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 LI E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVERSITY 
 
 or ILLl NOIS 
 
 823 
 
 M236>B.i 
 
 1886 
 
 V.
 
 AT THE RED GLOYE.
 
 ^cb) flobcb at aU pbrarieB. 
 
 Mind, Body, and Estate. By F. E. M. Notley. 
 
 3 vols. 
 
 Lord Vanecourt's Daughter. By Mabel Collins. 
 3 vols. 
 
 Where Tempests Blow. By the Author of " Miss 
 Elvester's Girls," etc. 3 vols. 
 
 The Sacred Nugget. By B. L. Farjeon. Second 
 Edition. 3 vols. 
 
 A Prince of Darkness. By the Author of "The 
 
 House on the Marsh," etc. 3 vols. 
 In Sight of Land. By Lady Duffds Hardy. 2 vols. 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, Publishers, London.
 
 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 J. goM. 
 
 BY 
 
 KATHARINE S. MACQUOID, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " PATTY," " LOUISA," ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 12, YOKK STREET, COYENT GARDEN, W.C. 
 
 1886. 
 [J.II Rights reserved,']
 
 Ph(EBE. " Good shepherd, tell this youth 
 
 What 'tis to love. 
 SiLVius. It is to be all made of sighs and tears ; 
 
 It is to be all made of faith and service ; 
 
 It is to be all made of fantasy. 
 
 All made of passion and all made of wishes; 
 
 All adoration, duty and observance ; 
 
 All humbleness, all patience and impatience ; 
 
 All purity, all trial." 
 
 Shakespeare.
 
 «23 
 V. I 
 
 TO 
 
 HENRY IRVING. 
 
 jl token of admiration for his genius, and for thb 
 great service he has rendered to the stage.
 
 TO IVEY READERS. 
 
 I HAVE been told that it will be of some 
 interest if I say a word or two about the 
 development of *^ At the Red Glove.'' 
 Its germ appeared under another name, 
 some years ago, in a story of a few pages, 
 in Temple Bar. This little sketch met 
 with considerable praise from the critics 
 for its " dramatic treatment." 
 
 Keeping this in mind, a few years after 
 I turned it into a little comedy, which was 
 several times privately acted. After another 
 lapse of time I enlarged my original sketch 
 in Temple Bar for Harper's Magazine, in
 
 viii PBEFACE, 
 
 which the story appeared in the first half 
 of this year. I can only hope that *'At 
 THE Red Glove" will be as kindly re- 
 ceived here, in its present form, as it has 
 been on the other side of the Atlantic. 
 
 K. S. M. 
 
 Stanley Place, Chelsea. 
 November, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 l$XOiOQUZ. 
 
 CHAPTEE, L 
 
 PAGB 
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. . 
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE . . . . .14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TEMPTED ........ 23 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 A NEW LIFE 44 
 
 gart l.—'^hz §ptt)^r -axtb the Jlj). 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MARIE 
 
 65
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU 84 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AT THE h6tEL BEAUREGARD . . . .111 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEROT INDULGES HIS CURIOSITY . 132 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Marie's lodging 146- 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 a morning walk 159 
 
 J3art 11.— Jttabam^ Carxrugc. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 AT breakfast 175 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 his faint heart 193
 
 CONTENTS. iLY 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES HER SUPPER . . , .208 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOPE AND FEAR 227 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 
 THE BEAR-PIT 243^
 
 AT THE EED GLOYE 
 
 ^r0l0gue. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BESIDE A EOUNTAIN. 
 
 It is noonday in June in one of the old 
 towns of Southern France. A girl stands 
 beside a fountain in the middle of a grass- 
 grown square. She is tall, and although 
 her shabby old clothes are badly made they 
 reveal a beautiful figure ; her face and head 
 are hidden by the bright orange kerchief 
 that shields her from the scorching sun- 
 shine ; as she places her tall brown pitcher 
 beneath the spout of the fountain, her 
 movements are full of languid grace. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " she says impatiently, " the 
 heat is insupportable, it stifles, me." 
 
 The square is indeed like an oven ; she 
 leans against the fountain and closes her 
 eyes ; its very stones smell as if they were 
 baking, the persiennes of the houses that 
 border it are all closed, and there is not a 
 sound or a movement, not so much as a cat 
 stirring. Surely every one is asleep ! 
 
 No ! behind one pair of green barred 
 shutters two small keen eyes greedily 
 note the perfection of the girl's figure 
 and the indolent grace with which she 
 leans against the old fountain. The owner 
 of the eyes thinks she must have fallen 
 asleep, she is so still. 
 
 Her orange kerchief casts so deep a 
 shadow that the concealed observer cannot 
 make out her face, but he feels sure it 
 matches her figure. At last she slowly 
 rouses, and he watches her lift the
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN, 3 
 
 brimming pitcher away from the slender 
 silver thread of water she had set flowing; 
 he sees that she rebels against her task, 
 for as the heavy pitcher strains her wrists 
 she stamps impatiently on the burning 
 pebbles, and tilts the pitcher so that a 
 third of the water flows away. 
 
 The unseen gazer smiles ; the action 
 has told him something about this fair 
 creature ; he knows well how scarce water 
 is in the old southern town, and he 
 stands watching intently till the girl places 
 the pitcher on her head and moves slowly 
 out of sight. 
 
 The big, full-fed-looking man who has 
 watched her rubs his hands slowly to- 
 gether; his small eyes are twinkling with 
 satisfaction. He turns away from the 
 window of the eating-room, where the 
 flies buzz noisily in the pane, and rings 
 for the waiter. 
 
 B 2
 
 4 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 That worthy is fast asleep, his napkin 
 over his head to keep the flies away, but 
 the sharp tinkle of the bell rouses him 
 from his nap. He whisks the napkin 
 from his ugly face, and in a moment 
 he stands blinking and obsequiously bow- 
 incr before Monsieur Carouo:e. 
 
 " You are noted in Abeyron here for 
 beauty among your women,'' he says, ''is 
 it not so ? " 
 
 " Ma foi, monsieur," the waiter shrugs 
 his shoulders, '* this is the first time I 
 have been made aware of the circum- 
 stance." 
 
 '' You do not use your eyes, my lad ; a 
 girl was here just now filling her pitcher 
 from the fountain. I did not see her face, 
 but her figure is admirable. I have no 
 doubt there are many like her in the 
 town." 
 
 The waiter grins.
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN. 5 
 
 '^ There are many girls in Abeyron — ah 
 yes, without doubt monsieur is right, 
 there are plenty of girls — and there are 
 many also who come to our fountain, 
 the fountain of the ' White Swan,' mon- 
 sieur, to fill their pitchers; but," here he 
 flicks his napkin and throws it again 
 on his shoulder, '^ monsieur must excuse 
 my ignorance, I do not call to mind 
 much difference among them as they stand 
 laughing and chatting together." 
 
 Monsieur utters a small private im- 
 precation, then he puts his hand in his 
 pocket and pulls out a couple of francs. 
 
 *' Look here," he says, " sharpen your 
 memory, my lad ; it will possibly be to 
 your advantage to do so. Who is the 
 tall, well-formed girl that comes alone 
 to the fountain at this time of day ? 
 She wears an orange-coloured handker- 
 chief, and, judging by her manner, I
 
 6 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 .should say she has not always been 
 obliged to cany her own pitcher to and 
 from the fountain." 
 
 The waiter's eyes twinkle, but he turns 
 them up and then down, as if he were 
 still chasing his memory for an answer 
 to his customer's question. 
 
 "There," growls Monsieur Carouge as 
 he holds out a five-franc piece, "try if 
 that will help you." 
 
 It is really extraordinary to see the 
 rapidity with which the waiter's dirty 
 brown hand grasps and pockets the 
 coin. His manner changes as rapidly, 
 and he bows almost to the ground, 
 for although Abeyron is visited now and 
 then by wealthy French and Swiss traders, 
 it is quite out of the track of tourists, 
 and gratuities are rare at the " White 
 Swan." 
 
 " Can it be" — the waiter's greasy, clay- 
 coloured face begins to show a gleam of
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN. 7 
 
 intelligence — " that monsieur has seen 
 
 Mademoiselle Elvire " 
 
 '^ Yes/' says Monsieur Carouge, ^^ I have 
 no doubt that's her name — a tall, fine 
 girl, I tell you," he adds, so impatiently 
 that a grin comes again into the waiters 
 face. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he says, "it is no doubt 
 Elvire, she lives with her mother here 
 in Abeyron ; and monsieur has guessed 
 right when he said Elvire had not always 
 carried her own pitcher to and from the 
 fountain." He puts his head on one side, 
 and looks admiringly at Carouge. An 
 impatient movement, and a fiery glance, 
 however, that is shot out of those small 
 black eyes, make him hurry out his next 
 words. "She lived in plenty once, mon- 
 sieur, for she is well-born, her father was 
 noble — Marquis or Count, ma foi," he 
 shrugs his shoulders, "I forget which, 
 but I think — yes, monsieur, he was Mar-
 
 8 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 quis cle the title, however, escapes me. 
 
 Well, monsieur," he whisks his napkin 
 at the flies, "years ago, before Elvire 
 was born, this gentleman came and took 
 up his quarters in a large farmhouse in 
 the environs. It has been said that he 
 ruined himself by gambling, but no one 
 knew. Well, monsieur, one day he was 
 married at the village churcli to the 
 farmer s daughter ; they were also married 
 at tbe Mairie. Oh, yes, monsieur, it was 
 a regular marriage.'' 
 
 " Confound the marriage," Carouge says 
 brutally, " is the father alive or dead ? " 
 
 The waiter bows. 
 
 " Monsieur, he is dead ; when Elvire 
 was ten or eleven years old, her fiither 
 took a fever, and in a few days they 
 buried him. And when the girl was a 
 few years older, the farmer had an 
 apoplexy, and he died also ; and then the
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN. 9 
 
 truth came out, he was no better than a 
 beggar. He had been raising money on 
 his farm and his stock till he owed more 
 than the sale of the whole would repay ; 
 and there was nothing left for the widow 
 and her child but a very meagre sum 
 that Monsieur le Marquis had designed for 
 his daughter's education when she became 
 twelve years old. It was, however, decided 
 by the notary and the Maire that the 
 widow must be allowed to keep it ; it 
 was all she had, and therefore Elvire 
 could not go to school ; her grandfather 
 had refused to send her while he was 
 alive, because he said he could not part 
 from the girl, but people know now that 
 he had no money to pay for teaching." 
 
 *'How do they, then, live?" 
 
 '* Well, monsieur, that fine girl you 
 admire, and Madame Fontaine, must find 
 it precious hard work to get along when
 
 10 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 provisions are as dear as they are now, 
 and sugar a franc and a half the kilo. Mon 
 Dieu, many a beggar, who has not a 
 roof to cover him, fares better than 
 they do." 
 
 " Why do you call the woman Madame 
 Fontaine ? You said you could not re- 
 member the father's name." 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur, I cannot recall his 
 real name. He called himself Monsieur 
 Fontaine after he came to these parts, 
 thouorh I am told he sisrned his real name 
 at the Mairie on his marrias^e." 
 
 Carouge sits thinking. 
 
 '* Don't they try to earn a living ? " he 
 says. 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur. What will you ? 
 They have not been brought up to work, 
 for the farmer kept servants till he died ; 
 and besides, they are proud, they will 
 not mix with those who are poor like
 
 BESIDE A FOUNTAIN. 11 
 
 themselves. I have been told that not 
 long ago, a restaurant keeper from Mar- 
 seilles — he is the brother of our landlady 
 here/' he jerks his head towards the 
 bureau — '^ well, monsieur, he was staying 
 here, and he saw Elvire, as — as — monsieur 
 has seen her. He wished at once to 
 secure her as demoiselle de comptoir, and 
 he made, through our madame, his sister, 
 as monsieur remembers, a quite superb 
 offer for the services of the girl, and he 
 said, too, that he would find a home for 
 the mother. Pouf ! '' he snaps his fingers. 
 '^ They refuse, they are even indignant ; 
 and the mother has told our mistress 
 that she has sworn to her husband Elvire 
 shall never work for her living, shall never, 
 indeed, do any servile work. Mon Dieu, 
 monsieur," he adds with a laugh, ^' the 
 girl, I am told, keeps her mother to her 
 promise."
 
 12 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " I don't know about tliat," says Carouge, 
 ** I saw her drawing water at the fountain 
 just now." 
 
 The waiter gives a sly, sleepy smile ; 
 he is tired with telling Elvire's story, and 
 he longs to go back to his nap. 
 
 " Elvire will do that, oh yes, monsieur ; 
 it gives her what women love, a little 
 change and the chance of being seen ; 
 indoors she is lazy. But her mother 
 has said to me : ' Elvire will not cook or 
 clean, I do everything,' and when I have 
 answered : * You should make her help, 
 madame,' she says to me : ' You do not 
 understand, my good man, it is the good 
 blood in my child, it cannot lie ; she will 
 marry a gentleman one of these days.' " 
 
 Here the waiter jerks his thumb in 
 a contemptuous fashion, and Monsieur 
 Carouge smiles. 
 
 *• You interest me in these poor women.
 
 BESIBE A FOUNTAIN. 13 
 
 As you seem to be acquainted with Madame 
 rontaine," lie says, "you may tell her that 
 a gentleman wishes to call on her this 
 evening, on business matters." 
 
 The waiter looks knowino: and in- 
 quisitive, but Monsieur Carouge turns his 
 back on him and begins to light a fresh 
 cigar.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 When dinner at the '' White Swan " was 
 over and the few other guests had de- 
 parted, Jean the waiter approached Mon- 
 sieur Carouge and told him with an air 
 of mystery that Madame Fontaine would 
 be pleased to see him. 
 
 Carouge waited to finish his cigar, and 
 then having arranged his whiskers and 
 moustache in the glass, he gave himself up 
 to Jean's guidance. 
 
 They crossed the square and the principal 
 street, and then after two or three turns 
 entered a narrow, dirty lane, with an 
 unsavoury gutter in the middle and old 
 rickety-looking houses on either side.
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE. 15 
 
 Here Jean came to a stop. 
 
 " Monsieur," he bowed, '' I beg pardon, 
 but I am wanted at the hotel ; if monsieur 
 will have the complaisance to remember 
 that Madame Fontaine lives at No. 25 
 aic quatrieme. I have the honour to wish 
 monsieur good eveninor." 
 
 Carouge went on, looking carefully at 
 the numbers, some of which were nearly 
 obliterated on the decaying doors, and 
 when he reached what he fancied must be 
 No. 25, the door stood open, and he had 
 to pull it forward, for he could not make 
 out in the gloom of the passage what the 
 number really was. 
 
 It was not dark when he had entered 
 the street, but its narrowness and the 
 height of the houses, and then the absence 
 of a staircase window, made the entrance 
 of No. 25 very dismal-looking. 
 
 " Pah ! " Carouge said, and he put his
 
 16 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 handkerchief to his nose, for the close air 
 of the house disgusted him. "I have 
 heard that choice flowers will bloom on 
 dunghills ; certainly my blossom may well 
 wish to change her lodgings. Pah ! " 
 
 He had to spit by the time he had 
 climbed to the fourth landing of the un- 
 savoury staircase. 
 
 He knocked against the wall without 
 troubling himself to find the door. He 
 heard footsteps, and then a door opened 
 and a flicker of light showed itself. 
 
 " Will monsieur come in ? '' a voice said. 
 
 *' Good evening, madame and made- 
 moiselle," and he entered. 
 
 Carouge found himself in the poorest, 
 most comfortless-looking room he had ever 
 been in. A table, a few chairs, and some 
 boxes were the sole furniture, besides a low 
 bedstead which had not even hangings, in 
 a far-off corner of the gaunt, dismal garret.
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE. 17 
 
 A glance, as he bowed on entering, showed 
 him that Madame Fontaine had opened the 
 door, and that she had a hungry, eager 
 face, sharpened out of all beauty, though 
 her dark eyes were still bright. 
 
 He looked for Elvire ; she stood beside 
 the table, apparently as indifferent to his 
 presence as if she were some beautiful 
 statue. Even when he bowed she only 
 bent her head slightly. 
 
 Madame Fontaine was striking a match, 
 and when she had lit a candle on the table^ 
 Carouge stood gazing in breathless admi- 
 ration at Elvire. He saw a perfect oval 
 face, glowing with rich colour ; the girl's 
 splendid dark eyes were half- shadowed by 
 their long lashes, and her heavy eyebrows 
 drew together in a slight frown as he con- 
 tinued to gaze at her ; he saw, too, that her 
 lovely lips had a disdainful pout on them. 
 He forced himself to turn from her to 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 her mother. She had placed for him one 
 of her wretched-looking chairs, and Carouge 
 sat down on it, feeling as if it might give 
 way under him and send him sprawling 
 on the dirty floor. There was, too, some- 
 thing repulsive in the torn, greasy-looking 
 cushion ; but he sat down on it. 
 
 ''Madame,'* he said, "pardon my intru- 
 sion. My name is Carouge. In Paris, I 
 had the great good fortune of knowing 
 monsieur, your father ; he was kind to 
 me, and I should be glad of an oppor- 
 tunity of returning his kindness to me. 
 I am now on my way to Paris ; can I 
 have the pleasure of executing any com- 
 mission with which you may honour me ? " 
 
 He gave a side-glance at Elvire, and was 
 glad to see that she listened and that she 
 had left off frowning. 
 
 The mother stared at him, and then she 
 stretched out both hands.
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTYFIYE, 19 
 
 *^Ah, monsieur, you are kind. You 
 who knew my father can tell me what he 
 would feel to see us now, in the abject 
 misery in which you find us; there are days, 
 monsieur, I vow to God and the blessed 
 Mary, when the child and I have scarcely 
 bread enough to eat." 
 
 The woman had not seated herself, she 
 stood before him at a little distance swaying 
 herself to and fro. 
 
 Somethicg dark swept past Carouge, and 
 then he saw that Elvire's shapely hands 
 were grasping her mothers shoulders and 
 forcinfic her into a chair. 
 
 " Do not, for pity, if not for shame," he 
 heard her whisper, and then the girl went 
 back to her place and stood as much like a 
 statue as ever. Carouge waited to see what 
 would happen, although he already guessed 
 that he should not find Madame Fontaine 
 hard to deal with. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 " Monsieur," slie whined, '* you are kind ; 
 but is it likely that such as we have money 
 to spend in Paris ? Ah, monsieur, may you 
 never know what it is to be poor '* 
 
 She stopped so suddenly that Carouge 
 guessed some gesture of her daughter's had 
 checked her. 
 
 *' Perhaps," he said, "madame will permit 
 me the honour of bringing her a keepsake 
 from Paris, as monsieur her father would 
 have done." 
 
 Madame poured out her thanks vocife- 
 rously ; but Carouge felt, without looking 
 round at Elvire, that he had best make his 
 visit as brief as possible. 
 
 He rose and made a low bow to Madame 
 Fontaine. 
 
 " Then, madame, permit me to say Au 
 revow" he said, and he took her hand and, 
 shaking it, left something in her palm. 
 "I will repeat my visit on my return
 
 AT NUMBER TWENTY-FIVE. 21 
 
 from Paris, with the permission of madame 
 and of mademoiselle." He had turned 
 round as he spoke and he bowed profoundly 
 to Elvire, but though she bent slightly in 
 return, she neither spoke nor smiled, and 
 Carouge felt a little afraid of her. 
 
 " She looked like a disguised princess," 
 he said to himself as he went down the 
 filthy staircase. ^' Splendid creature ! I 
 must have her at any price." 
 
 When he reached the street he breathed 
 more freely; even the unsavoury gutter was 
 less sickening than the foul air of that 
 stifling house. 
 
 " It's all right," he thought ; " she is not 
 angry with me, she is only mad that I 
 should see her in such a hole and in such a 
 gown — only fit for a rag-picker. We shall 
 see how she looks in the gowns I shall buy 
 in Paris. She will let her mother sell her 
 only to get out of that disgusting house ;
 
 22 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 but the motlier will ask a good price." — He 
 rubbed his fat, ringed fingers together as he 
 went along. — "Elvire is worth any money." 
 
 It was quite by chance that he had 
 stopped in this old town, and he had 
 originally had no intention of returning 
 to it. 
 
 The sight of this girl had altered all 
 his plans. 
 
 He hurried on to Paris next morning ; 
 when he found that business would keep 
 him there a fortnight he could hardly 
 bear the delay. He bought dresses, 
 bonnets, trinkets, lace, shawls, all that he 
 thought likely to please Elvire ; and when 
 at last he was able to return to the ^' White 
 Swan," he sent the boxes containing his 
 gifts to Madame Fontaine, with the com- 
 pliments of Monsieur Carouge.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TEMPTED. 
 
 Elvire had been to the fountain, and she 
 had remained longer than usual. She had 
 not forgiven her mother for exposing their 
 misery to Monsieur Carouge. There had 
 been a violent quarrel after his de- 
 parture, and the girl had been ever since 
 more sullen and silent than before. She 
 felt very cross to-day as she toiled up 
 the steep staircase with the pitcher of 
 water, to her wretched home. 
 
 She turned the handle of the door and 
 kicked it open with her foot. Then she 
 stood still, stood with parted lips, staring
 
 24 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 at the fairy spectacle that gleamed in the 
 midst of those squalid surroundings. All 
 the old boxes and chairs were placed in 
 the centre of the room, and on these were 
 lying the most beautiful things that the 
 girl had ever seen. Seen ! She had never 
 even dreamed that anything could be so 
 beautiful. Beside them her mother looked 
 a beggar. Elvire set down her pitcher 
 and came forward slowly, for she thought 
 she must be dreaming. 
 
 ** What do you say now, spoiled child ? " 
 Her mother had the accent of a peasant ; 
 she spoke quite differently from Elvire ; 
 her gestures even were quite unlike her 
 daughter's. ''These are gifts from your 
 grandfather's friend, the kind, good Mon- 
 sieur Carouge you have said such hard 
 things about." 
 
 Elvire had taken one of the bonnets 
 in her hand ; at this she let it fall.
 
 TEMPTED. 25 
 
 ''Mother," she drew up her head, and 
 stood looking very tall and proud, " I 
 am ashamed of you ; put all those things 
 back into their wrappings, and send them 
 back to that hateful man. Oh ! " she 
 stamped her foot, " I hate him worse than 
 ever. I was not happy, but I did not 
 know what I wanted, I did not know 
 there were such beautiful things ; and 
 now," she said passionately, *' I shall long 
 for them." She turned away, and leaned 
 her head against the wall. 
 
 Her mother stood looking at her. 
 
 She had found out long ago that it 
 was easier to deceive her daughter than to 
 soften her, so now she took an injured tone. 
 
 " What are you making this noise 
 about ? " she said with a sneer. ** Why 
 may I not have luck sometimes ? These 
 are my gifts, not yours ; you have only 
 to read the address on the covers."
 
 26 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Elvire hesitated. She began to look 
 again at the treasures, and as she gazed 
 and then touched the dainty, soft stufifs, 
 and fingered the lace and the ribbons, 
 she softened. There was nothing very 
 valuable among them, but to her savage 
 ignorance all these lovely things seemed 
 priceless. 
 
 Madame Fontaine pushed forward a 
 quiet gray gown, evidently meant for 
 herself. " I will try it on," she said, 
 ^'and you, too, can put on that white 
 one, and if it fits you you shall have 
 it." 
 
 She unfastened Elvire's gown as she 
 spoke and quickly slipped the white one 
 over her beautiful shoulders. 
 
 Madame Fontaine was ignorant, but 
 her natural cunning helped her now. 
 Carouge had sent a mirror among his 
 gifts. She rapidly fastened up the grace- 
 ful dress, and then placing the bonnet,
 
 TEMPTED. 27 
 
 which Elvire had admired, on her coils 
 of dark hair, she set the glass in front 
 of the girl. 
 
 Elvire was usually self-contained ; she 
 had lived loner enouojh with her father 
 to notice his ways, and she had an un- 
 conscious contempt for her mother's lack 
 of reserve — probably she had inherited 
 this also from the dead marquis — but at 
 the sight of the radiant creature in the 
 mirror, whose nectarine-like skin contrasted 
 so vividly with the pearly tints of her 
 gown and the cloud-like lace near her 
 face, she laughed out loud. 
 
 " Am I like that ? Oh, mother, is that 
 really me ? " 
 
 She j&xed her sparkling eyes, roused 
 out of their sombre, downcast beauty, on 
 Madame Fontaine's face. 
 
 *' Yes, yes, you are like that," the 
 woman said ; " have I not always told 
 you, that if you had patience to wait
 
 28 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 some rich gentleman would come and see 
 your beauty and give you everything you 
 wished for ? " 
 
 The girl started and then stood thinking. 
 Presently she said : 
 
 " But you told me," her voice had gone 
 back to its discontented tone, ** that it 
 was to be some one young, and gay, and 
 bright ; your friend is old and ugly — he 
 only stares at me, he does not talk to me.'' 
 
 Her mother patted her shoulder. 
 
 " For how short a time you saw him, 
 child ! " 
 
 Elvire shrank away. 
 
 "Be careful, mother, you may soil the 
 lovely dress." 
 
 Madame Fontaine did not seem ofiended, 
 she only wiped her hand on her old gown. 
 
 " He will talk to you when he comes 
 again ; a young man ! bah ! a young 
 man would not be so generous. See 
 here," she drew out a string of beads.
 
 TEMPTED. 29 
 
 *' you have not seen half his gifts ; you 
 must see them, or you will not thank 
 him as you ought." 
 
 Elvire stared at her. The smile had 
 died out of her face, she began to frown 
 heavily ; she set the bonnet down on a 
 chair, and unfastened her gown at the 
 throat. 
 
 " Stop ! do not take it off, child. 
 Monsieur Carouge will be sure to pay us 
 a visit, and I should like him to see how 
 nice you look." 
 
 Elvire's answer was to tear off the gown, 
 and to stand in her coarse under-skirt, 
 her beautiful bosom heaving with passion, 
 a bright flush on her face. 
 
 " I knew you were foolish," she said 
 angrily, *'now I know you are wicked 
 too ; you forget that Jean gives me news- 
 papers, and that I have read what 
 happens to poor girls who take presents 
 from rich gentlemen. You cannot think
 
 30 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 that this man has given you these things, 
 and that he expects nothing in return ! " 
 
 But her mother was a match for her 
 now. She looked shocked. 
 
 " Ciel 1 Child, how can you talk so ? 
 He expects to marry you. Are you going 
 to say No to him ? " 
 
 Elvire still stared doggedly, but she 
 was appeased ; she breathed more quietly, 
 and presently she began to examine a 
 small lace tie that her mother had spread 
 out for her inspection. 
 
 A student of human nature would have 
 been interested by this indication of 
 Elvire's natural taste ; she had never 
 before handled any fine lace, and her 
 mother would not have known whether 
 it was good or bad, for although doubt- 
 less in the family of " the marquis " there 
 had been hoards of these costly cobwebs, 
 all had been swept away in the wreck
 
 TEMPTBD. 31 
 
 that overtook liim before he made his 
 appearance in Abeyron. 
 
 '^ Marriage is diflferent," she said at last ; 
 " are you sure, mother, he wants to marry 
 me?'' 
 
 Madame Fontaine in her heart was not 
 scrupulous, she was keenly, hungrily anxious 
 to make some profit out of Elvire's remark- 
 able beauty, but she was superstitious also : 
 she had sworn to her husband that the girl 
 should never work for her living. This 
 rich man had appeared like a providence, 
 and she was determined he should be her 
 daughter's husband. It seemed to her that 
 a rich marriage was the only secure provision 
 for Elvire. She wanted to be rid of her, 
 and spend the rest of her days in idleness. 
 
 '^You are not obedient, my child," the 
 woman said with a half-laugh ; *' but if 
 you do what I tell you, all will happen 
 as you wish. Put that gown on again,
 
 32 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 and sit down quietly while I fold up the 
 rest of the thin2:s." 
 
 Monsieur Carouge came, and he was 
 simply infatuated with Elvire's appearance : 
 the girl was even more beautiful in 
 daylight than he had believed her to be ; 
 and a certain self-respect that came to 
 her in her new attire took away the 
 brooding cloud of discontent which had 
 marred her expression. She received him 
 graciously, and she smiled while he talked 
 to her of all he had seen in Paris, but she 
 did not thank him for his gifts, he had 
 offered them to her mother, she said to 
 herself, and she might thank him. 
 
 Madame Fontaine was busy at the other 
 end of the room till her visitor rose to go. 
 When he had taken leave she followed 
 him out on to the dirty landing, and then, 
 spite of remonstrances, down-stairs. There
 
 TEMPTED. 33 
 
 was a somewliat prolonged conference, and 
 when Carouge came out into the narrow 
 street, he looked savage, and muttered hard 
 words against Madame Fontaine until he 
 reached the *' White Swan." 
 
 At the end of a week Elvire left Abeyron 
 as the wife of Monsieur Carouge. When 
 it came to the point her mother cried at 
 parting from her beautiful child, for she 
 had promised Carouge that she would never 
 seek out or even make inquiry for Elvire ; 
 certainly she was in return to be paid 
 every month the sum of one hundred 
 francs. There would be no more hunger, no 
 more work in the life of Madame Fontaine. 
 
 She had gained her pension easily. 
 Elvire was as indolent as she was by 
 nature luxurious. She had craved ardently 
 for ease and comfort, as well as for all 
 that makes life beautiful, and though she 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 was only nineteen, she was already aware 
 that money could give her what she 
 wanted. To her half-savage, undeveloped 
 nature, poverty meant all that was hard, 
 hideous, and disgraceful, and she felt grate- 
 ful to Monsieur Carougc. 
 
 When Carouge and his bride started for 
 Berne he was a little troubled by the 
 joy with which Elvire said good-bye to 
 her mother and her squalid home. But 
 he soon forgot this. He loitered on the 
 way to give time for his commissions at 
 Berne to be executed ; and when he brought 
 his beautiful wife to the dainty nest he 
 had provided for her, a few miles out of 
 Berne, the girl's delight in the fresh glitter 
 of her surroundings charmed him. It 
 seemed to Elvire that she had found all 
 she wished for in these showily furnished 
 rooms, where she could see herself reflected 
 from head to foot in tall mirrors, and
 
 TEMPTED, 35 
 
 lounge away the day on soft couclies ; or 
 if she wished for air, there was a charming 
 garden full of flowers to wander in. 
 
 But there was more than this ; there 
 was a steady, silent, middle-aged woman, 
 half companion, half maid, to relieve her 
 of every trouble, and Carouge constantly 
 brought home some new present to his 
 beautiful idol. 
 
 She was to him a lovely doll, who 
 amused him by her fresh, pleasant talk, 
 pleased him by her gratitude, and charmed 
 his eyes by her beauty and the supple 
 grace of her movements. He did not 
 trouble himself about anything more. 
 
 He told her that he was the proprietor 
 of a hotel in Berne, but this only interested 
 her in connection with the dainty dishes 
 and excellent wine he constantly brought 
 home from this Hotel Beauregard. For 
 the present, Elvire seemed utterly in- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 curious about the world beyond her 
 garden ; Carouge congratulated himself on 
 having secured such a prize, and as weeks 
 rolled by the peace and pleasure of his 
 life seemed secure. 
 
 The truth was, that Elvire had already 
 tired of his idolatry ; but in spite 
 of her selfishness she was grateful ; she 
 felt that she owed this new life entirely 
 to her husband ; and she resolved not to 
 lose her position by her own fault. She 
 felt that her quiet, self-controlled house- 
 keeper watched her closely, and some- 
 thing warned her that Carouge would 
 be very severe if she disobeyed him in 
 the smallest matter. So she kept within 
 the garden, which was large enough to 
 afford her a good deal of exercise, and 
 by nature she was too indolent to care 
 for long walks. 
 
 Meantime, Madame Carouge was growing
 
 TEMPTED. 37 
 
 every day, both in face and figure, more 
 beautiful. 
 
 Twice her husband drove her into 
 Berne, but he took care to choose a 
 dull time of year for these visits, and 
 after the second Elvire said Berne was a 
 stupid, uninteresting place, and that she 
 did not wish to be taken there ao-ain. 
 
 o 
 
 But all transition periods must come to 
 an end. Her first ambitions were satisfied 
 — she had become accustomed to be well fed, 
 to be elegantly dressed ; other desires began 
 to germinate in Elvire, and their growth made 
 her restless. Instead of lying for hours on 
 her delicious sofa, she paced up and down 
 with impatient steps. The room seemed to 
 have become small and confined ; she felt in 
 it like some poor caged bird. She spent 
 much of her time in the garden, peering 
 through the bars of the iron gate, while she 
 wondered what was happening in the world
 
 38 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 outside, and stared curiously at the few 
 passers-by. She was ashamed of her 
 discontent, and she said nothing to her 
 husband ; but he soon remarked that she 
 had lost her spirits. Her silence troubled 
 him. 
 
 He questioned the duenna, for he could 
 see that Elvire was not ill. 
 
 " She wants change," the woman said ; 
 "the sameness of the place mopes her. 
 Take her away for a week or so." 
 
 Carouge shook his head. 
 
 ''You are imbecile," he said. ''How 
 can I give her change ? I cannot leave 
 my business at this time of year. Why 
 don't you get her some fancy needlework, 
 something that will interest her ? What is 
 the use of you," he added savagely, ''if 
 you cannot keep a girl like that amused ? " 
 
 The remedy was tried, but it failed. 
 Elvire amused herself for an hour or two
 
 TEMPTED, 39 
 
 in examining the work, and admiring the 
 colours of the embroidery silks, but soon 
 rolled it up again. ^^ I do not like needle- 
 work,'' she said, and she became more 
 and more silent and absent. 
 
 One evening Carouge called out abruptly: 
 *' What ails you, child ? " 
 
 Elvire fixed her dark, liquid eyes on 
 his face, her cheeks glowed till he thought 
 they looked like nectarines. 
 
 " Shall I tell you ? " she said gravely. 
 
 " Yes, little one, tell me ; " but he was 
 startled by the new expression he met 
 in her eyes, as she placed herself in front 
 of him. 
 
 Elvire had already rehearsed this scene; 
 she knew it must come, and she knew what 
 she wanted to say, but now it had come it 
 was not easy. She could hardly get her 
 words out ; but she saw that his foot beat 
 impatiently up and down, while he waited.
 
 40 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 At last abruptly, almost harshly, her 
 words came: *' I am tired of my life. I 
 want to live in Berne — to see other people, 
 to do as they do — every day is alike in 
 this place." 
 
 An oath burst from Carouge, but the 
 girl turned so pale that he saw he must 
 control himself. He poured out some wine, 
 and when he had drunk it he forced a smile. 
 
 "Why, my angel, do I not make you 
 happy here ? " 
 
 She looked at him gratefully, with tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 "I am not complaining of you, Jean. 
 You have been very good to me, but 
 you are not always here, and I am alone 
 and dull all day. I" — she looked at him 
 shyly — " I want to see other ladies ; I 
 want to see if I am like them. I can 
 only read and write, I think ladies can 
 do many other things."
 
 TEMPTED. 41 
 
 " Diable ! who has put this in your 
 head ? Ladies do many things best left 
 undone/' he said harshly. ^^ You are 
 quite clever enough for me, my girl, and 
 I like you as you are." He drew her to 
 him as he said this, but she struggled 
 away from him and stood silent an instant, 
 her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, with 
 roused passioD. 
 
 " I belong to myself as well as to you," 
 she said at last. " I am not clever enough 
 for myself, I know nothing. How can I 
 know anything while I live cooped up 
 like a slave ? " 
 
 Carouge swore fiercely. 
 
 *^A wife has only got to please her 
 husband," he answered doggedly ; "it is 
 my pleasure that you stay here. You 
 must make yourself happy the best way 
 you can." 
 
 He expected she would burst out crying
 
 42 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 and tliat he should pacify her by the 
 promise of a new gown or a trinket, but to 
 his surprise she turned away proudly and 
 in silence, and went out of the room. 
 
 For a whole week she sulked and pouted 
 in his presence, and cried passionately when 
 she was alone ; but Carouge remained 
 obstinate. At the end of ten days his 
 young wife had become pale and thin, 
 and there was a desperate look in her 
 eyes. He became more frightened than 
 he cared to own, and he proposed a com- 
 promise. He told her she must continue to 
 live at the villa in the same secluded way 
 as before — this was necessary as a matter 
 of business, he said — but an old professor 
 should come out from Berne and teach 
 her all she wanted to learn. 
 
 Elvire's gratitude was as vehement as 
 her passion had been, and she delighted her 
 husband by her renewed sweetness.
 
 TEMFTED, 43 
 
 When the old professor came she received 
 iiim kindly ; she took a liking to him, and 
 for about two years she worked hard at the 
 studies he marked out for her guidance. 
 
 The new occupation kept her from 
 brooding. He brought her books and 
 showed her how to use the books of 
 history and travel, and some carefully 
 chosen biographies. 
 
 Carouge had been firm on one point ; 
 he had forbidden the professor to give his 
 pupil any love-stories. It never occurred 
 to him that such subjects will occasionally 
 trespass into history, and that a woman 
 may love an idea.
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 A NEW LIFE. 
 
 Elvire proved wonderfully apt. She 
 learned to speak and to write correctly ; 
 she took pleasure in the old-fashioned 
 knowledge her master could teach ; her 
 spirits revived, and Carouge congratulated 
 himself on his management. 
 
 But there was one great drawback he 
 had not counted on, and this was fatal 
 to the happiness produced in Elvire by this 
 mental cultivation. Although love of books 
 and of study had subdued her restlessness 
 and had filled Her mind with new thouojhts.
 
 A NEW LIFK 45 
 
 it revealed to her that her husband was 
 coarser and less congenial than she had 
 thought him. He had no real sympathy 
 with her studies, for he yawned when 
 she spoke of them, and she soon felt it 
 a hardship to be obliged to put away her 
 books when he came home of an evening. 
 
 Carouge was not sensitive, but her in- 
 difference to his presence mortified him, 
 and when the old professor died he openly 
 rejoiced. 
 
 **ril have no more teaching here," he 
 said; ^Hhere's been too much of it. You 
 can teach yourself if you want to learn any 
 more, but I think you know quite enough." 
 
 Elvire was very angry ; she flew into 
 a passion with her husband, but this time 
 Carouge remained obstinate. 
 
 "Then I will give up my studies," she 
 said in the hope of making her husband 
 provide her with another teacher; but it
 
 46 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 was a claDgerous experiment. She soon lost 
 her love of study and she went back to her 
 indolent, do-nothing ways again. 
 
 *' I wish I could sleep life away," she said 
 despairingly. The house was no longer 
 in her eyes a daintily furnished nest, it 
 had become a prison, and Carouge was her 
 jailer. 
 
 Usually she was quiet with him, answer- 
 ing only when spoken to. Twice lately, 
 however, she had shown her husband that 
 she had a violent temper and a stubborn 
 will. 
 
 He had brouo^ht the first outbreak on 
 
 o 
 
 himself, by a rough remark on her silence. 
 The man had had a worried day, and 
 he had looked forward to a cheerful 
 evening ; he brought home a large bouquet 
 of rarer flowers than those in the garden, 
 and also a basket of fine peaches and figs. 
 When he offered his gifts Elvire thanked
 
 A NEW LIFE. 47 
 
 him, and for a while she hung over her 
 flowers with delight. In the evening, 
 however, she was as silent as ever, and 
 then CaroLige told her, with a good deal 
 of unnecessary bluster, that she was 
 ungrateful. 
 
 *' I no longer owe you any gratitude," 
 she said passionately ; " you treat me worse 
 than you would dare treat a servant. By 
 what right do you shut me up here like 
 a nun ? Let me out, I will see the 
 world!" 
 
 He answered her brutally ; and for some 
 days after that he stayed in Berne, in 
 the hope that complete solitude w^ould 
 bring her to her senses. But when he 
 next saw her, she was just as silent and 
 indifferent, and although he had sworn 
 to himself that he would never give her 
 another chance of attacking him, his 
 patience failed at last, and he burst into
 
 43 AT THE RED GLOVE, 
 
 a volley of reproaches as tliey sat at 
 dinner together. 
 
 It was autumn ; the light above her 
 flashed on her glowing face, and on the 
 fire that burned in her eyes, and in spite 
 of his anger, Carouge thought she looked 
 superb as she rose from table. 
 
 *'I do not suit you," she said, in such 
 a harsh voice that he started, it was so 
 unlike her own ; " very well ; you have 
 tried me, and I have failed to suit you. 
 I was weary enough before you began 
 this persecution ; I will not submit to it, 
 Jean Carouge ; I shall go back to my 
 mother. With her, at least, I was free ; 
 here I am only a slave, a prisoner in a 
 gilded cage, and when I ask for natural 
 freedom, for the opportunity of seeing my 
 fellow-creatures, you give me a harsh 
 refusal. You think that gifts can soften 
 tyranny. Never, never, Jean Carouge !
 
 A NEW LIFE, 49 
 
 I belonged to humanity before I belonged 
 to you, and I ask for my right, the right 
 of every free-born woman." 
 
 This time Carouge did not swear, her 
 tragic manner quieted him ; he looked at 
 her with puzzled eyes, for he knew that if 
 the beautiful, vehement creature chose to 
 run away, he might find it difficult to 
 trace her. Something in her eyes told him 
 that coercion, or any detected vigilance, 
 would only hasten her flight. 
 
 When he was alone, he sat plunged in 
 thought. His cunning suggested that 
 there must be a reason for this chanofe 
 in his wife; at first he suspected that 
 she had found a lover, but he knew that 
 this was impossible without the connivance 
 of the housekeeper, and she was always 
 disposed to speak unfavourably of her 
 mistress, whose reserve and haughty 
 manner made the woman's life irksome. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 50 AT TEE BED GLOVE, 
 
 Still he questioned her minutely, but 
 he could find no ground for such a 
 suspicion. 
 
 On his way back to Berne, it occurred 
 to Carouge that he had been a fool to 
 interfere with her studies ; he had seen 
 none of this violence and sulkiness while 
 she took lessons of the old professor. 
 Why had he not found her a new 
 teacher? He had certainly reaped no ad- 
 vantage from leaving her to herself. He 
 began to see that idleness did not agree 
 with his wife's temper, for he considered 
 the unpleasant change in Elvire mere 
 temper, now that he had assured himself 
 that he need not fear he had a rival. 
 
 He could not all at once replace the 
 old professor, but he could try the effect 
 of some new books, and he went into a 
 bookseller's and purchased several volumes, 
 having first specified to the shopman that
 
 A NEW LIFE, 51 
 
 he wished for travels or history. He 
 smiled as he told himself that he was 
 not going to trust his wife with novels. 
 He rarely indulged her with a news- 
 paper, though she often asked for one. 
 
 But the books met with an indifferent 
 reception ; Elvire looked at them care- 
 lessly enough. ''Thank you," she said, 
 ** they come too late ; my taste for reading 
 is over." 
 
 Fortunately for Carouge there came a 
 spell of rainy weather, and one morning, 
 after walking up and down the room for 
 an hour, Elvire flung herself on a sofa 
 and opened a book of travels. She soon 
 became interested, and at the end of a 
 few weeks, when she had read some of 
 the other volumes, she asked her husband 
 to bring her more books, and thanked 
 him for the pleasure these had given. 
 
 He was delighted. She had become 
 
 E 2 

 
 52 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 gentler, and the sombre, clouded expres- 
 sion had left her eyes. 
 
 Carouge was wise enough to under- 
 stand that this newly awakened taste 
 must be encouraged if he wished to keep 
 wild ideas out of his beautiful wife's head. 
 He need not, however, have feared that 
 Elvire would have attempted to riiu 
 away. She had only threatened it in 
 the violence of her indignation. Even 
 when such a fancy suggested itself, u 
 double motive checked it. She saw that ii 
 would be foolish to risk so much comfort 
 and ease for a mere whim. Something 
 warned her that her husband would never 
 forgive such an act of disobedience. Witl- 
 all his fond worship Carouge had inspired 
 her with a very restraining fear. If she did 
 anything to make him cast her off she knew 
 that she must either go back to her mothei 
 to her shabby clothes and scanty food, oi
 
 A NEW LIFE. 53 
 
 she must work to earn her living, and 
 this last idea was almost worse than 
 the other. Also, to do her justice, she 
 still felt grateful to her husband for his 
 kindness and his constant gifts. 
 
 If Carouge had been a reader he would 
 have stuck to his first idea in catering 
 for his wife. Unluckily he had a great 
 admiration for Englishwomen ; he thought 
 them simple and modest, the books they 
 read could not surely hurt Elvire. 
 
 So one day he came home in a very 
 gay mood. 
 
 " See, my angel," he said, " I have 
 brought you a present. When I was 
 young, a good many years ago, these pretty 
 gilded little books were left at the Beau- 
 regard by an English Mees. My father 
 told me to keep them till they were 
 claimed ; but they have never been asked 
 for. I found them to-day in a box, so
 
 54 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 there they are ; they are yours, my 
 beauty." 
 
 Elvire admired the dainty little volumes ; 
 she looked at their titles: ''Paul et Vir- 
 ginie," ''Mathilde/' " Atala." 
 
 '' Ah, what is this ? '' . 
 
 She took up two tiny books in white 
 vellum bindings : '' Caroline de Lichfield." 
 
 "Thank you," she said. ''I believe 
 this is a story, and I have read few 
 stories. I shall be sure to like this one, 
 the outside is so pretty." 
 
 Carouge did not guess the poison to 
 his peace that lay between those covers. 
 As she read the little old-fashioned love- 
 tale, a new sensation wakened in Elvire. 
 What was this love, so tender, and yet 
 so passionate — this strange power which 
 produced in one character self-sacrifice, 
 and in another self-love, and yet which 
 seemed to be felt by all ? She knew it
 
 A NEW LIFE. 55 
 
 had never come to her. She was troubled, 
 fevered, absorbed, , but she could not take 
 her eyes from the little dainty pages, 
 over which hovered a faint perfume of 
 heliotrope. 
 
 Carouge came home earlier than usual, 
 but Elvire did not appear at the door 
 in answer to his summons. 
 
 He hurried into the garden, and found 
 she was lying on the grass absorbed in 
 her book. 
 
 She started as he came up. Her 
 face was flushed and excited; she stared 
 at him with dreamy eyes. 
 
 Carouge burst out laughing. 
 
 **Have I roused you from sleep, my 
 child ? I'm afraid the book isn't a lively 
 one, if it sends you to sleep ; let me see 
 it." 
 
 Elvire smiled, but she held the book 
 fast.
 
 56 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " I like it," slie said. 
 
 All throuorh the evenins: Carouge was 
 cliarmcd by her gentle, pensive manner. 
 
 Next day, and the next, and the next, 
 Elvire was full of sweet, languid melan- 
 choly ; she looked more charming than 
 ever, her husband thought. 
 
 On the fourth evening Carouge came 
 home in boisterous spirits. The change 
 in his wife was a great relief, and when 
 dinner was over he began to tease 
 her about her books. She had finished 
 " Caroline '' and was reading: '* Mathilde." 
 
 " They may be pretty to look at, child, 
 but they don't make people merry." He 
 chucked her under the chin. 
 
 She frowned, and pushed his hand away 
 as if it stung her. " Merry, indeed ! " she 
 said, wdth such intense scorn that he 
 looked up in surprise. 
 
 " What is the matter, little one ? " he 
 asked.
 
 A NEW LIFE. 57 
 
 Elvire looked at him, then she burst 
 into a passion of tears, and hurried out 
 of the room. 
 
 Carouge was struck dumb ; he felt at 
 the end of his resources ; but he thought 
 seriously over the matter. He had known 
 a good deal of women, but he had not 
 met with a woman like Elvire, and he 
 began to watch his wife. He saw that 
 she was again becoming pale and languid, 
 and he noticed too that she had lost 
 her appetite. 
 
 Once more he consulted the house- 
 keeper, but she only frowned and shook 
 her head. 
 
 " It is worse than ever, nothing pleases 
 madame now," she said. '* She scarcely 
 eats or drinks, monsieur, and she cries 
 every day ; monsieur does not like me 
 to say so, but I think madame wants 
 change." 
 
 Yes, Elvire wanted change, but not
 
 58 AT TEE BED GLOVE, 
 
 the sort of change meant by her house- 
 keeper. Carouge called in a doctor to see 
 his wife ; but when he had paid a long 
 visit, he shook his head. 
 
 ** Madame is not ill," he said, "she is 
 low and nervous ; the mind is not at rest. 
 Give her change, and as much variety as 
 you can." 
 
 Carouge felt angry and unbelieving. 
 If Elvire was not ill, he considered that 
 it was her duty to appear well and not 
 to give way to nervous fancies. 
 
 ''She could get over them, if she 
 tried," he said angrily. 
 
 " I fear she cannot, unless she has some 
 variety in her life. Good-day, monsieur." 
 
 Elvire became daily more languid, and 
 she shrank from her husband more and 
 more. She seemed to be afraid of him. 
 
 At last Carouere followed the doctors 
 advice ; he took her to Thun and to
 
 A NEW LIFE. 59 
 
 Interlaken, when these places were nearly 
 empty of visitors. Elvire was pleased, 
 she brightened up ; for a week or so she 
 was smiling and cheerful, and went into 
 raptures about the snow mountains. 
 
 But she soon relapsed into her silent, 
 abstracted state. There was, however, one 
 new feature in it. Every now and then, 
 without any conscious provocation on his 
 part, Carouge met her eyes filled with 
 passionate indignation ; but when he asked 
 how he had offended her, she refused to 
 answer. 
 
 He tried to make her angry^-one of 
 the fits of passion of which he knew she 
 was capable would have been a relief 
 from her dreary indifference ; but she 
 was utterly indifferent. 
 
 So after a while Carouo^e erew tired of 
 home life : his bower of bliss had chans^ed 
 its character, and he began to stay later and
 
 60 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 later at the Beauregard ; he often drank 
 so much wine, that on these occasions 
 he found it advisable to sleep there. 
 
 So the months and the years slipped 
 by. Elvire had as many books as she 
 chose, and saw all she could of the 
 world that walked out as far as her 
 cottage. 
 
 But one day a decided change came — 
 Carouge died. 
 
 The news was brought suddenly to 
 Elvire, and she could scarcely conceal her 
 joy. She was free — free from the husband 
 she had grown to hate, and from the 
 bondage which had become intolerable ! 
 She had hated Carouge ever since she 
 had longed to love ; she had loved, in 
 fact, in his place, a dream-lover. She 
 was free to go out into the world and 
 seek for this ideal. 
 
 Before many hours went by, she learned
 
 A NEW LIFE. 61 
 
 that she was rich as well as free. 
 Carouge had no near relations, and he 
 had bequeathed all he possessed to his 
 wife. 
 
 ''Ah! but after all I do not owe him 
 much," the beautiful woman said ; " he has 
 wasted my youth. I am eight-and-twenty, 
 and I have not yet begun to live."
 
 fiart I.— ^he §pibcr nnb the Jig.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MAEIE. 
 
 " Hail, ye small, sweet courtesies of life, for smooth 
 do'ye make the road of it ; like grace and beauty which 
 beget inclination to love at first sight. 'Tis ye who 
 open the door, and let the stranger in." — Sterne's 
 Sentwiental Journey. 
 
 " Take your places I take your places ! 
 The train is just going to start." Then, 
 in a louder voice : " The train for Lau- 
 sanne ! " This on one side of the big 
 station. 
 
 On the other side was heard, in yet 
 harsher tones : " A stay of ^lyq. minutes 
 — Berne ! Berne ! " 
 
 Out of this train, which had just arrived 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 66 AT THU RED GLOVE. 
 
 from Lucerne, were pouring scores of 
 travellers — English, American, German, 
 and otliers — tlieir arms full of rugs, and 
 bags, and parcels. At first they did not 
 hurry, but went about with their burdens 
 in search of porters with whom to deposit 
 them. But when the warning cry was 
 heard from the other side, they hurried 
 on, staggering under the weight of their 
 varied impedimenta. 
 
 A tall official at the top of the steps at 
 the end of the platform shouted out to 
 them to make haste, and pointed to the 
 train about to start for Lausanne, quite 
 on the further side of the wide area ; but 
 greater haste was impossible for many of 
 the travellers. 
 
 A tall, gray-haired man, encumbered 
 with bags and sticks, limped along with 
 a look of despair on his high-bred face. 
 A young, simply dressed girl was stand-
 
 MARIE. 67 
 
 ing near him on the platform ; she saw his 
 troubled face, and looked compassionate. 
 Presently she caught sight of a porter 
 with a truck, and she pounced upon him 
 like a hawk. 
 
 " Do you not see ? " she said eagerly ; 
 'Hhe gentleman is lame, and he will not 
 be in time for the train to Lausanne. 
 You are going across to the other train 
 with those boxes ; can you not also take 
 his luoforaore ? " 
 
 While she spoke, the Englishman had 
 flung his load on the truck, and then, 
 taking off his hat, he thanked the girl in 
 bad French and asked if he could help her. 
 
 " No, thank you, sir," she said, in a 
 fresh young voice. '^ I stay at Berne." 
 
 He bowed again, and went on. 
 
 The girl looked wistfully after him — his 
 gentle face pleased her — then she gazed 
 round the station. All was bustle and con- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 fusion, as she turned to follow the stream 
 of travellers going towards the ^vay out. 
 Here they had to run the gauntlet of a 
 line of omnibus conductors, each bearing 
 the name of his hotel on his cap ; some 
 were silent, only holding up their fingers, 
 but others clamoured for passengers. 
 
 The other travellers were soon relieved 
 of their burdens, but the young girl only 
 hugged her bag more closely when an 
 officious conductor tried to take it from her. 
 
 She was tall, and although young and 
 fair, seemed far more capable of carrying 
 a load than many of the pale, worried- 
 looking English women she had seen 
 starting on their second journey. She 
 too was pale, but evidently this was a 
 natural tint ; there was no sign of ill- 
 health or feebleness in her face. Indeed, 
 her pale, clear skin matched well with 
 the light brown hair that waved over
 
 MABIE. 69 
 
 her forehead, and with the gray eyes 
 below ; these eyes darkened and brightened, 
 and a faint rosy colour showed itself, as 
 the omnibus conductor again tried to take 
 her bag from her. 
 
 " Give it me ; you must be going some- 
 where in the town," he said. " Come with 
 me. See ! I have plenty of room." And 
 he pointed to a little omnibus, the shabbiest 
 in the row drawn up in front of the station. 
 
 The girl bit her lips. She felt confused, 
 the noise and bustle had made her head 
 spin, and she would gladly have taken 
 shelter from it ; but she remembered the 
 directions she had received. She pulled 
 out a bit of folded paper from her glove, 
 and held it for the man to read. 
 
 " Spitalgasse," he said, " Madame Bobi- 
 neau ; that's the glove shop, * The Eed 
 Glove ' — oh ! " His interest vanished, and 
 he turned away.
 
 70 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 *^ You are close by, my girl," he said, 
 over liis shoulder. ''Go straight on ; you 
 will see the shop under the arcade, a 
 little way beyond the corner of the Place 
 yonder ; a large red glove hangs over 
 the door." 
 
 "Please stop," the girl said, in a 
 frightened voice. " I was to ask some 
 one — you, perhaps — if your omnibus goes 
 past Madame Bobineau's house." 
 
 '' Yes, yes — what then ? Make haste ! " 
 he said, but he was less surly now. 
 
 ''Then I am to give you this" — she 
 gave him her luggage ticket — " and I was 
 to ask you to bring my box to Madame 
 Bobineau's, in the Spitalgasse." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and grunted. 
 The girl, without another look at him, 
 darted out into the street, and then 
 stopped, bewildered by the movement 
 around her.
 
 MAEIE. 71 
 
 It was market-day in Berne, and besides 
 the crowd of small vehicles, there were 
 groups of peasant women in sober costume 
 of black and white, varied by flower- 
 crowned hats, and silver chains hanging 
 from each shoulder of their bodices. Also 
 it was the last week in July, and Berne was 
 full of tourists, either just arrived or just 
 departing in search of health and amusement. 
 
 Marie Peyrolles, fresh from her quiet 
 convent home near Lake Lucerne, felt 
 dazed rather than amused by the lively 
 scene. She had no link of sympathy to con- 
 nect her with the bustle in the street. The 
 stalwart milk-carriers, bending under the 
 weip^ht of their wooden milk- cans, or walk- 
 ing beside the huge yellow dogs that drew 
 their milk-barrows, had no word or message 
 for her ; these men nodded and joked 
 with the women at the fruit-stalls beside 
 the road ; with the girls at the fountains ;
 
 72 AT TEE BED GLOVE, 
 
 or with others who had come in to market ; 
 the comers in from the villages made little 
 groups and told their bits of gossip or did 
 their marketing as they went up the long 
 crowded street toward the Clock Tower. 
 
 The sun shone hotly on the round 
 stones of the street, and birds in their 
 cages sang merrily among the flowers at 
 the blind-shaded windows ; while here and 
 there a cat sat blinking its eyes in the 
 open doorway of a shop. 
 
 Marie did not see sorrow anywhere, 
 but her heart was heavy; she felt a for- 
 lorn stranger amid all this life and bustle, 
 and she stood fairly scared when she 
 reached the corner of the large Place, 
 and looked up and down the four ways 
 that met there. 
 
 " Was it left or right I had to turn ? " 
 she asked herself; and her eyes grew 
 larger still with terror and sadness.
 
 MAUIE, 73 
 
 She had that morning said Good-bye to 
 all she loved — the good sisters of St. 
 Esprit, who had brought her up ever 
 since she was a little girl — and now, 
 before her tears were dry, she had lost 
 her way in seeking her guardian's house. 
 Marie tried hard not to prejudice herself 
 against this guardian, her father's old 
 cousin, Madame Bobineau. She knew 
 that she had no claim on her, for the 
 good sisters had said it was very kind 
 and generous of her cousin to come for- 
 ward and offer to provide for her. Marie 
 had often felt a longing to see what the 
 world was like beyond the little village 
 near the convent ; but this sudden launch- 
 ing into the bustle of town life chilled 
 and frightened her — she thought Madame 
 Bobineau would have met her at the station 
 — and now she feared she might have 
 lost her way. She stood still and tried
 
 74 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 to keep back some fresh tears which were 
 scalding her eyelids. 
 
 While she stood in this bewildered state 
 she became aware that a short, stout, very 
 upright man, with a round, whiskerless face, 
 was staring hard at her. He seemed to 
 have stopped for no other purpose. There 
 he stood, his legs wide apart, his small black 
 eyes and his mouth wide open, surveying 
 her with steady complacency. 
 
 At first Marie frowned : she thouc^ht it 
 was rude of him to stare at her so. Her 
 second thought was that he looked good- 
 natured, and would perhaps help her. 
 
 "If you please, sir," she said, growing 
 rosy, for she felt much shyer in speaking 
 to this stranger than she had felt in 
 helping the wearied Englishman, *' can you 
 tell me if I am near the Spitalgasse ? " 
 
 The stout man had raised his hat at 
 the first word ; he bowed profoundly and
 
 MABIE, 75 
 
 thereby showed the bald, shining top of 
 his head. *' I am at your service, made- 
 moiselle," he said. " This is the Spital- 
 gasse" — he pointed to the arcaded street 
 on the left : then seeino* the tears hans^ino: 
 on her eyelashes he divined some of her 
 uneasiness. "Mademoiselle is perhaps a 
 stranger ; if mademoiselle will have the 
 goodness to tell me where she is going, 
 I will gladly show her the way." 
 
 He looked hard at her and pushed up 
 the tuft of hair on his chin with a fat, 
 stumpy finger. 
 
 But the nuns had bade Marie beware 
 of strange men, and she remembered the 
 direction the conductor had given her to 
 find the glove shop. 
 
 " I thank you very much, monsieur," she 
 said, shyly, *'but I know my way now." 
 
 Her grateful glance completed her con- 
 quest over the stout man. He stood
 
 76 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 looking after her, hat in hand, with his 
 feet still set widely apart, as she tripped 
 down the Spitalgasse. 
 
 " She is a dainty morsel,'' he said to 
 himself, *' fresh as a bunch of flowers. I 
 have never seen anything like her in 
 Berne. My friend Loigerot," — he patted 
 his padded chest with his broad hand — " if 
 you do not find out where this pretty bird 
 is going to perch, you are not worthy to 
 have been a captain in the Forty-fifth 
 Eegiment of the Emperor Napoleon the 
 Third." 
 
 He had put on his hat, but at the 
 Emperor's name he uncovered again, and 
 glanced at the decoration on his coat. 
 
 No one looking at him could mistake 
 his profession or his country. One sees 
 such middle-aged warriors by the dozen, 
 in their blue frocks and sword-belts and 
 red breeches, parading the streets of any
 
 MAUIB. 77 
 
 French garrison town : and altliough he 
 had quitted the army, and wore plain 
 clothes, Monsieur Loigerot had a way, as 
 he walked, of putting his hand now and 
 then to adjust the sword which no longer 
 hung beside him. His broad, cheerful face 
 looked serene and untroubled ; no lines 
 furrowed his brown forehead, though it 
 must be owned that the hair had receded 
 from it, and was even a little gray. 
 
 The captain had lately inherited some 
 property — a little country house near 
 Strasbourg and a bit of land had been 
 left to him by an old relative, whose affairs 
 would take some months to settle ; and 
 so, after thirty years of army life Captain 
 Achille Loigerot had decided to give up 
 soldiering and to settle down as a quiet 
 citizen. In a few months' time he should 
 come into possession of his property. He 
 had always been happy as a soldier, and
 
 78 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 he meant to be happy as a proprietaire, 
 he also meant to marry ; meantime he 
 had come to Berne to look up an old 
 acquaintance, one of the few he could 
 lay claim to. His friend, Monsieur Ca- 
 rouge, kept a hotel in Berne,' but on 
 arriving in that city, Monsieur Loigerot 
 found that Jacques Carouge, whom he 
 had not seen for twenty years, was dead, 
 and that his young widow was left hostess 
 of the Hotel Beaure^^ard. 
 
 This very morning he had reminded 
 Madame Carouge of the " Beauregard " 
 that he wanted a wife : not too young, 
 he said — a sensible, pleasant woman, who 
 would manage his house with discretion, 
 and make life agreeable. 
 
 The handsome widow had smiled and 
 nodded. 
 
 " So," she said, " we are then going 
 to lose the pleasant society of Monsieur 
 le Capitaine. Believe me, monsieur, you
 
 MABIU. 79 
 
 will find plenty of ladies willing to listen 
 to your proposal." 
 
 The captain had felt a little troubled by 
 this assertion ; he knew that he was neither 
 young nor handsome, he was also con- 
 scious of his bald head and rotund figure, 
 at least he always became aware of these 
 personal defects in the presence of his 
 beautiful hostess. 
 
 ''Madame," — he bowed so humbly and 
 looked so much in earnest, that Madame 
 Carouge felt impressed — '' I am only a 
 man and I may be easily deceived, will 
 you do me the favour of aiding my choice ? 
 I — aw" — he had puflfed out his words — ''I 
 shall esteem such a favour a lasting obliga- 
 tion. She must be quiet, madame, you 
 understand, and amiable, and about — about 
 thirty-five." 
 
 Then he had drawn a deep breath, 
 and had looked much ashamed of his own 
 boldness.
 
 80 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Just now tlie sight of this fair young 
 country girl had scattered these sober 
 visions ; a much warmer sensation took 
 possession of him. He did not follow 
 Marie closely, but he determined to keep 
 her in sight ; and Monsieur Loigerot 
 crossed over, went up the Spitalgasse on 
 the other side of the way, knowing well 
 that under the arcades, crowded as they 
 were to-day, it would not be easy for the 
 girl to see that he w^as following her. 
 
 Both sides of the street were so full 
 that it cost him much vigilance not to 
 lose sight of his prize, every shop win- 
 dow had its group of gazers, and in the 
 street between was a double line of fruit 
 and vegetable stalls, so that vehicles com- 
 ing up or going down found it difficult 
 to pass between the stalls. 
 
 All at once a horse turned restive, 
 backed against a pile of plums and pears,
 
 MABIE. 81 
 
 and sent the ricli-liued fruit rolling over 
 the stones. Captain Loigerot stood still, 
 laughing heartily at the promptitude with 
 which a score of urchins flung themselves 
 on the spoil, while the owner, a shrivelled 
 old woman, scolded and grumbled and 
 chattered through her toothless gums, 
 and frowned till the lines in her brown 
 face looked inky, and her small eyes be- 
 came like a pair of shining black beads. 
 It was all over in a moment. The sub- 
 dued horse was led off, the old woman's 
 stall was righted, and Monsieur Loigerot 
 looked across the street to see whether 
 his country girl had also enjoyed the 
 little scene. 
 
 She had vanished. 
 
 Opposite him was the Stork fountain, 
 gray-green with age, and just behind 
 this was the glover's shop, over which he 
 lodged, its sign, a plump, huge, scarlet 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 \ 
 
 82 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 glove hanging over the doorway. Beyond 
 was a confectioner's, and its windows 
 were extra gay to-day ; there was a brave 
 show of delicate cakes, frosted with sugar 
 or brown with chocolate, cream-tarts, and 
 many-coloured fondants. 
 
 The captain crossed over and peered 
 curiously in, for it seemed a likely place 
 to tempt a young girFs appetite. The 
 shop was empty, and Madame Webern 
 herself stood behind her counter. 
 
 " She and the old Bobineau are dear 
 friends," he said ; " they are always gos- 
 siping. I do not choose my landlady to 
 hear that I have been looking after a girl ; 
 it might make her less civil." 
 
 The captain little knew how near he 
 was to the object of his search, when he 
 forbore to question Madame Webern. 
 
 He went on, looking curiously into 
 the shops, but at last he turned back
 
 MARIE. 83 
 
 to resume his walk, which his meeting 
 with Marie had interrupted. A twinkle 
 came into his quiet eyes. 
 
 " It does not matter. I will keep a 
 good look-out, and we shall meet again. 
 After all, I do not think that Bobineau 
 would trouble herself about me." He 
 gave a chuckle. " The old woman is 
 blind to the ways of a first-floor lodger 
 who pays his rent every week. That 
 poor devil on the top storey, or even my 
 tall friend the bank clerk, over my head, 
 might find her more clear-sighted." 
 
 He walked on smiling ; his adventure 
 had put him in rollicking spirits. Why 
 should he not amuse himself before he 
 settled down quietly into matrimony with 
 the pleasant domestic wife he had asked 
 Madame Carouge to find for him ? 
 
 "Yes, yes," he said to himself, ''I will 
 find that pretty little creature." 
 
 G 2
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied my son ; " but travelling after 
 fortune is not the way to secure her." — Vicar of 
 Wakefield. 
 
 Maeie Peyrolles passed by the glove 
 shop, and gave a timid knock on the 
 house door beside it. She was too much 
 agitated even to notice the plethoric- 
 looking red glove that seemed to point 
 either a warning or a welcoming finger 
 towards her. Presently the door opened, 
 but the passage was so dark that she 
 could only see dimly. 
 
 " Come in," a voice said, in the darkness. 
 ** Is it you, Marie Peyrolles ? "
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 85 
 
 " Yes/^ the girl answered ; and then the 
 door shut behind her, and she followed 
 the short fisfure she beg;an to make out 
 in the dim light to the end of the narrow 
 passage. 
 
 A door was opened on the left, and light 
 streamed through. 
 
 Then Marie saw that she was following 
 a small woman in a shabby gown of 
 brown stuff into a shallow oblong room 
 surrounded by shelves, on which stood 
 paper boxes ranged closely one against 
 another ; on two sides these shelves reached 
 the ceiling ; at the back a small window 
 intervened, and opposite this was a glass 
 partition between the room and the 
 shop. The panes of this partition were 
 frosted, except those four which made 
 the upper part of a door of communica- 
 tion ; over these panes hung a green 
 curtain, which at this moment was tucked
 
 86 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 tip on one side so as to command the 
 entrcance of the shop. 
 
 Marie's eyes had strayed from her con- 
 ductor to take in these details. Now, 
 looking down at her, she met the piercing 
 gaze of two small, narrow dark eyes. It 
 seemed as if some one had drawn the 
 face belonging to these eyes on each side 
 till it had taken a sort of Chinese ex- 
 pression, which the paucity of eyelashes 
 increased ; the face was certainly more 
 broad than long, and the loss of teeth 
 had brought the nose and chin nearer 
 together than nature had originally meant 
 them to be. The small woman's skin was 
 thick and yellow, and looked older than 
 her hair did; this was still brown, and 
 was strained in flat braids into a little 
 round knot behind her head, the knot 
 being crowned by a black comb with five 
 points, each surmounted by a large black
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 87 
 
 knob. She wore a black silk apron, and 
 some folds of white muslin showed between 
 her throat and the top of her shabby 
 gown. 
 
 Marie thought as she looked at her, 
 that the nun's garb at St. Esprit was 
 far more attractive than this dull Puritan 
 costume ; she supposed that this ugly old 
 woman must be her guardian. 
 
 Finding that her conductor did not 
 speak or smile, but went on gravely with 
 her scrutiny, the girl smiled timidly. 
 
 " I hope I find you well, cousin. You 
 are Cousin Bobineau, are you not ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Yes, child ; I am always well," was 
 the brisk answer. **Did you find your 
 way easily ? '• and raising herself on tiptoe, 
 Madame Bobineau tried to kiss Marie's 
 forehead. 
 
 The girl's constraint vanished ; she bent
 
 88 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 clown, hugged the old woman in her 
 strong young arms, and kissed her lovingly 
 on both cheeks. 
 
 Madame Bobineau gave a little gasp 
 when released, and looked yet more 
 attentively at her visitor. 
 
 ''You look much older than I expected," 
 she said, in a cold voice. *'How old are you?" 
 
 *' I am just eighteen." 
 
 " Can it be true ? Berthold's child 
 eighteen ! How time runs on ! " 
 
 ''You knew my father, cousin, did you 
 not ? " 
 
 " Yes, I " Madame Bobineau checked 
 
 herself. " Sit down, child, and listen to 
 me. I do not mean unkindly, Marie, but 
 it is better to begin as we are to go 
 on. You can call me Madame, or Madame 
 Bobineau. I dare say the sisters told 
 you that you were coming here to help 
 me in my shop." Marie bent her head.
 
 .-^ MADAME BOBINEATI, 89 
 
 "Well, then, you are to be my assistant, 
 not my relative, remember — it sounds 
 better in business." 
 
 She gave an uneasy smile, and the girl 
 tbougbt she looked less friendly. 
 
 "I am afraid you will find me very 
 ignorant,'' Marie said, timidly. '^I can 
 embroider and do plain sewing, but I 
 cannot do much else ; but I will try to 
 be useful, madam e," she added, earnestly. 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course," said the old 
 woman. " Are you hungry ? Come this 
 way, and eat something." 
 
 They went again into the dark passage, 
 
 then down some steps and across a bit. 
 
 «. 
 of yard to a kitchen. Here the cloth was 
 
 laid for two on a round table ; a hideous 
 
 old woman, with a throat that Marie 
 
 could not bear to look at, took the cover 
 
 ofi" a little soup tureen and also from a 
 
 dish of veal and macaroni.
 
 90 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 "Madame will find the tart on tlie 
 shelf," the hideous creature said, and she 
 went away. 
 
 Marie was very huugry after her journey, 
 she also felt forlorn ; Madame Bobineau 
 took a little soup, and she ate a few 
 mouthfuls of the ragout ; then she stopped 
 and watched her visitor eat, and her face 
 grew longer and her eyes hard and eager. 
 
 " Ciel ! she eats like a wolf. Will this 
 happen every day ? " she said to herself. 
 Then, after a pause of silent watching, 
 " It shall not, I shall not set so much 
 before her ; young animals never know 
 when they have had enough. Already 
 she has eaten a plateful of soup and two 
 helps of meat. It is too much, she will 
 have indigestion. Her services will hardly 
 be worth her food till she has been some 
 time with me ; she is sure to make 
 mistakes with the customers. She looks
 
 MADAME BOBINEAm 91 
 
 strong-willed ; strong-willed and a large 
 appetite ! Ah ! she must not be allowed 
 to get her head. Poor Bobineau used to 
 say, 'Keep young girls under, and they 
 will never know that they have wills or 
 fancies/ He always said luxury was bad 
 for the young. Ah ! he was wise." 
 
 In old Bobineau's lifetime his wife had 
 called him a tyrant and had groaned under 
 his miserly despotism; but ever since he 
 had freed her by his death she had quoted 
 his opinions, and tried to act them out, 
 utterly unmindful of her own suffering 
 under his suspicion and niggard ways. 
 This was the first time that she had been 
 able to put herself entirely in Bobineau's 
 pla.ce. She had had assistants, but these 
 had been girls with homes of their own ; 
 they had come in the morning and had 
 gone away at night, and they had brought 
 their dinners with them. The old woman
 
 92 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 who cleaned the house only came for half 
 a day, and was quite independent of 
 Madame Bobineau. 
 
 As she sat blinking her narrow eyes at 
 the fresh young creature who had brought 
 a touch of summer into the sunless room, 
 Madame Bobineau groaned. 
 
 " I have been over- generous to have her 
 here," she thought. " I believed from 
 what those sisters wrote of the girl that 
 they were willing to have kept her, fed 
 her, and clothed her as long as she chose 
 to stay. Yes, I have made a mistake. 
 Well, as I have been a fool once, I must 
 be as wise as I can to make up for it." 
 She took a small tin box from her pocket, 
 and from it a huge pinch of snuff. 
 
 Just at this point Marie left off eating 
 and helped herself to a draught of water 
 from the carafe on the table. 
 
 "You do not seem hungry, cousin," she
 
 AfADAME BOBINEAU. 93 
 
 said. ''You make me ashamed to eat so 
 much ; but I was so very hungry ! '^ 
 
 Madame Bobineau smiled grimly. ''There 
 is a tart." She looked at the shelf behind 
 the door. She hoped Marie would refuse 
 this luxury ; at any rate she would not 
 tempt her through her eyes by setting it 
 before her. 
 
 " Thank you." Marie . rose up to get the 
 tart. " You are very kind," she said as 
 she placed it on the table. 
 
 She could easily have finished the small 
 dish of meat, and this slice of flat plum 
 tart did not look satisfying. She cut it 
 in two, and ofi'ered a portion to Madame 
 Bobineau. 
 
 Her cousin shook her head, and pressed 
 her lips closely together. " I have dined ; 
 soup and meat make a dinner fit for a 
 countess," she said coldly,' and she folded 
 her shrivelled hands in patient resignation
 
 94 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 at such a consumption of food and at the 
 time that was being consumed over such 
 a worthless employment as eating. 
 
 "The tart is excellent/' said Marie, "I 
 never had such a nice one." She was 
 accustomed to liberal fare, and she helped 
 herself to the remainder. 
 
 Madame Bobineau chafed inwardly, but she 
 had learned to control any show of feeling. 
 
 '^ When you have quite finished," she 
 said, with an emphasis that made Marie 
 redden as she swallowed the last mouth- 
 ful of pastry, "I will tell you w^hat your 
 duties are." 
 
 Marie jumped up briskly. *' Shall I 
 clear this away first, madame ? " 
 
 " By no means — leave it. I wish you 
 to understand that you come into this 
 kitchen only three times a day, for your 
 meals ; you have no other business here. 
 You will spend the rest of the day in 
 the shop or in my parlour."
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU, 95 
 
 " Where am I to sleep, madame ? " the 
 girl said. 
 
 Her dinner had given her courage, she 
 felt less forlorn, and her cheerful tone 
 irritated Madame Bobineau ; she could 
 not understand the fearlessness begot by 
 a long course of sympathetic treat- 
 ment. 
 
 '' I will show you, later," she said. 
 " There is no room for you here ; 
 my rooms are let to lodgers. I have 
 taken a room for you close by. Now 
 come." 
 
 She led the way back to her parloui*, 
 and telling Marie to leave her hat there, 
 she went into the shop, and drew back 
 the bolt on the street door. She then 
 called Marie in and began to teach the 
 girl her duties. She showed her the places 
 of the gloves in their boxes below and 
 behind the counter, told her how to find 
 the sizes and the prices, and also gave her
 
 9G AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 instructions relatins; to the embroideries 
 and the other articles she had for sale. 
 
 Marie listened attentively. So far, her 
 work seemed to her easy enough, and 
 she began to think it would be amusing 
 to see so many different people in the 
 course of a day, for Madame Bobineau 
 told her that sometimes she had as 
 many as six customers at once in her 
 shop. 
 
 Presently the old woman took Marie's 
 hand and held it in her skinny fingers. 
 
 *'Yes" — she looked carefully at the 
 plump hand — " it is not a bad hand ; it 
 will do ; though sunburned, it has not 
 done rough work, I see. So much the 
 better. To begin with, I will show you 
 how to put on your gloves." 
 
 Marie grew rosy to the wavy curls on 
 her forehead : 
 
 " I have not any gloves," she said, in
 
 MADAME BOBINEAJJ. 97 
 
 a mortified voice ; " we never wore them 
 at the convent." 
 
 "That does not matter," Madame Bobineau 
 said coldly. *' What you have to learn is how 
 to fit them on the hands of my customers." 
 
 She gave another look at Marie's hand, 
 then reaching a box down from one of the 
 shelves, she took out a dull pair of slate- 
 coloured gloves, spotted in two or three 
 places with mildew : 
 
 "These will do," she said. "Now 
 observe how I fit you." 
 
 Marie stood wondering and smiling while 
 the glove was being fitted. It seemed *to 
 her that Madame Bobineau was wasting so 
 much time and trouble, and when she took 
 from the counter a pretty little steel hook, 
 and buttoned every one of the four button- 
 holes, Marie wondered still more, while her 
 round, firm wrist ached at the squeezing to 
 which it was subjected. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 *' There " — Madame Bobineau smiled witb 
 satisfaction — "if it had been made for 
 your hand, that glove could not have 
 fitted better. Yes, yes"- — she put her 
 head on one side, nearly closing her 
 narrow eyes — "I know by looking, but 
 you must be content to measure until 
 your eye has got practised. Now, watch 
 me carefully while I measure — so " — she 
 took the fellow-glove from the counter and 
 measured it across Marie's knuckles — " and 
 so,'' as she tried it from the thumb-tip 
 to the point of the forefinger. '' Let 
 me see you do that," she said gravely. 
 
 Marie began to laugh ; she thought 
 such child's play as this could not have 
 an earnest meaning, but she measured 
 the glove very exactly, and, as Madame 
 Bobineau saw, with a simple grace of 
 manner that was very attractive. 
 
 "There is nothing to laugh about."
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 99 
 
 The old woman gave a dry cough. ^' In 
 business j^ou must smile and look pleasant, 
 but you must never laugh at a customer : 
 laughing \YOuld be quite out of place ; 
 it might give grave offence. I think I 
 have told you all that is necessary. You 
 have only to select, measure, and then 
 try on the gloves ; if they seem a little 
 small, here are stretchers and here is 
 powder.'^ She stopped and illustrated her 
 meaning with the help of one of the 
 spotted gloves. *' You are to do exactly 
 as you have seen me do — exactly," she 
 added severely, " let the customers be 
 whom they will ; and above all, make no 
 mistake in the price." 
 
 '' I am to do to strangers all those 
 things ? " Marie asked slowly, with a sur- 
 prised stare ; and then the absurdity over- 
 came her shyness, and she laughed out 
 again merrily. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 "Chut! be quiet," said Madame Bobineau. 
 " I tell you I cannot allow you to laugh 
 in the shop. See now. The best way 
 is for you to begin at once : go behind 
 the counter and fit me on this glove, or 
 take ofi* the one on your hand ; it will 
 go on mine easier." 
 
 Marie obeyed in silence ; but she found 
 that glove-fitting was not so easy as it 
 looked ; the colour flew into her face, 
 and she panted a good deal before she 
 succeeded in drawing the glove over 
 Madame's bony knuckles. 
 
 She was too rough here, or too gentle 
 there, and the old woman said : " You 
 must benrin all over ao^ain." 
 
 The third attempt was pronounced better, 
 and Marie hoped that her probation was 
 over, and that she should be allowed to 
 o^et cool agfain. 
 
 " Enough, enough, that will do now, here
 
 MADAME BOBINEATJ. 101 
 
 comes a customer," said Madame Bo- 
 bineau ; and she seated herself behind 
 the opposite counter. 
 
 The shop door opened slowly, and in 
 came a tall, gray-haired woman, with a 
 long, inquisitive nose, and lips that showed 
 her gums when she smiled. She w^as so 
 simply dressed that Marie thought she 
 could not possibly care about the fit of 
 her gloves. 
 
 " Good-day, neighbour," she said ; and 
 then she looked at Marie ; "I came to 
 tell you that there is a sale of needle- 
 work at Thun next week ; you might 
 pick up bargains there." As she spoke 
 she went close up to Madame Bobineau. 
 *•' You have got a new assistant, have 
 you not ? " she said, in a low voice. 
 
 Madame Bobineau shook her head. ^' I 
 have no money to buy bargains w^ith, 
 Madame Eiesen. I have to feed and
 
 102 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 clothe the fatherless." She turned up her 
 eyes, and drew down the corners of her 
 mouth. *' Yes," she went on, so that 
 Marie could hear, " that child is the orphan 
 daughter of my cousin Berthold Peyrolles, 
 and I am the only relative she has in the 
 world." 
 
 "And she has come to help you," said 
 Madame Eiesen. '* Ah ! I like to hear 
 that. It will be pleasant for you to have 
 something young about you ; " and Ma- 
 dame Eiesen giggled, and put up her 
 hand as if she thought the movement 
 would prevent Marie from hearing. '' She 
 is attractive, too, mon Dieu ! I should 
 think so. She will be a good show card 
 — ha ! ha ! neighbour." And taking away 
 her hand, she giggled unrestrainedly. 
 
 Madame Bobineau looked stolid. 
 
 "Come in and tell me about these 
 bargains," she said ; and she led the way
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 103 
 
 into her den. Then when the door was 
 shut, and she had tucked up the curtain 
 •over the little glass window that looked 
 into the shop, so that she might keep an 
 eye on Marie, she turned a wrathful face 
 on her visitor. *'For the love of Heaven, 
 neighbour," she said, in a low voice, " be 
 more careful. Is it not enough that the 
 child has a taking face and taking ways, 
 but you must needs come and put into 
 her head what will, I fear, be a burden 
 to me ? When I first saw her face I was 
 minded to send her back at once to her 
 convent ; and then " — she turned up her 
 eyes again — '' I felt that I had promised 
 to be as a mother to the orphan, and 
 that I could not go back from my word." 
 " Why should you, my friend ? " Madame 
 Eiesen patted her on the shoulder, but her 
 mischievous smile showed her gums almost 
 to the last tooth in her head. ^^She is
 
 104 AT TBE BED GLOVE. 
 
 pleasant-looking and attractive, but she 
 is not beautiful — not, for instance, like our 
 widow at the Beauregard — and nothing 
 can happen in the shop without your 
 knowledge." She gave a sly look at the 
 tucked-up curtain. "You have only to 
 keep her out of the way of your lodgers 
 — ah ! by the way, that may be less easy." 
 
 Madame Bobineau looked yellower than 
 ever. She always ranked her chattering 
 townswoman a fool, and to be instructed 
 by her was intolerable ; at the same time 
 the glover prided herself on giving oflfence 
 to no one. She pressed her colourless lips 
 still closer, and bent her head with a 
 reassuring smile. 
 
 " There is no fear on that score. I have 
 no room to give Marie in this house. 
 Captain Loigerot has both rooms on the 
 first floor. Monsieur Engemann has 
 the second floor front; the room behind
 
 MADAME BOBINEAm 105 
 
 that is not furnislied, and one of the upper 
 rooms I let to a student." 
 
 *' But you have a floor above that ? " 
 Madame Kiesen looked inquisitive. 
 
 ** That is not mine ; it belongs, with the 
 grenier over it, to my landlord. My stair- 
 case only goes to the third storey." 
 
 Madame Eiesen clapped her hands. 
 
 '^ Well, to be sure ! " — she gave a sigh of 
 relief. ''How often have I wondered and 
 asked Eiesen to tell me w^hat you could 
 possibly do wdth so large a house ! and I 
 knew that you had only three lodgers." 
 
 " How kind you are ! " Madame Bobi- 
 neau's smile was very grim. "I did not 
 flatter myself you thought so much about 
 me. Well, you know now, and you see 
 that I have not a room for Marie, even if 
 it were fitting to introduce a girl into a 
 house occupied by single men. I have 
 taken a lodging for her."
 
 106 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " Where is that ? " said Madame Eiesen. 
 
 '^Notfaroff." Madame Bobineau spoke 
 carelessly. There was no occasion to let 
 this inquisitive gossip know that she had 
 got a miserable garret room for Marie from 
 a poor man in a back street. She had lent 
 this man money at a high rate of interest, 
 and some of the loan remained unpaid ; 
 it had seemed to her a golden opportunity 
 to place her j^'^otegee without the need of 
 paying rent. 
 
 "That is thoughtful. Well, I hope all 
 will go right, and that you will be rewarded 
 for your generosity." Madame Eiesen felt 
 that she could ask no more questions. '* If 
 she does encourage young men," she said 
 laughing, '^you cannot find fault ; girls will 
 be girls. I wager that there will be a run 
 on the * Red Glove ' when it becomes known 
 that there is a very pretty girl behind the
 
 MADAME BOJBINEAU, 107 
 
 counter. I congratulate you, neighbour ; 
 but you'll have to keep a sharp eye on 
 the shop. Why^' — she gave a start as she 
 looked at the clock on a little marble shelf 
 on one side of the room — " mon Dieu ! 
 how late it is ! I must say good-day — but 
 perhaps your clock is fast " — she shook 
 hands — "I have heard Lorenz say that 
 you do not employ him to look after it, 
 you regulate it yourself." 
 
 " It keeps the time of the big clock on 
 the tower/' said Madame Bobineau — her 
 face still wore the same mask of indifference 
 — ^' and I believe Madame Carouge's clocks 
 keep that too." 
 
 Madame Riesen was on her way to the 
 door ; she stopped and turned round. 
 
 *' Ah ! that beautiful Madame Carouge, 
 is it not wonderful to see her taste ? 
 Before she came to the place, I have
 
 108 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 heard Lorenz say the hotel was a desert ; 
 and now when you go in there are flowers, 
 tropical plants, a fountain — ah ! one might 
 fixncy one's self in Paris." 
 
 ''Your husband is very fond of Paris, 
 I believe ; it reminds him of it, no doubt," 
 said the old woman dryly. 
 
 Madame Kiesen was quick at making 
 discoveries, but she was not sensitive. 
 
 "It gives me pleasure," she said, "even 
 to look at that beautiful woman ; and only 
 think, we are going to have her all to 
 ourselves on Sunday." 
 
 " AVhat is going to happen on Sunday ? " 
 said Madame Bobineau, taking a pinch of 
 snuff. 
 
 " We have asked Madame Carouge to 
 go with us to Thun. Lorenz says we shall 
 spend the afternoon on the lake. It will 
 be heavenly. Lorenz has asked some one 
 else — Monsieur Engemann, I fancy."
 
 MADAME BOBINEAU. 109 
 
 <t 
 
 Ah- 
 
 A checked inquiry shone for an instant 
 in the narrow eyes of Madame Bobineau. 
 
 " Yes " — her visitor gave her irritating 
 little giggle — " are they not a handsome 
 pair ? Made for one another, I say ; but 
 Lorenz thinks Monsieur Eudolf too young 
 for her ; he says our beautiful widow might 
 do better. He is as poor as a rat — a bank 
 clerk, you know." 
 
 "Your husband wishes, perhaps, that 
 madame should keep as she is." 
 
 This time Madame Kiesen did wince a 
 little at the dry voice of her neighbour. 
 She nodded and went out. 
 
 The old woman glanced like a spider 
 through her spy-hole ; then she smoothed 
 her apron with her withered hands. 
 
 "Chattering fool," she said. "You 
 came to pick up my secrets, but you 
 leave behind more than you take away,"
 
 110 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Madame Bobineau took a long pinch of 
 snuff, and nodded h^r head. " I had not 
 thought it had gone so far between the 
 widow and my lodger."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUREGARD. 
 
 "Now a widow, an' please your Honor, always 
 chooses a second husband as unlike the first as she 
 can." — Sterne. 
 
 Madame Carouge had been sitting still, 
 with an expectant look on her face^^for 
 more than half an hour. Occasionally 
 her eyes had turned from the clock on 
 the mantel- shelf to the large staircase. 
 She could see this between the fronds of 
 palms and ferns that almost hid the 
 glass front of her little room, and gave a 
 pleasant aspect to the inner hall of the 
 Hotel Beauregard.
 
 112 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 Madame Carouge's eyes were as hand- 
 some as ever, large and dark, with 
 drooping lashes ; the broad black eye- 
 brows might have been thought heavy 
 on any one else — on her ripe nectarine- 
 hued skin they were perfect; but, indeed, 
 when one had gazed fully at Madame 
 Carouge's faultless figure and superb face, 
 one only thought of her eyes and of her 
 lovely mouth, its upper lip like the 
 crumpled leaf of a damask rose. Perhaps 
 the admiration she invariably created 
 could hardly bear to dwell on detail ; one 
 brought away from her a vision of jewel- 
 like brilliance and velvet softness. She 
 moved with perfect grace, but she looked 
 perhaps a little proud ; yet in a woman 
 whose head was so divinely placed, and 
 who walked as if the world belouo^ed to 
 her, one expected a little extra dignity. 
 And then the quiet mystery in which she
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGABD. 113 
 
 had lived — for, as we know, Monsieur 
 Carouge, till he died, had kept her in 
 his country villa beyond the Enge — had 
 doubtless increased the reserve that now 
 characterised her. 
 
 Carouge had been dead more than two 
 years, and yet the beautiful widow was 
 little known in Berne. Thouo^h she had 
 spent a month in Paris each winter, 
 she did not seem to have picked up 
 acquaintances there. She kept herself 
 apart, and had little intercourse with her 
 customers ; they did their business with 
 the head waiter, Moritz, the man with 
 sunken cheeks and a hectic colour, who 
 presided over the bureau on the right of 
 the door as you entered. 
 
 Madame Carouge's room was ftirther 
 on, on the same side, and communicated 
 by a door with the bureau aforesaid, but 
 it had its special entrance round the 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 AT THE BED QLOVE. 
 
 corner, so as to face both the staircase 
 leading to the saUe-d-manger, up-stairs, and 
 the inner hall, which looked very pleasant 
 on this warm evening, with its tiny foun- 
 tain screened by the surrounding foliage. 
 
 A slight frown drew the heavy eye- 
 brows together, and Madame Carouge's 
 beautiful bosom rose and fell with im- 
 patience. Next moment she smiled, and 
 her smile was what Monsieur Eiesen, the 
 clock- maker in the corn market, called 
 "adorable;" then one saw how sweet 
 her eyes were, and how exquisite the 
 curves of her perfect lips. 
 
 Presently she rose up and shook out 
 the folds of her trailing black silk gown 
 as she moved like a queen to a bird- 
 cage hanging against the glass front of 
 the little room. 
 
 " Cheri 1 " she said, and placing a bit 
 of sugar between her full red lips, she
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGABD. 115 
 
 ofifered it to the little golden bird in the 
 cage. As she bent her head you saw 
 how round and firm was her throat in 
 the ruff of black lace that set off its rich 
 brown tint. You felt instinctively how 
 warm a tide flowed beneath this golden 
 brown skin, and just now, as a tread 
 sounded on the stairs, it revealed itself 
 in the flush on her cheek and the added 
 glow in her dark eyes. The look in her 
 eyes this evening had never been seen 
 there in those long years of existence in 
 the little villa beyond the Enge. 
 
 Cheri took the sugar, but his mistress's 
 lips lingered beside the wires. Could she 
 be trying to hide the blush which she 
 felt on her cheeks ? 
 
 Her lips parted while she listened — 
 some one was coming down the stairs. 
 
 The steps came down as far as the mat at 
 
 the foot of the stairs. In the pause that 
 
 I 2
 
 IIG AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 followed, her heart throbbed so strongly 
 that instinctively, and as it were to calm 
 it, she put one hand on her bosom — 
 not a small hand, but one proportioned 
 to her tall, well-developed figure, with 
 round, long, tapering fingers, a lovely 
 dimple at the root of each. As the fellow- 
 hand hung down beside her, it showed 
 a rosy-cushioned palm that would have 
 gladdened the eyes of a hand-reader. 
 This hand contracted nervously as the 
 steps moved on, not down the passage to 
 the street, but leftward to her room. And 
 now she could sec between the palm 
 leaves the tall figure of Monsieur Rudolf 
 Engemann. In another moment he was 
 at her door, which stood open ; but he 
 did not come in. 
 
 " Good evening, madame," he said. 
 ** What delightful weather, is it not ? " 
 
 The smile of Madame Carouge was
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGABD. 117 
 
 beautiful at that moment. She looked 
 radiant with happiness ; and as she fixed 
 her eyes on the young man, he thought 
 he had never seen so handsome and 
 attractive a woman. 
 
 ^' Will you not come in ? " she said. 
 
 The tall, broad-shouldered young Swiss 
 bent his fair head, and came into the 
 pretty little room. 
 
 He was evidently not a stranger there, 
 for he walked up at once to the bird- 
 cao;e hans^ino^ amonoj some ferns and 
 
 o o o o 
 
 flowers. ^ 
 
 "How are you to-day, my friend Cheri, 
 eh ? " he said. 
 
 The bird put his head on one side and 
 looked inquisitively out of his sharp black 
 eyes at the friendly blue ones bent on him. 
 ''Aha, my friend," said Monsieur Eudolf, 
 "I often hear you as I go up-staii\s ; you 
 let us all know that you can sing."
 
 118 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 All this while madame's eyes had been 
 fixed on him, and now as he suddenly 
 looked up, she did not turn away. 
 
 *' Can you really hear him ? " she smiled 
 up at Ler tall visitor. " I have to give 
 you a message, monsieur," she said. 
 
 He Lent his head ; he wondered, while 
 he listened to her pleasant voice, mellow 
 as her complexion, if any woman ever 
 stood so gracefully before. Her exquisite 
 figure, spite of its rich ^vomanly develop- 
 ment, was full of the lonfj curvinoj lines 
 that so rejoice an artist. But then 
 everything was harmonious with Madame 
 Carouge, from the soft grace of her move- 
 ments to the downward sweep of her long 
 eyelashes, as she began to speak. 
 
 " Monsieur Eiesen, our good neighbour 
 — I think you know Monsieur Eiesen " 
 (the young Swiss nodded) — " has asked 
 me to go with him and his wife to spend
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGAED. 119 
 
 a Sunday at Thim. We are, I beKeve, to 
 spend most of our time on the lake. He 
 says the boat will hold four. Will you 
 condescend to be of the party ? " 
 
 She raised her eyes, and as she met 
 Monsieur Rudolfs admiiing gaze, she 
 blushed ever so little. 
 
 " Thank you so very much, madame ! " 
 he said impulsively. '* I know I owe this 
 invitation to your kindness." 
 
 Madame Carouge looked unmoved. *'Ah, 
 no, monsieur," she smiled ; "I deserve no 
 more thanks than the postman who brings 
 you a letter. I have only given you a 
 message from Monsieur Eiesen. He will 
 be so pleased if I may say that you 
 accept for next Sunday." 
 
 " I have much pleasure in accepting 
 such a kind offer," he said ; and then he 
 saw Moritz, the waiter, at the door, and 
 there seemed no excuse for ling;erino^.
 
 120 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " Au rcvoir, madame.'^ He bowed, and 
 was going. 
 
 *' You can come to me presently," 
 Madame Carouge said to Moritz. Then 
 to Engemann : *'We have not fixed any 
 time, monsieur ; that, I believe. Monsieur 
 Kiesen will decide. I think, however, we 
 are to start soon after noon, but whenever 
 we go. Monsieur and Madame Eiesen are 
 to breakfast with me, and if you will do 
 me that honour " 
 
 She paused ; her timid, uncertain manner 
 made a curious contrast with her attitude, 
 full of dignity and repose. 
 
 Engemann bowed low. '' You are very 
 kind," he said. ** It will give me much 
 pleasure to join you at breakfast. I 
 suppose Thun is an old story to you." 
 
 " I have been there " — she looked grave 
 — "but I have not been on the lake. I 
 have never in my life had that pleasure."
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUREGABJD. 121 
 
 It seemed to Monsieur Engemann, as he 
 watched her animated face, that some- 
 thing very like a tear glistened in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Your presence," he said, in a low 
 voice, " will give the day a charm it 
 could not otherwise possess." A sudden 
 kindling in her eyes made him remember 
 that Moritz was waiting to see his mistress. 
 " But I must not detain you," he said. 
 
 The change in his tone seemed to rouse 
 Madame Carouge out of a dream. She had 
 leaned forward a little, while her eyes and 
 her sKghtly parted lips had been drinking 
 in the expression that had gone with his 
 words. Now she stood erect, and her 
 bow, as she said *' Good eveninof," mi^ht 
 have been addressed to any ordinary visitor. 
 
 Monsieur Engemann went past the 
 bower of leaves that circled the fountain, 
 and tlien along the passage that led to the
 
 122 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 entrance. Here he saw Moritz, the waiter, 
 standing with his head bent on one side, 
 listening with deep attention and hardly- 
 concealed amusement ; the short, burly 
 figure of Captain Loigerot stood on the 
 mat, talking to him with much emphasis 
 and gesture. 
 
 " You must really look to it, Moritz," 
 the captain was saying. " When I wish 
 to give a friend a bottle of Liebfrau- 
 milch, I mean to have it ; it will not do 
 to give me Diedesheimer, and to charge 
 me twice its value." 
 
 " Moritz," said Monsieur Engemann, 
 ''Madame Carouge is w\aiting for you." 
 
 The waiter bowed his thanks to the 
 right, and his excuses to the left. 
 
 " Pardon me, monsieur," he said ; '*! am 
 very sorry, I do not know how it can have 
 happened, — it shall be seen to ; " and he 
 hurried back to the glass-fronted parlour.
 
 AT THE HOTEL JBEAUBEGABD. 123 
 
 Captain Loigerot's voice had been de- 
 cided, and his gesture earnest ; but when 
 Engemann looked at his fleshy, high- 
 coloured face he saw a smile on it of the 
 most placid kind. This expression broad- 
 ened into actual pleasure at the sight of 
 Eudolf Ensjemann. 
 
 '^ The very man I wanted to see. Let us 
 walk home together," he said, *' if you are 
 going that way ; if not, I will go yours." 
 
 " I am goiug home," Eudolf said, but 
 he did not seem delighted at the pros- 
 pect of a companion. Just then he 
 wanted solitude, he wanted to think only 
 of Madame Carouge's eyes, and of all 
 that they had been telling him. 
 
 All ! As he walked on in sileuce by the 
 side of his short, round-faced companion, 
 who rolled along the street like a plaster 
 mandarin, Eudolf Engemann began to 
 feel that there was something he did not
 
 124 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 understand in the glances of the beau- 
 tiful widow — beautiful was a poor w^ord 
 for her seductive charm. Did she look 
 at others in the same w^ay ? . . . It was 
 wonderful that such a woman could care 
 for his friendship. ... He felt unusual 
 impatience to see her again. It seemed to 
 him that he had not thanked her nearly 
 enough for her goodness — well, he would 
 mend that fault to-morrow. 
 
 " Eh, don't you think so, my friend ? '* 
 the captain was saying. 
 
 *' I beg your pardon." 
 
 Engemann looked round ; he felt as if 
 he had waked up from a glowing dream. 
 On each side of the street were tall houses, 
 arcaded along the lower storeys, and he 
 and the captain were just passing the 
 quaint Clock Tower, which, wdth its 
 pointed red-tiled cap and little magical 
 figures, seemed like an old necromancer
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGABB. 125 
 
 presiding over the destiny of the city. 
 Eight o'clock was just going to strike, 
 and a group of people stood open-mouthed, 
 watching to see the little l3ears come out, and 
 the toy Duke of Zahringen strike the hour. 
 
 The ex-captain's eyes twinkled with 
 mischief. 
 
 " I was saying how handsome our 
 hostess is. You are a lucky young fellow, 
 Engemann, if I may say so.'' 
 
 Kudolf laughed uneasily. 
 
 " You can say what you please, my 
 good friend. Madame Carouge is not an 
 acquaintance of yesterday. I have been 
 boarding at the Beauregard for some 
 months past." 
 
 Again the stout man's eyes twinkled, 
 and he twirled his moustache as if he 
 thought by that means to hide a smile. 
 
 " What a thing it is to be young " — 
 he broke into a hearty laugh — " and " —
 
 126 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 he recovered himself and looked admir- 
 ingly at Eudolf — " and other things ! / 
 have been en loension at the Beauregard 
 for about two years ; I was a friend of 
 our fair hostess's husband, and yet she 
 rarely gives me a crumb of notice, or a 
 chance of looking at her — eh — eh " — 
 here he winked, and Rudolf felt irritable 
 asfain. " / never receive a messao-e durinoj 
 dinner to say that Madame wishes to see 
 
 me in her bureau as soon as I have dined. 
 
 Ah ! you are indeed a lucky fellow." 
 For a minute or two Eudolf looked 
 
 annoyed ; then he too laughed. 
 
 ** You do me much honour, captain. 
 .Madame Carou^je had a messaoje for me 
 
 from Monsieur Eiesen, the clock-maker. 
 
 He is always telling me I want change, 
 
 and he offers me a place in his boat the 
 
 next time he goes to Thun — that is all." 
 " All ! ' that is all ' ! " the captain laughed 
 
 till he actually rolled, as he walked, from
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGARD. 127 
 
 one side of the pavement to the other ; then 
 he took out a hugre red silk handkerchief 
 and wiped his eyes. " I ask pardon," he 
 said. " I had thought you were — what 
 shall I say ? too young to see your way ? — 
 in short, that you might stand in the way 
 of your own good fortune by not iDeing 
 aware of your advantages. I see I was 
 mistaken." 
 
 He nodded with a very satisfied and 
 sisfnificant look, and walked on in silence. 
 
 Engemann felt nettled, but he was 
 puzzled how to answer. He could not 
 deny his admiration for Madame Carouge, 
 and yet, if he confessed it, there was no 
 knowing what use the captain might make 
 of his avowal. Perhaps he had been 
 too shy with her, had not gone to see her 
 as often as he might have done, and yet he 
 did not feel he was to blame ; he shrank 
 from being hurried into words which would 
 pledge him to anything definite.
 
 128 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 The two men had been walking for the 
 last few minutes in the middle of the street, 
 for it had grown dark under the arcades, 
 except where a shop w\as brightly lighted ; 
 now they passed a gray-green fountain ; 
 upon it was the coloured figure of a 
 knight with his lance, standing on a 
 fluted column. 
 
 Suddenly the captain broke out with : 
 '^ Engemann, near the station this morning 
 I saw such a pretty girl ; she was clearly 
 a stranger in Berne." 
 
 " Ah," said Engemann, without interest. 
 He had not much opinion of the captain's 
 taste in beauty. 
 
 Loig:erot had decided not to tell Enoje- 
 mann, or any of the Bernese young fellows 
 who frequented the Hotel Beauregard, of his 
 adventure with the girl ; but after what 
 he had seen to-day, with regard to Madame 
 Carouge and the young Swiss, he felt there
 
 AT THE HOTEL BEAUBEGAED. 129 
 
 could be no risk in telling him. There 
 were two things absolutely necessary to 
 Captain Loigerot's happiness : lie must 
 have a companion, and if he had anythiug 
 to tell, he must have a confidant. 
 
 They were now close to the Stork 
 fountain, behind which, in the gloom 
 cast by the arcade, hung the huge Red 
 Glove over Madame Bobineau's shop. The 
 Glove seemed to glower portentously in 
 the dim lisjlit. 
 
 One of the shop window^s w^as already 
 cleared ; the other still showed embroidered 
 handkerchiefs, lace ties, and other colifichets. 
 As the two men stopped opposite the house, 
 the shop door opened, and a couple of 
 women came out into the gloom. One 
 of them — unmistakably Madame Bobineau 
 — closed the door behiud her, and the cap- 
 tain and his companion stared curiously at 
 the girl left standing under the arcade. She 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 looked a tall, well-made young woman ; 
 her fixce could not be distinguished. In 
 an instant the old glover joined her, and 
 they passed together out of sight. 
 
 "Who the devil has old Bobineau got 
 with her ? Is she a new shop-girl ? " 
 said Loigerot. "I could make out she 
 is young, with a good face and figure." 
 
 Engemann laughed. 
 
 "Come, come, my friend, you are 
 drawing on fancy. I saw a passable 
 figure. I could make out nothing else." 
 
 The captain gave his companion a dig 
 in the ribs. 
 
 " That, for your making out, young man ! 
 Would you pit a civilian's eyes against a 
 soldier's where a woman is concerned ? I tell 
 
 you that is a handsome girl, and " He 
 
 checked himself, for Engemann, surprised 
 by his excitement, was looking at him with 
 an amused smile. "Never mind," said
 
 AT TEE HOTEL BEAUBEGABD. 131 
 
 Loigerot quickly ; '* I will ask old Bobineau 
 all about it when she comes back." 
 
 " Good-night," said the younger man. 
 *^I have work to do to-night." 
 
 He nodded, and going to the private 
 door of the Ked Glove, he let himself in. 
 
 K 2
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEROT INDULGES HIS CURIOSITY. 
 
 " We live in a world beset on all sides with mysteries 
 and riddles." — Sterne. 
 
 Captain Loigerot — he jealously clung to 
 his title — lit a fresh cigar; and then he 
 walked resolutely up and down between 
 the corner house and the first break which 
 came among the shops beneath the arches. 
 Every now and then on the stone but- 
 tresses which divided one house from the 
 other, and helped to support the arcade, 
 a name was painted in large black letters. 
 On the stone pier beside the glover's shop 
 appeared the inscription: ^'La Veuve
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEROT'S CURIOSITY. 133 
 
 Bobineau. Gants de Paris et de Neuf- 
 chatel, Broderies, etc. ; " and beneath was 
 painted a huge red hand, nearly as large 
 as that which hung in front of the 
 shop. 
 
 " Gloves ! " The captain looked medita- 
 tively at his thick bronzed hands. '' It 
 makes little difference to me whether the 
 shop-girl is pretty or ugly ; but still it 
 would be refreshing to know that there 
 was something younger in the house than 
 the shrivelled old Bobineau and the hideous 
 witch she employs. The girl may be a 
 grand-daughter." 
 
 He took another turn, and reflected that 
 last time Lenoir, the hair-dresser, had 
 shaved him, he had said that Madame 
 Bobineau had never had a child. Some one 
 else had told the captain that Bobineau him- 
 self was a fiction, but Lenoir said this was 
 not true ; he and Madame Bobineau had both
 
 134 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 come from Bale, and he had seen Bobiueau 
 in his youth. The glover had been, as- 
 has been said, a miser, and it was to free 
 herself from her husband's grasping rela- 
 tives that Madame Bobineau had followed 
 Lenoir's advice, when he wrote from Berne 
 and told her of a good business for sale 
 in the Spitalgasse. 
 
 "But I certainly heard that the old 
 woman was wanting help in the shop," 
 Loigerot said to] himself. *' She shall tell 
 me all about it, and whether the girl came 
 this forenoon, because " — he laid his finger 
 on his nose — *'the two facts fit. They 
 jump to one conclusion. If it should be 
 as I hope — ma foi ! " 
 
 His face broadened into a beaming 
 smile, and he rubbed his hands together 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 It has been said that the ex-captain was 
 forty-five. When he first came to Berne
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEBOT'S CURIOSITY. 135 
 
 he was charmed with his well-furnished 
 first floor at the sign of the Red Glove, 
 and with the way in which his meals were 
 served at the Hotel Beauregard, but of 
 late he had found life a little dull. He 
 had been a good soldier and he had liked 
 active service ; but he had risen from the 
 ranks, he was uncultivated, and he shrank 
 from society. It was this awkwardness 
 that had kept him so long a distant 
 admirer of his beautiful hostess ; she had 
 seemed to him a superior being. Now he 
 bes^an to blame himself for this reticence. 
 
 "But where would have been the use, 
 my friend Achille ? " he said. '^ You are not 
 blind, and you are susceptible ; you would 
 only have destroyed your peace, she is be- 
 yond you : moths that fly too near a light 
 end by singeing more than their wings ; but 
 the lis^ht burns on and cheers some one else — 
 not a whit the worse for the poor moth
 
 136 AT TEE RED GLOVE, 
 
 it has shrivelled out of life. No, the 
 widow would never have looked at me ; 
 but Engemann is another affair. If I were 
 he, I would go in and win." 
 
 He snapped his fingers as he reached 
 for the third time the turning down which 
 Madame Bobiueau and her protegee had 
 disappeared. 
 
 ** If I were a young man," he went on, 
 ^' I conld not shilly-shally over her as Enge- 
 mann does. I have certainly not seen them 
 together lately ; but it strikes me he has 
 only got to propose for the widow, and she 
 will accept him. She is constantly sending 
 him a message about something or other ; 
 and then I meet him coming out of that 
 parlour of hers looking as pleased as if 
 he had been made a general; if he is 
 spoken to, he has to wake up out of a 
 dream, as he did just now. Ma foi," 
 said the honest captain, ''have I not
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEEOT'S CURIOSITY, 137 
 
 gone through it over and over again in 
 my time \Yith the young sub-lieutenants ? 
 — poor young fools, how shy some of 
 them are, as if the women are not always 
 dying to listen to them, when they are 
 young and handsome. Ah ! if the young 
 fellows only knew their power." 
 
 He sighed. Presently turning sharply 
 round he found himself face to face with 
 his landlady. 
 
 Madame Bobineau gave an obsequious 
 courtesy, and the captain bowed as if she 
 were Madame Carouore herself. Thousrh 
 
 o o 
 
 he had no advantages in the way of 
 breedinor Monsieur Loig^erot had a natural 
 deference for women even when they were 
 old and ugly. 
 
 ** You are out late, madame," he said. 
 
 "Yes, yes, monsieur, it is late." She 
 was hurrying on ; but he placed himself 
 beside her, and suited his pace to hers.
 
 138 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 "You have had an arrival to-day, 
 madame." 
 
 The captain spoke boldly and pom- 
 pously ; shy as he was with women in 
 general, he was not one bit afraid of old 
 Bobineau in the gloom of the arcade. 
 
 She started with surprise, but then she 
 remembered gossiping Madame Kiesen, 
 and she cursed her indiscretion. 
 
 ''Yes, monsieur." 
 
 " The young lady is your niece, perhaps. 
 Ah ! I congratulate you, madame, on so 
 charming a relative. It was perhaps she 
 whom I had the honour of directing to 
 your house this morning when I met her 
 outside the station ? " 
 
 Madame Bobineau was taken aback, she 
 hesitated how she should answer. She in- 
 tended Marie to be considered as her shop- 
 girl ; but as she felt sure that the captain 
 would speak of his meeting with the girl to
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEEOT'S CURIOSITY. 139 
 
 others, it miglit save trouble in some ways 
 if she let him know that Marie belonged 
 to her. 
 
 "Monsieur is very kind," she said 
 deprecatingly, "but I think he mistakes. 
 My cousin is not a young lady — only 
 an overgrown child, fresh from her 
 convent." 
 
 "Fresh — exactly," said the captain; "I 
 have then had the pleasure of seeing her 
 this morning. She is fresh and as dainty 
 as a blossom of edelweiss. You will have 
 to take great care of her, madam e, in 
 this town and in this bustling time of 
 year ; those tourists are insufferable some- 
 times in their behaviour to young and 
 pretty women." 
 
 "Yes, yes, monsieur; I will be careful." 
 
 "You see, you have also — two young 
 men — in the house," Loigerot went on, 
 pausing between his words. "You must
 
 140 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 pardon me, maclame, eh ! " he half closed 
 his eyes and looked significant. 
 
 Madame Bobineau felt irritable. 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, but my cousin will 
 only be in the shop, not in the house, 
 and she will have plenty to do ; she will 
 not have time to think of young men." 
 
 " It is not that, madame ; " he looked at 
 her with compassion for her dulness. *' It is, 
 I mean, the young men who think of the 
 young girls quite as much as — as — the other 
 thing. But," he cleared his throat, "for 
 that matter " — the captain was talking to 
 himself as much as to Madame Bobineau — 
 " so ftir as regards Monsieur Enofemann 
 (this is between ourselves, madame, you 
 understand), I think you will soon have to 
 seek a new inmate for your second floor." 
 
 He winked and nodded, but thouofh 
 Madame Bobineau could not see his face 
 in the darkness, she was sharp enough to
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEBOT'S CURIOSITY, 141 
 
 understand, and she was troubled. This 
 was the second warning about Monsieur 
 Engemann and the landlady of the 
 Beauregard that had fallen on her 
 ears to-day, and the change suggested, 
 meant to her more than the loss of a 
 quiet, regular lodger. 
 
 Would Madame Carouge, who, in her 
 desolate, widowed state, had shown herself 
 so full of sympathy for other widows — 
 would she, Bobineau asked herself, be 
 as generous when she became a remarried 
 woman ? 
 
 The shrewd old glover guessed that 
 a large part of the beautiful landlady's 
 kindness to her arose from her connec- 
 tion with Kudolf Engemann ; he often 
 brought her a note or a message from 
 Madame Carouge, and sometimes he was 
 the bearer of a reply. Madame Bobineau 
 had felt no appetite for the viands she
 
 U2 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 had set before Marie, but, for all that, she 
 could eat greedily in private, and many 
 a dainty dish was smuggled home when 
 she had called, by madame's request, at 
 the hotel, on her way from mass. Already 
 she felt robbed in the prospect of such 
 a marriage, and yet she was bound not 
 to thwart it, lest Madame Carouge should 
 find her out. 
 
 She looked stolid as she answered : 
 ''Monsieur Engemann has said nothing 
 to me about leaving the Eed Glove, and 
 he would surely give me notice of his 
 intentions if he meant to leave me." 
 
 " Ah, my good friend," the captain said 
 gaily, ''you forget the old song." He 
 bee^an to whistle : 
 
 'tj' 
 
 " Oh, c'est Tamour, ramour, Famour ! " 
 
 "Love, you know, is apt to affect the 
 memory."
 
 CAPTAIN LOIGEBOT'S CTTBIOSITY. 143 
 
 '* So ! " she exclaimed. " Does Monsieur 
 Engemann think of marrying ? Is that 
 your meaning, monsieur ? " 
 
 They had reached the Red Glove, and 
 Madame Bobineau was watching her oppor- 
 tunity to slip away. 
 
 But Loigerot put his hand on her arm. 
 "You forget," he said; "it is not so long 
 ago that you agreed with me that Enge- 
 mann and our fair widow would make a 
 fine couple." 
 
 " But then," she said sweetly, " I could 
 have said that of monsieur himself in 
 reorard to Madame Carouoje." 
 
 Loigerot reddened, and poised himself first 
 on one foot, then on the other. He was not 
 much accustomed to personal compliments, 
 and the old woman's words excited him. 
 
 " Well," he said, " the truth is that our 
 friend Engemann is in love with the beauty, 
 and I fancy she favours him."
 
 144 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 "Mon Dieul" Madame Bobineau folded 
 her hands and turned up her eyes — she 
 had a way of doing this before uttering a 
 virtuous sentiment ; the action seemed to 
 help out her words — " can it be possible 
 that so honourable a gentleman as Mon- 
 sieur Engemann, who is as yet but a clerk 
 in the bank, can think of offering himself 
 to a woman of fortune ; for, monsieur, by 
 your leave, it is, I fancy, not only the 
 beauty of Madame Carouge that makes 
 marriage with her desirable, is it ? " 
 
 This shaft told ; the captain stood silent 
 and open-mouthed, his feet wide apart, 
 plunged in a deep reverie. 
 
 " Good-night, monsieur ; '' and Bobineau 
 disappeared through her doorway. 
 
 *' Great heavens ! " — the captain slapped 
 his thigh — ''Achille Loigerot, you have 
 indeed been a blind mole. An old tooth- 
 less woman has discerned what has beeii
 
 CAFTAIN LOIGEEOT'S CURIOSITY. 145 
 
 for so long a puzzle to you ! Bobineau 
 is right ; there is the key to the mystery ; 
 Engemann is in love, but he is too proud 
 to propose to a rich woman, and the pair 
 will go on pining for one another. Well, 
 I am not handsome or clever, perhaps, but " 
 — he put his finger to his nose — *'it is 
 yet possible I may be able to help these 
 lovers to an understanding. Ha ! ha ! — a 
 hint to one or the other may smooth 
 matters. Yes, I will manage to give a 
 hint. I like to see people happy." 
 
 He took his cigar from his lips to enjoy 
 a laugh, and then walked on to the point 
 at the corner of the Spitalgasse where he 
 had met Marie. He stood there thinking 
 how charming the girl was. He sighed ; 
 he certainly had let her slip through his 
 fingers ; but now he knew where to find 
 her, aha ! Then, turning back, he went 
 Lome and to bed. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Marie's lodging. 
 
 " I own my first sensations as soon as I was left 
 solitary in my own chamber were far from being 
 flatterinf?." — Stbrne. 
 
 'o* 
 
 Marie groped her way up the narrow, 
 uneven staircase of her lodginor. In front 
 of her, leading the way, was the man who 
 had opened the door, and she knew that 
 the woman who had stood beside him was 
 behind her. She felt like a captive 
 between these two dirty jailers, w^ho, in 
 the dim light, had looked to her like some 
 of the beojffars who came to ask alms at 
 the gate of her convent home. She could
 
 MARIE'S LODGING. 147 
 
 not see anything as she went upstairs except 
 a glimpse of the man's dirty neck showing 
 above a greasy brown coat, the dark walls 
 absorbed all the light of the little hand- 
 lamp that he carried ; the smell of the 
 oil was intolerable. 
 
 "Take care, mademoiselle, at the top," 
 a hoarse voice said behind her ; " the 
 railing is broken away." 
 
 Marie had just reached the landing, 
 and she saw, as the man turned to open 
 a door, that there was nothing to prevent 
 any one from slipping down- stairs from 
 the narrow ledge outside the room into 
 which he had carried his unsavoury lamp. 
 She felt anxious to get rid of the sickening 
 smell, and so intent was she in feeling in 
 the basket that she carried for the candle 
 and matches provided by Madame Bobi- 
 neau, that though she saw a bare, comfort- 
 less chamber, she did not notice anything in 
 
 L 2
 
 148 AT THE llEB GLOVE. 
 
 detail. She found the matches, and hastily 
 struck a light. 
 
 " I will not take your lamp, thank you," 
 she said to the man. " Good-night." 
 
 The door closed on her squalid hosts, 
 and then, as the candle flickered into 
 stronger lis^ht, Marie looked round her. 
 The flame led her eyes to a black zigzag 
 line above it — a crack in the wall, which 
 a little way higher yawned into a hole. 
 The wall was so dirty and loathsome in 
 aspect that it seemed to the girl as if some 
 fever or disease lurked there, and that the 
 discoloured blisters she saw upon it were 
 the outbreak of this. 
 
 She snatched up the candle, and looked 
 all round. Madame Bobineau had said 
 that she had sent bed-coverings, and Marie 
 saw that these lay in a corner near 
 the dingy bed. There was a rickety table 
 against the wall, with a jug and basin,
 
 MARIE'S LODGING. 149 
 
 and over it was a little cracked mirror 
 ia a tarnished frame ; close to her was a 
 wooden chair. Setting down the candle, 
 she sank into the chair in a sudden burst 
 of tears. 
 
 " It is cruel, it is wicked, to send me 
 to a place like this. Oh, what shall I 
 do ? " Then pulling her skirt angrily 
 away from the dirty floor, she sobbed 
 out her grief and indignation. " What 
 shall I do — oh, what shall I do ? " 
 
 For the first time in her life, there was 
 no one to whom Marie could go for com- 
 fort, and this was much worse to her than 
 the dirt and the discomfort. 
 
 Since her mother's death she had lived 
 in long whitewashed rooms with bare 
 floors, and certainly the plainest of need- 
 ful furnishings ; she had never known 
 luxury at the convent of St. Esprit in 
 her surroundings or her food ; but in
 
 150 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 spite of the plainness and of the frugal 
 fare, the cleanliness and order of the 
 place had been dainty, and Marie had 
 there enjoyed the greatest of luxuries — 
 love. 
 
 The other girls brought up among these 
 kind, simple sisters had homes to go to 
 in holiday-time, but Marie Peyrolles had 
 come to the convent a bright orphan 
 child of twelve years old, and had stayed 
 there ever since her first arrival. 
 
 Her godmother had loved Marie's 
 mother, and had promised her, when she 
 died, to take care of her child ; but this 
 benevolent woman was soon taken aw^iy 
 from her charge, not, however, before 
 she had bequeathed a sum of money to 
 the convent to provide for her little Marie 
 till she was sixteen years old. Then the 
 girl was cither to become a sister or to 
 earn a living by teachiug. 
 
 But Marie at sixteen was still ^o very
 
 MAEIE'S LODGING. 151 
 
 cbildish, and the sisters loved her so 
 dearly, that they had no desire to give 
 her up. In holiday-time she was their 
 pet, she was so sweet and bright ; her 
 very sauciness gave a charming variety 
 to the quiet, uniform life they led ; but 
 although she loved them in return, she 
 expressed no wish to adopt their life. 
 
 At eighteen the girl became restless 
 and dissatisfied. She did not wish to 
 become a sister, and, indeed, not one of 
 the gentle community sought to point out 
 such a life for her ; but she had at last 
 begun to think, and when she saw how 
 many claims the convent had to meet, 
 and how in the long snowy winters, poor 
 as the sisters were, they fed and clothed 
 their yet poorer neighbours, she revolted 
 against her own idle life, and one day 
 she begged the superior to write to her 
 father's old cousin, and ask her -to find 
 work for her to do.
 
 152 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 '* You know, mother," she said, *' I 
 could never gain my living by teaching. 
 Sister Josepha has given me up ; she 
 says the children will not mind me ; they 
 only laugh. But I am strong, and I can 
 work, and I think I ought to earn my 
 living. I need not be the burden to my 
 cousin that I am to you and the dear 
 sisters." 
 
 At first the superior refused to listen 
 to her, and Marie had to withdraw her 
 petition ; but she confided her wishes to 
 the sisters, and little by little a feeling 
 grew up in the convent that Marie 
 Peyrolles wanted to leave it. 
 
 Perhaps she did. She loved her kind 
 friends as dearly as ever, but something, 
 a vague restlessness that as yet took no 
 shape, began to trouble the young girl's 
 dreams at night and her waking thoughts 
 by day.
 
 M ABIE'S LOBGma. 153 
 
 Often when she roused from her day- 
 dreams she found she had been wondering 
 what Berne was like, wondering, too, about 
 the glover's shop in the Spitalgasse, and 
 about the unknown cousin who sent her 
 every New Year's day a box of sweetmeats. 
 
 And then the next time she asked to 
 go away from the convent the superior 
 told her that she had written to Madame 
 Bobineau, and she was expecting a reply 
 to her letter. 
 
 For an instant a chill fell on Marie ; 
 but there quickly followed such a throng- 
 ing in of fluttering hopes and shy expec- 
 tation that she felt scarcely able to eat 
 or drink, or to fix her attention on any- 
 thing. One morning, soon after, she was 
 summoned to the superior's room to hear 
 her fate. 
 
 This had happened so few days ago 
 that it appeared to her like a dream.
 
 154 AT THE TxEB GLOVE, 
 
 Only, out of the excited feelings which 
 made this episode seem so unreal, there 
 stood out in her memory the superior's 
 last words — a little sermon Marie had then 
 called it, tender wisdom she now felt it 
 to be — and her tears began to flow again 
 as she repeated the words to herself. 
 
 " We grieve to lose you, my child, 
 because we love you. I hope you will 
 meet with love in your new home ; but, 
 Marie, you must try to love those with 
 whom you have to live ; it is not always 
 easy, for love, to be perfect, demands all 
 the powers of the souL" Marie remem- 
 bered that she had looked up question- 
 ingly at this, and the mother had added: 
 " Yes, my child, love to God does not 
 interfere with, though it purifies and 
 elevates earthly love, to which it sets a 
 pattern. As you shrink from all that would 
 pain those you love, and strive by word,
 
 MARIE'S LODGING. 155 
 
 look, and action to give happiness to 
 others, you will be helped by love to 
 grow careful about your faults. You must 
 love something, Marie, and love of those 
 we live with keeps the door of our hearts 
 shut against the love of money and the 
 love of self." 
 
 " It is beautiful advice," poor Marie sobbed. 
 "It is just like them all. How could one 
 help loving them ? Ah ! the very sight 
 of them helped me to be good; but how can 
 I love Madame Bobineau when she puts 
 me in a place like this ? " she said, with 
 an angry shiver of disgust, as she looked 
 at the dirty floor. '* I cannot love her, 
 and I will not," she went on ; " she ought 
 to lodge me in her own house — she is hor- 
 ribly unkind. The mother could not know 
 that I was going to be lodged in a dirty 
 garret, or she would not have sent me. I 
 am sure of it. I have a great mind to go
 
 156 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 back to Lucerne to-morrow. Ah ! if I had 
 not been a monster of ino^ratitude, I should 
 never have left St. Esprit." 
 
 And then she cried again bitterly. It 
 seemed to her that she was justly punished. 
 If she had never asked to leave, the sisters 
 would never have sent her away, and she 
 mio^ht have worked harder for them if she 
 had tried. It was her own fault : she had 
 wanted to see what the outside world was 
 like, and she had got her wish. If people 
 in the world were all like Madame Bobi- 
 neau, then indeed the convent was the 
 happiest place to stay in. 
 
 It had grown late while she sat thinking 
 and crying, and at last, worn out and un- 
 happy, Marie determined to go to bed. 
 She thought it was possible that life 
 would look less gloomy next morning. 
 
 When she lay down it seemed impossible 
 to believe that she had only left the con-
 
 MARIE'S LODGING. 157 
 
 vent that morning. She did not go to 
 sleep at once. All her little escapades and 
 follies rose up before her, and in the dark- 
 ness took exaggerated importance. No 
 wonder, she said to herself, that the sisters 
 were all glad to be rid of such a tiresome, 
 teasing girl as she had been. How often 
 she had plagued Sister Monica. Oh, how 
 could she have so tormented them ! Her 
 cheeks grew hot with shame, and it began 
 to be evident to her that only their good- 
 ness had tolerated her : in their hearts they 
 must have been glad at her departure. 
 
 She could not sleep, her heart felt so 
 heavy. She turned restlessly, and tried to 
 cool her hot cheeks on the wretched pillow. 
 The movement let light in upon her trouble. 
 The sisters had not seemed glad to let her 
 go ; they had said they were sorry, and they 
 always spoke the truth. Perhaps, instead 
 of being glad, they would miss her to-
 
 158 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 morrow. Then she let her thoughts dwell 
 on the leave-taking : the tender kisses, the 
 mother's pretty gift — a daintily-furnished 
 work-basket — the kind, loving looks of all, 
 except perhaps Sister Monica. 
 
 At last the tired child fell asleep.
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 A MORNING WALK. 
 
 Above me are the Alps, 
 The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
 Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
 And throned Eternity in icy halls 
 Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
 The avalanche — the thunder-bolt of snow ! 
 All that expands the spirit, yet appals. 
 Gather around these summits, as to show 
 How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man 
 below. 
 
 Cliilde Harold. 
 
 Morning sunshine came streaming into the 
 dirty little room, showing more horrid 
 cracks in the soiled wall, and also showing 
 that the window which admitted this warm 
 brilliance had a sufficient blind of cobwebs.
 
 160 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Soon the brightness travelled across 
 Marie's coverlet, and reached the dark 
 eyelashes which almost touched her flushed 
 cheeks ; the lashes clung together, and parted 
 into clusters, telling tales of last night's tears. 
 
 Sleeping there, one soft cheek resting 
 in her pink palm, Marie looked like a 
 peaceful child ; care had left no trace on her 
 fair, soft skin. . . . The sunshine reached 
 her eyes, and she opened them ; a gaze 
 of unrecognising wonder showed in their 
 gray depths as she looked round her. 
 
 She started up, and then, with a grimace 
 as her feet touched the dirty floor, she soon 
 washed and dressed herself. She heard 
 the clock strike five ; opening her door, 
 she heard sounds in the house that told 
 her some one was awake. While dressing, 
 she had decided to ask the woman of the 
 house to clean her room, and she went 
 down-stairs to find her.
 
 A MOBNING WALK. 161 
 
 *' Come in/' a voice called out from a 
 den under the stairs, and then the woman's 
 miserable face showed — a pale patch in the 
 gloom. 
 
 Marie thought she looked much dirtier 
 than she had looked last nig^ht. It seemed 
 to the girl that cleanliness could not be 
 expected from this poor creature ; she 
 would not know how to practise it. The 
 girl stood thinking. Presently she said : 
 *' Can I have a pail and some water ? You 
 will, perhaps, show me where I can go to 
 draw water?" 
 
 " Yes, I w^ill show you." 
 
 The woman brought her a pail, a cleaner 
 one than Marie expected, and then opening 
 the house door, she pointed out to the girl 
 a small fountain against the high wall oj)- 
 ppsite. Marie found herself in a paved 
 court, below the street, with this wall in 
 front of the houses ; at one end was a 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 very narrow passage between the walls, at 
 the other the steep flight of steps she had 
 come down last night. 
 
 Some girls in picturesque Bernese 
 costumes were filling their pitchers and 
 chatting merrily by the fountain. Marie 
 felt amused ; the fresh air revived her 
 spirits. 
 
 The girls nodded and smiled at her and 
 said good morning ; then, as she went 
 back slowly to the house with her full 
 pail, they wondered who she was. 
 
 Marie was doubtful whether she should 
 be able to clean her floor. "There is the 
 dirt of months upon it, but there is nothing 
 like trying," she said, laughing to herself. 
 
 At the convent she had been taught to 
 cook and to sew and to embroider, but 
 she had not been allowed to do house- 
 work, even when she grew too old for 
 school lessons. There was no need, the
 
 A MORXING WALK. 163 
 
 kind sisters had said, and it would spoil 
 her hands for embroidery. 
 
 She felt like a child with a new toy as 
 she tucked up her skirts and bared her 
 white, well-shaped arms. She had only a bit 
 of flannel to scrub with, and a sponge. It 
 was not easy work. She had to go over 
 the floor three times before she could 
 clear away the dirt. Her face became 
 very red and hot, and her loosened hair 
 fell over her eyes, before she had finished 
 cleaning the floor and the window. 
 
 She had used up the bit of soap bestowed 
 on her by Madame Bobineau, and she had 
 several times emptied and refilled her pail. 
 
 More than once she longed to give up, 
 but she persevered, and at last all was 
 done. Marie felt sick and exhausted, but 
 at least her floor and her window were 
 clean ; so w^as the table and chair, and 
 everything else that could be washed. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 AV THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 It must be owned that there was a good 
 deal of damp in the room, but there was 
 also a wholesome smell of soap and water ; 
 the close mustiness of the atmosphere had 
 been banished, and the warm sun, stream- 
 ing in through the open window, would, 
 Marie hoped, soon remove the general 
 damjDness. 
 
 Then she looked ruefully at the long 
 black cracks in the walls. 
 
 **If I could only get some paper and 
 paste," she said, " I would hide away those 
 gaping cracks ; I am afraid I can't clean 
 the walls." 
 
 She smoothed her hair, tidied herself, 
 and then w^ent out. 
 
 Madame Bobineau had told her to come 
 to the Red Glove at half-past seven. She 
 heard seven strike — she had still time for 
 a walk. Going up the flight of steps, 
 she found herself on a level with the rest 
 of the town, and she knew that if she
 
 A MORNING WALK. 165 
 
 went straiglit on she should reach the 
 big clock-tower which Madame Bobineau 
 had pointed out last night as a landmark. 
 She need not go yet to Madame Bobineau's, 
 this half-hour was her own. 
 
 Marie had never gone out alone till 
 yesterday, and even then an old priest had 
 conveyed her as far as Olten. There was 
 a delicious sense of freedom in this ramble 
 in the freshness of early morning. She 
 turned round, and went along the street 
 built on the top of the high wall which 
 faced her lodging. There were pretty 
 little houses here, with flowers in every 
 window, making a glory of scarlet and 
 orange in the sunshine. At the end of 
 the street she came to a sort of circular 
 terrace with a tree in its centre ; some 
 working-men stood leaning against the 
 parapet of this terrace. Marie looked about 
 her to see what they were gazing at. 
 
 The platform looked down a high, steep
 
 1G6 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 bank on to the blue-green river ; on each 
 side through the trees she could see the 
 liouses of Berne, and across the river the 
 green banks again rose steeply ; but the 
 men were not gazing at the river or the 
 houses. 
 
 Marie's eyes followed their looks up- 
 ward to the horizon. She gave a little 
 cry, and an old gray-headed workman 
 turned and nodded at her with an 
 apj^roving smile. 
 
 '*Aha!" he said, "you have luck; it 
 is not often like this." 
 
 Before her in the distance was a long 
 line of glittering light — one after another 
 the peaks of the snow giants glistened in 
 silver brilliance high up in the sky. No 
 threatening clouds dimmed their grandeur ; 
 the air was bright and clear ; it seemed 
 as if silver fire burned within the range 
 of mountains.
 
 A MORNING WALK. 167 
 
 Marie foro-ot all about her miserable 
 bedroom and her employer. She was 
 entranced with the scene before her. Once 
 more she felt at home again ; for at 
 St. Esprit she had called the snow 
 mountains her friends. These w^ere not 
 the same, they were farther off, even more 
 lovely, she thought, than at Lucerne. 
 They sent a thrill through her. Ah, how 
 she wished they did not look so far off ! 
 
 "Ahem!" 
 
 A discreet cough made her turn to see 
 who stood next her. 
 
 A hat w^as being raised in her honour, 
 and a broad bronzed face was beaminoj 
 with pleasure till the small eyes in it 
 narrowed. In a minute she recoofnised 
 the stout gentleman who had spoken to 
 her yesterday in the Spitalgasse, and she 
 smiled in answer to his greeting. 
 
 " Good morning, mademoiselle,'* said
 
 168 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Captain Loigerot. " I need not ask if you 
 have slept well, for you look as fresh and 
 bright as the mountains do. I heard of 
 your safe arrival at the Eed Glove from 
 my good friend Madame Bobineau." 
 
 ** You know her ? " said Marie quickly. 
 
 '* I have that honour." He bowed again. 
 '^ Mademoiselle, it is my good fortune to 
 lodge in the house of Madame Bobineau. 
 Our meetinor is a sinorular coincidence." He 
 
 o o 
 
 held his head very stiffly, and made a pause 
 between each sentence, as if he looked back 
 at it, and made sure that no correction 
 was needed. '* Mademoiselle," he went on, 
 finding that Marie's eyes were again fixed 
 on the mountains, *^is perhaps on her w\ay 
 to the Eed Glove. May I have the 
 honour " — he took off his hat and remained 
 uncovered while he finished his sentence 
 — *' and the pleasure of walking so for 
 with mademoiselle ? "
 
 A MOUNING WALK. 169 
 
 There was a certain military swagger 
 about the captain in spite of his humility, 
 and he had taken up so much space in 
 bowing to Marie, with his feet planted 
 widely apart, that the working-men leaning 
 against the parapet turned round to look, 
 and they were now smiling at the stout, 
 middle-aged man's admiration for the young 
 girl, who seemed so unconscious of it. 
 
 The captain did not heed them, he only 
 saw Marie ; but the girl felt a little annoyed 
 at the attention he had drawn on her. 
 
 " You are very kind, monsieur," she 
 said, ''but I am late, and I shall have to 
 go much faster than perhaps you would 
 care to go ; so I had better go alone. 
 Good morning, monsieur. I thank you 
 very much." 
 
 She bowed and turned away, while the 
 captain stood with his mouth open, trying 
 to form a new sentence.
 
 170 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " Confound it ! " was the next sentence 
 he produced, and he stood, with his stumpy- 
 legs wider apart than ever, staring after 
 her. ''She flits away like a butterfly. 
 Well," he added philosophically, " it does 
 not signify ; I shall certainly see her again 
 away from the shop ; Berne is not very 
 large and I am often in the streets, and 
 when I determine to do a thing, usually I 
 do it. She is prettier than I thought." 
 He paused, and a sudden idea made his 
 eyes twinkle. "I believe after all I do 
 want a pair of gloves," he said to himself. 
 
 And this was evidently such a huge 
 joke that he went rolling along the pave- 
 ment, laugliing, till his face looked like a 
 copper full moon, with its eyes closed. 
 
 At the angle of the street, however, a 
 big yellow dog, that had just been un- 
 fastened from a milk-cart, flew at him. 
 The captain opened his eyes and promptly
 
 A MORNING WALK 171 
 
 grasped it by the collar, then he shook it 
 and threw it from him as if it had been a 
 puppy. He turned to the owner, a stalwart 
 young peasant, who stood bending over his 
 tall, flat wooden milk-pails, without an 
 attempt to call off his dog. 
 
 " Eh I my friend," said Loigerot, ^' how 
 is it your dog has slipped his muzzle, or 
 do you forget that we are in August ? 
 Attention, my friend ; for this time I let 
 you off." 
 
 And then he went smilino: along the 
 street, thinking of Marie. Berne had 
 shaken off its dulness for him ; it held 
 within it the possibility of a very pleasant 
 adventure.
 
 $art H.— cpaiamc Caroitgj,
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT BEEAKFAST. 
 
 "A man might lead such a creature as this round 
 the world with him." — Sterne. 
 
 EuDOLF ExGEMANX was breakfasting at 
 the Hotel Beauregard. 
 
 The dining-room opened from the 
 spacious landing at the top of the first 
 flight of stairs ; the breakfast-room was 
 on the ground-floor, on the left of the 
 stair foot, and it faced the green inner 
 hall where madame's palms and ferns, 
 lighted by the lantern at the top of the 
 well-staircase, made such a pleasant screen 
 to her parlour, which, as has been said, 
 was glass-fronted at the end facing the
 
 176 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 staircase. Madame Carouge could see, if 
 she chose, every one who came down the 
 broad well - staircase without being seen 
 herself; but there was no window in 
 her room on the side which faced the 
 double doors of the breakfast-room. 
 
 Captain Loigerot came briskly into the 
 hotel this morning, with the intention 
 of seeing Madame Carouge; but just as 
 he reached the corner leading to her 
 sanctum the folding-doors on his left were 
 flung open by Moritz, Captain Loigerot 
 had time, while the waiter answered some 
 one over his shoulder, to see into the 
 breakfast- room, and to recognise his ac- 
 quaintance, Rudolf Engemann, busily en- 
 gaged in eating at one of the small tables 
 placed about the room. 
 
 This sight changed the ex-captain's in- 
 tentions ; the chance of a gossip was 
 not one to be given up easily, and
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 177 
 
 althouerh he never breakfasted till much 
 nearer noon, he rolled into the room, and 
 noddinof to one or two dinner-table ac- 
 quaintances in different parts of the room, 
 he seated himself at Rudolfs little table. 
 
 ^' Good morning, my friend," he said. 
 " I have something to tell you." 
 
 *' Eh ! " the young man said gaily. 
 **Are you going to change your habits, 
 captain, and breakfast with the rest of us ? " 
 Loigerot shook his head, and laid his 
 hand on the front of his tightly-buttoned 
 coat. 
 
 "Not if I know it" — he leaned back 
 and laughed in the deliberate manner 
 that seemed to give him so much enjoy- 
 ment. " I respect my digestion and — 
 my figure, do you understand? Aba! 
 you laugh, my young friend. Wait till 
 you are forty or thereabouts, and then 
 see what w^ill be the result of these 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 cups of boiling cafe cm lait that you so 
 freely imbibe in the early morning. If I 
 so indulged my appetite, mon Dieu ! I 
 should soon resemble the glass ball in 
 the garden at the Schanzli, and I should 
 be able to roll along the streets of Berne 
 without making use of my legs." 
 
 He leaned back at this, and laughed so 
 heartily that the men at the other tables 
 joined in chorus ; even the girl who gave 
 out the coffee, who happened to be cross- 
 ing the room, stopped to enjoy the 
 captain's merriment. 
 
 Kudolf grew a little impatient of it ; 
 he wanted to get a few words with the 
 charming widow this morning before he 
 went to his office ; but he felt obliged to 
 wait for the captain's communication. 
 
 At last Loigerot stopped, pulled out a big 
 red pocket-handkerchief and wiped his eyes. 
 
 '' Oh dear, oh dear ! " he said. ''Well, my
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 179 
 
 friend Engemann, what I have to say is, most 
 haste is not always best speed. If you had 
 staid behind last night and kept me com- 
 pany, yoii would have heard something." 
 Monsieur Loigerot had by nature a loud 
 voice, and his effort to lower its tone 
 as he made this communication only 
 served to make the other breakfasters 
 listen for what was to come. 
 
 " Well, captain ? " said the tall Swiss. 
 
 " I was right — you know what I mean." 
 The captain leaned forward, winked, and 
 looked important; Engemann did not 
 answer ; and he went on : "I tell you I 
 found out I was right. The — the young 
 person I had seen in the morning is the 
 cousin expected by Madame Bobineau, and 
 she is the new shop-girl. Aha ! what say 
 you now, my boy? Am I not a shrewd 
 guesser ? " He patted Eudolf s shoulder 
 with his stumpy brown fingers. ^' It was 
 
 N 3
 
 180 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 she we saw, and you pretended that she 
 
 was not pretty. Mon Dicu ! she is " 
 
 He nodded his head and closed his eyes. 
 " Wait till you have seen her." 
 
 Kudolf was amused. Glancing across the 
 room, he saw that two of his fellow-clerks, 
 also boarders at the hotel, were stifling their 
 laughter, and were evidently listening to the 
 captain's story. Engemann looked at his 
 moon-faced, rotund companion, and decided 
 that his taste in beauty would not be refined 
 or hard to satisfy. 
 
 "I forget where you saw her," he said, 
 ''or what she was like — tall and stout, I 
 fancy, a fine figure, eh?" 
 
 His mocking smile was, however, lost 
 on the captain. 
 
 '*Tall — yes, she is tall and upright as 
 a pole ; but she is, in a word, graceful too 
 and well-proportioned, everything that a 
 young woman should be. Listen, she "
 
 AT BREAKFAST, 181 
 
 He stopped abruptly ; he was about to 
 relate his morning adventure when he 
 became aware that Moritz, the head waiter, 
 was standing not far off, and was probably 
 listenins^. 
 
 "I congratulate you, captain. You will 
 no longer complain of the dulness of Berne 
 if this charming creature stays in it," said 
 Engemann. 
 
 Loigerot flushed up to his little eyes. 
 He went on in a lower voice : " Did I not 
 tell you ? Of course she stays in Berne. 
 She has come expressly to help our friend 
 Madame Bobineau to sell her gloves. She 
 is not to lodge in the house ; madame says 
 there is no room ; but " — here the captain 
 put his finger beside his nose and looked 
 knowing — "but I agree with our hostess, 
 lodgings are better for her cousin ; besides, 
 the going to and fro gives opportunities — 
 eh, what ?"
 
 182 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 He became so very red, and looked so 
 suddenly discomfited, that Engemann could 
 not help laughing, and his two fellow-clerks 
 joined in chorus. Loigerot got up from 
 his seat, and stuffed his hands into his 
 pockets as he walked to the window. 
 
 *'I Leg your pardon, captain.'' Eudolf 
 laid down his napkin and followed him ; 
 *' but you don't seem to have lost time : 
 she only arrived yesterday, and you talk 
 of opportunities already." 
 
 " I did not say / had lost time," said 
 Loigerot gravely. *'I only said you had 
 done so. I have told you all I had to tell 
 you, young man." 
 
 He turned his back and looked out of 
 the window ; he was vexed with himself ; 
 he did not mean to have said so much, 
 and yet he must have told some one ; and 
 Engemann was so evidently infatuated with 
 Madame Carouge, that he w^as the best con-
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 183 
 
 fidant he could have chosen. The other 
 men had laughed, but he did not think 
 they had understood him — no, he felt sure 
 they had not. Still, Captain Loigerot 
 felt that his enthusiasm had carried him 
 too far : he did not want to surround this 
 sweet girl with a crowd of foolish admirers, 
 and he thought the safe plan would be to 
 let Engemann leave the breakfast - room 
 before he did, so that his young friend 
 might have no temptation to repeat what he 
 had heard to the other fellows. 
 
 Loigerot stood still, therefore, at the 
 window. There was always something going 
 on in the street just below it, and to-day 
 he was charmed by the sight of three 
 buxom peasant girLs, who stood gazing at 
 the showy mock silver chains, medals, and 
 brooches in a glass case in front of a shop 
 across the way. 
 
 *' Pretty, unwise creatures," the captain
 
 184 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 thought : *' they are like moths round a 
 candle, they wish to have these trinkets 
 because they shine. Bah ! they shine now, 
 but in a few months they will be tarnished 
 and dull, if indeed they do not show they 
 are but brass or worse. It is the way 
 with the young ; the outside look, that 
 is all they care for, whether it be in a 
 husband or a bodice-chain." 
 
 Then seeing that Engemann had de- 
 parted, he too went out to say a few 
 words to Madame Carouge. The door of 
 her room stood open, and Loigerot heard 
 her voice. She was speaking so very 
 earnestly that he did not like to go for- 
 ward. He knew that she could see him 
 if she looked that way, so he stood 
 watching the trickle of the fountain, many- 
 coloured as the sunshine fell on it, and the 
 moving reflected light on the palm fronds 
 near it.
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 185 
 
 "Ah, monsieur," the rich full voice 
 went on within the room, '*you are too 
 kind in your thanks ; it is I, on the 
 contrary, who have to thank you for the 
 pleasant talks which brighten my monoto- 
 nous life." 
 
 Loigerot was too discreet to turn his 
 liead : he could not, therefore, see the sweet 
 expression that filled the widow's dark 
 eyes as she raised them to look at Rudolf 
 Engemann. 
 
 The look thrilled through the young 
 fellow, and seemed to draw his heart out 
 of him. He felt perplexed and agitated 
 as his eyes met that deep liquid glance, 
 at once so tender and so beseeching. He 
 had heard people say that Madame Carouge 
 had flashing eyes, but now the fire was 
 quenched by a subdued sweetness in 
 harmony with the careless grace of her 
 attitude, as she leaned back on her little
 
 186 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 sofa ; one smootli hand lay in her lap, 
 and Rudolf found himself looking at her 
 wedding-ring, and wondering whether she 
 had been happy with her husband. 
 
 '* Is your life monotonous, then ? " he 
 said. " I should have thought it had variety 
 enough." 
 
 Loigerot could not help sniggering at 
 the change in the young man's voice. 
 
 '*Mon Dieu ! he would do for a stage 
 lover,'' he thought over the palm leaves ; 
 but he did not like his position as listener, 
 and as it was evident he had escaped notice 
 in the preoccupation of the two within 
 the parlour, he went softly back to the 
 corner, and then down to the entrance 
 door of the hotel, where he saw Moritz 
 talking to some new arrivals. 
 
 Rudolfs question was not answered at 
 once : Madame Carou2[e sat thinkinor. She 
 put up one hand and let her soft, rounded
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 187 
 
 chin nestle between an outspread thumb 
 and finger, thereby showing exquisite 
 curves from the round, supple wrist to 
 the pointed little finger, and the rosy, 
 hollowed palm. Kudolf thought how 
 nectarine-like her cheek glowed against 
 her dark lashes as she sat thinking, her 
 head bent a little forward. 
 
 "You are right, '^ she said at last. "Men 
 who think can always supply the right 
 word. I meant to convey the feeling which 
 my life gives me. Ah, yes ! you are right, 
 monsieur ; there is plenty of variety in my 
 days, and I ought not to complain. Com- 
 plaint is alw^ays useless; besides, it is dis- 
 agreeable to others." 
 
 She spoke, very sadly. 
 
 " Pardon me, I do not see how one can 
 get on without complaining sometimes," he 
 said simply, and with a consciousness that 
 somehow he had reproved her. " I think
 
 188 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 people are foolish who keep all their 
 grievances to themselves." 
 
 She looked up with a bright smile. 
 
 " And yet," she said, *' you never speak 
 of yours ; and in this life no one can hope 
 to escape them. You have troubles, I am 
 sure." 
 
 A cough, and then a loud scraping of the 
 throat disturbed her, and checked Eudolf 's 
 answer. 
 
 Madame Carouge rose up from the sofa, 
 and came forward to the door. Captain 
 Loigerot stood outside, beaming with satis- 
 faction ; he bowed as low as the con- 
 struction of liis figure would permit. 
 
 " I had the honour of receiving a message 
 from you last night, madame," he said, 
 " conveyed to me by Moritz, that you 
 wished to see me to-day." 
 
 Madame Carouge bowed and smiled, but 
 she felt very angry.
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 189 
 
 "Monsieur is too kind," she said gravely; 
 "I had not dreamed of disturbino^ him so 
 early as this. I told Moritz that if you 
 could spare me five minutes before dinner, 
 I should be very glad ; it is to ask you to 
 be so kind as to tell Madame Bobineau 
 to call in to-morrow as she goes home from 
 mass. It will be a great kindness, monsieur, 
 if you will convey her my request." 
 
 Loigerot put his hand on his heart. " I 
 am always at your service, madame," he 
 said efifusively. "Morning or night, I am 
 only too happy to execute your commands 
 whenever you honour me with them." 
 
 His bow was something to see. 
 
 Involuntarily Madame Carouge took a 
 step back, as his bald crown bent itself into 
 her view. 
 
 "Ah, monsieur, I do not know how 
 to answer you," she said softly, " unless I 
 say. See what it is to be a soldier ! "
 
 190 AT THE HED GLOVE. 
 
 Eudolf Engemann had been impatiently 
 awaiting an opportunity of taking his 
 leave. 
 
 " I must say good-day, madame," he said. 
 " I did not know it was so late." 
 
 Madame Carouo^e crlanced back at him 
 with a smile. 
 
 As Eudolf passed him, Loigerot looked 
 up and winked his right eye. " Aha ! 
 Time passes quickly when we are pleasantly 
 enofaofed." 
 
 o o 
 
 Then he rubbed his hands and chuckled 
 so loudly that the sound followed Engemann 
 to the entrance door, and made him hurry 
 up the street at a much quicker pace than 
 usual. Madame Carouge remained silent ; 
 and Loigerot suddenly remembered with 
 confusion that she had perhaps enjoyed her 
 tete-d-tete as much as Engemann had. 
 
 He became grave in an instant. 
 
 "Then madame wishes me to say to
 
 AT BREAKFAST. 191 
 
 Madame Bobineau that she is to have the 
 pleasure of calling here to-morrow." 
 
 "I thank you, monsieur." 
 
 The widow court esied ; she drew back 
 into her room as if to say that the inter- 
 view was over. She was surprised when 
 Loigerot followed her in. Coming up close 
 beside her, he said, in a low voice : 
 "Pardon me, madame. Have you heard 
 about Madame Bobineau's cousin ? " 
 
 The widow's heavy eyebrows drew nearer 
 to one another ; Monsieur Loigerot did 
 not often venture . across her threshold. 
 Monsieur Engemann was the only male 
 guest who came further than the doorway as 
 a right, unless, indeed, it was Eiesen the 
 clock-maker ; but then he was a neighbour, 
 and he regulated all the clocks of the hotel. 
 
 "No, monsieur," she said stiffly; ''I 
 have not seen Madame Bobineau lately." 
 
 Loigerot was too much bent on telling
 
 192 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 bis news to care for the stiff tone in which 
 she spoke, though at another time it might 
 have caught his ear and checked his speech. 
 
 '^ Ah ! " — he lowered his voice still more 
 — 'Hhen you have something to see. A 
 young girl arrived yesterday at the Eed 
 Glove, she " — he stopped suddenly ; for as 
 he looked up at his hostess he saw that 
 her lower lip was full of scorn. The 
 captain was rather obtuse in perception, 
 but he could not fail to see that Madame 
 Carouge had no interest whatever in the 
 young girl he had been about to describe 
 to her in rapturous words. 
 
 "Indeed!" she said. "Then I may 
 count on your delivering my message. 
 Thank you, again, monsieur, for your 
 kindness and courtesy." 
 
 She was too polite to seat herself at 
 her desk, but the captain felt that he 
 w^as expected to go away.
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 HIS FAINT HEART. 
 
 " Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect 
 than any one else that follows her, "What should I 
 think on'tV'—Ttvelfth Night. 
 
 Rudolf Exgemann had walked on very 
 quickly from the Beauregard till tie reached 
 the bank. As he approached the clock- 
 maker's shop he saw that Monsieur Riesen 
 was standing in his doorway, ready to 
 exchange a morning greeting, but Rudolf 
 did not want to speak to any one and he 
 looked another way ; his thoughts were 
 full of Madame Carouge. He had been 
 joked about her lately by Loigerot and 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 some of the other regular boarders of the 
 hotel, and these jokes at her expense had 
 ruffled his simple, loyal nature. 
 
 Rudolf was a fine, tall young fellow, 
 and he was twenty-four years old ; but he 
 had lived very quietly at Fribourg with 
 his father and mother, and since he had 
 lost them last winter he had not felt much 
 inclination to seek out friends. As yet 
 no woman's coquetry towards him had 
 tarnished the reverence he felt for women. 
 He was very grateful to Madame Carouge 
 for her friendliness — that was the name he 
 gave to her incessant kindness to him ; it 
 had seemed to him an impertinence that 
 these common-minded talkers should thus 
 freely discuss his relations with so perfect 
 a woman. 
 
 She was to him all that a woman of her 
 age should be, and he felt an indescribable 
 pleasure in looking at her and listening to
 
 EIS FAINT HEART. 195 
 
 her full, mellow voice. But to-day he felt 
 troubled, there had been a chanofe in her 
 manner towards him. 
 
 He knew very well that Madame Carouge 
 rarely admitted Loigerot into her sanctum ; 
 the captain and Kudolfs fellow-clerks did 
 all their business with Moritz at the bureau 
 on the right of the entrance ; unless, in- 
 deed, as had happened to Loigerot this 
 morning, Madame Carouge had sent a 
 special message to request his presence in 
 her own room. 
 
 "Loigerot does far more for the Beau- 
 regard than I do," Engemann thought. " He 
 drinks plenty of wine, which I cannot afford 
 to do, he deserves more of her than I do ; 
 her friendship for me is simple kindness. 
 She has a good heart." 
 
 He had often gone through this for- 
 mula during the last two months, but to- 
 day, and indeed once or twice before, it 
 
 o 2
 
 196 AT THE MED GLOVE. 
 
 had not satisfied him ; her manner, even 
 her looks to-day had changed ; something 
 beyond her usual kindness puzzled him now. 
 Madame Carouge had become so grave and 
 quiet ; her manner was perhaps kinder than 
 ever, but she seemed less at her ease. 
 When he recalled her sweet downcast con- 
 fusion, and then the melting glance he had 
 met in those beautiful eyes of hers just 
 now, an odd sensation that was chiefly 
 pleasure, but which had yet a thread of 
 perplexity interwoven with it, kept him 
 absorbed, even after he had reached the 
 bank and was seated before his desk. As 
 he went in he had met one of his fellow- 
 clerks who dined daily at the Hotel Beau- 
 regard. 
 
 "I congratulate you, Engemann," he 
 said. *'Have you got the widow to fix a 
 day for the wedding ? '^ 
 
 Kudolf merely raised his shoulders and
 
 HIS FAINT HEART. 197 
 
 passed in, but the words went with him. 
 When he began to write, it seemed as if 
 he saw on the paper the dark glowing 
 face of Madame Carouge. 
 
 All at once an answer came to the puzzle; 
 a warm feeling of pleasure filled his veins ; 
 life seemed to open before him a broad, 
 smooth path golden with sunshine. Eu- 
 dolf asked himself why because he was poor 
 he should not grasp this pleasant portion 
 which almost, he believed, might be his 
 for the asking. It seemed foolish, unmanly, 
 even to hesitate. The doubt and self-rebuke 
 which had so often checked him kept silence 
 now while he asked himself whether the 
 change he had noted in Madame Carouge 
 was not meant to encourage his hopes. 
 
 The young fellow was too sim^Dle to 
 believe in the extent of the widow's love for 
 him. He told himself that his admiration 
 had not displeased her, and that she had
 
 198 AT TEE BED OLOVE. 
 
 attributed his slowness and coldness to the 
 real cause — his want of means. In her 
 generosity she had tried to take aw^ay this 
 barrier in his path, to show him that he was 
 not to be hindered by it. Still apart from 
 this he did not like the disparity between 
 them. She was some years older, but her 
 perfect beauty would make up for that ; his 
 independent nature still revolted from the 
 notion of a wife so much richer than he was. 
 When the jokers had begun their raillery, 
 he had not considered the matter seriously, 
 or he would have shrunk from the idea 
 of marrying a widow. Living with his 
 parents, who had told him they had in 
 their youth married for love, he had grown 
 up with old-fashioned ideas, one of which 
 was a fancy that he would like to be the 
 first and the sole possessor of his wife^s 
 affections, supposing that he ever took a 
 wife. He had lived so much alone that he
 
 HIS FAINT HEART. 199 
 
 had had more time for reflection than most 
 young fellows have, and as he was by nature 
 silent and reticent, he often dreamed about 
 the future, w^hile his companions enjoyed 
 the present. 
 
 His dream to-day w^as very distracting. 
 He found himself sitting idle before his 
 desk ; but as idleness w^as not one of his 
 characteristics he roused himself, and com- 
 pelled his attention to fix on the business 
 of the day. When this was over, he 
 linorered at his desk till the other clerks 
 departed, and then he started for a walk. 
 He often went dow^n to the platform in 
 front of the Cathedral to look at the ofrand 
 view of the blue-oreen Aar foaminor over 
 its w^eir, with the far-off background of 
 snow^ mountains ; but on this platform on 
 Saturday afternoon there was a certain 
 risk of meeting acquaintances ; among them 
 the stout ex-captain was sure to be found,
 
 200 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 chattinor with the nursemaids who brought 
 their charges to pLay on the grass ; and 
 Eudolf especially wished to keep clear of 
 Loigerot till dinner-time. He, therefore, 
 found his way to the river-side, some way 
 from the Mtlnster platform, and then he 
 walked out towards the country southwards. 
 
 He was impatient to see Madame 
 Carouge again, and yet he shrank from 
 their next meeting. His pleasant visions 
 of a love-marriage with a simple girl came 
 back, and he asked himself whether he 
 was sure that this beautiful fascinating 
 woman was really the life-long companion 
 he coveted. 
 
 He knew so little about her ; he had had 
 no opportunity for long conversations; just 
 as they began to talk on something more 
 interesting than usual, Moritz was sure 
 to bring an interruption ; it seemed as 
 though they were perpetually checked on
 
 HIS FAINT HEART, 201 
 
 the verge of becoming intimate. And the 
 young fellow felt that this was likely to 
 go on ; and with his old-fashioned ideas, 
 he shrank from venturins; on such an im- 
 portant affair as marriage on mere liking. 
 He felt, too, that his present position with 
 the widow could not continue. Sooner or 
 later one of these jokes so freely circulated 
 would reach the ears of Madame Carouge, 
 and she would feel herself compromised by 
 his attentions. 
 
 A sudden light came to him as he walked 
 disconsolately along the dull road. The 
 promised day at Thun would at least be 
 free from interruptions ; he should get more 
 talk with her ; he could then judge for him- 
 self. But here his manliness cried out that 
 he was unworthy to win a woman if he 
 could consider her in this cold-blooded 
 fashion, while more worldly promptings 
 whispered him not to be unwise, not to
 
 202 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 allow a romantic scruple to stand in the 
 way of the prosperous future that lay 
 before him as the husband of Madame 
 Carouge. 
 
 When he realised her position, he 
 winced a little ; he thought he should 
 not like his wife to sit where any strange 
 idler might, if he chose to take the 
 trouble, gaze through the window at her, 
 even speak to her, and then he laughed 
 and told himself not to be premature. 
 One of his perplexities had, however, left 
 him ; without owning his conquest to him- 
 self in any boastful manner, he seemed 
 to-day to have lost doubt and fear about 
 Madame Carouge's feelings for him. 
 
 *'I must leave it all till Sunday comes," 
 he thought : ''that day at Thun will be a 
 deciding point." His mind was more at 
 ease, and turning back by a cross-road 
 he soon came in sight of the town-gate
 
 BIS FAINT HEART. 203 
 
 flanked with the stone bears, that seem 
 to defy intruders to enter Berne. 
 
 He looked at his watch. He was sur- 
 prised to find how late it was ; he had 
 scarcely time to go to his lodgings before 
 the table cVliote. 
 
 He went rapidly along under the quaint 
 arcades. Just as he reached the Eed Glove his 
 two fellow- clerks who frequented the Beaure- 
 gard came laughing out of the shop. They 
 saw Engemann, and blocked up the way. 
 
 " I say, Engemann, the captain has not 
 such bad taste after all. Go into the shop 
 and look at the girl,'' one of them said. 
 
 ''She is too pale and slender for 
 Engemann," the other said. " Don't you 
 make any mistake, he will see no beauty 
 in her ; he likes something more full- 
 blown ; he's fond of colour." 
 
 The last speaker was a mere lad, and 
 Kudolf looked sternly at him.
 
 204 AT THE BED GLGVE. 
 
 " Look here, Wengern," he said, " that's 
 enough ; a j'oke is well enough in limits, 
 but a joke carried too far is very bad and 
 offensive. I wish you good evening." 
 
 He looked calm and determined ; the 
 clerks walked away ; but when they got 
 to a safe distance, they sniggered about 
 the airs ^^ the young giant " gave himself. 
 
 Till this meeting with his companions, 
 Kudolf had forgotten the captain's ad- 
 venture. Now he looked in through the 
 glass door of the shop and caught a 
 glimpse of Madame Bobineau's cousin. 
 She stood behind the counter with her 
 handkerchief to her eyes. He heard the 
 old woman's harsh voice, and glancing 
 towards the desk, he saw that his oily- 
 speaking landlady's small eyes gleamed 
 with anger. Kudolf gave another back- 
 ward glance at Marie. 
 
 " Poor crirl ! It's a shame," he thought.
 
 EIS FAINT HEART. 205 
 
 ''that she should be made to cry. I 
 dare say she laughed when those fellows 
 talked to her ; probably she could not 
 help it, and the old woman is a dragon. 
 Well, she should not have a young girl 
 in her shop in a town like Berne." 
 
 This was evidently not an opportune 
 moment in which to make acquaintance 
 with Madame Bobineau's cousin, though 
 Wengern's observation had made him a 
 little curious about her. *' There is plenty 
 of time for that," he thought, as he 
 opened the house door. Before he reached 
 the staircase his landlady's shrill voice 
 made itself distinct. 
 
 " I tell you it must be done : a customer 
 is a customer, and his gloves must be duly 
 measured. Do you suppose, you vain little 
 hussy, that a gentleman thinks who it is 
 that measures him ? He thinks of his 
 gloves, that is all."
 
 206 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 Eudolf hurried upstairs, and so lost the 
 end of the scolding. 
 
 The bell had rung for tahle d'hote before 
 he reached the hotel ; he found every one 
 busy eating soup, except a few late arrivals 
 who sat tucking the corners of their table- 
 napkins into their waistcoats up to their 
 throats. Presently two clerks began to 
 tease Loigerot about the pretty shop-girl 
 at the Eed Glove. 
 
 ** Ah, yes, Engemann, did you see her 
 after we left you ? " said one of them. 
 
 The captain looked sharply at Rudolf 
 as he answered. " I only got a glimpse 
 of her through the window." 
 
 ''Did I not tell you?" the young one 
 began ; but a nudge from his companion 
 silenced him, and as Captain Loigerot at 
 once started a fresh subject, no more was 
 said about the Red Glove. 
 
 When dinner came at last to an end,
 
 EIS FAINT HEART. 207 
 
 Eudolf took care to leave the hotel with 
 the others. He resolved not to give fresh 
 food to these gossips on the subject of his 
 interviews with Madame Carouge.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES HER SUPPER. 
 
 " There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot 
 play well." — Bacon. 
 
 " In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not 
 look to sow and reap at once ; but must prepare 
 business, and so ripen it by degrees." — Bacon. 
 
 Madame Bobineau never failed in licr 
 attendance at early mass on Sundays and 
 on Church festivals, and as the Hotel 
 Beauregard lay in her way home, she 
 sometimes called in to see the widow. 
 Madame Carouge was sure to be in her 
 bureau, for it must be confessed that she 
 had a horror of early rising, and preferred 
 high mass to the services that preceded it.
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES HER SUPPEB. 209 
 
 Madame Bobineau said it feasted her 
 eyes to get even a glimpse of the beautiful 
 widow — certainly she managed to combine 
 this kind of refreshment with the hope 
 of a more material feast ; and in this 
 prospect of carrying home an excellent 
 Sunday dinner it had become a habit with 
 the old woman to take occasionally a small 
 flag-basket to church. She contrived to 
 fasten this under her ample skirt, and she 
 only produced it when she saw that Madame 
 Carouge had some dainties to offer her. 
 
 Sometimes a half chicken or a tempting 
 sweetbread fell to her lot, or a dish of 
 cutlets or stewed kidneys would be ready 
 packed for her in a little covered tureen, 
 and to this Madame Carouo;e often added 
 a half-bottle of Macon or of Diedesheimer. 
 Yesterday, however, a distinct message 
 had been sent to the mistress of the Eed 
 Glove, through Captain Loigerot, that she 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 was to call without fail next morning at the 
 Beauregard. But though Madame Bobineau 
 felt her appetite quicken at the prospect of 
 sundry possible dainties, she did not intend 
 to share them with Marie, and she resolved to 
 deny herself the enjoyment of them till after 
 supper; her former shop-girls had spent their 
 Sundays at home ; but she was Marie's only 
 friend in Berne, and the girl of necessity 
 must dine and sup with her. It was, how- 
 ever, possible, she reflected as she drew near 
 the hotel, that her liberal friend, in consider- 
 ation of Marie, might bestow a double por- 
 tion of good things on this especial Sunday. 
 Madame Bobineau smacked her thin lips 
 with expectation as she went along. " So 
 much the better for me, and for Marie too, if 
 I keep all for myself," she said; "it is not 
 well to pamper a young girl, and run the 
 risk of upsetting her stomach. Marie cannot 
 have been used to dainties at the convent."
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES EEE SUFFER. 211 
 
 With this reflection she stepped cheer- 
 fully into the entrance of the Beauregard. 
 Moritz's pensive, consumptive-looking face 
 showed at the door of his bureau, but when 
 he saw Madame Bobineau, he bowed and 
 grinned and retreated, in spite of the elabo- 
 rate courtesy and smile with which she 
 greeted him. The old glover was one of the 
 visitors at the hotel Moritz did not like. 
 
 She went round softly to the glazed end 
 of the widow's parlour; the door stood 
 open ; but her cat-like tread made no 
 sound, and Madame Carouge gave a little 
 start when she found the old woman's eyes 
 fixed on her in intense scrutiny. 
 
 The widow was sitting on her sofa in 
 deep thought, and she had to force a 
 smile, for the interruption came at a 
 wrong moment. She was trying, for 
 about the twentieth time, to give herself 
 a reason why Monsieur Engemann had 
 
 p 2
 
 212 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 not lingered to speak to her after dinner 
 yesterday. She felt chilled and disquieted. 
 And yet he had often before gone out in 
 this way with his friends ; but then, she 
 argued to herself, yesterday morning's 
 interview had completely changed their 
 relations to one another ; he had never 
 looked at her as he had looked yesterday 
 morning. Love had shone in his eyes, and 
 who could say but for that tiresome Captain 
 Loigerot he might have declared his passion. 
 
 She frowned a little as this idea presented 
 itself, and looking up found herself face to 
 face with Madame Bobineau. 
 
 The mistress of the Red Glove looked 
 at this moment so like an old witch 
 that Madame Carouge shivered and turned 
 slightly pale. She felt as if the inquisi- 
 tive old woman had been reading her secret 
 thoughts. But she spoke to her pleasantly. 
 
 " Good morning, neighbour ; you are
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES HER SUFFER. 213 
 
 earlier from mass than usual. How have 
 you been lately ? " 
 
 Madame Bobineau kept the widow's soft, 
 golden-brown hand in her lean grasp, and 
 gazed admiringly in her rich friend's hand- 
 some face. 
 
 *' Much as usual, I thank you, madame. 
 There is no need to ask how you are," 
 she said. " You look like a newly-opened 
 rose, with your eyes as bright as diamonds." 
 
 Madame Carouge turned away with a 
 perceptible shrug of the shoulders ; there 
 was little variety in the old woman's com- 
 pliments, and she was not in a mood for 
 such flattery this morning. 
 
 The bead-like eyes of the old glover 
 looked keenly round the room, but they 
 could not spy any parcel likely to contain 
 the dainties she longed after. 
 
 "You were so good, madame," she said 
 humbly, '* as to send me word by Captain
 
 2U AT TEE BED GLOVE, 
 
 Loigerot — ah, what an excellent gentleman 
 he is ! — that you wished me to call in on 
 my way from mass this morning." 
 
 " Ah ! so I did. I had forgotten ; yes." 
 Madame Carouge spoke with studied care- 
 lessness. She saw the greedy eyes fur- 
 tively searching every corner, and she 
 enjoyed Madame Bobineau's anxiety. " Let 
 me see — what was it ? — I remember : Cap- 
 tain Loigerot told me that you have 
 adopted a young relative ; that you have 
 her in your shop-" 
 
 Madame Bobineau's hopes sank ; but 
 then this question might bear on the extra 
 supply of dainties she was hoping for. 
 
 " I was coming, dear madame, without 
 your summons, to tell you about her. You 
 are always so kind to me that I have 
 ventured to believe you would take some 
 interest in my little cousin." 
 
 " Ah, then, it is a child that you have
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES BER SUPPER. 215 
 
 adopted. But will you not fiud it a 
 troublesome charo^e ? You will have to 
 send it to school, my good Madame Bobi- 
 neau ; you cannot keep a child in the shop." 
 
 " It is not so bad as that ; she has been 
 at school at Lucerne," the old woman 
 answered. ^' It is indeed a heavy burden 
 on me," she went on in a whining voice ; 
 ^' but what could I do ? I could not leave 
 my poor Berthold's child to be a burden to 
 strangers, and I — I want help in the shop." 
 
 Madame Carouge looked grave. 
 
 " Help in your shop ! How old is the 
 child ? And what is she like ? " 
 
 Madame Bobineau's eyes became keener 
 than ever. 
 
 *'Oh,madame, after all she is very ordinary 
 to look at — a girl of sixteen or thereabouts — 
 a simple child fresh from her convent." 
 
 " In that case " — a slight frown con- 
 tracted the widow's smooth forehead, and
 
 216 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 her full, rich voice became hard and dry — 
 "I do not think a glove-shop is a good 
 beginning for her. She would be safer 
 at a dressmaker's, or even in a draper's 
 shop. In your shop she will get stared 
 at, and perhaps be taught to flirt." 
 
 Madame Bobineau was at once aggrieved 
 and alarmed. 
 
 " I am also in the shop, madame, or 
 at worst I can see all that passes through 
 the glass door. But I assure you Marie 
 is more inclined to prudery than to 
 flirting. Why, only yesterday, when two 
 of your boarders came in, the little chit 
 actually let them choose and measure 
 their own gloves themselves ; and when I 
 scolded her, ' she did not care to touch 
 men's hands/ she said." 
 
 " What did you expect her to do, 
 then ? " The widow could not help 
 smiling at Madame Bobineau's indignation.
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES BEE SUFPEB. 217 
 
 '* Well, my dear madame, I had bid her 
 measure the customers ; and you will, I 
 am sure, agree with me that a girl of 
 that age should do as she is bid, and 
 should not take up ideas of her own." 
 
 Madame Carouge was so amused that 
 her pearly teeth showed plainly. 
 
 "Actually, madame," the old woman 
 went on, " she had the face to tell me 
 that the gentlemen stared at her, and 
 that she considered them impertinent." 
 
 " Perhaps they did stare rudely," said 
 Madame Carouge thoughtfully. " I tell 
 you young men will stare at shop-girls, 
 they consider it their right. AVho did 
 did you say they were ? " 
 
 ''Two of your boarders, madame — 
 young Monsieur Wengern and Monsieur 
 Christen. I am sure they are very civil, 
 quiet gentlemen." 
 
 ''They may have been too civil, my
 
 218 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 good woman " — the widow's manner was 
 still constrained — ''but this youDg cousin 
 of yours must be pretty : those are not 
 young men who would care to look at 
 a plain girl." 
 
 " Yes, madame, the girl is passable." 
 Then remembering that Madame Carouge 
 would probably go to the Red Glove 
 and form her own judgment of Marie, 
 " Captain Loigerot indeed says she is 
 pretty ; " she shrugged her shoulders, 
 'but " 
 
 " Good heavens ! Do you mean to 
 say," Madame Carouge interrupted so 
 sharply that the old woman's eyes and 
 mouth opened simultaneously, " do you 
 tell me that you have this young and 
 pretty girl to live in your house, so 
 that she makes acquaintance with your 
 lodgers ? " 
 
 Madame Bobineau cringed and trembled.
 
 JBOBINEAU LOSES BEE SUPPER. 219 
 
 She felt almost scorched by the fire that 
 blazed in the widow's usually soft, velvet- 
 like eyes. 
 
 "No, no, indeed, madame. I ask a 
 hundred pardons ; but madame has alto- 
 srether mistaken me. Marie does not 
 sleep at the Red Glove — dear me, no ; 
 I could not have dreamed of anything so 
 improper. She has a lodging in the 
 Cour du Puits, and when she is at the 
 Eed Glove, by no chance does she go into 
 the passage reserved for the lodgers." 
 
 "Then in what way has Monsieur 
 Loigerot made acquaintance with her ? — 
 He is not a man to buy gloves." 
 
 The wddow looked stern and un- 
 believing. 
 
 "Madame is right, as she always is." 
 Bobineau spoke fawningly, and put her 
 lean, hooked fingers on the arm of her 
 beautiful friend. But the widow freed
 
 220 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 herself by an impatient movement. " It is 
 true that the captain does not buy gloves ; 
 but on the morning of Marie's arrival he saw 
 the girl near the station, and showed her the 
 way to my house. The captain is a kind, 
 fatherly man, madam e. Only last night, 
 when I was talking to him and to Monsieur 
 Engemann — ah, is not that a beautiful 
 young man ? — the captain said I ought 
 to — to interest you in my little cousin." 
 
 She stammered over the last words, for 
 another scorching glance told her that her 
 speech had given offence. 
 
 Madame Carouge's broad eyebrows knit, 
 she raised her head proudly, and seemed 
 to the frightened old woman to look 
 grander and more beautiful than ever. 
 
 " Do you mean me to understand, 
 Madame Bobineau, that at your age and 
 with your experience, you allow yourself 
 to talk to your gentlemen lodgers about
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES BEE SUPPER. 221 
 
 your shop-girl ? You must excuse me if 
 I say tliat your young cousin would have 
 done well to stay in her convent ; you have 
 proved to me that she would be safer there 
 than she is likely to be under your care." 
 
 She spoke haughtily, her words seemed 
 to stab her listener, who almost choked with 
 alarm — there was no hope of supper now. 
 
 " Pardon me ; you mistake me, madame," 
 she said. " It happened this way : Captain 
 Loio:erot came in last nig^ht with Monsieur 
 Engemann, and as I happened to be in the 
 passage, the captain asked me after the little 
 girl he had met near the railway station." 
 
 "The captain is not young, there is 
 not so much harm in speaking to him 
 about the child," Madame Carouge spoke 
 very severely ; " but I am shocked that 
 you should talk about a young girl to 
 Monsieur Ens^emann " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, as if she had
 
 222 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 said too mucli. Madame Bobineau sigrhed 
 
 o 
 
 with relief. 
 
 "Ah, dear madatne, I did not indeed/' 
 she spoke in her most fawning tone ; '^ but 
 of all the gentlemen in Berne, I consider 
 Monsieur Engemann the safest — as safe as 
 a married man." Here she gave a rather 
 cynical smile, as if her assertion amused 
 her. "How could it be possible for a 
 gentleman to worship you, madame, and 
 to have eyes for any other woman ! No, 
 madame, believe me Monsieur Engemann 
 will not even look at my little cousin." 
 
 If Madame Carouo;e had been standing:, 
 she would have stamped with impatience 
 at the old woman's indiscretion. 
 
 "You are making a great mistake, 
 Madame Bobineau." She spoke with chill 
 dignity. " You have been listening to 
 gossip, I fear. I am not thinking about 
 Monsieur Wengern, or Monsieur Enge-
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES EEB SUFFER. 223 
 
 mann, or any gentleman in particular. 
 I am trying to show you how best to take 
 care of your little cousin, and to keep 
 her out of mischief. It seems to me I 
 am a fitter counsellor in the matter than 
 Captain Loigerot is." 
 
 " Ah, madame,'' the old woman rose 
 and courtesied ; she literally quivered 
 with the fear of having lost her supper, 
 ''you are as wise as you are beautiful. 
 Advise me, I beg of you ; I will follow 
 your advice in all things.'' 
 
 '* Then," said Madame Carouge, smiling, 
 '* my advice is — the best thing you can do 
 is to find a husband to take care of this 
 young girl as soon as possible." 
 
 Madame Bobineau clasped her skinny 
 hands, and turned up her little black eyes. 
 
 " A husband ! But, dear madame, she is 
 a little beggar, she has not a penny ; and 
 although I am willing to feed and clothe
 
 224 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 her, I am not able to provide her with 
 a marriage portion. Heavens ! I should 
 think not, a poor old woman like me ! " 
 
 Madame Carouge gave her a smile full 
 of scorn. 
 
 " I see you do not want advice, Madame 
 Bobineau ; your mind is made up. Good ! 
 go your own way ; but when you come 
 to me in a few months' time to complain 
 that your little cousin is impertinent, and 
 that her head is turned with flattery, 
 or perhaps, even — there are plenty of bad 
 people in Berne — that she is ruined, I 
 shall have no pity for you — none." 
 
 She rose up, and shaking out her skirts 
 as if she dismissed the subject and her 
 visitor, she went slowly to her desk. 
 
 Madame Bobineau followed her and 
 touched her arm. The old woman's lean 
 fingers trembled ; had she actually ojQfended 
 her best friend for the sake of a chit 
 like Marie ?
 
 BOBINEAU LOSES EEE SUFFER. 225 
 
 " Madame will Lave the goodness to par- 
 don me. I should be an old fool to set 
 my judgment up against hers ; indeed, I 
 did not mean to do so. If madame can 
 find any one who— who is able to maintain 
 a wife, and is willing to take Marie without 
 a portion, she shall marry him. I will see 
 to that." 
 
 Madame Carouo^e smiled. ^' That is ri^ht. 
 Now you show your sense. Leave it then 
 to me ; I will find your little Marie a 
 husband. And now, my good friend, I 
 must ask you to leave me, or I shall 
 be late at mass." 
 
 There was plainly to-day no forth- 
 coming supper for Madame Bobineau, 
 and after prolonging her leave-taking as 
 long as she dared, she departed, smarting 
 with vexation and disappointed greed, of 
 which she considered Marie the primary 
 cause. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Marriage for the little chit ! How 
 could Madame Carouge be so foolish ? 
 It would be much better to leave the girl 
 alone. Just as she had had the trouble 
 of teaching Marie her duties, the child 
 was to be distracted with this notion of 
 marriage ! And the worst of it was, there 
 was no way out of it : the beautiful 
 widow always kept her promises.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOPE AND FEAR, 
 
 " Methinks I feel this youth's perfections, with an 
 invisible and subtle stealth, to creep in at mine eyes." 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 Madame Caeouge stood still for some 
 time after the old woman's departure. She 
 was so absorbed in thinking that she failed 
 to hear a tap at her door — at first timid, 
 then smartly repeated. 
 
 Madame Bobineau had left the door 
 of the room partly open — and the widow 
 started when she heard a familiar voice 
 say, *^ May I come in ? " 
 
 Madame Carouge opened the door fully. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 " How do you do, Monsieur Eiesen ? " she 
 said. *' You have something pleasant to 
 tell me, I am sure." 
 
 She seated herself on the sofa, and pat- 
 tin^r it, smiled graciouslv at her visitor. 
 
 Monsieur Eiesen took the seat indicated, 
 making a remarkable contrast to his hostess. 
 He was a tall, large-boned man with a 
 sickly complexion, gray hair, and large, 
 deep-set gray eyes. His face was so thin 
 that his eyes had sunk back, and seemed 
 to peer suspiciously through his dark, 
 shaggy eyebrows, as he stooped forward 
 to listen. 
 
 " \Vell, madame," he said, '' as for plea- 
 sant news I am not sure whether you will 
 think mine so. Here is another fine Sunday, 
 and I regret to say I am still obliged to 
 defer our excursion to Thun ; and who 
 knows ? next Sunday may bring torrents of 
 rain with it. But it is always so, is it not ? '*
 
 EOPE AND FEAB. 229 
 
 He looked so melanclioly that slie 
 laughed. 
 
 " That Sunday always brings torrents of 
 rain ? Xo, my good friend, and to-day 
 gives you contradiction. Look at the 
 sunshine on my palms and ferns. But 
 then is it really settled that we go next 
 Sunday ? Ah ! I am glad." 
 
 She clapped her hands, as he nodded 
 assent, with a gaiety that scarcely har- 
 monised with the intense expression in her 
 eyes or with the grand lines of her figure. 
 
 Eiesen was enchanted. He had not 
 expected his news to be received so 
 pleasantly. 
 
 *^ You look divine to-day, madame." He 
 bent his long back as he sat beside her, and 
 spoke in an insinuating whisper. '^ After all, 
 it will not matter what sort of weather we 
 have for our excursion : we have only to look 
 at you to feel sure that sunshine is with us."
 
 230 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 ^'Prettily said, monsieur." She gave 
 Lim a radiant smile. ^'But I prefer real 
 sunshine. It is a pity we could not go 
 to-day." 
 
 *'Yes, it is a pity," he sighed, "but then 
 life is full of these vexations for me '^ — he 
 put his hand on his chest. " I am old, and 
 life is now always vexing ; but to you, 
 young, rich, and beautiful, all vexation 
 should be spared, every wish ought to be 
 fulfilled. It is grievous to me that I should 
 in any way cause you disappointment." 
 
 She turned suddenly and faced him. 
 
 *' Is it, then, quite imj^ossible we can go 
 to-day ? " 
 
 '* I grieve to say. Yes, dear madame. 
 Various reasons have concurred to make it 
 out of the question." 
 
 This seemed to Monsieur Riesen the 
 safest answer he could make. He felt 
 sure that the fact of his being more than
 
 HOPE AND FEAE. 231 
 
 usually dyspeptic to-day would not be 
 accepted by Madame Carouge as a 
 sufficient reason for his refusal. 
 
 ''You must really try not to disappoint 
 me again, monsieur/' — she pouted a little, 
 and thereby looked more charming than 
 ever. ''But how is it that you have come 
 to see me ? 1 thought you were a devout 
 Protestant, Monsieur Eieseo, and were 
 always in church at this time of day ? " 
 
 "Well, yes,'' — he drew a long face, and 
 got up unwillingly — "but it is so pleasant 
 to get a talk with you, and also I feared you 
 might be making some other engagement 
 for next Sunday. If we have a day like 
 this, it will be delightful, though it is 
 not I who shall enjoy the excursion to 
 perfection." 
 
 He sighed and raised his eyebrows with 
 an envious look. 
 
 Of this Madame Carouge took no no-
 
 232 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 tice, but she shook her head in rebuke of 
 his words. '* You ought to enjoy it tho- 
 roughly, monsieur ; you will have the 
 benefit and the pleasure of an open-air 
 holiday in the society of your wife. I often 
 hear her say she gets so little of your society, 
 your business takes you much away from 
 her. Now on Sunday it will be your 
 business to be with her — duty and pleasure 
 will be combined." She smiled, but there 
 was a spice of mischief in her eyes. 
 
 Kiesen made a grimace. *'Duty and 
 pleasure," he repeated, then he shook his 
 head. " Do you enjoy things because you 
 ought ? " he said in a tender half whisper. 
 ''No, no, dear friend, believe me, true 
 pleasure and duty were never yet mated ; 
 and yet," he gave her a look of warm admi- 
 ration, " I could fancy a case where this 
 might well happen. In mine, life is all 
 duty, pleasure is an unknown quantity."
 
 EOPE AND FEAB. 233 
 
 " Husli," Madame Carouge smiled, but 
 she spoke imperiously, ^^ you are talking 
 treason, and you know it." 
 
 She looked so scornful that Eiesen winced. 
 She rose up before he had found an 
 answer. 
 
 " You will, I know, excuse me, neighbour," 
 she said politely ; '* the truth is that I am a 
 little hurried this morning." 
 
 He got up from the sofa and she held out 
 her hand with a winning smile that took 
 the sting out of her previous words. 
 
 *' Au revoir," she said. 
 
 " I look forward to that happiness," 
 the clock-maker answered. And he was 
 obliged to depart. 
 
 Madame Carouge opened the door com- 
 municating with the bureau. 
 
 "Moritz!" she called. 
 
 In an instant the thin-faced waiter ap- 
 peared before her.
 
 234 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 " If any one wants me this morning, say 
 I am gone to church." 
 
 '*Yes, maclame." 
 
 Moritz returned to his desk with a 
 pleased smile, and Madame Carouge went 
 to her bedroom. But she did not get 
 ready for church. 
 
 She placed herself before her looking-glass 
 and stood there several minutes earnestly 
 gazing at the reflection she saw in it. 
 
 " Yes, I must be beautiful," she thought. 
 *' I cannot remember the time when I was 
 not made to know it." She turned from 
 the glass with a look of disgust. *' If 
 they only guessed how sick I am of hear- 
 ing their flattery ! What do I know ? It 
 is perhaps because Kudolf has never paid 
 me a compliment that I love him — love 
 him. Ah ! dear fellow, how I love him ! '* 
 
 She hid her glowing face between her 
 hands and sat down in an easy-chair.
 
 BOPE AND FEAB. 235 
 
 Presently she let Iter hands fall in her 
 lap ; her lip curved upward and showed 
 her lovely teeth. 
 
 ''How little one knows one's self ! How 
 often through those long dull years I said, 
 ' Ah ! when I get my liberty, I will never 
 lose it asain. I will be free — free as a 
 bird — for the rest of my life ! ' " She 
 laughed a little at the thought her words 
 called up. ''Poor little Chdri singing in 
 his cage down-stairs would be wiser than 
 I have been, if he found his cage door 
 open. Carouge has been dead only two 
 years, and I am already tired of my 
 liberty. I have none left." She struck 
 her closed hand on the marble shelf below 
 her mirror. "My married life was only 
 imprisonment, bodily imprisonment — at 
 least my heart was free, but now I do not 
 seem to belong to myself. What a weak 
 creature I am ! I only feel really living
 
 236 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 in Rudolf's presence — all the space between 
 our meetings is like a dull dream tliat has 
 to be got through somehow." 
 
 She sat thinking. It was such a chance 
 that she had known him ! If she had 
 followed the suggestion of Carouge's man 
 of business, Eudolf Engemann would still 
 have been a stranger to her. At the time 
 that she learned that her husband had left 
 her all he possessed, she was advised to 
 live for a while in retirement, and it was 
 suggested that Moritz, the head waiter of 
 the Hotel Beauregard, was capable of carry- 
 ing on the business for her benefit. 
 
 Even now she smiled as she remembered 
 her answer, and the surprise it had elicited. 
 
 She had looked steadily in the ftice of 
 the sleek, stolid man of business, who she 
 knew considered her a pretty doll, for 
 whom everything must be arranged. 
 
 "Monsieur," she said, *^I am eight-and-
 
 EOPE AND FEAB. 237 
 
 twenty — quite old enough to take care of 
 myself and the Beauregard. Moritz can 
 manage, I am sure, better under me than 
 he could without me." 
 
 And the lawyer had been obliged to 
 own at the end of the first few months 
 that the hotel was far more flourishing 
 since the beautiful young widow had es- 
 tablished herself there. She gave all her 
 orders through Moritz, and the waiter was 
 her slave. Althouo-h she had remodelled 
 the household, and made changes in the in- 
 ternal arrangements w^hich gave him much 
 trouble, he had never murmured, but had 
 striven to soften the ill-will show^n by some 
 of the older servants towards the new 
 mistress. 
 
 Now as the widow sat musing she was 
 half-ashamed of, half-amused at, the excite- 
 ment which Madame Bobineau's visit had 
 awakened in her ; and, growing calm again.
 
 238 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 slie asked herself what had been the use 
 of her studies in these past years if she 
 could be made jealous and suspicious by 
 a mere idea. Had she not taught herself 
 to believe that true love could not change ? 
 If this were so, she was unreasonable to 
 doubt Rudolf Engemann. She knew she 
 had lived on in the hope that one day 
 she should go out into the world and find 
 the other half of her soul which she had 
 dreamed of. 
 
 Captain Loigerot had some time before 
 introduced himself to her as her husband's 
 friend, and one day, six months ago, he 
 had solemnly presented to her Monsieur 
 Rudolf Engemann, a gentleman newly 
 arrived from Fribourg, who was about to 
 take up his residence in Berne, and who 
 wished to become a boarder at the Hotel 
 Beauregard. 
 
 "When she sat alone in the evening after
 
 EOPE AND FEAB. 239 
 
 that short interview, Madame Carouge knew 
 that she had seen the realisation of her 
 dream. The conviction came to her with a 
 certainty which left no doubt of its truth. 
 
 Since her husband's death — about two 
 years ago — she had lived in as much 
 seclusion as her position would allow, and 
 yet she could not help seeing the universal 
 admiration her beauty excited among the 
 visitors at the Beauregard. She had 
 not been aware that Eudolf Engemann 
 admired her. He had looked at her at- 
 tentively, but as she met his gaze, instead 
 of thinking of herself, her thoughts had 
 at once occupied themselves with him ; 
 indeed, he had ever since held them cap- 
 tive, ceaselessly filled with his image. 
 
 A strangely new life had begun for her. 
 Instead of the haughty self-reliance she 
 had so diligently striven to cultivate — for 
 intercourse with her fellows had taught the
 
 240 AT TEE BED GLOVE. 
 
 keen-witted woman that as she esteemed 
 herself so would others esteem her — she 
 had lately felt timidly anxious about the 
 impression she made on this young Swiss. 
 His manner and his attentions almost satis- 
 fied her when she was with him, but in his 
 absence fear and harassing doubts attested 
 the strength of her love. Every day she 
 sought anxiously in her glass for a trace 
 of the years which she knew made her 
 older than Monsieur Engemann, but her 
 love-fraught eyes only made her look more 
 attractive ; she could not see any mark of 
 Time's finojers. 
 
 "I wrong him too much," she thought, 
 " by these silly doubts : if Eudolf loves me, 
 he could not easily give me up ; and if he 
 does not love me, can I wish to keep his 
 attentions ? " 
 
 But she could not answer this question. 
 She rose and looked once more at herself.
 
 EOPE AND FEAB, 241 
 
 Her face and figure seemed to her very 
 attractive, but if her beauty did not satisfy 
 Eudolf, she felt that her pride in it was 
 over; she would cast it all away if she 
 could become that which he desired. 
 
 *^ Nonsense ! he loves me," she said softly 
 to herself, the light of hope shining in the 
 dark beauty of her eyes. " They cannot all 
 be wrong; he does love me: see how the 
 captain stands aloof when Eudolf is with 
 me. Kiesen and his wife and Madame 
 Bobineau, and others also ; they all think 
 that he loves me, for they hint at it often ; 
 they cannot all deceive themselves. I am 
 faint-hearted, that is aU." 
 
 Then she remembered that true love was 
 rarely self-confident, and this truth might 
 apply to Eudolf as well as to herself. In his 
 case the knowledge that she was wealthy 
 would, if she judged him rightly, revolt 
 his independence and tie his tongue. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 242 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Once more she told herself blushing, 
 that when Sunday came, she should have 
 her longed-for opportunity, and she must try 
 to give her lover decided encouragement ; 
 she must study his feelings instead of her 
 own dignity. 
 
 " It is too late for mass to-day," she said.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE BEAR-PIT. 
 
 " Love is such a simple thing when we have only 
 one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen 
 trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first 
 opening her heart, with wondering rapture, to the 
 morning. Such young, unfurrowed souls roll to meet 
 each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly 
 and are at rest." — Adam Bede. 
 
 Last Sunday had been rainy; the bright sun- 
 shine of to-day put all the holiday-makers 
 in good-humour, and they came trooping 
 along with gay, expectant Sunday faces. 
 They flocked out of the tall houses on each 
 side of the lonor street that stretches from 
 one end of the town to the other till it 
 
 R 2
 
 244 AT THE RED GLOVE. 
 
 readies the Nydeck Bridge ; tbey came, 
 too, in merry groups from the side streets 
 and alleys, till the long street seemed filled 
 with the wearers of straw hats and bonnets 
 trimmed with knots and garlands of flowers. 
 The women and girls wore chiefly sombre- 
 coloured skirts, but many of them had the 
 dazzling white sleeves and chemisettes and 
 the 2[litterin2: silver chains and brooches 
 of the canton. 
 
 A buzz of talk went on amonsf the 
 holiday-makers ; there W' ere plenty of chil- 
 dren in Sunday garb, and w^ith round, 
 festive faces, their eyes big with anticipa- 
 tion ; they w^ere going to the Cathedral 
 platform to cat cakes and play on the grass. 
 There were few men in the crowd. Most 
 of them had lounsfcd ofi" in the direction of 
 the Engc or of the bastions. A few, how- 
 ever, with stolid, patient faces, went on 
 with their women and children, but these
 
 TEE BEAU-FIT. 245 
 
 kept on past the turning to the Miinster, 
 along the street, till they reached the bridge 
 which unites the long promontory on which 
 the city stands to the country beyond it. 
 Many of these people were of the poorest 
 class, and they were going to pay their 
 Sunday visit to the living legend of their 
 city, the famous bears of Berne. 
 
 Marie and Madame Bobineau were in 
 the crowd. The old woman looked cheerful ; 
 her feelinojs had been soothed soon after she 
 reached home by the arrival of a basket 
 from the Hotel Beauregard. Inside it she 
 had found so ample a repast that she had 
 actually given Marie some cutlets for her 
 dinner. She was looking forward to a 
 luxurious supper when the girl went home 
 to her lodging. 
 
 Marie was in ecstasy at all she saw ; as 
 she walked along she thought Berne was 
 the most beautiful place she had ever
 
 246 AT TEE RED GLOVE. 
 
 dreamed of ; and indeed there was a succes- 
 sion of brilliant pictures. To-day the bright 
 sun-glow brought every point into high 
 relief; the quaint fountains looked more 
 quaint and many-coloured ; the gay stripes 
 of the red and orange window-blinds had 
 never seemed so vivid ; and the dazzling 
 effects of light and shade in the arcaded 
 streets, with the happy people, made con- 
 stant pictures. The girl's eyes seemed to 
 dance with happiness as she moved airily 
 along beside her slow-paced old companion. 
 They have reached the end of the street. 
 On the right is the bridge, and in front 
 of them is the beautiful blue-o^reen river 
 shimmering in the warm sunshine. Close 
 by is another of the gray -green fountains ; 
 this one is guarded by an armed warrior, 
 and Marie's delight increases. A group of 
 merry little ones are dancing and singing 
 hand in hand round a woman, who bends
 
 TEE BEAE-PIT. 247 
 
 over the fountain while she fills her 
 buckets. 
 
 " Ah, the dear little children ! " the girl 
 cries out ; " how pretty they are ! " 
 
 " Have a care, there ! " the woman cries. 
 *^Lieschen, Aline, and you, Wilhelm. The 
 water will fill your shoes and spoil your 
 Sunday clothes. Have a care, there, you 
 little plagues ! " But the little ones go on 
 dancing. 
 
 "Ah, the dear little children, how happy 
 they are ! ''' sr.ys Marie. She longs to join 
 hands with them, but Madame Bobineau will 
 not stop ; she plods slowly on to the bridge. 
 
 " Come, come along, Marie ; you must 
 never loiter in the street, child ; come,'* 
 for Marie pauses again to look up the 
 river. "You were loitering, no doubt, 
 when Captain Loigerot spoke to you. 
 Ah ! " she sighs, " well for you that you 
 met with so honourable a gentleman. It
 
 248 AT THE RED GLOVE, 
 
 is most improper for a girl to speak with 
 a straDSfer." She shakes her head and 
 
 o 
 
 frowns. 
 
 When Madame Bobineau frowns and 
 scolds her very much, Marie is strongly 
 tempted to go back to the Sisters ; but 
 to-day this feeling does not last ; she likes 
 the consciousness of independence ; she is 
 earning her own living while she remains 
 with Madame Bobineau, and it seems 
 cowardly to give up in despair because an 
 old woman, who in other respects treats 
 her fairly, has a trick of scolding. The 
 sunshine and the fresh air, the moving 
 crowd, the smiling, happy faces, the genial 
 holiday spirit that seems to fill the air, 
 have taken possession of the girl ; her 
 spirits rise ; they are as gay as they used 
 to be at St. Esprit ; she laughs out, and 
 looks at Madame Bobineau. 
 
 ''Pardon me if I laugh, madame,'' she
 
 TEE BEAE-PIT. 249 
 
 says shyly, for slie sees rebuke in her cousin's 
 face. "I did not feel afraid of that old 
 gentleman, the captain ; he could not eat 
 me up, as the ogre on the fountain eats the 
 children. Do not fear; I am very strong. 
 I would not let any one steal my purse ; 
 and if any one did steal it, he would not 
 find much in it,'' the clear young voice 
 goes on merrily. "Ah!" she cries, ''this 
 is delightful ! Thank you so much for 
 bringing me here. Oh, madame, you can- 
 not think how happy I feel ! " 
 
 She looks at Madame Bobineau with 
 sparkling eyes. Her gaiety is infectious, 
 and it softens the old woman a little. In a 
 few minutes they reach the platform in front 
 of the bear-pit, and are standing under the 
 shade of the trees, among the chattering, 
 merry groups who have come all this way 
 to see the bears of Berne. Men, and women, 
 and a crowd of little children loiter about
 
 250 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 the stalls near the pit. These stalls are 
 very showy, covered with toys and nick- 
 nacks, "souvenirs de Berne " in the shape of 
 small carved wooden tokens — bears, white, 
 and brown, and black, and in all kinds 
 of attitudes ; boxes, and trays, and ink- 
 stands, and Swiss chalets innumerable ; 
 albums of dried Alpine flowers, and photo- 
 graphs of the town and environs. Beyond 
 are tables on which heaps of buns, and 
 cakes, and carrots are exhibited ; these are 
 propitiatory offerings for the shaggy idols 
 in the dens below. 
 
 Marie cannot yet see the bears ; it is 
 early, and they have not come out to 
 greet their friends. The crowd, however, 
 having duly inspected the stalls, and made 
 some purchases, is now moving aw^ay 
 from them to the bear-pit, and in a few 
 minutes it has formed itself into a thick 
 screen along the edge of the deep pit.
 
 THE BEAR-PIT. 251 
 
 Marie is not in a hurry to see the bears ; 
 this concourse of happy people and the 
 gay stalls glittering in the sunshine make 
 for her a spectacle she has never before 
 witnessed. 
 
 ''Do but see, dear madame" — she pulls 
 Madame Bobineau s shawl to make her stop 
 — " do but look at the toy bears. Ah, the 
 pretty little beasts ! and I thought bears 
 were huge, ugly monsters ! See, here are 
 white bears, and here are brown ones ; 
 and oh ! here are some w^ho carry parasols, 
 and some smoke pipes, and some — ah ! " 
 — here she lau2:hs ao^ain — '' but these are 
 droll beyond belief; here is a bear who 
 teaches his little scholars. See them ! see 
 the dear little beasts ; there are eight, and 
 they sit on a bench side by side, and 
 he, the teacher, has spectacles ; and oh, 
 madame, here is another bear who paints, 
 and his picture is the Lake of Lucerne ! "
 
 252 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 She claps licr hands and cries out joy- 
 fully : '•' Ah, my beloved lake ! " 
 
 '* Chut ! " says Madame Bobineau ; '^ we 
 shall have a crowd round us, child. 
 Heavens ! you must learn to behave your- 
 self; people will think you are a savage, 
 Marie." 
 
 But Marie leaves off laughing ; her 
 mood is suddenly changed. Close beside 
 her on the stall she sees some dried white 
 flowers. Her lips part in wonder, for she 
 recognises them ; they are edelweiss blos- 
 soms, and she knows that they must have 
 been ejathered on the heights of the snow 
 mountains she so dearly loves. 
 
 "See, madame," she says, but her voice 
 is hushed and grave, " these are the lovely 
 snow-flowers, the edelweiss." She looks at 
 them with reverence. "Is it not as if 
 the snow itself had budded into blossom ? " 
 
 Madame Bobineau turns quickly away ;
 
 TEE BEAU-TIT. 253 
 
 she thinks the girl will follow her ; but as 
 Marie looks up from the edelweiss to the 
 faces of the people near her, she meets a 
 pair of blue eyes fixed intently on her own. 
 A tall young man is standing close beside 
 her. Marie moves on after her cousin, but 
 the owner of the blue eyes has taken a 
 shorter way, and when she reaches Madame 
 Bobineau, she finds the same pleasant- 
 looking stranger speaking to her old cousin. 
 
 '^ You did not see me just now, madame," 
 says Monsieur Engemann. " Have you 
 come to have a look at the bears ? So 
 have I ; and this is your cousin, is it not ? " 
 
 Marie has been gazing at him ; she thinks 
 he is nicer than any one she has seen in 
 Berne — he is so tall and so handsome. She 
 feels taken by surprise, when he pulls off 
 his hat and bows to her. 
 
 His fair hair is golden in the sunshine, and 
 there is a happy, peaceful look on his broad
 
 254 AT THE BED GLOVE, 
 
 forehead and in his blue eyes, Marie thinks. 
 Though he is so very tall, she does not feel 
 afraid of him, he looks so kindly at her. 
 
 Madame Bobineau makes another cour- 
 tesy to her lodger. *'I am your humble 
 servant, monsieur, and I thank you for 
 your condescension. Yes, we are going to 
 look at the bears. I wish you good-day, 
 monsieur, we will not intrude on you." 
 
 She takes Marie's arm, and is proceeding 
 to the further side of the bear-pit. 
 
 ''Pardon me" — Engemann places himself 
 before her — " but it is perhaps the first 
 time that mademoiselle has seen the bears, 
 and she cannot see them so well from that 
 side ; the people feed them there " — he 
 looks over his shoulder. *' If you will 
 allow me, madame, I will find a place for 
 mademoiselle here in the front. Be so 
 kind as to follow me, mademoiselle." 
 
 He looks so kindly at Marie that she
 
 THE BEAR-PIT. 255 
 
 follows him ; the crowd falls away before 
 his massive figure, and he soon finds a 
 place for her in front beside the low wall 
 which circles round the edge of the den. 
 
 Down below, a monstrous brown bear 
 and a smaller black one are walking on 
 their hind-legs round the paved circuit of 
 the pit above w^hich Marie stands. The 
 bears seem much too lazy to climb the tall 
 tree in the midst of the den, and the sur- 
 face of the wall round their prison is too 
 smooth to ofi'er any foothold, yet Marie 
 draws away shuddering, she thinks they 
 look so strong and savage. 
 
 " Do not be afraid," her companion says 
 kindly ; '*' the bears cannot reach you here, 
 nor can they escape from their den. Look, 
 look, mademoiselle, that comical brown 
 beast bows to you." 
 
 He laughs heartily, and as Marie listens to 
 him she feels reassured. She has forgotten
 
 256 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Madame Bobineau for the moment ; and that 
 old woman is in the friendly grasp of her 
 old friend and compatriot, Monsieur Lenoir, 
 the chief hair-dresser, and, it must be con- 
 fessed, the chief retailer of gossip, in Berne. 
 
 Madame Bobineau is thankful that the 
 crowd has made Marie invisible to them. Mon- 
 sieur Eugemann's fair head towers above the 
 rest, but it is impossible to see his companion. 
 
 " This is, indeed, a pleasure,'' says Mon- 
 sieur Lenoir, and he is polite enough to 
 add, " the pleasanter for being unexpected, 
 eh, my friend ? " 
 
 Lenoir puts his head on one side, and 
 his pointed chin digs into his collar. He 
 is a little, dapper man, with small, thin 
 legs, and he is irresistibly like a tomtit ; his 
 black eyebrows seem almost to encircle his 
 eyes, and he is always in movement ; even 
 when his restless body is still, his head is 
 bent jerkily from side to side.
 
 THE BEAE-PIT. 257 
 
 *' I should have remembered," he says, 
 before Madame Bobineau's answer is ready, 
 *' it is for mademoiselle your cousin's sake 
 you came here. Yes, yes, it is like your 
 kindness," and now jerks of complete satis- 
 faction go through his restless body ; the 
 jerks have not far to go, but they denote 
 intense enjoyment. '^ Now you will present 
 me to the charming cousin. There, there " — 
 he puts up his hand to silence Madame Bobi- 
 neau's attempt at deprecation. " She is charm- 
 ing, I hear ; a little bird has told me so ; " 
 he touches his left ear and looks inscrutable. 
 
 Madame Bobineau is on thorns ; she 
 longs to get rid of this Argus-eyed chat- 
 terer ; however, unless he sees Marie and 
 Monsieur Engemann together he cannot tell 
 tales ; and she begins to walk slowly toward 
 the outer fringe of the crowd, in the hope 
 of getting rid of him. 
 
 " Where do you say the cousin is ? " says 
 Lenoir, still hungry for information. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 Madame Bobiueau offers a thanksgiving 
 that he has never seen Marie. " I do not 
 know," she says ; " she is somewhere in 
 the crowd, I suppose, or she may have 
 gone home. She left me a while ago. You 
 must come to the " Ked Glove," and see 
 her there." 
 
 The mistress of the '^Eed Glove" is at her 
 wits' end ; she knows the hair-dresser's perti- 
 nacious curiosity too well to dismiss him 
 abruptly, and so she walks on beside him, in 
 a tremor of fear lest Marie and Monsieur 
 Engemann should suddenly appear together. 
 
 Marie is enjoying herself; with such a 
 powerful-looking protector she feels that it 
 is childish to give way to terror about the 
 bears. It is of course true that they can- 
 not reach her up there. She laughs at the 
 unwieldy, awkward monster who stands 
 with one huge paw laid beseechingly on 
 his hairy chest, while he leers up at her out 
 of his small red eyes. His shaggy hide is
 
 THE BEAE-PIT, 259 
 
 quivering with excitement, and to all ap- 
 pearance he is laughing as he opens his 
 mouth and begs. All at once Marie draws 
 back aorain and shudders. She has remem- 
 bered something she saw on one of the stalls, 
 a print representing a man who has fallen into 
 the bear-pit and is struggling for his life with 
 these horrible monsters while they try to 
 hug him to death. It is wicked, she 
 thinks, to pet and play with wild beasts 
 who only want opportunity to repeat this 
 cruel tragedy. At this moment a woman be- 
 side her flings the brown bear a large carrot ; 
 he catches it dexterously in his mouth, 
 and crunches it amid the loud plaudits of 
 the spectators. A shower of carrots now 
 falls into the den, and everybody laughs 
 at the fawning antics of the bears. But 
 Marie can no longer enjoy the sight; the gro- 
 tesque contrast between the comic gambols 
 of these monsters and their repulsive, 
 savage aspect, is horrible, she thinks ; she
 
 260 AT TEE BED GLOVE, 
 
 cannot forget the tragedy of the poor 
 Englishman. 
 
 "Mademoiselle does not care for the bears? 
 They are favourites in Berne." Engemann 
 had been watching her serious face, and 
 he had seen that she shrank back. 
 
 Marie felt ashamed. It seemed un- 
 grateful not to be pleased with the sight 
 which this kind gentleman had been at 
 the trouble of showing her. She had 
 disappointed him. She raised her eyes with 
 a protest in them ; but her new friend's 
 expression soothed her fears : no, he was 
 not looking vexed. He was, on the 
 contrary, smiling and looking satisfied 
 with her, Marie thought, as the Superior 
 of. St. Esprit used to look ; and besides 
 this, there was something in his smile 
 that drew her liking out to him in return ; 
 she felt trust in him, and at the same time 
 she hoped very much she should see his 
 frank, manly face again. Strong feelings
 
 THE BEAErPIT. 261 
 
 were new to Marie ; there had been nothing 
 to elicit them among the gentle Sisters, 
 who had never thwarted her, and who 
 had by their example taught her content 
 with her daily lot ; but this strong hope re- 
 specting her new friend came so naturally, 
 that the girl yielded to it without distrust ; 
 it was part of the pleasure of this delightful 
 afternoon. 
 
 "Does monsieur then consider that the 
 bears are handsome ? " she said merrily. 
 
 " Handsome ! " he said. 
 
 Engemann was so much absorbed in 
 gazing at her, that he forgot an answer 
 was expected of him ; and when Marie 
 looked up and met his eyes, he smiled so 
 pleasantly that she at once reflected his 
 expression, and moved by a sudden im- 
 pulse they both laughed. This somehow 
 set them at ease, and, indeed, it was quite 
 natural to laugh at such a grotesque idea 
 as the beauty of the bears of Berne.
 
 ^62 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 "No, mademoiselle," Engemann said, 
 *'they are not handsome, they are ugly 
 enough. Are they the first bears that 
 mademoiselle has seen ? " 
 
 " No, monsieur." And then her sweet 
 «yes grew pathetic, and she told him how 
 a poor Frenchman had come to the con- 
 vent leading a sick bear, which the man 
 said had danced to earn a living for him 
 and his wife and his little boy — she ended 
 by telling that the bear had died in an 
 outhouse. 
 
 She told the story so simply, that 
 Engemann had become deeply interested, 
 and when she came to the bear's death 
 ^nd his poor master's sorrow, her eyes 
 were full of tears. 
 
 "It must haA^e been very sad for him," 
 «aid Engemann. 
 
 Suddenly a cry of ''Marie! Marie!" 
 <:ame shrilly from the back of the crowd. 
 
 Engemann, who had been transported to
 
 THE BEAB'PIT. ^3 
 
 the convent of St. Esprit by the tale he 
 had heard, started ; then he recognised 
 the voice of his landlady. 
 
 "Your cousin is calling for you, made- 
 moiselle," he said, and he pushed on before 
 Marie so as to open a passage for her. 
 
 They found Madame Bobineau fluttered 
 and frowning, but she bestowed a smile 
 on her lodger. 
 
 ''You have been too kind and con- 
 descending, monsieur," she said quickly. 
 " I am sure the child is greatly honoured 
 by your consideration." Then, with a 
 nervous look round her, '* Thank mon- 
 sieur for his goodness to you, Marie ; we 
 must be going home.'* 
 
 Marie looked grave. She felt disap- 
 pointed at this sudden collapse of enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 ''Thank you, monsieur," she said, and 
 then she turned to Madame Bobineau ; " it 
 is early yet, madame, and it will not rain,'^
 
 264 AT THE BED GLOVE. 
 
 she began. *'0h, please do not go away^ 
 madame ; " and she looked up at the blue 
 sky, over which, however, a few snowy 
 clouds showed like fragments detached 
 from the Blumlis Alp. 
 
 ''Yes, yes, I know that. You think of 
 the weather, my girl ; I, on the contrary, 
 think of my legs. There are no seats to 
 be had here ; the place is getting over- 
 crowded. Come away, Marie, we will go 
 somewhere else." But she did not frown, 
 she courtesied to Monsieur Engemann with 
 a smile. ''Adieu, monsieur, I return you 
 many thanks ; " then she caught at Marie s 
 arm and walked away with her. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHABLES SICKBKB XND BTA.NS, OBTBTi.L FA.Li.OB FBB8B. 
 
 n