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 1-v,
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 NEW NOVELS AT EVERY LIBRARY. 
 THE BLACK ROBE. By Wilkie Collin 
 
 Three vols. 
 
 THE CHAPLAIN OF THE FLEET. By 
 
 Walter Besant and James Rice. Three vols. 
 
 'MY LOVE!' By E. Lynn Linton. Three 
 
 vols. 
 
 FROM EXILE. By James Payn. Thre 
 
 vols. 
 
 A VILLAGE COMMUNE. ByOuiDA. Two 
 
 vols. 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 of tJu 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. MALLOCK 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE NEW REPUBLIC ETC. 
 
 'DEFECERUNT OCULl MEI IN SALUTARE TUUM ' 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. L 
 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1881 
 
 \^Ali rights reserved^
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET
 
 K3S 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 "? VOL. I. B
 
 -«7 ^ 'C — ^7 ^ C^ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HE talents, the family, and the for- 
 tune of Ralph Vernon were all 
 quite distinguished enough to 
 make it worth the world's while to attend 
 to him ; and the result was that he was at 
 once condemned and courted. This was 
 not perhaps a matter that it is very 
 hard to account for. His manners and his 
 amusements led him to consort with the 
 careless, whilst his deeper interests were 
 really those of the serious ; and thus, let 
 him be in what society he would, he was 
 always in a moral sense more or less an 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A ROMAXCE OF 
 
 outsider. He had little of the gay good- 
 fellowship which is the virtue most prized by 
 the pleasure-seekers ; he was on the surface 
 far too much of a pleasure-seeker not to 
 irritate those who are busied with thoughts 
 of duty : and his faults, actual or imputed, 
 when they came to the general ear, repelled 
 the one class without attracting the other. 
 
 It was supposed that he had trifled with 
 the affections of numerous women ; it was 
 supposed that he had wasted any amount of 
 talent ; it was supposed that, from knowledge 
 or want of knowledge, he was without any 
 kind of Christianity, and that, from want of 
 earnestness, he was quite unmoved by its 
 substitutes ; he was supposed to have many 
 friends warmly attached to him, and to be 
 himself incapable of any warm attachment. 
 And this marked want in him of all that is 
 thought most lovable was made more marked 
 still by his singular charm of manner, which,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 5 
 
 for the time being, was certain to win every 
 one. Such was the general Impression of 
 him, which, whether true or no, was at all 
 events not groundless ; and there was many 
 a mother in London of the best and purest 
 type who thought his character so cold, so 
 unprincipled, and so repulsive, that he could 
 atone for it only by becoming her daughter's 
 husband. 
 
 The number of these mothers was at last 
 reduced to one. Ralph Vernon became en- 
 gaged to be married. Theyf<i:;^r<^<? was young, 
 clever, beautiful, and deeply attached to him ; 
 nor in the case of most men would the event 
 have seemed unnatural. But the general 
 sentiment with regard to Vernon was merely 
 wonder as to what could be here his motive : 
 for most of the world thought what a rough- 
 tongued cousin of his said, ' You may see me 
 d — d if Ralph's ever In love with any one.' 
 Let his motive, however, be what it might,
 
 6 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 his engagement caused, or was caused by, a 
 very visible change in him. All of a sudden 
 he seemed to become serious ; and for many 
 months one might have thought him a new- 
 man. The father of the bride -elect was at 
 the time absent in Afghanistan, and the 
 marriage was put off till his return the follow- 
 ing year. Vernon, meanwhile, said good-bye 
 to his idleness ; he was even not liberal in 
 the days he allowed for love-making. He 
 devoted himself instead to his various county 
 duties ; he studied such subjects as education 
 and pauperism ; he projected the building of 
 schools and cottages ; and he tried to become 
 acquainted with the great mass of his 
 tenantr3^ Finally, when in 1880, came the 
 renowned general election, he stood in the 
 Conservative interest for his own division of 
 the county, and lost the battle by less than 
 a dozen votes. 
 
 This sudden devotion to public affairs.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 7 
 
 however, was not construed altogether to his 
 advantage. It was supposed to argue luke- 
 warm ness in love, rather than zeal in politics ; 
 nor w^as the rumour at all wondered at that 
 the lady took the same view of it. Vernon, 
 it was said on all sides, was not behaving 
 "well ; It was added by many that he \vished 
 to back out of his engagement ; and the 
 latter opinion was certainly confirmed by 
 the sequel. In due time the lady's father 
 returned, and the various legal preliminaries 
 w^ere at once to be got over. What, then, 
 were the feelings of all w^ho heard it w^hen 
 Vernon insisted, as one condition of his 
 marriage, that any children that might result 
 from it should be brought up as Catholics ! 
 The father and the family of \}^^ fiancde were 
 all fiercely Protestant ; and this move of 
 Vernon's made an end of the \vhole matter. 
 The rupture was abrupt and painful ; and he 
 was himself severely criticised. That he had
 
 8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 any interest in religion was what nobody 
 gave him credit for ; and he was supposed, 
 in this case, to have used it as a last excuse 
 in his desperation. 
 
 His conduct directly afterwards did not 
 disarm the censorious. He was soon reported 
 to have formed another intimacy, and to 
 have given another lady a strong sentimental 
 claim on him. Then, the report went on, 
 he had repeated his former conduct, though 
 this time perhaps more judiciously. There 
 had been no formal engagement, the world 
 supposed ; there had been no need, therefore, 
 for any definite subterfuge. A simpler ex- 
 pedient had been quite sufficient : he had 
 buried himself somewhere in some retreat on 
 the Continent. This second drama had been 
 of a strictly private character ; but there are 
 acute observers who can pierce through any 
 privacy ; and the comments made on it were 
 not of a friendly nature. Indeed, when the
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. g 
 
 news was known that after all his mis- 
 demeanours Vernon was enjoying himself in 
 a charming Provencal villa, surrounded by 
 books, and supplied with a first-class c/ief, one 
 of the keenest and most discriminating of all 
 his feminine acquaintances was at last tempted 
 to speak of him as a voluptuary of the very 
 worst species. 
 
 In spite, however, of every ill report, 
 there were a certain number who always 
 stood up for him, and who maintained stoutly 
 that there were two sides to his character. 
 They could not deny that what the world 
 said was true of him ; they declared only 
 that it was not the whole truth. There was 
 one of these in especial — Alic Campbell 
 by name — who looked upon Vernon as the 
 best friend he had, and who knew much of 
 his inner history that was quite hidden from 
 others. When Vernon went abroad, he had 
 begged Campbell to go with him ; but
 
 lo ROMANCE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 Campbell for certain reasons had felt con- 
 strained to refuse. Vernon had written from 
 Paris to him, to renew his entreaties, but 
 without the desired result. About a fort- 
 night later he returned to the charge once 
 more.
 
 T\ n 31 n n — n tt 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 Y dear Allc,' he wrote, ' I am at 
 last settled ; and I will now take 
 no denial. You must and you 
 shall join me. Could you only see where 
 I am, I should have no need to implore 
 you ; you would come Instantly, and come 
 of your ovrn accord. As it is, I can only 
 trust to vrrlting ; but you surely will not 
 refuse me. Come to me do, if for no more 
 than a week or two, and share with me this 
 beautiful Southern solitude. Share my villa 
 with its cool portico — a villa just large enough 
 for two children of Epicurus. Share my
 
 12 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 garden with its myrtles, and its oranges, and 
 the softly swaying gold of its great mimosa- 
 trees. Yes, I am here in the South and the 
 clear sunshine ; and I am not, as you pro- 
 phesied and as half my heart urged me, in 
 any of the winter haunts of English fashion 
 and frivolity ; but I am embowered safely by 
 myself on the greenest of all the promontories 
 that Europe juts into the Mediterranean. I 
 am settled at the Cap de Juan. I have, 
 indeed, chosen a lovely spot, and already I 
 love it tenderly. All day long, through the 
 leaves of my dark evergreens, and through 
 arched bowery openings, the sea shines and 
 sparkles. You and I may change and grow 
 weary ; and we have both had much to weary 
 us. But this bluest of blue seas seems to be 
 always one-and-twenty; and as I breathe its 
 breath, full of eternal freshness, the thrill and 
 the dreams of youth once more revive in me. 
 And ah, the view! In a vast majestic
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 13 
 
 crescent the French coast of mountains 
 curves away towards Italy, with its succes- 
 sion of pearl-grey headlands dying faintly 
 and far off Into the distance. Midway, about 
 ten miles from here as a boat sails, a line of 
 milk-white houses, Nice lies along the sea- 
 level. Range upon range is piled up behind 
 It, blue with far-off haze, or green with nearer 
 olive-woods ; and bright over all, like the hills 
 of another world, are the jagged Alpine 
 summits with their white snows elitterine. 
 All day long the lights and the tints vary. 
 New mists form and melt upon the moun- 
 tains ; the sea changes from one glow to 
 another. The wave-worn sea-rock, pierced 
 with its clear shadows, has always new hues 
 and aspects ; so have the silver gleams that 
 sleep In the spreading stone-pines. The 
 whole face of Nature is like the face of a 
 living thing. It Is the face of a Cleopatra. 
 
 Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale 
 Its infinite variety.
 
 14 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 *Alic — you who are coughing, sneezing, 
 and blowing your nose In England — will not 
 this tempt you ? Your first Impulse will be, 
 I know, to refuse me. You are not In spirits, 
 you will say, for the sunshine ; you have no 
 energy left to make any exertion. I am quite 
 familiar with the mood of mind you are In. 
 You are like a man who is sea-sick at the 
 extreme end of a steamer, and who yet will 
 not move himself to make his way to the 
 middle. You are arguing to yourself with 
 the unique logic of grief, *' I am comfortless, 
 and therefore nothing shall comfort me." Let 
 me try to move you to a brighter and a 
 healthier mind. 
 
 * You are wretched, you tell me, because 
 you want to marry a certain person, and be- 
 cause you find that, though she loves you as 
 a friend, she will never love you but as a 
 friend only. Now, I am going to speak very 
 gently to you, and yet I hope convincingly.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 13 
 
 I -am not going to tell you any such idle lies 
 as that your loss is a trifling one. I am not 
 going to tell you that it is an atom less than 
 you feel it to be ; and you would, I think, 
 injure your character by tr}'ing to undervalue 
 it. No ; I will not tell you to under\'alue 
 your loss. I will only show you — a thing 
 you have quite forgotten — how to value your 
 gain. Perhaps you will say I am not in a 
 position to do so, for in some ways certainly 
 you have been somewhat reticent. You have 
 told me much about your own feelings, about 
 your own devotion, and about the moral re- 
 sult that all this has had on you. But about 
 the object of these feelings you have told m^e 
 little. I know neither how you met her nor 
 how you wooed her ; nor anything about her 
 character, except that her ways are simple. 
 You have not told me even her name. But 
 I don't think this matters. Let the difference 
 between our two situations be what it may,
 
 i6 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 your case in many ways has been also mine ; 
 and I am going now to speak from my own 
 experience. 
 
 * I, as you know well, was not long since 
 to have married ; and during a good year's 
 novitiate I was preparing my whole being for 
 its solemn new condition. My character 
 during that period underwent a profound 
 change. My bright-coloured hopes and pur- 
 poses lost their airy wings. They fell to the 
 solid earth, and found for themselves plodding 
 feet. I felt I was no longer my own. My 
 life was owed to another ; and for the first 
 time there dawned on me the true sense of 
 responsibility. But circumstances combined 
 to make my marriage impossible ; and after 
 I had already learned to mentally mix my life 
 with another's, our two lives were again made 
 separate. When first I realised this, it was 
 like waking out of a dream. I was conscious 
 of a loneliness I had never known before ;
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 17 
 
 and even now, with my shattered marriage 
 prospects, my manhood seems to He In ashes 
 about me. But what do I find has happened ? 
 Something glad, strange, and altogether un- 
 looked for. Out of the ashes of my manhood 
 has re-arlsen my youth — my youth, which I 
 thought I had said good-bye to for eternity ; 
 and the divine child has again run to meet 
 me with its eyes bright as ever, and vrith the 
 summer wind in its hair. The sun has gone 
 back for me on the dial. I am three years 
 younger again. The skies seem to have grown 
 bluer, and m}^ step more elastic. Once more 
 free and unfettered, I feel sometimes as if I 
 were walking on air; and I have the delicious 
 sense of having lost a burden, even though I 
 may have lost a treasure as well. 
 
 ' You will see my meaning better when I 
 go on to tell you that, though I have re- 
 covered the buoyancy of youth, I have by no 
 means recovered its ienorance. I still retain 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 1 8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 a certain salvage of wisdom, sad and bitter 
 enough in some ways, and yet good for men 
 like us two to remember. It is this — listen 
 patiently. There is nothing in the world so 
 intensely selfish as a woman's deep affection ; 
 and the stronger and more single-hearted it 
 is, the greater becomes its selfishness. A 
 man's passion is generous when compared 
 with a woman's love. A man's passion, at 
 its worst, lasts but a short time ; even while 
 it lasts, its demands are limited ; and, what is 
 more than this, a good man will restrain it. 
 But the truer and more sensitive a woman Is, 
 the more thoroughly will she let her love 
 master her ; the less effort will she make to 
 retain the least control of it. 
 
 ' And what a master it is ! Its jealousy 
 is cruel as the grave, and its demands know 
 no limits but the imagination of her that 
 makes them. A woman who loves thus is 
 not content with the chastest bodily con-
 
 THE NINETEEMH CENTURY. 19 
 
 stancy ; she is not content even with the 
 constancy of an undivided tenderness. These 
 she takes for granted : they are not the 
 things she craves for. What she craves for 
 is the constancy of your whole thought and 
 intellect. You are to have nothing in your 
 mind that you do not confide to her ; you are 
 to stifle every interest with which she cannot 
 be associated. If you want any mental help, 
 it is she alone who must help you ; and she 
 had sooner you were helped ill by her than 
 well by another person. She will be as 
 jealous of your friendships as she is of your 
 affections, and as jealous of your thoughts 
 and tastes as she is of your friendships. She 
 cannot patiently conceive of3'ou as in relation 
 to anything excepting herself. She desires 
 to absorb your whole life Into hers ; and the 
 larger part of it, which she naturally cannot 
 absorb, she desires to see perish. Her 
 pleading, earnest eyes will be for ever saying
 
 20 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 to you, " Entreat me not to leave thee. 
 Where thou goest I will go ; and go not thou, 
 my love, whither I cannot follow thee." 
 
 ' What ! — with all the world of thouo^ht 
 and imagination before us, are men such as 
 we are to be tied and bound like this ? For 
 my part, the wings of my spirit seem to have 
 all the winds in them ; and I have a heart 
 sometimes likes a hawk's or a wild sea-gull's. 
 It is not a heart that is hard, or that does 
 not soften to companionship. I could often 
 perch tenderly upon some beloved shoulder, 
 and bend my head to listen to words of 
 tenderness. But if the hand that I trusted 
 but once closed to lay hold of me — dared, 
 from love, to use the least pressure to keep 
 me — I should start and struggle, and feel I 
 had suffered treachery. I will stoop my 
 neck myself ; but no one else shall ever draw 
 it an inch downwards. Why do we w^ant 
 companionship ? What is a man's need for it ?
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 21 
 
 Were my life really a bird's, I would gladly 
 have a she-bird to fly with me ; but I would 
 have her only because we were bound both 
 of us independently for the same resting-place. 
 That and that alone should be the fetterless 
 fetter we were united by. But a woman who 
 loves deeply will never love like this. She 
 has no wish to be your companion on these 
 terms. It is not the common end that she 
 cares for, but the united struggle ; and she 
 reveres her wish to soar, chiefly because it is 
 an excuse for clinging to you. Thus, on the 
 same principle, she will go nowhere in the 
 mental world herself unless you are there to 
 support her. She thinks it a kind of treason 
 to you to try and walk independently. She 
 cultivates her weakness, that she may be 
 always trusting to your strength ; and though 
 her weight might be dragging you to the 
 ground, she would never think of It, never 
 see it, but if possible she would only lean the
 
 22 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 heavier. Was ever selfishness so pitiless and 
 intense as this ? And yet, by a strange 
 magic, It looks so like self-devotion, that a 
 man, if he be not a brute, can hardly fail to 
 be crushed by It. Such love, Alic, may be a 
 thing that suits some temperaments, but 
 surely neither yours nor mine. 
 
 ' And now I am once more my own. Ah, 
 the sweetness and rest of this serene self-pos- 
 session ! But lately I felt, when I was 
 lookine even at the sea or the mountains, 
 that I was not permitted to love them. The 
 shadow of another would always seem to 
 cleave to me and claim me ; and I could no 
 longer let my spirit, as I used to do, go 
 floating on the lonely waters. But now I 
 can look everywhere without fear. I can say 
 to the sea, when It makes me In love with 
 loneliness, " I violate no allegiance due to 
 any companionship." I can say the same to 
 the forest, when its leafy smells woo me, and
 
 THE NINETEEXTH CEXTURY. 23 
 
 the murmur of its brown branches. I can 
 say the same in society, when bright eyes 
 and alkiring voices stimulate me, and I feel 
 that many women are far better than one. 
 Then, too — though I will not dwell upon this 
 here — were there a God to turn to, I could 
 turn to Him in solitude. And now in the 
 morning, as I awaken, I often turn to my 
 pillow, and kiss it, and say, ''No head but 
 mine can ever dare to press you." All the 
 walls of my bedroom seem to smile kindly 
 and quietly on me. By my bedside I see my 
 dear companions, my books — so varied and 
 so unobtrusive — that will themselves tell me 
 all they can, and will ask for no confidence in 
 return ; and there, too, I see my letters, 
 which have now the new charm for me, that 
 no one but m^'self will ever want to open 
 them. 
 
 ' Yes ; I have learned the truest secret of 
 Epicurus, that the friendship of a man is
 
 24 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 more than the love of a woman. Friendship 
 is always a free gift ; and It is always given 
 readily because It Is never owed. Love, too, 
 begins as a gift"; but a loving woman will 
 never leave it so. Before you know it, she 
 will have turned it into a debt ; and the 
 more she loves the debtor, the more oppres- 
 sively will she extort the utmost farthing 
 from him. But between friends, Allc, the 
 intercourse Is always free. I could have no 
 thought that it would be treason to conceal 
 from you. I could form no ties or friend- 
 ships that would do you any wrong. And 
 yet — if I may alter Shakespeare In a single 
 word — 
 
 And yet, by heaven, I hold ray friend as rare 
 As any she belied by false compare, 
 
 * Come, then, and lay all this to your 
 heart ; for your heart, I know, will assent to 
 its truth as mine does. Marriage would suit 
 you no better than me. It allured me first
 
 THE NIXETEEXTir CEXTURY. 25 
 
 with its many pleasing promises ; and in the 
 same way it is now alluring you. It can give 
 much to numbers ; I do not deny that for a 
 moment ; but neither you nor I were made 
 for it. In missing it, as I have said before, 
 you are no doubt a loser ; but my advice to 
 you is, do not brood over the loss ; think of 
 the gain, for the gain is far greater. Recall 
 your imagination from the solace you would 
 have had in marriage, and dwell on the joys 
 and the freedom that you keep because you 
 are sin!2:le. 
 
 ' Freedom — yes, you have that still. You 
 have not the caprices of any one else to bind 
 you. ]\Iy dear Alic, think of 3*our priceless 
 freedom ! I say think of it ; but I want you 
 to use it also. I want you to come to me, 
 away from your frosty England, and let me 
 see the Southern sunlight laughing in your 
 glad grey eyes. If you will, all my house shall 
 welcome you. I\Iy champagne is excellent ;
 
 26 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 my cigars and cigarettes are excellent — I had 
 them all sent from London ; and my bookcases 
 are well stored with poets, and with your own 
 philosophers. At the end of one of my walks 
 is a certain marble seat. You look straight 
 down at the sea from It, and it Is overarched 
 with myrtles. There Is a perfect wilderness 
 of green shade behind It ; and in the midst of 
 this, like an enchanted lamp, Is a great 
 camellia tree, burning with scarlet blossoms. 
 Close at hand there is a little table, just fit to 
 support a bottle of Burgundy, and a quaint 
 old glass goblet for each of us. It is an 
 entrancing place. It Is a bower after your 
 own heart. And there we might sit together, 
 in the calm, delicious mornings, talking or 
 silent, just as the mood prompted us. Some- 
 times we might quote to each other our 
 favourite poets ; sometimes we might solve 
 again the old insoluble questions we have so 
 often discussed before, and which are still
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 27 
 
 eating my life out ; sometimes we might watch 
 in quiet the waves and the rocks before us, 
 and often, too, some gay, bright-coloured fish- 
 ing-boat, floating lonely with its white plume 
 of a sail, and its brown fisher at the stern 
 bending over his own reflection. Yes, Alic, 
 if you will only come out to me, we will con- 
 trive to elude the Furies. We will look into 
 life together more clearly than we used to do ; 
 but it shall be a personal oppression to us 
 no more than it used to be. We will only 
 enter here on a new phase of youth. We 
 will have free, cloudless days, and nights of 
 moonlight. We will drive, and ride, and sail, 
 and explore the whole country. We will 
 know the folds of the hills grey with olive- 
 trees ; we will listen to the sound of mule- 
 bells ; we will see how the middle-age lingers 
 in the wild hill-villages. Then, too, my own 
 immediate neighbourhood — that is delightful 
 also. The whole of my green peninsula is an
 
 28 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Eden of woods and gardens ; and the life 
 that surrounds you there is like a living idyll. 
 Old brown crones crouching under the olive- 
 trees, the peasant proprietor tilling his small 
 field, the neatly dressed nursery-gardener 
 surveying his glass frames, the retired 
 domestic tradesman smiling over the gate of 
 his little villa-garden — these are the living 
 images that surround one, and that give to 
 one's thoughts such a quaint, delightful set- 
 ting. A strange mixture, too, on all sides 
 touches one of homely plenty and of wild 
 luxuriance. Cabbages and palm-trees grow 
 in the same enclosure. Between beds of 
 kitchen stuff are strips starred with anemones, 
 and pink almond-blossoms tremble among the 
 apple-trees. 
 
 *Ah, my old companion, will not these 
 pleasures move you ? Write, write to me 
 quickly, and say they will. Only in that case 
 I have something further to tell you. If you
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 29 
 
 would enjoy the seclusion I have described 
 to you, you must come and enjoy it speedily : 
 and for this reason. On one side of me 
 is a beautiful marble villa, with immense 
 gardens and long winding w^alks ; and on the 
 other side, with immense gardens also, is a 
 large disused hotel, whose proprietors last 
 year were bankrupt. It is built like an old 
 chateau. It has quaint vanes on the gables ; 
 and flights of marble steps lead up to the 
 doors and windows. It is just at the cape's 
 point ; and its domain of gardens, with their 
 long walks and terraces, and their arches of 
 trellised roses, are bounded on three sides b}^ 
 the sea. Those gardens, silent and lifeless, 
 not a soul but the gardeners now walks in 
 them — the gardeners and myself, and, who 
 should you think besides '^. Poor Frederic 
 Stanley — the cleverest of our Oxford idlers ; 
 who, since we knew him, has been first a 
 guardsman, and is now a Catholic priest
 
 30 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 How time does change some men ! Stanley- 
 Is here for his health : he Is broken down 
 with work. He looks, I fancy, rather ask- 
 ance at me ; but we have often little reserved 
 conversations together. 
 
 * However I am wandering from the point. 
 What I want to tell you is this. Up till now 
 the hotel and the villa have been alike 
 tenantless, and I have been able to use both 
 gardens as my own ; but that happy period 
 is now drawing fast to a close. Some 
 English people, whose names I do not know, 
 though no doubt I shall soon make their 
 acquaintance, are coming, or perhaps have 
 already come, to the villa. And as to the 
 hotel, what do you think has happened ? 
 Our friend the Duchess has taken it — it is 
 still furnished — for the whole of next month, 
 and Intends having a large party there. So 
 you see that very soon I shall be saying 
 good-bye to solitude. This last piece of news
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 31 
 
 I have only this instant learned, and from the 
 Duchess herself. I can't exactly say if I am 
 glad or sorry. I shall have at all events a 
 very enlivening neighbour ; and her company 
 always charms me. It is not the charm now, 
 as it must once have been, of beauty and 
 sentiment. It is what at fifty supplies their 
 place, and rivals them ; it is the charm 
 of mundane humour. This bright, gay 
 humour of feminine middle-age, it always 
 seems to me, is a very rare gift. It is a 
 highly artificial product, and is almost 
 peculiar, I think, to one class of society. It 
 requires to develop it a combination of two 
 things in the past — the susceptibilities of the 
 world of romance, and the indulgence of 
 them in the word of fashion. However, be 
 our friend s charm what it will, I am at this 
 moment going to enjoy it ; as in another five 
 minutes I shall be at dinner with her. 
 
 And this at last brings me to a con
 
 32 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 fesslon which \vill amuse you. Where do 
 you think I am writing you this letter? Not 
 in my philosophic garden, not in my quiet 
 study. All about me is gas-light and gilding, 
 and a murmur of garish life. The figures 
 surrounding me are gamblers and Parisian 
 cocottes ; and I am breathing, not the scent of 
 the sea or of flowers, but of patchouli and 
 faint stale cigarette smoke. I am in the 
 reading-room at Monte Carlo. I drove over 
 here this morning — or rather, my coachman 
 drove me — partly to try a new pair of horses, 
 and pardy for the sake of the starlight drive 
 back again. The Duchess is staying for a 
 day or two at the hotel attached to the 
 oramblino^-rooms, and it seems she has a little 
 dinner party every night in the restaurant. 
 To-night the Grantlys are coming. You 
 remember Grantly at Oxford ? He is now 
 in the First Life Guards ; and his wife is a 
 lovely American, whose face is even prettier
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 33 
 
 than her dresses, and, if possible, even more 
 changing. 
 
 'A pi'opos of the women here, there is 
 one on the sofa opposite me, who is really 
 divinely lovely. Whenever I look up from 
 my writing, I am met by her soft large eyes, 
 half sad and half voluptuous in their tender- 
 ness. She is as different from the Avomen 
 near her as day from night, or rather as the 
 stars from gas-light. She is one of the fallen ; 
 I fear there can be no doubt about that ; but 
 refinement — even a sort of nobleness — can 
 outlive virtue. There is not a touch of paint 
 on her ; and her dress, which fits her per- 
 fectly, is strangely simple. If I have any 
 skill in reading the looks of women, there is 
 something of a higher life yet lingering in 
 that soft, pleading face, that she half hides 
 from me bv her larofe crimson fan. Some 
 women have a glance that makes me long to 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 talk to them, just as clear sea-water makes 
 me long to plunge in it. 
 
 * Write to me soon. I am obliged to stop 
 now. 
 
 * By the way, besides the Grantlys, there 
 is another guest expected, who is to me more 
 Interesting. I mean Lord Surbiton. He 
 was the first man of letters I ever knew ; and 
 when I was seventeen, he seemed to me little 
 short of a s^od. 
 
 * Good-bye ; I must be going. My fair 
 one is rising too.'
 
 ■J i >— f ^ -II ^JL 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HE Duchess's stately figure was 
 familiar at ]\Ionte Carlo, and many 
 an e}'e followed her as she entered 
 the gorgeous restaurant. 
 
 ' Garcon,' she said, as she took her seat 
 at the large table reserved for her, ' Pommery 
 et gi^eno, extra sec — the last champagne on the 
 wine list. You must put three bottles in ice 
 instantly, for in five minutes we shall be quite 
 ready for dinner. And — wait, wait a moment, 
 man, for I have not done speaking to }-ou — 
 we are not going to pay thirty-six francs 
 again for a single dish of asparagus ; so you
 
 36 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 will perhaps have the goodness to recollect 
 that. And you must lay another place if you 
 please, as we shall be five dining this evening 
 instead of four.' 
 
 Captain and Mrs. Grantly appeared 
 almost immediately, and with them was an 
 elderly man in close attendance on the latter. 
 The young guardsman and his wife were a 
 very characteristic couple, and looked like a 
 bright embodiment of the spirit of modern 
 London. The appearance of their com- 
 panion was very different. His dress was 
 too showy for what is now correct taste, and 
 his jewelled scarf-pin and sleeve-links were 
 both of enormous size. But on him these 
 splendours seemed to lose half their offensive- 
 ness. They were plainly the fashion of a 
 past generation, not the vulgarities of the 
 present one : they even heightened by con- 
 trast the strange effect of his face, with its 
 worn weary cheeks, and his keen glance like
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 37 
 
 an eagle's. This was none other than the 
 renowned Lord Surblton — the poet, diplo- 
 mat, and dandy who had charmed the last 
 generation. 
 
 The whole part}^ had been winning largely 
 at the tables, and their spirits were quite in 
 keeping with the glittering scene around 
 them. The crowd which filled the restaurant 
 was to-night even more gay than usual. All 
 the men were at least dressed like gentlemen, 
 and most of the women were far more 
 splendid than ladies. Fashionable exiles 
 from the English world of fashion were 
 detected in numbers by the amused eyes of the 
 Duchess ; and with them the fair companions 
 who had caused their exile or were sharinof It. 
 It was said even that royalty was not absent, 
 and that there thus was a divine element 
 unrecognised in the midst of the human. 
 Everywhere there was a flashing of restless 
 eyes and diamonds ; furred and embroidered
 
 38 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 opera-cloaks were being disposed of over the 
 backs of chairs ; long gloves were being 
 unbuttoned and drawn off; and white hands, 
 galncing with rings, v/ere composing deranged 
 tresses. Above was the arched ceiling glow- 
 ing with gold and pictures ; and the walls, 
 florid with ornament, returned every shaft of 
 lamplight from the depths of immense mirrors, 
 or the limbs of naked goddesses. 
 
 ' Now, this,' said the Duchess, * is exactly 
 Avhat I enjoy : charming company, a charm- 
 ing scene before one, and — let me tell you 
 all, for I myself ordered it — a really excellent 
 dinner. However,' she went on, as she 
 unfolded her napkin, and looked with a slow 
 smile at the menu, ' we must be temperate in 
 the midst of plenty ; for remember, Mrs. 
 Grantly, you and I and your husband are to 
 go back to the tables again for one half-hour 
 afterwards — only one half-hour, mind ; and 
 then, as Lord Surbiton suggests — he is always,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 39 
 
 as we all know, poetical — we will have our 
 coffee outside, and compose our feelings 
 under the stars of heaven.' 
 
 ' What ! ' said Mrs. Grantlv, ' and is Lord 
 Surblton not comins: back to the rooms with 
 
 us ? 
 
 ' Not he,' said the Duchess. * He's not 
 half a man at gambling. I don't think your 
 poets ever are. But where,' she exclaimed 
 presently, as she savv' that a chair was vacant, 
 * where is ^Ir. Vernon ? Has any one seen 
 our 'Mr. Ralph \'ernon ? We can't possibly 
 get on without our one unmarried young 
 man ; though, to say the truth, till this mo- 
 ment I had quite forgotten to miss him.' 
 
 * j\Ir. Vernon ! ' echoed Mrs. Grantly with 
 a laugh. ' I'd advise you. Duchess, not to 
 count upon him. I saw him on the hotel 
 steps only ten minutes ago, and what do you 
 think he was doing ? Why, he was talking to 
 that beautiful creature we were all admiring
 
 40 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 at the tables — the woman with the red fan 
 and the long dark eyelashes. I don't know 
 what she was saying, I'm sure, but she had 
 her hand on his arm, and he was bending 
 down to her/ 
 
 * Oh, ho ' began the Duchess, with a 
 
 soft low laugh. But Lord Surbiton inter- 
 rupted her. 
 
 ' Vernon ! ' he said ; * can this be the 
 Ralph Vernon that I once knew, some thir- 
 teen years ago — a dreamy eager boy, who 
 used to come and show me his poetry ? ' 
 
 * To be sure it is,' said the Duchess. 
 * Poetry, painting, and heaven knows what 
 else — I believe he has tried all of it.' 
 
 ' Ah !' said Lord Surbiton ; ' I once had 
 great hopes of him. I once thought he was 
 signed with the veritable sign of genius.' 
 
 *Well,' replied the Duchess, 'and he is 
 very clever, I believe.' 
 
 * Men who are clever,' said Lord Surbiton
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 41 
 
 solemnly, ' we can count by millions : men 
 with genius we count by units. As for Ver- 
 non, his early verses were beautiful, in spite 
 of their crude language. They had the same 
 charm in them that his ideal eyes had — little 
 of the gladness of youth, but all its sweetness 
 and its hunger.' 
 
 * It seems,' said the Duchess, ' that this is 
 a young man who is very much to be envied ; 
 for in addition to all these charms, he has two 
 others that women think irresistible — a for- 
 tune and a history.' 
 
 * Yes,' said Lord Surbiton, with a wave 
 of his jewelled hand ; ' women are always 
 attracted by a man with a history, because it 
 always means that he is to be either blamed 
 or pitied.' 
 
 * And what,' said Mrs. Grantly, ' may Mr. 
 Vernon's history be ? ' 
 
 * Ah ! ' said the Duchess, * that's just what 
 we don't know, and that's the very reason
 
 42 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 why we find It so interesting. Never be too 
 curious, my dear, about a friend's history ; 
 and then you can always stick up for him 
 with a clear conscience.' 
 
 ' Look ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Grantly, ' here 
 the charmer comes. I only hope he won't 
 be trying all his fascinations on me.' 
 
 Vernon was full of regrets for being be- 
 hind his time ; but these he discovered were 
 met with nothing but laughter. Mrs. Grantly 
 assured him at once that they knew all about 
 him and his doings. ' And this Is the man,' 
 she went on — ' now, I ask you all to look at 
 him — who says he has come abroad for the 
 sake of philosophic solitude ! ' 
 
 * And why not ? ' said Vernon ; ' I think 
 I am quite consistent. Solitude Is my wife, 
 and society Is my mistress ; and I like to live 
 with the one, and be always intriguing with 
 the other.' 
 
 ' Well,' exclaimed Mrs. Grantly, * since
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 43 
 
 we are your society for the moment, our col- 
 lective place in your heart is, I must say, not 
 very honourable.' 
 
 * Never mind about that,' said the 
 Duchess. ' What my suspicions rest upon is 
 Mr. Vernon's solitude — that retiring villa of 
 his at the Cap de Juan : especially now we 
 hear all this about red fans, an4 whisperings, 
 and hotel door-steps, and long eyelashes.' 
 
 * My attentions on the door-step,' said 
 Vernon, * were of the strictly Platonic order. 
 There is something rather touching in that 
 woman, when one comes to talk to her.' 
 
 ' Very likely,' said Captain Grantly drily ; 
 * there always Is. ToiLching is the exact word 
 for it. And what's her rank, Vernon ? Is 
 she a princess or a duchess ? ' 
 
 ' If she's a princess,' said Vernon, ' she 
 must have lost her principality ; for she was 
 dreadfully in want of a thousand francs to 
 gamble with.'
 
 44 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ' Very likely,' said Captain Graiitly ; * they 
 all are.' 
 
 The Duchess, meanwhile, was surveying 
 the motley scene before her. ' I confess,' she 
 said with a soft smile of amusement, ' this is 
 hardly the place one would come to if one 
 were in search of Platonic attachments. 
 Now, look round, all of you, and take stock 
 of the company. There are plenty of men 
 one knows — of course, one expects that ; but 
 the women with them — did you ever see any- 
 thing like it ? Come, Mr. Vernon, you 
 understand these things. Just observe the 
 couple behind you — they can't talk English, 
 so we needn't mind discussing them — are 
 they man and wife, do you think ? Or that 
 fine lady, with the hair sprinkled with gold- 
 dust, whom Lord Surbiton seems to admire 
 so — what relation should you say she was to 
 the old Jew she is dining with ? Upon my 
 word, Mrs. Grantly,' she added presently, ' I
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 45 
 
 don't believe that, our two selves excepted, 
 there's a single woman here you could pos- 
 sibly call respectable.' 
 
 * That's the very reason,' said ]Mrs. 
 Grantly, ' why I like being here so much. 
 It makes me feel like an ano^el. But talkino- 
 of angels, there goes a genuine one, if you 
 like, for you ; there goes Colonel Stapleton. 
 Oh my ! and isn't he grown fat and ugly ! 
 You'd never have thought — would you ? — 
 that that man was once the best dancer in 
 London. And, Duchess,' she went on, ' I 
 hope you admire the big checks on his coat. 
 'Twould take four of him, I guess, to play 
 one game of chess upon.' 
 
 Colonel Stapleton was a florid man of it 
 might be five-and-forty. Despite his incli- 
 nation to stoutness, he held himself well and 
 gracefully, and had an air about him of 
 dissolute good-breeding. He had one other 
 charm, too, of which Vernon was at once
 
 46 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 made sensible — a taking and very musical 
 voice, which, as he stopped for a moment to 
 speak to a friend dining, could be heard 
 distinctly at the Duchess's table. * The one 
 with the red fan ? ' he was saying gaily ; 
 ' yes, she, if you like it, is a regular out-and- 
 outer. She's down here, so she tells me, with 
 some fellow who belongs to the " Figaro." ' 
 
 Vernon and Captain Grantly both over- 
 heard this. The former was somewhat 
 annoyed, and the latter amused at it, though 
 he was at the same time frowning over his 
 wife's late observations. * Poor old Jack 
 Stapleton ! ' he said ; ' Jessie can't bear him, 
 though I'm sure I don't know why. He's as 
 good-hearted a fellow as ever lived, and is 
 nobody's enemy but his own.' 
 
 * To be sure,' said the Duchess. * We all 
 of us know Jack Stapleton. If he was a 
 little bit thinner, your wife would be only too 
 delighted with him.'
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 47 
 
 Mrs. Grantly, however, was by no means 
 silenced. 
 
 ' Look at his back,' she said, ' as he's 
 sitting down to his dinner. Isn't selfishness 
 written In every curve of It ? The way ' — she 
 went on, as she leant over to the Duchess — 
 
 * the way that man behaved to a young girl 
 I know Is something more than words can 
 describe to you.' 
 
 * Jessie ! ' exclaimed her husband sharply, 
 as If determined to change the subject, ' look 
 behind you for a minute. There's the old 
 hag — don't you see her ? — who tried to collar 
 your money this afternoon at the tables. It's 
 w^orth while watching her just to see how 
 she claws her wine-glass.' 
 
 ' I hadn't observed her,' said the Duchess. 
 
 * Well, she at any rate has no compromising 
 diamonds, and no wicked Lothario to attend 
 to her/ 
 
 Mrs. Grantly's eye lit up with a sudden
 
 48 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 laughter. * Lord Surbiton/ she said, as she 
 touched his arm with her fan, and pointed 
 out the old woman in question, * I guess I 
 can show you one virtuous woman here. 
 Her morals, I am sure, are strictly unim- 
 peachable. I'll lay you six to one on them 
 in black-silk stockings.* 
 
 Lord Surbiton eyed Mrs. Grantly with 
 a look of somewhat sinister gallantry. ' If 
 your feet and ankles,' he said, ' are as lovely 
 as your hands and wrists, I shall proudly pay 
 the bet, even if I have the sad fortune to 
 win it' 
 
 ' In that case,' said Mrs. Grantly drily, 
 * I shall ask you to make your bets with my 
 husband. If you will do so with him on the 
 same principle next Ascot, we shall still 
 manage, perhaps, to keep out of the work- 
 house.' 
 
 Mrs. Grantly, though she said what she 
 chose herself, could always hold her own to
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 49 
 
 perfection ; and Lord Surbiton's gaze v\'as 
 now at once withdrawn from her. But a few 
 minutes afterwards, when he again turned to 
 her, there was a change in his whole ex- 
 pression that she was not prepared for. His 
 worn face, as a friend had once observed of 
 him, was hke a battered stage on which the 
 scenery was ahvays shifting ; and it now had 
 a strange appearance, as of some ruinous 
 transformation-effect. Every trace of its late 
 look had gone from it : it gleamed, instead, 
 with a grave uncertain tenderness, like a light 
 from a lost boyhood ; and even his artificial 
 manner when he spoke did not destroy the 
 impression. 
 
 ' You have shown me,' he said, ' one 
 virtuous woman. Let me now show you 
 another. Do you see the two who have this 
 moment entered ? ' 
 
 The eyes of all the party were turned in 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 the same direction. There was no mistaking* 
 for an Instant who It was that had attracted 
 him. Standing close to the door, and looking 
 about her in some uncertainty, was a tall 
 English girl. In company of an elder lady., 
 The two had apparently come there to dine, 
 and, being strange to the place, did not know 
 where to bestow themselves. The crlrl's 
 hesitation, however, could scarcely be called 
 embarrassment. The scene seemed to dis- 
 tress far more than to embarrass her ; though 
 it would hardly have been unnatural If it had 
 done both. There was a proud reserve, how- 
 ever, in her graceful movements and attitude, 
 which, amongst such surroundings, sufficed 
 at once to distinguish her. She was very 
 pale, with a brow and throat like a magnolia 
 blossom ; only her lips, in the words of 
 Solomon, seemed by contrast * a thread of 
 scarlet ;' and her large clear eyes were dark 
 as the darkest violet. She stood there In
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 51 
 
 the glare and glitter like a creature from 
 another world. 
 
 Lord Surbiton broke silence in slow, 
 measured accents. ' It looks,' he said, ' as if 
 an angel had descended in the midst of us, 
 like a snow-flake.' 
 
 There was a pause. The apparition 
 astonished the whole party. \^ernon s eyes, 
 in especial, were fixed intently on her. 
 
 ' Angel or no angel,' said the Duchess 
 presently, * I can see, even from this distance, 
 that she gets her clothes, not from heaven, 
 but Paris : and nothing costs so much as 
 well-made angelic simplicity. However 
 joking apart,' she added, and more seriously 
 ' upon my word I quite agree with Lord 
 Surbiton. It is literally an angel's face ; and 
 a very high-bred angel's into the bargain. 
 But, good gracious ! — what a place to bring 
 her to ! ' 
 
 Suddenly the two strangers were observed 
 
 E2 
 
 Library 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 to move forward into the room, while the 
 younger one first started, and then broke 
 into a smile. 
 
 'Look!' said the Duchess with interest, 
 * they have evidently found some one they 
 know here. Let us try and discover who 
 it is.' 
 
 * Oh my ! ' exclaimed Mrs. Grantly, ' I can 
 see who : and — would you believe it ? — why, 
 it's Colonel Stapleton! Duchess, you don't 
 know what you missed. You should have 
 seen how he jumped up when he saw them, 
 like a beer-barrel on springs! And there's 
 your angel. Lord Surbiton — there she is, 
 shaking hands with him. Well, all I can say 
 is, that I wish her joy of her company.' 
 
 * Come, Mr. Vernon,' said the Duchess. 
 as dinner drew to a close, ' you seem very 
 silent and abstracted. This interesting young 
 lady has clearly made an impression on you.' 
 
 ' Haven't you noticed him ? ' said Mrs.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 53 
 
 Grantly ; * he's been watching her all the 
 time ; and I can tell by his face that he's 
 jealous of Colonel Stapleton. However, Mr. 
 Vernon, there Is one crumb of comfort for 
 you; she has not been dining at the same 
 table with him.' 
 
 ^ No,' said Captain Grantly, ' but she's 
 looked round and smiled at him every ten 
 minutes. Keep yourself calm, Vernon, and 
 don't go calling old Jack out for it.' 
 
 * I should think,' said Vernon, with a 
 gravity he was quite unconscious of, ' that 
 they are relations of some kind or other — 
 cousins,' he went on meditating, * cousins 
 probably, or perhaps even niece and uncle.' 
 
 ' Capital ! ' exclaimed the Duchess. ' He's 
 thought the whole matter out to himself. 
 Mr. Vernon, your tastes are, I must say, most 
 versatile. You begin the dinner with Venus, 
 and you wind it up with Diana. But tell me,* 
 she went on, as she pushed her chair back,
 
 54 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 and sedately prepared to rise, ' are you a 
 gambler as well as a lover ? For if not, you 
 will perhaps smoke here with Lord Surblton, 
 while we three go back to the tables for a 
 little ; and then we will all meet presently 
 outside for our coffee.'
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EFT tcte-a-tcte with Vernon, Lord 
 &j^^X Surblton fixed his eyes on him, 
 C<Ow ^ drawing meanwhile from his 
 pocket a gorgeous gold cigarette case. 
 ' That tobacco,' he said solemnly through the 
 soft smoke-puffs, ' which has the subtlest of all 
 aromas, was grown amongst the haunted hills 
 of Syria.' This probably m.ay have been true 
 enough : he omitted to add, however, that he 
 had bought it himself in a spot no more 
 haunted than Bond Street. But the old ela- 
 borate manner which had once impressed 
 Vernon, now ac^ain arrested him ; though his
 
 56 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 eyes had still been straying In the direction of 
 the fair stranger. 
 
 ' It Is a long time,' went on Lord Sur- 
 blton, ' since I last saw you ; or to one, young 
 as you are, It must seem long/ 
 
 ' I like to be called young,' said Vernon, 
 ' for I have at least one sign of age In me, 
 and that Is I am beginning to value my 
 youth.' 
 
 * Happy philosopher,' cried the other, 
 ' who can value the treasure while you still 
 possess It ! When last I saw you, 3'ou were 
 just leaving Eton, and you had not learnt 
 such wisdom then. You came to me one 
 morning before luncheon, sad and eager, with 
 some verses of yours, that you might ask 
 what a poet thought of them. I suggested 
 that you should read them aloud to me, but 
 you were too modest to do so ; so I took 
 them myself, and read them aloud to you. 
 When I had finished I looked up, and there
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 57 
 
 were two large tears trembling In my young 
 bard's eyes.' 
 
 * What ! ' exclaimed Vernon, * and do you 
 really remember that unfortunate boyish stuff 
 of mine ? ' 
 
 * Boy,' said Lord Surbiton, 'your verses 
 were not stuff ; and there are certain things 
 which / never forget — 
 
 Oh Goddess, I am sick at heart, o'erwom 
 
 With weariness, 
 For the weight of Hfe is bitter to be borne 
 
 Companionless. 
 
 That is how your verses began : you see I 
 can quote them still. Professedly, they were 
 a sort of prayer to Diana : but really they 
 were far more than that. They were the 
 voice of youth that is heard through all the 
 ages — youth crying in its solitude for some 
 high companionship. There is nothing, 
 Vernon, so unutterably melancholy as a boy's 
 passionate purity : and for me you were then 
 the symbol of the eternal longing of boyhood.'
 
 58 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ' How well/ said Vernon/ I remember 
 that little poem of mine, though I confess I 
 am surprised that you do ! I remember the 
 day I wrote it, and the sound of it still rings 
 in my ears ; but there is one thing wanting — 
 one thing quite gone from me — and that is the 
 sort of longing I meant to express in it. My 
 thoughts and my aspirations of those days 
 have become a mystery to myself. I am 
 startled to find sometimes how utterly I have 
 lost the clue to them.' 
 
 ' That is always the way,' said Lord 
 Surbiton, ' when life is still developing, 
 and one form of eaQ^erness succeeds and 
 dispossesses another. It Is in virtue 
 of this process that you now see your 
 youth to be valuable. In the middle age 
 of your boyhood you longed sadly for 
 the unattainable; in the boyhood of your 
 middle age, you Idealise the attainable. 
 Happy philosopher, I again say to y(3u — philo-
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 59 
 
 sopher, lover, poet, and man of the world in 
 
 one ! 
 
 ' I doubt,' said Vernon smiling, * if I now 
 idealise anything ; and I fear, Lord Surbiton, 
 that you idealise me. I am no longer a lover, 
 nor even a would-be poet.' 
 
 * Not a poet on paper, it may be ; but a 
 poet in the way life touches you, and in the 
 demands you make on it. To be a poet in 
 this sense, you need never have written a 
 line ; and yet the name may fit 3'ou, without 
 any violence to its meaning. The imagina- 
 tion is for every man the co-creator of his 
 universe, and those men are poets whose 
 imaginations create most gloriously. And 
 yet, my dear Vernon, you say you no longer 
 idealise ! I shall as soon believe that as that 
 you are no longer a lover. Why, within this 
 last couple of hours, you have been making 
 love to one lady, and longing, we all thought, 
 to make love to another.'
 
 6o A /ROMANCE OF 
 
 * Ah ! ' said Vernon ; ' but the excitement 
 of making love Is very different from the still 
 devotion of loving. What I have ceased to 
 be capable of, what I have lost even the power 
 of imagining, Is a single passion that shall 
 sway or fulfil one's life. Love seems to me 
 now to be very much like temper. Your 
 dearest friend can Irritate you Into the one ; 
 the most commonplace woman can trick you 
 into the other : and you adore In the latter 
 case, and you accuse and abuse in the former, 
 in a way which by-and-by you can only 
 stupidly wonder at. I do not want to speak 
 cynically about this. A cynic is a foolish 
 fellow who either is ignorant, or pretends to 
 be, of a good third of an average man's 
 motives — those that are not contemptible ; 
 and I know that love, as a fact, can be pure 
 and true and faithful, and that it is really to 
 many the one thing w^orth living for. I only 
 speak for myself; and all that I can see In
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 6i 
 
 it Is a passionate perversity both of judg- 
 ment and of feeling. It exaggerates the 
 value of the special individual, just as 
 cynicism does the opposite for the race in 
 general. The concentrated praise is as false 
 as the diffused censure. Each is equally 
 silly to the eye of the calm judgment. ]\Iy 
 wish now is for no emotion but such as 
 I can master. I wish to possess myself, 
 not to appropriate others ; and with regard to 
 women I agree with the poet Donne — 
 
 I can love her and her, and you and you ; 
 I can love any, so she be not true.' 
 
 * I did not expect,' said Lord Surbiton, 
 * when I called you a lover, to find you still 
 content at thirty with the intangible charms 
 of a moon-goddess. As we live on, we are 
 obliged to take the attainable, and do our 
 best to idealise that. You say you are not 
 constant. Well, no true artist is ; and you 
 have the artist's temper, I see, just as you
 
 62 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 have the poet's — two things which by no 
 means always go together : indeed to unite 
 them is a rare triumph of character. Many 
 poets perhaps might have drawn a Des- 
 demona : only an artistic poet could have 
 drawn an I ago also. What marks the poetic 
 temper is the intensity of its sympathy; 
 what marks the artistic is the versatility. 
 The artist not only feels much, but he also 
 feels many things ; and in this way he 
 always preserves his balance. Every one 
 at the beginning has had the makings of 
 several characters in him. The artist has 
 the makings of an indefinite number. Most 
 men, farther out of their possible characters, 
 harden or settle down into one, but the artist 
 never does ; for character is nothing but 
 prejudice or trick grown permanent, and the 
 artist has no character, just as the chameleon 
 is said to have no colour. Thus when vulgar 
 critics declare with regard to some artistic
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 6.^ 
 
 writer's creations — as often and often they 
 
 have done with regard to mine, for instance 
 
 '' Here are his own feelings ; he has drawn this 
 man from himself," they are at once right 
 and wrong. He has not only drawn this man 
 from himself, but he has drawn all ; for he 
 becomes himself some new man to be drawn 
 from, every time he suppresses some newly- 
 combined nine-tenths of himself This, Ver- 
 non, is the true artistic versatility ; and her 
 Grace — who by the way is an uncommonly 
 shrewd woman — at once saw you possessed 
 it. You can respond in the same half-hour, 
 she told you, to the beauty of Diana and of 
 Venus. Such versatility is the true elixir of 
 youth ; it makes even the wisdom of aore 
 supple. ]\Iy dear fellow,' he said, some- 
 what coming down from his pedestal, 'con- 
 stancy, though we know its value for most 
 men, is the elixir of middle age. It makes you 
 five-and-forty at once, and it keeps you there.'
 
 64 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Vernon at this moment let his eye 
 wander, and a sudden exclamation broke 
 from him which at once put a stop to philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 * Damn It ! ' he said, ' we have been 
 talking of dead Dianas ; and meanwhile the 
 living one has taken flight, and deserted us.' 
 
 Lord Surblton turned his head, and saw 
 that the fair stranger and her companion had 
 gone. Where feminine beauty was concerned, 
 he was always prompt and practical ; and he 
 at once set about rising, though his move- 
 ments were somewhat slow. 
 
 * She can't have gone far,' he said. 'We 
 shall be sure to see her again somewhere ; 
 and her Grace, or Captain Grantly, will find 
 out all about her for us. Or falling these, 
 there is that fellow, Stapleton.' 
 
 He took Vernon's arm with a sedate and 
 leisurely dignity, and the two left the res- 
 taurant. They paused In the cloak-room
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 65 
 
 which Is just outside, and Lord Surbiton was 
 being helped by a garcon Into a magnificent 
 sable overcoat, when a female figure ap- 
 peared, with a look that at once attracted him. 
 This was none other than the lady of the red 
 fan. She had come for her opera-cloak ; 
 and before Vernon was even aware of her 
 presence, Lord Surbiton, with as qi:Ick a 
 gallantry as his years permitted him, was 
 arranging it tenderly for her, over her finely- 
 shaped shoulders. 
 
 He was sufficiently delighted with his 
 performance thus far ; but a still greater 
 pleasure awaited him. The lacy cast a 
 glance at him with her soft, appealing eyes, 
 and murmured, ' Merci, 7nilord! She did 
 not blush, but she looked much as if she 
 wished to do so. Lord Surbiton at once 
 laid his hand on his heart, and was begging 
 to be told hovv he was honoured by madame 
 knowing him. ' Ah ! ' she replied, ' and need 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 A ROMAXCE OF 
 
 a renowned man ask ? Why, the poems and 
 the romances of monsieur are as much read 
 in Paris as In London/ Here she caught 
 sight of Vernon; and, with the quietest 
 smile In the world, * I am going,' she went 
 on, ' once more to the tables. Will not you 
 two come, and join 3^our luck with mine ? ' 
 
 Lord Surbiton was completely charmed 
 with her, and regretted not a little that to do 
 this was Impossible. He was almost aware 
 of a slight pang of jealousy when she bid 
 Vernon to put in more securely a diamond 
 pin that had become loose in her hair. 
 
 Vernon's hands lingered over the soft 
 brown plaits. ' You are very lovely,' he 
 said, ' though, of course, you don't need to 
 be told that ; and my morals will let you 
 play with my heart, though my prudence, I 
 fear, will not let you play with my fortune.' 
 
 He was in the middle of uttering this, 
 when he el^nced aside for a moment, and his
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 67 
 
 eyes met those of the girl to seek whom he 
 had just risen from the dinner-table. It was 
 but a glance she gave him ; and then her fair 
 head was averted : but the glance and the 
 gesture were only too expressive to him. 
 She seemed at once to comprehend and be 
 surprised at the scene he was taking part in, 
 and to turn away from it with contempt, pain, 
 and aversion. A disacrreeable sense of shame 
 at once came over him ; nor were his reflec- 
 tions made pleasanter by what he observed 
 next moment. As the girl, with her com- 
 panion, was quitting the cloak-room, he was 
 just able to see her face light up for an 
 instant ; and directly afterwards Colonel 
 Stapleton entered. 
 
 The Colonel seemed almost as versatile 
 as Lord Surbiton himself ; for he was quite 
 as familiar with the fair Aspasia as he had 
 been a moment before with the pale and 
 virginal stranger. \^ernon and Lord Surbiton
 
 68 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 had been conversing with the former lady In 
 French; and his lordship, who was some- 
 Avhat deaf, had pronounced her accent per- 
 fect. The Colonel, however, to whom she 
 turned Instantly, composedly addressed some 
 chaff to her In the homeliest English possible; 
 and she with an equal fluenc}^ though with a 
 strong foreign twang, replied, ' If you don't 
 look out, I shall smack your nasty little head 
 for you/ 
 
 Vernon started at this astounding utter- 
 ance, as if an adder had stung him. ' Good 
 Heavens ! ' he exclaimed to himself, ' what 
 an absolute fool I am!' And not without 
 some brusqtierie, which the fair one mistook 
 lor jealousy, he succeeded in withdrawing 
 Lord Surblton, and making a hasty exit. 
 'Pier French,' he muttered, *may be the 
 French of the Faubourg, but her English is 
 very certainly the English of Regent Street.' 
 
 Lord Surblton, however, had completely
 
 THE NINEJEEXTH CENTURY. 69 
 
 missed the above piece of badinage ; and 
 pausing on the hotel door-steps, and laying 
 his hand upon Vernon's arm, ' What a woman 
 that is ! ' he exclaimed, with a slow gravity. 
 'It is in her class, after all, that the soul of 
 the old world still lives on, with its passion, 
 its grace, and its intellect ; and we, in our 
 barbarous virtue, actually affect to look down 
 on her. A woman like that ouo^ht to have 
 lived at Athens, and have had a Pericles 
 for her companion, and a Socrates for her 
 pupil.' 
 
 Vernon made no response to this. His 
 thoughts were still busy with those clear 
 eyes that had humbled him. ' So much,' he 
 said bitterly to himself, * for a woman's power 
 of insicrht ! She looks nothino^ but scorn at 
 me, and yet smiles like a sister at that fat, 
 sensual beast there ! ' 
 
 Before long Lord Surbiton began again, 
 as they went in the direction where they
 
 70 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 expected to find their party. ' Ah, my dear 
 Vernon ! ' he said, drawing a deep sigh that 
 made his satin necktie creak, * it is the artist's 
 
 gift ' Here he paused for a moment to 
 
 eye critically two young ladies who passed 
 him. * It is the artist s gift,' he resumed, ' to 
 discern between good and evil ; it is his 
 doom to be the servant of neither. He 
 surveys life as a Caesar surveyed the circus : 
 and the affections and lusts of men can say 
 nothing to him but morititri te salutant. 
 He belono:s to a middle race who are neither 
 divine nor human, and he cannot really ally 
 himself with any human being. This is why, 
 when he dies, there are no flowers strewn on 
 his tomb — no rosemary for remembrance, or 
 pansies for tender thoughts ; but only the 
 bloomless laurel — the leaf, not of love, but of 
 homage.' 
 
 * Lord Surbiton ' — it was the voice of the 
 Duchess — 'when you've done quoting poetry,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 71 
 
 you'll find us all here, ready for you to 
 discover us.' She was seated with the 
 Grantlys outside the cafe, at a round table 
 laden with cups and liqueur-glasses. ' See/ 
 she went on, ' we have ordered everything, 
 and we have been so thoughtful that we have 
 even kept chairs for you.' 
 
 ' It seems to me,' said Lord Surbiton, 
 'that your Grace has kept two a-piece 
 for us.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said the Duchess, laughing, ' those 
 two other chairs are for some particular 
 friends of mine, whom I asked just now to 
 come and have their coffee with us. Now, 
 Mr. Vernon, here is a riddle for you. Who 
 should you think these particular friends are ? 
 Why, your fair paragon of the restaurant, and 
 the old lady, her aunt. I met them five 
 minutes ago, as we were coming here from 
 the gambling-rooms, and it flashed on me all 
 of a sudden who the aunt was. You, Lord
 
 72 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Surbiton, will remember her. She's the 
 widow of Sir Edward Walters, who was our 
 Minister for so many years at Stuttgart ; and 
 the girl — I remember her too quite well now — 
 is that beautiful Cynthia Walters, who was 
 made such a fuss about In London three 
 seasons ago, and then got ill, and has never 
 appeared since. Her home, it seems, Is now 
 with her aunt in Florence.' 
 
 ' Look out, Duchess,* said Captain Grantly. 
 * Here they are coming.'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ADY WALTERS was a woman of 
 great sweetness of manner, yet 
 with a touch now and then of 
 subdued humour. She produced the impres- 
 sion that she had once known the world, but 
 that she hardly knew it now ; for knowledge 
 of the world can be forgotten like other 
 knowledge, and from certain gentle natures it 
 slips away easily. 
 
 She and Lord Surbiton had an extremely 
 friendly greeting, and settled down at once 
 into a talk over old days. As for Vernon
 
 74 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 his position was less comfortable. The 
 Duchess introduced him to Miss Walters, 
 who had at first been unaware of his presence : 
 but the instant she recognised him the smile 
 died on her lips, and she acknowledged his 
 bow as coldly as any young lady of fashion 
 who seems to deny an acquaintance in the 
 very act of formally making it. 
 
 Vernon felt utterly worsted by her perfect 
 savoir faire ; and what added not a little to 
 his suffering was that the Duchess should 
 witness his discomfiture, without knowing 
 what he felt sure was the cause of it. Too 
 proud or self-conscious to risk any further 
 repulse, he listened silently to the girl's 
 answers, as the Duchess put her through a 
 rapid catechism. ' We have taken,' she said, 
 'a villa beyond Nice, in the country. We 
 arrived but three days ago, from Florence. 
 We came over here this afternoon for the 
 music ; but missed our train back again, and
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 7$ 
 
 SO had to remain for dinner. I don't know 
 what we should have done If Colonel Staple- 
 ton, whom I have known from a child, had 
 not secured a table for us. I think this place 
 horrible. I was here once before, and I 
 detested It.' 
 
 Vernon watched her intently as she was 
 o^ivlnor these answers. The moments were 
 few ; but to him they were like a long dream. 
 He seemed to become familiar with all the 
 folds of her drapery, and each outline of arm 
 or figure that her dress revealed or hinted at. 
 There was a subtle air with her of fastidious 
 fashion, from her hat to her pointed shoes 
 and the long black gloves concealing her 
 dainty hands. But this was not all, or at 
 any rate \^ernon thought not. She seemed 
 not only a woman of fashion, but a woman 
 of fashion who had the soul of a sibyl In her; 
 and her clear eyes seemed touched with some 
 high wistful melancholy.
 
 76 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 The impression she made on the Duchess 
 was different. Her Grace had found Miss 
 Walters somewhat chilly in manner ; so she 
 brought her questions pretty soon to a close, 
 and addressed herself to Mrs. Grantly. 
 Vernon hoped with trembling that now might 
 be his chance : but no, it was not to be. Miss 
 Walters turned away from him, and seemed 
 lost in the scene before her. That scene was 
 one which is certainly unique in Europe, and 
 it was now wearing its strangest and most 
 striking aspect. The large place, with its 
 gleaming buildings round It, was a lake of 
 transparent shadow, dotted with countless 
 gas-lamps, and full of the vague whispers of 
 fountains and human life. On one side flared 
 the hotel they had lately quitted ; on another 
 the great casino, pale like a skeleton from 
 globes of electric light. On another, where 
 the buildings were lower and more broken, tall 
 palms might be seen, with their plumes In the
 
 THE NINETEK:\TH CEXTURY. 77 
 
 clear sky ; and beyond were balustrades of 
 marble, and spaces of dark sea : whilst behind 
 and in grim contrast rose the barren towering 
 mountains, and dwarfed the world at the foot 
 of them into a small cluster of fire-flies. 
 
 Lord Surbiton had been on the watch to 
 attract Miss Walters's attention, and he now 
 saw his opportunity. 
 
 * This place,' he said as he fixed his eyes 
 on her, ' always seems to me like the moral 
 sewer of Europe — a great drain's mouth open 
 at the foot of the hills. There is a tragic 
 irony even in its loveliness.' 
 
 * Tragic or not,' said the Duchess, ' we 
 have had a most amusing dinner here; haven't 
 we, Mrs. Grantly ? Though I'm sure I've 
 forgotten by this time what it was we were 
 talking about.' 
 
 ' A proof,' said Lord Surbiton, ' of how 
 well your Grace was conversing. True con- 
 versation is like good champagne. It ex-
 
 78 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 hilarates for the moment, but next morning 
 we feel no trace of it' 
 
 Vernon here broke silence. * If true con- 
 versation,' he said, ' is like good champagne, 
 true love is like bad. False and true love 
 may seem jiist the same when we taste them. 
 We only detect the true when we find that 
 our head aches afterwards.' 
 
 ' That,' said Lord Surbiton, still looking 
 towards Miss Walters, ' is why a serious 
 passion is so great an educator. But its work 
 only begins when the pain it causes has left 
 us. Strong present feeling narrows our sym- 
 pathies ; strong past feeling enlarges them. 
 Thus a woman of the world always should 
 have been, but should never be, in love. She 
 should always have had a grief : she should 
 never have a grievance.' 
 
 'Why,' asked Miss Walters coldly, 'do 
 you say this of a woman of the world 
 especially ? '
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 79 
 
 * Because it is only in the world, or in 
 what we call society, that intercourse with our 
 fellows is really a completed fine art. It there 
 is what elsewhere it only pretends to be. ]Men 
 who profess to think gravely or to have grave 
 ends speak of society as the type of what is 
 vain and frivolous. Perhaps they are right — 
 who knows ? Yet society is the logical end 
 of the whole of this world's civilisation ; and 
 of all the follies that I ever set any store b)', 
 fashion is the one I could still find most to 
 say for. Fashion,' he continued, 'is the 
 daintiest form of fame, and sometimes of 
 power also ; and were it only as wide and 
 lasting as it is delicate, it would unite in itself 
 the objects of all human ambitions.' 
 
 'Are the objects of ambition,' said Miss 
 Walters, ' the chief objects of life '■ ' 
 
 ' Men in general,' said Lord Surbiton, 
 * are the puppets of three forces — ambition, 
 love, and hunger ; but love destroys the
 
 8o A ROMANCE OF 
 
 appetite ; ambition destroys love ; and fashion 
 absorbs, or at any rate sways, ambition/ 
 
 These general maxims did not much 
 delight the Duchess, and she betrayed at this 
 juncture that her thoughts had been somewhat 
 Avandering. 
 
 ' Captain Grantly ! ' she exclaimed, ' I 
 wonder whose are those horses that are 
 waiting there at the door of the casino — 
 the pair of greys, I mean, In that rather 
 smart-looking carriage. I watched them 
 drive round, five minutes ago ; and the 
 near one, do you know, is really a first-rate 
 stepper.' 
 
 This profane nterruption put a stop to 
 Lord Surbitons eloquence, for Miss Walters 
 turned rovmd, and began to look at the 
 horses : whilst her aunt, hearing a railway 
 whistle, consulted her watch, and said they 
 must soon be moving. ' However,' she 
 added, ' there must be plenty of time yet, as
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 8r 
 
 Colonel Stapleton said he would come and 
 see us safe to the station.' 
 
 * I, too,' said \''ernon, ' am reminded to 
 think of moving; for I see my carriage is 
 already there waiting for me.' 
 
 * What I ' said the Duchess, ' and is that 
 fine turn-out yours, ]\Ir. \'ernon ? Well, 
 here's luxury for a young man o^ thirty I ' 
 
 ' By Gad, my dear chap, you arc a swell,' 
 said Captain Grantly, putting his hand on 
 Vernon's shoulder. 
 
 W^ealth has a certain power over those 
 even who are least touched by it. It calls 
 their attention to the man possessing it, if 
 only to m^ake it worth their while to despise 
 him ; and \^ernon knew in an instant that 
 Aliss Walters turned to glance at him. Once 
 again he was about to attempt speaking to 
 her, when he was interrupted by the arrival 
 of Colonel Stapleton. 
 
 ' Here's a go ! ' cried the Colonel, panting 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 and out of breath, ' IVe been looking for you, 
 Lady Walters, for the last twenty minutes ; 
 and now your train's gone, and you must stop 
 the night here. If you'll let me, I'll get you 
 rooms directly at the Hotel de Paris. The 
 
 Princesse de and the Prince for the time 
 
 being have just cleared out unexpectedly ; so 
 I know they can take you in, and we'll show 
 Miss Cynthia a little more of the life here.' 
 
 * If you stop, you know,' said the Duchess, 
 * there is my maid who can look after you. 
 I can lend you almost everything ; and you 
 can buy a tooth-brush here.' 
 
 Miss Walters turned to Colonel Stapleton 
 with a hasty frown. ' No — no,' she said ; ' let 
 us do anything rather than that. This place 
 is perfectly unendurable.' 
 
 Vernon observed her closely, and with 
 extreme surprise. She spoke in a manner 
 that Vv'ould have been rudeness to any common 
 acquaintance even of long standing, but the
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 83 
 
 Colonel, strange to say, was not in the least 
 abashed by it ; he only e)'ecl her with a look 
 of quiet amusement. ' Come, little vixen,' he 
 whispered, ' don't be naughty. I'm sure 
 Aunt Louisa will give her vote for staying.' 
 
 But Lady Walters wished to do no such 
 thing ; and she was already inquiring ner- 
 vously if there would be any difficulty in 
 getting a carriage. ' Com.e,'' said i\Iiss 
 Walters, taking hold of Colonel Stapleton's 
 sleeve, 'be good, and go and tell her about 
 it. We mean to go somehow, so you may 
 as well make yourself of use to us.' 
 
 He was forestalled, however, by Captain 
 Grantly, who had at once volunteered to go 
 off to the livery-stables, and was just starting 
 when he was recalled by the practical 
 Duchess. ' You may as well find out first,' 
 she said, ' where it is Lady Walters wants tc 
 be driven to ; for at this time of night they 
 will often refuse to take you.' 
 G 2
 
 84 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 * Oh ! ' said Lady Walters, somewhat 
 troubled by this, ' It Is to the Cap de Juan. 
 It Is a long way by the road, I'm afraid. 
 Perhaps, after all, we had better remain here.' 
 
 Vernon felt all the blood rush at once to 
 his face ; and for a moment his heart stopped 
 beatlnsf. 
 
 * The Cap de Juan ! ' exclaimed the 
 Duchess ; ' why that settles everything. 
 Come Mr. Vernon, now Is your opportunity. 
 My dear Lady Walters, here Is a young man 
 with a carriage and horses ready, who Is only 
 too anxious to take you back to your very 
 door-step.' 
 
 A rapid look of annoyance passed over 
 Miss Walters' face. ' We couldn't think,' she 
 said, with a cold politeness, ' of taking Mr. 
 Vernon's horses so ereat a distance. He is 
 hardly aware, perhaps, of the journey there 
 Is before us.' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' said Vernon, ' I am
 
 THE XIXETEEXTH CEXTURY, 85 
 
 particularly well aware of it, for it is the very 
 journey that Is also before me. If I am not 
 much mistaken, we are all but next-door 
 neighbours. Your house, I think, must be 
 the Chateau St. John ; and, if so, our two 
 gardens touch each other.' 
 
 After this there was nothlncr m.ore to be 
 
 o 
 
 said. Circumstances had at length played 
 into Vernon's hands ; and another caprice in 
 hl:s life was to be at least partially gratified. 
 
 ' Well,' said the Duchess, as the carrlaofe 
 drove off, ' I'm glad Mr. Vernon has got what 
 he wanted, though Miss Cynthia, at first, was, 
 I must say, very snubby to him. However, 
 one can never judge by this. Perhaps, when 
 we go to the Cap de Juan, we shall find them 
 an engaged couple. Who knows ? ' 
 
 * I know,' said ]\Irs. Grantly, ' and I'll bet 
 you anything we shall not. A man like ■Mr. 
 Vernon will never marry. He's exactly,' she 
 added, dropping her voice, 'like a younger
 
 86 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 edition of Lord Surbiton ; and I guess they're 
 a couple of shams — the two of them.' 
 
 ' I think/ said the Duchess, ' that Mr. 
 Vernon is charming.' 
 
 ' Yes — to know,' said Mrs. Grantly, ' but 
 not to depend upon.'
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ERNOX and his friends were mean- 
 while hasteninof homewards. Ladv 
 Walters had addressed to hnn a 
 few kind civilities, eyeing him the while with 
 a look of trustful friendliness ; but her niece 
 had hardly said anything, and the three soon 
 sank Into silence. Every influence, indeed, 
 seemed to persuade to It — the easy motion 
 of the carriage, the rhythmic tramp of the 
 horses, the soft fanning of the night air, and 
 the pageant of sea and mountain that was 
 sweeping past them like a dream. Here was 
 a gaudy villa, surmounted by a huge coronet.
 
 88 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 the home of some Russian gambler ; here, 
 with domes and minarets, a dwelHng yet 
 more fantastic. Scents of flowers blew down 
 to them from the gardens ; and over the 
 garden walls hung spiked aloes and cactuses. 
 Then presently the scene grew wilder. On 
 the right, wooded gorges slanted up into the 
 mountains ; and on the left, the sea below 
 them broke into fairy bays. All this seemed 
 to absorb Miss Walters ; and her eyes being 
 thus occupied, Vernon was able unobserved 
 to observe her. He had once remarked In 
 one of his more delicate moods, that a woman 
 whose dress is the perfection of fashion, is 
 never herself the perfection of real refinement. 
 But he now felt inclined to modify this judg- 
 ment. The vanities of this world seemed, 
 on the girl before him, as natural as Its own 
 petals to some delicate hot-house flower ; so 
 that she was as little troubled by their posses- 
 sion as the saint Is who has renounced them.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 89 
 
 * The effect of her presence,' he wrote that 
 night in his diary, ' was at once charming 
 and singular. It did not at first concentrate 
 my thoughts on herself ; but it moved Hke a 
 wind amongst them, and stirred them in all 
 directions. Vague aspirations of many kinds 
 awoke in me. I longed in grotesque rotation 
 to make poetry, to ride hard, and to pray ; 
 and when something roused the aunt, and 
 between two sleeps she talked a little to me, 
 I was annoyed and jarred by having the 
 silence broken.' 
 
 Lady Walters, it is true, had begun some- 
 what abruptly. ' What a pity it is,' she said, 
 as though following up some train of thought 
 of her own, ' that poor Jack Stapleton never 
 married ! He is naturally such a kind, good 
 creature. It is self-indulo:ence that has 
 ruined him.' 
 
 'And do you think,' said Vernon, 'that 
 marriage will always save a man ? '
 
 90 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ' Not always,' she said, ' and it never 
 affects a man as it does a woman. Yet some 
 men, Mr. Vernon, are ruined for the want of 
 it — often those with the warmest and sweetest 
 natures. You know the man that his friends 
 call a £-006^ fellozu — who, like a sunflower 
 always turns towards happiness. If such a 
 man has a wife he cares for, he will live that 
 he may make her happy ; but if left to him- 
 self, shall I tell you what will happen to him ? 
 He will live, not to give pleasure but to find 
 it ; and to like consorting with happy people 
 is a very different thing from trying to make 
 people happy.' 
 
 * Perhaps you are right,' said Vernon with 
 a slight involuntary sigh. ' But how should 
 you say that marriage affected women ? ' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Lady Walters, ' in another way 
 entirely. When a woman marries with affec- 
 tion her whole character changes. She grows 
 absorbed in the things that absorb her hus-
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 91 
 
 band ; and, through him, they become really 
 a new life to her.' 
 
 ' If I thought of marrying,' said Vernon, 
 ' it would be with a different hope. I should 
 hope to find a wife, who, if she had my 
 tastes at all, had had them before she knew 
 me ; and that her already possessing them 
 were a cause of her sympathy ; not that her 
 acquiring them for my sake were the signs of 
 it. I should like her life to stand on its own 
 basis ; and in her pursuits I should like to 
 have a constant rival, that should keep my 
 affection fresh with a kind of stintless 
 jealousy.* 
 
 Lady Walters smiled at him incredulously, 
 with half-closed eyes. ' I am afraid, Mr. 
 Vernon,' she said, ' you've never been in love 
 yet.' Then the conversation dropped ; and 
 it was soon evident that she had ac^ain fallen 
 asleep. Vernon was pleased to have been 
 able to talk in Miss W^alters' hearing, since
 
 92 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 he found her so difficult of direct access ; and 
 he now fancied that she looked a little less 
 coldly at him. Presently she asked him of 
 her own accord the name of some place they 
 were passing. He answered her question ; 
 but he found he could get no farther. In 
 spite of himself he was still embarrassed in 
 her presence. The remembrance that her 
 first sight of him had been in the middle of 
 his foolish scene with the Frenchwoman, 
 abased him in his own estimation : he was in 
 a thoroughly wrong position. He leaned his 
 head back, and looked up at the stars, and 
 was soon completely lost in another deep 
 reverie. All of a sudden the tenor of his 
 thoughts betrayed itself. He broke out aloud 
 with a single line from Hamlet : — 
 
 Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! 
 
 He spoke the words abstractedly, and for 
 a second or two seemed not to know he had 
 uttered them. Then he recollected himself,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 93 
 
 and there might have been an awkward 
 moment, if Miss Walters with ready tact had 
 not come to the rescue. 
 
 ' I know that hne so well/ she said ; ' but 
 I can't remember where it comes from.' 
 
 ' It is from Hamlet^ said \"ernon, ' a pla)- 
 I know by heart ; and I often catch myself 
 repeating bits aloud from it.' 
 
 With this there ensued a little conversa- 
 tion about Shakespeare, then about poetry 
 generally ; and matters very soon were pro- 
 ceeding more smoothly. Vernon had once 
 again found his footing. His thoughts, his 
 feelings, and his words began to flow freely 
 as usual ; and when he looked into ]\IIss 
 W^alters' eyes he found she did not avert 
 them. The character of the drive in a sinele 
 instant changed for him ; and it quickly be- 
 came as delightful as it had been disappoint- 
 ing hitherto. To all intents and purposes he 
 was alone with this fair stranger ; and she
 
 94 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 was visibly now beginning to take a certain 
 interest in him. Gradually, too, he became 
 aware that her presence had some magnetic 
 effect upon him. Her hand, her lips, her 
 eye, even the soft furs on her jacket, and 
 the faint perfume from her handkerchief 
 touched his being, and made the blood in his 
 veins tingle : whilst at the same time all in 
 him that was most refined or delicate, seemed 
 suddenly to be coming uppermost under the 
 attraction of her presence. The moral recoil 
 from the low and frivolous to whatever was 
 pure and delicate, was in itself a pleasing shock 
 to the Intellectual voluptuary : whilst the 
 sense that he had to efface a bad Impression 
 gave double earnestness to his efforts to 
 create a good one. To a man of Vernon's 
 temperament an experience of this kind was 
 a luxury. 
 
 And yet, on his part, there was no acting 
 or Insincerity. His goodness, to say the least
 
 THE NINETEEXTH CENTURY. 95 
 
 of It, was as genuine as his evil ; and his voice, 
 his look, and his manner, as he now spoke 
 to Miss Walters, were all instinct with a 
 chivalrous and a quite natural reverence. 
 
 * I am so glad,' he said at last, ' that I 
 happened to have my carriage, and was able 
 to take you away from that horrid place 
 there.' 
 
 * If you think the place horrid,' she said 
 gently, ' why do you go yourself to it ? ' 
 
 ' One might ask, I am afraid, that question 
 about many things. I went there to-day for 
 distraction — to escape from my own company. 
 It did well enouo^h to distract me : but one 
 wishes to shake the dust off one's feet after- 
 wards.' 
 
 * Like my question,' she said, ' that will 
 apply to many things. But are you living 
 quite alone out here ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said \^ernon, ' with no company 
 but my books and thoughts ; and, though I
 
 96 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 came here on purpose to be with these, I am 
 . glad sometimes to escape from them. I had 
 hoped to have brought a friend with me ; 
 indeed, perhaps he may still come. The 
 best escape from one's thoughts is a friend 
 one is really fond of.' 
 
 ' That Is hardlv a flatterino: llorht,' she 
 said, ' In which to regard a friend. There 
 are some unhappy people whose only chance 
 of peace lies in forgetting themselves ; but 
 such people, I believe, have made themselves 
 unfit for friendship. I look on a friend as a 
 person who will help one to find, not to lose, 
 oneself. If you want to lose yourself, you 
 should always live in society, and agree with 
 Lord Surbiton that life's highest reward Is 
 fashion.' 
 
 ' Are you then,' said Vernon, ' not fond of 
 society ? ' 
 
 ' Of course for happy people society is 
 a healthy thing ; but how one mixes in it
 
 THE XIXETEEXTH CEXTCRV. 97 
 
 depends on one's own character. One can 
 be the fashion, and yet not be oneself a 
 fashionable, as one sees in the case of many 
 of the greatest people in London. I may 
 myself have been less in the world, perhaps, 
 than most women of my age ; but still I have 
 seen plenty of smart society ; indeed, I have 
 several relations who seem to live for nothincr 
 else : and, so far as I can tell, nothing 
 hardens the heart like fashion. To a crenu- 
 ine fine lady — who is a \<y:\ different person, 
 by the way, from 2. grandc danic — it is a thing 
 next to impossible to value character riehtlv.' 
 
 * And yet many of the qualities,' said 
 \^ernon, 'that secure most applause in society, 
 are the fruits, as Lord Surbiton told us, of 
 some deeper life in the past. Take singing, 
 for instance : what an effect real expression 
 has ! — and to express feeling in song, the 
 singer must himself have felt.' 
 
 ' Perhaps so ; and for that very reason 
 
 VOL I. H
 
 98 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 the most touching singing has sometimes 
 almost disgusted me. What a use to make 
 of some buried and sacred sorrow, to conjure 
 its ghost up that it may secure a drawing- 
 room triumph for us ! ' 
 
 ' One may, of course,' said Vernon, * exag- 
 gerate views Hke these, till they become 
 false and fantastic. But I am quite sure 
 you are right to some degree. To be 
 always in society is to be always with mere 
 acquaintances, and with acquaintances who 
 like you for your least genuine qualities. I 
 have met many a man, staying in country 
 houses, who must have been sickened, as he 
 went to bed, by what he had said or laughed 
 at in the smoking-room ; and yet the night 
 after he has done just the same. To be 
 always in this way with the world, is to be 
 always estranged from oneself ; and one's 
 true self, like other sensitive creatures, will In 
 time die of neglect, or at least be ruined by it.
 
 THE NISETEEXTH CEXTURY. 99 
 
 ' Do you remember,' said Miss Walters, 
 * what I said just now — that a true friend is a 
 person with whom we can find, not lose our- 
 selves ? I,' she went on, with a sigh and a 
 slight shudder, ' have had friends of two kinds 
 — true and false ; and they have both done 
 all they could for me.' 
 
 She shuddered. 
 
 ' Are you cold ? ' murmured \^ernon, 
 
 leaning forward and looking at her. ' Let 
 
 me put that shawl over your shoulders for 
 
 you.' No lover could have done the office 
 
 with more tenderness, or at the same time 
 
 with more respect. Then for a moment he 
 
 laid his hand upon hers, and asked, ' Are you 
 
 warmer now ? ' The look, the touch formed 
 
 a new crisis in their relationship ; and they 
 
 both grew aware of this by a new tone in 
 
 their voices. Vernon himself was surprised 
 
 at what had passed. He had never thought 
 
 she could have so softened towards him ; 
 H 2
 
 100 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 but he knew that it was so by her two words 
 as she thanked him. And now with a soft 
 sensation, he felt his heart expanding ; and 
 grave and secret thoughts welled up to his 
 lips, and began to demand utterance. Should 
 he go on and utter them, fixing his eyes on 
 hers ? To do so, he knew, would be an 
 exquisite self-indulgence. It would be like 
 a passionate mental kiss to the beautiful 
 creature opposite him. But for a moment 
 he vacillated ; and there was a short moral 
 struggle in him. Had he the right intention 
 that could make that kiss lawful ? Might 
 not the very feelings he wished to express 
 be wronged by his then expressing them ? 
 Was such mental passion as this, with its 
 spasm of self-abandonment, in reality much 
 better than its coarser physical counterpart ? 
 Conscience, however, was weak, and was 
 swept aside by impulse. 
 
 ' Shall I tell you,' he said, ' why I have
 
 THE NINETEEXTH CEXTURY. loi 
 
 come out here ? I have lost my seh"", and I 
 ^vIsh to find it again. I wish to see how I 
 stand with my conscience, and to know what 
 I really value. This is a task in which no 
 friend can help one ; one must enter into one's 
 own chamber and be still, for it. At present, 
 it seems to me sometimes that I hardly have 
 a self ; but I feel, like a man in a dream, that 
 I am being swept passively through changing 
 states of consciousness. Some may be 
 pleasant enough, some dull and dreary ; but 
 they are all shadow}- things ; I have no 
 abiding part in them, nor is one bound by any 
 chain to the other. I seem to be svv'ept 
 through them, just as we in this carriage are 
 being swept through this ghostly landscape. 
 What I want is. to wake myself from this idle 
 dream of the world, and to cret back a^ain to 
 the realities I was once familiar with. Such 
 a waking is a long, weary process ; and a 
 friend's presence may soothe one in it though
 
 102 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 he cannct help it forward. Is that,' he said, 
 looking at her, ' Is that a wrong view of 
 friendship ? ' 
 
 * It Is not my view,' she said, 'but no one 
 can answer for another. If I had to seek a 
 self that was lost, I should like to have a 
 friend with me.' 
 
 ' To encourage you, yes : but not to share 
 your labour. You, for instance, could not re- 
 arrange my life for me ; and yet it is a great 
 help to me, even this little talk I have had 
 with you. You and I are near neighbours 
 now. Do you think we shall ever become 
 friends ? ' 
 
 She gave him for the moment no direct 
 answer, but murmured half abstractedly, ' I 
 wonder how far you have wandered.' 
 
 ' That,' said Vernon, ' is what I want to 
 find out myself.' 
 
 After this there was a pause, whilst the 
 two sank back into their own reflections, and
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 103 
 
 the changing fields and trees, as the carriage 
 hurried onwards, surrounded and swept away 
 from them. 
 
 Miss Walters at lens^th bes^an aQ^aln. 
 * Perhaps you are surprised,' she said with a 
 faint smile, ' at hearing me talk so decidedly 
 about the world, and society, and friend- 
 ship.' 
 
 * You certainly talk,' said \'ernon, ' as If 
 you had had experience.' 
 
 * I have had experience,' she said. * I 
 have had much — too much — of it. I have 
 been a orambler, amoncrst other thlnors. I 
 won more than two thousand pounds cnce 
 at trente et qiiarantc. Do you think that was 
 very nice of me ? ' And she fixed her eyes 
 on him with a look which he could not fathom. 
 ' You see, if I hate Monte Carlo, it is not 
 because gambling has ruined me. And now,' 
 she went on, ' I am going to say one thing 
 more, which sounds also like the maxim of a
 
 104 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 rather experienced person. It is an answer 
 to what you asked me just now. I have 
 Httle behef, as a rule, in friendships between 
 men and women — I mean when both the 
 people concerned have youth and imagination. 
 One or the other gets generally more or less 
 than was bargained for.' 
 
 ' I shall be thankful,' said Vernon, ' for 
 the very least you will give me. You would 
 find me a very safe person. A man's days 
 of friendship begin when his days of love are 
 over; and I,' he went on, knowing that he 
 was making love all the time, ' am in my 
 days of friendship.' 
 
 ' You and I then, perhaps, are exceptions 
 to the general rule. There are exceptions. I 
 can at least say this much for myself, that I 
 am far more likely to be a friend than to 
 have one.' 
 
 She said this with a curious unconscious 
 bitterness that perplexed and startled Vernon.
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 105 
 
 * You must let me show you,' he mur- 
 mured, ' that you are wrong there.' 
 
 She paused, and then said abruptly, * I 
 hope you didn't mistake me. I didn't mean 
 that I thouo^ht vou would fall in love with 
 me. Perhaps you are just as safe from that 
 sort of thing as I am.' 
 
 ' You are very young,' said \"ernon, ' to 
 be talking in that way.' 
 
 * Youth and age,' she said, ' should not be 
 counted by years. Xo nun dying a living 
 death in a nunner)' could be more shut out 
 from all dauQfer of love than I am — from all 
 hope and from all fear of it.' 
 
 After this there was silence, till Lady 
 Walters woke up, and Vernon soon after- 
 wards was saying adieu to his friends on 
 their own door-step. 
 
 But the night was not yet done for him. 
 He had refused to enter ; he was anxious to 
 be by himself again ; and, having sent his
 
 io6 A ROMAKCE OF 
 
 carriage away, he walked back through the 
 gardens. In his own lamp-Ht villa a delicate 
 supper was prepared for him, but he did 
 nothing more than taste it, and he went out 
 again into the mellow night air. He was like 
 a man who had eaten a sort of moral opium, 
 and his breast was full of a sweet, fantastic 
 tumult. There was a magical resurrection in 
 liim of the wild romance of boyhood. He 
 leaned his elbow on a pale glistening 
 balustrade, and looked out over the sea. 
 ' Sea of Romance,' his unuttered thoughts 
 began in him, * once again you have your old 
 charm for me. Inarticulate whispers of 
 ambition, of passion, and of music float up to 
 me from your enchanted surface. Sea of 
 Southern moon and of Italian twilights, what 
 eyes of famous lovers have looked out on 
 you ! The most musical of the world's love- 
 songs have mixed over you with the vesper 
 breezes ! Pale, restless waves, rocking under
 
 THE MXETEENTH CENTURY. 107 
 
 the stars of midnight, the Hmbs of the mer- 
 maids know you : the nautilus floats upon 
 your bosom! Yes, and in me, too, up from 
 the depths of my being, thoughts and longings 
 are rising that sing like mermaids. What do 
 they sing of ? Is it of her eyes and lips ? 
 Are they singing to her spirit that it may 
 stoop down to mine?' He turned back to 
 his garden. That, too, was enchanted. Were 
 Oberon and Titania holding revel there ? 
 Bush and blossom seemed populous with 
 airy presences. Every passion, every plea- 
 sure of his life, became a separate fairy, 
 with its body some faint perfume, and its 
 dwelling-place some half-closed flower-bell. 
 In luxurious ao^itation he ao^ain returned to 
 his sea-view. Far away over the waters the 
 liofhts of Nice were gflitterine fair and distant 
 like a braid of golden stars. On a little 
 headland near him, covered with myrtles, 
 another light twinkled, solitar\', dim, and only
 
 loS ROMANCE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 just cistlnguishable. It came from a shrine 
 of the Virgin, and his wandering gaze fixed 
 on it. Suddenly into his dream-vvorld there 
 floated scents of incense, ghmmering altars, 
 and sounds of imploring music. ' Star of the 
 sea,' he murmured, ' star of the morning, 
 refuge of sinners, pray for me ! ' 
 
 Going indoors, he sat down to his desk 
 and wrote his diary of the day's proceedings. 
 Miss Walters filled up a large space in it, and 
 a fragment of what he said about her has been 
 already quoted : but so hard is it to be honest 
 to even a piece of paper, that he made 
 no mention whatever of his qualms of con- 
 science or his own self-accusations.
 
 BOOK II.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HEN Vernon woke next morning 
 some unlooked-for news awaited 
 him. A fresh, delicious air stole 
 through the open window, and fanned his 
 cheek delicately as he lay thinking. He 
 was enjoying the memory of his last night's 
 adventure, which seemed to promise him a 
 new life in his solitude, when his eye caught 
 something which showed him he had overslept 
 himself. This was a pile of letters on a table 
 by his bedside ; and on top of the pile was 
 one in the handwriting of Campbell. What
 
 112 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 was his astonishment when he found that It 
 was dated ' Cannes ' ! 
 
 ' My dear Vernon,' ran the letter, ' when 
 you see where I am, you will of course set 
 about being angry with me ; and at first sight 
 no doubt I seem to deserve that you should 
 be. A month ago, when you begged me to 
 come abroad and to take a villa with you, I 
 refused you steadily, once or twice a little 
 brusquely ; and this with no better excuse 
 than that very poor one — my feelings. I 
 said I did not feel up to it, and upon my word 
 that was true, Vernon — bitterly, deeply true. 
 I had no heart to travel, and, though you may 
 smile when I say so, the wretchedness I then 
 suffered was crushing me. But I am better 
 now ; life has been going a little more kindly 
 with me. I can enjoy my dinner again some- 
 times ; I can laugh at a joke sometimes. My 
 pleasure in my books and pictures is returning 
 to me; and now it has actually happened that
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 113 
 
 you find me abroad as my best chance of happi- 
 ness. Here I am, doing the very thing by my- 
 self that I refused so churHshly to do with you. 
 But I am coming over directly to see you, 
 and make my peace with you ; and you will 
 perhaps put me up for a night. You will for- 
 give me, I think, when I tell you all my story.' 
 Vernon was easily roused into the 
 brightest animal spirits ; nor did such senti- 
 ment as that of the night previous at all tend 
 to interfere with them. Campbell's letter was 
 like a burst of sunlight to him, and he smiled 
 and whistled in his bath like any happy 
 schoolboy. He immicdiately telegraphed, 
 ' Come at once. I and my carriage shall fetch 
 you at two o'clock.' He ordered his break- 
 fast in the open air, at his favourite spot 
 under the myrtles ; and as he sat there with the 
 liquid morning round him, food, he thought, 
 had never tasted so well, nor nature looked 
 so beautiful. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 The friend he was thinking of was a very- 
 different man from himself. What had at 
 first attracted the two was a certain deH- 
 cate dllettanteism, and an indifference to the 
 games and sports by which so many men's 
 leisure is occupied. But deeper doAvn in 
 their character this likeness ended. Whereas 
 Vernon was restless and loved the Avorld, 
 Campbell was shy and restful and inclined 
 to solitude ; and whereas Vernon had played 
 with his affections, Campbell had kept his 
 laid up in a napkin. There are passions, 
 however, that lie near affection, although they 
 are always ready to ruin it ; and to these 
 Campbell had yielded with a quite sufficient 
 openness. He had even treated the questions 
 Involved in them with a certain ruthless hu- 
 mour, which was as coarse as that of Rabelais, 
 and had in part been borrowed from It. But 
 there had been a flavour of innocence even about 
 his vices. They had never approached his
 
 THE XIXETEEXTH CENTURY. 115 
 
 heart near enough to corrupt it; and now that 
 at last it was really touched and troubled, he 
 had told the fact to his friend with a simplicity 
 almost childish. 
 
 This frankness and depth of feeling had 
 been somethinc: of a riddle to \'ernon. He 
 had been not lonof quit of his own enea^re- 
 ment when he heard of Campbell's love affair ; 
 and he had pitied his friend sincerely. He 
 looked on him as caught in a trap he had him- 
 self just escaped from : and when he found that 
 Campbell the lover interfered with Campbell 
 the friend, the above feeling was intensified. 
 But now as he sat at breakfast, with a volume 
 of Horace beside him, he was happy in the 
 thouorht that the lover's davs were waning, 
 and that the friend would be ao^ain restored 
 to him. He had just lit a ci'^arette, and with 
 a lazy smile was watching the silvery-blue 
 smoke-wreaths as they rose and melted over 
 him into the green myrtle shadows, when he
 
 ii6 A ROMAXCE OF 
 
 heard on the gravel the sound of a firm foot- 
 step, and, looking up, he saw Alio Campbell 
 before him. 
 
 Nothing human could be brighter than a 
 pleased greeting of Vernon's ; it had all the 
 quick radiance of a pool in morning sunlight : 
 and he felt as happy at this moment with his 
 old friend as a child is with a new plaything. 
 Campbell, too, for his jpart was glowing 
 with o-lad excitement, though there was a 
 pathetic tone in his voice, if Vernon had 
 cared to note it. Campbell was, however, 
 extremely hungry ; he was by no means in- 
 different to the minor pleasures of the table, 
 and Vernon's breakfast was excellent. Food 
 had the best effect on the lately dejected lover ; 
 his laugh came gaily, his eye gleamed with 
 humour. There is many a heartache that 
 can be made to cease on occasion by the 
 modest soothings of a good patc-dc-foie-
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 117 
 
 ' Here,' cried \'ernon at last, ' are two 
 disciples of Horace ; we have tried many 
 philosophies, but we return to this at last. 
 
 Hue vina et ungiienta et nimium breves 
 Flores amoence ferre jube rosie, 
 
 Dum res et astas et Sororum 
 
 Fila trium patiuntur atra.' 
 
 Campbell smiled, and asked for some 
 more Burgundy. 
 
 * My dear Alic,' Vernon went on pre- 
 sently, ' I wrote you a letter only yesterday, 
 full of advice and prophecy : and now, strange 
 to say, before you have got either, you have 
 taken the one, and fulfilled the other. I 
 described to you, too, all the charms of this 
 nook of mine ; but now, look about you, and 
 enjoy it with your owm eyes.' 
 
 Campbell looked about him in silent, 
 but evident, admiration. He had been a 
 considerable traveller, and his eyes had 
 known the w^orld's fairest and most famous 
 prospects ; but he admitted frankly that till
 
 ii8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 nov; he had never seen such a paradise. 
 Vernon was delighted ; and fiUing a glass 
 with wine, ' It will be a litde island in onr 
 lives,' he said, ' the enchanted time we will 
 spend here. We have both had our troubles 
 It is true, but, after all, we are still young : 
 and it seems to me on a day like this as If 
 life could have no sorrow except from want of 
 power to be happy enough. Look between 
 those two palm trees at the hills with their 
 misty amethyst. See the astounding blue 
 above us against the green of the stone-pine ! 
 See how the living azure is cut by the yellow 
 mimosa-blossom ! The beauty of all this 
 ofoes through and throuo-h me like some notes 
 of a violoncello. It is a cry, like certain 
 dance music, after some consummation of 
 pleasure unknown to us. You can kiss, you 
 can embrace a woman ; and she can love you 
 back again. But nature — you can't kiss the 
 sea; you can't embrace the mountains. If
 
 THE MXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 119 
 
 one could only see God, and break ones 
 heart in praising Him, that perhaps might 
 ease one.' 
 
 A servant here made a moment's inter- 
 ruption, carrying Campbell's only luggage — 
 a hand-bacr — and askins^ to know if it should 
 be taken upstairs to a bedroom. ' Of course,' 
 said Vernon ; and then turning to Campbell, 
 ' My dear Alic,' he went on, ' it is indeed a 
 delight to think you are really here. It is a 
 pleasure beyond hope. But tell me — is that 
 little bag all you have brought over with 
 you ? You couldn't travel with so little 
 luggage if you were married.' 
 
 ' I admit,' said Campbell, smiling, ' that 
 freedom has its advantages. One would lose 
 a Q^reat deal in losing: it.' 
 
 * One would lose,' said Vernon, ' all that 
 makes life bearable, as you would soon have 
 felt had your affairs gone otherwise. But 
 about the rest of your luggage, if there's not
 
 I20 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 a very great deal of it, we might drive over 
 to Cannes this afternoon, and bring it all 
 back in the carriage.' 
 
 ' My dear Vernon,' said Campbell, * I 
 have got all I want for the night ; and I 
 must be returning to Cannes to-morrow. 
 Don't let us waste our one dav in drivin^r.' 
 
 ' Our one day ! ' exclaimed Vernon. ' God 
 bless my soul, what do you mean by one 
 day ? Why, you are going to stop here at 
 least three weeks with me.' 
 
 * My dear fellow,' said Campbell very 
 slowly, ' God knows I should like to stay 
 with you ; but it is not to be.' And he fixed 
 his eyes upon Vernon with a wistful, serious 
 tenderness — it might almost be called solem- 
 nity. It was quite plain that he was resolute. 
 
 This to Vernon was like a thunderbolt 
 out of a clear sky. He was at once startled, 
 bewildered, and disappointed. 
 
 ' Not stay with me ! ' he exclaimied.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 121 
 
 * Why, what on earth do you mean, AHc ? 
 Even if you are still a little melanchoh^, as I 
 can well believe you are, you will be surely 
 far better here than moping about in holes 
 and corners by yourself. Why can't you stay ? 
 — tell me ? ' 
 
 When Campbell answered, his voice had 
 almost sunk to a whisper, and he looked at 
 Vernon with eyes that begged for sympathy. 
 ' Because,' he said, ' I have to go on to San 
 Remo. I have to be there to-morrow. 
 Vernon, my — my friend is there. This is 
 the reason why I have come abroad. I may 
 see her to-morrow evening ; I think, at 
 farthest, the morning after : and at one time 
 or the other I shall receive my life or death 
 at her hands.' 
 
 A sudden unvv-elcome lio^ht at last broke 
 in upon Vernon. ' Her — her ! ' he said. 
 ' Why, what on earth are you talking about ? 
 It surely can't be true that I have taken your
 
 122 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 letter wrongly ? I thought, when you told 
 me your case was mending, that you simply 
 meant that you had fallen out of love again, 
 and that you saw that the marriage state 
 was not a thing worth sighing over/ 
 
 Campbell eyed Vernon for a moment or 
 two with a curious, sad amusement. * You're 
 an odd creature,' he at last said, smiling. 
 ' You know something of the world ; at least 
 you have seen many men and women : and 
 do you think that a man who has really loved 
 a woman, can cast his love to the winds in 
 the course of a single fortnight ? What a 
 strange notion you must have of the nature 
 of human affection ! ' 
 
 Vernon, who had not only conceived such 
 a thing quite possible, but who had in this 
 case actually taken it for granted, received a 
 sudden check from those grave words of his 
 friend. He was not embarrassed by what he 
 had said himself — he knew Campbell far too
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 123 
 
 well for that ; but he felt that to Campbell's 
 mind he had betrayed a singular ignorance ; 
 and the first thing that struck him was the 
 absurdity of his own situation. A look came 
 into his eyes that fully confessed his fault ; 
 but it was the gleam of humour rather than 
 a tear of contrition ; and his expression v;as 
 not unlike that of a naughty child's, who has 
 been cauo-ht for the fifth time committing- 
 some minor mischief. Campbell understood 
 the expression perfectly ; but it neither pained 
 nor chilled him. 
 
 ' I don't mind you laughing,' he said. 
 ' True feeling can always stand being laughed 
 at. \'ernon ' — and here his own voice sank 
 low again — ' this love of mine has lain down 
 with me and risen up with me for a whole 
 year. I have become a new man since first 
 it took possession of me.' 
 
 ' So it seems,' said Vernon, ' and a very 
 much unhappier one.'
 
 124 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 * Yes,' said Campbell simply, ' it has made 
 me very miserable. I was ill for several 
 weeks.' His lips quivered a little, and he 
 raised his clear eyes upwards. His look, 
 thought Vernon, was like a young saint's in 
 meditation. Something seemed in his mind 
 which he was a little timid of uttering ; but 
 at last he again turned to Vernon. ' I think 
 all this trouble,' he said, 'has been brini^inor 
 me nearer God.' 
 
 Vernon now began to realise that Camp- 
 bell was really changed. Was this the Camp- 
 bell who, but a single twelvemonth back, 
 delighted to dwell laughingly on the coarsest 
 side of passion, and used God's name rarely 
 except to give point to an epigram ? Vernon 
 saw the change, for he had keen moral per- 
 ceptions ; it oppressed him, and at the same 
 time he respected it. Still, however, a faint 
 hope lingered in him that Campbell might 
 not be beyond repentance. He repeated
 
 THE NINETEEXril CENTURY. 125 
 
 all the arguments he had before used in 
 his letter, and added others of a more 
 homely and practical nature. ' You have 
 often told me,' he urged, ' about your own 
 circumstances. You are a rich bachelor ; you 
 would be a poor husband. I have seen 
 myself that you have always lived in luxury ; 
 and you have always travelled whenever the 
 fancy seized you. Marriage would therefore 
 mean to you, on your own showing, the com- 
 plete loss of all your personal liberty. You 
 would be fettered in every movement and 
 almost in every thought of your life.' 
 
 ' I know well,' said Campbell, ' all I should 
 have to give up ; and I value it as much, or 
 nearly as much, as you do. I should have to 
 give up many, many luxuries, which to me 
 in my self-indulgence have till now seemed 
 necessaries — mental necessaries as well as 
 bodily. I should have to think about all 
 sorts of little expenses — a thing I hate doing.
 
 126 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 As you say, my wings would be clipped 
 for travelling. I could no longer drink the 
 best Burgundy, or smoke the best cigars, or 
 buy books with fine engravings in them. I 
 should lose all this ; but what I should gain 
 would far — far outweigh it. All this is a 
 riddle to you, Vernon ; for you have never 
 known affection.' 
 
 ' You wouldn't say that, I can tell you/ 
 replied Vernon, ' if you had seen me last 
 night' And he gave a short account, in a 
 tone of reserved banter, of what he called his 
 adventure with Miss Walters. 
 
 ' Adventure ! ' repeated Campbell. * Yes 
 — that is just what you consider a love affair. 
 With you, it is a little incursion into an 
 enemy's country ; and your aim is presently to 
 get back safe again. But when any man loves 
 truly, does he act or think like this ? Was 
 it an adventure for the Dolorous Mother 
 when she saw her son die on Calvary ? '
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 127 
 
 His high-Strung state of feehng betrayed 
 Itself In every accent ; and Vernon at last 
 realised that his friend was beyond his argu- 
 ments. He put his hand kindly on Camp- 
 bell's shoulder, and in a tone of compassion 
 that was trying to rise to sympathy, ' My 
 dear, dear fellow,' he said, ' whatever you 
 Vv'ish for yourself, I wish. I should be very 
 glad for you to be happy, even though I lost 
 your old you by it.' 
 
 ' Thank you,' said Campbell, smiling ; 
 ' but, as time draws on, my hopes get very 
 shadowy. I build only on some slight 
 expression which my friend let drop about 
 me to a third person, and it Is more than 
 possible that I quite deceive myself I feel, 
 in going on to San Remo, as if I were goino- 
 to my own execution. By this time to- 
 morrow perhaps I shall be the forlornest 
 creature imaginable.* 
 
 'And in that case/ said Vernon, 'what
 
 128 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 should you do then ? You would come back 
 to me, wouldn't you, and let me cheer you 
 up a little ? ' 
 
 Campbell's whole expression altered ; the 
 lines of his mouth hardened. ' I know exactly 
 \vhat I should do,' he said. * I have already 
 faced the alternative. If necessary, I shall 
 o-o straio'ht off to Vienna, and shall find dis- 
 traction in a complete course of sensuality. 
 I am told that for a life of pleasure Vienna 
 is the best of capitals.' 
 
 ' Nonsense,' said Vernon sharply. 'You 
 would do nothing of the kind.' 
 
 ' I should,' replied Campbell. * I was 
 never in my life more serious. I have 
 already settled the exact route I should 
 travel by, and the hotel I should first put up 
 at. I am a man of strong animal passions. 
 I can easily make a complete beast of myself. 
 Nothing in the world could deaden mental 
 pain like that.'
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 129 
 
 * Damn It ! ' exclaimed Vernon with a 
 sudden angry energy. * For God's sake, 
 Campbell, do talk like a rational being. It 
 makes me sick to hear you speak in that way. 
 A moment as^o I had be2:un to admire and 
 to envy you ; and now you have spoilt all. 
 Because some woman.. It chances, does not 
 love you, Is that any reason why }'ou should 
 cease to respect yourself? Affection, you 
 sav, raises the soul to God ; and, for auQ^ht I 
 know. It may very possibly do so. But If 
 you are crossed In love, does that make God 
 valueless ? Are your views about God 
 dependent on a girl's views about you ? If 
 your passion really raises you, It cannot let 
 you plan debasing yourself. If in cold blood 
 3^ou can thus plan debasing yourself, then all 
 I can say Is, that I don't think much of your 
 passion.' 
 
 * You would not be so hard,' said Camp- 
 bell meekly, ' if you had ever felt as I feel. 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I30 ROMANCE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 What a lover plans Is never in cold blood. 
 Half the vice in the world, Vernon, is caused 
 less by sin than by sorrow. However,' he 
 went on, his tone again softening, ' I didn't 
 come here to croak my woes to you. Let us 
 think about other things, and let us explore 
 your paradise.'
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ERXOX was charmed to escape 
 to more indifferent subjects, and 
 by a quick reaction Campbell 
 became cheerful. The friends found plenty 
 of small thino^s to amuse and interest them. 
 They went over the villa ; they inspected 
 books and etchings ; they scrambled about on 
 rocks ; they Vv'alked through olive-groves ; 
 they climbed up a wooded hill, and examined 
 a quaint old chapel. The chapel suggested 
 a sudden thous^ht to Vernon. ' Come,' he 
 said, * and let us look up Stanley.' The news 
 that Stanley was in the neighbourhood was 
 a fresh distraction for Campbell, and for the 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 time seemed quite to banish the unfortunate 
 thoughts that saddened him. Stanley was 
 living at a small, somewhat rough pension, 
 that was not far from Vernon's villa. They 
 learnt that he was at home ; and a prim little 
 white-capped maid left them to announce 
 themselves. They found him upstairs, in a 
 small, bare sitting-room, bending over a table, 
 writing. His face was fine and delicate ; but 
 had contracted now a slightly stern expression, 
 and suggested at once thought and physical 
 suffering. When, however, he saw who were 
 his visitors, his eyes lit up with a smile of 
 such frank and surprised pleasure, that for a 
 moment the sternness vanished ; and Vernon 
 presently, though not without some mis- 
 elvine, asked him if he would come to 
 dinner. To his surprise Stanley accepted 
 gladly; but added, ' If I come this evening, I 
 must send you away now ; for I have certain 
 work which I am obliged to finish to-day.*
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 133 
 
 ' Poor Stanley ! ' said Vernon, as he and 
 Campbell walked away together. ' How 
 delighted he was to see you, Alic ! and 
 I don't think he much minded seeinsf me.' 
 
 ' On the contrary,' said Campbell, * I 
 thought he seemed particularly pleased at it. 
 Why should you think he minded it ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know ; but I always vaguely 
 fancy, if I haven't wanted to see a man, that 
 he hasn't wanted to see me. Besides, I 
 haven't the least doubt that he thinks me 
 rather a brute.' 
 
 ' Do 3'ou mean to say that's the first time 
 you've ever been to call on him ? ' 
 
 ' I'm afraid it is,' said Vernon. ' But I 
 shall go again now. Do you know, it almost 
 made me cry to see the pleased way in which 
 he smiled at us. I am always touched when 
 a man who looks stern is really made glad by 
 a trifle. But I'll tell you, my dear Alic, what 
 our present business must be. We must order
 
 134 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 some specially nice things for dinner this even- 
 ing ; and I think, in spite of everything, we 
 shall have a very happy little symposium/ 
 
 Nor, when dinner came, was this anticipa- 
 tion falsified. The unlooked-for re-union of 
 the three old friends produced in each of them 
 a genial glow of spirits. Stanley, whatever 
 might be his private habits, betrayed at Ver- 
 non's table no trace of asceticism. He was 
 naturally a moderate man ; but to-night at 
 least he ate and drank what he wanted, and 
 in a quite natural way he remarked that the 
 champagne was good. Talk flowed freely 
 about the early days at Oxford ; and memory 
 lit up all of them with the reflected sunshine 
 of youth. The only one whose spirits were 
 at all forced or uncertain was Vernon himself 
 The thought that Campbell was resolved not 
 to stay with him vexed him with a suppressed 
 persistency ; and with this presently another 
 bes^an to mix itself— the thouo^ht of Miss
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 135 
 
 Walters, and the strange charm cf her pre- 
 sence. It thus happened that at moments 
 he would appear absent. But wine came to 
 his aid whenever his will failed him, and 
 drove his straying wits back to his guests 
 and table. 
 
 When dinner was over, the three adjourned 
 to the library, and Stanley and Campbell fell 
 to discussing one of their college tutors. This 
 Vv^as a man of great beauty of character, who, 
 though somewhat rough externally, had had 
 upon all his pupils the most powerful moral 
 influence ; and the mention of him led the 
 talkers to other serious matters. Vernon at 
 the beginning had occasionally put in a word 
 or two ; but he had relapsed gradually into a 
 mere listener — a listener at first attentive, 
 then a trifle drowsy ; till at length, by gentle 
 stages, he had sunk off into sleep. 
 
 The tone of the others presently dropped 
 lower.
 
 136 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 * Look ! ' said Stanle3^ as his eyes fell 
 upon Vernon, ' what a curious expression in 
 repose he has! He is the most careworn 
 sleeper I ever saw, and yet of all waking men 
 he is the most careless-looking. Do you 
 think he Is happy ? ' 
 
 ' He has his troubles,' said Campbell, ' no 
 doubt, like the rest of us. To make him 
 happy, he wants one or two things — he should 
 have less of a heart, or more of one. Some- 
 body, I remember, once said of him bitterly, 
 that he got more love from his slightest friend 
 than he ever gave to his greatest. Perhaps 
 there Is some truth in that : and yet, though 
 the man who said It Is one of the most staunch 
 of creatures, I could depend on Vernon in 
 some ways more surely than on him. Were 
 there any urgent need, I could ask Vernon to 
 take any trouble for me. He would hate the 
 trouble, yet all the same he would take It ; 
 and he w^ould serve you better, when the
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 137 
 
 service was only a nuisance to him, than 
 many men would who might feel it a genuine 
 pleasure.' 
 
 ' That just fits in,' said Stanley, ' with 
 what I heard the other day about him, from 
 an old woman here, whose cottage I some- 
 times visit. This woman had a poor, lam^e 
 child, who was taken out in a mule-cart, with 
 some of its brothers and sisters. The cart 
 broke down, and could not be brought home 
 again ; and the little cripple was naturally in 
 great distress. Vernon that moment chanced 
 to be passing by. He at once took it up and 
 carried it two miles, to its home, and the day 
 after ordered a boot with steel supports for 
 it, which the surgeons declare will give it the 
 use of its legs again. I happened to meet him 
 just after he had done carrying it, and he said, 
 ''Don't shake hands with me; I've been 
 touching a beastly child ! " ' 
 
 * Have you ever looked at his books?'
 
 138 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 asked Campbell presently, as he glanced 
 round him. 
 
 ' No ; I have never been in this room 
 before. He asked me to breakfast once, but 
 I was unable to come, and I gathered by his 
 manner that he thought he had done his duty 
 by me.' 
 
 'His library,' said Campbell, 'made me 
 smile rather. A good half of it consists of dry 
 treatises on theology. Look at his writing- 
 table,' he went on. * Do you see those three 
 books on it — one on top of the other ? I 
 took them up before dinner, and they are 
 '* Horace," '' The Spiritual Combat," and 
 '' Lord Chesterfield's Letters." ' 
 
 ' I remember that at Oxford,' said Stanley, 
 ' he would continually talk of theology ; but it 
 was never with any reverence, though some- 
 times with thought and knowledge.' 
 
 ' Yes ; religion with him,' said Campbell, 
 * is merely an intellectual question — a tiresome
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 139 
 
 riddle, that piques him because he can't 
 
 answer it.' 
 
 The conversation continued for some time 
 longer, whilst the subject of it still slept 
 heavily. At last Stanley, who kept early 
 hours, declared that he ought to go. ' But I 
 won't wake Vernon,' he said. ' Poor fellow, 
 he looks tired enough. You shall say good- 
 night for me ; and I hope, Campbell, that I 
 may soon see you again.' 
 
 * I am going to-morrow,' said Campbell. 
 * I am obliged to go ; but, if you would be in, I 
 might come and see you in the morning. I, 
 too, have my troubles ; and I am afraid I 
 have been boring Vernon with them.' 
 
 By and by \^ernon woke up with a 
 start, and asked where was Stanley. ' What 
 a brute I must have seemed to him ! ' he said, 
 when he knew that his guest was gone. ' I 
 ask a fellow to dine with me ; then I sleep 
 like a pig all through the evening ; and now
 
 I40 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 for my pains, I wake up with a splitting head- 
 ache. Let us go out — shall we ? — and take 
 a turn in the garden.' 
 
 Vernon was somewhat silent as they went 
 through the moonlit walks. At last he said 
 abruptly, ' What made me sleepy to-night was 
 my having taken too much wine. I did it to 
 keep my spirits up, for I was gloomy about 
 your going. Of course Stanley wouldn't say 
 anything ; but I know quite well he must 
 have thought me a beast.' 
 
 * That,' said Campbell, ' I am quite sure 
 he did not, for just before he went he 
 was warmly praising you. He was telling 
 me of your kindness to some little crippled 
 girl.' 
 
 ' My kindness to what 1 ' exclaimed 
 Vernon. ' Oh, I know what he must be 
 thinking of Poor little dirty brat — she liter- 
 ally reeked of garlic ! How the devil did 
 Stanley hear about it ? But now tell
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 141 
 
 me/ he went on, ' must you really go to- 
 morrow ? Is it all quite decided ? Can't 
 you stay even for a day or two, and let me 
 show you my beautiful neighbour ? ' 
 
 Campbell shook his head. ' Xo, V^ernon 
 — no,' he said. 
 
 ' But she is very beautiful,' said Vernon, 
 ' and dresses exquisitely, and has all kinds of 
 high-minded views about the hollowness of 
 fashion, and about genuine friendship, and 
 falling in love, and so on. I would let you 
 flirt with her, if you wanted to.' 
 
 ' You forget,' said Campbell, ' that I am 
 leadino" a consecrated life.' 
 
 * \\^ell, she won't un-consecrate you. She 
 has done with love, she tells me : though I'm 
 not sure myself if I quite believe her. Is it 
 Sterne — or who is it ? — who says, '' Talking 
 of love is making it ? " ' 
 
 Campbell was silent, and Vernon began 
 again.
 
 142 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ' I think my true mdtier! he said, 'would 
 be that of wooer-In-ordinary to my male 
 friends. Whenever any one of them had set 
 his heart on a lady, it should be my business 
 to awake her love and tenderness ; to teach 
 her lips to kiss, her breast to move with a sigh 
 or two, and her eyes to look expressively. 
 Then without any peculation I would transfer 
 my complete prize to my client. Would 
 you on these terms have made me your 
 agent ? You may be sure w^hen the time 
 came I should have no temptation to cheat 
 you.' 
 
 This was said with a smile ; but Campbell 
 answered in a tone of unexpected serious- 
 ness. 
 
 *My dear Vernon,' he said, 'what a 
 thoroughly immoral man you are ! ' 
 
 * Immoral ! ' 
 
 * Yes ; you really are. I am not in the 
 least joking. You are one of the most im-
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 143 
 
 moral men I ever knew. What you said just 
 now Is only another proof of it.' 
 
 * My dear fellow,' said Vernon, ' I was 
 only chaffing you.' 
 
 * Yes ; but the man In jest Is the key to 
 the man in earnest. Besides, I didn't judge 
 you merely by what you said just now. I 
 have known you for ten years, and have been 
 your friend ever since I knew you. I was 
 looking only this morning at one of your 
 early photographs, and since that was taken 
 I can see how your face has changed. In 
 some ways you have hardly aged at all ; you 
 still look very, very young. But youth is 
 sometimes prolonged by a sacrifice of all that 
 is best In it ; and ah, Vernon, there Is one 
 look gone from your face which that photo- 
 graph reminded me was once there ! And 
 shall I tell you what has destroyed it .^ It Is 
 what I call your Immorality. It is this per- 
 petual trifling with your highest and finest
 
 144 yi ROMANCE OF 
 
 feelings. That the feelings are high and fine 
 I don't deny for a moment. It is in that 
 that the badness lies. You are makine a 
 playground of what should be your holy of 
 holies. You may not be indulging your 
 grosser appetites ; but you are making your- 
 self incapable for ever of any earnest affec- 
 tion ; and this is the surest way in which you 
 can quench the Spirit. It is not eclipsing the 
 light, as lust does ; it is putting the light out. 
 Pure affection can extinguish lust ; but if you 
 extinguish pure affection, what then ? Would 
 a man who has done that ever be fit for 
 • heaven, even though in the world's sense of 
 the word he were as moral as any an- 
 chorite ? ' 
 
 There was something in Campbell's man- 
 ner which, despite his plain speaking, made 
 Vernon listen without anger or impatience. 
 He seemed a little annoyed, however, and 
 anxious to change the subject.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 145 
 
 * Heaven ! ' he said wearily ; ' and do you, 
 Campbell, really believe in heaven ? ' 
 
 * More than you do,' said Campbell, with 
 the same s^entleness. ' I am not wantinor to 
 preach to you. I am only trying, like a friend 
 that loves you, to show }'ou the reason of 
 your being so ill at ease. This is a delicate 
 thing to do, and even a friend can do it 
 only when he is himself feeling deeply. A 
 year ago I could never have spoken like this 
 to you. Perhaps six weeks hence I shall be 
 again unable to do It.' 
 
 * I know you mean kindly,' said \"ernon. 
 * But, honestly, I didn't quite understand you. 
 What on earth makes you think that I am ill 
 at ease ? ' 
 
 ' You are, though you may not acknow- 
 ledge it. I can see it In your face, I can hear 
 it in your voice sometimes. With all your 
 bright spirits, and with all your gaiety, you 
 have done your nature a wrong which you 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 feel In spite of yourself My own sins, God 
 knows, have been many. It is perhaps be- 
 cause of them that all this sorrow Is come 
 upon me. But there Is something worse, 
 Vernon, than even the garment spotted by the 
 flesh. What Is commonly called Immorality, 
 does Indeed stain life ; but yoicr immorality 
 eviscerates it. It leaves you a husk — a shell ; 
 a tissue It may be of supersensitive nerves ; but 
 with no true self within to be informed by 
 them. You have not arrived at that state yet, 
 but there are moments when you feel or fear 
 the beginning of It.' 
 
 * I may have causes for care,' said Vernon, 
 ' other than you dream of ; perhaps, Indeed, 
 of an exactly opposite nature. You tell me I 
 do not believe In heaven, and perhaps I 
 don't ; but at least I feel daily the want of a 
 belief in It. My unhapplness, if I have any, 
 arises not from having no woman to love, but 
 from having no God to believe In.'
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 147 
 
 Campbell looked at Vernon with a friendly 
 Incredulity. ' My dear Vernon/ he said, 
 * you are the most irreligious man I know. 
 The same course of conduct that deadens 
 human love deadens divine love also ; nor 
 indeed would you play with the first, if you 
 had any real sense of the second. I know quite 
 well that you think about religion, a.nd read 
 about It ; but you know quite well also that 
 it is not an active power in your life. It is 
 nothinof more than an abstraction. You 
 have continually told me that nothing in life 
 absorbs you, whereas religion, when a reality, 
 is all an affair of loving.' 
 
 ' Not of loving only, but of believing also. 
 You can't love a beino- whose existence vou 
 are not sure of; and it is quite conceivable 
 — I am not speaking about myself, for that, 
 after all, is a matter of little interest — it is 
 quite conceivable that affection may in many 
 cases be chilled by w^ant of belief, just as 
 
 L 2
 
 1^8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 belief may become useless for want of proper 
 affection. Love robbed of belief Is like a bird 
 whose nest has been stolen. It tries every 
 tree, but finds no twig to rest upon/ There 
 was a short silence after this ; and then pre- 
 sently Vernon began again. ' In one point 
 at least/ he said with a cold laugh, * you are 
 wrong, Campbell, In your judgment of me. 
 You said that religion had no effect on my 
 life. It was a religious question that caused 
 the breaking off of my marriage.' 
 
 * If you had been very much In love, if 
 you had been very anxious to marry, would 
 that question have stood in your way ? ' 
 
 * It would have stood in my way, I sin- 
 cerely hope. In any case. I can think of no 
 self-indulgence so wanton, so complete In its 
 cruelty, as bringing children into the world, 
 and giving them no faith to guide them. 
 It would indeed be making a tragic toy of 
 affection, to let it lead one Into blowing soap-
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 149 
 
 bubbles of conscious fretful vanity. Happy 
 unconscious matter ! The man is worse 
 than a murderer who informs it with aimless 
 wretchedness.' 
 
 * And this,' said Campbell, ' Is the religious 
 man's view of fatherhood ! My dear Vernon, 
 you have much to learn yet.' 
 
 Vernon made no reply to this. He had 
 seen that Campbell, in spite of a friend's 
 fondness, had but a scanty faith in his con- 
 duct with regard to the breaking off of his 
 marriage ; and a feeling of not quite un- 
 natural anger had begun to swell up in him. 
 But ' He means well,' he almost directly said 
 to himself, and he forced the anger down. 
 Its only outer sign was a few moments' cold- 
 ness ; and when next he spoke, it was once 
 more with sympathy. 
 
 * You have told me much about love,' he 
 said, as they moved back to the villa ; ' but 
 you have told me very little about your own
 
 ISO ROMANCE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 love-story. You met your goddess abroad ; 
 she has very simple tastes ; *' first she would 
 and then she wouldn't," and now she is doubt- 
 ful whether she will or no. I knew this 
 much, but that is all. Do you mind telling 
 me her name, and a little more about her ? ' 
 
 * Not to-night,' said Campbell. ' No — nor 
 to-morrow morning, I think. Had I better 
 or surer hope, I would dwell on and tell you 
 everything. But I can't now. I can't go 
 over those scenes a^ain. I would sooner not 
 even tell you who she is, unless I can tell you 
 some day that she is or will be my wife. I 
 shall know that soon. Ah, me ! ' 
 
 ' And are you still resolved,' said Vernon, 
 * that Vienna is your only alternative ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said Campbell sighing, ' I am 
 not resolved that it shall be ; but I know that 
 it is.' 
 
 The conversation then turned to brandy 
 and seltzer-water, and the two friends retired.
 
 
 \' 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 AMPBELL next morning paid a 
 short visit to Stanley, and in 
 £;:vS=:^<Q4 the afternoon he was sfone. 
 Vernon's last words to him were, ' If you are 
 not successful, come back to me, and give up 
 Vienna. You have told me pretty plainly 
 that I'm not far off from a devil ; so if its the 
 devil you want to go to, )'ou may at least 
 choose one who is fond of you.' 
 
 There was more in his manner, perhaps, 
 than he was altog^ether conscious of ; for this 
 last farewell of his touched Campbell and set 
 him for some time thinking. As for Vernon
 
 152 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 nimself, his spirits at first sank low enough, and 
 his villa looked very blank to him. But he was 
 not a man tamely to sit down with dejection ; 
 and, having mourned his friend's loss for an 
 hour or so, his imagination suddenly wheeled 
 round to Miss Walters. The effect was as 
 quick on him as that of a glass of absinthe. 
 He would at once hurry off and call at the 
 Chateau St John ; and such a thrill did the 
 prospect send through him, that he felt his 
 present solitude was not without its advan- 
 tages. Even a friend like Campbell might 
 have been perhaps a little de trop just then. 
 
 He had rung the bell at the Chateau ; the 
 hall door had been thrown open, and with a 
 confident inquiry he was already on the 
 point of entering, when the servant informed 
 him that the ladies had left for Nice. 
 
 * Left ! ' echoed Vernon in astonishment. 
 
 * They left yesterday, sir/ said the servant; 
 * but they will be back early this evening, as
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 153 
 
 I believe they are expecting a gentleman here 
 to dine with them.' 
 
 \^ernon at once concluded that this 
 gentleman must be himself, and he resolved 
 to hasten home to inquire if no note had 
 arrived for him. He was spared, however, 
 this trouble by the servant adding the next 
 moment, ' A gentleman, I believe, sir, who 
 is cominof from Monte Carlo.' 
 
 This simple announcement w^orked like 
 maeic on Vernon. A sudden twilio^ht of 
 jealousy fell on his whole soul ; and at the 
 same instant the stars of romance shone out 
 again. The expected guest, he felt convinced, 
 could be none other than Colonel Stapleton ; 
 and the thought that the beautiful Cynthia 
 could be touched by so gross a rival, seemed 
 to withdraw her to some untold distance. 
 But such are the w^ays of certain kinds of 
 affection, that this fancied distance only 
 increased his longing for her. His impressions
 
 154 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 of her, mental or sensuous, became all more 
 vivid than ever, and he was soon lost In a 
 deep, passionate reverie. Her eyes, her lips, 
 her hands, the texture of her cheek and 
 throat, the feather In her hat, the tones of her 
 voice, her gestures — all these In their several 
 ways touched him ; and she dwelt in his 
 mind as some strange, delicate mystery that he 
 was resolved to make his own. 
 
 Having Indulged to the full in this kind 
 of dreaming, the thought of Campbell once 
 more came back to him. He paced the same 
 walks that evening that Campbell had lately 
 paced with him ; and he attentively thought 
 over their last night's conversation, and looked 
 longingly In the direction of the Chateau St. 
 John. * Ah me ! ' he cried, * and am I really 
 the brute that Campbell tells me L am ? 
 Am I really heartless and selfish, and with 
 no health left in me ? ' 
 
 He went indoors to his library; and took
 
 THE NiyETEENTH CENTURY. 155 
 
 down a volume from his book-case of Latin 
 authors. He sat for some time poring over it 
 motionless ; but at last a low voice broke 
 from him, and he began thus translating aloud 
 to himself: — 
 
 * Highest and holiest, mightiest and al- 
 mightiest, most pitiful and yet most just, un- 
 seen and yet ever near to us, fairest and yet 
 most firm, ever before us and yet past our 
 studying; never new, never aging, yet renew- 
 ing all things ; striking the proud with age, 
 and they know it not : whose work never 
 ceases, whose quiet is never broken ; 
 gathering, 3'et nothing needing ; sustaining, 
 replenishing, and protecting ; making, cherish- 
 ing, and maturing ; seeking, yet having all 
 things : Thou lovest, and passion stirs Thee 
 not ; Thou art jealous, and lo ! no care 
 touches Thee ; Thou repentest Thee, yet 
 Thou has no contrition ; Thou art angry, and 
 yet Thou abidest calm ; Thou m.akest Thy
 
 156 A ROMANCE] OF 
 
 works change, but Thy counsel endures for 
 ever ; Thou findest what Thou hast never 
 lost, and Thou takest It back home to Thee. 
 Thou art never in want, and yet Thou art 
 pleased with winning ; Thou hast no covet- 
 ousness, and yet Thou takest usury. Thou 
 art paid more than Thy due that Thou mayest 
 be made man's debtor ; and who has aught 
 that has not been always Thine ? Thou 
 payest, yet owest no man anything ; Thou 
 givest gifts, and behold Thou losest nothing. 
 And what, oh, what is this that I say con- 
 cerning Thee, my God, my life, my holy and 
 sweet desire ? or what, when he speaks of 
 Thee, can be said by any man ? and yet woe 
 to him that speaks not, since even the dumb 
 praise Thee.' ^ 
 
 The book over which Vernon was bending 
 was the ' Confessions of Augustine.' As he 
 read he felt his eyes moisten, and at last he 
 
 ^ Si. Augiistuie's Confessions^ book i. chap. iv.
 
 started at a tear that dropped on the page 
 before him. 
 
 'What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?' 
 he exclaimed. * Do I really mean that ? or 
 Is it only another form of self-indulgence ? 
 My God, what am I ? Is there anything in 
 me not contemptible ? ' 
 
 He hid his face in his hands, and remained 
 for some time motionless. When he moved 
 himself, he did so with resolution. He 
 opened a drawer in his writing-table, he took 
 out some paper, and after a certain further 
 hesitation he abruptly put pen to it. 
 
 What he wrote was as follows : — 
 
 ' Why should a man wince at the sight of 
 his inmost thoughts ? Is he not a coward, if 
 he does not dare confront them ? Ah me ! I 
 am a coward ; I wince and I hold back ; false 
 shame overcomes me. But my heart is 
 troubled ; my spirit is bruised and beaten, 
 and courage at last has come to me from my
 
 158 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 wretchedness. I may pretend I am happy ; 
 but, O my God, I am not happy ! It Is true 
 that my friends or the deHcious sunshine 
 make my blood beat with pleasure, and many 
 other such trifles excite me. I become ex- 
 cited childishly ; and I forget myself Into a 
 bright false happiness. But all the while 
 there is a worm gnawing at my heart, and 
 whenever I am quiet I feel It. I have tried to 
 deceive myself; I have tried to say this Is not 
 so. But I can deceive myself no longer ; 
 and now I will face the truth. I will see 
 what 1 am ; I will examine this mangled self 
 of mine. Yes — I will put my thoughts Into 
 shameless black and white ; they shall have 
 a solid body that I cannot pretend eludes 
 me. Quick ! — though I am shuddering, let 
 me get the icy shock over ; let me plunge 
 into confession. What should make me hesi- 
 tate ? No one will see these pages, with this 
 blurred image of my soul cast on them.
 
 THE NIXETEENTH CENTURY. 159 
 
 Whenever I wish it the fire can keep my 
 secret. 
 
 ' What shall I say ? Shall I speak as in 
 reality my soul pines to speak ? I will. 
 
 ' O my God, holiest and mightiest, most 
 pitiful and yet most just, what I pine for is to 
 speak to Thee. Let me write Thy name — 
 let me brand it in writing, not think it only in 
 faint and fleeting thoughts. Let me rouse 
 my ears with the sound of my own voice cry- 
 ing to Thee. O God, what I long for is to 
 lay bare my soul — to open it, to disrobe 
 it, to expose it naked before Thee ; and 
 to cry to Thee to have pity, to have pity, and 
 to look upon me ! 
 
 ' And yet, how dare I, impure and faith- 
 less, loving nothing — so they tell me — and 
 nobody ? For Thou art pure and holy ; 
 and my very friend has told me that I 
 am viler than most men. Am I so ? Oh, 
 teach me to know myself; humble my
 
 i6o A ROMANCE OF 
 
 pride ; enlighten me ! My God, I am not 
 mocking Thee. What I ask of Thee is what 
 my heart is crying for. Teach me to know 
 myself. 
 
 ' And yet if indeed Thou hearest me, I 
 must seem like one mocking ; for Thou 
 knowest how faith has failed me, and how 
 bewildered and dark my mind Is. Even 
 whilst I am crying to Thee, whilst I am try- 
 ing to open to Thee all my secret being, I 
 know not, I am not sure. If you have any 
 existence — you, the God I am crying to. 
 Perhaps you are only a dream — an Idea — a 
 passing phenomenon in man's mental history. 
 And yet surely, if Thou existest, Thou wilt 
 not, even for this cause, turn away from me, 
 quenching the smoking flax. May it not 
 be that Thou art revealing Thyself to 
 me, through my wretched sense of Thy 
 absence ? 
 
 * But from me why art Thou absent ? Is
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. i6i 
 
 it through my sins, through my own loveless 
 nature ? Have I nothing In my soul fit to 
 offer Thee ? And for this cause hast Thou 
 put me far away from Thee ? 
 
 * I may be evil now ; I ma)^ be In outer 
 darkness ; but I know that I was not always. 
 I was once near Thee ; I was once ever with 
 Thee. That was when I was a little child. 
 O my God, I will confess to Thee through 
 my childhood. 
 
 * I was no saint, Thou knowest ; I was a 
 little, worldly child, yet I will maintain even 
 to Thy face that as a child I loved Thee, and 
 with a child's frankness I was always In secret 
 turning to Thee. I thought of Thee in my 
 play ; I thought of Thee in riding my pony. 
 Hardly an hour passed In which, without 
 kneeling, I did not say some word to Thee, 
 Nor did this end with my childhood ; for as I 
 grew older, and as my thoughts multiplied, 
 more and more In secret did they fasten upon 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Thee. And I grew very greatly to fear Thee, 
 and yet I was not afraid to love Thee ; for 
 my own sins were small, and I washed them 
 out with nightly penitence. Often hast 
 Thou heard my childlike lips confessing 
 them. 
 
 * But as I thought upon Thy perfections, 
 and as I looked round upon the world, a new 
 sense grew in me. It was a sense of the 
 w^orld's sin, and of how Thou wast being 
 grieved and blasphemed everywhere. Of 
 men's sorrow, and want, and poverty, I had 
 not heard much. What touched me was the 
 misery of the sin that they lay wallowing in. 
 The thought of this was never quite absent 
 from me. It haunted me day and night 
 through all my later boyhood. It very often 
 subdued me in my gayest moments. Thou 
 knowest how for this reason a great city was 
 hateful to me. In the same way, although 
 I could see my schoolfellows unhappy, and
 
 THE NINETEEXTH CENTURY. 163 
 
 be little moved by it, yet many a time when 
 I have seen some young soul corrupting 
 itself, I have said, *'' I would die, if he might 
 be saved from sinning." O God, Thou hast 
 heard me, if Thou hearest anything. Thou 
 knowest, too, how my pillow has been 
 damp with tears from my thinking on these 
 things. 
 
 ' Thus the time drew on when there was 
 a new thing to happen to me. I was to draw 
 near to Thee at Thy Son's altar. For this 
 cause, I turned my thoughts upon myself 
 more earnestly ; and I cleansed my heart as 
 I had never done before. And I received 
 Thy Son's self into me with fear and trembling ; 
 and I was drawn closer, O Thou Holy One, 
 to Him and Thee. And at the same time 
 also my early life was expanding. My 
 passions and the world's excitements began 
 to stir me, and shot new colours into exist- 
 ence ; and I hoped for love and for com- 
 M 2
 
 1 64 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 panionship, and I longed for beauty. The 
 sadness and the rapture overcame me that 
 tog-ether stir men to singing. But Thou, O 
 my God, wert present in all this. If I longed 
 for the love of a woman, it was that both our 
 faces might turn to Thee. And I saw Thee, 
 too. In the blue sky and In the sunset, and In 
 the reedy river with the m.oon In it, and in 
 the sea, and the sea- shore. And each year I 
 was tempted with more and more temptations, 
 but I still kept watch over myself, and always 
 in my trouble I cried to Thee. I spoke to 
 no friend about these things. I communed 
 with Thee only, and I tried very hard to 
 carry the cross of Christ. When I have been 
 dining with gay companions I have seen 
 His face before me, beyond the lights and 
 o^lasses. I have seen Him worn and sorrow- 
 ful, pleading with and reproaching me. He 
 has often said to me in the midst of my 
 lauL-ht.r, " I Iiavj su.Tcrcd so nvL::h for thy
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 165 
 
 sake, canst thou not suffer even a little for 
 Mine ? " 
 
 * I lived like this for some four or, it might 
 be, five years, and then the time began when 
 Thou wert slowly to be withdrawn from me. 
 Why was this, my God ? Was it for my 
 sins ? And if so, for what sins ? When, 
 when did they begin ? For Thou wast not 
 withdrawn from me through my forgetting 
 Thee, but through my ever thinking of Thee. 
 I studied much and many things ; and what- 
 ever I studied, I applied it to Thy Church 
 and Thee. And new lights broke on me, 
 and new roads of knowledge ; and my soul 
 suffered violence, and the sight of its eyes 
 was changed. For by-and-by, though the 
 change came very slowly, all that I had once 
 been taught about Thee, the Sacraments also, 
 through which I once thought I approached 
 Thee, became to me like outworn symbols. 
 I struororled to stav the chancre. I called to
 
 i66 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Thee, Thou knowest how often, to keep it 
 from me. Thou knowest how, as I felt my 
 prayers grow faint, and their words lose their 
 meaning, I still said to Thee every night and 
 morning, " I believe ; help Thou mine un- 
 belief" Thou knowest, too, when Thou 
 gavest me no answer, how I tried to find help 
 thus, " He thatdoeth," I said, "shall know of 
 the doctrine ; " and I tried with fresh diligence 
 to do my daily duties, hoping that in this way 
 might my faith revive again. But it never 
 did revive. On the contrary, all this while 
 I was receding farther from Thee ; and 
 the more earnestly I sought Thee, the less 
 near did I seem to come to Thee, till at 
 last I was like a blinded bird, I knew not 
 whither even to try to fly; and this body 
 of mine, this Temple of Thy Holy Spirit, 
 has been left empty ; and vain thoughts 
 and desires had been holding and still hold 
 festival in It.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 167 
 
 * O my God, if Thou art, ^vhy for me art 
 Thou not ? \\^hy art Thou thus withdrawn 
 from me ? Is it because I have sinned ? 
 Can that be the reason ? Surely this Thou 
 knowest, that it was not what men call sin 
 that made my eyes dim to see Thee. It was 
 not the lust of the flesh, nor the pride of life, 
 although both of these assailed me. xAnd if 
 since then evil things have had hold on me, 
 I have sinned because I first lost Thee ; I 
 have not lost Thee through sinning. There 
 is no man or woman that for Thy sake 
 I could not renounce easily, reserving no 
 more care for them than to work for their 
 souls indifferently. No — what I have lost 
 Thee by is not sin ; it is rather the very things 
 whereby I resisted sin ; it is my reason, my 
 intellect, and my longing for what is true. I 
 have lost Thee, my God, through my earnest 
 search to find Thee. 
 
 ' And yet, for all this, do I dare to say I
 
 i68 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 am sinless ? It may be that I am far worse 
 than I think I am ; for has not my very friend 
 told me that I am viler than most men ? 
 Does he speak truth ? Perhaps. For in 
 many ways — it may be in all ways — he is a 
 better man than I am. The ties and the 
 affections of this life — those joys and sorrows 
 with which Thou hast surrounded us — touch 
 him, and take hold of him, and leave deep 
 marks in him ; but me they touch only as 
 the shadows in a dream-night. Perhaps, then, 
 here is the secret. Perhaps I am vile, not 
 knowing it, because to renounce all for Thy 
 sake would be so very small a pang to me, 
 and a sacrifice to Thee is worthless of that 
 which costs us nothing. What then ? Must 
 one love Thy creatures before one can love 
 Thee ? Must one not rather love Thy 
 creatures because of Thee ? 
 
 * Thy creatures ! Were they Thine I 
 could indeed love them. I should know that
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 169 
 
 there Avas in them some eternal worth and 
 value. But, without Thee, what are they 
 more than shadows are ? What are they 
 more than I, who am the most frail and vain 
 of shadows ? They get no hold on me, nor 
 I any on them. For a little while one pleases 
 me, and then a little while and it does not 
 please. It comes near me ; presently It re- 
 cedes again, and another is pushed into the 
 place of It ; and In me there Is left no regret, 
 nor any pain In my heart. And how shall 
 this be otherwise ? And what shall give these 
 ghosts substance ? Why, without Thee, 
 what but a mere ghost is the universe, even 
 to its farthest stars '■ Of the only cosmos man 
 can ever know or conceive of, he Is himself the 
 co-creator ; and with the ending of his con- 
 sciousness the All ends also. It falls like a 
 house of cards when one card Is taken away 
 from It. Such is it without Thee. And 
 yet it is told me that If I loved my fellow-
 
 I70 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ghosts, above all if I would take to my 
 heart some one of them, they would then be 
 ghosts no longer ; and that, they being thus 
 made real to me, I should again discern Thee. 
 * This may be true. There may be some 
 philosophy in it By Love as well as by the 
 Word, the Heavens are perhaps made. But, 
 
 my God, wouldst Thou only reveal Thyself 
 first to me, wouldst Thou only show me that 
 Thou indeed existest, I would love all things 
 then for Thy sake ! 
 
 ' And yet should I .^ I am not certain 
 of that even. For, my God, if Thou existest 
 Thou lovest all Thy creatures, and they are 
 all infinitely precious. How, then, am I to 
 inflame or influence my heart, that I should 
 permanently love some one of these more than 
 
 1 love the others ? I am perplexed, I cannot 
 tell. Yet I know — even my common sense 
 tells me — that it is only in this way that loving 
 men do love.
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CENTURY. 171 
 
 * Nay, this, too, Thou knowest of me, that 
 I have, as a fact, striven to love In this way. 
 I sought to marr}^ and to be faithful all my 
 life to another ; and I trusted that with 
 another's eyes I might again discern Thee. 
 But even this hope failed me. For what 
 return did she whom I chose make to me ? 
 She gave me no help that I needed ; but 
 proffered me comfortless comfort, and help 
 that I had no need of. Instead of showing 
 me T/iee, she turned away and prepared to 
 worship uie. She would have made me into 
 h€7' God, instead of guiding me to mine. And 
 for a time this consoled me a little ; but I soon 
 grew wear)^ of it, and more restless than ever. 
 For how should this blind passion satisfy me ? 
 I did but blind her to Thee. She did not 
 show Thee to me. 
 
 ' It seems, then, that I have tried every- 
 thing. And now, my God, what remains for 
 me ? How shall I plant my foot firm in this
 
 172 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 land of shadows ? I am not In pain. Ah, 
 if I were in pain there would be more hope 
 for me ! I would not complain to Thee that 
 I did not feed upon roses, if Thou wouldst 
 vouchsafe only that the thorns might wound 
 and tear me. And yet, O God, Thou know- 
 est I am distracted still by trifles, by pleasures 
 that are no pleasures, and by pains that are 
 no pains. And Thou hast given me high 
 spirits, and Thou hast hidden my soul in a 
 raiment of light laughter, and in what, even 
 to me, sometimes seems contentment. But 
 my brain is empty ; I know not where to 
 turn. To this thing and to this thing I would 
 apply myself; but whenever I begin to stir 
 myself, the reason which Thou hast given me 
 plucks me by the ear, and hisses in a whisper, 
 " To what purpose ? Are not all things 
 vanity ? " 
 
 ' And what is this I say ? To whom am 
 I speaking ? I am speaking to One of whose 
 
 ^
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 173 
 
 very existence I am doubtful. I am not cer- 
 tain if I would stake a hundred pounds upon 
 it. Oh, my forlorn hopes ! i\Iy reason trips 
 me, I am entangled and thrown down. Fool 
 that I am — wretched, wretched fool ! And 
 yet, though I am thus lying prostrate, thrown 
 abject and confused upon the ground, I will 
 not be hindered. O God, I still will speak 
 to Thee. I will call Thee to witness that 
 at least I have been near Thee, that I have 
 known Thy presence, and that, far away 
 though I be from Thee now, though this 
 world of shadows may now blind my eyes 
 to Thee, there nothing is in it anywhere 
 that I have longed for as I have longed 
 for Thee, there is nothing I have desired in 
 comparison of Thee. Thou hast been to me 
 my all, my life, my light, and my salvation. 
 Thou hast been the one wealth of my soul — 
 its one and only fire; and all that has hidden 
 Thee has been but as burning ashes.
 
 174 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 ' Am I mad ? Am I a hypocrite ? Am 
 I dreaming? Am I lying to myself, as I 
 write thus ? Am I playing a part before 
 myself to deceive myself ? O my God, after 
 all, is it nothing but my own sin, my own 
 lovelessness, that stands between me and 
 Thee ? Dost Thou put me away, seeing 
 how lightly I have esteemed Thy creatures ? 
 Have I, as Campbell said to me, quenched 
 Thy Spirit ? 
 
 ' How odd Campbell's name looked, stuck 
 in like that ! 
 
 * My God — is it not possible that I may 
 plead my cause thus with Thee ? May I not 
 justify myself to Thee, and say, the worse I 
 am now, the more does this show how I loved 
 Thee ? Thou wast present in every affection, 
 in every energy of my life ; therefore with 
 Thy withdrawal every energy, every affection 
 is ruined. Yes — I might say this, but for one 
 thing. Ah me, my God, behold what is now
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 175 
 
 happening to me ! The desire of Thee has 
 long made me miserable ; and, ah, more 
 miserable that I am ! even my desire for 
 Thee is now deserting me. My heart is 
 ceasing to ache for Thee. A hateful peace is 
 slowly soothing it to its death. My soul is 
 getting colder and colder ; warmth is leaving 
 it, as it leaves a man who is dying. O my 
 God, remain with me ! Keep my pain and 
 my desolation alive in me ! If Thou wilt not 
 fill the void in my heart that Thou didst once 
 fill, let the void remain void, let nothing else 
 fill it. Give me no peace, unless it be Thy 
 peace. Torment me, but forsake me not. 
 Scourge me, keep me wretched and rest- 
 less till I find Thee ! This is indeed a sin- 
 cere prayer. O my God, is it a wrong 
 
 one ? 
 
 Here he camxe to a long pause, and threw 
 his pen down, as if he would wTite no more. 
 He looked round the room wearily, and
 
 176 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Stared In a kind of stupor at the various 
 books about him. At last his eye fixed on a 
 volume of Herbert Spencer ; and for many 
 minutes he was motionless. Then, seizing 
 the pen again, he rapidly added what follows. 
 
 ' Our own inward condition — our own sins 
 and lonelnes, and the bitter strife between 
 them — to the teachers of the present clay 
 what trifles do such things seem ! — or at best, 
 what a storm In a saucer ! To the prophets 
 of humanity, an unskilful bricklayer Is a 
 more tragic object than a ruined soul ! ' 
 
 Several times during the long course of 
 his writlne, Vernon had ofone to the window, 
 and peered out. He now went again once 
 more, and the moon was setting — the moon, 
 which during his after-dinner walk had been 
 so hieh In the middle heavens. This showed 
 him that the night must be far spent. Pre- 
 sently his eye fell on a small side-table, and 
 there lay an object so common-place that it
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 177 
 
 seemed to him like a spectre. It was a letter 
 he had not before noticed that had come for 
 him by the evening's post. The writing, 
 which was large and decided, might have 
 been either a man's or woman's ; and he 
 fancied it was familiar, though he could 
 connect no name with it. He broke open 
 the envelope, as if the sight of it half 
 dazed him ; and the first words he read sent 
 all the blood to his cheek. 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Vernon,' — began the letter, 
 ' When I saw you the other day, I quite forgot 
 to tell you that my very heart was broken. 
 (' What ! ' thought Vernon, ' can this be from 
 Miss Walters ? ' He went on reading.) 
 ' xVnd only a clever young man like you 
 can be of the least comfort to me. My poor 
 little darling sky-terrier Prinny — the thing 
 on this earth I have loved best and longest 
 — was run over and killed the other day by a 
 young man with a tandem. Only conceive 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 it — a tandem ! And this young gentleman 
 could have hardly held in a donkey. Had 
 he been one of my own stable-helps, I should 
 have known pretty well what to do with him. 
 And now you — if you will, I want you to 
 write an epitaph for me. My angel is being 
 embalmed by a very accomplished bird- 
 stuffer, and is to have Christian burial when 
 I eet back to E norland. Your verses shall 
 have a most honourable place ; so be a good 
 man, do, and write them for me.' And 
 then follow^ed the bold signature of the 
 Duchess. 
 
 With a tired, sleepy smile Vernon again 
 sat down at his writing-table. A thought 
 had struck him suddenly ; and seizing the 
 pen, he scribbled these hasty lines : — 
 
 Thou art gone to sleep, and we — 
 May we some day sleep like thee ! 
 Prinny, were this heart of mine 
 Half so true, my dog, as thine, 
 I my weary watch should keep 
 For a something more than sleep !
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. i-j^ 
 
 Whatever besides sleep the exhausted 
 writer may have longed for, sleep, at least, 
 now unexpectedly fell upon him. His eye- 
 lids grew heavy like lead, the pen dropped 
 from his hand, and, sinking back in his chair, 
 he became lost to consciousness. 
 
 N 2
 
 BOOK III,
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ^'-^^j'^HEN \>rnon awoke it was already 
 daylight : the Venetian shutters 
 were barred with the red gleams 
 of morning. His eyelids ached, and he looked 
 about him bewildered. 
 
 ' What has happened to me ? ' he said 
 to himself. ' Am I awake, or is this a night- 
 mare ? ' 
 
 He paced about the library, at hrst almost 
 staggering ; but by-and-by he recovered him- 
 self. He mounted to his bedroom. It had 
 a ghastly, alien aspect. There was his bed, 
 cold, smooth, and unslept in, with his night-
 
 1 84 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 shirt folded lying upon it. He ruffled the 
 sheets and pillow, that he might seem to his 
 servant to have passed the night as usual ; 
 for, as to lying down, it was the last thing he 
 now thought of. Then he tore his clothes 
 off and plunged into a cold bath. He re- 
 dressed himself ; he made a large cup of cof- 
 fee over a spirit-lamp ; and having drunk it, 
 he softly stole out of doors. 
 
 The long shadows of the clear day in its 
 infancy made his garden wear an unfamiliar 
 face for him. But the living breath of the 
 air, fresh with the dew, and quick with the 
 smells of flower-beds, woke In him new pulses. 
 He paused and looked about him that his 
 spirit might ' drink the spectacle.'^ The sea 
 was a pale sheet, sharply dark at the horizon, 
 where it washed with its long levels the red- 
 dening tract of sunrise ; and it was strewn 
 
 1 His spirit drank 
 
 The Spectacle. — Wordsworth.
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 185 
 
 with floating fragments of the crocus and the 
 rose of the sky. The faint promontories of 
 Italy slept in a veil of vapour. Inland lay 
 the far hill-villages, white scattered specks on 
 the huge slopes of the mountains ; and below 
 them were sombre ranges of far-reaching 
 mounded olive-woods. These were un- 
 changing in their soft, impassive darkness ; 
 but except on these the light was brightening 
 everywhere : and presently, far beyond them, 
 all the gigantic highlands flushed in an in- 
 stant from grey to a shining rose-colour, as 
 they caught the risen splendour on their bleak 
 frosts or dews. 
 
 Vernon, as he looked, felt himself come to 
 life again, but to a life of clear sensation 
 rather than clear thought. Thoughts, how- 
 ever, of some kind must have begun to dimly 
 stir in him ; for he soon found himself moving 
 in a definite direction. It was the direction 
 of the Chateau St. John. He passed through
 
 iS6 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 a wicket, Into a large open expanse studded 
 with heath and furze-bushes. The sea was 
 on one side of It ; It was traversed by several 
 paths ; and, for the sake of the air and view, 
 he had often before wandered In It. Here he 
 paused. Beyond were the tufts and plumes 
 of the luxuriant Chateau shrubberies, and 
 between these, by glimpses, the Chateau itself 
 was visible. Vernon's eye fixed on the line of 
 windows. The blinds were down ; the whole 
 house seemed slumbering. The path where 
 he stood led to a marble Q^atewav, through 
 which one entered the gardens and passed 
 Into an avenue of orano-e-trees. Towards 
 
 o 
 
 this gateway, though he could not explain 
 why, he was, In another moment, moving. 
 Last night he could write his thoughts ; 
 now they were too vague for analysis. 
 
 He passed through the gates with a feel- 
 ing of hope and peril ; he might have been 
 entering the charmed bounds of a sorceress.
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 1S7 
 
 And yet the place was already known by 
 heart to him ; and only a week ago he had 
 roamed at his own will in it. A maze of 
 paths branched from the orange-avenue. He 
 instinctively chose one that led far away from 
 the house, and that brought him by-and-by to 
 a long succession of gardens, terraced on the 
 hill-side, and leading down to the sea. He 
 stole on rapidly, past urns and statues, foun- 
 tains and set flower-beds ; he descended by 
 broad flights of steps from one level to 
 another ; and he at last diverged into a steep 
 winding path, which dived into a natural 
 tunnel amonsTst certain fantastic rocks. This 
 brought him presently, after several turnings, 
 to the strand of a tiny bay. On either side 
 was a curve of sheltering cliffs, not lofty but 
 precipitous, and plunging straight into clear 
 grey-green sea-water. The strand was a 
 little platform, gravelled carefully, and backed 
 by a bed of violets.
 
 1 88 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Here he paused, and at last began to 
 meditate. Slowly his vague feelings turned 
 into thoughts and images. His vigils of the 
 night came back to him, with the strange 
 projection on paper he had made of his own 
 condition : and they took a ghastly aspect as 
 the air of the morning breathed on them. 
 Mixed, too, with these phantasmal memories 
 were thoughts of a different order, which soon 
 began to reveal themselves with semi-trans- 
 parent bodies. They were thoughts of the 
 clear-cheeked mistress of the grounds where 
 he was now trespassing. No sooner had he 
 become conscious of this, than a memory 
 came back to him of certain sayings of Camp- 
 bell's ; and he exclaimed to himself, with 
 weary self-reproach, ' Do I think again of 
 yielding ? What Is it that has brought me 
 here ? I do not love this girl. I have no 
 wish to bind myself All the fine and all the 
 high feelings she stirs in me — they are not
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 189 
 
 serious : I attach no worthy meaning to them. 
 I am merely trifling with them in the very 
 way Campbell warned me of. Let me be 
 brave for once — let me make one sacrifice ; 
 let me call my imagination away from her. 
 And yet — ah me — those lovely, lovely lips ot 
 hers ! ' 
 
 At this moment a sli^rht noise startled 
 him. He turned quickly round, and there, at 
 the distance of a pace or two, she was herself 
 standing before him. In an instant, like bats 
 from daylight, his scruples took wing, and hid 
 themselves. He was conscious of a shock, as 
 of all his will yielding. For a little while he 
 stood silent and looked at her, feellnor nothlne 
 but his own blood beatino^, and lettine his 
 eyes rest on her. Seen thus in the dawning 
 she was a fresh surprise to him. His 
 memorv, It Is true, had retained her imagre 
 clearly ; but it had let the image tarnish, and 
 lose Its exquisite delicacy. He saw she was
 
 I90 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 far more lovely than In his thoughts just now 
 she had seemed to him. She was dressed in 
 a way that, it was evident, was meant only 
 for solitude. She had a long cloak on, with 
 a border of broad sable. It was fastened 
 round her throat, with additional closeness, by 
 a small brooch of diamonds ; and below it 
 descended a pale-blue satin dressing-gown. 
 She had apparently taken what at waking 
 she could first seize upon ; for on her slim 
 shoes there was a glimmer of gold em- 
 broidery, and on one of her hands was a long 
 evening glove. The other was bare, and 
 held a pale, dewy rose in It. 
 
 Vernon's rapid glance took In all these 
 details ; and the same impression w^as re- 
 newed In him that he received at first meeting 
 her. Everything about her was dainty, 
 almost Jine in Its daintiness ; yet, in relation 
 to her, it seemed natural as her own com- 
 plexion. And she herself, with the early
 
 THE NlXETEhXTH CEXTURY. 191 
 
 light caressing her — had that complexion 
 stolen a tint from morning ? Had the dews 
 of night washed her violet eyes clearer ? 
 
 Miss Walters was the first to speak ; but 
 she only exclaimed, ' ^Ir. \'ernon ! ' and he 
 for the first moment could only exclaim, 
 ' Miss Walters ! ' He was not, however, a 
 man to remain long tongue-tied ; and very 
 soon, with a smile, he was begging pardon as 
 a trespasser. ' Before you came here,' he 
 said, ' these gardens were a favourite haunt 
 of mine ; and I thought that, under cover of 
 the morning, I might venture in, just once 
 more, undetected.' 
 
 ' And I thought,' said INIiss Walters, with 
 a crlance at her own costume, ' that I mieht 
 be undetected also. I certainly did not come 
 out expecting to confront company.' 
 
 The soft, low voice in which these words 
 were murmured, showed Vernon that she was 
 not displeased at meeting him. Directly
 
 192 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 afterwards she happened to drop her glove. She 
 fixed her eyes on him smiHng, and said, * Pick 
 that up, will you ? ' It was a simple request to 
 make, but it had in it that subtle note of com- 
 mand, the assumption of which by a woman 
 is one of the first signs of an understanding. 
 Vernon realised this perfectly, and his 
 heart swelled with rapture. He was fully 
 launched now on the tide of luxurious feeling; 
 and he murmured secretly, as his eyes met 
 his companion's, ' My own ! my own ! ' The 
 consciousness of having even in thought 
 applied such a phrase as this to a woman, 
 might be to many men a sharp self-revelation ; 
 but Vernon knew himself far too well 
 for that. No lover, however, of the most 
 earnest and genuine kind could have put 
 more tender expression than he did into his 
 voice, when he asked her presently, ' Are 
 you always so early a riser as this ? ' 
 
 * No,' she said; 'but I slept badly last
 
 THE XIXETEEXTH CENTURY. 193 
 
 night ; and the morning looked so beautiful. 
 I huddled on these things, as you see — 
 anything I could get together ; I stole out 
 noiselessly, and found myself in a fairy-land 
 of roses, silent and fresh with dew. I hardly 
 know these gardens yet. They are all a 
 wonder and delight to me. I had never ex- 
 plored that little tunnel before ; and you may 
 judge how surprised I was when I found you 
 standing here.' 
 
 * Let me show you,' said Vernon, * the 
 mysteries of your own domains. Let us go up 
 again, and I will be your valet de place! 
 
 She turned, and she went with him. His 
 whole being was possessed with the sense of 
 her near companionship. They wandered on 
 together through the more sequestered walks, 
 slowly and often pausing, for the sake of 
 some sight or sound. Now it was a bird's 
 song that arrested them, now a prospect — a 
 fan-palm, an arch of roses, or the peaks of 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 the distant Alps : and such things as these 
 were for some time all they talked about. 
 Impersonal, however, as the conversation 
 seemed to be, a sense of mutual ease between 
 them was growing under its kindly shelter ; nor 
 was this to be wondered at. Conversations 
 which are impersonal in form, are sometimes 
 intensely personal in spirit. The subjects 
 spoken about are like the masques worn at 
 a ball ; and a passion can be declared plainly 
 under the guise of praising a view. Things 
 on the present occasion had not come to this : 
 but the conversation was full, on both sides, of 
 oblique hints of feeling ; and the subtle re- 
 sponse of Miss Walters to every sight of 
 beauty revealed to Vernon new depths in her 
 character. She saw a thousand minute things 
 that his eyes had passed over, even to the 
 play of the dewdrops falling from leaf to leaf ; 
 and when he pointed out to her the wider 
 and bolder prospects, the feelings they stirred
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 195 
 
 in her seemed to be more deep than his own. 
 She looked, he thought, amongst the dews 
 and the roses, Hke the spirit of the morning 
 facing its own creations. 
 
 Presently he was preparing to turn up a 
 certain path, when with a quick movement 
 she put her hand on his arm, and stopped 
 him. ' Not that path,' she said. ' It brings 
 us in full view of the house ; and to the 
 observation of the servants, I think, we should 
 be a somewhat mysterious couple.' 
 
 When a woman once shows herself con- 
 scious that she is doing anything clandestine, a 
 man can rarely avoid some slight change in his 
 manner towards her ; and \'ernon now, as 
 they diverged into a different path, felt that 
 he turned to her with a slightly less disguised 
 admiration. Any such freedom, however, 
 spent itself like a relapsing wave, as his look 
 encountered hers. Hers showed no fear
 
 196 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 of, or no offence at, him. It was full only 
 of a sad, earnest Inquiry, as though she were 
 wondering what were his feelings. As she 
 thus regarded him, she betrayed something 
 he had not before noticed. In spite of its 
 radiant aspect her face bore signs of weari- 
 ness, and under her eyes were streaks of 
 transparent purple. 
 
 *Yes,' she said absently, as Vernon re- 
 marked on this ; ' last night I was very wake- 
 ful. And you,' she added — * I think the same 
 fate must have been yours. Why, Mr. 
 Vernon, how is it that this has escaped me ? 
 You are more than tired ; haggard is the 
 only word for it. Has anything painful 
 happened to you ? * 
 
 Vernon was silent for a few moments ; 
 then he answered smiling, * You make me 
 speak to you ; your voice acts like a spell on 
 me. I spent last night face to face with a 
 spectre. I spent it face to face with that
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 197 
 
 dead self of mine which I told you I had 
 come here to find again.' 
 
 ' Yes,' she said ; * you told me. To some 
 people your words might perhaps have had 
 no meaning. But I understood them. I 
 have seen and known things that made them 
 quite plain to me. Tell me, then — have 
 you so soon found what you were seeking 
 for?' 
 
 * Not it — no ; but the phantom of it. It 
 was the piteous phantom, not the returning 
 friend. At least I think so ; for just now I 
 can be sure of nothing. Some day, perhaps, 
 I may be able to tell you better.' 
 
 * I, too,' she said, ' have something that I 
 may perhaps X.^ yotc — some day.' 
 
 Vernon was silent for a moment ; and 
 then he said to her, * Give me that rose as a 
 pledge that you will keep your promise.' 
 
 * It is not 2, promise! she murmured ; ' it is 
 2i perhaps only.' But at the same time with
 
 198 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 a slow, regretful movement she gave him 
 the pledge he asked for. As he took the 
 flower from her, their hands touched ; for a 
 few seconds they lingered in light contact, 
 and then gently, and with no resistance on 
 her part, Vernon took hers in his own. As 
 he held it, he looked into her face silently ; 
 by a slight movement he made her turn round 
 to the sunrise, and raising the rose in his 
 hand, he laid it against her cheek. * And you 
 are pale,' he said, ' like one of these creamy 
 rose-petals. See what you have given me — 
 it is your own image.' 
 
 Miss Walters made no answer, excepting 
 with her eyes and with her cheeks, whose 
 living rose-leaf flushed with a faint carnation. 
 A pause here might have been not without 
 embarrassment. Vernon felt this with the 
 instinct of the true love-maker, and he lit on 
 a new subject instantly. He saw that in her 
 left hand she was holding a small volume,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 199 
 
 and with a voice quite altered, he asked, 
 * What have you got there ? ' 
 
 *You would hardly guess perhaps,' she 
 said, with a little, flickering smile. 'It is a 
 Bible. I always keep it by the side of my 
 bed, and I always read a verse or two in 
 the morning when I get up. I make my 
 selections in a way no critic would approve 
 of; and I'm sure I can't explain to you what 
 my exact principle is. This morning I chose 
 — shall I tell you what ? Let us sit down 
 upon this bench for a moment, and I will read 
 it out to you. No — ' she said, putting her 
 hand on his, ' you must not take the book 
 from me. I don't want you to see the con- 
 text. " Awake, O north wind ; and come, 
 thou south ; blow upon my garden, that the 
 spices thereof may flow out. ... I sleep, but 
 my heart waketh : it is the voice of my 
 beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, 
 my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled :
 
 200 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 for my head is filled with dew, and my locks 
 with the drops of the night." ' 
 
 The selection of this passage was a slight 
 shock to Vernon, or rather the fact that, 
 having selected It, she should have thus read 
 it to him. But so absent from her seemed all 
 consciousness that it could have any personal 
 application, that he Instantly felt ashamed of 
 so vulgar a suspicion of her. 
 
 * They are beautiful verses,' he said, ' and 
 you read them beautifully. I am going to 
 ask you an odd question, seeing that this 
 is only our second meeting. Do you say 
 prayers In the morning, as well as read the 
 Bible ? ' 
 
 * I am a person,' she said abstractedly, 
 * who has said many prayers — many, many, 
 many. I have passed nights of watching, 
 just as last night you did. But women 
 endure and suffer with more patience than 
 men do.'
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 201 
 
 * With more patience, yes ; because they 
 have less to suffer.' 
 
 * Do you think that is true ? ' she said, 
 smiHng sadly. 
 
 * Not of all women — no ; but of women 
 like you it must be. The sufferings we talk 
 of are those of the heart and spirit. I don't 
 know your history ; your burdens may have 
 been more heavy than mine ; but they have 
 been burdens of a nobler kind ; they have 
 been such as are laid only on those who are 
 fit to bear them. It is far easier for the saint 
 to carry the cross, than for the sinner to find 
 or raise it again when he has once dropped it 
 in the snow.' 
 
 Again she looked at him with the same 
 sad smile. ' Do you think,' she said, ' that I 
 am a saint, then ? ' 
 
 * No,' he answered ; ' you are not a saint. 
 But I think you are listening for the sounds 
 that the saints hear.'
 
 202 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Presently he resumed. * I might perhaps 
 have thought you were a saint already, if it 
 were not for one reason.' 
 
 * And what reason is that ? ' 
 
 ' Do I venture to tell you, I wonder ? It 
 is entirely a subjective reason. Well — it 
 is this. If I knew that you would never 
 know it, or that, knowing, you would forgive 
 or forget it, I feel quite sure that I should 
 touch your lips with mine.' 
 
 As Vernon said this, he again put out his 
 hand to her, but, instead of meeting it, she 
 raised hers to her face, and for a moment hid 
 her eyes with it. 
 
 ' Remember,' she said presently, ' nothing 
 like that must ever come into our friendship. 
 I have set you apart in my own mind from 
 all other men, and you must learn to think of 
 me not as others have done.' She seemed to 
 be half pleading with and half warning him ; 
 and her words came with a singular soft
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 203 
 
 solemnity which at once fanned his feeHngs 
 and made him resolved to check them. ' You 
 must think of me,' she went on, 'just as I am to 
 think of you. I am your friend, or, if you like 
 it, your sister : and near relations, you know, 
 are only absurd when they are sentimental.' 
 
 Vernon could not understand her. She 
 was evidently all in earnest ; but there was 
 something in herself, some subtle power in 
 her presence, by which her words were more 
 than neutralised. ' Surely,' he thought, * this 
 is not the voice of a sister ; and when 
 feelings are merely sisterly, it is never worth 
 while saying so.' He was stung by a hybrid 
 impulse — the wish to obey her words and the 
 wish to yield to her fascination. 
 
 ' I will think of you,' he exclaimed, ' in 
 any way you tell me to : and you shall let 
 me call you by the name you have yourself 
 taught me — my sister, m)^ love, my dove, my 
 undefiled. May I call you that ? '
 
 204 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 She made no answer, but she clasped her 
 hands before her ; he could see that she 
 clasped them tightly : and she sat motionless 
 with her eyes turned upwards. At last she 
 said, * Could you only call me that truly, I 
 would give up everything ! * 
 
 * What,' murmured Vernon, * should 
 hinder me ? My love, my dove, my un- 
 defiled, I shall always connect you with 
 the clear dews of the morning ; and your 
 friendship will revive my life like a second 
 baptism.' 
 
 ' You are reckoning without your host,' 
 she answered, still looking straight before her. 
 ' You know nothing about me yet, nor who 
 it is you are speaking to.' 
 
 * What is wanting in my knowledge,' said 
 Vernon, ' Is made up by my instincts. Think, 
 we have only met twice ; and yet already you 
 are my friend and my sister, and you have 
 already — at least, I think so — put a new life
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 205 
 
 into me. I feel like a dusty flower that has 
 had dew fallen on it.' 
 
 She rose from where they were sitting, 
 and began to walk on slowly. He followed 
 her in silence, watching her graceful move- 
 ments. A long branch of roses dangled across 
 the path. She drew it towards herself, and 
 stood still, smelling one of the blossoms. 
 Presently, not looking at Vernon, * I think,' 
 she said, * you had perhaps better beware of 
 me.' 
 
 * For my sake or for yours ? ' 
 
 * Not for mine, certainly. There is little 
 need for me to beware of anything.' 
 
 * Nor for me either,' said Vernon. ' You 
 will not ruin my peace. I should perhaps be 
 a better man if you were able to. Friend- 
 ship is all I ask for, I neither expect more 
 nor wish for it. As long as you care to 
 meet me, let my heart throb as I think of 
 you. If you withdraw your caring, no matter
 
 2o6 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 how capriciously— well, I will not reproach 
 you.' 
 
 ' I doubt,' she said smiling, *if even I could 
 take things quite so easily as all that. How- 
 ever, we shall see — we shall see. We shall 
 have plenty of opportunities. And that 
 reminds me' — here all of a sudden her manner 
 became conventional — ' I fear you called upon 
 us yesterday and did not find us at home. It is 
 my fault that you had your trouble for nothing. 
 I had written you a note myself the day 
 before, to say that we were called away, and 
 to ask you in my aunt's name to dine last 
 night with us. But — you see this is what it 
 is to be a methodical woman ! — I left it on 
 my dressing-table, and it never was taken 
 at all. You would have only met Colonel 
 Stapleton.' 
 
 * What sort of man is Colonel Stapleton ?' 
 said Vernon abruptly. ' I barely know him to 
 speak to.'
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 207 
 
 * Oh,' she said carelessly, * you can see 
 what he is in a moment. He hunts and 
 shoots, and has travelled over half the world. 
 I am fond of him, for I've known him ever 
 since I was so hio^h ; but there's nothine 
 whatever in him ; and I don't know that you 
 missed much in not dining with us.' 
 
 * The night before,' said Vernon, ' I had a 
 little dinner of my own. My guests were an 
 old college friend, who, I am sorry to say, is 
 gone ; and a poor Catholic priest, who is 
 staying near here for his health — an excel- 
 lent man, but a little depressing some- 
 times.' 
 
 * A priest ! ' said Miss Walters. 
 
 ' Not one of these countr}^ priests. My 
 friend is an Englishman, whom I once knew 
 
 well — a fellow called Frederic Stanley. 
 
 You seem surprised. Do you know him ? 
 He is stopping here at the Pension! 
 
 * Know him ! * she replied. * He is a sort
 
 2o8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 of cousin of mine, and is the truest friend I 
 ever had in the world. Mr. Vernon,' she 
 went on, ' whatever relationship yours and 
 mine may be, Frederic Stanley was really 
 like a brother to me. I could once have told 
 him anything ; I could have asked his advice 
 in anything. But I shall never do that again. 
 There is one thing gone from my life — gone 
 like many other things.' 
 
 ' Why,' said Vernon, * should his being a 
 priest estrange you ? ' 
 
 ' It doesn't,' she said. ' I was not thinking 
 of that. That, in itself, would rather help to 
 unite us. It is nothing that he knows of that 
 divides us now. Perhaps you — but let me 
 look once in your eyes again ; just look at me, 
 please, for one moment steadily — perhaps you 
 will know what it is some day. But about 
 Fred Stanley,' she went on. * I should like 
 you very much to be friends with him ; I feel 
 so sure he could help you. I have an instinct,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CEN7URY. 209 
 
 in your case ; I have a power of divination 
 which tells me so.' 
 
 * We are old friends already/ said Vernon ; 
 * we were at the same college together.' 
 
 ' You are not yet friends In the way I wish 
 you should be, or I am sure you would not 
 have spoken of him as you did just this 
 moment. You call him depressing, and I 
 think I know what you mean by that. You 
 remember him as he once was, full of feeling 
 for art and poetry, and full of Interest in 
 everything from science to society ; and you 
 misjudge the change in him.' 
 
 ' In some men,' said Vernon, ' religion 
 kindles poetry ; it seems to have quenched 
 his. There is something now about him that 
 is hard and prosaic' 
 
 * If this is so, I can tell you the meaning 
 of it. His right hand has offended him, and 
 he has cut it off deliberately. There is no 
 one who naturally is more alive to beauty, or 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO A ROMANCE OF 
 
 to whatever can flatter delicately ambition, in- 
 tellectual pride, or the senses ; and under the 
 priest's surface. If }'ou can only once get under 
 it, you will still discover the man of the world 
 and the poet ; only you will discover them 
 crucified. He has given his best as a sacrifice 
 to the God who, he thinks, loved men ; his 
 best, remember, not that which has cost him 
 nothing. You will detect his love for poetry 
 In his very silence about it. Try — to please 
 me, try — to make better friends with him.' 
 
 ' I will try,' said Vernon, ' both for your 
 sake and for his. But tell me this, will you 
 — what you have just said makes me ask you 
 — are you yourself a Catholic ? ' 
 
 * No,' she said with decision ; * that Is a 
 thing I never could be. I admire goodness, 
 and I hate evil — you might realise how 
 intensely, if you only knew my history ; and 
 amongst my Catholic friends have been the 
 best people I have known. But how, with
 
 THE XIXETEENTH CEXTURY. 211 
 
 their eyes open, they can swallow so much 
 nonsense — I suppose there is some explana- 
 tion, but I confess it is quite beyond me.' 
 ' What sort of nonsense ? ' 
 
 * Frederic Stanley, for instance, thinks 
 he could absolve me from my sins. I confess 
 to him, and then he wipes the sin out. That 
 is his notion. Now he might advise me, 
 were I able to take advice, how to avoid 
 repeating my sins ; but it is ridiculous even 
 to fancy that he could relieve me of those I 
 have committed.' 
 
 * It is quite as mysterious to me,' said 
 \'ernon, 'that God should forgive sins at all, 
 as that He should forgive them through 
 Stanley's agency.' 
 
 * It may be so,' she sighed. ' I don't know 
 
 what to think about it. A God Vv'ho is not 
 
 merciful is a monster ; a God who is just 
 
 and merciful seems an impossibility. Perhaps, 
 
 after all, there is no mercy needed except 
 p 2
 
 212 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 from one human being to another ; and as to 
 what we do to ourselves, perhaps that matters 
 nothing.' 
 
 Vernon looked at her in surprise. ' Do 
 you really think that ? ' he said. 
 
 She cast her eyes down, and began to put 
 on her glove. She seemed occupied with the 
 beauty of her own delicate hands. Presendy 
 however, and not without hesitation, ' I'll tell 
 you,' she said, ' what I really do think. 
 Religion, when a good man is possessed by 
 it, makes him unselfish, and eager to work for 
 others ; but it makes a woman selfish. It 
 centres her whole anxiety on keeping her own 
 robe taintless ; and it is always sending her 
 to her looking-glass that she may examine 
 her moral toilette. In the language of re- 
 ligion, this is female virtue par excellence. 
 Well, I can't help thinking — I hope you 
 won't be shocked at me — that there are 
 other virtues in God's eyes more important
 
 THE XIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 213 
 
 than this; and -that it will be asked us first, 
 what work have your hands done ? not, 
 whether we have kept them quite clean in 
 doing it/ 
 
 * I have myself,* said Vernon slowly, and 
 not without some surprise, ' been inclined to 
 accuse Catholicism of the same fault in its 
 teaching. But the fault — and I am sure it 
 exists — is really not in Catholicism, but in 
 certain times and teachers ; perhaps, too, in 
 certain pupils. What the Church teaches 
 is, that we all of us, women as well as men, 
 have two duties — one to ourselves, the other 
 to humanity ; and that these are like the two 
 feet on which the pilgrim goes to God. It is 
 easy to sneer at the self-regarding virtues ; 
 but the Church is a true philosopher when 
 she insists to man on their necessity. Unless 
 we work for others, we shall have nothing to 
 offer God : unless we keep our hearts pure, 
 we shall be unable to offer it.'
 
 214 ^ ROMANCE OF 
 
 'Are you, then/ said Miss Walters, *a 
 Catholic ? ' 
 
 * I don't know,' he murmured, ' what I am.' 
 ' Just now,' she said, * you asked me a 
 
 question, and I believe I evaded it. You 
 asked me if I said my prayers. I am now 
 going to ask the same question of you. 
 Do you ? ' 
 
 * Very ill ; but still I do say them.' 
 
 ' Then if you do,' she said, holding out 
 her hand to him, ' pray for me. Now, go. 
 The clock is striking eight. I must get back 
 to the house.' 
 
 Her hand was in his. He held it, and it 
 was not withdrawn from him. Here again 
 there was a sharp, distinct struggle in him. 
 Should he do something, or should he forbear 
 from doing it ? Impulse urged him one way ; 
 conscience, with clear voice, the other : and 
 In a few seconds again conscience yielded. 
 Nearer and nearer to himself he drew his fair
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 215 
 
 companion. She, as If spell-bound, offered 
 no resistance. Presently he was sensible of 
 the warmth of her face close to him : a 
 moment more, and he had done what he said 
 he longed to do ; he had kissed her on her 
 sad, proud lips. 
 
 The touch recalled her to herself. ' Go,' 
 she said, ' go ! You don't know what it is 
 you are doing to me.' xA.nd without another 
 look she was gone. 
 
 Vernon found his way homewards In a 
 new, confused excitement. A wild pleasure 
 was struggling with self-reproach, and he 
 hardly knew the exact nature of either. His 
 mind was a m3'stery to himself, like a magi- 
 cian's crystal elobe. There seemed to be in 
 it a white vapour rising, which Avould take 
 presently some unconjectured shape.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 iHE after-taste of the above inter- 
 view was to Vernon not without 
 bitterness. He was beset by two 
 reflections of an opposite nature, and each 
 in its own way annoying. One of these 
 was, ' I was a fool to kiss her.' The other, 
 * I was a still greater fool not to ask her when 
 I might be allowed to see her again.' He 
 had already made his formal call at the 
 Chateau ; he could not repeat it without some 
 sort of invitation ; and it might be a day, it 
 might perhaps be even two, before his new 
 romance could be proceeded with. Fate, 
 however, proved more kind than he had anti-
 
 ROMANCE OF NINETEENTH CENTURY. 217 
 
 cipated ; for in the course of the morning 
 the following note arrived for him : 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Vernon,' it ran, ' there is a 
 little town among the mountains here called 
 St. Paul du Var, which my aunt has seen from 
 a distance, and much wishes to visit. We 
 have some thoughts of going there this after- 
 noon ; and if you have nothing better to do, 
 it would give her great pleasure if you would 
 
 come with us. 
 
 ' Sincerely yours, 
 
 ' Cynth ia Walters.' 
 Then came the following postscript : 
 
 * Remember, if you are to be ever a 
 friend of mine, you must never act again as 
 if you were more than a friend.' 
 
 He seized a pen eagerly, and had begun 
 to write an acceptance, when he was cut short 
 by a very unwelcome interruption. The 
 mother had arrived of his little crippled pro-
 
 2i8 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 tdgde, and was begging to speak to him about 
 her child's condition. ' Damn her ! ' was his 
 first exclamation ; and then to the servant he 
 said, ' Let her come to-morrow.' The man 
 closed the door, but in another moment 
 Vernon had recalled him. ' No,' he said ; 
 * you may tell her to come in now.' A breath 
 of earlic announced the old woman's advent. 
 Vernon forced a smile and held his handker- 
 chief to his nostrils. The story was this : 
 the boot required altering ; one of the steel 
 supports grazed the poor child's ankle, and, so 
 far as Vernon could gather, she was in great 
 suffering. ' Let her take the boot off, and I 
 w^ill come to-morrow.' It w^as on his lips to 
 say this, and to say it with some impatience. 
 But he happened to look into the old crone's 
 face, and his purpose altered. ' I will be 
 with you,' he said, ' in the course of the 
 next hour, and Avill take the child to Nice 
 with me, where the boot shall be refitted on
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 219 
 
 her.' Biting his lips with irritation, he wrote 
 Miss Walters an unwilling refusal, and started 
 presently on his distasteful work of mercy. 
 ' I wish,' he murmured, ' the little animal was 
 at the devil. Here's another day she's spoilt 
 for me.' By-and-bye, however, he saw a 
 brighter side to the question. * After all,' he 
 thought, ' it has perhaps turned out for the 
 best. Had I been with that girl, I should 
 have committed myself more and more. I 
 should have said much and meant nothinor. 
 Or else — my God, what a brute I am ! — I 
 should have been using the very thoughts 
 that I should like to hold most sacred as so 
 many dominoes in an idle game of love- 
 making. I have done that already this 
 morning. Campbell was right about me ! ' 
 
 Reflections such as these kept recurring to 
 him throughout the day ; but they were not 
 without their rivals. The memory of Miss 
 Walters — her beauty, her delicate feeling, her
 
 220 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Strange, ambiguous phrases, and the touch of 
 her hand and lips — these would recur also, and 
 make him again long for her company. His 
 business with the child detained him some 
 hours at Nice, and it was latish when he got 
 home again. But the events of the day had 
 done little to calm his mind. Prudence, de- 
 sire; and conscience still stung and distracted 
 him. 
 
 When he entered his library, he found 
 another letter awaiting him, in an envelope 
 not unlike the one he had received that 
 morning. But he was disappointed ; it was 
 not from Miss Walters. It would have told 
 its own authorship, even without the Duchers's 
 signature. ' I hope,' it ran, ' that you have 
 composed me those verses. However, It is 
 not about these that I am writing ; and I 
 shall not dun you yet. What I want to tell 
 you is that old Surbiton Is coming over to 
 the Cap to-morrow for me, to give a proper
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 221 
 
 blowing up to the head gardener at the Hotel 
 there ; and, as we all know how particular he 
 is about his eating, I want you, if you will, to 
 let him come to you for luncheon. If I may 
 give you a hint, I will tell you he worships 
 truffles. There's another man here — a eood 
 sort of creature in his way. You would per- 
 haps, if he comes, let him trespass on your 
 hospitality also.' 
 
 The prospect of any excitement pleased 
 Vernon at the moment. He wrote out a 
 telegram to the Duchess, that was to be sent 
 the first thing next morning. He sum- 
 moned his chef, and had a long conference 
 with him about a luncheon : then, thoroughly 
 wearied, he took himself off to bed ; and Lord 
 Surbiton, truffles, and ^liss Walters in turn 
 engaged his thoughts, as by dreamy stages 
 they decomposed into unconsciousness.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 E sent next day to the station to 
 meet Lord Surblton, who In due 
 time arrived. He was not 
 alone, however. The other man men- 
 tioned by the Duchess had escaped Vernon's 
 mind for the moment ; and it was with no 
 great feehng of pleasure that he discovered it 
 to be Colonel Stapleton. He had had a 
 nodding acquaintance with the Colonel for 
 many years previous ; he had had a vague Im- 
 pression that he hunted, shot, and gambled ; 
 and he had had passing glimpses of him at 
 various London houses. But as for thinking of
 
 ROMANCE OF NIXETEENTH CENTURY. 223 
 
 him for two minutes together, he had never done 
 this till the dinner at Monte Carlo. Colonel 
 Stapleton since that evening had been a vivid 
 personality to \^ernon, and a personality dis- 
 tasteful to him to a degree he could not 
 account for. He was aware that in some 
 vague way he might regard the man as a 
 rival ; but his distaste was different from the 
 mere distaste of jealousy. He grudged him 
 Miss Walters' acquaintance, not because there 
 was much that could attract her in him, but 
 because there was so little. ' Brute ! ' he had 
 murmured several times to himself, ' how I 
 hate those swimming eyes of his ! I can't 
 bear to think that her eyes should look at 
 him.' This, however, he had himself seen 
 they had done ; and whenever he recollected 
 how often and how smilingly, Miss Walters 
 seemed withdrawn from him to some mys- 
 terious estranging distance. But that was 
 not all. In the very process of this with«
 
 224 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 drawal she became more alluring to him ; and 
 he felt himself at such moments grow sick 
 with a new longing for her. 
 
 The Colonel's reappearance made him 
 again conscious of this ; and it required 
 all his tact to prepare to receive him civilly. 
 It was a moment's consolation to him, as he 
 welcomed the two guests, to find that Lord 
 Surbiton looked somewhat bored with his 
 companion ; and Vernon at once, in his own 
 mind, taxed the Duchess with the arrange- 
 ment. Here at least he was right. Her 
 Grace dearly loved arranging. 
 
 Matters, however, went better than he 
 had hoped for. The Colonel's manner was 
 one of extreme good breeding ; and his frank 
 and evident shyness at intruding on a bare 
 acquaintance, at once made Vernon genial 
 without the trouble of trying to be so. Pre- 
 sently, too, at luncheon Lord Surbiton lit 
 up into vivacity. All he had wanted hitherto
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 225 
 
 had been some subject he could discuss 
 strikingly ; and he soon found, in the science 
 of good living, one suited equally to himself 
 and his small audience. 
 
 * I often think,' said the Colonel, ' that 
 the best meat I ever tasted was a piece of 
 mutton in the desert, that was cooked for me 
 by a young Coptic girl.' 
 
 Lord Surbiton turned to him with a keen 
 glance In his eyes. * The Coptic Church,' he 
 said, * shows a singular lenity, does It not, 
 in Its rule over the human affections ? ' 
 
 * Certainly,' said the Colonel, ' when I 
 studied Its constitution, you could be married 
 and unmarried by It, just as the fancy seized 
 you. You could be married when you went 
 to Egypt, and unmarried when you left It. 
 What one gained by the arrangement was a 
 wider field of choice.' 
 
 * But suppose,' said Lord Surbiton, ' one 
 of these women became attached to you ; 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 might there not be some difficulty then in 
 getting quit of a lawful union ? ' 
 
 * I shouldn't think so/ said the Colonel, 
 despatching a fine truffle. ' Besides, distance 
 can divorce one, as well as the Coptic Church/ 
 
 Lord Surblton sighed. ' I regret much/ 
 he said, 'that I have hardly set foot in 
 Egypt; and I have yet been a constant 
 
 wanderer. Like Shelley's Alastor, 
 
 • 
 
 I have known 
 Athens and Tyre, and Baalbec, and the waste 
 Where stood Jerusalem.' 
 
 Colonel Stapleton stared. ' I, too, have 
 been in the East,' he said quietly. ' I was at 
 Jerusalem only a year ago.' 
 
 ' Not,' said Vernon, ' as a religious pilgrim, 
 I suppose ? ' 
 
 The Colonel brushed a speck of dirt from 
 his finely-shaped fingernail. 'No/ he said ; 
 ' but I went there with a remarkably unre- 
 pentant Magdalene. She had had something
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 227 
 
 to do with some one who had something to do 
 with India ; and I came across her at a loose 
 end in Cairo. It was a curious thing to see 
 a woman of that kind amonest the sacred 
 scenes one has heard about, and all that kind 
 of thing. She, now — this woman — what 
 should you think her great wish was ? Not 
 to see Olivet, or Jericho, or any of those 
 places. Upon my word I doubt if she had 
 ever even heard of Abraham. What she 
 wanted to see was a certain dance at 
 Damascus.' 
 
 Lord Surbiton's eyes shot with a fire of 
 intelligence, and his mouth emitted the ghost 
 of a hollow cackle. ' I know the dance you 
 mean,' he said. ' I've seen it myself several 
 times.' 
 
 ' I mean this,' said the Colonel ; and he 
 gave a minute description. 
 
 ' I must confess,' said Vernon, ' that I 
 don't myself see the point of it.' 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 * Why, my dear fellow,' replied the Colonel 
 In a slightly aggrieved tone, * it s the most 
 damned suggestive thing Imaginable. Though, 
 upon my word,' he went on, ' I don't know If 
 It beats some of the plays In Paris. Have 
 
 you, Lord Surblton, seen ? ' and he named 
 
 a certain play and theatre. ' You have } 
 Well, in the second act, did you ever notice 
 how the women's dresses were cut ? ' 
 
 Lord Surblton with regretful Interest 
 confessed that he had not. The Colonel at 
 great length enlightened him. It was now 
 Lord Surbiton's turn to impart instruction, 
 and he repaid the Colonel In kind ; It may 
 also be said with usury. His vivid power 
 both of imagination and description made 
 most of what he said quite unfit to be 
 chronicled ; and the Colonel's eyes, as he 
 listened, swam with attentive moisture. 
 
 By-and-by they all adjourned to the 
 garden, where a table, under the myrtles, was
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 229 
 
 set with wine and coffee. This turned Lord 
 Surblton s thoughts into quite a new direction, 
 and, greatly to Vernon's pleasure, he began 
 quoting Horace. Colonel Stapleton since he 
 left Eton had been no great student ; but the 
 sound of the Latin tonofue reminded him of 
 one classical quotation. Post prandia, 
 Callirrhoe. He had hardly aired this small 
 fragment of learning, when his manner 
 changed suddenly ; and, slightly embarrassed, 
 and not without some feeling of delicacy, 
 ' That line,' he said, ' was not very well 
 chosen by me, since, after Mr. Vernon's 
 praiidiicm, I have to call upon his next-door 
 neighbours.' 
 
 ' Confound him !' thought Vernon. 'What 
 the devil does he come over here at all for ? ' 
 
 * But Colonel,' said Lord Surbiton, * you 
 are to help me as her Grace's emissary.' 
 
 ' I will be back in half-an-hour, if our host 
 will excuse me presently.'
 
 230 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 An Idea flashed upon Vernon. ' Will you 
 bring" your friends with you,' he said, ' and 
 we will all see the Hotel garden together ? ' 
 
 * Certainly,' said the Colonel, with gay 
 good humour. ' I forgot to ask you If you 
 had seen much of them, since that evening 
 when you carried them off In triumph. I 
 watched you as you drove away, and a fine, 
 spanking pace those horses of yours went, 
 too?' 
 
 ' Who are you talking of ? ' exclaimed 
 Lord Surbiton. 'Is it that lovely Miss 
 Walters ? By all means bring her, If such a 
 goddess will deign to appear among us.' 
 
 * Upon my word,' said the Colonel, 'she 
 is a nymph or a goddess. Did you ever 
 see any one with a turn of the neck like 
 that ? She's about the handsomest woman 
 in Europe — Miss Walters is; at least, 
 that's my opinion ; and full of fun when you 
 only get to know her as I do. Then, the
 
 THE NIXETEEXTH CEXTURY. 231 
 
 dear old aunt too — what a capital old lady 
 that is! IVe the orreatest re2:ard for Aunt 
 Louisa/ 
 
 ' You, I suppose,' said Vernon, * have 
 known them for a long time ? ' 
 
 ' God bless my soul, yes ! Why, when I 
 first knew ]\IIss Cynthia she used to sit on 
 my knees and kiss me. But ' — the Colonel 
 suddenly started, and his voice dropped with 
 alarm — ' who's this coming here ? It looks, 
 for all the world, like the parson.' 
 
 Vernon turned and saw It was Frederic 
 Stanley. ' Well,' said the Colonel hurriedly, 
 ' I'm off to the Chateau, and in half-an-hour 
 I'll be back a£:aln.' 
 
 As for Stanley, he began with a quiet 
 apology : ' Your servant, Vernon, never told 
 me you had visitors ; but merely said that I 
 should find you here In the garden.' 
 
 * Sit down, my dear fellow,' said Vernon ; 
 * I'm perfectly charmed to see you.' But
 
 232 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 he felt, at the same time, that the priest 
 was out of his element ; and was a little 
 nervous when he made him known to Lord 
 Surbiton. 
 
 The event, however, set all his fears to 
 rest. Lord Surbitons versatility was more 
 than a fancied gift in him ; and on Stanley s 
 appearance his entire demeanour changed. 
 His furrowed face invested itself with a look 
 of thoughtful gravity ; and in his tone and 
 gesture, as he acknowledged his new acquaint- 
 ance, there was the most perfect mixture of 
 fitting respect and dignity. Vernon thought, 
 as he watched him, that he had never seen 
 a truer gentleman. Stanley too, in becoming 
 a priest, had by no means forgotten the 
 savoir faire of the guardsman ; and now that 
 the Colonel was gone, the trio were presently 
 quite at ease together. The picturesqueness of 
 the scene was such as to strike all of them. 
 The blue of the sea that glowed through an
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 233 
 
 arch of myrtles, the glitter of the glasses, the 
 red flash of the Burgundy, and the gold of 
 the plled-up oranges, not to mention them- 
 selves in the green shadow — all this to three 
 graceful scholars again suggested Horace, 
 and the calm of the Horatian philosophy. 
 Lord Surbiton broke out into several apt 
 quotations, which both the others would in 
 turn either cap or continue ; and he ex- 
 claimed presently with all his pomp of utter- 
 ance, ' If every pleasure, as Epicurus said it 
 did, springs somehow or other from some 
 satisfaction of the senses, it is poetry, it is 
 literature alone, that makes them last a life- 
 time.' 
 
 * Epicurus,' said Vernon, * would, I think, 
 have admitted that. He was the wisest, in 
 his generation, of all the old philosophers ; 
 and the popularity of Horace is one of the 
 best proofs of this.' 
 
 ' True,' said Lord Surbiton. * There is
 
 234 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 something, to me, much finer in the Epicurean 
 calm than in the Stoic fortitude. The man 
 who is stern, is repressing his emotion ; the 
 man who is calm has killed it. Think how 
 the two schools looked on death, for instance. 
 The Stoic looked on it with a defiant frown ; 
 by the act of an iron will he resolved not to 
 wince at it. He braved it — ' and here in 
 Lord Surbiton's eyes came a slight flash of 
 the Devil — * as a clumsy but virtuous peasant 
 might brave some wicked nobleman. But 
 the Epicurean had no need of resolves, or for 
 making heroic faces. He met death, as 
 Metternich met Napoleon, with the reserved 
 grace of a man who is the superior in all but 
 power ; and who yet gives power its due. 
 Horace, as you say, Vernon, is a proof 
 of this. His odes show us more clearly 
 than anything the pathetic dignity, the 
 pdlitely- concealed contempt, the easy self- 
 possession, and the superb high breeding,
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 235 
 
 with which the Epicurean poet greeted and 
 treated death.' 
 
 ' Whatever we think,' said Stanley, ' about 
 the rehgious view of the matter, that sort of 
 philosophy is now no longer possible.' 
 
 ' Goethe's mother,' said Vernon, 'found it 
 so ; and so did our Charles the Second.' 
 
 ' I was thinking,' said Stanley, ' not of 
 death then, but of life. What I meant was 
 that a life of the proudest calm, though en- 
 riched with all the pleasures that can stimulate 
 mind or body, is an ideal that now no man 
 of insight can be satisfied with. W^e hear 
 much, it is true, about the sublime calm of 
 Goethe. I have almost thought myself that 
 that sublime was very near the ridiculous. 
 But, even were It not so, we are In Goethe's 
 age no longer. There is a new spirit now 
 abroad in the world ; we are becoming roused 
 to the sense of a new duty. I am speaking 
 of the modern conception of progress, and
 
 236 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 the duty of each one of us to humanity. 
 Your Epicurean with his calm, in the face 
 of a thought Hke that, is Hke a man who 
 sits on his luggage when his train is leaving 
 the station.' 
 
 * Surely,' said Lord Surbiton, with a smile 
 of surprised courtesy, * the Catholic Church 
 generally does not regard progress so com- 
 placently : and humanity as an object of 
 worship I should have conceived in her 
 eyes to be little better than Antichrist.' 
 
 ' Do you remember the last words of an 
 expelled Pope on his death-bed, and the 
 answer his attendants made him — '' Because 
 I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, 
 therefore I die in exile " ? " Because God 
 has criven thee the heathen for thine inherit- 
 ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
 for thy possession, Vicar of Christ, in exile 
 thou canst not die." Well, in the same way 
 one may speak of the Church always. She
 
 THE NINETEEXTH CENTURY. 237 
 
 cannot be outside progress, because she her- 
 self is everywhere. What she rejects in the 
 spirit of Modern Secularism, is not its truths, 
 but its false and delirious expression of them. 
 The rehgion of humanity, the rehgion of 
 human progress — these are really implicit parts 
 of her system ; and it is she alone that can give 
 them a reasoned meaning. -Many people, 
 we know, think them to be new revelations. 
 Suppose we call them so. The life of the 
 Church is a series of new revelations. She is 
 human nature perpetually unfolding itself 
 
 * I should have conceived,' said Lord 
 Surbiton, ' that the Catholic type of sanctity 
 was a thing fixed for ever, and that it could 
 make no terms with progress.' 
 
 * That is true,' said Stanley, ' in one sense, 
 but it is not true in another : for change and 
 fixity are not of necessity incompatible. The 
 type of a perfect soldier may always remain 
 the same ; but it includes a change of conduct
 
 238 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 according to changed conditions. His part 
 may be sometimes action ; sometimes a mute 
 vigilance : and it is the same with the saint, 
 
 o 
 
 in the world's changing ages. Myself I fully 
 recognise that we are now being swept 
 onwards into an era of new duties, and that 
 Almighty God may be demanding a larger 
 service from us.' 
 
 ' I, too,' said Lord Surbiton, 'can tell that 
 a change is coming. You and Vernon will 
 see it ; but it will find the eyes of me and my 
 generation closed.' He was silent for a 
 minute or two, whilst he lighted a large cigar. 
 ' I am not a Catholic, Mr. Stanley,' he re- 
 sumed, 'but I am a student of human history; 
 and, putting our obvious differences aside, 
 my view of the Church has been yours. I 
 am elad to find that I have so orthodox an 
 authority for it. She has seemed to me to 
 have embraced, and to have been the only 
 cause that has done so, all that the most
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 239 
 
 many-sided genius ever could or can be busy 
 ^vIth. She was at once a perfect saint, and a 
 perfect woman of the world, and she could 
 understand all man's lowest Impulses, and yet 
 still for ever lead him up to the highest. 
 Me,' he went on sighing, 'she has taught at 
 least one lesson — that there is little in this 
 world worth a reo^ret on losine it.' 
 
 ' You are the last person, my lord,' said 
 Stanley with politeness, ' one could expect to 
 hear say that. You have fame, position, 
 fortune — all that the world can give you.' 
 
 ' It is these blessings,' said Lord Surbiton, 
 'that have made my heart so teachable. It 
 may be wisdom to despise the world ; but to 
 despise it thoroughly you must first pos- 
 sess it.' 
 
 These words were uttered with a ghastly 
 kind of Impressiveness, and received the 
 reward they courted — a moment's complete 
 silence. This was ended presently by sounds
 
 240 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 of a new quality. The music of female voices 
 was suddenly heard approaching, and mixed 
 with them came the Colonel's crackling 
 laughter. 
 
 Vernon's heart had begun to beat quickly. 
 He turned his head, and there was the group 
 before him. 
 
 * You see/ said Lady Walters, * we have 
 come to return your visit ; and we hope you 
 will show us your villa, as well as her Grace's 
 gardens.' But Vernon had little time for 
 thinking of Lady Walters. Her niece was 
 there, standing side by side with the Colonel. 
 She had just, as she said presently, been 
 driving her pair of ponies ; and she still had 
 on a tight-fitting cloth dress, beneath which 
 protruded the tip of a varnished boot. The 
 sllghdy masculine air which her present 
 costume gave her, made a piquant mixture 
 with her natural grace and softness. It 
 seemed to hint to Vernon of some new side
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 241 
 
 to her character ; and it touched him, he 
 knew not why, with a quick twinge of jealousy. 
 The way she greeted him did not dispel this 
 feeling. She was perfectly frank and friendly : 
 she was, Indeed, too frank. He sought in vain 
 from either her eye or hand any sign of their 
 strange, secret intimacy. ' Good heavens, 
 he thought, * and it was but yesterday that I 
 kissed her ! ' 
 
 In an instant, however, he was distracted 
 by another scene enacting itself. Stanley, 
 hearing strangers approaching, had withdrawn 
 to a little distance. He had not even heard 
 that the Walters were at the Cap de Juan ; 
 and he now first learned the fact by finding 
 them there facing him. Vernon narrowly 
 watched Miss Walters, as the meeting was 
 taking place ; and he saw how truly she had 
 spoken when she called Stanley a brother. * I 
 had been meaning,' she said. * to have sent 
 you a note yesterday : but now to-night you 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 must come — won't you ? — and dine with us.' 
 Stanley assented, and directly afterwards 
 withdrew himself. 
 
 The next step with the others was now 
 to see Vernon's villa ; and Vernon In showing 
 it began to feel more prosperous. The 
 Colonel, It is true, showed a wish to engross 
 Miss Walters ; but events at present would 
 often stand in his way. She was anxious to 
 be told about various books and pictures, 
 and on these points she could onl}^ appeal to 
 Vernon. Indeed for a good five minutes he 
 was almost tete-a-tete with her, as they turned 
 over together a portfolio of old engravings. 
 During this time their eyes met once ; and 
 for a moment hers softened as if in recogni- 
 tion of their Intimacy. Directly afterwards, 
 however, came an odour of Ess bouquet, and, 
 looking up, Vernon saw the Colonel behind 
 them. ' Fine engravings,' said the latter, 
 * some of those, I should think.' And then
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 243 
 
 in an undertone, when Miss Walters' back 
 was turned, * And devilish free, too, a lot of 
 those old plates are.' He said this with a 
 smile, and a glance at the closed portfolio. 
 
 Vernon answered him with extreme, cold- 
 ness. ' There is nothing, you may be sure, 
 that is free in that portfolio ; or I should not 
 have been showing it to Miss Walters.' But 
 the Colonel was quite unwounded. He only 
 glanced over his shoulder to see that they 
 were unobserved, and pulled from his pocket 
 a small morocco book with a lock to it. ' If 
 you want,' he said, ' to see modern art, just 
 look into that. I got it at Nice this morning.^ 
 Vernon looked, but it was for an instant only. 
 The contents were a series of photographs, 
 such as in England the police would seize 
 upon ; and he gave it back with a curt ' Thank 
 you ' to the Colonel. 
 
 The above incident, so far as Vernon's 
 peace was concerned, was the worst prepara-
 
 244 ^ ROMANCE OF 
 
 tion possible for what was about to follow. 
 The party presently set out for the Hotel 
 gardens ; and, during the short walk thither, 
 kept more or less together. The head 
 gardener was summoned ; the directions of 
 the Duchess were given, and the little group 
 was on the point of moving on again. Vernon 
 looked towards Miss Walters, hoping she 
 mio^ht fall behind with him. A look was 
 enough ; he did not repeat it ; in an instant 
 he felt what had happened — she was attached 
 to Colonel Stapleton. Step by step did these 
 two separate themselves, letting the others 
 go on ahead of them, and pausing at times 
 on pretence of examining something, that 
 they might keep or increase their distance. 
 Vernon's heart was full of pain and bitterness, 
 and he walked almost silent by Lady Walters 
 and Lord Surbiton. Suddenly a surprise 
 was caused by the sight of another party, 
 which made his lordship exclaim, ' It's lucky
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 245 
 
 that her Grace isn't here! ' The trespassers 
 proved to be a certain set from Nice, amongst 
 whom Vernon recognised a few of his own 
 acquaintance. Of this number was a certain 
 Mrs. Crane, one of the fairest and freest of 
 the married women of London. She not only 
 knew Vernon, but his companions also ; and, 
 quitting her own party, she advanced to meet 
 the others, whom a halt had again united. 
 
 ' I'm dying,' said Mrs. Crane, 'to get out 
 on that reef of rocks there, but the people I'm 
 with have not got a spark of enterprise ; and 
 my boots have such high heels that I daren't 
 venture alone.' 
 
 * Let me be your guide,' said Vernon ; ' I 
 know the way perfectly.' And he fixed his 
 eyes on her with a look of shallow tenderness. 
 
 ' I,' said Miss Walters, ' should like to come 
 too. I have often watched those rocks and 
 wished I could get out to them.* 
 
 The instant she spoke Vernon turned
 
 246. A ROMANCE OF 
 
 sharp round to her. Mrs. Crane noticed the 
 movement. But the impulses of the jealous 
 reverse themselves in a flash of lightning, and 
 the eager gesture was followed by the coldest 
 of tones. * The walk is perfectly easy,' he 
 said, ' if Colonel Stapleton will give you a 
 hand now and then. I have been there my- 
 self continually.' 
 
 Both the elders declined so rough a pil- 
 grimage, and the two younger couples set off 
 by themselves. Miss Walters still with the 
 Colonel, and Vernon with Mrs. Crane. 
 
 * Well, Mr. Vernon,' said that lady pre- 
 sently, ' I've not seen ^^ou since that charming 
 Sunday last summer, when we went down 
 together on the drag to Maidenhead. At 
 least I have seen you, though you were far 
 too well occupied to take any notice of me. 
 I saw you at Monte Carlo, and I saw, too, 
 who it was you were talking to. However,' 
 she added, as she o^lanced behind her towards
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 247 
 
 Miss Walters, ' you've a prettier one now to 
 play with — that is, if Colonel Jack will allow 
 you.' 
 
 * What has he grot to do with it ? ' said 
 Vernon, a little brusquely. 
 
 ' What has not he ? There he is now side 
 by side with her. My good friend, don't you 
 wish you were in the shoes of one of them ? ' 
 
 * Upon my word,' said Vernon, ' I can't 
 say I do. If ever I want Miss Walters she 
 is my next-door neighbour, so I could well 
 spare her for an hour or two, even if all my 
 heart were set on her. Besides, at the present 
 moment, how could I even wish to better 
 myself? You're very pretty, and Fm very 
 agreeable ; and when there's nobody better 
 to hand, you know quite well that you have 
 a. caprice for me.' 
 
 Love and its kindred feelings can make 
 the wisest men like children, and when it 
 does not make them children in the best sense
 
 248 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 of the word, It will often make them childish in 
 the worst. It can not only bring back ihe 
 simplicity, but also the tempers, of the nursery. 
 Of these last, one of the least lovely forms is 
 a sullenness towards one person, expressed 
 by effusion tow^ards another. It was this 
 form of temper which now overcame Vernon. 
 He could not spend his day in making love 
 to Miss Walters, so he resolved to spend it 
 in making love to Mrs. Crane. Nor was 
 Mrs. Crane In the least displeased at 
 this. It was strictly true that, amongst 
 a hundred other caprices, she had one 
 that she could quite distinguish for Vernon ; 
 and as all that she demanded of most 
 of her male friends w^as, not that their 
 devotion should be constant, but only that it 
 should recur on occasion, no jealousy of a 
 rival made her In the least cold or difficile. 
 Vernon and she were thus soon on the 
 tenderest terms, as they had often been before
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 249 
 
 for five or six hours together ; and by the 
 time they had reached the special rock they 
 were making for, they were pretty well ad- 
 vanced in a very unmasked flirtation. This 
 was just what Vernon in his present mood 
 wished for ; and when the two others joined 
 them, and the four sat down together, he hoped 
 that his conduct would not escape Miss 
 Walters. This was a child's bit of temper, but 
 he had a man's self-possession in showing it. 
 He betrayed no sullenness to the person he 
 wished to wound ; he addressed her instead 
 with an easy, genial indifference, which he 
 knew would be more effective ; and an in- 
 tuitive sense thrilled him that each of his 
 smiles was freezing her. 
 
 At first, however, when she looked about 
 her she was lost in the lovely prospect. He 
 could see how its beauty sank into her, like 
 a stone into a clear well. ' What a contrast,' 
 she said, ' between that grey cliff and the
 
 i'5o A ROMANCE OF 
 
 water ! And how one little plume of foam 
 tosses over the sunken rock ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, beautiful,' said Vernon civilly, with 
 a slight, fatuous laugh. ' It's all as charming 
 as can be ; though, for my own part, the love 
 of scenery is one of the many things I have 
 outlived, I think.' 
 
 Mrs. Crane patted him with her pretty 
 gloved hand, and said, ' You tell that to your 
 grandmother. Don't flatter yourself, my dear 
 man, that you've outlived the sweets of life 
 yet.' 
 
 ' You are right,' said Vernon, as he looked 
 at her ; ' for I have not outlived you.' 
 
 Mrs. Crane acknowledged the compliment 
 with an impertinent little grimace, that be- 
 came her admirably ; and then, turning sharp 
 to the Colonel, she made an observation on a 
 slight red mark on his temple. ' What on 
 earth have you been up to ? ' she said. ' Has 
 Colonel Jack been fighting ? '
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 251 
 
 *Upon my soul,' cried the Colonel, 'It was 
 something rather like it. What made the 
 mark was a pistol bullet.' This announce- 
 ment created the right surprise, but the 
 Colonel plainly was talking with no eye to 
 effect ; nor was there the least bravado in the 
 way in which he told his story. He had been 
 sleeping, it appeared, the preceding night at 
 Nice ; and, arriving late there from Monte 
 Carlo, he had walked to his hotel from the 
 station. In a lonely place he had been beset 
 by two men, it seemed with the intent of 
 robbing him. ' One of the fellows,' he said, 
 * a little chap, I knocked down in a moment. 
 The other fired a pistol at me ; and then, not 
 seeing me fall, he bolted. There have been 
 several cases of the same sort this winter ; 
 and for the future,' he went on, producing 
 a revolver, ' I shall not go out late without 
 this.' 
 
 The weapon was a small one, finely
 
 252 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 chased with silver, and Mrs. Crane inquired 
 if it would really kill a man. 
 
 * It's killed two men already/ said the 
 Colonel. ' If it hadn't been for that, I should 
 have been a dead dog at Alexandria five 
 years ago.' 
 
 The tone cf the speaker was in all this so 
 modest, that Vernon was conscious of a kind 
 of grudging respect for him ; but what most 
 amazed him was the aspect of Miss Walters. 
 She was staring at the Colonel, not with the 
 least interest or anxiety, but simply as if his 
 face fascinated her. As for him, he was 
 guiltless of any wish to be serious ; and 
 his next observation showed it. ' Bless me, 
 Miss Cynthia,' he said, putting his hand on 
 her arm familiarly, * what a knowing coat 
 youVe got on to-day ! Just turn my way and 
 let me look at it. How many inches round 
 in the waist does that make you ? ' 
 
 She at once roused herself, and with a
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 253 
 
 smile and a frown together, ' Two Inches 
 more/ she said, ' than I should be with- 
 out it.' 
 
 There was nothing In her manner that 
 could be set down as coquetry ; yet \"ernon, 
 whose perceptions were In a super-sensitive 
 state, detected something in It that made 
 him turn sharp away from her. Presently 
 they all rose, and began to set about return- 
 Ino^. 
 
 Mrs. Crane, though she was not piqued 
 on account of ^liss Walters, Avas far too true 
 a woman to be able to keep silent about her ; 
 and as she and Vernon were descendlne the 
 rocks together, she again opened the subject. 
 
 * Come,' she said, ' and tell me honestly 
 how you like her.' 
 
 ' I hardly know her,' said \"ernon drily. 
 
 ' Exactly ; and I doubt if you ever will. 
 I've seen her at Florence before now ; and 
 all the foreigners were at first sight in love
 
 254 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 with her. But it was at first sight only. 
 She's as cold as ice afterwards. Every man 
 I've heard speak of her, has told me the 
 same story.' 
 
 ' That fellow Stapleton,' said Vernon, 
 ' seems to get on well enough with her.' 
 
 Mrs. Crane broke out into a little, malicious 
 laugh. ' My dear man,' she said, ' I saw all 
 along you were thinking so. I can see when 
 a man's jealous as plainly as I can see what 
 his necktie is. But you must be a goose if 
 you're jealous of fat Jack Stapleton. He 
 was a dangerous man once, I grant you ; but 
 if he wants any conquests now, he has to go 
 rather farther afield for them : and, from my 
 own little observations at Monte Carlo, I 
 suspect he goes farther afield pretty often. 
 Besides, as for that girl there, he might just 
 as well be her elder brother, or her uncle. 
 He must have grown tired of kissing her 
 before she was well out of the nursery. Just
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 255 
 
 listen now, how she chatters to him. That's 
 not the tone of a lover.' 
 
 Miss Walters' voice, it is true, was at that 
 moment raised slightly. She was preparing 
 to cross the last piece of broken ground ; and 
 Vernon distinctly heard her, as she declined 
 the Colonel's assistance. ' Thank you,' she 
 said, ' I can get on quite well by myself. 
 Really, my dear Jack, there's no need for you 
 to be so affectionate.' 
 
 Vernon knew not w^hy, but he uttered an 
 inaudible oath to himself. 
 
 When they regained the gardens, Mrs. 
 Crane found her own party had flown, and 
 Lady W^alters announced with a smile that 
 Lord Surbiton had done so likewise. He 
 had been carried off by a fascinating Polish 
 countess. ' Why, it's the ver}^ woman,' said 
 Mrs. Crane, * that my own husband's in love 
 with. And of course he's gone off too. Now, 
 isn't that like a husband ? '
 
 256 A ROMANCE. 
 
 *My dear,' said Lady Walters, *you 
 needn't put yourself out. You know the 
 train that they are going by, and I said that 
 I would send you In our carriage to the 
 station. Or if you like to wait for dinner, 
 we should be very happy to see you. These 
 gentlemen too, In case they have no other 
 designs for themselves — we should be ex- 
 ceedingly glad if they would enliven us with 
 their company.' 
 
 She looked round with an inquiry at 
 Vernon and Colonel Stapleton. The latter 
 at once assented ; Vernon declined, having 
 business, he said, that evening. ' Very well 
 then,' smiled Lady Walters, ' we will hope 
 for you at some other time.' He trusted 
 that Miss Walters would take notice of this 
 refusal ; but he found she was standing even 
 more near to him than he thought she was. 
 The branch of a rose-tree had caught Itself 
 in her hat, and he heard her, in a constrained
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 257 
 
 voice, asking him if he would disengage it 
 for her. He was starded by her tone, and 
 still more by the look she gave him. There 
 was something in both of them, timid, 
 piteous, and appealing. She reminded him 
 of some wounded animal. He was in no 
 mood, however, to be moved by impressions 
 of this kind. He did the service she asked 
 of him with the same easy politeness as 
 heretofore ; but when in the process, by 
 accident, his hand touched her shoulder, 
 he recoiled from it as if he had touched 
 hot iron. 
 
 He discovered, the moment after, that 
 Mrs. Crane as well as himself had declined 
 Lady Walters' invitation ; and a new inspi- 
 ration seized him. ' Why should Lady Wal- 
 ters,' he said, 'be at the trouble of having 
 her horses out ? I can see Mrs. Crane to the 
 station, if she has no objection to waiting 
 here.' 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 A ROMANCE OF 
 
 Mrs. Crane's eyes flashed with a pleased 
 intelligence ; and the matter was so settled. 
 
 * In that case,' said Miss Walters, 'we 
 may as well be going back.' And the parties 
 prepared to separate. As she took leave of 
 Vernon, her voice seemed still unnatural, 
 
 * And are you never,' she murmured, * coming 
 to see me again ? ' This was not, however, 
 the last thing he heard of her ; for turning to 
 her aunt she said, *We may as well dine 
 punctually, as Frederic Stanley does not 
 like late hours.' These simple words had 
 a sudden effect in one quarter. Colonel 
 Stapleton with a frown drew Miss Wal- 
 ters apart a little ; his face changed ; he 
 had evidently lost command of himself. 
 
 * What ! ' he exclaimed in an undertone, 
 ' and is Mr. Stanley going to dine with 
 you ? ' 
 
 ' He is,' she answered coldly. ' Do you 
 happen to have any objection ? '
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 259 
 
 ' Objection ! ' cried the Colonel, still 
 between his teeth. ' My dear girl, are you 
 an utter, absolute idiot ? What the Devil 's 
 the good of my coming, if you've got that 
 confounded parson with you ? ' 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
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 popular ^iQxizi tg t^z SBe^t ^uti^ori. 
 Maid, Wife, or Widow ? By 
 
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 My LitUe Girl. By W. Besant 
 
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 Wilkie Collins. 
 
 The Moonstone. W. Collins. 
 Man and Wife. W. Collins. 
 Poor Miss Finch. W. Collins. 
 Miss or Mrs. ? By W. Collins. 
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 Lovett Cameron. 
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 Robin Gray. Charles Gibbon. 
 
 For Lack of Gold. By Charles 
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 In Love and War. By Charles 
 
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 What will the World Say ? By 
 
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 For the King. Charles Gibbon. 
 
 In Honour Bound. By Charles 
 
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 Queen of the 
 Charles Gibbon. 
 
 Meadow. By 
 
 In Pastures Green. By Charles 
 
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 Under the Greenwood Tree. 
 
 By Thomas Hardy. 
 
 Garth. By Julian Hawthorne. 
 Ellice Quentin. By Julian 
 
 Hawthorne. 
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 A. W. HCNT. 
 
 Fated to be Free. By Jean 
 
 Ingelow. 
 
 Confidence. Henry James, Jun. 
 The Queen of Connaught. By 
 
 Harriett Jay. 
 
 The Dark Colleen. By H. Jay. 
 Number Seventeen. By Henry 
 
 KiNGSLEY. 
 
 Oakshott Castle. H. Kingsley. 
 
 Patricia Kemball. By E. Lynn 
 Linton.
 
 22 
 
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 Piccadilly Novels — contimied. 
 
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 By Justin McCarthy. 
 
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 CHATTO <5r* WINDUSy PICCADILLY. 
 
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 An Heiress of Red Dog. By 
 
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 NewMagdalen. By W.Collins. 
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 The Two Destinies. By Wilkik 
 
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 ForLackof Gold. By Charles 
 
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 What will the World Say ? By 
 
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 In Honour Bound. By Chas. 
 
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 In Love and War. By Charles 
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 Queen of the Meadow. By 
 
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 Dick Temple. By James 
 
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 Every-day Papers. By A. 
 
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 Garth. By Julian Hawthorne. 
 
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 Fated to be Free. By Jean 
 
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 Confidence. By Henry James, 
 
 JUQ. 
 
 The Queen of Connaught. By 
 
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 The Dark Colleen. By H. Jay. 
 
 Number Seventeen. By Henry 
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 Oakshott Castle. H. Kingsley. 
 
 Patricia KembaU. By E. Lynn 
 
 Linton. 
 The Atonement of LeamDundas 
 
 By E. Lynn Linton. 
 The World Well Lost. By E. 
 
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 Under which Lord ? By }^Irs. 
 
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 The Waterdale Neighbours. 
 
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 DearLadyDisdain. By the same. 
 
 My Enemy's Daughter. By 
 
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 LLQley Rochford. McCarthy. 
 Miss Misanthrope. McCarthy. 
 Donna Quixote. J.McCa^thy^
 
 24 
 
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 Open! Sesame I By Florence 
 
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