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diff --git a/old/69361-0.txt b/old/69361-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 17e0e57..0000000 --- a/old/69361-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6918 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dr. Vermont's fantasy and other -stories, by Hannah Lynch - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Dr. Vermont's fantasy and other stories - -Author: Hannah Lynch - -Release Date: November 15, 2022 [eBook #69361] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman, Benoit Verduyn and the Online - Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This - book was produced from images made available by the - HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. VERMONT'S FANTASY AND -OTHER STORIES *** - - - - - - DR. VERMONT’S FANTASY - - AND OTHER STORIES - - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - DR. VERMONT’S - FANTASY - - BY - - HANNAH LYNCH - - [Illustration] - - LONDON - J. M. DENT AND COMPANY - BOSTON: LAMSON WOLFFE & CO. - MDCCCXCVI - - - Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty - - - - - Three of these stories--‘Armand’s Mistake,’ ‘A Page of Philosophy,’ - and ‘The Little Marquis’ have already appeared in _Macmillan’s - Magazine_, and I am indebted to Messrs. Macmillan for the kind - permission to republish them. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - DR. VERMONT’S FANTASY-- - - PART FIRST--MADEMOISELLE LENORMANT PAGE - - The Island, 3 - - A Midnight Vision, 19 - - The Story of Mademoiselle Lenormant, 36 - - AN INTERLUDE, 55 - - PART SECOND--DR. VERMONT - - Dr. Vermont and his Guests upon the Island, 74 - - New Year’s Eve, 90 - - EPILOGUE, 118 - - - BRASES-- - - I., 131 - - II., 152 - - III., 167 - - - A PAGE OF PHILOSOPHY, 187 - - - ARMAND’S MISTAKE-- - - I., 227 - - II., 246 - - III., 261 - - - MR. MALCOLM FITZROY-- - - I., 269 - - II., 292 - - - THE LITTLE MARQUIS, 305 - - - - - DR. VERMONT’S FANTASY - - _To Frederick Greenwood_ - - - - - _PART FIRST_ - - MADEMOISELLE LENORMANT - - (_Told by the traveller_) - - - - - THE ISLAND - - -IT was a warm autumn that year--a luminous exception upon which the -last summer of the century was borne somewhat oppressively to the very -verge of winter. The middle hours of the afternoon could be intolerable -enough in a big, busy city well upon the confines of the South. The -rush and whirr of looms was carried far upon the air, and even into the -quietest streets wandered the noisy echoes of the boulevards. - -Yet it was dull and flat for the solitary stranger, without interest -in factories, or provincial entertainment in friendship. It was doubly -dull for a woman past youth and all its personal excitements to be -extracted from fleeting curiosity and thrills of anticipation; denied -by reason of sex the stale delights of café lounges, and by reason -of station the healthier and livelier hospitalities of _cabaret_ and -peasant reunions. - -Travelling-bag and portmanteau lay strapped in the hotel hall. The -train for Paris would not leave until late that night, and to while -away the intervening hours I went forth beyond the town. I chose the -farther end of the long boulevard, the middle of which I had not yet -passed. Down there the brilliant air lost its clearness in a yellow -mist, as if flung from the sky in a fine dust of powdered gold. Upon -its edge hung the last visible arms of the trees on either side, -lucidly, of unwonted greenness, the green we note in painted French -landscapes, brightly touched with yellow. I felt that something fresh, -cool, and soft must lie behind that golden veil. It led my imagination -as a child is led out of the real, by the illusive promises of -fairyland. - -Here sound was deadened, and city movements seemed to faint away -upon the weariness of the long hot day. I glanced back at the town. -Behind me stretched the dusty boulevard, and sharpened above it, -against the tremulous pellucid blue of the heaven, the profile of -quaint church-spires and heavy masses of buildings. Ahead, my way was -blocked by the wide grey river, black where the shadows touched it, -silver where the full light shone upon it. A bridge of grey stone -spanned it from the end of the boulevard to the other side, the -unexplored:--a bridge so old, so worn, so silent and empty, that it -might appropriately be the path to the city cemetery. - -This bridge I crossed in all its glamour of sad enchantment. One of -its arches was broken, and made a dangerous gap above the broad, quiet -waters. There were no lamps, no visible indication of life about. I saw -that it led to an island encircled by a battered and decayed dark wall, -with little castellated ornaments that gave it the look of a feudal -fortress of unusual extent and dimensions. Midway I stood upon the -bridge, and wondered what sort of land might be before me. At first I -believed it to be uninhabited, until much gazing discovered a thin curl -of blue smoke far away, beyond a square tower. It was nearing sunset -now, and the island lying west, showed out more darkly from a broad -band of reddish glory. It wore all the more dead and desolate air -because of the floating and quickened light above it. - -Have you ever, in some quaint French town washed by a wide river, -watched these lovely sunset contrasts on the blackened greyness of -stone masses and on the sombre placidity of water? The best effects -you will find upon the Loire, and if you can recall them, you will -see, better than words of mine can paint, the salient features of that -river-view set with towers and a decayed, old grey wall. - -I was saturated with the sadness of it, and my glance was still wedded -to its dead charm, when a bloused peasant came out of the under shadows -and luminous red upper sphere, like a cheerful commonplace note in the -picturesque mystery of the imagination. Very real he looked, and not -in the least like a ghost from other centuries. Prosperous, too, as -befits a peasant who has earned his right to nod to his betters, and -mayhap clink free and fraternal glasses with them through an ocean of -blood. He came along, whistling a patriotic tune, with his hands in his -pockets, and his hat in villainous emphasis cocked over one ear. - -‘Can it be,’ I asked myself, in a pang of disappointment, ‘that this -enchanted island contains the ubiquitous _cabaret_, and that the -impossible legend of liberty, equality, and fraternity has penetrated, -with its attendant train of horrid evils, into this home of silence and -poetic decay?’ - -I interrupted my gloomy moralising, for which, like all persons -naturally gay, I flatter myself I have a decided turn, and hat, -metaphorically, in hand, sued this roadside rascal for information. - -‘Yes, people lived upon the island, not many--mostly women: laundresses -upon the side that ran unprotected down to the water edge. I might -see their sheds if I made the round of the wall. There was a large -Benedictine convent at one end, and a cemetery eastward--but no hotel -accommodation, no shops, no vehicles of any sort, and but one miserable -little wine-shop, where they sold the worst brandy in all France.’ - -Of this liquid I concluded the fellow had been drinking somewhat -copiously, and left him to push inquiries for myself. - -I know not why, but the moment I set foot upon the island, and heard -the slow swish of the eddying river against its projecting base, -thought was checked upon mild and pleasurable suspense. Something -unexpected must surely happen, I believed, and step by step destiny -seemed to impel me forward in its pursuit. My footfall rang sharply -upon the empty path, and I felt it would be ignominy to leave this -strange spot until fate had spoken, and its voice been interpreted -adequately for me by circumstance. - -How still everything was, and how softly the day’s heat was stealing -out of the atmosphere! One bright star shone like a lamp over a noble -ruin, and for this I made. No sound of living voice, no clang of wooden -shoe or beat of hoofs broke the heavy silence, and by this fact I knew -that I must still be remote from the washerwomen’s quarter. There was a -fearful look about the low rocks that reached behind the ruins down to -the black water, whose perilous stillness was unwholesomely revealed by -the margin of quivering light shed from the rosy sky. - -A few yards farther brought me to the open cemetery gate. Here I -entered with a shuddering sense of the romantic appropriateness of -its aspect. Did ever churchyard wear so solemn, so forsaken an air of -death? Death was breathed in the profuseness and dankness of the weeds -that sprawled over and almost enveloped the tombstones; in the grassy -walks unworn by tread of foot; in the graves that showed no sacred -care of hand, no symbol of fond remembrance or bereaved heart. Who -were these dead so forgotten and so alone? So near a busy city, and so -remote from living man? - -Suddenly my wondering fancy was visibly answered by sight of a slim -old woman in black, who slowly came toward me by a narrow side-path. I -stopped her with an elaborate apology, and we speedily fell into talk. -She had been born on this island sixty years before, when the century -was entering into middle life, and now at its close these had been -the permanent limits of her vision. About a dozen times she may have -crossed the bridge, or walked the streets of the city yonder, and only -once had she gone down the river in a barge to have a peep at the real -South--the ardent, rose and lavender-smelling South! - -‘I pray you, Madame, tell me, who am a restless vagabond, never three -months happy in the same place, how life looks to one like you, who -have never left the boundary marks of birth, who have grown and lived -amid unchanged scenes, and have been satisfied to look for sixty years -upon these low grey walls and the spires and chimneys of that distant -city?’ I asked, profoundly astonished. - -In the old dame’s wrinkled parchment face gleamed a pair of singularly -vivid brown eyes that held, I suspect, more wisdom than my dissatisfied -and travelled glance. She eyed me curiously one long eloquent moment, -and then remarked, with some astuteness and much benevolence, that -change brought idle misery, and monotony its own reward of ignorance -and content. Further questions about the island led to an offer from -her to show me where she lived--an offer I accepted eagerly, and -together we left the cemetery, now revealing all its melancholy charm -in the last flushed smile of a lovely autumn sunset. - -Save for the glimmer of gold upon an upper casement, the grey street -was already cast into twilit gloom, and a faint ray here and there -seemed to make its own pathway through the dim troubled blue of the -atmosphere. Unmistakably evening was upon us, and the ghosts of the -imagination would surely soon be abroad among these haunted scenes. - -But nobody could be less spectral than my companion, both in speech and -in looks. She was communicative to rashness, and when I asked where I -could obtain lodging upon the island, for a week or a month, as long as -the caprice pleased me--she fixed me in a mild interrogative way, and -paused, as if equally in doubt of my discretion and of her own. - -There was no hotel, no lodgings that she knew of, but if Madame really -desired it--if, in fact, she could trust Madame to be discreet and -reserved, she did not know that it might not be managed somehow. But -she would not engage herself. - -I pressed for an explanation, and so aflame was I with sharp interest -and curiosity, that I know not what wild pledges of reserve and -discretion and prudent behaviour I proffered. Willingly at that moment -would I have undertaken to deny my whole past, and give the lie direct -to nature. What more potent than passionate sympathy? and the old -woman, I think, must have felt some desperate need for a willing ear -in which to pour her pent-up confidences. The cup of silence to which -experience had condemned her was full to overflowing, and my voice it -seems shook the brim. - -She told me then that she was the confidential servant and sole -companion of a maiden lady who lived alone with a little niece in a big -barrack of a house below the Benedictine monastery. There was a story, -of course, which perhaps one day I should hear, if matters could be -so arranged that I might sojourn a while beneath their roof. But this -also was a promise withheld. Nothing depended on her, though she had -influence--naturally, she added, with a look of meaning that set my -heart in a flutter. I declare it made me feel young again, and full of -thrilling alarm, on the heels of romance, in the quest of breathless -adventure. I cannot explain how this old peasant had the knack of -accentuating commonplace words, and of lending them a significance far -beyond that with which we are accustomed to associate them. But she -did so, and there was a nameless charm and tremor conveyed in her added -‘naturally,’ with its accompanying suppressed intimation of glance. - -The Benedictine monastery lay in massive gloom below, reaching an -aerial coldness of sharp point and spire along its jagged tops. Feudal -gashes in the arches let in large slips of green sky and glimmering -stars, and its rough stone wall along one side was the division -between the convent and the garden of my companion’s mistress. No, not -even the cemetery I had left could, in the dreariest hour, look more -inexpressibly dark, and lifeless, and forsaken than that old garden. -Its beauty was the beauty of death and sadness and neglect. There -were rotten arbours and stone seats, and mossy, weed-grown paths. The -underwood was impenetrably thick, and only the fine old trees lifted -a calm front, indifferent to man’s unkindness. They needed no human -hand to care them, and so they throve, and willingly gave grateful -shade, and the splendour of their foliage, and the majesty of their -form to the dead scene. But of flowers there were none. A coating of -moss, bleached and faded, had grown over the old sun-dial, which now -was hidden under the branching trees. Not a bird sang, nor did any -live thing skurry into hiding upon sound of my footstep, as I wandered -through the dusky alleys, while my guide went inside to consult her -mistress. - -The quiet of an empty garden, showing no sign of care or an active -presence about it, while within view of smoke and fierce city -activities, is surely not comparable with any other quiet in nature. -Restriction adds to its intensity. The silence becomes almost palpable -from the hum of existence afar, and the spirit of the place seems more -vividly personal by reason of the narrowness of vision. You may walk -along the loneliest beach man ever trod, and feel less alone than I did -in that garden. The dimness of the biggest forest would be comforting -after the intolerable motionlessness of its leaves and plumy weeds. - -I was beginning to wonder if it would be possible for me to fulfil my -contract should the lady of the house consent to share her roof with -me, when I heard a child’s clear, joyous laugh. It was a sound of -heavenly music to me just then, and effectually dispersed the gruesome -mist which was fast enveloping my reason. The desolation of the place, -and the ghastly images which threatened nightmare, could only be -accidental, I wisely concluded, if such laughter--fresh, untroubled, -and sweet--might be heard unrebuked. When the old woman reappeared, -alarm was already soothed, and I was back in the grip of fascinating -excitement. - -‘Mademoiselle gives me permission to dispose of the lower -_appartement_, which we never occupy now,’ she said, with a smile so -human and inviting that I could have embraced her on the spot. - -We walked toward the house, which, though gloomy enough, showed nothing -to match the mystery of the dark garden. Three broad discoloured -steps led to the hall of the lower story, which was offered for my -occupation, and inside the large stone hall I noted a little carriage -and two wooden horses worked by springs. - -‘The sound of Gabrielle’s carriage will not, I hope, disturb Madame? -She generally plays here, as there is not space enough upstairs.’ - -I expressed myself delighted to be in close neighbourhood with the -child’s playground. - -‘These used to be poor Madame’s rooms,’ she added, with a big sigh, as -she opened the door of a fine, chill salon. - -‘The mother of Mademoiselle,’ I conjectured. - -‘Oh, no; Mademoiselle’s mother always preferred the rooms -upstairs--those which Mademoiselle now lives in. These were her -sister’s--young Madame, Gabrielle’s mother.’ - -‘She is dead?’ - -‘Alas! yes. It is unlucky to be too much loved--unlucky for loved -one and for lovers. Dr. Vermont has never been here since his wife’s -death--has never even seen little Gabrielle since she was born, and -Mademoiselle has never once smiled.’ - -I was content to reserve my curiosity for another moment, and applied -my attention exclusively to the question of my installation. My vanity, -I will own, was something flattered by its magnificence. There were -two handsome salons, a bed- and dressing-room, and a dining-room, -all richly furnished in Empire style. The best taste may not have -prevailed, but there could be no question of substantial effectiveness, -and already an air of other days hung round it, and made a pathetic -appeal to the judgment. - -As my companion showed me over the kitchen and pantries and other -domestic offices, I noted on the farther side of the narrow passage, -beyond my bedroom, a closed door which she did not offer to open. My -sympathy with Bluebeard’s wife was instantly awakened, and that door -became an object of burning interest to me. - -From the kitchen she conducted me through the dining-room window into -a long glass-roofed gallery, jutting out beyond the house and seeming -to hang over the river, so completely hidden were the rocks below. The -city lights along the opposite bank were visible, and the heavy masses -of boats and barges made moving shadows through the dusk. - -‘How lovely!’ I exclaimed, sniffing the soft air delightedly. ‘Here -will I sit and walk and read and muse. A month, did I say! I could -cheerfully end my days here.’ - -‘We have no servant at your disposal, Madame,’ the old woman said, -phlegmatically checking my enthusiasm by a reminder of the trials of -existence. ‘But until you have procured one, I shall be glad to give -you any assistance in my power.’ - -I thanked her heartily, and inquired if I could find a fiacre to drive -at once for my luggage to town. There was no such thing on the island, -she calmly informed me. Nothing in the shape of a wheeled object ever -crossed the bridge from the city except the morning vans and the weekly -butcher’s cart. Once a week the laundresses wheeled their barrows of -linen into town and returned on the same day with the supply for the -week’s washing. She could recommend a little maid, whose mother would, -no doubt, be glad to undertake to market for me for a consideration, -and her I could engage on my way to the hotel. - -I left the amiable old dame to prepare for my reception that night, -and set forth in the dropping twilight in search of the maid and my -portmanteau. I had the wisdom, however, to dine at the hotel before -returning to the gloomy island. - - - - - A MIDNIGHT VISION - - -IT was late when I drove across the bridge from the town. The noise -of rumbling wheels upon the pavement, as the cab clattered past the -arches, was of such unearthly volume as to arouse the soundest sleeper. -In one or two casements lights and alarmed faces showed; but for the -rest, the islanders turned upon their pillows, scarcely vexed by idle -speculation upon the disturbance. - -The darkness of the house chilled my heart, as the cab drove up the -grassy pathway, and when the door opened, and the old dame stood in the -hall in the uncertain illumination of a single candle, the solitude -of the place looked so insufferably strange, that I rubbed my eyes to -ascertain if I were really awake and not dreaming. But a substantial -cabman was waiting for his fare, and the woman’s thin yellow hand was -holding mine in a cordial clasp. I believe the honest creature had -already begun to miss me, and had been counting the minutes until my -reappearance. - -She led me into the dining-room, where a supper of _pâté_, fruit, and -burgundy was prepared for me, and though I protested that I was not -hungry, she compelled me to make a pretence of eating, for the excuse -of lingering to talk to me. Mademoiselle had long since retired. She -herself had slept a little in order to be fresh for the excitement of -my return. - -We sat till far into the night, chatting about the great world, about -Paris, which to her meant all the sin and misery and gaiety of the -entire universe; and about the big town of Beaufort across the river. -This impelled me to stand up and draw the curtain, that I might have -a peep at it from the gallery. The old woman followed me, and stood -leaning beside me against the flat stone balustrade. The lights now -along the water were few and widely spread--but in the heaven they had -multiplied and twinkled, variously-hued, upon their dark ground. - -‘Down there lies the road to Beaufort--the road to Paris,’ my companion -murmured wistfully. ‘It is now ten years since Mademoiselle has been -watching it, but never a soul comes by it--never a soul.’ - -‘Whom is she watching for?’ I asked, in a tone insensibly lowered by -her whisper. - -‘For Dr. Vermont--little Gabrielle’s father.’ - -‘Is he the only relative she has?’ - -‘The only one. It is a sad story. The poor lady is eating her heart -out with sorrow for the dead, and idle sorrowing for the living. The -dead at least loved her--but the living! Ah, there is nothing harder in -nature than the heart of a man turned from a loving woman.’ - -‘Does Dr. Vermont know that Mademoiselle loves him?’ - -‘Know!’ she cried indignantly. ‘Mademoiselle is a proud woman. _I_ -know because I divine it. He too might divine it, if feeling could -touch him. But he was always a hard man. He stays away, and he does not -write. He cares no more for his child than he does for Mademoiselle.’ - -She dropped into silence, and I did not want to scare her by appearing -in any way to force her confidence. I was poignantly wakeful from -interest and the atmosphere of mystery I breathed; nevertheless, I -yielded at once to suggestion that the hours were lengthening towards -morning, and was glad enough to find myself shuddering among the cold -sheets that had lain long in lavender presses, while I listened to the -echo of the old woman’s footsteps upon the stairs and the sound of key -in lock and bolt drawn. - - * * * * * - -I was sleeping soundly when Joséphine brought me my morning chocolate -and drew up the blind. She informed me that Mademoiselle hoped I -had slept well, and would do me the honour of calling on me in the -afternoon. This courtesy both astonished and gratified me. I had -understood that Joséphine had half smuggled me into the house, and that -her mistress had only given a grudging consent to my admittance. - -The morning I devoted to examination of my quarters. I found the door -of the mysterious chamber locked, but as the key was on the outside, -I had the indiscretion to turn it and look in. It was a luxurious -bedroom, and was as blue as one of Lesueur’s paintings. Young Madame -Vermont must indeed have adored the colour to suffer it in such -monotonous excess. The bed, of black polished wood, was hung with blue -silk curtains; the carpet was of blue cloth, and blue prevailed in the -handsome rugs that relieved it. The couches, the chairs, were covered -with blue silk, and blue muslin even draped the long looking-glass. -The bed looked ready for use; the blue embroidered coverlet was -turned down, and across the lace-edged sheet was flung an unrolled -night-dress, as if somebody were momently expected to lift it. On the -dressing-table several dainty objects of feminine toilette lay ready -to hand--even a little crushed lace handkerchief was thrown hastily -against a silver hand-mirror. Beside the bed was a pair of black velvet -slippers, and across a chair a frilled and expensive wrapper. Even the -water in the carafe on the table was fresh, and there were matches -beside the silver-wrought candle-stick. A beautiful jar on an inlaid -table in the window recess contained hot-house flowers that were only -beginning to fade, but their untainted perfume told of water daily -renewed. - -It was easy to divine the secret story of that woman’s chamber. -Mademoiselle cherished the delusion, as unsubstantial food for her -hungry heart, that its occupant was merely absent, and might be -expected any day--any hour. She refused to accept the irrevocableness -of death, and kept the chamber ready for the wandering spirit when the -ties of earth should recall it. This was the meaning of the turned-down -bed and unfolded night-dress; of the flowers in the jar sent from the -city and carefully watered each evening; of the little handkerchief -eloquently wisped against the silver mirror. I retreated softly, and -closed the door as if of some sacred place. - -After an interview with the maid who came to wait upon me, I lounged in -the gallery until the midday breakfast. The aspects and surroundings -enchanted me still more by day than they had done the night before. -I felt alone--solemnly alone between large spaces of sky and water. -Underneath, the river flowed broadly, and upon its bosom the big barges -travelled southward, and lighter vessels glided swiftly by to drop -behind the bridge, whence the eye could follow their path no more. -Below the broken arches and towered points of the bridge went the road -to Beaufort and the wide world, a white dust-blown band along the grey -horizon. Under a blazing sun showed the outlines of the city, and the -strained ear might detect the far-off murmur of looms by help of the -factory chimneys. But this needed an effort of imagination in so heavy -and dense a silence. - -After breakfast I bethought myself of a visit to the melancholy garden -by way of change. On the stairs I caught the pleasant patter of small -feet and the shrill, sweet notes of a child’s voice. I stepped into the -hall, where Gabrielle was at play. She was not pretty, but so lively -and spirited and quaint, that she gave a fuller notion of the charm of -childhood than any pretty child I have known. She knew neither shyness -nor fear. When she saw me, she stopped her play, and approached me -boldly. - -‘You are the strange lady Joséphine says I am not to bore,’ she said -gravely, without any resentment or surprise that she should be asked to -consider me. - -‘I hope you will bore me a good deal, little one,’ I replied. ‘I love -children, and am delighted when they take notice of me and chatter to -me.’ - -‘I like chattering, too, but my aunt is very silent. She is always -learning lessons and reading books. Do you learn lessons still?’ - -‘Sometimes, when I am not too lazy. But I am like you, I don’t like -lessons and work,--I prefer play.’ - -‘If you like, I will play with you,’ she offered, with a serious -condescension that was captivating. ‘I have no one to play with except -Minette and Monsieur Con. Wouldn’t you like to see Minette? She is a -little fluffy, white kitten. Monsieur Con is my rabbit. Come and I will -show them to you.’ - -This was the start of a friendship delightful enough to have moored my -barque to those island shores for an indefinite period, if even there -had been no irresistible interest of environment and personality to -enthral me. But Mademoiselle Lenormant’s character was a character of -unusual fascination--not in the sense of sexual attraction but from -the point of view of study. She came and sat with me for half an hour -late that afternoon. I could not fitly describe her as formal, for she -breathed of austere sadness and study. Her pretensions to beauty, in -the accepted form, can never have been great, but defective features -found an abundant apology in the extreme delicacy of the pallid -face and a certain wistful eagerness and suppressed tenderness of -expression. It was a face to haunt you into the silent watches of the -night, in its mute eloquence of suggestion--like a spirit or a picture. -Having looked once upon it, it dwelt for ever apart in the memory, -constantly provoking thought, conjecture, and raking the fanciful -waters of romance by gliding dreams of sorrow and solitude, and the -tragedy that finds no voice or fraternal sympathy upon the noisy -surface of life. - -Silence I should say had been the great feature of her existence. -Even upon the odd impersonal subjects that sprang up for discussion -in our conversations, her talk was scant and weighted with an unusual -intonation, as if speech came to her amiss. She pondered each -commonplace I uttered, and gazed steadfastly into space or down upon -the river before replying, which she did very seriously after a long -pause. At first this eccentricity of hers much disconcerted me. To -exclaim in soft rapture, ‘How lovely the stillness here is!’ and a few -minutes later, when you had quite lost sight of the trite observation, -to have it cast back upon the wavering plain of dialogue in some such -manner, and in tones of musing gravity: - -‘You think such stillness as this lovely? It is perhaps the novelty of -it alone that enchants you’-- - -Or, in response to a previous half-forgotten remark received in -absolute silence, that the way the boats and barges dropped suddenly -out of view as they passed under the bridge was strangely attractive, -to find the idea caught by the heels, and gently forced into earnest -discussion by a word of imperious invitation. For there was an -air of extremely winning command about her, that from the first I -found impossible to resist. Her neck was long, and the head upon it -beautifully set, and her movements, her gestures and looks, were -those of a princess in disguise. An over-wrought imagination might -of course--possibly did--exaggerate this air of command and these -sovereign attitudes, but I came afterwards to see that I was not alone -in my delusion, and that upon ardent youth of the other sex, her -quiescent influence could be potential to salvation. - -Of the nature of her occupations and ideas I remained quite in the dark -for some days to come. Regularly, of an afternoon, she would visit -me in the gallery, where we sat and discussed the ‘eternal verities’ -in an abrupt, unenthusiastic way. I could see that she purposely -withheld herself, her real self, from intrusion or impertinent survey. -Seclusion had taught her prudence, and reticence was a natural gift. -But how in the name of the marvellous, upon an empty island, where -social intercourse is undreamed of, had she come by knowledge of the -hollowness of casual expansion and the nothingness of ready sympathy? - -This is a lesson the cynical society deity teaches us after harsh -and prolonged experiences of considerable variety, and except to its -votaries, could only be known to those hermits who went into the desert -to rest from the vanity of experiment and pleasure. - -Joséphine’s garrulity, however, made instructive Mademoiselle’s -reserve. From her I learnt, by meagre instalments, this enigmatic -lady’s story. But not much until a little scene had pushed me upon the -other side of discretion, and driven me to sue for enlightenment. - -It happened thus. In the grip of wakefulness I had gone out to walk -about the gallery. There was no moon, and upon the turn of the season, -the night was chill and starless. Across the smoke-coloured heaven odd -masses wandered, pursued by the wind that blew down from the North. The -river below made a stain of exceeding blackness in the dark picture, -and beat the rocks in angry protest against the whining uneasiness -of the air. For it whined dismally round the island, and blew among -the trees of the garden like an army of dreary banshees. A sense of -horror of the place grew upon me, and I began to hunger for the big -bright world beyond; for gas-lit streets and the sordid aspects of city -life. I yearned to jostle my fellows along the highways once more, -and listen to the sound of vocal dispute upon the public place. I saw -in vision streams of people emerging from illuminated theatres, heard -the cheerful roll of carriages, and the noisy murmur of laughter and -speech. I longed for it all again--all that I had despised, and told -myself in the midst of its enjoyment that I hated. After all, I was but -a poor mountebank of a hermit. Town born, I could never hope to free -myself permanently from the influences of birth, and I knew that sooner -or later nostalgia for city sounds and sights--for the multitudinous -accompaniments of its existence, must find me and pursue me into the -heart of the most congenial solitude, into the most heavenly of rural -retreats. - -The gallery ran round the angles of the house, and on the other side -looked down into the garden and in upon the window of Madame Vermont’s -blue room. I went round it in a thirst for movement, but, fearful of -disturbing the sleep of others, I walked very softly. To my complete -surprise, and I will not aver without a momentary qualm of terror, I -saw the reflection of a stream of light upon the near window of the -blue chamber. I hardly believe in ghosts; but it would indeed be rash -to hint that it was no vague dread of the supernatural that started -my unequal heart-beats just then. I felt the blood gush and swell to -bursting the arteries about my temples and throat, and at the back of -my ears. Fright was not a check upon curiosity, but rather a strong -impetus. Though I might approach in a conflict of emotions, I did not -hesitate for one moment to approach, and was confronted with sharp -disappointment when I saw that the stream of light upon the floor fell -from an earthly candle-stick, and that Mademoiselle was leaning over -the polished foot of the bed and gazing steadfastly at the empty pillow. - -It did not take me an instant to recover my balance and watch the scene -with revived interest. This was my second glimpse of the blue chamber, -and a poignant note was now added to its fascination. There was a more -speaking look about the turned-down sheet, the unrolled night-dress -across it, and the hastily flung wrapper. Not of death--but of an -unwonted disparition and a watched-for return it spoke. Not of anguish -and bereavement was it eloquent, but of the fruitless and undying -hunger of expectation. At such an hour, so sanctified by pervading -sorrow and silence, the blue of the room was no longer garish, but an -appropriate setting for imprisoned regret. Its very uniformity and -depth of colour suggested the solemnity, the profundity of a rich sky -unstained by cloud, and, enveloped in this mystic hue, Mademoiselle -seemed to be the spirit of sorrow resting upon the grave of all -joy--mute, placidly unhopeful, visibly unafraid. For surely such -solitude as hers was calculated to bend the proudest head and break -the strongest heart, and in presence of her indomitable courage I felt -abashed and mean by confrontation with my recent idle terror. - -I knew well that it was my duty to turn away my eyes and leave so -sacred a vigil unwatched, but when duty and curiosity, strongly roused, -come into mortal conflict, it is not often that the former conquers. -I waited to see how long Mademoiselle would linger in that room, what -her movements might be, and how she would depart for the upper house. -And as I waited, I saw her come round by the side of the bed with a -quick, sudden step, and gently smooth the pillow. In doing so, her -hand rested heavily in the middle, and made a distinct impression. She -started back, and I could see that desperate emotion stiffened her thin -white face, and the large grey eyes she lifted, in the full light of -the candle upon the table beside her, were full of pain. By a gesture -so slight, it appeared she had startled memory into wakeful protest, -and now she hastened to quiet it, and trod feverishly upon the living -embers to still their fires by giving to the bed its proper aspect -of emptiness. She turned the pillow, gathered up the ruffled sheet, -crushed the night-dress into careless folds, and thrust it beneath the -blue coverlet. As white was hidden under the blue, resignation seemed -to have banished expectation angrily, and brought the curtain down -ruthlessly upon the poor pathetic comedy weakness played for its own -diversion. - -She took the candle up, stood near the door, and gazed slowly around -her. The little handkerchief wisped against the silver mirror caught -her eye. She jerked forward and grasped it eagerly; so flimsy was it -that it almost melted in her slight palm. I remembered there was a -faint, subtle odour of violets about the room, which seemed to emanate -from that handkerchief. I can imagine how it must have risen and -tyrannised her senses, can measure the strength of its appeal and its -delicate charm. No women are so astute and penetrative in their use of -scent as Frenchwomen. It is their study to spread their essence with -refined cruelty, and leave an imperishably perfumed trace to check -the wandering imagination, and keep tenanted by a personal odour the -sanctuaries of the heart they have forsaken. - -The effect of the faded sweetness of the handkerchief was to irritate -her to what I concluded to be a resolution to have done with this -miserable comedy of expectation. She held it from her fiercely, and -threw back her head to get further away from its insidious appeal, -and then approached it to the flame of the candle. It needed but a -flutter of light against it, and the flimsy thing was a brief yellow -flare. She watched until the flame had burnt itself out, and then threw -the charred rag upon the marble top of the night-table, and swayed -unsteadily towards the door. By the way she grasped her throat with one -frail, nervous hand, I could divine how the thick sobs shook her, and I -wondered more and more upon the mystery of her life, and what elements -combined to form the mimic tragedy of that midnight solitude. - -Outside the breath of winter was upon us, and the wind bit and stung -with the sharpness of ice. It was December now, and vigils upon the -terrace, once the sun was gone down and the stars were out, were a -forbidden pleasure in careful middle-age. - - - - - THE STORY OF MADEMOISELLE LENORMANT - - -THE month of December ran itself out with a more ruffled mildness than -November had done. For one thing, it was cold, blustering weather, and -for days together ice sheeted the broad river. The boats and barges -plied less frequently, and foot-passengers now rarely threaded the long -boulevard from the city to the island bridge. Only the morning vans -relieved us of a complete sense of separation from our fellows, and -at odd intervals, the postman came, and carried a whiff of the outer -world into our retreat. On Saturday we had the excitement of watching -the laundresses wheel their barrows of linen across the bridge, and -diminish with the distance upon the chill, bleak road, sometimes -brightened by rays of winter sunshine. But for the rest we shared such -desert stillness as might be found in the heart of an empty forest, -instead of upon the edge of a busy and populous town. - -Within the walls, life went pleasantly enough. My presence downstairs -had served to tame Mademoiselle somewhat. She stood less impenetrably -apart, and her discourse grew daily less impersonal. When walks upon -the terrace and musing under the roof of the gallery meant perilous -exposure, she would invite me upstairs to her own _appartement_. This -I enjoyed. It gave me a sense of fraternity in silence as well as -companionable speech at discretion. - -Her rooms were less spacious than those I occupied, but more -comfortable, and not without a surprising effort at cosiness. In her -salon a wood fire burned brightly, and the deep worn arm-chairs had an -inviting aspect. Everything was faded, often frayed and rent, but the -pictures were old and of some value, and books bulged out beyond their -natural shelves, and overflowed upon the floor, and crowded the tables. -Books, books everywhere,--old books, tattered books, dog-eared, dusty, -and moth-eaten; wearing all a heavy, learned look, and suggestive of -historical research. I laughingly remarked this to her one day, as I -removed a big tome from the low chair I wished to sit upon. She blushed -that soft pink flush belonging to faces habitually pallid. It made her -look delightfully young and interesting, and conveyed the hope to me -that the last barrier of her glacial reserve was about to break down. - -‘I have been for many years engaged upon research among these volumes,’ -she admitted slowly, after a pause; ‘I am writing an important book.’ - -‘An important book?’ I cried interrogatively. - -‘Yes: the life of the Emperor Julian. I regard him as the great -Misunderstood of the Christian world, and I wish to rehabilitate him,’ -she said; and there was such a touching and simple prayer for sympathy -and encouragement in the glance she fixed on mine, that I had not the -heart to remember that others had attempted the same task, and that no -amount of learned eloquence and indignation would teach the Christian -world to regard as desirable a better understanding of him they call -the great Apostate. - -‘Would it be an indiscretion to solicit information upon your plan -of defence?’ I asked insidiously, with intent to force her into -self-exposure. To me the character of the Emperor Julian was of -comparative insignificance beside her own, but this fact I naturally -kept to myself. - -‘I shall bring him into noble relief by means of Frederick the Great -as a background--Frederick, that other famous and less reputable -disciple of Marcus Aurelius. Have you ever remarked how alike and how -unlike they were--one so sincere and the other so cynically insincere?’ - -Upon a dead island, without new books, or newspapers, or theatres, -and but little out-door life, because of the ferocity of the weather, -the Emperor Julian and Frederick the Great were as good subjects -of discussion as any others, and I entered the lists in combative -mood, fully equipped in argument and opinion, and captivated by the -grim earnestness and complete guilelessness of the Imperial Pagan’s -defender. Of modern literature she was, perhaps not unwisely, ignorant, -and knew not of a man named Ibsen who, some years earlier, had -also strayed upon this ground. She had been chiefly inspired by an -abominable novel of a French Jesuit, over which she waxed exceedingly -hot. Her anger was splendid, and I should have rejoiced to see the -Jesuit, Julian’s traducer, confronted with this thin spiritual-looking -lady, who thrilled from head to foot with generous hatred of all -meanness and unfairness. - -‘As a Christian, my defence will have more weight than if I were imbued -with the cold agnosticism of the day,’ she added naïvely. - -‘Surely,’ I assented, full of admiration, and more pleased to think -of her as a Catholic eager to make atonement to an ancient enemy of -her faith, than ‘the cold agnostic’ she dismissed in a tone of implied -disapproval. - -‘You wonder, perhaps, at the serious nature of my studies and labour,’ -she observed. And then, upon a little explanatory nod and arch of -delicate brow, ‘You see my father was a scholar, and as we lived here -quite alone and rarely received visitors, it was impossible for him to -avoid taking me into his confidence. And then, when his health began to -fail him, it naturally devolved upon me to help him, as far as I could, -and spare his eyes.’ - -Her glance travelled wistfully round the room, and a ray of mild -recognition fell upon each big volume. It was not difficult to -understand how vividly of the past they spoke to her, how eloquent -of association was their wild disorder. In the high embrasure of the -back window, which looked down upon the river, and showed a glimpse -of the chimney-tops and tall spires of Beaufort, there was a dainty, -blue-lined work-table, and near it a revolving book-stand and a -rocking-chair. From where I sat, I could note that the books were -modern--some of them were bound coquettishly, but the greater number -were paper-covered. I was not wrong in supposing this to have been -the favourite recess of the late Madame Vermont. The blue satin of -the work-table betrayed her, and a hurried inspection of the backs of -the books convinced me that her taste in literature was all that is -most correct and elegant. No ancient tomes these. No bramble-strewn -paths to historic research. Nothing whatever about the Emperor Julian; -still less about Marcus Aurelius. Bourget, Feuillet, Gyp, Loti, Marcel -Prévost, Anatole France and company: these were the friends of pretty -Madame Vermont’s solitude, the entertainers of her frugal leisure. -From the start, without description, word, or hint, I had understood -Madame Vermont to be uncommonly pretty. I pictured her small, blonde, -charmingly coquettish, and self-conscious. I endowed her with every -conventional fascination, and felt sure that if I had been a man -I should have adored her, like the rest. As a matter of fact, my -imagined picture of her came very near reality. Only instead of fair -hair, she had the loveliest brown that made a flossy network round -a little rosebud of a face; her eyes were bewitchingly blue, limpid -like a child’s, and her cheek was adorably hued. Just the conventional -angelic being to turn male heads, and set their hearts in a flutter; -just the sort of home idol to keep nurses and sisters--especially -elder, grave, and sensible sisters--perpetually on their knees, and -the domestic incensor perpetually filled with the freshest of perfumed -flattery swung by the most abject adorers. - -Now that the icy winds prevented us from sitting out in my gallery, -Mademoiselle had grown accustomed to receive me upstairs. For there -was no conquering her repugnance to my rooms. She found it less hard -to walk with Joséphine to the cemetery than to sit and talk of other -matters with a stranger in her dead sister’s house. Of me, however, -she had grown fond:--at first in a furtive way, as if not quite sure -that she was right in yielding to the weakness. Gradually she emerged -from this quaint and insular uncertainty; saw that there was no shame -attached to the discovery that a new face could delight her, and -graciously abandoned herself to the influence of a full-blown affection. - -Every morning Joséphine came down with Mademoiselle’s compliments, -and her desire to be informed if I had slept well. Every afternoon I -mounted to drink a cup of English tea with her, and listen to her last -pages on the great Misunderstood, and sometimes maliciously spur her -into passion by some sceptical raillery, which always brought pained -reproach to her sad eyes and a slight flush to her pale face. She took -everything in earnest, even my feeble jokes, which after a while, when -she began to understand them, she would proceed to discuss in her own -quaint, slow way. - -‘I suppose it must be a matter of temperament, or perhaps it is an -Irish peculiarity,’ she would say, and inspect me very seriously. - -I assured her that the Irishman was not born who could not change his -opinion at a moment’s notice for the fun of the thing, and in the midst -of comedy fall foul upon tragedy for pure diversion’s sake. She shook -her head despondently, and decided at once that there could be found -no earnest scholars, no born leaders of men, in a band of amiable -buffoons. - -My moments of recreation and distraction were enjoyed with Gabrielle, -when we walked round the desert island in search of adventures, or with -elaborate care, tried to make each other understand the caprices of our -wandering fancies in the alleys of the sad, mysterious garden. It was -pure joy to feel the little hand clinging to my arm or lost in my palm -like a soft, small bird, and hear the pretty patter of running steps -alongside of my brisk strides. For, to atone for its late appearance, -the winter was mortally cold, and there was no dallying with frozen -toes and frost-bitten ears. But to make up for this foolish superiority -of mine in the matter of steps, Gabrielle was indulgence itself to my -decided inferiority upon imaginative ground. I certainly could not -imagine so many things out of nothing, and it was clear that I could -not make up so many charming adventures for Minette and Monsieur Con. -But in my gross grown-up way, I was not an unsympathetic confidante -for the grievances and perplexities of solitary childhood. Indeed, -Gabrielle admitted, with off-hand majesty of look and deportment, -that I was rather a nice and entertaining person for a little girl to -talk to, not above the simple pleasures of play, and not beneath the -romantic joys of story-telling. Now she loved her aunt; oh, yes, she -certainly loved her aunt above and beyond all the world. But her aunt, -you see, was so very solemn, and then she read so many books, she was -quite _entichée_ of those big, hard-looking books. _Entichée_, she -admitted, in answer to my amused and not altogether edified surprise, -was an expression she had caught from my servant Marie. It was Marie, -she repeated imperiously, who said her aunt was _entichée_ of books, -and she was pleased to find it a very good word. She was the quaintest -and drollest little philosopher and playmate melancholy middle-age -could desire, and I am not without shrewd suspicion that I learnt more -from her than she from me. - -Of an evening, as I sat alone downstairs over my coffee, and snoozed -comfortably over one of Mademoiselle’s books, or puffed a meditative -cigarette in front of the bright wood fire, Joséphine would come down -for a chat on her own account. It amused me to draw her out upon the -subject of Mademoiselle, and bit by bit I pieced her story together. - - * * * * * - -Monsieur Lenormant, the father of two girls, had had a serious -political difference with his family, who were all staunch -Bonapartists, while he stood by the republic, and flung his hat into -the air whenever they played the _Marseillaise_. With no desire to -parade this difference, and being a shy and sensitive man, despite his -republican sympathies, he chose evasion by the road of retreat. He -left Beaufort, where his family were an influence, and bought the old -house on the island. Here few were likely to disturb him, and political -temptation could not be expected to pursue him. - -His ostensible excuse was the possession of scholarly tastes and -indifference to the present. The death of his wife upon the birth of -a second girl, Adèle, was seemingly a further inducement to seek the -soothing shade of solitude. So the widower, accompanied by his wife’s -confidential servant, Joséphine, and an old gardener, Marcel, drove out -of Beaufort, with his children, his books, and his cats. In a little -while he was settled and hard at work among the ancients, and the -current world of republicans and Bonapartists alike forgot him. - -There was a difference of five years between the children, and soon, -too soon, little Henriette was established upon the semi-maternal, -wholly self-sacrificing pedestal of _la grande sœur_. All she had known -of spontaneous childhood was before her mother’s death. Henceforth -she was ‘mother’ herself, with Adèle for an adored and adorable small -tyrant. While still in short frocks, her father, too, had got to rely -on her, and cling to her as to a grown-up woman. He would gravely -debate with her upon matters it was but humane to suppose she could -understand nothing of. This may be an excellent school for training -in abnegation and patient endurance, but it is a hard one. Henriette -slipped into maturity without any of the sunshine of childhood across -her backward path. She was an uncomplaining, studious little girl, and -it is not surprising that Monsieur Lenormant should have gone to the -grave without the remotest suspicion of the wrong he had done her. -Did she not love her father devotedly? Did she not worship the pretty -Adèle? And what more can any sane and reasonable young woman demand of -life than ample opportunities for the practice of self-abnegation and -the worshipping of others? - -When Henriette was a slip of a girl and Adèle a child of ten, young -Dr. Vermont, the only son of Monsieur Lenormant’s comrade of youth, -came down to Beaufort from Paris, in the full blaze of university -honours, and not without promise of future scientific renown, backed -by a substantial income and solid provincial influence. This young man -looked surprisingly well upon horseback, and found it good exercise -to ride frequently from the town to the house of his father’s old -friend upon the island. Arrived there, it amused him to notice Adèle, -who was free of anything like bashfulness, and in return, thought him -the nicest person she had ever seen. Meanwhile, a grave, tall girl, -too thin for her ungraceful age, looked on with very different eyes. -To her Dr. Vermont was the traditional Phœbus Apollo of girlhood. She -knew nothing of romance, or novels, or poetry, but she felt the dawn of -womanhood upon sight of him, and blushed in divine self-consciousness. -She was a plain girl then--unfinished, unformed, and painfully -reserved; and it was not to be expected that such an elegant article of -semi-Parisian make, as Dr. Vermont, should have an eye for material so -crude and undeveloped. Had Dr. Vermont been thirty instead of twenty, -he might have thought differently, but we all know how grandly exacting -and dramatic twenty is. Whereas his conquest was not in the least -astonishing. He was a fine-looking lad, with plenty of pluck and grace -and worldly wisdom. He carried himself with a noble self-consciousness, -was sufficiently attentive to his moustache to convince mankind of -its supreme importance, and already his handsome dark eyes wore that -look of mild scrutiny that never left them. Altogether a youth with -justifiable pretensions and fascinations of an intellectual and bodily -nature, and one by no means likely to learn to abate them by experience. - -As the years went by, and the little women of the dark house by the -river grew with them, the wealth of Monsieur Lenormant declined, and -when Dr. Vermont, now a distinctive _somebody_ in his profession, came -down one summer, and rode out from Beaufort to see him, matters were so -bad that he found it his duty to come every day during the rest of his -vacation. Adèle was now sixteen, a lovely flower opening in the sun of -romantic dreams. Can we wonder if Dr. Vermont’s glance rested on her in -amazed admiration? Dr. Vermont said nothing, but he looked. He looked -constantly, and his glances were not without eloquence for the maiden -blushing vividly beneath them. All this Henriette saw, and loved her -sister none the less, wished not the less heartily both her dear ones -happiness and success, though her own misery came of it. Only Monsieur -Lenormant understood nothing of the situation. His dream always had -been to marry his favourite Henriette to his young friend Vermont, but -death overtook him before he could accomplish it. - -One evening, as Dr. Vermont sat beside him with his hand upon his -pulse, the poor gentleman looked up at him anxiously. - -‘I have written for a relative, a lady, to come and look after my -girls, but you, François, I expect to be their real protector. I like -to think of you as my daughter’s husband. She is a good girl, François, -an excellent girl. She has been a devoted daughter, and an adoring -sister. She will make the best of wives.’ - -‘I am sure of it,’ said Dr. Vermont musingly, as he glanced down to -where the two girls were silently embroidering in the deep recess of -a window above the river. He knew perfectly well which daughter he -was expected to marry and which he intended to marry, but he kept his -counsel, and gazed in soft approbation upon the charming profile of -Adèle. - -When he came next day, Monsieur Lenormant had departed from this -world of marriage and giving in marriage, and the lady relative had -arrived. A formal engagement with Adèle was speedily entered upon, and -the Doctor took the train for Paris, a happy prospective bridegroom, -with the advantage of being in no hurry to jump into domestic -responsibilities. His betrothed was somewhat young, and meanwhile he -would have leisure to pursue pleasure elsewhere, and nourish her placid -love upon the most expensive boxes of sweets direct from Boissier, -and instalments of light and elegant literature to teach her what to -respect of life and from mankind. - -The bride was eighteen and the groom twenty-eight, when they were -married one spring morning in the Mairie and in the Cathedral of -Beaufort. That marriage still brought tears to Joséphine’s old eyes, -and tempted her to unhabitual eloquence. How lovely the bride had -looked!--too lovely, too delicate for health and long life. Eyes -limpid like an angel’s, so sweetly blue and soft, a face upon which -the tenderest breath would bring a stain of deepened colour, form slim -and curved and dainty in every detail. The groom was proud, radiantly -proud, perhaps not tender enough and unapprehensive of the rough winds -of life for a creature so fragile and for bloom so evanescent. But he -looked distinguished, well-bred, and eminently Parisian; and what more -could provincial spectators desire? - -A more interesting figure far was the grave, sad young lady, who smiled -upon her happy sister through her tears, and could find words above -the pain of a breaking heart to remind the groom that Adèle had always -been petted and spoiled and cared, and fervently implore him to do the -same by her, and treat her more like a child than a wife. The scene was -clear before me. Mademoiselle, as she must have been at twenty-three, -not pretty, but captivating enough for eyes not blinded by mere animal -beauty, as the Doctor’s were. And he, fatuous, sure of himself, at -heart indifferent to others, and intoxicated with foolish marital -satisfaction. Did he know that tragedy brushed his happiness that -moment--softly, benignantly, with blessing instead of prayer, with gaze -of hope instead of reproach? - -Joséphine could tell me nothing, and it pleased me to believe that he -understood, and some day might remember. - -After some months in Paris, the little bride was brought back to the -dark house by the river by an anxious husband, there to linger in the -warmth of two loves, two devotions, waited upon, worshipped in vain. -The opening of her baby’s eyes was the signal for the closing of her -own. Not then, not then could Dr. Vermont be expected to understand. As -far as I could gather from Joséphine’s account, he passionately loved -his young wife. Her death crushed him for a while, and he walked the -earth like one blind to the changes of seasons, blind to surrounding -faces, and fronting a future that would remain for ever a blank. -Mademoiselle came, and gently touched his hand to remind him that he -was not alone in his sorrow. He neither felt the fraternity nor the -unspoken tenderness. The paleness of her cheek held no eloquence of -suffering for him; the sadness of her eyes left his heart untouched. As -for the child, far from feeling a thrill of paternity upon sight of it, -he desired never to behold it more. He would regard it henceforth as -the cause of his moral ruin, the beginning of a broken and joyless life. - -In this hard and sullen mood he returned to Paris, and Gabrielle -grew up with Mademoiselle, without any knowledge of her father, who -apparently had forgotten the existence of both. - - - - - AN INTERLUDE - - A DECISION FIN DE SIÈCLE AT THE CAFÉ LANDER - - -IN the middle of the rue Taitbout, there is a little café, which was -not so well known twenty years ago as it is now, at the end of the -nineteenth century. Then it was only beginning to emerge from the -inferior position of crémerie. Came one day, from the unconventional -region of the Latin Quarter, somewhere in the seventies, an -enterprising proprietor; and in his wake followed a train of noble -youths, enthusiastic in the praises of Lander, wishful for the further -enjoyments of his hospitalities, and with kindly memory of his -generosity in the matter of credit. - -Lander brought the pleasant ways of the _Quarter_ across the town -with him, and the band of noble youths stood by him, encouraged and -sustained him. In consequence, the Café Lander flourished exceedingly, -and its circle of clients daily increased, until it was known, far -and wide, as the resort of embryo genius. For all the boisterous and -good-tempered young fellows who crowded round its tables, and emptied -bocks and consumed coffee (fifty centimes a cup with _fine champagne_), -were coming great men. They were the future lights in literature, art, -philosophy, and politics. The real living great man they professed to -regard with respectful admiration, but they wanted none of him in their -midst. In the slang of the day, he had made his pile, and reposed on -velvet and laurels among the Immortals. When he would have become a -part of the past, and the future was their present, they could afford -to be on more intimate terms with him. But for the present, they -belonged exclusively to the future. - -These young fools had their place a while, and expectation dwelt -indulgently upon them. They chatted loudly of isms and ologies and -oxies, with refreshing crudeness: upheld the realistic, the romantic, -the psychological, and Heaven knows what other schools of literature. -They prated of form, and matter, and art, and style, as only Frenchmen, -bitten by love of these things, can prate. And then, one by one, they -dropped out of the ranks of embryo genius, having accomplished nothing, -with the great epic unwritten, unwritten the drama, the psychological -novel that was to teach M. Bourget something new about women; unwritten -the important _History of the Franks_, that was to throw into relief -hitherto unrevealed aspects of the character of their conquerors; -unsolved the problems of metaphysics under discussion, undiscovered the -great political panacea of the age, unpainted the grand masterpiece. -With the first stone of their reputation still to be laid, they went, -and the café saw them no more. - -Some of them became commonplace advocates, and made uninteresting -citizens and fairly reputable fathers of families: or sordid notaries, -or humdrum bourgeois. Romance shook its bridle rein with a regretful -backward glance: ‘Farewell for evermore,’ and the converted fool turned -upon his heel to enter into the ignoble strife with his fellows in -quest of daily bread. Others there were who had a troublesome way of -right-about-facing upon fond expectation. They jilted the muse for -historical research, or discarded art for literature, or drifted -from sonnets to the stage. One youth of philosophic tastes was known, -with inexcusable fickleness, to shake off the secular garb, and array -himself in the white of the cloister. He was the only one who made -a serious reputation; he became a fashionable preacher, and wrote a -_History of the Church_ which brought upon him the wrath of Rome. - -But if they were mostly crude, ineffectual youths, they had bright -faces, and eager glances, and hearts full of hope and enthusiasm. They -were each confident of his own powers, inapprehensive of defeat or -failure, bound upon a fiery race for experience and new sensations, -contemptuous of the past, and looked gaily toward a future of glorious -achievement. Not a city but furnishes the type, and in no other city -is it so persistent as in Paris. Paint one such, and you paint all her -young men, nourished upon vivid imagination, upon inexhaustible hope -and unconquerable self-faith. - -Into this circle of frank and amiable egotists, Dr. Vermont dropped -accidentally some ten years ago. Being of an experimental turn of -mind, and apt to fall upon mild curiosity in his casual scrutiny -of impetuous youth, he stayed. It is a mistake to assume that an -interest in youth, and a tolerance of its nonsense, is an indication of -lingering kindness of heart Dr. Vermont liked youth as a vivisectionist -likes animals. It taught him much that he desired to know, and where -it did not teach him precisely, it helped him along the path of -observation. Men are grown-up children; boys are rude philosophers, -artists, poets, what you will. - -A cold, passionless man was Dr. Vermont, the one feeble flame of human -feeling he had thrilled to having faded out of memory almost upon the -death of his just buried young wife. She, too, had interested him, only -differently, being of a less calculable and possibly less shallow order -of being than the embryo great men of Lander’s. Widowhood had sundered -him sharply from all personal ties, and left him all the freer to -indulge his passion for experimental psychology. - -As he sat evening after evening, and drank his coffee and little glass, -and smoked a meditative cigar, it amused him to encourage the vivacious -contentment around him, and lead the unborn reputations to reveal -their bent. His influence upon young men was a thing to make older and -saner persons gape. It was, perhaps, all the stronger and more subtle -because it was unrecognised. He was feared, and yet admired, to an -incredible degree. His mild, sarcastic face, with its finished features -and wholly effaced humanity of expression, put a point upon emulation -and goaded to rash display. But none were made to feel the rashness -of their flights, or the absurdity of their theories. Dr. Vermont was -too clever a man to scare expansion, or cow ambition. This was how he -kept his hold upon the fresh-moustached lads around him. This was how -they spoke of him among themselves as a good fellow--_un bon garçon, -malgré_--well, in spite of a great many things. - -Thus he sat, and smoked, and listened, while the years passed, and -out of the circle familiar faces went and new ones came. It must be -admitted there was not much variety in the entertainment. Always the -same questions of form and expression, of style and matter; always the -same comparison of international literatures and the relative virtues -of different forms of government; above and beyond all, sex and its -unexplained and stinging problems. They never tired, and each batch -came up, fresh and eager for the old discussions. Names may vary, -fashions may alter, but the rough, broad facts of life are there, -immutable like nature, ever recurrent like the ebb and flow of the tide. - -A sense of weariness was upon Dr. Vermont the December night I write -of, as he walked toward the Café Lander. Most of the lads were -dispersed by the Christmas vacation. But he knew precisely those -who were expecting him. Anatole Buzeval, his favourite, a charming -young fellow, with healthy Norman blood in his veins, and in spite of -the disastrous environment of Paris _fin de siècle_, with something -throbbing under his coat that suspiciously resembled a boy’s free -heart. He came from a Norman fishing town, near the beat of the -channel, washed by a friendly old river and wooded by still friendlier -trees. In boyhood, he had walked in the woods, he had fished in the -river, he had known the delights of amateur seafaring, and rode, and -shot live things, and was first awakened by love to the melody of -the birds, and to heroism by the genial spirit of endurance of the -fishermen. These influences kept him partially sheltered from the -century-worn cynicism and exhausted emotions prevailing. It accounted -for the ring of sincerity in his laughter, for the zest of his -ephemeral enthusiasms and the courageous freedom of his blue eyes. But -he was nevertheless bitten by the disease of the hour, and his speech -was tainted with the cheap _fin de siècle_ indifference and dejection. -He was the youngest of the party, the most intelligent and the -brightest. Beside him sat Gaston Favre, a youth who would have been an -artist if the death-throes of the century left him any room to believe -in art. Nothing any longer interested him, but he was still capable of -remarking upon sight of a bad picture-- - -‘Now, if it were worth the trouble, or really mattered, there is food -for indignation in that picture.’ - -Whereupon he would survey it in the spirit of ostentatious tolerance, -without a wince or a critical flash of eye. - -The third, Julien Renaud, was a little older than these two, and -professed a dead interest in politics. Time was when Lander’s echoed -with the noble flow of his eloquence. Time was when it was confidently -believed that he was destined, not only in his own imagination, to -reach the tribune, and thunder effectively against the abuses of -government. But that was in M. Constans’ hour, and M. Constans was -notoriously Julien’s pet aversion. In those remote days, he was -antagonistic toward what he called ‘the whole shop of the Elysian -Fields,’ and relished M. Carnot as little as he had ever relished -‘old Father Grévy.’ But these were now half-forgotten ebullitions of -youth, and like his beloved France, he was battered and bruised by the -defeats of life into complete indifference. Nothing mattered. In reply -to everything, he had but one response, a quiet shrug, a weariedly -lifted eyebrow, and a murmured _cui bono_ upon a long-drawn sigh. -On this evening the chosen drink was punch, which resulted in more -boisterous converse, and showed Anatole in almost a lyric mood. The -first mention of the insipidly recurrent phrase of the hour--‘end of -the century’--inspired him to fall upon mirthful reminiscences, just as -Dr. Vermont entered the café. - -‘M. le docteur désire?’ said the waiter, helping him off with his -overcoat. - -The doctor named his drink as he took a seat, and blandly scrutinised -each flushed and smiling face. - -‘We were talking, Doctor,’ Anatole cried, ‘of ways of ending the -year. Do you remember, two years ago, when I first joined you, coming -straight from Barbizon, where I chummed with a queer and amusing Scotch -artist? how I taught you all to sing what I conceived to be a Scotch -melody--_Les Temps Jadis_--and we drank at midnight an execrable -decoction called in Scotland a tod-dy, standing, and gave an English -shake-hands all round, which I am told is the way in Scotland of -toasting the departing year?’ - -The Doctor paused in the act of lifting his glass, and nodded, as -he threw out a couple of absent names in signification of his keen -remembrance of the evening. - -Followed good-natured and regretful words for each absent face. _Les -temps jadis_ were not such bad times after all, though the melancholy -Scotch might chant them with more melody than the vivacious sons of -Gaul. Jean this was an excellent heart; Henri that, a capital good -fellow, the pity was he stuttered so. Frédéric, poor fool, had settled -down, and married a _dot_ and a squint, and the squint, alas! was so -marked, that the dowry was a totally inadequate compensation. Upon -which, Julien made cynical mention of the greater security of marital -rights when backed by aid so powerful as a squint. - -‘But, since women are only happy in virtue of their lovers and not in -virtue of their husbands,’ shouted Anatole, with a charming look of -_rouerie_, ‘what a dismal future for Frédéric’s wife! I declare I could -find it in my heart to rush off and console her. I should be so blinded -by my own burning eloquence, as I flung myself at her feet, that I -would have no eyes left for the squint.’ - -‘Not until you came to yourself in a revulsion of feeling, my friend,’ -sneered Julien Renaud. - -‘Has any one seen Henri Lemaître since the night we drank our Scotch -tod-dy, Anatole, and sang, or tried to sing, _Les Temps Jadis_?’ asked -Dr. Vermont. - -‘No. He was last heard of in Japan, studying the gentle art of -self-defence, as practised by the gentle Japanese. He derided the duel, -and loathed European pugilism, and he thought something might be done -towards a more civilised settlement of disputes by borrowing of the -remoter civilisation of the land of the chrysanthemum. What will you? -Did he not study the washy water-colours of the immortal Monsieur Loti?’ - -‘Oh, an affection for Pierre Loti would explain any absurdity!’ said -Gaston Favre, with a grim smile. ‘If we could hope to sit here a -hundred years hence, and make a summary of the gods of the coming -century, I wonder what sort of intellectual company should we have -under discussion.’ - -‘Finished humbugs, I dare swear,’ shouted Anatole. ‘Already, from force -of mere good writing, we have fallen upon intellectual inanition. -The last century wound up by unveiling the goddess of reason; we’ve -unveiled the goddess of form, and the devil swallow me, if there is -anything to be found behind our excellent style. Each light of a new -school sounds a loud trumpet to inform the world that he has at last -discovered truth. So does a silly hen who lays an ordinary egg, the -counterpart of her fellow-hen’s. You can’t convince her of the fatuous -impertinence of her cackle, nor prove to her that there is nothing -particularly great in the laying of eggs. I declare, nowadays, every -trumpery artist and scribbler takes himself as seriously as the hen, -and divides his time between laying and cackling.’ - -‘Each one has his theory, and it is more important that he should -reveal that theory to the public than even paint his picture, write his -play, or novel, or story upon it. So much has America taught him by -means of that strange institution, the interviewer.’ - -‘Ah,’ cried Anatole, in a burst of exaggerated despair, ‘I gave up -France when she took the American interviewer to her bosom, and the -best papers were not ashamed to give us the opinions of the latest -Minister, and expose the lack of taste and modesty in the youngest -Master.’ - -‘Not France alone, _mon cher_,’ interposed Dr. Vermont; ‘English -journalism has become no whit less vulgar and personal. Vulgarity, -ostentation, fraud, rapacious advertisement--these are all the symptoms -of the great moral disease of the century. Were a Lycurgus to rise -up for each state, I doubt if the nations of the earth would have -the wisdom to return to frugality, courage, and simplicity--so much -have we lost by the long race of civilisation, so much our superiors -were the old Pagan Spartans, and so dead are we to all promptings of -delicacy,--without moral or physical value, without even valour.’ - -The Doctor spoke dejectedly, as if the hope of all good had died within -him. The young men suddenly remembered that they, too, were weighted -with a like lassitude and unbelief, and finished their punch in silence. - -‘I expect we shall see the century out in a lugubrious spirit,’ sighed -Anatole, when, upon a sign from Dr. Vermont, the waiter had replenished -their glasses. - -‘Where’s the use of facing a new one?’ asked the Doctor, with a vague, -dull glance into space. ‘The same chatter, the same humbug, the same -vulgarity and fraud. Always the same, and inevitably the same. New -idols, new theories, new habits start up to prove more monotonous than -the old ones----’ - -‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ interrupted Gaston Favre. - -‘Exactly, and Alphonse Karr was not the first to find it out. I have a -better plan, lads, for saluting the new century than your Scotchman’s -tod-dy and _Les Temps Jadis_,--than even the insipid shake-hands of -Albion.’ - -The punch had gone to the young heads, and gave them a craving for -excitement. Each one leant forward over his glass, with shining eyes -and flushed cheeks, eager and expectant. It was not often that Dr. -Vermont condescended to plan for their amusement. - -‘Let us suppose ourselves singing _Les Neiges d’Antan_, and toasting -our old acquaintances. We shall awaken into a new century, just the -same as the old. The more it changes, the more it will be the same. Are -you not prospectively tired of it already?’ - -He looked round gravely upon the young men, and excitement died out of -each glance under the sad indifference of his. They felt upon their -honour to be no less weary and cynical than he. A nod of emphatic -agreement from the three young pessimists was supplemented to the -Doctor’s monologue, as he continued-- - -‘Suppose we salute the twentieth century--already worn before birth--by -a single pistol-shot, the mouth of each man’s to his brains. As we -are none of us likely to do anything with our brains, more than the -hundreds of other young men I have seen vanish from these tables into -nothingness, there can be no patriotic objection to our blowing them -out in company.’ - -The young men sat back in their chairs, and drew a long, deep breath. -They were almost sobered for the moment, and profoundly troubled by -their leader’s extraordinary proposition. However firmly we may be -convinced of the nothingness of life, such a method of toasting the -new year is calculated to give the stoutest courage pause. Not that -they held any squeamish objections to suicide--quite the contrary, -they professed to regard it as the natural and legitimate remedy for a -broken heart, damaged honour, or a ruined life. But, _tudieu!_ they all -sat there drinking their punch in freedom and security, with pockets -not inconveniently full, it is true, but with sound hearts and sounder -appetites. The prison was not before them: then, why the deuce should -they be offered the grave? - -‘I thought, like Solomon, you were disposed to complain of the sameness -of all things under the sun,’ sneered the Doctor. - -‘That is true, Doctor,’ assented Anatole. ‘But suppose we were to find -things just as same beyond the sun--or a good deal worse? For, after -all, we may flatter ourselves with being sceptics, but what security -have we that the pistol-shot will be the end of it all? and what if it -happened to be infernally disagreeable somewhere else, and there was no -getting back?’ - -‘Bah, another glass of punch will put you all right,’ laughed Julien. -‘On reflection, I find the Doctor’s proposal an excellent one. We are -sick of everything here--wine, women, and song, such as Paris now -furnishes. Then, let us go and see for ourselves what is going on among -the stars. There’s this comfort, Anatole, we go in a body, if there -is anything ugly to face. That’s the difficulty about suicide,--its -lugubrious solitude. In company, one may snap his fingers at fear. -To see three friendly faces round you, all ready to plunge at once -into the same boat, and exchange jokes simultaneously with old Father -Charon! When you lift your own cocked pistol to your forehead, to see -three other hands and all four be shot together out of the mystery, -either into eternity or--_le néant_.’ - -‘Ah, there, you’re not sure either, Gaston,’ Anatole protested, -reproachfully. - -‘That’s just it, boy; I know nothing now, but with the dawn of the new -century I should know everything.’ - -‘My humble contribution to the Doctor’s plan is the proposal that we -blow our brains out together--I mean in the same room,’ suggested -Julien. - -‘Precisely; I have just been thinking the matter out. Now here in -Paris, we should excite excessive attention. But it might better be -managed in some quiet place--near the sea, or close to a river bank, -where our bodies might disappear easily, without giving rise to -immediate alarm. I know of a half deserted island down near Beaufort, -my native town. You will hardly believe that a place so near a busy -factory town--one of the largest provincial cities of France--could -be so forsaken and desolate. I doubt if any one lives on it now. My -father-in-law had a big gloomy house on that island. I don’t think -there was another inhabitant but himself. We might go down there, and -toast the new century in among the dark rocks above the river.’ - -‘Beaufort! a commonplace train with such an end in view,’ sighed -Anatole. - -‘Not necessarily a train. What is to prevent us from taking horse, as -your favourite heroes of Dumas did?’ said the Doctor, smiling a little -at him. - -‘With all my heart, if we are going to ride to Beaufort,’ cried -Anatole. ‘I don’t care if I am shot then.’ - - - - - _PART SECOND_ - - DR. VERMONT - - (_Told by the author_) - - DR. VERMONT AND HIS GUESTS UPON THE ISLAND - - -IT wanted three days to the end of the year. The afternoon had been -so exceptionally mild, that Mademoiselle Lenormant and her foreign -friend were still sitting out on the gallery enjoying the sunset. The -air was very clear, and the heavens beautifully coloured, though the -winter dusk was beginning to drop. But it was as yet a mere suggestion -of dimness that did not hide, while it accentuated, the edge of bleak -and empty road along the sky-line. It sharpened the outlines of the -bridge and its castellated points below. The river was smooth like dark -glass, and rosy clouds made a blood-red margin along its outer bank. -No wind blew among the trees of the melancholy garden, visible from -the other side of the gallery, and so still was it, that the farthest -sounds sent back their travelling echoes. The footfall of a solitary -peasant crossing the bridge made a martial clatter, so clear and strong -and self-assertive was it upon the pavements that seemed to sleep since -feudal times. - -Little Gabrielle sat in a corner of the gallery in jacket and hood, -hugging Minette, who bore the discomfort bravely, while she spelled out -a story from a large picture-book on her knee. It was satisfactory to -see that the kitten took as much interest in the story as the reader, -and enlivened the study by occasional lunges at the brown finger -following each line. The child’s pretty voice hardly interrupted the -low conversation of the two ladies, who faced the view of Beaufort, and -watched the road, while they discoursed upon the philosophy of life. -Mademoiselle Lenormant always watched that road, whether she sat in the -gallery or upstairs in her own room. It was the rival of Gabrielle and -her books, for she would willingly leave either at any moment to look -at it. - -Joséphine came down to carry Gabrielle inside, out of the chill air, -and the child was still protesting loudly, and calling imperiously on -her aunt to rescue her from private tyranny, when Mademoiselle bent -forward with an excited gesture, her eyes riveted upon the point where -the road seemed to issue from the sky. - -‘Do you not see something down there--something dark that moves?’ she -breathed, without looking at her companion. - -‘Effectively. It appears to be a group of men on horseback. Yes, -Mademoiselle, it is a party of riders, and they are coming straight -towards the bridge.’ - -Mademoiselle shook from head to foot, and went and caught the -balustrade to steady herself, while she continued to examine the blot -of moving shadow upon the landscape, that increased with each wink of -eyelid, until soon it was a visible invasion of males on horseback. A -dull thud of hoofs was borne upon the air, and near the bridge, one of -the party, apparently the leader, drew up, and seemed to address the -others. These at once fell behind, three in number, and the foremost -turned his face to the island, and galloped ahead. - -‘Joséphine, viens, viens vite,’ shrieked Mademoiselle, her whole face -dyed pink, and her grey eyes dark and luminous with emotion. - -Joséphine hurried out, cap-strings flying, all in a state of wild -concern. What was it, but what on earth was it? What did Mademoiselle -see? - -Mademoiselle began in a thick voice-- - -‘Je crois, Joséphine, que c’est le docteur’--and then stopped, and drew -her hand slowly across her eyes, like one awakened from a moment’s -stupor. ‘C’est Monsieur le docteur qui nous arrive enfin,’ she added, -in her usual voice, and with a full return to her old self. - -Joséphine peered over the balustrade, but she only saw three moving -shapes upon the bridge, the outlines of horse and man intermelted to -her vision. - -‘The foremost rider must now be half way up the street,’ cried -Mademoiselle’s companion, glad yet ashamed that she should be there at -such a moment. - -‘Take Gabrielle, Joséphine, and put on her pretty grey dress and her -laces. Marie will open the door for Dr. Vermont.’ - -Joséphine carried off the startled child, too frightened to ask -questions or demur, and at that moment the bell rang loudly, with -violent emphasis. - -‘I will leave you now, dear Mademoiselle,’ said her friend, with -sympathetic pressure of her fingers. ‘Monsieur will doubtless require -this _appartement_, in which case I can return to Beaufort this -evening.’ - -‘No, no, there is a bedroom upstairs. You will not leave me so -abruptly, not now, when perhaps I may most need a friend. Stay yet a -while.’ - -A heavy step was crossing the hall, and came through the dining-room -towards the gallery. The foreigner, on her way to her own room, caught -sight of a lean, youngish-looking gentleman, with a fair beard and -thin brown hair worn off temples, deeply marked by life. He glanced at -her keenly, as he stood for her to pass, and she had time to note the -social polish of his manners, and the melancholy dignity of his aspect, -and then he crossed the floor and stepped out through the window, -searching with mild brown eyes for the woman who had waited for his -coming for ten long years. - -His face lit up with a soft smile when he saw her, and he went -forward, upon the pleasant exclamation--‘Ma sœur!’ His intention was to -bestow upon her a formal embrace. His hand was stretched out, and when -her cold slim fingers touched it, and lay in his palm, and he saw the -lustre of unshed tears in the sad grey eyes that met his own steadily, -and a rosy flame tremble like confession over the cheeks’ pallor, a new -impulse came to him, and he simply lifted her hand to his lips. - -‘Henriette,’ he murmured, in a troubled voice. - -‘The silence has been long, François,’ she said, and smiled. - -He still held her hand, and gazed at her curiously. She was not so -changed as he, and if the years had thinned, they had not lined her -face. At thirty-three, he even found her more attractive than at -twenty. There was that about her which compelled interest, and gave an -odd charm to the simplest speech. - -‘Henriette, you have much to pardon me, and your indulgence will have -to go still further than you dream. Ah, how vividly a forgotten past -may bear down upon a man at the first sight of a familiar place! All -my life down here had clean gone from my mind. This queer old house, -your father, you, even Adèle, have been for me years past, not even a -memory, much less a link with all that is gone. It is incredible how -completely a man may forget. No regret, no remembrance pursued me in -Paris, and the instant I crossed the bridge it all surged back on me, -not as remembered days, but as the actual present. Verily, we are droll -rascals, Henriette, and mercilessly tyrannised by experience.’ - -He had dropped her hand now, and was leaning against a pillar, staring -across at Beaufort. Mademoiselle’s brows twitched sharply, but she -uttered no word of reproach, partly from pride, and partly from -surprise. - -‘It will be good news for Gabrielle, and for me, if such a change -decided you to remain here now,’ she said. - -‘Gabrielle?’ he interrogated softly. - -‘Your child, François!’ - -Oh, this he understood as a reproach, though it touched him but -slightly. He made a step forward, still questioning her with movement -of brow and eyelid. - -‘_Tiens!_ It is true. Is it credible I could forget I had a child? Oh! -I know what you must think of me, Henriette; and the worst of it is, -you cannot think badly enough of me;’ he said, laughing drearily. - -‘It would be a poor satisfaction for me to think badly of you, -François. I am not your judge. It is enough for me that you have come -back--at last.’ - -‘What a sweet woman!’ cried Dr. Vermont, in amazement. ‘My sister, -your kindness confounds me. Life has not taught me to expect anything -like it, and I begin to believe I am not the sage I have lately loved -to contemplate. What, indeed, if these steadfast, silent creatures be -the sages after all, and we, the philosophers and seekers after light, -but the fools, who wear cap and bells, and mistake them for badges of -sovereignty.’ - -‘Here comes Gabrielle, François,’ said Mademoiselle, interrupting his -reflections. - -The little girl lingered shyly upon the edge of the gallery, which -Joséphine endeavoured to make her cross by whispered entreaty and -pushes. She did not know this man who was her father, and her small -brains were busy contriving a way to greet him. She made a pretty -picture thus, in grey silk and white lace, with a broad crimson sash, -and a big bow of red ribbon on the top of her curly brown head. Dr. -Vermont stared at her as an object of natural curiosity rather than a -charming little girl, his own daughter. - -‘She is very like you, Henriette,’ he said, and held out his hand with -an ingratiating smile. - -Gabrielle came slowly forward, and took it; then looked up into his -face in grave and silent deliberation. She decided suddenly to offer -her cheek for the paternal kiss, which she did, with much conscious -dignity and no sense of pleasure whatever. - -‘Let me see,’ said Dr. Vermont, when he had perfunctorily kissed her, -‘she is now about ten. The very age her mother was when I first beheld -her. Poor pretty Adèle! She does not in any way resemble her.’ - -He sighed deeply, and Henriette’s eyes, fixed on Gabrielle, filled with -tears. - -‘What rooms does Monsieur wish me to prepare for him?’ Joséphine asked -in the pause. - -The Doctor started, and remembered, with a quick disagreeable -sensation, the nearness of his friends, and its extraordinary -significance. If that good soul Joséphine but knew! If Henriette -suspected! - -‘That reminds me, Henriette--I have left three friends outside. I -suppose you can put us up down here, or upstairs, for a couple of -nights?’ - -‘Only a couple of nights?’ Mademoiselle exclaimed. - -‘Yes. By the dawn of New Year’s Day we shall be far from Beaufort, so -we will leave you on New Year’s Eve after dinner. What accommodation -have you here?’ - -‘You have forgotten that, too! There is your old room--the large one -opposite, which a friend of mine has been using. There is a canapé, -which one of the gentlemen can sleep on. And then there is my sister’s -room, and in the little dressing-room off it, another bed could be put -up. I think you can manage.’ - -‘Capitally. We shall be lodged like kings. Gaston and Julien in my old -room--yes, I quite remember it now. Yellow hangings, and an engraving -of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” and a picture of Madame Lebrun. Not so? -Anatole will sleep in the dressing-room, and I in the blue room. Is it -still so blue? There used to be a photograph of my favourite Del Sarto, -“The Madonna with St John.” Poor Adèle! What would I not give to be -the same enamoured young fellow of ten years ago, violently combating -death? But I have lived twenty years since, and everything is dead for -me.’ - -He thrust his hands into his pockets, and went toward the door in -search of his friends, without troubling to note the effect of his -heartless words upon Henriette. - -These he found trotting unconcernedly up and down the broken pavement. -With all eternity before them, a few minutes more or less outside a -particular door could not affect them. And when they were ushered into -the house by the Doctor, and presented to his sister-in-law, they -cast a glance of pity upon her that she should be at so much pains -to welcome doomed, indifferent men. They listened politely to her -apologies for the insufficiencies of their installation, and to her -prayers for indulgence in the matter of _cuisine_; and shook their -heads in despondent wonder. As for Anatole, he was as lugubrious as a -funeral mute, and the Doctor’s cynical animation at table completely -mystified him. - -When once the fumes of punch had abated, poor Anatole saw his mad -engagement in quite a novel light. The thought of that pistol held -by his own hand to his own brains drove him to panic. He looked wan -with fear, and fierce from desire to conceal his fear. He was a -coward in both senses: without courage to stand out against a foolish -engagement, and equally without courage to face death. Despite his -boasted conviction that one death is as good as another, and any -possibly better than life, he entertained a very private notion that -suicide is a social as well as a moral crime, hardly justifiable by the -most abject blunder and excesses--and by nothing less than absolute -dishonour. - -Besides, at heart he loved life, and he only played at pessimism not -to look less jaded and cynical than the rest of the century. It was -the fashion not to be gay, to have no belief, to have exhausted all -emotions, and reached the end of all things. Now what would those -around him say if it were known that Anatole Buzeval relished in the -privacy of his own chamber Alexandre Dumas, and shed tears at the death -of Porthos? What self-respecting Parisian of his day would associate -with a youth, whose favourite hero was D’Artugnan, and who loved -the great optimist Scott, whose novels he studied stealthily in an -indifferent translation, and knew by heart. - -He was abashed by contemplation of his own spuriousness as member of -an effete circle, where death was regarded as the best of all things; -and Mademoiselle Lenormant was seriously distressed by the wretchedness -of his appetite and the misery of his boyish face. She forgot herself -in another, and left the Doctor to entertain her friend, who had -been invited to join them at dinner, while she set herself the task -of rescuing the poor lad from his own reflections. Anatole was an -affectionate and grateful young fellow, and the way to his heart was -inconveniently easy of access. When he went to bed that night, to his -other woes was added the delightful misfortune of being head and ears -in love with the Doctor’s sister-in-law. - -This was a complication not unnoted by Dr. Vermont or his companions. -The Doctor calmly stroked his beard, and watched Anatole between the -pauses of his conversation on matters English with the foreign lady. -The foreigner, he was pleased afterwards to describe, as intelligent, -but as she had already touched the rim of the arid plain of middle-age, -with equal dulness, far from the hills of youth and from the valley of -old age, he saw no reason to pursue her thoughts or shades of speech -upon her face--by the way, he did not like English women; they lacked -_atmosphere_, and were born without any natural grace, or coquetry, or -any desire to please--and hence he had the more leisure to devote to -inspection of Mademoiselle Lenormant and his susceptible comrade. He -understood all the boy thought hidden of the struggle within him. He -contemplated a magnanimous turn at the last moment, and caressed it -in all its dramatic details. Meanwhile, it amused him to follow the -conflict, and watch the childish eagerness with which Anatole, thinking -his last hour at hand, abandoned himself to this new fancy, with a -volume of eloquent declaration on the edge of his eyelids. - -And yet the Doctor’s calm inspection was not without a twinge of anger, -as at a kind of infringement of his personal rights. As he sat in the -old salon, where in his youth he used to chat with Monsieur Lenormant, -he was in the grip of the past, softened, almost sentimental. Nothing -was changed about the place, which wore the same homely aspect of -shabbiness and comfortable untidiness. But three of the personages -of that little drama were dead: Monsieur Lenormant, Adèle, and young -Dr. Vermont. For he, too, had been young and bright and pleasant. -Once he had thrilled from head to foot when Adèle, with a charming -movement, took one of his long fingers, and helped him to vamp the -_Marseillaise_, and their eyes met in a foolish fluttering glance, and -_tudieu!_ his own were wet! - -These were extraordinary things to remember, perhaps, but not so -extraordinary as the persistence with which his backward glance rested, -not on the image of his lovely young wife evoked from the past--but -upon Henriette as she then was. That picture of grave, silent girlhood -haunted him in a singular and unexpected way. The forgotten drama rose -up, and confronted him with its ruthless _dénouement_. And if he were -not too proud and wilful ever to acknowledge regret, he might know -that it was there the sting lay, as he remembered: that he should have -played an ignoble trick upon poor old Monsieur Lenormant, and have -looked at Adèle instead of at Henriette--on one memorable occasion. -He had played for his happiness, and happiness had passed him by. -Perchance, had he played a more honourable game, happiness would have -been with him all these years, and the noble woman, whose suffering -in his choice he now knew he had then divined, would have brought -him finer and more delicate enjoyment than that which he had found -elsewhere. - -‘Yet who knows?’ he added, as a sound lash upon sentimental musing. -‘There is no such thing as happiness, and I should have tired of her -goodness as I have tired of the badness of others.’ - -But he smiled indulgently, when Anatole droned a melancholy melody upon -her charms that night. - - - - - NEW YEAR’S EVE - - -WHILE the young men were still sitting over their coffee and rolls in -uncheerful converse, Dr. Vermont stole upstairs--not to see Gabrielle, -but to talk to Henriette. His thoughts had been with her all night, and -he was eager for sight of her by day. - -When he entered, a spot of insufferable radiance burnt into the hollow -of her thin cheek; but this confession was counteracted by the extreme -sadness of her greeting. She, too, had thought during the night, and -thought had cruelly struck at her life-long idol. For had he not -forgotten Adèle? and was Adèle’s child anything more than his by name? -To have found him indifferent to her because of the dead! But to find -him indifferent to both! There was the point of pain, and with it the -wrench of a wounded faith, which could never more uphold her in her -solitude. - -She looked at him anxiously, to see if a night spent in the blue room -had stamped his cynical, handsome face with a trace of suffering, of -revived feeling. The poor lady could not be expected to interpret any -such sign except as homage to her dead sister. So she lifted up her -heart in honest gratitude for the touch of humanity in his manner as he -held Gabrielle to his knee, and stroked her brown hair gently. Such is -the guileness and simplicity to be found on a forsaken island, where -gossip is not, and society revelations are unknown. - -‘And you have lived here the old quiet life, Henriette, with no thought -of marriage or change,’ the Doctor said musingly, and noted with -pleasure the charming habit of blushing she had retained, like a very -young girl. - -‘Surely, François, you would have expected to be apprised of my -marriage, or of any other change?’ - -‘I? Why should I? Had I not of my own will dropped out of your -existence? If I chose to forget our relationship, what claim on your -courtesy could I urge? You are too sensitive, too loyal, too good, -Henriette. You were always that. Your father used to say so, and so -used Adèle. Ah! they loved you well--those two. I wish now for your -sake--I honestly wish you had dealt me the measure I deserved, and my -neglect would have stung you less.’ - -‘It did not sting me, François. I have no pride of that kind. Life is -too full of pain. But I was sorry and grieved for Gabrielle’s sake.’ - -Had she not the right to hide the rest from him--simple-minded lady? -who believed she had succeeded--since she so honourably strove to hide -it from herself? Dr. Vermont pushed the child away, and came and stood -before his sister-in-law. His imperious glance compelled hers, which -she lifted timidly, apprehensively. - -‘You are an angel, Henriette--oh, I don’t mean in the hackneyed -conventional sense, but as a man means it when the goodness of another -forces him to face right and wrong, and he feels he cannot undo the -wrong and cannot choose the right. It is a miserable position. Ah! if -it were not so late? But my tongue is tied. My first mistake was here, -in this very room, years ago--twenty, thirty, a lifetime may be. Your -father lay on the canapé dying, and I was sitting beside him. He spoke -of you; I knew well that he spoke of you, though he did not mention -your name. It was you he wished me to marry, and I, following his -glance, looked at Adèle instead. Happiness seemed to woo me from that -flower-like face, and I believed in happiness then. Now!’ he shrugged -in his expressive way, and added, in a softer voice, drooping humbly to -her: ‘God forgive me, Henriette, but now I question the wisdom of that -choice.’ - -‘It was a natural choice, François, and it would be anguish for me to -think that you could regret it. Spare me that sorrow. Surely I have -suffered enough, and have not reproached you. But this indignity would -indeed give voice to the pain of silent years, and bid me utter words -neither you nor I could forget. I gave her to you,’ she went on, in a -dull tone of protest. ‘It was the best I had, my dearest and sole one -on earth. But what did it matter if I was the lonelier, so that you and -she were happy together? I have asked so little of life. Leave me that -remembrance, François. No man had a sweeter wife than my Adèle, and for -her I can be satisfied with a loyalty no less from her husband than -that which I have given her.’ - -She glided from the room without another look for him. He stood and -stared after her, with a fantastic, almost amused movement of eyebrow, -though the heart within him felt heavy to bursting with an odd -assortment of sensations. - -When they met again, it was at the luncheon table, with his companions -and Mademoiselle’s foreign friend. - -‘Anatole devours her with his eyes,’ he said to himself. ‘Poor moth! he -is sadly burnt, and the fact that she is eight or nine years his senior -makes his hurt the graver. There are compensations in a hopeless love -when the ages are reversed.’ - -But his mild sarcastic face wore no look of dejection or dismay as he -sat and discoursed upon Shakespeare and Molière with the foreigner, -only of intelligent survey and an amiable satisfaction in all things, -including the clowns of Shakespeare, from whom most Frenchmen -instinctively shrink. After lunch they played chess and discussed, -in the usual way, the school of realists, décadents, symbolists, and -the recent revival of romanticism in a gentleman, said to combine the -melodious style of George Sand with the adventurous spirit of the -great Dumas. It was only when the foreigner retired, and the young men -went upstairs to study the stars in the friendly odour of tobacco, that -the Doctor ventured again to address Henriette. - -‘He is an interesting lad, Anatole--eh?’ - -‘Very. But it distresses me to see him so sad and worried at his age. -He appears to have some trouble on his mind,’ said Mademoiselle, -leaning her elbows on the table and her chin upon her folded hands. - -‘He has fallen in love with you--that’s his trouble, Henriette. I -assure you, up in Paris, he is the reverse of sad or worried. He is the -life of Lander’s.’ - -Dr. Vermont achieved his purpose: he made her blush from neck to -forehead. - -‘You forget, François, that you are talking to a middle-aged woman of a -very young man,’ she said, in surprise. - -‘Not so middle-aged as that,’ laughed Dr. Vermont, unjoyously. ‘And the -others,--do they appear to have any trouble on their minds?’ - -‘It has not struck me. I should say they are rather futile men, who -would probably fail in any undertaking in an abject way,’ she said, -dismissing them. - -But she did not dismiss Anatole from her mind, and when he came to say -‘Good-night’ to her, she greeted him with so much direct and personal -sympathy in her smile, in her glance, and in the slight pressure of -her fingers, that I declare the poor fellow was only restrained by the -presence of Dr. Vermont from bursting into tears then and there, and -confessing all to her. Instead, he choked an inclination to sob, and -turned despairingly on his heel. - -It rained heavily all next day--the fatal New Year’s Eve. With an -instinct for dramatic fitness, Anatole spent the first half in a state -of suppressed tearfulness, as an appropriate ending of his young -life. He was unrecognisable to himself even, for never before had he -dropped into the elegiac mood. With the lyric, with the martial, with -the bacchanalian, he was familiar enough. He tried to recover his -self-esteem by imagining what his state would be on the battle-field. -But the satisfaction he might feel in shooting a German, or bayoneting -an insolent Englishman, was wanting to take from the horror of -contemplated death; and the candid wretchedness of his face provoked -sympathetic misery in the glance of all who beheld him. What would he -not give for one more sight of the old fishing town in Normandy, for a -chat with the genial honest fishermen who had never heard that accursed -phrase, _Fin de siècle_, and little cared whether they were at the -beginning or the end of the century. No, if his mother were alive, he -was convinced he never would have entered into that wicked jest upon -matter so solemn as death. He would have known better, had he even a -sister, like that sweet and noble-looking lady, Mademoiselle Lenormant. - -It was too late now, and this was his last day. Thank God it rained! -It rained so darkly and so dismally that the regrets of life were -mitigated by the mournfulness of nature. It was relieved thereby of -much of its attraction and of all its enchantment. Had a single ray of -sunlight fallen upon the damp earth, it would have shaken him to the -depth of his being. This fact he jealously kept to himself, dreading -the sneer of those two superior young men, Julien and Gaston, who -thought themselves such very fine fellows because they persisted in -their indifference to eternity, and cared not a rush for the poor -old world they were going from. But Anatole knew better than to envy -them. He held that it requires but a bad heart, or none at all, and -feeble brains atrophied by the cheap philosophy of the hour, to reach -this stage. So, while they smoked and joked downstairs in dismal -hilarity, he sat upstairs with the ladies, and drank tea, and made a -gallant effort to play with little Gabrielle. How happy he might be -if this were to be permanent reality, and Paris, with its unrest, its -bitterness, its noise and glitter, an ugly dream! - -Dr. Vermont showed himself neither upstairs nor downstairs. Before -lunch he walked to Beaufort, and on his return, he slowly made the tour -of the island. It had been mentioned that upon one side of the island, -as you stepped from the bridge beyond a broken arch and a dangerous -reach of rocks down to the inky waters, there was an old tower. -Monsieur Lenormant’s house was lower down on the opposite side, facing -the cemetery. This tower had been an ancient fort when the entire isle -was the fortified retreat of an illustrious and rebel house. It had -sustained sieges, and known the roar of musketry, and it still stood -nobly upon its martial memories, albeit a ruin of centuries. All was -silence and desolation on this side of the island. No one walked its -pavements, and the laundresses wheeling their barrows to town from the -lower end, instinctively chose the inhabited quarter to pass. - -‘A man might rot to carrion here,’ said Dr. Vermont, as he stood -between the battered walls of the tower, and looked up at the weeping -heavens, and then down at the sullen and swollen river. ‘None would -know, and a few days’ persistent rain would rush the river beyond the -rocks in among these ruins, and carry our bodies away to the sea.’ - -And then he walked with his hands in his pockets, unmindful of the -rain, to the neglected cemetery. He stood a while against the white -tomb of his young wife, upon which some flowers lay, a lifeless pulp in -a pool of water. Thirty-nine only, and two days ago he believed he had -tasted all life had to offer, and wanted no more of its bitterness or -its sweetness? But he would not humble himself to admit that he had -erred two days ago, and that there still remained at the bottom of the -cup a draught he would willingly drink. He put the present from him, -and the stirring voice of a troubled consciousness, and leaned there in -the rain to dream a while of youth, and hope, and all things good that -have been and are no more. - -It was late in the afternoon when he returned and shut himself in the -blue-room to write letters. This done, he examined a pair of pistols, -loaded one which he laid upon the table, and with his odd, hard -smile, carried the other into the dressing-room where Anatole slept, -and placed it on the bed. There was still half an hour to dispose of -before dinner--his last half hour of solitude. He took up the candle, -and walked slowly round the room, inspecting each object, pricking by -association, memory, that just then needed no pricking. The pity was -that the man’s sharp face never lost its calm irony of expression, -and his shapely mouth never lost its trick of quiet smiling. For him -absurdity lay at the bottom of all things--if not absurdity, something -so much worse as to be beyond toleration. - -Man in all his moods, he insisted, was a mixture of grossness and -absurdity, and it mattered little which of the two elements prevailed. -The one excess worked mischief for himself, and the other mischief for -his neighbours. - -When the dinner-bell rang, Dr. Vermont appeared still smiling and -humorously observant. He it was who spoke most, and most coherently, -at table. Julien and Gaston swaggered a little, and their faces were -pale and excited. Anybody with an eye in his head might have guessed -they were morally perturbed, and Mademoiselle, mindful of the hurried -departure that night, questioned her foreign friend, sitting below -with Dr. Vermont, in a swift, apprehensive glance. But the Doctor was -so cool and steady, and discoursed so blandly with his neighbour, -that she dismissed her fears, and set herself to cheer and encourage -poor Anatole. If his depression were really due to a violent fancy -for herself, then she was in duty bound to act the part of mother, or -at least of elder affectionate sister,--which she did with consummate -ability, and drove the unhappy lad to despair. - -After dinner the Doctor, instead of rising, said, laughing-- - -‘Henriette, to-night we men will follow the example of our barbarous -brothers of England, and will remain over our wine after the ladies. To -borrow a habit from your countrymen, Madame, cannot offend your taste, -though I am afraid I should not find a Frenchwoman tolerant of it.’ - -‘I believe Englishmen sit at wine and the ladies retire,’ said -Mademoiselle, hesitating. She did not like the innovation, and frankly -showed it. - -‘Your pardon, Henriette, we have our plans to discuss. You, Madame, -too, will hold us excused?’ - -‘Certainly, Monsieur, I think it a commendable custom which keeps men -and women so much apart. They meet then with greater zest and novelty.’ - -Dr. Vermont held the door for the ladies and bowed. He stooped and -kissed little Gabrielle, and held her head a moment against him. And -then when the door closed, he shrugged his shoulders, and sighed. - -‘That’s the Englishwoman for you--a creature without tact or charm. -The British matron is only fitted to be a mother of a family. She can -neither hold us back, nor encourage us with dignity. Ah! lucky we are, -gentlemen, to be the slaves and masters of that adorable bundle of -perversities--_la femme française_!’ - -While he spoke he uncorked a bottle of Monsieur Lenormant’s fine old -Burgundy, and filled each glass to the brim. - -‘_Allons, Messieurs._ Let us drink the last hours away. I give you a -toast to begin with--the delicious Frenchwoman.’ - -The young men half emptied their glasses at a draught, and then cast -haggard glances at the sarcastic Doctor. He slowly drained his glass, -and lifted the bottle again. - -‘And since our delightful torment would never consent to go unmated, -even in a toast, let us drink, gentlemen, to her inadequate, but -sympathetic partner--the gallant Frenchman.’ - -The first bottle of Burgundy loosened their tongues again, and inspired -them to a febrile gaiety. They laughed loudly, broke into snatches of -song, and by the time the second bottle was empty, one and all had -fallen upon sentimental reminiscences. They thought themselves back -at Lander’s, and the discretion of the ladies’ retreat could not be -questioned. Anatole thundered roughly upon the perfidy of a certain -Susanne, and Gaston vowed that none of her crimes could equal the trick -one Blanche played him--the men used to call her ‘Blanche of Castille,’ -in recognition of the many virtues she seemed to have inherited from -her illustrious namesakes, doubtless; and Julien interposed dryly, with -a droll anecdote of a lady once known in Paris as ‘_La Perle Noire_’. - -Dr. Vermont said nothing, but listened and attacked the third bottle. -He reached across, and filled Anatole’s glass, and smiled upon him -almost pleasantly. - -‘Never mind Susanne, or any other perfidious fair, my lad. It comes -to the same at the end, whether they have been faithful or not. They -die, and we die, and sleep “a long, an endless, unawakeable sleep”. -It’s half-past nine now,’ he added, looking at his watch. ‘In two more -hours, we shall be starting out upon the road that has no ending, leads -nowhither, unless it be to dark, bottomless space.’ - -‘Why so?’ asked Julien. ‘May we not be shooting through the stars? -Anatole in his present mood will make straight for Venus, but I, -seeking compensation for the dulness of a peaceful life, will rather -choose Mars. One ought to fall in for some good fighting there, eh?’ - -Anatole stood up, and went over to the window. The melancholy flow of -water from the drooping eaves could be heard, and the sky was as black -as the river and the landscape. No light in the heavens, no light below -nearer than Beaufort, no sound but the splash of rain. The susceptible -fellow shivered visibly, and went back to the table to comfort himself -with another draught of Burgundy. - -‘There is not a star to be shot into,’ he said gloomily; ‘and it is -raining as if the whole universe were melted.’ - -‘We have a couple more toasts to drink, gentlemen,’ said the Doctor, -standing. ‘Are your glasses filled?’ - -Well, if they could do nothing else, they could at least get drunk -before they went on a voyage among the stars, or fell asleep like dogs -for eternity. - -‘An Englishman, when he is tired of life, takes to drink; a Frenchman -blows his brains out,’ Julien observed, as he helped his neighbour to -the bottle. - -‘Upon my conscience, I do not know that the Englishman has not the best -of it.’ - -‘He is of hardier build, my friend, and can take his drinking and -pessimism in equal doses. We are the slaves of our nerves, and can -stand neither pessimism nor drink.’ - -‘Are you ready? The toast is the downfall of France.’ - -The young men stolidly laid down their untasted wine, and looked at the -Doctor for explanation. They themselves might go to the dogs, and the -mischief take them there, or elsewhere. The universe might melt away -into nothingness, but France, beloved France, must ever stand fast, -proud and honoured and beautiful. Drink to her downfall? Was Doctor -Vermont mad? - -‘Why not?’ said Doctor Vermont imperturbably. ‘We shall be no more. And -what can it matter to us? France has had her day, as Egypt, Greece, and -Rome had theirs. I would have her spared the misery of a slow decline. -It is now the turn of Russia, which will be the civilisation of the -future. If you prefer it, we will drink then to Russia.’ - -So they drank to Russia, long and deeply; and Anatole, who had a pretty -tenor voice, intoned the Russian Hymn, which the others listened to on -their feet. And then to keep up the musical glow, and the golden moment -of unconsciousness, he burst into the _Marseillaise_, knowing well that -few can resist that most thrilling and spirited of national songs. - -When he had finished the last verse, and the last chorus was sung, -his companions sat silently gazing into their empty glasses. They had -finished six bottles of Burgundy between them, and were now passably -drunk, though not incapable of presenting themselves before the ladies -to say good-bye. The Doctor went first, and waited for Anatole outside -the salon door. - -‘Remember, boy, it is “Good-night”--not “Good-bye,”’ he said sadly, as -he pressed his friend’s shoulder. - -Mademoiselle and her companion sat before a low wood fire, chatting -quietly. They heard the songs from the dining-room, and smiled and -shook their heads. Mademoiselle remarked that the young men were -discourteous enough to carry the habits of the Latin Quarter into -private houses, but since her brother-in-law tolerated such behaviour, -it was not for her to object, since they were his guests. - -When the door opened, both ladies looked blankly round at the invasion. -The Doctor stood a moment on the threshold and arched his brows in -smiling signification. The foreigner felt she would give a good deal -to get behind that smile, and understand that queer lifting of the -eyebrow. That the man wore his smile as a mask, she had no doubt, and -she was not without suspicion that behind it lay concealed a different -personage from the actor on view. He advanced, and came and stood in -front of his sister-in-law, looking down on her with a new gravity on -his reckless handsome face. The flush under his eyes gave a brilliance -to his wistful gaze that justified the fascinated flutter of the poor -lady’s heart. For she had never seen him look in the least like that, -though she had seen his eyes melt to another. - -‘Henriette, good-night,’ he said softly. - -She gave him her hand, with a glance of sharp inquiry. - -‘Is it good-bye, François?’ - -‘Good-bye? Why good-bye? It’s a lugubrious word. _Au revoir, ma sœur._’ - -His lips touched her fingers an instant, and already he had turned to -shake hands with her companion. Gaston and Julien came behind him, and -bent their bodies in two in a dignified salute, but Anatole held out -his hand, and clung feverishly to hers when she took it, while his eyes -held hers in dismayed conjecture. Was it despair she read in them, or -terror, or simply the pain of young love? But his speech was lagging -and broken, not that, she decided, of a sober man, and she withdrew her -hand abruptly, with a curt movement of dismissal of her head. - -The boy turned to follow his companions, and felt his heart break -within him as he went downstairs. While they passed through the -blue-room, the Doctor again leant in affectionate pressure upon his -shoulder. - -‘Courage, Anatole. No woman is worth a pang.’ - -‘Ah, Monsieur le Docteur, you cannot think that of her. She is worth -the best man could offer, and all he might suffer. You know it, Doctor. -Deny if you admire her.’ - -‘I don’t deny it, if that will console you.’ - -‘And you can fling away such a chance,’ moaned Anatole. - -‘I fling away nothing, for the simple reason, I have nothing to fling -away. It is not chance any of us lack, chances of making fools of -ourselves, of others. Chance, my friend, is generally another word for -blunder. Some philosophers call the world chance, and is not that the -biggest blunder of all?’ - -‘You mystify me, Vermont. I call perversity the worst of all blunders. -And is it not perversity, if you love Mademoiselle Lenormant, to----’ - -‘Who says I love Mademoiselle Lenormant? I loved her sister, in a way, -and she is dead. You’ll find your pistol all ready there on the bed. -Put it into your pocket. It is half-past eleven. Tell the others I will -join them instantly.’ - -Before crossing the passage to the other bedroom, Anatole stole softly -upstairs, and knocked at the salon door. Mademoiselle Lenormant opened -the door, and surveyed him in disapproving surprise. - -‘In what way can I serve you, Monsieur?’ she asked. He slipped into -the room under her arm. There was an empty chair near, and into it he -dropped, glancing up at her prayerfully. - -‘Mademoiselle, I am about to face a long, perhaps a perilous voyage,’ -he said, and the slight break in his voice and the wet lustre of his -boyish blue eyes captivated her judgment, and melted her into all heart -as she listened and looked down upon him. - -‘I have come back to you, to ask you before I set out for the unknown, -just one moment, to place your hand on my forehead and say, “God bless -you, Anatole.” Do you pardon the presumption?’ - -She bent forward, brushed the tossed hair off his forehead, kissed it -tenderly, and said, ‘God bless you, Anatole.’ - -Silently and sobered the four men went out into the wet night. They -walked round the island first to make sure that every house slept. -There was not a light anywhere, not a sound. They trod the ground as -quietly as booted men can tread, and came round by the cemetery and -the low broken wall to the tower. Here they entered, and the Doctor -struck a match that through the blurred illumination they might see -the advantages of the spot he had chosen to salute the new century. It -was certainly better than the sensation they should create anywhere -near Paris. I doubt not that each one privately regretted the rash -engagement they had made over their punch at Lander’s a week ago. But -none had the courage to give the first voice to regret. False shame and -fear of ridicule held them tongue-tied, and resolved to make the best -of their bargain. - -When they had selected a spot near the hollow of the encroaching rocks, -where, if they fell, they might be washed unnoted down into the river -when the flood came high, Julien separated himself from the group, -and walked over to the lower wall, whence the lights of Beaufort -could be seen. These lights were rare and dim, but they cheered him -inexpressibly. They were eloquent of life in the monotony of darkness. - -He sat on the edge of the wall, and stared past the shadow of the -bridge, out into the terrible loneliness of night, and shuddered at -the roar of the eddying river below. Upon the breast of that river one -might float into the beautiful South--a word made up of the sense of -sweetness, and flowers, and sunshine, and blue waters, and clear skies. -When he was a youngster he used to tell himself that he would save up -his money, and go to Italy. And now he was no longer young, had not -saved up his money, had not seen Italy, and was going to die--and -leave it all behind. - -At that moment a peal of bells was heard from over the water, and -Gaston Favre announced in a cold, dull voice that the cathedral of -Beaufort was pealing the midnight chimes. Had there been light, each -man would have been seen to quiver from head to foot, and then grow -rigid upon his feet. - -‘My friends, is it agreed that we salute the dying century upon the -last stroke of the cathedral bell?’ asked Dr. Vermont, in a hushed, -muffled voice. - -‘It is agreed,’ said Gaston, after an imperceptible pause. The four men -gathered together, and took their pistols out of their breast-pocket. -Dr. Vermont lifted his face up to the cold wet wind. His lips parted -to the heavens’ moisture, and he felt refreshed. Since there could be -pleasure in the fall of raindrops upon heated lips, why not even then -admit that life may be worth living? Why not see the bright background -to present pain as well as the dark contrast of evil behind joy? We -have said the Doctor was a proud and wilful man, and he would accept no -sensation as admonishment of error,--but this gave him some pause. - -In one swift backward glance, he saw the long roll of travelled -years--years misspent, possibly, but not without their baggage of -unearned joys; saw the start of resplendent youth ringing him onward to -a manhood of renown: remembered friends he had once regarded with other -than mere cynical interest: moments that had throbbed with light, and -all the loveliness of untainted freshness--perfumed, dewy like a May -orchard in blossom, swathed in youth’s eternal purple. While the lads -around him faced the inevitable, as they thought, and though shrinking, -white-lipped, and frozen with horror, from his cold acquiescence, -endeavoured to warm themselves to the last act in the spirit of bravado -and contemplation of the deluged earth, he had taken a sudden rebound -from his old attitude. It was no longer the dislike of life and the -weariness of experience that held him in chill imprisonment The old -desire for boyish blisses, and the cordial of laughter mantled and -burst in his brain like a riot of song. It was a revelation, with all -the meaning of prayer first understood. A pulsing regret for all he -was leaving, for what he had known, and, above all, for that which was -yet unknown, swept him instantly upon a fiery wave. It shot his arm -down nervelessly. The pallid, spiritual face of Henriette seemed to -hang in the sullen space of black sky and wet black earth. It glowed -like a lamp, and shed a faint illumination upon the dusk. The faded -monotone of her voice murmured prayerfully above the weighted splash -upon the stones, and awoke the essential impulse of existence. While -such women lived and prayed for men, could the deeps of life be said to -have closed? ’Tis an old-fashioned notion, but, like most old-fashioned -things, ’tis the simplest and the best. It softened the hard -retrospection of Dr. Vermont’s glance, and lent a wavering tenderness -to his peculiar smile. - -Upon the sixth stroke of the cathedral bell, he offered his hand in -silence to Julien Renaud, who squeezed it roughly, in assurance of -undiminished courage. Poor lad! He needed the assurance sadly. Upon the -eighth stroke, Dr. Vermont sought Gaston’s hand, but the limp moist -fingers he grasped made no effort to respond to his pressure. - -‘Courage, Gaston,’ he cried, in a friendly, animated voice, and upon -the tenth stroke he turned to Anatole, and had there been a ray of -light above or around, Dr. Vermont’s face would have been seen to -undergo a wonderful and beautiful change. Honest affection that makes -no pretence of concealment, humanised it, and a magnanimous resolve -filled its expression with cheering purport. The worst of us, you -see, have our heroic moments, only it often happens that, like Dr. -Vermont’s, they pass unnoticed in the dark. - -‘There is happiness ahead for you yet, Anatole,’ he breathed quickly -through his teeth, while he swung the unhappy young fellow’s arm once -up and down, in warm emphasis to communicate the reassuring fluid to -him. - -‘Gentlemen, ’twas an excellent joke, and as might be expected of such -excellent lads as you, carried out with uncommon spirit and dash. I’m -proud of you, gentlemen, and shall feel honoured in the privilege of -saluting the new century in your midst. We fire heavenward--a good -omen--and then we shake hands again, in cordial assent that humanity -is not so worn but it may still be relied upon for entertainment. -You will say there are higher things. I’m not so sure there are not. -Anyway, ’tis not an excessive claim that youthful pessimists may -without shame start a fresh century as cheerful philosophers. The -heavens are not always weeping, and most of us are the better for the -sun’s shining.’ - -He spoke rapidly, and a muffled shout dying away upon a thick sob, -broke from each troubled breast. The first throb of emotion spent -itself in obedience. - -When the last stroke of the cathedral bell had fallen upon the silence -with a prolonged thin echo, a loud simultaneous report was heard to -startle the night, and travel above the roar of the river, far across -the empty country. - -Gaston and Julien Renaud, utterly unnerved by the reaction, fell -sobbing into each other’s arms, but Anatole, bewildered past -understanding, thought he was shot, and fell in a heap at Dr. Vermont’s -feet. - - - - - EPILOGUE - - (_From the travellers notebook_) - - -THE suppressed excitement of the past two days has more than made up -for the stillness of the two months that preceded them. Against these -forty-eight hours of trembling anticipation and surmise, the long -weeks of undisturbed and pleasant converse and childish chatter make a -background of placid years, instead of weeks. - -I see them filled with fireside talks, dips into musty volumes, walks -in a long gallery, to the murmured music of water, and in frosty -starlight, with the lamps of Beaufort lending cheerfulness to the -scene. Sometimes an expedition to some castellated town, southward, and -wanderings through vividly coloured streets, or among lovely hills, -where winter flowers grew and sweetened the air, and the grey of the -river was shot with blue, as it glided into sunnier regions. And then -the friendly greetings upon return, and a child’s excited demand to -know what I had seen, how far I had travelled, perhaps since morning, -or the day before; above all, what I had brought back for her. - -Beautiful calm days, already remembered regretfully as part of the -for ever past! They will outlive, I hope, recent events, though they -have sent them to slumber a while in the cemetery of the mind. For -perturbation fell upon us, from the hour Mademoiselle and I stood -watching a party of riders bear down toward us along the great road, -like a picture sharply evoked from the time of postchaise and tragedy -carried upon the momentous clatter of hoofs. - -I had met Dr. Vermont, had spoken to him, and found he did not realise -in any way my expectations. He was a well-bred man, as far as the -superficialities of the drawing-room permitted me to judge. But his -face was inexplicable and tormenting. It may once have been a strong -face, but its strength was almost effaced by life. And yet there was -no weakness about it--only an indifference that saps at strength. It -could look daring and reckless, was never without a smile of quiet -irony, and there was surely enough humorous observation in the mild -brown eyes to fill his days with easy pleasure and interest. But was -there not something worse than sadness behind this good-humoured mask? -I thought so from the first, and my impression was soon justified by -an incredible episode. I also believed that before the Doctor had been -twenty-four hours in the house, he had fallen in love with Mademoiselle -Lenormant. But why he should have wanted Anatole to marry her, I cannot -understand. Surely, surely, he knew that she loved him! must have known -it all along. - -When he and his companions left the salon on that last evening, I said -good-night at once to Mademoiselle. I almost reproached myself with -seeing so much, divining so much that remained untold. I sat in my -room with a pen in my hand, unable to write from excess of interest in -what was going on around me. Why should peaceable modern men start off -upon a midnight expedition in this mediæval fashion? Neither my own -imagination could devise an adequate explanation, nor did I receive any -assistance from the objects that surrounded me in Monsieur Lenormant’s -room, which I attentively examined. How heavily, drearily the rain -fell, and what an awful darkness outside! I stood at the window and -listened to the midnight chimes from the cathedral and churches of -Beaufort. On New Year’s Eve most people feel sentimental at this hour, -and recall the various places and circumstances in which they have -listened to the peal of bells upon the death of the old year. But this -I felt to be a sadder occasion than any other New Year’s Eve, because a -whole century was dying with it, the only century I was familiar with, -and I rather shrank from trial of the new. - -An extraordinary sound followed at once upon the last peal of the -bells. It seemed so close, that it jerked me back from the window, -quite shaken with the reverberation. There could be no doubt either of -its nature or of the fact that it rose from some near point upon the -island. It was more than a single pistol-shot. Now, the washerwomen -could not have devised that singular method of saluting the new-born -century. Neither could the chaplain of the Benedictines, who occupied -an old, dark house at the end of the island upon our side. The -wine-shop of Geraud always closed at nine o’clock, and on such a wet -night no living soul would have crossed the bridge for the sake of his -bad liquids. - -I went to Mademoiselle’s room, anxious to hear what opinion she would -have upon the startling occurrence. - -‘Somebody has been murdered near us,’ she cried excitedly, when I -entered. - -‘Good heavens! what ought we to do?’ - -‘I don’t know what we ought to do, but what I should like to do would -be to go and see for myself,’ she said, and looked questioningly at me. - -‘You are a brave woman, Mademoiselle; I should have feared to propose -it, but I will gladly accompany you.’ - -‘Let us go and call up the chaplain of the Benedictines. He and I -are almost the lords of this island, and if any one were wounded, or -in need of our help, it is our duty to be on the spot. We will take -Joséphine’s big umbrella and her lantern.’ - -The rain was awful, and the darkness of the night was so thick that -we seemed to cleave a way through it as we buffeted with the driving -downpour. To my troubled ear, our steps, along the deluged pavement, -carried a portentous message into the silent night. There was a light -in the priest’s house, and the sound of our footsteps approaching -brought him to the door even before we had knocked. - -‘Who is it? What is it?’ he whispered. - -‘It is I, Mademoiselle Lenormant, father. We want you to come and -examine the island with us. There is shooting somewhere, and somebody -may have been murdered or dying.’ - -‘You have a lamp. Wait a moment, and I will join you.’ Outside he said, -‘Let us try the cemetery. Phew! how it rains. It is a deluge. I am not -surprised at your courage, Mademoiselle, for it is not since yesterday -that I know you. But your friend--ah, I forgot, she is English, and the -Englishwoman, I have always heard, is capable of anything.’ - -I doubt not the little compliment of the good chaplain was as welcome -to my friend as to myself, and warmed us both upon that dreary -adventure. In silence we beat our way round to the cemetery, and then -only remembered, what we should not have forgotten, that it was locked. -Seeing how unlikely it was that any one should have contrived to get -inside without the key for any black purpose whatsoever, the chaplain -thought it unnecessary to go back for it. So we then decided to examine -the rocks along as far as the tower, and afterwards go over the ruin. - -There was nothing about the rocks but an occasional water-rat, that ran -into hiding as soon as the gleam of the lantern revealed him. Nothing -along the pavement under the low wall. We bent under the nearest broken -arch of the tower, and entered it upon the river side. At first our -lantern only served to accentuate the darkness, and show the deeper -masses of shadow in the walls. We groped forward, and held our breath, -in mingled fear and expectation. Nothing stirred; only the rain fell -heavily with the noise of splashing when it touched the water below. I -advanced foremost, and my foot brushed something that was not jagged -stone or bramble. - -‘Bring your lamp here, Monsieur, whoever you are,’ a familiar voice -cried out, in an imperious tone. - -I started, and stood to let the priest and Mademoiselle approach, -wondering what it could mean. The priest held the lantern down low, -and we at once recognised Dr. Vermont’s pale face looking up from a -tangled heap of black against his knee. - -‘We stopped before crossing the bridge to fire a shot in welcome to the -new century, and this unstrung boy must needs topple off his balance, -and faint away in sheer fright,’ he hurriedly explained. - -‘A very strange proceeding, Monsieur,’ said the priest, frowning. - -I knelt down and touched poor Anatole’s chill face, but Mademoiselle -had no word. She could only stand and stare in haggard amazement. - -‘I have not asked your opinion, Monsieur. It is your help I desire,’ -said Dr. Vermont, with an unabated ferocity of pride. - -‘Am I not shot?’ asked Anatole vaguely, opening his eyes and glancing -about in terror. - -He made an instinctive gesture to feel for the wound on his forehead, -and sat up straight. He was wild and giddy, and, seeing me first, could -not take his eyes off my face; he even stretched out his hand in awe to -touch me. - -‘But for that confounded darkness, we might have had him in shelter -long ago,’ muttered Dr. Vermont. ‘Julien and Gaston have gone to look -for a lamp. Can you stand, Anatole?’ he asked the bewildered youth. - -Anatole stood up quite promptly, without any assistance. The rain fell -from every part of his form in rills, and, as he shook himself free, he -breathed a deep, happy sigh. - -‘Great God! I am saved,’ he murmured, and staggered forward. - -‘Will nobody explain this hideous mystery?’ shouted the chaplain, like -ourselves on the verge of hysterics from emotion. - -Dr. Vermont, standing with the lantern in his hand, shrugged -impertinently, and a ray of light glancing off his pale face, revealed -its enigmatic smile. - -‘Take my arm, Henriette,’ he said, very gently, approaching -Mademoiselle, who throughout the scene was silent. ‘My poor girl,’ I -heard him add, in quite an altered tone, as he gathered her trembling -frame to him. - - * * * * * - -At an end for me the quiet studies and the pleasant talks upon the -lovely long terrace of that old house by the grey river. At an end -for Mademoiselle the waiting; at an end the long shadow of deferred -hope stretched like a pall upon the backward years. I know not if the -defence of the Emperor Julian has been concluded. When last I heard -from her she was in Italy with Joséphine, Gabrielle, and Gabrielle’s -strange father. She stands clear before me in her new home, the snow -gathering early upon her head, and the mark of the silent, tragic -years deepening the austerity that autumnal joys could never melt from -sensitive lips and shadowed glance. I frame her image against some -old Italian palace in the blackened arches of its balcony, and see -her, when the stars are out, and regret throbs more poignantly, gazing -across the blue waters that wash her beloved land, the mirthful, sunlit -waters, into which flows her own grey river. - -The old house beyond the broken arches of the bridge, that leads to -the desolate island, has been sold. Who now sits upon the terrace that -overlooks the towers and spires of Beaufort? I cherish the hope that it -is some one with a bosom not insusceptible to the thrill of romance, -some one with a heart that still can beat to the swift measure of fear. - -Anatole I have since seen in Paris. He is working steadily at some -profession, and sharp illness has made a saner and stronger man of -him. Upheaval, after a while, when the elements quiet down again, -generally brings reform. The Café Lander knows him no more, I have -ascertained, and while he shrinks from mention of Dr. Vermont’s name, -he is ever glad and grateful to talk of Henriette Lenormant. He bore -his dismissal bravely, after she had so devotedly nursed him through -that heavy shock, and he is generous enough to give thanks for the -cherishing friendship of the woman he loved in vain. - -Gaston Favre has accepted an official post in the provinces, and Julien -Renaud is an industrious journalist. - - - - - BRASES - - _À Madame Bohomoletz_ - - - - - BRASES - - I - - -LIKE another foreigner, I had my ideal of the Irishwoman--bewitching, -naturally, but built upon somewhat hackneyed and high-coloured lines: -vivacious play of feature, blue-black hair, violet eyes, and complexion -made up of lilies and roses. So when Trueberry, the gallantest friend -man ever found on English shores, asked me to join him in a trip to -Erin, imagination hastily evoked this resplendent creature of my -desire, and I straightway proposed to myself the pleasing excitement -of a flirtatious romance. I told Trueberry I thought nothing more -delightful than the prospect I had formed, to fall in love, and ride -away. Trueberry, in his fatal Saxon way, made some grim rejoinder about -the riding away being the pleasantest part of it. - -We shot and rode and fished, and stared at the girls, without any -fervour of glance or flutter of pulse, it must be confessed, I alertly -on the look-out for this creature of dazzling contrasts and laughing -provocation. With fancy still uncomforted, Trueberry was dangerously -hurt, and we were several miles distant from the nearest village. A -peasant offered to help me carry my comrade down the glen, and assured -me that the lady of the grey manor would be glad to receive him. Our -claim at the hall was courteously responded to by an old man-servant, -who drew a couch out on which we stretched my moaning friend, and then -I was directed to the doctor’s house, some way along the uplands. My -guide offered me the shelter of his roof hard by, when I spoke of -looking for a lodging. - -It was late in the afternoon when the doctor and I reached the manor. -The sun was level on the western horizon, an arch of misty gold upon -a broad sheet of silver lying behind the nearer low-hanging clouds, -so that the silver heaven, beyond this chain of grey and opal hills, -looked mystically remote and clear, while lower down lake and purple -mountains were softened by a fine white veil of mist, and the sea was -visible curling its delicate foam upon the crest of the tide among -the rocks. The valley below was dusk, shut in by the grand sweep of -girdling mountains, and so still was the air that every far-off sound -carried, from the echo of ocean’s murmuring to the nearer crash of a -waterfall hissing down the rocks, and the pleasant lilt at my feet of -a little rivulet lipping its daisied marge. The birds were in full -chorus, and each of the dense trees nested song. We left the breezy, -wandering moors, which swept the horizon in a measurelessness of space -as triumphant and vast seemingly as the illimitable Atlantic rolling -from their base, and took the narrow road that sloped down to the glen -of firs and oak, where the light could scarce make a path among the -deepening shadows. Outside all was great, in air, on land, on water. -Here intolerable compression of space and such a diminution of light -as to harass nerves and imagination. My preoccupation about Trueberry -rather stimulated than blunted my visual faculties, and I noted with -abhorrence each detail of the sharp, precise landscape; the thin vein -of water glimmering through the darkening grass like a broken mirror, -the abrupt curve of the road from the shoulder of the bluff, and the -stiff, dim plumes of the heather washed of purple pretension in the -twilight, while through a clump of black firs the rough front of the -manor made a fainter shade in the grey air. The solitude was scented -with the fragrance of wild thyme, and as we approached, old-fashioned -odours blew against us from the garden. - -Trueberry was restored to a vague consciousness, and lay with shut eyes -in a darkened room. I walked outside with the doctor, who was a cheery, -hopeful fellow, and in diagnosing my friend’s case, furnished me with -no occasion for alarm. I found it strange that no member of the family -had come forward to explain the gracious hospitality by a personal -interest in the wounded man. As I stood in the chill air musing on this -odd unconcern, I heard a light step behind, coming from the house. I -turned, and faced the woman who was to dominate my heart by one swift -sweep of all that had ever claimed it. - -She looked at me, and in one grave, steadfast glance the miracle was -accomplished. Is this love? I have been so often, so continuously in -love, and yet have never known anything that approached it. It was -like the mystery of life and death--not to be explained, not to be -conquered, not to be eluded. It needs no will to be born, to die; so it -needs no will to surrender to such an influence. Upon a single throb of -pulse, it has established itself permanently upon the altar of life, -and sentimental fancies and shabby yearnings drop out of memory with -the sacramental transfusion of soul. - -Of course I saw that she was a beautiful woman, but this only -afterwards. What I first saw was the deep impersonal gaze that drew -the heart from my breast. It met mine with a full, free beam, and held -it upon a wave of inexplicable emotion. Bondage to it was a glory, -a consecration of my manhood. The subtle, the elusive nature of my -captivation was the spiritual point upon an ordinary passion. It was -the spurs, the belt of knighthood. For this I understood to be no mere -command of senses, but the imperative claims of life-long allegiance, -whether for suffering or for happiness. - -Perhaps by nature I was attuned to such surrender. Since ever romantic -hopes first broke their deeps in my boyish brain, and my heart was -lifted on the first warm wave of desire, I have eagerly yearned for -free passionate servitude to one sovereign lady. There was always the -mediæval strain in me, though I have fluttered idly enough, like the -moth round the flame, and hovered in a sort of protective sympathy and -admiration, round pretty womanhood, not objecting to being trampled on -as a holocaust to graceful and bewildering caprice. But now had come -the enslavement of the soul, not of the senses; of the spirit, not of -the eye. Homage did not bend in banter, but was exalted on the wings -of reverence. It was only afterwards that I remembered the details of -the face: its unchanging pallor and exceeding finish, the peculiar -unrippling sheen of the blonde hair, like gold leaf in its unshaded -polish, the inner curves of coil as deep an amber as the outer edges, -without shadow of curl or ring round neck and temple. So smooth and -shining a frame was admirably adjusted to the small, grave, glacial -oval, with its look of wistful abstracted charm, with a delicate -chiselling only an inspired pencil could copy, with an exquisite line -from brow to chin. Such was the transparency of the colourless skin -that like a shell, it seemed in the light to reflect the warm rose of -life beneath. Under the arch of the unerring brows, long grey eyes, -shadowed blackly, that in girlhood must have presaged storm, but now -the black lay broodingly, a seal to the clear grey depths. You looked -into, not through them; and found them too bewilderingly unstirred by -the yearning trouble of the gazer. - -There was, perhaps, a conscious but not an undignified expression in -her dress. Sweeping folds of grey matched the austere stillness of -her eyes, as did the full cambric of throat a wanness reminiscent of -a mediæval saint. Long sleeves lined with silk fell backward, and the -inner ones were of crimped cambric: hardly affectation, but the supreme -touch to beauty so visibly haloed as hers. Her voice was in keeping -with the clear eloquence of her glance; full, unperturbed, sustained -without conscious modulation or trick, harmonious like all sounds -of natural sweetness. It fell with the sentence, as the Irish voice -habitually does, but softly, without abrupt cadences or huskiness. - -‘All that lies in our power for your friend’s care and comfort will be -done,’ she said, after her unhurried survey of me. ‘There is little -to offer in such an out-of-the-way place but home medicines and home -resources, and there will not be much in the way of distraction for -him, since I live here alone with my children, and my solitude is -unbroken. I regret that you have decided to lodge elsewhere, but pray -do not spare us your visits. The house is your friend’s, and I am -honoured in being of use to him.’ - -It was hardly a bow she made, but drooped her eyelids with a curious -movement, and lowered her chin from its ineffable upward line. The -words I scarcely heard, though every fibre trembled with emotion at -her speech. I thought the voice, with the softening syllables dropping -into silence, more exquisite than any music dreamed of. Its tones -accompanied me as a murmur rather than the remembrance of actual -words in my walk up to the free bluff, whence I could look down on -the grey manor, and mixed with the resounding roar of ocean, as the -wind blew the melody of the waves shoreward. What was the distinction -of this woman who through all the days to come offered me rapture -and agony by noontide and by midnight? Not her beauty so much as her -essential difference from others. Not the gleaming gold of her hair, -but the solemn simplicity of her bearing in such accord with the vast -and unbroken solitude around her. Her voice I acknowledged without -shrinking or terror, as we accept all essential elements, to be -henceforth the dominant key of life for me, the note to sound my depths -and touch me at will as an impassive instrument. Was this woman free? I -asked myself, with a thrill of revolt, as I remembered her mention of -children. But no word of husband! This fact let in a ray of hope upon -my dread. I could never again belong to myself with the cheap security -of an hour ago, and what was there for me if there was no room for me -in the chambers of her heart? - -At the cottage I found my host frying some salmon for supper. He -was a tall, bent peasant, meagre and pallid from much thinking and -under-feeding, with all the Celt’s quaint mixture of melancholy and -humour in his keen blue eyes and wrinkled smile. He did the honours -of his humble dwelling with stately courtesy, and was too proud and -well-bred to offer futile apologies for the poverty of his shepherd -fare and rude bed. - -‘Your friend, sir, is not anything worse, I trust,’ he said. I gave -him the doctor’s report, and said it was now a case for complete rest -and care. I reddened with remorse, remembering how little I had been -thinking of Trueberry. - -‘Ah, ’tis he that’s in excellent hands,’ said the peasant, turning the -salmon, and then dreamily rested his cheek against the closed hand that -held the fork, with his elbow supported on the other wrist. - -‘May I not learn to whom we are indebted for so much kindness?’ I asked -tremulously. - -‘Your friend, sir, is at the house of Lady Brases Fitzowen,’ he -answered, and I shrank beneath the sharp look he cast on me. ‘’Tis -herself, sure, we all love and delight in as if she was one of God’s -angels.’ - -This seemed to me in my exalted mood as such an obvious statement that -I received it with the same simplicity it had been uttered. Were we not -brother Celts,--albeit, I a Parisianised Breton, and he an illiterate -native of wild Kerry uplands? His tribute to the lady of my destiny -raced a flame through me like a delicious flattery. - -‘I have seen her,’ I said, striving to command my voice in unconfessing -tones. ‘I can quite believe you. I should like to know something of -her, if you will not deem my curiosity an impertinence. She spoke of -her children. Does her husband live?’ - -‘He does,’ the peasant answered, I thought sullenly. - -I caught a fork fiercely in my hand, and bent to trace figures with it -on the cloth, hoping thereby to shield my excessive pain from his sharp -scrutiny. - -‘She did not mention him to me,’ I half cried. - -‘’Tis natural. They’re no longer one.’ - -Oh, the warm revulsion, the wild joy in that queer reply. I read in it -the peasant’s definition of divorce. It sprang light and flame through -me, and heated senses benumbed a moment ago. It gave definiteness to -rash hope, and melted away all doubt and apprehension. Brases free -was to be wooed. Heaven knows conceit was never more eliminated from -self-judgment than then, but I felt the urgent claim of the rare -passion so instantaneously born. All my worth lay in the quality of -that love, and it was not such that any woman could reject without a -pang. - -‘Then she is free,’ I said, and heard the thrill in my own voice. - -‘Free!’ exclaimed the peasant, frowning. ‘That’s as may be. Them -Protestants believe such-like things, but we don’t, sir. However things -happen, we hold folk once married can only be freed by death. I take -it, sir, you come from foreign parts, though ’tis a wonder to me how -you have learnt the English tongue so well. May be, beyond in your -land, they’re like the Protestants, and play fast and loose with the -marriage tie.’ - -He laid the dish of salmon on the table, and disappeared outside. My -state of mixed emotions, of exasperated nerves, of pulses throbbing -against my consciousness like a discordant instrument, anger with that -prejudiced peasant predominating, reduced me to the level of savage -and child. The fellow in his implied abhorrence of divorce was so -aggravatingly phlegmatic, so heartlessly unconscious of all it might -mean for me. I did not knock him down or force him to eat his obnoxious -words, but sat still and endeavoured not to observe the rest of his -rational preparations for the evening meal. I was on fire for further -facts of the tale, but dared not question, in my uncontrollable -temper. When the peasant at length seated himself opposite me, with -a dish of salmon, smoking potatoes, and a bottle of potheen between -us, I was able to make a fair pretence of hunger. I had no difficulty -in praising the salmon and the big flowery potatoes, the best of the -world, and novelty supplied the needful sauce. The potheen was simply -barbarous, a suitable drink for Caliban or the Indian brave, and no -amount of water could soothe it to my French palate. But between lively -grimaces over it, I was enabled to ask, without self-betrayal-- - -‘Then, I suppose, Lady Fitzowen’s husband does not live at the manor?’ - -He looked at me gravely over his glass, and nodded. - -‘They are divorced?’ - -‘Not quite as I should say. Separated, they call it.’ - -Here was a toppling down of the airiest edifice built of gossamer. I -could have cried out at the stab like any thwarted child. And yet the -barrier of a living husband, like an unclean skeleton, between us, made -that vision in the early twilight no less pure and spiritual than when -not seen across the tragic story, _married widowhood_. A widow, still -had sanctity lain upon my suit, where now reproach would lie as a pall. -Suppose my love drew hers, how should I live through terror of waking -some poisonous snake to her mortal injury, of the nameless dread of -slander to breathe its dark flame against her sinless brow? A shadow -upon such devotion as mine was an unacceptable desecration. Torture -itself prompted me to further questioning. - -‘Was it she who sought separation?’ - -‘I believe it was her people, sir. He was a bad lot, they say, wild -after the women, and not over nice in his ways. She’s gentle now, but -she was proud and passionate as a girl, and she felt the shame of the -thing and ran. ’Tis a wonder the poor crathurs don’t oftener run, the -provocation thim fine gentlemen gives them. Anyway, her people settled -the matter, and she came to live here, ’tis now close on four years -ago. The second child was born here, God bless it, and we all love it -like our own.’ - -I went outside to smoke a cigarette in the solitude of starlit night. -One never wants for proof of how much cruelty, shame, misery, and -injustice may be gathered into an innocent girl’s existence by -marriage. I had already seen much of it, and was familiar with the -musings melancholy contemplation of it provoked. But here was matter -not for musing but for fiery revolt. Every nerve thrilled with a -sympathy so complete as to make her retrospective pain most personally -mine, to thrust my individuality from its old bright environment out -for ever into her desperate loneliness. Joy seemed to me a miserable -mockery, the portion of trivial, contemptible humanity. The best proof -of moral worth lay in the excess of suffering endured. Virtue was -measured by the degree of pain, and laughter dwelt with the ignoble -jesters and clowns. Sorrow was a diadem upon that golden head, I -murmured, and looked for confirmation in the cold radiance of the stars -above, darting their shuttles of lambent flame in and out the purple -depths of sky. - -I peered down through the darkness, searching for the grey manor among -the massive shadows. But no lighted window revealed it to my yearning -gaze, and somehow I felt glad that Brases had suffered. Tears were the -mark of the elect, and had given her eyes that penetrating, unjoyous -clearness of the stars, had given her beautiful lips their set line of -austere silence, had placed on that frail white brow the conquering -seal of valour and forbearance. A passion so remote from whimpering -sentiment as that which she had inspired, was one to take pride in, and -I cared not now whether grief or weal were my portion, for I, too, was -crowned, and, like her, stood apart. - -I was glad to face the wide, empty moors by sunrise. The valley lay -below the brilliantly lit mountain shoulder, where scarcely a shadow -offered rest for the eyes. The Reeks opening out, peak upon peak, -glittering and wild, made a magnificent picture. Here a crescent of -shattered points, there a sunny tarn through the hollow of the cliff, -shot with amber rays; and downward, deep valley beyond deep valley, -dusk with foliage, and broken by zigzag pathways. I sat on the shelf of -a rock, whence I could perceive the glen and grey mass of the manor. An -eagle sweeping over the brow of the bluff, the shrill cry of curlews in -their undulary shoreward flight, presaging tempest, the thunder of the -Atlantic in the steady roll of its surges, were the sole sounds in my -majestic solitude. - -I sat and dreamed, and filled in the unknown pages of that one volume -now for me, the life of an innocent and high-spirited girl, urged in -the passivity of an untroubled heart into an uncongenial marriage. -The thought that she might have loved a worthless husband was an -intolerable smart, and I rejected it for the more bearable belief -that she had entered bondage in a neutral condition, without any -apprehension of the warmer moments of life, unawakened to the imperious -claims of the heart. - -And in dwelling bitterly on the penalties of such experience, the -illimitable price exacted for limitable error, I started to my feet -in angry denial that part of the price was the harsh sentence against -other choice. What did it matter if the world’s wisdom rebuked our -folly? What did it matter if the callous eye saw stain where I felt -glory? What did anything matter, so long as I had the will to leap all -barriers that lay between Brases and me? To pass through flame and -wave, so that she was on the other side of peril with outstretched -arms? - -The manor, with its air of rude decay, was curious rather than -picturesque. It fronted a lawn that dropped into a thick plantation -of fir, along which ran a silver trout-stream. The gravelled walks -wandered away into the woodlands that waved in brilliant arches of -beech and larch by an upward slope to the horizon, where the spires of -pine scalloped the skyline. Trueberry was asleep, so I amused myself -by inspecting the portraits of the hall. They were all members of my -hostess’s family. That was obvious, even if the old butler had not -informed me of the fact. A fair lady in velvet and long ruffles looked -at me with her clear eyes, just so sweet, but bolder, and one tall girl -was so vividly like her that I greeted her with a flame of enamoured -recognition I would not dare bestow on the living woman. The same -gold-leaf of hair, the same exquisite intangibility of look, the same -wanness of cheek and ineffable upward line of chin and brow. - -When at last I saw Trueberry, I found him coherent and eager for my -visit. He lay in a faded, heavily-curtained room, so old and dim that -the bright rays of morning penetrating through the crimson curtains -sparkled incongruously, and turned squares of the silk into blood-red. -Coming in from the sunlit air, its sombreness shot me blind, and I -could see nothing until I had blinked the sun out of my eyes. - -‘What a dark room!’ I cried. - -‘Oh, it’s a delightful room,’ said Trueberry dreamily, with the look of -a visionary. ‘I’m so glad I had that accident, and was carried in here. -Visions seem to start out of half-forgotten romances, and everything -is suggestive. It’s so dark and quaint and big. Just the room to be -ill in, and not mope. I like my condition, too, now that pain is on -the wane. Fact and fancy are so deliciously inextricable. I never know -what is really happening and what I am imagining. Last night I saw a -picture that seemed to be real, and was in perfect harmony with the -antique air of the room. A sort of Saint Elizabeth in a mediæval frame. -You know one’s ideal of St Elizabeth?’ he added, looking at me with -a little quizzical stir in his languid glance. ‘Sweet, serious, and -lovely, carrying roses from heaven, and smiling softly on children and -the sick. She smiled at me when she saw me staring.’ - -‘Your hostess?’ I asked, chill with apprehension. - -‘I suppose so, if it wasn’t a dream. There’s fever in my blood still, -and at night the imagination is a terrible agent. Yet the picture -remains so distinct upon memory: the voice was so real, so musical, I -can hear it still.’ - -‘Tell me about it,’ I said, curious and alarmed. - -‘I was trying to make out my surroundings in the dull lamplight, and -wondering where you were, when a curtain was lifted by the whitest hand -I have ever seen, and framed in the folds was a beautiful pale woman in -grey. She held a lamp high up, and the light caught and played over her -brilliant hair till it shone like living gold. I feared to wink lest -the vision should vanish. The light revealed the bust, while the folds -of the skirt fell into heavy shadow. It was the crimped white about -neck and wrists and the long queer sleeves that made me imagine fever -had evoked some recollection of Italian galleries--half Giotto, half -Botticelli: but she actually moved, and the unfathomable gravity of her -gaze held mine, and when she smiled, I ceased to feel pain.’ - -He spoke almost to himself, as if he had forgotten my presence, and -as I looked down at him, so drowsily contented, I saw the old tragic -monster lifting its terrible head between us. For the first time I was -conscious of a jealous pang in contemplation of his favour of person. -_Grands dieux!_ and I so fatally ugly! And if Trueberry had possessed -nothing but good looks, I had my brains and my reputation to balance -that advantage. But he was no mere hero of sentimental girlhood--he -was a handsome, high-bred gentleman, with all the finest qualities to -repay a noble woman’s love, with all the personal charm to captivate -a fastidious woman’s fancy. What had won my admiring friendship might -be trusted to win Brases’ responsive love:--his sincerity, a certain -picturesque dash that always made me think of Buckingham as described -by Dumas--Anne of Austria’s Buckingham. It breathed so essentially the -high air of romance, the chivalry, the ennobling sentimentality of -vigorous manhood. He was no troubadour, but as I have said, Buckingham -to the heels in modern raiment, unflinching before peril, of delightful -manners, faithful to friend, implacable to foe, brilliant, generous, -and full of romantic spirit. Such a woman as Brases I deemed above -susceptibility to a mere facile charm of manner, averse from so -vulgar a quality as fascination. But Trueberry did not fascinate: he -captivated. He carried sunshine with him to appeal to the austerest -temperament, and in some subtle way, without an effort, became a need. -A more attractive manliness was nowhere to be met, and if in friendship -I found him indispensable, what would he not be to the woman whose -heart he won? - -Should I repeat the peasant’s talk? Better not. Silence between us was -best until speech could not be avoided. So I took an aching heart back -to the cottage, with a promise to return in the afternoon. - - - II - -That afternoon, passing through the hall on my way to Trueberry’s -room, I was arrested upon no direct effort of will by the face of the -pale blonde girl, looking at me so vividly out of canvas through the -dear glance my own ached with longing to behold. Standing thus, my -ear detected with a thrill of recognition the light footfall behind -me. I turned, and the sight was water to a man fevered with thirst. -All morning I had wondered if a transient state of nerves might not -be accountable for an effect perhaps over-excited imagination had -exaggerated. But this second meeting was full confirmation of the -agonising power of Brases over me. I rejoiced in this added proof of my -servitude. Because of her presence, life revealed deeper meaning, earth -fresher hues. My heart fluttered on the topmost crest of emotion, and -tossed on a violent wave of joy. The awful quietude of our full long -gaze held me tranced in silence. - -‘You found your friend better,’ she said, and her voice in that tense -moment was like the bursting of the surges upon their swell. My eyes -must have told it with fatal illumination, had hers not absently fallen -on a portrait. ‘I should gladly press you to stay here with him, but I -fear you would find it dull. The house, I know, is gloomy, and I see -no one. But if you can face the dulness for your friend’s sake, if it -would lessen your anxiety----’ - -‘You are too kind,’ I burst out eagerly, for some inexplicable reason -repelled by the suggestion of Trueberry and myself together under her -roof. ‘My friend is in the best of hands, and I should not dream of -trespassing so far. Besides, I enjoy my walks to and from the cottage.’ - -What an idiot I was, to be sure, and what a miserably inadequate -refusal! Yet could I give my real reason? That a sharp-witted man of -the world, an intelligent French writer of some fame, should be driven -to inane stuttering at the greatest moment of his existence, was -surely a grotesque fatality. I saw with a shock the contraction of the -delicate brows, and the surprised interrogation of the proud glance -she levelled at me. Then pride and surprise ebbed back to their still -depths, and the brows smoothed by sheer effort of will, I divined, -and she smiled coldly, a little austere smile, remote and frosted -like a ray on ice. A woman of my own land would have read below the -commonplace words the deeper melody of the heart’s unuttered eloquence. -But Brases, so untutored, so wrapped in her musing and undiscerning -solitude, had not this tact of sympathy, this subtle divination, this -keen scent of sex. Her simplicity was mournful and gentle, but not -penetrative nor scrutinising. Mute fervour I saw would leave her -untroubled, and with Trueberry near, I feared to hope her regard would -ever gleam and drop in glad surrender at my coming, or her pulses -quicken to the bidding of my touch. I felt crushed, out of reach of -comfort, and resolved no more to tread that haunting pathway from the -little rocky plateau to this sombre valley, but to go out with my -immeasurable pain into the soothing limitlessness of earth and sea and -air upon the moors. Yet there was the misery of it--I could not command -my will. I felt the folly of it; I apprehended the misery of a rivalry -between Trueberry and me,--self at odds with the finest friendship that -ever knitted men together. But I as well knew that my hunger to-morrow -for Brases would be greater even than to-day, and a starving man will -gnaw at straw when you refuse him bread. - -I found Trueberry half raised upon his pillow, a pink flush like the -reflection of a flame upon his pallid cheek, and the blue of his eyes -burning darkly. - -‘Have you seen her?’ he asked, meeting my hand affectionately. - -‘Yes.’ - -The dull, brief tone must have struck him as implied negation of his -visible enthusiasm, for he scanned my face quickly, and asked in a -surprised voice-- - -‘Don’t you find her beautiful, Gontran?’ - -‘Most beautiful,’ I replied, with grim emphasis. - -I sat down, and took up a volume of _The Ring and the Book_, which lay -on a little table close to an arm-chair at the foot of the bed. - -‘No, no, Gontran. Not that, pray. She has been reading it to me,’ he -shouted, as if a wound were pressed. - -I looked at him queerly, I felt; how far he had travelled already, -when it was ‘she’ with him, and he could voice so candidly the trouble -of blood and being. Or else my passion was the deeper, and ran in -a mysterious channel, where speech is desecration, thought hardly -delicate enough to follow its intangible flow. - -‘You remember those lovely lines, beginning-- - - “First infancy pellucid as a pearl”? - -‘They might have been written of her,’ he continued, in his dear, -fresh, expansive way. ‘Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife, -the ideal of our earth. Why, it was surely of her that Browning was -dreaming.’ - -I continued in silence to finger the book her hand had touched, and my -eye fell on that chivalrous passage, clear even to my foreign eye in -spite of antipathy to Browning’s roughness: - - ‘And if they recognised in a critical flash - From the Zenith, each the other, her need of him, - His need of--say a woman to perish for, - The regular way of the world, yet break no vow, - Do no harm, save to himself--?’ - -Sully Prudhomme, I thought, would have expressed the idea more -exquisitely. I preferred the soft musical murmur of that unapproachable -little poem, the breathing soul of a tenderer chivalry: - - ‘Si je pouvais aller lui dire, - Elle est à vous et ne m’inspire, - Plus rien, même plus d’amitié - Je n’en ai plus pour cette ingrate. - Mais elle est pâle, délicate, - Ayez soin d’elle par pitié. - - Écoutez-moi sans jalousie, - Car l’aile de sa fantaisie, - N’a fait, hélas, que m’effleurer. - Je sais comment sa main repousse, - Mais pour ceux qu’elle aime elle est douce, - Ne la faites jamais pleurer. - - Je pourrais vivre avec l’idée - Qu’elle est chérie et possédée - Non par moi mais selon mon cœur. - Méchante enfant qui m’abandonnes, - Vois le chagrin que tu me donnes, - Je ne puis rien pour ton bonheur.’ - -But the virile sweep of the sentiment Browning revealed had something -of ocean’s strength and immensity that aroused the sea-born Breton -under the extraneous veneer of culture. A Parisian cannot escape the -charm of classic polish, but now and then with us the Celt runs riot, -and sentiment rebels against the leash of form. - -Under the cynicism of the analytical novelist’s sacrifice, -renunciation, the conquering strife of passion over duty, noble -failure, the greatly borne martyrdom of humanity, are the things that -have ever appealed to me. I have always desired to love and be loved in -the cleansing fire of pain rather than in the facile yielding to the -senses. So that there really was no logical reason why I should whimper -and mope because Brases had not dropped into my arms by some magnetic -influence. And even if she chose elsewhere! So long as her choice was -justified by happiness, what need had I to complain? I murmured Sully -Prudhomme’s lines, of a more subtle beauty of feeling than Browning’s, -and Trueberry cocked a wistful brow. - -‘Repeat them louder, they sound so beautiful,’ he urged, and I repeated -them. - - ‘“Car l’aile de sa fantaisie, - N’a fait, hélas, que m’effleurer,”’ - -he cried, with water in his eyes. ‘Could you picture yourself, Gontran, -saying that of the woman you loved to the man who had gained her!’ - -‘I hope so,’ I replied, smiling. ‘The bitter would be so sweet. And -then the magnificent retort upon broken hopes: - - “Méchante enfant qui m’abandonnes, - Vois le chagrin que tu me donnes? - _Je ne puis rien pour ton bonheur._”’ - -I spoke lightly, like the cynical boulevardier, while inwardly I was -bleeding. But Trueberry, bereft, by weakness and love, of all power of -scrutiny or penetration, saw nothing of my suffering. He was in the -absorbing paradise of a new-born claim, in the unconscious premonition -of response, and smiled vaguely at me, dear fellow, as if a strong but -agreeable opiate had drugged him. - -Trueberry was so improved next morning that I found the children -playing in his room. They were a little lad and girl in the toddling -age, prettily named Brendan and Mave. I have never seen children so -well-bred, so charming to look at and to talk to. The boy had thick -brown curls, with a reddish gleam in them, and his mother’s eyes, while -the girl had her gold hair, with big eyes, like the leaf of a purple -pansy. They lisped, as only angels ought to lisp, and fetched your -heart between your eyelashes from very delight and sympathy. - -While we played and chattered, and those pretty creatures rolled over -Trueberry, the waves of their embroidered skirts entangled in his beard -and neck, they like white balls, taking their falls so good-humouredly, -and then on the ground, standing like birds to shake out their snowy -plumage, the door opened, and Brases smiled upon the threshold. - -Trueberry’s pinched expressive face waved pink, and gazing blue -went instantly to black. I stood grasping the back of my chair, and -saw Brases for the first time not icily aloof, not throned on dead -dreams. There was a human flame under her pallor, and her smile had -an approachable womanly sweetness. It deepened the grey of her eyes, -and lent an ineffable softness to her sad mouth. The curves of the -lips pleaded like a child’s for tenderness and unexacting devotion. -I could have bent a knee to her in a rush of feeling less lofty than -homage, and said: ‘Bid me suffer, dear one, so that you are happy.’ -To my surprise, she shook hands with me, in cordial frankness, hoped -I was pleased with the condition of my friend, and then bent and took -Trueberry’s hand with a very different air. Of course, he was her -invalid, and no woman worth the name is ever the same to the sick -and the strong. For Brases to look at me like that, and hold my hand -with that gentle imperiousness, I, too, should have to be wounded and -stretched under her roof on my back. - -She had no Irish fluency, and her speech was curiously strained and -elaborated, without, however, any obvious affectation. The words came -deliberately, and yet with a fearless reticence. It was repression, -not secrecy. Life with her was a tale of baffled personal hopes, -of unmeasured pain, of nature overcome, of lower impulses proudly -unrecognised, of cold allegiance to duty, and the unfathomable -tenderness of maternity. Her children, as she told us, with their -little arms about her neck, were her one joy. - -‘I fear I spoil them,’ she added; ‘but I strive to make them think of -others, while they, alas! so well know that I only think of them.’ - -Mave, I was glad to see, was the mother’s favourite. At all times I -like a woman to love her girls best; the preference breathes in my -esteem, so essentially of distinction and lovableness. But æsthetic -gratification here was sharpened by the fact that Mave’s father had -never seen her. To me Mave was all her mother’s child, for which -reason, during my visits, I never failed to coax her on my knee, where -she would sit at first in a stiffened attitude of good behaviour, until -she got used to my dark, foreign face, and gleefully ran to greet me. -While she nestled and gurgled in my arms, lisping her excited speech, -Trueberry and Brendan chanted nursery rhymes, taught each other -surprising verses, and told one another fairy tales. - -It was the day Trueberry first got up that conjecture stabbed me with -the jealous knife of certainty. Despair closed round me like a physical -grasp, and I toppled rudely over my airy ideal of renunciation and -self-effacement. I had dwelt with such soothing vanity of spirit on my -gracious bending to the happiness of my sovereign lady and my friend, -and when I saw them then exchange a long, grave, shining gaze of full -confession, and noted the enchanting air of command with which she -waved him back to his chair, when he stood to greet her, the deeps of -nature burst their barriers. - -Unstrung and irritable from the strain of my false position, I walked -rapidly up to the cottage, asking myself whether I should go or stay, -and unable to decide which would cost me more. My host was smoking -a pipe outside, in placid contemplation of a patch of potatoes. He -directed secretive eyeshot sideways on me in sharp inquiry, then bent -his glance again upon the green leaves, and meditatively kicked away a -stone. - -‘’Tisn’t good for a young man of your years, sir, to lead this sort of -life,’ he said. ‘Foreign cities are gay places, I’ve heard tell. ’Tis -among them you ought to be. The moors, and the rocks, and the sea, the -praties I plant and eat, and the salmon I catch, satisfy the likes of -me, but I’m thinking, sir, ’tis poor work for you, counting the stars -be night, and crying for the moon be day.’ - -‘A man might be worse employed than watching the stars,’ I replied, -ignoring his rebuke. - -‘To be sure, sir. ’Tis a candle-light that teaches us a wonderful power -of patience. When you look at them, the wear and tear of life seems a -useless sort of thing.’ - -‘So it seems, viewed in any light--rush, or gas, or sun,’ I assented -drearily. ‘But why do you want to get rid of me, if I am content to -stay?’ - -‘I’d be grieved to think you imagined me anything but proud of your -company, sir; but I’m thinking it ’ud be best for yourself to go away. -You look down a bit lately, and ’tis me own heart bleeds for you. -But you’re young, agra, and them sort of troubles soon pass. ’Tis -surprising how wonderful quick the heart is to mend any time.’ - -His intention and sympathy sprang tears to my eyes. He saw this, and -touched my shoulder gently, nodding a sapient head. - -‘I make bold to tell you, sir, that a fine pleasant boy like yourself -has no business to go hankering after one as has known deception and -wept misfortune, an’ whose husband lives. Them’s foreign ways, I know. -Haven’t I read a power of books? Take my word for it, ’tis better to -run after the girls. There it’s all fair and square, above board, and -’tis natural. ’Tis your duty to her and yourself to turn your back on -us.’ - -‘It always is our duty to be most miserable, I fear,’ I said -dejectedly. ‘But why should a woman wear weeds because a scoundrel -lives? in the bloom of youth, beautiful, with a maiden heart for the -winning? and what law is broken by honourable devotion?’ - -I forgot I was talking to a peasant, and stood there in the sunlight, -pleading Trueberry’s cause. For what now had I to do with her heart, -or she with my love? My hour of ordeal had come, and I confess I -was surprised by my own frailty. I had expected to bear it so much -better, to act so much more gallant a part. Instead, I was broken with -jealousy, and my eyes were blinded with tears. I had not conquered -nature, did not swim triumphantly in the upper sphere of impersonal -feeling, submissive to an ideal sway, glorying in the supreme servitude -of unacknowledged, unexacting devotion. I was a poor exasperated human -wretch, unjustly angry with my friend for his selfish blindness, wrath -with the woman’s serenity, which could not interpret my feeling, vexed -that neither, in their bliss, should care whether I lived or died of -it. I had craved so little,--the pale ray of hope, insubstantial as a -dream, but cherished with frenzy. And now how was I to still the fierce -ache of regret in the years ahead? Bereavement fronted me, a silent -spectre, my mate for evermore. The precious hours had gone, sleepless -nights and sullen days, in a hinted persistence of prayer in her -presence, of longing out of it, and nothing to come of all the anguish, -of revolving transport and agony, but this sense of miserable failure. - -Looking down from the plateau to the glen, it seemed to me that I had -been accomplishing this backward and forward march from cottage to -manor by an unreal measurement of time. The years before sank into -insignificance beside these two weeks of frustrated yearning. I went -into the house to shut my grief away from the friendly scrutiny of my -peasant friend, and battled with the monster that wrecks our dignity -and our intelligence. - - - III - -Next morning, with seared eyelids, and heart a red raw wound, -conscious of the peasant’s disapproving inspection, my feet carried -me unreluctantly toward torture. It was part of my implacable fate -that I should diagnose my own misery through the happiness of the two -beings who bounded the limits of sensation for me. Trueberry was alone, -and greeted me with a vagueness of glance that denoted retrospective -bliss. He was glad to see me in a quiet way, as a feature in enchanting -environment. - -We smoked in silence until our incommunicative companionship was -abruptly disturbed by the arrival of a couple of officers from -a neighbouring garrison town. Pleasant fellows both, carrying a -rollicking breath of Lever into the surcharged atmosphere. They spoke -at the top of their voices, hailed us with obvious delight, joked, -quizzed, and gallantly misconducted themselves from the point of -view of lucky and unlucky lover. I was reminded that I was French, -and made an effort to do honour to my land. While they stayed, I -shook off melancholy, and matched their breezy recklessness with -the intoxication of despair. Heaven knows what we laughed at, but -everybody except Trueberry shouted hearty guffaws, and seemed to regard -life as the most entertaining of jokes. They chaffed Trueberry on his -captivity to isolated beauty, and hinted in their broad barrack way -at the perils of bewitchment. Trueberry went white with repressed -anger, and I dusky as a savage. I wanted to fell the harmless fool for -a pleasantry common enough in affairs of gallantry between men, but -Trueberry passed it off with his superlative breeding, and the officer -adroitly changed the conversation. - -When Brases joined us before lunch, the younger of the two again -provoked me by approaching her with a slight military swagger, his air, -as he took her beautiful hand, so clearly saying: ‘Madame, allow me to -observe that you are a remarkably handsome woman, and I shouldn’t mind -being your captive myself.’ Not that he was impertinent or fatuous, but -his admiration was of a crude and youthful and self-assured flavour. -Trueberry lifted a dolorous lid upon me, as if seeking sympathy in me -for the exquisite torment of this outer desecrating breath upon the -divine and hidden. - -They left us as cheerily as they had come, bidding me persuade Lady -Fitzowen to come to their garrison ball next week. The major begged -to know what sins the county had committed, to be so punished by its -fairest woman. I saw Trueberry’s fingers clench ominously, and my own -lips shut upon a grim twist for all response. Brases stared at them -softly, as if they were a long way off, and then a little puzzled smile -stirred her eyes as she sought Trueberry’s glance. - -‘I wish you could persuade Monsieur d’Harcourt to go,’ was her -acknowledgment of their invitation. ‘He does not look nearly so well as -when he first came.’ - -I grasped this notice as a famished dog pounces on a stale crust. I -flung her an enchanted beam of gratitude, and red ran momently through -the grey universe. She came out, and stood beside me on the broad -gravel, when the officers had driven away, and I found courage to urge -her to come with me to the ball at Kilstern. It was no baseness to my -friend, surely, that I should hunger and thirst and pray for one little -moment of her life unshared with him! - -‘Had I any such foolish desire, Monsieur, my obligations as hostess -would still prevent me. It is so little I can do for your friend, so -much I would gladly do. But it is no privation for me to dispense -with society. I never liked it, and have only bitter recollections -of it. I ask nothing now from life but peace,--and strength to live -my days for my children’s sake, striving not to wish them shortened, -and remembering that there is much else besides personal hope and -happiness. One despairs so quickly in youth, and then the children -come, with their sweet faces made up of morning light, soft as flowers, -with the smile of paradise in their clear eyes. And youth for me lies -so far away,’ she added, with a scarce perceptible change of voice, and -a ray lighting up her delicate face, showed a smile so wan and faint as -rather to resemble the memory of a smile, reminiscent as the spectre of -that youth she greeted as an alien, and I listening, wished I had died -before hearing words so sad from her lips. - -Her gesture in one less superlatively sincere might have been taxed -with coquetry, so exquisite was its expression; her white hands fell -in a gentle depression with the finger-tips curved inward. - -‘Even music no longer pleases me,’ she continued, sweeping the -circumscribed scene with a flame of revolt under the drawn arch of the -lovely brows. ‘It is not sad enough. That is why I am so fond of the -ravening melancholy of ocean’s song down upon the desolate beach. I -listen for it at night as I lie awake, and it is the eternal funeral -march of my dead youth.’ - -It was hardly by an effort of will that she ceased speaking: speech -dropped from her as sound drops from the receding wave, and I could -have cried aloud in passionate protest as I saw the veil drawn over -this transient revelation of herself. Never had she spoken to me so -before. Never had she referred to her past. And the hint that all joy -for her lay in her children fired my brain with hope’s delirium. Surely -I had been mistaken in my haunting dread, and stupidly interpreted the -looks between her and Trueberry. He might love her, as I loved her, -but her feeling was only the soft interest of compassion. And yet--and -yet----! - -Leaving her, I walked slowly down the path. At the gate I looked back. -She was still standing there, staring across the hills, with the sunset -hues upon the amber of her head, and revealing the matchless purity -of line and tint of face and throat. Not surrender, not love, did -that dejection of air denote. The thought went with me, rooted in my -heart, and kept me awake, tossing on a fever-troubled pillow. I started -up, and stood at the window to watch the stars till dawn sent a grey -glimmer down the dusk, and a white cloud sped like a wing over the sky. -I had a foreboding of rashness, of perilous explosion on the morrow, -unless I had the wisdom to steal out alone into the empty world. If -they loved one another, it was plainly my duty. But, oh! to be able to -look into her eyes, and cry: ‘I love you, yet I leave you. For me death -were easier, but my death would stain your bliss with regret’s shadow.’ - -I questioned the stars in my blind anguish to learn if there were -no resources in nature to wall in this terrible blank of being that -stretched so miserably, so limitlessly before me as a future without -Brases or Trueberry. Old interests, old tastes, old desires had -dropped from me, and I stood beggared of sum and aim of life.’ - -I was abroad upon the moors by sunrise, lessening my feeling of -personal diminution in the earth’s grandeur and the wavering immensity -of the Atlantic as it rolled under the lemon-tinted horizon. I took -my last look of forked mountains against the grey-shot blue of the -heaven, of shattered rocks, and sombre tarn seen through the opening of -a valley, and the distant plain, an inner sea of bracken and heather. -Ever the sound of water, of moaning wave, of mingling rill, of foaming -fall, the shrill cry of eagle and curlew, and the melody of the early -birds. An hour hence should find me trudging to Kilstern, away from the -wild beauty of this place--the home of Brases! On my way back, I met my -host, and mentioned my intention. ‘That’s as it should be,’ was all he -said. - -His curt approval galled me, and to silence discourteous retort, I -flung myself over the stone ledge, and took the manor path like a -chased creature. With what unconscious accuracy of observation I noted -each leaf, each colour and form of a scene memory was destined to -retain for evermore! following with eager eyes the light as it made -its own short road of gold among the dense shadows, and these as they -picked out in blots the sunny spaces. - -The hall door as usual was open, and in passing the portraits, I took -my last look of the boy with curls and ruffles, and beyond of the girl -with the proud fair face that might be a portrait of Brases in younger -days. I inspected it steadily, and traced where resemblance stopped in -the lack of the subtle stamp of the soul, the ennobling seal of grief. -It was a Brases who had never wept, never thought, a creature of mere -bodily beauty. - -I found Trueberry walking up and down in restless expectation. I could -see that sight of me brought an uncontrollable smart of disappointment -to his eyelids, and his expressive mouth twitched like a child’s. - -‘What’s the matter, Gontran?’ he asked, with an affectionate effort, -and placed one hand on my shoulder. ‘You look frightfully battered, my -poor fellow.’ - -‘Last night I meant to go away in silence,’ I said, not able to meet -his kind glance, ‘but to-day I decided I owed my friend a franker -course. Neither of us is responsible for the fact, but we must separate -now.’ - -‘You would desert me, Gontran--now!’ he cried, and the bitter tone of -his reproach fetched a sob to my throat. - -‘I wish to God it should not be, that I had the unselfish courage to -stay and witness your happiness----’ - -‘Happiness!’ he shouted frantically. ‘My poor boy, I am more miserable -than yourself,’ he added, with a dejected movement. - -‘Then you are deceiving yourself,’ I said, shrugging and turning -impatiently on my heel. ‘She loves you. I have seen it in her eyes, -felt it to the inmost fibres of consciousness in her voice.’ - -‘And if it were so!’ Trueberry cried, in a soft, fond tone of -interjection, that brought my fierce look back to his face. He called -himself miserable, but bliss sparkled out of the depths of his frank -eyes. He fronted daylight, the proud and conscious lover, and the -shadow upon his radiance was, after all, but a becoming tone to temper -fatuity to my amazed and acrid scrutiny. Without it, I might have -longed to strike him, in my state of moral degradation. - -‘How much nearer am I to her for that?’ he went on, in reply to my -hateful look. ‘My dear friend, there is nothing for us both but to take -up our staff and knapsack, and trudge wearily out of this enchanted -valley into the busy garish world, carrying with us the remembrance of -an unstable and beautiful dream. We are equals in fortune, Gontran.’ - -‘Equals,’ I roared, goaded by the fiery bar of his speech. ‘What -equality exists between success and unsuccess? between the chosen and -the neglected? between heat and cold, sun and ice, glory and shame, -tears and laughter? The barrier to your happiness may be levelled by -fate at any moment. You have but to wait and watch the newspapers. -While I----’ - -‘Don’t be rough, old man. You would be sorrier than I if you hurt me -now, when I can ill bear more pain. For I am dismissed, sent away. Oh!’ - -He sat down and covered his face with both hands, and I, in awakened -wickedness of spirit, gloated over his convulsive wretchedness. -Suffering had blunted conscience, and the finer feelings, and left -me abjectly enslaved to all the baser sensations that assail weakened -humanity. In such moments, happily brief, the savage is uppermost, -whatever the training of the gentleman. The soul sleeps, and the body, -with all its frenzied needs and desires, stands naked, primitive, -elemental, the mere animal living through the senses. The handsome -sobbing creature had all, and I had nothing. Yet he dared to speak of -equality in misery between us. - -‘Good-bye,’ I said, and moved to the door. - -Trueberry sprang up, and clutched my arm. His dear, simple nature could -understand nothing of the vileness that the finer and more complex -order of being may contain. To him I was not an embittered rival, but a -cherished friend to whom he boyishly clung in his unbearable sorrow. - -‘Must we separate, Gontran?’ he entreated. ‘Why, since we both go -to-day?’ - -The inalterable sweetness of his temper shook me on a crest of remorse, -and conquered assaulting vindictiveness. I felt so mean beside him that -I could have begged his pardon for unuttered insult. His superiority -more than justified Brases’ choice, though the dear fellow lacked my -brains, and my name commanded considerable stir. - -I consented to go with him, and hurried back to the cottage, where -I found my host busy over my portmanteau. I told him my friend was -coming with me too, upon which he scrutinised my face mildly, and, I -thought, with satisfaction. He strapped the portmanteau, and remarked -in a dry tone: ‘That, too, is as it should be, and I am glad there -is no quarrel.’ Taking no note of my astonishment at his incredible -discernment, he added: ‘You’ll drink a last drop of the mountain dew to -your success and happiness in another spot, sir, where the girls, God -bless them! are fresh and pretty and plentiful as the flowers in May.’ - -He went into the kitchen, and I stood at the window watching light -chase shadow over the bold visage of a reek, and assured myself -gloomily that there were a thousand ways, after all, of threading a -path through despair. Whose life is crowned with happiness?--and hope -of it must come to an end sooner or later. Pleasure still remains when -we have shed the last tear, and whatever may be said to the contrary -in pessimistic moments, pleasure to the last peeps out at us through -the thorniest brambles, with its varied allurements. This I told -myself, and though I could think of no possible pleasure at the time, -or compensation for the miserable duty of facing life, I drearily -supposed I would come, like another, to find my round of petty joys and -mean delights. There was something to be done even by a fellow so sick -at heart as I: books to be written, books to be read, people to see, -and people to avoid, countries to travel in, and women to criticise. -My host stood at the top of the path, bareheaded, cheering me on with -his gracious ‘God speed ye, sir!’ until the bend of the hill hid his -honest friendly face from me. I sought Trueberry in his room, and saw -his gloves, and hat, and portmanteau on the table. I wandered about -the house, through unfamiliar chambers, till, on lifting a curtain, a -picture arrested me with a curdling thrill. The blood flowed from heart -to brain on a dizzy wave, where it surged, so that I had some knowledge -of the sensation of insanity. This explains my sin against honour in -standing there. I could not have left the spot by any imperative order -of conscience. I stood as immovable as a hypnotised figure. Like a -spectator of the drama, with feelings unconcerned, I was quick to note -the searching pathos and beauty of the picture. - -They two stood together in the middle of the room, she with her hands -on his shoulders, he with an arm round her waist, holding one of her -little hands clasped above. The passionate gaze of both was matchless -in its eloquence. Both faces were white and luminous, as if touched -with a ray from heaven, anguish adequately mixed with transport. Such a -look from a woman’s eyes was surely worth dying for. - -‘Brases, must I go away?’ Trueberry asked brokenly. - -She moved a little in his embrace, and pressed her face against his -breast, then recovered herself, and said firmly-- - -‘You must, dear friend.’ - -‘Think of it, beloved,’ he cried, holding her closer to him. ‘Such -links as chain us. We two as one, is it not madness to dream of living -apart? Every beat of life within you, Brases, must cry out against this -parting. It is murder of our souls. Go, I may, but with you, Brases.’ - -‘Don’t make me go over it again,’ she pleaded, in a tired voice, ‘it -was so hard before. While a man lives who calls me wife, can I come to -you with a tarnished name?’ - -‘Tarnished!’ The smile he shed upon her was convincing enough to redeem -a fallen angel, it was so warm, and soft, and indulgent, with all -love’s sweetness and shelter. ‘The stain is on his name, and that you -would drop. The law will release you. Come, come. You cannot live alone -now, any more than I can. Think of what it means--craving light and -love and happiness, all within reach, and we dying apart on the brink.’ - -‘No, no, don’t tempt me. Your desire is my weakness. Your voice draws -my being from its roots, and my pulses beat to the rhythm of yours. See -how much I confess, and then be merciful, and go.’ - -‘Is it always right to follow our ideal of duty, when nature points -so clearly another way?’ he still urged. ‘What reason have we always -to regard our judgment as better than hers, since she is so big and -mighty, and we so small and helpless.’ He held her hand pressed against -his lips, and I could hear his murmuring speech through the trembling -fingers. ‘What is the past with such a present as ours, such a future -as we might have? My love would soon blot it from your memory. Trust -me, Brases, I too have my past with its burden of regrets I would fain -forget.’ - -‘Ah, had I met you before fatality crossed my path,’ she said, upon a -quick sob, ‘when my palm was as clean as a child’s, how my spirit would -have bounded to the wedding of yours! But that may never be now.’ - -Her arms dropped renouncingly, and the smile that travelled slowly over -her blanched face shed a rapturous light upon his. His eyes held hers -in willing bondage. Though this was her farewell I could divine the -supreme effort that kept her from his arms, by the fingers fluttering -like the wings of a bird against her dress, while it were hard to say -which her half-lifted, gently averted face, with the eyes straining -back to his, most eloquently expressed: surrender or renouncement. - -Trueberry sprang to her and caught her to him, and their lips met in a -kiss that had the solemnity of a sacrament. I staggered back, clapping -my hand over my mouth to prevent a shout of white-hot anguish, and -could see the darkness sweep down upon me like a big comforting wing. -I hoped it was death come to gather me like a suffering, inarticulate -child, into its soft mother’s arms. - -But I struggled back into life, and had again to front the road of care -and blind endeavour. How long later I cannot say, but I saw Brases -standing over me, looking at me in pitying wonder. She took my hand -in both of hers, and bending, softly kissed my cheek. This was the -mother’s kiss I hoped death had given me. I stared at her, too broken -for wonder or emotion, and sitting down beside me, with my hand still -in hers, she said-- - -‘We were very much frightened, you were so long unconscious. Mr. -Trueberry told me you have not slept of late, and that you are very -unhappy. I, too, am unhappy, and that is why I kissed you. But you are -better now, and you will try to forget your pain, or, at least, to -bear it well. It is the best any of us can do. They will drive you to -Kilstern, and you will return to France alone, carrying my best wishes -for your welfare. Mr. Trueberry has gone already.’ - -I struggled to my feet, swallowed the wine she poured out for me, and -then, in a dull, uneager voice, asked, ‘Did Trueberry leave no message -for me, Madame?’ - -‘He was very much concerned, and full of sympathy, but he has his own -trouble to bear, and thinks he will bear it best alone. He will write -to you to Paris in a few days.’ - -A trap was at the door, and she came out with me, and when we had -shaken hands in silence, stood looking after me, as I was indeed -forcibly carried away. She was dim to my sight, a mere blurred grey -figure, with light about her head, and the landscape looked watery and -broken, as if seen through bits of bobbing glass. - - - - - A PAGE OF PHILOSOPHY - - _À M. Gaston, Paris - de l’Institut de France_ - - - - - A PAGE OF PHILOSOPHY - - -THERE was a break in the soft stream of Rameau’s eloquence when -somebody spoke of Krowtosky. The interruption came from Louis Gaston, a -brilliant young journalist, whose air of sanctified rake and residence -in the Rue du Bac, in front of a well-known shop, earned him the -nickname of _Le Petit Saint Thomas_. - -Krowtosky’s name diverted the channel of the murmurous, half-abstracted -discourse to which we had lent an attentive ear, physically lulled, -and though charmed, not boisterously amused by Rameau’s sly anecdotal -humour and complaisant lightness of tone. Rameau always talked -delightfully, without any apparent consciousness of the fact; -above all, without any apparent effort. He never raised his voice, -gesticulated slightly, accentuated no point, and left much to his -listener’s discretion; and his calm drollery was all the more delicious -because of the sedate and equable expression of his handsome face. - -‘Krowtosky,’ he repeated, as he turned his picturesque grey head in -Gaston’s direction; with a deliberate air he removed his glasses, -slowly polished them, and interjected, ‘Ah!’ - -‘You must remember that queer Russian who used to hold forth here some -years ago,’ Louis Gaston continued, in an explanatory tone; ‘a heavy, -unemotional fellow, with desperate views. He began by amusing us, and -ended by nearly driving us mad with his eternal _Nirvana_.’ - -‘Oh, yes,’ somebody else cried, suddenly spurred to furnish further -reminiscences. ‘His trousers were preternaturally wide, and his -coat-sleeves preternaturally short. You always imagined that he -carried dynamite in his pockets, and apprehended an explosion if you -accidentally threw a lighted match or a half-smoked cigarette in his -neighbourhood.’ - -‘He had small eyes, and a big nose, the head of an early Gaul, and a -hollow voice,’ I remarked. - -‘A monster to convince the Tartars themselves of their superior -ugliness, if they entertained any doubt of it,’ half lisped a -Frenchman recently crowned by the Academy, and as unconscious of his -own ill-looks as only a man, and above all a Frenchman, can be. - -‘The good-nature of your remarks and your keen remembrance of Krowtosky -prove that he must be a personage in his way,’ said Rameau mockingly. - -‘What became of him?’ asked Le Petit Saint Thomas, between slow puffs -of his cigarette. - -‘Poor fellow! He has fallen upon grief.’ - -‘Naturally; it is the great result of birth. A love affair?’ - -‘Worse.’ - -‘Blasphemy, Professor! ’Tis the sole sorrow of life. The rest are but -the trifling ills of humanity.’ Gaston spoke with all the authority of -a young man who is perpetually in and out of love, is backed upon the -thorny path of literature by rich and devoted relatives, and has never -known a day’s illness upon his road. - -‘It can’t be marriage, for that violent resource would merely drift -him into deeper depths of Pessimism, which would be a gratifying -confirmation of his theories.’ - -‘It can’t be love either,’ I suggested. ‘Pessimism and love don’t -mate. Marriage it might be; for even a pessimist may be conceded the -weakness of objecting to a demonstration of the nothingness of marriage -in the person of his own wife.’ - -‘It might be debt, if that were not a modified trouble since the -inhuman law of imprisonment was abolished.’ - -‘Behold the force of imagination, Professor,’ exclaimed Gaston, -pointing to a visionary perspective with his cigarette, in answer to -Rameau’s glance of contemplative irony. ‘I see our monster married to -an unvirtuous _grisette_, or an amiable young laundress, who discovers -the superior attractiveness of an optimist poet on the opposite side -of the way. She can hardly be blamed for the discovery; for though we -may applaud the courage of a woman who marries a monster, it would be -both rash and cruel to expect her to add fidelity to her courage. Where -women are concerned, it is a wise precaution to count upon a single -virtue.’ - -‘Your wit, the outcome of natural perversity, flies beyond the mark,’ -said Rameau, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The real sorrows of life are -very simple, and command respect by their simplicity. The others are -the complications, the depravities of civilisation at which we cavil -and laugh. Krowtosky has not stumbled in double life, but he has just -lost a baby girl.’ - -There was dead silence. A perceptible start of emotion found expression -in an interjectionary arch of brow, a sigh blown on the puff of a -cigarette, and an uneasy shifting of attitudes. A baby girl! What a -slight thing in the hurry of life, what a simple thing in its crowding -perplexities! The tragic end of men and women whom the years have worn -and fretted; the sudden death of happy youth in the midst of its bright -promises; the peaceful sadness that accompanies the departure of the -old, who have honourably lived their lives and accomplished all natural -laws:--but the closed eyes of a little baby girl! What is it more than -tumble of a new-born bird from its nest, leaving no empty space? Upon a -boy paternal pride might have feasted, and the sting might remain that -new avenues to fame and fortune were closed by his sharp withdrawal. - -Yet despite the insignificance of the loss, none of the faces round -Rameau wore a look of indifference or surprise. For a moment each -man was serious, touched, and uninclined for wit at poor Krowtosky’s -expense. Upon dropped lids I seemed to see the big grotesque head, so -full of honesty and strife, bent in grief over an empty cradle; and I -was wrung by a smart of anger when Gaston lightly asked, ‘Is there then -a legitimate Madame Krowtosky?’ - -‘All that is most legitimate,’ replied Rameau gravely. - -‘You have followed the story?’ - -‘Since I played the part of confidential friend--why, I know as little -as you.’ - -‘And the lady?’ - -‘Ah, the lady! Her I only know on report that cannot exactly be -described as impartial.’ - -‘Is it a story worth telling?’ - -‘In its way it is curious enough, especially unfolded in the -illumination of Krowtosky’s jumble of crude philosophy and speculative -theories, and, above all, told in his queer French. He has honoured -me with a correspondence in the form of a journal. It is extremely -interesting, and I have preserved it. Some day I will publish -it,--when the philosopher is dead, of course.’ - -‘Then begin now, my dear Professor,’ I urged. ‘Try its effect _en -petit comité_.’ We read assent in the Professor’s way of crossing -his legs, while he drew one hand slowly round the back of his head. -When he had carefully polished and adjusted his glasses, each of us -chose a commodious attitude, and looked expectantly at him. After a -pause, Rameau began in his soft conversational tone, subdued like the -indefinite shade of the lamp-screen that cast its glimmer over heads -and profiles, showing vaguely upon a background of dull tapestries. - -‘Krowtosky looked much older than his age. He was, in fact, very young, -Pessimism being one of the most pronounced symptoms of the malady of -youth. He is still young, and the malady has yet some years to run. He -came here with a letter to me from an old friend in Moscow, and a very -big bundle of hopes. - -‘I hardly know what he expected to make of Paris, but Paris, I imagine, -made nothing of him. I did what I could for him, which was not much, -and from the first I had no illusions whatever upon the nature of his -probable success. I found a lady ambitious to read Turgenieff and -Tolstoï in Russian. I sent Krowtosky to her; but after the second -lesson she dismissed him on the plea of his unearthly ugliness; his -heavy Calmuck face diverted her attention from Turgenieff’s charming -women and Tolstoï’s philosophy, and gave her nightmares. I encouraged -the poor fellow to come here, which he did, and most of you met -him frequently. He was interesting in his way, very, but crude and -boundlessly innocent. He had the queerest notions upon all things, -and having sounded the _Décadents_, he professed to find them hollow. -I think he suspected those gentlemen of an unreasonable sanity and -an underhand enjoyment of life. The French Realists he dismissed as -caricaturists; he said they were reading for the devil when he was -drunk and in a merry mood. I daresay he meant the Czar. - -‘He railed at the mock decay of modern civilised life, and imagined -that a glimpse of Pessimism beyond the Pyrenees would prove -instructive. He was convinced that he would find it there of less -noxious quality, exhibiting the sombre melancholy and dignity of a -great race fallen into poetic decay and unvexed by the wearisome -febrile conditions of its development here. “You understand nothing of -the spirit of calm fatality,” he would say, apostrophising the nation -in my humble person for lack of a more enlightened audience. “You are -everlastingly in strife with your own emotions and despairs; and these -you decorate, as you idly decorate your persons, with persistent vanity -and with wasteful care.” I deprecated the charge upon my own account, -and assured him that it took me exactly four minutes to decorate my -person each morning. Four minutes, I claimed, cannot be described -as an exorbitant charge upon Time for the placing and adjusting of -eighteen articles, and as he seemed to doubt the number, I told them -off, including my hat and _pince-nez_. I mentioned a few Frenchmen who -I thought accepted the luxury of unemotional despair calmly enough, and -were as incapable of strife as a tortoise. He shook his head; he was -not easily to be convinced. His Pessimism was so black that our sombre -Maupassant was a captivating Optimist beside him. And provided with -this meagre intellectual baggage, he set out for half-forgotten and -ruined lands, beginning with Spain.’ - -‘He fell in for a fortune, I suppose,’ Gaston interrupted. - -‘He had not a sou, which is the best explanation of an expensive -voyage. Remark, my friends, that a man only becomes really extravagant -and reckless upon an empty purse. An empty purse and an empty stomach -are equally effectual in producing light-headedness, and vest us in the -cloak of illusion. Illusion I opine to be one of the things that look -best in rags. Krowtosky travelled third class, and was prodigiously -uncomfortable, which, after all, is another method of enjoying life -upon his theory. He ate Bologna sausages, and refreshed himself with -grapes upon the wayside. - -‘His first letter was dated from Bayonne. It was a long and a curious -letter, and so interested me that I resolved to follow up the -correspondence with vigorous encouragement, for it was not an occasion -to be missed by a student of mankind. I will read you some extracts -from these letters, which I have here in a drawer of my writing-table.’ - -The packet of letters found, Rameau went on reading, with the -perfect and polished irony and charm of enunciation that could cast -an intellectual glamour over an auctioneer’s inventory. ‘“I have -chosen you as the recipient of the impressions and incidents of my -voyage,--why, I hardly know; I am not inspired by any strong sympathy -for you. My esteem and my liking are very moderate indeed; you have -a face that rather repels than invites confidence, and I ought to be -discouraged by the fact that I have no faith in your sympathy for -me, and have every conviction that you are the last person likely to -understand me. The friend who would understand me, and for whom I -should enjoy writing these impressions and the adventures that may -lie ahead, is at present voyaging in far-off waters; I think he is -somewhere about the Black Sea, but I don’t know his address, or when -or where communication might chance to reach him. So, having cast -about me for a confidant, choice alighted upon you; but you need not -read my letters if they bore you. They are written rather for my -own gratification than for yours. If I possessed literary talent, -the public would be my natural victim....” - -‘This was a flattering beginning, you will admit, but it sharpened my -curiosity. After that I began to look forward to Krowtosky’s post-day, -as some people look forward to the _feuilleton_ of the morning paper. -His queer minute handwriting never found me indifferent or unexpectant -of diversion. - -‘At Toulouse he wrote again: “A young girl got into the carriage with -me. We were alone, and she soon gave me a visible demonstration of -the strange eccentricities oddly explained by the single word _love_. -Why _love_? It is simply a malady more or less innocuous and only -sometimes deadly; but love, no! I was not flattered; I am above that -weakness, because nothing pleases me. I was interested, however, and -investigated the case with scientific calm. So might any physician have -diagnosed a disease. It struck me for the first time as a form of mild -insanity. I asked myself why the poets and romancers amuse themselves -in writing of it rather than of the other fevers and bodily illnesses -that overcome us. For everything about this young girl convinced me -that love is but a sickness. I studied her gestures, her expression, -her tones of voice and her attitudes; all served to prove my theory. -One minute I offered to open the window, and the next I suggested that -perhaps it would be better to close it. She assented. Though curious, -it was rather monotonous, but she assented to everything I proposed. -If I looked at her, she looked at me; if I looked away, she continued -to look at me. After a couple of hours’ study, I felt that I quite -understood love and all its phases. I found it in the main a silly -game, and an excitement only fit for brainless boys and girls in their -first youth. But the most remarkable feature of humanity is its crass -stupidity; it is a monstrously shabby and feeble institution, male and -female. This young girl, now; I daresay you and others would call her -pretty. Bah! I can see but the ugliness of women. Behind their forehead -thought does not work; their eyes only express the meanest and most -personal sentiments. Big black empty eyes and sensual red lips; a round -lazy figure and nerveless hands! I protest there is more intelligence -and matter for study in a dog than in these insipid creatures, all -curves and no muscles. Men, say they, don’t understand them. Are -dolls worth understanding? They are actuated solely by impulse and -personal claims. What is there in this worth understanding? I escaped -from my conquest, now grown irksome, upon the frontier, and I am -resolved never to give evidence of a similar weakness. It is degrading -folly. What, for instance, can women see in us to inspire this most -infelicitously-called tender passion, and, in the name of all that is -eternal, what are we supposed to see in them to justify it?...”’ - -‘A sympathetic dog, to go snarling in that cantankerous way through -life because the Almighty has seen fit to cast a flower or two across -his path,’ growled the indignant Petit Saint Thomas, to whom love was -the main object of existence. - -‘Scenery does not interest him much,’ Rameau went on, with an -acquiescent nod; ‘but he has a good deal to say upon his impressions -of the Spanish race in particular, and of all other races in general. -The subject is not a new one, and Krowtosky is only really entertaining -when he is talking of himself, or of his next-door neighbour in -connection with himself. - -‘“I am on the whole much disappointed in Madrid,” he continues further -on, “not because it is a duller town than I had imagined, but because -local colour and national individuality are almost extinct. It proves -the disastrous tendencies of all races to amalgamation and imitation. -Yet, after all, Rameau, what is the real value of local colour? It -is more often than not a mere matter of imagination, and one of the -illusions we fancy we enjoy. Any one with a lively imagination can -invent a more vivid local colour for all the countries he has never -visited than he is likely to find in any of them. Witness Merimée -and his band. They duped their public like the vulgarest literary -conjurors, and showed us that a trick will serve us instead of what we -are pleased to call Nature. And the deception was but the result of -our stupid hunger for the unusual. As if anything under the monotonous -stars of an unchanging heaven can be unusual; and as if everything in -this old and ugly world is not hideously familiar! The more varied our -travels the more similar our experience. For, Rameau, our real ills -are monotony and stupidity. Man resembles man, as rats resemble rats, -only he is a good deal less interesting and more noxious. You have a -fine head, and I have a misshapen one. Well, the same perplexities, -needs, instincts, appetites, passions, and impulses agitate us, and -explain our different actions, which, _au fond_, have no variety in -them whatever. We change the symbols of our faiths, while these remain -fundamentally the same, and we give our countries different names to -represent the unchangeable miseries of humanity....” - -‘Here you have the malady of youth in its crisis. A _décadent_ poet -could not chant more lugubriously, though perhaps less intelligibly. -The sick youth laments in the same irritable tone the vulgarity of the -_madrileñas_, the exaggerated prowess of the gentlemen of the arena, -exalts the patient and noble bulls, rails at the puny byplay of the -picadors and at the silly enthusiasm of the spectators. He rushes -distractedly from an inexpensive inn, where a band of merry rascals -joined him and over wine sang the praises of the Fair. Praise of the -eternal feminine he cannot stand. Poor wretch! Had he been Adam in -the Garden of Paradise, Eden would have ceased to be Eden upon the -impertinent introduction of Eve. We find him complaining that he -should have left a score of maundering youths in Paris doing dismal -homage to the Sex, to drop upon a sillier band in Madrid hymning the -everlasting subject. He protests the Spanish women, for all their -eyes and arched feet, are untempting and insipid, like the rest. They -are not the dolls of the North; they are the animals of the South. He -confines his curiosity to Spanish literature, and is in pursuit of -its apostle of Pessimism. “I am taking lessons in Spanish,” he writes -from another inn. “I teach Russian to as poor a devil as myself, in -exchange for his help in his own tongue. Between us we are making -creditable progress. He is writing an article on the Russian novelists -for a review that will pay him something like twopence a page. Yet he -preserves his faith in literature! Mighty indeed is man’s capacity for -cherishing illusions. I advised him to break stones for a lucrative -change, but he seems to doubt the value of the advice since I do not -follow it myself. This is one of the things that prove man a rational -being. We read Castrès together. You have doubtless heard of Castrès, -the poet of Spain, and said to be sufficiently sedative as regards -the happy hopes of youth. Such is my Spaniard’s description in reply -to a question of mine upon his tendencies. I have inserted the phrase -as a concession to the perverse taste for local colouring. The phrase -paints the man; he lives upon onions and bread into the bargain, and -dreams with a cigarette between his lips. This morning I went to see -Castrès.... I found the great man writing and smoking at the same time -in a big sparsely furnished bedroom. He is low-sized and heavily built, -with soft black eyes and a forest of hair round and about his sallow -face. He looks as if he dined well and liked women. There is always -something unctuous and fatuous about a man who likes women, which -becomes intolerably accentuated if women should happen to like him too. -The expression suggests a mixture of oil and sugar. We discussed the -_Décadents_ under their new name, and hardly appreciated the advantage -of exchange, symbolism being no whit less empty and vapid; another -demonstration of the worthlessness of novelty, since, however much we -vary things, we end where we start, at the Unchangeable. Castrès agrees -with me that Naturalism is dead; but what the devil, he asked, is -going to take its place? Naturalism under a new name, I replied, which -is only romance upside down. Whether we invent animals or angels, it -matters little. It is romancing all the same, and only proves that one -man likes _eau sucrée_ and another likes _absinthe_. It is a concoction -either way, and about as useful in one form as in the other.... Of -Castrès the man I thought as indifferently as I did of Castrès the -poet. I asked him how Pessimism stood in Spain, and who were its -representatives. He shrugged, spat, and surveyed me dismissingly, and -with his big soft eyes.... ‘_Caramba!_ I can’t say I know much about -it. But I believe it will never flourish here. We have too much sun, -and life is, on the whole, easy enough for us. An hour of sunshine, a -crust of bread, and a bunch of grapes, or the taste of an onion and a -lifted wine-skin upon the roadside, and there you have a Spaniard built -and ready for love-making. What more does he want? And in a land where -women are fair and facile, wherefore should he whine, and see black -where God made blue? I have here a volume of poems just published by a -young girl--Señorita Pilar Villafranca y Nuño. I have glanced through -the volume, and I don’t think you can ask for anything finer in the way -of Pessimism. It is enough to make a sane man cut his throat, if he had -not the good sense to pause beforehand, in distrust of the sincerity of -the writer who could survive the proof-reading of such dismal stuff. It -reminds me of what I have heard of Schopenhauer, who, after wrecking -all our altars, could sit down and enjoy a heavy dinner. He despised -none of the pleasures of life in practice, while decrying them all in -theory. You’ll probably find that this young woman dines heartily, and -employs her evenings over her wedding outfit, if she is not already -married and nursing her first baby. I took the book away and read it -with my poor devil that evening. You will not be surprised to learn -that I found it very much superior to anything of Castrès’ I have read. -He might well sneer at her in self-preservation, that being the weapon -the strong have ever preferred to use against the weak. It is bad -enough to find real talent in a young woman, but absolute unbelief, the -doctrine of complete negation! To find in this land of To-morrow, a -feminine apostle of the _Nirvana_....”’ - -‘Ah,’ interrupted Gaston, ‘I was wondering what had become of the word.’ - -‘“A feminine apostle of the _Nirvana_,”’ continued Rameau, with an -expressive smile. ‘“Judge if masculine opinion in Spain would be -indulgent. Even my poor devil, though no less struck than I with the -poetry, found it much too strong for a woman. ‘But she is doubtless -old, and then it matters less. The discontents and disappointments of -old maidenhood have drifted her into deep learning and irreligion,’ -he added, by way of consolation. ‘Old or young,’ I exclaimed, ‘it is -all one to me. For me she is a thinker, not a woman. And I am going -straight off to her publisher, from whom I’ll wrest her address, if -need be, by reason of a thick stick.’ - -‘“The services of a stick were not required. My request was immediately -complied with. I carried the lady’s book in my hand, and was no doubt -mistaken for a recent purchaser. My poet lives on the fourth floor -in a very shabby house, in a very shabby street at the other end of -Madrid. I deemed it wise to defer my visit until after dinner. It -was half-past eight when I climbed the four flights, and stood on -the landing, anxiously asking myself if I had made up my mind to -ring. Had it not the air of an invasion? While I was yet debating the -door opened, and an untidy-looking maid shot out into the passage. I -captured her before the twilight of the stairs had swallowed her, and -demanded to see the Señorita Pilar Villafranca y Nuño. I understood -that it would not serve me in her eyes to give evidence of uncertainty -or bashfulness. ‘She is inside; knock at the middle door and you’ll -find her,’ screamed the untidy maid, and in another moment she was -whirling down the stairs, and I was left to shut the hall door and -announce myself. - -‘“The house was tidier than the maid. I crossed a scrupulously clean -hall and knocked at the middle door, as I had been directed. A low, -deep voice shouted, _Come in!_ While turning the handle gingerly, I -thought to myself, the poor devil was right; only a woman of massive -proportions and very advanced years could bellow that order. The -scene that met my eyes was prettier than absolute conformity to my -ideas demanded. In a neat little sitting-room, lit by a shaded -lamp, were seated three persons; a stout Spanish woman engaged with -a basket of stockings, a pale, thin young girl with melancholy eyes -of an unusual intensity of gaze, and a small lad sitting at her feet, -and reading aloud from a book they held together. The child had the -girl’s eyes, but while curiosity, belonging to his years, brightened -their sombreness with the promise of surprise and laughter, hers held -an expression of permanent sadness and soft untroubled gloom. It -was superfluous information on the mother’s part, in response to my -mention of the poet’s name, to indicate her daughter majestically, -as if she wished it to be understood that she herself had no part in -the production of matter so suspicious in a woman as poetry. I was on -the brink of assuring her that nobody would ever deem her capable of -such folly, and begging her to return to her stockings as occupation -more appropriate than the entertainment of an admirer of the Muse she -despised, when Pilar quietly said, ‘Be seated, sir.’ From that moment -I took no further heed of the Señora Villafranca than if she had been -the accommodating _dueña_ of Spanish comedy and I the unvirtuous, or -noble but thwarted, lover who had bribed her. In ten minutes Pilar -and I were talking as freely as if we had known one another from -infancy; far more freely, possibly, for in the latter case we should -long ago have talked ourselves to silence. How do these young girls -manage to get hold of books, Rameau, when all the forces of domestic -law are exercised to keep them apart? There is not a living Spanish -or French writer with whom this child, barely out of her teens, is -not acquainted. Her judgment may often be at fault,--whose is not, -if backed by anything like originality? But to hear her discuss -Naturalism! Castrès, puffing his eternal cigarette, walks you through -_les lieux communs_, but this girl takes flights that fairly dazzle -you. And then her Pessimism! The queer thing is that she has found -it for herself, and Schopenhauer has nothing to do with it. For that -matter, nobody living or dead seems to have had anything to do with -the forming of her. She is essentially _primesautière_. You French -do manage to hit upon excellent words; _primesautière_ perfectly -describes this Spanish maid. She is all herself, first of the mould, -fresh, though so burdened with the century’s malady. So young, and she -believes in nothing--but nothing, Rameau! She hopes for nothing, for -nothing! She plays with no emotions, feigns no poetic despairs, utters -no paradoxes, and is simplicity itself in her gestures, expressions, -and ideas. She calmly rejects all the pretty illusions of her sex, -without a pang or regret, because, for her, truth is above personal -happiness. - -‘“We talked, we talked--talked till far into the night, while the -fat mother slumbered noisily in her chair, and the little boy slept -curled up at his sister’s feet. Can you guess what first put it into -my head to go? The smell of the lamp as the wick flickeringly lowered. -‘_Dios mio!_’ cried Pilar, ‘it is close on two o’clock, and we have -been chattering while my mother sleeps comfortlessly in her chair, -and my little brother is dreaming on the carpet instead of in his -bed. Good-night, sir; I must leave you and carry my baby to bed.’ She -stooped and lifted the sleeping boy with her arms. Such bodily strength -in one so frail much astonished me. I would have offered her help, -but the little lad had already found a comfortable spot in the hollow -of her neck, and with a cordial nod to me she disappeared into the -inner room. I had not expected this evidence of womanly tenderness from -her, and the picture haunted me on my way down the dark staircase and -through the dim starlit streets.” - -‘The extracts from the next letters are singularly characteristic,’ -said Rameau, well pleased by our profound attention. ‘Krowtosky, upon -his return to Paris, has taken a third-class ticket from Madrid to -Bayonne. To the poet he has said his last farewell, and probably wears -upon his heart her precious autograph. Not that Krowtosky is ostensibly -sentimental. He rejects the notion of such folly, and if by chance he -dropped into pretty fooling, be sure he would find a philosophical -way out of the disgrace deservedly attached to such weakness. “I am -travelling to Bayonne,” he writes, “and I will reach it to-morrow -afternoon, but I am convinced that once there I shall straightway take -the train back to Madrid. Odd, is it not? Yet I feel that I shall be -compelled to return to that young girl. And this is not love, mark you, -Rameau; not in the least. I know all about that. Did I not study it in -the case of that young girl I met at Toulouse? Well, nothing I feel -for Pilar in any way resembles the foolish sentiment her gestures and -looks expressed. I am quite master of myself, and do not hang on any -one’s lips or glances; but I must see Pilar again. Do you know why I -hesitated outside her door that first evening I called upon her? I had -a presentiment, as I climbed up those stairs, that I should marry her. -We may reject a faith in presentiments, but they shake us nevertheless. -How slowly this train goes! The landscape, across which we speed in the -leisurely movement of Spanish steam, is flat and ugly, an interminable -view of cornfields. There is a wide-hatted priest in front of me with -an open breviary in his hand. Perhaps I shall find myself craving -service of one of his brothers some day. What an odd fellow I am, to be -sure! I intend, oh certainly I intend to take the Paris train to-morrow -night from Bayonne, and as certainly I know I shall find myself on my -way back to Madrid! And it cannot be for the pleasure of passing a -couple of days and nights in a beastly third-class carriage, which is -nothing better here than a cattle-pen....” - -‘Of his reception by the poet, of his sentiments and wooing, he -writes very sparingly. His great terror is that I should detect the -lover where he insists there is only a philosopher. Philosophy took -him from Madrid, and Philosophy brought him back within forty-eight -hours. Philosophy sued, wooed, and won the Muse, and led him to his -wedding-morn. While engaged in its service, he writes in this jocose -strain the very evening of his marriage: “This morning in a dark -little church, in a dark little street of Madrid, we were married. -Though neither of us believes in anything, we agreed to make the usual -concession to conventional feeling and social law, and were married in -the most legal and Christianlike fashion. Nothing was lacking,--neither -rings nor signatures, nor church-bells nor church-fees, nor yet the -excellent and venerable fat priest, a degree uglier than myself, who -obligingly made us one. While this ceremony was being performed, I -could not forget the inconvenient fact that neither of us brought the -other much in the shape of promise of future subsistence, not even -hope, of which there is not a spark between us. This preoccupation -distracted me while the priest mumbled and sermonised, and a wicked -little French couplet kept running through my head: - - Un et un font deux, nombre heureux en galanterie, - Mais quand un et un font trois,--c’est diablerie! - -Meanwhile the fat priest discoursed to my wife, most excellently, upon -the duties and virtues of the true Christian spouse, to which discourse -my wife lent an inattentive ear. Perhaps she also was thinking of the -future,--somewhat tardily. My dear Rameau, have you ever reflected -upon the amazing one-sidedness of religion on these occasions? Wives -are eloquently exhorted to practise all the virtues, and not a word -is flung at the husbands. It is something of course for us to learn, -by the aid of the Church, that all the duty is on the other side, -and that we have nothing to do but command, be worshipped, and fall -foul of infidelity. The beautiful logic of man, and the profound -Pessimism of woman! She never rebels, but accepts all without hope -of remedy. The real Pessimists are women. They admit the fact that -everything is unalterable, evil without amelioration; everything is, -and everything will remain to the end. Man occasionally rises up, and -takes his oppressor by the throat, but woman never. There is a point -at which his patience vanishes, but hers is inexhaustible. She is the -soul and spirit and body of the malady only diagnosed this century. -Conviction that suffering is her only heritage is hers before birth, -and she placidly bends to the law of fate often without a murmur, -always without the faintest instinct of revolt. Is she an idiot or an -angel? The latter rebelled in paradise; then she must be an idiot. Man -is activity, she is inertia; that is why she yields so readily to his -ruling. These are thoughts suitable to the marriage of two Pessimists. -There will be on neither side revolt or stupid demands upon destiny. I -am simply interested in the development of this strange union of the -barbarous North and the barbarous South, and watch this unfamiliar -person, my wife, placed in an enervating proximity by a queer social -institution. I wonder if she will eventually prove explosive; meantime -it is my privilege to kiss her. I have not mentioned it, but she has -very sweet lips.” - -‘After this there is a long lapse of silence. I fear the delights of -poor Krowtosky’s honeymoon were soon enough disturbed by the grim -question of ways and means. As I was only a fair-weather friend in -default of the sympathetic confidant voyaging in distant waters, I -imagine at this period the traveller must have returned, and received -the rest of the journal so wantonly intrusted to me, or Krowtosky must -have confided his troubles to his wife. When next I hear from him, -it is many months later, and he has just obtained a professorship in -a dreary snow-bound place called Thorpfeld. From his description, it -is evidently the very last place God Almighty bethought himself of -making, and by that time all the materials of comfort, pleasure, and -beauty had been exhausted. “As Thorpfeld is not my birthplace,” writes -Krowtosky, “I may befoul it to my liking. It contains about seven -thousand inhabitants, one poorer and more ignorant than another. What -they can want with professors and what the authorities are pleased to -call a college, the wicked government under which we sweat and suffer -and groan alone can tell. Six out of a hundred cannot read, and three -of these can barely write. The less reason have they for a vestige -of belief in man, the more fervent is their faith in their Creator. -Nothing but anticipation of the long-delayed joys of paradise can -keep them from cutting their own and their neighbours’ throats. They -ought to begin with the professors and the rascally magistrates. -As if snow and broken weather were not enough to harass these poor -wretches in pursuit of a precarious livelihood, what little money the -magistrates or the professors leave them is wrung from them by the -popes. Even Pilar is demoralised by her surroundings. She has left -off writing pessimistic poetry, and has betaken herself to Christian -charity. ’Tisn’t much we can do, for we have barely enough to live upon -ourselves, but that little she manages to do somehow or other. These -hearts of foolish women will ever make them traitor to their heads. I -naturally growl when I find our sack of corn diminished in favour of a -neighbour’s hungry children, or return frost-bitten from the college -to find no fire, and learn that my wife has carried a basket of fuel -to a peasant dying up among snow-hills. She does not understand these -people, and they do not understand her, but they divine her wish to -share their wretchedness, her own being hardly less; and then she is a -pretty young woman! Timon himself could hardly have spurned her. But -where’s her Pessimism? Has it vanished with the sun and vines of her -own bright land, or has it found a grave in the half-frozen breast -of a strange Sister of Charity unknown to me and born of the sight of -snow-clad misery such as in Spain is never dreamed of? You see, I am on -the road to poetry instead of my poor changed young wife. - -‘“Last evening when I came home from a farmer’s house, where I had -stopped to warm myself with a couple of glasses of _vodka_, I found her -shivering over the remaining sparks of a miserable fire. She looked so -white and unhappy and alone, so completely the image of a stranger in a -foreign land, to whom I, too, her husband, am a foreigner, that I asked -myself, in serious apprehension, if I might not be destined to lose -her in the coming crisis. ‘Pilar,’ I cried, ‘what ails thee?’ And when -she turned her head I saw that she was crying silently. ‘I want my own -land; I want the sun and vines of Spain, where at least the peasants -have wine and sunshine in abundance whatever else they may lack!’ I -should think so, I grimly muttered, remembering that over there the -mortar that built up the walls of a town was wet with wine instead of -water, and that fields are sometimes moistened with last year’s wine -when the new is ready. Pilar is right, my friend. There is no poverty -so sordid and awful as that of the cold North. But what could I do? I -could not offer her the prospect of change. She was sobbing bitterly -now, and I had no words of comfort for her. If only she had not -forsaken her principles and her poetry! But the baby may rouse her when -it comes. She has not smiled since we left Spain, poor girl. We must -wait meanwhile; but Rameau, it is very cold.”’ - -‘Poor little woman!’ murmured Gaston. ‘I hardly know which is the -worst fortune for her, her transplantation or her marriage with that -maundering owl Krowtosky. Krowtosky married to a pretty Spanish poet! -Ye gods, it is a cruel jest! There would have been some appropriateness -in the laundress or the _grisette_, but a Spanish girl with arched feet -and melancholy eyes! I vow the jade Destiny ought to have her neck -wrung for it. Is there a Perseus among us to free this modern unhappy -Andromeda?’ - -‘Poor Krowtosky! he deserves a word too,’ I modestly ventured to -suggest, touched by that little stroke, _It is very cold_, and his fear -of losing his wife. ‘He is more human than he himself is aware, and we -may be sorry for him too.’ - -‘Ah, yes,’ assented Rameau, and he dropped an easy sigh. ‘If he is a -bear, he is an honest bear. His next letter was just a note to announce -the birth of a little girl and the well-being of the mother, which was -followed by a more philosophical communication later, as soon as the -gracious content of motherhood had fallen upon the young Spaniard. -Relieved of his fears, he plunges once again into high speculation, -and throws out queer suggestions as to the result of such conflicting -elements in parentage as those contributed by Spain and Russia. He -has found an occupation of vivid interest,--that of watching the -development of his child, which he is convinced will turn out something -very curious. Pilar, he adds, has so far recovered her old self as to -have written a delicious little poem, which has just appeared in the -_Revista_. It is over there, if any of you can read Spanish.’ - -‘And the baby is now dead,’ said Gaston. - -‘Dead, yes, poor mite! It had not time to show what the mingling of -Spanish and Russian blood might mean. Krowtosky’s letter was most -pitiful. That I will not read to you; it affected me too deeply. It -was the father there who wrote. Unconsciously the little creature had -forced a way into his heart, and discovered it a very big and human -heart despite his Pessimism and Philosophy. What hurt him most was the -cruel hammering of nails into the baby’s coffin, and the sound keeps -haunting him through the long wakeful nights. Of the bereaved mother he -says little. His mind is fixed on the empty cradle and the small fresh -mound in the churchyard, whither he goes every day. I believe myself -that it is the first time his heart has ever been stirred by passionate -love, and now he speaks of never leaving Thorpfeld,--a place he has -been moving heaven and earth to get away from the past six years.’ - -‘I promise you, Professor, that I’ll never laugh at him again,’ said -Gaston, very gravely. ‘There can be nothing absurd about a man who -mourns a little child like that. Give me his address, and I’ll write to -him at once.’ - -‘It may be a distraction for him, and at any rate it will serve to -show him that he is remembered in Paris,’ said Rameau, eager to comply -with the request. We thanked the Professor for his story, with -some surprise at the lateness of the hour. The door-bell rang, and -the appearance of the servant with the evening letters arrested our -departure. With a hand extended to the sobered St. Thomas, Rameau took -the letters and glanced as he spoke at the top envelope, deeply edged -with black. ‘_Tiens!_ a letter from poor Krowtosky,’ he exclaimed. He -broke the seal and read aloud: ‘My dear friend, I thank you for your -kind words in my bereavement. But I am past consolation; I am alone -now; my wife is dead, and my heart is broken.’ - - - - - ARMAND’S MISTAKE - - _To Demetrius Bikélas_ - - - - - ARMAND’S MISTAKE - - - I - -UNTIL the age of twenty-one, Armand Ulrich submitted to the controlling -influences around him,--somewhat gracelessly, be it admitted. He sat -out his uncle’s long dinners, and solaced himself by sketching on -the cloth between the courses. He showed a discontented face at his -mother’s weekly receptions in a big Parisian hotel, and all the while -his heart was out upon the country roads and among the pleasant fields, -where the children played under poplars and dabbled on the brim of -reedy streams. At twenty-one, however, he regarded himself as a free -man, and threw up a situation worth £50,000 a year or thereabouts. -From this we may infer that he was a lad full of bright hopes and fair -dreams. - -He was the only son of a Frenchwoman of noble birth and of the junior -partner of a wealthy Alsatian banking-house. His taste for strolling -and camping out of doors, sketch-book in hand and pipe in mouth, was -partly an inherited taste, with the difference that transmission had -strengthened instead of having weakened the heritage. In earlier -days Ulrich junior had not shown an undivided spirit of devotion to -commercial interests; he had, on the contrary, permitted himself the -treasonable luxury of gazing abroad upon many objects not connected -with the business of the firm. Amateur theatricals had engaged his -affections in youth; five-act tragedies, in alexandrines as long as the -acts, had proved him fickle, and operatic music had sent him fairly -distraught. He aspired to excel in all the arts, and as a fact was -successful in none. - -When congratulated upon his brother’s versatility, Ulrich senior would -contemptuously retort that the fellow was able to do everything except -attend to his business. As a result, he was held in light esteem at -the bank, and the meanest client would have regarded himself insulted -if passed for consultation to this accomplished but incompetent -representative of the firm. However agreeable his tastes may have -rendered him in society, it cannot be denied that they were of a nature -to diminish his commercial authority. Humanity wisely draws the line -at a sonneteering banker, and looks upon the ill-assorted marriage of -account and sketch-book with a natural distrust. - -This state of things broke the banker’s heart. He had a reverence for -the firm of Ulrich Brothers, and if he considered himself specially -gifted for anything, it was for the judicious management of its -affairs. Thus he lived and died a misappreciated and misunderstood -person. To him it was a grievous injustice that he should be treated as -a man of no account, because of a few irregular and purely decorative -accomplishments. His heart might be led astray, he argued, but his head -was untampered with, and that, after all, is the sole organ essential -to the matter of bonds and shares. A man may be a wise head of a family -and an honest husband, and not for that unacquainted with lighter -loves. Such trifles are but gossiping pauses in the serious commotions -and preoccupations of life. But no amount of argument, however logical, -could blind him or others to the fact that commercially he was a dead -failure, because a few ill-regulated impulses had occasionally led -him into idle converse with two or three of the disreputable Nine; -and mindful of this, he solemnly exhorted his son Armand to fix his -thoughts upon the bank, and not let himself be led astray like his -misguided father by illusive talents and disastrous tastes. - -Armand Ulrich was a merry young fellow, who cared not a button for -all the privileges of wealth, and looked upon an office stool with -loathing. He only wanted the free air, his pencil, and a comfortable -pipe of tobacco,--and there he was, as he described himself, the -happiest animal in France. Before his easel he could be serious enough, -but in his uncle’s office he felt an irresistible inclination to burst -into profane song, and make rash mention of such places of perdition -as the Red Mill and the Shepherd Follies,--follies perfectly the -reverse of pastoral. He was not in the least depraved, but he took -his pleasure where he found it, and made the most of it. A handsome -youngster, whom the traditional felt hat and velvet jacket of art -became a trifle too well. At least he wore this raiment somewhat -ostentatiously, and winked a conscious eye at the maids of earth. With -such solid advantages as a bright audacious glance, a winning smile, -and a well-turned figure, he was not backward in his demands upon their -admiration, and it must be confessed, that men in all times have proved -destructive with less material. - -But he was an amiable rogue, not consciously built for evil, and he -cheated the women not a whit more than they cheated him. He knew he was -playing a game, and was fair enough to remember that there is honour -among thieves. For the rest, he was fond of every sort of wayside -stoppages, paid his bill ungrudgingly, in whatever coin demanded, like -a gentleman, and clinked glasses cordially with artists, strollers, and -such like vagabonds. The frock-coated individual alone inspired him -with repugnance, and he held the trammels of respectability in horror. -Whether nature or his art were responsible for a certain loose and -merry generosity of spirit, I cannot say; but I am of opinion that, had -his mind run to bank-books instead of paints, though his work might be -of indifferent quality, he might have proved himself of sounder and -more sordid disposition. - -Even the brightest nature finds a shadow somewhere upon the shine, -and the shade that dimmed the sun for Armand was his mother’s want of -faith in his artistic capacities. He loved his mother fondly, and took -refuge from her wounding scepticism in his conviction that women, by -nature and training, are unfitted to comprehend or pronounce upon the -niceties of art. They may be perfect in all things else, but they have -not the artistic sense, and cannot descry true talent until they have -been taught to do so. It has ever been the destiny of great men to be -undervalued upon the domestic hearth, and ’tis a wise law of Nature -to keep them evenly balanced, and set a limit to their inclination to -assume airs. Thinking thus, he shook off the chill of unappreciated -talent, and warmed himself back into the pleasant confidence that -was the lad’s best baggage upon the road of life. For a moment an -upbraiding word, a cold comment upon dear lips, might check his -enthusiasm and cloud his mirthful glance, but a whistled bar of song, -a smart stroke of pencil or brush, a glimpse of his becoming velvet -jacket in a mirror, were enough to send hope blithely through his -veins, and speed him carolling on the way to fame. - -It chanced one morning that he was interrupted at his easel by a -letter from that domestic unbeliever who cast the sole blot upon his -artist’s sunshine. There was a certain haziness in Armand’s relations -with art. He worked briskly enough at intervals, but he was naturally -an idler. The attitude he preferred was that of uneager waiter upon -inspiration, and he had a notion that the longer he waited, provided -the intervals of rest were comfortably subject to distraction, the -better the inspiration was likely to be. He had neither philosophy nor -moral qualifications to fit him for the jog-trot of daily work. So -that no interruption ever put him out, and no intruder ever found him -other than unaffectedly glad to be intruded upon. Such a youth would of -course attack his letters in the same spirit of hearty welcome that he -fell upon his friends. - -But as he sat and read, his bright face clouded, and his lips screwed -and twisted themselves into a variety of grimaces. He had a thousand -gestures and expressions at the service of his flying moods, and before -he had come to the end of his mother’s letter, not one but had been -summoned upon duty. The letter ran thus:-- - - MY DEAR SON,--It will, I hope, inspire you with a little common sense - to learn that your cousin Bernard Francillon has just arrived from - Vienna to take your place at the bank. I have had a long interview - with your uncle, who makes no secret of his intentions, should you - persist in wasting your youth and prospects in this extravagant - fashion. And I cannot blame him, for his indulgence and patience - have much exceeded my expectations. This absurd caprice of yours - has lasted too long. You are no longer a boy, Armand, but a young - man of twenty-three, and you have no right to behave like a silly - child, who aspires to fly, instead of contentedly riding along in - the solid family coach provided for him. If I had any confidence in - your talent I might, as you do, build my hopes upon your future fame, - and console myself for present disappointment in the faith that your - sacrifice is not in vain. But even a mother cannot be so foolish as - to believe that her son is going to turn out a Raphael because he has - donned a velvet coat and bought a box of paints. Some natural talent - and cultivation will help any young man to become a fair amateur, - perhaps even a tenth-rate artist; but for such it is hardly worth - while to wreck all worldly prospects. Take your father as an example. - He did all things fairly well; he drew, painted, sang, composed, and - wrote. What was the end of it? Failure all round. He had not the - esteem of his commercial colleagues, while the artists, in whose - society he delighted, indulged his tastes as those of an accomplished - banker whose patronage might be useful to them. While he was wrecked - upon versatility, you intend to throw away your life upon a single - illusion. Whose will be the gain? - - Your whim has lasted two years, and you cannot be blind to the little - you have done in that time. You have not had any success to justify - further perseverance. Then take your courage in both hands; assure - yourself that it is wiser to be a good man of business than a bad - artist; lock up your studio and come back to your proper place. If - you do so at once, Bernard will have less chance of walking in your - shoes. He is much too often at Marly, and seems to admire Marguerite; - but I do not think a girl like Marguerite could possibly care for - such a perfumed fop. - - When you feel the itch for vagabondage and sketch-book, you can be - off into the country, and it need never be known that your holidays - are passed in any but the most correct fashion. As for your uncle, he - will not endure paint-boxes or pencils about him. He is still bitter - upon the remembrance of your father’s sins in office hours. I am told - he used to draw caricatures on the blotting pads, and write verses on - the fly-leaves of the account-books. He was much too frivolous for a - banker, and I fear you have inherited his light and unbusinesslike - manners. But be reasonable now, and come at once to your affectionate - mother, - - SOPHIE ULRICH. - -Poor Armand! The mention of Raphael in connection with the velvet coat -and paint-box was a sore wound. It whipped the susceptible blood into -his cheeks, for though sweet-tempered, a sneer was what he could not -equably endure. Surely his mother might have found a tenderer way to -say unpleasant things, if the performance of this duty can ever be -necessary! And bitter to him was the assumption that his choice was -a caprice without future or justification. Having swallowed his pill -with a wry face, he was still in the middle of a subsequent fit of -indigestion, when the door opened, and a young man in a linen blouse -cried gaily: ‘It’s a case of the early bird on his matutinal round.’ - -‘Come in, since the worm is fool enough to be abroad. You may make a -meal of him, my friend, and welcome, but a poor one, for he’s at this -moment the sorriest worm alive.’ - -The young man shot into the room, inelegantly performed a step of the -Red Mill to a couple of bars of unmelodious song of a like diabolical -suggestion, and seated himself on the arm of a chair, twisting both -legs over and round the other arm and back. In this grotesque attitude -he languidly surveyed his friend, and said sentimentally: ‘I have -had a letter from her this morning. She relents, my friend, in long -and flowery phrases, with much eloquence spent upon the harshness -of destiny and the cruelty of parents. Where would happy lovers be, -Armand, if there were no destiny to rail against and no parents to -arrange unhappy marriages?’ - -‘Nowhere, I suppose. Doubtless the parents have the interests of the -future lover in view when they chose the unsympathetic husband, and -everything is for the best. I congratulate you. For the moment, I am -empty-handed, and filled with a sense of the meanness of all things; -so I am in a position to give you my undivided attention,’ said Armand -dejectedly. - -‘What’s this? I come to you, to pour the history of my woes and joys -into a sympathetic bosom, and if you had just buried all your near -relatives you could not look more dismal.’ - -‘I should probably feel less dismal, had I done so. But it is a serious -matter when your art is scoffed at, and you are told that you imagine -yourself a Raphael because you wear a velvet coat and handle a brush.’ - -‘_En effet_, that is a much more serious matter,’ Maurice admitted, and -at once assumed an appropriate air of concern. - -Armand glanced ruefully at his coat sleeve, and began to take off the -garment of obloquy with great deliberateness. - -‘Spare thyself, my poor Armand, even if others spare thee not. Knowest -thou not that the coat is more than half the man? A palette and a -velvet coat have ever been wedded, and why this needless divorce?’ - -‘I will get a blouse like yours, Maurice, and wear it,’ said Armand, -with an air of gloomy resignation befitting the occasion. - -‘And who has reduced you to these moral straits, and to what deity is -the coat a holocaust?’ - -For answer Armand held out his mother’s letter, which the young man -took, and read attentively, with an expression of lugubrious gravity. -He lifted a solemn glance upon Armand, and shook his head like a sage. - -‘Your mother is not a flattering correspondent, I admit. It is clear, -she expected you to justify your immoral choice by an extraordinary -start. She does not define her expectations. ’Tis a way with women. -But I take it for granted that she esteemed it your duty to cut out -Meissonnier, or by a judicious combination of Puvis de Chavannes and -Carolus Duran, show yourself in colours of a capsizing originality, -and finally go to wreck upon a tempest of your own making. For there -is nothing in life more unreasonable than a mother. But go to her -to-morrow, and tell her you have doffed the obnoxious coat, and intend -to live and die in the workman’s modest blouse.’ - -‘I am not going,’ Armand protested sullenly. ‘I have made my choice, -and I can’t be badgered and worried any more about it.’ - -As behoves a poor devil living from hand to mouth upon the -problematical sale of his pictures, Maurice Brodeau had a tremendous -respect for all that wealth implies, and like the rest of the world, -regarded Armand’s renunciation of it as a transient caprice that by -this time ought to be on the wing. He expressed himself with a good -deal of sound sense, and thereby evoked a burst of wrathful indignation. - -‘Money! Money! Ah, how I hate the word, hate still more the look of the -thing! I have watched them at the bank shovelling gold, solid gold -pieces, till my heart went sick. Where’s the good of it? It fills the -prisons, takes all life and brightness out of humanity, builds us iron -safes, and turns us into sordid-minded knaves. Where’s the crime that -can’t be traced to its want? and where’s the single ounce of happiness -it brings? We are dull with it, envious without it, and yet it is only -the uncorrupted poor who really enjoy themselves and who are really -generous. The rich man counts where the poor man spends, and which -of the two is the wiser? In God’s name, let us knock down the brazen -idol, and proclaim, without fear of being laughed at, that there are -worthier and pleasanter objects in life, and that it is better to watch -the fair aspects of earth than to jostle and strive with each other -in its mean pursuit. My very name is distasteful to me, because it -represents money. It is a password across the entire world, at which -all men bow respectfully. And yet, I vow, I would sooner wander through -the squalor and wretchedness of Saint-Ouen, any day, than find myself -in the neighbourhood of the Rue de Grenelle. There may be other houses -in that long street, but for me it simply means the bank. So I feel -upon sight of my mother’s hotel. Her idle and overfed servants irritate -me. Everything about her brings the air of the bank about my nostrils, -and I only escape it here, where, thank God, I have not got a single -expensive object. I smoke cheap cigarettes, which my poorest friends -can buy. I drink beer, and sit on common chairs. Well, these are my -luxuries, and I take pride in the fact that there is very little gold -about me. I can sign a cheque for a friend in need, whenever he asks -me, and that’s all the pleasure I care to extract from the legacy of my -name. For the rest, I would forget that I have sixpence more than is -necessary for independence.’ - -A youth of such moral perversity was not to be driven down the -cotton-spinner’s path, you perceive, and Maurice, with the tact and -discretion of his race, forbore further argument, and contented himself -with a silent shrug. - -But Madame Ulrich was not so discreet. She was a woman of -determination, moreover, and knew something of her son’s temperament. -If in her strife with what Armand gloriously called his mistress she -had been worsted, as was shown by the boy’s sulky silence, she could -enlist in her service a weapon of whose terrible power she had no -doubt. A man may sulk in the presence of his mother, but unless he has -betaken himself to the woods in the mood of a Timon, he cannot sulk in -the presence of a beautiful young woman, who comes to him upon sweet -cousinly intent. - -At least Armand could not, and he had too much sense to make an effort -to do so. On the whole, he was rather proud of his weakness as an -inflammable and soft-hearted youth. He saw the fair vision, behind his -mother’s larger proportions, for the first time in his studio, and made -a capitulating grimace for the benefit of his friend, who was staring -at the biggest heiress of Europe with all his might, amazed to find her -such a simple-looking and inexpensively arrayed young creature. Maurice -had perhaps an indistinct notion that the daughters of millionaires -traversed life somewhat overweighted by the magnificence of their -dress, bonneted as no ordinary girl could be, and habited accordingly. - -‘One sees thousands of women dressed like her,’ he thought to himself, -after a quick appraising glance at her gown and hat. ‘A hundred -francs, I believe, would cover the cost. But there is this about -a lady,’ he added, as an after reflection, while his eyes eagerly -followed her movements and gestures, the flow of her garments and the -lines of her neck and back; ‘simplicity is her crown. There is no use -for the other sort to try it; they can’t succeed, and we know them. If -Armand does not follow that girl to bank or battle, he’s an unmannerly -ass.’ - -It was not in Armand to meet unsmilingly the arch glance of a smiling -girl, even if there were not beauty in her to prick his senses and hold -him thrilled. Forgetful of the unwelcome fact that she was worth more -than her weight in solid gold, he melted at the sound of her voice, and -his foolish heart went out to her upon the touch of her gloved fingers. -Not as a lover certainly, for was she not the desired of all unmarried -Europe? There was not a titled or moneyed bride-hunter upon the face -of the civilised world with whom he had not heard her name coupled, -while he was ignorant of the fact that the great man, her father, had -destined him to complete her, until he bolted in pursuit of fortune on -his own account. - -It flattered him to see that she had captivated his friend, too, not -contemptuous of the prospect of exciting a little envy in the breast -of that individual; and he shot him a look of radiant gratitude when -he saw him bent upon engaging the attention of Madame Ulrich, who was -nothing loth to be so caught. She smiled sadly, as Maurice chattered -on in high praise of her son’s genius, and quoted the opinion of their -common master in evidence of his own discernment. From time to time she -cast a hopeful eye upon the cousins, and mentally thanked Marguerite -for her delicate tact and rare wisdom. - -Not a word of comment or surprise upon the bareness of the studio -or the shabbiness of the single-cushioned chair upon which she sat; -no allusion to his sacrifice, or wonder at it. The charming girl -seemed to take it for granted that a lad of talent should find the -atmosphere of commerce irksome, and gallantly admitted that such a -choice would have been hers, had she been born a boy. To wander about -the world with a knapsack, and eat in dear little cheap inns with rough -peasants; to wear a silk kerchief and no collar, and have plenty of -pockets filled with cord and penknives, and matches, and tobacco, and -pencils, and pocketbooks; to sleep under the stars, and bear a wetting -bravely,--this is the sort of thing she vowed she would have enjoyed, -did petticoats and sex and other contrarieties not form an impediment. - -Such pretty babble might not be intended to play into her elders’ -hands, Madame Ulrich perhaps thought, but it was very wise play for -that susceptible organ, a young man’s heart, whether conscious or not. -And that once gained, one need never despair of the reversal of all his -idols for love. - -When they left the studio, Armand stood looking after them, with his -hands in his pockets, under his linen blouse, plunged in profound -meditation, the nature of which he revealed soon to his friend. - -‘And to think there goes the biggest prey male rascal ever sighed for, -Maurice. What title do you imagine will buy her? Prince or duke, for -marquis is surely below the mark. Think of it, my friend. There is -hardly a wish of hers that money cannot gratify, unless it be a throne -or a cottage. And the throne itself is easier come by for such as -she than the cottage. What an existence! What a dismal future! What -lassitude! What hunger, by and by, for dry bread and cheese and common -pewter! A more nauseous destiny must it be, that of the richest woman -in the world than even that of the richest man. At least a man can -smoke a clay pipe, and take to drink, or the road to the devil in any -other way. But what is there left a woman whose wedding trousseau will -contain pocket-handkerchiefs that cost a hundred pounds apiece! My -aunt Mrs. Francillon’s handkerchiefs cost that. Mighty powers! what an -awful way these charming and futile young creatures are brought up! And -you see for yourself, this girl is no mere fashionable fool. She, too, -would have sacrificed the title and the handkerchiefs, if it were not -for the restrictions with which she has been hedged from birth. Let -us bless our stars, Maurice, that we were not born girls, and equally -bless our stars that girls are born for us.’ - - - II - -Madame Ulrich and her niece came again to the studio. They came very -often. Armand began by counting the days between their visits, and -ended in such a state of lyrical madness that Romeo was sobriety itself -alongside of him. In anticipation of the sequel, Maurice supported the -trial of his morning, midday, and evening confidences with a patience -deserving the envy of angels. And not a thought of commiseration had -the raving young madman for him, and only sometimes remembered, at the -top of his laudatory bent, to break off with courteous regret for the -unoccupied state of his friend’s heart. - -‘I wish to God you were married to her,’ said Maurice one day, and -Armand naturally trusted the prayer would be heard at no distant period. - -It was the hour of Marguerite’s visit. To see the charming girl -seated in the shabby arm-chair he had bought at a sale in the Hôtel -Drouot, so perfectly at home, and so naïvely pleased with little -inexpensive surprises, such as a bunch of flowers in a common jar, -an improvised tea made over their daily spirit-lamp, much the worse -for constant use; to see her so vividly interested in the everyday -life of a couple of Bohemians, the cost of their marketings, their -bargains, and the varieties of their meals, their cheap amusements, -unspoiled by dress-suit or crush hat, and eager over that chapter of -their distractions that may safely be recounted to a well-bred maiden. -Armand had never known any pleasure in his life so full of freshness -and untainted delight. Bitterly then did he regret that there should -be episodes upon which a veil must be dropped. These, I suppose, are -regrets common to most honest young fellows for the first time in -love. He would have liked to be able to tell her everything, not even -omitting his sins; as she sat there, and listened to him with an air so -divinely confiding and credulous. He had a wild notion that he might -be purified from past follies, and not a few dark scenes he dared not -remember in her presence, if he might kneel and drop his humbled head -in her lap, and feel the touch of her white hands as a benediction and -an absolution upon his forehead. He was full of all sorts of romantic -and sentimental ideas about her, little dreaming that the clock of fate -was so close upon the midnight chimes of hope, and that the curtain was -so soon to drop upon this pleasant pastoral played to city sounds. - -One day his mother came alone. One glance took in the blank -disappointment of his expression and all its meaning. She scrutinised -him sharply, and found the ground well prepared for the words of wisdom -she had come to sow. She spoke of Marguerite, and the troubled youth -drank in the sound of her voice with avidity. Did he love his cousin? -How could he tell? He knew nothing but that he lived upon her presence; -that the thought of her filled the studio in her absence; that he dwelt -incessantly upon the memory of her words and looks and gestures. This -he supposed was love, only he wished the word were fresher. It was -applied to the feeling inspired by ordinary girls, whereas she was -above humanity, and he was quite ready to die for one kiss of her lips. - -When the blank verse subsided, Madame Ulrich bespoke the commonplace -adventure of marriage, and made mention of two serious rivals, an -English marquis and his cousin Bernard Francillon. The mention of the -marquis he endured, and sighed; but his cousin’s name stung his blood -like a venomous bite, he could not tell why. His brain was on fire, and -he sat with his head in his hands in great perplexity. - -It was the hour of solemn choice; the renunciation of his liberty -and pleasant vagabondage, or the hugging in private for evermore of -a sweet dream that would make a symphonious accompaniment to his -march upon the road of life. Could the flavour of his love survive -the vulgarity of wealth, of newspaper-paragraphs, wedding-presents, -insincere congratulations, a honeymoon enjoyed under the stare of the -gazing multitude, the dust of social receptions, dinners, and all the -ugly routine he had flown from? On the other hand, could he ask a -daintily reared girl, like his cousin, to tramp the country roads and -fields with him, to wander comfortless from wayside inn to hamlet, -and back to an ill-furnished studio, at the mercy of the seasons, and -with no other luxuries than kisses, which for him, he imagined, would -ever hold the rapture and forgetfulness of the first one? The choice -meant the clipping of his own wings, and perhaps moral death; for her, -ultimate misery, or the tempered loveliness of a dream preserved, and -substantial bliss rejected. - -He could not make up his mind that day, and sent his mother away -without an answer. Maurice Brodeau was not informed of his dilemma. -It was matter too delicate in this stage for discussion. But the night -brought him no nearer to decision, and standing before his easel, -making believe to be engaged upon a sketch he had lately taken at -Fontainebleau, he held serious debate within himself whether he ought -to consult his friend or not. - -In his studio upstairs, Maurice was loitering near the window in an -idle mood, and saw a quiet brougham stop in front of their house in the -Avenue Victor Hugo. He watched the slow descent of an old man dressed -in a shabby frock-coat, untidily cravated, who leaned heavily upon a -thick-headed cane. The old gentleman surveyed the green gate on which -were nailed the visiting-cards of the two artists, and jerked up a -sharp pugnacious chin. - -‘Our ancient uncle, the respectable and mighty banker, of a surety,’ -laughed Maurice, on fire for the explanation of the riddle. - -The head of the firm of Ulrich pushed open the gate, sniffed the air of -the damp courtyard, and solemnly mounted the wooden stairs, making a -kind of judicial thud with his heavy stick. - -‘The jackanapes!’ he muttered, for the benefit of a tame cat. ‘It is -a miracle how these young fools escape typhoid fever, living in such -places.’ - -Maurice cautiously peeped over the banisters, and saw the old gentleman -turn the handle of Armand’s door without troubling to knock. ‘Good -Lord!’ thought the watcher, ‘it is fortunate friend Armand has broken -with that little devil Yvette, or the old bear might have had the -chance of putting a fine spoke in his wheel with cousin Marguerite.’ - -Armand in his linen blouse was standing in front of his easel, with -his back to the door. He was certainly working, but his mind was not -so fixed upon his labour but that he had more than an odd thought for -his cousin. Pretty phrases, gestures, and expressions of hers kept -running through his thoughts, as an under-melody sometimes runs through -a piece of music, unaggressively but soothingly claiming the ear. They -brought her presence about him, to cheer him in the midst of his solemn -preoccupations upon their mutual destiny. While his reason said no, and -he regarded himself as a fine fellow for listening to reason at such -a moment, her lips curved and smiled and bent to his in imagination’s -first spontaneous kiss. And then he told himself pretty emphatically -that he was growing too sentimental, and that it behoves a man to take -his pleasure and his pains heartily and bravely, and not go abroad -whimpering for the moon. Just when he had made up his mind to shoulder -his moral baggage and, whistling merrily, face the solitary roads, he -was made to jump and fall back into perplexity by a crusty, well-known -voice. - -‘Well, young man! So this is where you waste your time?’ - -Armand swung round in great alarm, and reddened painfully. - -‘You look astounded, and no wonder. ’Tis an honour I don’t often pay -young idiots like you. Ouf, man! Look at his dirty jacket. Your father -was a rock of sense in comparison. At least, he did not get himself -up like a baker’s boy, and go roystering in company with a band of -worthless rascals.’ - -‘I presume, uncle, you have come here for something else besides the -pleasure of abusing my father to me.’ - -‘There he is now, off in a rage. Can’t you keep cool for five minutes, -you hot-headed young knave? What concern is it of mine if you choose -to die in the workhouse? But there’s your mother. It frets her, and I -esteem your mother, young sir.’ - -Armand lifted his brows discontentedly. He held his tongue, for there -was nothing to be said, as he had long ago beaten the weary ground of -protest and explanation. - -‘The rascal says nothing, thinks himself a great fellow, I’ve no doubt. -The Almighty made nothing more contrary and mischievous than boys. They -have you by the ears when you want to sit comfortably by your fireside. -Finds he’s got a heart too, I hear. Mayhap that will sober him, though -I’m doubtful.’ - -Armand stared, and changed colour like a girl. He eyed his uncle -apprehensively, and began to fiddle with his brushes. ‘I--I don’t -understand you, sir,’ he said tentatively. - -‘Yes, you do, but you think it well to play discretion with me. I’m the -girl’s father, and there’s no knowing how I may take it, eh, you young -villain?’ - -The old man pulled his nephew’s ear, and laughed in a low chuckling -way peculiar to crusty old gentlemen. - -‘Has my mother spoken to you about,--about----?’ - -‘Suppose she hasn’t, eh? What then?’ - -‘I am completely in the dark,’ Armand gasped. ‘How could you guess such -a thing, uncle?’ - -‘Suppose I haven’t guessed it either, eh? What then?’ - -Armand’s look was clearly an interrogation, almost a prayer. He -blinked his lids at the vivid flash of conjecture, and shook his head -dejectedly against it. ‘You can’t mean--no, it cannot be that----’ - -The old man waggled a very sagacious head. - -‘Marguerite!’ shouted the astounded youth, and there was a feeling of -suffocation about his throat. - -‘Suppose one foolish young person liked to believe she had a partner in -her folly, eh, young man? What then?’ - -‘My cousin, too!’ - -‘And if it were so, eh? What then?’ - -‘Good God! uncle, why do you come and tell me this?’ The dazed lad -began to walk about distractedly, and was not quite sure that it was -not the room that was walking about instead of his own legs. - -‘I think we may burn the sticks and daubs and brushes now, eh, young -man?’ laughed the old man, waggling his stick instead of his head in -the direction of Armand’s easel, and giving a contented vent to his -peculiar chuckle. ‘Burn the baker’s blouse, and dress yourself like -a Christian. When you are used to the novelty of a coat and a decent -dinner, you may come down to Marly and see that giddy-pated girl -of mine. But a week of steady work at the bank first, and mind, no -paint-boxes or dirty daubers about the place. If I catch sight of any -long-haired fellow smelling of paint, I’ll call the police.’ - -Armand gazed regretfully round his little studio. He picked out each -familiar object with a sudden sense of separation and a wish to bear -them ever with him in that long farewell glance. But the sadness was -a pleasant sadness, for was not happy love the beacon that lured him -forth, and when the heart is young what lamp shines so radiantly and -invites so winningly? Still, it was a sacrifice, though beyond lay the -prospect of a lover’s meeting, in which the thought of stuff so common -as gold would lie buried in the first pressure of a girl’s lips. - -‘You are not decided, I daresay?’ sneered his uncle. - -Armand met his eyes unflinchingly, and held out his hand. ‘A man who is -worth the name can’t regret love and happiness. For Marguerite’s sake I -will do my best in the new life you offer, and I thank you, uncle, for -the gift.’ - -‘That young fop from Vienna will feel mighty crestfallen,’ was the -reflection of the head of the Ulrich Bank, as he hobbled downstairs. -He disliked the elegant Bernard, and was himself glad to have back -his favourite nephew, though the means he had employed to secure that -result might not be of unimpeachable honesty. - -The banker’s departure was the signal for Maurice, on the look-out -upstairs. He bounded down the stairs, three steps at a time, and shot -in upon the meditative youth. Armand glanced up, and smiled luminously. -‘The besieged has capitulated, Maurice.’ - -‘So I should think. For some time back you have worn the air of a man -on the road to bondage.’ - -Brodeau had never for an instant doubted that this would be the end of -it. He mildly approved the conventional conclusion, though not without -private regrets of his own. - -‘A girl’s eyes have done it,’ sighed Armand sentimentally. - -‘Of course, of course, the old temptation. But she would have inveigled -Anthony out of his hermitage. A sorry time you’ll have of it, I -foresee, though I honestly congratulate you. It is a thing we must -come to sooner or later, and the escapades of youth have their natural -end, like all things else. Only lovers believe in eternity, until they -have realised the fragility of love itself. It was absurd to imagine -you could go on flouting fortune for ever, and living in a shanty like -this, with a palace ready for you on the other side of the river. But -there is consolation for me in the thought that you will give me a big -order in commemoration of your marriage--eh, old man?’ - -When it came to parting the young men wrung hands with a sense of more -than ordinary separation. For two years had they shared fair and -foul weather, and camped together out of doors and under this shabby -roof, upon which one was now about to turn his back. The days of merry -vagabondage were at an end for Armand, and his face was now towards -civilisation and respectable responsibilities. He might revisit this -scene of pleasant Bohemia, and find things unchanged, but the old -spirit would not be with him, and the zest of old enjoyments would be -his no more. - -‘Many a merry tramp we’ve had together, Armand,’ said Maurice, and -he felt an odd sensation about his throat, while his eyelids pricked -queerly. ‘We’ve got drunk together on devilish bad wine, and pledged -ourselves eternally to many a worthless jade. We’ve smoked a pipe we -neither of us shall forget, and walked beneath the midnight stars in -many a curious place. And now we part, you for gilded halls and wedding -chimes, I to seek a new comrade, and make a fresh start across the -beaten track of Bohemia.’ - -Maurice crammed his knuckles furiously into his eyes. His eloquence had -mounted to his head, and flung him impetuously into his friend’s arms -with tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘You’ll come back again, won’t -you, Armand?’ - -‘Come back? Yes,’ Armand replied sadly; ‘but I shall feel something -like Marius among the ruins of Carthage.’ - -‘I’ll keep your velvet jacket, and when you are tired of grandeur -and lords and dukes, you can drop in here and put it on, and smoke a -comfortable pipe in your old arm-chair.’ - -Maurice went straightway to the nearest café, and spent a dismal -evening, consuming bock after bock, until he felt sufficiently -stupefied to face his solitary studio, where he shed furtive tears -in contemplation of all his friend’s property made over to him as an -artist’s legacy. - -Though brimming over with happiness and excitement, Armand himself was -not quite free of regret for the relinquished velvet jacket and brushes -and boxes, as he made his farewell to wandering by a journey on the -top of an omnibus from the Étoile to the Rue de Grenelle, and solaced -himself with a cheap cigarette. - -For one long week did he work dutifully at the bank, inspected books -with his uncle, and repressed an inclination to yawn over the dreary -discussion of shares and bonds and funds, of vast European projects -and policies in jeopardy, and he felt the while a smart of homesickness -for the little studio in the Avenue Victor Hugo. In the evening he -dined with his mother, and found consolation for the irksomeness of -etiquette in the excellence of the fare. He thought of Marguerite -incessantly, and spoke of her whenever he could, but he did not forget -Maurice or the cooking-stove, on which their dinners in the olden days -had so often come to grief. He might sip Burgundy now, yet he relished -not the less the memory of the big draughts of beer which he and -Maurice had found so delicious. - - - III - -But all these pinings and idle regrets were silenced, and gave place to -rapturous content the first afternoon on which he walked up the long -avenue of his uncle’s country house at Marly. The week of trial was at -an end, and he was now to claim his reward from dear lips. Everything -under the sun seemed to him perfect, and even banks had their own -charm, discernible to the happy eye. There was a beauty in gold he -had hitherto failed to perceive, and crusty old gentlemen were the -appropriate guardians of lovely nymphs. In such a mood, there is melody -in all things, and warmth lies even in frosted starlight. Nothing -but the sweetness of life is felt: its turbidness and accidents, its -disappointments, pains, and stumbles, lie peacefully forgotten in the -well of memory; and we wish somebody could have told us in some past -trouble that the future contained for us a moment so good as this. - -‘Mademoiselle is in the garden,’ a servant informed him, and led the -way through halls and salons, down steps running from the long window -into a shaded green paradise. And then he heard a fresh voice that -he seemed not to have heard for so long, and on hearing it only was -his heart made aware how much he had missed it during the past age of -privation. - -‘Ah, my cousin Armand!’ - -There was a young man dawdling at her feet in an attitude that sent -the red blood to Armand’s forehead. This was Bernard Francillon, -his other and less sympathetic cousin. The young man jumped up, and -measured him in a stare of insolent interrogation, and Marguerite, -with a look of divine self-consciousness and a lovely blush, said, -very softly: ‘So, Armand, you have let yourself be tamed, and you -have actually forsaken your delightful den, I hear. How could you, my -cousin? The cooking-stove, the fishing-rod, the easel, blouse, and -velvet jacket,--all abandoned for the less interesting resources of our -everyday existence!’ - -Her eyes and voice were full of arch protest, and her smile went to the -troubled lad’s head, more captivating than wine. ‘It was for your sake, -Marguerite,’ he answered timidly, in tones dropped to an unquiet murmur. - -‘Permit me, cousin, to retire for the moment,’ said Bernard, turning -his back deliberately upon his disconcerted relative. - -What was it in their exchanged looks, in their clasped hands, in -Bernard’s unconscious air of fond proprietorship, in Marguerite’s -half droop towards him of shy surrender, that carried to Armand the -conviction of fatal error? He watched his rival departing, and turned -a blank face upon the radiant girl, whose delicious smile had all the -eloquence and trouble of maiden’s relinquished freedom. She met his -white empty gaze with a glance more full and frank than the one she -had just lifted so tenderly to Bernard Francillon. ‘I don’t understand -you, Armand. Why for my sake?’ - -‘It was your father’s error. He thought you loved me, and I, heaven -help me! till now I thought so too,’ he breathed in a despairing -undertone, not able to remove his eyes from her surprised and -delicately concerned face. - -‘Poor Armand! I am very sorry,’ was all she said, but the way in which -she held her hand out to him was a mute admission of his miserable -error. He lifted the little hand to his lips, and turned from her in -silence. - -The sun that had shone so brightly a moment ago was blotted from the -earth, and the music of the birds was harsh discordance, as he wandered -among the evening shadows of the woods. All things jarred upon his -nerves, until night dropped a veil upon the horrible nakedness of his -sorrow. He felt he wore it upon his face for all eyes to see, and -he thanked the darkness, as it sped over the starry heavens. Beyond -the beautiful valley, where the river flowed, the spires and domes -and bridges of Paris showed through the reddish glimmer of sunset as -through a dusty light. Soon there would be noise and laughter upon the -crowded boulevards, and a flow of carriages making for the theatres -through the flaunting gas-flames; and happy lovers in defiant file -would be driving towards the Bois. How often had he and Maurice watched -them on foot, as they smoked their evening cigarette, and sighed or -laughed as might be their mood. Would he ever have the heart to laugh -at lovers again, or laugh at anything, he wondered drearily! And there -was no one here to remind him that sorrow, like joy, is evanescent, and -that all wounds are healed. _Tout lasse, tout casse, tout passe,_--even -pain and broken hearts. - -Here silence was almost palpable to the touch, like the darkness of -Nature dropping into sleep. He turned his back upon Paris, and faced -the dim country. - - - - - MR. MALCOLM FITZROY - - _A Don José Maria de Pereda - de la Academía Real_ - - - - - MR. MALCOLM FITZROY - - - I - -IT is all very well and worthy to devote a lifetime, or part of it, to -the study of foreign architecture. But a friend reproachfully reminded -Fred Luffington that English minsters are worth a glance. Fred did not -dispute it. There was a certain charm in the novelty of the idea. So he -packed his portmanteau, and took the boat to Dover, to assure himself a -pleasant surprise. - -At York he bethought himself of an amiable old Flemish priest, in -whose company he had studied a good deal of Antwerp at a time when -Antwerp wore for him the colours and glory and other attendant joys -of paradise. The priest, he remembered, was settled hard by, as the -chaplain of a Catholic earl. He would take the opportunity of studying -village life as well as the minsters of England; and smoke a pipe of -memory, and drink big draughts of the beer of other days, with his -friend, the Flemish priest. - -Fendon was as comfortable a little village as any to be dreamed of out -of Arcadia. Its warm red roofs made a cosy circle under the queerest of -rural walls, round a delightful green. A real green, a goose common, -with an umbrella tree in the middle, and a village pump under an odd -grey dome of stone supported by rough pillars. All the houses were -buried in trees, and all the palings overgrown with honeysuckles. - -Fred Luffington sniffed delightedly. Though it was June, there was -plenty of damp in the air, and lovely moist smells came from the hedges -and fields. Yes; this was enchantment, a whiff of pure sixteenth -century, the very thing described by old-fashioned writers as ‘Merrie -England.’ It did not look very merry, to be sure; rather sleepy and -still. But it was not difficult to swing back upon imagination into the -days of Good Queen Bess. - -Fred’s glance grew vague, and the lyrical mood was upon him. He mused -upon may-poles, foaming tankards, and the rosy maids and swains of -the centuries when there was ‘love in a village.’ There were no rosy -maids or sighing swains about, but he imagined them along with the rest -of Elizabethan decorations, evoked confusedly by remembrance of past -readings. - -Everything combined to keep him in good humour. The name of his inn, -the only inn, was ‘St. George and the Dragon.’ Who but a scoffer or -a heathen could fail to sleep well at an inn so gloriously named? As -an archæologist, Fred was neither, so naturally he slept the sound -sleep of the believer, somebody infinitely superior to the merely -just man. Anybody may be just, but it takes a special constitution to -believe, in the proper manner. Fred Luffington was all that is most -special in the way of constitutions, so after a charmed inspection -of the sign-board--a rude picture of the saint in faded colours on a -semi-effaced horse with a remarkable dragon at his feet--he sauntered -in through the porch to be confronted with a perfectly ideal buxom -landlady. This was more than heaven, he devoutly felt, and said his -prayers on the spot to the god of chance, who so benevolently watches -over the humours of romantic young men. - -Mrs. Matcham, spick and span and respectable, beamed him welcome of a -mediæval cordiality. He felt at once it was good to be with her, and -took shame to himself for having been so long enamoured of foreign -parts, and unacquainted with the pleasant aspects of English country -life. She deposited his bag on a table at the bottom of a red-curtained -four-poster, and remarked that she was granting him the privilege -of occupying the room of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy. There was such a full -accompaniment of condescension and favour in her smile, and so complete -a signification of the importance and fame of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, that -Luffington felt abashed by his own ignorance of the personality of the -local great man, and kept a discreet silence. - -When he descended to the dining-room, his delightful landlady, entering -with the tray, paused in critical survey of the table. - -‘I have placed your seat before the fireplace, sir. Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy -always prefers it so. But perhaps you would like to sit in front of the -window.’ - -Luffington seized the fact that any taste but that of the mysterious -great man’s would be evidence of inferiority. But it was necessary to -make a stand for originality. The expected docility fired revolt in -his veins. At the price of consideration, he decided for the window in -front, instead of the fireplace behind. The pleasures and pangs of our -life depend upon little things, and the little thing in question gave -a silly satisfaction to Luffington, and disproportionately pained the -good landlady. - -After his late lunch, Luffington strolled forth to pick up rural -sensations on his way to the Flemish priest’s. He encountered glances -of dull interest, but nowhere the rosy village maid and her pursuant -swain that his studies in pastoral literature had taught him to expect -as the obvious decoration of a quiet rustic scene. - -‘There is nothing so misleading as literature, unless, perhaps, -history,’ he observed, in a fond retrospect of the centuries. ‘The -disappointments of the present build for us the illusions of the -future,’ he added incoherently. - -The Flemish priest was tending his bees, with a thick blue veil tied -over his felt hat, when he heard the garden gate swing upon its hinges. -He looked up and saw an elegant young man pointing, as he came along, -a meditative cane in the neighbourhood of his dearest treasures, a row -of white and blue irises. - -‘_Santa Purissima!_ Can these sons of perdition not learn to keep their -shticks and their long limbs from ze borders if they must invade our -gardens?’ - -He slipped off his veil and showed a fat yellow face streaked with the -red of anger. Luffington held out his hand, laughing. - -‘By all that’s holy! My young friend of Antwerp. Welcome, welcome! -Ah, my boy! how many, six, eight years ago! What a lad you were then -with your dreams of love and fame! And how have they fared, those -dreams--eh? Gone ahead, or dropped behind, as ’tis the way with young -dreams? _Hein!_’ - -Luffington nodded sentimentally, like one rocked upon sudden waves of -regret. The dreams had dropped behind with the years, and it was an -effort to recall them to vivider shape than a cloud with a sunny ray -upon it. - -‘Have you any of the old tobacco?’ he asked. ‘A pipe might lead us over -the forgotten ground again, and revive the dead persons of that little -Antwerp drama. You’ve added bees to botany, I see. Could you get up -a massacre of the drones while I am here? I’ve never been able to put -full faith in all the astounding stories we have of the bees, and might -be converted by a practical demonstration.’ - -‘Come along inside, and leave my bees alone, you insolent sceptic of -the world. That’s your French air--the very worst to breathe. I suppose -you take brandy and mud in your literature, too. I heard you talk of -Dumas once, and thought it bad, but now, of course, you’re down with -the naturalists, the symbolists, and the philosophers of insanity.’ - -‘Not a bit. I haven’t got beyond dear old Dumas, where you left me. -And here I am, anchored momentarily in Arcadia, among the bees and the -flowers, under the protection of St. George, with a mighty minster near -at hand.’ - -Under the congenial influences of Pilsener and a certain French tobacco -affected by the pair, they sat in a book-lined study and talked of many -things. It was only at table, later, that Luffington, over his soup, -remembered to mention the name of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy. - -‘An old friend of the family,’ the priest explained, meaning the earl -and his wife. Upon the Harborough estates there could, of course, be -only one family in all conversation. - -The priest walked back to the inn with Luffington, and accepted a glass -of rum punch from the hand of Mrs. Matcham. - -‘Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy always says that nobody can make rum punch like -me,’ she remarked, not without the hue of modesty upon her cheek at -sounding her own praises; and her glance sparkled to Luffington’s upon -his acknowledgment of the truth. - -‘There are drawbacks to a sojourn upon the vacant hearth of a god,’ -he said, when the door closed upon her exit. ‘His worshippers are -invidiously reminiscent, and you court unfavourable comparison whether -you sit, sleep, eat, or drink.’ - -But the punch was good, the bed excellent, the quiet conducive to -dreamless sleep. Luffington was abroad early next morning, indifferent -to the thought of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, as he sipped the dew with a -shower of song in his face, and the light at his feet ran along the -grass and through the trees in dimpled rivers of gold. The priest had -told him that the earl loved his trees like children. Fred did not -wonder, as he hailed them ‘magnificent,’ and went his way among them in -full-eyed admiration. - -It was a placid, even scene, such as one dwells on in loving memory -when homesick in far-off lands. Lordly oaks and beeches and sentimental -firs beshadowed the well-trimmed lawny spaces. The air played freely -round and about them, and the light was broad and soft. If you stepped -aside from the lawn and level avenues, you might lose yourself in -the pleasant woods, alive with the chatter of birds, in the midst of -fragrance and gloom. Water was not absent, and if you crossed the -deer-park, you could follow its lazy way to Fort Mary, where the earl -had a summer residence, aptly named by the French governess, ‘Le Petit -Trianon.’ Luffington liked the notion. It was all so artificial, so -costly, so preposterously pastoral, that his mind willingly went back -to Versailles, and the musked and scarlet-heeled century. The ground -was green velvet, unrelieved by as much as a daisy. It demanded Watteau -robes, and periwigged phrases and piping strains of Lulli and Rameau. -The boats were toys upon an artificial lake, and it was like hearing -of children’s games to learn of regattas held here every summer. The -idea of a Venetian fête was more appropriate to celebrate the birth of -the heir, and lords and ladies in rich Elizabethan disguises grouped -upon the velvet sward, upon the balcony of the ‘Trianon,’ or making -pictures of glitter and sharp shadow upon the breast of dark water in -the gleam of variously coloured lamps. - -Luffington stopped to chat with a loutish fellow who was rolling the -ground down to the minute pier, and chopping off the heads of the -innocent daisies, along his path. - -‘The notion of improvement is inseparably wedded to that of -destruction,’ Fred mused, as he placidly surveyed the process, and -dived his stick among the layers of massacred innocents. The thought -opened his lips, but the lout lent an uncomprehending ear to his -speech, shook his head as at obvious eccentricity of reflection, -and rolled on with his look of gross stupidity. This proceeding -disconcerted the traveller, who wanted to talk, and imbibe at the -founts of rustic wit. He glanced around, and spied a little boat -swaying among the rushes. Could he use it? The lout looked up -sideways, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and offered his -daughter as ferryman. At that moment Fred heard a thin unmusical sound, -like that of a string drawn flat: - - ‘Friends, I’ve lost my own true lover, - Tra la la la la la la.’ - -Through a clump of noble trees a little maid approached, not more -beautiful to the eye than was her flat, tuneless voice to the ear. She -assented without any eagerness to row him across the lake, and had -nothing more interesting to communicate than that Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy -was very fond of Fort Mary. - -‘Decidedly I must see this fellow if I have to wait a month,’ thought -Fred, with a pardonable feeling of irritation. - -On his way back, he hailed his friend among the flowers and bees, and -stood leaning over the gate to acquaint him with his intention to start -at once upon exploration of the neighbourhood. The Flemish priest stood -in the blaze of sunshine, and mopped his forehead repeatedly before -urging him to wait another day, when he would be able to offer the -advantage of his own trap and himself as guide. - -‘I can’t go to-day,’ he said, with an air of importance. ‘Her ladyship -has appointed this afternoon to come and consult with me about the -schools.’ - -It was evident to Mr. Luffington, as he went off in search of lunch, -that after Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, the Countess of Harborough was the -figure of importance. The defection of his friend and the absence of -romance among the villagers turned him to misanthropy, and as, late in -the afternoon, fatigued after a long walk through the woods, he entered -the inn porch, he told himself emphatically that he would leave Fendon -on his way to the cathedral, and thence return to London. - -He found the inn in a state of unwonted flurry, which was explained to -him by a telegram announcing the arrival of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy upon -the last train. - -‘And I’ve the great man’s room,’ said Fred to himself, laughing, as he -set out for the priest’s cottage. - -The dinner was good, the wine not execrable, the tobacco best of all; -and in excellent spirits, quite restored to his belief in men and -women, Fred started off alone for ‘St. George and the Dragon,’ under a -suspicion of moonlight just enough to send a quiver of silver through -the trees, and show the darkness of the road, but not enough to send -reason distraught down sentimental byways and insistently urge the -advantages of open air meditation. He reached his inn sane and safe, -and bethought himself of unanswered letters. Suddenly he was disturbed -in the glow of composition by the sound of swift steps on the stairs -and the ring of violent, angry speech. - -‘A stranger in my room, Mrs. Matcham! Tut, tut. This is what I cannot -permit. Instantly order him to clear out.’ - -Luffington looked up inquiringly as the door opened with an aggressive -bang, and a queer attractive-looking fellow stood eyeing him -imperiously upon the threshold. He had imagined Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy -a respectable English gentleman, florid, prosperous, eminently -aristocratic. He was confronted with the reverse. Before him stood in -a threatening attitude, and frowning hideously, a man almost too dark -for English blood, too small and too vengefully passionate of feature -and expression. His hair, which curled, was of a dusty black, as if it -had lain in ashes. His lips were full and red, covered with the same -dust-hued shadow, and teeth so white, nostrils so fine and sharp, brows -so low and oddly beautiful, surely never belonged to the respectable -English race. His eyes were long, of a liquid blackness, through which -red and yellow flames leaped as in those of an untamed animal, and his -hands were brown and small, like the hands of a slender girl. - -‘Do you hear, sir? This is my room,’ he cried. - -There was a foreign richness in his voice that matched the quaint -exterior, and was equally in puzzling contrast with his pretensions -as an Englishman.... Luffington was convinced he had to do with some -adventurer over seas, and he curtly replied that for the present the -room was his. Mrs. Matcham, scared and anxious, shot him a glance of -prayer over the shoulder of her domineering customer. - -But Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy was not to be silenced or turned out by the -superior airs of a strolling jackanapes. He paced the room in his -quick, light way, opened familiar drawers and presses, inquired after -missing objects, and never stopped in a running murmur upon the -impudence of travellers and the insolence of intruders. - -‘May I point out that you are condemning yourself?’ Luffington dryly -remarked, as he watched him in wonder. ‘Intrusion can never be other -than insolent.’ - -‘Then why the devil are you sitting here, sir?’ - -‘For the simple reason that I slept here last night, and the room is -mine as long as I stay at this inn.’ - -‘Mrs. Matcham, you had no business to let this chamber when there are -others unoccupied in the house. You know I am liable to turn up at any -moment, and that I cannot sleep in any room but this.’ - -There was something so boyish in the tone of complaint, that Luffington -insensibly softened to the odd and ill-mannered creature, and smiled -broadly. - -Mrs. Matcham was affirming the comforts of a back room, when he stopped -her shortly with a protest that this was information for Mr. Fitzroy, -whom the matter concerned. - -‘I tell you, sir, I will not give up my room,’ shouted Mr. Malcolm -Fitzroy. - -Luffington shrugged, and made a feint of resuming his writing, upon -which Mr. Fitzroy plumped down into an arm-chair, crossed his slim -legs savagely, and ordered the landlady to bring in his carpet bag, -and produce glasses and two bottles of his special port. Luffington -said nothing, but smiled as he continued to write, and took a sidelong -view of his strange enemy. The more he looked, the more he wondered at -the singular prestige of such a person in a place like Fendon. He had -not the appearance of a gentleman, was the reverse of imposing, and -according to the Flemish priest, was ‘just one of the poorest dogs in -Christendom.’ - -‘He pays Mrs. Matcham thirty shillings a week, and nobody else -anything, and he travels third class like myself,’ the priest added, -but Luffington thought that his air was that of a man who holds back -something. - -‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, as if he were pointing a cocked -pistol at an antagonist, ‘you have an opportunity of assuring yourself -that there is good port to be had in at least one inn in Great Britain.’ - -‘I am ready to accept the fact upon your statement, but I am no judge -of port. It’s a wine I never drink.’ - -‘Claret, I suppose? Abominable trash, but there’s good stuff of -that sort too, eh, Mrs. Matcham? Two bottles of one of their -castles--Lafitte, La rose--something in that way.’ - -He yapped out his words like the spoken barks of an angry terrier, -and poured himself out a glass of Harborough port, which he fondly -surveyed, then tasted with a beatific nod. - -‘Nowhere to be had out of England. Bloodless foreigners go to the deuce -on their clarets. They’d be content to sit at home, and let their -neighbours’ wives alone if they drank port. But then you have to go to -an earl’s cellar for anything like this.’ - -‘Exactly,’ said Fred Luffington, now restored to good humour, and very -much amused by his extraordinary companion. ‘But as we all haven’t a -key to such cellars, it is safer to stick to the harmless grape-juice -than court gout with doctored port. I’m for the foreigners myself, -whatever their domestic sins may be. Port is as heavy as your climate, -your women, your literature.’ - -Mrs. Matcham, partly reassured, entered with two bottles and one of -those hideous green glasses described as claret glasses. This she -placed in front of Mr. Luffington, and taking a bottle from her hand, -Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy filled the unsightly chalice. Luffington drank his -wine appreciatively, pronounced it rare, and wandered off upon the -exciting topic of vintages. He no longer wondered at the prestige of a -man who could command such claret. - -‘You’re a Londoner, I suppose--an impudent Cockney?’ said Mr. Fitzroy, -observing him as he put aside the green glass and stretched behind -for his toilet tumbler. ‘Right you are there, my friend. One of the -pleasures of good wine is to watch the play of light in its depths of -colour. It passes my imagination how such complacent ugliness as this -came to be manufactured.’ He took the glass in his fingers, stared at -it, shook his head and flung it into the grate. - -‘Mrs. Matcham may object to such summary justice,’ laughed Luffington. - -‘Mrs. Matcham object to any act of mine, sir? That would be a -revolution. I’ve only to say the word, and both Mrs. Matcham and John -Graham are ready to take you by the scruff of the neck and plant you -in the middle of the common.’ - -‘Instead, we sit pledging each other in the best of wines, and your -antecedent ill-humour is, I hope, carried off, once you have named a -continental Englishman, ‘Impudent Cockney’.’ - -Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy’s sombre eyes were instantly shot with mirth. -He smiled delightfully, and as he did so, looked less and less of -a Briton. It was the lovely roguish smile of a child that flashed -from wreathed lips and ran up like light to the broad brows arched -expressively. You would have forgiven him murder on the spot, much less -a rude speech. He dipped into his glass, and sipped vigour therefrom -for a fresh onslaught. - -‘Ah, the continent! Generally means France, and France, of course, -means Paris, and Paris, by God, means every devilry under the sun. -Barricades, Bastilles, Julys, Septembers, baggy red breeches, Cockades, -Marseillaises, Communism, Atheism, in a word, hell’s own mischief.’ - -‘I commend your mental repertory, sir. It is a neat historical survey -extending over the past hundred years. We will say nothing of its -justice. When our aim is the saying of much in little, we must be -content to dispense with justice. But at least permit me to remark that -Paris does not mean the continent for me--very much the reverse.’ - -‘Then you ought to have sense enough to be drinking port instead of one -of your washy French castles,’ roared Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, attacking -his second bottle after he had thrust Fred’s second under his nose. - -The night wore on, and the two men gradually grew to view one another -through the rosiest glamour. Luffington was ready to swear that his -companion was the most entertaining he had ever encountered, and Mr. -Malcolm Fitzroy, as he subsided into sleep upon his friend’s sofa, knew -not whether he was most satisfied in having gained his point about -the room--albeit Luffington enjoyed the bed--or in having made the -acquaintance of such a remarkably agreeable young fellow--no nonsense, -no cockloftiness, no French Atheism, or any other perverse ’isms for -that matter, he murmured as he wandered into the devious country of -dreams. - -Early next morning Luffington walked down to the priest’s cottage, -to describe the night’s adventures to his friend. They paced the -garden pathway, Fred puffing a cigar, and both were enjoying a hearty -laugh over the story, when two figures stood upon the bright edge -of meadow that led into the deer-park. Clear and unshadowed in the -morning sunshine, it was as pleasant a picture as the eye of man could -desire, and to Fred, after his travels, all the pleasanter for being -so distinctly English. A fair, handsome lady, in a light tweed dress, -a broad-brimmed hat tied under her chin with long blue ribbons; from -her arm swung a long-legged child, short-skirted, with an Irish red -cloak blown out from her shoulders, upon the swell of which her long -bright hair flowed like a sunny streamer. The child was looking up with -an urgent charming expression, and talking with extreme vivacity. The -lady smiled down upon her, tapped her cheek, and carried her along at a -quick pace toward the cottage. - -‘Her ladyship and her stepdaughter,’ said the priest. ‘It’s beautiful -to see how they love one another. If all mothers were like that -stepmother! But the wisest of us talk a deal of nonsense about women. -Isn’t she handsome?’ - -Luffington admitted that she was, in the strictly English way--somewhat -empty and expressionless, and feared that forty would find her fat. - -The countess stopped at the gate, and chatted most affably. She gave -the priest a commission that postponed their projected excursion -till mid-day, and kindly invited Luffington to look over the Hall at -his leisure. The little girl offered to show him her collection of -butterflies, and then skipped away, with her blonde hair and red cloak -blown out sideway like a sail. - -‘Has the Countess of Harborough no children of her own?’ asked -Luffington. - -‘No; Lady Alice is the earl’s only child, and both he and the countess -adore her.’ - -The postponement of their excursion drove Luffington alone into the -solitary woods. But solitude among trees had no terrors for him; -enchantment sat upon his errant mind as fancy led him over dappled -sward and under the foliaged arches of mossy aisles. He came upon a -bridge, under which a slant of water chattered its foamy way over large -stones, and fell into sedate and scarce audible ripples between green -banks and a thick line of shrubs. The outer bank he followed in a -pastoral dream, to the accompaniment of a pretty consort of bird-song -and babbling stream. He discovered that it led straight to Fort Mary, -and here he sat on the edge of the pier, dangling his legs over the -lake, as he smoked and forgot the hours. - -The ‘Trianon’ lay behind, and as he lifted a leg, and sprang upon the -gravel, he was conscious of the sound of a stifled sob carried, he -believed, from the trees edging the sward, which the lout had rolled -the day before. He stepped upon it, and he might have been walking on -plush. As he went, the sound of sobs grew heavier, and he could count -the checked breaths. He heard a man’s voice say softly: ‘My poor girl! -Mary, Mary, courage.’ There was no mistaking that gentle and soothing -voice, though he had heard it rasping and angry the night before. A -break in the column of trees showed him a picture, the very reverse of -the sweet domestic English picture that had charmed him a few hours ago. - -The Countess of Harborough was weeping bitterly in Mr. Malcolm -Fitzroy’s arms. - - - II - -Fred Luffington had once had the misfortune to see ‘an impossible -brute’ preferred to his elegant self by an old love of Antwerp, hence -he had long given up pondering the oddnesses of women’s love-fancies. -He was a gentleman as well, and kept that sharply incorrect picture to -himself. He met the countess again, and dropped his eyes, ashamed of -his knowledge. Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy he eyed with a droll smile, and the -more he looked at him, the more incomprehensible the matter appeared. - -But he was good company, that Fred admitted heartily, and shook -his hand with a cordial hope of meeting him again, now that their -little difference was settled, and had led to such cheery results. He -counselled him to take to claret, and to himself remarked that his -domestic ethics seemed none the better for the drinking of port, which -evidently had not taught him to let his neighbour’s wife alone. He had -met Lord Harborough once crossing the Park, and perfectly understood -the countess’s sobs. That was all he did understand. He could fancy -himself sobbing if he were a woman condemned to live his days with that -hard-featured, red-haired little man, bearing himself so primly and so -distractingly respectable. - -‘Yes, that explains her odd choice,’ said Luffington, turning his back -upon Fendon, after a last grasp of the Flemish priest’s hand. ‘There’s -a taint of disreputableness about the local hero, who looks as if he -had rolled so much in the dust in infancy, that neither soap nor brush -has been able to give him a respectable head ever since.’ - -Fred Luffington went abroad again, and forgot all about the Flemish -priest and the half revealed drama of Fendon. A couple of years later -he had engaged to meet some friends at Lugano and, travelling from -Basle, decided to leave the train at the entrance to the St. Gothard -tunnel, and walk over the mountain. The weather was glorious, and such -scenery is enough to make a saint of the biggest sinner. The flush of -roseate snows, whose white from very purity is driven to flame; the -crystal splendours above, the shadows of the valleys revealed in the -twisted gaps like flakes of blue cloud softening the sunny whiteness, -wooded depths and sparkling water, with the ineffable beauty of the -turquoise stillness of the grand lake below: combined to make even -the breathing of a worldly young man a prayer of thanksgiving. Fred -Luffington never could gaze on the Alps without feeling his sins drop -from him like a garment, and his soul stand out, naked and innocent -before the majesty of creation. - -He had been walking since mid-day, with rests in craggy nooks, and now -at sundown it behoved him to look out for shelter. He waited until he -had seen the last effects of an Alpine sunset before branching into a -narrow wooded path, which he was informed led to a little village. At -the first châlet, he knocked for admittance, and a fat woman came to -the door, in a state of evident perturbation. Her face cleared when she -discovered that he spoke Italian. - -‘There is a sick man here. We think he must be an Englishman, but we -do not understand him, and he neither knows French nor Italian. If the -gentleman would but look at him. The doctor says he will not recover,’ -she burst out, without stopping for breath. - -Luffington followed her upstairs, and entered a tolerably clean little -room, where the sick man lay, either asleep or unconscious. Luffington -stood, and looked at him long and musingly. Where ever had he seen that -thin, sharp, foreign face, the curls of dust-hued black, the oddly -beautiful brow and full lips? A small brown hand lay upon the coverlet, -and it sprang a gush of sympathy to his eyes. Suddenly the closed lids -opened and revealed eyes of the sombre dead blackness of the sloe, -without the red and yellow flames he now so vividly remembered. So -this was the end of that sorry drama of Fendon! Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy -was dying in a far-off Swiss village on the top of St. Gothard. And -the countess? Fred bent, and whispered his name, and begged to be used -as a friend. A gleam of recognition broke the dark blankness of the -dying man’s glance, and he made a feeble movement of his hand, which -Luffington caught and held in a gentle clasp. The sick man’s eyes -filled gratefully. He knew he was dying, and he was comforted by the -presence of Luffington. - -All through the night Fred sat and nursed him. He was melted in -kindness and gratitude that this chance of redeeming some unworthy -hours had fallen to him. He held the dying man’s hand, listened to -his babble, and promised to destroy a packet of letters in a certain -ebony box, into which he was to place poor Fitzroy’s watch and pocket -book, and a copy of the _Spanish Gypsy_, the only book he possessed, -and deliver it into the hands of the Countess of Harborough. In the -presence of death, Fred could hear her name without any squeamishness. - -‘Take from under my pillow a locket, and open it for me. I want to see -her face again.’ - -Fred did so, and could not help recognising the features of the -countess. He asked if Mr. Fitzroy had any other friends to whom he -could carry messages. - -‘Friends? I have none,’ he said, in a toneless way, empty of all -bitterness or pain. ‘I neither sought friendship nor offered it. I have -loved but one being on this earth, and it has been my duty to stand -by and see her suffer, and now I must go, while she remains behind -unhappy, with none to comfort her. There is no comfort on earth for -miserable wives. When I think of them, I am wroth to hear men complain. -What do we know about pain compared with them? And yet they bear it. -The God that made them alone can explain how. But this last blow! How -will she bear that? Mary, Mary, my poor unhappy girl!’ - -He closed his eyes, and seemed to dose, then opened them, and clutched -Luffington’s fingers, like a startled child. - -‘Don’t leave me,’ he breathed, through shut teeth. ‘It is so lonely -among strangers. Ah, if I were only back in my room in the ‘St. George -and the Dragon,’ with good Mrs. Matcham! Poor Mary! The worst of it -is, I have never been able to punch that rascal’s head. Never. For her -sake, I have had to “my Lord” him, when I wanted to be at his throat. -Well, I played the game gallantly. Nobody can deny that. It’s for her -now to continue it alone. The locket! Where’s the locket? Let it go -with me. It contains all I have loved on earth, and I’ll lie all the -quieter underground for having it with me.’ - -The dawn found him lifeless, and Luffington sitting with his stiff cold -hand clasped in his own. The locket, containing the likeness of the -Countess of Harborough and a thick twist of blonde hair, was buried, -along with the remains of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy, in a little Alpine -churchyard. - - * * * * * - -One summer evening, the Flemish priest of Fendon was reading his -breviary in the garden, not so intent upon prayer that he had no eye -for his flower-beds, which he had just watered. He turned hastily -as the garden gate swung back, and recognised Fred Luffington, who -approached with an air of unwonted gravity. He carried a square parcel -under his arm. - -‘My dear young friend,’ cried the enchanted priest, keeping, while he -spoke, a finger between the leaves of his breviary. - -‘I have a painful commission for you. You must take this box at once -to the Countess of Harborough, and acquaint her with the news that Mr. -Malcolm Fitzroy is dead. I buried him in Switzerland a month ago.’ - -The priest shook his head sadly. He scrutinised Luffington’s features -sharply, and said-- - -‘Thank God, she knows that already--that is, the death. But I suspect -this box will open old wounds.’ - -‘Poor woman! Tell her Mr. Fitzroy sent this by a trusted friend. I -destroyed her letters. For her sake, I wish I were not in the secret, -but unhappily, by accident, I learnt it long before I found the poor -fellow dying in a Swiss châlet.’ - -‘Ah,’ muttered the priest, and felt for his pipe. ‘It’s unfortunate. -Not a soul but myself has known it for years--not even the earl, and -such a secret has cost me many an uncomfortable moment.’ - -Luffington cast a strange glance upon him. His words were inexplicable. -Known it for years! Secret unshared by the earl! Was the ground solid -beneath his feet, that a virtuous priest should contemplate the -likelihood of such a secret being shared with the earl? - -‘It’s not to be feared I should betray a lady. God knows, I am no saint -myself, to blame anybody.’ - -‘I don’t blame her much myself. I deplore the need for duplicity, but -it was not her doing. They placed her in a false position. But while I -cannot but admire the tenacity of her affections and her loyalty to a -natural claim, I have ever been urging her to make a clean breast of -it to her husband. It was not her business to expiate the wrong of -others, but confession would have placed her and the unfortunate man -now in his grave upon a proper footing, and lent the dignity of candour -to their relations.’ - -Luffington felt mercilessly mystified. Even suppose the lovers not -altogether criminal, how could the earl’s recognition of their -irregular situation lend dignity to it? He spoke his perplexity, and -cast the good priest into a panic. - -‘What did you mean by telling me you knew everything?’ he cried, -wrathfully. ‘Malcolm Fitzroy her ladyship’s lover! Poor woman, poor -woman! I thought you knew, and now I must break confidence, to clear -her, and tell you the wretched story.’ - -He drew Fred into his study, carefully closed the door, and there laid -bare a situation as odd as the personality of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy. A -titled lady in Northumberland lost a new-born infant, and was herself -pronounced in danger unless a child could be found to take its place. -A gypsy outcast was discovered to have given birth to twins on the -same day, and was glad enough to resign the baby girl to the bereaved -aristocrat. The twins were the result of an intrigue between an English -gentleman and a handsome gypsy. The little girl blossomed into youth, -as English and refined as could be, and her foster-mother, whose -life she had saved, could not bring herself to part with her. As no -other children came, she grew up the daughter of the house, adored by -her self-made parents. The boy was his mother’s son, an intractable -vagrant, incapable of control, with the saving grace of a passionate -attachment to his sister. - -When the Earl of Harborough came forward as a suitor, the old lord -and his wife debated long upon their duty to him and to his house, -and their desire for their darling’s advancement. The latter instinct -prevailed, and the earl believed himself the husband of a well-born -English maiden. The adopted parents were both dead, and the countess, -unhappy in her marriage, had nobody to turn to in her troubles but her -gypsy brother. To make good his dubious footing at the Hall, Fitzroy -had cast himself in the way of the earl, and secured an extraordinary -popularity in the village and upon the estate. The earl thought him a -droll fellow, unbent patronisingly to him, and enjoyed his odd vagabond -habits. - -This was the secret of Mr. Malcolm Fitzroy and the Countess of -Harborough. - - - - - THE LITTLE MARQUIS - - _To Alice Cockran_ - - - - - THE LITTLE MARQUIS - - -HERVÉ DE VERVAINVILLE, Marquis de Saint-Laurent, was at once the -biggest and smallest landlord of Calvados, the most important personage -of that department and the most insignificant and powerless. Into his -cradle the fairies had dropped all the gifts of fortune but those two, -without which the others taste as ashes--love and happiness. His life -was uncoloured by the affections of home, and his days, like his ragged -little visage and his dull personality, were vague, with the vagueness -of negative misery. Of his nurse he was meekly afraid, and his -relations with the other servants were of the most distantly polite and -official nature. He understood that they were there to do his bidding -nominally, and compel him actually to do theirs, pending his hour of -authority. With a little broken sigh, he envied the happiness that he -rootedly believed to accompany the more cheerful proportions of the -cottager’s experience, of which he occasionally caught glimpses in his -daily walks, remembering the chill solitude of his own big empty castle -and the immense park that seemed an expansion of his imprisonment, -including, as part of his uninterrupted gloom, the kindly meadows and -woods, the babbling streams and leafy avenues, where the birds sang of -joys uncomprehended by him. - -Play was as foreign to him as hope. Every morning he gravely saluted -the picture of his pretty mother, which hung in his bedroom, a lovely -picture, hardly real in its dainty Greuze-like charm, arch and frail -and innocent, the bloom of whose eighteen years had been sacrificed -upon his own coming, leaving a copy washed of all beauty, its delicacy -blurred in a half-effaced boyish visage without character or colouring. -Of his father Hervé never spoke,--shrinking, with the unconscious pride -of race, from the male interloper who had been glad enough to drop -an inferior name, and was considered by his friends to have waltzed -himself and his handsome eyes into an enviable bondage. And the only -return he could make to the house that had so benefited him was a -flying visit from Paris to inspect the heir and confer with his son’s -steward (whose guardian he had been appointed by the old marquis at -his death), and then return to his city pleasures, which he found more -entertaining than his Norman neighbours. - -On Sunday morning little Hervé was conducted to High Mass in the church -of Saint-Laurent, upon the broad highroad leading to the town of -Falaise. Duly escorted up the aisle by an obsequious Swiss in military -hat and clanking sword, with a long blonde moustache that excited the -boy’s admiration, Hervé and his nurse were bowed into the colossal -family pew, as large as a moderate-sized chamber, roughly carven and -running along the flat wide tombs of his ancestors, on which marble -statues of knights and mediæval ladies lay lengthways. The child’s air -of melancholy and solitary state was enough to make any honest heart -ache, and his presence never failed to waken the intense interest of -the simple congregation, and supply them with food for speculation as -to his future over their mid-day soup and cider. Hard indeed would it -have been to define the future of the little man sitting so decorously -in his huge pew, and following the long services in a spirit of almost -pathetic conventionality and resignation, only very occasionally -relieved by his queer broken sigh, that had settled into a trick, or a -furtive wandering of his eyes, that sought distraction among ancestral -epitaphs. - -He was not, it must be owned, an engaging child, though soft-hearted -and timidly attracted by animals, whose susceptibilities he would have -feared to offend by any uninvited demonstration of affection. He had -heard himself described as plain and dull, and thought it his duty to -refrain as much as possible from inflicting his presence upon others, -preferring loneliness to adverse criticism. But he had one friend who -had found him out, and taken him to her equally unhappy and tender -heart. The Comtesse de Fresney, a lady of thirty, was, like himself, -miserable and misunderstood. Hervé thought she must be very beautiful -for him to love her so devotedly, and he looked forward with much -eagerness to the time of her widowhood, when he should be free to marry -her. - -There was something inexpressibly sad in the drollery of their -relations. Neither was aware of the comic element, while both were -profoundly impressed with the sadness. Whenever a fair, a race, or -a company of strolling players took the tyrannical count away from -Fresney, a messenger was at once despatched to Saint-Laurent, and -gladly the little marquis trotted off to console his friend. - -One day Hervé gave expression to his matrimonial intentions. The -countess, sitting with her hands in her lap, was gazing gloomily out of -the window, when she turned, and said, sighing: ‘Do you know, Hervé, -that I have never even been to Paris?’ - -Hervé did not know, and was not of an age to measure the frightful -depth of privation confessed. But the countess spoke in a sadder voice -than usual, and, in response to her sigh, his childish lips parted in -his own vague little sigh. - -‘When I am grown up, I’ll take you to Paris, Countess,’ he said, coming -near, and timidly fondling her hand. - -‘Yes, Hervé,’ said the countess, and she stooped to kiss him. - -‘M. le Comte is so old that he will probably be dead by that time, -and then I can marry you, Countess, and you will live always at -Saint-Laurent. You know it is bigger than Fresney.’ - -‘Yes, Hervé,’ said the countess musingly, thinking of her lost years -and dead dreams, as she stared across the pleasant landscape. - -Hervé regarded himself as an engaged gentleman from that day. The -following Sunday he studied the epitaph on the tomb of the last -Marquis, his grandfather, who had vanished into the darkness of an -unexplored continent, with notebook and scientific intent, to leave his -bones to whiten in the desert and the name of a brave man to adorn his -country’s annals. Hervé was all excitement to learn from the countess -the precise meaning of the words _distinguished_ and _explorer_. - -‘Countess,’ he hurried to ask, ‘what is it to be distinguished?’ - -‘It is greatly to do great things, Hervé.’ - -‘And what does _explorer_ mean?’ - -‘To go far away into the unknown; to find out unvisited places, and -teach others how much larger the world is than they imagine.’ - -This explanation thrilled new thoughts and ambition in the breast -of the little marquis. Why should not he begin at once to explore -the world, and see for himself what lay beyond the dull precincts of -Saint-Laurent? He then would become distinguished like his grandfather, -and the countess would be proud of him. The scheme hurried his pulses, -and gave him his first taste of excitement, which stood him in place -of a very small appetite. He watched his moment in the artful instinct -of childhood with a scheme in its head. It was not difficult to elude -a careless nurse and gossiping servants, and he knew an alley by which -the broad straight road, leading from the castle to the town, might -be reached over a friendly stile that involved no pledge of secrecy -from an untrustworthy lodge-keeper. And away he was scampering along -the hedge, drunk with excitement and the glory of his own unprotected -state, drunk with the spring sunshine and the smell of violets that -made breathing a bliss. - -Picture a tumble-down town, with a quantity of little streets breaking -unexpectedly into glimpses of green meadow and foliage; rickety -omnibuses, jerking and rumbling upon uncouth wheels, mysteriously held -by their drivers from laying their contents upon the jagged pavements; -little old-fashioned squares, washed by runlets for paving divisions, -with the big names of _La Trinité_, _Saint-Gervais_, _Guillaume le -Conquérant_, and the _Grand Turc_,--the latter the most unlikely form -of heretic ever to have shaken the equilibrium of the quaint town; -a public fountain, a market-place, many-aisled churches, smelling -of damp and decay, their fretted arches worn with age, and their -pictures bleached of all colour by the moist stone; primitive shops, -latticed windows, asthmatical old men in blouses and night-caps, in -which they seem to have been born and in which they promise to die; -girls in linen towers and starched side-flaps concealing every curl -and wave of their hair, their _sabots_ beating the flags with the -click of castanets; groups of idle huzzars, moustached and menacing, -strutting the dilapidated public gardens like walking arsenals, the -eternal cigarette between their lips, and the everlasting _sapristi_ -and _sacré_ upon them. Throw in a _curé_ or two, wide-hatted, of -leisured and benevolent aspect, with a smile addressed to the world as -a general _mon enfant_; an _abbé_, less leisured and less assured of -public indulgence; a discreet _frère_, whose hurrying movements shake -his robes to the dimensions of a balloon; an elegant _sous-préfet_, -conscious of Parisian tailoring, and much in request in provincial -salons; a wooden-legged colonel, devoted to the memory of the first -Napoleon, and wrathful at that of him of Sedan; a few civilians of -professional calling, deferential to the military and in awe of the -colonel; the local gossip and shopkeeper on Trinity Square, Mère -Lescaut, who knows everything about everybody, and the usual group of -antagonistic politicians. For the outskirts, five broad roads diverging -star-wise from a common centre, with an inviting simplicity of aspect -that might tempt the least adventurous spirit of childhood to make, -by one of those pleasant, straight, and leafy paths, for the alluring -horizon. Add the local lion, Great William’s Tower, a very respectable -Norman ruin, where a more mythical personage than William might easily -have been born, and which might very well hallow more ancient loves -than those of Robert and the washerwoman Arletta; a splendid equestrian -statue of the Conqueror, and a quantity of threads of silver water -running between mossy banks, where women in mountainous caps of linen -wash clothes, and the violets in spring and autumn grow so thickly, -that the air is faint with their sweet scent. Afar, green field upon -green field, stretching on all sides, till the atmospheric blue blots -out their colour and melts them into the sky; sudden spaces of wood -making shadows upon the bright plains and dusty roads, fringed with -poplars, cutting uninterrupted paths to the horizon. - -The weekly fair was being held on the Place de la Trinité, when Hervé -made his way so far. The noise and jollity stunned him. Long tables -were spread round, highly coloured and decorated with a variety of -objects, and good-humoured cleanly Norman women in caps, and men in -blue blouses, were shouting exchanged speech, or wrangling decorously. -Hervé thrust his hands into his pockets in a pretence of security, -like that assumed by his elders upon novel occasions, though his -pulses shook with unaccustomed force and velocity; and he walked round -the tables with uneasy impulses towards the toys and sweetmeats, and -thought a ride on the merry-go-round would be an enviable sensation. -But these temptations he gallantly resisted, as unbecoming his serious -business. Women smiled upon him, and called him, _Ce joli petit -monsieur_, a fact which caused him more surprise than anything else, -having heard his father describe him as ugly. He bowed to them, when -he rejected their offers of toys and penknives, but could not resist -the invitation of a fresh cake, and held his hat in one hand, while he -searched in his pocket to pay for it. Hervé made up for his dulness by -a correctness of demeanour that was rather depressing than captivating. - -Munching his cake with a secret pleasure in this slight infringement of -social law, he wandered upon the skirt of the noisy and good-natured -crowd, which, in the settlement of its affairs, was lavish in smiles -and jokes. What should he do with his liberty and leisure when his -senses had tired of this particular form of intoxication? He bethought -himself of the famous tower which Pierrot, the valet, had assured him -was the largest castle in the world. Glancing up the square, he saw -the old wooden-legged colonel limping towards him, and Hervé promptly -decided that so warlike a personage could not fail to be aware of the -direction in which the tower lay. He barred the colonel’s way with his -hat in his hand, and said: ‘Please, Monsieur, will you be so good as to -direct me to the castle of William the Conqueror?’ - -The colonel heard the soft tremulous pipe, and brought his fierce glare -down upon the urchin with hawklike penetration. Fearful menace seemed -to lie in the final tap of his wooden leg upon the pavement, as he -came to a standstill in front of Hervé, and he cleared his chest with -a loud military sound like _boom_. Hervé stood the sound, but winced -and repeated his request more timidly. Now this desperate-looking -soldier had a kindly heart, and loved children. He had not the least -idea that his loud _boom_, and his shaggy eyebrows, and his great -scowling red face frightened the life out of them. A request from a -child so small and feeble to be directed to anybody’s castle, much less -the Conqueror’s, when so many strong and idle arms in the world must -be willing to carry him, afflicted him with an almost maternal throb -of tenderness. By his smile he dispersed the unpleasant impressions -of his _boom_ and the click of his artificial limb, and completely -won Hervé’s confidence, who was quite pleased to find his thin little -fingers lost in the grasp of his new companion’s large hand, when the -giant in uniform turned and volunteered to conduct him to the tower. -Crossing the Square of Guillaume le Conquérant, Hervé even became -expansive. - -‘Look, Monsieur,’ he cried, pointing to the beautiful bronze statue, -‘one would say that the horse was about to jump, and throw the knight.’ - -The colonel slapped his chest like a man insulted in the person of a -glorious ancestor, and emitted an unusually gruff _boom_, that nearly -blew little Hervé to the other side of the square, and made his lips -tremble. - -‘I’d like, young sir, to see the horse that could have thrown that -man,’ said the Norman. - -‘There was a Baron of Vervainville when Robert was Duke of Normandy. -He went with Robert to the Crusades. The countess has told me that -only very distinguished and brave people went to the Crusades in those -days. They were wars, Monsieur, a great way off. I often try to make -out what is written on his tomb in Saint-Laurent, but I can never get -further than Geoffroi,’ Hervé concluded, with his queer short sigh, -while in front of them rose the mighty Norman ruin upon the landscape, -like the past glancing poignantly through an ever youthful smile. - -The colonel, enlightened by this communication upon the lad’s identity, -stared at him in alarmed surprise. - -‘Is there nobody in attendance upon M. le Marquis?’ he asked. - -‘I am trying to be an explorer like my grandpapa; that is why I -have run away at once. I am obliged to you, Monsieur, but it is not -necessary that you should give yourself the trouble to come further -with me. I shall be able to find the way back to the Place de la -Trinité.’ - -The colonel was dubious as to his right to accept dismissal. The sky -looked threatening, and he hardly believed that he could in honour -forsake the child. But, _sapristi!_ there were the unread papers down -from Paris waiting for him at his favourite haunt, the Café du Grand -Turc, to be discussed between generous draughts of cider. He tugged -his grey moustache in divided feelings, and at last came to a decision -with the aid of his terrible _boom_. He would deliver the little -marquis into the hands of the _concierge_ of the tower, and after a -look in upon his cronies at the Grand Turc and a glass of cider, hasten -to Saint-Laurent in search of proper authority. - -Hervé was a decorous sightseer, who left others much in the dark as to -his private impressions of what he saw. The tower, he admitted, was -very big and cold. He did not think it would give him much satisfaction -to have been born in the chill cavernous chamber wherein William had -first seen the light, while the bombastic lines upon the conquest of -the Saxons, read to him in a strong Norman accent, gave him the reverse -of a desire to explore that benighted land. With his hands in his -pockets, he stood and peeped through the slit in the stone wall, nearly -as high as the clouds, whence Robert is supposed to have detected the -charming visage of Arletta, washing linen below, with a keenness of -sight nothing less diabolical than his sobriquet, _le diable_. - -‘I couldn’t see anybody down so far, could you?’ he asked; and then -his attention was caught by the big rain-drops that were beginning to -fall in black circles upon the unroofed stone stairs. The _concierge_ -watched the sky a moment, then lifted Hervé into his arms, and hurried -down the innumerable steps to the shelter of his own cosy parlour. -Excitement and fatigue were telling upon the child, who looked nervous -and scared. The rain-drops had gathered the force and noise of several -waterfalls, pouring from the heavens with diluvian promise. Already -the landscape was drenched and blotted out of view. An affrighted -peasant, in _sabots_ large enough to shelter the woman and her family -of nursery rhyme, darted down the road, holding a coloured umbrella -as big as a tent. The roar of thunder came from afar, and a flash of -lightning broke through the vapoury veil, making Hervé blink like a -distracted owl caught by the dawn. Oh, if he were only back safely -at Saint-Laurent, or could hold the hand of his dear countess! No, -he would not explore any more until he was a grown-up man. A howl of -thunder and a child’s feeble cry---- - -Meanwhile confusion reigned in the castle. Men and women flew -hither and thither, screaming blame upon each other. In an agony of -apprehension, the butler ordered the family coach, and was driven into -town, wondering how M. le Vervainville would take the news if anything -were to happen to remove the source of his wealth and local importance. -_Parbleu!_ he would not be the man to tell him. Crossing the Place de -la Trinité, he caught sight of Mère Lescaut gazing out upon the deluged -square. In a happy inspiration, he determined to consult her, and while -he was endeavouring to make his knock heard above the tempest and to -shield his eyes from the glare of the lightning flashes, Mère Lescaut -thrust her white cap out through the upper half of the shop door, and -screamed, ‘You are looking for M. le Marquis de Saint-Laurent, and I -saw him cross the square with Colonel Larousse this afternoon.’ - -‘_Diable! Diable!_’ roared the distracted butler. ‘I passed the colonel -on the road an hour ago.’ - -The endless moments lost in adjuring the gods, in voluble faith in -calamity, in imprecations at the storm, and shivering assertions of -discomfort which never mend matters, and at last the dripping colonel -and swearing butler meet. M. le Marquis de Saint-Laurent and Baron de -Vervainville was found asleep amid the historic memories of Robert and -Arletta. - -This escapade brought M. de Vervainville down from Paris, with a new -tutor. The tutor was very young, very modern, and very cynical. He was -not in the least interested in Hervé, though rather amused when, on the -second day of their acquaintance, the boy asked--‘Monsieur, are you -engaged to be married?’ The tutor was happy to say that he had not that -misfortune. - -‘Is it then a misfortune? I am very glad that I am engaged, though I -have heard my nurse say that married people are not often happy.’ - -The tutor thought it not improbable such an important personage as -the Marquis de Saint-Laurent had been officially betrothed to some -desirable _parti_ of infant years, and asked her age and name. - -‘The Countess de Fresney. She is not a little girl, and at present -her husband is alive, but I daresay he will be dead soon. You know, -Monsieur, she is a great deal older than I am, but I shall like that -much better. It will not be necessary for me to learn much, for she -will know everything for me, and I can amuse myself. I will take you -to see her to-morrow. She is very beautiful,--but not so beautiful as -my mamma--and I love her very dearly.’ - -It occurred to the cynical tutor that the countess might be bored -enough in this uncheerful place to take an interest in so captivating a -person as himself. But when they arrived at Fresney, they learnt that -the countess was seriously ill. Hervé began to cry when he was refused -permission to see his friend, and at that moment M. le Comte, an -erratic, middle-aged tyrant, held in mortal terror by his dependants, -burst in upon him, with a vigorous--‘Ho, ho! the little marquis, my -rival! Come hither, sirrah, and let me run the sword of vengeance -through your body.’ - -And the merry old rascal began to roll his eyes, and mutter strange -guttural sounds for his own amusement and Hervé’s fright. - -‘I do not care if you do kill me, M. le Comte,’ the boy sobbed. ‘You -are a wicked man, and it is because you make dear Madame unhappy that -she is so ill. You are as wicked and ugly as the ogre in the story she -gave me last Christmas. But she will get well, and you will die, and -then I will marry her, and she will never be unhappy any more.’ - -‘Take him away before I kill him--the insolent little jackanapes! In -love with a married woman, and telling it to her husband! Ho, ho! so -I am an ogre! Very well, let me make a meal of you.’ With that he -produced an orange and offered it to Hervé, who turned on his heel, and -stumbled out of the room, blinded with tears. - -But the countess did not get well. She sent for Hervé one day, and -kissed him tenderly. - -‘My little boy, my little Hervé, you will soon be alone again. But you -will find another friend, and by and by you will be happy.’ - -‘Never, never, if you die, Countess. I shall not care for anything, not -even for my new pony, though it has such a pretty white star on its -forehead. I do not want to grow up, and I shall never be married now, -nor--nothing,’ he cried, with quivering lips. - -That evening his friend died, and the news was brought to Hervé, as he -and the tutor sat over their supper. Hervé pushed away his plate, and -took his scared and desolated little heart to the solitude of his own -room. During the night, the tutor was awakened by his call. - -‘Monsieur, please to tell me what happens when people die.’ - -‘_Ma foi_, there is nothing more about them,’ cried the tutor. - -‘And what are those who do not die supposed to do?’ - -‘To moderate their feelings,--and go to sleep.’ - -‘But I cannot sleep, Monsieur. I am very unhappy. Oh, I wish it had -been the count. Why doesn’t God kill wicked persons? Is it wicked to -wish the count to be dead, Monsieur?’ - -‘Very.’ - -‘Then I must be dreadfully wicked, for I would like to kill him myself, -if I were big and strong.’ - -At breakfast next day, he asked if people did not wear very black -clothes when their friends died, and indited a curious epistle to his -father, begging permission to wear the deepest mourning for the lady -he was to have married. Vested in black, his little mouse-coloured -head looked more pitiful and vague than ever, as he sat out the long -funeral service in the church of Saint-Gervais, and lost himself in -endless efforts to count the candles, and understand what the strange -catafalque and velvet pall in the middle of the church meant, and what -had become of the countess. - -After the burial his tutor took him to the cemetery. The bereaved child -carried a big wreath to lay upon the grave of his departed lady-love. -Kneeling there, upon the same mission, was M. le Comte, shedding -copious tears, and apostrophising the dead he had made it a point to -wound in life. Hervé knelt opposite him, and stared at him indignantly. -Why should he cry? The countess had not loved him, nor had he loved the -countess. The boy flung himself down on the soft earth, and began to -sob bitterly. The thought that he would never again see his lost friend -took full possession of him for the first time, and he wanted to die -himself. Disturbed by this passionate outbreak, the count rose, brushed -the earth from his new trousers with a mourning pocket-handkerchief -already drenched with his tears, and proceeded to lift Hervé. - -‘The dear defunct was much attached to you, little marquis,’ he said, -and began to wipe away Hervé’s tears with the handkerchief made sacred -by his own. ‘You were like a son to her.’ - -‘I don’t want you to dry my eyes, Monsieur,’ Hervé exploded, bursting -from his enemy’s arms. ‘I do not like you, and I always thought you -would die soon, and not Madame. It isn’t just, and I will not be -friends with you. I shall hate you always, for you are a wicked man, -and you were cruel to Madame.’ - -The count, who was not himself accounted sane by his neighbours, looked -at the amused and impassable tutor, and significantly touched his -forehead. - -‘Hereditary,’ he muttered, and stood to make way for Hervé. - -The birds were singing deliciously, the late afternoon sunshine -gathered above the quiet trees (made quieter by here and there an -unmovable cypress and a melancholy yew, fit symbols of the rest of -death) into a pale golden mist shot with slanting rays of light, and -the violets’ was the only scent to shake by suggestion the sense of -soothing negation of all emotion or remembrance. Out upon the road, -running like a broad ribbon to the town, unanimated in the gentle -illumination of the afternoon, the tutor and Hervé met the colonel -limping along one might imagine, upon the sound of a prolonged _boom_. -Hervé’s tears were dried, but his face looked sorrowful and stained -enough to spring tears of sympathy to any kind eyes. The colonel drew -up, touched his cap, and uttered his customary signal with more than -his customary gruffness. Hervé stood his ground firmly, though he -winced, for he was a delicate child unused to rough sounds. - -‘How goes it, M. le Marquis? How goes it?’ shouted the colonel. - -‘M. le colonel, it goes very badly with me, but I try to bear it. My -tutor tells me that men do not fret; I wish I knew how they manage not -to do so when they are sad. I did want to grow up soon, and explore the -world like my grandpapa, and then I should have married the Countess of -Fresney, if her husband were dead. But now everything is different, and -I don’t even want to see the tower of William the Conqueror again. I -don’t want to grow up. I don’t want anything now.’ - -‘Poor little man!’ said the colonel, patting his shoulder. ‘You’ve -lost a friend, but you will gain others, and perhaps you’ll be a great -soldier one of these days, like the little Corporal.’ - -Hervé shook his head dolorously. He saw nothing ahead but unpleasant -lessons varied by sad excursions to the countess’s grave. - -The unhappy little marquis was moping and fading visibly. He could -not be got to take an interest in his lessons, and he proudly strove -to conceal the fact that he was afraid of his tutor’s mocking smile. -The news of his ill-health reached M. de Vervainville in Paris, and at -once brought that alarmed gentleman down to Falaise. On Hervé’s life -depended his town luxuries and his importance as a landed proprietor. -Was there anything his son wished for? Hervé reflected a while, then -raised his mouse-coloured head, and sighed his own little sigh. He -thought he should like to see Colonel Larousse. And so it came that one -morning, staring out of the window, the boy saw a familiar military -figure limping up the avenue. Hervé’s worried small countenance almost -glowed with expectation, as he rushed to welcome his visitor, the sound -of whose _boom_ and the tap of his wooden leg upon the parquet, as well -as his dreadful shaggy eyebrows, seemed even cheerful. - -‘Do you think, Monsieur,’ Hervé asked gravely ‘that you would mind -having for a friend such a very little boy as I?’ - -The colonel cleared his throat and felt his eyes required the same -operation, though he concealed that fact from Hervé. - -‘Boom! Touchez là, mon brave.’ - -Never yet had Hervé heard speech so hearty and so republican. It -astonished him, and filled him with a sense of perfect ease and -trust. It was like a free breath in oppressive etiquette,--the -child-prince’s first mud-pie upon the common road of humanity. Hervé -became excited, and confided to the colonel that his father had ordered -a toy sailing-boat for him, and that there was going to be a ball at -Saint-Laurent in honour of his birthday, though he was not quite sure -that he would enjoy that so much as the boat, for he had never danced, -and could not play any games like other children. Still if Colonel -Larousse would come, they could talk about soldiers. Come? Of course -the colonel came, looking in his brushed uniform as one of the heroes -home from Troy, and Hervé admired him prodigiously. - -The birthday ball was a great affair. Guests came all the way from -Caen and Lisieux, and Hervé, more bewildered than elated, stood beside -his splendid father to receive them. Ladies in lovely robes, shedding -every delicate scent, like flowers, petted him, and full-grown men, -looking at these ladies, made much of him. They told him that he was -charming, but he did not believe them. One cannot be both ugly and -charming, little Hervé thought, with much bitterness and an inclination -to cry. Their compliments gave him the same singular sensations evoked -by the tutor’s smile. - -‘I do not know any of these people,’ he said sadly to Colonel Larousse. -‘I don’t think a ball very cheerful, do you? It makes my head ache to -hear so many strange voices, and feel so much smaller than anybody -else. My papa amuses himself, but I would like to run away to my boat.’ - -‘_Boom! Mon camarade_, a soldier sticks to his post.’ - -Hervé sighed, and thought if the countess had been here that he would -have sat beside her all the evening, and have held her hand. And the -knowledge that he would never again hold her hand, and that so many -long weeks had passed since fond lips had kissed his face, and a -sweet voice had called him ‘Little Hervé, little boy,’ brought tears -of desperate self-pitying pain to his eyes. In these large illuminated -salons, vexed with the mingled odours of flowers and scented skirts, -by the scraping of fiddles and the flying feet of laughing dancers, -unmindful of him as other than a queer quiet boy in velvet and Alençon -lace, with a plain grey little face and owlish eyes that never smiled, -Hervé felt more alone than ever he had felt since the countess’s death. - -Stealthily he made his escape through the long open window, and ran -down the dewy lawn. How gratefully the cool air tasted and the lovely -stillness of the night after the aching brilliancy within! Hervé -assured himself that it was a pleasant relief, and hoped there would -not be many more balls at the castle. - -The lake fringed the lawn, and moored against the branches of a weeping -willow was his toy-boat, just as he had left it in the afternoon. It -would look so pretty, he believed, sailing under the rising moon that -touched the water silver and the blue stars that showed so peacefully -upon it. He unknotted the string, and gaily the little boat swam out -upon his impulsion. If only the countess could come back to him, he -thought, with his boat he would be perfectly happy. ‘But I am so alone -among them all,’ he said to himself, with his broken sigh. ‘I wished -somebody loved me as little children are loved by their mammas.’ - -The boat had carried away the string from his loose grasp, and he -reached out his arm upon the water to recover it. A soft, moist bank, -a small eager foot upon it, a frame easily tilted by an unsteady -movement, the dark water broken into circling bubbles upon a child’s -shrill cry of terror, and closing impassably over the body of poor -forlorn little Hervé and his pretty velvet suit and Alençon lace,--this -is what the stars and the pale calm moon saw; and over there upon -the further shore of the lake floated the toy-boat as placidly as if -it had worked no treachery, and had not led to the extinction of an -illustrious name and race. - -‘Where is M. le Marquis?’ demanded M. de Vervainville, interrupting an -enchanting moment upon discovery of his son’s absence from the salon. - -A search, a hurry, a scare,--music stopped, wine-glasses at the -buffet laid down untouched, ices rejected, fear and anxiety upon -every face. M. le Marquis is not in the salons, nor in the tutor’s -apartment, nor in his own. The grounds are searched, ‘Hervé’ and ‘M. -le Marquis’ ringing through the silence unanswered. His boat was found -and the impress of small footsteps upon the wet bank. M. le Marquis de -Saint-Laurent and Baron de Vervainville was drowned. - - - Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty at the - Edinburgh University Press - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - -Some minor inconsistencies and obvious typographical and punctuation -errors have been corrected silently. - -On page 184, ‘He will write to you to Paris’ has been changed ‘He will -write to you in Paris’ - -On page 217: A duplicate ‘for’ has been removed in ‘The less reason -have they for for a vestige of belief in man’ - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. 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