for me. I don't mean to imply
+that the result would _not_ be unsaleable," he added, smiling, "but that
+I am not so avaricious as you profess to be. I am quite satisfied that
+my work in life shall bring me no return."
+
+"I wish I were as fine as that," said Miss Brooke.
+
+"I am afraid I am far from being fine," said Paul, modestly. "I am
+simply content with my fortune. As you said before, one must do
+something to fill one's life. I am only too grateful for the prospect of
+being able to employ my energies. So you see I am really selfish at
+bottom."
+
+"We each appear to have a due sense of the clay in us, so let us agree
+we are neither of us precisely the saints we appear. But you've not yet
+told me in what particular way you purpose satisfying that selfishness
+of yours."
+
+"Thereby hangs a long tale," said Paul, laughing again. "It is connected
+with the family tradition I mentioned to you before."
+
+"I remember. Your father laid some injunction on you about converting
+missionary energies and subscriptions for home use."
+
+"That is a quaint way of putting it. It is true his injunction first set
+me thinking, and it led to my developing certain Utopian ideas of my
+own. As the result, I am now studying architecture. No doubt you will
+think it a strange choice. There begins another dance, and we've both
+partners."
+
+"How vexatious!" said Miss Brooke. "Just when I am so interested. I am
+really longing to hear all about your Utopia."
+
+"I should so much have liked to tell you," murmured Paul, thinking he
+might even have sat out another dance if it were not for his foolish
+exclamation.
+
+"Oh, but you're going to call, Mr. Middleton."
+
+"I shall be very happy," said Paul, repressing a start.
+
+She wrote her address for him on the back of his programme, adding, "I
+shall be in on Wednesday afternoon."
+
+He thanked her and took her down to the dancing-room where she was
+pounced upon immediately, and he then discovered, to his surprise, that
+he and Miss Brooke _had_ sat out two dances! Moreover, the frown which
+Celia gave him over her partner's shoulder as she waltzed by made him
+refer to his programme, when he found he had overlooked the little tick
+at the side of dance number fourteen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"A DAY and a half to wait before seeing Miss Brooke again," was Paul's
+first reflection the next morning. "All I should have laughed at as
+absurd a month ago, proves to be true. I am fast in the toils." And all
+through the day Miss Brooke filled his thoughts. He was, somehow, a
+different person from before, as if he had awakened from some sluggish
+torpor.
+
+All his life Paul had suffered from an excess of parental love, which
+had considerably curtailed his freedom; and even when the death of his
+father a year before had left him his own master, he had no thought of
+living away from his mother, much to her secret gratification. Her
+fondness for him had been such that she had had him educated at home for
+several years, and was only persuaded to let him go to school under
+great pressure from her husband. She had established her influence over
+her boy from the beginning, and his pliable and obedient disposition had
+enabled her to maintain it now that he was grown up. His father, who had
+divided his time between collecting beautiful beetles, representing a
+rural constituency, enacting the good Samaritan, and, as Paul had told
+Miss Brooke, thundering and writing letters to the press against foreign
+missions, had cherished an ambitious career for his son. He himself, he
+felt, was a mere pawn on the parliamentary chessboard, and he dreamt of
+a really great political future for Paul, who, moreover, he hoped, would
+leave his mark on the social life of the generation by promoting the
+increase of public fine-art collections. Beautiful centres of
+art--beautiful buildings with beautiful contents--could be established,
+he argued, if the money subscribed for foreign missions could be used
+for the purpose; and he had the necessary statistics ready to hurl at
+the head of the sceptic.
+
+Acting on the advice of a friend who considered the Bar afforded the
+best training in oratory, he began by placing the boy in a solicitor's
+office immediately after he had left college. Some eighteen months later
+the father was carried off in an epidemic of influenza. Paul, who had
+long since discovered that oratory _via_ the law was not adapted to one
+of his temperament, had decision enough to desist from it. His attitude
+towards his sire's dream had never been a very reverent one, for he knew
+well he was not of the stuff of which Parliamentary leaders are made.
+But, as the affection between the two had been really strong, the son
+wished to respect the father's ideas so far as possible, if only for
+sentimental reasons; and, finding in himself a natural taste for making
+beautiful designs as well as an innocent love for illuminated books, old
+carvings and mouldings, and such curious antiques as had a real art
+value, it occurred to him he might make a thorough study of architecture
+from the art as well as the practical side. Later on he would design art
+galleries for the people, and set a movement on foot to promote their
+construction. Without taking himself too solemnly, he liked to think
+that what he purposed would have given his father pleasure; and he was
+always able to take good-humouredly such jesting remarks as had
+reference to his schemes.
+
+Meanwhile mother and son had settled down in a small house in Elm Park
+Road. The country house was let on a long lease, as Mrs. Middleton did
+not wish to have the trouble of keeping it up, preferring to travel for
+three months in the year. The household consumed but a small part of
+their revenues, and consequently the amount of money in the family
+threatened to increase from year to year, despite that Mr. Middleton's
+good works were continued, and that Paul, going a-slumming, started
+additional good works on his own account.
+
+Mrs. Middleton was only too pleased at Paul's leaving "that nasty dark,
+close office," asserting it must have injured his health. Besides, her
+faith in his talents was so absolute that she was certain he would one
+day be a very great man indeed, whatever the profession he espoused. So
+she ceded to him for his study perhaps the pleasantest room in the
+house. It was at the back and opened on to a narrow garden, so that he
+could saunter out occasionally and pace up and down. As he was here
+quite isolated, he never felt the need of having rooms elsewhere.
+
+Despite the vigilance under which Paul had grown up, he had yet managed
+to have one or two boyish love-affairs without his parents suspecting
+anything; and he had at times dreamt of an ideal love and an ideal
+happiness. But of late he had developed different notions, and had come
+to pride himself on his freedom from all mawkish sentiment.
+Notwithstanding this, he was chivalrous enough to believe that women
+were angels; which belief, curiously enough, was unimpaired by the fact
+that, in practice, he was a little bit afraid and suspicious of them.
+Nor did he always find them interesting; he would sooner play a game of
+chess any day than talk to one of them.
+
+Cousin Celia was often at the house to join him and his mother at their
+quiet tea, and one day the idea entered his head that Mrs. Middleton had
+a certain pet scheme. But modesty prevented it from taking root in him,
+and he preferred to believe that the notion of a marriage between him
+and Celia had occurred only to himself, and would greatly surprise
+everybody else if he broached it. Celia was an orphan, and he had heard
+her pitied all his life. She was considered to possess an extraordinary
+share of good looks and an uncommon degree of affability. Good judges
+assured one another she would make an excellent wife, and Mrs. Middleton
+had taken good care that the said judges should discuss the girl in the
+presence of her boy, who could scarcely contend against so subtle an
+undermining. Despite his vague knowledge of the wiles of match-making,
+he began to persuade himself that he really liked Celia, and he played
+more and more with the idea of marrying her. The leading-strings were
+handled so lightly and skilfully, he would have been much astonished to
+hear that his inclinations were not absolutely uninfluenced. In Celia
+was all that straightforwardness by which he set such store; from her
+was absent all that caprice and flirtatiousness he was so afraid of. It
+was easy to know her wishes, easy to please her; and she had never made
+him the victim of moods.
+
+And the more he thought of marrying her, the more he began to decry
+romantic love to himself. Whether it really existed or not he would not
+pretend to say, though, in the light of his own experience, he could
+just imagine its existence. Those old boyish ideas of his were all a
+mistake. And thereupon he fell back eagerly on the theory of sensible
+companionship as the only sound basis for marriage--which theory had now
+abruptly to be rejected.
+
+Already Paul, promenading his garden whilst beautiful coloured plates of
+Egyptian decoration lay neglected on his table, was bothering himself as
+to whether he could leave Celia out of the account with a clear
+conscience. The question he kept asking himself was whether such
+attention as he had paid her could reasonably be interpreted as bearing
+any real significance. He was certain he had never actively made love to
+her, as he had always hesitated to begin, but he had seen a great deal
+of her of late and their intimacy had made great strides. Moreover, she
+had allowed him his five dances the evening before without a word of
+demur. He knew, too, he had often felt himself flushing on hearing her
+praised, feeling a sort of proprietary pride in the subject of
+discussion; and he wondered now if his demeanour on such occasions had
+been observed.
+
+All these considerations caused him considerable uneasiness in view of
+the fact that he was perfectly sure now he did not want to marry her.
+Miss Brooke had come into his horizon, and lo! the whole world was
+changed. Oh, to be free to woo and win such a girl!
+
+Suddenly he had a flash of shrewder insight, and he was able to find
+comfort in that first suspicion, which now returned to him, that his
+mother was really responsible for this Celia affair. Why--and his
+awakened mind now ran over a score of memories--he had scarcely ever met
+Celia out without his mother having supplied the impulse for his going
+to the particular place! He had been a fool not to see how she had
+worked matters from the beginning. And now there arose in him a shade of
+resentment against her, and his man's independence revolted for the
+first time against this subtle subordination of his will to hers. He had
+a definite perception--attended with a distinct sense of shame--of the
+fact that he had never really ceased to be, so far as she was
+concerned, the good little boy who had learnt his letters at her knee.
+He had an individuality of his own, he told himself, and it behoved him
+to play the part of a man. He should begin his emancipation at once by
+putting a prompt stop to "this Celia business."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+AS Paul rang at the address Miss Brooke had scribbled down on his
+programme, his dominating thought was that American millionaire's
+daughters chose rather shabby houses to stay in. Though the name of the
+street had surprised him when he had first read it, he had yet conceived
+it possible she might be staying at some kind of private hotel; but he
+had not anticipated a dusty card with the word "apartments." He took it
+for granted her mother was with her, and, though he had not formed any
+clear conception of Mrs. Brooke, she looming mistily in his mind as a
+handsome, stately personage that had decidedly to be taken into the
+reckoning, he had wondered how she would receive him.
+
+A maid-servant ushered him up two flights of stairs into a front room
+and announced his name. As he entered he was conscious of three persons
+sitting at the far end where a bright fire burned, and was somewhat
+startled to recognise the long lithe figure, the dark face and hair, and
+the piercing black eyes of the American Miss Brooke had danced with. A
+peculiar shade of expression flitted across the man's face, telling Paul
+the recognition was mutual. At the same time Paul was assuming that the
+bonneted and cloaked mature-looking lady was no other than Mrs. Brooke
+herself, and he wondered why she should receive callers when so
+obviously dressed for going out. Miss Brooke rose to greet him with a
+pleasant smile of welcome. In a simple dress with wide sleeves that
+fitted tight round the wrists, her short front hair, evenly divided,
+falling over her temples in rippling masses, she seemed less phantasmal
+and fairylike, less remote from this world--a being more humanly sweet
+and that one might dare to woo.
+
+But unfortunately in that moment he became aware of the huge bulk of a
+high bed against the wall on his right, and a tall screen that cut off a
+corner of the room struck him as having the air of concealing something.
+Though he kept control over himself physically, his mind grew perfectly
+vacant. He did not dare to think--it seemed vain to make any
+surmise--but bowed to the bonneted lady as he heard Miss Brooke say:
+"Katharine, let me introduce my friend, Mr. Middleton--Mrs. Potter."
+
+Paul had seldom felt so many emotions at one time. Added to his surprise
+at the expected Mrs. Brooke changing at the last moment into a Mrs.
+Potter, and to his bewilderment at being received in a bedroom, was a
+thrill of pleasure at Miss Brooke's reference to him as "my friend." He
+had, too, a sense of gratified curiosity at learning the next moment
+that the man's name was Pemberton; it was convenient, moreover, to have
+a definite symbol by which to refer to him in thought.
+
+"I think the water's boiling, dear," said Mrs. Potter. "Doesn't it mean
+'boiling' when steam comes out of the spout like that?"
+
+"Not yet, Katharine. Half a minute more. You are just in nice time, Mr.
+Middleton, to get your cup of tea at its best." And Miss Brooke busied
+herself cutting up a big lemon into thin slices at a little table that
+was laid with a pretty Japanese tea-set.
+
+"Lisa's tea is quite wonderful," chimed in Mrs. Potter. "I always spoil
+mine--I can never quite tell when the water boils. That's my pet
+stupidity."
+
+For a moment Paul watched the artistic copper kettle as it sang its
+pleasant song. Mrs. Potter already struck him as an obviously cheerful
+personality, and he felt absurdly grateful to her for mentioning Miss
+Brooke's first name. He had not yet given up Mrs. Brooke, expecting her
+to enter the room very soon now; and he found it hard not to fix his
+gaze noticeably on the bed, half-surprised that everybody else ignored
+it, seeming totally unconscious that any such piece of furniture was
+there at all.
+
+Mr. Pemberton took little part in the somewhat banal but good-humoured
+conversation that now sprang up, but drummed idly with his fingers on
+the settee on which he was lounging. Now and again a monosyllabic drawl
+fell languidly from him, and Paul read into this demeanour annoyance at
+his presence.
+
+Mrs. Potter, he soon learnt--for the lady was loquacious--was a widow
+and a journalist on a three months' stay in Europe, of which she was
+passing a month in London, endeavouring to make as much copy out of it
+as possible. She related with glee, and without any apparent qualms of
+conscience, how she had "fixed up" accounts of various great society
+functions, writing her copy in the first person.
+
+"Lisa is so good and helpful to me. I impose on her dreadfully. I should
+never have been able to get them fixed up without her. And then her
+spelling is so perfect--she runs over my copy and puts it right in a
+jiffy."
+
+"Lemon or cream, Mr. Middleton, please?" asked Miss Brooke. "Two lumps
+of sugar or one? What, none at all! Oh, yes, everybody thinks these cups
+sweetly pretty. I'm taking them home with me as a souvenir."
+
+"What shall I do without you in Paris?" broke in Mrs. Potter again. "I
+shall be lost there. Can't I coax you to come back with me, Lisa dear?"
+
+"Can't disappoint poppa," said Miss Brooke laconically.
+
+"You'll have me to come to," drawled Mr. Pemberton.
+
+"You'll be handy for some things, but your spelling's worse than mine,"
+said Mrs. Potter; and somewhat irrelevantly went on to suppose that Paul
+must know Paris well.
+
+Paul, alas! had only two visits to boast of, one of a week's, the other
+of two weeks' duration, both in the company of his mother. Whereupon a
+sound, as of a suppressed snigger, came from the direction of Pemberton.
+
+Something like the truth had begun to dawn on Paul's mind, and he knew
+better now than to continue to expect Mrs. Brooke to appear. He had
+sufficiently gathered from the conversation that Miss Brooke was on her
+way home from Paris to America, and that she was going to travel alone,
+and had taken London _en route_, probably armed with letters of
+introduction. Most likely, he argued, she must have considered the one
+room sufficient for her needs, and had not anticipated callers. Or
+perhaps Americans, for all he knew, did not mind receiving callers in a
+bedroom. This, he concluded, was probably the case, as no one seemed in
+the least _gene_, despite that the bed was such a palpable fact, and
+stood there in massive unblushingness. Otherwise an atmosphere of
+feminine daintiness seemed to surround Miss Brooke, transforming even
+this lodging-house bedroom.
+
+However, he did not grasp the facts without an almost overwhelming sense
+of pain.
+
+His romance had been rudely shattered at one blast, and he felt his
+breath draw heavily when he first comprehended Miss Brooke was on the
+point of leaving London. A sense of helplessness came upon him as he
+realised he could do nothing but just get through with his call. There
+seemed not the slightest chance now of his telling her about the career
+he purposed for himself. He had dreamed, too, of her showing him her
+verses, perhaps some of her sketches. But the presence of the others
+stood in the way. He would have liked to hate them both, but being
+forced to like Mrs. Potter, he had to bestow a double amount of dislike
+on Mr. Pemberton, which he was very glad to do. And then he wanted to
+know the exact relation between Mr. Pemberton and Miss Brooke. From a
+hint the "fellow" had dropped, it was clear he lived in Paris--where
+Miss Brooke had been living. Was he a relative? Who was he? Why was he
+in London? How came he to be at Mrs. Saxon's dance? For a moment Paul
+thought of asking Mrs. Saxon about him, and also about Miss Brooke, but
+he put the idea from him as underhand and unworthy.
+
+Meanwhile the conversation went on, pleasant and banal. Mrs. Potter
+deluged Paul with questions about the London season and English painters
+and the Academy. She narrated the comicalities of her shopping
+expeditions, various little misadventures that had arisen from the
+different usage of everyday words by the two nations. By imperceptible
+stages along a tortuous and varied route they drifted on to the subject
+of love, and Mrs. Potter, still keeping the talk almost all to herself,
+related several touching romances of her friends' lives. Once or twice
+Paul's gloom was lightened by the smile of Miss Brooke that met his look
+each time he turned his face towards her. A lien, invisible to the
+others, seemed to be established between them.
+
+At length Mrs. Potter, drawing Mr. Pemberton's attention to the hour,
+rose to go, and the two left together. Despite some mad idea of
+declaring himself to Miss Brooke there and then, which had occurred to
+him, Paul had also risen, but to his astonishment Miss Brooke drew her
+chair closer to the fire, and motioned him to take a seat in the
+opposite chimney corner. He obeyed as if hypnotised. "What would my
+mother think of this?" he asked himself, and awaited developments. As
+for Miss Brooke, at no moment did she seem aware of the slightest
+unconventionality in the situation.
+
+"Katharine is so sweet," she began thoughtfully. "You can't imagine how
+pleased I was when she wrote she was coming. Charlie is piloting her
+about a little. He is so good-natured."
+
+"Charlie is, I presume, Mr. Pemberton."
+
+"Why, of course. And he'll be of so much use to her in Paris. He has a
+studio there. But I hope she won't fall in love with him," she added
+laughingly. "Katharine is so romantic; she is always in love with some
+man or other."
+
+Though he knew as a general biological fact that women fall in love with
+men, Paul, despite all the love-stories he had read, had never yet been
+able to grasp it and admit it to himself as a fact of actual life.
+Somehow, he had always felt that the onus of falling in love and of
+courtship rested on men, and that it was very good and condescending of
+women to allow themselves to be loved at all. But Miss Brooke's way of
+talking seemed to take it for granted that it was a perfectly natural
+and proper thing for a woman to be in love, that romance was a thing a
+woman might own to without any shame; making him realise more distinctly
+than ever before that women were not so entirely passive and
+passionless. But all this he rather felt than thought, and it did not
+interfere with the sentence that was on the tip of his tongue; the
+outcome of his sense of disappointment and desolation at her threatened
+departure out of his life, which was only mitigated by the reflection
+that Pemberton was being left behind.
+
+"And now you are going home!"
+
+The words were obviously equivalent to a sigh of regret.
+
+"But not for good, I hope," said Miss Brooke; and Paul's universe
+changed at once into a wonderful enchanted garden. "Of course, it will
+be very nice to be at home with poppa and mamma again, but I should not
+be leaving Paris from choice. I was making such progress at school that
+my professor was quite angry I couldn't stay. But perhaps I shall be
+back in a year's time. I certainly shall if everything goes well."
+
+"I do hope it's nothing serious that calls you away, and that keeps you
+from your studies so long a time," exclaimed Paul fervently.
+
+"From my point of view it's certainly serious," smiled Miss Brooke,
+good-humouredly. "As I've already tried to make you believe, I am a very
+greedy person, with a fondness for dollars, and the whole trouble is
+that they keep out of reach. Poor hardworked poppa can't send me any
+more money just now, but he'll be getting a bigger salary next year, and
+I shall be able to go back and paint a masterpiece for the Salon. In the
+meanwhile I shall have to amuse myself as best I can sketching about the
+place, and watching poppa getting through big batches of couples. He's a
+minister--you know the cloth's hereditary in our family--and marries off
+people wholesale."
+
+Till that moment Miss Brooke had been the railway king's daughter. For
+Paul to find now that she was a comparatively poor girl, whose anxiety
+to earn money by making her mark in art was no mere jesting pretence,
+involved a complete readjustment of his mental focus. But its
+instantaneity made the operation a violent one, especially as he strove
+hard not to exhibit any external signs of discomposure. At the same time
+a good deal that had bewildered him was explained, though there were
+points yet on which he needed enlightenment. And with all his
+astonishment went an unbounded admiration for the cheerful way in which
+she accepted her position, the lover's keen lookout for every scrap of
+virtue in the beloved seizing on this greedily for commendation. What a
+splendid, plucky girl she was! The glamour of his romance was
+heightened. Mere millionaires and all that appertained to them seemed
+suddenly prosaic.
+
+Into what a bizarre misconception had he fallen! She herself was not to
+blame. If his mind had not been clogged up by what Thorn had told him
+beforehand he would not so persistently have misunderstood her
+references to money; but how should he have thought of challenging what
+he knew only now to have been a mere speculative rumour? There had been
+nothing in her appearance and personality to belie that rumour, and, as
+obviously she was not called upon to contradict statements about herself
+she had never heard, such manifestations of the truth as had since
+become visible to him had only served to mystify him.
+
+The way, too, she had taken certain things for granted as perfectly
+natural and proper, somewhat astonished him, to wit, her inviting him to
+call here, her reception of him in a bedroom, and his presence alone
+with her now. These facts contravened the ideas in which he had been
+brought up, and he could only suppose that American ideas probably
+differed from English. This surmise seemed, on the whole, corroborated
+by the glimpse he had had that day into the spirit of the American
+independent woman--a type entirely new to him--as exemplified both by
+Mrs. Potter and Miss Brooke.
+
+He asked how soon she was leaving, and learnt she was sailing on the
+Saturday, so that barely two days of London remained to her. He did not
+like the idea at all, as he had formed the hope he might somehow see her
+again before her departure.
+
+"My berth is taken," explained Miss Brooke, perhaps amused by his
+evident discontent. "Some boxes have gone on. Besides, I could not stay
+here any longer. Dollars are getting scarce. I'm going to have some more
+tea--won't you join me?"
+
+"Willingly." He wanted to stay longer, and tea, by filling the time
+plausibly, would help to lessen his constraint at the original position
+in which he found himself.
+
+"I am so pleased you were able to call!" went on Miss Brooke, as she
+poured out the beverage. "You haven't forgotten your promise to tell me
+all about your work--and your Utopia as well," she added, smiling, and
+handing him his cup.
+
+Her sweetness as she spoke enchanted him. When he himself had been
+hesitating on the brink of the chasm, with what ease had she taken him
+across it at one leap! Soon he found himself telling her how he had come
+to abandon his father's ideas and plan out his life his own way, with as
+much emotion as if he were relating his inmost secrets to an affianced
+wife. And certainly no affianced wife could have listened with a graver
+attention, or more sympathetic demeanour.
+
+"Has it ever occurred to you to study architecture at Paris?" she asked.
+"The Beaux Art School is, I think, one of the finest in the world, and
+you could scarcely get a more artistic atmosphere."
+
+The effect of her remark was as that of an electric spark that fuses
+many elements into one new whole. He was conscious of a struggling
+chaotic mass of thought, followed by a clear perception of the
+conditions of his existence in all its bearings. And in a flash he had
+made up his mind to plunge into the delicious indefiniteness of what
+offered itself. A soft purple haze floated before him as in a dream, and
+an odour of incense and a harmony of sweet sounds seemed to steal upon
+him. And the haze, parting a moment, allowed him a glimpse of a magic
+city in its depths. And in that city, he knew, were "Lisa" and himself.
+
+That was to be the future! The awakening of the man in him was complete.
+By an abrupt mastercoup he would wrench himself away from the
+influences that had well-nigh reduced him to a puppet. His reply to Miss
+Brooke now would be the beginning of the necessary forward impulse.
+
+"The idea has not come to me, though, of course, I should have had to
+consider the question of a formal course before very long. But I like
+the suggestion very much."
+
+"Lots of the boys take the course there," added Miss Brooke. "There are,
+of course, many more American than English boys, but you'll find them
+all a sociable set."
+
+He asked for details about the student life, and Miss Brooke tried to
+give him some notion of it. In this way quite half an hour slipped by,
+during which Paul became worked up to a high pitch of enthusiasm and
+took care to leave no doubt in Miss Brooke's mind that his decision was
+finally taken.
+
+"Charlie, too, might be useful to you," said Miss Brooke, as Paul rose
+to take his leave. "I'm sure he'd be delighted to be of service to you.
+And how nice, too, if we were to meet there again! Perhaps we shall."
+
+Her face gleamed as with the pleasure of anticipation.
+
+"I shall always bear the hope with me," said Paul gravely; and, wishing
+her a pleasant crossing, he bade her "good-bye."
+
+"Let us say '_Au revoir_' rather," and once again she pressed his hand,
+which was more than he had dared hope for.
+
+But what had "Charlie" to do with Miss Brooke? he asked himself a
+thousand times that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+A MONTH later--about the beginning of June--Paul had entered the Ecole
+des Beaux Arts as a student of architecture. Not to have succeeded in
+tearing himself away would have been to lose all self-respect. He had
+determined to justify himself to himself, to prove he had a will he need
+not be ashamed of. Thus it was that his astonished mother and a
+favourite uncle--Celia's guardian--who both had a good deal to say about
+Paris and its temptations, expended their speech to no purpose.
+
+Paul entered into his student life with zest, working hard and
+conscientiously in a very methodical fashion. He allowed himself,
+however, plenty of time for enjoying the city; going to the theatres,
+and peeping into all the show places, and hunting up curios at old
+shops, and lounging and playing billiards at the cafes, and drinking
+beer _al fresco_ on the boulevards. Occasionally he rode in the Bois, or
+made excursions up and down the Seine, and into the neighbouring
+country--mostly, of course, in company, for he soon struck acquaintance
+with some of the men, many of whom he found had to manage on very little
+money. So he said nothing about his own easy circumstances, rather
+enjoying the two-franc seat at the theatre and the fifteen-centime ride
+on the tops of tramcars. When he wanted expensive amusement he went
+alone.
+
+No one he knew had so far mentioned Miss Brooke's name, and though he
+was often on the point of asking one or other of his new friends about
+her, some instinct invariably restrained him. He had nurtured his love
+for her, all his solitary thought turning to her, and it seemed a sort
+of sacrilege to make even the most innocent inquiry about her in her
+absence. This waiting for her in silence was part of the romance.
+
+He understood the American girl a little better now, fellow-students
+having introduced him to girl friends--that is to say, he was better
+acquainted with her and her ways. And he was satisfied that whatever
+appeared right to Miss Brooke, no matter how much it violated his own
+notions, must be right absolutely. With her the fact of riches or
+poverty was reduced to a mere indifferent background, against which her
+personality stood out in all its charm and dignity. A girl like her
+could make her home in one room, and yet make you welcome in it with as
+much ease and grace as any lady in a fine drawing-room.
+
+Time passed, and still nobody, by any chance, referred to Miss Brooke.
+This was not surprising, for Paris was large, and American girl students
+were plentiful and scattered all over it. Moreover, a girl who had gone
+home months before was likely to be soon forgotten. Pemberton he had
+never met, but he had seen him just once from the top of a tramcar. The
+hot weather came on and Paul passed a delicious month at Montmorency in
+company with one of the men. After his return he settled to work again,
+and the months went by almost without his keeping count of them--for,
+Miss Brooke having mentioned a year as the time she was likely to remain
+in America, he would not look for her till the spring came on again. In
+the meanwhile he inflicted much misery on himself by speculating as to
+whether home and home ties might not have absorbed for good so ideal and
+affectionate a girl as he conceived her to be, especially after so long
+a residence abroad. But deep down was implanted in him an unswerving
+faith in her coming, and, though the manner of their meeting had been
+left so undefined, he was certain there would be no difficulty when the
+time came, and that his life after that would be one long fairy tale.
+
+The spring came at last, and with it _vernissage_ at the Salon. Paul
+knew one or two men who were exhibiting, so he decided to pass his
+afternoon at the Palais de l'Industrie. The tens of thousands that
+thronged the galleries made picture-inspection difficult and tedious;
+but the crowd itself presented many compensating features of interest.
+Paul was hoping, too, he might see Miss Brooke there, as it was not
+impossible she might by now be back in Paris. Occasionally he fancied a
+girl resembled Miss Brooke, but when, after infinite striving, he had
+got close to his quarry, he found the points of likeness were but few.
+Once or twice the fair one eluded his pursuit, and got irretrievably
+swallowed up.
+
+On his going to _dejeuner_ the next day, at a little restaurant close by
+the school, where he was in the habit of dropping in at mid-day--he
+dined in the evening in state at a more pretentious establishment--there
+sat Miss Brooke herself at a table at the end of the room, her face
+towards the door. None of the usual clients had yet arrived, as it was a
+trifle early, and _mademoiselle_ was distributing the newly-written
+menus among the various tables. In any case he must have caught sight of
+her at once, as the cluster of sharp red and black wings that shot up
+from one side of the little toque, which just seemed to rest on her
+hair, drew the eye at once. Her face showed glowing and bright, set
+above the dark mass of her stuff dress. As the door swung to she looked
+up from the menu she had been studying.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Middleton? You seem real scared to see me."
+
+Her greeting seemed as calm and laughing as if they had but parted the
+day before, and Paul felt some vague dissatisfaction with it--he did not
+quite know why. It seemed, somehow, as if there were no romance between
+them at all, as if they were the merest acquaintances. Perhaps it was
+that the pent-up emotion of months of waiting needed more dramatic
+expression than this commonplace situation afforded.
+
+He asked permission, and sat down opposite her, scarcely knowing what
+to say to her first.
+
+"Can you tell me whether _cervelle de veau_ is anything good to eat?
+It's the only unfamiliar thing on the menu, and my only hope."
+
+He took the sheet of paper as she held it to him, but found the dish was
+equally unknown to him. They appealed to _mademoiselle_, who informed
+them, "_C'est dans la tete._"
+
+"I wonder if she means 'brains.' I was hoping not to have to translate
+_cervelle_ literally."
+
+"I am not afraid of experimenting," suggested Paul.
+
+"For my benefit. That is real kind of you. Whenever I've been curious
+about things with strange names, I've always had to order them, which is
+rather an expensive way of increasing one's French vocabulary."
+
+When the dish came, neither Paul nor Miss Brooke liked the curly look of
+it, so they fell back on _bifteck_, salad, cheese, and fruit.
+
+"And so you are here after all," said Miss Brooke, musingly.
+
+"Why? Did you think I was not serious about coming?"
+
+"I didn't mean that. My expression was a sort of acknowledgment to
+myself that I had found you--or rather, to be proper, that you had found
+me."
+
+His heart fairly leaped with pleasure. She had certainly then thought of
+him during the past months!
+
+"I must thank the happy chance that led you in here," he murmured,
+feeling his emotion at length control him.
+
+"Happy chance!" She charmed his ear with a ripple of laughter. "Why,
+I've exhausted almost every restaurant near the Beaux Arts, that being
+the most feminine way of pursuing you. The mathematical theory of
+probability--college learning _does_ prove useful at times--told me the
+happening of the event, that is, of the event I wanted to happen, was a
+certainty. For some particular restaurant or other is a habit which
+everybody contracts; it is, indeed, the first vice one picks up in
+Paris. And it's a habit that can't be broken. Day after day you
+revolt--if you're a man, you swear--against the _cuisine_. Things are
+becoming intolerable. Time was when everything was perfect, when the
+menu was varied, and always included your favourite dishes; when one
+could eat the salad without too close an inspection of the under-side of
+the leaves, and when the wine at eighty centimes a litre didn't turn
+blue or taste like ink. To-day is, most certainly, the last time you
+will ever set foot in the place. But the morrow comes, and at _dejeuner_
+time your feet bear you there again, and you are so meek about it that
+you scarcely protest."
+
+"That is just my experience," he confessed.
+
+"I was sure it would be. That is what enabled me to calculate so
+infallibly. You see I speak my thoughts quite unashamed. Paris makes one
+so frightfully immodest."
+
+"I'm glad, then, I didn't take it into my head to apply the same method
+in my search for you. Not only would it have upset your mathematics,
+but, having no particular landmark, I might have wandered on forever.
+All the same, I have kept my eyes open. In fact, I was hoping to see you
+yesterday at _vernissage_."
+
+"Were you there?" she exclaimed. "What a silly question!" she added
+immediately, laughing. "What I meant to say was _I_ was there. But, of
+course, it was quite impossible to find any one in such a crowd." Paul
+noticed with pleasure that the conversation on both sides assumed the
+fact of a positive rendezvous between them. Miss Brooke went on to
+chatter about the _vernissage_.
+
+"I see this morning's _Herald_ puts us down as a low lot. Its reporter
+must be very _exigeant_. In spite of our presence he insists the models
+gave the _ton_ to the assembly."
+
+"Were there many models present?" asked Paul. "I don't remember seeing
+any."
+
+"There were quite enough of them to be noticeable. Perhaps you thought
+they were all countesses."
+
+"I did have some such idea," he admitted. "I didn't know models dressed
+like countesses."
+
+"They do when their artists take them to _vernissage_. Which affords
+food for reflection."
+
+Paul felt slightly embarrassed and did not answer.
+
+"And now," resumed Miss Brooke, contemplating her _coeur a la creme_,
+"if I may venture to intrude on your reflections, will you please pass
+me the sugar?"
+
+"Is it long since you returned?" he inquired soon. "I was going to ask
+you before, only the _cervelle_ puzzle arose and somehow I forgot."
+
+"Just three weeks," she replied. "Poppa had his bigger salary, and as it
+was getting tedious seeing couples married I made haste to come over
+again. You can't imagine how impatient I was to get back in time for
+_vernissage_. It gives such a fillip to your ambitions to see crowds
+round your friends' pictures, and to read about them in the papers; it
+makes you realise your own powers, and sets you wondering why _you_
+hadn't dared to send something in. When you are tired of lamenting your
+folly you begin to admire your modesty, and of course you remember that
+modesty is the mark of true genius."
+
+"And you had all those thoughts?"
+
+"Oh, no! They are the thoughts I should have had if I hadn't been busy
+admiring the dresses. The pictures must wait--I shall be going again to
+see those, perhaps two or three times. Most students do. One is supposed
+to learn from them, but in practice one only criticises. The boys say
+everything is rotten. We girls pretend to agree with them, only, of
+course, it wouldn't be proper to express our opinion as violently as
+that. Do you dine here as well?"
+
+"I dine as the whim takes me. You see I haven't yet acquired a habit for
+evening wear. Not every Bohemian can make that boast."
+
+Miss Brooke laughed. "Bohemians mostly acquire bad habits for evening
+wear. But I'm going to cut Bohemianism altogether so far as my meals are
+concerned, and settle down in a _pension_. Two or three of the girls
+live there, and they report well of it. I also made friends while
+crossing with a girl who was being consigned there."
+
+He asked whether she had had a good crossing, and whether she were a
+good sailor. Miss Brooke replied that the weather had been perfect the
+whole way and she had enjoyed herself, and she proceeded to entertain
+him by relating incidents of the passage. Meanwhile the little
+restaurant had filled, and was nearly empty again. They rose at last and
+settled their _additions_. Paul then noticed that Miss Brooke had her
+painting materials with her, and insisted on carrying them so far as her
+school. They stepped out into the sunshine, and became aware how fine a
+day it was.
+
+"The afternoon almost tempts me to cut the Beaux Arts," said Paul.
+
+"By the way, how are you getting on there?" asked Miss Brooke.
+
+He was only too eager to tell her of his progress, and to discuss his
+chances of a medal. He also gave her an account of the new friends he
+had made--he liked the American "boys" very much, was indebted to them
+for endless kindnesses.
+
+"Why didn't you look up Charlie?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"How could I?" he asked, annoyed at the mention of the man's name,
+reminding him, as it did, of the apparent and inexplicable intimacy
+between the two, and also telling him they must already have seen each
+other.
+
+"You could easily have found him if you had inquired among the boys. He
+lives in his studio and he has scarcely left it the whole time I've been
+away. By the way, you remember Katharine, don't you? She's married
+again. To her editor this time. This is my school."
+
+They came to a standstill and faced each other to say "good-bye."
+
+"I scarcely feel like working this afternoon," observed Miss Brooke. "My
+laziness really overpowers my ambition. Did you not say something
+before, Mr. Middleton, about your being tempted to cut the Beaux Arts?
+Do be nice and yield to that temptation. I want to give way to mine so
+badly, but being a woman I daren't do anything unless somebody else is
+doing it at the same time."
+
+Paul's fibres of resistance did not relax gradually; they collapsed all
+at once.
+
+"Well," he laughed. "I've been so good all along, I think I've earned
+the right to play truant for once."
+
+"Mr. Middleton! That's bringing morality into it again, and I wanted to
+indulge in undiluted wickedness. You have to carry my box as I'm
+sufficiently occupied in holding up my skirts. I'll give you some tea
+afterwards as a reward."
+
+They strolled slowly in the sunshine, making for the river and crossing
+by the Pont des Arts; and passed through the Jardins des Tuileries,
+where the freshness of the greens, and the playing fountains, and the
+leafy trees, and the pretty children, and the odour of lilac proclaimed
+the spring. They sauntered across the Place de la Concorde and into the
+shady avenues of the Champs Elysees, where huge spots of sunlight
+freckled the ground; talking the while of the life of the city, of the
+foreign elements, of the Old and New Salons. Miss Brooke explained how
+her own day was spent. Seven o'clock in the morning found her punctually
+at school, and she worked two hours before taking her _cafe au lait_,
+afterwards continuing till midday. In the afternoon she usually copied
+and studied at the Louvre or Luxembourg. Such had been the routine of
+her work before, and she had had no difficulty in falling into it again.
+She could not hope to exhibit even next year, as she could neither
+afford a studio nor the expense of models. At the present she was living
+with some friends at their _appartement_ in the Avenue de Wagram. After
+their departure at the end of May she would enter into the _pension_,
+which was within a stone's throw of her school.
+
+Paul, eagerly listening to all these details, was only conscious in a
+far-off way of the eternal roll of smart carriages in the roadway, or of
+the multitude of children playing under the trees in charge of _bonnes_,
+whilst the mammas sat about on chairs, chatting, or with books or
+needlework. Onward the pair strolled past the Arc de Triomphe and down
+the great Avenue into the Bois de Boulogne, only stopping to rest by the
+laughing lake. Here the appeal of the water and the moored boats soon
+became irresistible. They fleeted the remainder of the afternoon
+ideally, till Miss Brooke announced it was time to repair to the Avenue
+de Wagram. Paul was afraid of her friends--he was scarcely presentable.
+
+"Be calm, my friend," she reassured him. "We shall have a nice little
+tea all to ourselves. The others have gone to Versailles and are only
+coming back in time to dine. We dine _chez nous_, as we have a _bonne_
+who cooks. Of course I can't be in to _dejeuner_, as the distance is too
+great from my school. You must come one evening and I'll present you."
+
+He thanked her for the suggestion, glad to welcome every arrangement
+that promised in any way to throw their lives together, for he had been
+not a little afraid he might not after all have the opportunity of
+seeing very much of her.
+
+As Miss Brooke made the tea in the pretty drawing room of the cosy flat,
+Paul began to realise with surprise how much progress their friendship
+had made in that one day. His dream had turned out true! He was so happy
+that the consciousness of all but the moment faded from him. London, his
+mother, Celia, and even chess were for the time absolutely non-existent.
+"Charlie," too, was forgotten, as the obnoxious name had not again
+dropped from Miss Brooke's lips.
+
+He took his leave at last, filled with joy by Miss Brooke's promise to
+run in on the morrow to _dejeuner_ at the same little restaurant. But as
+he turned from the broad stairway into the hall, he almost collided in
+his pre-occupation with a tall well-dressed man. Both murmured
+"_Pardon!_" and pursued their ways. Paul had seen the other's face, but
+he had taken several steps forward before the features sank into his
+brain, and he realised with a great shock they were those of "Charlie."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+HOWEVER, Miss Brooke said nothing to him about Charlie in the days that
+followed, though he saw her often. Without it being specially mentioned
+again, it was somehow understood they were, for the present, to meet at
+mid-day at the little restaurant, and, moreover, she allowed him to take
+her several times to the two Salons. He might easily have dragged in
+references to Pemberton, but he felt it would not be right to do so for
+the mere purpose of discovering what it would have been an impertinence
+to demand outright.
+
+And the more his _camaraderie_ with Miss Brooke became an established
+fact, the more did this question of Charlie disturb him. He had
+discovered by this time that a harmless friendship between a man and a
+girl was by no means unusual among the students and was not necessarily
+assumed to imply matrimonial intentions. He knew, moreover, that such
+friendships grew rapidly on this soil where the English-speaking
+students gravitated together during the years of their voluntary exile.
+But, if this thought pacified him as to Miss Brooke and Charlie, the
+very pacification carried with it a sting. For it led to the further
+tormenting suspicion that Miss Brooke did not take the relationship
+between her and himself as seriously as he would have liked her to. Her
+conduct and bearing towards him were all he could wish, yet he seemed to
+feel behind them a stern limit to the intimacy, a barrier, as it were,
+that might bear on its face: "I am put here by way of giving you a
+reminder you are not to make any mistakes as to the extent of your
+rights over this property."
+
+Sometimes, indeed, in envisaging the position, he came to the conclusion
+that this was entirely due to his own imagination and that he might
+safely ask her to share his life. But at that point uncertainty would
+rise again, warning him that to make any such impulsive proposition just
+then might be to jeopardise the future of his romance. The remembrance
+of the distress caused him by his effort to determine the precise degree
+of Celia's claim on him by reason of his having engaged her for five
+dances in the same evening intruded in grotesque contrast now that he
+was endeavouring to determine the precise degree of his claim on Miss
+Brooke.
+
+Despite these prickings, and despite Charlie, sweetness predominated in
+his life. He felt untrammelled and unwatched over, recalling with a
+shudder the old strands that had tethered him. Though he wrote regularly
+to his mother, whom he had seen twice last autumn, on her way southward
+and on her return, all reference to Miss Brooke was excluded from his
+letters. He would not discuss his relation to her with anybody else,
+foreseeing that would only lead to a deal of useless and perhaps endless
+talk.
+
+After Miss Brooke had moved to the _pension_, where she had arranged to
+take all her meals, he no longer saw her every day. But it was
+understood he could take his chance of finding her at home whenever he
+chose to call in the evenings. She generally received him in her little
+oblong sitting-room on the second floor, that opened out on a pleasant
+balcony, overlooking the street. He soon grew to love this room, to the
+decorations of which she had added a huge Japanese umbrella, which hung
+from the ceiling, and two Japanese lights, and a piece of Oriental
+tapestry, besides her personal nicknacks. Paul's usual lounging-place,
+whilst Miss Brooke gave him his after-dinner coffee, was an old
+cretonne-covered ottoman, on which a broken spring made a curious hump,
+and over his head were suspended some book-shelves. Now and again he
+would find other callers, of both sexes, for Miss Brooke was "at home"
+once a week to all her friends. Of course, Paul did not abuse his
+privilege, but firmly restricted the number of his visits. Occasionally,
+too, he had the happiness of taking her to dine at some one or other of
+the great cafes on the Grands Boulevards, and they would stroll back
+together along the river bank, enchanted by the wonderful nocturnes. On
+Sunday sometimes, they would make an excursion beyond the
+fortifications to some rural spot, she taking her paint-box and
+sketching lazily whilst they talked; and if, on rare afternoons, he left
+his work, and looked in at the Luxembourg to find her deftly plying her
+brush in her big blue coarse linen apron, with its capacious pockets,
+she seemed by no means displeased.
+
+Every legitimate topic was talked over between them. He had long since
+exhausted the theme of his own life, that is, he had told it so far as
+he cared to tell it. Celia, for one thing, did not appear in it, and
+there were one or two little matters he was especially careful to
+suppress. He felt vaguely saint-like, when, in the course of this
+judicious selection from his biography, he arrived at his slumming
+experiences, and hinted at his charities, which were being continued
+during his absence. Miss Brooke repaid the confidence in kind, enabling
+him, by her various reminiscences, to reconstruct a fairly continuous
+account of her existence, which, it never struck him, might also be
+selected.
+
+They drifted, too, into the realm of ideas, exchanging their notions
+on--among other things--love and platonic friendship. They discussed the
+last-mentioned phenomenon in great detail, Paul, aflame with
+self-consciousness, but quite unable to pierce beneath the sphinx-like
+demeanour with which Miss Brooke made her impartial and freezingly
+impersonal statements. From ideas they passed on to the consideration of
+conduct and how it should be determined under divers subtle conditions.
+
+"Yes, but don't you really think that one _ought_ to listen to such an
+appeal _if_....," she would gravely interpose with her sweet voice as
+her brush made sensuous strokes on the canvas. And Paul became more and
+more impressed with the nobility of her soul, and strove likewise--as
+was but natural in the circumstances--to impress her with the nobility
+of his. He usually felt ethically perfect after such conversations, and,
+had the occasion immediately arisen, it would have found him equal to
+acting along the lines of the "ought" laid down by Miss Brooke. He
+imagined that he certainly was receiving endless benefit from this
+threshing out of things with a quick and sympathetic personality.
+
+So ran by a couple of months, "Charlie" continuing to be the chief cause
+of disturbance in Paul's existence. The two men had by now met several
+times at Miss Brooke's, had saluted civilly, but had little to say to
+each other. Paul felt sure his hatred was returned, and neither showed
+the least disposition to become better acquainted. Neither asked the
+other to dine or drink, or play billiards, or even to walk with him,
+and if rarely they passed in the street a nod was all they exchanged.
+The lines of their lives occasionally met in a point, but never ran
+together.
+
+The enmity between them only became irksome when no others were present,
+but never did Miss Brooke herself manifest the least suspicion of it.
+Whatever the relation between Miss Brooke and Pemberton, it never seemed
+to interfere in practice with the relation between Miss Brooke and
+himself. She alluded to "Charlie" in her talk much more freely than
+heretofore, but always apropos, always impersonally, just as she might
+casually mention Katharine, who was so happy now. Charlie had such and
+such a habit, such and such a way of looking at things, such and such
+ideas of art.
+
+But Paul's jealousy grew till he became well-nigh intolerable to
+himself. It made him resort to underhand watchings, from the mere
+thought of which, in saner moments, he shrank with shame and remorse.
+But he had thus ascertained that Charlie was, if anything, a more
+frequent visitor than himself, and had less scruples in the matter of
+standing on ceremony.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+ONE night Paul was at the Opera when he caught sight of Miss Brooke and
+Pemberton with her. His evening was spoilt and he left at once. He felt
+both angry and hurt, for he had seen her for a few minutes in the
+afternoon, and she had said nothing about her plans for the evening
+beyond warning him it was highly probable she might not be at home.
+
+The climax had come. He was determined that things should not continue
+as they were. If Miss Brooke simply regarded their connection as a mere
+students' companionship, agreeable to both parties but strictly
+temporary, then he must end it immediately. Miss Brooke must at once be
+made aware of what this friendship meant to him. What he had so far
+deemed inexpedient seemed to him the only expediency--to stake all on
+one coup.
+
+In the stress of the crisis the prejudices that were his by inheritance
+and teaching, and that his new life had caused to slumber, asserted
+themselves again, crying aloud against these friendships. Miss Brooke
+ought never to have expected him to be proof against that sort of thing,
+of which he had never had experience. Pemberton might be able and
+content to flutter round without hurt, but he himself had been a lost
+man from the beginning.
+
+It soothed him to map out the future as he wished it to be, and all
+seemed so natural and reasonable that, if she cared for him in the
+least, she could not but admit his views on every point. He felt himself
+filled with an infinite longing, an infinite tenderness. He would
+surround her with his love so that escape from it should be impossible.
+It should permeate every fibre of her being, and she should in the end
+come to him and give up everything to fulfil the duties of a wife,
+presiding over his household, absorbing herself in his career, and
+giving all her thought to the unity their two lives would constitute. Of
+course, she could paint in such time as was left to her, and any glory
+she might achieve would redound to the credit of his name. Still when a
+woman had once become a wife, he argued, her ambition generally faded.
+Wifehood was absorbing. Greater glory than that of being a perfect wife
+there could not be.
+
+A few days later, when his emotion had somewhat calmed down, and he
+could trust himself sufficiently to see her, he called at the _pension_,
+but, as had happened occasionally from the beginning, he did not find
+her at home. So the next morning he sent her a great heterogeneous mass
+of flowers with the half-jesting, half-reproachful hope they might meet
+with better fortune than he. Whereupon he immediately received a letter
+explaining she had passed the previous evening with some very nice
+people in the Avenue Kleber, and announcing her intention of taking him
+there on the morrow. Would he dine early and call for her? She thanked
+him for the flowers in a postscript, saying they had transformed her
+room into a veritable bower.
+
+At the time appointed he climbed the well-known two flights of stairs
+and the _bonne_ showed him into the little room, saying _mademoiselle_
+would join him "in a little minute." Several big minutes passed, and
+then the door-hanging was pushed aside and Miss Brooke stood smiling at
+him. She had always appealed to his aesthetic side, giving him the sense
+of contemplating an exquisite piece of art-work; but the particular
+impression he had to-night differed from all previous ones. Her figure
+seemed slenderer in its black net evening dress, covered with bead-work
+that glistened with a wonderful shading of green into blue and blue into
+green. Above the turquoise-blue velvet trimming of the bodice, her long
+neck made a dazzling whiteness, and her face looked pink and babyish,
+whilst her curls lay about with just a shade more severity than usual.
+She wore a necklace of turquoises set in antique gold, and in her hair
+was a big gold comb inset with the same stones, irregularly cut. The
+note of colour thus given made her blue eyes appear like two large
+jewels amid the constellation. Paul told himself he had never realised
+before _how_ beautiful those eyes were. The lightly-parted lips
+intensified the babyishness, so that she ceased to be the independent,
+self-willed girl, fitting in rather with that other conception he had
+lingered on as the ideal she might develop into as his wife--a woman
+clinging to her husband and glad of his strength.
+
+He was sure he saw her now as she really was. The conditions of her life
+were alone to blame for forcing on her the necessity of a career.
+Woman's true sphere was the home. An outside existence subjected to
+hardening influences a delicate soul whose very nature was to thirst for
+tender nurture and love. Such had always been his mother's conviction;
+such was his fervent belief. The association of Miss Brooke with
+money-earning seemed an ugly blot on the universe.
+
+There seemed, too, a tenderer, more intimate quality in her voice, and a
+sort of clinging in her touch as she went down the stairway with her
+hand on his arm. That forbidding barrier of which he had always been
+conscious had vanished!
+
+"It's the McCook's last 'At-Home,'" she explained, as the _voiture_
+began to move. "They are such nice people--I'm sure you'll like them.
+Dora's an old college chum of mine, and she's asked me to stay with her
+to-night. Dora and I chat such a deal when we get together, and we
+always enjoy sitting up nice and quiet by ourselves after everybody else
+has gone. I told her you would escort me home, but she seemed quite
+shocked at the idea. As if you haven't escorted me back from the
+theatre! Dora has become quite conventional since her marriage. She used
+to argue with her mother and do pretty well as she liked not so very
+long ago. Now I believe her mother shocks her sometimes. She's leaving
+with her husband in a few days for Perros-Guirec, and they're going to
+take me with them."
+
+Her words rang with a childlike joy. He asked where Perros-Guirec was in
+a voice that was somewhat desolate at the prospect of losing her.
+
+"It's in Brittany--a whole day's journey from Paris. I was there two
+years ago, and sketched most of the time. Everybody is thinking of
+leaving now, the heat will soon be getting unbearable. The Grand Prix
+has been run, the Battle of Flowers has been fought, and the Allee de
+Longchamps is deserted. All the smart people are in _villegiature_. How
+nice is the evening after the sultry day!"
+
+They were passing through the Boulevard St. Germain. Miss Brooke was
+sitting just close enough to Paul for them to touch with the swaying of
+the carriage. He felt singularly happy. The hushed sounds of the city
+over which the dusk hung mystic came to him like a soft sustained tone
+of music; its lights gleamed in upon them with magic rays. He was
+conscious of the great dark masses of palaces, of shadowy pedestrians
+moving noiselessly on the side-paths. No fever in the air now, only a
+far-reaching calm.
+
+"The night makes one almost sorry to leave Paris," resumed Miss Brooke.
+Her voice made the harmonies sweeter, blending them all into one perfect
+harmony.
+
+"But the breezes, and the woods, and the rye-fields, and the farm-houses
+with their delicious old oak presses, and the kind-hearted people, and
+the quaint children who love to watch you sketch and see you squeeze the
+paint out of the tubes--the memory of all these things draws you back to
+them. I long for Brittany almost as much as I once longed to leave
+everything and everybody and be just myself--and by myself. It seems so
+long ago now."
+
+She had almost unconsciously moved closer to him now.
+
+"Won't you tell me when that was--Lisa?"
+
+It was the first time he had dared to call her by this name. In his
+longing to utter it in articulate speech it had rushed to the tip of his
+tongue.
+
+"It was three years ago--before I came here. Every place had
+associations that hurt me. I wanted to get away--to work, work, work. I
+seemed to hate everybody. So I came here, and for months I thought I was
+as hard as a stone. Then one day I found myself angry with a girl--a
+fellow-student--and I was quite surprised to find I could feel at all.
+And then I was suddenly glad I was a human being again."
+
+Her voice melted away into the vast murmur of the soft-twinkling city.
+Beyond the fact that he was selfishly glad she had had trouble--it
+afforded him the exquisite pleasure of sympathy--there was no active
+thought in him now, no estimation of the position. His soul alone
+dominated; it had been moved to responsiveness and it now wrought out
+its mood, subtly surrounding her, he felt, with its comfort.
+
+They crossed the mysterious, glistening river, and came upon the myriad
+flame-points of the Place de la Concorde. They turned into the Champs
+Elysees betwixt woods enchanted by the sorcerer Night; catching glimpses
+of palaces of light amid the trees whence melody came floating, mingled
+with the incense of the summer.
+
+"Won't you tell me, Lisa--that is, if you think you can trust me."
+
+It was sweet to exercise the privilege of calling her "Lisa." He felt it
+was his for always now.
+
+"I know I can trust you, Paul. Would you really care to hear? Of course
+you would," she continued quickly, giving him no time to reply. "What a
+silly question for me to ask! Still there is little to tell! I loved a
+man. We were to be married. His mind was poisoned against me by an
+enemy. He was harsh and unjust. A few words sum all up. He is married to
+another. A commonplace chapter, is it not? But to have lived through
+it--to have lived through it!"
+
+He grew dazed and white. "To have lived through it!" Those simple words
+seemed to his comprehending mood athrob with the sobbing of great grief.
+
+"But you do not love him now?" he breathed.
+
+"No, no! All is over now. But I brooded and brooded and thought--the
+experience made me a woman. Life is a serious thing to me now. I feel
+better and stronger for what I have suffered. But the memory remains."
+
+"You have nothing to reproach yourself with, Lisa. Surely there are
+happier memories in store for you. It is for you but to shape the
+future."
+
+He longed for her impulsive "How?" and had his answer ready. It seemed a
+strange thing, but this confession of a past love, this telling of a
+great sorrow in her life, had wrought a spell upon him. His eyes were
+full of tears. In that moment his love for her seemed to have increased
+a thousandfold. The surprise with which the revelation had overwhelmed
+him was lost in the rush of pity. She had suffered, and by his love he
+would make everything up to her.
+
+But now there came a sudden change, slight in its outward manifestation,
+but felt by him like a chill blast, for his soul vibrated to hers,
+registering every subtle shade of her mood. She did not speak
+immediately, and he knew that moment of silence was fatal.
+
+They had passed the round point of the Champs Elysees, and the woods and
+gardens had ended. Only the giant _hotels_ rose on either hand. There
+seemed more carriages darting about now, a greater movement of life, a
+general sense of disenchantment in the air, of an awakening from a dream
+to the clattering reality of things. Paul realised that the spell was
+broken.
+
+Miss Brooke had turned her head for a moment to look through the window.
+
+"We shall be there in two or three minutes now," she said, as a sort of
+natural outcome of her ascertaining their exact whereabouts. "I am
+afraid I must rather have depressed you. It is scarcely courteous to our
+hostess for us to arrive in so gloomy a mood."
+
+She gave a little laugh which set his every nerve a-tingle, so certainly
+did its ring lack the appealing quality that had brought him so close
+to her. It seemed to thrust him back abruptly and brutally.
+
+"Tell me, Paul, haven't you ever had any love affairs?" she went on to
+ask, and there was a suspicion of banter in her tone. "I've told you all
+about my tragedy, now tell me about yours or all yours. I know we've
+told each other all our lives before, but of course we both bowdlerized.
+The most interesting parts have yet to be told."
+
+As she had asked him a direct question he felt constrained to answer it.
+He found himself considering whether his relation to Celia need count as
+a love affair, but he was so convinced he had never been in love with
+her at all that he decided he could leave her out without doing violence
+to his conscience. Altogether there had been in his life two very minor
+and foolish amourettes that might have became entanglements; one with a
+barmaid when he was in the lawyer's office, some of the clerks having
+persuaded him the girl "was gone on him," the other with a simple maiden
+of sixteen, the daughter of a market gardener, which idyll had proceeded
+at his father's country seat. Paul told the latter--it was a boyish
+passion that had come to nothing and stood for nothing in his life; the
+former he was ashamed of. "I proposed to her and gave her a mortal
+fright. She was so scared she ran away. We were both shamefaced when we
+met again, and my spurt of pluck was at an end. I dared not say another
+word to her, and somehow we drifted out of being sweethearts. I was
+barely nineteen at the time."
+
+Miss Brooke laughed again heartily, but Paul only felt the gloomier.
+
+"Tell me some more, please. You put me into quite a cheerful humour.
+What was your next love affair?"
+
+She had resumed her old militant badinage.
+
+"There is nothing more in my biography that is likely to entertain you,"
+he answered evasively.
+
+"Is it so bad as that, Paul? I think you might tell me all the same. I'm
+not easily shocked."
+
+"You mistake me. I have told you all," he replied, driven to the lie
+direct.
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Paul. In a woman one might expect such a want of
+candour. But suppose I tell you _my_ other affairs--will that encourage
+you to tell me yours? Is it a bargain?"
+
+"Your other affairs?" he repeated.
+
+"Did you imagine I've had only one in my life? That's paying me a very
+poor compliment. This is our destination."
+
+"Why do you tease me, Lisa?" he asked, as they descended. He was
+relieved that the drive had come to an end. It had been a trying time
+for him. He wondered what it was all coming to? Just when the critical
+moment had come she had practically inhibited him from speaking. She was
+a strange, baffling girl, and he was helpless in her hands.
+
+"I'm not teasing you, I simply want to finish my confessions. You must
+dance three dances with me, and talk to me a lot after. Perhaps I shall
+succeed in softening you and then you'll be more tractable. We dance
+till midnight. After that we sup and converse till dawn. It seems there
+are special complications and permissions for dancing and music in the
+small hours, as one's neighbours above and below are apt to want to
+sleep just then. Dora shirked the bother, especially as her French is so
+weak and her husband's worse."
+
+They went up the stairway and were warmly welcomed by Mrs. McCook. It
+was a pleasant gathering of nice-looking men and pretty girls, but Paul
+was only half alive to it. To him it was scarcely more than a mere
+background for the further development of his drama. So far he took
+these further love-affairs of Miss Brooke as the purest make-believe,
+but all the same he was curiously uneasy and anxious to hear what she
+had in mind to tell him.
+
+When he could talk to her again, he could discover no trace in her
+manner of her having lived through with him a supreme emotional moment.
+The softness that had given him a glimpse of infinite love, and which he
+had perhaps hoped might reveal itself again, was absent; in its place
+the old niceness and the frank friendliness of comradeship, and with
+them the old warning to him to stand back. She proceeded to give him
+the promised account of her various lovers in a light, mocking mood.
+
+"I began very early, much earlier than your simple country maiden. My
+memories of childhood are rather hazy, but I should say I must have had
+a lover before I was out of my cradle. But I was thirteen before my
+heart was really moved. Since then I have been in love with so many men
+that I really can't remember half of them. However, I'll try and pick
+out those that affected me most seriously at the time. The first one was
+really a very nice schoolboy. His idea of love-making was to feed me
+incessantly with candy, which he did for a whole year till I fell a
+victim to the charms of another boy. The two fought. Both emerged from
+the combat with black eyes, which rather spoilt their beauty, and
+therefore killed my interest in them. It required quite an heroic
+effort, though, to refuse their offerings."
+
+"And was this method of love-making as satisfying to them as it was to
+you?" asked Paul, beginning to be confirmed in his supposition that Miss
+Brooke was joking.
+
+"Oh, we used to have clandestine meetings and we used to kiss, of
+course. That made me rather tired of them. They wanted to be kissing the
+whole time."
+
+Paul had a momentary vertigo, though he professed by his manner to be
+listening in the same spirit as Miss Brooke narrated.
+
+"The first one was always a nice boy even when he grew up and was always
+ready to fall in love with me again. But one fine day he got engaged,
+wrote to tell me about it, and asked me to congratulate him. He married.
+That finishes with him.
+
+"The next interesting one was a college man. I was about sixteen then
+and at the height of my musical ambition. He was musical, too, in fact
+quite an enthusiast. He used to pilot me about to concerts and send me
+tickets for the opera. Besides I was struggling then with Latin, Greek,
+and Conic Sections, and he used to help me polish off things--for
+selfish reasons, of course."
+
+"And used you to kiss this time as well?" he asked, no longer
+questioning that he was hearing her personal history.
+
+"Only at very sentimental moments," she replied, apparently overlooking
+the mockery in his voice. "I was older and a greater expert in emotions.
+One's first experiments are necessarily crude. But, to proceed, my
+cavalier lost his head one day and wanted me to marry him at once, which
+was rather absurd. So I had to give him his _conge_ and accept the
+attentions of a less violent lover. I had always a reserve to draw upon,
+but so long as a man behaved nicely and didn't get altogether
+unreasonable, I let it accumulate. My musical friend, however, gave me
+some trouble. We had several stormy interviews, and at last I had
+positively to refuse to see him. One fine day he, too, got engaged and
+wrote to me asking me to congratulate him. I know he was divorced some
+time since, but I've completely lost sight of him."
+
+At this moment Miss Brooke was led away to dance, but was able to join
+him again before very long.
+
+"The next----" were her first words, in a mock-solemn, long-drawn-out
+tone, as she took his arm and then she broke into laughter. "The next
+was a tall Southerner with nice manners, a soft voice, and a pretty way
+of calling me 'ma'am.' He, too, was musical--naturally, I preferred
+musical lovers then. The Colonel, as everybody called him, literally
+worshipped me, but he was as poor as a church mouse, and I used to
+think myself very noble to be satisfied to get stuck with him in back
+seats at concert-halls. He went back South after graduating, swearing
+he'd never forget me; but, as soon as he'd made his fortune, he was
+coming back to marry me. I thought that if the illusion would help him
+to make his fortune, he might as well keep it. In any case I should have
+given him cause to be grateful to me. He wrote to me half-a-dozen times,
+then there was a break of some months; and, when I had almost forgotten
+him, one fine day I got a letter from him."
+
+"Announcing his engagement and asking you to congratulate him," said
+Paul, with bitterness.
+
+"Yes. I think you may take that for granted. It is what they all do. Is
+it any use my telling you more? I'm beginning to think the recital is
+getting monotonous. And then there are some coming along and I can't
+remember the exact order, which came before which."
+
+She seemed to hurry over her last words as though impatient to be done,
+and wearied and bored by the memory of all these dallyings with
+sentiment. The mocking merriment appeared also to have died out of her
+face and voice. She gazed idly at the dancers who, in the restricted
+space, almost constantly brushed up against them as they stood pressed
+close to the wall. Paul wondered if he were looking haggard. The air of
+careless merriment he had at first forced himself to assume had given
+way, as he listened, to a sort of nervous apathy. The one great passion
+of hers she had confided to him had drawn him closer to her by its
+intrinsic dignity. It had appealed to his finer nature, stirring it to
+its very depths. But these later revelations of hers revolted him by
+their very pettiness. What had her parents been at that such a girl had
+been allowed to run wild in that fashion? It was monstrous she had not
+been supervised and prevented from stooping to these foolish and
+frivolous relations with foolish and frivolous men--men she had allowed
+to kiss her lips!
+
+The pang that tore him at the image revealed to him how powerless he
+was. He glanced at her again as she stood at his side. There was a
+half-sad expression now on her face, which had resumed all its
+babyishness again. The lock of hair near her ear lay about in a dainty
+twist. Her lips showed innocent and red. To kiss them _he_ would lay
+down his life!
+
+He was shaken; he wanted to sob aloud. But he was at a festive
+gathering. Round, round, up and down the room went the dancers,
+shuffling forward with their rapid glide, the men bending their long,
+supple bodies, the flowing curves of the women's dresses imparting a
+greater grace to the movement. The whole scene was dreamy to him. His
+inner thought was the only reality.
+
+Why had she told him, why had she told him? he moaned within himself.
+Then as he saw a new softness appear in her face, a gleam of comfort
+came to him. Perhaps it had been from motives of conscience and she
+really repented all; perhaps, too, she had thought it right to tell him
+everything before allowing him to ask her to be his.
+
+He would overlook all those episodes if only she would be his. If even
+they had been more serious, if even she had been a dishonoured woman, he
+knew now he would have had no strength not to condone. If any one had
+told him a year ago that he--Paul--would one day be both willing and
+eager to make such concessions as regards the past of a woman he
+contemplated making his wife, he would have denied the statement
+indignantly as a libel on himself.
+
+She turned suddenly, and their looks met. Her face lighted up with a
+smile. "Come, Paul, it's your turn now?"
+
+"My turn!" he echoed, her words for the moment startlingly sounding like
+an invitation to take his place in the procession of her lovers.
+
+"Yes," she said. "Who was your sweetheart after the gardener's
+daughter?"
+
+He denied any further love, though hating to tell the lie. But Miss
+Brooke persisted, entreating, provoking, urging, coaxing, pouting;
+subtly transforming herself into the child with its lovable moods and
+movements; enslaving him, rendering him powerless at her will, with this
+one strange exception--he could be strong enough to withhold from her
+the episode he was ashamed of.
+
+"Paul, Paul," she said sternly. "Tell the truth. Are you not in love
+now?"
+
+He scarcely dared look at her. He was conscious of that lock again and
+of another on her forehead.
+
+"Silence betrays. Did you come to Paris for the sake of your
+architecture or to be near me?"
+
+"To be near you, Lisa," he breathed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+ALTHOUGH the thought of Lisa's old flirtations obtruded and pricked
+occasionally, Paul went about the next morning in a state of subdued
+happiness. A wonderful calm had come over him, disturbed only at the
+moments when he had to thrust from him those images of other men kissing
+Lisa's lips. Those meaningless loves had been long dead, he argued, and,
+since she had made the confession voluntarily at the risk of estranging
+his love, it would be unfair to her for him to dwell upon them now.
+
+At the same time he could never have conceived the possibility of such a
+line of argument on his part in the days before he had met Miss Brooke.
+Love had, indeed, set at naught all the principles he had thought to
+abide by--had made him yield his demand for that absolute soul-virginity
+he had deemed the very basis of his choice.
+
+But away with all that now! Her love for him was, of a surety, the first
+that had come into her life since her great sorrow. As for Pemberton,
+there had never been the slightest sentiment between her and him. No
+doubt the fellow would now take a suitable place in the background of
+their life, and they would welcome him as an acquaintance. Why should he
+bear the man animosity?
+
+He could not do any work that morning, but strolled hither and thither,
+getting joyous impressions from the sun-lit city. Lisa had not only
+promised to dine in the evening at the Cafe Pousset and afterwards to go
+with him to see a melodrama at the Ambigu, most of the other theatres
+having closed their doors, but she had given him permission to take his
+holiday at Perros-Guirec during the whole two months of her stay there,
+so that he would be virtually one of the party. The immediate outlook
+was, therefore, very agreeable.
+
+He returned to the _maison meublee_ where his quarters were, immediately
+after his mid-day meal, and passed the afternoon packing away his
+luggage, which occupation gave him the pleasurable feeling that his
+preparations for the happy time to come were in full swing. He sang and
+whistled as he worked, his overflowing vigour manifesting itself in the
+bold ornamental letters with which he made out the labels for his
+trunks: "Middleton, Paris a Perros-Guirec." At half-past five he began
+to think of taking a stroll before dinner, and was on the point of doing
+so when the _concierge_ brought him up a letter with the characteristic
+explanation that it had come in the morning, shortly after monsieur had
+gone out, and that he had forgotten about it as monsieur passed by
+before.
+
+Paul recognised his mother's writing, and stayed to read it. At first it
+did not seem to contain anything of special importance, covering much
+the same ground as many of its predecessors, and dealing with one or two
+business matters. On the third page came a reproach that he had allowed
+three weeks go by without writing.
+
+"I can understand," continued his mother, "that all those hours of
+engrossing work every day must leave you quite fatigued, my poor child.
+But surely I am very reasonable in my demands, and one letter a week is
+not such a very heavy tax on you. Are you sure you are not overworking
+yourself, dear Paul? You were always a delicate child, and you are
+certainly not strong enough to go on living in a French hotel, with
+only strangers to look after you. Don't you think you ought to take a
+long holiday now? I am going to take Celia to Dieppe--it has all been
+decided and arranged to-day. The poor child has been worried and
+fretting and poorly for a long time past, and sadly needs this entire
+change of scene. Now suppose, dear Paul, you come and join us at Dieppe.
+You will be near to me, and I can look after you again, if only for a
+couple of months. We shall be starting the day after to-morrow, and we
+shall be staying at the Hotel de Paris. Write to me, dear Paul, direct
+there, or, better still, come down and surprise us. Celia, I am sure,
+will be _delighted_ to see you. I never understood what happened between
+you two exactly. You said 'good-bye' so stiffly that I made sure you had
+quarrelled, though Celia assures me that was not so. She is a dear,
+good girl, and I love her as if she were my own daughter."
+
+Of course he couldn't go. What a bother to have to refuse! Why had they
+just fixed on Dieppe when they might have gone to Norway or taken a
+jaunt up to Scotland! And then, too, confound it! they might even make a
+descent upon him at Perros-Guirec, for he would have to tell his mother
+that was the place where he had already arranged to spend his holiday
+with friends. He must discuss the matter with Lisa before replying to
+her or telling her of his intended marriage.
+
+But he had scarcely time to digest the letter before the man brought him
+up another which the postman had just left. This time the writing was
+Lisa's. What could she have to write to him about if it were not to
+postpone the evening's engagement? His nervous fingers tore at the
+envelope.
+
+          "DEAR PAUL.--Please don't come for me this
+          evening, and, indeed, you must never come for me
+          again. In writing this I am acting the part of a
+          very good friend to you, and it is as a very good
+          friend I should like you to remember me, as I
+          shall always remember you.--Yours sincerely,
+
+                                          "ELIZABETH BROOKE."
+
+So all was over! Behind the simplicity of the words he perceived a
+terrible inexorableness. If only she had signed "Lisa," it would not
+have crushed him so much; but the "Elizabeth Brooke" was paralyzing.
+
+When his hand was steady enough, he wrote:--
+
+          "DEAR LISA:--Need I say your note has quite
+          stunned me? Won't you give me a word of
+          explanation?               PAUL."
+
+The concierge's boy delivered this at Miss Brooke's _pension_.
+
+He scarcely knew how he got through the night. Every now and again he
+woke up and tossed about; and when he did lose consciousness, he had a
+sense of a grey infinity in which there was a great chasm. He wanted to
+rush to it to close it up, but was held back by some strange power.
+
+The morning's post brought him Miss Brooke's reply.
+
+          "DEAR PAUL.--I am glad your letter is so sensible
+          and to the point. Of course I owe you an
+          explanation, but I want you not to insist on it,
+          because I fear it will hurt you too much. The pain
+          it would give me I deserve.--Yours,      LISA."
+
+
+
+He found this note infinitely softer than the first and was encouraged
+to write again.
+
+          "DEAR LISA.--I am not strong enough to face the
+          punishment unless I know my sin. The pain of
+          listening to you can be nothing to the pain of
+          this horrible gap in my mind. Won't you let me see
+          you--for the last time? Remember it is only a day
+          since you told me you loved me. Don't refuse.
+                                           PAUL."
+
+To which came the reply by his own messenger.
+
+          "DEAR PAUL.--Come this evening at eight and you
+          will find me alone.--Yours,
+
+                                                 "LISA."
+
+All day long he nerved himself for the interview. He would rehearse
+nothing, anticipate nothing. When the time came, he would speak straight
+from his heart. Perhaps he might yet move her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+MISS BROOKE received him with the same cheery frankness as of yore, gave
+him a quick hand-shake, and installed him in his old place on the
+knobby-springed ottoman beneath the hanging book-shelves. The little
+table was laid, as usual, for after-dinner coffee, and the small copper
+kettle was boiling over a spirit-lamp. She was the first to speak.
+
+"You were right, Paul. I have been thinking a good deal, and I have come
+to agree with you that we ought to have a last talk together. I am
+sensible that I am a thoroughly unscrupulous person--please don't
+contradict me, I mean it in sober earnest--but I am not without my
+redeeming moments, and so it happens I feel I ought to make my apology
+to you before we part. Apology! That is a very weak word to use after my
+immoral behaviour towards you. I mean to talk to you very openly, in
+fact, I am going to confess the whole extent of my misconduct. Only I
+want you to believe that to do so will hurt me if possible even more
+than you. I really do want your sympathy very badly, Paul, although I
+know I don't deserve it."
+
+Her beautiful face was grave, and her voice a shade anxious. In her eyes
+was an expression of sincerity that compelled acceptance.
+
+"I know you will make me understand everything, Lisa," he said.
+
+"You must withhold your judgment till I have finished. I am going to be
+absolutely candid, though I am not sure whether I have ever succeeded
+in telling the truth about things, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth, even to myself. One shrinks from laying bare the causes and
+motives of one's thoughts and conduct, even when no other eye is
+looking. But I should feel myself quite vile now if I concealed the
+least thing from you."
+
+"One can over-accentuate the baseness of one's motives as well as cover
+it up," he suggested.
+
+"It is very kind of you, Paul, to try and spare me. But please save up
+your mercy; I warn you I shall be sadly in need of it later on. To come
+to facts now, Paul, I have tried to victimise you from the beginning. I
+have dissembled and told you lies throughout. I have systematically
+acted a part. I have never loved you."
+
+He tried to make some articulation, but not a muscle moved. He sat as
+if turned to stone.
+
+"That first evening we met I knew I had turned your head, and I could
+see at once you were inexperienced with women as surely as if the fact
+had been branded upon you. I had heard somebody point you out and say
+you were worth fifteen thousand pounds a year, and, as afterwards you
+yourself told me you were rich, any doubt I might have had on the point
+was removed. My own poverty had just been painfully brought home to me,
+for I had been forced to leave Paris for want of money at the very
+moment my ambition began to look reasonable. I was feeling particularly
+bitter about it as there was no certainty at all of my being able to
+come back here. Poppa's savings had all gone in starting me with a good
+stock of dresses and keeping me here two years. He had hoped to be able
+to do more for me, but he could only send me my passage-money. Fifteen
+or even ten thousand pounds a year is a great temptation to a poor girl.
+Chance had never yet thrown in my way a really rich suitor, and there
+was I, at the moment of meeting him, almost on the eve of departure,
+with very little money in my pocket and indebted to the kindness of a
+lady for her invitation to stay the month in London. She had taken my
+room for me as she could not accommodate me at her own house. You see
+how poor I was! I set myself puzzling in the coolest possible way as to
+how I could get you. Instinct as well as the ease with which I had
+bewitched you told me there were romantic possibilities in you, of which
+you had scarcely any suspicion and which might easily be played upon.
+And a plan formed at once in my mind in the ultimate success of which I
+had the fullest confidence. To put the idea into your head that we meet
+again here in a year's time was to appeal to your romantic side. That is
+why I mentioned the Beaux Arts to you--your love for architecture made
+my game easy. I was now determined that nothing should stand in the way
+of my returning to Paris, that poppa somehow must raise the necessary
+money--even if he ran into debt. Happily he was able to send me back and
+to see his way clear to keep me going as long as I chose to stay."
+
+Miss Brooke paused a moment and poured out Paul's coffee, which,
+however, he let stand untouched.
+
+"Everything turned out just as I had calculated," she continued, after
+taking a sip at her own. "You had carried me in your mind the whole
+time, and you had been waiting for me and counting on my coming. So far
+I was delighted. For a time all went smoothly. You were mine
+completely. But then an unforeseen force began suddenly to act on the
+position. My old enthusiasm for my work came back, and with it my old
+mad ambitions. Do you know what first gave me those mad ambitions? You
+shall hear in a moment. Anyway, my old intolerance against anything like
+dependence rose up in me. I wanted to make a great name and a great deal
+of money, all by myself. A picture by a great master--we admired it
+together at the salon--had just sold for thirty thousand dollars, and
+that inflamed me. No woman painter has yet existed of absolutely the
+first rank; one and all have been influenced, more or less, by a man. I
+wanted to be the first woman whose work should be absolutely great,
+absolutely original. I wanted the honour for America, for I am proud of
+being an American woman. But you were on the spot, and I had only to
+move my little finger to get you. You were an eternal temptation. Don't
+you think I knew you were jealous of Charlie? He has been in love with
+me ever since I first came here; but, poor devil, he only just manages
+to get along, and is only too glad if he's not behindhand with his
+studio rent. The reason I allowed him to hang round so much was partly
+because he had become a habit of mine, and partly to help me not to be
+tempted to give you too much of my company.
+
+"I really wanted to fight against the temptation of your money, but more
+for my own sake than yours. In the first place I did not love you. And
+in the second, I could read your nature like a book. Your ideas and mine
+would never go together. I wanted a husband who would be content with
+such moments of love as I could spare him out of my career; to whom I
+could go for love when I wanted love; who would be content to live out
+his own life and leave me to work out mine. I do not want to be kept by
+my husband--rather than that I should prefer to keep him. All my rooted
+independence had sprung up as by magic the moment I took up my brush and
+palette again and looked at the model. Your notions were far too
+primitive for me. You would have allowed me to go on with my art as a
+concession--to do credit to your name, perhaps. You would have looked
+upon my pictures as sacred, to be hung in your house and worshipped by
+you before your guests; I should have wanted to sell them, to convert
+them into dollars.
+
+"Do you wonder now I was strong enough to hesitate? I was only too glad
+when Dora said she was going to carry me off to Perros-Guirec. It would
+take me away from you and--temptation. Then you sent me those flowers. I
+was touched. Not by the flowers, but by the train of thought they set
+going. The ghost of my conscience came up, suggesting I should be
+treating you badly, seeing 'you had 'em so bad.' And then you had, say,
+ten thousand pounds a year! That, I suppose, had something to do with
+the rising of the phantom. So I determined to take you to Dora's--of
+course, she replied at once she would be pleased to welcome you--and I
+made up my mind, half to amuse myself, that I would make you propose in
+the cab on the way to her. I could read you through and through, and
+knew your every thought. So far I had kept you at a perceptible
+distance, now it pleased me to draw you close to me, and to see you obey
+without my uttering a single word of command. I told you about my old
+engagement just then because it gave me a sensation of daring. I
+calculated on stirring the romance and chivalry in you still more
+deeply. The experiment was risky--but it succeeded. You responded like a
+good ship to its helm. Then for the first time since I had known you,
+Paul, I suffered remorse--real remorse. Why it came just then I have
+never been able to make out, but all of a sudden I was dreadfully sorry
+for you.
+
+"I saw clearly that even if I _had_ loved you, our lives could never
+harmonise; that after the first honeymoon cooings, the conflict of wills
+and ideas would inevitably set in, and we should both be utterly and
+hopelessly miserable. But I did _not_ love you, and I felt myself in a
+terrible dilemma. You were on the point of speaking, and the only thing
+I could think of to stop you, and to stop you for always, was to tell
+you my early flirtations. I was hoping to play on your prejudices and
+set you against me. I was true to myself then; I was throwing away--how
+many thousands a year?
+
+"But I caused you suffering to no purpose, and, as I realised nothing
+would make you desist, the temptation of all those thousands came upon
+me again. I argued I was the stronger personality of the two, and I
+should be able to manage you--easily. Curious how I accentuated the
+'easily,' and twisted my arguments to suit it. There was little to do--I
+just pulled the wire and the puppet worked. You'll forgive me for
+calling you a puppet, Paul, but you were one, you know.
+
+"Perhaps now you will begin to understand how I felt the next morning. I
+really liked you, Paul, and I had done you so great a wrong from the
+very moment of our first meeting. I had not cried for more than three
+years, Paul, but I cried then. The situation was desperate, and there
+was nothing for it but to apply a desperate remedy.
+
+"I have not told you all. I have purposely kept back something to the
+end. If I had mingled it with the rest it would have been lost, and as
+it is my only claim on your sympathy, I have kept it for use by itself.
+It is unfortunate that even here I have to begin with the confession of
+another lie, but I have already confessed to so many, I am hoping that
+one more won't make me sink any lower in your estimation. Besides, my
+motive in telling it was good. I refer to my old engagement The fact was
+true, but the details I gave you were false. I had intended telling you
+the truth, but somehow it stuck on my lips. I felt I ought never to have
+used so sacred an experience for such a purpose. I _had_ to invent a lie
+as I went on. But I cut it as short as I could.
+
+"I did love the man as, it seemed to me, no woman could have loved a man
+before. He was almost penniless, but I did not mind that. I would have
+married him, and he would not have interfered with my ambitions. He
+would have been content to have me live away from him whilst I worked
+according to my own spirit, and developed the gifts he was the first to
+discover in me. For he was a painter, too; had starved to get a training
+in Europe, had starved while getting it. To help us get a start I was
+content at first to absorb myself in his work. That was a fatal mistake.
+I can scarcely trace out how it came about--and to linger on it makes me
+suffer terribly--but with the lapse of time I ceased to exist for him as
+a creature of flesh and blood. I suddenly realised that I had become a
+mere inspiration to him--it was only the artist in me he worshipped. All
+his heart and soul went into his work--he was no longer a man, but a
+mere mind wielding a brush. I can see him how absorbed before his
+canvas, tall and thin with his scholar's stoop--for Nesbit _was_ a
+scholar! But it had to end at last. I cried bitterly for many a night
+after. I had a letter from him one fine day----"
+
+"Announcing his engagement and asking you to congratulate him?" broke
+from Paul's lips. His eyes were too dry for tears.
+
+"It is the only letter of his I haven't burnt. He is famous now, but the
+first picture he ever sold went to buy my turquoise necklace to match
+the comb I had from my mother. His example was a noble one--the first
+picture I am offered money for shall go to poppa instead. But he would
+never take the gift back, and now I value it as his. It has always given
+me great joy to wear it--in fact, that is my one great joy apart from my
+work."
+
+"You still love him! You have loved him all through!" cried Paul.
+
+Her face softened. "You see I have quite an extraordinary vein of
+sentiment in me. I am not sure whether I am not ashamed of it."
+
+"Tell me, Lisa--if I may still call you Lisa--all those flirtations you
+told me about were true?"
+
+"What a quaint question! You haven't drunk your coffee." He gulped down
+the cold contents of the tiny cup at one draught, for his mouth was
+parched.
+
+"They all happened just as I told you, and I haven't told you a
+quarter."
+
+"And do you mind my asking you another quaint question? Have you and
+Charlie ever kissed?"
+
+"I have always liked to have nice men kiss me. It is a mania with me,
+and I shall go on doing so till the end of the chapter."
+
+"All the same, Lisa, I love you still. Is there no hope for me? I have
+no prejudices. I want you, Lisa, just as you are. Your life shall be
+perfectly free--your career your own."
+
+"You are good, Paul, and I have played with you precisely as a cat
+plays with a mouse. You will have observed I have a good deal of the cat
+in me. Believe me, I am in earnest when I say I am quite unworthy of
+your love----"
+
+"No, Lisa," he began.
+
+"Listen, Paul. I want you to understand how much I love my lost darling.
+If he were to leave his wife and child, now and come to me and say he
+loved me, I would go with him to the end of the earth. No, no, Paul. My
+hope is only in my work. I know I shall realise my ambition. Some day
+you will marry a better woman than I am. And if," she continued, with a
+smile, "you care to write and let me know, be sure I shall congratulate
+you right heartily. Now tell me I have your sympathy, and then let us
+say good-bye."
+
+"I love you, Lisa. Is that not sufficient proof of my sympathy? I shall
+leave Paris to-night."
+
+"Come, Paul, kiss me! For the first time and last!"
+
+He brushed her lips so lightly that he scarce had the consciousness of
+doing so; then he staggered from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+HE wandered he knew not whither, penetrating into strange, silent
+regions his foot had never trod. At the end of an hour he found he had
+taken a long circuit round, and that he had arrived again at the _hotel_
+where Lisa lived. He crossed the narrow street, and, standing in the
+shadow, looked up at the window he knew so well. It stood wide open, and
+he could see the white ceiling of the lighted room, with the huge
+Japanese umbrella making a glare of colour against it. In the balcony
+sat two figures full in the light that flooded out. One was Miss Brooke,
+the other a stalwart young man in a Norfolk suit he could not recollect
+having seen before. A vague sound of their cheerful talking came down to
+him.
+
+He turned away with a sigh, and strode rapidly to his lodging. He
+lighted his lamp, and, sinking into a chair, sat looking at his trunks.
+The labels with their bold ornamental lettering--"Middleton, Paris a
+Perros-Guirec"--stared him mockingly in the face. He averted his eyes,
+instinctively seeking in his pocket for his mother's letter, which he
+had till now forgotten, and was surprised to find it rolled into a ball.
+Smoothing it out, he read it through again.
+
+"Write to me, dear Paul, direct there, or, better still, come down and
+surprise us. Celia, I am sure, will be _delighted_ to see you. I never
+understood what happened between you two exactly. You said 'good-bye' so
+stiffly that I made sure you had quarrelled, though Celia assures me
+that it was not so. She is a dear, good girl, and I love her as if she
+were my own daughter."
+
+And with these words he seemed to read the inevitableness of his fate.
+His rebellion against it was over. He had broken loose from the maternal
+leading-strings, but had made a miserable failure without them. Now he
+would help to fix them on him again.
+
+The millionaire's daughter, the keynote of whose character had struck
+him as a charming, simple frankness, and in pursuit of whom he had set
+out, had proved to be a more complex specimen of womanhood than he could
+have imagined to exist, the very essence of that femininity of which he
+had always had an instinctive distrust. Celia was not brilliant, but she
+was safe--he knew her well enough to be sure of that.
+
+He seized a small brush and inked over the flamboyant "Perros-Guirec,"
+writing over the black strip the word "Dieppe" in the plainest of
+lettering. Then, finishing what little packing there remained to be
+done, he went out to consult a time-table at a neighbouring cafe, where
+he wrote and posted a note to his professor, and another to the
+_massier_ of his class. He next hailed a cab at the rank, and the
+concierge carried down his trunks. "_A la gare St. Lazare!_"
+
+The _cocher_ cracked his whip, and Paul, lost in thought, was only
+vaguely conscious of the streets and boulevards that had become so dear
+to him.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.
+
+
+
+
+RUDYARD KIPLING'S NEW BOOK.
+
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+          _THE SEVEN SEAS'_ A new volume of poems by RUDYARD
+          KIPLING, author of "Many Inventions,"
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+          half calf, $3.00; morocco, $5.00.
+
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+
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+          Daily Telegraph._
+
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+
+          New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.
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+
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