LIBRARY 
 
 f OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SANTA CRUZ 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
TRAVELLING 
 COM PANIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
 
 NEWYORK 1919 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
 BY BONI & LlVERIGHT, INC. 
 
 Printed in the U. S. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS i 
 
 THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 53 
 
 PROFESSOR FARGO 87 
 
 AT ISELLA 125 
 
 GUEST'S CONFESSION . . 157 
 
 ADINA 223 
 
 DE GREY: A ROMANCE 269 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 To those who associate the name of Henry James with 
 all that is tedious and involved in the art of fiction, the 
 tales in this volume, now collected for the first time, will 
 appear as revelations of simplicity in style. Here we have 
 the author in all his freshness; his principal literary char- 
 acteristics are ease and precision. For he had not yet 
 forged rules for abstruseness of style, to perplex and weary 
 his reader. In these stories James showed even no remotest 
 sign of ever becoming a by-word for convolutions of English 
 and a mark for the parodist. 
 
 Though the author collected in his Passionate PUgrim 
 (1875) a half a dozen of the tales he published in the maga- 
 zines before his thirty-second year, he overlooked stories 
 which were at least equal to, and in some cases superior 
 to those he then brought together. The seven stories in this 
 volume were written and published exactly at the time of 
 the tales in his Passionate PUgrim (between 1868 and 
 1874). The issuing of this volume, therefore, is like giving 
 the public a new book by Henry James of the early period. 
 The intellectual and the average man both may read and 
 enjoy it. 
 
 It is the tendency of some critics to deprecate what an 
 author has not collected himself. We know that writers 
 often have been the poorest judges of their own work. We 
 are all familiar with the story of Byron who preferred his 
 
 vii 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 Hints from Horace to Childe Harold. James was a par- 
 ticularly erring critic when it came to his own writings. 
 This fact is attested to by his rewriting and ruining some 
 of his best early stories. The tales in this volume are not 
 apprentice work. They show the hand of the master. True, 
 there is the influence of Hawthorne and George Eliot in a 
 strong degree and a romanticism is occasionally indulged 
 in from which the later James would have recoiled, but the 
 fiction is solid and above all, entertaining. The author 
 cherished a kindly feeling for these tales all his life, and in 
 the last of his autobiographical works published Middle 
 Years he tells with gusto how Tennyson highly praised 
 before him one of these tales written just before James went 
 to Europe in the spring of 1869. 
 
 James has also left us a record of the affection he enter- 
 tained for them and also suggests that their origin had as 
 a basis actual experiences. He writes in Notes of a Son 
 and Brother, page 436, in speaking of his early tales, pub- 
 lished during the period represented by the ones in this 
 volume: 
 
 "I of course really and truly cared for them, as we say, 
 more than for aught else whatever cared for them with 
 that kind of care, infatuated though it may seem, that 
 makes it bliss for the fond votary never to so much as speak 
 of the loved object, makes it a refinement of piety to per- 
 form his rites under cover of a perfect freedom of mind as 
 to everything but them. These secrets of imaginative life 
 were in fact more various than I may dream of trying to 
 tell; they referred to actual concretions of existence as well 
 as to the supposition." 
 
 This collection is a resurrecting of literary material 
 whose loss has been and would have continued to be unfor- 
 tunate for American literature. 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 The original publications of the stories were as follows: 
 Traveling Companions, Guest's Confession and De Gray 
 appeared in the Atlantic Monthly for November-December, 
 1870, October-November, 1872, and July, 1868, respec- 
 tively; The Sweetheart of M. Briseux, Professor Fargo and 
 At Isella in the Galaxy for June, 1873, August, 1874, and 
 August, 1871, respectively; and Adina in Scribner's Monthly 
 May- June, 1874. 
 
 ALBERT MORDELL. 
 Philadelphia, 
 Feb. 6, 1919. 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 THE most strictly impressive picture in Italy is incon- 
 testably the Last Supper of Leonardo at Milan. A 
 part of its immense solemnity is doubtless due to its being 
 one of the first of the great Italian masterworks that you 
 encounter in coming down from the North. Another sec- 
 ondary source of interest resides in the very completeness 
 of its decay. The mind finds a rare delight in filling each 
 of its vacant spaces, effacing its rank defilement, and re- 
 pairing, as far as possible, its sad disorder. Of the essential 
 power and beauty of the work there can be no better evi- 
 dence than this fact that, having lost so much, it has yet 
 retained so much. An unquenchable elegance lingers in 
 those vague outlines and incurable scars; enough remains 
 to place you in sympathy with the unfathomable wisdom 
 of the painter. The fresco covers a wall, the reader will 
 remember, at the end of the former refectory of a mon- 
 astery now suppressed, the precinct of which is occupied 
 by a regiment of cavalry. Horses stamp, soldiers rattle 
 their oaths, in the cloisters which once echoed to the sober 
 tread of monastic sandals and the pious greetings of meek- 
 voiced friars. 
 
 It was the middle of August, and summer sat brooding 
 fiercely over the streets of Milan. The great brick-wrought 
 dome of the church of St. Mary of the Graces rose black 
 with the heat against the brazen sky. As my fiacre drew 
 up in front of the church, I found another vehicle in pos- 
 session of the little square of shade which carpeted the glar- 
 ing pavement before the adjoining convent. I left the two 
 drivers to share this advantage as they could, and made 
 
2 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 haste to enter the cooler presence of the Cenacolo. Here I 
 found the occupants of the fiacre without, a young lady 
 and an elderly man. Here also, besides the official who 
 takes your tributary franc, sat a long-haired copyist, wooing 
 back the silent secrets of the great fresco into the cheer- 
 fulest commonplaces of yellow and blue. The gentleman 
 was earnestly watching this ingenious operation; the young 
 lady sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, from which she 
 failed to move them when I took my place on a line with 
 her. I, too, however, speedily became as unconscious of 
 her presence as she of mine, and lost myself in the study 
 of the work before us. A single glance had assured me 
 that she was an American. 
 
 Since that day, I have seen all the great art treasures of 
 Italy: I have seen Tintoretto at Venice, Michael Angelo 
 at Florence and Rome, Correggio at Parma; but I have 
 looked at no other picture with an emotion equal to that 
 which rose within me as this great creation of Leonardo 
 slowly began to dawn upon my intelligence from the trag- 
 ical twilight of its ruin. A work so nobly conceived can 
 never utterly die, so long as the half-dozen main lines of 
 its design remain. Neglect and malice are less cunning than 
 the genius of the great painter. It has stored away with 
 masterly skill such a wealth of beauty as only perfect love 
 and sympathy can fully detect. So, under my eyes, the 
 restless ghost of the dead fresco returned to its mortal 
 abode. From the beautiful central image of Christ I per- 
 ceived its radiation right and left along the sadly broken 
 line of the disciples. One by one, out of the depths of their 
 grim dismemberment, the figures trembled into meaning and 
 life, and the vast, serious beauty of the work stood re- 
 vealed. What is the ruling force of this magnificent de- 
 sign? Is it art? is it science? is it sentiment? is it knowl- 
 edge? I am sure I can't say; but in moments of doubt and 
 depression I find it of excellent use to recall the great pic- 
 ture with all possible distinctness. Of all the works of 
 man's hands it is the least superficial. 
 
 The young lady's companion finished his survey of the 
 copyist's work and came and stood behind his chair. The 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 3 
 
 reader will remember that a door has been rudely cut in 
 the wall, a part of it entering the fresco. 
 
 "He hasn't got in that door," said the old gentleman, 
 speaking apparently of the copyist. 
 
 The young lady was silent. "Well, my dear," he con- 
 tinued. "What do you think of it?" 
 
 The young girl gave a sigh. "I see it," she said. 
 
 "You see it, eh? Well, I suppose there is nothing more 
 to be done." 
 
 The young lady rose slowly, drawing on her glove. As 
 her eyes were still on the fresco, I was able to observe her. 
 Beyond doubt she was American. Her age I fancied to be 
 twenty-two. She was of middle stature, with a charming, 
 slender figure. Her hair was brown, her complexion fresh 
 and clear. She wore a white pique dress and a black lace 
 shawl, and on her thick dark braids a hat with a purple 
 feather. She was largely characterized by that physical 
 delicacy and that personal elegance (each of them some- 
 times excessive) which seldom fail to betray my young 
 countrywomen in Europe. The gentleman, who was ob- 
 viously her father, bore the national stamp as plainly as 
 she. A shrewd, firm, generous face, which told of many 
 dealings with many men, of stocks and shares and current 
 prices, a face, moreover, in which there lingered the mel- 
 low afterglow of a sense of excellent claret. He was bald 
 and grizzled, this perfect American, and he wore a short- 
 bristled white mustache between the two hard wrinkles 
 forming the sides of a triangle of which his mouth was the 
 base and the ridge of his nose, where his eye-glass sat, the 
 apex. In deference perhaps to this exotic growth, he was 
 better dressed than is common with the typical American 
 citizen, in a blue necktie, a white waistcoat, and a pair 
 of gray trousers. As his daughter still lingered, he looked 
 at me with an eye of sagacious conjecture. 
 
 "Ah, that beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Christ," said the 
 young lady, in a tone which betrayed her words in spite of 
 its softness. "Oh father, what a picture!" 
 
 "Hum!" said her father, "I don't see it." 
 
 "I must get a photograph," the young girl rejoined. She 
 
4 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 turned away and walked to the farther end of the hall, 
 where the custodian presides at a table of photographs and 
 prints. Meanwhile her father had perceived my Murray. 
 
 "English, sir?" he demanded. 
 
 "No, I'm an American, like yourself, I fancy." 
 
 "Glad to make your acquaintance, sir. From New York?" 
 
 "From New York. I have been absent from home, how- 
 ever, for a number of years." 
 
 "Residing in this part of the world?" 
 
 "No. I have been living in Germany. I have only just 
 come into Italy." 
 
 "Ah, so have we. The young lady is my daughter. She 
 is crazy about Italy. We were very nicely fixed at Inter- 
 laken, when suddenly she read in some confounded book or 
 other that Italy should be seen in summer. So she dragged 
 me over the mountains into this fiery furnace. I'm actually 
 melting away. I have lost five pounds in three days." 
 
 I replied that the heat was indeed intense, but that I 
 agreed with his daughter that Italy should be seen in sum- 
 mer. What could be pleasanter than the temperature of 
 that vast cool hall? 
 
 "Ah, yes," said my friend; "I suppose we shall have 
 plenty of this kind of thing. It makes no odds to me, so 
 long as my poor girl has a good time." 
 
 "She seems," I remarked, "to be having a pretty good 
 time with the photographs." In fact, she was comparing 
 photographs with a great deal of apparent energy, while 
 the salesman lauded his wares in the Italian manner. We 
 strolled over to the table. The young girl was seemingly 
 in treaty for a large photograph of the head of Christ, in 
 which the blurred and fragmentary character of the original 
 was largely intensified, though much of its exquisite pathetic 
 beauty was also preserved. "They'll not think much of that 
 at home," said the old gentleman. 
 
 "So much the worse for them," said his daughter, with 
 an accent of delicate pity. With the photograph in her 
 hand, she walked back to the fresco. Her father engaged 
 in an English dialogue with the custodian. In the course 
 of five minutes, wishing likewise to compare the copy and 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 5 
 
 the original, I returned to the great picture. As I drew 
 near it the young lady turned away. Her eyes then for 
 the first time met my own. They were deep and dark and 
 luminous, I fancied streaming with tears. I watched her 
 as she returned to the table. Her walk seemed to me pe- 
 culiarly graceful; light, and rapid, and yet full of decision 
 and dignity. A thrill of delight passed through my heart 
 as I guessed at her moistened lids. 
 
 "Sweet fellow-countrywoman," I cried in silence, "you 
 have the divine gift of feeling." And I returned to the 
 fresco with a deepened sense of its virtue. When I turned 
 around, my companions had left the room. 
 
 In spite of the great heat, I was prepared thoroughly to 
 "do" Milan. In fact, I rather enjoyed the heat; it seemed 
 to my Northern senses to deepen the Italian, the Southern, 
 the local character of things. On that blazing afternoon, I 
 have not forgotten, I went to the church of St. Ambrose, to 
 the Ambrosian Library, to a dozen minor churches. Every 
 step distilled a richer drop into the wholesome cup of pleas- 
 ure. From my earliest manhood, beneath a German sky, I 
 had dreamed of this Italian pilgrimage, and, after much 
 waiting and working and planning, I had at last under- 
 taken it in a spirit of fervent devotion. There had been 
 moments in Germany when I fancied myself a clever man; 
 but it now seemed to me that for the first time I really 
 felt my intellect. Imagination, panting and exhausted, with- 
 drew from the game; and Observation stepped into her 
 place, trembling and glowing with open-eyed desire. 
 
 I had already been twice to the Cathedral, and had wan- 
 dered through the clustering inner darkness of the high 
 arcades which support those light-defying pinnacles and 
 spires. Towards the close of the afternoon I found myself 
 strolling once more over the great column-planted, altar- 
 studded pavement, with the view of ascending to the roof. 
 On presenting myself at the little door in the right transept, 
 through which you gain admission to the upper regions, I 
 perceived my late fellow-visitors of the fresco preparing ap- 
 parently for an upward movement, but not without some 
 reluctance on the paternal side. The poor gentleman had 
 
6 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 been accommodated with a chair, on which he sat fanning 
 himself with his hat and looking painfully apoplectic. The 
 sacristan meanwhile held open the door with an air of invi- 
 tation. But my corpulent friend, with his thumb m his 
 Murray, balked at the ascent. Recognizing me, his face 
 expressed a sudden sense of vague relief. 
 
 "Have you been up, sir?" he inquired, groaningly. 
 
 I answered that I was about to ascend; and recalling 
 then the fact, which I possessed rather as information than 
 experience, that young American ladies may not improperly 
 detach themselves on occasion from the parental side, I 
 ventured to declare that, if my friend was unwilling to en- 
 counter the fatigue of mounting to the roof in person, I 
 should be most happy, as a fellow-countryman, qualified 
 already perhaps to claim a traveler's acquaintance, to ac- 
 company and assist his daughter. 
 
 "You're very good, sir," said the poor man; "I confess 
 that I'm about played out. I'd far rather sit here and watch 
 these pretty Italian ladies saying their prayers. Charlotte, 
 what do you say?" 
 
 "Of course if you're. tired I should be sorry to have you 
 make the effort," said Charlotte. "But I believe the great 
 thing is to see the view from the roof. I'm much obliged 
 to the gentleman." 
 
 It was arranged accordingly that we should ascend to- 
 gether. "Good luck to you," cried my friend, "and mind 
 you take good care of her." 
 
 Those who have rambled among the marble immensities 
 of the summit of Milan Cathedral will hardly expect me to 
 describe them. It is only when they have been seen as a 
 complete concentric whole that they can be properly appre- 
 ciated. It was not as a whole that I saw them; a week in 
 Italy had assured me that I have not the architectural coup 
 d'ceil. In looking back on the scene into which we emerged 
 from the stifling spiral of the ascent, I have chiefly a con- 
 fused sense of an immense skyward elevation and a fierce 
 blinding efflorescence of fantastic forms of marble. There, 
 reared for the action of the sun, you find a vast marble 
 world. The solid whiteness lies in mighty slabs along the 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 7 
 
 iridescent slopes of nave and transept, like the lonely snow- 
 fields of the higher Alps. It leaps and climbs and shoots 
 and attacks the unsheltered blue with a keen and joyous 
 incision. It meets the pitiless sun with a more than equal 
 glow; the day falters, declines, expires, but the marble 
 shines forever, unmelted and unintermittent. You will 
 know what I mean if you have looked upward from the 
 Piazza at midnight. With confounding frequency, too, on 
 some uttermost point of a pinnacle, its plastic force ex- 
 plodes into satisfied rest in some perfect flower of a figure. 
 A myriad carven statues, known only to the circling air, 
 are poised and niched beyond reach of human vision, the 
 loss of which to mortal eyes is, I suppose, the gain of the 
 Church and the Lord. Among all the jewelled shrines and 
 overwrought tabernacles of Italy, I have seen no such mag- 
 nificent waste of labor, no such glorious synthesis of cun- 
 ning secrets. As you wander, sweating and blinking, over 
 the changing levels of the edifice, your eye catches at a 
 hundred points the little profile of a little saint, looking out 
 into the dizzy air, a pair of folded hands praying to the 
 bright immediate heavens, a sandalled monkish foot planted 
 on the edge of the white abyss. And then, besides this 
 mighty world of the great Cathedral itself, you possess 
 the view of all green Lombardy, vast, lazy Lombardy, 
 resting from its Alpine upheavals. 
 
 My companion carried a little white umbrella, with a 
 violet lining. Thus protected from the sun, she climbed 
 and gazed with abundant courage and spirit. Her move- 
 ments, her glance, her voice, were full of intelligent pleas- 
 ure. Now that I could observe her closely, I saw that, 
 though perhaps without regular beauty, she was yet, for 
 youth, summer, and Italy, more than pretty enough. Ow- 
 ing to my residence in Germany, among Germans, in a 
 small university town, Americans had come to have for 
 me, in a large degree, the interest of novelty and remote- 
 ness. Of the charm of American women, in especial, I had 
 formed a very high estimate, and I was more than ready 
 to be led captive by the far-famed graces of their frank- 
 ness and freedom. I already felt that in the young girl 
 
8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 beside me there was a different quality of womanhood from 
 any that I had recently known; a keenness, a maturity, a 
 conscience, which deeply stirred my curiosity. It was 
 positive, not negative maidenhood. 
 
 "You're an American," I said, as we stepped to look at 
 the distance. 
 
 "Yes; and you?" In her voice alone the charm faltered. 
 It was high, thin, and nervous. 
 
 "Oh, happily, I'm also one." 
 
 "I shouldn't have thought so. I should have taken you 
 for a German." 
 
 "By education I am a German. I knew you were an 
 American the moment I looked at you." 
 
 "I suppose so. It seems that American women are easily 
 recognized. But don't talk about America." She paused 
 and swept her dark eye over the whole immensity of pros- 
 pect. "This is Italy," she cried, "Italy, Italy!" 
 
 "Italy indeed. What do you think of the Leonardo?" 
 
 "I fancy there can be only one feeling about it. It must 
 be the saddest and finest of all pictures. But I know 
 nothing of art. I have seen nothing yet but that lovely 
 Raphael in the Brera." 
 
 "You have a vast deal before you. You're going south- 
 ward, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes, we are going directly to Venice. There I shall see 
 Titian." 
 
 "Titian and Paul Veronese." 
 
 "Yes, I can hardly believe it. Have you ever been in a 
 gondola?" 
 
 "No; this is my first visit to Italy." 
 
 "Ah, this is all new, then, to you as well." 
 
 "Divinely new," said I, with fervor. 
 
 She glanced at me, with a smile, a ray of friendly pleas- 
 ure in my pleasure. "And you are not disappointed!" 
 
 "Not a jot. I'm too good a German." 
 
 "I'm too good an American. I live at Araminta, New 
 Jersey!" 
 
 We thoroughly "did" the high places of the church, con- 
 cluding with an ascent into the little gallery of the central 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 9 
 
 spire. The view from this spot is beyond all words, espe- 
 cially the view toward the long mountain line which shuts 
 out the North. The sun was sinking: clear and serene 
 upon their blue foundations, the snow-peaks sat clustered 
 and scattered, and shrouded in silence and light. To the 
 south the long shadows fused and multiplied, and the bosky 
 Lombard flats melted away into perfect Italy. This pros- 
 pect offers a great emotion to the Northern traveler. A 
 vague, delicious impulse of conquest stirs in his heart. 
 From his dizzy vantage-point, as he looks down at her, 
 beautiful, historic, exposed, he embraces the whole land 
 in the far-reaching range of his desire. "That is Monte 
 Rosa," I said; "that is the Simplon pass; there is the triple 
 glitter of those lovely lakes." 
 
 "Poor Monte Rosa," said my companion. 
 
 "I'm sure I never thought of Monte Rosa as an object 
 of pity." 
 
 "You don't know what she represents. She represents 
 the genius of the North. There she stands, frozen and 
 fixed, resting her head upon that mountain wall, looking 
 over at this lovely southern world and yearning towards 
 it forever in vain." 
 
 "It is very well she can't come over. She would melt." 
 
 "Very true. She is beautiful, too, in her own way. I 
 mean to fancy that I am her chosen envoy, and that I have 
 come up here to receive her blessing." 
 
 I made an attempt to point out a few localities. "Yon- 
 der lies Venice, out of sight. In the interval are a dozen 
 divine little towns. I hope to visit them all. I shall ram- 
 ble all day in their streets and churches, their little mu- 
 seums, and their great palaces. In the evening I shall sit 
 at the door of a cafe in the little piazza, scanning some 
 lovely civic edifice in the moonlight, and saying, 'Ah! this 
 is Italy!'" 
 
 "You gentlemen are certainly very happy. I'm afraid we 
 must go straight to Venice." 
 
 "Your father insists upon it?" 
 
 "He wishes it. Poor father! in early life he formed the 
 habit of being in a hurry, and he can't break it even now, 
 
io TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 when, being out of business, he has nothing on earth to do." 
 
 "But in America I thought daughters insisted as well as 
 fathers." 
 
 The young girl looked at me, half serious, half smiling. 
 "Have you a mother?" she asked; and then, blushing the 
 least bit at her directness and without waiting for an an- 
 swer, "This is not America," she said. "I should like to 
 think I might become for a while a creature of Italy." 
 
 Somehow I felt a certain contagion in her momentary 
 flash of frankness. "I strongly suspect," I said, "that you 
 are American to the depths of your soul, and that you'll 
 never be anything else; I hope not." 
 
 In this hope of mine there was perhaps a little imper- 
 tinence; but my companion looked at me with a gentle 
 smile, which seemed to hint that she forgave it. "You, 
 on the other hand," she said, "are a perfect German, I 
 fancy; and you'll never be anything else." 
 
 "I am sure I wish with all my heart," I answered, "to 
 be a good American. I'm open to conversion. Try me." 
 
 "Thank you; I haven't the ardor; I'll make you over 
 to my father. We mustn't forget, by the way, that he is 
 waiting for us." 
 
 We did forget it, however, awhile longer. We came down 
 from the tower and made our way to the balustrade which 
 edges the front of the edifice, and looked down on the city 
 and the piazza below. Milan had, to my sense, a peculiar 
 charm of temperate gayety, the softness of the South with- 
 out its laxity; and I felt as if I could gladly spend a month 
 there. The common life of the streets was beginning to stir 
 and murmur again, with the subsiding heat and the ap- 
 proaching night. There came up into our faces a delicious 
 emanation as from the sweetness of Transalpine life. At 
 the little balconies of the windows, beneath the sloping awn- 
 ings, with their feet among the crowded flower-pots and 
 their plump bare arms on the iron rails, lazy, dowdy Italian 
 beauties would appear, still drowsy with the broken siesta. 
 Beautiful, slim young officers had begun to dot the pave- 
 ment, glorious with their clanking swords, their brown 
 mustaches, and their legs of azure. In gentle harmony 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS II 
 
 with these, various ladies of Milan were issuing forth to 
 enjoy the cool; elegant, romantic, provoking, in short black 
 dresses and lace mantillas depending from their chignons, 
 with a little cloud of powder artfully enhancing the dark- 
 ness of their hair and eyes. How it all wasn't Germany! 
 how it couldn't have been Araminta, New Jersey! "It's 
 the South, the South," I kept repeating, "the South in 
 nature, in man, in manners." It was a brighter world'. 
 "It's the South," I said to my companion. "Don't you feel 
 it in all your nerves?" 
 
 "O, it's very pleasant," she said. 
 
 "We must forget all our cares and duties and sorrows. 
 We must go in for the beautiful. Think of this great trap 
 for the sunbeams, in this city of yellows and russets and 
 crimsons, of liquid vowels and glancing smiles being, like 
 one of our Northern cathedrals, a temple to Morality and 
 Conscience. It doesn't belong to heaven, but to earth, 
 to love and light and pleasure." 
 
 My friend was silent a moment. "I'm glad I'm not a 
 Catholic," she said at last. "Come, we must go down." 
 
 We found the interior of the Cathedral delightfully cool 
 and shadowy. The young lady's father was not at our place 
 of ingress, and we began to walk through the church in 
 search of him. We met a number of Milanese ladies, who 
 charmed us with their sombre elegance and the Spanish ro- 
 mance of their veils. With these pale penitents and postu- 
 lants my companion had a lingering sisterly sympathy. 
 
 "Don't you wish you were a Catholic now?" I asked. "It 
 would be so pleasant to wear one of those lovely mantillas." 
 
 "The mantillas are certainly becoming," she said. "But 
 who knows what horrible old-world sorrows and fears and 
 remorses they cover? Look at this person." We were 
 standing near the great altar. As she spoke, a woman 
 rose from her knees, and as she drew the folds of her lace 
 mantle across her bosom, fixed her large dark eyes on us 
 with a peculiar significant intensity. She was of less than 
 middle age, with a pale, haggard face, a certain tarnished 
 elegance of dress, and a remarkable nobleness of gesture and 
 carriage. She came towards us, with an odd mixture, in 
 
12 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 her whole expression, of decency and defiance. "Are you 
 English?" she said in Italian. "You are very pretty. Is 
 he a brother or a lover?" 
 
 "He is neither," said I, affecting a tone of rebuke. 
 
 "Neither? only a friend! You are very happy to have 
 a friend, Signorina. Ah, you are pretty! You were watch- 
 ing me at my prayers just now; you thought me very curi- 
 ous, apparently. I don't care. You may see me here any 
 day. But I devoutly hope you may never have to pray 
 such bitter, bitter prayers as mine. A thousand excuses." 
 And she went her way. 
 
 "What in the world does she mean?" said my companion. 
 
 "Monte Rosa," said I, "was the genius of the North. 
 This poor woman is the genius of the Picturesque. She 
 shows us the essential misery that lies behind it. It's not 
 an unwholesome lesson to receive at the outset. Look at 
 her sweeping down the aisle. What a poise of the head! 
 The picturesque is handsome, all the same." 
 
 "I do wonder what is her trouble," murmured the young 
 girl. "She has swept away an illusion in the folds of those 
 black garments." 
 
 "Well," said I, "here is a solid fact to replace it." My 
 eyes had just lighted upon the object of our search. He sat 
 in a chair, half tilted back against a pillar. His chin 
 rested on his shirt-bosom, and his hands were folded to- 
 gether over his waistcoat, where it most protruded. Shirt 
 and waistcoat rose and fell with visible, audible regularity. 
 I wandered apart and left his daughter to deal with him. 
 When she had fairly aroused him, he thanked me heartily 
 for my care of the young lady, and expressed the wish that 
 we might meet again. "We start to-morrow for Venice," 
 he said. "I want awfully to get a whiff of the sea-breeze 
 and to see if there is anything to be got out of a gondola." 
 
 As I expected also to be in Venice before many days, I 
 had little doubt of our meeting. In consideration of this 
 circumstance, my friend proposed that we should exchange 
 cards; which we accordingly did, then and there, before the 
 high altar, above the gorgeous chapel which enshrines the 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 13 
 
 relics of St. Charles Borromeus. It was thus that I learned 
 his name to be Mr. Mark Evans. 
 
 "Take a few notes for us!" said Miss Evans, as I shook 
 her hand in farewell. 
 
 I spent the evening, after dinner, strolling among the 
 crowded streets of the city, tasting of Milanese humanity. 
 At the door of a cafe I perceived Mr. Evans seated at a 
 little round table. He seemed to have discovered the merits 
 of absinthe. I wondered where he had left his daughter. 
 She was in her room, I fancied, writing her journal. 
 
 The fortnight which followed my departure from Milan 
 was in all respects memorable and delightful. With an in- 
 terest that hourly deepened as I read, I turned the early 
 pages of the enchanting romance of Italy. I carried out 
 in detail the programme which I had sketched for Miss 
 Evans. Those few brief days, as I look back on them, 
 seem to me the sweetest, fullest, calmest of my life. All 
 personal passions, all restless egotism, all worldly hopes, 
 regrets, and fears were stilled and absorbed in the steady 
 perception of the material present. It exhaled the pure 
 essence of romance. What words can reproduce the pic- 
 ture which these Northern Italian towns project upon a 
 sympathetic retina? They are shabby, deserted, dreary, 
 decayed, unclean. In those August days the southern sun 
 poured into them with a fierceness which might have seemed 
 fatal to any lurking shadow of picturesque mystery. But 
 taking them as cruel time had made them and left them, 
 I found in them an immeasurable instruction and charm. 
 My perception seemed for the first time to live a sturdy 
 creative life of its own. How it fed upon the mouldy 
 crumbs of the festal past! I have always thought the ob- 
 servant faculty a windy impostor, so long as it refuses to 
 pocket pride and doff its bravery and crawl on all-fours, 
 if need be, into the unillumined corners and crannies of life. 
 In these dead cities of Verona, Mantua, Padua, how life had 
 revelled and postured in its strength! How sentiment and 
 passion had blossomed and flowered! How much of his- 
 tory had been performed! What a wealth of mortality 
 had ripened and decayed! I have never elsewhere got so 
 
I 4 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 deep an impression of the social secrets of mankind. In 
 England, even, in those verdure-stifled haunts of domestic 
 peace which muffle the sounding chords of British civiliza- 
 tion, one has a fainter sense of the possible movement and 
 fruition of individual character. Beyond a certain point 
 you fancy it merged in the general medium of duty, busi- 
 ness, and politics. In Italy, in spite of your knowledge of 
 the strenuous public conscience which once inflamed these 
 compact little states, the unapplied, spontaneous moral life 
 of society seems to have been more active and more subtle. 
 I walked about with a volume of Stendhal in my pocket; 
 at every step I gathered some lingering testimony to the 
 exquisite vanity of ambition. 
 
 But the great emotion, after all, was to feel myself among 
 scenes in which art had ranged so freely. It had often 
 enough been bad, but it had never ceased to be art. An 
 invincible instinct of beauty had presided at life, an in- 
 stinct often ludicrously crude and primitive. Wherever I 
 turned I found a vital principle of grace, from the smile 
 of a chambermaid to the curve of an arch. My memory 
 reverts with an especial tenderness to certain hours in the 
 dusky, faded saloons of those vacant, ruinous palaces which 
 boast of "collections." The pictures are frequently poor, 
 but the visitor's impression is generally rich. The brick- 
 tiled floors are bare; the doors lack paint; the great win- 
 dows, curtains; the chairs and tables have lost their gilding 
 and their damask drapery; but the ghost of a graceful aris- 
 tocracy treads at your side and does the melancholy honors 
 of the abode with a dignity that brooks no sarcasm. You 
 feel that art and piety here have been blind, generous in- 
 stincts. You are reminded in persuasive accents of the old 
 personal regimen in human affairs. Certain pictures are 
 veiled and curtained virginibus puerisque. Through these 
 tarnished halls lean and patient abbes led their youthful 
 virginal pupils. Have you read Stendhal's Chartreuse de 
 Par me? There was such a gallery in the palace of the 
 Duchess of San Severino. After a long day of strolling, 
 lounging, and staring, I found a singularly perfect pleasure 
 in sitting at the door of a cafe in the warm starlight, eating 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 15 
 
 an ice and making an occasional experiment in the way of 
 talk with my neighbors. I recall with peculiar fondness and 
 delight three sweet sessions in the delicious Piazza dei Sig- 
 nori at Verona. The Piazza, is small, compact, private 
 almost, accessible only to pedestrians, paved with great 
 slabs which have known none but a gentle human tread. 
 On one side of it rises in elaborate elegance and grace, 
 above its light arched loggia, the image-bordered mass of 
 the ancient palace of the Council; facing this stand two 
 sterner, heavier buildings, dedicated to municipal offices 
 and to the lodgment of soldiers. Step through the arch- 
 way which leads out of the Piazza, and you will find a vast 
 quadrangle with a staircase climbing sunward, along the 
 wall, a row of gendarmes sitting in the shade, a group of 
 soldiers cleaning their muskets, a dozen persons of either 
 sex leaning downward from the open windows. At one end 
 of the little square rose into the pale darkness the high 
 slender shaft of a brick campanile; in the centre glittered 
 steadily a colossal white statue of Dante. Behind this 
 statue was the Caffe Dante, where on three successive days 
 I sat till midnight, feeling the scene, learning its sovereign 
 "distinction." But of Verona I shall not pretend to speak. 
 As I drew near Venice I began to feel a soft impatience, an 
 expectant tremor of the heart. The day before reaching 
 it I spent at Vicenza. I wandered all day through the 
 streets, of course, looking at Palladio's palaces and enjoying 
 them in defiance of reason and Ruskin. They seemed to me 
 essentially rich and palatial. In the evening I resorted, as 
 usual, to the city's generous heart, the decayed ex-glorious 
 Piazza,. This spot of Vicenza affords you a really soul-stir- 
 ring premonition of Venice. There is no Byzantine Basilica 
 and no Ducal Palace; but there is an immense impressive 
 hall of council, and a soaring campanile, and there are two 
 discrowned columns telling of defeated Venetian dominion. 
 Here I seated myself before a cafe door, in a group of gos- 
 siping votaries of the Southern night. The tables being 
 mostly occupied, I had some difficulty in finding one. In a 
 short time I perceived a young man walking through the 
 crowd, seeking where he might bestow himself. Passing 
 
1 6 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 near me, he stopped and asked me with irresistible grace 
 if he might share my table. I cordially assented: he sat 
 down and ordered a glass of sugar and water. He was of 
 about my own age, apparently, and full of the opulent 
 beauty of the greater number of young Italians. His dress 
 was simple even to shabbiness: he might have been a young 
 prince in disguise, a Haroun-al-Raschid. With small delay 
 we engaged in conversation. My companion was boyish, 
 modest, and gracious; he nevertheless discoursed freely on 
 the things of Vicenza. He was so good as to regret that we 
 had not met earlier in the day; it would have given him 
 such pleasure to accompany me on my tour of the city. He 
 was passionately fond of art: he was in fact an artist. 
 Was I fond of pictures? Was I inclined to purchase? I 
 answered that I had no desire to purchase modern pictures, 
 that in fact I had small means to purchase any. He in- 
 formed me that he had a beautiful ancient work which, to 
 his great regret, he found himself compelled to sell; a most 
 divine little Correggio. Would I do him the favor to look 
 at it? I had small belief in the value of this unrenowned 
 masterpiece; but I felt a kindness for the young painter. 
 I consented to have him call for me the next morning and 
 take me to his house, where for two hundred years, he 
 assured me, the work had been jealously preserved. 
 
 He came punctually, beautiful, smiling, shabby, as be- 
 fore. After a ten minutes' walk we stopped before a gaudy 
 half-palazzo which rejoiced in a vague Palladian air. In the 
 basement, looking on the court, lived my friend; with his 
 mother, he informed me, i.ad his sister. He ushered me in, 
 through a dark antechamber, into which, through a gaping 
 kitchen door, there gushed a sudden aroma of onions. I 
 found myself In a high, half-darkened saloon. One of the 
 windows was open into the court, from which the light en- 
 tered verdantly through a row of flowering plants. In an 
 armchair near the window sat a young girl in a dressing- 
 gown, empty-handed, pale, with wonderful eyes, apparently 
 an invalid. At her side stood a large elderly woman in a 
 rusty black silk gown, with an agreeable face, flushed a little, 
 apparently with the expectation of seeing me. The young 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 17 
 
 man introduced them as his mother and his sister. On a 
 table near the window, propped upright in such a way as 
 to catch the light, was a small picture in a heavy frame. 
 I proceeded to examine it. It represented in simple compo- 
 sition a Madonna and Child; the mother facing you, press- 
 ing the infant to her bosom, faintly smiling, and looking 
 out of the picture with a solemn sweetness. It was pretty, 
 it was good; but it was not Correggio. There was indeed 
 a certain suggestion of his exquisite touch; but it was a 
 likeness merely, and not the precious reality. One fact, 
 however, struck swiftly home to my consciousness: the face 
 of the Madonna bore a singular resemblance to that of Miss 
 Evans. The lines, the character, the expression, were the 
 same ; the faint half- thoughtful smile was hers, the feminine 
 frankness and gentle confidence of the brow, from which 
 the dark hair waved back with the same even abundance. 
 All this, in the Madonna's face, was meant for heaven ; and 
 on Miss Evans's in a fair degree, probably, for earth. But 
 the mutual likeness was, nevertheless, perfect, and it quick- 
 ened my interest in the picture to a point which the intrin- 
 sic merit of the work would doubtless have failed to justify; 
 although I confess that I was now not slow to discover a 
 great deal of agreeable painting in it. 
 
 "But I doubt of its being a Correggio," said I. 
 
 "A Correggio, I give you my word of honor, sir!" cried 
 my young man. 
 
 "Ecco! my son's word of honor," cried his mother. 
 
 "I don't deny," I said, "that it is a very pretty work. It 
 is perhaps Parmigianino." 
 
 "O no, sir," the elder insisted, "a true Correggio! We 
 have had it two hundred years! Try another light; you 
 will see. A true Correggio! Isn't it so, my daughter?" 
 
 The young man put his arm in mine, played his fingers 
 airily over the picture, and whispered of a dozen beauties. 
 
 "O, I grant you," said I, "it's a very pretty picture." As 
 I looked at it I felt the dark eyes of the young girl in the 
 arm-chair fixed upon me with almost unpleasant intensity. 
 I met her gaze for a moment: I found in it a strange union 
 of defiant pride and sad despondent urgency. 
 
1 8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "What do you ask for the picture?" I said. 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 "Speak, madre mia," said the young man. 
 
 "La sent a I" and the lady played with her broken fan. 
 "We should like you to name a price." 
 
 "O, if I named a price, it would not be as for a Correg- 
 gio. I can't afford to buy Correggios. If this were a real 
 Correggio, you would be rich. You should go to a duke, 
 a prince, not to me." 
 
 "We would be rich! Do you hear, my children? We 
 are very poor, sir. You have only to look at us. Look at 
 my poor daughter. She was once beautiful, fresh, gay. A 
 year ago she fell ill: a long story, sir, and a sad one. We 
 have had doctors; they have ordered five thousand things. 
 My daughter gets no better. There it is, sir. We are very 
 poor." 
 
 The young girl's look confirmed her mother's story. 
 That she had been beautiful I could easily believe; that 
 she was ill was equally apparent. She was still remarkable 
 indeed for a touching, hungry, unsatisfied grace. She re- 
 mained silent and motionless, with her eyes fastened upon 
 my face. I again examined the pretended Correggio. It 
 was wonderfully like Miss Evans. The young American 
 rose up in my mind with irresistible vividness and grace. 
 How she seemed to glow with strength, freedom, and joy, 
 beside this sombre, fading, Southern sister! It was a 
 happy thought that, under the benediction of her image, I 
 might cause a ray of healing sunshine to fall at this poor 
 girl's feet. 
 
 "Have you ever tried to sell the picture before?" 
 
 "Never!" said the old lady, proudly. "My husband had 
 it from his father. If we have made up our minds to part 
 with it now, most blessed little Madonna! it is because 
 we have had an intimation from heaven." 
 
 "From heaven?" 
 
 "From heaven, Signore. My daughter had a dream. 
 She dreamed that a young stranger came to Vicenza, and 
 that he wandered about the streets saying, 'Where, ah 
 where, is my blessed Lady?' Some told him in one church, 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 19 
 
 and some told him in another. He went into all the 
 churches and lifted all the curtains, giving great fees to the 
 sacristans! But he always came out shaking his head and 
 repeating his question, 'Where is my blessed Lady? I have 
 come from over the sea, I have come to Italy to find her!' " 
 The woman delivered herself of this recital with a noble 
 florid unction and a vast redundancy, to my Northern ear, 
 of delightful liquid sounds. As she paused momentarily, 
 her daughter spoke for the first time. 
 
 "And then I fancied," said the young girl, "that I heard 
 his voice pausing under my window at night. 'His blessed 
 Lady is here,' I said, 'we must not let him lose her.' So I 
 called my brother and bade him go forth in search of you. 
 I dreamed that he brought you back. We made an altar 
 with candles and lace and flowers, and on it we placed the 
 little picture. The stranger had light hair, light eyes, a 
 flowing beard like you. He kneeled down before the little 
 Madonna and worshipped her. We left him at his devo- 
 tions and went away. When we came back the candles on 
 the altar were out: the Madonna was gone, too; but in its 
 place there burned a bright pure light. It was a purse of 
 gold!" 
 
 "What a very pretty story!" said I. "How many pieces 
 were there in the purse?" 
 
 The young man burst into a laugh. "Twenty thousand!" 
 he said. 
 
 I made my offer for the picture. It was esteemed gen- 
 erous apparently; I was cordially thanked. As it was in- 
 convenient, however, to take possession of the work at that 
 moment, I agreed to pay down but half the sum, reserving 
 the other half to the time of delivery. When I prepared to 
 take my departure the young girl rose from her chair and 
 enabled me to measure at once her weakness and her 
 beauty. "Will you come back for the picture yourself?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Possibly. I should like to see you again. You must 
 get better." 
 
 "O, I shall never get better." 
 
20 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "I can't believe that. I shall perhaps have a dream to 
 tell you!" 
 
 "I shall soon be in heaven. I shall send you one." 
 
 "Listen to her!" cried the mother. "But she is already 
 an angel." 
 
 With a farewell glance at my pictured Madonna I de- 
 parted. My visit to this little Vicenza household had filled 
 me with a painful, indefinable sadness. So beautiful they 
 all were, so civil, so charming, and yet so mendacious and 
 miserable! As I hurried along in the train toward the 
 briny cincture of Venice, my heart was heavy with the 
 image of that sombre, dying Italian maiden. Her face 
 haunted me. What fatal wrong had she suffered? What 
 hidden sorrow had blasted the freshness of her youth? As 
 I began to smell the nearing Adriatic, my fancy bounded 
 forward to claim asylum in the calmer presence of my 
 bright American friend. I have no space to tell the story 
 of my arrival in Venice and my first impressions. Mr. 
 Evans had not mentioned his hotel. He was not at the 
 Hotel de 1'Europe, whither I myself repaired. If he was 
 still in Venice, however, I foresaw that we should not fail 
 to meet. The day succeeding my arrival I spent in a rest- 
 less fever of curiosity and delight, now lost in the sensuous 
 ease of my gondola, now lingering in charmed devotion be- 
 fore a canvas of Tintoretto or Paul Veronese. I exhausted 
 three gondoliers and saw all Venice in a passionate fury and 
 haste. I wished to probe its fulness and learn at once the 
 best or the worst. Late in the afternoon I disembarked 
 at the Piazzetta and took my way haltingly and gazingly 
 to the many-domed Basilica, that shell of silver with a 
 lining of marble. It was that enchanting Venetian hour 
 when the ocean-touching sun sits melting to death, and the 
 whole still air seems to glow with the soft effusion of his 
 golden substance. Within the church, the deep brown 
 shadow-masses, the heavy thick-tinted air, the gorgeous 
 composite darkness, reigned in richer, quainter, more fan- 
 tastic gloom than my feeble pen can reproduce the like- 
 ness of. From those rude concavities of dome and semi- 
 dome, where the multitudinous facets of pictorial mosaic 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 21 
 
 shimmer and twinkle in their own dull brightness; from the 
 vast antiquity of innumerable marbles, incrusting the walls 
 in roughly mated slabs, cracked and polished and triple- 
 tinted with eternal service; from the wavy carpet of com- 
 pacted stone, where a thousand once-lighted fragments 
 glimmer through the long attrition of idle feet and devoted 
 knees; from sombre gold and mellow alabaster, from por- 
 phyry and malachite, from long dead crystal and the 
 sparkle of undying lamps, there proceeds a dense rich 
 atmosphere of splendor and sanctity which transports the 
 half-stupefied traveller to the age of a simpler and more 
 awful faith. I wandered for half an hour beneath those 
 reverted cups of scintillating darkness, stumbling on the 
 great stony swells of the pavement as I gazed upward at 
 the long mosaic saints who curve gigantically with the 
 curves of dome and ceiling. I had left Europe; I was in the 
 East. An overwhelming sense of the sadness of man's 
 spiritual history took possession of my heart. The cluster- 
 ing picturesque shadows about me seemed to represent the 
 darkness of a past from which he had slowly and painfully 
 struggled. The great mosaic images, hideous, grotesque, 
 inhuman, glimmered like the cruel spectres of early super- 
 stitions and terrors. There came over me, too, a poignant 
 conviction of the ludicrous folly of the idle spirit of travel. 
 How with Murray and an opera-glass it strolls and stares 
 where omniscient angels stand diffident and sad! How 
 blunted and stupid are its senses! How trivial and super- 
 ficial its imaginings! To this builded sepulchre of trem- 
 bling hope and dread, this monument of mighty passions, I 
 had wandered in search of pictorial effects. O vulgarity! 
 Of course I remained, nevertheless, still curious of effects. 
 Suddenly I perceived a very agreeable one. Kneeling on a 
 low prie-dieu, with her hands clasped, a lady was gazing 
 upward at the great mosaic Christ in the dome of the choir. 
 She wore a black lace shawl and a purple hat. She was 
 Miss Evans. Her attitude slightly puzzled me. Was she 
 really at her devotions, or was she only playing at prayer? 
 I walked to a distance, so that she might have time to 
 move before I addressed her. Five minutes afterwards, 
 
22 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 however, she was in the same position. I walked slowly to- 
 wards her, and as I approached her attracted her attention. 
 She immediately recognized me and smiled and bowed, 
 without moving from her place. 
 
 "I saw you five minutes ago," I said, "but I was afraid 
 of interrupting your prayers." 
 
 "O, they were only half-prayers," she said. 
 
 "Half-prayers are pretty well for one who only the other 
 day was thanking Heaven that she was not a Catholic." 
 
 "Half-prayers are no prayers. I'm not a Catholic yet." 
 
 Her father, she told me, had brought her to the church, 
 but had returned on foot to the hotel for his pocket-book. 
 They were to dine at one of the restaurants in the Piazza,. 
 Mr. Evans was vastly contented with Venice, and spent his 
 days and nights in gondolas. Awaiting his return, we 
 wandered over the church. Yes, incontestably, Miss Evans 
 resembled my little Vicenza picture. She looked a little 
 pale with the heat and the constant nervous tension of 
 sight-seeing; but she pleased me now as effectually as she 
 had pleased me before. There was an even deeper sweetness 
 in the freedom and breadth of her utterance and carriage. I 
 felt more even than before that she was an example of 
 woman active, not of woman passive. We strolled through 
 the great Basilica in serious, charmed silence. Miss Evans 
 told me that she had been there much: she seemed to know 
 it well. We went into the dark Baptistery and sat down on 
 a bench against the wall, trying to discriminate in the 
 vaulted dimness the harsh medieval reliefs behind the altar 
 and the mosaic Crucifixion above it. 
 
 "Well," said I, "what has Venice done for you?" 
 
 "Many things. Tired me a little, saddened me, charmed 
 me." 
 
 "How have you spent your time?" 
 
 "As people spend it. After breakfast we get into our 
 gondola and remain in it pretty well till bedtime. I be- 
 lieve I know every canal, every canaletto, in Venice. You 
 must have learned already how sweet it is to lean back! 
 under the awning to feel beneath you that steady, liquid 
 lapse, to look out at all this bright, sad elegance of ruin. I 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 23 
 
 have been reading two or three of George Sand's novels. Do 
 you know La Derniere Aldini? I fancy a romance in every 
 palace." 
 
 "The reality of Venice seems to me to exceed all romance. 
 It's romance enough simply to be here." 
 
 "Yes; but how brief and transient a romance!" 
 
 "Well," said I, "we shall certainly cease to be here, but 
 we shall never cease to have been here. You are not to 
 leave directly, I hope." 
 
 "In the course of ten days or a fortnight we go to Flor- 
 ence." 
 
 "And then to Rome?" 
 
 "To Rome and Naples, and then by sea, probably, to 
 Genoa, and thence to Nice and Paris. We must be at 
 home by the new year. And you?" 
 
 "I hope to spend the winter in Italy." 
 
 "Are you never coming home again?" 
 
 "By no means. I shall probably return in the spring. 
 But I wish you, too, were going to remain." 
 
 "You are very good. My father pronounces it impossible. 
 I have only to make the most of it while I'm here." 
 
 "Are you going back to Araminta?" 
 
 Miss Evans was silent a moment. "0, don't ask!" she 
 said. 
 
 "What kind of a place is Araminta?" I asked, maliciously. 
 
 Again she was silent. "That is John the Baptist on the 
 cover of the basin," she said, at last, rising to her feet, with 
 a light laugh. 
 
 On emerging from the Baptistery we found Mr. Evans, 
 who greeted me cordially and insisted on my coming to 
 dine with them. I think most fondly of our little dinner. 
 We went to the Caffe Quadri and occupied a table beside 
 an open window, looking out into the Piazza, which was be- 
 ginning to fill with evening loungers and listeners to the 
 great band of music in the centre. Miss Evans took off her 
 hat and sat facing me in friendly silence. Her father sus- 
 tained the larger burden of conversation. He seemed to 
 feel its weight, however, as the dinner proceeded and when 
 he had attacked his second bottle of wine. Miss Evans 
 
24 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 then questioned me about my journey from Milan. I told 
 her the whole story, and felt that I infused into it a great 
 deal of color and heat. She sat charming me forward with 
 her steady, listening smile. For the first time in my Hie 
 I felt the magic of sympathy. After dinner we went down 
 into the Piazza and established ourselves at one of Florian's 
 tables. Night had become perfect; the music was mag- 
 nificent. At a neighboring table was a group of young Ve- 
 netian gentlemen, splendid in dress, after the manner of 
 their kind, and glorious with the wondrous physical glory 
 of the Italian race. 
 
 "They only need velvet and satin and plumes," I said, 
 "to be subjects for Titian and Paul Veronese." 
 
 They sat rolling their dark eyes and kissing their white 
 hands at passing friends, with smiles that were like the 
 moon-flashes on the Adriatic. 
 
 "They are beautiful exceedingly," said Miss Evans; "the 
 most beautiful creatures in the world, except " 
 
 "Except, you mean, this other gentleman." 
 
 She assented. The person of whom I had spoken was a 
 young man who was just preparing to seat himself at a 
 vacant table. A lady and gentleman, elderly persons, had 
 passed near him and recognized him, and he had uncov- 
 ered himself and now stood smiling and talking. They were 
 all genuine Anglo-Saxons. The young man was rather 
 short of stature, but firm and compact. His hair was light 
 and crisp, his eye a clear blue, his face and neck violently 
 tanned by exposure to the sun. He wore a pair of small 
 blond whiskers. 
 
 "Do you call him beautiful?" demanded Mr. Evans. 
 "He reminds me of myself when I was his age. Indeed, he 
 looks like you, sir." 
 
 "He's not beautiful," said Miss Evans, "but he is hand- 
 some." 
 
 The young man's face was full of decision and spirit; 
 his whole figure had been moulded by action, tempered by 
 effort. He looked simple and keen, upright, downright. 
 
 "Is he English?" asked Miss Evans, "or American?" 
 
 "He is both," I said, "or either. He is made of that pre- 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 25 
 
 cious clay that is common to the whole English-speaking 
 race." 
 
 "He's American." 
 
 "Very possibly," said I; and indeed we never learned. I 
 repeat the incident because I think it has a certain value in 
 my recital. Before we separated I expressed the hope that 
 we might meet again on the morrow. 
 
 "It's very kind of you to propose it," said Miss Evans; 
 "but you'll thank us for refusing. Take my advice, as for 
 an old Venetian, and spend the coming three days alone. 
 How can you enjoy Tintoretto and Bellini, when you are 
 racking your brains for small talk for me?" 
 
 "With you, Miss Evans, I shouldn't talk small. But you 
 shape my programme with a liberal hand. At the end of 
 three days, pray, where will you be?" 
 
 They would still be in Venice, Mr. Evans declared. It 
 was a capital hotel, and then those jolly gondolas! I was 
 unable to impeach the wisdom of the young girl's proposi- 
 tion. To be so wise, it seemed to me, was to be extremely 
 charming. 
 
 For three days, accordingly, I wandered about alone. I 
 often thought of Miss Evans and I often fancied I should 
 enjoy certain great pictures none the less for that deep as- 
 sociated contemplation and those fine emanations of assent 
 and dissent which I should have known in her society. I 
 wandered far; I penetrated deep, it seemed to me, into the 
 heart of Venetian power. I shook myself free of the sad 
 and sordid present, and embarked on that silent contempla- 
 tive sea whose irresistible tides expire at the base of the 
 mighty canvases in the Scuola di San Rocco. But on my 
 return to the hither shore, I always found my sweet young 
 countrywoman waiting to receive me. If Miss Evans had 
 been an immense coquette, she could not have proceeded 
 more cunningly than by this injunction of a three days' 
 absence. During this period, in my imagination, she in- 
 creased tenfold in value. I don't mean to say that there 
 were not hours together when I quite forgot her, and when 
 I had no heart but for Venice and the lessons of Venice, 
 for the sea and sky and the great painters and builders. 
 
26 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 But when my mind had executed one of these great pas- 
 sages of appreciation, it turned with a sudden sense of 
 solitude and lassitude to those gentle hopes, those fragrant 
 hints of intimacy, which clustered about the person of my 
 friend. She remained modestly uneclipsed by the women of 
 Titian. She was as deeply a woman as they, and yet so 
 much more of a person; as fit as the broadest and blond- 
 est to be loved for herself, yet full of serene superiority as 
 an active friend. To the old, old sentiment what an ex- 
 quisite modern turn she might give! I so far overruled 
 her advice as that, with her father, we made a trio every 
 evening, after the day's labors, at one of Florian's tables. 
 Mr. Evans drank absinthe and discoursed upon the glories 
 of our common country, of which he declared it was high 
 time I should make the acquaintance. He was not the 
 least of a bore: I relished him vastly. He was in many 
 ways an excellent representative American. Without taste, 
 without culture or polish, he nevertheless produced an im- 
 pression of substance in character, keenness in perception, 
 and intensity in will, which effectually redeemed him from 
 vulgarity. It often seemed to me, in fact, that his good- 
 humored tolerance and easy morality, his rank self-confi- 
 dence, his nervous decision and vivacity, his fearlessness of 
 either gods or men, combined in proportions of which the 
 union might have been very fairly termed aristocratic. His 
 voice, I admit, was of the nose, nasal; but possibly, in the 
 matter of utterance, one eccentricity is as good as another. 
 At all events, with his clear, cold gray eye, with that just 
 faintly impudent, more than level poise of his ample chin, 
 with those two hard lines which flanked the bristling wings 
 of his gray moustache, with his general expression of un- 
 challenged security and practical aptitude and incurious 
 scorn of tradition, he impressed the sensitive beholder as a 
 man of incontestable force. He was entertaining, too, partly 
 by wit and partly by position. He was weak only in his 
 love of absinthe. After his first glass he left his chair and 
 strolled about the piazza, looking for possible friends and 
 superbly unconscious of possible enemies. His daughter sat 
 back in her chair, her arms folded, her ungloved hands 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 27 
 
 sustaining them, her prettiness half defined, her voice en- 
 hanced and subdued by the gas-tempered starlight. We had 
 infinite talk. Without question, she had an admirable femi- 
 nine taste: she was worthy to know Venice. I remember 
 telling her so in a sudden explosion of homage. "You are 
 really worthy to know Venice, Miss Evans. We must learn 
 to know it together. Who knows what hidden treasures we 
 may help each other to find?" 
 
 n 
 
 At the end of my three days' probation, I spent a week 
 constantly with my friends. Our mornings were, of 
 course, devoted to churches and galleries, and in the late 
 afternoon we passed and repassed along the Grand Canal 
 or betook ourselves to the Lido. By this time Miss Evans 
 and I had become thoroughly intimate; we had learned to 
 know Venice together, and the knowledge had helped us to 
 know each other. In my own mind, Charlotte Evans and 
 Venice had played the game most effectively into each 
 other's hands. If my fancy had been called upon to paint 
 her portrait, my fancy would have sketched her with a back- 
 ground of sunset-flushed palace wall, with a faint reflected 
 light from the green lagoon playing up into her face. And 
 if I had wished to sketch a Venetian scene, I should have 
 painted it from an open window, with a woman leaning 
 against the casement, as I had often seen her lean from a 
 window in her hotel. At the end of a week we went one 
 afternoon to the Lido, timing our departure so as to allow us 
 to return at sunset. We went over in silence, Mr. Evans 
 sitting with reverted head, blowing his cigar-smoke against 
 the dazzling sky, which told so fiercely of sea and summer; 
 his daughter motionless and thickly veiled; I facing them, 
 feeling the broken swerve of our gondola, and watching Ven- 
 ice grow level and rosy beyond the liquid interval. .Near 
 the landing-place on the hither side of the Lido is a small 
 trattoria for the refreshment of visitors. An arbor outside 
 the door, a horizontal vine checkering still further a dirty 
 
28 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 table-cloth, a pungent odor of jrittata, an admiring circle of 
 gondoliers and beggars, are the chief attractions of this 
 suburban house of entertainment, attractions sufficient, 
 however, to have arrested the inquisitive steps of an elderly 
 American gentleman, in whom Mr. Evans speedily recog- 
 nized a friend of early years, a comrade in affairs. A hearty 
 greeting ensued. This worthy man had ordered dinner: he 
 besought Mr. Evans at least to sit down and partake of a 
 bottle of wine. My friend vacillated between his duties as 
 a father and the prospect of a rich old-boyish revival of the 
 delectable interests of home ; but his daughter graciously 
 came to his assistance. "Sit down with Mr. Munson, talk 
 till you are tired, and then walk over to the beach and find 
 us. We shall not wander beyond call." 
 
 She and I accordingly started slowly for a stroll along 
 the barren strand which averts its shining side from Venice 
 and takes the tides of the Adriatic. The Lido has for me 
 a peculiar melancholy charm, and I have often wondered 
 that I should have felt the presence of beauty in a spot so 
 destitute of any exceptional elements of beauty. For beyond 
 the fact that it knows the changing moods and hues of the 
 Adriatic, this narrow strip of sand-stifled verdure has no 
 very rare distinction. In my own country I know many a 
 sandy beach, and many a stunted copse, and many a tremu- 
 lous ocean line of little less purity and breadth of compo- 
 sition, with far less magical interest. The secret of the 
 Lido is simply your sense of adjacent Venice. It is the 
 salt-sown garden of the city of the sea. Hither came 
 short-paced Venetians for a meagre taste of terra firma, or 
 for a wider glimpse of their parent ocean. Along a narrow 
 line in the middle of the island are market-gardens and 
 breeze-twisted orchards, and a hint of hedges and lanes and 
 inland greenery. At one end is a series of low fortifications 
 duly embanked and moated and sentinelled. Still beyond 
 these, half over-drifted with sand and over-clambered with 
 rank grasses and coarse thick shrubbery, are certain quaintly 
 lettered funereal slabs, tombs of former Jews of Venice. To- 
 ward these we slowly wandered and sat down in the grass. 
 Between the sand-heaps, which shut out the beach, we saw 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 29 
 
 in a dozen places the blue agitation of the sea. Over all 
 the scene there brooded the deep bright sadness of early 
 autumn. I lay at my companion's feet and wondered 
 whether I was in love. It seemed to me that I had never 
 been so happy in my life. They say, I know, that to be in 
 love is not pure happiness; that in the mood of the uncon- 
 fessed, unaccepted lover there is an element of poignant 
 doubt and pain. Should I at once confess myself and taste 
 of the perfection of bliss? It seemed to me that I cared 
 very little for the meaning of her reply. I only wanted to 
 talk of love; I wanted in some manner to enjoy in that at- 
 mosphere of romance the woman who was so blessedly fair 
 and wise. It seemed to me that all the agitation of fancy, 
 the excited sense of beauty, the fervor and joy and sadness 
 begotten by my Italian wanderings, had suddenly resolved 
 themselves into a potent demand for expression. Miss 
 Evans was sitting on one of the Hebrew tombs, her chin on 
 her hand, her elbow on her knee, watching the broken 
 horizon. I was stretched on the grass on my side, leaning 
 on my elbow and on my hand, with my eyes on her face. 
 She bent her own eyes and encountered mine; we neither 
 of us spoke or moved, but exchanged a long steady regard; 
 after which her eyes returned to the distance. What was her 
 feeling toward me? Had she any sense of my emotion or 
 of any answering trouble in her own wonderful heart? 
 Suppose she should deny me: should I suffer, would I 
 persist? At any rate, I should have struck a blow for love. 
 Suppose she were to accept me; would my joy be any 
 greater than in the mere translation of my heart-beats? Did 
 I in truth long merely for a bliss which should be of that 
 hour and that hour alone? I ws.s conscious of an immense 
 respect for the woman beside me. I was unconscious of 
 the least desire even to touch the hem of her garment as it 
 lay on the grass, touching my own. After all, it was but 
 ten days that I had known her. How little I really knew of 
 her! how little else than her beauty and her wit! How 
 little she knew of me, of my vast outlying, unsentimental, 
 spiritual self! We knew hardly more of each other than 
 had appeared in this narrow circle of our common impres- 
 
30 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 sions of Venice. And yet if into such a circle Love had 
 forced his way, let him take his way! Let him widen the 
 circle! Transcendent Venice! I rose to my feet with a 
 violent movement, and walked ten steps away. I came back 
 and flung myself again on the grass. 
 
 "The other day at Vicenza," I said, "I bought a picture." 
 
 "Ah?" An 'original'?" 
 
 "No, a copy." 
 
 "From whom?" 
 
 "From you!" 
 
 She blushed. "What do you mean?" 
 
 "It was a little pretended Correggio; a Madonna and 
 Child." 
 
 "Is it good?" 
 
 "No, it's rather poor." 
 
 "Why, then, did you buy it?" 
 
 "Because the Madonna looked singularly like you." 
 
 "I'm sorry, Mr. Brooke, you hadn't a better reason. I 
 hope the picture was cheap." 
 
 "It was quite reason enough. I admire you more than 
 any woman in the world." 
 
 She looked at me a moment, blushing again. "You don't 
 know me." 
 
 "I have a suspicion of you. It's ground enough for ad- 
 miration." 
 
 "O, don't talk about admiration. I'm tired of it all be- 
 forehand." 
 
 "Well, then," said I, "I'm in love." 
 
 "Not with me, I hope." 
 
 "With you, of course. With whom else?" 
 
 "Has it only just now occurred to you?" 
 
 "It has just occurred to me to say it." 
 
 Her blush had deepened a little; but a genuine smile 
 came to its relief. "Poor Mr. Brooke!" she said. 
 
 "Poor Mr. Brooke indeed, if you take it in that way." 
 
 "You must forgive me if I doubt of your love." 
 
 "Why should you doubt?" 
 
 "Love, I fancy, doesn't come in just this way." 
 
 "It comes as it can. This is surely a very good way." 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 31 
 
 "I know it's a very pretty way, Mr. Brooke; Venice be- 
 hind us, the Adriatic before us, these old Hebrew tombs! 
 Its very prettiness makes me distrust it." 
 
 "Do you believe only in the love that is born in darkness 
 and pain? Poor love! it has trouble enough, first and last. 
 Allow it a little ease." 
 
 "Listen," said Miss Evans, after a pause. "It's not with 
 me you're in love, but with that painted picture. All this 
 Italian beauty and delight has thrown you into a romantic 
 state of mind. You wish to make it perfect. I happen to 
 be at hand, so you say, 'Go to, I'll fall in love.' And you 
 fancy me, for the purpose, a dozen fine things that I'm not." 
 
 "I fancy you beautiful and good. I'm sorry to find you 
 so dogmatic." 
 
 "You mustn't abuse me, or we shall be getting serious." 
 
 "Well," said I, "you can't prevent me from adoring you." 
 
 "I should be very sorry to. So long as you 'adore' me, 
 we're safe! I can tell you better things than that I'm in 
 love with you." 
 
 I looked at her impatiently. "For instance?" 
 
 She held out her hand. "I like you immensely. As for 
 love, I'm in love with Venice." 
 
 "Well, I like Venice immensely, but I'm in love with 
 you." 
 
 "In that way I am willing to leave it. Pray don't speak 
 of it again to-day. But my poor father is probably wander- 
 ing up to his knees in the sand." 
 
 I had been happy before, but I think I was still happier 
 for the words I had spoken. I had cast them abroad at all 
 events; my heart was richer by a sense of their possible 
 fruition. We walked far along the beach. Mr. Evans was 
 still with his friend. 
 
 "What is beyond that horizon?" said my companion. 
 
 "Greece, among other things." 
 
 "Greece! only think of it! Shall you never go there?" 
 
 I stopped short. "If you will believe what I say, Miss 
 Evans, we may both go there." But for all answer she 
 repeated her request that I should forbear. Before long, 
 retracing our steps, we met Mr. Evans, who had parted with 
 
32 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 his friend, the latter having returned to Venice. He had 
 arranged to start the next morning for Milan. We went 
 back over the lagoon in the glow of the sunset, in a golden 
 silence which suffered us to hear the far-off ripple in the 
 wake of other gondolas, a golden clearness so perfect that 
 the rosy flush on the marble palaces seemed as light and 
 pure as the life-blood on the forehead of a sleeping child. 
 There is no Venice like the Venice of that magical hour. 
 For that brief period her ancient glory returns. The sky 
 arches over her like a vast imperial canopy crowded with its 
 clustering mysteries of light. Her whole aspect is one of 
 unspotted splendor. No other city takes the crimson evan- 
 escence of day with such magnificent effect. The lagoon is 
 sheeted with a carpet of fire. All torpid, pallid hues of 
 marble are transmuted to a golden glow. The dead Vene- 
 tian tone brightens and quickens into life and lustre, and 
 the spectator's enchanted vision seems to rest on an em- 
 bodied dream of the great painter who wrought his immortal 
 reveries into the ceilings of the Ducal Palace. 
 
 It was not till the second day after this that I again saw 
 Miss Evans. I went to the little church of San Cas- 
 siano, to see a famous Tintoretto, to which I had already 
 made several vain attempts to obtain access. At the door in 
 the little bustling campo which adjoins the church I found 
 her standing expectant. A little boy, she told me, had gone 
 for the sacristan and his key. Her father, she proceeded to 
 explain, had suddenly been summoned to Milan by a tele- 
 gram from Mr. Munson, the friend whom he had met at the 
 Lido, who had suddenly been taken ill. 
 
 "And so you're going about alone? Do you think that's 
 altogether proper? Why didn't you send for me?" I stood 
 lost in wonder and admiration at the exquisite dignity of 
 her self-support. I had heard of American girls doing such 
 things; but I had yet to see them done. 
 
 "Do you think it less proper for me to go about alone 
 than to send for you? Venice has seen so many worse im- 
 proprieties that she'll forgive me mine." 
 
 The little boy arrived with the sacristan and his key, and 
 we were ushered into the presence of Tintoretto's Cruci- 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 33 
 
 fixion. This great picture is one of the greatest of the 
 Venetian school. Tintoretto, the travelled reader will re- 
 member, has painted two masterpieces on this tremendous 
 theme. The larger and more complex work is at the Scuo- 
 la di San Rocco; the one of which I speak is small, simple, 
 and sublime. It occupies the left side of the narrow choir 
 of the shabby little church which we had entered, and is 
 remarkable as being, with two or three exceptions, the best 
 preserved work of its incomparable author. Never, in the 
 whole range of art, I imagine, has so powerful an effect been 
 produced by means so simple and select; never has the in- 
 telligent choice of means to an effect been pursued with such 
 a refinement of perception. The picture offers to our sight 
 the very central essence of the great tragedy which it de- 
 picts. There is no swooning Madonna, no consoling Mag- 
 dalen, no mockery of contrast, no cruelty of an assembled 
 host. We behold the silent summit of Calvary. To the 
 right are the three crosses, that of the Saviour foremost. A 
 ladder pitched against it supports a turbaned executioner, 
 who bends downward to receive the sponge offered him by 
 a comrade. Above the crest of the hill the helmets and 
 spears of a line of soldiery complete the grimness of the 
 scene. The reality of the picture is beyond all words; it 
 is hard to say which is more impressive, the naked horror 
 of the fact represented, or the sensible power of the artist. 
 You breathe a silent prayer of thanks that you, for your 
 part, are without the terrible clairvoyance of genius. We 
 sat and looked at the picture in silence. The sacristan 
 loitered about; but finally, weary of waiting, he retired to 
 the campo without. I observed my companion: pale, mo- 
 tionless, oppressed, she evidently felt with poignant sym- 
 pathy the commanding force of the work. At last I spoke 
 to her; receiving no answer, I repeated my question. She 
 rose to her feet and turned her face upon me, illumined 
 with a vivid ecstasy of pity. Then passing me rapidly, she 
 descended into the aisle of the church, dropped into a chair, 
 and, burying her face in her hands, burst into an agony of 
 sobs. Having allowed time for her feeling to expend itself, 
 I went to her and recommended her not to let the day close 
 
34 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 on this painful emotion. "Come with me to the Ducal 
 Palace," I said; "let us look at the Rape of Europa." But 
 before departing we went back to our Tintoretto, and gave 
 it another solemn half-hour. Miss Evans repeated aloud 
 a dozen verses from St. Mark's Gospel. 
 
 "What is it here," I asked, "that has moved you most, 
 the painter or the subject?" 
 
 "I suppose it's the subject. And you?" 
 
 "I'm afraid it's the painter." 
 
 We went to the Ducal Palace, and immediately made our 
 way to that transcendent shrine of light and grace, the 
 room which contains the masterpiece of Paul Veronese, and 
 the Bacchus and Ariadne of his solemn comrade. I steeped 
 myself with unprotesting joy in the gorgeous glow and salu- 
 brity of that radiant scene, wherein, against her bosky 
 screen of immortal verdure, the rosy-footed, pearl-circled, 
 nymph-flattered victim of a divine delusion rustles her lus- 
 trous satin against the ambrosial hide of bovine Jove. "It 
 makes one think more agreeably of life," I said to my friend, 
 "that such visions have blessed the eyes of men of mortal 
 mould. What has been may be again. We may yet dream 
 as brightly, and some few of us translate our dreams as 
 freely." 
 
 "This, I think, is the brighter dream of the two," she an- 
 swered, indicating the Bacchus and Ariadne. Miss Evans, 
 on the whole, was perhaps right. In Tintoretto's picture 
 there is no shimmer of drapery, no splendor of flowers and 
 gems; nothing but the broad, bright glory of deep-toned sea 
 and sky, and the shining purity and symmetry of deified 
 human flesh. "What do you think," asked my companion, 
 "of the painter of that tragedy at San Cassiano being also 
 the painter of this dazzling idyl; of the great painter of 
 darkness being also the great painter of light?" 
 
 "He was a colorist! Let us thank the great man, and be 
 colorists too. To understand this Bacchus and Ariadne we 
 ought to spend a long day on the lagoon, beyond sight of 
 Venice. Will you come to-morrow to Torcello?" The 
 proposition seemed to me audacious; I was conscious of 
 blushing a little as I made it. Miss Evans looked at me 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 35 
 
 and pondered. She then replied with great calmness that 
 she preferred to wait for her father, the excursion being 
 one that he would probably enjoy. "Will you come, then, 
 somewhere?" I asked. 
 
 Again she pondered. Suddenly her face brightened. "I 
 should very much like to go to Padua. It would bore my 
 poor father to go. I fancy he would thank you for taking 
 me. I should be almost willing," she said with a smile, "to 
 go alone." 
 
 It was easily arranged that on the morrow we should go 
 for the day to Padua. Miss Evans was certainly an Ameri- 
 can to perfection. Nothing remained for me, as the good 
 American which I aspired to be, but implicitly to respect 
 her confidence. To Padua, by an early train, we accord- 
 ingly went. The day stands out in my memory delightfully 
 curious and rich. Padua is a wonderful little city. Miss 
 Evans was an excellent walker, and, thanks to the broad 
 arcades which cover the footways in the streets, we rambled 
 for hours in perpetual shade. We spent an hour at the 
 famous church of St. Anthony, which boasts one of the 
 richest and holiest shrines in all church-burdened Italy. 
 The whole edifice is nobly and darkly ornate and pictu- 
 resque, but the chapel of its patron saint a wondrous 
 combination of chiselled gold and silver and alabaster and 
 perpetual flame splendidly outshines and outshadows the 
 rest. In all Italy, I think, the idea of palpable, material 
 sanctity is nowhere more potently enforced. 
 
 "O the Church, the Church!" murmured Miss Evans, as 
 we stood contemplating. 
 
 "What a real pity," I said, "that we are not Catholics; 
 that that dazzling monument is not something more to us 
 than a mere splendid show! What a different thing this 
 visiting of churches would be for us, if we occasionally felt 
 the prompting to fall on our knees. I begin to grow 
 ashamed of this perpetual attitude of bald curiosity. What 
 a pleasant thing it must be, in such a church as this, for 
 two good friends to say their prayers together!" 
 
 "Ecco!" said Miss Evans. Two persons had ap- 
 proached the glittering shrine, a young woman of the 
 
3 6 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 middle class and a man of her own rank, some ten years 
 older, dressed with a good deal of cheap elegance. The 
 woman dropped on her knees; her companion fell back a 
 few steps, and stood gazing idly at the chapel. "Poor 
 girl!" said my friend, "she believes; he doubts." 
 
 "He doesn't look like a doubter. He's a vulgar fellow. 
 They're a betrothed pair, I imagine. She is very pretty." 
 She had turned round and flung at her companion a liquid 
 glance of entreaty. He appeared not to observe it; but in 
 a few moments he slowly approached her, and bent a single 
 knee at her side. When presently they rose to their feet, 
 she passed her arm into his with a beautiful, unsuppressed 
 lovingness. As they passed us, looking at us from the clear 
 darkness of their Italian brows, I keenly envied them. 
 "They are better off than we," I said. "Be they husband 
 and wife, or lovers, or simply friends, we, I think, are 
 rather vulgar beside them." 
 
 "My dear Mr. Brooke," said Miss Evans, "go by all 
 means and say your prayers." And she walked away to 
 the other side of the church. Whether I obeyed her in- 
 junction or not, I feel under no obligation to report. I re- 
 joined her at the beautiful frescoed chapel in the opposite 
 transept. She was sitting listlessly turning over the leaves 
 cf her Murray. "I suppose," said said, after a few mo- 
 ments, "that nothing is more vulgar than to make a noise 
 about having been called vulgar. But really, Mr. Brooke, 
 don't call me so again. I have been of late so fondly fancy- 
 ing I am not vulgar." 
 
 "My dear Miss Evans, you are " 
 
 "Come, nothing vulgar!" 
 
 "You're divine!" 
 
 "A la bonne heure!" Divinities needn't pray. They are 
 prayed to." 
 
 I have no space and little power to enumerate and de- 
 scribe the various curiosities of Padua. I think we saw 
 them all. We left the best, however, for the last, and re- 
 paired in the late afternoon, after dining fraternally at a 
 restaurant, to the Chapel of Giotto. This little empty 
 church, standing unshaded and forlorn in the homely mar- 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 37 
 
 ket-garden which was once a Roman arena, offers one of the 
 deepest lessons of Italian travel. Its four walls are covered, 
 almost from base to ceiling, with that wonderful series of 
 dramatic paintings which usher in the golden prime of 
 Italian art. I had been so ill-informed as to fancy that to 
 talk about Giotto was to make more or less of a fool of 
 one's self, and that he was the especial property of the mere 
 sentimentalists of criticism. But you no sooner cross the 
 threshold of that little ruinous temple a mere empty shell, 
 but coated as with the priceless substance of fine pearls and 
 vocal with a murmured eloquence as from the infinite of 
 art than you perceive with whom you have to deal: 
 complete painter of the very strongest sort. In one re- 
 spect, assuredly, Giotto has never been surpassed, in the 
 art of presenting a story. The amount of dramatic ex- 
 pression compressed into those quaint little scenic squares 
 would equip a thousand later masters. How, beside him, 
 they seem to fumble and grope and trifle! And he, beside 
 them, how direct he seems, how essential, how masculine! 
 What a solid simplicity, what an immediate purity and 
 grace! The exhibition suggested to my friend and me 
 more wise reflections than we had the skill to utter. "Hap- 
 py, happy art," we said, as we seemed to see it beneath 
 Giotto's hand tremble and thrill and sparkle, almost, with 
 a presentiment of its immense career, "for the next two 
 hundred years what a glorious felicity will be yours!" The 
 chapel door stood open into the sunny corn-field, and the 
 lazy litter of verdure enclosed by the crumbling oval of 
 Roman masonry. A loutish ooy who had come with the 
 key lounged on a bench, awaiting tribute, and gazing at 
 us as we gazed. The ample light flooded the inner precinct, 
 and lay hot upon the coarse, pale surface of the painted 
 wall. There seemed an irresistible pathos in such a combi- 
 nation of shabbiness and beauty. I thought of this subse- 
 quently at the beautiful Museum at Bologna, where medi- 
 ocrity is so richly enshrined. Nothing that we had yet 
 seen together had filled us with so deep a sense of enjoy- 
 ment. We stared, we laughed, we wept almost, we raved 
 with a decent delight. We went over the little compart- 
 
38 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ments one by one: we lingered and returned and compared; 
 we studied; we melted together in unanimous homage. At 
 last the light began to fade and the little saintly figures to 
 grow quaint and terrible in the gathering dusk. The loutish 
 boy had transferred himself significantly to the door-post: 
 we lingered for a farewell glance. 
 
 "Mr. Brooke," said my companion, "we ought to learn 
 from all this to be real; real even as Giotto is real; to dis- 
 criminate between genuine and factitious sentiment; be- 
 tween the substantial and the trivial ; between the essential 
 and the superfluous; sentiment and sentimentality." 
 
 "You speak," said I, "with appalling wisdom and truth. 
 You strike a chill to my heart of hearts." 
 
 She spoke unsmiling, with a slightly contracted brow and 
 an apparent sense of effort. She blushed as I gazed at her. 
 
 "Well," she said, "I'm extremely glad to have been here. 
 Good, wise Giotto! I should have liked to know you. 
 Nay, let me pay the boy." I saw the piece she put into his 
 hand ; he was stupefied by its magnitude. 
 
 "We shall not have done Padua," I said, as we left the 
 garden, "unless we have been to the Caffe Pedrocchi. Come 
 to the Caffe Pedrocchi. We have more than an hour before 
 our train, time to eat an ice." So we drove to the Caffe 
 Pedrocchi, the most respectable cafe in the world; a cafe 
 monumental, scholastic, classical. 
 
 We sat down at one of the tables on the cheerful external 
 platform, which is washed by the gentle tide of Paduan 
 life. When we had finished our ices, Miss Evans graciously 
 allowed me a cigar. How it came about I hardly remember, 
 but, prompted by some happy accident of talk, and gently 
 encouraged perhaps by my smoke-wreathed quietude, she 
 lapsed, with an exquisite feminine reserve, into a delicate 
 autobiographical strain. For a moment she became ego- 
 tistical; but with a modesty, a dignity, a lightness of touch 
 which filled my eyes with admiring tears. She spoke of her 
 home, her family, and the few events of her life. She had 
 lost her mother in her early years; her two sisters had mar- 
 ried young; she and her father were equally united by af- 
 fection and habit. Upon one theme she touched, in regard 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS ^ 
 
 to which I should be at loss to say whether her treatment 
 told more, by its frankness, of our friendship, or, by its 
 reticence, of her modesty. She spoke of having been en- 
 gaged, and of having lost her betrothed in the Civil War. 
 She made no story of it; but I felt from her words that 
 she had tasted of sorrow. Having finished my cigar, I was 
 proceeding to light another. She drew out her watch. Our 
 train was to leave at eight o'clock. It was now a quarter 
 past. There was no later evening train. 
 
 The reader will understand that I tell the simple truth 
 when I say that our situation was most disagreeable and 
 that we were deeply annoyed. "Of course," said I, "you 
 are utterly disgusted." 
 
 She was silent. "I am extremely sorry," she said, at last, 
 just vanquishing a slight tremor in her voice. 
 
 "Murray says the hotel is good," I suggested. 
 
 She made no answer. Then, rising to her feet, "Let us 
 go immediately," she said. We drove to the principal inn 
 and bespoke our rooms. Out want of luggage provoked, of 
 course, a certain amount of visible surprise. This, however, 
 I fancy, was speedily merged in a more flattering emotion, 
 when my companion, having communed with the chamber- 
 maid, sent her forth with a list of purchases. 
 
 We separated early. "I hope," said I, as I bade her good 
 night, "that you will be fairly comfortable." 
 
 She had recovered her equanimity. "I have no doubt 
 of it." 
 
 "Good night." 
 
 "Good night." Thank God, I silently added, for the 
 dignity of American women. Knowing to what suffering a 
 similar accident would have subjected a young girl of the 
 orthodox European training, I felt devoutly grateful that 
 among my own people a woman and her reputation are 
 more indissolubly one. And yet I was unable to detach 
 myself from my Old-World associations effectually enough 
 not to wonder whether, after all, Miss Evans's calmness 
 might not be the simple calmness of despair. The miserable 
 words rose to my lips, "Is she Compromised?" If she were, 
 
40 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 of course, as far as I was concerned, there was but one pos- 
 sible sequel to our situation. 
 
 We met the next morning at breakfast. She assured me 
 that she had slept, but I doubted it. I myself had not 
 closed my eyes, not from the excitement of vanity. Owing 
 partly, I suppose, to a natural reaction against our con- 
 tinuous talk on the foregoing day, our return to Venice 
 was attended with a good deal of silence. I wondered 
 whether it was a mere fancy that Miss Evans was pensive, 
 appealing, sombre. As we entered the gondola to go from 
 the railway station to the Hotel Danieli, she asked me to 
 request the gondoliers to pass along the Canalezzo rather 
 than through the short cuts of the smaller canals. 
 "I feel as if I were coming home," she said, as we 
 floated beneath the lovely fagade of the Ca' Doro. 
 Suddenly she laid her hand on my arm. "It seems to 
 
 me," she said, "that I should like to stop for Mrs. L ," 
 
 and she mentioned the wife of the American Consul. "I 
 have promised to show her some jewelry. This is a particur 
 larly good time. I shall ask her to come home with me." 
 We stopped accordingly at the American Consulate. Here 
 we found, on inquiry, to my great regret, that the Consul 
 and his wife had gone for a week to the Lake of Como. 
 For a moment my companion meditated. Then, "To the 
 hotel," she said with decision. Our arrival attracted ap- 
 parently little notice. I went with Miss Evans to the door 
 of her father's sitting-room, where we met a servant, who 
 informed us with inscrutable gravity that Monsieur had 
 returned the evening before, but that he had gone out after 
 breakfast and had not reappeared. 
 
 "Poor father," she said. "It was very stupid of me not 
 to have left a note for him." I urged that our absence for 
 the night was not to have been foreseen, and that Mr. Evans 
 had in all likelihood, very plausibly explained it. I with- 
 drew with a handshake and permission to return in the 
 evening. 
 
 I went to my hotel and slept, a long, sound, dreamless 
 sleep. In the afternoon J called my gondola, and went over 
 to the Lido. I crossed to the outer shore and sought the 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 41 
 
 spot where a few days before I had lain at the feet of 
 Charlotte Evans. I stretched myself on the grass and 
 fancied her present. To say that I thought would be to say 
 at once more and less than the literal truth. I was in a 
 tremulous glow of feeling. I listened to the muffled rupture 
 of the tide, vaguely conscious of my beating heart. Was I 
 or was I not in love? I was able to settle nothing. I 
 wandered musingly further and further from the point. 
 Every now and then, with a deeper pulsation of the heart, I 
 would return to it, but only to start afresh and follow some 
 wire-drawn thread of fancy to a nebulous goal of doubt , 
 That she was a most lovely woman seemed to me of all 
 truths the truest, but it was a hard-featured fact of the 
 sense rather than a radiant mystery of faith. I felt 
 that I was not possessed by a passion; perhaps I was in- 
 capable of passion. At last, weary of self-bewilderment, I 
 left the spot and wandered beside the sea. It seemed to 
 speak more musingly than ever of the rapture of motion and 
 freedom. Byond the horizon was Greece, beyond and below 
 was the wondrous Southern world which blooms about the 
 margin of the Midland Sea. To marry, somehow, meant to 
 abjure all this, and in the prime of youth and manhood to 
 sink into obscurity and care. For a moment there stirred in 
 my heart a feeling of anger and pain. Perhaps, after all, 
 I was in love! 
 
 I went straight across the lagoon to the Hotel Danieli, 
 and as I approached it I became singularly calm and col- 
 lected. From below I saw Miss Evans alone on her bal- 
 cony, watching the sunset. She received me with perfect 
 friendly composure. Her father had again gone out, but she 
 had told him of my coming, and he was soon to return. He 
 had not been painfully alarmed at her absence, having 
 learned through a chambermaid, to whom she had happened 
 to mention her intention, that she had gone for the day to 
 Padua. 
 
 "And what have you been doing all day?" I asked. 
 
 "Writing letters, long, tiresome, descriptive letters. I 
 have also found a volume of Hawthorne, and have been 
 
42 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 reading 'Rappacini's Daughter/ You know the scene is laid 
 in Padua." And what had I been doing? 
 
 Whether I was in a passion of love or not, I was enough 
 in love to be very illogical. I was disappointed, Heaven 
 knows why! that she should have been able to spend her 
 time in this wholesome fashion. "I have heen at the Lido, 
 at the Hebrew tombs, where we sat the other day, thinking 
 of what you told me there. " 
 
 "What I told you?" 
 
 "That you liked me immensely." 
 
 She smiled; but now that she smiled, I fancied I saw in 
 the movement of her face an undercurrent of pain. Had 
 the peace of her heart been troubled? "You needn't have 
 gone so far away to think of it." 
 
 "It's very possible," I said, "that I shall have to think of 
 it, in days to come, farther away still." 
 
 "Other places, Mr. Brooke, will bring other thoughts." 
 
 "Possibly. This place has brought that one." At what 
 prompting it was that I continued I hardly know; I would 
 tell her that I loved her. "I value it beyond all other 
 thoughts." 
 
 "I do like you, Mr. Brooke. Let it rest there." 
 
 "It may rest there for you. It can't for me. It begins 
 there! Don't refuse to understand me." 
 
 She was silent. Then, bending her eyes on me, "Per- 
 haps," she said, "I understand you too well." 
 
 "O, in Heaven's name, don't play at coldness and scep- 
 ticism!" 
 
 She dropped her eyes gravely on a bracelet which she 
 locked and unlocked on her wrist. "I think," she said, 
 without raising them, "you had better leave Venice." I was 
 about to reply, but the door opened and Mr. Evans came 
 in. From his hard, grizzled brow he looked at us in turn; 
 then, greeting me with an extended hand, he spoke to his 
 daughter. 
 
 "I have forgotten my cigar-case. Be so good as to fetch 
 it from my dressing-table." 
 
 For a moment Miss Evans hesitated and cast upon him 
 a faint protesting glance. Then she lightly left the room. 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 43 
 
 He stood holding my hand, with a very sensible firmness, 
 with his eyes on mine. Then, laying his other hand heavily 
 on my shoulder, "Mr. Brooke," he said, "I believe you are 
 an honest man." 
 
 "I hope so," I answered. 
 
 He paused, and I felt his steady gray eyes. "How the 
 devil/' he said, "came you to be left at Padua?" 
 
 "The explanation is a very simple one. Your daughter 
 must have told you." 
 
 "I have thought best to talk very little to my daughter 
 about it." 
 
 "Do you regard it, Mr. Evans," I asked, "as a very 
 serious calamity?" 
 
 "I regard it as an infernally disagreeable thing. It seems 
 that the whole hotel is talking about it. There is a little 
 beast of an Italian down stairs " 
 
 "Your daughter, I think, was not seriously discomposed." 
 
 "My daughter is a d d proud woman!" 
 
 "I can assure you that my esteem for her is quite equal 
 to your own." 
 
 "What does that mean, Mr. Brooke?" I was about to 
 answer, but Miss Evans reappeared. Her father, as he took 
 his cigar-case from her, looked at her intently, as if he were 
 on the point of speaking, but the words remained on his 
 lips, and, declaring that he would be back in half an hour, 
 he left the room. 
 
 His departure was followed by a long silence. 
 
 "Miss Evans," I said, at last, "will you be my wife?" 
 
 She looked at me with a certain firm resignation. "Do 
 you feel that, Mr. Brooke? Do you know what you ask?" 
 
 "Most assuredly." 
 
 "Will you rest content with my answer?" 
 
 "It depends on what your answer is." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 "I should like to know what my father said to you in 
 my absence." 
 
 "You had better learn that from him." 
 
 "I think I know. Poor father!" 
 
 "But you give me no answer," I rejoined, after a pause. 
 
44 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 She frowned a little. "Mr. Brooke," she said, "you dis-, 
 appoint me." 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry. Don't revenge yourself by disappoint- 
 ing me." 
 
 "I fancied that I had answered your proposal; that I 
 had, at least, anticipated it, the other day at the Lido." 
 
 "O, that was very good for the other day; but do give me 
 something different now." 
 
 "I doubt of your being more in earnest to-day than then." 
 
 "It seems to suit you wonderfully well to doubt!" 
 
 "I thank you for the honor of your proposal: but I can't 
 be your wife, Mr. Brooke." 
 
 "That's the answer with which you ask me to remain 
 satisfied!" 
 
 "Let me repeat what I said just now. You had better 
 leave Venice; otherwise, we must leave it." 
 
 "Ah, that's easy to say!" 
 
 "You mustn't think me unkind or cynical. You have 
 done your duty." 
 
 "My duty, what duty?" 
 
 "Come," she said, with a beautiful blush and the least 
 attempt at a smile, "you imagine that I have suffered an 
 injury by my being left with you at Padua. I don't be- 
 lieve in such injuries." 
 
 "No more do I." 
 
 "Then there is even less wisdom than before in your pro- 
 posal. But I strongly suspect that if we had not missed 
 the train at Padua, you would not have made it. There is 
 an idea of reparation in it. O Sir!" And she shook her 
 head with a deepening smile. 
 
 "If I had flattered myself that it lay in my power to 
 do you an injury," I replied, "I should now be rarely dis- 
 enchanted. As little almost as to do you a benefit!" 
 
 "You have loaded me with benefits. I thank you from 
 the bottom of my heart. I may be very unreasonable, but 
 if I had doubted of my having to decline your offer three 
 days ago, I should have quite ceased to doubt this eve- 
 ning." 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 45 
 
 "You are an excessively proud woman. I can tell you 
 that." 
 
 "Possibly. But I'm not as proud as you think. I believe 
 in my common sense." 
 
 "I wish that for five minutes you had a grain of imagi- 
 nation!" 
 
 "If only for the same five minutes you were without it. 
 You have too much, Mr. Brooke. You imagine you love 
 me." 
 
 "Poor fool that I am!" 
 
 "You imagine that I'm charming. I assure you I'm not 
 in the least. Here in Venice I have not been myself at 
 all. You should see me at home." 
 
 "Upon my word, Miss Evans, you remind me of a Ger- 
 man philosopher. I have not the least objection to seeing 
 you at home." 
 
 "Don't fancy that I think lightly of your offer. But we 
 have been living, Mr. Brooke, in poetry. Marriage is 
 stern prose. Do let me bid you farewell!" 
 
 I took up my hat. "I shall go from here to Rome and 
 Naples/' I said. "I must leave Florence for the last. I 
 shall write you from Rome and of course see you there." 
 
 "I hope not. I had rather not meet you again in Italy. 
 It perverts our dear good old American truth!" 
 
 "Do you really propose to bid me a final farewell?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "When do you return home?" 
 
 "Some time in the spring." 
 
 "Very well. If a year hence, in America, you are still 
 of your present mind, I shall not decline to see you. I 
 feel very safe! If you are not of your present mind, 
 of course I shall be still more happy. Farewell." She 
 put out her hand; I took it. 
 
 "Beautiful, wonderful woman!" I murmured. 
 
 "That's rank poetry! Farewell!" 
 
 I raised her hand to my lips and released it in silence. 
 At this point Mr. Evans reappeared, considering apparently 
 that his half-hour was up. "Are you going?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes. I start to-morrow for Rome." 
 
 "The deuce! Daughter, when are we to go?" 
 
46 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 She moved her hand over her forehead, and a sort of 
 nervous tremor seemed to pass through her limbs. "O, you 
 must take me home!" she said. "I'm horribly home-sick!" 
 She flung her arms round his neck and buried her head on 
 his shoulder. Mr. Evans with a movement of his head dis- 
 missed me. 
 
 At the top of the staircase, however, he overtook me. 
 "You made your offer!" And he passed his arm into mine. 
 
 "Yes!" ! 
 
 "And she refused you?" I nodded. He looked at me, 
 squeezing my arm. "By Jove, sir, if she had accepted " 
 
 "Well!" said I, stopping. 
 
 "Why, it wouldn't in the least have suited me! Not 
 that I don't esteem you. The whole house shall see it." 
 With his arm in mine we passed down stairs, through the 
 hall, to the landing-place, where he called his own gondola 
 and requested me to use it. He bade me farewell with a 
 kindly hand-shake, and the assurance that I was too "nice 
 a fellow not to keep as a friend." 
 
 I think, on the whole, that my uppermost feeling was a 
 sense of freedom and relief. It seemed to me on my 
 journey to Florence that I had started afresh, and was 
 regarding things with less of nervous rapture than before, 
 but more of sober insight. Of Miss Evans I forbade myself 
 to think. In my deepest heart I admitted the truth, the 
 partial truth at least, of her assertion of the unreality of my 
 love. The reality I believed would come. The way to. 
 hasten its approach was, meanwhile, to study, to watch, 
 to observe, doubtless even to enjoy. I certainly enjoyed 
 Florence and the three days I spent there. But I shall not 
 attempt to deal with Florence in a parenthesis. I subse- 
 quently saw that divine little city under circumstances 
 which peculiarly colored and shaped it. In Rome, to 
 begin with, I spent a week and went down to Naples, drag- 
 ging the heavy Roman chain which she rivets about your 
 limbs forever. In Naples I discovered the real South 
 the Southern South, in art, in nature, in man, and the 
 least bit in woman. A German lady, an old kind friend, 
 had given me a letter to a Neapolitan lady whom she 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 47 
 
 assured me she held in high esteem. The Signora B 
 
 was at Sorrento, where I presented my letter. It seemed 
 to me that "esteem" was not exactly the word; but the 
 
 Signora B was charming. She assured me on my first 
 
 visit that she was a "true Neapolitan," and I think, on the 
 whole, she was right. She told me that I was a true Ger- 
 man, but in this she was altogether wrong. I spent four 
 days in her house; on one of them we went to Capri, where 
 the Signora had an infant her only one at nurse. We 
 saw the Blue Grotto, the Tiberian ruins, the tarantella 
 and the infant, and returned late in the evening by moon- 
 light. The Signora sang on the water in a magnificent 
 contralto. As I looked upward at Northern Italy, it seemed, 
 in contrast, a cold, dark hyperborean clime, a land of order, 
 conscience, and virtue. How my heart went out to that 
 brave, rich, compact little Verona! How there Nature 
 seemed to have mixed her colors with potent oil, instead of 
 as here with crystalline water, drawn though it was from 
 the Neapolitan Bay! But in Naples, too, I pursued my 
 plan of vigilance and study. I spent long mornings at the 
 Museum and learned to know Pompeii! I wrote once to 
 Miss Evans, about the statues in the Museum, without a 
 word of wooing, but received no answer. It seemed to me 
 that I returned to Rome a wiser man. It was the middle 
 of October when I reached it. Unless Mr. Evans had 
 altered his programme, he would at this moment be passing 
 down to Naples. 
 
 A fortnight elapsed without my hearing of him, during 
 which I was in the full fever of initiation into Roman 
 wonders. I had been introduced to an old German arch- 
 aeologist, with whom I spent a series of memorable days in 
 the exploration of ruins and the study of the classical topog- 
 raphy. I thought, I lived, I ate and drank, in Latin, and 
 German Latin at that. But I remember with especial de- 
 light certain long lonely rides on the Campagna. The 
 weather was perfect. Nature seemed only to slumber, ready 
 to wake far on the hither side of wintry death. From time 
 to time, after a passionate gallop, I would pull up my 
 horse on the slope of some pregnant mound and embrace 
 
48 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 with the ecstasy of quickened senses the tragical beauty of 
 the scene; strain my ear to the soft low silence, pity the 
 dark dishonored plain, watch the heavens come rolling 
 down in tides of light, and breaking in waves of fire against 
 the massive stillness of temples and tombs. The aspect 
 of all this sunny solitude and haunted vacancy used to fill 
 me with a mingled sense of exaltation and dread. There 
 were moments when my fancy swept that vast funereal 
 desert with passionate curiosity and desire, moments when 
 it felt only its potent sweetness and its high historic charm. 
 But there were other times when the air seemed so heavy 
 with the exhalation of unburied death, so bright with 
 sheeted ghosts, that I turned short about and galloped 
 back to the city. One afternoon after I had indulged in 
 one of these supersensitive flights on the Campagna, I 
 betook myself to St. Peter's. It was shortly before the 
 opening of the recent Council, and the city was filled with 
 foreign ecclesiastics, the increase being of course especially 
 noticeable in the churches. At St. Peter's they were present 
 in vast numbers; great armies encamped in prayer on the 
 marble plains of its pavement: an inexhaustible physiog- 
 nomical study. Scattered among them were squads of little 
 tonsured neophytes, clad in scarlet, marching and counter- 
 marching, and ducking and flapping, like poor little raw 
 recruits for the heavenly host. I had never before, I think, 
 received an equal impression of the greatness of this churcK 
 of churches, or, standing beneath the dome, beheld such a 
 vision of erected altitude, of the builded sublime. I 
 lingered awhile near the brazen image of St. Peter, observ- 
 ing the steady procession of his devotees. Near me stood 
 a lady in mourning, watching with a weary droop of the 
 head the grotesque deposition of kisses. A peasant-woman 
 advanced with the file of the faithful and lifted up her 
 little girl to the well-worn toe. With a sudden movement of 
 impatience the lady turned away, so that I saw her face to 
 face. She was strikingly pale, but as her eyes met mine the 
 blood rushed into her cheeks. This lonely mourner was 
 Miss Evans. I advanced to her with an outstretched hand. 
 Before she spoke I had guessed at the truth. 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 49 
 
 "You're in sorrow and trouble!" 
 She nodded, with a look of simple gravity. 
 "Why in the world haven't you written to me?" 
 "There was no use. I seem to have sufficed to myself." 
 "Indeed, you have not sufficed to yourself. You are 
 pale and worn; you looked wretchedly." She stood silent, 
 looking about her with an air of vague unrest. "I have as 
 yet heard nothing," I said. "Can you speak of it?" 
 
 "O Mr. Brooke!" she said with a simple sadness that 
 went to my heart. I drew her hand through my arm and 
 led her to the extremity of the left transept of the church. 
 We sat down together, and she told me of her father's 
 death. It had happened ten days before, in consequence of 
 a severe apoplectic stroke. He had been ill but a single 
 day, and had remained unconscious from first to last. The 
 American physician had been extremely kind, and had 
 relieved her of all care and responsibility. His wife had 
 strongly urged her to come and stay in their house, until 
 she should have determined what to do; but she had pre- 
 ferred to remain at her hotel. She had immediately fur- 
 nished herself with an attendant in the person of a French 
 maid, who had come with her to the church and was now 
 at confession. At first she had wished greatly to leave 
 Rome, but now that the first shock of grief had passed 
 away she found it suited her mood to linger on from day 
 to day. "On the whole," she said, with a sober smile, 
 "I have got through it all rather easily than otherwise. The 
 common cares and necessities of life operate strongly to in- 
 terrupt and dissipate one's grief. I shall feel my loss more 
 when I get home again." Looking at her while she talked, 
 I found a pitiful difference between her words and her 
 aspect. Her pale face, her wilful smile, her spiritless ges- 
 tures, spoke most forcibly of loneliness and weakness. Over 
 this gentle weakness and dependence I secretly rejoiced; I 
 felt in my heart an immense uprising of pity, of the pity 
 that goes hand in hand with love. At its bidding I hastily, 
 vaguely sketched a magnificent scheme of devotion and 
 protection. 
 
 "When I think of what you have been through," I said, 
 
50 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "my heart stands still for very tenderness. Have you made 
 any plans?" She shook her head with such a perfection of 
 helplessness that I broke into a sort of rage of compassion: 
 "One of the last things your father said to me was that you 
 are a very proud woman." 
 
 She colored faintly. "I may have been! But there is 
 not among the most abject peasants who stand kissing St. 
 Peter's foot a creature more bowed in humility than I." 
 
 "How did you expect to make that weary journey home?' 7 
 
 She was silent a moment and her eyes filled with tears. 
 "O don't cross-question me, Mr. Brooke!" she softly cried; 
 "I expected nothing. I was waiting for my stronger self." 
 
 "Perhaps your stronger self has come." She rose to her 
 feet as if she had not heard me, and went forward to meet 
 her maid. This was a decent, capable-looking person, with 
 a great deal of apparent deference of manner. As I re- 
 joined them, Miss Evans prepared to bid me farewell. "You 
 haven't yet asked me to come and see you," I said. 
 
 "Come, but not too soon?" 
 
 "What do you call too soon? This evening?" 
 
 "Come to-morrow." She refused to allow me to go with 
 her to her carriage. I followed her, however, at a short in- 
 terval, and went as usual to my restaurant to dine. I re- 
 member that my dinner cost me ten francs, it usually cost 
 me five. Afterwards, as usual, I adjourned to the Caffe 
 Greco, where I met my German archaeologist. He dis- 
 coursed with even more than his wonted sagacity and elo- 
 quence; but at the end of half an hour he rapped his fist on 
 the table and asked me what the deuce was the matter; he 
 would wager I hadn't heard a word of what he said. 
 
 I went forth the next morning into the Roman streets, 
 doubting heavily of my being able to exist until evening 
 without seeing Miss Evans. I felt, however, that it was 
 due to her to make the effort. To help myself through the 
 morning, I went into the Borghese Gallery. The great 
 treasure of this collection is a certain masterpiece of Titian. 
 I entered the room in which it hangs by the door facing the 
 picture. The room was empty, save that before the great 
 Titian, beside the easel of an absent copyist, stood a young 
 
TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 51 
 
 woman in mourning. This time, in spite of her averted 
 head, I immediately knew her and noiselessly approached 
 her. The picture is one of the finest of its admirable author, 
 rich and simple and brilliant with the true Venetian fire. It 
 unites the charm of an air of latent symbolism with a stead- 
 fast splendor and solid perfection of design. Beside a low 
 sculptured well sit two young and beautiful women: one 
 richly clad, and full of mild dignity and repose; the other 
 with unbound hair, naked, ungirdled by a great reverted 
 mantle of Venetian purple, and radiant with the frankest 
 physical sweetness and grace. Between them a little 
 winged cherub bends forward and thrusts his chubby arm 
 into the well. The picture glows with the inscrutable chem- 
 istry of the prince of colorists. 
 
 "Does it remind you of Venice?" I said, breaking a long 
 silence, during which she had not noticed me. 
 
 She turned and her face seemed bright with reflected 
 color. We spoke awhile of common things; she had come 
 alone. "What an emotion, for one who has loved Venice," 
 she said, "to meet a Titian in other lands." 
 
 "They call it," I answered, and as I spoke my heart 
 was in my throat, "a representation of Sacred and Pro- 
 fane Love. The name perhaps roughly expresses its mean- 
 ing. The serious, stately woman is the likeness, one may 
 say, of love as an experience, the gracious, impudent god- 
 dess of love as a sentiment ; this of the passion that fancies, 
 the other of the passion that knows." And as I spoke I 
 passed my arm, in its strength, around her waist. She let 
 her head sink on my shoulders and looked up into my eyes. 
 
 "One may stand for the love I denied," she said; "and 
 the other " 
 
 "The other," I murmured, "for the love which, with this 
 kiss, you accept." I drew her arm into mine, and before 
 the envious eyes that watched us from gilded casements we 
 passed through the gallery and left the palace. We went 
 that afternoon to the Pamfili-Doria Villa. Saying just now 
 that my stay in Florence was peculiarly colored by circum- 
 stances, I meant that I was there with my wife. 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF 
 M. BRISEUX 
 
 THE little picture gallery at M is a typical musee 
 de province cold, musty, unvisited, and enriched 
 chiefly with miniature works by painters whose maturity 
 was not to be powerful. The floors are tiled in brick, and 
 the windows draped in faded moreen; the very light seems 
 pale and neutral, as if the dismal lack-lustre atmosphere 
 of the pictures were contagious. The subjects represented 
 are of course of the familiar academic sort the Wisdom of 
 Solomon and the Fureurs d'Oreste; together with a few 
 elegant landscapes exhibiting the last century view of 
 nature, and half a dozen neat portraits of French gentle- 
 folks of that period, in the act, as one may say, cf taking 
 the view in question. To me, I confess, the place had a 
 melancholy charm, and I found none of the absurd old 
 paintings too absurd to enjoy. There is always an agree- 
 able finish in the French touch, even when the hand is not 
 a master's. The catalogue, too, was prodigiously queer; a 
 bit tof very ancient literature, with comments, in the 
 manner of the celebrated M. La Harpe. I wondered, as I 
 turned its pages, into what measure of reprobation pictures 
 and catalogue together had been compressed by that sole 
 
 son of M , who has achieved more than local renown 
 
 in the arts. Conjecture was pertinent, for it was in these 
 crepuscular halls that this deeply original artist must have 
 heard the first early bird-notes of awakening genius: first, 
 half credulously, as we may suppose, on festal Sundays, 
 with his hand in his father's, gazing rosy and wide-eyed at 
 the classical wrath of Achilles and the sallow flesh-tints 
 of Dido; and later, with his hands in his pockets, an in- 
 cipient critical frown and the mental vision of an Achilles 
 
 53 
 
54 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 somehow more in earnest and a Dido more deeply desirable. 
 It was indeed doubly pertinent, for the little Musee had at 
 last, after much watching and waiting and bargaining, be- 
 come possessor of one of Briseux's pictures. I was promptly 
 informed of the fact by the concierge, a person much reduced 
 by years and chronic catarrh, but still robust enough to dis- 
 play his aesthetic culture to a foreigner presumably of dis- 
 tinction. He led me solemnly into the presence of the great 
 work, and placed a chair for me in the proper light. The 
 famous painter had left his native town early in life, before 
 making his mark, and an inappreciative family his father 
 was a small apothecary with a proper admiration of the 
 arts, but a horror of artists had been at no pains to pre- 
 serve his boyish sketches. The more fools they! The 
 merest scrawl with his signature now brought hundreds of 
 francs, and there were those of his blood still in the town 
 with whom the francs were scarce enough. To obtain a 
 serious picture had of course been no small affair, and little 
 M , though with the yearning heart of a mother, hap- 
 pened to have no scanty maternal savings. Yet the thing 
 had been managed by subscription, and the picture paid 
 for. To make the triumph complete, a fortnight after it had 
 been hung on its nail, M. Briseux succumbs to a fever in 
 Rome and his pictures rise to the most fantastic prices! 
 This was the very work which had made the painter famous. 
 The portrait of a Lady in a Yellow Shawl in the Salon of 
 1836 had fait epoque. Every one had heard of the Yellow 
 Shawl; people talked of it as they did of the Chapeau de 
 Faille of Rubens or the "Torn Glove" of Titian; or if 
 they didn't, posterity would! Such was the discursive mur- 
 mur of the concierge as I examined this precious specimen 
 of Briseux's first manner; and there was a plaintive cadence 
 in this last assurance, which seemed to denote a too vivid 
 prevision of the harvest of tributary francs to be reaped by 
 his successors in office. It would be graceless praise to 
 say that a glimpse of the picture is worth your franc. It 
 is a superb performance, and I spent half an hour before 
 it in such serene enjoyment that I forgot the concierge was, 
 a bore. 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 55 
 
 It is a half-length portrait representing a young woman, 
 not exactly beautiful, yet very far from plain, draped with 
 a singularly simple elegance in a shawl of yellow silk em- 
 broidered with fantastic arabesque. She is dark and grave, 
 her dress is dark, the background is of a sober tone, and 
 this brilliant scarf glows splendidly by contrast. It seems 
 indeed to irradiate luminous color, and makes the picture 
 brilliant in spite of its sombre accessories ; and yet it leaves 
 their full value to the tenderly glowing flesh portions. The 
 portrait lacks a certain harmonious finish, that masterly 
 interfusion of parts which the painter afterwards practised; 
 the touch is hasty, and here and there a little heavy; but 
 its splendid vivacity and energy, and the almost boyish good 
 faith of some of its more venturesome strokes, make it a 
 capital example of that momentous point in the history of 
 genius when still tender promise blooms in a night, as it 
 were into perfect force. It was little wonder that the 
 picture had made a noise: judges of the more penetrating 
 sort must have felt that it contained that invaluable some- 
 thing which an artist gives but once the prime outgush of 
 his effort the flower of his originality. As I continued to 
 look, however, I began to wonder whether it did not contain 
 something better still the reflection of a countenance very 
 nearly as deep and ardent as the artist's talent. In spite of 
 the expressive repose of the figure the brow and mouth wore 
 a look of smothered agitation, the dark gray eye almost 
 glittered, and the flash in the cheek burned ominously. Evi- 
 dently this was the picture of something more than a yellow 
 shawl. To the analytic eye it was the picture of a mind, 
 or at least of a mood. "Who was the lady?" I asked of my 
 companion. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and for an instant looked 
 uncertain. But, as a Frenchman, he produced his hypothe- 
 sis as follows: "Mon Dieu! a sweetheart of M. Briseux! 
 Ces artistes!" 
 
 I left my place and passed into the adjoining rooms, 
 where, as I have said, I found half an hour's diversion. On 
 my return, my chair was occupied by a lady, apparently 
 my only fellow-visitor. I noticed her no further than to see 
 
56 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 that, though comely, she was no longer young, that she was 
 dressed in black, and that she was looking intently at the 
 picture. Her intentness indeed at last attracted me, and 
 while I lingered to gather a final impression, I covertly 
 glanced at her. She was so far from being young that her 
 hair was white, but with that charming and often premature 
 brilliancy which belongs to fine brunettes. The concierge 
 hovered near, narrating and expounding, and I fancied that 
 her brief responses (for she asked no questions) betrayed 
 an English accent. But I had doubtless no business to fancy 
 anything, for my companion, as if with a sudden embarrass- 
 ing sense of being watched, gathered her shawl about her, 
 rose, and prepared to turn away. I should have imme- 
 diately retreated, but that with this movement of hers our 
 eyes met, and in the light of her rapid, just slightly dep- 
 recating glance, I read something which helped curiosity 
 to get the better of politeness. She walked away, and I 
 stood staring; and as she averted her head it seemed to 
 me that my rather too manifest surprise had made her 
 blush. I watched her slowly cross the room and pass into 
 the next one, looking very vaguely at the pictures; and 
 then addressed a keenly questioning glance at the Lady with 
 the Yellow Shawl. Her startlingly vivid eyes answered my 
 question most distinctly. I was satisfied, and I left the 
 Musee. 
 
 It would perhaps be more correct to say that I was 
 wholly unsatisfied. I strolled at haphazard through the 
 little town, and emerged, as a matter of course, on the local 
 
 promenade. The promenade at M is a most agreeable 
 
 spot. It stretches along the top of the old town wall, over 
 whose sturdy parapet, polished by the peaceful showers of 
 many generations, you enjoy a view of the pale-hued but 
 charming Provencal landscape. The middle of the rampart 
 is adorned with a row of close-clipped lime-trees, with 
 benches in the spaces between them; and, as you sit in the 
 shade, the prospect is framed to your vision by the level 
 parapet and the even limit of the far-projecting branches. 
 What you see is therefore a long horizontal strip of land- 
 scape a radiant stretch of white rocks and vaporous olives, 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 57 
 
 scintillating in the southern light. Except a bonne or two, 
 with a couple of children grubbing in the gravel, an idle ap- 
 prentice in a blouse dozing on a bench, and a couple of red- 
 legged soldiers leaning on the wall, I was the only lounger 
 on the rampart, and this was a place to relish solitude. By 
 nature a very sentimental traveler, there is nothing I like 
 better than to light a cigar and lose myself in a meditative 
 perception of local color. I love to ruminate the picturesque, 
 and the scene before me was redolent of it. On this occa- 
 sion, however, the shady rampart and the shining distance 
 were less interesting than a figure, disembodied but distinct, 
 which soon obtruded itself on my attention. The mute 
 assurance gathered before leaving the Musee had done as 
 much to puzzle as to enlighten me. Was that modest and 
 venerable person, then, the sweetheart of the illustrious 
 Briseux? one of ces artistes, as rumor loudly proclaimed 
 him, in the invidious as well as in the most honorable sense" 
 of the term. Plainly, she was the original of the portrait. 
 In the days when her complexion would bear it, she had 
 worn the yellow shawl. Time had changed, but not trans- 
 formed her, as she must have fancied it had, to come and 
 contemplate thus frankly this monument of her early 
 charms. Why had she come? Was it accident, or was it 
 vanity? How did it seem to her to find herself so strangely 
 lifted out of her own possession and made a helpless spec- 
 tator of her survival to posterity? The more I consulted 
 my impression of her, the more certain I felt that she was 
 no Frenchwoman, but a modest spinster of my own trans- 
 atlantic race, on whom posterity had as little claim as this 
 musty Musee, which indeed possessed much of that sepul- 
 chral chill which clings to such knowledge of us as posterity 
 enjoys. I found it hard to reconcile the lady with herself, 
 and it was with the restlessness of conjecture that I left 
 my place and strolled to the further end of the rampart. 
 Here conjecture paused, amazed at its opportunities; for M. 
 Briseux's sweetheart was seated on a bench under the lime- 
 trees. She was gazing almost as thoughtfully on the distant 
 view as she had done on her portrait; but as I passed, she 
 gave me a glance from which embarrassment seemed to have 
 
58 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 vanished. I slowly walked the length of the rampart again, 
 and as I went an impulse, born somehow of the delicious 
 mild air, the light-bathed landscape of rock and olive, and of 
 the sense of a sort of fellowship in isolation in the midst of 
 these deeply foreign influences, as well as of a curiosity 
 which was after all but the frank recognition of an obvious 
 fact, was transmuted into a decision sufficiently remarkable 
 in a bashful man. I proceeded gravely to carry it out. I 
 approached my companion and bowed. She acknowledged 
 my bow with a look which, though not exactly mistrustful, 
 seemed to demand an explanation. To give it, I seated my- 
 self beside her. Something in her face made explanation 
 easy. I was sure that she was an old maid, and gently but 
 frankly eccentric. Her age left her at liberty to be as 
 frank as she chose, and though I was somewhat her junior, 
 I had gray hairs enough in my mustache to warrant her in 
 smiling at my almost ardent impatience. Her smile, when 
 she perceived that my direct appeal was deeply respectful, 
 broke into a genial laugh which completed our introduction. 
 To her inner sense, as well, evidently, the gray indifference 
 of the historic rampart, the olive-sown landscape, the sweet 
 foreign climate, left the law very much in our own hands; 
 and then moreover, as something in her eyes proclaimed, 
 the well of memory in her soul had been so strongly stirred 
 that it naturally overflowed. I fancy that she looked more 
 like her portrait for that hour or two than she had done in 
 twenty years. At any rate, it had come to seem, before 
 many minutes, a delightful matter of course that I should 
 sit there a perfect stranger listening to the story into 
 which her broken responses to my first questions gradually 
 shaped themselves. I should add that I had made a point 
 of appearing a zealous student of the lamented Briseux. 
 This was no more than the truth, and I proved categorically 
 that I knew his works. We were thus pilgrims in the same 
 faith, and licensed to discuss its mysteries. I repeat her 
 story literally, and I surely don't transgress the proper limits 
 of editorial zeal in supplying a single absent clause: she 
 must in those days have been a wonderfully charming 
 girl. 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 59 
 
 I have been spending the winter (she said) with my 
 niece at Cannes, where I accidentally heard from an English 
 gentleman interested in such matters, that Briseux's "Yel- 
 low Shawl" had been purchased by this little Musee. He 
 had stopped to see it on his way from Paris, and, though a 
 famous connoisseur, poor man, do you know he never dis- 
 covered what it took you but a moment to perceive? 1 
 didn't enlighten him, in spite of his kindness in explaining, 
 "Bradshaw" in hand, just how I might manage to diverge 
 
 on my way to Paris and give a day to M . I contented 
 
 myself with telling him that I had known M. Briseux thirty 
 years ago, and had chanced to have the first glimpse of his 
 first masterpiece. Even this suggested nothing. But in fact, 
 why should it have suggested anything? As I sat before 
 the picture just now, I felt in all my pulses that I am not 
 the person who stands masquerading there with that 
 strangely cynical smile. That poor girl is dead and buried ; 
 I should tell no falsehood in saying I'm not she. Yet as I 
 looked at her, time seemed to roll backward and experience 
 to repeat itself. Before me stood a pale young man in a 
 ragged coat, with glowing dark eyes, brushing away at a 
 great canvas, with gestures more like those of inspiration 
 than any I have ever seen. I seemed to see myself to be 
 myself muffled in that famous shawl, posing there for 
 hours in a sort of fever that made me unconscious of fatigue. 
 I've often wondered whether, during those memorable hours, 
 I was more or less myself than usual, and whether the sin- 
 gular episode they brought forth was an act of folly or of 
 transcendent reason. Perhaps you can tell me. 
 
 It was in Paris, in my twenty-first year. I had come 
 abroad with Mrs. Staines, an old and valued friend of my 
 mother's, who during the last days of her life, a year before, 
 had consigned me appealingly to this lady's protection. 
 But for Mrs. Staines, indeed, I should have been homeless. 
 My brother had recently married, but not happily, and ex- 
 periment had shown me that under his roof I was an in- 
 different peacemaker. Mrs. Staines was what is called a 
 very superior person a person with an aquiline nose, who 
 wore gloves in the house, and gave you her ear to kiss. 
 
60 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 My mother, who considered her the wisest of women, had 
 written her every week since their schooldays a crossed let- 
 ter beginning "My dearest Lucretia"; but it was my poor 
 mother's nature to like being patronized and bullied. Mrs. 
 Staines would send her by return of mail a budget of advice 
 adapted to her "station" this being a considerate mode of 
 allusion to the fact that she had married a very poor clergy- 
 man. Mrs. Staines received me, however, with such sub- 
 stantial kindness, that I should have had little grace to 
 complain that the manner of it was frigid. When I knew 
 her better I forgave her frigidity, for it was that of a disap- 
 pointed woman. She was ambitious, and her ambitions had 
 failed. She had married a very clever man, a rising young 
 lawyer, of political tendencies, who promised to become 
 famous. She would have enjoyed above all things being the 
 wife of a legal luminary, and she would have insisted on his 
 expanding to the first magnitude. She believed herself 
 born, I think, to be the lawful Egeria of a cabinet minister. 
 A cabinet minister poor Mr. Staines might have become 
 if he had lived; but he broke down at thirty-five from over- 
 work, and a year later his wife had to do double mourning. 
 As time went on she transferred her hopes to her only 
 boy; but here her disappointment lay the heavier on her 
 heart that maternal pride had bidden it be forever dumb. 
 He would never tread in his father's steps, nor redeem his 
 father's pledges. His genius if genius it was was bent 
 in quite another way, and he was to be, not a useful, but 
 an ornamental member of society. Extremely ornamental 
 he seemed likely to become, and his mother found partial 
 comfort as he grew older. He did his duty apparently in 
 growing up so very handsome that, whatever else he might 
 do, he would be praised less for that than for his good looks. 
 They were those of a decorous young Apollo. When I first 
 saw him, as he was leaving college, he might well have 
 passed for an incipient great man. He had in perfection the* 
 air of distinction, and he carried it out in gesture and man- 
 ner. Never was a handsomer, graver, better-bred young 
 man. He was tall, slender, and fair, with the finest blond 
 hair curling close about his shapely head; a blue eye, as 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 61 
 
 clear and cold as a winter's morning; a set of teeth so hand- 
 some that his infrequent smile might have seemed almost 
 a matter of modesty; and a general expression of discretion 
 and maturity which seemed to protest against the imputa- 
 tion of foppishness. After a while, probably, you would 
 have found him too imperturbably neat and polite, and have 
 liked him better if his manner had been sometimes at fault 
 and his cravat occasionally awry. Me, I confess, he vastly 
 impressed from the first, and I secretly worshipped him. I 
 had never seen so fine a gentleman, and I doubted if the 
 world contained such another. My experience of the world 
 was small, and I had lived among what Harold Staines 
 would have considered very shabby people several of 
 whom wore ill-brushed hats. I was, therefore, not sorry 
 to find that I appreciated merit of the most refined sort; 
 and in fact, ignorant though I was, my judgment was not at 
 fault. Harold was perfectly honorable and amiable, and 
 his only fault was that he looked wiser than he could rea- 
 sonably be expected to be. In the evening especially, in a 
 white cravat, leaning in a doorway, and overtopping the 
 crowd by his whole handsome head, he seemed some in- 
 scrutable young diplomatist whose skepticism hadn't under- 
 mined his courtesy. 
 
 He had, through his mother, expectation of property 
 sufficient to support him in ample ease; but though he had 
 elegant tastes, idleness was not one of them, and he agreed 
 with his mother that he ought to choose a profession. Then 
 it was that she fully measured her disappointment. There 
 had been nothing in her family but judges and bishops, and 
 anything else was of questionable respectability. There 
 was a great deal of talk on the matter between them; fo 
 superficially at least they were a most united pair, and if 
 Harold had not asked her opinion from conviction he would 
 have done so from politeness. In reality, I believe, there 
 was but one person in the world whose opinion he greatly 
 cared for and that person was not Mrs. Staines; nor had 
 it yet come to pass that he pretended for a while it was I. 
 It was so far from being Mrs. Staines that one day, after 
 a long talk, I found her leaving him in tears ; and tears with 
 
62 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 this superior woman were an event of portentous rarity. 
 Harold on the same day was not at home at dinner, and I 
 thought the next day held his handsome head even higher 
 than usual. I asked no questions, but a little later my curi- 
 osity was satisfied. Mrs. Staines informed me, with an air 
 of dignity which evidently cost her some effort and seemed 
 intended to deprecate criticism, that Harold had determined 
 to be an artist. "It's not the career I should have pre- 
 ferred," she said, "but my son has talent and respecta- 
 bility which will make it honorable." That Harold would 
 do anything more for the profession of the brush than 
 Raphael and Rembrandt had done, I was perhaps not pre- 
 pared to affirm; but I answered that I was very glad, and 
 that I wished him all success. Indeed, I was not surprised, 
 for Mrs. Staines had what in any one else would have been 
 called a mania for pictures and bronzes, old snuff-boxes and 
 candlesticks. He had not apparently used his pencil very 
 freely; but he had recently procured indeed, I think he had 
 himself designed a "sketching apparatus" of the most lav- 
 ish ingenuity. He was now going to use it in earnest, and I 
 remember reflecting with a good deal of satisfaction that the 
 great white umbrella which formed its principal feature was 
 large enough to protect his handsome complexion from the 
 sun. 
 
 It was at this time I came to Mrs. Staines to stay indefi- 
 nitely with doubts and fears so few that I must have been 
 either very ignorant or very confident. I had indeed an 
 ample measure of the blessed simplicity of youth; but if I 
 judged my situation imperfectly, I did so at any rate with 
 a conscience. I was stoutly determined to receive no favors 
 that I couldn't repay, and to be as quietly useful and 
 gracefully agreeable as I could modestly devise occasion 
 for. I was a homeless girl, but I was not a poor relation. 
 My fortune was slender, but I was ready to go out into the 
 world and seek a better, rather than fall into an attitude of 
 irresponsive dependence. Mrs. Staines thought at first 
 that I was dull and amiable, and that as a companion I 
 would do no great credit to anything but her benevolence. 
 Later, for a time, as I gave proofs of some sagacity and per- 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 63 
 
 haps of some decision, I think she fancied me a schemer 
 and Heaven forgive her! a hypocrite. But at last, evi- 
 dently although to the end, I believe, she continued to 
 compliment my shrewdness at the expense of that feminine 
 sweetness by which I should have preferred to commend 
 myself she decided that I was a person of the best in- 
 tentions, and here comes my story that I would make a 
 suitable wife for her son. 
 
 To this unexpectedly flattering conclusion, of course, she 
 was slow in coming; it was the result of the winter we 
 passed together after Harold had "turned his attention," as 
 his mother always publicly phrased it, "to art." He had 
 declared that we must immediately go abroad that he might 
 study the works of the masters. His mother, I believe, 
 suggested that he might begin with the rudiments nearer 
 home. But apparently he had mastered the rudiments, for 
 she was overruled and we went to Rome. I don't know how 
 many of the secrets of the masters Harold learned; but we 
 passed a delightful winter. He began his studies with the 
 solemn promptitude which he used in all things, and de- 
 voted a great deal of time to copying from the antique in 
 the Vatican and the Capitol. He worked slowly, but with 
 extraordinary precision and neatness, and finished his draw- 
 ings with exquisite care. He was openly very little of a 
 dogmatist, but on coming to know him you found that he 
 had various principles of which he was extremely tenacious. 
 Several of these related to the proportions of the human 
 body, as ascertained by himself. They constituted, he 
 affirmed, an infallible method for learning to draw. If 
 other artists didn't know it, so much the worse for them. 
 He applied this rare method persistently all winter, and 
 carried away from Rome a huge portfolio full of neatly 
 shaded statues and statuesque contadini. At first he had 
 ^one into a painter's studio with several other pupils, but 
 he took no fancy to either his teacher or his companions, 
 and came home one day in disgust, declaring that he hact 
 washed his hands of them. As he never talked about dis- 
 agreeable things, he said nothing as to what had vexed 
 him ; but I guessed that he had received some mortal offence, 
 
64 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 and I was not surprised that he shouldn't care to frater- 
 nize with the common herd of art-students. They had 
 long, untidy hair, and smoked bad tobacco; they lay na 
 one knew where, and borrowed money and took liberties. 
 Mr. Staines certainly was not a man to refuse a needy friend 
 a napoleon, but he couldn't forgive a liberty. He took none 
 with himself! We became very good friends, and it was 
 especially for this that I liked him. Nothing is truer than 
 that in the long run we like our opposites ; they're a change 
 and a rest from ourselves. I confess that my good intentions 
 sometimes clashed with a fatal light-headedness, of which 
 a fair share of trouble had not cured me. In moments of 
 irritation I had a trick of giving the reins to my "sar- 
 casm ; " so at least my partners in quadrilles had often called 
 it. At my leisure I was sure to repent, and frank public 
 amends followed fast on the heels of offence. Then I be- 
 lieve I was called generous not only by my partners in 
 quadrilles. But I had a secret admiration for people who 
 were just, from the first and always, and whose demeanor 
 seemed to shape itself with a sort of harmonious unity, like 
 the outline of a beautiful statue. Harold Staines was a fin- 
 ished gentleman, as we used to say in those days, and I 
 admired him the more that I still had ringing in my ears 
 that eternal refrain of my schoolroom days "My child, 
 my child, when will you ever learn to be a lady?" He 
 seemed to me an embodiment of the serene amenities of 
 life, and I didn't know how very great a personage I thought 
 him until I once overheard a young man in a crowd at St. 
 Peter's call him that confounded prig. Then I came to the 
 conclusion that it was a very coarse and vulgar world, and 
 that Mr. Staines was too good for it. 
 
 This impression was not removed by I hardly know 
 what to call it the gallant propriety of his conduct toward 
 me. He had treated me at first with polite condescension, 
 as a very young and rather humble person, whose presence 
 in the house rested on his mother's somewhat eccentric 
 benevolence, rather than on any very obvious merits of her 
 own. But later, as my native merit, whatever it was, got 
 the better of my shyness, he approached me, especially in 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 65 
 
 company, with a sort of ceremonious consideration which 
 seemed to give notice to the world that if his mother and he, 
 treated me as their equal why, I was their equal. At 
 last, one fine day in Rome, I learned that I had the honor 
 to please him. It had seemed to me so little of a matter 
 of course that I should captivate Mr. Staines, that for a 
 moment I was actually disappointed, and felt disposed to 
 tell him that I had expected more of his taste. But as I 
 grew used to the idea, I found no fault with it, and I felt 
 prodigiously honored. I didn't take him for a man of 
 genius, but his admiration pleased me more than if it had 
 come in chorus from a dozen of the men of genius whom I 
 had had pointed out to me at archaeological picnics. They 
 somehow were covered with the world's rust and haunted 
 with the world's errors, and certainly on any vital question 
 could not be trusted to make their poor wives the same 
 answers two days running. Besides, they were dreadfully 
 ugly. Harold was consistency itself, and his superior man- 
 ner and fine blond beauty seemed a natural result of his 
 spiritual serenity. The way he declared himself was very 
 characteristic, and to some girls might have seemed prosaic. 
 To my mind it had a peculiar dignity. I had asked him, a 
 week before, as we stood on the platform before the Lateran, 
 some question about the Claudian aqueduct, which he had 
 been unable to answer at the moment, although on coming 
 to Rome he had laid in a huge provision of books of refer- 
 ence which he consulted with unfailing diligence. "I'll look 
 it up," he said gravely; but I thought no more about it, 
 and a few days afterwards, when he asked me to ride with 
 him on the Campagna, I never supposed I was to be treated 
 to an archaeological lecture. It was worthy of a wiser lis- 
 tener. He led the way to a swelling mound, overlooking the 
 long stretch of the aqueduct, and poured forth the result 
 of his researches. This was surely not a trivial compliment ; 
 and it seemed to me a finer sort of homage than if he had 
 offered me a fifty-franc bouquet or put his horse at a six- 
 foot wall. He told me the number of the arches, and very 
 possibly of the stones; his story bristled with learning. 
 I listened respectfully and stared hard at the long ragged 
 
66 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ruin, as if it had suddenly become intensely interesting. But 
 it was Mr. Staines who was interesting : all honor to the man 
 who kept his polite promises so handsomely ! I said nothing 
 when he paused, and after a few minutes was going to turn 
 away my horse. Then he laid his hand on the bridle, and, 
 in the same tone, as if he were still talking of the aqueduct, 
 informed me of the state of his affections. I, in my unsus- 
 pectingness, had enslaved them, and it was proper that I 
 should know he adored me. Proper! I have always re- 
 membered the word, though I was far from thinking then 
 that it clashed with his eloquence. It often occurred to me 
 afterwards as the key-note of his character. In a moment 
 more, he formally offered himself. 
 
 Don't be surprised at these details: to be just I must be 
 perfectly frank, and if I consented to tell you my story, it 
 is because I fancied I should find profit in hearing it myself. 
 As I speak my words come back to me. I left Rome en- 
 gaged to Mr. Staines, subject to his mother's approval. He 
 might dispense with it, I told him, but I could not, and as 
 yet I had no reason to expect it. She would, of course, 
 wish him to marry a woman of more consequence. Mine 
 of late had risen in her eyes, but she could hardly regard 
 me as yet as a possible daughter-in-law. With time I 
 hoped to satisfy her and to receive her blessing. Then I 
 would ask for no further delay. We journeyed slowly up 
 from Rome along the Mediterranean, stopping often for 
 several days to allow Harold to sketch. He depicted moun- 
 tains and villages with the same diligence as the statues in 
 the Vatican, and presumably with the same success. As 
 his winter's practice had given him great facility, he would 
 dash off a magnificent landscape in a single morning. I 
 always thought it strange that, being very sober in his 
 speech and manner, he should be extremely fond of color in 
 art. Such at least was the fact, and these rapid water- 
 colors were a wonderful medley. Crimson and azure, orange 
 and emerald nothing less would satisfy him. But, for that 
 matter, nature in those regions has a dazzling brightness. 
 So at least it had for a lively girl of twenty, just engaged. 
 So it had for a certain time afterwards. I'll not deny, 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 67 
 
 the lustrous sea and sky began vaguely to reflect my own 
 occasionally sombre mood. How to explain to you the 
 process of my feeling at this time is more than I can say; 
 how especially to make you believe that I was neither per- 
 verse nor capricious. I give it up; I can only assure you 
 that I observed my emotions, even before I understood them, 
 with painful surprise. I was not disillusioned, but an end 
 had suddenly come to my elation. It was as if my heart 
 had had wings, which had been suddenly clipped. I have 
 never been especially fond of my own possessions, and I 
 have learned that if I wish to admire a thing in peace, I 
 must remain at a respectful distance. My happiness in 
 Harold's affection reached its climax too suddenly, and 
 before I knew it I found myself wondering, questioning, and 
 doubting. It was no fault of his, certainly, and he had 
 promised me nothing that he was not ready to bestow. He 
 was all attention and decorous devotion. If there was a 
 fault, it was mine, for having judged like the very young 
 and uninformed person I was. Since my engagement I felt 
 five years older, and the first use I made of my maturity 
 cruel as it may seem was to turn round and look keenly 
 at my lover and revise my judgment. His rigid urbanity 
 was still extremely impressive, but at times I could have 
 fancied that I was listening to a musical symphony, of 
 which only certain brief, unresonant notes were audible. 
 Was this all, and were there no others? It occurred to me 
 more than once, with a kind of dull dismay, in the midst of 
 my placid expectancy, that Harold's grave notes were the 
 beginning and the end of his character. If the human heart 
 were a less incurable skeptic, I might have been divinely 
 happy. I sat by my lover's side while he worked, gazing 
 at the loveliest landscape in the world, and admiring the 
 imperturbable audacity with which he attacked it. Sooner 
 than I expected, these rather silent interviews, as romantic 
 certainly as scenery could make them, received Mrs. Staines's 
 sanction. She had guessed our secret, and disapproved of 
 nothing but its secrecy. She was satisfied with her son's 
 choice, and declared with great emphasis that she was not 
 ambitious. She was kindness itself (though, as you see, she 
 
68 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 indulged in no needless flattery), and I wondered that I 
 could ever have thought her stern. From this time forward 
 she talked to me a great deal about her son; too much, I 
 might have thought, if I had cared less for the theme. I 
 have said I was not perverse. Do I judge myself too ten- 
 derly? Before long I found something oppressive some- 
 thing almost irritating in the frequency and complacency 
 of Mrs. Staines's maternal disquisitions. One day, when 
 she had been reminding me at greater length than usual of 
 what a prize I had drawn, I abruptly changed the subject 
 in the midst of a sentence, and left her staring at my petu- 
 lance. She was on the point, I think, of administering a 
 reprimand, but she suppressed it and contented herself with 
 approaching the topic more cautiously in future. Here is 
 another reminiscence. One morning (it was near Spezia, I 
 think) Harold had been sketching under a tree, not far 
 from the inn, and I sitting by and reading aloud from 
 Shelley, whom one might feel a kindness for there if no- 
 where else. We had had a little difference of opinion about 
 one of the poems the beautiful "Stanzas Written in Dejec- 
 tion near Naples," which you probably remember. Harold 
 pronounced them childish. I thought the term ill-chosen, 
 and remember saying, to reinforce my opinion, that though 
 I was no judge of painting, I pretended to be of poetry. He 
 told me (I have not forgotten his words) that "I lacked 
 cultivation in each department," and I believe I replied that 
 I would rather lack cultivation than imagination. For a 
 pair of lovers it was a very pretty quarrel as it stood. 
 Shortly afterwards he discovered that he had left one of 
 his brushes at the inn, and went off in search of it. He had 
 trouble in finding it, and was absent for some time. His 
 verdict on poor Shelley rang in my ears as I sat looking out 
 on the blue iridescence of the sea, and murmuring the lines 
 in which the poet has so wonderfully suggested it. Then 
 I went and sat down on Harold's stool to see how he had 
 rendered this enchanting effect. The picture was nearly 
 finished, but unfortunately I had too little cultivation to 
 enjoy it. The blue sea, however, seemed in all conscience 
 blue enough. While I was comparing it with the far-fading 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 69 
 
 azure of the original, I heard a voice behind me, and turn- 
 ing, saw two gentlemen from the inn, one of whom had been 
 my neighbor the evening before at dinner. He was a 
 foreigner, but he spoke English. On recognizing me he 
 advanced gallantly, ushering his companion, and imme- 
 diately fell into ecstasies over my picture. I informed 
 him without delay that the picture was not mine; it was 
 the work of Mr. Staines. Nothing daunted, he declared 
 that it was pretty enough to be mine, and that I must have 
 given suggestions ; but his companion, a less superficial char- 
 acter apparently, and extremely near-sighted, after examin- 
 ing it minutely with his nose close to the paper, exclaimed 
 with an annoying smile, "Monsieur Staines? Surprising! 
 I should have sworn it was the work of a jeune file" 
 
 The compliment was doubtful, and not calculated to re- 
 store my equanimity. As a jeune fille I suppose I ought to 
 have been gratified, but as a betrothed I should have pre- 
 ferred Harold to paint like a man. I don't "know how 
 long after this it was that I allowed myself to wonder, by 
 way of harmless conjecture, how a woman might feel who 
 should find herself married to an ineffective mediocrity. 
 Then I remembered as if the case were my own that 
 I had never heard any one talk about his pictures, and that 
 when I had seen them handed about before company by his 
 mother, the buzz of admiration usual on such occasions 
 seemed rather heavy-winged. But I quickly reminded my- 
 self that it was not because he painted better or worse that 
 I cared for him, but because personally and morally he was 
 the pink of perfection. This being settled, I fell to wonder- 
 ing whether one jmightn't grow weary of perfection 
 whether (Heaven forgive me!) I was not already the least 
 bit out of patience with Harold's. I could fancy him a 
 trifle too absolute, too imperturbable, too prolific in cut-and- 
 dried opinions. Had he settled everything, then, in his 
 mind? Yes, he had certainly made the most of his time, 
 and I could only admire his diligence. From the moment 
 that I observed that he wasted no time in moods, or reveries, 
 or intellectual pleasantry of any sort, I decided without 
 appeal that he was not a man of genius; and yet, to listen 
 
70 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to him at times, you would have vowed at least that he 
 might be. He dealt out his opinions as if they were celestial 
 manna, and nothing was more common than for him to say, 
 "You remember, a month ago, I told you so-and-so ! " mean- 
 ing that he had laid down the law on some point and ex- 
 pected me to engrave it on my heart. It often happened 
 that I had forgotten the lesson, and was obliged to ask him 
 to repeat it; but it left me more unsatisfied than before. 
 Harold would settle his shirt collar as if he considered that 
 he had exhausted the subject, and I would take refuge in 
 a silence which from day to day covered more treacherous 
 conjectures. Nevertheless (strange as you may think it), I 
 believe I should have decided that, Harold being a para- 
 gon, my doubts were immoral, if Mrs. Staines, after his 
 cause might have been supposed to be gained, had not per- 
 sisted in pleading it in season and out. I don't know 
 whether she suspected my secret falterings, but she seemed 
 to wish to secure me beyond relapse. I was so very modest 
 a match for her son, that if I had been more worldly-wise, 
 her enthusiasm might have alarmed me. Later I under- 
 stood it; then I only understood that there was a general 
 flavor of insinuation in her talk which made me vaguely 
 uneasy. I did the poor lady injustice, and if I had been 
 quicker-witted (and possibly harder-hearted) we might 
 have become sworn allies. She judged her son less with a 
 mother's tenderness than with a mother's zeal, and foresaw 
 the world's verdict which I won't anticipate! She per- 
 ceived that he must depend upon a clever wife to float him 
 into success; he would never prosper on his own merits. 
 She did me the honor to believe me socially a sufficiently 
 buoyant body for this arduous purpose, and must have felt 
 it a thousand pities that she couldn't directly speak her 
 mind. A thousand pities indeed! My answer would have 
 been to the point, and would have saved us all a vast deal of 
 pain. Meanwhile, trying half to convince and half to en- 
 tangle me, she did everything to hasten our marriage. 
 
 If there had been anything less than the happiness of a 
 lifetime at stake, I think I should have felt that I owed 
 Harold a sort of reparation for thinking him too great a 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 71 
 
 man, and should still have offered him an affection none the 
 less genuine for being transposed into a minor key. But 
 it was hard for a girl who had dreamed blissfully of a! 
 grandly sentimental union, to find herself suddenly face to 
 face with a sternly rational one. When, therefore, Harold 
 mentioned a certain day as the latest for which he thought 
 it proper to wait, I found it impossible to assent, and asked 
 for another month's delay. What I wished to wait for I 
 could hardly have told. Possibly for the first glow of illu- 
 sion to return ; possibly for the last uneasy throb which told 
 that illusion was ebbing away. Harold received this request 
 very gravely, and inquired whether I doubted of his affec- 
 tion. 
 
 "No," I said, "I believe it's greater than I deserve." 
 
 "Why then," he asked, "should you wait?" 
 
 "Suppose I were to doubt of my own?" 
 
 He looked as if I had said something in very bad taste, 
 and I was almost frightened at his sense of security. But 
 he at last consented to the delay. Perhaps on reflection he 
 was alarmed, for the grave politeness with which he dis- 
 charged his attentions took a still more formal turn, as if 
 to remind me at every hour of the day that his was not a 
 sentiment to be trifled with. To trifle, Heaven knows, 
 was far enough from my thoughts; for I was fast losing 
 my spirits, and I woke up one morning with the conviction 
 that I was decidedly not happy. 
 
 We were to be married in Paris, where Harold had de- 
 termined to spend six months in order that he might try 
 his fortune again in the studio of a painter whom he espe- 
 cially esteemed a certain Monsieur Martinet, an old man, 
 and belonging, I believe, to a rather antiquated school of 
 art. During our first days in Paris I went with Harold a 
 great deal to the Louvre, where he was a very profitable 
 companion. He had the history of the schools at his fingers' 
 ends, and, as the phrase is, he knew what he liked. We 
 had a fatal habit of not liking the same things; but I pre- 
 tended to no critical insight, and desired nothing better than 
 to agree with him. I listened devoutly to everything that 
 could be said for Guido and Caravaggio. One day we were 
 
72 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 standing before the inscrutable "Joconde" of Leonardo, a 
 picture disagreeable to most women. I had been expressing 
 my great aversion to the lady's countenance, which Harold 
 on this occasion seemed to share. I was surprised therefore, 
 when, after a pause, he said quietly, "I believe I'll copy 
 her." 
 
 I hardly knew why I should have smiled, but I did, ap- 
 parently to his annoyance. "She must be very difficult," I 
 said. "Try something easier." 
 
 "I want something difficult," he answered sternly. 
 
 "Truly?" I said. "You mean what you say?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why then copy a portrait when you can copy an origi- 
 nal?" " 
 
 "What original?" 
 
 "Your betrothed! Paint my portrait. I promise to be 
 difficult enough. Indeed, I'm surprised you should never 
 have proposed it." In fact the idea had just occurred to 
 me; but I embraced it with a sort of relief. It seemed to 
 me that it would somehow test my lover, and that if he suc- 
 ceeded, I might believe in him irremissibly. He stared a 
 moment as if he had hardly understood me, and I completed 
 my thought. "Paint my portrait, and the day you finish 
 it I'll fix our wedding day." 
 
 The proposal was after all not very terrible, and before 
 long he seemed to relish it. The next day he told me that 
 he had composed his figure mentally, and that we might 
 begin immediately. Circumstances favored us, for he had 
 for the time undisturbed all of M. Martinet's studio. This 
 gentleman had gone into the country to paint a portrait, 
 and Harold just then was his only pupil. Our first sitting 
 took place without delay. At his request I brought with me 
 a number of draperies, among which was the yellow shawl 
 you have just been admiring. We wore such things then, 
 just as we played on the harp and read "Corinne." 1 
 tried on my scarfs and veils, one after the other, but Har- 
 old was satisfied with none. The yellow shawl, in especial, 
 he pronounced a meretricious ornament, and decided that 
 I should be represented in a plain dark dress, with as few 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 73 
 
 accessories as possible. He quoted with a bow the verse 
 about beauty when unadorned, and began his work. 
 
 After the first day or two it progressed slowly, and I felt 
 at moments as if I had saddled him with a cruel burden. 
 He expressed no irritation, but he often looked puzzle'd and 
 wearied, and sometimes would lay aside his brushes, fold 
 his arms, and stand gazing at his work with a sort of vacant 
 scowl which tried my patience. "Frown at me," I said 
 more than once; "don't frown at that blameless sheet of can- 
 vas. Don't spare me, though I confess it's not my fault if 
 I'm hard to paint." Thus admonished, he would turn to- 
 ward me without smiling, often shading his eyes with his 
 hand, and would walk slowly round the room, examining me 
 at a distance. Then coming back to his easel, he would 
 make half a dozen strokes and pause again, as if his impetus 
 had already expired. For some time I was miserable; it 
 seemed to me that I had been wonderfully wise to withhold 
 my hand till the picture was finished. He begged I would 
 not look at it, but I knew it was standing still. At last, one 
 morning, after gazing at his work for some time in silence, 
 he laid down his palette gravely, but with no further sign 
 of discomposure than that he gently wiped his forehead 
 with his pocket-handkerchief. "You make me nervous," 
 he suddenly declared. 
 
 I fancied there was a tremor in his voice, and I began to 
 pity him. I left my place and laid my hand on his arrn. 
 "If it wearies you," I said, "give it up." 
 
 He turned away and for some time made no answer. I 
 knew what he was thinking about, and I suppose he knew 
 that I knew it, and was hesitating to ask me seriously 
 whether in giving up his picture he gave up something more. 
 He decided apparently to give up nothing, but grasped his 
 palette, and, with the short incisive gesture habitual to him, 
 motioned me back to my seat. "I'll bother no longer over 
 the drawing," he said; "I'll begin to paint." With his colors 
 he was more prosperous, for the next day he told me that 
 we were progressing fast. 
 
 We generally went together to the studio, but it hap- 
 pened one day that he was to be occupied during the early 
 
74 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 morning at the other end of Paris, and he arranged to meet 
 me there. I was punctual, but he had not arrived, and I 
 found myself face to face with my reluctant image. Oppor- 
 tunity served too well, and I looked at it in spite of his 
 prohibition, meaning of course to confess my fault. It 
 brought me less pleasure than faults are reputed to bring. 
 The picture, as yet very slight and crude, was unpromising 
 and unflattering. I chiefly distinguished a long white face 
 with staring black eyes, and a terribly angular pair of arms. 
 Was it in this unlovely form that I had impressed myself 
 on Harold's vision? Absorbed by the question, it was some 
 moments before I perceived that I was not alone. I heard 
 a sound, looked round, and discovered a stranger, a young 
 man, gazing over my shoulder at Harold's canvas. His 
 gaze was intense and not expressive of pleasure, and some 
 moments passed before he perceived that I had noticed him. 
 He reminded me strongly of certain dishevelled copyists 
 whom I had seen at work in the Louvre, and as I supposed 
 he had some lawful errand in the studio, I contented myself 
 with thinking that he hadn't the best manners in the world, 
 and walked to the other end of the room. At last, as he 
 continued to betray no definite intentions, I ventured to 
 look at him again. He was young twenty-five at most 
 and excessively shabby. I remember, among other details, 
 that he had a black cravat wound two or three times round 
 his neck, without any visible linen. He was short, thin, pale 
 and hungry-looking. As I turned toward him, he passed his 
 hand through his hair, as if to do what he could to make 
 himself presentable, and called my attention to his prodi- 
 gious shock of thick black curls a real coiffure de rapin. 
 His face would have been meagre and vulgar, if from be- 
 neath their umbrageous locks there had not glanced an ex- 
 traordinary pair of eyes eyes really of fire. They were not 
 tender nor appealing, but they glittered with a sort of 
 feverish intelligence and penetration, and stamped their 
 possessor not, as the French say, the first comer. He 
 almost glared at me and stopped my words short. 
 
 "That's your portrait?" he asked, with a toss of his head. 
 
 I assented with dignity. 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 75 
 
 "It's bad, bad, bad!" he cried. "Excuse my frankness, 
 but it's really too bad. It's a waste of colors, of money, of 
 time." 
 
 His frankness certainly was extreme; but his words had 
 an accent of ardent conviction which doesn't belong to com- 
 monplace impertinence. "I don't know who you are, that 
 I should value your opinion," I said. 
 
 "Who I am? I'm an artist, mademoiselle. If I had 
 money to buy visiting-cards, I would present you with one. 
 But I haven't even money to buy colors hardly to buy 
 bread. I've talent I've imagination too much! I've 
 ideas I've promise I've a future; and yet the machine 
 won't work for want of fuel! I have to roam about with 
 my hands in my pockets to keep them warm for want of 
 the very tools of my trade. I've been a fool an ignoble 
 fool; I've thrown precious hours to the dogs and made 
 enemies of precious friends. Six months ago I quarreled 
 with the pere Martinet, who believed in me and would have 
 been glad to keep me. II jaut que jeunesse se passe! Mine 
 has passed at a rattling pace, ill-mounted though it was; 
 we have parted company forever. Now I only ask to do a 
 man's work with a man's will. Meanwhile the pere Marti- 
 net, justly provoked, has used his tongue so well that not 
 a colorman in Paris will trust me. There's a situation! 
 And yet what could I do with ten francs' worth of paint? 
 I want a room and light and a model, and a dozen yards 
 of satin tumbling about her feet. Bah! I shall have to 
 want! There are things I want more. Behold the force of 
 circumstances. I've come back with my pride in my pocket 
 to make it up with the venerable author of the 'Apotheosis 
 of Moliere,' and ask him to lend me a louis." 
 
 I arrested this vehement effusion by informing him that 
 M. Martinet was out of town, and that for the present 
 the studio was private. But he seemed too much irritated 
 to take my hint. "That's not his work?" he went on, turn- 
 ing to the portrait. "Martinet is bad, but is not as bad 
 as that. Quel genre! You deserve, mademoiselle, to be 
 better treated; you're an excellent model. Excuse me, once 
 for all ; I know I'm atrociously impudent. But I'm an artist, 
 
76 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 and I find it pitiful to see a fine great canvas besmeared in 
 such a fashion as that! There ought to be a society for the 
 protection of such things." 
 
 I was at loss what to reply to this extraordinary explo- 
 sion of contempt. Strange to say it's the literal truth 
 I was neither annoyed nor disgusted; I simply felt myself 
 growing extremely curious. This impudent little Bohemian 
 was forcing me somehow to respect his opinion; he spoke 
 with penetratng authority. Don't say that I was willing 
 to be convinced; if you had been there, you would have 
 let him speak. It would have been, of course, the part 
 of propriety to request him in a chilling voice to leave 
 the room, or to ring for the concierge, or to flee in horror. 
 I did none of these things: I went back to the picture, and 
 tried hard to see something in it which would make me 
 passionately contradict him. But it seemed to exhale a 
 mortal chill, and all I could say was: "Bad bad? How 
 bad?" 
 
 "Ridiculously bad; impossibly bad! You're an angel of 
 charity, mademoiselle, not to see it!" 
 
 "Is it weak cold ignorant?" 
 
 "Weak, cold, ignorant, stiff, empty, hopeless! And, on 
 top of all, pretentious oh, pretentious as the facade of the 
 Madeleine!" 
 
 I endeavored to force a skeptical smile. "After all, 
 monsieur, I'm not bound to believe you." 
 
 "Evidently!" And he rubbed his forehead and looked 
 gloomily round the room. "But one thing I can tell you" 
 fixing me suddenly with his extraordinary eyes, which 
 seemed to expand and glow with the vividness of prevision 
 "the day will come when people will fight for the honor 
 of having believed me, and of having been the first. 'I 
 discovered him I always said so. But for me you'd have 
 let the poor devil starve!' You'll hear the chorus! So 
 now's your chance, mademoiselle! Here I stand, a man of 
 genius if there ever was one, without a sou, without a 
 friend, without a ray of reputation. Believe in me now, 
 and you'll be the first, by many a day. You'd find it 
 easier, you'll say, if I had a little more modesty. I assure 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 77 
 
 you I don't go about blowing my trumpet in this fashion 
 every day. This morning I'm in a kind of fever, and 
 I've reached a crisis. I must do something even make 
 an ass of myself! I can't go on devouring my own heart. 
 You see for these three months I've been a sec. I haven't 
 dined every day. Perhaps a sinking at the stomach is pro- 
 pitious to inspiration: certainly, week by week, my brain 
 has grown clearer, my imagination more restless, my de- 
 sires more boundless, my visions more splendid! Within 
 the last fortnight my last doubt has vanished, and I feel 
 as strong as the sun in heaven! I roam about the streets 
 and lounge in the public gardens for want of a better refuge, 
 and everything I look at the very sunshine in the gutter, 
 the chimney-pots against the sky seems a picture, a sub- 
 ject, an opportunity! I hang over the balustrade that runs 
 before the pictures at the Louvre, and Titian and Correggio 
 seem to turn pale, like people when you've guessed their 
 secret. I don't know who the author of this masterpiece 
 may be, but I fancy he would have more talent if he weren't 
 so sure of his dinner. Do you know how I learned to look 
 at things and use my eyes? By staring at the char cutler's, 
 windows when my pockets were empty. It's a great lesson 
 to learn even the shape of a sausage and the color of a 
 ham. This gentleman, it's easy to see, hasn't noticed such 
 matters. He goes by the sense of taste. Voila le monde! 
 I I I " and he slapped his forehead with a kind of 
 dramatic fury "here as you see me ragged, helpless, hope- 
 less, with my soul aching with ambition and my fingers 
 itching for a brush and he, standing up here after a good 
 breakfast, in this perfect light, among pictures and tapes- 
 tries and carvings, with you in your blooming beauty for 
 a model, and painting that sign-board.'* 
 
 His violence was startling; I didn't know what might 
 come next, and I took up my bonnet and mantle. He 
 immediately protested with ardor. "A moment's reflection, 
 mademoiselle, will tell you that, with the appearance I pre- 
 sent, I don't talk about your beauty pour vous faire la 
 cour. I repeat with all respect, you're a model to make 
 a painter's fortune. I doubt if you've many attitudes or 
 
78 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 much flexibility; but for once the portrait of Mile. X. 
 you're perfect." 
 
 "I'm obliged to you for your information," I answered 
 gravely. "You see my artist is chosen. I expect him here 
 at any moment, and I won't answer for his listening to you 
 as patiently as I have done." 
 
 "He's coming?" cried -my visitor. "Quelle chance! I 
 shall be charmed to meet him. I shall vastly enjoy seeing 
 the human head from which that conception issued. I see 
 him already: I construct the author from the work. He's 
 tall and blond, with eyes very much the color of his own 
 china-blue there. He wears straw-colored whiskers, and 
 doubtless he paints in straw-colored gloves. In short, he's 
 un homme magnifique!" 
 
 This was 'sarcasm run mad; but I listened to it and 
 resented it as little as I enjoyed it. My companion seemed 
 to possess a sort of demonic veracity of which the influence 
 was irresistible. I questioned his sincerity so little that, if 
 I offered him charity, it was with no intention of testing it. 
 "I dare say you've immense talent," I said, "but you've 
 horrible manners. Nevertheless, I believe you will perceive 
 that there is no reason why our conversation should con- 
 tinue; and I should pay you a poor compliment in thinking 
 that you need to be bribed to withdraw. But since M. 
 Martinet isn't here to lend you a louis, let me act for him." 
 And I laid the piece of gold on the table. 
 
 He looked at it hard for a moment and then at me, and 
 I wondered whether he thought the gift too meagre. "I 
 won't go so far as to say that I'm proud," he answered at 
 last. "But from a lady, ma joi! it's beggarly it's humil- 
 iating. Excuse me then if I refuse; I mean to ask for 
 something else. To do me justice, remember that I speak 
 to you not as a man, but as an artist. Bestow your charity 
 on the artist, and if it costs you an effort, remember that 
 that is the charity which is of most account with heaven. 
 Keep your louis; go and stand as you've been standing for 
 this picture, in the same light and the same attitude, and 
 then let me look at you for three little minutes." As he 
 spoke he drew from his pocket a ragged note-book and the 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 79 
 
 stump of a pencil. "The few scrawls I shall make here 
 will be your alms." 
 
 He spoke of effort, but it is a fact that I made little to 
 comply. While I resumed my familiar attitude in front of 
 Harold's canvas, he walked rapidly across the room and 
 stooped over a chair upon which a mass of draperies had 
 been carelessly tossed. In a moment I saw what had at- 
 tracted him. He had caught a glimpse of the famous yellow 
 scarf, glowing splendidly beneath a pile of darker stuffs. 
 He pulled out the beautiful golden-hued tissue with furious 
 alacrity, held it up before him and broke into an ecstasy of 
 admiration. "What a tone what a glow what a texture! 
 In Heaven's name, put it on!" And without further cere- 
 mony he tossed it over my shoulders. I need hardly tell 
 you that I obeyed but a natural instinct in gathering it into 
 picturesque folds. He rushed away, and stood gazing and 
 clapping his hands. "The harmony is perfect the effect 
 sublime! You possess that thing and you bury it out of 
 sight? Wear it, wear it, I entreat you and your portrait 
 but ah!" and he glared angrily askance at the picture: 
 "you'll never wear it there!" 
 
 "We thought of using it, but it was given up." 
 
 "Given up? Quelle horreur! He hadn't the pluck to 
 attack it! Oh, if I could just take a brush at it and rub 
 it in for him!" And, as if possessed by an uncontrollable 
 impulse, he seized poor Harold's palette. But I made haste 
 to stop his hand. He flung down the brushes, buried his 
 face in his hands, and pressed back, I could fancy, the tears 
 of baffled eagerness. "You'll think me crazy!" he cried. 
 
 He was not crazy, to my sense; but he was a raging, 
 aimless force, which I suddenly comprehended that I might 
 use. I seemed to measure the full proportions of Harold's 
 inefficiency, and to foresee the pitiful result of his under- 
 taking. He wouldn't succumb, but he would doggedly 
 finish his task and present me, in evidence of his claim, 
 with a dreadful monument of his pretentious incapacity. 
 Twenty strokes from this master-hand would make a dif- 
 ference; ten minutes' work would carry the picture for- 
 ward. I thrust the palette into the young man's grasp 
 
8o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 again and looked at him solemnly. "Paint away for your 
 life," I said; "but promise me this: to succeed!" 
 
 He waved his hand in the air, despatched me with a 
 glance to my place, and let himself loose on the canvas; 
 there are no other words for his tremulous eagerness. A 
 quarter of an hour passed in silence. As I watched his 
 motions grow every moment broader and more sweeping, 
 I could fancy myself listening to some ardent pianist, plung- 
 ing deeper into a passionate symphony and devouring the 
 key-board with outstretched arms. Flushed and dishevelled, 
 consuming me almost with his ardent stare, daubing, 
 murmuring, panting, he seemed indeed to be painting for 
 life. 
 
 At last I heard a tread in the vestibule. I knew it was 
 Harold's, and I hurried to look at the picture. How would 
 he take it? I confess I was prepared for the worst. The pic- 
 ture spoke for itself. Harold's work had disappeared with 
 magical rapidity, and even my unskilled eye perceived that 
 a graceful and expressive figure had been powerfully 
 sketched in. As Harold appeared, I turned to meet him. 
 He seemed surprised at not finding me alone, and I laid 
 my finger gravely on my lips and led him to the front of 
 the canvas. The position of things was so singular that 
 for some moments it baffled his comprehension. My com- 
 panion finished what he was immediately concerned with; 
 then with an obsequious bow laid down his brushes. "It 
 was a loan, monsieur," he said. "I return it with interest." 
 Harold flushed to his eyes, and sat down in silence. I had 
 expected him to be irritated; but this was more than 
 irritation. At last: "Explain this extraordinary per- 
 formance," he said in a low voice. 
 
 I felt pain, and yet somehow I felt no regret. The situa- 
 tion was tense, as the phrase is, and yet I almost relished 
 it. "This gentleman is a great artist," I said boldly. 
 "Look for yourself. Your picture was lost; he has redeemed 
 it." 
 
 Harold looked at the intruder slowly from head to foot. 
 "Who is this person?" he demanded, as if he had not 
 heard me. 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 81 
 
 The young man understood no English, but he apparently 
 guessed at the question. "My name is Pierre Briseux; let 
 that" (pointing to his work) "denote my profession. If 
 you're affronted, monsieur, don't visit your displeasure on 
 mademoiselle; I alone am responsible. You had got into 
 a tight place; I wished to help you out of it; sympathie de 
 conjr&re! I've done you no injury. I've made you a 
 present of half a masterpiece. If I could only trust you not 
 to spoil it!" 
 
 Harold's face betrayed his invincible disgust, and I saw 
 that my offence was mortal. He had been wounded in his 
 tenderest part, and his self-control was rapidly ebbing. His 
 lips trembled, but he was too angry even to speak. Sud- 
 denly he seized a heavy brush which stood in a pot of dusky 
 varnish, and I thought for a moment he was going to fling 
 it at Briseux. He balanced it an instant, and then tossed 
 it full in the face of the picture. I raised my hands to 
 my face as if I felt the blow. Briseux, at least, felt it 
 sorely. 
 
 "Malheureux!" he cried. "Are you blind as well? Don't 
 you know a good thing when you see it? That's what I 
 call a waste of material. Allans, you're very angry; let 
 me explain. In meddling with your picture I certainly 
 took a great liberty. My misery is my excuse. You have 
 money, materials, models everything but talent. No, no, 
 you're no painter; it's impossible! There isn't an intel- 
 ligent line on your canvas. I, on the other hand, am a 
 born painter. I've talent and nothing more. I came here 
 to see M. Martinet; learning he was absent, I staid for 
 very envy! I looked at your work, and found it a botch; 
 at your empty stool and idle palette, and found them an 
 immense temptation; at mademoiselle, and found her a 
 perfect model. I persuaded, frightened, convinced her, and 
 out of charity she gave me a five minutes' sitting. Once 
 the brush in my hand, I felt the divine afflatus; I hoped for 
 a miracle that you'd never come back, that you'd be run 
 over in the street, or have an attack of apoplexy. If you 
 had only let me go on, I should have served you up a great 
 work, monsieur a work to which, in spite of your natural 
 
82 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 irritation, you wouldn't have dared to do a violence. You'd 
 have been afraid of it. That's the sort of thing I meant 
 to paint. If you could only believe me, you'd not regret 
 it. Give me a start, and ten years hence I shall see you 
 buying my pictures, and not thinking them dear. Oh, I 
 thought I had my foot in the stirrup; I dreamed I was 
 in the saddle and riding hard. But I've turned a somer- 
 sault!" 
 
 I doubt that Harold, in his resentment, either understood 
 M. Briseux's words or appreciated his sketch. He simply 
 felt that he had been the victim of a monstrous aggression, 
 in which I, in some painfully inexplicable way, had been 
 half dupe and half accomplice. I was watching his anger 
 and weighing its ominous significance. His cold fury, and 
 the expression it threw into his face and gestures, told me 
 more about him than weeks of placid love-making had 
 done, and, following close upon my vivid sense of his in- 
 capacity, seemed suddenly to cut the knot that bound us 
 together, and over which my timid fingers had been fum- 
 bling. "Put on your bonnet," he said to me; "get a car- 
 riage and go home." 
 
 I can't describe his tone. It contained an assumption 
 of my confusion and compliance, which made me feel that 
 I ought to lose no time in undeceiving him. Nevertheless 
 I felt cruelly perplexed, and almost afraid of his displeas- 
 ure. Mechanically I took up my bonnet. As I held it 
 in my hand, my eyes met those of our terrible companion, 
 who was evidently trying to read the riddle of my relations 
 with Harold. Planted there with his trembling lips, his 
 glittering, searching eyes, an indefinable something in his 
 whole person that told of joyous impulse arrested, but 
 pausing only for a more triumphant effort, he seemed a 
 strangely eloquent embodiment of youthful genius. I don't 
 know whether he read in my glance a ray of sympathy, but 
 his lips formed a soundless "Restez, madame" which 
 quickened the beating of my heart. The feeling that then 
 invaded it I despair of making you understand; yet it must 
 help in your eyes to excuse me, and it was so profound 
 that often in memory it seems more real and poignant than 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 83 
 
 the things of the present. Poor little Briseux, ugly, shabby, 
 disreputable, seemed to me some appealing messenger from 
 the mysterious immensity of life; and Harold, beside him, 
 comely, elegant, imposing, justly indignant, seemed to me 
 simply his narrow, personal, ineffectual self. This was a 
 wider generalization than the feminine heart is used to. I 
 flung my bonnet on the floor and burst into tears. 
 
 "This is not an exhibition for a stranger," said Harold 
 grimly. "Be so good as to follow me." 
 
 "You must excuse me; I can't follow you; I can't ex- 
 plain. I have something more to say to M. Briseux. He's 
 less of a stranger than you think." 
 
 "I'm to leave you here?" stammered Harold. 
 
 "It's the simplest way." 
 
 "With that dirty little Frenchman?" 
 
 "What should I care for his being clean? It's his genius 
 that interests me." 
 
 Harold stared in dark amazement. "Art you insane? 
 Do you know what you're doing?" 
 
 "An act, I believe, of real charity." 
 
 "Charity begins at home. It's an act of desperate folly. 
 Must I command you to leave?" 
 
 "You've done that already. I can't obey you. If I were 
 to do so, I should pretend what isn't true; and, let me say 
 it, it's to undeceive you that I refuse." 
 
 "I don't understand you," cried Harold, "nor to what 
 spell this meddlesome little beggar has subjected you! 
 But I'm not a man to be trifled with, you know, and this 
 is my last request; my last, do you understand? If you 
 prefer the society of this abandoned person, you're wel- 
 come, but you forfeit mine forever. It's a choice! You 
 give up the man who has offered you an honorable affection, 
 a name, a fortune, who has trusted and cherished you, who 
 stands ready to make you a devoted husband. What you 
 get the Lord knows!" 
 
 I had sunk into a chair. I listened in silence, and for 
 some time answered nothing. His words were vividly true. 
 He offered me much, and I gave up everything. He had 
 played an honorable part, and I was playing a very 
 
84 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 strange one. I asked myself sternly whether I was ready 
 to rise and take his arm and let him lead me blindfold 
 through life. When I raised my eyes Briseux stood before 
 me, and from the expression of his face I could have fan- 
 cied he had guessed at the meaning of Harold's words. "I'll 
 make you immortal," he murmured; "I'll delight man- 
 kind and I'll begin my own career!" 
 
 An ineffable prevision of the truth which after the 
 lapse of years has brought about our meeting here seemed 
 to raise me as if on wings, and made decision easy. We 
 women are so habitually condemned by fate to act simply 
 in what is called the domestic sphere, that there is some- 
 thing intoxicating in the opportunity to exert a far-reach- 
 ing influence outside of it. To feel the charms of such an 
 opportunity, one must perhaps be of a reprehensibly fanci- 
 ful turn. Such at any rate was my mood for that hour. 
 I seemed to be the end of an electric chain, of which the 
 rest was throbbing away through time. I seemed to hold 
 in my hand an immeasurable gift. "We had better part on 
 the spot," I said to Harold. "I've foreseen our parting for 
 weeks, only it has come more abruptly. Forgive the ab- 
 ruptness. To myself the pretext seems better than to you; 
 perhaps some day you'll appreciate it. A single question," 
 I added. "Could you ever have finished my portrait?" 
 
 He looked at me askance for some moments, with a 
 strange mistrust, as if I had suddenly developed some mon- 
 strous and sinister slyness; then catching his breath with 
 a little groan almost a shudder he marched out of the 
 room. 
 
 Briseux clasped his hands in ecstasy. "You're magni- 
 ficent!" he cried. "If you could only look so for three 
 hours!" 
 
 "To business," I said sternly. "If you don't paint a 
 perfect picture, you're the most shameless of impostors." 
 
 He had but a single sitting, but it was a long one; 
 though how many hours it lasted, I doubt that either of 
 us could have told. He painted till dusk, and then we had 
 lamps. Before I left him I looked at the picture for the 
 last and only time before seeing it to-day. It seemed to 
 
THE SWEETHEART OF M. BRISEUX 85 
 
 me as perfect as it seemed this morning, and I felt that my 
 choice was justified and that Briseux's fortune was made. 
 It gave me all the strength I needed for the immediate 
 future. He was evidently of the same opinion and pro- 
 foundly absorbed in it. When I bade him farewell, in very 
 few words, he answered me almost absently. I had served 
 his purpose and had already passed into that dusky limbo 
 of unhonored victims, the experience intellectual and other 
 of genius. I left him the yellow shawl, that he might 
 finish this part of his work at his leisure, and, as for the 
 picture, I told him to keep it, for that I should have little 
 pleasure in seeing it again. Then he stared a moment, but 
 the next he was painting hard. 
 
 I had the next morning what under other circumstances 
 I might call an explanation with Mr. Staines, an explanation 
 in which I explained nothing to his satisfaction but that 
 he had been hideously wronged, and that I was a demon of 
 inconstancy. He wrapped himself in an icy silence, and, 
 I think, expected some graceful effusion of humility. I may 
 not have been humble, but I was considerate, and I per- 
 ceived, for my reward, that the sore point with him was 
 not that he had lost me, but that I had ventured to judge 
 him. Mrs. Staines's manner, on the other hand, puzzled 
 me, so strange a mixture was it of half-disguised elation 
 and undisguised sarcasm. At last I guessed her meaning. 
 Harold, after all, had had an escape; instead of being the 
 shrewd, practical girl she had thought me, I was a terribly 
 romantic one! Perhaps she was right; I was romantic 
 enough to make no further claim on her hospitality, and 
 with as little delay as possible I returned home. A month 
 later I received an enclosure of half a dozen cuttings from 
 newspapers, scrawled boldly across with the signature of 
 Pierre Briseux. The Paris salon had opened and the 
 critics had spoken. They had not neglected the portrait 
 of Mademoiselle X . The picture was an immense suc- 
 cess, and M. Briseux was famous. There were a few pro- 
 testing voices, but it was evident that his career had begun. 
 
 For Mademoiselle X herself, I believe, there were none 
 
 but compliments, several of which took the form of gallant 
 
86 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 conjecture as to her real identity. Mademoiselle X 
 
 was an assumed name, and according to more than one voice 
 the lady was an imperious Russian princess with a distate 
 for vulgar publicity. You know the rest of M. Briseux's 
 history. Since then he has painted real princesses by the 
 dozen. He has delighted mankind rarely. As for his hav- 
 ing made me immortal, I feel as if it were almost true. It 
 must be an eternity since the thing happened so very 
 unreservedly I've described it! 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 
 
 THE little town of P is off the railway, and reached 
 by a coach drive of twenty-five miles, which the primi- 
 tive condition of the road makes a trial to the flesh, and the 
 dulness of the landscape a weariness to the spirit. It was 
 therefore not balm to my bruises, physical or intellectual, to 
 find, on my arrival, that the gentleman for whose sake I 
 had undertaken the journey had just posted off in a light 
 buggy for a three days' holiday. After venting my disap- 
 pointment in a variety of profitless expletives, I decided that 
 the only course worthy of the elastic philosophy of a com- 
 mercial traveller was to take a room at the local tavern and 
 
 await his return. P was obviously not an exhilarating 
 
 place of residence, but I had outweathered darker hours, 
 and I reflected that having, as the phrase is, a bone to pick 
 with my correspondent, a little accumulated irritation would 
 arm me for the combat. Moreover, I had been rattling 
 about for three months by rail; I was mortally tired, and 
 the prospect of spending a few days beyond earshot of the 
 steam whistle was not unwelcome. A certain audible, rural 
 hush seemed to hang over the little town, and there was 
 nothing apparently to prevent my giving it the whole of my 
 attention. I lounged awhile in the tavern porch, but my 
 presence seemed only to deepen the spell of silence on that 
 customary group of jaundiced ruminants who were tilting 
 their chairs hard by. I measured thrice, in its length, the 
 dusty plank sidewalk of the main street, counted the holly- 
 hocks in the front yards, and read the names on the little 
 glass door plates; and finally, in despair, I visited the ceme- 
 tery. Although we were at the end of September, the day 
 was hot, and this youthful institution boasted but a scanty 
 
 87 
 
88 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 growth of funereal umbrage. No weeping willow, no dusky 
 cypress offered a friendly shelter to the meditative visitor. 
 The yellow grass and white tombstones glared in the hot 
 light, and though I felt very little merrier than a graveyard 
 ghost, I staid hardly longer than one who should have 
 mistaken his hour. But I am fond of reading country 
 epitaphs, and I promised myself to come back when the sun 
 was lower. On my way back to the inn I found myself, on 
 a lately opened cross street, face to face with the town hall, 
 and pausing approached its threshold with hopes of enter- 
 tainment scarcely less ardent than those which, during a 
 journey abroad, had guided my steps toward some old civic 
 palace of France or Italy. There was, of course, no liver- 
 ied minion to check my advance, and I made my way un- 
 challenged into the large, bare room which occupied the 
 body of the edifice. It was the accustomed theatre of town 
 meetings, caucuses, and other solemn services, but it seemed 
 just now to have been claimed for profaner uses. An itiner- 
 ant lecturer, of a boisterous type, was unpacking his bud- 
 get and preparing his mise en scene. This seemed to con- 
 sist simply of a small table and three chairs in a row, and 
 of a dingy specimen of our national standard, to whose awk- 
 ward festoons, suspended against the blank wall at the rear 
 of the platform, the orator in person was endeavoring to 
 impart a more artistic grace. Another personage on the 
 floor was engaged in scrawling the date of the performance, 
 in red chalk, upon a number of printed handbills. He 
 silently thrust one of these documents at me as I passed, and 
 I saw with some elation that I had a resource for my eve- 
 ning. The latter half of the page consisted of extracts from 
 village newspapers, setting forth the merits of the entertain- 
 ments. The headings alone, as I remember them, ran some- 
 what in this fashion: 
 
 A MESSAGE FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD. 
 THE HIGHER MATHEMATICS MADE EASY TO 
 
 LADIES AND CHILDREN. 
 
 A NEW REVELATION! A NEW SCIENCE! 
 
 GREAT MORAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMBINATION. 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 89 
 
 PROFESSOR FARGO, THE INFALLIBLE WAKING MEDIUM AND 
 
 MAGICIAN, CLAIRVOYANT, PROPHET, AND SEER! 
 
 COLONEL GIFFORD, THE FAMOUS LIGHTNING CALCULATOR 
 
 AND MATHEMATICAL REFORMER! 
 
 This was the substance of the program, but there were 
 a great many incidental fioriture which I have forgotten. 
 By the time I had mastered them, however, for the occasion, 
 the individual who was repairing the tattered flag, turned 
 round, perceived me, and showed me a countenance which 
 could belong only to an "infallible waking medium." It 
 was not, indeed, that professor Fargo had the abstracted 
 and emaciated aspect which tradition attributes to prophets 
 and visionaries. On the contrary, the fleshly element in his 
 composition seemed, superficially, to enjoy a luxurious 
 preponderance over the spiritual. He was tall and corpu- 
 lent, and wore an air of aggressive robustness. A mass of 
 reddish hair was tossed back from his forehead in a leonine 
 fashion, and a lustrous auburn beard diffused itself com- 
 placently over an expansive but by no means immaculate 
 shirt front. He was dressed in a black evening suit, of a 
 tarnished elegance, and it was in keeping with the festal 
 pattern of his garments, that on the right forefinger of a 
 large, fat hand, he should wear an immense turquoise ring. 
 His intimate connection with the conjuring class was 
 stamped upon his whole person ; but to a superficial glance 
 he might have seemed a representative of its grosser accom- 
 plishments. You could have fancied him, in spangled flesh- 
 ings, looking down the lion's mouth, or cracking the ring- 
 master's whip at the circus, while Mile. Josephine jumped 
 through the hoops. It was his eyes, when you fairly met 
 them, that proved him an artist on a higher line. They 
 were eyes which had peeped into stranger places than even 
 lions' mouths. Their pretension, I know, was to pierce 
 the veil of futurity; but if this was founded, I could only 
 say that the vision of Ezekiel and Jeremiah was but another 
 name for consummate Yankee shrewdness. They were, in 
 a single word, the most impudent pair of eyes I ever beheld; 
 and it was the especial sign of their impudence that they 
 
90 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 seemed somehow to undertake to persuade you of the dis- 
 interested benevolence. Being of a fine reddish brown color, 
 it was probable that several young women that evening 
 would pronounce them magnificent. Perceiving, apparently, 
 
 that I had not the rustic physiognomy of a citizen of P , 
 
 Professor Fargo deemed my patronage worth securing. He 
 advanced to the cope of the platform with his hands in his 
 pockets, and gave me a familiar nod. 
 
 "Mind you come to-night, young man!" he said, jocosely 
 imperious. 
 
 "Very likely I shall," I answered. "Anything in the 
 world to help me through an evening at P ." 
 
 "Oh, you won't want your money back," the Professor re- 
 joined. "Mine is a first-class entertainment; none of your 
 shuffling break-downs. We are perfect, my friends and I, 
 in our respective parts. If you are fond of a good, stiff, 
 intellectual problem, we'll give you something to think 
 about." The Professor spoke very slowly and benignantly, 
 and his full, sonorous voice rolled away through the empty 
 hall. He evidently liked to hear it himself; he balanced 
 himself on his toes and surveyed the scene of his impending 
 exploits. "I don't blow my own trumpet," he went on; 
 "I'm a modest man; you'll see for yourself what I can do. 
 But I should like to direct your attention to my friend 
 the Colonel. He's a rare old gentleman to find in a travel- 
 ing show! The most remarkable old gentleman, perhaps, 
 that ever addressed a promiscuous audience. You needn't 
 be afraid of the higher mathematics; it's all made as pretty 
 as a game of billiards. It's his own daughter does the 
 sums. We don't put her down in the bills, for motives of 
 delicacy; but I'll tell you for your private satisfaction that 
 she is an exquisite young creature of seventeen." 
 
 It was not every day that I found myself in familiar con- 
 versation with a prophet, and the opportunity for obtaining 
 a glimpse of the inner mechanism of the profession was too 
 precious to be neglected. I questioned the Professor about 
 his travels, his expenses, his profits, and the mingled 
 emotions of the itinerant showman's lot; and then, taking 
 the bull by the horns, I asked him whether, between our- 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 91 
 
 selves, an accomplished medium had not to be also a tol- 
 erable conjurer? He leaned his head on one side and 
 stood stroking his beard, and looking at me between lids 
 shrewdly half closed. Then he gave a little dry chuckle, 
 which expressed, at my choice, compassion either for my 
 disbelief in his miracles or for my faith in his urbanity. 
 
 "I confess frankly," I said, "that I'm a skeptic. I don't 
 believe in messages from the spirit world. I don't believe 
 that even the depressing prospect of immortality is capable 
 of converting people who talked plain sense here on earth 
 into the authors of the inflated platitudes which people of 
 your profession pretend to transmit from them. I don't 
 believe people who have expressed themselves for a life- 
 time in excellent English can ever be content with conver- 
 sation by raps on the dinner table. I don't believe that; you 
 know anything more about the future world than you do 
 about the penal code of China. My impression is that you 
 don't believe so yourself. I can hardly expect you, of course, 
 to take the wind out of your own sails. What I should 
 vastly like you to do is, to tell me viva voce, in so many 
 words, that your intentions are pure and your miracles 
 genuine." 
 
 The Professor remained silent, still caressing his pro- 
 phetic beard. At last, in a benevolent drawl, "Have you got 
 any dear friend in the spirit land?" he asked. 
 
 "I don't know what you call the spirit land," I answered. 
 "Several of my friends have died." 
 
 "Would you like to see 'em?" the Professor promptly 
 demanded. 
 
 "No, I confess I shouldn't." 
 
 The Professor shook his head. 
 
 "You've not a rich nature," he rejoined blandly. 
 
 "It depends on what you call rich. I possess on some 
 points a wealth of curiosity. It would gratify me peculiarly 
 to have you say outright, standing there on your own plat- 
 form, that you're an honest man." 
 
 It seemed to give him pleasure to trifle with my longing 
 for this sensation. "I'll give you leave," he said, for all 
 answer, "to tie my hands into the tightest knot you can in- 
 
92 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 vent and then I'll make your great-grandfather come in 
 and stop the clock. You know I couldn't stop a clock, 
 perched up on a mantel shelf five feet high, with my 
 heels." 
 
 "I don't know," said I. "I fancy you're very clever." 
 
 "Cleverness has nothing to do with it. I've great mag- 
 netism." 
 
 "You'd magnetize my great-grandfather down from 
 heaven?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, if I could establish communication. You'll see 
 to-night what I can do. I'll satisfy you. If I don't I shall 
 be happy to give you a private sitting. I'm also a healing 
 medium. You don't happen to have a toothache? I'd set 
 you down there and pull it right out, as I'd pull off your 
 boot." 
 
 In compliment to this possibility, I could only make 
 him my bow. His, at least, was a "rich nature." I bade 
 him farewell, with the assurance that, skeptic as I was, 
 I would applaud him impartially in the evening. I had 
 reached the top of the hall, on my way out, when I heard 
 him give a low, mellifluous whistle. I turned round, and 
 he beckoned to me to return. I walked back, and he leaned 
 forward from the platform, uplifting his stout forefinger. 
 "I simply desire to remark," he said, "that I'm an honest 
 man!" 
 
 On my return to the hotel I found that my impatience 
 for the Professor's further elucidation of his honesty made 
 the interval look long. Fortune, however, assisted me to 
 traverse it at an elastic pace. Rummaging idly on a book- 
 shelf in the tavern parlor, I found, amid a pile of farmers' 
 almanacs and Methodist tracts, a tattered volume of "Don 
 Quixote." I repaired to my room, tilted back my chair, 
 and communed deliciously with the ingenious hidalgo. 
 Here was "magnetism" superior even to that of Professor 
 Fargo. It proved so effective that I lost all note of time, 
 and, at last on looking at my watch, perceived that dinner, 
 must have been over for an hour. Of "service" at this un- 
 sophisticated hostelry there was but a rigidly democratic 
 measure, and if I chose to cultivate a too elegant absence 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 93 
 
 of eagerness for beefsteak pie and huckleberry pudding, the 
 young lady in long tight ringlets and short sleeves, who 
 administered these delicacies in the dining-room, was al- 
 together too haughty a spirit to urge them on my attention. 
 So I sat alone and ate them cold. After dinner I returned 
 for an hour to La Mancha, and then strolled forth, accord- 
 ing to my morning's vow, to see the headstones in the ceme- 
 tery cast longer shadows. I was disappointed in the 
 epitaphs; they were posterior to the age of theological 
 naivete. The cemetery covered the two opposed sides of 
 a hill, and on walking up to the ridge and looking over it, 
 I discovered that I was not the only visitor. Two persons 
 had chosen the spot for a quiet talk. One of them was a 
 young girl, dressed in black, and seated on a headstone, 
 with her face turned toward me. In spite of her attitude, 
 however, she seemed not to perceive me, wrapt as she was 
 in attention to her companion a tall, stout fellow, standing 
 before her, with his back to me. They were at too great a 
 distance for me to hear their talk, and indeed in a few 
 minutes I began to fancy they were not speaking. Never- 
 theless, the young girl's eyes remained fixed on the man's 
 face; he was holding her spellbound by an influence best 
 known to himself. She was very pretty. Her hat was off, 
 and she was holding it in her lap ; her lips were parted, and 
 her eyes fixed intently on her companion's face. Suddenly 
 she gave a bright, quick smile, made a rapid gesture in the 
 air, and laid her forefinger on her lips. The movement, 
 and the manner of it, told her story. She was deaf and 
 dumb, and the man had been talking to her with his fingers. 
 I would willingly have looked at her longer, but I turned 
 away in delicacy, and walked in another direction. As I 
 was leaving the cemetery, however, I saw her advancing 
 with her companion to take the path which led to the gate. 
 The man's face was now turned to me, and I straightway 
 recognized it, in spite of the high peaked white hat which 
 surmounted it. It was natural enough, I suppose, to find 
 Professor Fargo in a graveyard; as the simplest expedient 
 for ascertaining what goes on beyond the tomb might seem 
 to be to get as close as possible to the hither cope of it. 
 
94 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 Besides, if he was to treat the townsfolk to messages from 
 their buried relatives, it was not amiss to "get up" a few 
 names and dates by the perusal of the local epitaphs. As 
 he passed me, however, and flourished his hand in the air 
 by way of salutation, there was a fine absence in his glance 
 of any admission that he had been caught cheating. This, 
 too, was natural enough; what surprised me was that such 
 a vulgar fellow should be mated with so charming a com- 
 panion. She gave me as she passed the trustfully unshrink- 
 ing glance of those poor mortals who are obliged to listen, 
 as one may say, with their eyes. Her dress was scanty 
 and simple, but there was delicacy in her mobile features. 
 Who was she, and how had he got hold of her? After 
 all, it was none of my business; but as they passed on, 
 walking rather briskly, and I strolled after them, watching 
 the Professor's ponderous tread and the gliding footfall of 
 the young girl, I began to wonder whether he might not be 
 right might not, in truth, have that about him which would 
 induce the most venerable of my ancestors to revert from 
 eternity and stop the clock. 
 
 His handbills had done their office, and the Town Hall, 
 when I entered it that evening, was filled with a solemnly 
 
 expectant auditory. P was evidently for the evening a 
 
 cluster of empty houses. While my companions scanned the 
 stage for the shadow of coming events, I found ample pas- 
 time in perusing the social physiognomy of the town. A 
 shadow presently appeared in the person of a stout young 
 countryman, armed with an accordion, from which he ex- 
 tracted an ingenious variety of lamentable sounds. Soon 
 after this mysterious prelude, the Professor marshalled out 
 his forces. They consisted, first and foremost, of himself, 
 his leonine chevelure, his black dress suit, and his turquoise 
 ring, and then of an old gentleman who walked in gravely 
 and stiffly, without the Professor's portentous salaam to the 
 audience, bearing on his arm a young girl in black. The 
 Professor managed somehow, by pushing about the chairs, 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 95 
 
 turning up the lamps, and giving a twist to the patriotic 
 drapery in the background, to make his audience feel his 
 presence very intimately. His assistants rested themselves 
 tranquilly against the wall. It took me but a short time 
 to discover that the young girl was none other than the 
 companion of the Professor's tour of inspection in the 
 cemetery, and then I remembered that he had spoken in the 
 morning of the gentleman who performed the mathematical 
 miracles being assisted by his daughter. The young girl's 
 infirmity, and her pretty face, promised to impart a pictur- 
 esque interest to this portion of the exhibition; but mean- 
 while I inferred from certain ill-suppressed murmurs, and 
 a good deal of vigorous pantomime among the female spec- 
 tators, that she was found wanting in the more immediate 
 picturesqueness demanded of a young lady attached to a 
 show. Her plain black dress found no favor; the admis- 
 sion fee had justified the expectation of a good deal of trim- 
 ming and several bracelets. She, however, poor girl, sat 
 indifferent in her place, leaning her head back rather wearily 
 against the wall, and looking as if, were she disposed, she 
 might count without trouble all the queer bonnets among 
 her judges. Her father sat upright beside her, with a cane 
 between his knees and his two hands crossed on the knob. 
 He was a man of sixty-five tall, lean, pale, and serious. 
 The lamp hanging above his head deepened the shadows on 
 his face, and transformed it into a sort of pictorial mask. 
 He was very bald, and his forehead, which was high and 
 handsome, wore in the lamplight the gleam of old ivory. The 
 sockets of his eyes were in deep shadow, and out of them 
 his pupils gazed straight before him, with the glow of 
 smouldering fire. His high-arched nose cast a long shadow 
 over his mouth and chin, and two intensified wrinkles, be- 
 side his mustache, made him look strangely tragic. With his 
 tragic look, moreover, he seemed strangely familiar. His 
 daughter and the Professor I regarded as old friends; but 
 where had I met this striking specimen of antique mel- 
 ancholy? Though his gaze seemed fixed, I imagined it was 
 covertly wandering over the audience. At last it appeared 
 to me that it met mine, and that its sombre glow emitted a 
 
96 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 spark of recognition of my extra-provincial and inferen- 
 tially more discriminating character. The next moment I 
 identified him he was Don Quixote in the flesh; Don 
 Quixote, with his sallow Spanish coloring, his high-browed, 
 gentlemanly visage, his wrinkles, his mustache, and his sad- 
 ness. 
 
 Professor Fargo's lecture was very bad. I had expected 
 he would talk a good deal of nonsense, but I had imagined 
 it would- be cleverer nonsense. Very possibly there was a 
 deeper cleverness in it than I perceived, and that, in his 
 extreme shrewdness, he was giving his audience exactly what 
 they preferred. It is an ascertained fact, I believe, that 
 rural assemblies have a relish for the respectably ponderous, 
 and an honest pride in the fact that they cannot be bored. 
 The Professor, I suppose, felt the pulse of his listeners, and 
 detected treasures of latent sympathy in their solemn, irre- 
 sponsive silence. I should have said the performance was 
 falling dead, but the Professor probably would have claimed 
 that this was the rapture of attention and awe. He cer- 
 tainly kept very meagrely the promise of his grandiloquent 
 program, and gave us a pound of precept to a grain of ex- 
 ample. His miracles were exclusively miracles of rhetoric. 
 He discoursed upon the earth life and the summer land, 
 and related surprising anecdotes of his intimacy with the 
 inhabitants of the latter region; but to my disappointment, 
 the evening passed away without his really bringing us face 
 to face with a ghost. A number of "prominent citizens" 
 were induced to step upon the platform and be magnetized, 
 
 but the sturdy agricultural temperament of P showed 
 
 no great pliancy under the Professor's manual blandish- 
 ments. The attempt was generally a failure the only 
 brilliant feature being the fine impudence with which the 
 operator lodged the responsibility of the fiasco upon what 
 he called his victim's low development. With three or four 
 young girls the thing was a trifle better. One of them 
 closed her eyes and shivered; another had a fearful access 
 of nervous giggling; another burst into tears, and was re- 
 stored to her companions with an admonitory wink. As 
 every one knew every one else and every one else's family 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 97 
 
 history, some sensation was probably produced by half a 
 dozen happy guesses as to the Christian names and last 
 maladies of certain defunct town worthies. Another depu- 
 tation of the prominent citizens ascended the platform and 
 wrote the names of departed friends on small bits of paper, 
 which they threw into a hat. The Professor then folded his 
 arms and clutched his beard, as if he were invoking inspira- 
 tion. At last he approached the young girl, who sat in the 
 background, took her hand, and led her forward. She 
 picked the papers out of the hat and held them up one by 
 one, for the Professor to look at. "There is no possible col- 
 lusion," he said with a flourish, as he presented her to the 
 audience. "The young lady is a deaf mute!" On a gesture 
 of her companion she passed the paper to one of the con- 
 templative gray heads who represented the scientific curios- 
 ity of P , and he verified the Professor's guess. The 
 
 Professor risked an "Abijah" or a "Melinda," and it turned 
 out generally to be an Ezekiel or a Hepzibah. Three sev- 
 eral times, however, the performer's genius triumphed; 
 whereupon, the audience not being up to the mark, he gave 
 himself a vigorous round of applause. He concluded with 
 the admission that the spirits were shy before such a 
 crowd, but that he would do much better for the ladies 
 and gentlemen individually, if they would call on him at 
 the hotel. 
 
 It was all terribly vulgar rubbish, and I was glad when it 
 was over. While it lasted, the old gentleman behind 
 continued to sit motionless, seeming neither to see, to hear, 
 nor to understand. I wondered what he thought of it, and 
 just what it cost his self-respect to give it the sanction of 
 his presence. It seemed, indeed, as if mentally he were 
 not present; as if by an intense effort he had succeeded in 
 making consciousness a blank, and was awaiting his own 
 turn in a kind of trance. Once only he moved when the 
 Professor came and took his daughter by the hand. He 
 gave an imperceptible start, controlled himself, then, drop- 
 ping his hand a little, closed his eyes and kept them closed 
 until she returned to his side. There was an intermission, 
 during which the Professor walked about the platform, shak- 
 
98 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ing his mane and wiping his forehead, and surveying the 
 audience with an air of lofty benevolence, as if, having sown 
 the seed, he was expecting to see it germinate on the spot. 
 At last he rapped on the table and introduced the old gentle- 
 man Colonel Gifford, the Great Mathematical Magician 
 and Lightning Calculator; after which he retreated in turn 
 to the background if a gentleman with tossing mane and 
 flowing beard, that turquoise ring, and generally expansive 
 and importunate presence, could be said to be, under any 
 circumstances, in the background. The old gentleman came 
 forward and made his bow, and the young girl placed her- 
 self beside him, simply, unaffectedly, with her hands hang- 
 ing and crossed in front of her with all the childish grace 
 and serenity of Mignon in "Wilhelm Meister," as we see 
 her grouped with the old harper. Colonel Gifford 's per- 
 formance gave me an exquisite pleasure, which I am bound 
 to confess was quite independent of its intrinsic merits. 
 These, I am afraid, were at once too numerous and too 
 scanty to have made it a popular success. It was a very 
 ingenious piece of scientific contrivance, but it was meagrely 
 adapted to tickle the ears of the groundlings. If one had 
 read it the substance of it in a handsomely printed 
 pamphlet, under the lamp, of a wet evening when no one 
 was likely to call, one would have been charmed at once with 
 the quaint vivacity of the author's mode of statement, and 
 with the unexpected agility of one's own intellect. But in 
 spite of an obvious effort to commend himself to under- 
 standings more familiar with the rule of thumb than with the 
 differential calculus, Colonel Gifford remained benignantly 
 but formidably unintelligible. He had devised so far as 
 I understood it an extension of the multiplication table to 
 enormous factors, by which he expected to effect a revolu- 
 tion in the whole science of accounts. There was the theory, 
 which rather lost itself, thanks to his discursive fervor in 
 the mists of the higher mathematics, and there was the prac- 
 tice, which, thanks to his daughter's cooperation, was much 
 more gracefully concrete. The interesting thing to me was 
 the speaker's personality, not his system. Although evi- 
 dently a very positive old man, he had a singularly simple, 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 99 
 
 unpretentious tone. His intensity of faith in the supreme 
 importance of his doctrine gave his manner a sort of rever- 
 ential hush. The echoes of Professor Fargo's windy ver- 
 biage increased the charms of his mild sincerity, fie spoke 
 in a feeble, tremulous voice, which every now and then 
 quavered upward with excitement, and then subsided into 
 a weary, plaintive cadence. He was an old gentleman of a 
 single idea, but his one idea was a religion. It was impos- 
 sible not to feel a kindness for him, and imagine that he 
 excited among his auditors something of the vague good 
 will half pity and half reverence that uncorrupted souls 
 entertained for those neat, keen-eyed, elderly people who 
 are rumored to have strange ways and say strange things 
 to be "cracked," in short, like a fine bit of porcelain which 
 will hold together only so long as you don't push it about. 
 But it was upon the young girl, when once she had given 
 them a taste of her capacity, that they bestowed their frank- 
 est admiration. Now that she stood forward in the bright 
 light, I could observe the character of her prettiness. It 
 was no brilliant beauty, but a sort of meagre, attenuated, 
 angular grace, the delicacy and fragility of the characteristic 
 American type. Her chest was flat, her neck extremely thin, 
 her visage narrow, and her forehead high and prominent. 
 But her fair hair encircled her head in such fleecy tresses, 
 her cheeks had such a pale pink flush, her eyes such an ap- 
 pealing innocence, her attitude such a quaint unconscious 
 felicity, that one watched her with a kind of upstart belief 
 that to such a stainless little spirit the v/orking of miracles 
 might be really possible. A couple of blackboards were 
 hung against the wall, on one of which the old man rapidly 
 chalked a problem choosing one, of course, on the level of 
 the brighter minds in the audience. The young girl glanced 
 at it, and before we could count ten dashed off a great bold 
 answer on the other tablet. The brighter minds were then 
 invited to verify, and the young lady was invariably found 
 to have hit the mark. She was in fact a little arithmetical 
 fairy, and her father made her perform a series of gymnas- 
 tics among numbers as brilliant in their way as the vocal 
 flourishes and roulades of an accomplished singer. Com- 
 
ioo TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 municating with her altogether by the blackboard, he drew 
 from her a host of examples of the beauty of his system of 
 transcendent multiplication. A person present was re- 
 quested to furnish two enormous numbers, one to multiply 
 the other. The old man wrote them out. After standing 
 an instant meditative and just touching her forehead with 
 her forefinger, she chalked down the prodigious result. Her 
 father then performed rapidly, on the blackboard, the 
 operation according to his own system (which she had em- 
 ployed mentally) , and finally satisfied every one by repeat- 
 ing it in the round-about fashion actually in use. This was 
 all Colonel Gifford's witchcraft. It sounds very ponderous, 
 but it was really very charming, and I had an agreeable sense 
 of titillation in the finer parts of my intellectual mechanism. 
 I felt more like a thinking creature. I had never supposed 
 
 I was coming to P to take a lesson in culture. 
 
 It seemed on the morrow as if, at any rate, I was to take 
 a lesson in patience. It was a Sunday, and I awoke to hear 
 the rain pattering against my window panes. A rainy Sun- 
 day at P was a prospect to depress the most elastic 
 
 mind. But as I stepped into my slippers, I bethought my- 
 self of my unfinished volume of "Don Quixote," and prom- 
 ised myself to borrow from Sancho Panza a philosophic 
 proverb or so applicable to my situation. "Don Quixote" 
 consoled me, as it turned put, in an unexpected fashion. On 
 descending to the dining-room of the inn, while I mentally 
 balanced the contending claims of muddy coffee and sour 
 green tea, I found that my last evening's friends were also 
 enjoying the hospitality of the establishment. It was the 
 only inn in the place, and it would already have occurred 
 to a more investigating mind that we were fellow-lodgers. 
 The Professor, happily, was absent; and it seemed only 
 reasonable that a ghost-seer should lie in bed late of a 
 morning. The melancholy old mathematician was seated at 
 the breakast table cutting his dry toast into geometrical 
 figures. He gave me a formal bow as I entered, and pro- 
 ceeded to dip his sodden polygons into his tea. The young 
 girl was at the window, leaning her forehead against the 
 pane, and looking out into the sea of yellow mud in the 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 101 
 
 village street. I had not been in the room a couple of min- 
 utes when, seeming in spite of her deafness to feel that I 
 was near, she turned straight round and looked at me. She 
 wore no trace of fatigue from her public labors, but was the 
 same clear-eyed, noiseless little sprite as before. I observed 
 that, by daylight, her black dress was very shabby, and her 
 father's frock coat, buttoned with military precision up to 
 his chin, had long since exchanged its original lustre for the 
 melancholy brilliancy imparted by desperate brushing. I 
 was afraid that Professor Fargo was either a niggardly im- 
 presario, or that the great "moral and scientific combina- 
 tion" was not always as remunerative as it seemed to have 
 
 been at P . While I was making these reflections the 
 
 Professor entered, with an exhilaration of manner which I 
 conceived to be a tribute to unwonted success. 
 
 "Well, sir," he cried, as his eyes fell upon me, "what do 
 you say to it now? I hope we did things handsomely, eh? 
 I hope you call that a solid entertainment. This young 
 man, you must know, is one of the scoffers," he went on, 
 turning to the Colonel. "He came yesterday and bearded 
 the lion in his den. He snaps his fingers at spirits, suspects 
 me of foul play, and would like me to admit, in my private 
 character, that you and I are a couple of sharpers. I hope 
 we satisfied you!" 
 
 The Colonel went on dipping his toast into his tea, look- 
 ing grave and saying nothing. "Poor man!" I said to my- 
 self; "he despises his colleague and so do I. I beg your 
 pardon," I cried with warmth; "I would like nothing of 
 the kind. I was extremely interested in this gentleman's 
 exhibition;" and I made the Colonel a bow. "It seemed to 
 me remarkable for its perfect good faith and truthfulness." 
 
 "Many thanks for the compliment," said the Professor. 
 "As much as to say the Colonel's an apostle, and I'm a 
 rascal. Have it as you please; if so, I'm a hardened one!" 
 he declared with a great slap on his pocket; "and anyhow, 
 you know, it's all one concern," and the Professor betook 
 himself to the window where Miss Gifford was standing. 
 She had not looked round at him on his entrance, as she had 
 done at me. The Colonel, in response to my compliment, 
 
102 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 looked across at me with mild benignity, and I assured him 
 afresh of my admiration. He listened silently, stirring his 
 tea; his face betrayed an odd mixture of confidence and dep- 
 recation; as if he thought it just possible that I might 
 be laughing at him, but that if I was not, it was extremely 
 delightful. I continued to insist on its being distinctly his 
 half of the performance that had pleased me; so that, grad- 
 ually convinced of my respectful sympathy, he seemed 
 tacitly to intimate that, if we were only alone and he knew 
 me a little better, it would do him a world of good to talk 
 it all over. I determined to give him a chance at the earliest 
 moment. The Professor, meanwhile, waiting for his break- 
 fast, remained at the window experimenting in the deaf 
 and dumb alphabet with the young girl. It took him, as 
 an amateur, a long time to form his sentences, but he went 
 on bravely, brandishing his large, plump knuckles before her 
 face. She seemed very patient of his slowness, and stood 
 watching his gestures with the same intense earnestness I 
 had caught a glimpse of in the cemetery. Most of my female 
 friends enjoy an unimpeded use of their tongues, and I was 
 unable from experience to appreciate his situation; but I 
 could easily fancy what a delightful sense of intimacy there 
 must be in this noiseless exchange of long looks with a pretty 
 creature toward whom all tendresse of attitude might be 
 conveniently attributed to compassion. Before long 
 the Colonel pushed away his cup, turned about, folded 
 his arms, and fixed his eyes with a frown on the 
 Professor. It seemed to me that I read in his glance a 
 complete revelation of moral torture. The stress of fortune 
 had made them associates, but the Colonel jealously guarded 
 the limits of their private intimacy. The Professor, with all 
 his audacity, suffered himself to be reminded of them. He 
 suddenly pulled out his watch and clamored for his coffee, 
 and was soon seated at a repast which indicated that the 
 prophetic temperament requires a generous diet. The young 
 girl roamed about the room, looking idly at this and that, 
 as if she were used to doing nothing. When she met my 
 eye, she smiled brightly, after a moment's gravity, as if she 
 were also used to saying to people, mentally, "Yes, I know 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 103 
 
 I'm a strange little creature, but you must not be afraid of 
 me." The Professor had hardly got that array of innumer- 
 able little dishes, of the form and dimension of soap-trays, 
 with which one is served in the rural hostelries of New Eng- 
 land, well under contribution, before a young lady was intro- 
 duced who had come to request him to raise a ghost a reso- 
 lute young lady, with several ringlets and a huge ancestral 
 umbrella, whose matutinal appetite for the supernatural had 
 not been quenched by the raw autumnal storm. She pro- 
 duced very frankly a "tin-type" of a florid young man, 
 actually deceased, and demanded to be confronted with his 
 ghost. The day was beginning well for the Professor. He 
 gallantly requested her to be seated, and promised her every 
 satisfaction. While he was hastily despatching his break- 
 fast, the Colonel's daughter made acquaintance with her be- 
 reaved sister. She drew the young man's portrait gently 
 out of her hand, examined it, and then shook her head with 
 a little grimace of displeasure. The young woman laughed 
 good-naturedly, and screamed into her ear that she didn't 
 believe she was a bit deaf and dumb. At the announcement 
 the Colonel, who, after eyeing her while she stated her credu- 
 lous errand with solemn compassion, had turned away to the 
 window, as if to spare himself the spectacle of his colleague's 
 unblushing pretensions, turned back again and eyed her 
 coldly from head to foot. "I recommend you, madam," he 
 said sternly, "to reserve your suspicions for an occasion in 
 which they may be more pertinent." 
 
 Later in the morning I found him still in the dining- 
 room with his daughter. Professor Fargo, he said, was in 
 the parlor, raising ghosts by the dozen; and after a little 
 pause he gave an angry laugh, as if his suppressed irritation 
 were causing him more than usual discomfort. He was 
 walking up and down, with slow, restless steps, and smoking 
 a frugal pipe. I took the liberty of offering him a good 
 cigar, and while he puffed it gratefully, the need to justify 
 himself for his odd partnership slowly gathered force. "It 
 would be a satisfaction for me to tell you, sir," he said at 
 last, looking at me with eyes that fairly glittered with the 
 pleasure of hearing himself speak the words, "that my 
 
104 ' TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 connection with Professor Fargo implies no no " and 
 
 he paused for a moment "no intellectual approval of his 
 extraordinary pretensions. This, of course, is between our- 
 selves. You're a stranger to me, and it's doubtless the 
 height of indiscretion in me to take you into my confidence. 
 My subsistence depends on my not quarrelling with my 
 companion. If you were to repeat to him that I went about 
 undermining the faith, the extremely retributive faith, as 
 you see" (and he nodded toward the parlor door), "of his 
 audiences, he would of course dissolve our partnership and 
 I should be adrift again, trying to get my heavy boat in, 
 tow. I should perhaps feel like an honest man again, but 
 meanwhile, probably, I should starve. Misfortune," he 
 added bitterly, "makes strange bedfellows; and I have been 
 unfortunate!" 
 
 There was so much melancholy meaning in this declara- 
 tion that I asked him frankly who and what he was. 
 He puffed his cigar vigorously for some moments without 
 replying, and at last turned his fine old furrowed visage 
 upon me through a cloud of smoke. "I'm a fanatic. I feed 
 on illusions and cherish ambitions which will never butter 
 my bread. Don't be afraid; I won't buttonhole you; but 
 I have a head full of schemes which I believe the world 
 would be the happier for giving a little quiet attention to. 
 I'm an inventor; and like all inventors whose devices are 
 of value, I believe that my particular contrivance would be 
 the salvation of a misguided world. I have looked a good 
 deal into many things, but my latest hobby is the system of 
 computation of which I tried to give a sketch last night. 
 I'm afraid you didn't understand a word of it, but I assure 
 you it's a very beautiful thing. If it could only get a fair 
 hearing and be thoroughly propagated and adopted, it would 
 save our toiling human race a prodigious deal of ungrateful 
 labor. In America alone, I have calculated, it would save 
 the business community about 23,000 hours in the course of 
 ten years. If time is money, they are worth saving. But 
 there I go! You oughtn't ask me to talk about myself. 
 Myself is my ideas!" 
 
 A little judicious questioning, however, drew from him 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 105 
 
 a number of facts of a more immediately personal kind. 
 His colonelship, he intimated, was held by the inglorious 
 tenure of militia service, and was only put forward to help 
 him to make a figure on Professor Fargo's platform. It was 
 part of the general humbuggery of the attempt to bribe 
 people to listen to wholesome truths truths the neglect of 
 which was its own chastisement. "I have always had a pas- 
 sion for scientific research, and I have squandered my sub- 
 stance in experiments which the world called fruitless. They 
 were curious, they were beautiful, they were divine! But 
 they wouldn't turn any one's mill or grind any one's 
 corn, and I was treated like a mediaeval alchemist, astray in 
 the modern world. Chemistry, physics, mathematics, phil- 
 ology, medicine I've dug deep in them all. Each, in turn, 
 has been a passion to which I've given my days and my 
 nights. But apparently I haven't the art of finding favor 
 for my ideas of sweetening the draught so that people will 
 drink it. So here I am, after all my vigils and ventures, an 
 obscure old man, ruined in fortune, broken down in health 
 and sadly diminished in hope, trying hard to keep afloat by 
 rowing in the same boat as a gentleman who turns tables 
 and raises ghosts. I'm a proud man, sir, and a devotee of 
 the exact sciences. You may imagine what I suffer. I 
 little fancied ten years ago that I was ever going to make 
 capital, on a mountebank's booth, of the pathetic infirmity 
 of my daughter." 
 
 The young girl, while her father talked, sat gazing at him 
 in wistful surprise. I inferred from it that this expansive 
 mood was rare; she wondered what long story he was telling. 
 As he mentioned her, I gave her a sudden glance. Perceiv- 
 ing it, she blushed slightly and turned away. The move- 
 ment seemed at variance with what I had supposed to be 
 her characteristic indifference to observation. "I have a 
 good reason," he said, "for treating her with more than the 
 tenderness which such an infirmity usually commands. At 
 the time of my marriage, and for some time after, I was per- 
 forming a series of curious chemical researches. My wife 
 was a wonderfully pretty little creature. She used to come 
 tripping and rustling about my laboratory, asking questions 
 
106 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 of the most comical ignorance, peeping and rummaging 
 everywhere, raising the lids of jars, and making faces at the 
 bad smells. One day while she was in the room I stepped 
 out on the balcony to examine something which I had placed 
 to dry in the sun. Suddenly I heard a terrific explosion; 
 it smashed the window-glass into atoms. Rushing in, I 
 found my wife in a swoon on the floor. A compound which 
 I had placed to heat on a furnace had been left too long; I 
 had underestimated its activity. My wife was not visibly 
 injured, but when she came to her senses again, she found 
 she had lost her hearing. It never returned. Shortly after- 
 wards my daughter was born born the poor deaf creature 
 you see. I lost my wife and I gave up chemistry. As I 
 advanced in life, I became convinced that my ruling passion 
 was mathematics. I've gone into them very deeply; I con- 
 sidered them the noblest acquisition of the human mind, 
 and I don't hesitate to say that I have profound and origi- 
 nal views on the subject. If you have a head for such 
 things, I could open great vistas to you. But I'm afraid 
 you haven't! Ay, it's a desperately weak-witted generation. 
 The world has a horror of concentrated thought; it wants 
 the pill to be sugared; it wants everything to be made easy; 
 it prefers the brazen foolery that you and I sat through last 
 night to the divine harmonies of the infinite science of num- 
 bers. That's why I'm a beggar, droning out my dreary 
 petition and pushing forth my little girl to catch the cop- 
 pers. That's why I've had to strike a partnership with a 
 vulgar charlatan. I was a long time coming to it, but I'm 
 well in for it now. I won't tell you how, from rebuff to 
 rebuff, from failure to failure, through hope deferred and 
 justice denied, I have finally come to this. It would overtax 
 both your sympathy and your credulity. You wouldn't 
 believe the stories I could relate of the impenetrable stupid- 
 ity of mankind, of the leaden empire of Routine. I squan- 
 dered my property, I confess it, but not in the vulgar way. 
 It was a carnival of high research, a long debauch of experi- 
 ment. When I had melted down my last cent in the con- 
 suming crucible, I thought the world might be willing to 
 pay me something for my results. The world had better 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 107 
 
 uses for its money than the purchase of sovereign truth! 1 
 became a solicitor; I went from door to door, offering peo- 
 ple a choice of twenty superb formulated schemes, the 
 paltriest of which contained the germs of a peaceful revolu- 
 tion. The poor unpatented visions are at this hour all in 
 a bundle upstairs in my trunk. In the midst of my troubles 
 I had the ineffable pleasure of finding that my little girl 
 was a genius. I don't know why it should have been a 
 pleasure; her poor father's genius stood there before me as 
 a warning. But it was a delight to find that her little im- 
 prisoned, soundless mind was not a blank. She had in- 
 herited my passion for numbers. My folly had taken a 
 precious faculty from her ; it was but just I should give her 
 another. She was in good hands for becoming perfect. Her 
 gift is a rare one among women, but she is not of the com- 
 mon feminine stuff. She's very simple strangely simple in 
 some ways. She has never been talked to by women about 
 petticoats, nor by men about love. She doesn't reason; her 
 skill at figures is a kind of intuition. One day it came 
 into my head that I might lecture for a livelihood. I had 
 listened to windy orators, in crowded halls, who had less to 
 say than I. So I lectured, sometimes to twenty people, 
 sometimes to five, once to no one at all. One morning, some 
 six months ago, I was waited upon by my friend there. He 
 told me frankly that he had a show which didn't draw as 
 powerfully as it deserved, and proposed that, as I also 
 seemed unable to catch the public ear, we should combine 
 our forces and carry popularity by storm. His entertain- 
 ment, alone, was rather thin; mine also seemed to lack the 
 desirable consistency; but a mixture of the two might pro- 
 duce an effective compound. I had but five dollars in my 
 pocket. I disliked the man, and I believe in spiritualism 
 about as much as I believe that the sun goes round the 
 earth. But we must live, and I made a bargain. It was 
 a very poor bargain, but it keeps us alive. I took a few 
 hints from the Professor, and brightened up my lucky for- 
 mulas a little. Still, we have terribly thin houses. I 
 couldn't play the mountebank; it's a faculty I lack. At 
 last the Professor bethought himself that I possessed the 
 
io8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 golden goose. From the mountebank's point of view a 
 pretty little deaf and dumb daughter, who could work 
 miracles on the blackboard, was a treasure to a practical 
 mind. The idea of dragging my poor child and her pathetic 
 idiosyncrasies before the world was extremely repulsive to 
 me; but the Professor laid the case before the little maid 
 herself, and at the end of a fortnight she informed him that 
 she was ready to make her curtsey on the platform as a 
 'lightning calculator.' I consented to let her try, and you 
 see that she succeeded. She draws, not powerfully, but 
 sufficiently, and we manage to keep afloat." 
 
 Half an hour later the Professor returned from his morn- 
 ing's labors flushed, dishevelled, rubbing his hands, evi- 
 dently in high good humor. The Colonel immediately be- 
 came silent and grave, asked no questions, and, when dinner 
 was served shortly afterwards, refused everything and sat 
 with a melancholy frown and his eyes fixed on his plate. 
 His comrade was plainly a terrible thorn in his side. I was 
 curious, on the other hand, to know how the Colonel affected 
 the Professor, and I soon discovered that the latter was by 
 no means his exuberant impudent self within the radius 
 of his colleague's pregnant silence. If there was little 
 love lost between them, the ranting charlatan was at least 
 held in check by an indefinable respect for his companion's 
 probity. He was a fool, doubtless, with his careful state- 
 ments and his incapacity to take a humorous view of human 
 credulity; but, somehow, he was a venerable fool, and the 
 Professor, as a social personage, without the inspiration of 
 a lecture-room more or less irritatingly interspaced, and with 
 that pale, grave old mathematician sitting by like a marble 
 monument to Veracity, lacked the courage to ventilate his 
 peculiar pretensions. On this occasion, however, he swal- 
 lowed the Colonel's tacit protest with a wry face. I don't 
 know what he had brought to pass in the darkened parlor; 
 whatever it was, it had agreeably stimulated his confidence 
 in his resources. We had been joined, moreover, at dinner 
 by half a dozen travelers of less oppressively skeptical 
 mould than the Colonel, and under these circumstances it 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 109 
 
 was peculiarly trying to have to veil one's brighter genius. 
 There was undischarged thunder in the air. 
 
 The rain ceased in the afternoon, and the sun leaped 
 out and set the thousand puddles of the village street a-flash- 
 ing. I found the Colonel sitting under the tavern porch 
 with a village urchin between his knees, to whom he seemed 
 to be imparting the rudiments of mathematical science. 
 The little boy had a bulging forehead, a prodigious number 
 of freckles, and the general aspect of a juvenile Newton. 
 Being present at the Colonel's lecture, he had been fired 
 with a laudable curiosity to know more, and learning that 
 Professor Fargo imparted information a domicile, had ven- 
 tured to believe that his colleague did likewise. The child's 
 father, a great, gaunt, brown-faced farmer, with a yellow 
 tuft on his chin, stood by, blushing at the audacity of his 
 son and heir, but grinning delightedly at his brightness. 
 The poor Colonel, whose meed of recognition had as yet been 
 so meagre, was vastly tickled by this expression of infantine 
 sympathy, and discoursed to the little prodigy with the most 
 condescending benevolence. Certainly, as the boy grows up, 
 the most vivid of his childish memories will be that of the 
 old man with glowing eyes and a softened voice coming from 
 under his white mustache the voice which held him stock- 
 still for a whole half hour, and assured him afterwards that 
 he was a little Trojan. When the lesson was over, I pro- 
 posed a walk to the Colonel, and we wandered away out of 
 the village. The afternoon, as it waned, became glorious; 
 the heavy clouds, broken and dispersed, sailed through the 
 glowing sky like high-prowed galleys, draped in purple and 
 silver. I, on my side, shall never forget the Colonel's ex- 
 cited talk, nor how at last, as we sat on a rocky ridge look- 
 ing off to the sunset, he fairly unburdened his conscience. 
 
 "Yes, sir!" he said; "it's a base concession to the ignoble 
 need of keeping body and soul together. Sometimes I feel 
 as if I couldn't stand it another hour as if it were better 
 to break with the impudent rascal and sink or swim as fate 
 decrees, than get a hearing for the truth at such a cost. It's 
 all very well holding my tongue and insisting that I, at least, 
 make no claims for the man's vile frauds; my connection 
 
no TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 with him is itself a sanction, and my presence at his damna- 
 ble mummeries an outrage to the purity of truth. You 
 see I have the misfortune to believe in something, to know 
 something, and to think it makes a difference whether people 
 feed, intellectually, on poisoned garbage or on the ripe, sweet 
 fruit of true science! I shut my eyes every night, and lock 
 my jaws, and clench my teeth, but I can't help hearing the 
 man's windy rubbish. It's a tissue of scandalous lies, from 
 beginning to end. I know them all by heart by this time, 
 and I verily believe I could stand up and rattle them off' 
 myself. They ring in my ears all day, and I have horrible 
 dreams at night of crouching under a table with a lon^ 
 cloth, and tapping on the top of it. The Professor stands 
 outside swearing to the audience that it's the ghost of Archi- 
 medes. Then I begin to suffocate, and overturn the table, 
 and appear before a thousand people as the accomplice of 
 the impostor. There are times when the value of my own 
 unheeded message to mankind seems so vast, so immeasur- 
 able, that I am ready to believe that any means are lawful 
 which may enable me to utter it ; that if one's ship is to set 
 sail for the golden islands, even a flaunting buccaneer may 
 tow it into the open sea. In such moods, when I sit there 
 against the wall, in the shade, closing my eyes and trying 
 not to hear I really don't hear! My mind is a myriad 
 miles away floating, soaring on the wings of invention. 
 But all of a sudden the odiousness of my position comes 
 over me, and I can't believe my senses that it's verily I 
 who sit there I to whom a grain of scientific trulK is more 
 precious than a mountain of gold!" 
 
 He was silent a long time, and I myself hardly knew what 
 consolation to offer him. The most friendly part was simply 
 to let him expend his bitterness to the last drop. "But 
 that's not the worst," he resumed after a while. "The worst 
 is that I hate the greasy rascal to come near my daughter, 
 and that, living and travelling together as we do, he's never 
 far off. At first he used to engage a small child beforehand 
 to hold up his little folded papers for him; but a few weeks 
 ago it came into his head that it would give the affair an 
 sven greater air of innocence, if he could make use of my 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO in 
 
 poor girl. It does, I believe, and it tells, and iVe been 
 brought so low ,that I sit by night after night and endure 
 it. She, on her side, dreams of no harm, and takes the Pro- 
 fessor for an oracle and his lecture for a masterpiece. T 
 have never undeceived her, for I have no desire to teach 
 her that there are such things as falsity and impurity. Ex- 
 cept that our perpetual railway journeys give her bad head- 
 aches, she supposes that we lead a life of pure felicity. But 
 some fine day our enterprising friend will be wanting to put 
 her into a pink dress and a garland of artificial flowers, and 
 then, with God's help, we shall part company!" 
 
 My silence, in reply to this last burst of confidence, im- 
 plied the most deferential assent; but I was privately won- 
 dering whether "the little maid" was so perfectly ignorant of 
 evil as the old man supposed. I remembered the episode at 
 the cemetery the day before, and doubted greatly whether 
 her father had countenanced it. With his sentiments touch- 
 ing the Professor, this was most unlikely. The young girl, 
 then, had a secret, and it gave me real discomfort to think, 
 this coarse fellow should keep the key of it. I feared that 
 the poor Colonel was yoked to his colleague more cruelly 
 than he knew. On my return to the inn this impression was 
 vividly confirmed. Dusk had fallen when we entered the 
 public room, and in the gray light which pervaded it tw6 
 figures at one of the windows escaped immediate recognition. 
 But in a moment one of them advanced, and in the sonorous 
 accents of Professor Fargo hoped that we had enjoyed 
 our expedition. The Colonel started and stared, and left me 
 to answer. He sat down heavily on the sofa; in a moment 
 his daughter came over and sat beside him, placing her 
 hand gently on his knee. But he let it lie, and remained 
 motionless, resting his hot head on his cane. The Pro- 
 fessor withdrew promptly, but with a swagger which sug- 
 gested to my sense that he could now afford to treat his 
 vanity to a dose of revenge for the old man's contempt. 
 
 Later in the evening I came down stairs again, and as I 
 passed along the hall heard Professor Fargo perorating 
 vigorously in the bar-room. Evidently he had an audience, 
 and the scene was probably curious. Drawing near, I found 
 
112 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 this gifted man erect on the floor, addressing an assemblage 
 
 of the convivial spirits of P . In an extended hand he 
 
 brandished a glass of smoking whiskey and water ; with the 
 other he caressed his rounded periods. He had evidently 
 been drinking freely, and I perceived that even the prophetic 
 vision was liable to obfuscation. It had been a brilliant day 
 for him; fortune smiled, and he felt strong. A dozen rustic 
 loafers, of various degrees of inveteracy, were listening to 
 him with a speechless solemnity, which may have been 
 partly faith, but was certainly partly rum. In a corner, out 
 of the way, sat the Colonel, with an unfinished glass before 
 him. The Professor waved his hand as I appeared, with 
 magnificent hospitality, and resumed his discourse. 
 
 "Let me say, gentlemen," he cried, "that it's not my pecu- 
 liar influence with the departed that I chiefly value; for, 
 after all, you know, a ghost is but a ghost. It can't do much 
 any way. You can't touch it, half the time you can't see 
 it. If it happens to be the spirit of a pretty girl, you know, 
 this makes you kind of mad. The great thing now is to be 
 able to exercise a mysterious influence over living organ- 
 isms. You can do it with your eye, you can do it with your 
 voice, you can do it with certain motions of your hand as 
 thus, you perceive ; you can do it with nothing at all by just 
 setting your mind on it. That is, of course, some people 
 can do it; not very many certain rich, powerful sympa- 
 thetic natures that you now and then come across. It's 
 called magnetism. Various works have been written on the 
 subject, and various explanations offered, but they don't 
 amount to much. All you can say is that it's just mag- 
 netism, and that you've either got it or you haven't got it. 
 Now the Lord has seen fit to bestow it on me. It's a great 
 responsibility, but I try to make a noble use of it. I can 
 do all sorts of things. I can find out things. I can make 
 people confess. I can make 'em sick and I can make 'em 
 well. I can make 'em in love what do you say to that? 
 I can take 'em out of love again, and make 'em swear they 
 wouldn't marry the loved object, not if they were paid for 
 it. How it is I do it I confess I can't tell you. I 
 just say to myself, 'Come now, Professor, we'll fix this one 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 113 
 
 or that one.' It's a free gift. It's magnetism, in short. 
 Some folks call it animal magnetism, but I call it spiritual 
 magnetism." 
 
 There was a profound silence; the air seemed charged 
 with that whimsical retention of speech which is such a com- 
 mon form of American sociability. I looked askance at the 
 Colonel ; it seemed to me that he was paler than usual, and 
 that his eyes were really fierce. Professor Fargo turned 
 about to the bar to replenish his glass, and the old man 
 slowly rose and came out into the middle of the room. He 
 looked round at the company; he evidently meant to say 
 something. He stood silent for some moments, and I saw 
 that he was in a tremor of excitement. "You've listened 
 to what this gentleman has been saying?" he began. "I 
 won't say, Have you understood it? It's not to be under- 
 stood. Some of you, perhaps, saw me last night sitting on 
 the platform while Professor Fargo said his say. You know 
 that we are partners that for convenience's sake we work 
 together. I wish to say that you are not therefore to be- 
 lieve that I assent to the doctrines he has just promulgated. 
 'Doctrines' is a flattering name for them. I speak in the 
 name of science. Science recognizes no such thing as 'spirit- 
 ual magnetism'; no such thing as mysterious fascinations; 
 no such thing as spirit-rappings and ghost-raising. I v owe it 
 to my conscience to say so. I can't remain there and see 
 you all sit mum when this gentleman concludes such a mon- 
 strous piece of talk. I have it on my conscience~to assure 
 you that no intelligent man, woman, or child need fear to 
 be made to do anything against his own will by the super- 
 natural operation of the will of Professor Fargo." 
 
 If there had been silence on the conclusion of Professor 
 Fargo 's harangue, what shall I say of the audible absence 
 of commentary which followed the Colonel's remarks? 
 There was an intense curiosity I felt it myself to see what 
 a clever fellow like the Professor would do. The Colonel 
 stood there wiping his forehead, as if, having thrown down 
 the gauntlet, he were prepared to defend it. The Professor 
 looked at him with his head on one side, and a smile which 
 was an excellent imitation of genial tolerance. "My dear 
 
114 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 sir," he cried, "I'm glad you've eased your mind. I knew 
 you wanted to; I hope you feel better. With your leave, 
 we won't go into the philosophy of the dispute. It was 
 George Washington, I believe, who said that people should 
 wash their dirty linen at home. You don't endorse my 
 views you're welcome. If you weren't a very polite old 
 gentleman, I know you'd like to say that, in a single word, 
 they're the views of a quack. Now, in a single word, I deny 
 it. You deny the existence of the magnetic power; I reply 
 that I personally possess it, and that if you'll give me a 
 little more time, I'll force you to say that there's something 
 in it. I'll force you to say I can do something. These 
 gentlemen here can't witness the consummation, but at least 
 they can hear my promise. I promise you evidence. You 
 go by facts: I'll give you facts. I'd like just to have you 
 remark before our friends here, that you'll take account of 
 them!" 
 
 The Colonel stood still, wiping his forehead. He had even 
 less prevision than I of the character of the Professor's pro- 
 jected facts, but of course he could make but one answer. 
 He bowed gravely to the Professor and to the company. "I 
 shall never refuse," he said, "to examine serious evidence. 
 Whatever," he added, after a moment, "it might cost my 
 prejudices." 
 
 ni 
 
 The Colonel's incorruptible conservatism had done me 
 good mentally, and his personal situation had deeply in- 
 terested me. As I bade him farewell the next day the 
 "Combination" had been heralded in a neighboring town 
 I wished him heartily that what was so painfully crooked 
 in the latter might be straightened out in time. He shook 
 his head sadly, and answered that his time was up. 
 
 He was often in my thoughts for the next six weeks, but 
 I got no tidings of him. Meanwhile I too was leading an 
 ambulant life, and travelling from town to town in a cause 
 which demanded a good deal of ready-made eloquence. I 
 didn't exactly pretend that the regeneration of society de- 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 115 
 
 pended on its acceptance of my wares, but I devoted a good 
 deal of fellow feeling to the Colonel's experience as an 
 uncredited solicitor. At the beginning of the winter I found 
 myself in New York. One evening, as I wandered along a 
 certain avenue, undedicated to gentility, I perceived, in the 
 flare of a gas-lamp, on a placard beside a doo'rway, the name 
 and attributes of Professor Fargo. I immediately stopped 
 and read the manifesto. It was even more grandiloquent 
 than the yellow hand-bill at P ; for to overtop concur- 
 rence in the metropolis one must mount upon very high 
 stilts indeed. The "Combination" still subsisted, and Colo- 
 nel Gifford brought up the rear. I observed with interest 
 that his daughter now figured in an independent and ex- 
 tremely ornamental paragraph. Above the door was a blue 
 lamp, and beneath the lamp the inscription "Excelsior Hall." 
 No one was going in, but as I stood there a young man in a 
 white overcoat, with his hat on his nose, came out and 
 planted himself viciously, with a tell-tale yawn, in the door- 
 way. The poor Colonel had lost an auditor; I was deter- 
 mined he should have a substitute. Paying my fee and 
 making my way into the room, I found that the situation 
 was indeed one in which units rated high. There were not 
 more than twenty people present, and the appearance of this 
 meagre group was not in striking harmony with the state- 
 ment of the placard without, that Professor Fargo 's enter- 
 tainment was thronged with the intellect and fashion of the 
 metropolis. The professor was on the platform, unfolding 
 
 his budget of miracles; behind him, as at P , sat the 
 
 Colonel and his daughter. The Professor was evidently de- 
 pressed by the preponderance of empty benches, and carried 
 off his revelations with an indifferent grace. Disappoint- 
 ment made him brutal. He was heavy, vulgar, slipshod; 
 he stumbled in his periods, and bungled more than once in 
 his guesses when the folded papers with the names were put 
 into the hat. His brow wore a vicious, sullen look, which 
 seemed to deepen the expression of melancholy patience in 
 his companions. I trembled for my friends. The Colonel 
 had told me that his bargain with his impresario was a 
 poor one, and I was sure that if, when the "Combination" 
 
ii6 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 was in a run of luck, as it had been at P , his dividend 
 
 was scanty, he was paying a heavy share of the penalty for 
 the present eclipse of fortune. I sat down near the door, 
 where the hall was shrouded in a thrifty dimness, so that 
 I had no fear of being recognized. The Professor evidently 
 was reckless a fact which rather puzzled me in so shrewd 
 a man. When he had brought his own performance to an 
 unapplauded close, instead of making his customary speech 
 on behalf of his coadjutor, he dropped into a chair and 
 gaped in the face of his audience. But the Colonel, after 
 a pause, threw himself into the breach or rather lowered 
 himself into it with stately gravity and addressed his 
 humble listeners (half of whom were asleep) as if they had 
 been the flower of the Intellect and Fashion. But if his 
 manner was the old one, his discourse was new. He had 
 too many ideas to repeat himself, and, although those which 
 he now attempted to expound were still above the level of 
 my frivolous apprehension, this unbargained abundance of 
 inspiration half convinced me that his claim to original 
 genius was just. If there had been something grotesquely 
 
 sad in his appeal to the irresponsive intellect of P , it 
 
 was almost intolerably dismal to sit there and see him grap- 
 pling with the dusky void of Excelsior Hall. The sleepers 
 waked up, or turned over, at least, when Miss Gifford came 
 forward. She wore, as yet, neither a pink dress nor an arti- 
 ficial garland, but it seemed to me that I detected here and 
 there an embryonic hint of these ornaments a ruffle round 
 her neck, a colored sash over her black dress, a curl or two 
 more in her hair. But her manner was as childish, as simple 
 and serene as ever; the empty benches had no weary mean- 
 ing for her. 
 
 I confess that in spite of my personal interest in my friend, 
 the entertainment seemed wofully long; more than once 
 I was on the point of departing, and awaiting the conclusion 
 in the street. But I had not the heart to inflict upon the 
 poor Colonel the sight of a retreating spectator. When 
 at last my twenty companions had shuffled away, I made my 
 way to the platform and renewed acquaintance with the 
 trio. The Professor nodded with uncompromising familiar- 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 117 
 
 ity, the Colonel seemed cordially glad to see me, and his 
 daughter, as I made her my bow, gazed at me with even 
 more than usual of her clear-eyed frankness. She seemed to 
 wonder what my reappearance meant for them. It meant, to 
 begin with, that I went the next day to see the Colonel at his 
 lodging. It was a terribly modest little lodging, but he did 
 me the honors with a grace which showed that he had an 
 old habit of hospitality. He admitted frankly that the 
 "Combination" had lately been doing a very poor business, 
 but he made the admission with a gloomy stoicism which 
 showed me that he had been looking the event full in the 
 face, and had assented to it helplessly. They had gone 
 their round in the country, with varying success. They had 
 the misfortune to have a circus keeping just in advance of 
 them, and beside the gorgeous pictorial placards of this 
 establishment, their own superior promises, even when swim- 
 ming in a deluge of exclamation points, seemed pitifully 
 vague. "What are my daughter and I," said the Colonel, 
 "after the educated elephant and the female trapezist? What 
 even is the Professor, after the great American clown?" 
 Their profits, however, had been kept fairly above the mini- 
 mum, and victory would still have hovered about their ban- 
 ners if they had been content to invoke her in the smaller 
 towns. The Professor, however, in spite of remonstrance, 
 had suddenly steered for New York, and what New York 
 was doing for them I had seen the night before. The last 
 half dozen performances had not paid for the room and the 
 gas. The Colonel told me that he was bound by contract 
 for five more lectures, but that when these were delivered he 
 would dissolve the partnership. The Professor, in insisting 
 on coming to the city, had shown a signal want of shrewd- 
 ness; and when his shrewdness failed him, what had you 
 left? What to attempt himself, the Colonel couldn't im- 
 agine. "At the worst," he said, "my daughter can go into 
 an asylum, and I can go into the poor-house." On my 
 asking him whether his colleague had yet established, ac- 
 cording to his vow, the verities of "spiritual magnetism," he 
 stared in surprise and seemed quite to have forgotten the 
 Professor's engagement to convert him. "Oh, I've let him 
 
ii8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 off," he said, shaking his head. "He was tipsy when he made 
 the promise, and I expect to hear no more about it." 
 
 I was very busy, and the pensive old man was gloomy 
 company; but his characters and his fortunes had such a 
 melancholy interest that I found time to pay him several 
 visits. He evidently was thankful to be diverted from his 
 sombre self-consciousness and his paternal anxiety, and r 
 when once he was aroused from the dogged resignation in 
 which he seemed plunged, enjoyed vastly the chance to ex- 
 piate on his multitudinous and irrealizable theories. Most 
 of the time his meaning was a cloud bank to me, but I 
 listened, assented, applauded; I felt the charm of pure 
 intellectual passion. I incline to believe that he had ex- 
 cogitated some extremely valuable ideas. We took long 
 walks through the crowded streets. The Colonel was inde- 
 fatigable, in spite of his leanness and pallor. He strode 
 along with great steps, talking so loud, half the time, in his 
 high, quavering voice, that even the eager pedestrians in 
 the lower latitudes of Broadway slackened pace to glance 
 back at him. He declared that the crowded streets gave him 
 a strange exhilaration, and the mighty human hum of the 
 great city quickened his heart-beats almost to pain. More 
 than once he stopped short, on the edge of a curbstone or 
 in the middle of a crossing, and laying his hand on my arm, 
 with a deeper glow beneath his white eyebrows, broke into 
 a kind of rhapsody of transcendental thought. "It's for all 
 these millions I would work, if they would let me! " he cried. 
 "It's to the life of great cities my schemes are addressed. 
 It's to make millions wiser and better that I stand pleading 
 my cause so long after I have earned my rest." One day he 
 seemed taciturn and preoccupied. He talked much less than 
 usual, noticed nothing, and walked with his eyes on the pave- 
 ment. I imagined that, in a phrase with which he had made 
 me familiar, he had caught the tail of an idea and was hold- 
 ing it fast, in spite of its slippery contortions. As we neared 
 his lodging at the end of our walk, he stopped abruptly in 
 the middle of the street, and I had to give him a violent pull 
 to rescue him from a rattling butcher's cart. When we 
 reached the pavement he stopped again, grasped me by the 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 119 
 
 hand, and fixed his eyes on me with a very extraordinary 
 exaltation. We were at the top of the shabby cross- street in 
 which he had found a shelter. A row of squalid tenements 
 faced us, and half a dozen little Irish ragamuffins were 
 sprawling beneath our feet, between their doorways and the 
 gutter. "Eureka! Eureka!" he cried. "I've found it I've 
 found it ! " And on my asking him what he had found,"Some- 
 thing science has groped for, for ages the solution of the in- 
 calculable! Perhaps, too, my fortune; certainly my immor- 
 tality! Quick, quick! Before it vanishes I must get at my 
 pen." And he hurried me along to his dingy little dwelling. 
 On the doorstep he paused. "I can't tell you now," he cried. 
 "I must fling it down in black and white. But for heaven's 
 sake, come to-night to the lecture, and in the first flush of 
 apprehension I think I can knock off a statement ! " To the 
 lecture I promised to come. At the same moment I raised 
 my eyes and beheld in the window of the Colonel's apart- 
 ment the ominous visage of Professor Fargo. I had been 
 kindled by the Colonel's ardor, but somehow I was suddenly 
 chilled by the presence of the Professor. I feared that, be 
 the brilliancy of my friend's sudden illumination what it 
 might, the shock of meeting his unloved confrere under his 
 own roof would loosen his grasp of his idea. I found a pre- 
 text for keeping him standing a moment, and observed that 
 the Professor disappeared. The next moment the door 
 opened and he stepped forth. He had put on his hat, I 
 suppose, hastily; it was cocked toward one side with a 
 jauntiness which seemed the climax of his habitual swagger. 
 He was evidently in better spirits than when I listened to 
 him at Excelsior Hall ; but neither the Professor's smiles nor 
 his frowns were those of an honest man. He bestowed on 
 my companion and me one of the most expansive of the 
 former, gave his hat a cock in the opposite direction, and 
 was about to pass on. But suddenly bethinking himself, 
 he paused and drew from his pocket a small yellow ticket,' 
 which he presented to me. It was admission to Excelsior 
 Hall. 
 
 "If you can use this to-night," he said, "I think you'll 
 see something out of the common." This intimation, ac- 
 
120 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 companied with a wink of extreme suggestiveness, seemed to 
 indicate that the Professor also, by a singular coincidence, 
 had had a flash of artistic inspiration. But giving me no 
 further clue, he rapidly went his way. As I shook hands in 
 farewell with the Colonel, I saw that the light of the old 
 man's new inspiration had gone out in angry wonderment 
 over the Professor's errand with his daughter. 
 
 I can hardly define the vague apprehensiveness which led 
 me to make that evening a peculiarly prompt appearance at 
 Excelsior Hall. There was no one there when I arrived, and 
 for half an hour the solitude remained unbroken. At last 
 a shabby little man came in and sat down on the last bench, 
 in the shade. We remained a while staring at the white wall 
 behind the three empty chairs of the performers and listen- 
 ing to the gasburners, which were hissing with an expres- 
 siveness which, under the circumstances, was most distress- 
 ing. At last my companion left his place and strolled down 
 the aisle. He stopped before the platform, turned about, 
 surveyed the capacity of the room, and muttered something 
 between a groan and an imprecation. Then he came back 
 toward me and stopped. He had a dirty shirt-front, a 
 scrubby beard, a small, wrathful black eye, and a nose un- 
 mistakably Judaic. 
 
 "If you don't want to sit and be lectured at all alone," 
 he said, "I guess you'd better go." 
 
 I expressed a hope that some one would turn up yet, and 
 said that I preferred to remain, in any event, as I had a 
 particular interest in the performance. 
 
 "A particular interest?" he cried; "that's about what 
 I've got. I've got the rent of my room to collect. This 
 thing has been going on here for three weeks now, and I 
 haven't seen the first dollar of my profits. It's been going 
 down hill steady, and I think the Professor, and the Colo- 
 nel, and the deaf and dumb young woman had better shut 
 up shop. They ain't appreciated; they'd better try some 
 other line. There's mighty little to this thing, anyway; it 
 ain't what I call an attractive exhibition. I've got an offer 
 for the premises for a month from the Canadian Giantess, 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 121 
 
 and I mean to ask the present company to pay me down 
 and vacate." 
 
 It looked, certainly, as if the "Combination" would have 
 some difficulty in meeting its engagements. The Professor's 
 head emerged inquiringly from a door behind the stage and 
 disappeared, after a brief communion with the vacuity of 
 the scene. In a few minutes, however, the customary trio 
 came forth and seated itself gravely on the platform. The 
 Professor thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat and drummed 
 on the floor with his toes, as if it cost his shrewdness a pain- 
 ful effort to play any longer at expectation. The Colonel 
 sat stiff and solemn, with his eyes on the ground. The 
 young girl gazed forth upon the ungrateful void with her 
 characteristically irresponsible tranquillity. For myself, 
 after listening some ten minutes more for an advancing 
 tread, I leaned my elbows on the back of the bench before 
 me and buried my head ; I couldn't bear any longer to look 
 at the Colonel. At last I heard a scramble behind me, and 
 looking round, saw my little Jew erecting himself on his 
 feet on a bench. 
 
 "Gentlemen!" he cried out, "I don't address the young 
 woman; I'm told she can't hear. I suppose the man with 
 the biggest audience has a right to speak. The amount of 
 money in this hall to-night is just thirty cents unless, in- 
 deed, my friend here is on the free list. Now it stands 
 to reason that you can't pay your night's expenses out of 
 thirty cents. I think we might as well turn down some of 
 this gas; we can still see to settle our little account. To 
 have it paid will gratify me considerably more than any- 
 thing you can do there. I don't judge your entertainment; 
 I've no doubt it's a very smart thing. But it's very evident 
 it don't suit this city. It's too intellectual. I've got some- 
 thing else in view I don't mind telling you it's the Cana- 
 dian Giantess. It is going to open to-morrow with a mati- 
 nee, and I want to put some props under that platform. So 
 you'd better pay this young man his money back, and go 
 home to supper. But before you leave, I'll trouble you for 
 the sum of ninety-three dollars and eighty-seven cents." 
 
 The Professor stroked his beard ; the Colonel didn't move. 
 
122 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 The little Jew descended from his perch and approached the 
 platform with his bill in his hand. In a moment I followed 
 him. 
 
 "We're a failure," said the Professor, at last. . "Very well! 
 I'm not discouraged; I'm a practical man. I've got an idea 
 in my head by which, six months hence, I expect to fill the 
 Academy of Music." Then, after a pause, turning to his 
 companion, "Colonel, do you happen to have ninety- three 
 dollars and eighty-seven cents?" 
 
 The Colonel slowly raised his eyes and looked at him; I 
 shall never forget the look. 
 
 "Seriously speaking," the Professor went on, daunted but 
 for an instant, "you're liable for half the debt. But I'll 
 assume your share on a certain condition. I have in my 
 head the plan of another entertainment. Our friend here 
 is right; we have been too intellectual. Very good!" and 
 he nodded at the empty benches. "I've learned the lesson. 
 Henceforth I'm going to be sensational. My great sensa- 
 tion" and he paused a moment to engage again the eye of 
 the Colonel, who presently looked vaguely up at him 
 "is this young lady! " and he thrust out a hand toward 
 Miss Gifford. "Allow me to exhibit your daughter for a 
 month, in my own way and according to my own notions, 
 and I assume your debt." 
 
 The young girl dropped her eyes on the ground, but kept 
 her place. She had evidently been schooled. The Colonel 
 slowly got up, glaring and trembling with indignation. I 
 wished to cut the knot, and I interrupted his answer. "Your 
 inducement is null," I said to the Professor. "I assume 
 the Colonel's debt. It shall be paid this moment." 
 
 Professor Fargo gave an honestly gleeful grin; this was 
 better even than the Colonel's assent. "You refuse your 
 consent then," he demanded of the old mar ; "to your daugh- 
 ter's appearance under my exclusive management." 
 
 "Utterly!" cried the Colonel. 
 
 "You are aware, I suppose, that she's of age?" 
 
 The Colonel stared at me with a groan. "What under 
 heaven is the fellow coming to?" 
 
 "To this!" responded the Professor; and he fixed his eye 
 
PROFESSOR FARGO 123 
 
 for a moment on the young girl. She immediately looked up 
 at him, rose, advanced, and stood before him. Her face be- 
 trayed no painful consciousness of what she was doing, and 
 I have often wondered how far, in her strangely simple 
 mood and nature, her consciousness on this occasion was a 
 guilty one. I never ascertained. This was the most un- 
 erring stroke I had seen the Professor perform. The poor 
 child fixed her charming eyes on his gross, flushed face, 
 and awaited his commands. She was fascinated ; she had no 
 will of her own. "You'll be so good as to choose," the Pro- 
 fessor went on, addressing her in spite of her deafness, 
 "between your father and me. He says we're to part. I 
 say you're to follow me. What do you say?" 
 
 For all answer, after caressing him a moment with her 
 gentle gaze, she dropped before him on her knees. The 
 Colonel sprang toward her with a sort of howl of rage and 
 grief, but she jumped up, retreated, and tripped down the 
 steps of the platform into the room. She rapidly made her 
 way to the door. There she paused and looked back at us. 
 Her father stood staring after her in helpless bewilderment. 
 The Professor disappeared into the little ante-room behind 
 the stage, and came back in a moment jamming his hat over 
 his eyes and carrying the young girl's shawl. He reached 
 the edge of the platform, and then, stopping, shook the fore- 
 finger with the turquoise ring at the Colonel. 
 
 "What do you say now?" he cried. "Is spiritual magnet- 
 ism a humbug?" 
 
 The little Jew rushed after him, shrieking and brandishing 
 the unpaid bill; but the Professor cleared at half a dozen 
 strides the interval which divided him from the door, caught 
 the young girl round the waist, and made a triumphant 
 escape. Half an hour later the Colonel and I left the little 
 Jew staring distractedly at his unretributed gas-burners. 
 
 I walked home with the old man, and, having led him into 
 his shabby refuge, suffered him to make his way alone, with 
 groans, and tears, and imprecations, into his daughter's 
 empty room. At last he came tottering out again; it seemed 
 as if he were going mad. I brought him away by force, and 
 he passed the night in my own quarters. He had spoken 
 
124 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 shortly before of the prospect of an asylum for his daugh- 
 ter, but it became evident that the asylum would have to be 
 for him. 
 
 I sometimes go to see him. He spends his days covering 
 little square sheets of paper with algebraic signs, but I am 
 assured by his superintendent, who understands the matter, 
 that they represent no coherent mathematical operation. I 
 never treated myself to the "sensation" of attending Profes- 
 sor Fargo's new entertainment. 
 
AT ISELLA 
 
 MY story begins properly, I suppose, with my journey, 
 and my journey began properly at Lucerne. It had 
 been on the point of beginning a number of times before. 
 About the middle of August I actually started. I had been 
 putting it off from day to day in deference to the opinion 
 of several discreet friends, who solemnly assured me that 
 a man of my make would never outweather the rage of an 
 Italian August. But ever since deciding to winter in Italy, 
 instead of subsiding unimaginatively upon Paris, I had 
 had a standing quarrel with Switzerland. What was 
 Switzerland after all? Little else but brute Nature surely, 
 of which at home we have enough and to spare. What we 
 seek in Europe is Nature refined and transmuted to art. In 
 Switzerland, what a pale historic coloring; what a penury of 
 relics and monuments! I pined for a cathedral or a gallery. 
 Instead of dutifully conning my Swiss Badeker, I had fret- 
 fully deflavored my Murray's North Italy. Lucerne indeed 
 is a charming little city, and I had learned to know it well. 
 I had watched the tumbling Reuss, blue from the melting 
 pinnacles which know the blue of heaven, come rushing and 
 swirling beneath those quaintly timbered bridges, vaulted 
 with mystical paintings in the manner of Holbein, and 
 through the severed mass of the white, compact town. I 
 had frequented the great, bald, half-handsome, half-hideous 
 church of the Jesuit, and listened in the twilight to the 
 seraphic choir which breathes through its mighty organ- tubes. 
 I had taken the most reckless pleasure in the fact that this 
 was Catholic Switzerland. I had strolled and restrolled 
 across the narrow market-place at Altorf, and kept my 
 countenance in the presence of that ludicrous plaster-cast 
 of the genius loci and his cross-bow. I had peregrinated fur- 
 ther to the little hamlet of Biirglen, and peeped into the 
 
 125 
 
126 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 frescoed chapel which commemorates the hero's natal 
 scene. I had also investigated that sordid lake-side sanctu- 
 ary, with its threshold lapped by the waves and its walls de- 
 filed by cockneys, which consecrates the spot at which the 
 great mountaineer, leaping from among his custodians in 
 Gesler's boat, spurned the stout skiff with his invincible heel. 
 I had contemplated from the deck of the steamer the images 
 of the immortal trio, authors of the oath of liberation, which 
 adorned the pier at Brunnen. I had sojourned at that com- 
 pact little State of Gersau, sandwiched between the lake and 
 the great wall of the Righi, and securely niched somewhere 
 in history as the smallest and most perpetual of republics. 
 The traveler's impatience hereabouts is quickened by his 
 nearness to one of the greatest of the Alpine highways. Here 
 he may catch a balmy side-wind, stirred from the ranks of 
 southward-trooping pilgrims. The Saint Gothard route 
 begins at Lucerne, where you take your place in the diligence 
 and register your luggage. I used to fancy that a great wave 
 of Southern life rolled down this mighty channel to expire 
 visibly in the blue lake, and ripple to its green shores. I 
 used to imagine great gusts of warm wind hovering about 
 the coach office at Fluelen, scented with oleander and 
 myrtle. I used to buy at Fluelen, to the great peril of my 
 digestion, certain villanous peaches and plums, offered by 
 little girls at the steamboat landing, and of which it was 
 currently whispered that they had ripened on those further 
 Italian slopes. 
 
 One fine morning I marked my luggage Milan/ with a 
 great imaginative flourish which may have had something 
 to do with my subsequent difficulty in recovering it in the 
 Lombard capital, banished it for a fortnight from sight and 
 mind, and embarked on the steamboat at Lucerne with the 
 interval's equipment in a knapsack. It is noteworthy how 
 readily, on leaving Switzerland, I made my peace with it. 
 What a pleasure-giving land it is, in truth! Besides the 
 massive glory of its mountains, how it heaps up the meas- 
 ure of delight with the unbargained grace of town and 
 tower, of remembered name and deed! As we passed away 
 from Lucerne, my eyes lingered with a fresher fondness than 
 
AT ISELLA 127 
 
 before upon an admirable bit of the civic picturesque a 
 great line of mellow-stuccoed dwellings, with verdurous 
 water-steps and grated basements, rising squarely from the 
 rushing cobalt of the Reuss. It was a palpable foretaste of 
 Venice. I am not ashamed to say how soon I began to look 
 out for premonitions of Italy. It was better to begin too 
 soon than too late; so, to miss nothing, I began to note "sen- 
 sations" at Altorf, the historic heart of Helvetia. I re- 
 member here certain formal burgher mansions, standing 
 back from the dusty highroad beyond spacious, well-swept 
 courts, into which the wayfarer glances through immense 
 gates of antique wrought iron. I had a notion that de- 
 serted Italian palazzos took the lingering sunbeams at some- 
 what such an angle, with just that coarse glare. I wondered 
 of course who lived in them, and how they lived, and what 
 was society in Altorf; longing plaintively, in the manner of 
 roaming Americans, for a few stray crumbs from the native 
 social board ; with my fancy vainly beating its wings against 
 the great blank wall, behind which, in travel-haunted 
 Europe, all gentle private interests nestle away from intru- 
 sion. Here, as everywhere, I was struck with the mere sur- 
 face-relation of the Western tourist to the soil he treads. He 
 filters and trickles through the dense social body in every 
 possible direction, and issues forth at last the same virginal 
 water drop. "Go your way," these antique houses seemed to 
 say, from their quiet courts and gardens; "the road is yours 
 and welcome, but the land is ours. You may pass and stare 
 and wonder, but you may never know us." The Western 
 tourist consoles himself, of course, by the reflection that 
 the gentry of Altorf and other ancient burghs gain more 
 from the imagination possibly than they might bestow 
 upon it. 
 
 I confess that so long as I remained in the land, as I did 
 for the rest of the afternoon a pure afternoon of late sum- 
 mer, charged with mellow shadows from the teeming ver- 
 dure of the narrow lowland, beyond which to-morrow and 
 Italy seemed merged in a vague bright identity I felt that 
 I was not fairly under way. The land terminates at Am- 
 staeg, where I lay that night. Early the next morning I 
 
128 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 attacked the mighty slopes. Just beyond Amstaeg, if I am 
 not mistaken, a narrow granite bridge spans the last moun- 
 tain-plunge of the Reuss; and just here the great white 
 road begins the long toil of its ascent. To my sense, these 
 mighty Alpine highways have a grand poetry of their own. 
 I lack, doubtless, that stout stomach for pure loneliness 
 which leads your genuine mountaineer to pronounce them 
 a desecration of the mountain stillness. As if the mountain 
 stillness were not inviolable! Gleaming here and there 
 against the dark sides of the gorges, unrolling their meas- 
 ured bands further and higher, doubling and stretching and 
 spanning, but always climbing, they break it only to the 
 anxious eye. The Saint Gothard road is immensely long 
 drawn, and, if the truth be told, somewhat monotonous. As 
 you follow it to its uppermost reaches, the landscape takes 
 on a darker local color. Far below the wayside, the yellow 
 Reuss tumbles and leaps and foams over a perfect torture- 
 bed of broken rock. The higher slopes lie naked and raw, 
 or coated with slabs of gray. The valley lifts and narrows 
 and darkens into the scenic mountain pass of the fancy. I 
 was haunted as I walked by an old steel plate in a French 
 book that I used to look at as a child lying on my stomach 
 on the parlor floor. Under it was written "Saint Gothard." 
 I remember distinctly the cold, gray mood which this pic- 
 ture used to generate; the same tone of feeling is produced 
 by the actual scene. Coming at last to the Devil's Bridge, 
 I recognized the source of the steel plate of my infancy. 
 You have no impulse here to linger fondly. You hurry away 
 after a moment's halt, with an impression fierce and chaotic 
 as the place itself. A great torrent of wind, sweeping from 
 a sudden outlet and snatching uproar and spray from the 
 mad torrent of water leaping in liquid thunderbolts be- 
 neath; a giddy, deafened, deluged stare, with my two hands 
 to my hat, and a rapid shuddering retreat these are my 
 chief impressions of the Devil's Bridge. If, on leaving Am- 
 staeg in the morning, I had been asked whither I was bend- 
 ing my steps, "To Italy!" I would have answered, with a 
 grand absence of detail. The radiance of this broad fact had 
 quenched the possible side-lights of reflection. As I ap- 
 
AT ISELLA 129 
 
 preached the summit of the pass, it became a profoundly 
 solemn thought that I might, by pushing on with energy, 
 lay my weary limbs on an Italian bed. There was something 
 so delightful in the mere protracted, suspended sense of ap- 
 proach, that it seemed a pity to bring it to so abrupt a close. 
 And then suppose, metaphysical soul of mine, that Italy 
 should not, in vulgar parlance, altogether come up to time? 
 Why not prolong awhile the possible bliss of ignorance of 
 illusion? Something short of the summit of the Saint Goth- 
 ard pass, the great road of the Furca diverges to the right, 
 passes the Rhone Glacier, enters the Rhone Valley, and con- 
 ducts you to Brieg and the foot of the Simplon. Reaching 
 in due course this divergence of the Furca road, I tarried 
 awhile beneath the mountain sky, debating whether or not 
 delay would add to pleasure. I opened my Badeker and 
 read that within a couple of hours' walk from my halting- 
 place was the Albergo di San Gothardo, vaste et sombre 
 auberge Italienne. To think of being at that distance from 
 a vast, sombre Italian inn! On the other hand, there were 
 some very pretty things said of the Simplon. I tossed up a 
 napoleon; the head fell uppermost. I trudged away to the 
 right. The road to the Furca lies across one of those high 
 desolate plateaux which represent the hard prose of moun- 
 tain scenery. Naked and stern it lay before me, rock and 
 grass without a shrub, without a tree, without a grace like 
 the dry bed of some gigantic river of prehistoric times. 
 
 The stunted hamlet of Realp, beside the road dwarfed 
 by the huge scale of things, seemed litttle more than a 
 cluster of naked, sun-blackened bowlders. It contained an 
 inn, however, and the inn contained the usual Alpine larder 
 of cold veal and cheese, and, as I remember, a very affable 
 maid-servant, who spoke excellent lowland French, and con- 
 fessed in the course of an after-dinner conversation that 
 the winters in Realp were un peu tristes. This conversation 
 took place as I sat resting outside the door in the late after- 
 noon, watching the bright, hard light of the scene grow gray 
 and cold beneath a clear sky, and wondering to find 
 humanity lodged in such an exaltation of desolation. 
 
 The road of the Furca, as I discovered the next morning, 
 
130 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 is a road and little else. Its massive bareness, However, 
 gives it an incontestable grandeur. The broad, serpentine 
 terrace uncoils its slanting cordons with a multiplicity of 
 curves and angles and patient reaches of circumvention, 
 which give it the air of some wanton revelry of engineering 
 genius. Finally, after a brief level of repose, it plunges down 
 to the Rhone Glacier. I had the good fortune to see this 
 great spectacle on the finest day of the year. Its perfect 
 beauty is best revealed beneath the scorching glare of an 
 untempered sun. The sky was without a cloud the air in- 
 credibly lucid. The glacier dropped its billowy sheet a 
 soundless tumult of whiteness, a torrent of rolling marble- 
 straight from the blue of heaven to the glassy margin of the 
 road. It seems to gather into its bosom the whole diffused 
 light of the world, so that round about it all objects lose 
 their color. The rocks and hills stand sullen and neutral; 
 the lustre of the sky is turned to blackness. At the little 
 hotel near the glacier I waited for the coach to Brieg, and 
 started thitherward in the early afternoon, sole occupant of 
 the coupi. 
 
 Let me not, however, forget to commemorate the French 
 priest whom we took in at one of the squalid villages of the 
 dreary Haut-Valais, through which on that bright afternoon 
 we rattled so superbly. It was a Sunday, and throughout 
 this long dark chain of wayside hamlets the peasants were 
 straddling stolidly about the little central place in the hid- 
 eous festal accoutrements of the rustic Swiss. He came forth 
 from the tavern, gently cleaving the staring crowd, accom- 
 panied by two brother ecclesiastics. These were portly, 
 elderly men; he was young and pale and priestly in the last 
 degree. They had a little scene of adieux at the coach door. 
 They whispered gently, gently holding each other's hands 
 and looking lovingly into each other's eyes, and then the 
 two elders saluted their comrade on each cheek, and, as we 
 departed, blew after him just the least little sacramental 
 kiss. It was all, dramatically speaking, delightfully low 
 in tone. Before we reached Brieg the young priest had 
 gained a friend to console him for those he had lost. He 
 proved to be a most amiable person; full of homely frank- 
 
AT ISELLA 131 
 
 ness and appealing innocence of mundane things; and in- 
 vested withal with a most pathetic air of sitting there as a 
 mere passive object of transmission a simple priestly par- 
 ticle in the great ecclesiastical body, transposed by the logic 
 of an inscrutable thither! and thus! On learning that I 
 was an American, he treated me so implicitly as a travelled 
 man of the world, that he almost persuaded me for the time 
 I was one. He was on pins and needles with his sense of 
 the possible hazards of travel. He asked questions the most 
 innocently saugrenues. He was convinced on general 
 grounds that our driver was drunk, and that he would surely 
 overturn us into the Rhone. He seemed possessed at the 
 same time with a sort of schoolboy relish for the profane 
 humor of things. Whenever the coach made a lurch toward 
 the river-bank or swung too broadly round a turn, he would 
 grasp my arm and whisper that our hour had come; and 
 then, before our pace was quite readjusted, he would fall 
 to nursing his elbows and snickering gently to himself. It 
 seemed altogether a larger possibility than any he had been 
 prepared for that on his complaining of the cold I should 
 offer him the use of my overcoat. Of this and of other per- 
 sonal belongings he ventured to inquire the price, and in- 
 deed seemed oppressed with the sudden expensiveness of 
 the world. But now that he was fairly launched he was 
 moving in earnest. He was to reach Brieg, if possible, in 
 time for the night diligence over the Simplon, which was to 
 deposit him at the Hospice on the summit. 
 
 By a very early hour the next morning I had climbed 
 apace with the sun. Brieg was far below me in the valley. 
 I had measured an endless number of the giant elbows of 
 the road, and from the bosky flank of the mountain I looked 
 down at nestling gulfs of greenness, cool with shade; at 
 surging billows of forest crested with the early brightness; 
 at slopes in light and cliffs in shadow; at all the heaving 
 mountain zone which belongs to the verdant nearness of 
 earth; and then straight across to the sacred pinnacles which 
 take their tone from heaven. 
 
 If weather could bless an enterprise, mine was blessed 
 beyond words. It seemed to me that Nature had taken an 
 
132 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 interest in my little project and was determined to do the 
 thing handsomely. As I mounted higher, the light flung its 
 dazzling presence on all things. The air stood still to take 
 it; the green glittered within the green, the blue burned be- 
 yond it; the dew on the forests gathered to dry into massive 
 crystals, and beyond the brilliant void of space the clear 
 snow-fields stood out like planes of marble inserted in a 
 field of lapis-lazuli. The Swiss side of the Simplon has the 
 beauty of a boundless luxury of green; the view remains 
 gentle even in its immensity. The ascent is gradual and 
 slow, and only when you reach the summit do you get a 
 sense of proper mountain grimness. On this favoring day 
 of mine the snowy horrors of the opposite Aletsch Glacier 
 seemed fairly to twinkle with serenity. It seemed to me 
 when I reached the Hospice that I had been winding for 
 hours along the inner hollow of some mighty cup of verdure 
 toward a rim of chiselled silver crowned with topaz. At 
 the Hospice I made bold to ask leave to rest. It stands on 
 the bare topmost plateau of the pass, bare itself as the spot 
 it consecrates, and stern as the courage of the pious brothers 
 who administer its charities. It broods upon the scene with 
 the true, bold, convent look, with ragged yellow walls and 
 grated windows, striving to close in human weakness from 
 blast and avalanche as in valleys and cities to close it in 
 from temptation and pollution. A few St. Bernard dogs 
 were dozing outside in the chilly sunshine. I climbed the 
 great stone steps which lift the threshold above the snow- 
 land, and tinkled the bell of appeal. Here for a couple of 
 hours I was made welcome to the cold, hard fare of the con- 
 vent. There was to my mind a solemn and pleasant fitness 
 in my thus entering church-burdened Italy through the por- 
 tal of the church, for from the convent door to the plain of 
 Lombardy it was all to be downhill work. I seemed to feel 
 on my head the hands of especial benediction, and to hear 
 in my ears the premonition of countless future hours to be 
 passed in the light of altar-candles. The inner face of the 
 Hospice is well-nigh as cold and bare as the face it turns 
 defiant to the Alpine snows. Huge stone corridors and un- 
 garnished rooms, in which poor unacclimatized friars must 
 
AT ISELLA 133 
 
 sit aching and itching with chilblains in high midsummer; 
 everywhere that peculiar perfume of churchiness the odeur 
 de sacristie and essence of incense which impart through- 
 out the world an especial pungency to Catholicism. Hav- 
 ing the good fortune, as it happened, to be invited to dine 
 with the Prior, I found myself in fine priestly company. 
 A dozen of us sat about the board in the greasy, brick- 
 paved refectory, lined with sombre cupboards of ponderous 
 crockery, all in stole and cassock but myself. Several of 
 the brothers were in transitu from below. Among them I 
 had the pleasure of greeting my companion in the coupe to 
 Brieg, slightly sobered perhaps by his relapse into the cler- 
 ical ranks, but still timidly gracious and joyous. The 
 Prior himself, however, especially interested me, so every 
 inch was he a prior a priest dominant and militant. He 
 was still young, and familiar, I should say, with the passions 
 of youth; tall and powerful in frame, stout-necked and 
 small-headed, with a brave beak of a nose and closely 
 placed, fine, but sinister eyes. The simple, childish cut 
 of his black cassock, with its little linen band across his 
 great pectoral expanse as he sat at meat, seemed to denote 
 a fantastical, ironical humility. Was it a mere fancy of 
 a romantic Yankee tourist that he was more evil than 
 gentle? Heaven grant, I mused as I glanced at him, that 
 his fierce and massive manhood be guided by the Lord's 
 example. What was such a man as that doing up there 
 on a lonely mountain top, watching the snow clouds from 
 closed windows and doling out restorative cognac to frost- 
 bitten wagoners? He ought to be down in the hard, dense 
 world, fighting and sinning for his mother Church. But 
 he was one who could bide his time. Unless I'm scribbling 
 nonsense, it will come. In deference probably to the eso- 
 teric character of a portion of the company, our conversa- 
 tion at dinner was not rigidly clerical. In fact, when my 
 attention wandered back to its theme, I found the good 
 brothers were talking of Alexandre Dumas with a delightful 
 air of protest and hearsay, and a spice of priestly malice. 
 The great romancer, I believe, had among his many fictions 
 somewhere promulgated an inordinate fiction touching the 
 
134 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 manners and customs of the Hospice. The game being 
 started, each of them said his say and cast his pebble, 
 weighted always with an "on dit" and I was amazed to 
 find they were so well qualified to reprobate the author 
 of "Monte Cristo." When we had dined my young French- 
 man came and took me by the arm and led me in great 
 triumph over the whole convent, delighted to have something 
 to show me me who had come from America and had lent 
 him my overcoat. When at last I had under his auspices 
 made my farewell obeisance to the Prior, and started on 
 my downward course, he bore me company along the road. 
 But before we lost sight of the Hospice he gave me his 
 fraternal blessing. "Allans!" he was pleased to say, "the 
 next time I shall know an American"; and he gathered up 
 his gentle petticoat, and, as I looked behind, I saw his 
 black stockings frolicking back over the stones by a short 
 cut to the monastery. 
 
 I should like to be able to tell the veracious tale of that 
 divine afternoon. I should like to be able to trace the soft 
 stages by which those rugged heights melt over into a 
 Southern difference. Now at last in good earnest I began 
 to watch for the symptoms of Italy. Now that the long 
 slope began to tend downward unbroken, it was not absurd 
 to fancy a few adventurous tendrils of Southern growth 
 might have crept and clambered upward. At a short dis- 
 tance beyond the Hospice stands the little village of Simplon, 
 where I believe the coach stops for dinner; the uttermost 
 outpost, I deemed it, of the lower world, perched there like 
 an empty shell, with its murmur not yet quenched, tossed 
 upward and stranded by some climbing Southern wave. 
 The little inn at the Italian end of the street, painted in a 
 bright Italian medley of pink and blue, must have been 
 decorated by a hand which had learned its cunning in the 
 land of the fresco. The Italian slope of the Simplon road 
 commands a range of scenery wholly different from the 
 Swiss. The latter winds like a thread through the blue 
 immensity; the former bores its way beneath crag and 
 cliff, through gorge and mountain crevice. But though 
 its channel narrows and darkens, Italy nears and nears none 
 
AT ISELLA 135 
 
 the less. You suspect it first in what shall I say? the 
 growing warmth of the air, a fancied elegance of leaf and 
 twig; a little while yet, and they will curl and wanton to 
 your heart's content. The famous Gorge of Gando, at this 
 stage of the road, renews the sombre horrors of the Via 
 Mala. The hills close together above your head, and the 
 daylight filters down their corrugated sides from three inches 
 of blue. The mad torrent of the Dauria, roaring through 
 the straitened vale, fills it forever with a sounding din, as 
 to compare poetry to prose a railway train a tunnel. 
 Emerging from the Gorge of Gando, you fairly breathe 
 Italian air. The gusts of a mild climate come wandering 
 along the road to meet you. Lo! suddenly, by the still 
 wayside, I came upon a sensation: a little house painted a 
 hot salmon color, with a withered pine-twig over the door 
 in token of entertainment, and above this inscribed in 
 square chirography literally in Italics Osteria! I stopped 
 devotedly to quaff a glass of sour wine to Italy gained. The 
 place seemed wrapped in a desolation of stillness, save that as 
 I stood and thumped the doorpost, the piping cry of a baby 
 rose from the loft above and tickled the mountain echoes. 
 Anon came clattering down the stairs a nursing mother of 
 peasants ; she gave me her only wine, out of her own bottle, 
 out of her only glass. While she stood to wait on me, the 
 terrible cry of her infant became so painful that I bade 
 her go and fetch him before he strangled ; and in a moment 
 she reappeared, holding him in her arms, pacified and utter- 
 ly naked. Standing there with the little unswaddled child 
 on her breast, and smiling simply from her glowing brow, 
 she made a picture which, in coming weeks, I saw imitated 
 more or less vividly over many an altar and in many a 
 palace. Onward still, through its long-drawn evolutions, 
 the valley keeps darkly together, as if to hold its own to 
 the last against the glittering breadth of level Lombardy. 
 In truth, I had gained my desire. If Italy meant stifling 
 heat, this was the essence of Italy. The afternoon was 
 waning, and the early shadows of the valley deepening into 
 a dead summer night. But the hotter the better, and the 
 more Italian! At last, at a turn in the road, glimpsed the 
 
136 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 first houses of a shallow village, pressed against the moun- 
 tain wall. It was Italy the Dogana Isella! so I quick- 
 ened my jaded steps. I met a young officer strolling 
 along the road in sky-blue trousers, with a moustache & la 
 Victor Emanuel, puffing a cigarette, and yawning with the 
 sensuous ennui of Isella the first of that swarming com- 
 pany of warriors whose cerulean presence, in many a rich 
 street-scene, in later hours touched up so brightly the fore- 
 ground of the picture. A few steps more brought me to 
 the Dogana, and to my first glimpse of those massive and 
 shadowy arcades so delightfully native to the South. Here 
 it was my privilege to hear for the first time the music of 
 an Italian throat vibrate upon Italian air. "Nothing to 
 declare niente?" asked the dark-eyed functionary, emerg- 
 ing from the arcade. "Niente" seemed to me delicious; 
 I would have told a fib for the sake of repeating the word. 
 Just beyond stood the inn, which seemed to me somehow 
 not as the inns of Switzerland. Perched something aloft 
 against the hillside, a vague light tendency to break out 
 into balconies and terraces and trellises seemed to enhance 
 its simple fagade. Its open windows had an air of being 
 familiar with Southern nights; with balmy dialogues, pos- 
 sibly, passing between languid ladies leaning on the iron 
 rails, and lounging gentlemen, star-gazing from the road 
 beneath at their mistresses' eyes. Heaven grant it should 
 not be fastidiously neat, scrubbed and furbished and frotte 
 like those prosy taverns on the Swiss lakes! Heaven was 
 generous. I was ushered into a room whereof the ceiling 
 was frescoed with flowers and gems and cherubs, but whose 
 brick-tiled floor would have been vastly amended by the 
 touch of a wet cloth and broom. After repairing my 
 toilet within the limits of my resources, I proceeded to 
 order supper. The host, I remember, I decreed to have 
 been the chef de cuisine of some princely house of Lom- 
 bardy. He wore a grizzled moustache and a red velvet 
 cap, with little gold ear-rings. I could see him, under 
 proper inspiration, whip a towel round his waist, turn back 
 his sleeves, and elaborate a masterly pasticcio. "I shall 
 
AT ISELLA 137 
 
 take the liberty," he said, "of causing monsieur to be 
 served at the same time with a lady." 
 
 "With a lady an English lady?" I asked. 
 
 "An Italian lady. She arrived an hour ago." And mine 
 host paused a moment and honored me with a genial smile. 
 "She is alone she is young she is pretty." 
 
 Stolid child of the North that I was, surely my smile of 
 response was no match for his! But, nevertheless, in my 
 heart I felt that fortune was kind. I went forth to stroll 
 down the road while my repast was being served, and while 
 daylight still lingered, to reach forward as far as possible 
 into the beckoning land beyond. Opposite the inn the 
 mountain stream, still untamed, murmured and tumbled 
 between the stout parapet which edged the road and the 
 wall of rock which enclosed the gorge. I felt indefinably 
 curious, expectant, impatient. Here was Italy, at last; 
 but what next? Was I to eat my supper and go contentedly 
 to bed? Was there nothing I could see, or do, or feel?^ 
 I had been deeply moved, but I was primed for a deeper 
 emotion still. Would it come? Along the road toward 
 Domo d'Ossola the evening shadows deepened and settled, 
 and filled the future with mystery. The future would take 
 care of itself; but ah, for an intenser present! I stopped 
 and gazed wistfully along the broad dim highway. At this 
 moment I perceived beyond me, leaning against the parapet, 
 the figure of a woman, alone and in meditation. Her two 
 elbows rested on the stone coping, her two hands were laid 
 against her ears to deaden the din of the stream, and her 
 face, between them, was bent over upon the waters. She 
 seemed young and comely. She was bare-headed; a black 
 organdy shawl was gathered round her shoulders ; her dress, 
 of a light black material, was covered with a multitude of 
 little puffs and flounces, trimmed and adorned with crim- 
 son silk. There was an air of intense meditation in her 
 attitude ; I passed near her without her perceiving me. I ob- 
 served her black-brown tresses, braided by a cunning hand, 
 but slightly disarranged by travel, and the crumpled dis- 
 order of her half-fantastic dress. She was a lady and an 
 Italian; she was alone, young, and pretty; was she possibly 
 
138 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 my destined companion? A few yards beyond the spot at 
 which she stood, I retraced my steps; she had now turned 
 round. As I approached her she looked at me from a pair 
 of dark expressive eyes. Just a hint of suspicion and de- 
 fiance I fancied that at this moment they expressed. "Who 
 are you, what are you, roaming so close to me?" they seemed 
 to murmur. We were alone in this narrow pass, I a new 
 comer, she a daughter of the land; moreover, her glance 
 had almost audibly challenged me; instinctively, therefore, 
 and with all the deference I was master of, I bowed. She 
 continued to gaze for an instant; then suddenly she per- 
 ceived, I think, that I was utterly a foreigner and presum- 
 ably a gentleman, and hereupon, briefly but graciously, she 
 returned my salute. I went my way and reached the hotel. 
 As I passed in, I saw the fair stranger come slowly along 
 the road as if also to enter the inn. In the little dining- 
 room I found mine host of the velvet cap bestowing the 
 finishing touches upon a small table set en tete-a-tete for 
 two. I had heard, I had read, of the gracious loquacity of 
 the Italian race and their sweet familiarities of discourse. 
 Here was a chance to test the quality of the matter. The 
 landlord, having poised two fantastically folded napkins 
 directly vis-a-vis, glanced at me with a twinkle in his eye 
 which seemed to bespeak recognition of this cunning ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 "A propos" I said, "this lady with whom I am to dine? 
 Does she wear a black dress with red flounces?" 
 
 "Precisely, Signore. You have already had a glimpse 
 of her? A pretty woman, isn't it so?" 
 
 "Extremely pretty. Who is the lady?" 
 
 "Ah!" And the landlord turned back his head and 
 thrust out his chin, with just the least play of his shoulders. 
 "That's the question! A lady of that age, with that face 
 and those red flounces, who travels alone not even a maid 
 you may well ask who she is! She arrived here an hour 
 ago in a carriage from Domo d'Ossola, where, her vetturino 
 told me, she had arrived only just before by the common 
 coach from Arona. But though she travels by the common 
 vehicle, she is not a common person ; one may see that 
 
AT ISELLA 139 
 
 with half an eye. She comes in great haste, but ignorant 
 of the ways and means. She wishes to go by the diligence 
 to Brieg. She ought to have waited at Domo, where she 
 could have found a good seat. She didn't even take the 
 precaution of engaging one at the office there. When the 
 diligence stops here, she will have to fare as she can. She 
 is pretty enough indeed to fare very well or very ill; 
 isn't it so, Signore?" demanded the worthy Bonifazio, as 
 I believe he was named. "Ah, but behold her strolling 
 along the road, bare-headed, in those red flounces! What 
 is one to say? After dusk, with the dozen officers in gar- 
 rison here watching the frontier! Watching the ladies who 
 come and go, per Dio! Many of them, saving your pres- 
 ence, Signore, are your own compatriots. You'll not deny 
 that some of them are a little free a little bold. What 
 will you have? Out of their own country! What else were 
 the use of travel? But this one; eh! she's not out of her 
 own country yet. Italians are Italians, Signore, up to the 
 frontier eh! eh!" And the Signor Bonifazio indulged in 
 a laugh the most goguenard. "Nevertheless, I have not kept 
 an inn these twenty years without learning to know the 
 sheep from the goats. This is an honorable lady, Signore; 
 it is for that reason that I have offered to you to sup with 
 her. The other sort! one can always sup with them!" 
 
 It seemed to me that my host's fluent commentary was 
 no meagre foretaste of Italian frankness. I approached the 
 window. The fair object of our conversation stood at the 
 foot of the stone staircase which ascended to the inn door, 
 with the toe of her shoe resting upon the first step. She was 
 looking fixedly and pensively up the road toward Switzer- 
 land. Her hand clasped the knob of the iron balustrade 
 and her slight fingers played an impatient measure. She 
 had begun to interest me. Her dark eyes, intent upon the 
 distant turn of the road, seemed to expand with a vague 
 expectancy. Whom was she looking for? Of what romance 
 of Italy was she the heroine? The maUre d' hotel appeared 
 at the head of the steps, and with a flourish of his napkin 
 announced that the Signora was served. She started a little 
 and then lightly shrugged her shoulders. As the same mo- 
 
I 4 o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ment I caught her eye as I stood gazing from the window. 
 With a just visible deepening of her color, she slowly as- 
 cended the steps. I was suddenly seized with a sense of 
 being dingy, travel-stained, unpresentable to a woman so 
 charming. I hastily retreated to my room, and, survey- 
 ing myself in my dressing-glass, objurgated fortune that 
 I lacked the wherewithal to amend my attire. But I could 
 at least change my cravat. I had no sooner replaced my 
 black neck-tie by a blue one than it occurred to me that the 
 Signora would observe the difference; but what then? It 
 would hardly offend her. With a timid hope that it might 
 faintly gratify her as my only feasible tribute to the honor 
 of her presence, I returned to the dining-room. She was 
 seated and had languidly addressed herself to the contents 
 of her soup-plate. The worthy Bonifazio had adorned our 
 little table with four lighted candles and a centre-piece 
 of Alpine flowers. As I installed myself opposite my com- 
 panion, after having greeted her and received a murmured 
 response, it seemed to me that I was sitting down to one 
 of those factitious repasts which are served upon the French 
 stage, when the table has been moved close to the footlights, 
 and the ravishing young widow and the romantic young 
 artist begin to manipulate the very nodus of the comedy. 
 Was the Signora a widow? Our attendant, with his crim- 
 son cap, his well-salted discourse, his light-handed gestures, 
 and his smile from behind the scenes, might have passed 
 for a classic valet de theatre. I had the appetite of a man 
 who had been walking since sunrise, but I found ample 
 occasion, while I plied my knife and fork, to inspect the 
 Signora. She merely pretended to eat; and to appeal, per- 
 haps, from the overflattering intentness of my vision, she 
 opened an idle conversation with Bonifazio. I listened ad- 
 miringly, while the glancing shuttle of Italian speech passed 
 rapidly from lip to lip. It was evident, frequently, that 
 she remained quite heedless of what he said, losing herself 
 forever in a kind of fretful intensity of thought. The re- 
 past was long and multifarious, and as he time and again 
 removed her plate with its contents untouched, mine host 
 would catch my eye and roll up his own with an air of mock 
 
AT ISELLA 141 
 
 commiseration, turning back his thumb at the same moment 
 toward the region of his heart. "Un coup de tete" he took 
 occasion to murmur as he reached over me to put down a 
 dish. But the more I looked at the fair unknown, the more 
 I came to suspect that the source of her unrest lajy deeper 
 than in the petulance of wounded vanity. Her face wore 
 to my eye the dignity of a deep resolution a resolution 
 taken in tears and ecstasy. She was some twenty-eight 
 years of age, I imagined; though at moments a painful 
 gravity resting upon her brow gave her the air of a woman 
 who in youth has anticipated old age. How beautiful she 
 was by natural gift I am unable to say; for at this especial 
 hour of her destiny, her face was too serious to be fair and 
 too interesting to be plain. She was pale, worn, and weary- 
 looking; but in the midst of her weariness there flickered 
 a fierce impatience of delay and forced repose. She was a 
 gentle creature, turned brave and adventurous by the stress 
 of fate. It burned bright in her soft, grave eyes, this long- 
 ing for the larger freedom of the tarrying morrow. A dozen 
 chance gestures indicated the torment of her spirit the 
 constant rapping of her knife against the table, her bread 
 crumbed to pieces but uneaten, the frequent change from 
 posture to posture of her full and flexible figure, shifting 
 through that broad range of attitude the very gamut of 
 gracefulness familiar to Italian women. 
 
 The repast advanced without my finding a voice to ad- 
 dress her. Her secret puzzled me, whatever it was, but I 
 confess that I was afraid of it. A coup de tetel Heaven 
 only knew how direful a coup! My mind was flooded by 
 the memory of the rich capacity of the historic womanhood 
 of Italy. I thought of Lucrezia Borgia, of Bianca Capello, 
 of the heroines of Stendhal. My fair friend seemed invested 
 with an atmosphere of candid passion, which placed her 
 quite apart from the ladies of my own land. The gallant 
 soul of the Signer Bonifazio, however, had little sufferance 
 for this pedantic view of things. Shocked by my apparent 
 indifference to the privilege of my rare position, he thrust 
 me by the shoulders into the conversation. The Signora 
 
142 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 eyed me for a moment not ungraciously, and then, "Do you 
 understand Italian?" she asked. 
 
 I had come to Italy with an ear quite unattuned, of 
 course, to the spoken tongue; but the mellow cadence of 
 the Signora's voice rang in upon my senses like music. 
 "I understand you" I said. 
 
 She looked at me gravely, with the air of a woman used 
 to receive compliments without any great flutter of vanity. 
 "Are you English?" she abruptly asked. 
 
 "English is my tongue." 
 
 "Have you come from Switzerland?" 
 
 "He has walked from Brieg!" proclaimed our host. 
 
 "Ah, you happy men, who can walk who can run who 
 needn't wait for coaches and conductors!" The Signora 
 uttered these words with a smile of acute though transient 
 irony. They were followed by a silence. Bonifazio, see- 
 ing the ice was broken, retired with a flourish of his napkin 
 and a contraction of his eyelids as much in the nature of 
 a wink as his respect for me, for the Signora, and for 
 himself allowed. What was the motive of the Signora's 
 impatience? I had a presentiment that I should learn. The 
 Italians are confidential; of this I had already received 
 sufficient assurance; and my companion, with her lucid 
 eye and her fine pliable lips, was a bright example of the 
 eloquent genius of her race. She sat idly pressing with 
 her fork the crimson substance out of a plateful of figs, 
 without raising them to her lips. 
 
 "You are going over into Switzerland," I said, "and you 
 are in haste." 
 
 She eyed me a minute suspiciously. "Yes, I'm in haste!" 
 
 "I, who have just begun to feel the charm of Italy," I 
 rejoined, "can hardly understand being in haste to leave it." 
 
 "The charm of Italy!" cried the Signora, with a slightly 
 cynical laugh. "Foreigners have a great deal to say about 
 it." 
 
 "But you, a good Italian, certainly know what we mean." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders an operation she performed 
 more gracefully than any woman I ever saw, unless it be 
 Mile. Madeleine Brohan of the Theatre Frangais. "For 
 
AT ISELLA 143 
 
 me it has no charm! I have been unhappy here. Happi- 
 ness for me is there!" And with a superb nod of her head 
 she indicated the Transalpine world. Then, as if she had 
 spoken a thought too freely, she rose suddenly from her 
 chair and walked away to the window. She stepped out 
 on the narrow balcony, looked intently for an instant up 
 and down the road and at the band of sky above it, and 
 then turned back into the room. I sat in my place, divicjed 
 between my sense of the supreme sweetness of figs and my 
 wonder at my companion's mystery. "It's a fine night!" 
 she said. And with a little jerk of impatience she flung 
 herself into an arm-chair near the table. She leaned back, 
 with her skirt making a great wave around her and her 
 arms folded. I went on eating figs. There was a long 
 silence. "You've eaten at least a dozen figs. You'll be 
 ill!" said the Signora at last. 
 
 This was friendly in its frankness. "Ah, if you only 
 knew how I enjoy them!" I cried, laughing. "They are 
 the first I ever tasted. And this the first Asti wine. We 
 don't have either in the North. If figs and Asti wine are 
 for anything in your happiness, Signora," I added, "you had 
 better not cross the Alps. See, the figs are all gone. Do 
 you think it would hurt me to have any more?" 
 
 "Truly," cried the Signora, "I don't know what you 
 English are made of!" 
 
 "You think us very coarse, and given up altogether to 
 eating and drinking?" She gave another shrug tempered 
 by a smile. "To begin with, I am not an Englishman. 
 And in the second place, you'd not call me coarse if you 
 knew if you only knew what I feel this evening. Eh! 
 such thick-coming fancies!" 
 
 "What are your fancies?" she demanded, with a certain 
 curiosity gleaming in her dark eye. 
 
 "I must finish this Asti!" This I proceeded to do. I 
 am very glad I did, moreover, as I borrowed from its mild 
 and luscious force something of the courage with which I 
 came to express myself. "I don't know how it is that I'm 
 talking Italian at such a rate. Somehow the words come 
 
144 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to me. I know it only from books. I have never talked 
 it." 
 
 "You speak as well," the Signora graciously affirmed, "as 
 if you had lived six months in the country." 
 
 "Half an hour in your society," said I, "is as profitable 
 as six months elsewhere." 
 
 "Bravo!" she responded. "An Italian himself couldn't 
 say it better." 
 
 Sitting before me in the vague candlelight, beautiful, 
 pale, dark-browed, sad, the Signora seemed to me an incor- 
 porate image of her native land. I had come to pay it my 
 devotions. Why not perform them at her feet? "I have 
 come on a pilgrimage," I said. "To understand what I 
 mean, you must have lived, as I have lived, in a land beyond 
 the seas, barren of romance and grace. This Italy of yours, 
 on whose threshold I stand, is the home of history, of beauty, 
 of the arts of all that makes life splendid and sweet. Italy, 
 for us dull strangers, is a magic word. We cross ourselves 
 when we pronounce it. We are brought up to think that 
 when we have earned leisure and rest at some bright hour, 
 when fortune smiles we may go forth and cross oceans and 
 mountains and see on Italian soil the primal substance 
 the Platonic 'idea' of our consoling dreams and our richest 
 fancies. I have been brought up in these thoughts. The 
 happy hour has come to me Heaven be praised! while I 
 am still young and strong and sensitive. Here I sit for the 
 first time in the enchanted air in which love and faith and 
 art and knowledge are warranted to become deeper passions 
 than in my own chilly clime. I begin to behold the promise 
 of my dreams. It's Italy. How can I tell you what that 
 means to one of us? Only see already how fluent and ten- 
 der of speech I've become. The air has a perfume; every- 
 thing that enters my soul, at every sense, is a suggestion, a 
 promise, a performance. But the best thing of all is that 
 I have met you, bella donna! If I were to tell you how 
 you seem to me, you would think me either insincere or; 
 impertinent. EccoJ" 
 
 She listened to me without changing her attitude or with- 
 out removing her fathomless eyes from my own. Their 
 
AT ISELLA 145 
 
 blue-black depths, indeed, seemed to me the two wells of 
 poetic unity, from which I drew my somewhat transcendental 
 allocution. She was puzzled, I think, and a little amused, 
 but not offended. Anything from an Inglese! But it was 
 doubtless grateful to feel these rolling waves of sentiment 
 break softly at her feet, chained as she was, like Andromeda, 
 to the rock of a lonely passion. With an admirable absence 
 of minauderie, "How is it that I seem to you, Signore?" 
 she asked. 
 
 I left my place and came round and stood in front of her. 
 "Ever since I could use my wits," I said, "I have done little 
 else than fancy dramas and romances and love-tales, and 
 lodge them in Italy. You seem to me as the heroine of all 
 my stories." 
 
 There was perhaps a slight movement of coquetry in her 
 reply: "Your stories must have been very dull, Signore," 
 and she gave a sad smile. 
 
 "Nay, in future," I said, "my heroines shall be more like 
 you than ever. Where do you come from?" I seated myself 
 in the chair she had quitted. "But it's none of my busi- 
 ness," I added. "From anywhere. In Milan or Venice, 
 in Bologna or Florence, Rome or Naples, every grave old 
 palazzo I pass, I shall fancy your home. I'm going the 
 whole length of Italy. My soul, what things I shall see!" 
 
 "You please me, Signore. I say to you what I wouldn't 
 say to another. I came from Florence. Shall you surely 
 go there?" 
 
 "I have reasons," I said, "for going there more than 
 elsewhere. In Florence" and I hesitated, with a momen- 
 tary horror at my perfect unreserve "in Florence I am to 
 meet my my promessa sposa." 
 
 The Signora's face was instantly irradiated by a gener- 
 ous smile. "Ah!" she said, as if now for the first time 
 she really understood me. 
 
 "As I say, she has been spending the summer at the 
 Baths of Lucca. She comes to Florence with her mother 
 in the middle of September." 
 
 "Do you love her?" 
 
 "Passionately." 
 
146 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "Is she pretty?" 
 
 "Extremely. But not like you. Very fair, with blue 
 eyes." 
 
 "How long since you have seen her?" 
 
 "A year." 
 
 "And when are you to be married?" 
 
 "In November, probably, in Rome." 
 
 She covered me for a moment with a glance of the largest 
 sympathy. "Ah, what happiness!" she cried abruptly. 
 
 "After our marriage," I said, "we shall go down to 
 Naples. Do you know Naples?" 
 
 Instead of answering, she simply gazed at me, and her 
 beautiful eyes seemed to grow larger and more liquid. 
 Suddenly, while I sat in the benignant shadow of her vision, 
 I saw the tears rise to her lids. Her face was convulsed 
 and she burst into sobs. I remember that in my amaze- 
 ment and regret I suddenly lost my Italian. "Dearest 
 lady," I cried in my mother tongue, "forgive me that I 
 have troubled you. Share with me at least the sorrow 
 that I have aroused." In an instant, however, she had 
 brushed away her tears and her face had recovered its pale 
 composure. She tried even to smile. 
 
 "What will you think of me?" she asked. "What do you 
 think of me already?" 
 
 "I think you are an extremely interesting woman. You 
 are in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, 
 pray say the word." 
 
 She gave me her hand. I was on the point of raising 
 it to my lips. "No d VAnglaise" she said, and she lightly 
 shook my own. "I like you you're an honest man you 
 don't try to make love to me. I should like to write a note 
 to your promessa sposa to tell her she may trust you. 
 You can't help me. I have committed myself to God and 
 the Holy Virgin. They will help me. Besides, it's only a 
 little longer. Eh, it's a long story, Signore! What is said 
 in your country of a woman who travels alone at night with- 
 out even a servant?" 
 
 "Nothing is said. It's very common." 
 
 "Ah! women must be very happy there, or very un- 
 
AT ISELLA 147 
 
 happy! Is it never supposed of a woman that she has a 
 lover? That is worst of all." 
 
 "Fewer things are 'supposed' of women there than here. 
 They live more in the broad daylight of life. They make 
 their own law." 
 
 "They must be very good then or very bad. So that 
 a man of fancy like you, with a taste for romance, has to 
 come to poor Italy, where he can suppose at leisure! But 
 we are not -all romance, I assure you. With me, I promise 
 you, it's no light-minded coup de tete" And the Signora 
 enforced her candid assurance with an almost imperious 
 nod. "I know what I'm doing. Eh! I'm an old woman. 
 I've waited and waited. But now my hour has cornel' 
 Ah, the heavenly freedom of it! Ah, the peace the joy! 
 Just God, I thank thee!" And sitting back in her chair, 
 she folded her hands on her bosom and closed her eyes in 
 a kind of ecstasy. Opening them suddenly, she perceived, 
 I suppose, my somewhat intent and dilated countenance. 
 Breaking then into a loud, excited laugh, "How you stare 
 at me!" she cried. "You think I've at least poisoned my 
 husband. No, he's safe and sound and strong! On the 
 contrary, I've forgiven him. I forgive him with all my 
 heart, with all my soul; there! I call upon you to witness 
 it. I bear him no rancor. I wish never to think of him 
 again; only let me never see him never hear of him! Let 
 him never come near me: I shall never trouble him! Hark!" 
 She had interrupted herself and pressed her hand with a 
 startled air upon my arm. I listened, and in a moment my 
 ear caught the sound of rolling wheels on the hard highroad. 
 With a great effort at self-composure, apparently, she laid 
 her finger on her lips. "If it should be he if it should 
 be he!" she murmured. "Heaven preserve me! Do go 
 to the window and see." 
 
 I complied, and perceived a two-horse vehicle advancing 
 rapidly from the Italian quarter. "It's a carriage of some 
 sort from Italy," I said. "But what whom do you fear?" 
 
 She rose to her feet. "That my husband should over- 
 take me/' and she gave a half-frantic glance round the room, 
 like a hunted stag at bay. "If it should be he, protect 
 
148 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 me! Do something, say something anything! Say I'm 
 not fit to go back to him. He wants me because he thinks 
 me good. Say I'm not good to your knowledge. Oh, 
 Signore Holy Virgin!" Recovering herself, she sank into 
 a chair, and sat stiff and superb, listening to the deepening 
 sound of the wheels. The vehicle approached, reached the 
 inn, passed it, and went on to the Dogana. 
 
 "You're safe," I said. "It's not a posting-chaise, but a 
 common wagon with merchandise." 
 
 With a hushed sigh of relief she passed her hand over 
 her brow, and then looking at me: "I have lived these three 
 days in constant terror. I believe in my soul he has come 
 in pursuit of me; my hope is in my having gained timel 
 through his being absent when I started. My nerves are 
 broken. I have neither slept nor eaten, nor till now have 
 I spoken. But I must speak! I'm frank; it's good to take 
 a friend when you find one." 
 
 I confess that to have been thus freely admitted by the 
 fair fugitive into the whirling circle of her destiny was one 
 of the keenest emotions of my life. "I know neither the 
 motive of your flight nor the goal of your journey," I an- 
 swered; "but if I may help you and speed you, I will joy- 
 fully turn back from the threshold of Italy and give you 
 whatever furtherance my company may yield. To go with 
 you," I added, smiling, "will be to remain in Italy, I assure 
 you." 
 
 She acknowledged my offer with a glance more potent 
 than words. "I'm going to a friend," she said, after a 
 silence. "To accept your offer would be to make friendship 
 cheap. He is lying ill at Geneva; otherwise I shouldn't be 
 thus! But my head is on fire. This room is close; it 
 smells of supper. Do me the favor to accompany me into 
 the air." 
 
 She gathered her shawl about her shoulders, I offered 
 her my arm, and we passed into the entry toward the door. 
 In the doorway stood mine host, with his napkin under his 
 arm. He drew himself up as we approached, and, as if to 
 deprecate a possible imputation of scandal, honored us 
 with a bow of the most ceremonious homage. We de- 
 
AT ISELLA 149 
 
 scended the steps and strolled along the road toward the 
 Swiss frontier. A vague remnant of daylight seemed to 
 linger imprisoned in the narrow gorge. We passed the 
 Dogana and left the village behind us. My thoughts re- 
 verted as we went, to the aching blank of my fancy as I 
 entered Isella an hour before. It seemed to palpitate now 
 with a month's experience. Beyond the village a narrow 
 bridge spans the stream and leads to a path which climbs 
 the opposite hillside. We diverged from the road and lin- 
 gered on the bridge while the sounding torrent gushed 
 beneath us, flashing in the light of the few stars which 
 sparkled in our narrow strip of sky, like diamonds tacked 
 upon a band of velvet. I remained silent, thinking a pas- 
 sive silence the most graceful tribute to the Signora's gen- 
 erous intentions. "I will tell you all!" she said at last. 
 "Do you think me pretty? But you needn't answer. The 
 less you think so, the more you'll say it. I was pretty! I 
 don't pretend to be so now. I have suffered too much. I 
 have a miserable fear that when he sees me, after these 
 three years, he'll notice the loss of my beauty. But, pove- 
 rinol he is perhaps too ill to notice anything. He is young 
 a year younger than I twenty-seven. He is a painter; 
 he has a most beautiful talent. He loved me four years 
 ago, before my marriage. He was a friend of my poor 
 brother, who was fatally wounded at the battle of Mentana, 
 where he fought with Garibaldi. My brother, Giuseppino, 
 was brought home with his wound; he died in a week. 
 Ernesto came to make a drawing of his face before we lost 
 it forever. It was not the first time I had seen him, 
 but it was the first time we understood each other. I was 
 sitting by poor Giuseppino's bedside, crying crying! He, 
 too, cried while he drew and made great blisters on the 
 paper. I know where to look for them still. They loved 
 each other devotedly. I, too, had loved my brother! for 
 my mother was dead, and my father was not a mother 
 not even a father! Judge for yourself! We placed to- 
 gether the love which each of us had borne for Giuseppino, 
 and it made a great love for each other. It was a mis- 
 . fortune; but how could we help it? He had nothing but 
 
150 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 his talent, which as yet was immature. I had nothing at 
 all but the poor little glory of my father's being a Marchese, 
 without a soldo, and my prettiness! But you see what has 
 become of that! My father was furious to have given his 
 only son to that scoundrel of a Garibaldi, for he is of that 
 way of thinking. You should have heard the scene he 
 made me when poor Ernesto in despair asked leave to marry 
 me. My husband, whom I had never seen or at least never 
 noticed, was at that time in treaty for my hand. By his 
 origin he was little better than a peasant, but he had made 
 a fortune in trade, and he was very well pleased to marry a 
 marchesina. It's not every man who is willing to take a 
 penniless girl; it was the first chance and perhaps the best. 
 So I was given over blindfold, bound hand and foot, to that 
 brute. Eh! what I hadn't brought in cash I had to pay 
 down in patience. If I were to tell you what I've suffered 
 these three years, it would bring tears to your eyes 
 Inglese as you are. But they are things which can't be 
 told. He is a peasant, with the soul of a peasant the 
 taste, the manner, the vices of a peasant. It was my 
 great crime that I was proud. I had much to be proud 
 of. If I had only been a woman of his own sort! to pay 
 him in his own coin! Ernesto, of course, had been alto- 
 gether suppressed. He proposed to me to escape with him 
 before my marriage, and I confess to you that I would 
 have done it if I could. I tried in vain; I was too well 
 watched. I implored him then to go away till better days; 
 and he at last consented to go to Paris and pursue his 
 studies. A week after my marriage he came to bid me 
 farewell. My husband had taken me to Naples, to make 
 me believe I was not wretched. Ernesto followed me, and I 
 contrived to see him. It lasted three minutes by the clock: 
 I have not seen him since. In three years I have had five 
 letters from him; they are here in my dress. I am sure of 
 his love; I don't need to have him write, to tell me. I have 
 answered him twice. These letters seven in all, in three 
 years! are all my husband has to reproach me with. He 
 is furious at not having more. He knows of course that 
 I love another; he knows that to bear such things a woman 
 
AT ISELLA 151 
 
 must borrow strength somewhere. I have had faith, but 
 it has not been all faith! My husband has none; nothing 
 is sacred to him, not the Blessed Virgin herself. If you 
 were to hear the things he says about the Holy Father! 
 I have waited and waited. I confess it, I have hoped at 
 times that my husband would die. But he has the health 
 of a peasant. He used to strike me to starve me to lock 
 me up without light or fire. I appealed to my father, but, 
 I'm sorry to say it, my father is a coward! Heaven for- 
 give me! I'm saying dreadful things here! But, ah, Si- 
 gnore, let me breathe at last! I've waited and waited, as I 
 say, for this hour! Heaven knows I have been good. 
 Though I stand here now, I have not trifled with my duties. 
 It's not coquetry! I determined to endure as long as I 
 could, and then to break to break forever! A month ago 
 strength and courage left me; or rather, they came to me! 
 I wrote to Ernesto that I would come to him. He answered 
 that he would come down to meet me if possible at Milan. 
 Just afterwards he wrote me in a little scrawl in pencil 
 that he had been taken ill in Geneva, and that if I could 
 I must come alone, before he got worse. Here I am then, 
 alone, pursued, frantic with ignorance and dread. Heaven 
 only keep him till I come. I shall do the rest! Exactly 
 how I left home, I can't tell you. It has been like a dream! 
 My husband God be praised! was obliged to make a 
 short absence on business, of which I took advantage. My 
 great trouble was getting a little money. I never have 
 any. I sold a few trinkets for a few francs hardly enough! 
 The people saw I was too frightened to make a stand, 
 so that they cheated me. But if I can only come to the 
 end! I'm certain that my husband has pursued me. Once 
 I get to Switzerland, we can hide. Meanwhile I'm in a 
 fever. I've lost my head. I began very well, but all this 
 delay has so vexed and confused me. I hadn't even the 
 wit to secure a place in the coach at Domo d'Ossola. But 
 I shall go, if I have to sit on the roof to crouch upon 
 the doorstep. If I had only a little more money, so that 
 I needn't wait for coaches. To overtake me my husband, 
 for once in his life, won't count his lire!" 
 
I 5 2 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 I listened with a kind of awe to this torrent of passionate 
 confidence. I had got more even than I had bargained 
 for. The current of her utterance seemed to gather volume 
 as it came, and she poured out her tragic story with a sort 
 of rapturous freedom. She had unburdened at last her 
 heavy heart. As she spoke, the hot breath of her eloquence 
 seemed to pass far beyond my single attentive sense, and 
 mingle joyously with the free air of the night. Her tale, in 
 a measure, might be untrue or imperfect; but her passion, 
 her haste, her sincerity, were imperiously real. I felt, as 
 I had never felt it, the truth of the poet's claim for his 
 touch of nature. I became conscious of a hurrying share 
 in my companion's dread. I seemed to hear in the trem- 
 bling torrent the sound of rapid wheels. I expected every 
 moment to see the glare of lights along the road, before 
 the inn, then a strong arm locked about her waist, and, in 
 the ray of a lantern from the carriage window, to catch 
 the mute agony of her solemn eyes. My heart beat fast; 
 I was part and parcel of a romance! Come! the denouement 
 shouldn't fail by any prosy fault of mine. 
 
 "How I've talked!" cried the Signora, after a brief 
 pause. "And how you stare at me! Eh! don't be afraid. 
 I've said all, and it has done me good. You'll laugh with 
 your promessa sposa about that crazy creature who was 
 flying from her husband. The idea of people not being 
 happy in marriage, you'll say to her!" 
 
 "I thank you with all my heart," I said, "for having 
 trusted me as you have. But I'm almost sorry you have 
 taken the time. You oughtn't to be lingering here while 
 your husband is making the dust fly." 
 
 "That's easy to say, Signore; but I can't walk to Brieg, 
 like you. A carriage costs a hundred and fifty francs. I 
 have only just enough to pay my place in the coach." 
 
 I drew out my portemonnaie and emptied it in my hand; 
 it contained a hundred and seventy-five francs. "Ecco!" I 
 said, holding them out to her. 
 
 She glanced at them an instant, and then, with a move- 
 ment which effectually rounded and completed my impres- 
 sion of her simple and passionate sincerity, seized with both 
 
AT ISELLA 153 
 
 her hands my own hand as it held them. "Ah, the Blessed 
 Virgin be praised!" she cried. "Ah, you're an angel from 
 heaven! Quick, quick! A carriage, a carriage!" 
 
 She thrust the money into her pocket, and, without wait- 
 ing for an answer, hurried back to the road, and moved 
 swiftly toward the inn. I overtook her as she reached the 
 doorstep, where our host was enjoying a pipe in the cool. 
 "A carriage!" she cried. "I must be off. Quick, without 
 delay! I have the money; you shall be well paid. Don't 
 tell me you haven't one. There must be one here. Find 
 one, prepare it, lose not a moment. Do you think I can 
 lie tossing here all night? I shall put together my things, 
 and give you ten minutes! You, sir, see that they hurry 1" 
 And she rapidly entered the house. 
 
 Bonifazio stared, somewhat aghast at the suddenness and 
 the energy of her requisition. Fearing that he might not 
 be equal to the occasion, I determined to take him by his 
 gallantry. "Come, my friend," I said, "don't stand scratch- 
 ing your head, but act. I know you admire the Signora. 
 You don't want to see so charming a woman in trouble. 
 You don't wish to have a scandal in your inn. It is of the 
 first importance that she should leave in ten minutes. Stir 
 up your hostler." 
 
 A wise grin illumined his face. "Ah," said he, "it's as 
 bad as that. I had my notions. I'll do what I can." 
 He exerted himself to such good purpose that in the in- 
 credibly short period of twenty minutes a small closed 
 carriage was drawn by a couple of stout horses to the door. 
 Going in to summon the fair fugitive, I found her in the 
 dining-room, where, fretting with impatience, and hooded 
 and shawled, she had suffered a rather bungling chamber- 
 maid to attempt the insertion of a couple of necessary 
 pins. She swept past me on her exit as if she had equally 
 forgotten my face and her obligations, and entered the car- 
 riage with passionate adjurations of haste. I followed her 
 and watched her take her place; but she seemed not even 
 to see me. My hour was over. I had added an impulse to 
 her straining purpose ; its hurrying current had left me alone 
 on the brink. I could not resist the influence of a poignant 
 
154 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 regret at having dropped from her consciousness. Learning 
 from a peasant who was lounging near at hand that an easy 
 footpath wound along the side of the mountain and struck 
 the highroad at the end of half an hour's walk, I immediately 
 discovered and followed it. I saw beneath me in the dim- 
 ness as I went the white highroad, with the carriage slowly 
 beginning its ascent. Descending at last from the slope, 
 I met the vehicle well on its way up the mountain, and 
 motioned to the driver to stop. The poor Signora, haunted 
 with the fear of interruption, thrust her pale face from 
 the window. Seeing me, she stared an instant almost 
 vacantly, and then passing her hand over her face broke 
 into a glorious smile. Flinging open the carriage door from 
 within, she held out her two hands in farewell. 
 
 "Give me your blessing," she cried, "and take mine I I 
 had almost forgotten you. Love is selfish, Signore. But I 
 should have remembered you later and cried with gratitude. 
 My Ernesto will write to you. Give me your card write 
 me your address, there in the carriage lamp. No? As you 
 please, then. Think of me kindly. And the young girl 
 you marry use her well love her if only a little it will be 
 enough. We ask but a little, but we need that. Addio!" 
 and she raised her two hands to her lips, seemed for an 
 instant to exhale her whole soul upon her finger tips, and 
 flung into the air a magnificent Italian kiss. 
 
 I returned along the winding footpath more slowly, a 
 wiser, possibly a sadder man than a couple of hours before. 
 I had entered Italy, I had tasted of sentiment, I had assisted 
 at a drama. It was a good beginning. I found Bonifazio 
 finishing his pipe before the inn. "Well, well, Signore," 
 he cried, "what does it all mean?" 
 
 "Aren't you enough of an Italian to guess?" I asked. 
 
 "Eh, eh, it's better to be an Inglese and to be told," 
 cried Bonifazio with a twinkle. 
 
 "You must sleep to-night with an ear open," I said. "A 
 personage will arrive post-haste from Domo. Stop him if 
 you can." 
 
 Bonifazio scratched his head. "If a late supper or an 
 early breakfast will stop him!" he murmured. I looked 
 
AT ISELLA 155 
 
 deep into his little round eye, expecting to read there the 
 recipe for the infusion of a sleeping potion into cafe au Mt. 
 
 My room that night was close and hot, and my bed 
 none of the best, I tossed about in a broken sleep. I 
 dreamed that I was lying ill in a poor tavern at Naples, 
 waiting, waiting with an aching heart, for the arrival from 
 the Baths of Lucca of a certain young lady, who had been 
 forced by her mother, Mrs. B. of Philadelphia, into a cruel 
 marriage with a wealthy Tuscan contadino. At last I 
 seemed to hear a great noise without and a step on the 
 stairs; through the opened door rushed in my promessa 
 sposa. Her blue eyes were bright with tears, and she wore 
 a flounced black dress trimmed with crimson silk. The 
 next moment she was kneeling at my bedside crying, 
 "Ernesto, Ernesto!" At this point I awoke into the early 
 morning. The noise of horses and wheels and voices came 
 up from outside. I sprang from my bed and stepped to 
 my open window. The huge, high-piled, yellow diligence 
 from Domo d'Ossola had halted before the inn. The door 
 of the coupe was open; from the aperture half emerged 
 the Personage. "A peasant," she had called him, but he 
 was well dicrotti, though he had counted his lire and taken 
 the diligence. He struck me as of an odd type for an Ital- 
 ian: dark sandy hair, a little sandy moustache, waxed at 
 the ends, and sandy whiskers a I'Anglaise. He had a 
 broad face, a large nose, and a small keen eye, without 
 any visible brows. He wore a yellow silk handkerchief 
 tied as a nightcap about his head, and in spite of the heat 
 he was very much muffled. On the steps stood Bonifazio, 
 cap in hand, smiling and obsequious. 
 
 "Is there a lady here?" demanded the gentleman from 
 the coupe. "A lady alone good-looking with little lug- 
 gage?" 
 
 "No lady, Signore," said Bonifazio. "Alas! I have an 
 empty house. If eccellenza would like to descend " 
 
 "Have you had a lady yesterday, last night? Don't 
 lie." 
 
 "We had three, eccellenza, a week ago three Scotch 
 
156 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ladies going to Baveno. Nay, three days since we had a 
 prima donna on her way to Milan." 
 
 "Damn your Scotch prima donna/" said the other. "Have 
 you had my wife?" 
 
 "The wife of eccellenza? Save the ladies I mention, 
 we have had neither wife nor maid. Would eccellenza like 
 a cup of coffee?" 
 
 "Sangue di Dio!" was eccellenza' s sole response. The 
 coupe door closed with a slam, the conductor mounted, the 
 six horses started and the great mountain coach rolled away. 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 
 
 ARRIVE half past eight. Sick. Meet me." 
 The telegrammatic brevity of my step-brother's mis- 
 sive gave that melancholy turn to my thoughts which was 
 the usual result of his communications. He was to have 
 come on the Friday; what had made him start off on 
 Wednesday? The terms on which we stood were a per- 
 petual source of irritation. We were utterly unlike in 
 temper and taste and opinions, and yet, having a number 
 of common interests, we were obliged, after a fashion, to 
 compromise with each other's idiosyncrasies. In fact, the 
 concessions were all on my side. He was altogether too 
 much my superior in all that makes the man who counts 
 in the world for me not to feel it, and it cost me less to 
 let him take his way than to make a stand for my dignity. 
 What I did through indolence and in some degree, I con- 
 fess, through pusillanimity, I had a fancy to make it appear 
 (by dint of much whistling, as it were, and easy thrusting 
 of my hands into my pockets) that I did through a sort of 
 generous condescension. Edgar cared little enough upon 
 what recipe I compounded a salve for my vanity, so long 
 as he held his own course; and I am afraid I played the 
 slumbering giant to altogether empty benches. There had 
 been, indeed, a vague tacit understanding that he was to 
 treat me, in form, as a man with a mind of his own, and 
 there was occasionally something most incisively sarcastic 
 in his observance of the treaty. What made matters the 
 worse for me, and the better for him, was an absurd physical 
 disparity; for Musgrave was like nothing so much as Fal- 
 staff's description of Shallow, a man made after supper 
 of a cheese-paring. He was a miserable invalid, and was 
 
 157 
 
158 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 perpetually concerned with his stomach, his lungs, and his 
 liver, and as he was both doctor and patient in one, they 
 kept him very busy. His head was grotesquely large for 
 his diminutive figure, his eye fixed and salient, and his 
 complexion liable to flush with an air of indignation and 
 suspicion. He practised a most resolute little strut on a 
 most attenuated pair of little legs. For myself, I was tall, 
 happily; for I was broad enough, if I had been shorter, to 
 have perhaps incurred that invidious monosyllabic epithet 
 which haunted Lord Byron. As compared with Edgar, I 
 was at least fairly good-looking; a stoutish, blondish, in- 
 dolent, amiable, rather gorgeous young fellow might have 
 served as my personal formula. My patrimony, being 
 double that of my step-brother (for we were related by 
 my mother), was largely lavished on the adornment of this 
 fine person. I dressed in fact, as I recollect, with a sort 
 of barbaric splendor, and I may very well have passed for 
 one of the social pillars of a small watering-place. 
 
 L was in those days just struggling into fame, and 
 
 but that it savored overmuch of the fresh paint lately 
 lavished upon the various wooden barracks in which visitors 
 were to be accommodated, it yielded a pleasant mixture 
 of rurality and society. The vile taste and the sovereign 
 virtue of the spring were fairly established, and Edgar 
 was not the man to forego the chance of trying the waters 
 and abusing them. Having heard that the hotel was 
 crowded, he wished to secure a room at least a week before- 
 hand; the upshot of which was, that I came down on the 
 igth of July with the mission to retain and occupy his 
 apartment till the 26th. I passed, with people in general, 
 and with Edgar in particular, for so very idle a person that 
 it seemed almost a duty to saddle me with some wholesome 
 errand. Edgar had, first and always, his health to attend 
 to, and then that neat little property and those everlasting 
 accounts, which he was never weary of contemplating, veri- 
 fying, and overhauling. I had made up my mind to make 
 over his room to him, remain a day or two for civility's 
 sake and then leave him to his cups. Meanwhile, on the 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 159 
 
 24th, it occurred to me that I ought really to see some- 
 thing of the place. The weather had been too hot for 
 going about, and, as yet, I had hardly left the piazza of 
 the hotel. Towards afternoon the clouds gathered, the sun 
 was obscured, and it seemed possible even for a large, lazy 
 man to take a walk. I went along beside the river, under 
 the trees, rejoicing much in the midsummer prettiness of 
 all the land and in the sultry afternoon stillness. I was 
 discomposed and irritated, and all for no better reason than 
 that Edgar was coming. What was Edgar that his comings 
 and goings should affect me? Was I, after all, so exces- 
 sively his younger brother? I would turn over a new leaf! 
 I almost wished things would come to a crisis between 
 us, and that in the glow of exasperation I might say or 
 do something unpardonable. But there was small chance 
 of my quarrelling with Edgar for vanity's sake. Somehow, 
 I didn't believe in my own egotism, but I had an indefeas- 
 ible respect for his. I was fatally good-natured, and I 
 should continue to do his desire until I began to do that 
 of some one else. If I might only fall in love and exchange, 
 my master for a mistress, for some charming goddess of 
 unreason who would declare that Mr. Musgrave was simply 
 intolerable and that was an end of it! 
 
 So, meditating vaguely, I arrived at the little Episcopal 
 chapel, which stands on the margin of the village where the 
 latter begins to melt away into the large river-side land- 
 scape. The door was slightly ajar: there came through it 
 into the hot outer stillness the low sound of an organ, 
 the rehearsal, evidently, of the organist or of some gentle 
 amateur. I was warm with walking, and this glimpse of 
 the cool musical dimness within prompted me to enter and 
 rest and listen. The body of the church was empty; but 
 a feeble glow of color was diffused through the little yellow 
 and crimson windows upon the pews and the cushioned 
 pulpit. The organ was erected in a small gallery facing 
 the chancel, into which the ascent was by a short stair- 
 way directly from the church. The sound of my tread 
 was apparently covered by the music, for the player con- 
 tinued without heeding me, hidden as she was behind a little 
 
i6o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 blue silk curtain on the edge of the gallery. Yes, that 
 gentle, tentative, unprofessional touch came from a fem- 
 inine hand. Uncertain as it was, however, it wrought upon 
 my musical sensibilities with a sort of provoking force. 
 The air was familiar, and, before I knew it, I had begun 
 to furnish the vocal accompaniment, first gently, then 
 boldly. Standing with my face to the organ, I awaited 
 the effect of my venture. The only perceptible result was 
 that, for a moment, the music faltered and the curtains 
 were stirred. I saw nothing, but I had been seen, and, 
 reassured apparently by my aspect, the organist resumed 
 the chant. Slightly mystified, I felt urged to sing my best, 
 the more so that, as I continued, the player seemed to bor- 
 row confidence and emulation from my voice. The notes 
 rolled out bravely, and the little vault resounded. Suddenly 
 there seemed to come to the musician, in the ardor of suc- 
 cess, a full accession of vigor and skill. The last chords 
 were struck with a kind of triumphant intensity, and 
 their cadence was marked by a clear soprano voice. Just 
 at the close, however, voice and music were swallowed up 
 in the roll of a huge thunder-clap. At the same instant, 
 the storm-drops began to strike the chapel-windows, and 
 we were sheeted in a summer rain. The rain was a bore; 
 but, at least, I should have a look at the organist, concern- 
 ing whom my curiosity had suddenly grown great. The 
 thunder-claps followed each other with such violence that 
 it was vain to continue to play. I waited, in the con- 
 fident belief that that charming voice half a dozen notes 
 had betrayed it denoted a charming woman. After the 
 lapse of some moments, which seemed to indicate a grace- 
 ful and appealing hesitancy, a female figure appeared at 
 the top of the little stairway and began to descend. I 
 walked slowly down the aisle. The stormy darkness had 
 rapidly increased, and at this moment, with a huge burst 
 of thunder, following a blinding flash, a momentary mid- 
 night fell upon our refuge. When things had become 
 visible again, I beheld the fair musician at the foot of the 
 steps, gazing at me with all the frankness of agitation. 
 The little chapel was rattling to its foundations. 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 161 
 
 "Do you think there is any danger?" asked my com- 
 panion. 
 
 I made haste to assure her there was none. "The chapel 
 has nothing in the nature of a spire, and even if it had, the 
 fact of our being in a holy place ought to insure us 
 against injury." 
 
 She looked at me wonderingly, as if to see whether I 
 was in jest. To satisfy her, I smiled as graciously as I 
 might. Whereupon, gathering confidence, "I think we have 
 each of us," she said, "so little right to be here that we 
 can hardly claim the benefit of sanctuary." 
 
 "Are you too an interloper?" I asked. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "I'm not an Episcopalian," 
 she replied; "I'm a good Unitarian." 
 
 "Well, I'm a poor Episcopalian. It's six of one and half 
 a dpzen of the other." There came another long, many- 
 sheeted flash and an immediate wild reverberation. My 
 companion, as she stood before me, was vividly illumined 
 from head to feet. It was as if some fierce natural power 
 had designed to interpose her image on my soul forever, in 
 this merciless electric glare. As I saw her then, I have 
 never ceased to see her since. I have called her fair, but 
 the word needs explanation. Singularly pleasing as she 
 was, it was with a charm that was all her own. Not the 
 charm of beauty, but of a certain intense expressiveness, 
 which seems to have given beauty the go-by in the very inter- 
 est of grace. Slender, meagre, without redundancy of outline 
 or brilliancy of color, she was a person you might never have 
 noticed, but would certainly never forget. What there was 
 was so charming, what there was might be so interesting! 
 There was none of the idleness of conscious beauty in her 
 clear gray eyes ; they seemed charged with the impatience of 
 a restless mind. Her glance and smile, her step and gesture, 
 were as light and distinct as a whispered secret. She was 
 nervous, curious, zealous, slightly imperious, and delicately 
 elegant withal; without which, possibly, she might have 
 seemed a trifle too positive. There is a certain sweet un- 
 reason in a picturesque toilet. She was dressed in a modish 
 adjustment of muslins and iace, which denoted the woman 
 
1 62 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 who may have fancied that even less beauty might yet 
 please. While I drew my conclusions, they were eminently 
 flattering, my companion was buttoning her gloves and 
 looking anxiously at the dripping windows. Wishing, as 
 far as I might, to beguile her impatience, I proceeded to 
 apologize for the liberty I had taken in singing to her 
 music. "My best excuse," I said, "is your admirable 
 playing, and my own most sensitive ear!" 
 
 "You might have frightened me away," she answered. 
 "But you sang too well for that, better than I played. In 
 fact, I was afraid to stop, I thought you might be one of 
 the the hierarchy." 
 
 "A bishop!" 
 
 "A bishop, a dean, a deacon, or something of that 
 sort." 
 
 "The sexton, perhaps." 
 
 "Before the sexton I should have succumbed. I take it 
 his business would have been to eject me as a meddlesome 
 heretic. I came in for no better reason than that the 
 church door was ajar." 
 
 "As a church door ought always to be." 
 
 She looked at me a moment. "No; see what comes of 
 it." 
 
 "No great harm, it seems to me." 
 
 "O, that's very well for us! But a church shouldn't 
 be made a place of convenience." 
 
 I wished, in the interest of our growing intimacy, to make 
 a point. "If it is not a place of convenience," I ventured 
 to propound, deprecating offence with a smile, "what is 
 it?" 
 
 It was an observation I afterwards made, that in cases 
 when many women drop their eyes and look prettily silly 
 or prudishly alarmed, this young lady's lucid glance would 
 become more unaffectedly direct and searching. "Indeed," 
 she answered, "you are but an indifferent Episcopalian! 
 I came in because the door was open, because I was warm 
 with my walk, and because, I confess, I have an especial 
 fondness for going into churches on week-days. One does 
 it in Europe, you know; and it reminds me of Europe." 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 163 
 
 I cast a glance over the naked tabernacle, with the 
 counterfeit graining scarcely dry on its beams and planks, 
 and a strong aroma of turpentine and putty representing 
 the odor of sanctity. She followed my glance; our eyes 
 met, and we laughed. From this moment we talked with 
 a freedom tempered less by the sanctity of the spot than 
 by a certain luxury of deference with which I felt prompted 
 to anticipate possible mistrust. The rain continued to de- 
 scend with such steady good-will that it seemed needful 
 to accept our situation frankly and conjure away the spirit 
 
 of awkwardness. We spoke of L , of the people there, 
 
 of the hot weather, of music. She had as yet seen little of 
 the place, having been confined to her apartments by do- 
 mestic reasons. I wondered what her domestic reasons 
 were. She had come forth at last to call upon a friend at 
 one of the boarding-houses which adorned this suburb of 
 the village. Her friend being out, but likely soon to re- 
 turn, she had sought entertainment in a stroll along the 
 road, and so had wandered into the chapel. Our interview 
 lasted half an hour. As it drew to a close, I fancied there 
 had grown up between us some delicate bond, begotten of 
 our mutual urbanity. I might have been indiscreet; as it 
 was, I took my pleasure in tracing the gradual evanescence 
 of my companion's sense of peril. As the moments elapsed, 
 she sat down on the bench with an air of perfect equanimity, 
 and looked patiently at the trickling windows. The still 
 small voice of some familiar spirit of the Lord, haunting 
 the dedicated vault, seemed to have audibly blessed our 
 meeting. At last the rain abated and suddenly stopped, and 
 through a great rift in the clouds there leaped a giant sun- 
 beam and smote the trickling windows. Through little 
 gaudy lozenges the chapel was flooded with prismatic light. 
 "The storm is over," said my companion. She spoke with- 
 out rising, as if she had been cheated of the sense of haste. 
 Was it calculated civility, or was it momentary self-obliv- 
 ion? Whatever it was, it lasted but a moment. We were 
 on our feet and moving toward the door. As we stood in 
 the porch, honest gallantry demanded its rights. 
 
1 64 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "I never knew before," I said, "the possible blessings of 
 a summer rain." 
 
 She proceeded a few steps before she answered. Then 
 glancing at the shining sky, already blue and free, "In ten 
 minutes," she said, "there will be no trace of it!" 
 
 "Does that mean," I frankly demanded, "that we are not 
 to meet again as friends?" 
 
 "Are we to meet again at all?" 
 
 "I count upon it." 
 
 "Certainly, then, not as enemies!" As she walked 
 away, I imprecated those restrictions of modern civilization 
 which forbade me to stand and gaze at her. 
 
 Who was she? What was she? questions the more 
 intense as, in the absence of any further evidence than my 
 rapid personal impression, they were so provokingly vain. 
 They occupied me, however, during the couple of hours 
 which were to elapse before my step-brother's arrival. 
 When his train became due, I went through the form, as 
 usual, of feeling desperately like treating myself to the 
 luxury of neglecting his summons and leaving him to shift 
 for himself; as if I had not the most distinct prevision of 
 the inevitable event, of my being at the station half an 
 hour too early, of my calling his hack and making his bar- 
 gain and taking charge of his precious little hand-bag, full 
 of medicine-bottles, and his ridiculous bundle of umbrellas 
 and canes. Somehow, this evening, I felt unwontedly loath 
 and indocile; but I contented myself with this bold flight 
 of the imagination. 
 
 It is hard to describe fairly my poor step-brother's 
 peculiar turn of mind, to give an adequate impression of his 
 want of social charm, to put it mildly, without accusing 
 him of wilful malevolence. He was simply the most con- 
 sistent and incorruptible of egotists. He was perpetually 
 affirming and denning and insuring himself, insisting upon 
 a personal right or righting a personal wrong. And above 
 all, he was a man of conscience. He asked no odds, and 
 he gave none. He made honesty something unlovely, but 
 he was rigidly honest. He demanded simply his dues, and 
 he collected them to the last farthing. These things gave 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 165 
 
 him a portentous solemnity. He smiled perhaps once a 
 month, and made a joke once in six. There are jokes of 
 his making which, to this day, give me a shiver when I 
 think of them. But I soon perceived, as he descended from 
 the train, that there would be no joke that evening. Some- 
 thing had happened. His face was hard and sombre, and 
 his eye bright and fierce. "A carriage," he said, giving me 
 his hand stiffly. And when we were seated and driving 
 away, "First of all," he demanded, "are there any mosqui- 
 toes? A single mosquito would finish me. And is my room 
 habitable, on the shady side, away from the stairs, with a 
 view, with a hair-mattress?" I assured him that mosqui- 
 toes were unknown, and that his room was the best, and 
 his mattress the softest in the house. Was he tired? how 
 had he been? 
 
 "Don't ask me. I'm in an extremely critical state. Tired? 
 Tired is a word for well people! When I'm tired I shall 
 go to bed and die. Thank God, so long as I have any work 
 to do, I can hold up my head! I haven't slept in a week. 
 It's singular, but I'm never so well disposed for my duties 
 as when I haven't slept! But be so good, for the present, 
 as to ask me no questions. I shall immediately take a bath 
 and drink some arrow-root; I have brought a package in 
 my bag, I suppose I can get them to make it. I'll speak 
 about it at the office. No, I think, on the whole, I'll make 
 it in my room; I have a little machine for boiling water. 
 I think I shall drink half a glass of the spring to-night, 
 just to make a beginning." 
 
 All this was said with as profound a gravity as if he 
 were dictating his will. But I saw that he was at a sort of 
 white-heat exasperation, and I knew that in time I should 
 learn where the shoe pinched. Meanwhile, I attempted to 
 say something cheerful and frivolous, and offered some 
 information as to who was at the hotel and who was ex- 
 pected; "No one you know or care about, I think." 
 
 "Very likely not. I'm in no mood for gossip." 
 
 "You seem nervous," I ventured to say. 
 
 "Nervous? Call it frantic! I'm not blessed with your 
 apathetic temperament, nor with your elegant indifference 
 
1 66 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to money-matters. Do you know what's the matter with 
 me? I've lost twenty thousand dollars." 
 
 I, of course, demanded particulars; but, for the present, 
 I had to content myself with the naked fact. "It's a 
 mighty serious matter," said Edgar. "I can't talk of it 
 further till I have bathed and changed my linen. The ther- 
 mometer has been at ninety-one in my rooms in town. 
 I've had this pretty piece of news to keep me cool." 
 
 I left him to his bath, his toilet, and his arrow-root 
 and strolled about pondering the mystery of his disaster. 
 Truly, if Edgar had lost money, shrewdness was out of 
 tune. Destiny must have got up early to outwit my step- 
 brother. And yet his misfortune gave him a sort of un- 
 wonted grace, and I believe I wondered for five minutes 
 whether there was a chance of his being relaxed and softened 
 by it. I had, indeed, a momentary vision of lending him 
 money, and taking a handsome revenge as a good-natured 
 creditor. But Edgar would never borrow. He would 
 either recover his money or grimly do without it. On going 
 back to his room I found him dressed and refreshed, screw- 
 ing a little portable kettle upon his gas-burner. 
 
 "You can never get them to bring you water that really 
 boils," he said. "They don't know what it means. You're 
 altogether wrong about the mosquitoes; I'm sure I heard 
 one, and by the sound, he's a monster. But I have a net 
 folded up in my trunk, and a hook and ring which I mean 
 to drive into the ceiling." 
 
 "I'll put up your net. Meanwhile, tell me about your 
 twenty thousand dollars." 
 
 He was silent awhile, but at last he spoke in a voice 
 forcibly attuned to composure. "You're immensely tickled, 
 I suppose, to find me losing money! That comes of worry- 
 ing too much and handling my funds too often. Yes, I 
 have worried too much." He paused, and then, suddenly, he 
 broke out into a kind of fury. "I hate waste, I hate shift- 
 lessness, I hate nasty mismanagement! I hate to see money 
 bring in less than it may. My imagination loves a good 
 investment. I respect my property, I respect other 
 people's. But your own honesty is all you'll find in this 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 167 
 
 world, and it will go no farther than you're there to cany 
 it. You've always thought me hard and suspicious and 
 grasping. No, you never said so; should I have cared if 
 you had? With your means, it's all very well to be a fine 
 gentleman, to skip the items and glance at the total. But, 
 being poor and sick, I have to be close. I wasn't close 
 enough. What do you think of my having been cheated? 
 cheated under my very nose? I hope I'm genteel enough 
 now!" 
 
 "I should like to see the man!" I cried. 
 
 "You shall see him. All the world shall see him. I've 
 been looking into the matter. It has been beautifully done. 
 If I were to be a rascal, I should like to be just such a 
 one." 
 
 "Who is your rascal?" 
 
 "His name is John Guest." 
 
 I had heard the name, but had never seen the man. 
 
 "No, you don't know him," Edgar went on. "No one 
 knows him but I. But I know him well. He had things 
 in his hands for a week, while I was debating a transfer of 
 my New Jersey property. In a week this is how he mixed 
 matters." 
 
 "Perhaps, if you had given him time," I suggested, "he 
 meant to get them straight again." 
 
 "O, I shall give him time. I mean he shall get 'em 
 straight, or I shall twist him so crooked his best friend 
 won't know him." 
 
 "Did you never suspect his honesty?" 
 
 "Do you suspect mine?" 
 
 "But you have legal redress?" 
 
 "It's no thanks to him. He had fixed things to a charm, 
 he had done his best to cut me off and cover his escape. 
 But I've got him, and he shall disgorge!" 
 
 I hardly know why it was; but the implacable firmness 
 of my brother's position produced in my mind a sort of 
 fantastic reaction in favor of Mr. John Guest. I felt a 
 sudden gush of the most inconsequent pity. "Poor man!" 
 I exclaimed. But to repair my weakness, I plunged into a 
 series of sympathetic questions and listened attentively to 
 
1 68 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 Edgar's statement of his wrongs. As he set forth the case, 
 I found myself taking a whimsical interest in Mr. Guest's 
 own side of it, wondering whether he suspected suspicion, 
 whether he dreaded conviction, whether he had an easy 
 conscience, and how he was getting through the hot weather. 
 I asked Edgar how lately he had discovered his loss and 
 whether he had since communicated with the criminal. 
 
 "Three days ago, three nights ago, rather; for I haven't 
 slept a wink since. I have spoken of the matter to no 
 one; for the present I need no one's help, I can help myself. 
 I haven't seen the man more than three or four times; our 
 dealings have generally been by letter. The last person 
 you'd suspect. He's as great a dandy as you yourself, and 
 in better taste, too. I was told ten days ago, at his office, 
 that he had gone out of town. I suppose I'm paying for his 
 champagne at Newport." 
 
 n 
 
 On my proposing, half an hour later, to relieve him of my 
 society and allow him to prepare for rest, Edgar declared 
 that our talk had put an end to sleep and that he must 
 take a turn in the open air. On descending to the piazza, 
 we found it in the deserted condition into which it usually 
 lapsed about ten o'clock; either from a wholesome desire 
 on the part of our fellow-lodgers to keep classic country 
 hours, or from the soporific influences of excessive leisure. 
 Here and there the warm darkness was relieved by the red 
 tip of a cigar in suggestive proximity to a light corsage. I 
 observed, as we strolled along, a lady of striking appear- 
 ance, seated in the zone of light projected from a window, 
 in conversation with a gentleman. "Really, I'm afraid 
 you'll take cold," I heard her say as we passed. "Let me 
 tie my handkerchief round your neck." And she gave it 
 a playful twist. She was a pretty woman, of middle age, 
 with great freshness of toilet and complexion, and a pictur- 
 esque abundance of blond hair, upon which was coquettishly 
 poised a fantastic little hat, decorated with an immense 
 pink rose. Her companion was a seemingly affable man, 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 169 
 
 with a bald head, a white waistcoat, and a rather florid 
 air of distinction. When we passed them a second time, 
 they had risen and the lady was preparing to enter the 
 house. Her companion went with her to the door; she left 
 him with a great deal of coquettish by-play, and he turned 
 back to the piazza. At this moment his glance fell upon 
 my step-brother. He started, I thought, and then, replacing 
 his hat with an odd, nervous decision, came towards him 
 with a smile. "Mr. Musgrave!" he said. 
 
 Edgar stopped short, and for a moment seemed to lack 
 words to reply. At last he uttered a deep, harsh note: 
 "Mr. Guest!" 
 
 In an instant I felt that I was in the presence of a 
 "situation." Edgar's words had the sound of the "click" 
 upon the limb of the entrapped fox. A scene was imminent ; 
 the actors were only awaiting their cues. Mr. Guest made 
 a half-offer of his hand, but, perceiving no response in 
 Edgar's, he gracefully dipped it into his pocket. "You 
 must have just come!" he murmured. 
 
 "A couple of hours ago." 
 
 Mr. Guest glanced at me, as if to include me in the 
 operation of his urbanity, and his glance stirred in my soul 
 an impulse of that kindness which we feel for a man about 
 to be executed. It's no more than human to wish to/ 
 shake hands with him. "Introduce me, Edgar," I said. 
 
 "My step-brother," said Edgar, curtly. "This is Mr. 
 Guest, of whom we have been talking." 
 
 I put out my hand; he took it with cordiality. "Really," 
 he declared, "this is a most unexpected a circumstance." 
 
 "Altogether so to me," said Edgar. 
 
 "You've come for the waters, I suppose," our friend went 
 on. "I'm sorry your health continues a unsatisfactory." 
 
 Edgar, I perceived, was in a state of extreme nervous 
 exacerbation, the result partly of mere surprise and partly 
 of keen disappointment. His plans had been checked. He 
 had determined to do thus and so, and he must now ex- 
 temporize a policy. Well, as poor, pompous Mr. Guest 
 wished it, so he should have it! "I shall never be strong," 
 said Edgar. 
 
170 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "Well, well," responded Mr. Guest, "a man of your parts 
 may make a little strength serve a great purpose." 
 
 My step-brother was silent a moment, relishing secretly, 
 I think, the beautiful pertinence of this observation. "I 
 suppose I can defend my rights," he rejoined. 
 
 "Exactly! What more does a man need?" and he ap- 
 pealed to me with an insinuating smile. His smile was sin- 
 gularly frank and agreeable, and his glance full of a sort 
 of conciliating gallantry. I noted in his face, however, by 
 the gaslight, a haggard, jaded look which lent force to what 
 he went on to say. "I have been feeling lately as if I 
 hadn't even strength for that. The hot weather, an over- 
 dose of this abominable water, one thing and another, the 
 inevitable premonitions of a mortality, have quite pulled 
 me down. Since my arrival here, ten days ago, I have 
 really been quite a the invalid. I've actually been in 
 bed. A most unprecedented occurrence!" 
 ' "I hope you're better," I ventured to say. 
 
 "Yes, I think I'm myself again, thanks to capital nurs- 
 ing. I think I'm myself again!" He repeated his words 
 mechanically, with a sort of exaggerated gayety, and began 
 to wipe his forehead with his handkerchief. Edgar was 
 watching him narrowly, with an eye whose keenness it was 
 impossible to veil; and I think Edgar's eye partly caused 
 his disquiet. "The last thing I did, by the way, before 
 my indisposition, was to write you ten lines, Mr. Musgrave, 
 on a little matter of business." 
 
 "I got your letter," said Edgar grimly. 
 
 Mr. Guest was silent a moment. "And I hope my ar- 
 rangements have met your approval?" 
 
 "We shall talk of that," said Edgar. 
 
 At this point, I confess, my interest in the situation had 
 become painful. I felt sick. I'm not a man of ready- 
 made resolution, as my story will abundantly prove. I 
 am discountenanced and bullied by disagreeable things. 
 Poor Mr. Guest was so infallibly booked for exposure that 
 I instinctively retreated. Taking advantage of his allusion 
 to business, I turned away and walked to the other end of 
 the piazza. This genial gentleman, then, was embodied 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 171 
 
 fraud! this sayer of civil things was a doer of monstrously 
 shabby ones! that irreproachable white waistcoat carried 
 so sadly spotted a conscience! Whom had he involved in 
 his dishonor? Had he a wife, children, friends? Who 
 was that so prosperously pretty woman, with her flattering 
 solicitude for his health? I stood for some time reflecting 
 how guilt is not the vulgar bugaboo we fancy it, that 
 it has organs, senses, affections, passions, for all the world 
 like those of innocence. Indeed, from my cursory obser- 
 vation of my friend, I had rarely seen innocence so hand- 
 somely featured. Where, then, was the line which severed 
 rectitude from error? Was manhood a baser thing than I 
 had fancied, or was sin a thing less base? As I mused thus, 
 my disgust ebbed away, and the return of the wave brought 
 an immense curiosity to see what it had come to betwixt 
 guilt and justice. Had Edgar launched his thunder? I 
 retracted my steps and rejoined my companions. Edgar's 
 thunder was apparently still in the clouds; but there had 
 been a premonitory flash of lightning. Guest stood before 
 him, paler than before, staring defiantly, and stammering 
 out some fierce denial. "I don't understand you," he said. 
 "If you mean what you seem to mean, you mean rank 
 insult." 
 
 "I mean the truth," said Edgar. "It's a pity the truth 
 should be insulting." 
 
 Guest glared a moment, like a man intently taking 
 thought for self-defence. But he was piteously unmasked. 
 His genial smile had taken flight and left mere vulgar con- 
 fusion. "This is between ourselves, sir," he cried, angrily 
 turning to me. 
 
 "A thousand pardons," I said, and passed along. I 
 began to be doubtful as to the issue of the quarrel. Edgar 
 had right on his side, but, under the circumstances, he 
 might not have force. Guest was altogether the stouter, 
 bigger, weightier person. I turned and observed them from 
 a distance. Edgar's thunderbolt had fallen and his victim 
 stood stunned. He was leaning against the balustrade of 
 the piazza, with his chin on his breast and his eyes sullenly 
 fixed on his adversary, demoralized and convicted. His 
 
172 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 hat had dropped upon the floor. Edgar seemed to have 
 made a proposal; with a passionate gesture he repeated it. 
 Guest slowly stooped and picked up his hat, and Edgar led 
 the way toward the house. A series of small sitting-rooms 
 opened by long windows upon the piazza. These were for 
 the most part lighted and empty. Edgar selected one of 
 them, and, stopping before the window, beckoned to me to 
 come to him. Guest, as I advanced, bestowed upon me a 
 scowl of concentrated protest. I felt, for my own part, as if 
 I were horribly indelicate. Between Edgar and him it was 
 a question of morals, but between him and myself it was, 
 of course, but one of manners. "Be so good as to walk in," 
 said Edgar, turning to me with a smile of unprecedented 
 suavity. I might have resisted his dictation; I couldn't his 
 petition. 
 
 "In God's name, what do you mean to do?" demanded 
 Guest. 
 
 "My duty! "said Edgar. "Coin." 
 
 We passed into the room. The door of the corridor was 
 open; Guest closed it with a passionate kick. Edgar shut 
 the long window and dropped the curtain. In the same fury 
 of mortification, Guest turned out one of the two burners 
 of the chandelier. There was still light enough, however, for 
 me to see him more distinctly than on the piazza,. He was 
 tallish and stoutish, and yet sleek and jaunty. His fine 
 blue eye was a trifle weak, perhaps, and his handsome 
 grizzled beard was something too foppishly trimmed; but, 
 on the whole, he was a most comely man. He was dressed 
 with the punctilious elegance of a man who loved luxury 
 and appreciated his own good points. A little moss-rose- 
 bud figured in the lappet of his dark-blue coat. His whole 
 person seemed redolent of what are called the "feelings of 
 a gentleman." Confronted and contrasted with him under 
 the lamp, my step-brother seemed wofully mean and gro- 
 tesque; though for a conflict of forces that lay beneath 
 the surface, he was visibly the better equipped of the two. 
 He seemed to tremble and quiver with inexorable purpose. 
 I felt that he would heed no admonitory word of mine, that 
 I could not in the least hope to blunt the edge of his re- 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 173 
 
 sentment, and that I must on the instant decide either to 
 stand by him or leave him. But while I stood thus un- 
 graciously gazing at poor Guest, the instant passed. Curi- 
 osity and a mingled sympathy with each to say nothing 
 of a touch of that relish for a fight inherent in the truly 
 masculine bosom sealed my lips and arrested my steps. 
 And yet my heart paid this graceful culprit the compliment 
 of beating very violently on his behalf. 
 
 "I wish you to repeat before my brother," said Edgar, 
 "the three succinct denials to which you have just treated 
 me." 
 
 Guest looked at the ceiling with a trembling lip. Then 
 dropping upon the sofa, he began to inspect his handsome 
 finger-nails mechanically, in the manner of one who hears 
 in some horrible hush of all nature the nearing foosteps 
 of doom. "Come, repeat them!" cried Edgar. "It's really 
 delicious. You never wrote to Stevens that you had my as- 
 sent in writing to the sale of the bonds. You never showed 
 Stevens my telegram from Boston, and assured him that my 
 'Do as you think best' was a permission to raise money on 
 them. If it's not forgery sir, it's next door to it, and ai 
 very flimsy partition between." 
 
 Guest leaned back on the sofa, with his hands grasping 
 his knees. "You might have let things stand a week or 
 so," he said, with unnatural mildness. "You might have 
 had common patience. Good God, there's a gentlemanly 
 way of doing things! A man doesn't begin to roar for a 
 pinch. I would have got things square again." 
 
 "0, it would have been a pity to spoil them! It was 
 such a pretty piece of knavery! Give the devil his due!" 
 
 "I would have rearranged matters," Guest went on. "It 
 was just a temporary convenience. I supposed I was deal- 
 ing with a man of common courtesy. But what are you to 
 say to a gentleman who says, 'Sir, I trust you/ and theft 
 looks through the keyhole?" 
 
 "Upon my word, when I hear you scuttling through the 
 window," cried Edgar, "I think it's time I should break 
 down the door. For God's sake, don't nauseate me with 
 any more lies! You know as well as you sit there, that you 
 
174 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 had neither chance nor means nor desire to redeem your 
 fraud. You'd cut the bridge behind you! You thought 
 you'd been knowing enough to eat your cake and have it, 
 to lose your virtue and keep your reputation, to sink half 
 my property through a trap-door and then stand whistling 
 and looking t' other way while I scratched my head and 
 wondered what the devil was in it! Sit down there and 
 write me your note for twenty thousand dollars at twenty 
 days." 
 
 Guest was silent a moment. "Propose something reas- 
 onable," he said, with the same tragic gentleness. 
 
 "I shall let the law reason about it." 
 
 Guest gave a little start and fixed his eyes on the ground. 
 "The law wouldn't help you," he answered, without look- 
 ing up. 
 
 "Indeed! do you think it would help you? Stoddard and 
 Hale will help me. I spoke to them this morning." 
 
 Guest sprang to his feet. "Good heavens! I hope you 
 mentioned no names." 
 
 "Only one!" said Edgar. 
 
 Guest wiped his forehead and actually tried to smile. 
 "That was your own, of course! Well, sir, I hope they ad- 
 vised you to a temper justice with mercy." 
 
 "They are not parsons, Mr. Guest; they are lawyers. 
 They accept the case." 
 
 Guest dropped on the sofa, buried his face in his hands, 
 and burst into tears. "O my soul!" he cried. His soul, 
 poor man! was a rough term for name and fame and com- 
 fort and all that made his universe. It was a pitiful sight. 
 
 "Look here, Edgar," I said. "Don't press things too 
 hard. I'm not a parson either " 
 
 "No, you've not that excuse for your sentimentality!" 
 Edgar broke out. "Here it is, of course! Here come folly 
 and fear and ignorance maundering against the primary 
 laws of life! Is rascality alone of all things in the world 
 to be handled without gloves? Didn't he press me hard? 
 He's danced his dance, let him pay the piper! Am I a 
 child, a woman, a fool, to stand and haggle with a swindler? 
 Am I to go to the wall to make room for impudent fraud? 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 175 
 
 Not while I have eyes to know black from white! I'm 
 a decent man. I'm this or I'm nothing. For twenty years 
 I've done my best for order and thrift and honesty. I've 
 never yielded an inch to the detestable sharp practice that 
 meets one nowadays at every turn. I've hated fraud as I 
 hate all bad economy; I've no more patience with it than a 
 bull with a red rag. Fraud is fraud; it's waste, it's wanton- 
 ness, it's chaos; and I shall never give it the go-by. When 
 I catch it, I shall hold it fast, and call all honest men to 
 see how vile and drivelling a thing it is!" 
 
 Guest sat rigidly fixed, with his eyes on the carpet. "Do 
 you expect to get your money?" he finally demanded. 
 
 "My money be hanged! I expect to let people know 
 how they may be served if they intrust their affairs to you! 
 A man's property, sir, is a man's person. It's as if you had 
 given be a blow in the chest!" 
 
 Guest came towards him and took him by the button- 
 hole. "Now see here," he said, with the same desperate 
 calmness. "You call yourself a practical man. Don't go 
 on like one of those d d long-haired reformers. You're 
 off the track. Don't attempt too much. Don't make me 
 confoundedly uncomfortable out of pure fantasticality. 
 Come, sir, you're a man of the world." And he patted 
 him gently on the shoulder. "Give me a chance. I con- 
 fess to not having been quite square. There! My very 
 dear sir, let me get on my legs again." 
 
 "O, you confess!" cried Edgar. "That's a vast comfort. 
 You'll never do it again! Not if I know it. But other 
 people, eh? Suppose I had been a decent widow with six 
 children, and not a penny but that! You'd confess again, 
 I suppose. Would your confession butter their bread! 
 Let your confession be public!" 
 
 "My confession is public!" and Guest, with averted eyes, 
 jerked his head towards me. 
 
 "O, my step-brother! Why, he's the most private crea- 
 ture in the world. Cheat him and he'll thank you! David, 
 I retain you as a witness that Mr. Guest has confessed." 
 
 "Nothing will serve you then? You mean to prosecute?" 
 
 "I mean to prosecute." 
 
1 76 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 The poor man's face flushed crimson, and the great 
 sweat-drops trickled from his temples. "O you blundering 
 brute!" he cried. "Do you know what you mean when 
 you say that? Do we live in a civilized world?" 
 
 "Not altogether," said Edgar. "But I shall help it 
 along." 
 
 "Have you lived among decent people? Have you known 
 women whom it was an honor to please? Have you cared 
 for name and fame and love? Have you had a dear daugh- 
 ter?" 
 
 "If I had a dear daughter," cried Edgar, flinching the 
 least bit at this outbreak, "I trust my dear daughter would 
 have kept me honest! Not the sin, then, but the detection 
 unfits a man for ladies' society! Did you kiss your daugh- 
 ter the day you juggled away my bonds?" 
 
 "If it will avail with you, I didn't. Consider her feel- 
 ings. My fault has been that I have been too tender a 
 father, that I have loved the poor girl better than my own 
 literal integrity. I became embarrassed because I hadn't 
 the heart to tell her that she must spend less money. As 
 if to the wisest sweetest girl in the world a whisper wouldn't 
 have sufficed! As if five minutes of her divine advice 
 wouldn't have set me straight again! But the stress of my 
 embarrassment was such " 
 
 "Embarrassment!" Edgar broke in. "That may mean 
 anything. In the case of an honest man it may be a motive 
 for leniency; in that of a knave it's a ground for increased 
 suspicion." 
 
 Guest, I felt, was a good-natured sinner. Just as he 
 lacked rectitude of purpose, he lacked rigidity of temper, 
 and he found in the mysteries of his own heart no clew to 
 my step-brother's monstrous implacability. Looking at him 
 from head to foot with a certain dignity, a reminiscence 
 of his former pomposity, "I do you the honor, sir," he 
 said, "to believe you are insane." 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense! you believe nothing of the sort," 
 cried Edgar. 
 
 I saw that Guest's opposition was acting upon him as a 
 lively irritant. "Isn't it possible," I asked, "to adopt some 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 177 
 
 compromise? You're not as forgiving a man under the 
 circumstances as I should be." 
 
 "In these things," retorted Edgar, without ceremony, 
 "a forgiving man is a fool." 
 
 "Well, take a fool's suggestion. You can perhaps get sat- 
 isfaction without taking your victim into court. Let Mr. 
 Guest write his confession." 
 
 Guest had not directly looked at me since we entered the 
 room. At these words he slowly turned and gave me a 
 sombre stare by which the brilliancy of my suggestion 
 seemed somewhat obscured. But my interference y/as 
 kindly meant, and his reception of it seemed rather un- 
 grateful. At best, however, I could be but a thorn in his 
 side. I had done nothing to earn my sport. Edgar here- 
 upon flourished his hand as if to indicate the superfluity 
 of my advice. "All in good time, if you please. If I'm. 
 insane, there's a method in my madness!" He paused, 
 and his eyes glittered with an intensity which might in- 
 deed, for the moment, have seemed to be that of a dis- 
 ordered brain. I wondered what was coming. "Do me 
 the favor to get down on your knees." Guest jerked him- 
 self up as if he had received a galvanic shock. "Yes, I 
 know what I say, on your knees. Did you never say 
 your prayers? You can't get out of a tight place without 
 being squeezed. I won't take less. I sha'n't feel like an 
 honest man till I've seen you there at my feet." 
 
 There was in the contrast between the inflated self-com- 
 placency of Edgar's face as he made this speech, and the 
 blank horror of the other's as he received it, something so 
 poignantly grotesque that it acted upon my nerves like a 
 mistimed joke, and I burst into irrepressible laughter. 
 Guest walked away to the window with some muttered im- 
 precation, pushed aside the curtain, and stood looking out. 
 Then, with a sudden turn, he marched back and stood be- 
 fore my brother. He was drenched with perspiration. "A 
 moment," said Edgar. "You're very hot. Take off your 
 coat." Guest, to my amazement, took it off and flung it 
 upon the floor. "Your shirt-sleeves will serve as a kind of 
 
i;8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 sackcloth and ashes. Fold your hands, so. Now, beg my 
 pardon." 
 
 It was a revolting sight, this man of ripe maturity and 
 massive comeliness on his two knees, his pale face bent upon 
 his breast, his body trembling with the effort to keep his 
 shameful balance; and above him Edgar, with his hands 
 behind his back, solemn and ugly as a miniature idol, with 
 his glittering eyes fixed in a sort of rapture on the opposite 
 wall. I walked away to the window. There was a perfect 
 stillness, broken only by Guest's hard breathing. I have 
 no notion how long it lasted; when I turned back into the 
 room he was still speechless and fixed, as if he were ashamed 
 to rise. Edgar pointed to a blotting-book and inkstand 
 which stood on a small table against the wall. "See if 
 there is pen and paper!" I obeyed and made a clatter at 
 the table, to cover our companion's retreat. When I had 
 laid out a sheet of paper he was on his feet again. "Sit 
 down and write," Edgar went on. Guest picked up his coat 
 and busied himself mechanically with brushing off the parti- 
 cles of dust. Then he put it on and sat down at the 
 table. 
 
 "I dictate," Edgar began. "I hereby, at the command of 
 Edgar Musgrave, Esq., whom I have grossly wronged, de- 
 clare myself a swindler." At these words, Guest laid down 
 the pen and sank back in his chair, emitting long groans, 
 like a man with a violent toothache. But he had taken 
 that first step which costs, and after a moment's rest he 
 started afresh. "I have on my bended knees, in the pres- 
 ence of Mr. Musgrave and his step-brother, expressed my 
 contrition; in consideration of which Mr. Musgrave forfeits 
 his incontestable right to publish his injury in a court of 
 justice. Furthermore, I solemnly declare myself his debtor 
 in the sum of twenty thousand dollars; which, on his re- 
 mission of the interest, and under pain of exposure in a 
 contrary event, I pledge myself to repay at the earliest 
 possible moment. I thank Mr. Musgrave for his generos- 
 ity." 
 
 Edgar spoke very slowly, and the scratching of Guest's 
 pen kept pace with his words. "Now sign and date," he 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 179 
 
 said; and the other, with a great heroic dash, consummated 
 this amazing document. He then pushed it away, and rose 
 and bestowed upon us a look which I long remembered. 
 As outraged human soul was abroad in the world, with 
 which henceforth I felt I should have somehow to reckon. 
 
 Edgar possessed himself of the paper and read it coolly 
 to the end, without blushing. Happy Edgar! Guest 
 watched him fold it and put it into his great morocco 
 pocket-book. "I suppose," said Guest, "that this is the 
 end of your generosity." 
 
 "I have nothing further to remark," said Edgar. 
 
 "Have you, by chance, anything to remark, Mr. Step- 
 brother?" Guest demanded, turning to me, with a fierce- 
 ness which showed how my presence galled him. 
 
 I had been, to my own sense, so abjectly passive during 
 the whole scene that, to reinstate myself as a responsible 
 creature, I attempted to utter an original sentiment. "I 
 pity you," I said. 
 
 But I had not been happy in my choice. "Faugh, you 
 great hulking brute!" Guest roared, for an answer. 
 
 The scene at this point might have passed into another 
 phase, had it not been interrupted by the opening of the 
 door from the corridor. "A lady," announced a servant, 
 flinging it back. 
 
 The lady revealed herself as the friend with whom Guest 
 had been in conversation on the piazza,. She was appar- 
 ently not a person to mind the trifle of her friend's 
 being accompanied by two unknown gentlemen, and she 
 advanced, shawled as if for departure, and smiling re- 
 proachfully. "Ah, you ungrateful creature," she cried, 
 "you've lost my rosebud!" 
 
 Guest came up smiling, as they say. "Your own hands 
 fastened it! Where is my daughter?" 
 
 "She's coming. We've been looking for you, high and 
 low. What on earth have you been doing here? Business? 
 You've no business with business. You came here to rest. 
 Excuse me, gentlemen! My carriage has been waiting this 
 ten minutes. Give me your arm." 
 
 It seemed to me time we should disembarrass the poor 
 
i8o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 man of our presence. I opened the window and stepped 
 out upon the piazza. Just as Edgar had followed me, a 
 young lady hastily entered the room. 
 
 "My dearest father!" she exclaimed. 
 
 Looking at her unseen from without, I recognized with 
 amazement my charming friend of the Episcopal chapel, 
 the woman to whom I felt it now with a sort of convulsion 
 I had dedicated a sentiment. 
 
 in 
 
 My discovery gave me that night much to think of, and I 
 thought of it more than I slept. My foremost feeling was 
 one of blank dismay as if Misfortune, whom I had been 
 used to regard as a good-natured sort of goddess, who came 
 on with an easy stride, letting off signals of warning to 
 those who stood in her path, should have blinded her 
 lantern and muffled her steps in order to steal a march on 
 poor me, of all men in the world! It seemed a hideous 
 practical joke. "If I had known, if I had only known!" 
 I kept restlessly repeating. But toward morning, "Say I 
 had known," I asked myself, "could I have acted other- 
 wise? I might have protested by my absence; but would 
 I not thus have surrendered poor Guest to the vengeance 
 of a very Shylock? Had not that suggestion of mine 
 diverted the current of Edgar's wrath and saved his ad- 
 versary from the last dishonor? Without it, Edgar would 
 have held his course and demanded his pound of flesh!" 
 Say what I would, however, I stood confronted with this 
 acutely uncomfortable fact, that by lending a hand at that 
 revolting interview, I had struck a roundabout blow at the 
 woman to whom I owed a signally sweet impression. Well, 
 my blow would never reach her, and I would devise some 
 kindness that should! So I consoled myself, and in the 
 midst of my regret I found a still further compensation in 
 the thought that chance, rough-handed though it had been, 
 had forged between us a stouter bond than any I had 
 ventured to dream of as I waxed sentimental a few hours 
 before. Her father's being a rascal threw her image into 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 181 
 
 more eloquent relief. If she suspected it, she had all the 
 interest of sorrow; if not, she wore the tender grace of 
 danger. 
 
 The result of my meditations was that I determined to 
 defer indefinitely my departure from L . Edgar in- 
 formed me, in the course of the following day, that Guest 
 had gone by the early train to New York, and that his 
 daughter had left the hotel (where my not having met her 
 before was apparently the result of her constant attendance 
 on her father during his illness) and taken up her residence 
 with the lady in whose company we had seen her. Mrs*. 
 Beck ; Edgar had learned this lady's name to be; and I 
 fancied it was upon her that Miss Guest had made her 
 morning call. To begin with, therefore, I knew where to 
 look for her. "That's the charming girl," I said to Edgar, 
 "whom you might have plunged into disgrace." 
 
 "How do you know she's charming?" he asked. 
 
 "I judge by her face." 
 
 "Humph! Judge her father by his face and he's charm- 
 ing." 
 
 I was on the point of assuring my step-brother that no 
 such thing could be said of him; but in fact he had -sud- 
 denly assumed a singularly fresh and jovial air. "I don't 
 know what it is," he said, "but I feel like a trump; I 
 haven't stood so firm on my legs in a twelvemonth. I 
 wonder whether the waters have already begun to act. 
 Really, I'm elated. Suppose, in the afternoon of my life, 
 I were to turn out a sound man. It winds me up, sir. I 
 shall take another glass before dinner." 
 
 To do Miss Guest a kindness, I reflected, I must see her 
 again. How to compass an interview and irradiate my 
 benevolence, it was not easy to determine. Sooner or later, 
 of course, the chances of watering-place life would serve 
 me. Meanwhile, I felt most agreeably that here was some- 
 thing more finely romantic than that feverish dream of my 
 youth, treating Edgar some fine day to the snub direct. As- 
 suredly, I was not in love; I had cherished a youthful pas- 
 sion, and I knew the signs and symptoms; but I was in 
 a state of mind that really gave something of the same 
 
1 82 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 zest to consciousness. For a couple of days I watched 
 and waited for my friend in those few public resorts in 
 
 which the little world of L used most to congregate, 
 
 the drive, the walk, the post office, and the vicinage of the 
 spring. At last, as she was nowhere visible, I betook my- 
 self to the little Episcopal chapel, and strolled along the 
 road, past a scattered cluster of decent boarding-houses, in 
 one of which I imagined her hidden. But most of them had 
 a shady strip of garden stretching toward the river, and 
 thitherward, of course, rather than upon the public road, 
 their inmates were likely to turn their faces. A happy 
 accident at last came to my aid. After three or four days 
 at the hotel, Edgar began to complain that the music in the 
 evening kept him awake and to wonder whether he might 
 find tolerable private lodgings. He was more and more in- 
 terested in the waters. I offered, with alacrity, to make in- 
 quiries for him, and as a first step, I returned to the little 
 colony of riverside boarding-houses. I began with one I 
 had made especial note of, the smallest, neatest, and most 
 secluded. The mistress of the establishment was at a 
 neighbor's, and I was requested to await her return. I 
 stepped out of the long parlor window, and began hopefully 
 to explore the garden. My hopes were brightly rewarded. 
 In a shady summer-house, on a sort of rustic embankment, 
 overlooking the stream, I encountered Miss Guest and her 
 coquettish duenna. She looked at me for a moment with 
 a dubious air, as if to satisfy herself that she was dis- 
 tinctly expected to recognize me, and then, as I stood pro- 
 claiming my hopes in an appealing smile, she bade me a 
 frank good-morning. We talked, I lingered, and at last, 
 when the proper moment came for my going my way again, 
 I sat down and paid a call in form. 
 
 "I see you know my name," Miss Guest said, with the 
 peculiar the almost boyish directness which seemed to be 
 her most striking feature; "I can't imagine how you learned 
 it, but if you'll be so good as to tell me your own, I'll in- 
 troduce you to Mrs. Beck. You must learn that she's my 
 deputed chaperon, my she-dragon, and that I'm not to know 
 you unless she knows you first and approves." 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 183 
 
 Mrs. Beck poised a gold eye-glass upon her pretty 
 retrousse nose, not sorry, I think, to hold it there a mo- 
 ment with a plump white hand and acquit herself of one 
 of her most effective manoeuvres, and glanced at me with 
 mock severity. "He's a harmless-looking young man, my 
 dear," she declared, "and I don't think your father would 
 object.' 7 And with this odd sanction I became intimate 
 with Miss Guest, intimate as, by the soft operation of 
 summer and rural juxtaposition, an American youth is free, 
 to become with an American maid. I had told my friends, 
 of course, the purpose of my visit, and learned, with com- 
 plete satisfaction, that there was no chance for Mr. Mus- 
 grave, as they occupied the only three comfortable rooms 
 in the house, two as bedrooms, the third as a common par- 
 lor. Heaven forbid that I should introduce Edgar dans 
 cette galere. I inquired elsewhere, but saw nothing I could 
 recommend, and, on making my report to him, found him 
 quite out of conceit of his project. A lady had just been 
 telling him horrors of the local dietary and making him feel 
 that he was vastly well off with the heavy bread and cold 
 gravy of the hotel. It was then too, I think, he first men- 
 tioned the symptoms of that relapse which subsequently 
 occurred. He would run no risks. 
 
 I had prepared Miss Guest, I fancy, to regard another 
 visit as a matter of course. I paid several in rapid suc- 
 cession; for, under the circumstances, it would have been 
 a pity to be shy. Her father, she told me, expected to be 
 occupied for three or four weeks in New York, so that for 
 the present I was at ease on that score. If I was to please, 
 I must go bravely to work. So I burned my ships behind 
 me, and blundered into gallantry with an ardor over which, 
 in my absence, the two ladies must have mingled their 
 smiles. I don't suppose I passed for an especially know- 
 ing fellow; but I kept my friends from wearying of each 
 other (for such other chance acquaintances as the place 
 afforded they seemed to have little inclination), and by my 
 services as a retailer of the local gossip, a reader of light 
 literature, an explorer and suggester of drives ancl strolls, 
 and, more particularly, as an oarsman in certain happy 
 
1 84 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 rowing-parties on the placid river whose slow, safe current 
 made such a pretty affectation of Mrs. Beck's little shrieks 
 and shudders, I very fairly earned my welcome. That 
 detestable scene at the hotel used to seem a sort of horrid 
 fable as I sat in the sacred rural stillness, in that peaceful 
 streamside nook, learning what a divinely honest girl she 
 was, this daughter of the man whose dishonesty I had so 
 complacently attested. I wasted many an hour in wonder- 
 ing on what terms she stood with her father's rankling secret, 
 with his poor pompous peccability in general, if not with 
 Edgar's particular grievance. I used to fancy that certain 
 momentary snatches of revery in the midst of our gayety, 
 and even more, certain effusions of wilful and excessive 
 gayety at our duller moments, portended some vague tor- 
 ment in her filial heart. She would quit her place and 
 wander apart for a while, leaving me to gossip it out with 
 Mrs. Beck, as if she were oppressed by the constant need 
 of seeming interested in us. But she would come back 
 with a face that told so few tales that I always ended by 
 keeping my compassion in the case from myself, and being 
 reminded afresh, by my lively indisposition to be thus 
 grossly lumped, as it were, with the duenna, of how much 
 I was interested in the damsel. In truth, the romance of 
 the matter apart, Miss Guest was a lovely girl. I had read 
 her dimly in the little chapel, but I had read her aright. 
 Felicity in freedom, that was her great charm. I have 
 never known a woman so simply and sincerely original, so 
 finely framed to enlist the imagination and hold expectation 
 in suspense, and yet leave the judgment in such blissful 
 quietude. She had a genius for frankness ; this was her only 
 coquetry and her only cleverness, and a woman coulcl not 
 have acquitted herself more naturally of the trying and un- 
 gracious rdle of being expected to be startling. It was 
 the pur>e personal accent of Miss Guest's walk and conver- 
 sation that gave them this charm; everything she did and 
 said was gilded by a ray of conviction; and to a respectful 
 admirer who had not penetrated to the sources of spiritual 
 motive in her being, this sweet, natural, various emphasis 
 of conduct was ineffably provoking. Her creed, as I 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 185 
 
 guessed it, might have been resumed in the simple notion 
 that a man should do his best; and nature had treated her, 
 I fancied, to some brighter vision of uttermost manhood 
 than illumined most honest fellows' consciences. Frank 
 as she was, I imagined she had a remote reserve of holiest 
 contempt. She made me feel deplorably ignorant and idle 
 and unambitious, a foolish, boyish spendthrift of time and 
 strength and means; and I speedily came to believe that 
 to win her perfect favor was a matter of something more 
 than undoing a stupid wrong, doing, namely, some very 
 pretty piece of right. And she was poor Mr. Guest's daugh- 
 ter, withal! Truly, fate was a master of irony. 
 
 I ought in justice to say that I had Mrs. Beck more par- 
 ticularly to thank for my welcome, and for the easy terms 
 on which I had become an habitue of the little summer- 
 house by the river. How could I know how much or how 
 little the younger lady meant by her smiles and hand- 
 shakes, by laughing at my jokes and consenting to be 
 rowed about in my boat? Mrs. Beck made no secret of her 
 relish for the society of a decently agreeable man, or of 
 her deeming some such pastime the indispensable spice of 
 life; and in Mr. Guest's absence, I was graciously admitted 
 to competition. The precise nature of their mutual senti- 
 ments Mr. Guest's and hers I was slightly puzzled to 
 divine, and in so far as my conjectures seemed plausible, I 
 confess they served as but a scanty offset to my knowledge 
 of the gentleman's foibles. This lady was, to my sense, a 
 very artificial charmer, and I think that a goodly portion of 
 my admiration for Miss Guest rested upon a little private 
 theory that for her father's sake she thus heroically ac- 
 cepted a companion whom she must have relished but little. 
 Mrs. Beck's great point was her "preservation." It was 
 rather too great a point for my taste, and partook too much 
 of the nature of a physiological curiosity. Her age really 
 mattered little, for with as many years as you pleased one 
 way or the other, she was still a triumph of juvenility. 
 Plump, rosy, dimpled, frizzled, with rings on her fingers 
 and rosettes on her toes, she used to seem to me a sort 
 of fantastic vagary or humorous experiment of time. Or, 
 
1 86 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 she might have been fancied a strayed shepherdess from 
 some rococo Arcadia, which had melted into tradition dur- 
 ing some profane excursion of her own, so that she found 
 herself saddled in our prosy modern world with this ab- 
 surdly perpetual prime. All this was true, at least of her 
 pretty face and figure; but there was another Mrs. Beck, 
 visible chiefly to the moral eye, who seemed to me exces- 
 sively wrinkled and faded and world-wise, and whom I 
 used to fancy I could hear shaking about in this enamelled 
 envelope, like a dried nut in its shell. Mrs. Beck's mor- 
 ality was not Arcadian; or if it was, it was that of a shep- 
 herdess with a keen eye to the state of the wool and the 
 mutton market, and a lively perception of the possible 
 advantages of judicious partnership. She had no design, 
 I suppose, of proposing to me a consolidation of our senti- 
 mental and pecuniary interests, but she performed her 
 duties of duenna with such conscientious precision that 
 she shared my society most impartially with Miss Guest. 
 I never had the good fortune of finding myself alone with 
 this young lady. She might have managed it, I fancied, 
 if she had wished, and the little care she took about it 
 was a sign of that indifference which stirs the susceptible 
 heart to effort. "It's really detestable," I at last ventured 
 to seize the chance to declare, "that you and I should 
 never be alone." 
 
 Miss Guest looked at me with an air of surprise. "Your 
 remark is startling," she said, "unless you have some ex- 
 cellent reason for demanding this interesting seclusion." 
 
 My reason was not ready just ye.t, but it speedily 
 ripened. A happy incident combined at once to bring it to 
 maturity and to operate a diversion for Mrs. Beck. One 
 morning there appeared a certain Mr. Crawford out of the 
 West, a worthy bachelor who introduced himself to Mrs. 
 Beck and claimed cousinship. I was present at the mo- 
 ment, and I could not but admire the skill with which the 
 lady gauged her aspiring kinsman before saying yea or 
 nay to his claims. I think the large diamond in his shirt- 
 front decided her; what he may have lacked in elegant cul- 
 ture was supplied by this massive ornament. Better and 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 187 
 
 brighter than his diamond, however, was his frank Western 
 bonhomie, his simple friendliness, and a certain half-boyish 
 modesty which made him give a humorous twist to any ex- 
 pression of the finer sentiments. He was a tall, lean gentle- 
 man, on the right side of forty, yellow-haired, with a some- 
 what arid complexion, and an irrepressible tendency to cock 
 back his hat and chew his toothpick, and a spasmodic 
 liability, spasmodically repressed when in a sedentary pos- 
 ture, to a centrifugal movement of the heels. He had a 
 clear blue eye, in which simplicity and shrewdness con- 
 tended and mingled in so lively a fashion that his glance 
 was the oddest dramatic twinkle. He was a genial sceptic. 
 If he disbelieved much that he saw, he believed everything 
 he fancied, and for a man who had seen much of the 
 rougher and baser side of life, he was able to fancy some 
 very gracious things of men, to say nothing of women. He 
 took his place as a very convenient fourth in our little 
 party, and without obtruding his eccentricities, or being too 
 often reminded of a story, like many cooler humorists, he 
 treated us to a hundred anecdotes of his adventurous ascent 
 of the ladder of fortune. The upshot of his history was 
 that he was now owner of a silver mine in Arizona, and 
 that he proposed in his own words to "lay off and choose. " 
 Of the nature of his choice he modestly waived specifica- 
 tion; it of course had reference to the sex of which Mrs. 
 Beck was an ornament. He lounged about meanwhile with 
 his hands in his pockets, watching the flies buzz with that 
 air of ecstatically suspended resolve proper to a man who 
 has sunk a shaft deep into the very stuff that dreams are 
 made of. But in spite of shyness he exhaled an atmosphere 
 of regretful celibacy which might have relaxed the conjugal 
 piety of a more tenderly mourning widow than Mrs. Beck. 
 His bachelor days were evidently numbered, and unless I 
 was vastly mistaken, it lay in this lady's discretion to de- 
 termine the residuary figure. The two were just nearly 
 enough akin to save a deal of time in courtship. 
 
 Crawford had never beheld so finished a piece of lady- 
 hood, and it pleased and puzzled him and quickened his 
 honest grin very much as a remarkably neat mechanical 
 
1 88 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 toy might have done. Plain people who have lived close to 
 frank nature often think more of a fine crisp muslin rose 
 than of a group of dewy petals of garden growth. Before ten 
 days were past, he had begun to fumble tenderly with the 
 stem of this unfading flower. Mr. Crawford's petits soins 
 had something too much of the ring of the small change of 
 the Arizona silver-mine, consisting largely as they did of 
 rather rudimentary nosegays compounded by amateur flor- 
 ists from the local front-yards, of huge bundles of "New 
 York candy" from the village store, and of an infinite 
 variety of birch-bark and bead-work trinkets. He was no 
 simpleton, and it occurred to me, indeed, that if these offer- 
 ings were not the tokens and pledges of a sentiment, they 
 were the offset and substitute of a sentiment; but if they 
 were profuse for that, they were scanty for this. Mrs. 
 Beck, for her part, seemed minded to spin the thread of de- 
 cision excessively fine. A silver-mine was all very well, but 
 a lover fresh from the diggings was to be put on probation. 
 Crawford lodged at the hotel, and our comings and go- 
 ings were often made together. He indulged in many a 
 dry compliment to his cousin, and, indeed, declared that 
 she was a magnificent little woman. It was with surprise, 
 therefore, that I learned that his admiration was divided. 
 "I've never seen one just like her," he said; "one so out 
 and out a woman, smiles and tears and everything else! 
 But Clara comes out with her notions, and a man may know 
 what to expect. I guess I can afford a wife with a notion 
 or so! Short of the moon, I can give her what she wants." 
 And I seemed to hear his hands producing in his pockets 
 that Arizonian tinkle which served with him as the prelude 
 to renewed utterance. He went on, "And tells me I musn't 
 make love to my grandmother. That's a very pretty way 
 of confessing to thirty-five. She's a bit of coquette, is 
 Clara!" I handled the honest fellow's illusions as tenderly 
 as I could, and at last he eyed me askance with a knowing 
 air. "You praise my cousin," he said, "because you think 
 I want you to. On the contrary, I want you to say some- 
 thing against her. If there is anything, I want to know 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 189 
 
 it." I declared I knew nothing in the world; whereupon 
 Crawford, after a silence, heaved an impatient sigh. 
 
 "Really," said I, laughing, "one would think you were 
 disappointed." 
 
 "I wanted to draw you out," he cried; "but you're too 
 confoundedly polite. I suppose Mrs. Beck's to be my 
 fate; it's borne in on me. I'm being roped in fast. But I 
 only want a little backing to hang off awhile. Look here," 
 he added suddenly, "let's be frank!" and he stopped and 
 laid his hand on my arm. "That other young lady isn't so 
 pretty as Mrs. Beck, but it seems to me I'd kind of trust 
 her further. You didn't know I'd noticed her. Well, I've 
 taken her in little by little, just as she gives herself out. 
 Jerusalem! there's a woman. But you know it, sir, if I'm 
 not mistaken; and that's where the shoe pinches. First 
 come, first served. I want to act on the square. Before 
 I settle down to Mrs. Beck, I want to know distinctly! 
 whether you put in a claim to Miss Guest." 
 
 The question was unexpected and found me but half 
 prepared. "A claim?" I said "Well, yes, call it a claim!" 
 
 "Any way," he rejoined, "I've no chance. She'd never 
 look at me. But I want to have her put out of my own 
 head, so that I can concentrate on Mrs. B. If you're not 
 in love with her, my boy, let me tell you you ought to be!- 
 If you are, I've nothing to do but to wish you success. If 
 you're not, upon my word, I don't know but what I would 
 go in! She could but refuse me. Modesty is all very well; 
 but after all, it's the handsomest thing you can do by a 
 woman to offer yourself. As a compliment alone, it would 
 serve. And really, a compliment with a round million isn't 
 so bad as gallantry goes hereabouts. You're young and 
 smart and good-looking, and Mrs. Beck tells me you're 
 rich. If you succeed, you'll have more than your share 
 of good things. But Fortune has her favorites, and they're 
 not always such nice young men. If you're in love well and 
 good! If you're not, by Jove, I am!" 
 
 This admonition was peremptory. My companion's face 
 in the clear starlight betrayed his sagacious sincerity. I 
 felt a sudden satisfaction in being summoned to take my 
 
i go TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 stand. I performed a rapid operation in sentimental arith- 
 metic, combined my factors, and established my total. It 
 exceeded expectation. "Your frankness does you honor," 
 I said, "and I'm sorry I can't make a kinder return. But 
 I'm madly in love!" 
 
 iv 
 
 My situation, as I denned it to Crawford, was not 
 purely delightful. Close upon my perception of the state 
 of my heart followed an oppressive sense of the vanity of 
 my pretensions. I had cut the ground from under my feet; 
 to offer myself to Miss Guest would be to add insult to 
 injury. I may truly say, therefore, that, for a couple of 
 days, this manifest passion of mine rather saddened than 
 exalted me. For a dismal forty-eight hours I left the two 
 ladies unvisited. I even thought of paying a supreme 
 tribute to delicacy and taking a summary departure. Some 
 day, possibly, Miss Guest would learn with grief and scorn 
 what her father had to thank me for; and then later, as 
 resentment melted into milder conjecture, she would read 
 the riddle of my present conduct and do me justice, guess 
 that I had loved her, and that, to punish myself, I had re- 
 nounced her forever. This fantastic magnaminity was fol- 
 lowed by a wholesome reaction. I was punished enough, 
 surely, in my regret and shame; and I wished now not to 
 suffer, but to act. Viewing the matter reasonably, she need 
 never learn my secret; if by some cruel accident she should, 
 the favor I had earned would cover that I had forfeited. 
 I stayed, then, and tried to earn this precious favor; but 
 I encountered an obstacle more serious, I fancied, than 
 even her passionate contempt would have been, her serene 
 and benevolent indifference. Looking back at these mo- 
 mentous days, I get an impression of a period of vague 
 sentimental ferment and trouble, rather than of definite 
 utterance and action; though I believe that by a singular 
 law governing human conduct in certain cases, the very 
 modesty and humility of my passion expressed itself in a 
 sort of florid and hyperbolical gallantry; so tint, in so far 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION '191 
 
 as my claims were inadmissible, they might pass, partly as 
 a kind of compensatory homage, and partly as a jest. Miss 
 Guest refused to pay me the compliment of even being dis- 
 composed, and pretended to accept my addresses as an 
 elaborate device for her amusement. There was a per- 
 petual assurance in her tone of her not regarding me as a 
 serious, much less as a dangerous, man. She could not have 
 contrived a more effective irritant to my resolution; and I 
 confess there were certain impatient moods when I took a 
 brutal glee in the thought that it was not so very long 
 since, on a notable occasion, my presence had told. In so 
 far as I was serious, Miss Guest frankly offered to accept 
 me as a friend, and laughingly intimated, indeed, that with 
 a little matronly tuition of her dispensing, I might put my- 
 self into condition to please some simple maiden in her 
 flower. I was an excellent, honest fellow; but I was exces- 
 sively young and as she really wished to befriend me, she 
 would risk the admonition I was decidedly frivolous. I 
 lacked " character." I was fairly clever, but I was more 
 clever than wise. I liked overmuch to listen to my own 
 tongue. I had done nothing; I was idle; I had, by my own 
 confession, never made an effort; I was too rich and too 
 indolent; in my very good-nature there was nothing moral, 
 no hint of principle; in short, I was boyish. I must 
 forgive a woman upon whom life had forced the fatal habit 
 of discrimination. I suffered this genial .scepticism to 
 expend itself freely, for her candor was an enchantment. 
 It was all true enough. I had been indolent and unambiti- 
 ous; I had made no effort; I had lived in vulgar ignorance 
 and ease; I had in a certain frivolous fashion tried life at 
 first hand, but my shallow gains had been in proportion to 
 my small hazards. But I was neither so young nor so idle 
 as she chose to fancy, and I could at any rate prove I was 
 constant. Like a legendary suitor of old, I might even slay 
 my dragon. A monstrous accident stood between us, and 
 to dissipate its evil influence would be a fairly heroic feat, 
 Mr. Guest's absence was prolonged from day to day, and 
 Laura's tone of allusion to her father tended indeed to 
 make a sort of invincible chimera of her possible discovery 
 
192 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 of the truth. This fond filial reference only brought out 
 the more brightly her unlikeness to him. I could as little 
 fancy her doing an act she would need to conceal as I 
 could fancy her arresting exposure by a concession to dis- 
 honor. If I was a friend, I insisted on being a familiar 
 one; and while Mrs. Beck and her cousin floated away on 
 perilous waters, we dabbled in the placid shallows of dis- 
 interested sentiment. For myself, I sent many a longing 
 glance toward the open sea, but Laura remained firm in 
 her preference for the shore. I encouraged her to speak of 
 her father, for I wished to hear all the good that could be 
 told of him. It sometimes seemed to me that she talked of 
 him with a kind of vehement tenderness designed to ob- 
 scure, as it were, her inner vision. Better had she said 
 to herself? that she should talk fond nonsense about him 
 than that she should harbor untender suspicions. I could 
 easily believe that the poor man was a most lovable fellow, 
 and could imagine how, as Laura judged him in spite of 
 herself, the sweet allowances of a mother had grown up 
 within the daughter. One afternoon Mrs. Beck brought 
 forth her photograph-book, to show to her cousin. Sud- 
 denly, as he was turning it over, she stayed his hand and 
 snatched one of the pictures from its place. He tried to 
 recover it and a little tussle followed, in the course of 
 which she escaped, ran to Miss Guest, and thrust the photo- 
 graph into her hand. "You keep it," she cried; "he's not 
 to see it." There was a great crying out from Crawford 
 about Mrs. Beck's inconstancy and his right to see the pic- 
 ture, which was cut short by Laura's saying with some 
 gravity that it was too childish a romp for a man of forty 
 and a woman of thirty! Mrs. Beck allowed us no time 
 to relish the irony of this attributive figure; she caused 
 herself to be pursued to the other end of the garden, where 
 the amorous frolic was resumed over the following pages 
 of the album. "Who is it?" I asked. Miss Guest, after a 
 pause, handed me the card. 
 
 "Your father!" I cried precipitately. 
 
 "Ah, you've seen him?" she asked. 
 
 "I know him by his likeness to you." 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 193 
 
 "You prevent my asking you, as I meant, if he doesn't 
 look like a dear good man. I do wish he'd drop his stupid 
 business and come back." 
 
 I took occasion hereupon to ascertain whether she sus- 
 pected his embarrassments. She confessed to a painful im- 
 pression that something was wrong. He had been out of 
 spirits for many days before his return to town; nothing 
 indeed but mental distress could have affected -his health, 
 for he had a perfect constitution. "If it comes to that," 
 she went on, after a long silence, and looking at me with an 
 almost intimate confidence, "I wish he would give up busi- 
 ness altogether. All the business in the world, for a man 
 of his open, joyous temper, doesn't pay for an hour's de- 
 pression. I can't bear to sit by and see him embittered and 
 spoiled by this muddle of stocks and shares. Nature made 
 him a happy man; I insist on keeping him so. We are 
 quite rich enough, and we need nothing more. He tries to 
 persuade me that I have expensive tastes, but I've never 
 spent money but to please him. I have a lovely little 
 dream which I mean to lay before him when he comes back; 
 it's very cheap, like all dreams, and more practicable than 
 most. He's to give up business and take me abroad. We're 
 to settle down quietly somewhere in Germany, in Italy, I 
 don't care where, and I'm to study music seriously. I'm 
 never to marry; but as he grows to be an old man, he's to 
 sit by a window, with his cigar, looking out on the Arno or 
 the Rhine, while I play Beethoven and Rossini." 
 
 "It's a very pretty programme," I answered, "though I 
 can't subscribe to certain details. But do you know," I 
 added, touched by a forcible appeal to sympathy in her tone, 
 "although you refuse to believe me anything better than 
 an ingenuous fool, this liberal concession to my interest in 
 your situation is almost a proof of respect." 
 
 She blushed a little, to my great satisfaction. "I surely 
 respect you," she said, "if you come to that! Otherwise 
 we should hardly be sitting here so simply. Arid I think, 
 too," she went on, "that I speak to you of my father with 
 peculiar freedom, because because, somehow, you remind 
 me of him." She looked at me as she spoke with such pene- 
 
194 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 trating candor that it was my turn to blush. "You are 
 genial, and gentle, and essentially honest, like him; and 
 like him," she added with a half-smile, "you're addicted 
 to saying a little more than it would be fair to expect you 
 to stand to. You ought to be very good friends. You'll 
 find he has your own jeunesse de cosur" 
 
 I murmured what I might about the happiness of making 
 his acquaintance; and then, to give the conversation a turn, 
 and really to test the force of this sympathetic movement 
 of hers, I boldly mentioned my fancy that he was an ad- 
 mirer of Mrs. Beck. She gave me a silent glance, almost of 
 gratitude, as if she needed to unburden her heart. But she 
 did so in few words. "He does admire her," she said. 
 "It's my duty, it's my pleasure, to respect his illusions. 
 But I confess to you that I hope this one will fade." She 
 rose from her seat and we joined our companions; but I 
 fancied, for a week afterwards, that she treated me with a 
 certain gracious implication of deference. Had I ceased to 
 seem boyish? I struck a truce with urgency and almost rel- 
 ished the idea of being patient. 
 
 A day or two later, Mr. Guest's "illusions" were put 
 before me in a pathetic light. It was a Sunday; the ladies 
 were at church, and Crawford and I sat smoking on the 
 piazza. "I don't know how things are going with you," 
 he said; "you're either perfectly successful or desperately 
 resigned. But unless it's rather plainer sailing than in my 
 case, I don't envy you. I don't know where I am, anyway! 
 She will and she won't. She may take back her word once 
 too often, I can tell her that! You see, she has two strings 
 to her bow. She likes my money, but she doesn't like me. 
 Now, it's all very well for a woman to relish a fortune, 
 but I'm not prepared to have my wife despise my person!" 
 said Crawford with feeling. "The alternative, you know, 
 is Mr. Guest, that girl's father. I suppose he's handsome, 
 and a wit, and a dandy; though I must say an old dandy, 
 to my taste, is an old fool. She tells me a dozen times an 
 hour that he's a fascinating man. I suppose if I were to 
 leave her alone for a week, I might seem a fascinating man. 
 I wish to heaven she wasn't so confoundedly taking. I 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 195 
 
 can't give her up; she amuses me too much. There was once 
 a little actress in Galveston, but Clara beats that girl! If 
 I could only have gone in for some simple wholesome girl 
 who doesn't need to count en her fingers to know the state 
 of her heart!" 
 
 That evening as we were gathered in the garden, poor 
 Crawford approached Laura Guest with an air of desperate 
 gallantry, as if from a desire to rest from the petty torment 
 of Mrs. Beck's sentimental mutations. Laura liked him, 
 and her manner to him had always been admirable in its 
 almost sisterly frankness and absence of provoking arts; 
 yet I found myself almost wondering, as they now strolled 
 about the garden together, whether there was any danger 
 of this sturdy architect of his own fortunes putting out my 
 pipe. Mrs. Beck, however, left me no chance for selfish 
 meditation. Her artless and pointless prattle never lacked 
 a purpose; before you knew it she was, in vulgar parlance, 
 "pumping" you, trying to pick your pocket of your poor 
 little receipt for prosperity. She took an intense delight in 
 imaginatively bettering her condition, and one was forced 
 to carry bricks for her castles in the air. 
 
 "You needn't be afraid of my cousin," she said, laughing, 
 as I followed his red cigar-tip along the garden paths. "He 
 admires Laura altogether too much to make love to her. 
 There's modesty! Don't you think it's rather touching 
 in a man with a million of dollars? I don't mind telling you 
 that he has made love to me, that being no case for mod- 
 esty. I suppose you'll say that my speaking of it is. But 
 what's the use of being an aged widow, if one can't tell 
 the truth?" 
 
 "There's comfort in being an aged widow," I answered 
 gallantly, "when one has two offers a month." 
 
 "I don't know what you know about my offers; but even 
 two swallows don't make a summer! However, since you've 
 mentioned the subject, tell me frankly what you think of 
 poor Crawford. Is he at all presentable? You see I like 
 him, I esteem him, and I'm afraid of being blinded by my 
 feelings. Is he so dreadfully rough? You see I like 
 downright simple manliness and all that; but a little polish 
 
196 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 does no harm, even on fine gold. I do wish you'd take hold 
 of my poor cousin and teach him a few of the amenities of 
 life. I'm very fond of the amenities of life; it's very frivo- 
 lous and wicked, I suppose, but I can't help it. I have 
 the misfortune to be sensitive to ugly things. Can one 
 really accept a man who wears a green cravat? Of course 
 you can make him take it off; but you'll be knowing all 
 the while that he pines for it, that he would put it on if he 
 could. Now that's a symbol of that dear, kind, simple 
 fellow, a heart of gold, but a green cravat! I've never 
 heard a word of wisdom about that matter yet. People 
 talk about the sympathy of souls being the foundation of 
 happiness in marriage. It's pure nonsense. It's not the 
 great things, but the little, that we dispute about, and the 
 chances are terribly against the people who have a different 
 taste in colors." 
 
 It seemed to me that, thus ardently invoked, I might 
 hazard the observation, "Mr. Guest would never wear a 
 green cravat." 
 
 "What do you know about Mr. Guest's cravats?" 
 
 "I've seen his photograph, you know." 
 
 "Well, you do him justice. You should see him in the 
 life. He looks like a duke. I never saw a duke, but 
 that's my notion of a duke. Distinction, you know; per- 
 fect manners and tact and wit. If I'm right about it's 
 being perfection in small things that assures one's happiness, 
 I might well, in two words, I might be very happy with 
 Mr. Guest!" 
 
 "It's Crawford and soul, then," I proposed, smiling, "or 
 Guest and manner!" 
 
 She looked at me a moment, and then with a toss of her* 
 head and a tap of her fan, "You wretch!" she cried, "you 
 want to make me say something very ridiculous. I'll not 
 pretend I'm not worldly. I'm excessively wordly. I 
 always make a point of letting people know it. Of course 
 I know very well my cousin's rich, and that so long as he's 
 good he's none the worse for that. But in my quiet little 
 way I'm a critic, and I look at things from a high ground. 
 I compare a rich man who is simply a good fellow to a per- 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 197 
 
 feet gentleman who has simply a nice little fortune. Mr. 
 Guest has a nice property, a very nice property. I shouldn't 
 have to make over my old bonnets. You may ask me if I'm 
 not afraid of Laura. But you'll marry Laura and carry her 
 off!" 
 
 I found nothing to reply for some moments to this little 
 essay in "criticism"; and suddenly Mrs. Beck, fancying per- 
 haps that she was indiscreetly committing herself, put an 
 end to our interview. "I'm really very kind," she cried, "to 
 be talking so graciously about a lover who leaves me alone 
 for a month and never even drops me a line. It's not such 
 good manners after all. If you're not jealous of Mr. Craw- 
 ford, I am of Miss Guest. We'll go down and separate 
 them." 
 
 Miss Guest's repose and dignity were decidedly over- 
 shadowed. I brought her the next afternoon a letter from 
 the post office, superscribed in a hand I knew, and wan- 
 dered away while she sat in the garden and read it. When 
 I came back she looked strangely sad. I sat down near her 
 and drew figures in the ground with the end of her parasol, 
 hoping that she would do me the honor to communicate her 
 trouble. At last she rose in silence, as if to return to the 
 house. I begged her to remain. "You're in distress," I 
 said, speaking as calmly and coldly as I could, "and I hoped 
 it might occur to you that there is infinite sympathy close 
 at hand. Instead of going to your own room to cry, why 
 not stay here and talk of it with me?" 
 
 She gave me a brilliant, searching gaze; I met it steadily 
 and felt that I was turning pale with the effort not to obey 
 the passionate impulse of self-denunciation. She began 
 slowly to walk away from the house, and I felt that a point 
 was gained. "It's your father, of course," I said. It was 
 all I could say. She silently handed me his unfolded let- 
 ter. It ran as follows: 
 
 MY DEAREST DAUGHTER: I have sold the house and 
 everything in it, except your piano and books, of course at 
 a painful sacrifice. But I needed ready money. Forgive 
 
198 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 your poor blundering, cruel father. My old luck has left 
 me; but only trust me, and we shall be happy again." 
 
 Her eyes, fortunately, were wandering while I read; for 
 I felt myself blushing to my ears. 
 
 "It's not the loss of the house," she said at last; "though 
 of course we were fond of it. I grew up there, my mother 
 died there. It's the trouble it indicates. Poor dear fatherf 
 Why does he talk of 'luck'? I detest the word, ^"hy does 
 he talk of forgiving him and trusting him? There's a 
 wretched tone about it all. If he would only come back and 
 let me look at him!" 
 
 "Nothing is more common in business," I answered, "than 
 a temporary embarrassment demanding ready money. Of 
 course it must be met at a sacrifice. One throws a little 
 something overboard to lighten the ship, and the ship sails 
 ahead. As for the loss of the house, nothing could be bet- 
 ter for going to Italy, you know. You've no excuse left 
 for staying here. If your father will forgive me the interest 
 I take in his affairs, I strongly recommend his leaving busi- 
 ness and its sordid cares. Let him go abroad and forget it 
 all." 
 
 Laura walked along in silence, and I led the way out of 
 the garden into the road. We followed it slowly till we 
 reached the little chapel. The sexton was just leaving it, 
 shouldering the broom with which he had been sweeping it 
 for the morrow's services. I hailed him and gained his per- 
 mission to go in and try the organ, assuring him that we 
 were experts. Laura said that she felt in no mood for 
 music; but she entered and sat down in one of the pews. I 
 climbed into the gallery and attacked the little instrument. 
 We had had no music since our first meeting, and I felt 
 an irresistible need to recall the circumstances of that meet- 
 ing. I played in a simple fashion, respectably enough, and 
 fancied, at all events, that by my harmonious fingers I could 
 best express myself. I played for an hour, in silence, choos- 
 ing what I would, without comment or response from my 
 companion. The summer twilight overtook us; when it was 
 getting too dark to see the keys, I rejoined Miss Guest. 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 199 
 
 She rose and came into the aisle. "You play very well," 
 she said, simply; "better than I supposed." 
 
 Her praise was sweet; but sweeter still was a fancy of 
 mine that I perceived in the light gloom just the glim- 
 mer of a tear. "In this place," I said, "your playing once 
 moved me greatly. Try and remember the scene dis- 
 tinctly." 
 
 "It's easily remembered," she answered, with an air of 
 surprise. 
 
 "Believe, then, that when we parted, I was already in 
 love with you." 
 
 She turned away abruptly. "Ah, my poor music!" 
 
 The next day, on my arrival, I was met by Mrs. Beck, 
 whose pretty forehead seemed clouded with annoyance. 
 With her own fair hand she buttonholed me. "You ap- 
 parently," she said, "have the happiness to be in Miss 
 Guest's confidence. What on earth is going on in New 
 York? Laura received an hour ago a letter from her father. 
 I found her sitting with it in her hand as cheerful as a 
 Quakeress in meeting. 'Something's wrong, my dear/ I 
 said; 'I don't know what. In any case, be assured of my 
 sympathy. ' She gave me the most extraordinary stare. 
 'You'll be interested to know,' she said, 'that my father 
 has lost half his property.' Interested to know! I verily 
 believe the child meant an impertinence. What is Mr. 
 Guest's property to me? Has he been speculating? Stupid 
 man!" she cried, with vehemence. 
 
 I made a brief answer. I discovered Miss Guest sitting 
 by the river, in pale contemplation of household disaster. 
 I asked no questions. She told me of her own accord that 
 her father was to return immediately, "to make up a 
 month's sleep," she added, glancing at his letter. We spoke 
 of other matters, but before I left her, I returned to this 
 one. "I wish you to tell your father this," I said. "That 
 there is a certain gentleman here, who is idle, indolent, 
 ignorant, frivolous, selfish. That he has certain funds for 
 which he is without present use. That he places them at 
 Mr. Guest's absolute disposal in the hope that they may 
 partially relieve his embarrassment." I looked at Laura as 
 
200 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 I spoke and watched her startled blush deepen to crimson. 
 She was about to reply; but before she could speak, "Don't 
 forget to add," I went on, "that he hopes his personal 
 faults will not prejudice Mr. Guest's acceptance of his offer, 
 for it is prompted by the love he bears his daughter." 
 
 "You must excuse me," Laura said, after a pause. "I 
 had rather not tell him this. He would not accept your 
 offer." 
 
 "Are you sure of that?" 
 
 "I shouldn't allow him." 
 
 "And why not, pray? Don't you, after all, like me well 
 enough to suffer me to do you so small a service?" 
 
 She hesitated; then gave me her hand with magnificent 
 frankness. "I like you too well to suffer you to do me 
 just that service. We take that from les indifferents" 
 
 Before the month was out, Edgar had quarrelled with the 
 
 healing waters of L . His improvement had been most 
 
 illusory; his old symptoms had returned in force, and 
 though he now railed bitterly at the perfidious spring and 
 roundly denounced the place, he was too ill to be moved 
 away. He was altogether confined to his room. I made a 
 conscience of offering him my company and assistance, but 
 he would accept no nursing of mine. He would be tended 
 by no one whom he could not pay for his trouble and 
 enjoy a legal right to grumble at. "I expect a nurse to be 
 a nurse," he said, "and not a fine gentleman, waiting on me 
 in gloves. It would be fine work for me, lying here, to have 
 to think twice whether I might bid you not to breathe so 
 hard." Nothing had passed between us about John Guest, 
 though the motive for silence was different on each side. 
 For Edgar, I fancied, our interview with him was a matter 
 too solemn for frequent allusion; for me it was a detestable 
 thought. But wishing now to assure myself that, as I 
 supposed, he had paid his ugly debt, I asked Edgar, on the 
 evening I had extorted from Miss Guest those last recorded 
 words of happy omen, whether he had heard from our friend 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 201 
 
 in New York. It was a very hot night; poor Edgar lay 
 sweltering under a sheet, with open windows. He looked 
 pitifully ill, and yet somehow more intensely himself than 
 ever. He drew a letter from under his pillow. "This 
 came to-day," he said. "Stevens writes me that Guest 
 yesterday paid down the twenty thousand dollars in full. 
 It's quick work. I hope he's not robbed Peter to pay Paul. 
 
 "Mr. Guest has a conscience," I said; and I thought bit- 
 terly of the reverse of the picture. "I'm afraid he has half 
 ruined himself to do it." 
 
 "Well, ruin for ruin, I prefer his. I've no doubt his 
 affairs have gone to the dogs. The affairs of such a man 
 must, sooner or later! I believe, by the way, you've been 
 cultivating the young lady. What does the papa say to 
 that?" 
 
 "Of course," I said, without heeding his question, "you've 
 already enclosed him the the little paper." 
 
 Edgar turned in his bed. "Of course I've done no such 
 thing!" 
 
 "You mean to keep it?" I cried. 
 
 "Of course I mean to keep it. Where else would be his 
 punishment?" 
 
 There was something vastly grotesque in the sight of 
 this sickly little mortal erecting himself among his pillows 
 as a dispenser of justice, an appraiser of the wages of sin; 
 but I confess that his attitude struck me as more cruel even 
 than ludicrous. I was disappointed. I had certainly not 
 expected Edgar to be generous, but I had expected him to 
 be just, and in the heat of his present irritation he wast 
 neither. He was angry with Guest for his excessive promp- 
 titude, which had given a sinister twist to his own conduct. 
 "Upon my word," I cried, "you're a veritable Shylock!" 
 
 "And you're a veritable fool! Is it set down in the 
 bond that I'm to give it up to him? The thing's mine, to 
 have and to hold forever. The scoundrel would be easily 
 let off indeed! This bit of paper in my hands is to keep 
 him in order and prevent his being too happy. The thought 
 will be wholesome company, a memento mori to his 
 vanity." 
 
202 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "He's to go through life, then, with possible exposure 
 staring him in the face?" 
 
 Edgar's great protuberant eyes expanded without blink- 
 ing. "He has committed his fate to Providence." 
 
 I was revolted. "You may have the providential quali- 
 ties, but you have not the gentlemanly ones, I formally pro- 
 test. But, after a decent delay, he'll of course demand the 
 document." 
 
 "Demand it? He shall have it then, with a vengeance!" 
 
 "Well, I wash my hands of further complicity! I shall 
 inform Mr. Guest that I count for nothing in this base 
 negation of his right." 
 
 Edgar paused a moment to stare at me in my unprece- 
 dented wrath. Then making me a little ironical gesture of 
 congratulation, "Inform him of what you please. I hope 
 you'll have a pleasant talk over it! You made rather a 
 bad beginning, but who knows, if you put your heads to- 
 gether to abuse me, you may end as bosom friends! I've 
 watched you, sir!" he suddenly added, propping himself 
 forward among his pillows; "you're in love!" I may wrong 
 the poor fellow, but it seemed to me that in these words he 
 discharged the bitterness of a lifetime. He too would have 
 hoped to please, and he had lived in acrid assent to the in- 
 stinct which told him such hope was vain. In one way or 
 another a man pays his tax to manhood. "Yes, sir, you're 
 grossly in love! What do I know about love, you ask? 
 I know a drivelling lover when I see him. You've made a 
 clever choice. Do you expect John Guest to give tlje girl 
 away? He's a good-natured man, I know; but really, con- 
 sidering your high standard of gentlemanly conduct, you 
 ask a good deal." 
 
 Edgar had been guilty on this occasion of a kind of reck- 
 less moral self-exposure, which seemed to betray a sense 
 that he should never need his reputation again. I felt as 
 if I were standing by something very like a death-bed, and 
 forbearingly, without rejoinder, I withdrew. He had simply 
 expressed more brutally, however, my own oppressive be- 
 lief that the father's aversion stood darkly massed in the 
 rear of the daughter's indifference. I had, indeed, for the 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 203 
 
 present, the consolation of believing that with Laura the 
 day of pure indifference was over; and I tried hard to flatter 
 myself that my position was tenable in spite of Mr. Guest. 
 The next day as I was wandering on the hotel piazza, com- 
 muning thus sadly with my hopes, I met Crawford, who, 
 with his hands in his pockets and his hat on the bridge of 
 his nose, seemed equally a sullen probationer of fate. 
 
 "I'm going down to join our friends," I said; "I expected 
 to find you with them." 
 
 He gave a gloomy grin. "My nose is out of joint," he 
 said; "Mr. Guest has come back." I turned pale, but he 
 was too much engaged with his own trouble to observe it. 
 "What do you suppose my cousin is up to? She had agreed 
 to drive with me and I had determined to come home, once 
 for all, engaged or rejected. As soon as she heard of 
 Guest's arrival, she threw me overboard and tripped off to 
 her room, to touch up her curls. Go down there now and 
 you'll find her shaking them at Mr. Guest. By the Lord, 
 sir, she can whistle for me now! If there was a decently 
 good-looking woman in this house, I'd march straight up to 
 her and offer myself. You're a happy man, my boy, not 
 to have a d d fool to interfere with you, and not to be in 
 love with a d d fool either." 
 
 I had no present leisure to smooth the turbid waters of 
 poor Crawford's passion; but I remembered a clever re- 
 mark in a French book, to the effect that even the best men 
 and Crawford was one of the best are subject to a mo- 
 mentary need not to respect what they love. I repaired 
 alone to the house by the river, and found Laura in the 
 little parlor which she shared with Mrs. Beck. The room 
 was flooded with the glow of a crimson sunset, and she was 
 looking out of the long window at two persons in the gar- 
 den. In my great desire to obtain some firm assurance 
 from her before her father's interference should become 
 a certainty, I lost no time. "I've been able to think of 
 nothing," I said, "but your reply to that poor offer of 
 mine. IVe been flattering myself that it really means 
 something, means, possibly, that if I were to speak 
 here now all that I long to speak, you would listen to 
 
204 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 me more kindly. Laura," I cried, passionately, "I repent 
 of all my follies and I love you!" 
 
 She looked at me from head to foot with a gaze almost 
 strange in its intensity. It betrayed trouble, but, I fancied, 
 a grateful trouble. Then, with a smile, "My father has 
 come," she said. The words set my heart a beating, and 
 I had a horrible fancy that they were maliciously uttered. 
 But as she went on I was reassured. "I want him to see 
 you, though he knows nothing of your offer." 
 
 Somehow, by her tone, my mind was suddenly illumined 
 with a delicious apprehension of her motive. She had heard 
 the early murmur of that sentiment whose tender essence 
 resents compulsion. "Let me feel then," I said, "that I 
 am not to stand or fall by his choice." 
 
 "He's sure to like you," she answered; "don't you remem- 
 ber my telling you so? He judges better of men than of 
 women," she added sadly, turning away from the window. 
 
 Mr. Guest had been advancing toward the house, side by 
 side with Mrs. Beck. Before they reached it the latter 
 was met by two ladies who had been ushered into the gar- 
 den from the front gate, and with whom, with an air of 
 smothered petulance, perceptible even at a distance, she re- 
 traced her steps toward the summer-house. Her compan- 
 ion entered our little parlor alone from the piazza* He 
 stepped jauntily and looked surprisingly little altered by 
 his month's ordeal. Mrs. Beck might still have taken him 
 for a duke, or, at least, for an earl. His daughter im- 
 mediately introduced me. "Happy to make your acquaint- 
 ance, sir," he exclaimed, in a voice which I was almost 
 shocked to find how well I knew. He offered his hand. I 
 met it with my own, and the next moment we were fairly 
 face to face. I was prepared for anything. Recognition 
 faltered for a mere instant in his eyes; then I felt it sud- 
 denly leap forth in the tremendous wrench of his hand, "Ah, 
 you you YOU I " 
 
 "Why, you know him!" exclaimed Laura. 
 
 Guest continued to wring my hand, and I felt to my cost 
 that he was shocked. He panted a moment for breath, 
 and then burst into a monstrous laugh. I looked askance 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 205 
 
 at Laura; her eyes were filled with wonder. I felt that for 
 the moment anger had made her father reckless, and any- 
 thing was better than that between us the edge of our secret 
 should peep out. "We have been introduced," I said, try- 
 ing to smile. Guest dropped my hand as if it burned him, 
 and walked the length of the room. 
 
 "You should have told me!" Laura added, in a tone of 
 almost familiar reproach. 
 
 "Miss Guest," I answered, hardly knowing what I said, 
 "the world is so wide " 
 
 "Upon my soul, I think it's damnably narrow!" cried 
 Guest, who had turned very pale. 
 
 I determined then that he should know the worst. "I'm 
 here with a purpose, Mr. Guest," I said; "I love your 
 daughter." 
 
 He stopped short, fairly glaring at me. Laura stepped 
 toward him and laid her two hands on his arm. "Something 
 is wrong," she said, "very wrong! It's your horrible 
 money-matters! Weren't you really then so generous?" 
 and she turned to me. 
 
 Guest laid his other hand on hers as they rested on his 
 arm and patted them gently. "My daughter," he said 
 solemnly, "do your poor father a favor. Dismiss him for- 
 ever. Turn him out of the house," he added, fiercely. 
 
 "You wrong your daughter," I cried, "by asking her to 
 act so blindly and cruelly." 
 
 "My child," Guest went on, "I expect you to obey!" 
 
 There was a silence. At last Laura turned to me, ex- 
 cessively pale. "Will you do me the very great favor," 
 she said, with a trembling voice, "to leave us?" 
 
 I reflected a moment. "I appreciate your generosity; 
 but in the interest of your own happiness, I beg you not 
 to listen to your father until I have had a word with him 
 alone." 
 
 She hesitated and looked, as if for assent, at her father. 
 "Great heavens, girl!" he cried, "you don't mean you 
 love him!" She blushed to her hair and rapidly left the 
 room. 
 
 Guest took up his hat and removed a speck of dust from 
 
206 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 the ribbon by a fillip of his finger-nail. "Young man," he 
 said, "you waste words!" 
 
 "Not, I hope, when, with my hand on my heart, I beg 
 your pardon." 
 
 "Now that you have something to gain. If you respect 
 me, you should have protested before. If you don't you've 
 nothing to do with me or mine." 
 
 "I allow for your natural resentment, but you might 
 keep it within bounds. I religiously forget, ignore, efface 
 the past. Meet me half-way! When we met a month ago, 
 I already loved your daughter. If I had dreamed of your 
 being ever so remotely connected with her, I would have 
 arrested that detestable scene even by force, brother of 
 mine though your adversary was!" 
 
 Guest put on his hat with a gesture of implacable con- 
 tempt. "That's all very well! You don't know me, sir, 
 or you'd not waste your breath on ijs! The thing's done. 
 Such as I stand here, I've been dishonored!" And two hot 
 tears sprang into his eyes. "Such as I stand here, I carry 
 in my poor, sore heart the vision of your great, brutal, star- 
 ing, cruel presence. And now you ask me to accept that 
 presence as perpetual! Upon my soul, I'm a precious fool 
 to talk about it." 
 
 I made an immense effort to remain calm and courteous. 
 "Is there nothing I can do to secure your good-will? I'll 
 make any sacrifice." 
 
 "Nothing but to leave me at once and forever. Fancy my 
 living with you for an hour! Fancy, whenever I met your 
 eyes, my seeing in them the reflection of of that piece of 
 business! And your walking about looking wise and 
 chuckling! My precious young man," he went on with a 
 scorching smile, "if you knew how I hated you, you'd give 
 me a wide berth." 
 
 I was silent for some moments, teaching myself the great 
 patience which I foresaw I should need. "This is after all 
 but the question of our personal relations, which we might 
 fairly leave to time. Not only am I willing to pledge my- 
 self to the most explicit respect " 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 207 
 
 "Explicit respect!" he broke out. "I should relish that 
 vastly! Heaven deliver me from your explicit respect!" 
 
 "I can quite believe," I quietly continued, "that I should 
 get to like you. Your daughter has done me the honor 
 to say that she believed you would like me." 
 
 "Perfect! You've talked it all over with her?" 
 
 "At any rate," I declared roundly, "I love her, and I 
 have reason to hope that I may render myself acceptable to 
 her. I can only add, Mr. Guest, that much as I should 
 value your approval of my suit, if you withhold it I shall 
 try my fortune without it!" 
 
 "Gently, impetuous youth!" And Guest laid his hand 
 on my arm and lowered his voice. "Do you dream that 
 if my daughter ever so faintly suspected the truth, she 
 would even look at you again?" 
 
 "The truth? Heaven forbid she should dream of it! 
 I wonder that in your position you should allude to it so 
 freely." 
 
 "I was prudent once; I shall treat myself to a little free- 
 dom now. Give it up, I advise you. She may have thought 
 you a pretty young fellow; I took you for one myself at 
 first; but she'll keep her affection for a man with the bowels 
 of compassion. She'll never love a coward, sir. Upon my 
 soul, I'd sooner she married your beautiful brother. He, 
 at least, had a grievance. Don't talk to me about my own 
 child. She and I have an older love than yours; and if 
 she were to learn that I've been weak Heaven help me! 
 she would only love me the more. She would feel only 
 that I've been outraged." 
 
 I confess that privately I flinched, but I stood to it 
 bravely. "Miss Guest, doubtless, is as perfect a daughter 
 as she would be a wife. But allow me to say that a 
 woman's heart is not so simple a mechanism. Your daugh- 
 ter is a person of a very fine sense of honor, and I can im- 
 agine nothing that would give her greater pain than to be 
 reduced to an attitude of mere compassion for her father. 
 She likes to believe that men are strong. The sense of re- 
 spect is necessary to her happiness. We both wish to as- 
 
208 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 sure that happiness. Let us join hands to preserve her 
 illusions." 
 
 I saw in his eye no concession except to angry perplexity. 
 "I don't know what you mean," he cried, "and I don't want 
 to know. If you wish to intimate that my daughter is so 
 very superior a person that she'll despise me, you're mis- 
 taken! She's beyond any compliment you can pay her. 
 You can't frighten me now; I don't care for things." He 
 walked away a moment and then turned about with flushed 
 face and trembling lip. "I'm broken, I'm ruined! I don't 
 want my daughter's respect, nor any other woman's. It's 
 a burden, a mockery, a snare! What's a woman worth who 
 can be kind only while she believes? Ah, ah!" and he be- 
 gan to rub his hands with a sudden air of helpless senility, 
 "I should never be so kissed and coddled and nursed. I 
 can tell her what I please; I sha'n't mind what I say now. 
 I've ceased to care, all in a month! Reputation is a farce; 
 a pair of tight boots, worn for vanity. I used to have a 
 good foot, but I shall end my days in my slippers. I don't 
 care for anything!" 
 
 This mood was piteous, but it was also formidable, for 
 I was scantily disposed to face the imputation of having 
 reduced an amiable gentleman, in however strictly just a 
 cause, to this state of plaintive cynicism. I could only 
 hope that time would repair both his vanity and his charity, 
 seriously damaged as they were. "Well," I said, taking my 
 hat, "a man in love, you know, is obstinate. Confess, your- 
 self, that you'd not think the better of me for accepting 
 dismissal philosophically. A single word of caution, keep 
 cool; don't lose your head; don't speak recklessly to Laura. 
 I protest that, for myself, I'd rather my mistress shouldn't 
 doubt of her father." 
 
 Guest had seated himself on the sofa with his hat on, 
 and remained staring absently at the carpet, as if he were 
 deaf to my words. As I turned away, Mrs. Beck crossed 
 the piazza and stood on the threshold of the long window. 
 Her shadow fell at Mr. Guest's feet; she sent a searching 
 glance from his face to mine. He started, stared, rose, 
 stiffened himself up, and removed his hat Suddenly he 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 209 
 
 colored to his temples, and after a second's delay there is- 
 used from behind this ruby curtain a wondrous imitation 
 of a smile. I turned away, reassured. "My case is not 
 hopeless," I said to myself. "You do care for something, 
 yet." Even had I deemed it hopeless, I might have made 
 my farewell. Laura met me near the gate, and I remember 
 thinking that trouble was vastly becoming to her. 
 
 "Is your quarrel too bad to speak of?" she asked. 
 
 "Allow me to make an urgent request. Your father for- 
 bids me to think of you, and you, of course, to think of me. 
 You see," I said, mustering a smile, "we're in a delightfully 
 romantic position, persecuted by a stern parent. He will 
 say hard things of me; I say nothing about your believing 
 them, I leave that to your own discretion. But don't con- 
 tradict them. Let him call me cruel, pusillanimous, false, 
 whatever he will. Ask no questions; they will bring you 
 no comfort. Be patient, be a good daughter, and wait!" 
 
 Her brow contracted painfully over her intensely lucid 
 eyes, and she shook her head impatiently. "Let me under- 
 stand. Have you really done wrong?" 
 
 I felt that it was but a slender sacrifice to generosity to 
 say Yes, and to add that I had repented. I even felt grate- 
 fully that whatever it might be to have a crime to confess 
 to, it was not "boyish." 
 
 For a moment, I think, Laura was on the point of ask^ 
 ing me a supreme question about her father, but she sup- 
 pressed it and abruptly left me. 
 
 My step-brother's feeble remnant of health was now so 
 cruelly reduced that the end of his troubles seemed near. 
 He was in constant pain, and was kept alive only by stupe- 
 fying drugs. As his last hour might strike at any mo- 
 ment, I was careful to remain within call, and for several 
 days saw nothing of father or daughter. I learned from 
 Crawford that they had determined to prolong their stay 
 into the autumn, for Mr. Guest's "health." "I don't know 
 what's the matter with his health," Crawford grumbled. 
 "For a sick man he seems uncommonly hearty, able to sit 
 out of doors till midnight with Mrs. B., and always as spick 
 and span as a bridegroom. I'm the invalid of the lot," 
 
210 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 lie declared; "the climate don't agree with me." Mrs. 
 Beck, it appeared, was too fickle for patience; he would be 
 made a fool of no more. If she wanted him, she must come 
 and fetch him; and if she valued her chance, she must do 
 it without delay. He departed for New York to try the 
 virtue of missing and being missed. 
 
 On the evening he left us, the doctor told me that Edgar 
 could not outlast the night. At midnight, I relieved the 
 watcher and took my place by his bed. Edgar's soundless 
 and motionless sleep was horribly like death. Sitting 
 watchful by his pillow, I passed an oppressively solemn 
 night. It seemed to me that a part of myself was dying, 
 and that I was sitting in cold survival of youthful innocence 
 and of the lavish self-surrender of youth. There is a cer- 
 tain comfort in an ancient grievance, and as I thought of 
 having heard for the last time the strenuous quaver of 
 Edgar's voice, I could have wept as for the effacement of 
 some revered horizon-line of life. I heard his voice again, 
 however; he was not even to die without approving the mat- 
 ter. With the first flash of dawn and the earliest broken 
 bird-note, he opened his eyes and began to murmur dis- 
 connectedly. At length he recognized me, and, with me, his 
 situation. "Don't go on tiptoe, and hold your breath, and 
 pull a long face," he said; "speak up like a man. I'm doing 
 the biggest job I ever did yet, you'll not interrupt me; I'm 
 dying. One two, three four; I can almost count the 
 ebbing waves. And to think that all these years they've 
 been breaking on the strand of the universe! It's only when 
 the world's din is shut out, at the last, that we hear them. 
 I'll not pretend to say I'm not sorry; I've been a man of 
 this world. It's a great one; there's a vast deal to do in 
 it, for a man of sense. I've not been a fool, either. Write 
 that for my epitaph, He was no fool! except when he went 
 to L. I'm not satisfied yet. I might have got better, and 
 richer. I wanted to try galvanism, and to transfer that 
 'Pennsylvania stock. Well, I'm to be transferred myself. 
 If dying's the end of it all, it's as well to die worse as to 
 die better. At any rate, while time was mine, I didn't 
 waste it. I went over my will, pen in hand, for the last 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 2H 
 
 time, only a week ago, crossed the J's and dotted the i's. 
 I've left you nothing. You need nothing for comfort, and 
 of course you expect nothing for sentiment. I've left 
 twenty thousand dollars to found an infirmary for twenty 
 indigent persons suffering from tumor in the stomach. 
 There's sentiment! There will be no trouble about it, for 
 my affairs are in perfect shape. Twenty snug Iktle beds 
 in my own little house in Philadelphia. They can get five 
 in the dining-room." He was silent awhile, as if with a 
 kind of ecstatic vision of the five little beds in a row. "I 
 don't know that there is anything else," he said, at last, 
 "except a few old papers to be burned. I hate leaving rub- 
 bish behind me; it's enough to leave one's mouldering car- 
 cass!" 
 
 At his direction I brought a large tin box from a closet 
 and placed it on a chair by his bedside, where I drew 
 from it a dozen useless papers and burned them one by one 
 in the candle. At last, when but three or four were left, 
 I laid my hand on a small sealed document labelled Guest's 
 Confession. My hand trembled as I held it up to him, and 
 as he recognized it a faint flush overspread his cadaverous 
 pallor. He frowned, as if painfully confused. "How did it 
 come there? I sent it back, I sent it back," he said. Then 
 suddenly with a strangely erroneous recollection of our 
 recent dispute, "I told you so the other day, you remem- 
 ber; and you said I was too generous. And what did you 
 tell me about the daughter? You're in love with her? Ah, 
 yes! What a muddle!" 
 
 I respected his confusion. "You say you've left me noth- 
 ing," I answered. "Leave me this." 
 
 For all reply, he turned over with a groan, and relapsed 
 into stupor. The nurse shortly afterwaids came to re- 
 lieve me; but though I lay down, I was unable to sleep. 
 The personal possession of that little scrap of paper acted 
 altogether too potently on my nerves and my imagination. 
 In due contravention of the doctor, Edgar outlasted the 
 night and lived into another day. But as high noon was 
 clashing out from the village church, and I stood with the 
 doctor by his bedside, the latter, who had lifted his wrist 
 
212 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 a little to test his pulse, released it, not with the tenderness 
 we render to suffering, but with a more summary reverence. 
 Suffering was over. 
 
 By the close of the day I had finished my preparations 
 for attending my step-brother's remains to burial in Phila- 
 delphia, among those of his own people; but before my de- 
 parture, I measured once more that well-trodden road to 
 the house by the river, and requested a moment's conversa- 
 tion with Mr. Guest. In spite of my attention being other- 
 wise engaged, I had felt strangely all day that I carried a 
 sort of magic talisman, a mystic key to fortune. I was con- 
 stantly fumbling in my waistcoat pocket to see whether the 
 talisman was really there. I wondered that as yet Guest 
 should not have demanded a surrender of his note; but I 
 attributed his silence to shame, scorn, and defiance, and 
 promised myself a sort of golden advantage by anticipating 
 his claim with the cogent frankness of justice. But as soon 
 as he entered the room I foresaw that Justice must show 
 her sword as well as her scales. His resentment had deep- 
 ened into a kind of preposterous arrogance, of a temper 
 quite insensible to logic. He had more than recovered his 
 native buoyancy and splendor; there was an air of feverish 
 impudence in his stare, his light swagger, in the yery hue 
 and fashion of his crimson necktie. He had an evil genius 
 with blond curls and innumerable flounces. 
 
 "I feel it to be a sort of duty," I said, "to inform you 
 that my brother died this morning." 
 
 "Your brother? What's your brother to me? He's been 
 dead to me these three days. Is that all you have to say?" 
 
 I was irritated by the man's stupid implacability, and my 
 purpose received a check. "No," I answered, "I've several 
 things more to touch upon." 
 
 "In so far as they concern my daughter, you may leave 
 them unsaid. She tells me of your offer to to buy off my 
 opposition. Am I to understand that it was seriously made? 
 You're a coarser young man than I fancied!" 
 
 "She told you of my offer?" I cried. 
 
 "O, you needn't build upon that. She hasn't mentioned 
 your name since." 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 213 
 
 I was silent, thinking my own thoughts. I won't answer 
 for it, that in spite of his caution, I did not lay an im- 
 material brick or two. "You're still irreconcilable?" I 
 contented myself with asking. 
 
 He assumed an expression of absolutely jovial contempt. 
 "My dear sir, I detest the sight of you!" 
 
 "Have you no question to ask, no demand to make?" 
 
 He looked at me a moment in silence, with just the least 
 little twitch and tremor of mouth and eye. His vanity, I 
 guessed on the instant, was determined stoutly to ignore that 
 I held him at an advantage and to refuse me the satisfac- 
 tion of extorting from him the least allusion to the evidence 
 of his disgrace. He had known bitter compulsion once; he 
 would not do it the honor to concede that it had not spent 
 itself. "No demand but that you will excuse my further 
 attendance." 
 
 My own vanity took a hand in the game. Justice her- 
 self was bound to go no more than half-way. If he was 
 not afraid of his little paper, he might try a week or two 
 more of bravery. I bowed to him in silence and let him 
 depart. As I turned to go I found myself face to face with 
 Mrs. Beck, whose pretty visage was flushed with curiosity. 
 "You and Mr. Guest have quarrelled," she said roundly. 
 
 "As you see, madam." 
 
 "As I see, madam! But what is it all about?" 
 
 "About his daughter." 
 
 "His daughter and his ducats! You're a very deep young 
 man, in spite of those boyish looks of yours. Why did you 
 never tell me you knew him? You've quarrelled about 
 money matters." 
 
 "As you say," I answered, "I'm very deep. Don't 
 tempt me to further subterfuge." 
 
 "He has lost money, I know. Is it much? Tell me 
 that." 
 
 "It's an enormous sum!" I said, with mock solemnity. 
 
 "Provoking man!" And she gave a little stamp of dis- 
 gust. 
 
 "He's in trouble," I said. "To a woman of your tender 
 sympathies he ought to be more interesting than ever.". 
 
214 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 She mused a moment, fixing me with her keen blue eye. 
 "It's a sad responsibility to have a heart!" she murmured. 
 "In that," I said, "we perfectly agree." 
 
 VI 
 
 It was a singular fact that Edgar's affairs turned out to 
 be in by no means the exemplary order in which he had 
 flattered himself he placed them. They were very much at 
 sixes and sevens. The discovery, to me, was almost a 
 shock. I might have drawn from it a pertinent lesson on 
 the fallacy of human pretensions. The gentleman whom 
 Edgar had supremely honored (as he seemed to assume in 
 his will) by appointing his executor, responded to my inno- 
 cent surprise by tapping his forehead with a peculiar smile. 
 It was partly from curiosity as to the value of this expla- 
 nation, that I helped him to look into the dense confusion 
 which prevailed in my step-brother's estate. It revealed 
 certainly an odd compound of madness and method. I 
 learned with real regret that the twenty eleemosynary beds 
 at Philadelphia must remain a superb conception. I was 
 horrified at every step by the broad license with which his 
 will had to be interpreted. All profitless as I was in the 
 case, when I thought of the comfortable credit in which he 
 had died, I felt like some greedy kinsman of tragedy mak- 
 ing impious havoc with a sacred bequest. These matters 
 detained me for a week in New York, where I had joined 
 my brother's executor. At my earliest moment of leisure, 
 I called upon Crawford at the office of a friend to whom he 
 had addressed me, and learned that after three or four 
 dismally restless days in town, he had taken a summary 
 departure for L. A couple of days later, I was struck with 
 a certain dramatic connection between his return and the 
 following note from Mr. Guest, which I give verbally, in 
 its pregnant brevity: 
 
 SIR: I possess a claim on your late brother's estate 
 which it is needless to specify. You will either satisfy it by 
 return of mail or forfeit forever the common respect of 
 gentlemen. J.G. 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 215 
 
 Things had happened with the poor man rather as I 
 hoped than as I expected. He had borrowed his recent ex- 
 aggerated defiance from the transient smiles of Mrs. Beck. 
 They had gone to his head like the fumes of wine, and he 
 had dreamed for a day that he could afford to snap his 
 fingers at the past. What he really desired and hoped of 
 Mrs. Beck I was puzzled to say. In this woful disrepair of 
 his fortunes he could hardly have meant to hold her to a 
 pledge of matrimony extorted in brighter hours. He was 
 infatuated, I believed, partly by a weak, spasmodic optim- 
 ism which represented his troubles as momentary, and en- 
 joined him to hold firm till something turned up, and partly 
 by a reckless and frivolous susceptibility to the lady's un- 
 scrupulous blandishments. While they prevailed, he lost 
 all notion of the wholesome truth of things, and would have 
 been capable of any egregious folly. Mrs. Beck was in love 
 with him, in so far as she was capable of being in love; his 
 gallantry, of all gallantries, suited her to a charm; but she 
 reproached herself angrily with this amiable weakness, and 
 prudence every day won back an inch of ground. Poor 
 Guest indeed had clumsily snuffed out his candle. He had 
 slept in the arms of Delilah, and he had waked to find that 
 Delilah had guessed, if not his secret, something uncomfort- 
 ably like it. Crawford's return had found Mrs. Beck with 
 but a scanty remnant of sentiment and a large accession 
 of prudence, which was graciously placed at his service. 
 Guest, hereupon, as I conjectured, utterly disillusioned by 
 the cynical frankness of her defection, had seen his horizon 
 grow ominously dark, and begun to fancy, as I remained 
 silent, that there was thunder in the air. His pompous 
 waiving, in his note, of allusion both to our last meeting 
 and to my own present claim, seemed to me equally char- 
 acteristic of his weakness and of his distress. The bitter 
 after-taste of Mrs. Beck's coquetry had, at all events, 
 brought him back to reality. For myself, the real fact in 
 the matter was the image of Laura Guest, sitting pensive, 
 like an exiled pricess. 
 
 I sent him nothing by return of mail. On my arrival in 
 New York, I had enclosed the precious document in an 
 
216 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 envelope, addressed it, and stamped it, and put it back in 
 my pocket. I could not rid myself of a belief that by that 
 sign I should conquer. Several times I drew it forth and 
 laid it on the table before me, reflecting that I had but a 
 word to say to have it dropped into the post. Cowardly, 
 was it, to keep it? But what was it to give up one's mis- 
 tress without a battle? Which was the uglier, my harsh- 
 ness or Guest's? In a holy cause, and holy, you may be 
 sure, I had dubbed mine, were not all arms sanctified? 
 Possession meant peril, and peril to a manly sense, of soul 
 and conscience, as much as of person and fortune. Mine, 
 at any rate, should share the danger. It was a sinister-look- 
 ing talisman certainly; but when it had failed, it would be 
 time enough to give it up. 
 
 In these thoughts I went back to L. I had taken the 
 morning train; I arrived at noon, and with small delay 
 proceeded to the quiet little house which harbored such 
 world-vexed spirits. It was one of the first days of Sep- 
 tember, and the breath of auttimn was in the air. Sum- 
 mer still met the casual glance; but the infinite light of 
 summer had found its term; it was as if there were a leak 
 in the crystal vault of the firmament through which the 
 luminous ether of June was slowly stealing away. 
 
 Mr. Guest, I learned from the servant, had started on a 
 walk, to the mill, she thought, three miles away. I sent 
 in my card to Laura, and went into the garden to await her 
 appearance or her answer. At the end of five minutes, 
 I saw her descend from the piazza, and advance down the 
 long path. Her light black dress swept the little box- 
 borders, and over her head she balanced a white parasol. 
 I met her, and she stopped, silent and grave. "I've come 
 to learn," I said, "that absence has not been fatal to me." 
 
 "You've hardly been absent. You left a an influence 
 behind, a very painful one. In Heaven's name!" she 
 cried, with vehemence, "what horrible wrong have you 
 done?" 
 
 "I have done no horrible wrong. Do you believe me?" 
 She scanned my face searchingly for a moment; then she 
 gave a long, gentle, irrepressible sigh of relief. "Do you 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 217 
 
 fancy that if I had, I could meet your eyes, feel the folds 
 of your dress? I've done that which I have bitterly wished 
 undone; I did it in ignorance, weakness, and folly; I've re- 
 pented in passion and truth. Can a man do more?" 
 
 "I never was afraid of the truth," she answered slowly; 
 "I don't see that I need fear it now. I'm not a child. Te41 
 me the absolute truth!" 
 
 "The absolute truth," I said, "is that your father once 
 saw me in a very undignified position. It made such an im- 
 pression on him that he's unable to think of me in any 
 other. You see I was rather cynically indifferent to his 
 observation, for I didn't know him then as your father." 
 
 She gazed at me with the same adventurous candor, and 
 blushed a little as I became silent, then turned away and 
 strolled along the path. "It seems a miserable thing," she 
 said, "that two gentle spirits like yours should have an ir- 
 reparable difference. When good men hate each other, what 
 are they to do to the bad men? You must excuse my want 
 of romance, but I cannot listen to a suitor of whom my 
 father complains. Make peace!" 
 
 "Shall peace with him be peace with you?" 
 
 "Let me see you frankly shake hands," she said, not 
 directly answering. "Be very kind! You don't know what 
 he has suffered here lately." She paused, as if to conceal 
 a tremor in her voice. 
 
 Had she read between the lines of that brilliant impro- 
 visation of mine, or was she moved chiefly with pity for his 
 recent sentimental tribulations, pitying them the more 
 that she respected them the less? "He has walked to the 
 mill," I said; "I shall meet him, and we'll come back arm in 
 arm." I turned away, so that I might not see her face 
 pleading for a clemency which would make me too delicate. 
 I went down beside the river and followed the old towing- 
 path, now grassy with disuse. Reaching the shabby wooden 
 bridge below the mill, I stopped midway across it and 
 leaned against the railing. Below, the yellow water swirled 
 past the crooked piers. I took my little sealed paper out 
 of my pocket-book and held it over the stream, almost court- 
 ing the temptation to drop it; but the temptation never 
 
2i 8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 came. I had just put it back in my pocket when I heard 
 a footstep on the planks behind me. Turning round I be- 
 held Mr. Guest. He looked tired and dusty with his walkj 
 and had the air of a man who had been trying by violent 
 exercise to shake off a moral incubus. Judging by his hag- 
 gard brow and heavy eyes, he had hardly succeeded. As 
 he recognized me, he started just perceptibly, as if he were 
 too weary to be irritated. He was about to pass on without 
 speaking, but I intercepted him. My movement provoked a 
 flash in his sullen pupil. "I came on purpose to meet you," 
 I said. "I have just left your daughter, and I feel more 
 than ever how passionately I love her. Once more, I de- 
 mand that you withdraw your opposition." 
 
 "Is that your answer to my letter?" he asked, eyeing me 
 from under his brows. 
 
 "Your letter puts me in a position to make my demand 
 with force. I refuse to submit to this absurd verdict of ac- 
 cident. I have just seen your daughter, and I have author- 
 ity to bring you to reason." 
 
 "My daughter has received you?" he cried, flushing. 
 
 "Most kindly." 
 
 "You scoundrel!" 
 
 "Gently, gently. Shake hands with me here where we 
 stand, and let me keep my promise to Laura of our coming 
 back to her arm in arm, at peace, reconciled, mutually for- 
 giving and forgetting, or I walk straight back and put a cer- 
 tain little paper into her hands." 
 
 He turned deadly pale, and a fierce oath broke from his 
 lips. He had been beguiled, I think, by my neglect of his 
 letter, into the belief that Edgar had not died without de- 
 stroying his signature, a belief rendered possible by an 
 indefeasible faith he must have had in my step-brother's 
 probity. "You've kept that thing!" he cried. "The Lord 
 be praised! I'm as honest a man as either of you!" 
 
 "Say but two words, 'Take her!' and we shall be hon- 
 est together again. The paper's yours." He turned away 
 and learned against the railing of the bridge, with his head 
 in his hands, watching the river. 
 
 "Take your time," I continued; "I give you two hours- 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 219 
 
 Go home, look at your daughter, and choose. An hour 
 hence I'll join you. If I find you've removed your veto, I 
 undertake to make you forget you ever offered it: if I 
 find you've maintained it, I expose you." 
 
 "In either case you lose your mistress. Whatever Laura 
 may think of me, there can be no doubt as to what she 
 will think of you." 
 
 "I shall be forgiven. Leave that to me! That's my last 
 word. In a couple of hours I shall take the liberty of 
 coming to learn yours." 
 
 "O Laura, Laura!" cried the poor man in his bitter 
 trouble. But I left him and walked away. I turned as I 
 reached the farther end of the bridge, and saw him slowly 
 resume his course. I marched along the road to the mill, so 
 excited with having uttered this brave ultimatum that I 
 hardly knew whither I went. But at last I bethought me of 
 a certain shady stream-side nook just hereabouts, which a 
 little exploration soon discovered. A shallow cove, screened 
 from the road by dense clumps of willows, stayed the cur-- 
 rent a moment in its grassy bend. I had noted it while 
 boating, as a spot where a couple of lovers might aptly dis- 
 embark and moor their idle skiff; and I was now tempted to 
 try its influence in ardent solitude. I flung myself on the 
 ground, and as I listened to the light gurgle of the tarrying 
 stream and to the softer rustle of the cool gray leafage 
 around me, I suddenly felt that I was exhausted and sick- 
 ened. I lay motionless, watching the sky and resting from 
 my anger. Little by little it melted away and left me hor- 
 ribly ashamed. How long I lay there I know not, nor 
 what was the logic of my meditations, but an ineffable 
 change stole over my spirit. There are fathomless depths 
 in spiritual mood and motive. Opposite me, on the farther 
 side of the stream, winding along a path through the 
 bushes, three or four cows had come down to drink. I sat 
 up and watched them. A young man followed them, in a 
 red shirt, with his trousers in his boots. While they were 
 comfortably nosing the water into ripples, he sat down on 
 a stone and began to light his pipe. In a moment I fancied 
 I saw the little blue thread of smoke curl up from the 
 
220 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 bowl. From beyond, just droning through the air, came 
 the liquid rumble of the mill. There seemed to me some- 
 thing in this vision ineffably pastoral, peaceful, and inno- 
 cent; it smote me to my heart of hearts. I felt a nameless 
 wave of impulse start somewhere in the innermost vitals of 
 conscience and fill me with passionate shame. I fell back 
 on the grass and burst into tears. 
 
 The sun was low and the breeze had risen when I rose to 
 my feet. I scrambled back to the road, crossed the bridge, 
 and hurried home by the towing-path. My heart, however, 
 beat faster than my footfalls. I passed into the garden 
 and advanced to the house; as I stepped upon the piazza, I 
 was met by Mrs. Beck. "Answer me a simple question," 
 she cried, laying her hand on my arm. 
 
 "I should like to hear you ask one!" I retorted, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "Has Mr. Guest lost his mind?" 
 "For an hourl I've brought it back to him." 
 "You've a pretty quarrel between you. He comes up an 
 hour ago, as I was sitting in the garden with with Mr. 
 Crawford, requests a moment's interview, leads me apart 
 and offers himself. 'If you'll have me, take me now; you 
 won't an hour hence/ he cried. 'Neither now nor an hour 
 hence, thank you/ said I. 'My affections are fixed else- 
 where.' " 
 
 "You've not lost your head, at any rate," said I; and, 
 releasing myself, I went into the parlor. I had a horrible 
 fear of being too late. The candles stood lighted on the 
 piano, and tea had been brought in, but the kettle was 
 singing unheeded. On the divan facing the window sat 
 Guest, lounging back on the cushions, his hat and stick 
 flung down beside him, his hands grasping his knees, his 
 head thrown back, and his eyes closed. That he should 
 have remained so for an hour, unbrushed and unfurbished, 
 spoke volumes as to his mental state. Near him sat Laura, 
 looking at him askance in mute anxiety. What had passed 
 between them? Laura's urgent glance as I entered was full 
 of trouble, but I fancied without reproach. He had ap- 
 
GUEST'S CONFESSION 221 
 
 parently chosen neither way; he had simply fallen there, 
 weary, desperate, and dumb. 
 
 "I'm disappointed!" Laura said to me gravely. 
 
 Her father opened his eyes, stared at me a moment, and 
 then closed them. I answered nothing; but after a mo- 
 ment's hesitation went and took my seat beside Guest. I 
 laid my hand on his own with a grasp of which he felt, 
 first the force, then, I think, the kindness; for, after a 
 momentary spasm of repulsion, he remained coldly passive. 
 He must have begun to wonder. "Be so good," I said to 
 Laura, "as to bring me one of the candles." , She looked 
 surprised; but she complied and came toward me, holding 
 the taper, like some pale priestess expecting a portent. I 
 drew out the note and held it to the flame. "Your father 
 and I have had a secret," I said, "which has been a burden 
 to both of us. Here it goes." Laura's hand trembled as she 
 held the candle, and mine as I held the paper; but between 
 us the vile thing blazed and was consumed. I glanced 
 askance at Guest; he was staring wide-eyed at the dropping 
 cinders. When the last had dropped, I took the candle, 
 rose, and carried it back to the piano. Laura dropped on 
 her knees before her father, and, while my back was turned, 
 something passed between them with which I was concerned 
 only in its consequences. 
 
 When I looked round, Guest had risen and was passing 
 his fingers through his hair. "Daughter," he said, "when I 
 came in, what was it I said to you?" 
 
 She stood for an instant with her eyes on the floor. Then, 
 "I've forgotten!" she said, simply. 
 
 Mrs. Beck had passed in by the window in time to hear 
 these last words. "Do you know what you said to me 
 when you came in?" she cried, mirthfully shaking a finger 
 at Guest. He laughed nervously, picked up his hat, and 
 stood looking, with an air of odd solemnity, at his boots. 
 Suddenly it seemed to occur to him that he was dusty and 
 dishevelled. He settled his shirt-collar and levelled a glance 
 at the mirror, in which he caught my eye. He tried hard 
 to look insensible; but it was the glance of a man who felt 
 
222 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 more comfortable than he had done in a month. He 
 marched stiffly to the door. 
 
 "Are you going to dress?" said Mrs. Beck. 
 
 "From head to foot!" he cried, with violence. 
 
 "Be so good, then, if you see Mr. Crawford in the hall, 
 as to ask him to come in and have a cup of tea." 
 
 Laura had passed out to the piazza, where I immediately 
 joined her. "Your father accepts me," I said; "there is 
 nothing left but for you " 
 
 Five minutes later, I looked back through the window 
 to see if we were being observed. But Mrs. Beck was 
 busy adding another lump of sugar to Crawford's cup of 
 tea. His eye met mine, however, and I fancied he looked 
 sheepish. 
 
ADINA 
 
 WE had been talking of Sam Scrope round the fire 
 mindful, such of us, of the rule de mortuis. Our 
 host, however, had said nothing; rather to my surprise, 
 as I knew he had been particularly intimate with our 
 friend. But when our group had dispersed, and I remained 
 alone with him, he brightened the fire, offered me another 
 cigar, puffed his own awhile with a retrospective air, and 
 told me the following tale: 
 
 Eighteen years ago Scrope and I were together in Rome. 
 It was the beginning of my acquaintance with him, and I 
 had grown fond of him, as a mild, meditative youth often 
 does of an active, irreverent, caustic one. He had in those 
 days the germs of the eccentricities, not to call them by 
 a hard name, which made him afterwards the most intol- 
 erable of the friends we did not absolutely break with; he 
 was already, as they say, a crooked stick. He was cynical, 
 perverse, conceited, obstinate, brilliantly clever. But he 
 was young, and youth, happily, makes many of our vices 
 innocent. Scrope had his merits, or our friendship would 
 not have ripened. He was not an amiable man, but he was 
 an honest one in spite of the odd caprice I have to relate; 
 and half my kindness for him was based in a feeling that 
 at bottom in spite of his vanity, he enjoyed his own irrita- 
 bility as little as other people. It was his fancy to pre- 
 tend that he enjoyed nothing, and that what sentimental 
 travelers call picturesqueness was a weariness to his spirit; 
 but the world was new to him and the charm of fine things 
 often took him by surprise and stole a march on his pre- 
 mature cynicism. He was an observer in spite of himself, 
 
 223 
 
224 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 and in his happy moods, thanks to his capital memory and 
 ample information, an excellent critic and most profitable 
 companion. He was a punctilious classical scholar. My 
 boyish journal, kept in those days, is stuffed with learned 
 allusions; they are all Scrope's. I brought to the service of 
 my Roman experience much more loose sentiment than 
 rigid science. It was indeed a jocular bargain between us 
 that in our wanderings, picturesque and archaeological, I 
 should undertake the sentimental business the raptures, 
 the reflections, the sketching, the quoting from Byron. He 
 considered me absurdly Byronic, and when, in the manner 
 of tourists at that period, I breathed poetic sighs over the 
 subjection of Italy to the foreign foe, he used to swear that 
 Italy had got no more than she deserved, that she was a 
 land of vagabonds and declaimers, and that he had yet to see 
 an Italian whom he would call a man. I quoted to him 
 from Alfieri that the "human plant" grew stronger in Italy 
 than anywhere else, and he retorted, that nothing grew 
 strong there but lying and cheating, laziness, beggary and 
 vermin. Of course we each said more than we believed. 
 If we met a shepherd on the Campagna, leaning on his 
 crook and gazing at us darkly from under the shadow of 
 his matted locks, I would proclaim that he was the hand- 
 somest fellow in the world, and demand of Scrope to stop 
 and let me sketch him. Scrope would confound him for a 
 filthy scare-crow and me for a drivelling album-poet. When 
 I stopped in the street to stare up at some mouldering pal- 
 azzo vith a patched petticoat hanging to dry from the 
 drawing-room window, and assured him that its haunted 
 disrepair was dearer to my soul than the neat barred front 
 of my Aunt Esther's model mansion in Mount Venion 
 street, he would seize me by the arm and march me off, 
 pinching me till I shook myself free, and whelming me, my 
 soul and my palazzo in a ludicrous torrent of abuse. The 
 truth was that the picturesque of Italy, both in man and in 
 nature, fretted him, depressed him, strangely. He was con- 
 sciously a harsh note in the midst of so many mellow har- 
 monies; everything seemed to say to him "Don't you 
 wish you were as easy, as loveable, as carelessly beautiful 
 
ADINA 225 
 
 as we?" In the bottom of his heart he did wish it. To 
 appreciate the bitterness of this dumb disrelish of the 
 Italian atmosphere, you must remember how very ugly the 
 poor fellow was. He was uglier at twenty than at forty, 
 for as he grew older it became the fashion to say that his 
 crooked features were "distinguished." But twenty years 
 ago, in the infancy of modern aesthetics, he could not have 
 passed for even a bizarre form of ornament. In a single 
 word, poor Scrope looked common: that was where the 
 shoe pinched. Now, you know that in Italy almost every- 
 thing has, to the outer sense, what artists call style. 
 
 In spite of our clashing theories, our friendship did 
 ripen, and we spent together many hours, deeply seasoned 
 with the sense of youth and freedom. The best of these, 
 perhaps, were those we passed on horseback, on the Cam- 
 pagna; you remember such hours; you remember those 
 days of early winter, when the sun is as strong as that of a 
 New England June, and the bare, purple-drawn slopes and 
 hollows lie bathed in the yellow light of Italy. On such 
 a day, Scrope and I mounted our horses in the grassy ter- 
 race before St. John Lateran, and rode away across the 
 broad meadows over which the Claudian Aqueduct drags 
 its slow length stumbling and lapsing here and there, as 
 it goes, beneath the burden of the centuries. We rode a 
 long distance well towards Albano, and at last stopped 
 near a low fragment of ruin, which seemed to be all that 
 was left of an ancient tower. Was it indeed ancient, or 
 was it a relic of one of the numerous mediaeval fortresses,, 
 with which the grassy desert of the Campagna is studded? 
 This was one of the questions which Scrope, as a competent 
 classicist, liked to ponder; though when I called his atten- 
 tion to the picturesque effect of the fringe of wild plants 
 which crowned the ruin, and detached their clear filaments 
 in the deep blue air, he shrugged his shoulders and said 
 they only helped the brick-work to crumble. We tethered 
 our horses to a wild fig tree hard by, and strolled around 
 the tower. Suddenly, on the sunny side of it, we came 
 upon a figure asleep on the grass. A young man lay there, 
 all unconscious, with his head upon a pile of weed-smoth- 
 
226 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ered stones. A rusty gun was on the ground beside him, and 
 an empty game bag, lying near it, told of his being an un- 
 lucky sportsman. His heavy sleep seemed to point to a 
 long morning's fruitless tramp. And yet he must have been 
 either very unskilled, or very little in earnest, for the 
 Campagna is alive with small game every month in the 
 year or was, at least, twenty years ago. It was no more 
 than I owed to my reputation for Byronism, to discover 
 a careless, youthful grace in the young fellow's attitude. 
 One of his legs was flung over the other; one of his arms 
 was thrust back under his head, and the other resting loosely 
 on the grass; his head drooped backward, and exposed a 
 strong, young throat; his hat was pulled over his eyes, so 
 that we could see nothing but his mouth and chin. "An 
 American rustic asleep is an ugly fellow," said I; "but this 
 young Roman clodhopper, as he lies snoring there, is really 
 statuesque;" "clodhopper," was for argument, for our rustic 
 Endymion, judging by his garments, was something better 
 than a mere peasant. He turned uneasily as we stood above 
 him, and muttered something. "It's not fair to wake him," 
 I said, and passed -my arm into Scrope's, to lead him away; 
 but he resisted, and I saw that something had struck him. 
 
 In his change of position, our picturesque friend had 
 opened the hand which was resting on the grass. The palm, 
 turned upward, contained a dull-colored oval object, of the 
 size of a small snuff-box. "What has he got there?" I said 
 to Scrope; but Scrope only answered by bending over and 
 looking at it. "Really, we are taking great liberties with 
 the poor fellow," I said. "Let him finish his nap in peace." 
 And I was on the point of walking away. But my voice 
 had aroused him; he lifted his hand, and, with the move- 
 ment, the object I have compared to a snuff-box caught the 
 light, and emitted a dull flash. 
 
 "It's a gem," said Scrope, "recently disinterred and en- 
 crusted with dirt." 
 
 The young man awoke in earnest, pushed back his hat, 
 stared at us, and slowly sat up. He rubbed his eyes, to 
 see if he were not still dreaming, then glanced at the gem, 
 if gem it was, thrust his hand mechanically into his pocket, 
 
ADINA 227 
 
 and gave us a broad smile. "Gentle, ? erene Italian nature! " 
 I exclaimed. "A young New England farmer, whom we 
 should have disturbed in this fashion, would wake up with 
 an oath and a kick." 
 
 "I mean to test his gentleness," said Scrope. "Fm de- 
 termined to see what he has got there." Scrope was very 
 fond of small bric-a-brac, and had ransacked every curi- 
 osity shop in Rome. It was an oddity among his many 
 oddities, but it agreed well enough with the rest of them. 
 What he looked for and relished in old prints and old china 
 was not, generally, beauty of form nor romantic association ; 
 it was elaborate and patient workmanship, fine engraving, 
 skillful method. 
 
 "Good day," I said to our young man; "we didn't mean 
 to interrupt you." 
 
 He shook himself, got up, and stood before us, looking 
 out from under his thick curls, and still frankly smiling. 
 There was something very simple, a trifle silly, in his 
 smile, and I wondered whether he was not under-witted. 
 He was young, but he was not a mere lad. His eyes were 
 dark and heavy, but they gleamed with a friendly light, 
 and his parted lips showed the glitter of his strong, white 
 teeth. His complexion was of a fine, deep brown, just re- 
 moved from coarseness by that vague suffused pallor com- 
 mon among Italians. He had the frame of a young Hercu- 
 les; he was altogether as handsome a vagabond as you 
 could wish for the foreground of a pastoral landscape. 
 
 "You've not earned your rest," said Scrope, pointing to 
 his empty game bag; "you've got no birds." 
 
 He looked at the bag and at Scrope, and then scratched 
 his head and laughed. "I don't want to kill them," he said. 
 "I bring out my gun because it's stupid to walk about pull- 
 ing a straw! And then my uncle is always grumbling at 
 me for not doing something. When he sees me leave the 
 house with my gun, he thinks I may, at least, get my din- 
 ner. He didn't know the lock's broke; even if I had 
 powder and shot, the old blunderbuss wouldn't go off. 
 When I'm hungry I go to sleep." And he glanced, with 
 his handsome grin, at his recent couch. "The birds might 
 
228 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 come and perch on my nose, and not wake me up. My 
 uncle never thinks of asking me what I have brought home 
 for supper. He is a holy man, and lives on black bread 
 and beans." 
 
 "Who is your uncle?" I inquired. 
 
 "The Padre Girolamo at Lariceia." 
 
 He looked at our hats and whips, asked us a dozen ques- 
 tions about our ride, our horses, and what we paid for 
 them, our nationality, and our way of life in Rome, and 
 at last walked away to caress our browsing animals and 
 scratch their noses. "He has got something precious there," 
 Scrope said, as we strolled after him. "He has evidently 
 found it in the ground. The Campagna is full of treasures 
 yet." As we overtook our new acquaintance he thrust his 
 indistinguishable prize behind him, and gave a foolish laugh, 
 which tried my companion's patience. "The fellow's an 
 idiot!" he cried. "Does he think I want to snatch the 
 thing?" 
 
 "What is it you've got there?" I asked kindly. 
 
 "Which hand will you have?" he said, still laughing. 
 
 "The right." 
 
 "The left," said Scrope, as he hesitated. 
 
 He fumbled behind him a moment more, and then pro- 
 duced his treasure with a flourish. Scrope took it, wiped 
 it off carefully with his handkerchief, and bent his near- 
 sighted eyes over it. I left him to examine it. I was 
 more interested in watching the Padre Girolamo 's nephew. 
 The latter stood looking at my friend gravely, while Scrope 
 rubbed and scratched the little black stone, breathed upon 
 it and held it up to the light. He frowned and scratched 
 his head; he was evidently trying to concentrate his wits 
 on the fine account he expected Scrope to give of it. When 
 I glanced towards Scrope, I found he had flushed excitedly, 
 and I immediately bent my nose over it too. It was of 
 about the size of a small hen's-egg, of a dull brown color, 
 stained and encrusted by long burial, and deeply corrugated 
 on one surface. Scrope paid no heed to my questions, 
 but continued to scrape and polish. At last "How did 
 you come by this thing?" he asked dryly. 
 
ADINA 229 
 
 "I found it in the earth, a couple of miles from here, 
 this morning." And the young fellow put out his hand 
 nervously, to take it back. Scrope resisted a moment, 
 but thought better, and surrendered it. As an old mouser, 
 he began instinctively to play at indifference. Our com- 
 panion looked hard at the little stone, turned it over and 
 over, then thrust it behind him again, with his simple- 
 souled laugh. 
 
 "Here's a precious chance," murmured Scrope. 
 
 "But in Heaven's name, what is it?" I demanded, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "Don't ask me. I don't care to phrase the conjecture 
 audibly it's immense if it's what I think it is; and here 
 stands this giggling lout with a prior claim to it. What 
 shall I do with him? I should like to knock him in the 
 head with the butt end of his blunderbuss." 
 
 "I suppose he'll sell you the thing, if you offer him 
 enough." 
 
 "Enough? What does (he know about enough? He 
 don't know a topaz from a turnip." 
 
 "Is it a topaz, then?" 
 
 "Hold your tongue, and don't mentin names. He must 
 sell it as a turnip. Make him tell you just where he found 
 it." 
 
 He told us very frankly, still smiling from ear to ear. 
 He had observed in a solitary ilex-tree, of great age, the 
 traces of a recent lightning-stroke. (A week of unseason- 
 ably sultry weather had, in fact, some days before, cul- 
 minated in a terrific thunder-storm.) The tree had been 
 shivered and killed, and the earth turned up at its foot. 
 The bolt, burying itself, had dug a deep, straight hole, in 
 which one might have planted a stake. "I don't know 
 why," said our friend, "but as I stood looking at it, I 
 thrust the muzzle of my old gun into the aperture. It 
 descended for some distance and stopped with a strange 
 noise, as if it were striking a metallic surface. I rammed 
 it up and down, and heard the same nqise. Then I said 
 to myself 'Something is hidden there quattrini, perhaps; 
 let us see.' I made a spade of one of the shivered ilex- 
 
230 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 boughs, dug, and scraped and scratched; and, in twenty 
 minutes, fished up a little, rotten, iron box. It was so 
 rotten that the lid and sides were as thin as letter-paper. 
 When I gave them a knock, they crumbled. It was filled 
 with other bits of iron of the same sort, which seemed 
 to have formed the compartments of a case; and with the 
 damp earth, which had oozed in through the holes and 
 crevices. In the middle lay this stone, embedded in earth 
 and mold. There was nothing else. I broke the box 
 to pieces and kept the stone. 'Ecco!" 
 
 Scrope, with a shrug, repossessed himself of the moldy 
 treasure, and our friend, as he gave it up, declared it was 
 a thousand years old. Julius Caesar had worn it in his 
 crown! 
 
 "Julius Caesar wore no crown, my dear friend," said 
 Scrope urbanely. "It may be a thousand years old, and 
 it may be ten. It may be an agate, and it may be a 
 flint! I don't know. But if you will sell it on the 
 
 chance? " And he tossed it three times high into 
 
 the air, and caught it as it fell. 
 
 "I have my idea it's precious," said the young man. 
 "Precious things are found here every day why shouldn't 
 I stumble on something as well as another? Why should 
 the lightning strike just that spot, and no other? It was 
 sent there by my patron, the blessed Saint Angelo!" 
 
 He was not such a simpleton, after all; or rather he was; 
 a puzzling mixture of simplicity and sense. "If you really 
 want the thing," I said to Scrope, "make him an offer, 
 and have done with it." 
 
 " 'Have done with it,' is easily said. How little do you 
 suppose he will take?" 
 
 "I haven't the smallest idea of its value." 
 
 "Its value has nothing to do with the matter. Estimate 
 it at its value and we may as well put it back into its 
 hole of its probable value, he knows nothing; he need 
 never know," and Scrope, musing an instant, counted, and 
 flung them down on the grass, ten silver scudi the same 
 number of dollars. Angelo, he virtually told us his name, 
 watched them fall, one by one, but made no movement 
 
ADINA 231 
 
 to pick them up. But his eyes brightened; his simplicity 
 and his shrewdness were debating the question. The little 
 heap of silver was most agreeable; to make a poor bargain, 
 on the other hand, was not. He looked at Scrope with a 
 dumb appeal to his fairness which quite touched me. It 
 touched Scrope, too, a trifle; for, after a moment's hesita- 
 tion, he flung down another scudo. Angelo gave a puzzled 
 sigh, and Scrope turned short about and began to mount. 
 In another moment we were both in the saddle. Angelo 
 stood looking at his money. "Are you satisfied?" said my 
 companion, curtly. 
 
 The young fellow gave a strange smile. "Have you a 
 good conscience?" he demanded. 
 
 "Hang your impudence!" cried Scrope, very red. "What's 
 my conscience to you?" And he thrust in his spurs and 
 galloped away. I waved my hand to our friend and fol- 
 lowed more slowly. Before long I turned in the saddle 
 and looked back. Angelo was standing as we had left 
 him, staring after us, with his money evidently yet un- 
 touched. But, of course, he would pick it up! 
 
 I rode along with my friend in silence; I was wondering 
 over his off-hand justice. I was youthful enough to shrink 
 from being thought a Puritan or a casuist, but it seemed 
 to me that I scented sophistry in Scrope's double valuation 
 of Angelo's treasure. If it was a prize for him, it was a 
 prize for Angelo, and ten scudi, and one over, was meagre 
 payment for a prize. It cost me some discomfort to find 
 rigid Sam Scrope, of all men, capable of a piece of bar- 
 gaining which needed to be ingeniously explained. Such 
 as it was, he offered his explanation at last half angrily, 
 as if he knew his logic was rather grotesque. "Say it out; 
 say it, for Heaven's sake!" he cried. "I know what you're 
 thinking I've played that pretty-faced simpleton a trick, 
 eh? and I'm no better than a swindler, evidently! Let 
 me tell you, once for all, that I'm not ashamed of having 
 got my prize cheap. It was ten scudi or nothing! If I 
 had offered a farthing more I should have opened those 
 sleepy eyes of his. It was a case to pocket one's scruples 
 and act. That silly boy was not to be trusted with the 
 
232 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 keeping of such a prize for another half hour; the deuce 
 knows what might have become of it. I rescued it in the 
 interest of art, of science, of taste. The proper price of 
 the thing I couldn't have dreamed of offering; where was 
 I to raise ten thousand dollars to buy a bauble? Say I 
 had offered a hundred forthwith our picturesque friend, 
 thick-witted though he is, would have pricked up his ears 
 and held fast! He would have asked time to reflect and 
 take advice, and he would have hurried back to his village 
 and to his uncle, the shrewd old priest, Padre Girolamo. 
 The wise-heads of the place would have held a conclave, 
 and decided I don't know what; that they must go up to 
 Rome and see Signor Castillani, or the director of the 
 Papal excavations. Some knowing person would have got 
 wind of the affair, and whispered to the Padre Girolamo 
 that his handsome nephew had been guided by a miracle 
 to a fortune, and might marry a contessina. And when all 
 was done, where should I be for my pains? As it is, I 
 discriminate; I look at the matter all round, and I decide. 
 I get my prize; the ingenious Angelo gets a month's carouse, 
 he'll enjoy it, and goes to sleep again. Pleasant dreams 
 to him! What does he want of money? Money would 
 have corrupted him! I've saved the contessina, too; I'm 
 sure he would have beaten her. So, if we're all satisfied, 
 is it for you to look black? My mind's at ease; I*m 
 neither richer nor poorer. I'm not poorer, because against 
 my eleven scudi may stand the sense of having given a 
 harmless treat to an innocent lad; I'm not richer, because, 
 I hope you understand, I mean never to turn my stone 
 into money. There it is that delicacy comes in. It's a 
 stone and nothing more; and all the income I shall derive 
 from it will be enjoying the way people open their eyes 
 and hold their breath when I make it sparkle under the 
 lamp, and tell them just what stone it is." 
 
 "What stone is it, then, in the name of all that's de- 
 moralizing?" I asked, with ardor. 
 
 Scrope broke into a gleeful chuckle, and patted me on 
 the arm. "Pazrinza/ Wait till we get under the lamp, 
 
ADINA 233 
 
 some evening, and then I'll make it sparkle and tell you. 
 I must be sure first," he added, with sudden gravity. 
 
 But it was the feverish elation of his tone, and not its 
 gravity, that struck me. I began to hate the stone; it 
 seemed to have corrupted him. His ingenious account of 
 his motives left something vaguely unexplained almost 
 inexplicable. There are dusky corners in the simplest 
 natures; strange, moral involutions in the healthiest. 
 Scrope was not simple, and, in virtue of his defiant self- 
 consciousness, he might have been called morbid; so that 
 I came to consider his injustice in this particular case as 
 the fruit of a vicious seed which I find it hard to name. 
 Everything in Italy seemed mutely to reproach him with 
 his meager faculty of pleasing; the indefinable gracefulness 
 of nature and man murmured forever in his ears that he 
 was an angular cynic. This was the real motive of his 
 intolerance of my sympathetic rhapsodies, and it prompted 
 him now to regale himself, once for all, with the sense of 
 an advantage wrested, if not by fair means, then by foul, 
 from some sentient form of irritating Italian felicity. This 
 is a rather metaphysical account of the matter; at the time 
 I guessed the secret, without phrasing it. 
 
 Scrope carried his stone to no appraiser, and asked no 
 archaeological advice about it. He quietly informed him- 
 self, as if from general curiosity, as to the best methods 
 of cleansing, polishing, and restoring antique gems, laid 
 in a provision of delicate tools and acids, turned the key in 
 his door, and took the measure of his prize. I asked 
 him no questions, but I saw that he was intensely pre- 
 occupied, and was becoming daily better convinced that it 
 was a rare one. He went about whistling and humming 
 odd scraps of song, like a lover freshly accepted. When- 
 ever I heard him I had a sudden vision of our friend Angelo 
 staring blankly after us, as we rode away like a pair of 
 ravishers in a German ballad. Scrope and I lodged in the 
 same house, and one evening, at the end of a week, after 
 I had gone to bed, he made his way into my room, and 
 shook me out of my slumbers as if the house were on fire. 
 I guessed his errand before he had told it, shuffled on my 
 
234 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 dressing-gown, and hurried to his own apartment. "I 
 couldn't wait till morning," he said, "I've just given it the 
 last touch; there it lies in its imperial beauty!" 
 
 There it lay, indeed, under the lamp, flashing back the 
 light from its glowing heart a splendid golden topaz on 
 a cushion of white velvet. He thrust a magnifying glass 
 into my hand, and pushed me into a chair by the table. I 
 saw the surface of the stone was worked in elaborate in- 
 taglio, but I was not prepared for the portentous char- 
 acter of image and legend. In the center was a full- 
 length naked figure, which I supposed at first to be a pagan 
 deity. Then I saw the orb of sovereignty in one out- 
 stretched hand, the chiselled imperial scepter in the other, 
 and the laurel-crown on the low-browed head. All round 
 the face of the stone, near the edges, ran a chain of 
 carven figures warriors, and horses, and chariots, and 
 young men and women interlaced in elaborate confusion. 
 Over the head of the image, within this concave frieze, 
 stood the inscription: 
 
 DIVUS TIBERIUS C/ESAR TOTIUS ORBIS IMPERATOR. 
 
 The workmanship was extraordinarily delicate; beneath 
 the powerful glass I held in my hand, the figures revealed 
 the perfection and finish of the most renowned of antique 
 marbles. The color of the stone was superb, and, now that 
 its purity had been restored, its size seemed prodigious. 
 It was in every way a gem among gems, a priceless 
 treasure. 
 
 "Don't you think it was worth while getting up to 
 shake hands with the Emperor Tiberius?" cried Scrope, 
 after observing my surprise. "Shabby Nineteenth Century 
 Yankees, as we are, we are having our audience. Down on 
 your knees, barbarian, we're in a tremendous presence! 
 Haven't I worked all these days and nights, with my little 
 rags and files, to some purpose? I've annulled the cen- 
 turies I've resuscitated a totius orbis imperator. Do you 
 conceive, do you apprehend, does your heart thump 
 against your ribs? Not as it should, evidently. This is 
 
ADINA 235 
 
 where Caesar wore it, dull modern here, on his breast, 
 near the shoulder, framed in chiselled gold, circled about 
 with pearls as big as plums, clasping together the two 
 sides of his gold-stiffened mantle. It was the agraffe of 
 the imperial purple. Tremble, sir!" and he took up the 
 splendid jewel, and held it against my breast. "No doubts 
 no objections no reflections or we're mortal enemies. 
 How do I know it where 's my warrant? It simply must 
 be! It's too precious to have been anything else. It's 
 the finest intaglio in the world. It has told me its secret; 
 it has lain whispering classic Latin to me by the hour all 
 this week past." 
 
 "And has it told you how it came to be buried in its 
 iron box?" 
 
 "It has told me everything more than I can tell you 
 now. Content yourself for the present with admiring it." 
 
 Admire it I did for a long time. Certainly, if Scrope's 
 hypothesis was not sound, it ought to have been, and if 
 the Emperor Tiberius had never worn the topaz in his 
 mantle, he was by so much the less imperial. But the 
 design, the legend, the shape of the stone, were all very 
 cogent evidence that the gem had played a great part. 
 "Yes, surely," I said, "it's the finest of known intaglios." 
 
 Scrope was silent a while. "Say of unknown," he an- 
 swered at last. "No one shall ever know it. You I hereby 
 hold pledged to secrecy. I shall show it to no one else 
 except to my mistress, if I ever have one. I paid for 
 the chance of its turning out something great. I couldn't 
 pay for the renown of possessing it. That only a princely 
 fortune could have purchased. To be known as the owner 
 of the finest intaglio in the world would make a great 
 man of me, and that would hardly be fair to our friend 
 Angelo. I shall sink the glory, and cherish my treasure 
 for its simple artistic worth." 
 
 "And how would you express that simple artistic worth 
 in Roman scitdi?" 
 
 "It's impossible. Fix upon any sum you please." 
 
 I looked again at the golden topaz, gleaming in its vel- 
 vet nest; and I felt that there could be no successful effort 
 
236 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to conceal such a magnificent negation of obscurity. "I 
 recommend you," I said at last, "to think twice before 
 showing it to your mistress." 
 
 I had no idea, when I spoke, that my words were timely ; 
 for I had vaguely taken for granted that my friend was 
 foredoomed to dispense with this graceful appendage, very 
 much as Peter Schlemihl, in the tale, was condemned to 
 have no shadow. Nevertheless, before a month had passed, 
 he was in a fair way to become engaged to a charming girl. 
 "Juxtaposition is much," says Clough; especially juxta- 
 position, he implies, in foreign countries; and in Scrope's 
 case it had been particularly close. His cousin, Mrs. Wad- 
 dington, arrived in Rome, and with her a young girl who, 
 though really no relative, offered him all the opportunities 
 of cousinship, added to the remoter charm of a young lady 
 to whom he had to be introduced. Adina Waddington was 
 her companion's stepdaughter, the elder lady having, some 
 eight years before, married a widower with a little girl. 
 Mr. Waddington had recently died, and the two ladies were 
 just emerging from their deep mourning. These dusky 
 emblems of a common grief helped them to seem united, 
 as indeed they really were, although Mrs. Waddington was 
 but ten years older than her stepdaughter. She was an 
 excellent woman, without a fault that I know of, but 
 that of thinking all the world as good as herself and keep- 
 ing dinner waiting sometimes while she sketched the sunset. 
 She was stout and fresh-colored, she laughed and talked 
 rather loud, and generally, in galleries and temples, caused 
 a good many stiff British necks to turn round. 
 
 She had a mania for excursions, and at Frascati and 
 Tivoli she inflicted her good-humored ponderosity on di- 
 minutive donkeys with a relish which seemed to prove that 
 a passion for scenery, like all our passions, is capable of 
 making the best of us pitiless. I had often heard Scrope 
 say that he detested boisterous women, but he forgave his 
 cousin her fine spirits, and stepped into his place as her 
 natural escort and adviser. In the vulgar sense he was 
 not selfish; he had a very definite theory as to the sacrifices 
 a gentleman should make to formal courtesy; but I was 
 
ADINA 237 
 
 nevertheless surprised at the easy terms on which the two 
 ladies secured his services. The key to the mystery was 
 the one which fits so many locks; he was in love with Miss 
 Waddington. There was a sweet stillness about her which 
 balanced the widow's exuberance. Her pretty name of 
 Adina seemed to me to have somehow a mystic fitness to 
 her personality. She was short and slight and blonde, 
 and her black dress gave a sort of infantine bloom to 
 her fairness. She wore her auburn hair twisted into a 
 thousand fantastic braids, like a coiffure in a Renaissance 
 drawing, and she looked out at you from grave blue eyes, 
 in which, behind a cold shyness, there seemed to lurk a 
 tremulous promise to be franker when she knew you better. 
 She never consented to know me well enough to be very 
 frank; she talked very little, and we hardly exchanged a 
 dozen words a day; but I confess that I found a perturbing 
 charm in those eyes. As it was all in silence, though, there 
 was no harm. 
 
 Scrope, however, ventured to tell his love or, at least, 
 to hint at it eloquently enough. I was not so deeply 
 smitten as to be jealous, and I drew a breath of relief when 
 I guessed his secret. It made me think better of him again. 
 The stand he had taken about poor Angelo's gem, in spite 
 of my efforts to account for it philosophically, had given 
 an uncomfortable twist to our friendship. I asked myself 
 if he really had no heart; I even wondered whether there 
 was not a screw loose in his intellect. But here was a hearty, 
 healthy, natural passion, such as only an honest man could 
 feel such as no man could feel without being the better 
 for it. I began to hope that the sunshine of his fine senti- 
 ment would melt away his aversion to giving Angelo his 
 dues. He was charmed, soul and sense, and for a couple 
 of months he really forgot himself, and ceased to send 
 forth his unsweetened wit to do battle for his ugly face. 
 His happiness rarely made him "gush," as they say; but I 
 could see that he was vastly contented with his prospects. 
 More than once, when we were together, he broke into a 
 kind of nervous, fantastic laugh, over his own thoughts; 
 and on his refusal to part with them for the penny which 
 
238 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 one offers under those circumstances, I said to myself that 
 this was humorous surprise at his good luck. How had he 
 come to please that exquisite creature? Of course, I learned 
 even less from the young girl about her own view of the 
 Case; but Mrs. Waddington and I, not being in love with 
 each other, had nothing to do but to gossip about our 
 companions whenever (which was very often) they con- 
 signed us to a tete-b-tete. 
 
 "She tells me nothing," the good-humored widow said; 
 "and if I'm to know the answer to a riddle, I must have" 
 it in black and white. My cousin is not what is called 
 'attractive/ but I think Adina, nevertheless, is interested 
 in him. How do you and I know how passion may trans- 
 figure and exalt him? And who shall say beforehand what 
 a fanciful young girl shall do with that terrible little piece 
 of machinery she calls her heart? Adina is a strange child; 
 she is fanciful without being capricious. For all I know, 
 she may admire my cousin for his very ugliness and queer- 
 ness. She has decided, very likely, that she wants an 'in- 
 tellectual' husband, and if Mr. Scrope is not handsome, 
 nor frivolous, nor over-polite, there's a greater chance of his 
 being wise." Why Adina should have listened to my friend, 
 however, was her own business. Listen to him she did, 
 and with a sweet attentiveness which may well have flat- 
 tered and charmed him. 
 
 We rarely spoke of the imperial topaz; it seemed not a 
 subject for light allusions. It might properly make a man 
 feel solemn to possess it; the mere memory of its luster 
 lay like a weight on my own conscience. I had felt, as we 
 lost sight of our friend Angelo, that, in one way or another, 
 we should hear of him again; but the weeks passed by 
 without his re-appearing, and my conjectures as to the 
 sequel, on his side, of his remarkable bargain remained 
 quite unanswered. Christmas arrived, and with it the usual 
 ceremonies. Scrope and I took the requisite vigorous 
 measures, it was a matter, you know, of fists and elbows 
 and knees, and obtained places for the two ladies at the 
 Midnight Mass at the Sistine Chapel. Mrs. Waddington 
 was my especial charge, and on coming out we found we 
 
ADINA 239 
 
 had lost sight of our companions in the crowd. We waited 
 awhile in the Colonnade, but they were not among the 
 passers, and we supposed that they had gone home inde- 
 pendently, and expected us to do likewise. But on reach- 
 ing Mrs. Waddington 's lodging we found they had not come 
 in. As their prolonged absence demanded an explanation, 
 it occurred to me that they had wandered into Saint Peter's, 
 with many others of the attendants at the Mass, and were 
 watching the tapers twinkle in its dusky immensity. It 
 was not perfectly regular that a young lady should be wan- 
 dering about at three o'clock in the morning with a very 
 "unattractive'" young man; but "after all," said Mrs. 
 Waddington, "she's almost his cousin." By the time they 
 returned she was much more. I went home, went to bed, 
 and slept as late as the Christmas bells would allow me. 
 On rising, I knocked at Scrope's door to wish him the 
 compliments of the season, but on his coming to open it 
 for me, perceived that such common-place greetings were 
 quite below the mark. He was but half undressed, and had 
 flung himself, on his return, on the outside of his bed. 
 He had gone with Adina, as I supposed, into Saint Peter's, 
 and they had found the twinkling tapers as picturesque as 
 need be. He walked about the room for some time rest- 
 lessly, and I saw that he had something to say. At last 
 he brought it out. "I say, I'm accepted. I'm engaged. 
 I'm what's called a happy man." 
 
 Of course I wished him joy on the news; and could 
 assure him, with ardent conviction, that he had chosen 
 well. Miss Waddington was the loveliest, the purest, the 
 most interesting of young girls. I could see that he was 
 grateful for my sympathy, but he disliked "expansion," 
 and he contented himself, as he shook hands with me, with 
 simply saying "Oh yes; she's the right thing." He took 
 two or three more turns about the room, and then suddenly 
 stopped before his toilet-table, and pulled out a tray in his 
 dressing-case. There lay the great intaglio; larger even 
 than I should have dared to boast. "That would be a 
 pretty thing to offer one's fiancee'' he said, after gazing 
 
240 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 at it for some time. "How could she wear it^-how could 
 one have it set?" 
 
 "There could be but one way," I said; "as a massive 
 medallion, depending from a necklace. It certainly would 
 light up the world more, on the bosom of a beautiful 
 woman, than thrust away here, among your brushes and 
 razors. But, to my sense, only a beauty of a certain type 
 could properly wear it a splendid, dusky beauty, with the 
 brow of a Roman Empress, and the shoulders of an antique 
 statue. A fair, slender girl, with blue eyes, and sweet 
 smile, would seem, somehow, to be overweighted by it, and 
 if I were to see it hung, for instance, round Miss Wadding- 
 ton's white neck, I should feel as if it were pulling her down 
 to the ground, and giving her a mysterious pain." 
 
 He was a trifle annoyed, I think, by this rather fine-spun 
 objection; but he smiled as he closed the tray. "Adina 
 may not have the shoulders of the Venus of Milo," he said, 
 "but I hope it will take more than a bauble like this to 
 make her stoop." 
 
 I don't always go to church on Christmas Day; but I 
 have a life-long habit of taking a solitary walk, in all 
 weathers, and harboring Christian thoughts if they come. 
 This was a Southern Christmas, without snow on the 
 ground, or sleigh-bells in the air, or the smoke of crowded 
 firesides rising into a cold, blue sky. The day was mild, 
 and almost warm, the sky gray and sunless. If I was dis- 
 posed toward Christmas thoughts, I confess, I sought them 
 among Pagan memories. I strolled about the forums, and 
 then walked along to the Coliseum. It was empty, save 
 for a single figure, sitting on the steps at the foot of the 
 cross in the center a young man, apparently, leaning for- 
 ward, motionless, with his elbows on his knees, and his 
 head buried in his hands. As he neither stirred nor ob- 
 served me when I passed near him, I said to myself that, 
 brooding there so intensely in the shadow of the sign of 
 redemption, he might pass for an image of youthful remorse. 
 Then, as he never moved, I wondered whether it was not 
 a deeper passion even than repentance. Suddenly he looked 
 up, and I recognized our friend Angelo not immediately, 
 
ADINA 241 
 
 but in response to a gradual movement of recognition in 
 his own face. But seven weeks had passed since our meet- 
 ing, and yet he looked three years older. It seemed to me 
 that he had lost flesh, and gained expression. His simple- 
 souled smile was gone; there was no trace of it in the shy 
 mistrust of his greeting. He looked graver, manlier, and 
 very much less rustic. He was equipped in new garments 
 of a pretentious pattern, though they were carelessly worn, 
 and bespattered with mud. I remember he had a flaming 
 orange necktie, which harmonized admirably with his pic- 
 turesque coloring. Evidently he was greatly altered; as 
 much altered as if he had made a voyage round the world. 
 I offered him my hand, and asked if he remembered me. 
 
 "Per Dior he cried. "With good reason." Even his 
 voice seemed changed; it was fuller and harsher. He bore 
 us a grudge. I wondered how his eyes had been opened. 
 He fixed them on me with a dumb reproachfulness, which 
 was half appealing and half ominous. He had been brood- 
 ing and brooding on his meager bargain till the sense of 
 wrong had become a kind of smothered fear. I observed 
 all this with poignant compassion, for it seemed to me that 
 he had parted with something more precious even than 
 his imperial intaglio. He had lost his boyish ignorance 
 that pastoral peace of mind which had suffered him to 
 doze there so gracefully with his head among the flowers. 
 But even in his resentment he was simple still. "Where 
 is the other one your friend?" he asked. 
 
 "He's at home he's still in Rome." 
 
 "And the stone what has he done with it?" 
 
 "Nothing. . He has it still." 
 
 He shook his head dolefully. "Will he give it back to 
 me for twenty-five scudi?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not. He values it." 
 
 "I believe so. Will he let me see it?" 
 
 "That you must ask him. He shows it to no one." 
 
 "He's afraid of being robbed, eh? That proves its value! 
 He hasn't shown it to a jeweler to a, what do they call 
 them? a lapidary?" 
 
 "To no one. You must believe me." 
 
242 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "But he has cleaned it, and polished it, and discovered 
 what it is?" 
 
 "It's very old. It's hard to say." 
 
 "Very old! Of course it's old. There are more years 
 in it than it brought me scudl. What does it look like?! 
 Is it red, blue, green, yellow?" 
 
 "Well, my friend," I said, after a moment's hesitation, 
 "it's yellow." 
 
 He gave me a searching stare; then quickly "it's what's 
 called a topaz," he cried. 
 
 "Yes, it's what's called a topaz." 
 
 "And it's sculptured that I could see! It's an intaglio. 
 Oh, I know the names, and I've paid enough for my learn- 
 ing. What's the figure? A king's head or a Pope's, per- 
 haps, eh? Or the portrait of some beautiful woman that 
 you read about?" 
 
 "It is the figure of an Emperor." 
 
 "What is his name?" 
 
 "Tiberius." 
 
 "Corpo di Cristo!" his face flushed, and his eyes filled 
 with angry tears. 
 
 "Come," I said, "I see you're sorry to have parted with 
 the stone. Some one has been talking to you, and making 
 you discontented." 
 
 "Every one, per Dio! Like the finished fool I was, I 
 couldn't keep my folly to myself. I went home with my 
 eleven scudi, thinking I should never see the end of them. 
 The first thing I did was to buy a gilt hair-pin from a 
 peddler, and give it to Ninetta a young girl of my vil- 
 lage, with whom I had a friendship. She stuck it into 
 her braids, and looked at herself in the glass, and then 
 asked how I had suddenly got so rich! 'Oh, I'm richer 
 than you suppose/ said I, and showed her my money, and 
 told her the story of the stone. She is a very clever girl, 
 and it would take a knowing fellow to have the last word 
 with her. She laughed in my face, and told me I was an 
 idiot, that the stone was surely worth five hundred scttdi; 
 that my forestiere was a pitiless rascal; that I ought to 
 have brought it away, and showr it to my elders and 
 
ADINA 243 
 
 betters; in fine, that I might take her word for it, I had 
 held a fortune in my hand, and thrown it to the dogs. 
 And, to wind up this sweet speech, she took out her hairpin, 
 and tossed it into my face. She never wished to see me 
 again; she had as lief marry a blind beggar at a cross- 
 road. What was I to say? She had a sister who was 
 waiting-maid to a fine lady in Rome, a marchesa, who 
 had a priceless necklace made of fine old stones picked up 
 on the Campagna. I went away hanging my head, and 
 cursing my folly: I flung my money down in the dirt, and 
 spat upon it! At last, to ease my spirit, I went to drink a 
 foglietta at the wine-shop. There I found three or four 
 young fellows I knew; I treated them all round; I hated 
 my money, and wanted to get rid of it. Of course they 
 too wanted to know how I came by my full pockets. I 
 told them the truth. I hoped they would give me a better 
 account of things than that vixen of a Ninetta. But they 
 knocked their glasses on the table, and jeered at me in 
 chorus. Any donkey, out a-grazing, if he had turned up 
 such a treasure with his nose, would have taken it in his 
 teeth and brought it home to his master. This was cold 
 comfort; I drowned my rage in wine. I emptied one flask 
 after another; for the first time in my life I got drunk. 
 But I can't speak of that night! The next day I took 
 what was left of my money to my uncle, and told him 
 to give it to the poor, to buy new candlesticks for his 
 church, or to say masses for the redemption of my blasphem- 
 ing soul. He looked at it very hard, and hoped I had 
 come by it honestly. I was in for it; I told him too! 
 He listened to me in silence, looking at me over his specta- 
 cles. When I had done, he turned over the money in his 
 hands, and then sat for three minutes with his eyes closed. 
 Suddenly he thrust it back into my own hands. 'Keep it 
 keep it, my son,' he said, 'your wits will never help you to 
 a supper, make the most of what you've got!' Since then, 
 do you see, I've been in a fever. I can think of nothing 
 else but the fortune I've lost." 
 
 "Oh, a fortune!" I said, deprecatingly. "You exagger- 
 ate." 
 
244 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "It would have been a fortune to me. A voice keeps 
 ringing in my ear night and day, and telling me I could 
 have got a thousand scudi for it." 
 
 I'm afraid I blushed; I turned away a moment; when 
 I looked at the young man again, his face had kindled. 
 "Tiberius, eh? A Roman emperor sculptured on a big 
 topaz that's fortune enough for me! Your friend's a 
 rascal do you know that? I don't say it for you; I like 
 your face, and I believe that, if you can, you'll help me. 
 But your friend is an ugly little monster. I don't know 
 why the devil I trusted him; I saw he wished me no good. 
 Yet, if ever there was a harmless fellow, I was. Eccol it's 
 my fate. That's very well to say; I say it and say it, 
 but it helps me no more than an empty glass helps your 
 thirst. I'm not harmless now. If I meet your friend, 
 and he refuses me justice, I won't answer for these two 
 hands. You see they're strong; I could easily strangle 
 him! Oh, at first, I shall speak him fair, but if he turns 
 me off, and answers me with English oaths, I shall think 
 only of my revenge!" And with a passionate gesture he 
 pulled off his hat, and flung it on the ground, and stood 
 wiping the perspiration from his forehead. 
 
 I answered him briefly but kindly enough. I told him to 
 leave his case in my hands, go back to Lariceia and try 
 and find some occupation which would divert him from 
 his grievance. I confess that even as I gave this respect- 
 able advice, I but half believed in it. It was none of 
 poor Angelo's mission to arrive at virtue through tribula- 
 tion. His indolent nature, active only in immediate feel- 
 ing, would have found my prescription of wholesome labor 
 more intolerable even than his wrong. He stared gloomily 
 and made no answer, but he saw that I had his interests 
 at heart, and he promised me, at least, to leave Rome, and 
 believe that I would fairly plead his cause. If I had 
 good news for him I was to address him at Lariceia. It was 
 thus I learned his full name, a name, certainly, that ought 
 to have been to its wearer a sort of talisman against 
 trouble, Angelo Beati. 
 
ADINA 245 
 
 PART n 
 
 Sam Scrope looked extremely annoyed when I began 
 to tell him of my encounter with our friend, and I 
 saw there was still a cantankerous something in the depths 
 of his heart intensely hostile to fairness. It was character- 
 istic of his peculiar temper that his happiness, as an ac- 
 cepted lover, had not disposed him to graceful concessions. 
 He treated his bliss as his own private property, and was 
 as little in the humor to diffuse its influence as he would 
 have been to send out in charity a choice dish from an 
 unfinished dinner. Nevertheless, I think he might have 
 stiffly admitted that there was a grain of reason in Angelo's 
 claim, if I had not been too indiscreetly accurate in my re- 
 port of our interview. I had been impressed, indeed, with 
 something picturesquely tragic in the poor boy's condition, 
 and, to do perfect justice to the picture, I told him he 
 had flung down his hat on the earth as a gauntlet of de- 
 fiance and talked about his revenge. Scrope hereupon 
 looked fiercely disgusted and pronounced him a theatrical 
 jackanapes; but he authorized me to drop him a line say- 
 ing that he would speak with him a couple of days later. 
 I was surprised at Scrope's consenting to see him, but I 
 perceived that he was making a conscientious effort to shirk 
 none of the disagreeables of the matter. "I won't have 
 him stamping and shouting in the house here," he said. 
 "I'll also meet him at the Coliseum." He named his hour 
 and I despatched to Lariceia three lines of incorrect but 
 courteous Italian. 
 
 It was better, far better, that they should not have 
 met. What passed between them Scrope requested me on 
 his return to excuse him from repeating; suffice it that 
 Angelo was an impudent puppy, and that he hoped never 
 to hear of him again. Had Angelo, at last, I asked, re- 
 ceived any compensation? "Not a farthing!" cried Scrope, 
 and walked out of the room. Evidently the two young 
 men had been a source of immitigable offense to each other. 
 Angelo had promised to speak to him fair, and I inclined 
 to believe had done so; but the very change in his appear- 
 
246 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 ance, by seeming to challenge my companion's sympathy 
 in too peremptory a fashion, had had the irritating effect 
 of a menace. Scrope had been contemptuous, and his 
 awkward, .ungracious Italian had doubtless made him seem 
 more so. One can't handle Italians with contempt; those 
 who know them have learned what may be done with a 
 moderate amount of superficial concession. Angelo had 
 replied in wrath, and, as I afterwards learned, had de- 
 manded, as a right, the restitution of the topaz in exchange 
 for the sum received for it. Scrope had rejoined that if 
 he took that tone he should get nothing at all, and the in- 
 jured youth had retorted with reckless and insulting threats. 
 What had prevented them from coming to blows, I know 
 not, no sign of flinching, certainly, on my companion's part. 
 Face to face, he had not seemed to Angelo so easy toi 
 strangle, and that saving grain of discretion which mingles 
 with all Italian passion had whispered to the young man to 
 postpone his revenge. Without taking a melodramatic view 
 of things, it seemed to me that Scrope had an evil chance 
 in waiting for him. I had, perhaps, no definite vision of 
 a cloaked assassin lurking under a dark archway, but I 
 thought it perfectly possible that Angelo might make 
 himself intolerably disagreeable. His simply telling his 
 story up and down Rome to whomsoever would listen to 
 him, might be a grave annoyance; though indeed Scrope had 
 the advantage that most people might refuse to believe in 
 the existence of a gem of which its owner was so little in- 
 clined to boast. The whole situation, at all events, made 
 me extremely nervous. I cursed my companion one day 
 for a hungrier Jew than Shylock, and pitied him the next 
 as the victim of a moral hallucination. If we gave him 
 time, he would come to his senses; he would repay poor 
 Angelo with interest. Meanwhile, however, I could do 
 nothing, for I felt that it was worse than useless to suggest 
 to Scrope that he was in danger. He would have scorned 
 the idea of a ranting Italian making him swerve an inch 
 from his chosen path. 
 
 I am unable to say whether Angelo's "imprudence" had 
 seemed to relieve him, generally, from his vow to conceal 
 
ADINA 247 
 
 the intaglio; a few words, at all events, from Miss Wadding- 
 ton, a couple of evenings later, reminded me of the original 
 reservation he had made to the vow. Mrs. Waddington 
 was at the piano, deciphering a new piece of music, and 
 Scrope, who was fond of a puzzle, as a puzzle, was pre* 
 tending, half jocosely, to superintend and correct her. 
 "I've seen it," Adina said to me, with grave, expanded eyes; 
 "I've seen the wonderful topaz. He says you are in the 
 secret. He won't tell me how he came by it. Honestly, I 
 hope." 
 
 I tried to laugh. "You mustn't investigate too closely 
 the honesty of hunters for antiquities. It's hardly dis- 
 honest in their code to treat loose cameos and snuff-boxes 
 as pickpockets treat purses." 
 
 She looked at me in shy surprise, as if I had made a 
 really cruel joke. "He says that I must wear it one of 
 these days as a medallion," she went on. "But I shall 
 not. The stone is beautiful, but I should feel most un- 
 comfortable in carrying the Emperor Tiberius so near my 
 heart. Wasn't he one of the bad Emperors one of the 
 worst? It is almost a pollution to have a thing that he 
 had looked at and touched coming to one in such direct 
 descent. His image almost spoils for me the beauty of the 
 stone and I'm very glad Mr. Srrope keeps it out of sight." 
 This seemed a very becoming state of mind in a blonde 
 angel of New England origin. 
 
 The days passed by and Angelo's "revenge" still hung 
 fire. Scrope never met his fate at a short turning of one 
 of the dusky Roman streets; he came in punctually every 
 evening at eleven o'clock. I wondered whether our brood- 
 ing friend had already spent the sinister force of a nature 
 formed to be lazily contented. I hoped so, but I was 
 wrong. We had gone to walk one afternoon, the ladies, 
 Scrope and I, in the charming Villa Borghese, and, to 
 escape from the rattle of the fashionable world and its dis- 
 traction, we had wandered away to an unfrequented corner 
 where the old moldering wall and the slim black cypresses 
 and the untrodden grass made, beneath the splendid Roman 
 sky, the most harmonious of pictures. Of course there was 
 
248 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 a mossy stone hemicycle not far off, and cracked benches 
 with griffin's feet, where one might sit and gossip and watch 
 the lizards scamper in the sun. We had done so for some 
 half an hour when Adina espied the first violet of the year 
 glimmering at the root of a cypress. She made haste to 
 rise and gather it, then wandered further, in the hope of 
 giving it a few companions. Scrope sat and watched her 
 as she moved slowly away, trailing her long shadow on the 
 grass and drooping her head from side to side in her charm- 
 ing quest. It was not, I know, that he felt no impulse to 
 join her; but that he was in love, for the moment, with 
 looking at her from where he sat. Her search carried her 
 some distance and at last she passed out of sight behind 
 a bend in the villa wall. Mrs. Waddington proposed in a 
 few moments that we should overtake her, and we moved 
 forward. We had not advanced many paces before she 
 re-appeared, glancing over her shoulder as she came towards 
 us with an air of suppressed perturbation. In an instant 
 I saw she was being followed; a man was close behind her 
 a man in whom my second glance reconized Angelo Bead. 
 Adina was pale; something had evidently passed between 
 them. By the time she had met us, we were also face to 
 face with Angelo. He was pale, as well, and, between 
 these two pallors, Scrope had flushed crimson. I was 
 afraid of an explosion and stepped toward Angelo to avert 
 it. But to my surprise, he was evidently following another 
 line. He turned the cloudy brightness of his eyes upon 
 each of us and poised his hand in the air as if to say, in 
 answer to my unspoken charge "Leave me alone, I know 
 what I am about.' 7 I exchanged a glance with Scrope, 
 urging him to pass on with the ladies and let me deal 
 with the intruder. Miss Waddington stopped; she was 
 gazing at Angelo with soft intentness. Her lover, to lead 
 her away, grasped her arm almost rudely, and as she went 
 with him I saw her faintly flushing. Mrs. Waddington, 
 unsuspicious of evil, saw nothing but a very handsome 
 young man. "What a beautiful creature for a sketch 1" 
 I heard her exclaim, as she followed her step-daughter. 
 "I'm not going to make a noise," said Angelo, with 
 
ADINA 249 
 
 a somber smile; "don't be frightened! I know what good 
 manners are. These three weeks now that I've been hang- 
 ing about Rome, I've learned to play the gentleman. Who 
 is that young lady?" 
 
 "My dear young man, it's none of your business. I 
 hope you had not the hardihood to speak to her." 
 
 He was silent a moment, looking after her as she retreated 
 on her companion's arm. "Yes, I spoke to her rand she 
 understood me. Keep quiet; I said nothing she mightn't 
 hear. But such as it was, she understood it. She's your 
 friend's arnica ; I know that. I've been watching you for 
 half an hour from behind those trees. She is wonderfully 
 beautiful. Farewell; I wish you no harm, but tell your 
 friend I've not forgotten him. I'm only awaiting my 
 chance; I think it will come. I don't want to kill him; 
 I want to give him some hurt that he'll survive and feel 
 forever!" He was turning away, but he paused and 
 watched my companions till they disappeared. At last 
 "He has more than his share of good luck," he said, with 
 a sort of forced coldness. "A topaz and a pearl! both 
 at once! Eh, farewell!" And he walked rapidly away, 
 waving his hand. I let him go. I was unsatisfied, but his 
 unexpected sobriety left me nothing to say. 
 
 When a startling event comes to pass, we are apt to 
 waste a good deal of time in trying to recollect the correct 
 signs and portents which preceded it, and when they seem 
 fewer than they should be, we don't scruple to imagine them 
 we invent them after the fact. Therefore it is that I 
 don't pretend to be sure that I was particularly struck, 
 from this time forward, with something strange in our quiet 
 Adina. She had always seemed to me vaguely, innocently 
 strange; it was part of her charm that in the daily noise- 
 less movement of her life a mystic undertone seemed to 
 murmur "You don't half know me!" Perhaps we three 
 prosaic mortals were not quite worthy to know her; yet 
 I believe that if a practised man of the world had whis- 
 pered to me, one day, over his wine, after Miss Waddington 
 had rustled away from the table, that there was a young 
 lady, who, sooner or later, would treat her friends to a first 
 
250 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 class surprise, I should have laid my finger on his sleeve 
 and told him with a smile that he phrased my own thought. 
 Was she more silent than usual, was she preoccupied, was 
 she melancholy, was she restless? Picturesquely, she ought 
 to have been all these things; but in fact, she was still to 
 the illumined eye simply a very pretty blonde maiden, who 
 smiled more than she spoke, and accepted her lover's devo- 
 tion with a charming demureness which savored much more 
 of humility than of condescension. It seemed to me useless 
 to repeat to Scrope the young Italian's declaration that 
 he had spoken to her, and poor Sam never intimated to 
 me either that he had questioned her in suspicion of the 
 fact, or that she had offered him any account of it. I was 
 sure, however, that something must have passed between the 
 young girl and her lover in the way of question and answer, 
 and I privately wondered what the deuce Angelo had meant 
 by saying she had understood him. What had she under- 
 stood? Surely not the story of Scrope 's acquisition of the 
 gem; for granting what was unlikely that Angelo had 
 had time to impart it, it was unnatural that Adina should 
 not have frankly demanded an explanation. At last I broke 
 the ice and asked Scrope if he supposed Miss Waddington 
 had reason to connect the great intaglio with the picturesque 
 young man she had met in the Villa Borghese. 
 
 My question caused him visible discomfort. "Pic- 
 turesque?" he growled. "Did she tell you she thought 
 him picturesque?" 
 
 "By no means. But he is! You must at least allow 
 him that." 
 
 "He hadn't brushed his hair for a week if that's what 
 you mean. But it's a charm which I doubt that Adina 
 appreciates. But she has certainly taken," he added in a 
 moment, "an unaccountable dislike to the topaz. She says 
 the Emperor Tiberius spoils it for her. It's carrying his- 
 torical antipathies rather far: I supposed nothing could 
 spoil a fine gem for a pretty woman. It appears," he 
 finally said, "that that rascal spoke to her." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 "He asked her if she was engaged to me." 
 
ADINA 251 
 
 "And what did she answer?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "I suppose she was frightened." 
 
 "She might have been; but she says she was not. He 
 begged her not to be; he told her he was a poor harmless 
 fellow looking for justice. She left him, without speaking. 
 I told her he was crazy it's not a lie." 
 
 "Possibly!" I rejoined. Then, as a last attempt "You 
 know it wouldn't be quite a lie," I added, "to say that you 
 are not absolutely sane. You're very erratic, about the 
 topaz; obstinacy, pushed under certain circumstances be- 
 yond a certain point, bears a dangerous likeness to crazi- 
 ness." 
 
 I suppose that if one could reason with a mule it would 
 make him rather more mulish to know one called him 
 stubborn. Scrope gave me a chilling grin. "I deny your 
 circumstances. If I'm mad, I claim the madman's privilege 
 of believing myself peculiarly sane. If you wish to preach 
 to me, you must catch me in a lucid interval." 
 
 The breath of early spring in Rome, though magical, 
 as you know, in its visible influence on the dark old city, 
 is often rather trying to the foreign constitution. After a 
 fortnight of uninterrupted sirocco, Mrs. Waddington's fine 
 spirits confessed to depression. She was afraid, of course, 
 that she was going to have "the fever," and made haste 
 to consult a physician. He reassured her, told her she 
 simply needed change of air, and recommended a month 
 at Albano. To Albano, accordingly, the two ladies repaired, 
 under Scrope's escort. Mrs. Waddington kindly urged my 
 going with them; but I was detained in Rome by the ar- 
 rival of some relations of my own, for whom I was obliged 
 to play cicerone. I could only promise to make an oc- 
 casional visit to Albano. My uncle and his three daughters 
 were magnificent sight-seers, and gave me plenty to do; 
 nevertheless, at the end of a week I was able to redeem 
 my promise. I found my friends lodging at the inn, and 
 the two ladies doing their best to merge the sense of dirty 
 stone floors and crumpled yellow table-cloth in ecstatic 
 contemplation, from their windows, of the great misty sea- 
 
252 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 like level of the Campagna. The view apart, they were 
 passing delightful days. You remember the loveliness of 
 the place and its picturesque neighborhood of strange old 
 mountain towns. The country was blooming with early 
 flowers and foliage, and my friends lived in the open air. 
 Mrs. Waddington sketched in water colors. Adina gathered 
 wild nosegays, and Scrope hovered contentedly between 
 them not without an occasional frank stricture on the 
 elder lady's use of her pigments and Adina's combinations 
 of narcissus and cyclamen. All seemed to me very happy 
 and, without ill-nature, I felt almost tempted to wonder 
 whether the most desirable gift of the gods is not a thick- 
 and-thin conviction of one's own impeccability. Yet even 
 a lover with a bad conscience might be cheated into a dis- 
 belief in retribution by the unbargained sweetness of such 
 a presence in his life as Adina Waddington's. 
 
 I spent the night at Albano, but as I had pledged my- 
 self to go the next morning to a funzione with my fair 
 cousins in Rome, "fair" is for rhetoric; but they were 
 excellent girls: I was obliged to rise and start at dawn. 
 Scrope had offered to go with me part of the way, and walk 
 back to the inn before breakfast; but I declined to accept 
 so onerous a favor, and departed alone, in the early twilight. 
 A rickety diligence made the transit across the Campagna, 
 and I had a five minutes' walk to the post-office, while it 
 stood waiting for its freight. I made my way through the 
 little garden of the inn, as this saved me some steps. At 
 the sound of my tread on the gravel, a figure rose slowly 
 from a bench at the foot of a crippled grim statue, and I 
 found myself staring at Angelo Beati. I greeted him with 
 an exclamation, which was virtually a challenge of his right 
 to be there. He stood and looked at me fixedly, with a 
 strangely defiant, unembarrassed smile, and at last, in 
 answer to my repeated inquiry as to what the deuce he 
 was about, he said he supposed he had a right to take 
 a stroll in a neighbor's garden. 
 
 "A neighbor?" said I. "How ?" 
 
 "Eh, per Dio! don't I live at Lariceia?" And he laughed 
 
ADINA 253 
 
 in almost as simple a fashion as when we had awaked 
 him from his dreamless sleep in the meadows. 
 
 I had had so many other demands on my attention dur- 
 ing my friend's absence that it never occurred to me that 
 Scrope had lodged himself in the very jaws of the enemy. 
 But I began to believe that, after all, the enemy was very 
 harmless. If Angelo confined his machinations to sitting 
 about in damp gardens at malarial hours, Scrope would not 
 be the first to suffer. I had fancied at first that his sense 
 of injury had made a man of him; but there seemed still 
 to hang about him a sort of a romantic ineffectiveness. His 
 painful impulsion toward maturity had lasted but a day 
 and he had become again an irresponsible lounger in Arcady. 
 But he must have had an Arcadian constitution to brave 
 the Roman dews at that rate. "And you came here for a 
 purpose," I said. "It ought to be a very good one to war- 
 rant your spending your nights out of doors in this silly 
 fashion. If you are not careful you'll get the fever and 
 die, and that will be the end of everything." 
 
 He seemed grateful for my interest in his health. "No, 
 no, Signorino mio, I'll not get the fever. I've a fever here" 
 and he struck a blow on his breast "that's a safeguard 
 against the other. I've had a purpose in coming here, but 
 you'll never guess it. Leave me alone; I shan't harm you! 
 But now, that day is beginning, I must go; I must not 
 be seen." 
 
 I grasped him by the arm, looked at him hard and tried 
 to penetrate his meaning. He met my eyes frankly and 
 gave a little contented laugh. Whatever his secret was, 
 he was not ashamed of it; I saw with some satisfaction 
 that it was teaching him patience. Something in his face, 
 in the impression it gave me of his nature, reassured 
 me, at the same time, that it contradicted my hypothesis 
 of a moment before. There was no evil in it and no 
 malignity, but a deep, insistent, natural desire which seemed 
 to be slumbering for the time in a mysterious prevision 
 of success. He thought, apparently, that his face was 
 telling too much. He gave another little laugh, and began 
 to whistle softly. "You are meant for something better," 
 
254 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 I said, "than to skulk about here like a burglar. How 
 would you like to go to America and do some honest work?" 
 I had an absurd momentary vision of helping him on his 
 way, and giving him a letter of introduction to my brother- 
 in-law, who was in the hardware business. 
 
 He took off his hat and passed his hand through his 
 hair. "You think, then, I am meant for something good?" 
 
 "If you will! If you'll give up your idle idea of 're- 
 venge' and trust to time to right your wrong." 
 
 "Give it up? Impossible!" he said, grimly. "Ask me 
 rather to chop off my arm. This is the same thing. It's 
 part of my life. I have trusted to time I've waited four 
 long months, and yet here I stand as poor and helpless as 
 at the beginning. No, no, I'm not to be treated like a 
 dog. If he had been just, I would have done anything 
 for him. I'm not a bad fellow; I never had an unkind 
 thought. Very likely I was too simple, too stupid, too 
 contented with being poor and shabby. The Lord does 
 with us as he pleases; he thought I needed a little shaking 
 up. I've got it, surely! But did your friend take counsel 
 of the Lord? No, no! He took counsel of his own sel- 
 fishness, and he thought himself clever enough to steal the 
 sweet and never taste the bitter. But the bitter will come; 
 and it will be my sweet." 
 
 "That's fine talk! Tell me in three words what it 
 means." 
 
 "Aspetti! If you are going to Rome by the coach, as 
 I suppose, you should be moving. You may lose your place. 
 I have an idea we shall meet again." He walked away, 
 and in a moment I heard the great iron gate of the garden 
 creaking on its iron hinges. 
 
 I was puzzled, and for a moment, I had a dozen minds 
 to stop over with my friends. But on the one hand, I 
 saw no definite way in which I could preserve them from 
 annoyance; and on the other, I was confidently expected 
 in Rome. Besides, might not the dusky cloud be the 
 sooner dissipated by letting Angelo's project, substance 
 or shadow, whatever it was, play itself out? To Rome 
 accordingly I returned; but for several days I was 
 
ADINA 255 
 
 haunted with a suspicion that something ugly, something 
 sad, something strange, at any rate, was taking place at 
 Albano. At last it became so oppressive that I hired a 
 light carriage and drove back again. I reached the inn 
 toward the close of the afternoon, and but half expected 
 to find my friends at home. They had in fact gone out to 
 walk, and the landlord had not noticed in what direction. 
 I had nothing to do but to stroll about the dirty little town 
 till their return. Do you remember the Capuchin convent 
 at the edge of the Alban lake? I walked up to it and, 
 seeing the door of the church still open, made my way in. 
 The dusk had gathered in the corners, but the altar, for 
 some pious reason, was glowing with an unusual number of 
 candles. They twinkled picturesquely in the gloom; here 
 and there a kneeling figure defined itself vaguely; it was a 
 pretty piece of chiaroscuro, and I sat down to enjoy it. 
 Presently I noticed the look of intense devotion of a young 
 woman sitting near me. Her hands were clasped on her 
 knees, her head thrown back and her eyes fixed in strange 
 expansion on the shining altar. We make out pictures, 
 you know, in the glow of the hearth at home; this young 
 girl seemed to be reading an ecstatic vision in the light of 
 the tapers. Her expression was so peculiar that for some 
 moments it disguised her face and left me to perceive with 
 a sudden shock that I was watching Adina Waddington. 
 I looked round for her companions, but she was evidently 
 alone. It seemed to me then that I had no right to watch 
 her covertly, and yet I was indisposed either to disturb her 
 or to retire and leave her. The evening was approaching; 
 how came it that she was unaccompanied? I concluded 
 that she was waiting for the others; Scrope, perhaps, had 
 gone in to see the sunset from the terrace of the convent 
 garden a privilege denied to ladies; and Mrs. Waddington 
 was lingering outside the church to take memoranda for a 
 sketch. I turned away, walked round the church and ap- 
 proached the young girl on the other side. This time my 
 nearness aroused her. She removed her eyes from the 
 altar, looked at me, let them rest on my face, and yet gave 
 no sign of recognition. But at last she slowly rose and I 
 
256 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 saw that she knew me. Was she turning Catholic and pre- 
 paring to give up her heretical friends? I greeted her, 
 but she continued to look at me with intense gravity, as if 
 her thoughts were urging her beyond frivolous civilities. 
 She seemed not in the least flurried as I had feared she 
 would be at having been observed; she was preoccupied, 
 excited, in a deeper fashion. In suspecting that something 
 strange was happening at Albano, apparently I was not far 
 wrong "What are you doing, my dear young lady," I 
 asked brusquely, "in this lonely church?" 
 
 "I'm asking for light," she said. 
 
 "I hope youVe found it!" I answered smiling. 
 
 "I think so!" and she moved toward the door. "I'm 
 alone," she added, "will you take me home?" She ac- 
 cepted my arm and we passed out; but in front of the 
 church she paused. "Tell me," she said suddenly, "are 
 you a very intimate friend of Mr. Scrope's?" 
 
 "You must ask him." I answered, "if he considers me so. 
 I at least aspire to the honor." The intensity of her man- 
 ner embarrassed me, and I tried to take refuge in jocosity. 
 
 "Tell me then this: will he bear a disappointment a keen 
 disappointment?" 
 
 She seemed to appeal to me to say yes! But I felt that 
 she had a project in hand, and I had no warrant to give 
 her a license. I looked at her a moment; her solemn 
 eyes seemed to grow and grow till they made her whole 
 face a mute entreaty. "No," I said resolutely, "decidedly 
 not!" 
 
 She gave a heavy sigh and we walked on. She seemed 
 buried in her thoughts! she gave no heed to my attempts 
 at conversation, and I had to wait till we reached the inn 
 for an explanation of her solitary visit to Capuccini. Her 
 companions had come in, and from them, after their wel- 
 come, I learned that the three had gone out together, 
 but that Adina had presently complained of fatigue, and 
 obtained leave to go home. "If I break down on the way," 
 she had said, "I will go into a church to rest." They had 
 been surprised at not finding her at the inn, and were 
 grateful for my having met her. Evidently, they, too, 
 
ADINA 257 
 
 had discovered that the young girl was in a singular mood. 
 Mrs. Waddington had a forced smile, and Scrope had no 
 smile at all. Adina quietly sat down to her needlework, 
 and we confessed, even tacitly, to no suspicion of her being 
 "nervous." Common nervousness it certainly was not; 
 she bent her head calmly over her embroiderly, and drew 
 her stitches with a hand innocent of the slightest tremor. 
 At last we had dinner; it passed somewhat oppressively, 
 and I was thankful for Scrope's proposal, afterwards, to go 
 and smoke a cigar in the garden. Poor Scrope was unhappy; 
 I could see that, but I hardly ventured to hope that he 
 would tell me off-hand what was the matter with Adina. 
 It naturally occurred to me that she had shown a disposi- 
 tion to retract her engagement. I gave him a dozen chances 
 to say so, but he evidently could not trust himself to utter 
 his fears. To give an impetus to our conversation, I re- 
 minded him of his nearness to Lariceia, and asked whether 
 he had had a glimpse of Angelo Bead. 
 
 "Several," he said. "He has passed me in the village, 
 or on the roads, some half a dozen times. He gives me 
 an impudent stare and goes his way. He takes it out in 
 looking daggers from his dark eyes; you see how much 
 there is to be feared from him!" 
 
 "He doesn't quite take it out," I presently said, "in look- 
 ing daggers. He hangs about the inn at night; he roams 
 about the garden while you're in bed, as if he thought that 
 he might give you bad dreams by staring at your windows." 
 And I described our recent interview at dawn. 
 
 Scrope stared in great surprise, then slowly flushed in 
 rising anger. "Curse the meddling idiot!" he cried. "If 
 he doesn't know where to stop, I'll show him." 
 
 "Buy him off!" I said sturdily. 
 
 "I'll buy him a horsewhip and give it to him over his 
 broad back!" 
 
 I put my hands in my pockets, I believe, and strolled 
 away, whistling. Come what might, I washed my hands 
 of mediation! But it was not irritation, for I felt a strange, 
 half -reasoned increase of pity for my friend's want of 
 pliancy. He stood puffing his cigar gloomily, and by 
 
258 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 way of showing him that I didn't altogether give up, I 
 asked him at last whether it had yet been settled when he 
 should marry. He had told me shortly before that this 
 was still an open question, and that Miss Waddington 
 preferred to leave it so. 
 
 He made no immediate answer, but looked at me hard. 
 "Why do you ask just now?" 
 
 "Why, my dear fellow, friendly curiosity " I began. 
 
 He tossed the end of his cigar nervously upon the ground. 
 "No, no; it's not friendly curiosity!" he cried. "You've 
 noticed something you suspect something!" 
 
 Since he insisted, I confessed that I did. "That beauti- 
 ful girl," I said, "seems to me agitated and preoccupied; 
 I wondered whether you had been having a quarrel." 
 
 He seemed relieved at being pressed to speak. 
 
 "That beautiful girl is a puzzle. I don't know what's the 
 matter with her; it's all very painful; she's a very strange 
 creature. I never dreamed there was an obstacle to our 
 happiness to our union. She has never protested and 
 promised; it's not her way, nor her nature; she is always 
 humble, passive, gentle; but always extremely grateful for 
 every sign of tenderness. Till within three or four days 
 ago, she seemed to me more so than ever; her habitual 
 gentleness took the form of a sort of shrinking, almost 
 suffering, deprecation of my attentions, my petits soins, 
 my lover's nonsense. It was as if they oppressed and 
 mortified her and she would have liked me to bear more 
 lightly. I did not see directly that it was not the excess of 
 my devotion, but my devotion itself the very fact of my 
 love and her engagement that pained her. When I did it 
 was a blow in the face. I don't know what under heaven 
 I've done! Women are fathomless creatures. And yet 
 Adina is not capricious, in the common sense. Mrs. 
 Waddington told me that it was a c girl's mood,' that we 
 must not seem to heed it it would pass over. I've been 
 waiting, but the situation don't mend; you've guessed at 
 trouble without a hint. So these are peines d'amour?" he 
 went on, after brooding a moment. "I didn't know how 
 fiercely I was in love!" 
 
ADINA 259 
 
 I don't remember with what well-meaning foolishness 
 I was going to attempt to console him; Mrs. Waddington 
 suddenly appeared and drew him aside. After a moment's 
 murmured talk with her, he went rapidly intc the house. 
 She remained with me and, as she seemed greatly per- 
 plexed, and we had, moreover, often discussed our com- 
 panion's situation and prospects, I immediately told her 
 that Scrope had just been relating his present troubles. 
 "They are very unexpected," she cried. "It's thunder in 
 a clear sky. Just now Adina laid down her work and 
 told me solemnly that she would like to see Mr. Scrope 
 alone; would I kindly call him? 'Would she kindly tell 
 me,' I inquired, 'what in common sense was the matter 
 with her, and what she proposed to say to him? She 
 looked at me a moment as if I were a child of five years 
 old interrupting family prayers; then came up gently and 
 kissed me, and said I would know everything in good 
 time. Does she mean to stand there in that same ghostly 
 fashion and tell him that, on the whole, she has decided 
 not to marry him? What has the poor man done?" 
 
 "She has ceased to love him," I suggested. 
 
 "Why ceased, all of a sudden?" 
 
 "Perhaps it's not so sudden as you suppose. Such things 
 have happened, in young women's hearts, as a gradual re- 
 vision of a first impression." 
 
 "Yes, but not witLout a particular motive another 
 fancy. Adina is fanciful, that I know; with all respect be 
 it said, it was fanciful to accept poor Sam to begin with. 
 But her choice deliberately made, what has put her out 
 of humor with it? in a word the only possible explana- 
 tion would be that our young lady has transferred her 
 affections. But it's impossible!" 
 
 "Absolutely so?" I asked. 
 
 "Absolutely. Judge for yourself. To whom, pray? 
 She hasn't seen another man in a month. Who could have 
 so mysUiously charmed her? The little hunchback who 
 brings us mandarin oranges every morning? Perhaps she 
 has lost her heart to Prince Doria! I believe he has been 
 staying at his villa yonder." 
 
26o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 I found no smile for this mild sarcasm. I was wonder- 
 ing wondering. "Has she literally seen no one else?" I 
 asked when my wonderings left me breath. 
 
 "I can't answer for whom she may have seen', she's not 
 blind. But she has spoken to no one else, nor been spoken 
 to; that's very certain. Love at sight at sight only 
 used to be common in the novels I devoured when I was 
 fifteen; but I doubt whether it exists anywhere else." 
 
 I had a question on my tongue's end, but I hesitated 
 some time to risk it. I debated some time in silence and 
 at last I uttered it, with a prefatory apology. "On which 
 side of the house is Adina's room?" 
 
 "Pray, what are you coming to?" said my companion. 
 "On this side." 
 
 "It looks into the garden?" 
 
 "There it is in the second story." 
 
 "Be so good which one? 
 
 "The third window the one with the shutters tied back 
 with a handkerchief." 
 
 The shutters and the handkerchief suddenly acquired a 
 mysterious fascination for me. I looked at them for some 
 time, and when I glanced back at my companion our eyes 
 met. I don't know what she thought what she thought I 
 thought. I thought it might be out of a novel such a 
 thing as love at sight ; such a thing as an unspoken dialogue, 
 between a handsome young Italian with a "wrong," in a 
 starlit garden, and a fanciful western maid at a window. 
 From her own sudden impression Mrs. Waddington seemed 
 slowly to recoil. She gathered her shawl about her, shiv- 
 ered, and turned towards the house. "The thing to do," 
 I said, offering her my arm, "is to leave Albano to-morrow." 
 
 On the inner staircase we paused ; Mrs. Waddington was 
 loath to interrupt Adina's interview with Scrope. While 
 she was hesitating whither to turn, the door of her sitting- 
 room opened, and the young girl passed out. Scrope stood 
 behind her, very pale, his face distorted with an emotion 
 he was determined to repress. She herself was pale, but 
 her eyes were lighted up like two wind-blown torches. Meet- 
 ing the elder lady, she stopped, stood for a moment, look- 
 
ADINA 261 
 
 ing down and hesitating, and then took Mrs. Waddington's 
 two hands and silently kissed her. She turned to me, put 
 out her hand, and said "Good night!" I shook it, I 
 imagine, with sensible ardor, for somehow, I was deeply 
 impressed. There was a nameless force in the girl, before 
 which one had to stand back. She lingered but an instant 
 and rapidly disappeared towards her room, in the dusky 
 corridor. Mrs. Waddington laid her hand kindly upon 
 Scrope's arm and led him back into the parlor. He evi- 
 dently was not going to be plaintive ; his pride was rankling 
 and burning, and it seasoned his self-control. 
 
 "Our engagement is at an end," he simply said. 
 
 Mrs. Waddington folded her hands. "And for what 
 reason?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 It was cruel, certainly; but what could we say? Mrs. 
 Waddington sank upon the sofa and gazed at the poor 
 fellow in mute, motherly compassion. Her large, caressing 
 pity irritated him; he took up a book and sat down with 
 his back to her. I took up another, but I couldn't read; 
 I sat noticing that he never turned his own page. Mrs. 
 Waddington at last transferred her gaze uneasily, appeal- 
 ingly, to me; she moved about restlessly in her place; she 
 was trying to shape my vague intimations in the garden 
 into something palpable to common credulity. I could give 
 her now no explanation that would not have been a gratui- 
 tous offense to Scrope. But I felt more and more nervous; 
 my own vague previsions oppressed me. I flung down my 
 book at last, and left the room. In the corridor Mrs. 
 Waddington overtook me, and requested me to tell her 
 what I meant by my extraordinary allusions to "in plain 
 English," she said, "to an intrigue." 
 
 "It would be needless, and it would be painful," I an- 
 swered, "to tell you now and here. But promise me to 
 return to Rome to-morrow. There we can take breath 
 and talk." 
 
 "Oh, we shall bundle off, I promise!" she cried. And 
 we separated. I mounted the stairs to go to my room; 
 as I did so I heard her dress rustling in the corridor, 
 
262 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 undecidedly. Then came the sound of a knock; she had 
 stopped at Adina's door. Involuntarily I paused and 
 listened. There was a silence, and then another knock; 
 another silence and a third knock; after tins, despair- 
 ing, apparently, of obtaining admission, she moved away, 
 and I went to my room. It was useless going to bed; 
 I knew I should not sleep. I stood a long time at my 
 open window, wondering whether I had anything to say 
 to Scrope. At the end of half an hour I wandered down 
 into the garden again, and strolled through all the alleys. 
 They were empty, and there was a light in Adina's win- 
 dow. No; it seemed to me that there was nothing I could 
 bring myself to say to Scrope, but that he should leave 
 Albano the next day, and Rome and Italy as soon after 
 as possible, wait a year, and then try his fortune with Miss 
 Waddington again. Towards morning, I did sleep. 
 
 Breakfast was served in Mrs. Waddington 's parlor, and 
 Scrope appeared punctually, as neatly shaved and brushed 
 as if he were still under tribute to a pair of blue eyes. 
 He really, of course, felt less serene than he looked. It 
 can never be comfortable to meet at breakfast the young 
 lady who has rejected you over night. Mrs. Waddington 
 kept us waiting some time, but at last she entered with 
 surprising energy. Her comely face was flushed from 
 brow to chin, and in her hand she clasped a crumpled note. 
 She flung herself upon the sofa and burst into tears; I 
 had only time to turn the grinning camenera out of the 
 room. "She's gone, gone, gone! " she cried, among her sobs. 
 "Oh, the crazy, wicked, ungrateful girl!" 
 
 Scrope, of course, knew no more than a tea-pot what 
 she meant; but I understood her more promptly and yet 
 I believe I gave a long whistle. Scrope stood staring at 
 her as she thrust out the crumpled note: that she meant 
 that Adina that Adina had left us in the night was too 
 large a horror for his unprepared sense. His dumb amaze- 
 ment was an almost touching sign of the absence of a 
 thought which could have injured the girl. He saw by my 
 face that I knew something, and he let me draw the note 
 from Mrs. Waddington's hand and read it aloud: 
 
ADINA 263 
 
 Good-by to everything! Think me crazy if you will. 
 I could never explain. Only forget me and believe that I 
 am happy, happy, happy! Adina Beati. 
 
 I laid my hand on his shoulder; even yet he seemed 
 powerless to apprehend. "Angelo Beati," I said gravely, 
 "has at last taken his revenge!" 
 
 "Angelo Beati!" he cried. "An Italian beggar! It's a 
 lie!" 
 
 I shook my head and patted his shoulder. "He has 
 insisted on payment. He's a clever fellow!" 
 
 He saw that I knew, and slowly, distractedly he answered 
 with a burning blush! 
 
 It was a most extraordinary occurrence; we had ample 
 time to say so, and to say so again, and yet never really 
 to understand it. Neither of my companions ever saw the 
 young girl again; Scrope never mentioned her but once. 
 He went about for a week in absolute silence; when at last 
 he spoke I saw that the fold was taken, that he was going 
 to be a professional cynic for the rest of his days. Mrs. 
 Waddington was a good-natured woman, as I have said, 
 and, better still, she was a just woman. But I assure you, 
 she never forgave her step-daughter. In after years, as I 
 grew older, I took an increasing satisfaction in having as- 
 sisted, as they say, at this episode. As mere action, it 
 seemed to me really superb, and in judging of human na- 
 ture I often weighed it mentally against the perpetual 
 spectacle of strong impulses frittered in weakness and per- 
 verted by prudence. There has been no prudence here, 
 certainly, but there has been ardent, full-blown, positive 
 passion. We see the one every day, the other once in five 
 years. More than once I ventured to ventilate this heresy 
 before the kindly widow, but she always stopped me short, 
 "The thing was odious," she said; "I thank heaven the 
 girl's father did not live to see it." 
 
 We didn't finish that dismal day at Albano, but returned 
 in the evening to Rome. Before our departure I had an 
 interview with the Padre Girolamo of Lariceia, who failed 
 to strike me as the holy man whom his nephew had de- 
 
264 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 scribed. He was a swarthy, snuffy little old priest, with a 
 dishonest eye quite capable, I believed, of teaching his 
 handsome nephew to play his cards. But I had no re- 
 proaches to waste upon him; I simply wished to know 
 whither Angelo had taken the young girl. I obtained the 
 information with difficulty and only after a solemn promise 
 that if Adina should reiterate, viva voce, to a person dele- 
 gated by her friends, the statement that she was happy, 
 they would take no steps to recover possession of her. She 
 was in Rome, and in that holy city they should leave her. 
 "Remember," said the Padre, very softly, "that she is of 
 age, and her own mistress, and can do what she likes with 
 her money; she has a good deal of it, eh?" She had 
 less than he thought, but evidently the Padre knew his 
 ground. It was he, he admitted, who had united the young 
 couple in marriage, the day before; the ceremony had 
 taken place in the little old circular church on the hill, at 
 Albano, at five o'clock in the morning. "You see, Signer," 
 he said, slowly rubbing his yellow hands, "she had taken 
 a great fancy!" I gave him no chance, by any remark of 
 my own, to remind me that Angelo had a grudge to satisfy, 
 but he professed the assurance that his nephew was the 
 sweetest fellow in the world. I heard and departed in 
 silence; my curiosity, at least, had not yet done with 
 Angelo. 
 
 Mrs. Waddington, also, had more of this sentiment than 
 she confessed to; her kindness wondered, under protest of 
 her indignation, how on earth the young girl was living, 
 and whether the smells on her staircase were very bad in- 
 deed. It was, therefore, at her tacit request that I repaired 
 to the lodging of the young pair, in the neighborhood of 
 the Piazza Barberini. The quarters were modest, but they 
 looked into the quaint old gardens of the Capuchin Friars; 
 and in the way of smells, I observed nothing worse than 
 the heavy breath of a great bunch of pinks in a green 
 jug on the window sill. Angelo stood there, pulling one 
 of the pinks to pieces, and looking quite the proper hero 
 of his romance. He eyed me shyly and a trifle coldly at 
 first, as if he were prepared to stand firm against a possible 
 
ADINA 265 
 
 blowing up; but when he saw that I chose to make no 
 allusions whatever to the past, he suffered his dark brow 
 to betray his serene contentment. I was no more disposed 
 than I had been a week before, to call him a bad fellow; 
 but he was a mystery, his character was as great an 
 enigma as the method of his courtship. That he was in 
 love I don't pretend to say; but I think he had already 
 forgotten how his happiness had come to him, and that 
 he was basking in a sort of primitive natural sensuous de- 
 light in being adored. It was like the warm sunshine, or 
 like plenty of good wine. I don't believe his fortune in 
 the least surprised him; at the bottom of every genuine 
 Roman heart, even if it beats beneath a beggar's rags, 
 you'll find an ineradicable belief that we are all barbarians, 
 and made to pay them tribute. He was welcome to all his 
 grotesque superstitions, but what sort of future did they 
 promise for Adina? I asked leave to speak with her; he 
 shrugged his shoulders, said she was free to choose, and 
 went into an adjoining room with my proposal. Her choice 
 apparently was difficult; I waited some time, wondering 
 how she would look on the other side of the ugly chasm she 
 had so audaciously leaped. She came in at last, and I imme- 
 diately saw that she was vexed by my visit. She wished 
 to utterly forget her past. She was pale and very grave; 
 she seemed to wear a frigid mask of reserve. If she had 
 seemed to me a singular creature before, it didn't help me 
 to understand her to see her there, beside her extraordinary 
 husband. My eyes went from one to the other and, I 
 suppose, betrayed my reflections; she suddenly begged me 
 to inform her of my errand. 
 
 "I have been asked," I said, "to inquire whether you are 
 contented. Mrs. Waddington is unwilling to leave Rome 
 
 while there is a chance of your " I hesitated for a word, 
 
 and she interrupted me. 
 
 "Of my repentance, is what you mean to say?" She 
 fixed her eyes on the ground for a moment, then suddenly 
 raised them. "Mrs. Waddington may leave Rome," she 
 said softly. I turned in silence, but waited a moment for 
 
266 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 some slight message of farewell. "I only ask to be for- 
 gotten!" she added, seeing me stand. 
 
 Love is said to be par excellence the egotistical passion; 
 if so Adina was far gone. "I can't promise to forget you," 
 I said; "you and my friend here deserve to be remem- 
 bered!" 
 
 She turned away; Angelo seemed relieved at the cessa- 
 tion of our English. He opened the door for me, and stood 
 for a moment with a significant, conscious smile. 
 
 "She's happy, eh?" he asked. 
 
 "So she says!" 
 
 He laid his hand on my arm. "So am I! She's better 
 than the topaz!" 
 
 "You're a queer fellow!" I cried; and, pushing past 
 him, I hurried away. 
 
 Mrs. Waddington gave her step-daughter another chance 
 to repent, for she lingered in Rome a fortnight more. She 
 was disappointed at my being able to bring her no informa- 
 tion as to how Adina had eluded observation how she had 
 played her game and kept her secret. My own belief was 
 that there had been a very small amount of courtship, and 
 that until she stole out of the house the morning before 
 her flight, to meet the Padre Girolamo and his nephew at 
 the church, she had barely heard the sound of her lover's 
 voice. There had been signs, and glances, and other un- 
 spoken vows, two or three notes, perhaps. Exactly who 
 Angelo was, and what had originally secured for us the 
 honor of his attentions, Mrs. Waddington never learned; 
 it was enough for her that he was a friendless, picturesque 
 Italian. Where everything was a painful puzzle, a shade 
 or two, more or less, of obscurity hardly mattered. Scrope, 
 of course, never attempted to account for his own blind- 
 ness, though to his silent thoughts it must have seemed 
 bitterly strange. He spoke of Adina, as I said, but once. 
 
 He knew by instinct, by divination, for I had not told 
 him, that I had been to see her, and late on the evening 
 following my visit, he proposed to me to take a stroll 
 through the streets. It was a -soft, damp night, with 
 vague, scattered cloud masses, through which the moon was 
 
ADINA - 267 
 
 slowly drifting. A warm south wind had found its way 
 into the dusky heart of the city. "Let us go to St. Peter's," 
 he said, "and see the fountains play in the fitful moon- 
 shine." When we reached the bridge of St. Angelo, he 
 paused and leaned some time on the parapet, looking over 
 into the Tiber. At last, suddenly raising himself "You've 
 seen her?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 "She said she was happy." 
 
 He was silent, and we walked on. Half-way over the 
 bridge he stopped again and gazed at the river. Then he 
 drew a small velvet case from his pocket, opened it, and 
 let something shine in the moonlight. It was the beautiful, 
 the imperial, the baleful topaz. He looked at me and I 
 knew what his look meant. It made my heart beat, but 
 I did not say no! It had been a curse, the golden gem, 
 with its cruel emblems; let it return to the moldering under- 
 world of the Roman past! I shook his hand firmly, he 
 stretched out the other and, with a great flourish, tossed 
 the glittering jewel into the dusky river. There it lies! 
 Some day, I suppose, they will dredge the Tiber for 
 treasures, and, possibly, disinter our topaz, and recognize 
 it. But who will guess at this passionate human interlude 
 to its burial of centuries? 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 
 
 IT was the year 1820, and Mrs. De Grey, by the same 
 token, as they say in Ireland (and, for that matter, out 
 of it), had reached her sixty-seventh spring. She was, 
 nevertheless, still a handsome woman, and, what is better 
 yet, still an amiable woman. The untroubled, unruffled 
 course of her life had left as few wrinkles on her temper 
 as on her face. She was tall and full of person, with dark 
 eyes and abundant white hair, which she rolled back from 
 her forehead over a cushion, or some such artifice. 
 The freshness of youth and health had by no means faded 
 out of her cheeks, nor had the smile of her imperturbable 
 courtesy expired on her lips. She dressed, as became a 
 woman of her age and a widow, in black garments, but 
 relieved with a great deal of white, with a number of hand- 
 some rings on her fair hands. Frequently, in the spring, 
 she wore a little flower or a sprig of green leaves in the 
 bosom of her gown. She had been accused of receiving 
 these little floral ornaments from the hands of Mr. Herbert 
 (of whom I shall have more to say) ; but the charge is 
 unfounded, inasmuch as they were very carefully selected 
 from a handful cut in the garden by her maid. 
 
 That Mrs. De Grey should have been just the placid 
 and elegant old lady that she was, remained, in the eyes 
 of the world at large, in spite of an abundance of a certain 
 sort of evidence in favor of such a result, more or less of 
 a puzzle and a problem. It is true, that every one who 
 knew anything about her knew that she had enjoyed great 
 material prosperity, and had suffered no misfortunes. She 
 was mistress in her own right of a handsome property and 
 a handsome house; she had lost her husband, indeed, within 
 a year after marriage; but, as the late George De Grey had 
 
 269 
 
270 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 been of a sullen and brooding humor, to that degree, in- 
 deed, as to incur the suspicion of insanity, her loss, leav- 
 ing her well provided for, might in strictness have been 
 acounted a gain. Her son, moreover, had never given her 
 a moment's trouble; he had grown up a charming young 
 man, handsome, witty, and wise; he was a model of filial 
 devotion. The lady's health was good; she had half a 
 dozen perfect servants; she had the perpetual company of 
 the incomparable Mr. Herbert; she was as fine a figure of 
 an elderly woman as any in town; she might, therefore, 
 very well have been happy and have looked so. On the 
 other hand, a dozen sensible women had been known to 
 declare with emphasis, that not for all her treasures and 
 her felicity would they have consented to be Mrs. De Grey. 
 These ladies were, of course, unable to give a logical reason 
 for so strong an aversion. But it is certain that there 
 hung over Mrs. De Grey's history and circumstances a 
 film, as it were, a shadow of mystery, which struck a chill 
 upon imaginations which might easily have been kindled 
 into envy of her good fortune. "She lives in the dark," 
 some one had said of her. Close observers did her the 
 honor to believe that there was a secret in her life, but of 
 a wholly undefined character. Was she the victim of some 
 lurking sorrow, or the mistress of some clandestine joy? 
 These imputations, we may easily believe, are partially ex- 
 plained by the circumstance that she was a Catholic, and 
 kept a priest in her house. The unexplained portion might 
 very well, moreover, have been discredited by Mrs. De 
 Grey's perfectly candid and complacent demeanor. It was 
 certainly hard to conceive, in talking with her, to what part 
 of her person one might pin a mystery, whether on her 
 clear, round eyes or her handsome, benevolent lips. Let 
 us say, then, in defiance of the voice of society, that she 
 was no tragedy queen. She was a fine woman, a dull 
 woman, a perfect gentlewoman. She had taken life, as she 
 liked a cup of tea, weak, with an exquisite aroma and 
 plenty of cream and sugar. She had never lost her temper, 
 for the excellent reason that she had none to lose. She 
 was troubled with no fears, no doubts, no scruples, and 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 271 
 
 blessed with no sacred certainties. She was fond of her 
 son, of the church, of her garden, and of her toilet. She 
 had the very best taste; but, morally, one may say that 
 she had had no history. 
 
 Mrs. De Grey had always lived in seclusion; for a couple 
 of years previous to the time of which I speak she had lived 
 in solitude. Her son, on reaching his twenty-third year, 
 had gone to Europe for a long visit, in pursuance of a plan 
 discussed at intervals between his mother and Mr. Herbert 
 during the whole course of his boyhood. They had made 
 no attempt to forecast his future career, or to prepare him 
 for a profession. Strictly, indeed, he was at liberty, like 
 his late father, to dispense with a profession. Not that 
 it was to be wished that he should take his father's life as 
 an example. It was understood by the world at large, and, 
 of course, by Mrs. De Grey and her companion in particu- 
 lar, that this gentleman's existence had been blighted, at an 
 early period, by an unhappy love-affair; and it was notorious 
 that, in consequence, he had spent the few years of his 
 maturity in gloomy idleness and dissipation. Mrs. De 
 Grey, whose own father was an Englishman, reduced to 
 poverty, but with claims to high gentility, professed her- 
 self unable to understand why Paul should not live decently 
 on his means. Mr. Herbert declared that in America, in 
 any walk of life, idleness was indecent; and that he hoped 
 the young man would nominally at least select a career. 
 It was agreed on both sides, however, that there was no 
 need for haste; and that it was proper, in the first place, he 
 should see the world. The world, to Mrs. De Grey, was 
 little more than a name; but to Mr. Herbert, priest as he 
 was, it was a vivid reality. Yet he felt that the generous 
 and intelligent youth upon whose education he had lavished 
 all the treasures of his tenderness and sagacity, was not 
 unfitted, either by nature or culture, to measure his sinews 
 against its trials and temptations; and that he should love 
 him the better for coming home at twenty-five an accom- 
 plished gentleman and a good Catholic, sobered and sea- 
 soned by experience, sceptical in small matters, confident in 
 great, and richly replete with good stories. When he came 
 
272 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 of age, Paul received his walking-ticket, as they say, in 
 the shape of a letter of credit for a handsome sum on cer- 
 tain London bankers. But the young man pocketed the 
 letter, and remained at home, poring over books, lounging 
 in the garden, and scribbling heroic verses. At the end of 
 a year, he plucked up a little ambition, and took a turn 
 through the country, travelling much of the way on horse- 
 back. He came back an ardent American, and felt that 
 he might go abroad without danger. During his absence 
 in Europe he had written home innumerable long letters, 
 compositions so elaborate (in the taste of that day, recent 
 as it is, and so delightful) that, between their pride in his 
 epistolary talent and their longing to see his face, his 
 mother and his ex-tutor would have been at a loss to deter- 
 mine whether he gave them more satisfaction at home or 
 abroad. 
 
 With his departure the household was plunged in un- 
 broken repose. Mrs. De Grey neither went out nor enter- 
 tained company. An occasional morning call was the only 
 claim made upon her hospitality. Mr. Herbert, who was 
 a great scholar, spent all his hours in study; and his 
 patroness sat for the most part alone, arrayed with a per- 
 fection of neatness which there was no one to admire (un- 
 less it be her waiting-maid, to whom it remained a constant 
 matter of awe), reading a pious book or knitting under- 
 garments for the orthodox needy. At times, indeed, she 
 wrote long letters to her son, the contents of which Mr. 
 Herbert found it hard to divine. This was accounted a 
 dull life forty years ago; now, doubtless, it would be con- 
 sidered no life at all. It is no matter of wonder, there- 
 fore, that finally, one April morning, in her sixty-seventh 
 year, as I have said, Mrs. De Grey suddenly began to 
 suspect that she was lonely. Another long year, at least, 
 was to come and go before Paul's return. After meditating 
 for a while in silence, Mrs. De Grey resolved to take coun- 
 sel with Father Herbert. 
 
 This gentleman, an Englishman by birth, had been an 
 intimate friend of George De Grey, who had made his ac- 
 quaintance during a visit to Europe, before his marriage. 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 273 
 
 Mr. Herbert was a younger son of an excellent Catholic 
 family, and was at that time beginning, on small resources, 
 the practice of the law. De Grey met him in London, and 
 the two conceived a strong mutual sympathy. Herbert had 
 neither taste for his profession nor apparent ambition of 
 any sort. He was, moreover, in weak health; and his 
 friend found no difficulty in persuading him to accept the 
 place of travelling companion through France and Italy. 
 De Grey carried a very long purse, and was a most liberal 
 friend and patron; and the two young men accomplished 
 their progress as far as Venice in the best spirits and on 
 the best terms. But in Venice, for reasons best known to 
 themselves, they bitterly and irretrievably quarrelled. 
 Some persons said it was over a card-table, and some said 
 it was about a woman. At all events, in consequence, 
 De Grey returned to America, and Herbert repaired to 
 Rome. He obtained admission into a monastery, studied 
 theology, and finally was invested with priestly orders. In 
 America, in his thirty-third year, De Grey married the lady 
 whom I have described. A few weeks after his marriage 
 he wrote to Herbert, expressing a vehement desire to be 
 reconciled. Herbert felt that the letter was that of a most 
 unhappy man; he had already forgiven him; he pitied him, 
 and after a short delay succeeded in obtaining an ecclesi- 
 astical mission to the United States. He reached New York 
 and presented himself at his friend's house, which from 
 this moment became his home. Mrs. De Grey had re- 
 cently given birth to a son; her husband was confined to 
 his room by illness, reduced to a shadow of his former 
 self by repeated sensual excesses. He survived Herbert's 
 arrival but a couple of months; and after his death the 
 rumor went abroad that he had by his last will settled a 
 handsome income upon the priest, on condition that he 
 would continue to reside with his widow, and take the 
 entire charge of his boy's education. 
 
 This rumor was confirmed by the event. For twenty- 
 five years, at the time of which I write, Herbert had lived 
 under Mrs. De Grey's roof as her friend and companion 
 and counsellor, and as her son's tutor. Once reconciled 
 
274 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to his friend, he had gradually dropped his priestly char- 
 acter. He was of an essentially devout temperament, but 
 he craved neither parish nor pulpit. On the other hand, 
 he had become an indefatigable student. His late friend 
 had bequeathed to him a valuable library, which he grad- 
 ually enlarged. His passion for study, however, appeared 
 singularly disinterested, inasmuch as, for many years, his 
 little friend Paul was the sole witness and receptacle of 
 his learning. It is true that he composed a large portion 
 of a History of the Catholic Church in America, which, 
 although the manuscript exists, has never seen, and, I 
 suppose, is never destined to see, the light. It is in the 
 very best keeping, for it contains an immense array of 
 facts. The work is written, not from a sympathetic, but 
 from a strictly respectful point of view; but it has a fatal 
 defect, it lacks unction. 
 
 The same complaint might have been made of Father 
 Herbert's personal character. He was the soul of polite- 
 ness, but it was a cold and formal courtesy. When he 
 smiled, it was, as the French say, with the end of his 
 lips, and when he took your hand, with the end of his 
 fingers. He had had a charming face in his younger days, 
 and when gentlemen dressed their hair with powder, his 
 fine black eyes must must have produced the very best 
 effect. But he had lost his hair, and he wore on his naked 
 crown a little black silk cap. Round his neck he had a 
 black cravat of many folds, without any collar. He was 
 short and slight, with a stoop in his shoulders, and a 
 handsome pair of hands. 
 
 "If it were not for a sad sign to the contrary," said 
 Mrs. De Grey, in pursuance of her resolve to take counsel 
 of her friend, "I should believe I am growing younger." 
 
 "What is the sign to the contrary?" asked Herbert. 
 
 "I'm losing my eyes. I can't see to read. Suppose I 
 should become blind." 
 
 "And what makes you suspect that you are growing 
 young again?" 
 
 "I feel lonely. I lack company. I miss Paul." 
 
 "You will have Paul back in a year." 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 275 
 
 "Yes; but in the mean while I shall be miserable. I 
 wish I knew some nice person whom I might ask to 
 stay with me." 
 
 "Why don't you take a companion, some poor gentle- 
 woman in search of a home? She would read to you, and 
 talk to you." 
 
 "No; that would be dreadful. She would be sure to be 
 old and ugly. I should like someone to take Paul's 
 place, some one young and fresh like him. We're all so 
 terribly old, in the house. You're at least seventy; I'm 
 sixty-five" (Mrs. De Grey was pleased to say) ; "Deborah 
 is sixty, the cook and coachman are fifty-five apiece." 
 
 "You want a young girl then?" 
 
 "Yes, some nice, fresh young girl, who would laugh 
 once in a while, and make a little music, a little sound in 
 the house." 
 
 "Well," said Herbert, after reflecting a moment, "you 
 had better suit yourself before Paul comes home. You 
 have only a year." 
 
 "Dear me," said Mrs. De Grey; "I shouldn't feel myself 
 obliged to turn her out on Paul's account." 
 
 Father Herbert looked at his companion with a penetrat- 
 ing glance. "Nevertheless, my dear lady," he said, "you 
 know what I mean." 
 
 "O yes, I know what you mean, and you, Father Her- 
 bert, know what I think." 
 
 "Yes, madam, and, allow me to add, that I don't greatly 
 care. Why should I? I hope with all my heart that you'll 
 never find yourself compelled to think otherwise." 
 
 "It is certain," said Mrs. De Grey, "that Paul has had 
 time to play out his little tragedy a dozen times over." 
 
 "His father," rejoined Herbert, gravely, "was twenty- 
 six years old." 
 
 At these words Mrs. De Grey looked at the priest with 
 a slight frown and a flushed cheek. But he took no pains 
 to meet her eyes, and in a few moments she had recovered, 
 in silence, her habitual calmness. 
 
 Within a week after this conversation Mrs. De Grey ob- 
 served at church two persons who appeared to be strangers 
 
276 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 in the congregation: an elderly woman, meanly clad, and 
 evidently in ill health, but with a great refinement of 
 person and manner; and a young girl whom Mrs. De Grey 
 took for her daughter. On the following Sunday she again 
 found them at their devotions, and was forcibly struck by 
 a look of sadness and trouble in their faces and attitude. 
 On the third Sunday they were absent; but it happened 
 that during the walk, going to confession, she met the 
 young girl, pale, alone, and dressed in mourning, apparently 
 just leaving the confessional. Something in her gait and 
 aspect assured Mrs. De Grey that she was alone in the 
 world, friendless and helpless; and the good lady, who 
 at times was acutely sensible of her own isolation in society, 
 felt a strong and sympathetic prompting to speak to the 
 stranger, and ask the secret of her sorrow. She stopped 
 her before she left the church, and, addressing her with 
 the utmost kindness, succeeded so speedily in winning her 
 confidence that in half an hour she was in possession of the 
 young girl's entire history. She had just lost her mother, 
 and she found herself in the great city penniless, and all 
 but houseless. They were from the South; her father had 
 been an officer in the navy, and had perished at sea, two 
 years before. Her mother's health had failed, and they 
 had come to New York, ill-advisedly enough, to consult 
 an eminent physician. He had been very kind, he had 
 taken no fees, but his skill had been applied in vain. Their 
 money had melted away in other directions, for food and 
 lodging and clothing. There had been enough left to 
 give the poor lady a decent burial; but no means of sup- 
 port save her own exertions remained for the young girl. 
 She had no relatives to look to, but she professed herself 
 abundantly willing to work. "I look weak," she said, 
 "and pale, but I'm really strong. It's only that I'm tired, 
 and sad. I'm ready to do anything. But I don't know 
 where to look." She had lost her color and the roundness 
 and elasticity of youth; she was thin and ill-dressed; but 
 Mrs. De Grey saw that at her best she must be properly 
 a very pretty creature, and that she was evidently, by 
 rights, a charming girl. She looked at the elder lady with 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 277 
 
 lustrous, appealing blue eyes from under the hideous black 
 bonnet in which her masses of soft light hair were tucked 
 away. She assured her that she had received a very good 
 education, and that she played on the piano-forte. Mrs. 
 De Grey fancied her divested of her rusty weeds, and 
 dressed in a white frock and a blue ribbon, reading aloud 
 at an open window, or touching the keys of her old not 
 unmelodious spinnet; for if she took her (as she mentally 
 phrased it) Mrs. De Grey was resolved that she would not 
 be harassed with the sight of her black garments. It was 
 plain that, frightened and faint and nervous as she was, 
 the poor child would take any service unconditionally. 
 She kissed her then tenderly within the sacred precinct, and 
 led her away to her carriage, quite forgetting her business 
 with her confessor. On the following day Margaret Aldis 
 (such was the young girl's name) was transferred in the 
 same vehicle to Mrs. De Grey's own residence. 
 
 This edifice was demolished some years ago, and the 
 place where it stood forms at the present moment the very 
 center of a turbulent thoroughfare. But at the period 
 of which I speak it stood on the outskirts of the town, 
 with as vast a prospect of open country in one direction 
 as in the other of close-built streets. It was an excellent 
 old mansion, moreover, in the best taste of the time, with 
 large square rooms and broad halls and deep windows, 
 and, above all, a delightful great garden, hedged off from 
 the road by walls of dense verdure. Here, steeped in 
 repose and physical comfort, rescued from the turbid stream 
 of common life, and placed apart in the glow of tempered 
 sunshine, valued, esteemed, caressed, and yet feeling that 
 she was not a mere passive object of charity, but that she 
 was doing her simple utmost to requite her protectress, 
 poor Miss Aldis bloomed and flowered afresh. With rest 
 and luxury and leisure, her natural gayety and beauty 
 came back to her. Her beauty was not dazzling, indeed, 
 nor her gayety obtrusive; but, united, they were the flower 
 of girlish grace. She still retained a certain tenuity and 
 fragility of aspect, a lightness of tread, a softness of voice, 
 a faintness of coloring, which suggested an intimate ac- 
 
278 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 quaintance with suffering. But there seemed to burn, 
 nevertheless, in her deep blue eyes the light of an almost 
 passionate vitality; and there sat on her firm, pale lips the 
 utterance of a determined, devoted will. It seemed at 
 times as if she gave herself up with a sensuous, reckless, 
 half-thankless freedom to the mere consciousness of security. 
 It was evident that she had an innate love of luxury. 
 She would sometimes sit, motionless, for hours, with her 
 head thrown back, and her eyes slowly wandering, in a 
 silent ecstasy of content. At these times Father Herbert, 
 who had observed her attentively from the moment of her 
 arrival (for, scholar and recluse as he was, he had not lost 
 the faculty of appreciating feminine grace), at these times 
 the old priest would watch her covertly and marvel at the 
 fantastic, soulless creature whom Mrs. De Grey had taken 
 to her side. One evening, after a prolonged stupor of this 
 sort, hi which the young girl had neither moved nor spoken, 
 sitting like one whose soul had detached itself and was 
 wandering through space, she rose, on Mrs. De Grey's 
 at last giving her an order, and moved forward as if in 
 compliance; and then, suddenly rushing toward the old 
 woman, she fell on her knees, and buried her head in her 
 lap and burst into a paroxysm of sobs. Herbert, who had 
 been standing by, went and laid one hand on her head, 
 and with the other made over it the sign of the cross, in 
 the manner of a benediction, a consecration of the pas- 
 sionate gratitude which had finally broken out into utter- 
 ance. From this moment he loved her. 
 
 Margaret read aloud to Mrs. De Grey, and on Sunday 
 evenings sang in a clear, sweet voice the chants of their 
 Church, and occupied herself constantly with fine needle- 
 work, in which she possessed great skill. They spent the 
 long summer mornings together, in reading and work and 
 talk. Margaret told her companion the simple, sad details 
 of the history of which she had already given her the out- 
 line; and Mrs. De Grey, who found it natural to look upon 
 them as a kind of practical romance organized for her 
 entertainment, made her repeat them over a dozen times. 
 Mrs. De Grey, too, honored the young girl with a recital 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 279 
 
 of her own biography, which, in its vast vacuity, produced 
 upon Margaret's mind a vague impression of grandeur. 
 The vacuity, indeed, was relieved by the figure of Paul, 
 whom Mrs. De Grey never grew weary of describing, and 
 of whom, finally, Margaret grew very fond of thinking. 
 She listened most attentively to Mrs. De Grey's eulogies 
 of her son, and thought it a great pity he was not iat 
 home. And then she began to long for his return, and 
 then, suddenly, she began to fear it. Perhaps he would 
 dislike her being in the house, and turn her out of doors. 
 It was evident that his mother was not prepared to con- 
 tradict him. Perhaps worse still he would marry some 
 foreign woman, and bring her home, and she would turn 
 wickedly jealous of Margaret (in the manner of foreign 
 women). De Grey, roaming through Europe, took for 
 granted, piously enough, that he was never absent from his 
 good mother's thoughts; but he remained superbly un- 
 conscious of the dignity which he had usurped in the 
 meditations of her humble companion. Truly, we know 
 where our lives begin, but who shall say where they end? 
 Here was a careless young gentleman whose existence en- 
 joyed a perpetual echo in the soul of a poor girl utterly 
 unknown to him. Mrs. De Grey had two portraits of her 
 son, which, of course, she lost no time in exhibiting to 
 Margaret, one taken in his boyhood, with brilliant red 
 hair and cheeks, the lad's body encased in a bright blue 
 jacket, and his neck encircled in a frill, open very low; 
 the other, executed just before his departure, a handsome 
 young man in a buff waistcoat, clean shaven, with an 
 animated countenance, dark, close-curling auburn hair, and 
 very fine eyes. The former of these designs Margaret 
 thought a very pretty child; but to the other the poor girl 
 straightway lost her heart, the more easily that Mrs. De 
 Grey assured her, that, although the picture was handsome 
 enough, it conveyed but the faintest idea of her boy's 
 adorable flesh and blood. In a couple of months arrived 
 a long-expected letter from Paul, and with it another por- 
 trait, a miniature, painted in Paris by a famous artist. 
 Here Paul appeared a far more elegant figure than in the 
 
2 8o TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 work of the American painter. In what the change con- 
 sisted it was hard to tell; but his mother declared that it 
 was easy to see that he had spent two years in the best 
 company in Europe. 
 
 "Oh, the best company!" said Father Herbert, who knew 
 the force of this term. And, smiling a moment with in- 
 offensive scorn, he relapsed into his wonted gravity. 
 
 "I think he looks very sad," said Margaret, timidly. 
 
 "Fiddlesticks!" cried Herbert, impatiently. "He looks 
 like a coxcomb. Of course, it's the Frenchman's fault," 
 he added, more gently. "Why on earth does he send us 
 his picture at all? It's a great piece of impertinence. Does 
 he think we've forgotten him? When I want to remember 
 my boy, I have something better to look to than the flaunt- 
 ing bit of ivory." 
 
 At these words the two ladies went off, carrying the por- 
 trait with them, to read Paul's letter in private. It was 
 in eight pages, and Margaret read it aloud. Then, when 
 she had finished, she read it again; and in the evening 
 she read it once more. The next day, Mrs. De Grey, 
 taking the young girl quite into her confidence, brought 
 out a large packet containing his earlier letters, and Mar- 
 garet spent the whole morning in reading them over aloud. 
 That evening she took a stroll in the garden alone, the 
 garden in which he had played as a boy, and lounged and 
 dreamed as a young man. She found his name his beauti- 
 ful name rudely cut on a wooden bench. Introduced, as 
 it seemed to her that she had been by his letters, into the 
 precincts of his personality, the mystery of his being, the 
 magic circle of his feelings and opinions and fancies; wan- 
 dering by his side, unseen, over Europe, and treading, un- 
 heard, the sounding pavements of famous churches and 
 palaces, she felt that she tasted for the first time of the 
 substance and sweetness of life. Margaret walked about 
 for an hour in the starlight, among the dusky, perfumed 
 alleys. Mrs. De Grey, feeling unwell, had gone to her 
 room. The young girl heard the far-off hum of the city 
 slowly decrease and expire, and then, when the stillness 
 of the night was unbroken, she came back into the parlor 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 28) 
 
 across the long window, and lit one of the great silver 
 candlesticks that decorated the ends of the mantel. She 
 carried it to the wall where Mrs. De Grey had suspended 
 her son's miniature, having first inserted it in an immense 
 gold frame, from which she had expelled a less valued 
 picture. Margaret felt that she must see the portrait 
 before she went to bed. There was a certain charm and 
 ravishment in beholding it privately by candlelight. The 
 wind had risen, a warm west wind, and the long white 
 curtains of the open windows swayed and bulged in the 
 gloom in a spectral fashion. Margaret guarded the flame 
 of the candle with her hand, and gazed at the polished 
 surface of the portrait, warm in the light, beneath its 
 glittering plate of glass. What an immensity of life and 
 passion was concentrated into those few square inches of 
 artificial color! The young man's eyes seemed to gaze at 
 her with a look of profound recognition. They held her 
 fascinated; she lingered on the spot, unable to move. Sud- 
 denly the clock on the chimney-piece rang out a single clear 
 stroke. Margaret started and turned about, at the thought 
 that it was already half past ten. She raised her candle 
 aloft to look at the dial-plate; and perceived three things: 
 that it was one o'clock in the morning, that her candle 
 was half burnt out, and that some one was watching her 
 from the other side of the room. Setting down her light, 
 she recognized Father Herbert. 
 
 "Well, Miss Aldis," he said, coming into the light, "what 
 do you think of it?" 
 
 Margaret was startled and confused, but not abashed. 
 "How long have I been here?" she asked, simply. 
 
 "I have no idea. I myself have been here half an 
 hour." 
 
 "It was very kind of you not to disturb me," said Mar- 
 garet, less simply. 
 
 "It was a very pretty picture," said Herbert. 
 
 "Oh, it's beautiful!" cried the young girl, casting another 
 glance at the portrait over her shoulder. 
 
 The old man smiled sadly, and turned away, and then, 
 
282 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 coming back, "How do you like our young man, Miss 
 Aldis?" he asked, apparently with a painful effort. 
 
 "I think he's very handsome," said Margaret, frankly. 
 
 "He's not so handsome as that," said Herbert. 
 
 "His mother says he's handsomer." 
 
 "A mother's testimony in such cases is worth very little. 
 Paul is well enough, but he's no miracle." 
 
 "I think he looks sad," said Margaret. "His mother 
 says he's very gay." 
 
 "He may have changed vastly within two years. Do 
 you think," the old man added, after a pause, "that he looks 
 like a man in love?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Margaret, in a low voice. "I never 
 saw one." 
 
 "Never?" said the priest, with an earnestness which sur- 
 prised the young girl. 
 
 She blushed a little. "Never, Father Herbert." 
 
 The priest's dark eyes were fixed on her with a strange 
 intensity of expression. "I hope, my child, you never 
 may," he said, solemnly. 
 
 The tone of his voice was not unkind, but it seemed to 
 Margaret as if there were something cruel and chilling in 
 the wish. "Why not I as well as another?" she asked. 
 
 The old man shrugged his shoulders. "O, it's a long 
 story," he said. 
 
 The summer passed away and flushed into autumn, and 
 the autumn slowly faded, and finally expired in the cold 
 embrace of December. Mrs. De Grey had written to her 
 son of her having taken Margaret into her service. At 
 this time came a letter in which the young man was pleased 
 to express his satisfaction at this measure. "Present my 
 compliments to Miss Aldis," he wrote, "and assure her of 
 my gratitude for the comfort she has given my dear mother, 
 of which, indeed, I hope before very long to inform her 
 in person." In writing these good-natured words Paul De 
 Grey little suspected the infinite reverberation they were to 
 have in poor Margaret's heart. A month later arrived a 
 letter, which was handed to Mrs. De Grey at breakfast. 
 "You will have received my letter of December 3d," it 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 283 
 
 began (a letter which had miscarried and failed to arrive), 
 "and will have formed your respective opinions of its con- 
 tents." As Mrs. De Grey read these words, Father Her- 
 bert looked at Margaret; she had turned pale. "Favorable 
 or not," the letter continued, "I am sorry to be obliged to 
 bid you undo them again. But my engagement to Miss L. 
 is broken off. It had become impossible. As I made no 
 attempt to give you a history of it, or to set forth my 
 motives, so I shall not now attempt to go into the logic 
 of the rupture. But it's broken clean off, I assure you. 
 Amen." And the letter passed to other matters, leaving 
 our friends sadly perplexed. They awaited the arrival of 
 the missing letter; but all in vain; it never came. Mrs. 
 De Grey immediately wrote to her son, urgently requesting 
 an explanation of the events to which he had referred. His 
 next letter, however, contained none of the desired informa- 
 tion. Mrs. De Grey repeated her request. Whereupon 
 Paul wrote that he would tell her the story when he had 
 reached home. He hated to talk about it. "Don't be 
 uneasy, dear mother," he added; "Heaven has insured me 
 against a relapse. Miss L. died three weeks ago at Naples." 
 As Mrs. De Grey read these words, she laid down the letter 
 and looked at Father Herbert, who had been called to hear 
 it. His pale face turned ghastly white, and he returned 
 the old woman's gaze with compressed lips and a stony 
 immobility in his eyes. Then, suddenly, a fierce, inarticulate 
 cry broke from his throat, and, doubling up his fist, he 
 brought it down with a terrible blow on the table. Mar- 
 garet sat watching him, amazed. He rose to his feet, seized 
 her in his arms, and pressed her on his neck. 
 
 "My child! my child!" he cried, in a broken voice, "I 
 have always loved you! I have been harsh and cold and 
 crabbed. I was fearful. The thunder has fallen! Forgive 
 me, child. I'm myself again." Margaret, frightened, dis- 
 engaged herself, but he kept her hand. "Poor boy!" he 
 cried, with a tremulous sigh. 
 
 Mrs. De Grey sat smelling her vinaigrette, but not visibly 
 discomposed. "Poor boy!" she repeated, but without a 
 
284 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 sigh, which gave the words an ironical sound. "He had 
 ceased to care for her," she said. 
 
 "Ah, madam!" cried the priest, "don't blaspheme. Go 
 down on your knees, and thank God that we have been 
 spared that hideous sight!" 
 
 Mystified and horrified, Margaret drew her hand from 
 his grasp, and looked with wondering eyes at Mrs. De 
 Grey. She smiled faintly, touched her forefinger to her 
 forehead, tapped it, raised her eyebrows, and shook her 
 head. 
 
 From counting the months that were to elapse before 
 Paul's return, our friends came to counting the weeks, and 
 then the days. The month of May arrived; Paul had 
 sailed from England. At this time Mrs. De Grey opened 
 her son's room, and caused it to be prepared for occupa- 
 tion. The contents were just as he had left them; she 
 bade Margaret come in and see it. Margaret looked at 
 her face in his mirror, and sat down a moment on his 
 sofa, and examined the books on his shelves. They seemed 
 a prodigious array ; they were in several languages, and gave 
 a deep impression of their owner's attainments. Over the 
 chimney hung a small sketch in pencil, which Margaret 
 made haste to inspect, a likeness of a young girl, skil- 
 fully enough drawn. The original had apparently been very 
 handsome, in the dark style; and in the corner of the 
 sketch was written the artist's name, De Grey. Margaret 
 looked at the portrait in silence, with quickened heartbeats. 
 
 "Is this Mr. Paul's?" she asked at last of her com- 
 panion. 
 
 "It belongs to Paul," said Mrs. De Grey. "He used to 
 be very fond of it, and insisted upon hanging it there. His 
 father sketched it before our marriage." 
 
 Margaret drew a breath of relief. "And who is the 
 lady?" she asked. 
 
 "I hardly know. Some foreign person, I think, that Mr. 
 De Grey had been struck with. There's something about 
 her in the other corner." 
 
 In effect, Margaret detected on the opposite side of the 
 sketch, written in minute character, the word "obiit, 1786." 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 285 
 
 "You don't know Latin, I take it, my dear," said Mrs. 
 De Grey, as Margaret read the inscription. "It means 
 that she died thirty-four good years ago." 
 
 "Poor girl!" said Margaret, softly. As they were leaving 
 the room, she lingered on the threshold and looked about 
 her, wishing that she might leave some little memento 
 of her visit. "If we knew just when he would arrive," she 
 said, "I would put some flowers on his table. But they 
 might fade." 
 
 As Mrs. De Grey assured her that the moment of his 
 arrival was quite uncertain, she left her fancied nosegay 
 uncut, and spent the rest of the day in a delightful tremor 
 of anticipation, ready to see the dazzling figure of a young 
 man, equipped with strange foreign splendor, start up 
 before her and look at her in cold surprise, and hurry past 
 her in search of his mother. At every sound of footsteps 
 or of an opening door she laid down her work, and listened 
 curiously. In the evening, as if by a common instinct of 
 expectancy, Father Herbert met Mrs. De Grey in the front 
 drawing-room, an apartment devoted exclusively to those 
 festivities which never occurred in the annals of this tranquil 
 household. 
 
 "A year ago to-day, madam," said Margaret, as they all 
 sat silent among the gathering shadows, "I came into your 
 house. To-day ends a very happy year." 
 
 "Let us hope," said Father Herbert, sententiously, "that 
 to-morrow will begin another." 
 
 "Ah, my dear lady!" cried Margaret, with emotion; "my 
 good father, my only friends, what harm can come to 
 me with you? It was you who rescued me from harm." 
 Her heart was swollen with gratitude, and her eyes with 
 rising tears. She gave a long shudder at the thought of 
 the life that might have been her fate. But, feeling a 
 natural indisposition to obtrude her peculiar sensations up- 
 on the attention of persons so devoutly absorbed in the 
 thought of a coming joy, she left her place, and wan- 
 dered away into the garden. Before many minutes, a little 
 gate opened in the paling, not six yards from where she 
 stood. A man came in, whom, in the dim light, she knew 
 
286 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 to be Paul De Grey. Approaching her rapidly, he made a 
 movement as if to greet her, but stopped suddenly, and 
 removed his hat. 
 
 "Ah, you're Miss the young lady," he said. 
 
 He had forgotten her name. This was something other, 
 something less felicitous, than the cold surprise of the 
 figure in Margaret's vision. Nevertheless, she answered 
 him, audibly enough: "They are in the drawing-room; 
 they expect you." 
 
 He bounded along the path, and entered the house. She 
 followed him slowly to the window, and stood without, 
 listening. The silence of the young man's welcome told 
 of its warmth. 
 
 Paul De Grey had made good use of his sojourn in 
 Europe; he had lost none of his old merits, and had gained 
 a number of new ones. He was by nature and culture an 
 intelligent, amiable, accomplished fellow. It was his for- 
 tune to possess a peculiar, indefinable charm of person and 
 manner. He was tall and slight of structure, but compact, 
 firm, and active, with a clear, fair complexion, an open, 
 prominent brow, crisp auburn hair, and eyes a glance, a 
 smile radiant with youth and intellect. His address was 
 frank, manly, and direct; and yet it seemed to Margaret 
 that his bearing was marked by a certain dignity and 
 elegance at times even verging upon formalism which 
 distinguished it from that of other men. It was not, how- 
 ever, that she detected in his character any signs of that 
 strange principle of melancholy which had exerted so power- 
 ful an action upon the other members of the household (and, 
 from what she was able to gather, on his father). She 
 fancied, on the contrary, that she had never known less 
 levity associated with a more exquisite mirth. If Margaret 
 had been of a more analytical turn of mind, she would have 
 told herself that Paul De Grey's nature was eminently 
 aristocratic. But the young girl contented herself with 
 understanding it less, and secretly loving it more; and when 
 she was in want of an epithet, she chose a simpler term. 
 Paul was like a ray of splendid sunshine in the dull, color- 
 less lives of the two women; he filled the house with light 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 287 
 
 and heat and joy. He moved, to Margaret's fancy, in a 
 circle of almost supernatural glory. His words, as they fell 
 from his lips, seemed diamonds and pearls; and, in truth, 
 his conversation, for a month after his return, was in the 
 last degree delightful. Mrs. De Grey's house was par 
 excellence the abode of leisure, a castle of indolence; and 
 Paul in talking, and his companions in listening, were con- 
 scious of no jealous stress of sordid duties. The summer 
 days were long, and Paul's daily fund of loquacity was in- 
 exhaustible. A week after his arrival, after breakfast, 
 Father Herbert contracted the habit of carrying him off 
 to his study, and Margaret, passing the half-open door, 
 would hear the changeful music of his voice. She begrudged 
 the old man, at these times, the exclusive enjoyment of so 
 much eloquence. She felt that with his tutor, Paul's talk 
 was far wiser and richer than it was possible it should be 
 with two simple-minded women; and the young girl had a 
 pious longing to hear him, to see him, at his best. A bril- 
 liant best it was to Father Herbert's mind; for Paul had 
 surpassed his fondest hopes. He had amassed such a store 
 of knowledge; he had learned all the good that the old man 
 had enjoined upon him; and, although he had not wholly 
 ignored the evil against which the priest had warned him, 
 he judged it so wisely and wittily! Women and priests, 
 as a general thing, like a man none the less for not being 
 utterly innocent. Father Herbert took an unutterable satis- 
 faction in the happy development of Paul's character. He 
 was more than the son of his loins: he was the child of 
 his intellect, his patience, and devotion. 
 
 The afternoons and evenings Paul was free to devote 
 to his mother, who, out of her own room, never dispensed 
 for an hour with Margaret's attendance. This, thanks to 
 the young girl's delicate tact and sympathy, had now be- 
 come an absolute necessity. Margaret sat by with her 
 work, while Paul talked, and marvelled at his inexhaustible 
 stock of gossip and anecdote and forcible, vivid description. 
 He made cities and churches and galleries and playhouses 
 swarm and shine before her enchanted senses, and repro- 
 duced the people he had met and the scenery through which 
 
288 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 he had travelled, until the young girl's head turned at the 
 rapid succession of images and pictures. And then, at 
 times, he would seem to grow weary, and would sink into 
 silence; and Margaret, looking up askance from her work, 
 would see his eyes absently fixed, and a faint smile on his 
 face, or else a cold gravity, and she would wonder what far- 
 off memory had called back his thoughts to that unknown 
 European world. Sometimes, less frequently, when she 
 raised her eyes, she found him watching her own figure, her 
 bent head, and the busy movement of her hands. But (as 
 yet, at least) he never turned away his glance in con- 
 fusion; he let his eyes rest, and justified his scrutiny by 
 some simple and natural remark. 
 
 But as the weeks passed by, and the summer grew to its 
 fulness, Mrs. De Grey contracted the habit of going after 
 dinner to her own room, where, we may respectfully con- 
 jecture, she passed the afternoon in dishabille and slumber. 
 But De Grey and Miss Aldis tacitly agreed together that, 
 in the prime and springtime of life, it was stupid folly to 
 waste in any such fashion the longest and brightest hours 
 of the year; and so they, on their side, contracted the habit 
 of sitting in the darkened drawing-room, and gossiping 
 away the time until within an hour of tea. Sometimes, for a 
 change, they went across the garden into a sort of summer- 
 house, which occupied a central point in the enclosure, and 
 stood with its face averted from the mansion, and looking to 
 the north, and with its sides covered with dense, clustering 
 vines. Within, against the wall, was a deep garden bench, 
 and in the middle a table, upon which Margaret placed her 
 work-basket, and the young man the book, which, under the 
 pretence of meaning to read, he usually carried in his 
 hand. Within was coolness and deep shade and silence, 
 and without the broad glare of the immense summer sky. 
 When I say there was silence, I mean that there was nothing 
 to interrupt the conversation of these happy idlers. Their 
 talk speedily assumed that desultory, volatile character, 
 which is the sign of great intimacy. Margaret found oc- 
 casion to ask Paul a great many questions which she had 
 not felt at liberty to ask in the presence of his mother, 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 289 
 
 and to demand additional light upon a variety of little 
 points which Mrs. De Grey had been content to leave in 
 obscurity. Paul was perfectly communicative. If Miss 
 Aldis cared to hear, he was assuredly glad to talk. But 
 suddenly it struck him that her attitude of mind was a 
 singular provocation to egotism, and that for six weeks, in 
 fact, he had done nothing but talk about himself, his 
 own adventures, sensations, and opinions. 
 
 "I declare, Miss Aldis," he cried, "you're making me 
 a monstrous egotist. That's all you women are good for. 
 I shall not say another word about Mr. Paul De Grey. 
 Now it's your turn." 
 
 "To talk about Mr. Paul De Grey?" asked Margaret, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "No, about Miss Margaret Aldis; which, by the way, 
 is a very pretty name." 
 
 "By the way, indeed!" said Margaret. "By the way 
 for you, perhaps. But for me, my pretty name is all I 
 have." 
 
 "If you mean, Miss Aldis," cried Paul, "that your 
 beauty is all in your name " 
 
 "I'm sadly mistaken. Well, then, I don't. The rest is 
 in my imagination." 
 
 "Very likely. It's certainly not in mine." 
 
 Margaret was, in fact, at this time, extremely pretty; 
 a little pale with the heat, but rounded and developed by 
 rest and prosperity, and animated half inspired, I may 
 call it with tender gratitude. Looking at her as he said 
 these words, De Grey was forcibly struck with the inter- 
 esting character of her face. Yes, most assuredly, her 
 beauty was a potent reality. The charm of her face was 
 forever refreshed and quickened by the deep loveliness 
 of her soul. 
 
 "I mean literally, Miss Aldis," said the young man, 
 "that I wish you to talk about yourself. I want to hear 
 your adventures. I demand it, I need it." 
 
 "My adventures?" said Margaret. "I have never had 
 any." 
 
 "Good!" cried Paul; "that in itself is an adventure." 
 
290 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 In this way it was that Margaret came to relate to her 
 companion the short story of her young life. The story was 
 not all told, however, short as it was, in a single afternoon ; 
 that is, a whole week after she began, the young girl found 
 herself setting Paul right with regard to a matter of which 
 he had received a false impression. 
 
 "Nay, he is married," said Margaret; "I told you so." 
 
 "Oh, he is married?" said Paul. 
 
 "Yes; his wife's an immense fat woman." 
 
 "Oh, his wife's an immense fat woman?" 
 
 "Yes; and he thinks all the world of her." 
 
 "Oh, he thinks all the world of her!" 
 
 It was natural that, in this manner, with a running com- 
 mentary supplied by Paul, the narrative should proceed 
 slowly. But, in addition to the observations here quoted, 
 the young man maintained another commentary, less aud- 
 ible and more profound. As he listened to this frank and 
 fair-haired maiden, and reflected that in the wide world 
 she might turn in confidence and sympathy to other minds 
 than his, as he found her resting her candid thoughts 
 and memories on his judgment, as she might lay her white 
 hand on his arm, it seemed to him that the pure inten- 
 tions with which she believed his soul to be peopled took 
 in her glance a graver and higher cast. All the gorgeous 
 color faded out of his recent European reminiscences and 
 regrets, and he was sensible only of Margaret's presence, 
 and of the tender rosy radiance in which she sat and moved, 
 as in a sort of earthly halo. Could it be, he asked himself, 
 that while he was roaming about Europe, in a vague, rest- 
 less search for his future, his end, his aim, these things 
 were quietly awaiting him at his own deserted hearth-stone, 
 gathered together in the immaculate person of the sweetest 
 and fairest of women? Finally, one day, this view of the 
 case struck him so forcibly, that he cried out in an ecstasy 
 of belief and joy. 
 
 "Margaret," he said, "my mother found you in church, 
 and there, before the altar, she kissed you and took you 
 into her arms. I have often thought of that scene. It 
 makes it no common adoption." 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 291 
 
 "I'm sure I have often thought of it," said Margaret. 
 
 "It makes it sacred and everlasting," said Paul. "On 
 that blessed day you came to us for ever and ever." 
 
 Margaret looked at him with a face tremulous between 
 smiles and tears. "For as long as you will keep me," she 
 said. "Ah, Paul!" For in an instant the young man had 
 expressed all his longing and his passion. 
 
 With the greatest affection and esteem for his mother, 
 Paul had always found it natural to give precedence to 
 Father Herbert in matters of appeal and confidence. The 
 old man possessed a delicacy of intellectual tact which 
 made his sympathy and his counsel alike delightful. Some 
 days after the conversation upon a few of the salient points 
 of which I have lightly touched, Paul and Margaret re- 
 newed their mutual vows in the summer-house. They now 
 possessed that deep faith in the sincerity of their own feel- 
 ings, and that undoubting delight in each other's reiterated 
 protests, which left them nothing to do but to take their 
 elders into their confidence. They came through the gar- 
 den together, and on reaching the threshold Margaret found 
 that she had left her scissors in the garden hut; whereupon 
 Paul went back in search of them. The young girl came 
 into the house, reached the foot of the staircase, and waited 
 for her lover. At this moment Father Herbert appeared 
 in the open doorway of his study, and looked at Margaret 
 with a melancholy smile. He stood, passing one hand slowly 
 over another, and gazing at her with kindly, darksome 
 looks. 
 
 "It seems to me, Mistress Margaret," he said, "that you 
 keep all this a marvellous secret from your poor old Doc- 
 tor Herbert." 
 
 In the presence of this gentle and venerable scholar, Mar- 
 garet felt that she had no need of vulgar blushing and sim- 
 pering and negation. "Dear Father Herbert," she said, 
 with heavenly simpleness, "I have just been begging Paul 
 to tell you." 
 
 "Ah, my daughter," and the old man but half stifled 
 a sigh, "it's all a strange and terrible mystery." 
 
292 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 Paul came in and crossed the hall with the light step of 
 a lover. 
 
 "Paul," said Margaret, "Father Herbert knows." 
 
 "Father Herbert knows!" repeated the priest, "Father 
 Herbert knows everything. You're very innocent for 
 lovers." 
 
 "You're very wise, sir, for a priest," said Paul, blushing. 
 
 "I knew it a week ago," said the old man, gravely. 
 
 "Well, sir," said Paul, "we love you none the less for 
 loving each other so much more. I hope you'll not love 
 us the less." 
 
 "Father Herbert thinks it's 'terrible,'" said Margaret, 
 smiling. 
 
 "O Lord!" cried Herbert, raising his hand to his head as 
 if in pain. He turned about, and went into his room. 
 
 Paul drew Margaret's hand through his arm and followed 
 the priest. "You suffer, sir," he said, "at the thought of 
 losing us, of our leaving you. That certainly needn't 
 trouble you. Where should we go? As long as you live, 
 as long as my mother lives, we shall all make but a single 
 household." 
 
 The old man appeared to have recovered his composure. 
 "Ah!" he said; "be happy, no matter where, and I shall 
 be happy. You're very young." 
 
 "Not so young," said Paul, laughing, but with a natural 
 disinclination to be placed in too boyish a light. "I'm six- 
 and-twenty. J'ai vecu, I've lived." 
 
 "He's been through everything," said Margaret, leaning 
 on his arm. 
 
 "Not quite everything." And Paul, bending his eyes, 
 with a sober smile, met her upward glance. 
 
 "Oh, he's modest," murmured Father Herbert. 
 
 "Paul's been all but married already," said Margaret. 
 
 The young man made a gesture of impatience. Herbert 
 stood with his eyes fixed on his face. 
 
 "Why do you speak of that poor girl?" said Paul. What- 
 ever satisfaction he may have given Margaret on the sub- 
 ject of his projected marriage in Europe, he had since his 
 return declined, on the plea that it was extremely painful, 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 293 
 
 to discuss the matter either with his mother or with his 
 old tutor. 
 
 "Miss Aldis is perhaps jealous," said Herbert, cunningly. 
 
 "O Father Herbert!" cried Margaret. 
 
 "There is little enough to be jealous of," said Paul. 
 
 "There's a fine young man!" cried Herbert. "One would 
 think he had never cared for her." 
 
 "It's perfectly true." 
 
 "Oh!" said Herbert, in a tone of deep reproach, laying 
 his hand on the young man's arm. "Don't say that." 
 
 "Nay, sir, I shall say it. I never said anything less to 
 her. She enchanted me, she entangled me, but, before 
 Heaven, I never loved her!" 
 
 "Oh, God help you!" cried the priest. He sat down, 
 and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 Margaret turned deadly pale, and recalled the scene 
 which had occurred on the receipt of Paul's letter, announc- 
 ing the rupture of his engagement. "Father Herbert," she 
 cried, "what horrible, hideous mystery do you keep locked 
 up in your bosom? If it concerns me, if it concerns Paul, 
 I demand of you to tell us." 
 
 Moved apparently by the young girl's tone of agony to a 
 sense of the needfulness of self-control, Herbert uncovered 
 his face, and directed to Margaret a rapid glance of en- 
 treaty. She perceived that it meant that, at any cost, she 
 should be silent. Then, with a sublime attempt at dis- 
 simulation, he put out his hands, and laid one on each of his 
 companions' shoulders. "Excuse me, Paul," he said, "I'm 
 a foolish old man. Old scholars are a sentimental, a super- 
 stitious race. We believe still that all women are angels, 
 and that all men " 
 
 "That all men are fools," said Paul, smiling. 
 
 "Exactly. Whereas, you see," whispered Father Her- 
 bert, "there are no fools but ourselves." 
 
 Margaret listened to this fantastic bit of dialogue with 
 a beating heart, fully determined not to content herself 
 with any such flimsy explanation of the old man's tragical 
 allusions. Meanwhile, Herbert urgently besought Paul to 
 
294 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 defer for a few days making known his engagement to his 
 mother. 
 
 The next day but one was Sunday, the last in August. 
 The heat for a week had been oppressive, and the air was 
 now sullen and brooding, as if with an approaching storm. 
 As she left the breakfast-table, Margaret felt her arm 
 touched by Father Herbert. 
 
 "Don't go to church," he said, in a low voice. "Make 
 a pretext, and stay at home." 
 
 "A pretext? " 
 
 "Say you've letters to write." 
 
 "Letters?" and Margaret smiled half bitterly. "To whom 
 should I write letters?" 
 
 "Dear me, then say you're ill. I give you absolution. 
 When they're gone, come to me." 
 
 At church-time, accordingly, Margaret feigned a slight 
 indisposition; and Mrs. De Grey, taking her son's arm, 
 mounted into her ancient deep-seated coach, and rolled 
 away from the door. Margaret immediately betook herself 
 to Father Herbert's apartment. She saw in the old man's 
 face the portent of some dreadful avowal. His whole fig- 
 ure betrayed the weight of an inexorable necessity. 
 
 "My daughter," said the priest, "you are a brave, pious 
 
 girl- -" 
 
 "Ah!" cried Margaret, "it's something horrible, or you 
 wouldn't say that. Tell me at once!" 
 
 "You need all your courage." 
 
 "Doesn't he love me? Ah, in Heaven's name, speak!" 
 
 "If he didn't love you with a damning passion, I should 
 have nothing to say." 
 
 "Oh, then, say what you please!" said Margaret. 
 
 "Well then, you must leave this house." 
 
 "Why? when? where must I go?" 
 
 "This moment, if possible. You must go anywhere, 
 the further the better, the further from him. Listen, my 
 child," said the old man, his bosom wrung by the stunned, 
 bewildered look of Margaret's face; "it's useless to protest, 
 to weep, to resist. It's the. voice of fate!" 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 295 
 
 "And pray, sir," said Margaret, "of what do you accuse 
 me?" 
 
 "I accuse no one. I don't even accuse Heaven." 
 
 "But there's a reason, there's a motive " 
 
 Herbert laid his hand on his lips, pointed to a seat, and, 
 turning to an ancient chest on the table, unlocked it, and 
 drew from it a small volume, bound in vellum, apparently 
 an old illuminated missal. "There's nothing for it," he 
 said, "but to tell you the whole story." 
 
 He sat down before the young girl, who held herself rigid 
 and expectant. The room grew dark with the gathering 
 storm-clouds, and the distant thunder muttered. 
 
 "Let me read you ten words," said the priest, opening 
 at a fly-leaf of the volume, on which a memorandum or 
 register had been inscribed in a great variety of hands, all 
 minute and some barely legible. "God be with you!" and 
 the old man crossed himself. Involuntarily, Margaret did 
 the same. " 'George De Grey, 7 " he read, " 'met and loved, 
 September, 1786, Antonietta Gambini, of Milan. She died 
 October 9th, same year. John De Grey married, April 4th, 
 1749, Henrietta Spencer. She died May 7th. George De 
 Grey engaged himself October, 1710, to Mary Fortescue. 
 She died October 3ist. Paul De Grey, aged nineteen, be- 
 trothed June, 1672, at Bristol, England, to Lucretia Lefevre, 
 aged thirty-one, of that place. She died July 27th. John 
 De Grey, affianced January loth, 1649, to Blanche Fer- 
 rars, of Castle Ferrars, Cumberland. She died, by her lover's 
 hand, January i2th. Stephen De Grey offered his hand to 
 Isabel Stirling, October, 1619. She died within the month. 
 Paul De Grey exchanged pledges with Magdalen Scrope, 
 August, 1586. She died in childbirth, September, i587.'' : 
 Father Herbert paused. "Is it enough?" he asked, looking 
 up with glowing eyes. "There are two pages more. The 
 De Greys are an ancient line; they keep their records." 
 
 Margaret had listened with a look of deepening, fierce, 
 passionate horror, a look more of anger and of wounded 
 pride than of terror. She sprang towards the priest with 
 the lightness of a young cat, and dashed the hideous record 
 from his hand. 
 
2Q6 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "What abominable nonsense is this!" she cried. "What 
 does it mean? I barely heard it; I despise it; I laugh at it! " 
 
 The old man seized her arm with a firm grasp. "Paul 
 De Grey," he said, in an awful voice, "exchanged pledges 
 with Margaret Aldis, August, 1821. She died with the 
 falling leaves." 
 
 Poor Margaret looked about her for help, inspiration, 
 comfort of some kind. The room contained nothing but 
 serried lines of old parchment-covered books, each seeming 
 a grim repetition of the volume at her feet. A vast peal 
 of thunder resounded through the noon-day stillness. Sud- 
 denly her strength deserted her; she felt her weakness and 
 loneliness, the grasp of the hand of fate. Father Herbert 
 put out his arms, she flung herself on his neck, and burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "Do you still refuse to leave him?" asked the priest. 
 "If you leave him, you're saved." 
 
 "Saved?" cried Margaret, raising her head; "and Paul?" 
 
 "Ah, there it is. He'll forget you." 
 
 The young girl pondered a moment. "To have him do 
 that," she said, "I should apparently have to die." Then 
 wringing her hands with a fresh burst of grief, "Is it cer- 
 tain," she cried, "that there are no exceptions?" 
 
 "None, my child"; and he picked up the volume. "You 
 see it's the first love, the first passion. After that, they're 
 innocent. Look at Mrs. De Grey. The race is accursed. 
 It's an awful, inscrutable mystery. I fancied that you were 
 safe, my daughter, and that that poor Miss L. had borne 
 the brunt. But Paul was at pains to undeceive me. I've 
 searched his life, I've probed his conscience: it's a virgin 
 heart. Ah, my child, I dreaded it from the first. I trembled 
 when you came into the house. I wanted Mrs. De Grey 
 to turn you off. But she laughs at it, she calls it an old- 
 wife's tale. She was safe enough; her husband didn't care 
 two straws for her. But there's a little dark-eyed maiden 
 buried in Italian soil who could tell her another story. 
 She withered, my child. She was life itself, an incarnate 
 ray of her own Southern sun. She died of De Grey's 
 kisses. Don't ask me how it began, it's always been so. 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 297 
 
 It goes back to the night of time. One of the race, they 
 say, came home from the East, from the crusades, infected 
 with the germs of the plague. He had pledged his love- 
 faith to a young girl before his departure, and it had been 
 arranged that the wedding should immediately succeed his 
 return. Feeling unwell, he consulted an elder brother of 
 the bride, a man versed in fantastic medical lore, and 
 supposed to be gifted with magical skill. By him he was 
 assured that he was plague-stricken, and that he was in 
 duty bound to defer the marriage. The young knight re- 
 fused to comply, and the physician, infuriated, pronounced 
 a curse upon his race. The marriage took place; within a 
 week the bride expired, in horrible agony; the young man, 
 after a slight illness, recovered; the curse took effect." 
 
 Margaret took the quaint old missal into her hand, and 
 turned to the grisly register of death. Her heart grew 
 cold as she thought of her own sad sisterhood with all those 
 miserable women of the past. Miserable women, but ah! 
 tenfold more miserable men, helpless victims of their own 
 baleful hearts. She remained silent, with her eyes fixed 
 on the book, abstractly ; mechanically, as it were, she turned 
 to another page, and read a familiar orison to the blessed 
 Virgin. Then raising her head, with her deep-blue eyes 
 shining with the cold light of an immense resolve, a 
 prodigious act of volition, "Father Herbert," she said, in 
 low, solemn accents, "I revoke the curse. I undo it. / 
 curse it!" 
 
 From this moment, nothing would induce her to bestow 
 a moment's thought on salvation by flight. It was too late, 
 she declared. If she was destined to die, she had already 
 imbibed the fatal contagion. But they should see. She 
 cast no discredit on the existence or the potency of the 
 dreadful charm; she simply assumed, with deep self-confi- 
 dence which filled the old priest with mingled wonder and 
 anguish, that it would vainly expend its mystic force once 
 and forever upon her own devoted, impassioned life. Father 
 Herbert folded his trembling hands resignedly. He had 
 done his duty; the rest was with God. At times, living 
 as he had done for years in dread of the moment which 
 
298 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 had now arrived, with his whole life darkened by its shadow, 
 it seemed to him among the strange possibilities of nature 
 that this frail and pure young girl might indeed have sprung, 
 at the command of outraged love, to the rescue of the un- 
 happy line to which he had dedicated his manhood. And 
 then at other moments it seemed as if she were joyously 
 casting herself into the dark gulf. At all events, the sense 
 of peril had filled Margaret herself with fresh energy and 
 charm. Paul, if he had not been too enchanted with her 
 feverish gayety and grace to trouble himself about their 
 motive and origin, would have been at loss to explain their 
 sudden morbid intensity. Forthwith, at her request, he 
 announced his engagement to his mother, who put on a 
 very gracious face, and honored Margaret with a sort of 
 official kiss. 
 
 "Ah me!" muttered Father Herbert, "and now she thinks 
 she has bound them fast." And later, the next day, when 
 Mrs. De Grey, talking of the matter, avowed that it really 
 did cost her a little to accept as a daughter a girl to whom 
 she had paid a salary, "A salary, madam!" cried the 
 priest with a bitter laugh; "upon my word, I think it was 
 the least you could do." 
 
 "Nous verrons," said Mrs. De Grey, composedly. 
 
 A week passed by, without ill omens. Paul was in a 
 manly ecstasy of bliss. At moments he was almost be- 
 wildered by the fullness with which his love and faith had 
 been requited. Margaret was transfigured, glorified, by 
 the passion which burned in her heart. "Give a plain girl, 
 a common girl, a lover," thought Paul, "and she grows 
 
 pretty, charming. Give a charming girl a lover " and 
 
 if Margaret was present, his eloquent eyes uttered the con- 
 clusion; if she was absent, his restless steps wandered in 
 search of her. Her beauty within the past ten days seemed 
 to have acquired an unprecedented warmth and richness. 
 Paul went so far as to fancy that her voice had grown more 
 deep and mellow. She looked older; she seemed in an 
 instant to have overleaped a year of her development, and 
 to have arrived at the perfect maturity of her youth. One 
 might have imagined that, instead of the further, she stood 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 299 
 
 just on the hither verge of marriage. Meanwhile Paul 
 grew conscious of he hardly knew what delicate change in 
 his own emotions. The exquisite feeling of pity, the sense 
 of her appealing weakness, her heavenly dependence, which 
 had lent its tender strain to swell the concert of his af- 
 fections, had died away, and given place to a vague, pro- 
 found instinct of respect. Margaret was, after all, no such 
 simple body; her nature, too, had its mysteries. In truth, 
 thought Paul, tenderness, gentleness, is its own reward. He 
 had bent to pluck this pallid flower of sunless household 
 growth ; he had dipped its slender stem in the living waters 
 of his love, and lo! it had lifted its head, and spread. its 
 petals, and brightened into splendid purple and green. This 
 glowing potency of loveliness filled him with a tremor which 
 was almost a foreboding. He longed to possess her; he 
 watched her with covetous eyes; he wished to call her 
 utterly his own. 
 
 "Margaret," he said to her, "you fill me with a dreadful 
 delight. You grow more beautiful every day. We must be 
 married immediately, or, at this rate, by our wedding-day, 
 I shall have grown mortally afraid of you. By the soul of 
 my father, I didn't bargain for this! Look at yourself 
 in that glass." And he turned her about to a long mirror; 
 it was in his mother's dressing-room; Mrs. De Grey had 
 gone into the adjoining chamber. 
 
 Margaret saw herself reflected from head to foot in the 
 glassy depths, and perceived the change in her appearance. 
 Her head rose with a sort of proud serenity from the full 
 curve of her shoulders; her eyes were brilliant, her lips 
 trembled, her bosom rose and fell with all the insolence of 
 her deep devotion. "Blanche Ferrars, of Castle Ferrars," 
 she silently repeated, "Isabel Stirling, Magdalen Scrope, 
 poor foolish women! You were not women, you were 
 children. It's your fault, Paul," she cried, aloud, "if I 
 look other than I should! Why is there such a love be- 
 tween us?" And then, seeing the young man's face beside 
 her own, she fancied he looked pale. "My Paul," she said, 
 taking his hands, "you're pale. What a face for a happy 
 
300 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 lover I You're impatient. Well-a-day, sir! It shall be 
 when you please." 
 
 The marriage was fixed for the last of September; and 
 the two women immediately began to occupy themselves 
 with the purchase of the bridal garments. Margaret, out 
 of her salary, had saved a sufficient sum to buy a handsome 
 wedding gown; but, for the other articles of her wardrobe, 
 she was obliged to be indebted to the liberality of Mrs. 
 De Grey. She made no scruple, indeed, of expending large 
 sums of money, and, when they were expended, of asking 
 for more. She took an active, violent delight in procuring 
 quantities of the richest stuffs. It seemed to her that, 
 for the time, she had parted with all flimsy dignity and 
 conventional reticence and coyness, as if she had flung 
 away her conscience to be picked up by vulgar, happy, 
 unimperilled women. She gathered her marriage finery 
 together in a sort of fierce defiance of impending calamity. 
 She felt excited to outstrip it, to confound it, to stare it 
 out of countenance. 
 
 One day she was crossing the hall, with a piece of stuff 
 just sent from the shop. It was a long morsel of vivid 
 pink satin, and, as she held it, a portion of it fell over her 
 arm to her feet. Father Herbert's door stood ajar; she 
 stopped, and went in. 
 
 "Excuse me, reverend sir," said Margaret; "but I thought 
 it a pity not to show you this beautiful bit of satin. Isn't 
 it a lovely pink? it's almost red, it's carnation. It's 
 the color of our love, of my death. Father Herbert," she 
 cried, with a shrill, resounding laugh, "it's my shroud! 
 Don't you think it would be a pretty shroud? pink satin, 
 and blond-lace, and pearls?" 
 
 The old man looked at her with a haggard face. "My 
 daughter," he said, "Paul will have an incomparable wife." 
 
 "Most assuredly, if you compare me with those ladies in 
 your prayer-book. Ah! Paul shall have a wife, at least. 
 That's very certain." 
 
 "Well," said the old man 3 "you're braver than I. You 
 frighten me." 
 
 "Dear Father Herbert, didn't you once frighten me?" 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 301 
 
 The old man looked at Margaret with mingled tender- 
 ness and horror. "Tell me, child," he said, "in the midst 
 of all this, do you ever pray?" 
 
 "God forbid!" cried the poor creature. "I have no heart 
 for prayer." 
 
 She had long talks with Paul about their future pleas- 
 ures, and the happy life they should lead. He declared 
 that he would set their habits to quite another tune, and 
 that the family should no longer be buried in silence and 
 gloom. It was an absurd state of things, and he marvelled 
 that it should ever have come about. They should begin 
 to live like other people, and occupy their proper place in 
 society. They should entertain company, and travel, and 
 go to the play of an evening. Margaret had never seen 
 a play; after their marriage, if she wished, she should see 
 one every week for a year. "Have no fears, my dear," 
 cried Paul, "I don't mean to bury you alive; I'm not dig- 
 ging your grave. If I expected you to be content to live 
 as my poor mother lives, we might as well be married by 
 the funeral service." 
 
 When Paul talked with this buoyant energy, looking 
 with a firm, undoubting gaze on the long, blissful future, 
 Margaret drew from his words fortitude and joy, and scorn 
 of all danger. Father Herbert's secret seemed a vision, a 
 fantasy, a dream, until, after a while, she found herself 
 again face to face with the old man, and read in his hag- 
 gard features that to him, at least, it was a deep reality. 
 Nevertheless, among all her feverish transitions from hope 
 to fear, from exaltation to despair, she never, for a moment, 
 ceased to keep a cunning watch upon her physical sensa- 
 tions, and to lie in wait for morbid symptoms. She won- 
 dered that, with this ghastly burden on her consciousness, 
 she had not long since been goaded to insanity, or crushed 
 into utter idiocy. She fancied that, sad as it would have 
 been to rest in ignorance of the mystery in which her life 
 had been involved, it was yet more terrible to know it. 
 During the week after her interview with Father Herbert, 
 she had not slept half an hour of the daily twenty-four; 
 and yet, far from missing her sleep, she felt, as I have at- 
 
302 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 tempted to show, intoxicated, electrified, by the unbroken 
 vigilance and tension of her will. But she well knew that 
 this could not last forever. One afternoon, a couple of 
 days after Paul had uttered those brilliant promises, he 
 mounted his horse for a ride. Margaret stood at the gate, 
 watching him regretfully, and, as he galloped away, he 
 kissed her his hand. An hour before tea she came out of 
 her room, and entered the parlor, where Mrs. De Grey 
 had established herself for the evening. A moment later, 
 Father Herbert, who was in the act of lighting his study- 
 lamp, heard a piercing shriek resound through the house. 
 
 His heart stood still. "The hour is come," he said. "It 
 would be a pity to miss it." He hurried to the drawing- 
 room together with the servants, also startled by the cry. 
 Margaret lay stretched on the sofa, pale, motionless, pant- 
 ing, with her eyes closed and her hand pressed to her side. 
 Herbert exchanged a rapid glance with Mrs. De Grey, who 
 was bending over the young girl, holding her other hand. 
 
 "Let us at least have no scandal," she said, with, dignity, 
 and straightway dismissed the servants. Margaret gradu- 
 ally revived, declared that it was nothing, a mere sudden 
 pain, that she felt better, and begged her companions to 
 make no commotion. Mrs. De Grey went to her room, in 
 search of a phial of smelling-salts, leaving Herbert alone 
 with Margaret. He was on his knees on the floor, holding 
 her other hand. She raised herself to a sitting posture. 
 
 "I know what you are going to say," she cried, "but it's 
 false. Where's Paul?" 
 
 "Do you mean to tell him?" asked Herbert. 
 
 "Tell him?" and Margaret started to her feet. "If I 
 were to die, I should wring his heart; if I were to tell him, 
 I should break it." 
 
 She started up, I say; she had heard and recognized 
 her lover's rapid step in the passage. Paul opened the 
 door and came in precipitately, out of breath and deadly 
 pale. Margaret came towards him with her hand still 
 pressed to her side, while Father Herbert mechanically rose 
 from his kneeling posture. "What has happened?" cried 
 the young man. "You've been ill!" 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 303 
 
 "Who told you that anything has happened?" said Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 "What is Herbert doing on his knees?" 
 
 "I was praying,, sir," said Herbert. 
 
 "Margaret," repeated Paul, "in Heaven's name, what is 
 the matter?" 
 
 "What's the matter with you, Paul? It seems to me 
 that I should ask the question." 
 
 De Grey fixed a dark, searching look on the young girl, 
 and then closed his eyes, and grasped at the back of a 
 chair, as if his head were turning. "Ten minutes ago," he 
 said, speaking slowly, "I was riding along by the river-side; 
 suddenly I heard in the air the sound of a distant cry, 
 which I knew to be yours. I turned and galloped. I made 
 three miles in eight minutes." 
 
 "A cry, dear Paul? what should I cry about? and to be 
 heard three miles! A pretty compliment to my lungs." 
 
 "Well," said the young man, "I suppose, then, it was 
 my fancy. But my horse heard it too; he lifted his ears, 
 and plunged and started." 
 
 "It must have been his fancy too! It proves you an 
 excellent rider, you and your horse feeling as one man!" 
 
 "Ah, Margaret, don't trifle!" 
 
 "As one horse, then!" 
 
 "Well, whatever it may have been, I'm not ashamed to 
 confess that I'm thoroughly shaken. I don't know what 
 has become of my nerves." 
 
 "For pity's sake, then, don't stand there shivering and 
 staggering like a man in an ague-fit. Come, sit down on 
 the sofa." She took hold of his arm, and led him to the 
 couch. He, in turn, clasped her arm in his own hand, and 
 drew her down beside him. Father Herbert silently made 
 his exit, unheeded. Outside of the door he met Mrs. De 
 Grey, with her smelling-salts. 
 
 "I don't think she needs them now," he said. "She has 
 Paul." And the two adjourned together to the tea-table. 
 When the meal was half finished, Margaret came in with 
 Paul. 
 
 "How do you feel, dear?" said Mrs. De Grey. 
 
304 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "He feels much better," said Margaret, hastily. 
 
 Mrs. De Grey smiled complacently. "Assuredly," she 
 thought, "my future daughter-in-law has a very pretty way 
 of saying things." 
 
 The next day, going into Mrs. De Grey's room, Margaret 
 found Paul and his mother together. The latter's eyes 
 were red, as if she had been weeping; and Paul's face wore 
 an excited look, as if he had been making some painful 
 confession. When Margaret came in, he walked to the 
 window and looked out, without speaking to her. She 
 feigned to have come in search of a piece of needle-work, 
 obtained it, and retired. Nevertheless, she felt deeply 
 wounded. What had Paul been doing, saying? Why had 
 he not spoken to her? Why had he turned his back upon 
 her? It was only the evening before, when they were 
 alone in the drawing-room, that he had been so unutterably 
 tender. It was a cruel mystery; she would have no rest 
 until she learned it, although, in truth, she had little 
 enough as it was. In the afternoon, Paul again ordered 
 his horse, and dressed himself for a ride. She waylaid him 
 as he came down stairs, booted and spurred; and, as his 
 horse was not yet at the door, she made him go with her 
 into the garden. 
 
 "Paul," she said, suddenly, "what were you telling your 
 mother this morning? Yes," she continued, trying to smile, 
 but without success, "I confess it, I'm jealous." 
 
 "O my soul!" cried the young man, wearily, putting 
 both his hands to his face. 
 
 "Dear Paul," said Margaret, taking his arm, "that's 
 very beautiful, but it's not an answer." 
 
 Paul stopped in the path, took the young girl's hands and 
 looked steadfastly into her face, with an expression that 
 was in truth a look of weariness, of worse than weari- 
 ness, of despair. "Jealous, you say?" 
 
 "Ah, not now! " she cried, pressing his hands. 
 
 "It's the first foolish thing I have heard you say." 
 
 "Well, it was foolish to be jealous of your mother; but 
 I'm still jealous of your solitude, of these pleasures in 
 which I have no share, of your horse, your long rides." 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 305 
 
 "You wish me to give up my ride?" 
 
 "Dear Paul, where are your wits? To wish it is to 
 wish it. To say I wish it is to make a fool of myself." 
 
 "My wits are with with something that's forever gone!" 
 And he closed his eyes and contracted his forehead as if 
 in pain. "My youth, my hope, what shall I call it? 
 my happiness." 
 
 "Ah!" said Margaret, reproachfully, "you have to shut 
 your eyes to say that." 
 
 "Nay, what is happiness without youth?" 
 
 "Upon my word, one would think I was forty," cried 
 Margaret. 
 
 "Well, so long as I'm sixty!" 
 
 The young girl perceived that behind these light words 
 there was something very grave. "Paul," she said, "the 
 trouble simply is that you're unwell." 
 
 He nodded assent, and with his assent it seemed to 
 her that an unseen hand had smitten the life out of her 
 heart. 
 
 "That is what you told your mother?" 
 
 He nodded again. 
 
 "And what you were unwilling to tell me?" 
 
 He blushed deeply. "Naturally," he said. 
 
 She dropped his hands and sat down, for very faintness, 
 on a garden bench. Then rising suddenly, "Go, and take 
 your ride," she rejoined. "But, before you go, kiss me 
 once." 
 
 And Paul kissed her, and mounted his horse. As she 
 went into the house, she met Father Herbert, who had 
 been watching the young man ride away, from beneath the 
 porch, and who was returning to his study. 
 
 "My dear child," said the priest, "Paul is very ill. God 
 grant that, if you manage not to die, it may not be at his 
 expense!" 
 
 For all answer, Margaret turned on him, in her passage, 
 a face so cold, ghastly, and agonized, that it seemed a vivid 
 response to his heart-shaking fears. When she reached her 
 room, she sat down on her little bed, and strove to think 
 clearly and deliberately. The old man's words had aroused 
 
306 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 a deep-sounding echo in the vast spiritual solitudes of her 
 being. She was to find, then, after her long passion, that 
 the curse was absolute, inevitable, eternal. It could be 
 shifted, but not eluded; in spite of the utmost strivings of 
 human agony, it insatiably claimed its victim. Her own 
 strength was exhausted; what was she to do? All her bor- 
 rowed splendor of brilliancy and bravery suddenly deserted 
 her, and she sat alone, shivering in her weakness. De- 
 luded fool that she was, for a day, for an hour, to have 
 concealed her sorrow from her lover! The greater her 
 burden, the greater should have been her confidence. What 
 neither might endure alone, they might have surely endured 
 together. But she blindly, senselessly, remorselessly drained 
 the life from his being. As she bloomed and prospered, he 
 drooped and languished. While she was living for him, he 
 was dying for her. Execrable, infernal comedy! What 
 would help her now? She thought of suicide, and she 
 thought of flight; they were about equivalent. If it were 
 certain that by the sudden extinction of her own life she 
 might liberate, exonerate Paul, it would cost her but an 
 instant's delay to plunge a knife into her heart. But who 
 should say that, enfeebled, undermined as he was, the shock 
 of her death might not give him his own quietus? Worse 
 than all was the suspicion that he had begun to dislike her, 
 and that a dim perception of her noxious influence had 
 already taken possession of his senses. He was cold and 
 distant. Why else, when he had begun really to feel ill, 
 had he not spoken first to her? She was distasteful, loath- 
 some. Nevertheless, Margaret still grasped, with all the 
 avidity of despair, at the idea that it was still not too* late 
 to take him into her counsels, and to reveal to him all the 
 horrors of her secret. Then at least, whatever came, death 
 or freedom, they should meet it together. 
 
 Now that the enchantment of her fancied triumph had 
 been taken from her, she felt utterly exhausted and over- 
 whelmed. Her whole organism ached with the desire for 
 sleep and forgetfulness. She closed her eyes, and sank 
 into the very stupor of respose. When she came to her 
 senses, her room was dark. She rose, and went to her 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 307 
 
 window, and saw the stars. Lighting a candle, she found 
 that her little clock indicated nine. She had slept five 
 hours. She hastily dressed herself, and went down stairs. 
 
 In the drawing-room, by an open window, wrapped in a 
 shawl, with a lighted candle, sat Mrs. De Grey. 
 
 "You're happy, my dear," she cried, "to be able to 
 sleep so soundly, when we are all in such a state." 
 
 "What state, dear lady?" 
 
 "Paul has not come in." 
 
 Margaret made no reply; she was listening intently to 
 the distant sound of a horse's steps. She hurried out of 
 the room, to the front door, and across the court-yard to 
 the gate. There, in the dark starlight, she saw a figure 
 advancing, and the rapid ring of hoofs. The poor girl 
 suffered but a moment's suspense. Paul's horse came dash- 
 ing along the road riderless. Margaret, with a cry, plunged 
 forward, grasping at his bridle; but he swerved, with a 
 loud neigh, and, scarcely slackening his pace, swept into 
 the enclosure at a lower entrance, where Margaret heard 
 him clattering over the stones on the road to the stable, 
 greeted by shouts and ejaculations from the hostler. 
 
 Madly, precipitately, Margaret rushed out into the dark- 
 ness, along the road, calling upon Paul's name. She had 
 not gone a quarter of a mile, when she heard an answering 
 voice. Repeating her cry, she recognized her lover's ac- 
 cents. 
 
 He was upright, leaning against a tree, and apparently 
 uninjured, but with his face gleaming through the dark- 
 ness like a mask of reproach, white with the phosphorescent 
 dews of death. He had suddenly felt weak and dizzy, and 
 in the effort to keep himself in the saddle had frightened 
 his horse, who had fiercely plunged, and unseated him. 
 He leaned on Margaret's shoulder for support, and spoke 
 with a faltering voice. 
 
 "I have been riding," he said, "like a madman. I felt 
 ill when I went out, but without the shadow of a cause. 
 I was determined to work it off by motion and the open air." 
 And he stopped, gasping. 
 
 "And you feel better, dearest?" murmured Margaret. 
 
3 o8 TRAVELLING COMPANIONS 
 
 "No, I feel worse. I'm a dead man." 
 
 Margaret clasped her lover in her arms with a long, 
 piercing moan, which resounded through the night. 
 
 "I'm yours no longer, dear unhappy soul, I belong, by 
 I don't know what fatal, inexorable ties, to darkness and 
 death and nothingness. They stifle me. Do you hear my 
 voice?" 
 
 "Ah, senseless clod that I am, I have killed you!" 
 
 "I believe it's true. But it's strange. What is it, Mar- 
 garet? you're enchanted, baleful, fatal!" He spoke barely 
 above a whisper, as if his voice were leaving him; his 
 breath was cold on her cheek, and his arm heavy on her 
 neck. 
 
 "Nay," she cried, "in Heaven's name, go on! Say some- 
 thing that will kill me." 
 
 "Farewell, farewell!" said Paul, collapsing. 
 
 Margaret's cry had been, for the startled household she 
 had left behind her, an index to her halting-place. Father 
 Herbert drew near hastily, with servants and lights. They 
 found Margaret sitting by the roadside, with her feet in a 
 ditch, clasping her lover's inanimate head in her arms, and 
 covering it with kisses, wildly moaning. The sense had left 
 her mind as completely as his body, and it was likely to 
 come back to one as little as to the other. 
 
 A great many months naturally elapsed before Mrs. De 
 Grey found herself in the humor to allude directly to the 
 immense calamity which had overwhelmed her house; and 
 when she did so, Father Herbert was surprised to find that 
 she still refused to accept the idea of a supernatural pressure 
 upon her son's life, and that she quietly cherished the belief 
 that he had died of the fall from his horse. 
 
 "And suppose Margaret had died? Would to Heaven 
 she had!" said the priest. 
 
 "Ah, suppose!" said Mrs. De Grey. "Do you make that 
 wish for the sake of your theory?" 
 
 "Suppose that Margaret had had a lover, a passionate 
 lover, who had offered her his heart before Paul had ever 
 
DE GREY: A ROMANCE 309 
 
 seen her; and then that Paul had come, bearing love and 
 death." 
 
 "Well, what then?" 
 
 "Which of the three, think you, would have had most 
 cause for sadness?" 
 
 "It's always the survivors of a calamity who are to be 
 pitied," said Mrs. De Grey. 
 
 "Yes, madam, it's the survivors, even after fifty years." 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
 This book is due on the last DATE stamped below. 
 
 APR 2 9 1975 
 MAY 11 
 
 50m-12,'70 (P1251s8) 2373-3 A,l 
 
 
PS2116.T75 
 
 3 2106 00207 3994