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 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL 
 
 VOL, I.
 
 lOSDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 eroTTiswooDB and co., new-street sq^arb 
 
 -•.ND PAKLIAMEXT STEEBT
 
 AUT C.ESAE AUT NIHIL 
 
 BY THE 
 
 COUNTESS 31. VON BOTHMER 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'GERMAN HOME LIFE' ETC. 
 
 ' Beware the Ides of March ! 
 He is a di-eamer ; let us leave him : Pass ! ' 
 
 Shakespeari 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, ORE EN, AND CO. 
 
 1883 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 (5 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 1. The Fountain op the Portico . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 ' Et tu, Brute ! ' 
 
 18 
 
 III. 
 
 Mother axd Daughter .... 
 
 38 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Duke's HuxTrN-G-ScHLOss . 
 
 55 
 
 V. 
 
 'Whex Greek meets Greek' 
 
 80 
 
 VI. 
 
 Mother and Sox 
 
 94 
 
 VII. 
 
 'The Good Cause' 
 
 119 
 
 VIII. 
 
 From Kome to Oxford .... 
 
 134 
 
 IX. 
 
 Revelations 
 
 144 
 
 X. 
 
 'The Goose with the Golden Eggs' . 
 
 . 159 
 
 XI. 
 
 ' Regard of Honour and Mild Modesty ' 
 
 . 181 
 
 XII. 
 
 < Three Generations' 
 
 197 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ' The Street op Sainted Joseph ' 
 
 . 219 
 
 XIV. 
 
 BlANCA 
 
 . 247 
 
 XV. 
 
 ' I Forgive You ' 
 
 267 
 
 XVI. 
 
 'A Daughter of the Gods, Divinely Tali 
 AND most Divinely Fair' . 
 
 278
 
 AUT OiESAR AUT NIHIL 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 
 
 People said they were American. Other people 
 said they were Enghsh ; but, then, those who 
 said so were French, or German, or Eussian, to 
 whom there is no appreciable difference be- 
 tween the denizens of the Old and the New 
 Worlds. 
 
 To Continental outsiders it seems beyond 
 expression strange that an Englishman should 
 resent being taken for an American, and 
 vice versa. ' You are all one family,' they 
 say ; ' why should the mother disclaim her 
 daughter because mademoiselle has other 
 manners, other views of hfe, than obtained 
 when madame was . . . before she had made 
 monsieur the happiest man in the universe ? * 
 
 VOL. L B .
 
 2 AUT CyESAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 (Here the hand is laid gently on the diaphragm, 
 slightly to the left of the central waistcoat 
 button, and madame is supposed to utter little 
 soft deprecating shrieks of delight at the 
 elegance of the compliment, at the exquisite 
 grace of the comphmenter.) ' Or why should 
 the daughter show impatience of maternal 
 prejudices, so called, and boast of her own 
 superiority, since the very qualities she prizes, 
 and upon which she plumes herself, are due to 
 the facts of her birth and parentage? You 
 others, you English, you are eccentric even in 
 the life of the family ; for one family you are, 
 and one you remain ; and, split straws as you 
 may, upon outsiders you make precisely one 
 and the same impression.' 
 
 ' Yes ; and the worst of it is,' a young fellow 
 was saying to a brother Oxonian on whom he 
 had pounced, a godsend in this weary waste 
 of (German) waters, ' they are all so awfully 
 bumptious ! What ? " / dont understand the 
 language, so how do I know ? " Why, don't 
 they understand mine, 'and yours — beg pardon, 
 old fellow, I don't mean to say they'd know 
 your brogue, you know — and his, and hers, 
 and its, and theirs, and ours ? They're about 
 the polyglottiest "cusses" out; and as to "side "
 
 THE FOUNTAIX OF THE PORTICO. 3 
 
 — side isn't in it. You wait until you've taken 
 off the stains of travel, and unpacked your 
 top-hat and patent leathers, and I'll take you to 
 where the band plays. Come to see your aunt 
 and uncle f Lucky fellow ! I've been six 
 weeks stewing in this steam-kettle, simmering, 
 
 and Well, you have only to look at me 
 
 to see I'm literally "done to rags." The climate 
 and the cooking have made such inroads upon 
 my person and constitution ; and yet my mother, 
 such is the utter and brutal selfishness of the 
 modern parent, my mother don't see it, and 
 won't commit herself to saying when her 
 " cure " will be over. Where are ice .^ Oh ! 
 we are staying at the " Rose.'' But don't come 
 there, for the cook is in league with the doctors, 
 and we are fed on husks, and grease, and 
 boiled milk adulterated in various economical 
 forms. Go to the " Quatre Saisons,"" where 
 they have a French chef. And I will come 
 round and fetch you in half an hour.' 
 
 Fitzgerald, who had scarcely uttered a word, 
 and only asked one or two questions, was 
 slightly surprised to be addressed thus familiarly 
 by Hudson, a man neither of his year nor of 
 his college at Oxford. He had met this in- 
 genuous and garrulous youth at ' a wine ' or 
 
 B 2
 
 4 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 two on the banks of the Isis, and liad heard 
 him once make an egregious fool of himself at 
 the Debating Club ; but these little episodes 
 dated a good way back in his natural history, 
 and Oxonian etiquette demanded a more re- 
 spectful and distant style of approach from a 
 junior to a 'don'; so Fitzgerald told himself 
 with a grim smile, as he tried to dip his sun- 
 burned countenance into a pudding-basin full 
 of water, and only contrived in his sputterings 
 to slop the precious element over the white- 
 draped washing-stand, and waste it on the 
 bare boards of his uncarpeted room. Never- 
 theless, a finer, cleaner, brighter specimen of 
 a well-bred young Englishman had seldom 
 stepped out of the classic portico of the 
 ' Quatre Saisons,' at Sprudelheim, than Mr. 
 Gerald Fitzgerald, in what Hudson irreverently 
 called his 'second-best Sunday-go-to-meeting- 
 togs, Lincoln and B., and patent- agonies,' when, 
 on that bright July evening, destiny sent him, 
 innocently rejoicing, on his way. 
 
 For a few minutes, after meeting the reno- 
 vated traveller, the irrepressible Hudson, awed 
 by reminiscent traditions of the formulse of 
 university etiquette, restrained the unruly 
 member in accordance with the Pauline pre-
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 5 
 
 €ept ; but after the lapse of ninety odd seconds, 
 his overwrought feelings proved too much for 
 him, and, without preface or preamble, he again 
 broke out with his interrupted confidences : — 
 
 ' They gave you a sugar-basin to wash in, I 
 suppose ? Fancy, my mother is so bhndly par- 
 tial that she says it is preposterous to complain 
 of domestic washing arrangements, when there 
 are such splendid public baths for everyone, and 
 to spare. By the way, don't put anything into 
 the drawers if you ever expect to get your 
 clothes out again. There is a key which fits 
 every chest of drawers in Sprudelheim, and you 
 have to turn it round to some particular angle, 
 invented for the benefit of the natives, and 
 pull vehemently. The chest wobbles about, 
 and the drawers rattle, but they don't move. 
 There are no shutters to the windows, so there 
 is no night. At five o'clock the water-drinking 
 begins. The poor wretches drink from five 
 till seven, or from six till eight. They walk 
 up and down in appalling deshabille^ telling 
 each other their various complaints in the most 
 unvarnished fashion, and boasting of how many 
 '' beakers " they have arrived, by dint of prac- 
 tice, at swallowing. All the time the band 
 plays — nothing can be done without the braying
 
 6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 of brass, in Germany. " Music hath power to 
 soothe the savacfe soul," and to soften the horrors 
 (at any rate to the native) of the Sprudelheimer 
 " Kur." After coffee and rolls — no butter — 
 the tormented are allowed to rest. Then the 
 " tubbing " begins. Then table cVhote, which 
 the natives call Mittagsessen, that is " mid-day- 
 feed," you know ; it'll remind you of all sorts 
 of things — it does me : of the parable about 
 the Prodigal Son ; of the Zoo ; of a railway 
 buffet, and the express starting in a minute 
 and a half, and the waiter gone to get change 
 for a half-sovereign, and your half-pint of 
 claret waiting to get uncorked, and the bell 
 ringing, and no chance of another meal for 
 ten hours. I'm sick of people saying they're 
 frightened when the Germans begin to swallow 
 their knives. Why should they be frightened 
 at their juggling tricks ? I dare say I'm a brute, 
 but people have been talking about it so long 
 that I wish they ivould swallow them once for 
 all, or cut their tongues out, or choke whilst 
 they're drinking the gravy, or spluttering over 
 the lumps of bread they wipe up the grease 
 
 with ' 
 
 ' You seem very irate,' said Fitzgerald, smil- 
 ing on the splenetic youth and his confidences.
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 7 
 
 ' Wait until you have had as much of it as 
 I have,' Hudson went on. ' It's not that I care 
 for. It's their conceit, their priggishness, the 
 way they look over a fellow's head, the idea 
 they've got that they've done what no one 
 else ever did before. But you'll see ; ' and the 
 angry but garrulous young man rushed on, dis- 
 playing an energy more in accordance with his 
 exasperated feelings than in harmony with the 
 delicious warmth and stillness of a July evening, 
 specially made for loitering. 
 
 All their surroundings were fresh, bright, 
 and radiant. The lono- avenue throuc^h which 
 they were passing was lit up with the golden 
 glory of the sun's declining rays. The foliage 
 looked as bright and freshly green as if June 
 were still on the threshold. The trunks of the 
 trees, barred with sunset gold, bordered the 
 leafy aisles like gilded columns ; the carefully 
 tended flower-beds, on the carefully kept lawns 
 to the right, were fragrant with bloom ; not a 
 faded blossom or withered leaf to be seen. 
 German nursemaids, with quaint, mummified 
 babies swathed in odd-looking cotton-mantles, 
 sauntered to and fro, carrying closed umbrellas 
 and parasols ; the awkward peasant figures, and 
 thick coils of plaited hair stuck through with
 
 8 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 arrows, or spears, or huge-headed pins, or 
 partly covered by embroidered velvet caps, 
 taken with the parasols, suggested an odd sense 
 of incongruity. Their large feet, encased in 
 coarse white knitted stockings and thick roughly- 
 made shoes, their frilled cotton cloaks, and 
 the rolling uncouthness of their gait, caused one 
 involuntarily to look at them again and again, 
 wondering whether, though obviously young, 
 they could ever have moved lightly and swiftly, 
 and why they should have such fine hair and 
 such horrible teeth, such huge waists and enor- 
 mous feet, were so generally " dowdy," and yet 
 wore head-dresses so smart and picturesque. 
 
 Children were playing in the dust of the 
 Allee ; calling to each other in little shrill 
 guttural voices, softly rasping the evening air, 
 with a sense of gently-jarring surprise. Near 
 some of the seats toys, of strictly German 
 build, strewed the ground. 
 
 ' That's the Kursaal,' Hudson said, stopping 
 suddenly in the midst of his jeremiads to 
 point out a large building at the end of the 
 avenue. ' In old days, before Prince Bismarck 
 had turned puritan, " purged, left sack, and 
 lived cleanly," that was where the gambling 
 went on. They gambol still, but it's spelt
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 9 
 
 differently. And I, for one, don't care to go 
 and look on at a set of Prussians dancing with 
 all the prettiest English girls in the place. I 
 don't go near their " Balls," on principle, and 
 I hope you won't either. Americans toady 
 the Germans in a sickening way. I think we 
 ought to make a stand, you know. At any 
 rate that's where I draw the line.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' Fitzgerald said, smiling ; 
 *I'm not so tremendously in earnest as you 
 are. I'm older, you see, and have grown lazy 
 and apathetic. I have no particular principles 
 about dancing, or about anything else, that I'm 
 aware of. Only, as a general rule, I think it 
 a mistake to set oneself up at Eome against 
 the Romans.' 
 
 ' Well, you will see,' Hudson ans^vered. 
 ^ Come round this way and we can have a 
 look at the people I was telhng you about. 
 They know lots of Germans, but I will show 
 them to you from a distance. Then you can 
 judge. I am certain they are EngUsh — certain. 
 But of course foreigners never know a Yankee 
 from a John Bull, and as Americans are 
 popular and we aren't over here, my unknown 
 friends are supposed to have an oil or shoddy 
 background.'
 
 lo ■ AUT CyESAR A UT NIHIL, 
 
 The two young men crossed a low colon- 
 nade. In the centre of a large grass plot a 
 fountain was playing. On the opposite side 
 of the road a public square, formed by the 
 theatres and three hotels, made a pleasant 
 quadrangle. At the end of the grass plot, 
 passing beneath a Greciain portico, you entered 
 the Kursaal ; some classical subjects painted 
 in fresco above the pillars gave a pleasant 
 touch of colour. The sound of the water 
 splashing and tinkling in the marble basin fell 
 refreshingly on the ear. It seemed to soothe 
 Fitzgerald in a peculiar manner, as he men- 
 tally contrasted it with the late snorting and 
 puffing of locomotives and steamboats, the 
 shaking and grinding of railway carriages and 
 omnibuses which he had endured. The 
 surrounding calm suggested a haven, even 
 though a strange one, reached at last, where 
 one could stretch one's legs, get up when one 
 chose, make a due selection of raiment, and 
 generally indulge in the far niente that never 
 seems so agreeable as after days of hurried 
 travel. 
 
 He paused a moment to look at the 
 feathery foam of the fountain falling in pris- 
 matic colours ; to take in the long sweep of
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. ii 
 
 green lawn, pillared portico, marble column, 
 and frescoed pediment, in their classic calm 
 and severe silent beauty. 
 
 ' Like a vale in Tempe,' he said, pointing 
 to the distance ; ' or these might be the groves 
 of Academe. One might fancy a group of 
 dryads and satp*s coming out of the woods 
 yonder ; or Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates 
 serenely discoursing wisdom to their respec- 
 tive disciples beneath the columns of the 
 portico.' 
 
 But Hudson was in no mood for acade- 
 mical reflections. ' Don't let us talk " shop," 
 or bring those old fellows up here,' he said 
 irreverently. ' I'm sure we've enough and to 
 spare of their "jaw" at our own beloved 
 Alma Mater ; for my part I think the whole 
 thing stuff.' 
 
 ' you Goth, you Iconoclast, you outer 
 barbarian ! ' 
 
 The strains of Strauss's waltzes flew, lightly 
 intermittent, through the elastic air, in little 
 zephyr-like sound messages. The thin clear 
 quality of the stringed instruments was in 
 accord with the high columnar ripples of 
 aerial waters whispering a hasty message, as 
 they reached the summit, to the setting sun,
 
 12 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 and falling in wide, wavering lines against the 
 encircling boundary of the marble basin, with 
 a low lapping sound, suggestive of plenitude 
 and contentment. 
 
 The sand in this retired part of the garden, 
 which had been carefully raked long before 
 dawn, still bore at sun-down the marks of the 
 artificial care intended to supplement the de- 
 ficiency of the unattainable gravel of English 
 pathways. One could see that few persons 
 frequented this side of the Kursaal, for the 
 footprints crossing the sand were few and far 
 between. 
 
 'Not even gravel, without which even your 
 cockney has no claim to call his yard a 
 garden,' muttered Hudson, in intense dis- 
 gust, indicating the rake-marks with a con- 
 temptuous motion. ' Fancy raking dust, by way 
 of making a model garden-path ; and if you 
 were to say anything, they w^ould fly at your 
 throat and argue your head off, to prove that 
 a good hard gravel path was very inferior to 
 diurnally dust-raked ways ! ' 
 
 ' I'm not sure that I don't admire them for 
 that. There is good sound philosophy in 
 liking what you can get, when you can't get 
 what you like.'
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 13 
 
 ' Ah ! well, wait. Perhaps you won't 
 admire them so much by-and-bye.' 
 
 And the two young men sauntered on. 
 
 As they turned the left hand corner of the 
 building, and came to the border of the little 
 wood that Fitzgerald mentally decided must 
 form a pleasant retreat and screen against the 
 sun's scorching rays during the mid-day, an 
 animated scene presented itself to their view. 
 
 A large lake stretched its shining waters in 
 serpentine perspective far beyond the imme- 
 diate precincts of the garden. From its centre, 
 a beautiful fountain repeated, on a much larger 
 scale, the rhythmic splash and ripple that had 
 charmed Fitzgerald already in the fountain of 
 the portico. In the immediate foreground, 
 showing doubly white upon the double shadow 
 of wood and water, floated two magnificent 
 swans, swerving now to this side, now to that, 
 arching their white necks as though in silent 
 disdain of the admiration noisily invading their 
 element. 
 
 In a rotunda sat the musicians, whose elo- 
 quent ' discourses ' kept together the two or 
 three hundred persons, some walking to and 
 fro in pairs, some sitting at tables eating ices 
 and drinking coffee, some silent, some in con-
 
 14 ■ AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 verse, some tlirowiiig pastry and sweetmeats to 
 the swans, otliers laughing and talking as loudly, 
 as much pro ho7io as if they were alone in the 
 safe seclusion of their own grounds. A motley 
 scene indeed, taken in contrast with the soli- 
 tude and silence whence the young men sud- 
 denly emerged. 
 
 Predominant, as to numbers, colour, and 
 general importance were the Prussian military. 
 Tightly buttoned up in resjDleudent uniforms, 
 smart as buckram and belts, pipe- clay and 
 pomade, stocks and straps, could make them, 
 these modern sons of Mars stepped loftily along, 
 squaring their shoulders, straightening their 
 backs, and saluting with an angular formality 
 that made their arms appear less like the inde- 
 pendent limbs of a human being than the me- 
 chanical elbow-joints of a cleverly- contrived 
 automaton. Their eyes appeared to Fitzgerald's 
 fancy to roll portentously, and their blonde 
 moustaches to bristle aggressively beneath the 
 repressive wax of the military barber. Some- 
 times their sword-scabbards clanked resonantly 
 against the ground ; anon one hand would be 
 laid upon the hilt, whilst the other would be 
 raised in all the stiff precision of the regulation 
 mihtary salute ; now and again a young dandy
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 15 
 
 Avould be seen picking up his sabre with an 
 air of coquetry, as a belle does her flowing 
 skirts, preparatory to sitting down, amongst a 
 circle of admirers, the cynosure of neighbour- 
 ing female eyes. Some of the younger ex- 
 quisites hung for a second on the arm of the 
 Fidus Achates of the moment, apparently ab- 
 sorbed in the communication of piquant de- 
 tails. Others made fleeting confidences of an 
 evidently highly-entertaining character, sepa- 
 rating again immediately with a burst of 
 laughter, and the ' No really ! ' ' Ton honour ! ' 
 of the dandiacal of every clime. An air of 
 almost obtrusive camaraderie appeared to be 
 affected by these conquering heroes ; and a 
 man would not need to be very sensitive or 
 very quarrelsome to suspect them of a pre- 
 conceived determination to look over his head, 
 and to treat him, should they be accidentally 
 brought together, absolutely in all respects as 
 though he were not present, his entity non- 
 existent, not to be recognised, and of no pos- 
 sible sort of account. 
 
 All this Fitzgerald seemed to see and take 
 in at a glance, and in the background of his 
 mind he was aware of a vague impression that 
 a quarrel with one of these gentlemen must
 
 i6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 perforce be but an empty unsatisfactory kind of 
 thinsf, and better avoided. This mem. made a 
 note of, he stuffed it away into the pocket-book 
 of his mind, trusting to chance to put him on 
 its traces should occasion call for it. 
 
 ' Look, there they are, there ! ' said Hudson, 
 taking hold of Fitzgerald's arm, and somehow 
 seeking to direct his vision by a strenuous 
 pressiu-e of that member, and a warning in- 
 tonation of voice. ' Look ! to the left of the 
 fourth orange-tree — there — a man is bomng 
 to them. Did you ever see such antics ? That's 
 
 Baron , but never mind his name. What 
 
 does it matter ? He has taken himself off, 
 thank goodness. Now you can see them ; she 
 has a pale bonnet, I don't know the colour ; 
 the old gentleman has not dyed his moustache 
 to-day. I'd bet my boots that hat comes out 
 of Bond Street. Of course the natives think 
 that, if the people I'm telhng you about are 
 Americans, there must be money and matri- 
 monial designs in the background. They are 
 so beastly cautious and mercenary these Ger- 
 mans. We English are quite at a discount in 
 this country. For one thing, we are all poor, 
 nowadays. Lots of shady Britishers seeking 
 Continental retirement, and the natives don't
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF THE PORTICO. 17 
 
 like it — small blame to them. But Americans 
 they do like, and American girls and their 
 fortunes too. There ! now you can see them. 
 My mater says she thinks her the loveliest girl 
 she ever saw. Wliat do you say ? They are 
 coming this way, by Jove ! Tell me if you 
 think they are starred or striped. I bet fifty 
 to one they are Enghsh. They will pass close 
 by us. Look at them both. Tell me if you 
 
 think ' 
 
 ' Think — why, what nonsense ! ' Fitzgerald 
 said, colouring as he spoke. ' These are the 
 people I've come over here to see. My aunt 
 and cousins.' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 ' ET TU, BEUTE ! ' 
 
 The little party was advancing across the level 
 green sward. Mr. Hudson's anonymous Baron 
 had bowed himself into the background, with 
 repeated wrigghngs and reverences, squaring 
 the inevitable elbow, saluting in the high 
 military fashion, making little, precise regula- 
 tion hops to the right and to the left, almost 
 like the figure of a comic dance, clicking his 
 heels together every time he came into position, 
 bringing his moustache almost on a level mth 
 his waistband, condescending, angular, em- 
 phatic. Fitzgerald noticed that there was a 
 great deal of grass between his well-squared 
 elbows and his judiciously-compressed waist, 
 and as the Baron ' trimmed his belt and his 
 buckles, and turned out his toes,' it indistinctly 
 occurred to him that life was not long enough 
 in less luxurious lands for these elaborate fare- 
 wells.
 
 ET T0\ BRUTE/ 
 
 19 
 
 Unlike his companion he was amused, 
 tickled, with a pleasant sub-acute sense of the 
 humorous, as though the little scene were being 
 enacted for his entertainment. 
 
 Hudson's tongue had suddenly stopped. He 
 was mentally rushing backwards and forwards 
 through his confidences of the last hour or two, 
 and trying retrospectively to recall whether he 
 had said anything he ought not to have said 
 about Fitzgerald's relatives. Of course, as a 
 matter of taste, it was ' a nuisance ' that he should 
 have made these people the subject of what 
 might, by courtesy, be called his conversation. 
 But, then, ' How could a fellow know ? Only, to 
 be sure, everybody was related to everyone 
 else, nowadays.' And in his perplexity a 
 frantic desire to escape, and an ingenuous 
 impulse of shame sent the blood flying to his 
 face, and his tongue, suddenly paralysed, ceased 
 to prattle forth its ' ill-considered trifles.' 
 
 Three ladies and a gentleman were advanc- 
 ing towards them, with that air of quiet un- 
 emotional everydayishness which belongs to 
 the ordinary routine of life ; where one expects 
 nothing, avoids nothing, and accepts, as a 
 matter of course, the calm of the common- 
 place and tlie event of the moment. They 
 
 c 2
 
 20 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 were walking two and two ; they were walking 
 arm in arm ; and tliey were all strangely like 
 and yet unlike one another. 
 
 It was impossible to say where the family 
 likeness was carried over ; where softened into 
 doubt or strengthened into exaggeration ; by 
 what subtle shades of transmission the colouring 
 and expression of this young daughter of a 
 Eoman Marchese could yet bear a strong re- 
 semblance to the frankly humorous features 
 of a cockney Irishman. How the high-bred 
 French Canadian lady had managed to transfer 
 something of her own essentially Gallic grace 
 to the typical Englishwoman whose mother she 
 was. The family strain, lost here like a brook 
 in the underwood, emerged there into daylight 
 again, and no one thought of examining the 
 water-course for traces of its unbroken con- 
 tinuity. But this strange mixture of blood 
 fully accounted for the differing opinions of the 
 public as to the nationality of the family party. 
 Mr. Owen was an Irishman in name only. His 
 father, an absentee landlord, had, dans le 
 temps, married a plain portionless young person 
 from the Border-land. The lady had brought 
 nothing but her thriftiness and a debateable 
 accent as ' tocher ' into tlie family with her, until
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE r 21 
 
 the birth of Garry, the only son and elder child. 
 There was a girl who later on married in 
 Ireland, and both children had been brought 
 up in London, where the boy was taught some 
 business or profession ; but losing his father 
 and mother whilst yet a youth, after some 
 years of idleness and folly, had married the 
 beautifid Leonie de Courteville, whose acquaint- 
 ance he had made in Canada, when transacting 
 business for one of the many hundreds of suc- 
 cessful and unsuccessful companies with which 
 he had been connected during his chequered 
 career. Mr. Owen fell suddenly, madly, 
 irrationally in love with this quiet, refined, 
 not quite young, French lady. He had never 
 seen anything like her, and he determined to 
 marry her at any cost. 
 
 It cost little or nothing. Monsieur de 
 Courteville, 'pere^ was glad to ' settle ' his 
 proud, silent, beautiful daughter ; glad to meet 
 with a son-in-law who did not haggle as to 
 money, but promptly agreed to any and every- 
 thing proposed for the advantage of the Court- 
 eville family. Mdlle. de Courteville was not 
 much consulted in the matter. It was taken 
 for granted that she could have no objection. 
 The property would thus be kept together for
 
 22 A UT C^SAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 the benefit of her elder and only brother. 
 Well-tutored French maidens understand their 
 personal unimportance as compared with the 
 general good of ' la famille ' too well to resist 
 parental pressure, and Leonie lifted up her 
 large brown eyes, listening attentively to all 
 that was said ; and, if she were sacrificed, went 
 to the altar resignedly — nay, rather with a 
 charming grace and diffident composure pecu- 
 liarly becoming under the circumstances. 
 
 If Mr. Owen had no misgivings before 
 marriage, he was not long in discovering, after 
 the irrevocable ceremony, the imprudence of 
 that rash anti -nuptial haste and hurry. He had 
 
 to make his bride's acquaintance ; and he 
 
 never made it. They were old people now ; 
 but, in some respects, as much strangers one 
 to the other, as they walk across the lawns of 
 Sprudelheim, parents and grandparents though 
 they be, as on that triumphant day when she — 
 Leonie — had taken him, Garry, to have and to 
 hold, according to the old fatal, final formula, 
 until death should them part. 
 
 But Mr. Owen was not a man either to 
 publish the history of his own discomfiture or 
 to weep in secret over the tragedy of mistaken 
 haste. Outwardly he remained an attentive
 
 23 
 
 liusbaud ; perhaps more scrupulously polite and 
 considerate to his wife than he was to anyone 
 else in the world ; never relapsing into the free- 
 and-easy, familiar tone common to his inter- 
 course with his general circle ; still less warming 
 into that condition of mutual confidence which, 
 in happy marriages, merges the dual existence 
 in spontaneous unity. One little daughter was 
 born to this reasonable couple, and there the 
 family came to an abrupt conclusion. Thence- 
 forth Leonie lived only for her child ; and if, 
 in the secrecy of her sohtary chamber, the 
 lonely woman poured forth her rebellious soul 
 to God, there was no trace of such impassioned 
 pleadings, dumb agonies, and wild regrets in 
 her intercourse with the world. She sat hour 
 after hour in her silent room sewing, nursing 
 her baby, dressing it in delicate raiment, into 
 which she put much more than the marvellous 
 stitches so admired by her friends ; sending it 
 out into the sunshine, welcoming it home ; 
 mufSing it in beautiful, soft, silky, woolly gar- 
 ments ; superintending its washing and dressing, 
 admiring its lovely limbs and rosy hands and 
 feet — always on the alert, never forgetful of its 
 hien tire. Of the pathetic emptiness of such a 
 life, of its sense of utter failure and baffled
 
 24 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 incompleteness, what true woman ever speaks? 
 And Leonie made no confidences. Her child 
 had need of her ; for its sake it was her duty to 
 live; and life for her meant sohtude. By 
 degrees her husband got more used to, if never 
 entirely easy in, her presence. He kept his 
 loose jests, his free and somewhat vulgar manner 
 for times when she was not by. If people 
 whispered that his coarse nature found amuse- 
 ment in a passing joke with women of an 
 altogether different type, and it was rumoured 
 that more than one good-looking serving-wench 
 had been sent away for presuming too far on 
 her master's favours and her mistress's for- 
 bearance, Mrs. Owen made no sign. 
 
 A woman who utters no complaints is never 
 popular with her own sex. If only she would 
 air her grievances she would place herself on 
 an equality with other fair babblers, and her 
 humiliation would be a tacit triumph to critics 
 and sympathisers alike. But she can't expect 
 sympathy if she gives herself airs. A husband's^ 
 peccadilloes are the property of the female- 
 gossips of the neglected wife, and to defraud 
 them of any of their privileges is to insure their 
 indifference, if not their disHke. 
 
 Mr. Owen's obscure manner of life and
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE r 2^ 
 
 manifold speculations kept the little household 
 permanently in that state of difficulty which 
 implies midnight calculations, anxious con- 
 trivances, perennial self-denial, and perpetual 
 misgivings and uncertainty on the part of the 
 house-wife, 
 
 Mr. Owen was tolerably well off, met his 
 friends at clubs and taverns, and led on the 
 whole a jovial, roving, if not a very brilliant 
 existence. Mrs. Owen sat at home, wondering 
 how she should manage, reading and working, 
 praying to God, and nursing her child. Drink- 
 ing tea, and ' doing without,' so that Sunday's 
 dinner might have attractive features for the 
 lord and master, studying fresh economies and 
 possible retrenchments, was the life she led, and 
 it was supposed to be good enough for her. Was 
 she not a good woman (apart from her haughti- 
 ness of disposition, and a certain high temper, 
 apt, if not judiciously curbed, to strain at camels), 
 and what did any good woman want more than 
 a baby, and buttons to sew on to her hus- 
 band's shirts ? Well-regulated women never 
 require equal companionship, interchange of 
 ideas, sympathy, consideration, and love, if the 
 husband withhold these boons. Thus, if at 
 times the proud strong nature of the woman.
 
 26 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 tlie rich reserve of generous emotions, rose up 
 in conscious antagonism to the stagnation of her 
 existence, and fought and struggled passionately 
 in her pure breast for the mastery, who was any 
 the wiser ? She smote her fair bosom in self- 
 accusing penitence, ate out her heart in solitude, 
 and went on from day to day, from year to 
 year, along the straight unquestioned path of 
 duty. 
 
 When Hero was sixteen and Leonie forty- 
 four, the paper-mills, cofFee-plantations, patent 
 carriage-lamps, patent omnibus-checks, patent 
 bed-making machines, patent coal companies, 
 vegetable-sugar companies, Danubian loans, 
 Aztec-temples-restoration society, Mecca- asso- 
 ciation-for-the-conveyance-of-pilgrims, Chinese 
 anti-pigtail association, patent wash-tubs com- 
 pany, associated-Samaritan-loan company, and 
 a hundred other brilliant chimeras of Mr. 
 Owen's active brain, came to a definite, final, 
 and, as it seemed irrevocable, if also some- 
 what lame and impotent, conclusion. Up to 
 the last, he maintained that he was bound to 
 make a fortune out of each and all of these 
 ingenious combinations of capital and intellect ; 
 but Fortune, proverbially blind, so persistently 
 turned her wheel the wrong way that, like the
 
 ' ET TU, BRUTE!' 27 
 
 baseless fabric of a vision, the insubstantial 
 pageant of Mr. Owen's speculative fancy melted 
 into thin air, leaving not a ^vrack behind. 
 Then it was that the Marchese Martello, a scion 
 of the great Eoman house dei Martelh, coming 
 to London about the affairs of the Pisan com- 
 jDany for straightening the Leaning Tower, saw, 
 wooed, and wedded the beautiful Hero Owen. 
 
 With that history, tragic or otherwise, we 
 have no immediate concern, though its effects 
 will hereinafter be seen, further than to state 
 that the Marchesa Martello, nee Hero Owen, 
 is now crossing the lawn at Sprudelheim, arm 
 in arm with her daughter, at every step ap- 
 proaching her cousin, Gerald Fitzgerald, more 
 nearly. Mr. Owen, gallantly conducting his 
 wife, struts on slightly in advance, stopping 
 now and then that the delicate lady may rest. 
 She is slightly lame, and the exertions of even 
 what he calls her modified ' peripatetic per- 
 formance ' sends the colour into her pure pale 
 face, flushing it painfully as she pauses in her 
 laboured progress. Mr. Owen speaks in a loud, 
 fluent, slightly dictatorial tone. He might be 
 a chairman addressing a board of directors, or 
 seeking to penetrate the thick skulls of unin- 
 telhgent shareholders.
 
 28 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Gerald smiles as his uncle's familiar ac- 
 cents are borne to him across the plashing of 
 the fountain, on the evening air. ' What a 
 Barnum the old fellow is ! ' he says to himself, 
 and looks past him at his womankind. 
 
 The Marchesa Martello is dressed, hke her 
 daughter, in a plain material of creamy white, 
 that chngs and falls in soft draperies, defining 
 both graceful figures, the slender girlish one, and 
 the more matured and womanly, in a modest 
 fashion that conveys an impression of ease and 
 comfort, together with trimness and spotless 
 purity. Their large sunshades are white, and so 
 are their hats and feathers, relieved by black 
 velvet bows, and bound broadly with velvet of 
 the same sombre hue. The mother wears black 
 gloves and black ornaments ; the daughter's 
 gloves are tucked with a pocket handkerchief 
 into the loose outside pocket of her dress ; a 
 gold thimble set with turquoise is on her dainty 
 finger, and some delicate frills and lace fill 
 the little work-basket she carries on her left 
 arm. On her right, with a pretty assumption 
 of protection and superiority, she supports her 
 mother. 
 
 A tall, womanly girl of sixteen, it seems 
 at first sight incredible that she can be the
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE r 29 
 
 child of the woman leaning on her arm. Yet 
 a very few minutes' observation would con- 
 vince an acute stranger of the fact that they 
 are in very deed mother and child. 
 
 As for Mr. Owen, he flourishes with such 
 perennial youth, has such an excellent digestion, 
 sanguine temperament, and convenient con- 
 science, that for sixty-seven years he has slept 
 the refreshing sleep of the just ; and in con- 
 stitution and vivacity appears to be about five- 
 and- twenty. 
 
 ' How are you. Aunt ? ' says Gerald, hfting 
 his hat as he steps forward out of the shade, and 
 offers his hand to Mrs. Owen. 
 
 She takes it without comment. Life has no 
 surprises left for her. Welcome, rather than 
 astonishment, beams in her kindly eyes and 
 smihng mouth. ' Oh, ah, yes, of course, Fitz — 
 by all that's miracu — well, agreeable, pro- 
 pitious ; ' and Mr. Owen winks and coughs 
 as he amends his original greeting, and con- 
 trives to get his elbow admonitorily amongst 
 Fitzgerald's ribs, thus pointing the moral in the 
 direction of discreet silence. 
 
 The young man is not ill-natured. Two 
 beautiful ladies are looking at him with kind
 
 30 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 eyes, waiting their turn ; of course he will not 
 betray his uncle. 
 
 ' Oh, ah, yes, of course ; the girls,' says ]\Ir. 
 Owen, following Gerald's eyes, ' charming sur- 
 prise for them. Not that they need cavalier e 
 servente^ quite the contrary ; but one has to be 
 careful of foreigners.' 
 
 ' How are you ? ' Gerald is saying to Hero, 
 taking her hand and looking naturally and 
 affectionately into her beautiful eyes. There 
 is reverence as well as affection in his gaze, 
 and for a moment it almost seems as though 
 he would kiss the hand he holds, before 
 making up his mind to relinquish it. But the 
 publicity of their surroundings forbids effu- 
 siveness, and simpler habits prevail. After an 
 imperceptible pause the hand is dropped, and 
 Gerald looks across to Bianca, who is disputing 
 with her grandfather, a suspicion of latent 
 curiosity in his gaze. 
 
 'One has to be — careful?' she says. 'Of 
 what? Of whom? Of foreigners'^ And why 
 of '^foreigners ? " Are we foreigners ? If so, 
 people ought to be "careful" (I suppose it's 
 something offensive) of us. I'm sure /don't see 
 so much in English people to admire ! ' 
 
 ' Et tu, Brute ! ' said Fitzgerald, laughing
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE/' 31 
 
 at the girl's tirade ; ' allow me to iotroduce my 
 friend Mr. Hudson, a patriotic Englishman, as 
 they say in the old plays. This is my uncle, 
 Mr. Owen, Hudson. My aunt, Mrs. Owen, 
 and these ladies, the Marchesa Martello and 
 her daughter, my cousins, you already know — 
 I dare say — by sight,' and Hudson, blushing 
 with joy and gratitude, bobs his head about in 
 acknowledgment of the introduction, looking, 
 after the fashion of the in^fenuous British 
 adolescent, intensely and hopelessly youthful. 
 
 ' What did Fitz mean by saying I, too, was 
 a brute ? ' asked Bianca of the embarrassed 
 Hudson, as the little party, once again set in 
 motion, strolled through the cool colonnades. 
 ' Of course, I know about the quotation ; but 
 who is the other brute ? are you ? ' 
 
 ' No, at least yes ; but not in that sense. 
 You don't seem to admire the English, and I 
 don't like the Germans, and he meant — he 
 meant — I can't explain what he meant,' stam- 
 mered the bashful youth. ' He had been talk- 
 ing, you know, and I was a little illiberal, 
 perhaps — towards " foreigners," you know.' 
 
 ' Ah ! many Englishmen are,' Bianca 
 answered, with a capable air. From her 
 pinnacles of superior age and experience, she
 
 32 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 affably condescended to a young man six or 
 eight years lier senior. ' I think it a mean trait 
 in the national character, myself. Not that we 
 are English. My grandpapa is Irish, with a 
 Scotch or semi-Scotch mother; my grand- 
 mamma is French of the vieille roche^ if you 
 know what that means ; my father — well the 
 name Marchese Martello del Martelli^ you 
 know, speaks for itself, and as his mother was 
 German, we are " pretty much mixed," as the 
 Americans say ; ' and she puts on a delightful 
 little nasal accent. 
 
 Hudson laughed, and then half apologeti- 
 cally : ' You mustn't think I hate all foreigners,' 
 he said. 
 
 ' I am sure you are very kind to say so.' 
 
 Was she quizzing him? He was afraid to 
 look at her. Every now and then the Owens 
 paused, and then they all came together in 
 a little knot, and so stood talking until Mrs. 
 Owen again moved on. 
 
 'Have you known Fitz long?* Bianca 
 asked ; ' he's mamma's cousin, not mine. We 
 call him " Fitz " amongst ourselves, though 
 " Gerald " is a prettier name.' 
 
 'We have been at college together. At 
 the same university I mean, though not at the
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE!' 33 
 
 same time. That's very different, of course, 
 and I am not of his year/ said Hudson, feeling 
 suddenly very small. 
 
 ' But Fitz has done with college in a sense. 
 He is what they call " fellow and tutor " now : 
 the youngest at Oxford. Isn't that an honour ? 
 Only not all the fellows and tutors are allowed 
 to marry : and that's very hard upon them. 
 If they do, they have to give up their luxuries 
 and everything when they are quite old, and 
 begin life again as parsons, or if they don't like 
 that and are quite penniless, they must look out 
 for something else to do.' 
 
 ' Sm^ely that is very seldom ? I know lots of 
 married Fellows.' 
 
 'I don't know. I've heard them talking 
 about it.' 
 
 Hudson suddenly remembered that several 
 terms had passed since he met Fitzgerald at 
 some party given in his honour. The young 
 don had then been resident at Oxford, in an 
 important position, the greater part of a year. 
 And he, Hudson, now in his ' third,' had been 
 guilty of the gross breach of university etiquette 
 implied by accosting a dignitary with as little 
 ceremony as if both had come w^ freshmen 
 together. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' I tliink, if you will allow me, I will say 
 good-niglit,' lie miirmiired ; and witli a confused 
 and mumbled farewell, tlie agitated youth took 
 his departure. 
 
 ' ingenuens puer ! ' cried Mr. Owen in 
 comment, liis looks commercing with the skies. 
 ' What Hudsons are those I wonder ? The 
 tobacco man, or the railway king, or the 
 Government contractor ? ' 
 
 ' Don't talk Latin, G. P.,' said Bianca. 
 
 'And you are happy here — you and 
 Bianca?' Fitzgerald was saying to Hero. 'I 
 can understand that, if you think the waters 
 are doing my aunt good. That is everything. 
 Shall you stay much longer ? Only you must 
 not forget old England. We are not so black 
 as we are painted ; and — and — but what non- 
 sense for me to give you advice ; of course 
 you know best what is most suitable, and the 
 rest. I'm sure you will forgive me if I say 
 that my aunt ought not to be allowed to think 
 of the expense — certainly not to dwell upon it. 
 Anxiety and worry are incompatible with a 
 successful cure.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' 
 
 ' That we must all discourage even at the 
 risk of seeming unsympathetic. How could the
 
 35 
 
 money be better spent? My uncle has been 
 telling us there is an immense rise in the shares 
 of the "Ararat Ark Company." I dare say you 
 know all about it. Take advantage of the 
 seven fat years after the seven lean, and per- 
 suade your mother against her scruples.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I am so glad,' Hero answered ; ' one 
 never knows ; papa is so sanguine ; and mamma 
 feels things much more than people m health 
 can understand. She cannot bear to spend 
 anything on herself; she is so unselfish. And 
 I — you know, I, Bianca — that is ' 
 
 ' My dear cousin, my dear Hero, you and 
 your mother ' 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; I know. But your friend has 
 gone. Will you come in P ' 
 
 ' No ; I think not — not to-night. Perhaps 
 my uncle will walk a little way down the hill 
 with me.' 
 
 'Here is the money,' Fitzgerald said half 
 an hour later, as the two men were about to 
 depart, ' don't let her lack for anythmg. I 
 told Hero that the Ararat Company was a " big " 
 thing, so don't betray me. But I don't like my 
 aunt's look,' he added, in a more serious tone. 
 ' Not that I would alarm anyone unnecessarily ; 
 but strangers, outsiders see what our nearest 
 
 D 2
 
 36 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 seldom do. If there is anytliing to spare, buy 
 Bianca some chitons with it. Girls like gloves, 
 and ribands, and that sort of thing. Only ' — 
 and the young man hesitated visibly — ' let my 
 aunt have everything first. It is not much, 
 but I shan't have more at present — not for 
 a few months. After that perhaps ' 
 
 ' A carriage will save the fatigue of walking 
 to the baths ; they say the fatigue neutrahses 
 the good she might otherwise gain. And a little 
 really good wine — Steinberger Cabinet say. Of 
 coiu-se, it's drinking gold, that we know ; a vin 
 de roi : but when a princely heart gives ' 
 
 Fitzgerald had fled. There are things flesh 
 and blood can't endure. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Mr. Owen, complacently, ' good 
 boy that according to his lights. Of course 
 Madame must have some of the spoils, but — 
 well, I shall be able to take up the shares 
 allotted to me in the " Desert Fisheries Associa- 
 tion," and to pay the call on the " Cabbage 
 Candles Company," Limited, and leave enough 
 for an excursion or two for the girls, and the 
 shawl that little minx in the ballet set her 
 heart upon.' 
 
 The stars were twinkling in the heavens as 
 he opened the garden gate, and went up towards
 
 'ET TU, BRUTE r yj 
 
 the house with a conscience at peace with him- 
 self and all the world. 
 
 ' Give us a song, Hero,' he said, in his plea- 
 sant mood. 
 
 His wife was on the sofa ; her luminous 
 grey eyes turned full upon the face of her 
 daughter as she sang. Bianca was playing in 
 the balcony with some Eussian children, whose 
 parents shared their villa with the Owens. 
 
 Fitzgerald, glad to be alone, a little lifted 
 out of himself, a little excited, his heart beating 
 a little faster than usual, he knew not why, 
 paced to and fro beneath the colonnade, listening 
 to the murmurs of the fountain of the portico.
 
 38 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTEE. 
 
 ' If ever a woman might have been excused, 
 my poor child, you were that woman.' 
 
 ' If, mother ? Yes — if. But what woman 
 ever was excused? What woman ever will 
 be?' 
 
 ' God forgive me ! It is not for your mother 
 to loosen the landmarks. The world is bitterly 
 cruel.' 
 
 'Ah ! and there is so much behind one, so 
 much lived through and lived down, that one 
 would be thankful to forget, mother. If one 
 pulls out so much as one little brick, down 
 tumbles the whole building, and tlie work has 
 to be begun all over again. It seems as if one 
 could not summon up courage ; that the task is 
 so difficult one must fold one's hands, and let 
 things drift. And yet, that is impossible. I 
 don't know. Mamma mia^ how we came to
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 39 
 
 speak of such things. It is a profitless discus- 
 sion. It leads to nothing.' 
 
 But Leonie Owen was looking at her 
 daughter with a far-away gaze, that took no 
 note of Hero's words. Her pale face was dis- 
 tiu-bed by some inner emotion, and yet she was 
 silent. Her expression had something of 
 inspiration, of that rapt and intense kind which 
 suffices of itself to the kindling soul, without 
 the aid of speech. 
 
 ' What is it, mother ? Is it anything -in me ? 
 Is it anything new ? ' 
 
 ' It is everything in you, my child. How 
 can I look at you, at your past, at your future, 
 at even the palpable present, and not tremble ? 
 To think the time is not far distant w^hen I 
 must leave you alone ; when I shaU not be here 
 to shield you, to help you, to sympathise wdth, 
 and to love you ! That, whatever your trouble, 
 you must bear it in silence, without me, your 
 other self, your older, stronger, harder self. 
 Ah ! the thought makes death so bitter, so cruel, 
 my love, that all my resignation flies, and I am 
 nothing but a rebel. And yet it is only our 
 poor vanity that makes us think we are in- 
 dispensable — necessary to the happiness of 
 others.'
 
 40 A UT CyESAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Mother, liusli ; pray don't ; you are so 
 much better ; you are nervous to-day, and so 
 you imagine these things. I cannot bear you 
 to talk hke that ; I cannot bear it. You must 
 outlive me, for I — 1 could woiYwQ without you.' 
 
 'No; there it is. This world has still 
 power to pain your sensitive soul, my child ; 
 sharp tongues can still agonise you, though 
 pride may hide the wounds. But for me, I 
 am old, I am case-hardened, I am tough. I 
 am good to break the shocks that only reach 
 you now through the mother's blunted feelings 
 or world-buffeted heart ; but Hero, if — if I 
 could only see you happy I should die happy.' 
 
 ' Mother, you must not talk of dying. It 
 means a Trappist future for me. You, who 
 know me, hnoiv all. I should have to tell 
 myself, to explain myself, my life, my past, to 
 anyone, to everyone else; and, as I could never 
 do that, I should be condemned to eat out my 
 heart in silence. A man's love is not like the 
 mother-love, large, unselfish. Though innocent 
 of blame my past would be an offence to a 
 jealous nature.' 
 
 ' Unless — alas ! alas Hero. I dare not speak. 
 Yet how can I be silent P ' and, stooping over 
 her daui^hter as she sat on a low stool at her
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 41 
 
 feet, the mother whispered, stroking the hands 
 and hair and face she loved, kissing the hps 
 and the forehead, ' to think that no lover has 
 once whispered to you as your old mother 
 does, that you are fair, that your eyes give 
 light, your lips happiness ; that your words are 
 music in his ears ; that no strong arm has ever 
 opposed its sheltering strength between you 
 and the world ; no pride in you, no joy in 
 your grace and sweetness, no true close 
 sympathy has ever made life beautiful and 
 joyous to you ; but that only I — only your 
 poor old mother — should breathe those loving 
 follies in your ears ; that you, so formed and 
 fitted to bestow and to receive happiness, to 
 spend joy and gladness, to love and be loved, 
 should have passed the best years of your life 
 in loneliness and sorrow ! ' 
 
 ' If there were only tliai to regret, mother.' 
 
 ' But it includes all the rest.' 
 
 ' Yet how few women are really happy ; 
 happy in the best and highest sense.' 
 
 ' Perhaps because very few women are 
 capable of inspiring or enjoying the best and 
 highest happiness.' To this Hero made no 
 reply, and the mother said no more. 
 
 It was not a mere material vegetating con-
 
 42 AUT CJESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 dition of well-being that she had desired, and 
 did earnestly desire, for her daughter. When 
 death beckoned Leonie de Courteville's young 
 lover away into the Silent Land, the bright 
 ambitious boy (he had but just won his 
 epaulettes) had obeyed the sign without a 
 murmur. His death had not been on the 
 battle-field, no laurels decked his coffin ; but, 
 with military obedience, he recognised the 
 orders of his Commanding Officer, and under 
 arrest for eternity, kept a brave front to the 
 foe. A lock of curly hair rested on the young 
 girl's heart, as she rose for the last time from 
 the bedside of her soldier-cousin ; but no one, 
 not even her mother, knew that the blossom 
 of love had been nipped in the bud, and that 
 hope lay dead on the young soldier's silent 
 breast. There had been no loud vehemence, 
 no violence of demonstration about her modest 
 maiden grief. There had been, necessarily, 
 more of tenderness than passion, more of affec- 
 tion than of romance, in it ; but as one twin 
 will sicken and pine for want of its companion 
 creature, as one sister or brother will fade and 
 perish for the utter need it has of its sympa- 
 thetic sister or brother-soul, so Leonie's heart 
 was buried in the grave of him to whom, in
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 43 
 
 the eyes of all her relations, she had been as a 
 sister and as a sister only. 
 
 Yet she understood duty well enough to 
 know that it meant marriage for her when M. 
 de Courteville told her that an eccentric 
 Enghshman, who required no portion, though 
 he was wilhng to make unhmited marriage- 
 settlements on his future wife, had requested 
 the honour of her hand. 
 
 In well-ordered French households, ' la 
 famille ' includes, as does the bare mention of 
 ' The State ' in German homes, both motive and 
 argument. There was the exemption of her 
 father from the usually inevitable ' dot ' to be 
 considered, and the advantages thereby accruing 
 to her brother to be weighed ; besides that little, 
 vague, irritating suspicion of stigma Avhich, in 
 French eyes, attaches to ' demoiselles ' who, 
 being past their ' first youth,' neither marry nor 
 go into a convent. 
 
 The poor dead boy should have no suc- 
 cessor, no rival. Women who shut themselves 
 up in opinionated griefs were selfish, Leonie 
 thought, and not unfrequently sacrificing in the 
 pursuit of a chimera the happiness of others 
 as well as their o^vn. And thus Leonie gave 
 her hand without scruple or hesitation to Mr.
 
 44 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Owen, knowing that she would be able to 
 do her duty none the worse because of the 
 memory of that far-away dead-and-gone love 
 of her early girlhood — a love of which not 
 even to her mother had she ever breathed a 
 word, knowing it to be outside the realm of 
 sympathy as maidenhood is understood in the 
 French scheme of education. 
 
 But she had somewhat over-estimated her 
 strength. Full of fond enthusiasms and gene- 
 rous beliefs in a high ideal, well-read, accom- 
 j)lished, refined and cultured herself, it was 
 not the difference of race or tongue that . 
 jarred upon her in Owen ; it was the innate 
 vulgarity and commonplaceness of his charac- 
 ter that dispirited, discouraged and baffled 
 her. Her married life, spent in almost greater 
 seclusion than her maidenhood, brought with 
 it but the twilight of half-impressions, and 
 starved and narrowed in one direction concen- 
 trated itself in the sublime unselfishness of 
 maternity. The one touch of passion native to 
 her character lay in her motherhood ; in those 
 mystic instincts of self-devotion which make 
 Christianity more especially the religion of 
 maternity. All that life had hitherto denied 
 her, all that she had once hoped for and
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 45 
 
 seemed for ever to have missed, all possibilities 
 of beauty, and joy, and happiness, she saw in 
 the little bud whose blossom it would he hers 
 to reahse and rejoice in. When she felt her 
 babe's warm rosy feet trampling in satin 
 nakedness their initial path from her knees to 
 her shoukler, her heart beat beneath the 
 fluttering tentative footsteps as though they 
 were so many caresses, and came at last to live 
 only the life of the child. And so, as with the 
 baby and little toddling ghd, on into her young 
 maidenhood, until Hero, beautiful as a poet's 
 dream, ignorant and innocent still, yet full of 
 eager curiosity to know more nearly a world 
 w^hich from a distance looked so fair, was called 
 upon, a not unwilling, and yet profoundly 
 will-less, sacrifice to pay a father's debt. 
 
 It came so suddenly, it was accomplished 
 so peremptorily, that, in after times, it seemed 
 to the frantic mother she must have been fatally 
 spell-bound to allow things to take their fatal 
 course, as she had done, in mute, hopeless 
 despair. Why had she let this Iphigenia be 
 led smiling to the altar, decked in dazzling 
 sacrificial garments, gazing open-eyed in inno- 
 cent anticipation and wonder at the festive 
 preparations that showed her the Shrine as
 
 46 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 anything rather than the Place of Atonement ? 
 Why had she, the mother, not flung herself in 
 protestation between her child and destruction, 
 shaken off the petty bonds of use and custom, 
 of form and conventionality, and appealed to 
 men and fathers by their strength, to women 
 and mothers by their tenderness, to form 
 round the sacred virgin, and in the name of 
 humanity wrest maiden innocence and igno- 
 rance from the profanation of a stranger's 
 touch ? Why had she not invoked wrath on 
 this unholy compact, calling men to witness to 
 its ruthless iniquity? Why had she not cast 
 herself prostrate between the porch and the 
 altar, and dared the glittering procession to 
 advance across her's, the mother's, prone body, 
 before she let her one ewe-lamb, her darling, 
 be taken from her ? 
 
 But none of these things had happened. 
 
 On the contrary. Trippingly, as though 
 the course of love proverbially ran smooth, 
 the preparations went their jaunty way. A 
 daily white bouquet for the girl-bride, who 
 took it, smihng at her new importance ; a 
 daily drive with the handsome Italian bride- 
 groom in a hired carriage ; the complacent 
 father playing propriety, whilst Hero prattled
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 47 
 
 and rattled like a school-girl on a half-holiday ; 
 nightly commnnings and reckonings, contrivings 
 and speciilatings, and strange talk of capital 
 and interest, of percentages, premiums and 
 discounts, and stock and scrip and shares, and 
 companies between the two men ; a release 
 from all responsibility as regarded Mr. Owen's 
 part in straightening the 'Pisan Tower,' and 
 carrying out the ' Campagna Sheepfold Com- 
 pany,' culminating in the clash and clang of 
 the wedding-bells of Hero's marriag-e-morninCT. 
 
 There had been nothing tragic about it. 
 Nothing palpably tragic, that is. Modern life 
 is intolerant of tragedy, and, to take its outside 
 estimate, 'cakes and ale and ginger hot i' the 
 mouth,' are more to the general taste than the 
 bowl and the dagger. And thus at times it 
 almost seemed to Leonie that she had been 
 mad in thinking to avert the climax by such 
 wild means as, in her extremity, she had 
 mentally invoked ; whilst, mixing strongly with 
 her love for the child, there grew a sense of 
 responsibility and remorse, as of injury done 
 and expiation to be made. 
 
 A presentiment had warned her of the 
 misery to come, and yet she had disregarded 
 the monition, and had supinely let things
 
 48 AUT CJESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 take their course, consenting tacitly to the' 
 sacrifice which she had not the power to pre- 
 vent. 
 
 ' Mother ! ' cried Bianca, coming into the 
 room where Leonie and Hero sat silent, both 
 occupied with thoughts of the past, ' the 
 Kerezofis have offered to drive me to the 
 Duke's hunting-lodge, and they want you to 
 come too. Fitz and his friend, Mr. Hudson, 
 and G. P. are to go in one carriage, so there is 
 a place vacant in their droschky for you ; the 
 KerezofF children and the governess started, on 
 donkeys, hours ago, and I am going in their 
 waggonette mth the Baron and Baroness, and 
 two or three Prussian officers.' 
 
 ' Did you know of the arrangement ? ' 
 Leonie asked, looking at her daughter. 
 
 She was not hke most grandmothers, doting 
 and weak to the younger generation. On the 
 contrary, she watched Bianca jealously, and 
 was not always pleased with what she saw. 
 
 ' I heard them, talking of it last night,' 
 Hero answered. 
 
 If the Kerezoffs did not ask her to drive 
 with them, she could scarcely thrust herself 
 into their waggonette. On the other hand, 
 they had asked her daughter, and it seemed
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 49 
 
 that, with the gentlemen invited, the vehicle 
 would be full. 
 
 ' You can come with me in the second 
 carriage,' she said, looking at Bianca instead of 
 at her mother. 
 
 'Oh, no, mamma. The Kerezoffs asked 
 me last week, and, if I went in your carriage, 
 we should have to turn one of our gentlemen 
 out. It could not be G. P., because he, simply, 
 would not go. As it is Fitz's carriage, I sup- 
 pose we can scarcely propose to put him on his 
 own box like a footman. Then that Oxford 
 friend of his is a stranger, so wx could not in 
 decency expel him for the sake of the family 
 j)arty inside.' 
 
 ' I think it a great impertinence on the part 
 of Baroness Kerezoff,' said Mrs. Owen, in a 
 vexed tone. ' She knows perfectly well that 
 a girl of your age ought not to be separated 
 from her own family.' 
 
 Bianca's fearless assertion of equality was a 
 permanent astonishment to her grandmother. 
 
 'The separation by the length of a wag- 
 gonette is not exactly tragic,' Bianca said, still 
 smiling and wilhng to be amiable if they would 
 let her. 
 
 ' And your mother was the person to be 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 AUT C/ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 asked,' her grandmother broke in. ' You could 
 have followed with your grandpapa, if it was 
 necessary you should go and there was no room 
 for both you and your mother in the Kerezoflfs 
 waggonette.' 
 
 ' We are not obliged to go at all,' Hero said, 
 experimentally. ' After all it's quite an in- 
 formal afiair ; or ' — trying to throw oil on the 
 troubled waters — ' the Baroness would have 
 treated me with more ceremony.' 
 
 ' What are you talking about ? ' cried Mr. 
 Owen, bustling in, very red in the face, very 
 important, and putting a new hat and gloves 
 down on the table. ' I can't have you disoblige 
 the Kerezoffs. KerezofF, as I have told you, was 
 formerly employed by the Eussian Government 
 as an inspector of mines. He knows all about 
 the green copper mines that we are going to 
 bring out in London as a company, if only 
 things go straight — the celebrated Immensikoff 
 and Zaratoff mines. Just as if all this woman's 
 stuff about precedence, chaperons, and that 
 sort of humbug could be allowed to stand in 
 the way of common sense and business. Let 
 me " float " my mines, and you can quarrel as 
 much as you please afterwards.' 
 
 ' Common sense certainly points to a mother
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 51 
 
 keeping watch over her own daughter,' said 
 Mrs. Owen, severely. 
 
 Her words, as she felt, were not well chosen, 
 and Mr. Owen jumped at the mistake. He 
 had a theory that all women were by nature 
 jealous, and he had no mind that grand-maternal 
 weaknesses should influence the fate of Zaratoff 
 copper. 
 
 ' Jealousy, eh .^ ' he cried, ' stuff and non- 
 sense ! Well, it's no news that the poet made a 
 mistake ; poets do, occasionally. Jealousy, thy 
 name is woman ! ' 
 
 'Indeed, I am not jealous,' Hero said 
 quietly, taking the accusation to herself ; ' but,' 
 stretching out her soft white hand and laying 
 it on Bianca's bro^vn fingers, ' I do not hke my 
 Httle daughter to be running about without her 
 mother.' 
 
 ' But you are going too, Mamma mia ! ' 
 
 ' To drive behind the Kerezoff waggonette 
 and swallow all their dust. You are very 
 kind, Bianca,' interposed her grandmother. 
 ' No ! I protest against that. If your mother 
 goes she must start first, otherwise it will be 
 imendurable. I wonder at yoiu- proposing 
 such a thing, with the thermometer at 87° in 
 E 2 
 
 UBRARY \
 
 52 A UT CyESAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 the shade, and the dust of accumulated ages on 
 these German roads.' 
 
 ' Mamma's cosmopoHtan soul is above water- 
 carts,' said Bianca, defiantly. 
 
 ' To start before my little girl would look 
 like abandoning her indeed,' said Hero. 
 
 The discussion pamed and wearied her, she 
 could scarcely have said why. 
 
 ' Stuff. One would imagine to hear you 
 talk that you were going across the Atlantic 
 without her,' interjected Mr. Owen. ' What a 
 devil of a fuss women do make about nothing.' 
 
 'It is not "nothing" to us, we being women,' 
 his daughter answered, in a low voice, her 
 spiritless manner effectually hiding the epi- 
 gram. 
 
 ' And, for the matter of that, Hero, it 
 seems like affectation your insisting so much 
 on your maternal duties ; for, to speak plainly, 
 you require a chaperon quite as much as — if I 
 were not afraid of giving offence, I should say 
 a great deal more than — Bianca. Bianca is a 
 child ' (the young lady made a grimace), ' you 
 are a young woman, looking even younger 
 than you are. It is of very little consequence 
 what a girl in the schoolroom does. In fact, 
 Bianca ought to have gone on a donkey with
 
 MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 53 
 
 the little Kerezoffs and their governess. As 
 she hasn't, I beg you won't offend these people 
 by refusing to carry out the programme. We 
 three men shall bore each other to death in 
 ritz's droschky, and I hope you will get ready 
 and go with a good grace ; so let there be no 
 more about it ; ' and, taking no notice of 
 Bianca's pouts, Mr. Owen closed the discussion 
 by leaving the room. 
 
 Fitz's honest face looked a little blank, or 
 so Hero fancied, as, ten minutes later, Bianca 
 nodded to him from the balcony upon which 
 the Kerezoff apartments opened, and announced 
 that she should warn her friends not to start 
 for another half-hour, as she particularly 
 dishked swallowing dust. 
 
 ' Bianca does not come with us ? ' he asked, 
 looking at Hero. 
 
 'No. It appears this is an old engagement 
 with the Kerezoffs, which I had not understood. 
 I am sorry, but papa thought it would not do 
 to make a fuss, and alter the original arrange- 
 ments. I did not understand them, it seems, or 
 I should certainly have refused for her.' 
 
 Bianca, who was on the balcony, could not 
 hear what they were saying in the carriage, or 
 she would not have nodded at them quite so
 
 54 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 amicably. 'You look very comfortable,' she 
 cried ; ' I almost wisli I were with you.' 
 Having got her own way she could afford to be 
 gracious. 
 
 ' I will go on the box ! ' (from Fitz eagerly). 
 
 'No, no! And take care, G. P., that 
 mamma does not flirt too much, or I shall be 
 jealous.' 
 
 ' Foolish child,' said Hero, mildly flattered. 
 
 ' Drive on,' cried Mr. Owen to the coach- 
 man, in his best German ; and so the dejected 
 party jolted off, finally dismissed by Bianca 
 from her balcony, until the two hopeless screws 
 and the dilapidated droschky disappeared into 
 the dust and sunshine of the summer's after- 
 noon.
 
 55 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE duke's HUNTIXG-SCHLOSS. 
 
 It was scarcely a congruous party ; the ele- 
 ments of coherence being chiefly conspicuous 
 by their absence. 
 
 Hudson, awed by the beauty of the silent 
 lady opposite to him, perplexed, after the 
 manner of Britons, as to the correct style of 
 addressing a person afflicted with a foreign title, 
 impressed (as perhaps only an undergraduate 
 can be impressed) with the greatness and glory 
 and grandeur of the youthful don by his side, 
 and feehng, for certain reasons, on uncertain 
 ground with Mr. Owen, was, for him, excep- 
 tionally taciturn. 
 
 An unmistakable cloud lay on Fitzgerald's 
 generally serene brow, and Hero, after saying 
 a word or two as civility demanded, fell back 
 in the carriage, and continued to gaze blankly 
 out into the afternoon world from beneath the 
 becoming shadow of a pink-lined parasol.
 
 56 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' No, but a charming chintz and Brussels 
 lace,' etc. etc., quoted Fitz, with cynical ill- 
 humour, to himself. 
 
 Hero was, evidently, ill at ease ; whether 
 in mind or body, he could not tell, but not 
 too ill at ease, not too unhappy to ignore the 
 value of a pink-lined parasol. The next mo- 
 ment he seemed to himself a mean, ill-natured, 
 and contemptible fellow ; an unmanly, vulgar- 
 minded affector of cheap cynicism. Fortunately 
 for him the sneer had not become vocal (not 
 that he thought any the better of himself for 
 that), but he hated himself for having so much 
 as brushed Hero's spotless raiment with his 
 ill-humour. His manner became, generally, 
 more genial, and there was something almost 
 apologetic in his tone to Hero. An injury 
 done to an unsuspicious and unsuspecting per- 
 son seems, to the doer, a double injury. 
 
 The road led by a gradual ascent through 
 an avenue of Spanish chestnuts which presently 
 became a dense forest. Here and there a 
 ranger wished them good-day ; now and again 
 a woodcutter, driving a donkey that looked 
 liked a perambulatory faggot-stack, crossed 
 their path, and, with a rough and ready greet- 
 ing, disappeared down a sunlit glade. A fresh
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTIXG-SCHLOSS. 57 
 
 breeze was rippliug the surface of the young 
 wood ; the shinins; leaves seemed to be bab- 
 blmg and pratthng in their joy that the winter 
 was over and past, and the song of the turtle 
 heard once more in the land. The driver asked 
 if the Herrschaften would get out and walk, 
 explaining that the footpath was nearer, easier, 
 and pleasanter. Mr. Owen, scenting an attempt 
 to evade the bargain, and crediting their clumsy 
 Jehu with a desire to impose and cheat the 
 unwary Briton, felt indisposed to move. The 
 younger men were glad to stretch their long 
 limbs, cramped with the exiguity of a convey- 
 ance wliich not even the maddest cultus for 
 courtesy-titles could classify as the conventional 
 ' carriage.' 
 
 Hero, folding up the frivolous sunshade, 
 descended with alacrity. 
 
 The earth beneath their feet appeared to 
 give way ; they did not really touch the ground, 
 but trod upon tlie dried leaves of immemorial 
 autumns, elastic and springy, with a fine wood- 
 land odour, familiar (and dear) to all pedestrian 
 lovers of sylvan scenery. The chequered shade 
 lay in bright moving patches, fiecldng the 
 ground mth intermingled sunhght and shadow, 
 hke little tricksy translated cloudlets chasing
 
 58 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 eacli other over the ground in frohcsome pur- 
 suit. Against the clear bkie sky, the fresh 
 young leaves of this season fluttered joyously 
 in the light mountain breezes. Hero, walking 
 bareheaded through the upland forest, in her 
 simple white dress, attended by a knight and a 
 squire of goodly thews and sinews, suggested 
 Una with far more justice than the pink-lined 
 parasol had recalled Narcissa ; and something 
 of the contrition he felt for having wronged 
 her, though only by a passing thought, made 
 itself apparent in the inflection of Fitz's voice. 
 
 More than once Hudson glanced shrewdly 
 at his friend, looking instantly, as one always 
 does in a wood, straight ahead again. It was the 
 manner not the matter that was suggestive. 
 Hudson was exceptionally boyish of his age, 
 but he had his intuitions. 
 
 Within a quarter of a mile of the hunting- 
 Schloss they came upon the Kerezoff children ; 
 governess, and donkeys, equally dead beat. 
 
 ' We will go with you,' they shouted to 
 Hero, glad, after the manner of their kind, of 
 any diversion that promised to enlarge their 
 boundaries, and carry them beyond the irk- 
 someness of supervision. The denizens of a 
 despotically governed land, tliey were as much
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 59 
 
 the modern cliild as the smartest New York 
 juvenile. 
 
 ' Not if we know it,' answered Fitzgerald, 
 looking behind, as he had already done once or 
 twice on the upward journey. ' See ! here is 
 Mr. Owen, seated in state hi an empty carriage. 
 You might join him ; or, better still, there is 
 the waggonette ! ' 
 
 Shouts of joy hailed the announcement. 
 The waggonette meant ladies and gentlemen 
 to take the young rebels' part against mild 
 Mademoiselle. Mamma would be too busy to 
 scold them ; obviously the waggonette was the 
 Car of Liberty of their desires. 
 
 ' Young ruffians ! ' laughed Fitz, as they 
 surged up a mossy bank, ready to spring out, 
 frighten the horses, and inaugurate endless 
 disaster. ' What do you say ? Shall we wait 
 for — the others ? ' 
 
 ' For Bianca ? Yes ! ' said her mother, with 
 a httle air of mixed anxiety and displeasure. 
 
 The Baroness Kerezoff, a small, slight, 
 sallow woman, with high cheek-bones and grey 
 obliquely-set eyes, by turns voluble and 
 gracious, impertinent or obliging, was the 
 first to descend. A certain veneer, or more 
 accurately speaking, French polish, did not, at
 
 6o AUT CJESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 an emergency, altogether snffice to hide the 
 natural grain of the material. Scratch the 
 smooth shining surface of Eussian savoir faire^ 
 and although you might not find the proverbial 
 Tartar, you would certainly find something less 
 or other than you looked for. To speculate as 
 to what that ' Something,' good or evil, better 
 or worse, might be, were an utter loss of 
 time. 
 
 ' I, who was so good to that ungrateful 
 wretch, my dear,' she one day said, complain- 
 ing to Hero of an unfaithful friend ; ' there was 
 nothing I did not do, and would not have done 
 for her. I even lent her my false hair ! ' 
 
 A little shudder thrilled through her 
 hearer. And yet the woman must be essen- 
 tially frank, and free from guile, to make such 
 a statement. Only, it would have been so 
 much pleasanter had there been no necessity 
 either for the false hair or the free confidence. 
 
 The Baroness KerezofF was always ex- 
 quisitely and appropriately,if somewhat lavishly, 
 dressed. l!s'o one ever saw her in last season's 
 fashions ; and if, to the uninitiated, her toilettes 
 appeared simple, the better instructed knew 
 that costly simplicity is just by so much the 
 more extravagant as serpentine is dearer than
 
 THE DUKES HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 6i 
 
 marbled paper, or malachite than colom'*ed 
 glass. 
 
 On tliis occasion she wore an Indian cache- 
 mire feuille-morte dress, richly embroidered in 
 silk of a darker shade, a brown hat trimmed with 
 leaves of every shade of autumnal tint, brown 
 Swedish gloves reaching to the elbow, bewitch- 
 ing little brown shoes and silk stockings with 
 faint pink clocks, a brown parasol embroidered 
 hke her dress, and lined with faint pink to 
 match the clocks discreetly revealed by her 
 rapid descent from the waggonette. A macynifi- 
 cent silver belt in old Eussian repousse work 
 clasped her dainty waist, earrings and studs to 
 match, whilst the natural gnarled stick of her 
 parasol bore her monogram in silver, and a 
 superb brown fan, mounted to correspond, 
 dangled with half a hundi'ed costly trifles from 
 lier waist. 
 
 In the country on her estates, or visiting 
 amongst her intimates, Madame de Kerezoff 
 was frankly sallow. In society, dressed for a 
 ball, she was as delicately tinted as Gibson's 
 Yenus. 
 
 ' Ah ! here you are, dear madame ! ' she 
 cried in hrreproachable French, devoid of all 
 accent, caressing and courteous, yet markedly
 
 62 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 devoid of familiarity. ' You were wise to 
 choose the carriage ! ' (Hero smiled.) ' To go 
 sideways, like a crab, staring at your opposite 
 neighbour all the way, is, I assure you, a strain, 
 but a strain on the nervous system that takes 
 years off one's life. I feel like that French 
 queen who turned grey in a night, only I shall 
 have distanced her, doing it in one afternoon ; 
 not in the solitude of my cell, but on a party of 
 pleasure, in the open air ; ' and thus, chattering 
 gaily the irresponsible nonsense that came 
 uppermost, she put one foot on the step and 
 one tiny gloved hand on the shoulder of the 
 cavaliere servente who stood at the door of the 
 waggonette, and fluttering down to earth, said 
 almost without a pause, looking at Hero's com- 
 panions : ' Kindly present your friends to me, 
 dear madame.' 
 
 ' I do not know how it is,' she said, speaking 
 French very rapidly as Fitzgerald and Hudson 
 made each his respective and very Enghsh 
 bow, and then stepped modestly into the back- 
 ground, 'but to me it always, ridiculously 
 enough, seems as though Enghsh people were 
 related to one another. I have not that feeling 
 with Continentals, not even with Americans, 
 but with the English invariably.'
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS, 63 
 
 ' You are not altogether wrong tliis time,' 
 Hero said. 
 
 'Ah! you are hicky to have two heaux 
 cousins' 
 
 Something in the tone rather than the 
 words made Hero bhish and then disclaim. 
 'Indeed, you do me too much honour,' she 
 said. 'Mr. Hudson is only an acquaintance, 
 and Mr. Fitzgerald, if a cousin, impeii a la mode 
 de Bretagne ! ' 
 
 'You must not disown me in a strange 
 land ! ' cried Fitz, with an effort to be agreeably 
 playful. 
 
 But Hero had no repartee ready ; her eyes 
 were fixed on the waggonette, where Bianca, 
 chattering gaily with a Prussian lieutenant, was 
 indulgently smiled upon by Baron Kerezoff. 
 
 ' Come, Bianca,' said her mother ; ' we are 
 all waiting for you.' 
 
 ' Et moi^ Madame f ' 
 
 ' It is true ! I had forgotten you,' laughed 
 Madame de Kerezoff. ' Let me introduce Baron 
 Mellin.' 
 
 Hero bowed gravely to the taciturn per- 
 sonage thus presented to her. Bianca was stiU 
 in the waggonette. Fitzgerald and Hudson 
 stood a httle in the background, waiting. They
 
 64 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 felt themselves to be very unimportant and 
 somewhat extraneous to this polyglot party. 
 
 ' Shall we walk ? ' asked Madame de Kere- 
 zoff, addressing no one in particular, but suiting 
 the action to the word, as she moved in the 
 direction of the Schloss. But Hero hesitated. 
 
 ' One moment,' she said ; ' I have a shawl 
 for Bianca ; do not let me detain you,' and 
 raising her voice slightly she called, this time 
 with a note of impatience in her accent, ' Are 
 you coming, Bianca ? * 
 
 ' Directly, mamma ; I am teaching Lieutenant 
 von Hanstein an English riddle,' and both Baron 
 Kerezoff and the young Prussian seemed highly 
 flattered and amused by Bianca's efforts at 
 instruction. 
 
 It was not amusing for the rest of the party. 
 
 Hero felt that for a group of English 
 people, invited guests, to horde together talking 
 to one another in their own language, whilst 
 they left host and hostess to the conversation 
 of their own compatriots, was, to say the least, 
 in the worst possible taste. 
 
 Yet a vague sense of uneasiness troubled 
 her, and determined her for once to sacrifice 
 good breeding to her maternal instincts. Some- 
 thing in Fitzgerald's face and manner told her
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 65 
 
 that he, too, was dissatisfied — he, to whom the 
 critical mood was not natural. 
 
 ' They are so intensely domestic, these 
 English,' said Madame de Kerezoff, handing 
 Mellin her sunshade to carry, and nodding 
 her head in Hero's direction ; ' to me, the 
 boiu'geois manners of the present day are simply 
 detestable ; and the worst of it is they are be- 
 coming fashionable, since royalty has elected 
 to act the nursemaid.' Bonne d enfant were 
 Madame de Kerezoff 's words. 
 
 * We can scarcely complain of our Imperial 
 family in that respect.' 
 
 'I do not know. What can be more 
 bourgeois than this left-handed marriage of the 
 Emperor's .^ ' 
 
 ' Marriage ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, marriage. The Empress is a saint of 
 twenty years' standing ; as much dead as if she 
 had been canonised for centuries. She smiles 
 on the arrangement because by this means the 
 Emperor is kept faithfid to the mother of his 
 young family, and she prays for him and her 
 and them, night and day. Where it is a 
 question of the choice of evils, a bigamous 
 marriage is better than an Eastern harem.' 
 
 ' Admirable woman ! ' 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 'Is it me or the Empress that you are 
 apostrophising? But, jesting apart, that is as 
 one takes it. Then look at the Czarewitch and 
 his uxorious folly.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not so bad as it's painted.' 
 
 ' They tell me that in England fashionable 
 women cram half a dozen children into their 
 Victorias, in servile imitation of the citizen 
 manners that prevail at Court ; and this English- 
 woman makes herself utterly ridiculous with 
 her great, overgrown daughter. She ought to 
 put her into pinafores and send her to school, 
 or at any rate treat her like the cliild she is.' 
 
 ' A very charming child.' 
 
 ' A la bonne heure ; only I am very glad 
 she is not mine.' 
 
 Mr. Owen, tired of solitude, had seized upon 
 Baron KerezofF ; Fitzgerald, waiting to see if he 
 could be of use, suddenly found himself taken 
 possession of by Lieutenant von Hanstein, who 
 being a young man of acquisitive turn, was 
 questioning him upon the English army, navy, 
 militia, and marines, laboriously and conscien- 
 tiously improving the occasion by airing his 
 English, and trying at the same time to profit 
 by the linguistic lesson which his victim was 
 quite aware that he was giving. Indeed,
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 67 
 
 Fitzgerald's humour, though, for the moment, 
 grim, was tickled by the practical young man's 
 undisguised and eager attention. 
 
 ' Bianca,' said her mother, drawing the girl's 
 arm within her own, ' I wish you would show 
 a little kindness to Mr. Hudson. He is here a 
 stranger amongst strangers ; and it is dull for 
 him, not imderstanding either French or Ger 
 man well.' 
 
 The anxious mother thought, in her simple 
 artfulness, that her girl could not have a better 
 watch-dog than the honest, blunt, young 
 Englishman, to whom (she instinctively felt) 
 every girl was, as yet, as sacred as his own 
 sisters. As a matter of fact, Hudson had no 
 sisters, being that risky product, an only child. 
 
 ' Why is he so stupid ? ' 
 
 ' I do not think he is stupid ; only, perhaps, 
 a little shy. But, as he is Fitz's friend, we 
 ought to be kind to, and pleasant with, him.' 
 
 ' That is Fitz's own business. But come on, 
 mamma, they will think you are scolding me, 
 and we are ever so far behind the others.' 
 
 It was true ; and Hero felt that her child's 
 worldly wisdom was in excess of her own, 
 and the moment practically impropitious for 
 further parental admonition.
 
 68 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Will you give me your arm ? ' she said 
 kindly to Hudson, seeking to draw him into 
 conversation, and to open the way for friendly 
 intercourse. The young fellow blushed crim- 
 son with delight, and as he felt Hero's hand 
 upon his arm it seemed to him that the light 
 touch of this sweet and gracious woman con- 
 veyed a sense of honour, dignity, and self- 
 respect. Unconsciously he drew himself up, 
 threw his head back, and walked proudly 
 forwards. He felt as though he could do battle 
 with all the world for her sake; and, if his 
 thoughts of Bianca were as sacred as his 
 thoughts of liis sister could have been, the 
 divinity of womanhood conveyed by Hero's 
 touch, set the sign and seal of manhood upon 
 the boy's fresh heart ; all unwittingly Hero 
 had given him his accolade, and henceforth the 
 young knight was consecrated to ladies' service. 
 Her intuition had told her that upon an emer- 
 gency he would be a useful and trusty ally. 
 Although she did not know it he would now, 
 at a word or look from her, mount guard on 
 Bianca, nor budge an inch before the world. 
 
 With that delicacy which seems a distinc- 
 tive attribute of the finer feminine nature. Hero 
 felt that she could tacitly enlist the ardent
 
 THE DUKES HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 69 
 
 youth in her service where she could not, in so 
 many words, invoke the aid of a grown man. 
 
 Fitzgerald was their cousin, and therefore, 
 in some sense, a brother to Hero ; but Fitz- 
 gerald had already looked with critical if not 
 condemnatory eyes at Bianca. He had worn 
 an expression of dissatisfaction throughout the 
 afternoon, and Hero shrank from exposing her 
 child's thoughtlessness to unnecessarily severe 
 stricture. Where Hudson in his young in- 
 genuousness would see nothing and suspect 
 less, Fitzgerald, in his older, worldly wisdom, 
 might discover coquetry, a spirit of intrigue, a 
 feminine frivolity, and a lightness upon the 
 weights, in comparison with which even vanity 
 itself seemed a sohd attribute. The jealousies 
 of mature manhood are often less personal 
 jealousies than the jealousy of the unsullied 
 fame of their womankind. Hero felt that even 
 the suspicion of a light word spoken of herself 
 or Bianca, would burn like fire into Fitzgerald's 
 soul, setting his cheeks aflame like the brand of 
 dishonour ; and this knowledge stirred her heart 
 uneasily beneath the assumed carelessness of 
 her manner. 
 
 Men who know men as they really are, not 
 as they seem to be to women, must inevitably
 
 70 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 be sensitive on certain points. License of ex- 
 pression, to which they have hitherto tacitly- 
 objected on the ground of bad taste only, as- 
 sumes a very different aspect so soon as they 
 divine a possibility of the same coarse criticisms 
 which they have heard freely applied to other 
 men's sisters and wives being applied to their 
 own personal belongings. The risk of making 
 himself ridiculous, by the exhibition of fastidious 
 taste or untimely ' prudishness,' keeps many a 
 man silent, whose better nature is revolted by 
 the idle talk of what the Apostle aptly calls 
 ' lewd fellows of the baser sort.' 
 
 The whole party had been over the Schloss, 
 wondered at the buckhorn furniture and green 
 velvet upholstery, admired the chandeliers of 
 huge antlers and the spreading horns of many 
 a noble buck decorating the walls, beneath 
 each Geweih a little ivory or buckhorn plaque, 
 telling what royal or imperial hand had brought 
 down the monarch of the forest herd. 
 
 They had been out into the thicket and 
 hidden themselves in a leafy arbour, whilst the 
 head-keeper, blowing a most cruelly discordant 
 blast on an old tin-trumpet, had assembled the 
 wild boars of the district for their inspection. 
 The grotesque instrument, the lean figure of
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 71 
 
 the swineherd, the odd appearance of the 
 animals of all ages and sizes that came troop- 
 ing out of the converging forest glades, gave a 
 strange unfamiliar aspect to the scene. 
 
 'It is like a page of Don Quixote or 
 Eabelais,' whispered Hero to Fitzgerald. 
 
 ' Fst ! ' grumbled, in parenthesis, the Teu- 
 tonic trumpeter. ' The Herrschaft must be 
 quiet ; the swine are very empjindlich' 
 
 The idea of ' sensitive swine ' did not aid 
 Hero's efforts at gravity, but the severe tone of 
 the local guardian made the rebuke significant. 
 
 ' Eather of the gospel,' Fitzgerald irrev- 
 erently replied. ' I know many people who 
 might be brought up here with advantage, 
 if only the age of miracles were not past ' 
 
 ' If the Herrschaften really wish,' began the 
 guttiu:al voice of the sour-visaged Schweine-hirt 
 remonstratively. 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 The solemn fimctionary disappeared into a 
 rustic hut on the border of the large circular 
 open space which had been cleared in the 
 thicket, and, presently returning with some 
 compound dear to the palate of porcine 
 epicurism, he was immediately surrounded by 
 the multitude of brindled beasts that the travel-
 
 72 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 lers had come out to see. The patriarch of the 
 tribe was presently pointed out and easily 
 recognised in a huge formidable tusked monster ; 
 'On his bow-back a battle set Of bristly pikes,' 
 his small malicious red eyes, ' His brawny sides, 
 with hairy bristles set, His short thick neck not 
 easy harmed,' and with a ' snout that digs sepul- 
 chres,' he looked as like the famous boar that 
 slew the fair Adonis as Will Shakspere himself 
 could have imagined. 
 
 ' What a treat for Briton Eiviere ! ' whis- 
 pered Fitzgerald, pointing to a trough where 
 animals of all sizes were pushing, grunting, 
 snuffling, and tramphng in their eagerness to 
 get their snouts well into its appetising- 
 contents. 
 
 ' Yes ; I suppose it is the fashion of the day 
 to see humour in such things,' said Hero, a 
 little disgusted by the unsavoury sights and 
 sounds. ' I have seen enough. It is cm-ious 
 — and — unedifying. No, do not follow me ; ' 
 and she walked gently but swiftly away from 
 the leafy screen, across a piece of broken 
 ground, into the courtyard of the castle, glad 
 to be alone. 
 
 As the horses had to be found and put to, 
 and the drivers were somewhere in the woods.
 
 THE DUKES HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 73 
 
 she would have half an hour's grace. Passing 
 beneath a small archway, Hero found herself 
 in a green quadrangle, with a low wall on the 
 southern side. Leaning upon the parapet she 
 gazed out into the golden evening sunset. 
 
 The distant horizon was bounded by piu'ple 
 mountains. The vast plain intersected by the 
 winding river lay spread out in marvellous 
 variety at her feet. Towns and cities, towers 
 and spires were reflected in the transparent 
 flood. Great battle-fields, dyed in historic 
 pages with the dark red of slaughtered armies, 
 now lay buried beneath those blooming gardens, 
 teeming vineyards and broad sheets of yellow 
 corn. Mile rolled upon mile in undulating 
 forest waves ; vast herds of deer, plainly 
 visible, led by stately antlered chieftains 
 through the slanting rays to take their wonted 
 evening refreshment, crossed the green open 
 spaces and disappeared into the forest glades 
 again, on their way to the famed and fabled 
 waters that washed the base of many a ruined 
 rocky summit. 
 
 Hero's heart was full. Full of the bitter- 
 ness of the unforgotten past, of cruel memories, 
 of carking cares and dumb, bafiled anxieties 
 that could find no outlet in the present, nor
 
 74 AUT CJESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 hope for any in the future. She was glad to 
 have escaped for the moment, thankful to be 
 alone, away from the heedless chatterers, 
 apart and silent. Yet, as she leaned and gazed 
 across into the vastness of the evening, she felt 
 the infinite littleness of all petty personal cares 
 and sorrows, the nothingness of the individual 
 life with its hopes and fears, its faithlessness 
 and forgetfulness, its struggle and its protest. 
 ' So careless of the single life, so careful of the 
 type.' Hushed into quiescence and acquies- 
 cence by the immensity, the solemnity, the 
 silence of Nature ; awed by the eternal mystery 
 and burthen of Humanity ; submissive before 
 the Sphinx-hke calm of the inscrutable, im- 
 memorially cruel mother. Hero, in her self- 
 forgetfulness, had any eye been there to note 
 the change, must have seemed greater and 
 other than the conventional woman we have 
 seen with a pink-lined parasol. 
 
 ' " Oh that I had wings, had wings like a 
 dove ; then would I flee away and be at rest ! " ' 
 
 The words, breathed rather than spoken, 
 seemed themselves winged ; it was as though 
 they carried the aspiration of the soul out into 
 the sunset skies, as angels are pictured bear- 
 ing the spirits of departed saints through the
 
 THE DUKES HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 7S 
 
 midnight land towards a triumphant dawn on 
 heavenly shores. 
 
 As she stood there, lost in contemplation, 
 her soul seemed to go before her, to rise and 
 expand, to soar forth into the Unknown, to 
 float across the waving summits of the trees, 
 now crowned with the red gold of evening, 
 across the castled crags, over towns and 
 villages and cottage gardens, over fields and 
 vineyards, across the rolling flood, across 
 the plains and battle-fields, on and yet on, past 
 tower, and spire, and palace, and prison, past 
 human voices and tears, crimes and griefs, and 
 sins, and shames; beyond sickness, want and 
 death ; wrong, oppression, and violence ; be- 
 yond the distant purple mountains into the 
 infinite Unknown — into Space. 
 
 ' You will take cold, the Baroness says ; 
 she sends you a shawl.' 
 
 Poor Hero ! In a moment, in a second of 
 time, she was brought back again from her 
 excursion into the Empyrean. 
 
 Conventionality is stronger, at its weakest, 
 than our wildest flights of fancy. The tyranny 
 of the commonplace finds few rebels, and ' con- 
 venience ' enjoys a catholic cidtus. 
 
 Even a coxcomb must, under the circum-
 
 76 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 stances, have felt his mission to be unfortunate^ 
 and Baron, or as he preferred to be called^ 
 Monsieur de Mellin, was no coxcomb. 
 
 Something of the transcendental, some faint 
 glimmering, as of a reflected glory, still lingered 
 on Hero's brow, as, brought summarily to earth 
 again, she turned with a smile to thank the 
 com"teous shawl-bearing stranger who had in- 
 voluntarily, but none the less inopportunely, 
 interrupted her reverie. 
 
 The very language that he spoke jarred 
 upon her. Eussian would have been more in 
 harmony with her mood, as something, to her^ 
 mystic and unknown like the Eternal Secret. 
 German would have suited that land of prime- 
 val forests, wild boars and castled crags, where 
 the spirit of mediasvalism still lingered long 
 after date. But French ! French, the finikin 
 dancing-master tongue of the boulevards, the 
 flippant medium of folly and frivolity! And 
 then, too, that tacit confession of a subordinate 
 role amongst the nations, implied in men whO' 
 forget their mother tongue, and speak a foreign 
 language habitually and of preference. 
 
 ' Thank you,' Hero said quietly, taking the 
 shawl. Then, after a pause : ' You do not 
 speak English ? '
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. -jj 
 
 ' So little that I dare not say I speak. It 
 requires courage to speak the language of 
 Shakspere.' 
 
 ' That is faithfully . spoken, that is true, 
 Hero answered, feeling suddenly pleased, and 
 looking up at the speaker with frank shining 
 eyes. 
 
 (' The eyes of a goddess,' as he explained 
 afterwards, ' so grave, and calm, and star-like.') 
 
 Like all Eussians, Monsieur de Mellin 
 had about him a vague touch of melancholy. 
 He had also a touch of shabbiness or more 
 than a touch. Not the shabbiness of ' genteel ' 
 poverty as we know it, but rather the shabbi- 
 ness which comes easily to a man whose 
 official livery is donned all the year round, and 
 whose one suit of mufti, worn carefully, or 
 carelessly, during his month's holiday at foreign 
 watering-places, lasts him ten or fifteen years, 
 and is then, in its owner's eyes, still a present- 
 able combination of garments ; the shabbiness 
 of a man who has no one to please, no one 
 to tell him that his black silk neckerchief is 
 frayed and rusty ; that a clothes-brush is a 
 useful implement; that patent leather shoes 
 are gallant attentions to the ladies whose 
 drawing-room carpets he profanes by the dust
 
 78 A UT C^SAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 lie has forgotten to shake off his clumsy boots 
 — the pathetic shabbiness of a man who is 
 alone in the world. 
 
 As he stood by her side looking out across 
 the landscape, Hero felt it would be difficult to 
 make or keep up conversation with a person 
 who had to avail himself of a language foreign 
 to both in order to be intelligible ; of whose 
 antecedents she knew nothing, and whose 
 appearance and manner were necessarily and 
 absolutely negative. 
 
 It was therefore rather in soliloquy, as 
 pursuing the thoughts he had interrupted, that 
 as she turned to look once more at the vast 
 panorama spread out before them she said : ' It 
 is so strange to think that yonder in those cities, 
 villages, hamlets, homesteads, human hopes and 
 fears, joys and sorrows, loves and losses are 
 going on ; that the struggle, and the fight, and 
 the triumph and the loss are all realities — now 
 as we speak, here alone, as if we only were 
 in the world ; whereas, down there ' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said the Eussian, his large, pale 
 blue eyes suddenly catching and concentrating 
 a fiery spark from the rays of the setting 
 sun. ' Ah, down there ! Dear lady, we know 
 little of what o'oes on " down there ! " And it
 
 THE DUKE'S HUNTING-SCHLOSS. 79^ 
 
 is we who are ignorant, we who are dull, 
 blind, stupid, cruel. From our heights we 
 overlook those " down there ; " they are ants, 
 grubs, worms, moths. Who troubles himself 
 with a microscope to search out the ways of 
 vermin, or follow the vain flight and blind fate 
 of the ephemerse ? Can we alter the decrees 
 of Fate ? Can we " bind the influences of 
 Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ? " Can 
 we " draw out Leviathan with a hook ? " 
 " Down there I " So far off, so low down, so 
 small, dark, and insignificant. Such swarming 
 millions ; mere moths dancing in the sun- 
 beams ; mere fluttering futilities ! " Down 
 there ! " ' 
 
 His manner was so strangely unconven- 
 tional that Hero turned involuntarily from the 
 landscape to look at him. He observed her 
 glance of surprised inquiry. The spark of en- 
 thusiasm suddenly died out, and his face was 
 ash-grey, blank, and impassive again, as he 
 said, holding out the shawl : ' Allow me, 
 Madame.'
 
 8o AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 'WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK.' 
 
 ' Above all things don't talk politics to me,' 
 said the Baroness, putting her pretty feet on 
 the rung of a chair, and spreading herself out 
 comfortably in a cosy nook under the 
 verandah. ' You know, ma chere, we others, 
 we find it is best to have no politics. I don't 
 speak for myself I am frivolous and hate all 
 dry things ; but politics are dangerous as well 
 as dry, detrimental as well as dull, and, thank 
 Heaven ! I have enough influence with Dimitri 
 to persuade him of the common sense of that. 
 Mellin is utterly ignorant of everything outside 
 Eussia.' 
 
 ' And yet,' Hero said, ' I fancy that 
 Monsieur de Mellin understands more English 
 than he will allow. I noticed that he listened 
 most attentively when my cousin and Mr. 
 Hudson were talking of a working man's club, 
 to which it seems they both belong.'
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: 8i 
 
 ' Eenounce that romance, ma cliere ! 
 Mellin is as ignorant as any other Eussian. 
 He may remember the Enghsh he learned 
 as a child from his English nurse, as he re- 
 members the German taught by his tutor, mere 
 parrot- poly glottism ; but believe me, the only 
 language he really knows is French. We, who 
 have nothing to hope and everything to fear 
 if we mix oiu-selves up in pohtics, love the 
 French language because it is the language of 
 the world, the language of revolution, the 
 language of liberty, not to say of license. We 
 love its audacious literature, its pictures of 
 social hfe, its outspoken exposure of everything 
 that other tongues use language to disguise. 
 Mellin — look at his face ! — is a worn out viveur. 
 He has had his day — I don't say it was a long 
 day — and he knows that he would lose his 
 appointment, an important and lucrative one, 
 the instant he was suspected of being anything 
 more or other than the colourless negative 
 being he seems. To us, a man who meddles 
 with pohtics means either a Nihilist or a mad- 
 man. In either case his fate is equally hope- 
 less. Beheve me, the silence of the mines is 
 full of a fine moral eloquence ; but why should 
 we talk of dismal things ? There I ' and the 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 small vivacious woman passed her tiny hand 
 swiftly across her eyes, as though banishing an 
 unwelcome vision or dashing away an un- 
 bidden tear, ' it was you, ma chere^ who 
 invoked the Siberian spectre ; and the clanking 
 of his irons makes a dismal discord in this gay 
 and charming scene.' 
 
 Hero was silenced, but not convinced. 
 
 Since that evening on the terrace of the 
 hunting Schloss, Baron MelHn had been con- 
 tinually in their society. No allusion to his 
 family or circumstances, no hint as to his 
 views, occupations, prejudices, sympathies, re- 
 grets or hopes, lifted the veil of reserve that 
 enveloped him. He had come to Sprudelheim 
 to drink the waters. He had drifted into their 
 circle, no one knew exactly how ; he frequented 
 their society, no one troubled himself to guess 
 why. Originating nothing, for the most part 
 silent, never pronouncing an opinion unasked, 
 dumb as to his own personal afiairs, his con- 
 versation, if conversation it could by courtesy 
 be called, was restricted to the merest frivolous 
 or casual comments on commonplace things 
 of the moment. An observation on some 
 startling toilette, a few words about the 
 * cure,' a remark as to the music, an acquies-
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK! 83 
 
 cent nod if asked to join any expedition to 
 the environs, a general appreciation of the 
 cooking, the company, and the Kur, formed 
 the staple of his daily utterances. The Eussian 
 Ijenj was apparent in all he said and did, or 
 left misaid and undone. 
 
 He was too inoffensive for Dislike to single 
 him out, too courteous to rouse antipathy, too 
 colourless to excite antagonism. Hero had 
 wished more than once to ask Madame de 
 Kerezoff what she knew of his family and 
 connections ; whether they, the Kerezoffs and 
 Mellin, were old friends or had now met at 
 Sprudelheim for the first time ; but she felt 
 that they had no right to pry into the natural 
 history of one who asked nothing of them, and 
 she told herself that a watering-place acquaint- 
 ance was too ephemeral in its nature to justify 
 any indiscreet curiosity on her part. 
 
 Meanwhile, Monsieur de Mellin's continual 
 presence in their small daily circle was viewed 
 with anything but feelings of complacency by 
 two of the party. 
 
 ' What's that lean Muscovite hanging about 
 you for. Hero ? ' asked her father impatiently 
 one night, when, ignoring Mr. Owen's very 
 patent attempts to get rid of him, Baron Mellin 
 
 62
 
 84 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 had accompanied their party home, and even 
 mounted the stairs common to their own and 
 the KerezofF household. And Fitzgerald for- 
 gave his uncle a whole cargo of sins, hearing 
 him put the question, which was in his own 
 mind though he dared not formulate it. 
 
 ' He is going to tea at the KerezofTs, papa,' 
 Hero answered coolly ; and Bianca added 
 pertly : ' Don't be rude, G. P. ; everyone can't 
 be a John Bull.' 
 
 ' Our handsome Hero has theories about 
 you,' Madame de KerezofF whispered, in 
 perfect Enghsh, to Mellin, half an hour after 
 the conversation between the two ladies in the 
 Kur-Garten. ' These English are so reserved, 
 so cold and reticent, or I think she would have 
 gone on to make inquiries about you, as to 
 your family connections, &c. &c., but I didn't 
 encourage it.' 
 
 Mellin's ashen-grey face turned a dull 
 purple, but he said nothing. The Marquis 
 of Matlock's name was on his lips, but it re- 
 mained unspoken. Why volunteer any infor- 
 mation ? 
 
 ' If I did not know you were fireproof,' 
 the lady went on glibly, ' I should suspect you 
 wished to sjive our Hero brevet-rank as a
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: 85 
 
 heroine — a little bird has whimpered to me that 
 you and she have met before.' 
 
 A frown clouded her hearer's brow ; but 
 as nothing audible was interjected into Madame 
 de KerezoflTs pause expectant, she continued 
 rapidly : ' However, that is all nonsense ; for- 
 tunately, the oaths which bind us are stronger 
 than those which fail to bind the irresponsible 
 victims of religious enthusiasm. We know that 
 the possible has ceased to exist when we take 
 
 our vows ' Again she paused, and her 
 
 green and shifty glance seemed to glide over 
 Melhn's face and figure in a serpentine note of 
 interrogation. 
 
 ' Is this a warning, or '^looking her straight 
 in the face — ' a threat ? ' he said slowly. 
 
 ' Oh, neither, mon chev^ the lady answered 
 in a laughing tone ; and falling at once into 
 the language of their preference, she added, 
 without a pause, nodding her head in the 
 direction of two passers-by : ' Quelles toilettes 
 ecrasantes ! il n'y a que les cocottes pour porter 
 ces costumes tapageurs ! ' 
 
 But none the less her companion knew he 
 had got his hint. 'She is treacherous. She 
 will report me,' he said to himself; but aloud 
 he only remarked, without any appearance of
 
 86 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 temper or even of annoyance : ' After all, in 
 dress as in everything, it is individual taste tliat 
 tells. Yours is perfect.' 
 
 The Baroness looked at him shrewdly, was 
 about to speak, but checked herself, and said : 
 ' There is that old fool Owen ; let us take a 
 turn in the gardens. I promised to meet 
 Dimitri at five.' 
 
 ' Yes ! I must be on the move,' Fitzgerald 
 was saying to Hero. He seemed moody and ill 
 at ease. ' I have to see my mother before I 
 return to Oxford.' 
 
 The cousins were sitting on the balcony of 
 the Owen's lodgings. Mrs. Owen was lying 
 on the sofa, just inside the open window^s. Mr. 
 Owen and Bianca, with young Hudson, had 
 gone for a walk. 
 
 ' Shall you soon return ? ' he asked, after a 
 moment's silence. ' I suppose my aunt's cure 
 is virtually over ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ; for this year. But our plans are 
 still unsettled.' 
 
 ' Do you think it is wise to stay on here ? ' 
 
 ' Wise ? How do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' Well, you must not be offended, you must 
 not think me meddling or impertinent, but 
 Bianca is very young (and, for the matter of
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK.' 87 
 
 that, SO are you), and you are both, both — well, 
 my uncle is so absorbed in his Utopian schemes 
 that he is not as much protection as he might 
 otherwise be ; and all these idle people hanging 
 about ; it seems a pity, just at Bianca's age, 
 that her education should come so utterly to a 
 standstill.' 
 
 Hero flushed. ' Every one needs a holiday 
 sometimes,' she said. 
 
 ' Of coiu-se. Only if it goes on unlimitedly, 
 you know, it ceases to be a holiday ; and 
 Bianca may possibly take a j^/z, a taste for 
 dilatoriness and dawdling, not easy to over- 
 come.' 
 
 ' What an admirable father of a family you 
 will make some day, Fitz ! ' Hero exclaimed, 
 laughing not unkindly as she looked at him. 
 
 The young man coloured. He did not like 
 her ridicule, and she, notwithstanding her 
 laughter, was nettled by his interference. 
 
 ' Nevertheless,' he said, affectionately, ' it is 
 only my interest in you. Hero, my desire for 
 your happiness that leads me to say this.' 
 
 * I am sure of it ! ' she answered cordially, 
 laying her hand with a gesture of cousinly con- 
 fidence on his. ' I am sure of it, Fitz. For- 
 give me if I laughed. What you say is true.
 
 8.8 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 I am not altogetlier easy myself. We have 
 been desultory too long. Idleness demoralises 
 in the long run.' 
 
 ' May I speak, Hero ? May I ask you 
 something ? Will you promise not to be 
 
 an 
 
 gi'y 
 
 ' I promise.' 
 
 ' Well, I do not like your surroundings. 
 Who are these Kerezoffs ? Who is Melhn ? 
 The Prussian officers, after all, are numbered 
 and ticketed : there is a tabulated army list — it 
 would not be difficult to know everything 
 about them, civilly or officially, but, these 
 Eussians, who are they ? I don't think Madame 
 Kerezoflf is a good companion for Bianca.' 
 
 'No one can harm Bianca,' affirmed the 
 mother proudly, piqued by the young man's 
 criticism. 'No one.' The colour rushed to 
 her face, and she held her head a little higher 
 than before. 
 
 Fitzgerald blundered on. ' Hudson, who 
 is a fair French scholar, told me of a conversa- 
 tion that he had with them one night. As 
 you can see, he is a hot-headed, impetuous boy, 
 as generous as it is possible for a fellow to be. 
 They got money out of him — a considerable 
 sum of money ? '
 
 WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: 89 
 
 ' Money ? Are you sure ? ' Hero asked, 
 aghast. ' Do you mean gambling ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, not for themselves ; not to pay their 
 washing and hotel bills ; I did not mean that. 
 I don't insinuate anything necessarily base, but 
 it's not a satisfactory way for a fellow to drop 
 his coin, even though it be in aid of some 
 philanthropic, humanistic, socialistic society, 
 goodness knows what: "To teach the rising 
 generation of Eussians the true meaning of 
 patriotism," or some such high falutin'. I 
 don't blame Hudson. I have dabbled a little 
 in this sort of thing myself. But we, we 
 Enghshmen,' Fitzgerald added, rather stiffly, 
 ' "wear our rue with a diiference": for instance, 
 we draw the line at murder. And they have 
 taught Bianca to use her influence with Hudson 
 in that direction, don't you know ; and that 
 sort of thing.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! ' Hero said, her face scarlet ; 
 ' it would be too indelicate.' 
 
 ' True. Hudson is rich ; and, as I need not 
 tell you, he will do whatever Bianca suggests.' 
 
 ' Are you certain of what you 'are saying ? ' 
 
 ' Quite sure. Of course you could not 
 know it. I don't imply actual harm. But one 
 would rather not — and '
 
 90 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 There was silence for a few minutes. Hero 
 did not help him out of his difficulty by saying 
 in a tone of displeasure, coldly : ' Thank you, 
 for telling me. I had no idea anything of the 
 kind was going on ; I will see to it. I hope 
 we shall find there is some mistake.' 
 
 ' You are not angry with me ? ' 
 
 'Oh, no!' 
 
 But he felt that he had perhaps done more 
 harm than good. All sunshine had gone out of 
 her manner. He had annoyed her, and nothing 
 could possibly come of his seeking to mollify 
 her in her present frame of mind, the recent 
 wound still rankling. 
 
 ' You will let me know how my aunt gets 
 on?' 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 ' I fear she suffers more than she says. I am 
 afraid she is really ill. Hero.' 
 
 ' I think she is much better.' 
 
 ' Well, perhaps you are right ; you must be 
 able to judge better than I. Only, I should 
 never forgive myself if I thought she wanted 
 for anything ; and so, if I have said too 
 much ' 
 
 'We shall not let mamma want for any- 
 thing. How can you think so ? You are not
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: 91 
 
 complimentary or even kind to-day,' and she 
 rose from her chair as she spoke. 
 
 Fitz, by whose bounty, though Hero did not 
 guess it, the invahd enjoyed both the necessaries 
 and hixuries of life, knew that again he had 
 made a mistake. There seemed a fatahty in 
 his words. ' Do forgive me,' he said, humbly ; 
 ' I seem to make nothing but bad shots ; it is 
 so sometimes — one blunders unconsciously.' 
 
 To this Hero returned no direct answer. 
 ' We Avill have tea,' she said, and went into the 
 room, where Mrs. Owen awoke from her doze 
 to say a few pleasant farewell words to Fitz on 
 his departure. 
 
 ' I will not wait for my uncle and Bianca,* 
 he said, as he rose at last to take an unwilhng 
 leave. He kissed Mrs. Owen, and stood talking 
 to her for a few minutes, hngering with her 
 hand in his until he felt he must go. Then he 
 stooped and kifesed the delicate fingers, wonder- 
 ing at the beauty of the slender, blue-veined, 
 feverish little hand. It was as though a 
 consuming fire burned behind that soft, satiny 
 touch, and he felt the pressure of the small^ 
 hot fingers for hours afterwards. Hero fol- 
 lowed him to the door. She was serious and 
 pale, but her beautiful eyes were kind and
 
 92 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 serene again as she raised them frankly to his 
 face. 
 
 She, too, laid her palm confidingly in his. 
 There was something about Fitz that made one 
 instinctively rest upon his loyal nature. He 
 was above all petty grudges, yet he felt 
 dispirited at what had |)assed, and looked so. 
 
 ' Can I do anything for you in England ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing.' 
 
 ' No messages for friends ? ' 
 
 ' None.' 
 
 ' And Graham ? When I see him ? ' 
 
 Hero's face flushed crimson. 
 
 ' All that is kind from all of us,' she said. 
 
 ' Nothing more ? ' 
 
 ' No. Our love to aunt.' 
 
 ' Of course. Well, then, good-bye. God 
 bless you. Bid Uncle and Bianca farewell for 
 me.' 
 
 He stooped and kissed her hghtly on her 
 fair broad brow, and the next moment he was 
 gone. He had done his duty. Now, at any 
 rate, his conscience would be clear. He had 
 blundered, but that could not be helped. If 
 Hero read a threat or warning in his mention 
 of Graham, he, Fitz, could look his friend 
 fearlessly in the face*, as one man should look
 
 ' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: 93 
 
 another to whom he is loyal in his secret soul, 
 loyal in thought, as well as in act and in deed. 
 It was not of himself, or of his own pain that 
 he was thinking — indeed, his feelings were 
 altogether of too mixed and vague a character 
 to be recognised — but of Hero's, of her 
 possible displeasure, and of her obvious, if silent, 
 annoyance.
 
 94 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald, a woman of bitter prejudices 
 and ' orange ' politics, found it difficult to 
 forgive her son his cultus for the Owen family. 
 Of her brother she had always disapproved, as 
 an amateur financier's prosperous relatives will 
 generally be found to disapprove of the san- 
 guine dabbler in stocks and shares, in bubble 
 companies and ephemeral enterprises w^ho 
 'never is, but always to be' commercially 
 ' blest.' 
 
 Dr. Fitzgerald, a popular Dublin physician 
 of the most successful type, a man who had 
 spent his life in sitting on soft sofas, clasping 
 soft hands, feeling feminine pulses, and uttering 
 sweet and sympathetic nothings, had hidden, 
 behind his waxen mask, a granite character. 
 He had no patriotic weakness for Irish invest- 
 ments, whether in land or industry, but carried
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 95 
 
 the proceeds of his perseverance and the patron- 
 age of the Viceregal Court to the stepmother 
 country, philosophically declaring himself for 
 the ' sweet simplicity of the Three per cents.' 
 
 Thus, when the Enemy with whom he had 
 been batthng (not without palpable remunera- 
 tive results) all his life on behalf of others, 
 laid a cold hand upon the Doctor's shoulder, 
 and beckoned him to the region where guineas 
 have no value, the widow, who might other- 
 wise have been inconsolable, found comfort in 
 the reflection that, thanks to the dear departed's 
 prevision, her sublunary course need not be 
 permanently overshadowed, nor, indeed, ma- 
 terially altered ; and, as became an appreciative 
 mourner, she made broad the vidual phylac- 
 teries accordingly. 
 
 Nothing accentuates or emphasises the ap- 
 preciation of a husband's liberality in respect 
 of pounds, shillings, and pence better than an 
 extra margin of black on the writing-paper, 
 and large and liberal arrangements as to crape 
 and weepers, bugles and bombazine. A poor 
 widow is a very poor object indeed, as no 
 doubt my readers have more than once had 
 occasion, in the course of their pilgrimage 
 through this vale of tears, to remark.
 
 96 AUT CyESAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 A little of Mrs. Fitzgerald's money, like the 
 superfluous wool on the back of a fat sheep, 
 had been caught by the briars and thorns of 
 her brother's enterprises, and remained hanging 
 dismally on those branches which had pro- 
 mised so goodly a crop of grapes and figs, but 
 had brought forth such a dismal harvest of 
 thorns and thistles. 
 
 ' Garry ' had always been a little afraid of 
 his brother-in-law, and Dr. Fitzgerald had more 
 than once spoken certain truths to his sanguine 
 connection, such as even the most pachyder- 
 matous amongst us can scarcely hear and not 
 feel a remote tingling of the hide. 
 
 There were no illusions in the Fitzgerald 
 household as to Mr. Owen ; and Fitz, from 
 his youth up, had been accustomed to hear 
 unvarnished opinions of his uncle's life and 
 character. 
 
 The bitter Protestantism of Mrs Fitzgerald 
 received a lifedong affront in her brother's 
 marriage with Leonie de Courteville, of whom 
 she at once conceived and scrupulously enter- 
 tained the worst possible opinion, as a French- 
 woman and a ' Papist.' She even went to the 
 length of speaking of her brother as ' poor 
 Garry,' for several months after his marriage,
 
 MOTHER AND SON. ' 97 
 
 and when he and his bride were in town, 
 further accentuated her attitude by inviting 
 him to dinner en garqoji, in order to testify her 
 sympathy with his fallen condition, and pro- 
 claim her protest as regarded the Scarlet Lady. 
 He took good care not to tell Leonie that she 
 was ignored in the note of invitation ; per- 
 suaded her that a slight headache was a thing 
 to be nursed ; and set off, in high dudgeon, to 
 dine alone in Portland Place. "But, on the 
 road thither, he reflected that, by judicious 
 amiability, he might extract something in the 
 shape of a wedding present from his opident 
 relative, and then determined to put a good face 
 upon the matter. 
 
 ' Leonie is very sorry, but sight-seeing 
 has given her such a splitting headache, I 
 advised her to go to bed, and undertook to 
 make her excuses,' he said, airily ; and Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald frowned at the device, whilst the 
 Doctor, who knew nothing of his wife's rude- 
 ness, and had a weakness for pretty women 
 (he had been told that Leonie was that, 
 and something more), expressed unfeigned dis- 
 appointment at the bride's non-appearance. 
 Garry went home w^ith a Bible in one pocket 
 and a ten-pound note in the other. The kindly 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Doctor surreptitiously slipped the note into liis 
 hand, begging him, as he stood a moment ^^dth 
 the bridegroom on his own doorstep, to buy 
 some present with it for his wife. 
 
 The Bible Leonie received with a look of 
 melancholy bewilderment, which caused her 
 husband to burst into shouts of laughter. 
 About the ten-pound note, it is superfluous to 
 say, she heard nothing at all. 
 
 ' After all, you and Susan are best apart,' 
 was Mr. Owen's summing-up of the situation. 
 ' She is as bitter and harsh as a March mnd, 
 and her aggressive Protestantism is simply 
 disgusting.' 
 
 The episodes of Hero's birth and baptism 
 served to point Mrs. Fitzgerald's fierce morality, 
 and adorn the tale of her grievances. ' Hero ? 
 Why Hero ? ' she, not unnaturally, asked. ' I 
 thought a hero was a man — something in Greek 
 or Koman history ? But I suppose it's part of 
 the woman's paganism.' 
 
 There was a volume of Shakspere in the 
 house, but it may be doubted if anything in 
 the pages of that profane writer, or in Herrick's 
 story of the Hellespontine lovers, could have 
 reconciled Mrs. Fitzgerald to the choice of her 
 little niece's name. And Hero's marriage with
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 
 
 99 
 
 an Italian put the finishing stroke to her aunt's 
 accumulated prejudices. 
 
 ' What can you expect ? ' she said, ' of a 
 pack of intriguing foreigners and papists ? 
 They are all Jesuits in disguise. No doubt her 
 mother has arranged the whole thing, and the 
 alternative would have been a convent ; for I 
 am told that is what becomes of all portion- 
 less women in foreim countries.' 
 
 o 
 
 Martello^ or dei Martelli, were sounds her 
 lips refused to form. ' Towers, I believe, is 
 the plain English of it ; ' she would answer 
 angrily if pressed home upon the uncongenial 
 subject, ' but really I know nothing about 
 them. Marchese, you say? Some beggarly 
 foreign title, I suppose. I believe in those 
 countries any chimney-sweeper, cheesemonger, 
 or Jew usurer may buy a title for forty pounds. 
 The whole thing was her mother's doing. 
 She would not have liked a wholesome 
 Englishman for a son-in-law.' 
 
 Thus justly are we judged by those whom 
 the world may suppose to be best informed as 
 to our actions and the motives from which they 
 spring. 
 
 And as Fitz sits in the great gloomy draw- 
 ing room of the Portland Place mansion, 
 
 H 2
 
 loo AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 manifold past experiences recur to his mind, 
 and tell him he may expect a very bad quarter 
 of an hour. 
 
 ' So you've come at last ! ' is Mrs. Fitz- 
 gerald's gracious greeting. 
 
 ' Did not you get my letter, mother ? ' 
 
 ' I had a line from Brussels, if that's what 
 you mean.' Then, after a pause she asks : 'Are 
 you going to Brighton with me ? ' 
 
 'I am due at Oxford on the 8th, you know.' 
 
 ' Of course, it is as you like.' 
 
 ' If you will have me until then, I shall be 
 delighted to go down with you.' 
 
 Brighton is the place of all others that Fitz 
 abhors. Mother and son have compared notes 
 on this point before. The discussion is one 
 better avoided if there be a desire for, or a 
 prospect of, peace. 
 
 But this armed neutrality is not destined to 
 last, and although ' forewarned ' is, prover- 
 bially, ' forearmed,' Fitz could not but confess 
 that at the game of parry and thrust Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald was an expert. Then, too, she was 
 his mother, and that effectually sealed his lips 
 where loyalty did not call upon him to open 
 them. 
 
 ' What sort of a creature is that wretched
 
 MOTHER AND SON, loi 
 
 cliilcl growing up ? ' tlie lady asked of her son, 
 when rechning on the post-prandial couch, the 
 evening of their arri\al at Brighton, she felt 
 that the hour for confidences had arrived. 
 
 * If you mean Bianca, mother, she is neither 
 " wretched," nor a " child." ' 
 
 ' Precocious minx ! she takes after her 
 mother, who ought to be ashamed to have a 
 girl of that age. It's simply scandalous. How- 
 ever, that Avas your aunt's doing.' 
 
 ' They do look more like sisters,' Fitz pro- 
 vokingly replies, with a sort of veiled com- 
 placency. ' People were very curious about 
 them at Sprudelheim. They created quite a 
 sensation in a small way.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't give much for the taste of a 
 pack of foreigners, though I can believe it was 
 in a very small way.' 
 
 'Why a "pack" mother?' said Fitz, 
 smiling. ' Do you think they hved in kennels ? 
 But their admirers were not only foreigners. 
 I can assure you the English quite followed, if 
 they did not give, the lead, and, as a nation, 
 w^e are spoiled in the matter of beauty, you 
 know.' 
 
 ' And gave them a wide berth, too, at the 
 same time, I dare say.'
 
 I02 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Indeed, no. Mrs. Hudson — you remember 
 Hudson P Mrs. Hudson and her sister, Lady 
 Gifford, were greatly taken with Bianca, and 
 Hudson himself, poor fellow, was quite over 
 head and ears.' 
 
 ' Designing httle wretch ; she ought to be 
 in the schoolroom or the nursery.' 
 
 ' Mother ! ' said Fitz, laughing heartily and 
 determined to keep his temper, ' you can have 
 no idea of Bianca to think the child " design- 
 ing " in the sense you mean. And as for being 
 in the " nursery " or " schoolroom," one soli- 
 tary creature like that, shut up in a mu-sery or 
 a schoolroom, would pine hke a lonely bird in a 
 cage, missing its mate. Bianca is here, there, 
 and everywhere, like a butterfly in the sun- 
 shine. She is the very hght of Hero's eyes ; 
 she amuses her grandfather and gives my poor 
 aunt a taste of that happy youth which, 1 
 sus|)ect, was never hers nor Hero's .^ ' 
 
 Yet, as he spoke, certain things arose in his 
 memory, and he wished the conversation had 
 not taken this turn. 
 
 ' Oh ! as to that,' said Mrs. Fitzgerald vici- 
 ously, ' who can say what Mrs. Owen's youth 
 was?' 
 
 She had never forgiven Leonie's beauty and
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 103 
 
 distinction, her exquisite manner, her gentle 
 breeding, and her accompHshments. The 
 Doctor, perhaps, had had a sly pleasure in speak- 
 ing of his sister-in-law's attractions en con- 
 noisseur, 
 
 'If you knew how ill she is, you would 
 speak less harshly, mother,' Fitz said, his 
 honest face crimsoning with suppressed annoy- 
 ance. He was so tender towards women, 
 himself, had such reverence for, and faith in, 
 the ' eternal womanly,' that to him it was a 
 mystery how one of these sacred and gifted 
 creatures could wilfully attack and hurt another 
 of its own species. 
 
 ' Indeed, I should do nothing of the kind, 
 Fitz,' his mother answered angrily. ' You will 
 not get me to conform to your Owen-worship, 
 and so I tell you at once. They are a disre- 
 putable set, from beginning to end ; one as bad 
 as another, and all a disgrace to their connec- 
 tions. You have chosen to throw me over, 
 and to go and spend all your holiday in some 
 obscure German watering-place, the rendezvous 
 of the worst characters in Eiu^ope, and to 
 attach yourself exclusively to people you know 
 I detest ; and then you expect me to admire 
 and take an interest in them, because, forsooth !
 
 I04 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 a hotlieaded young fool like tliat Hudson is 
 taken in by them, an old imbecile like liis 
 mother is weak enough to encourage her son 
 in his folly, and people like the GifFords, who 
 run after eccentricity of all sorts, are silly 
 enough to flatter them to the top of their bent.' 
 And Mrs. Fitzgerald, snorting indignantly, fanned 
 herself with an air of vehement reprobation. 
 
 ' Mi-s. Hudson looked on Bianca as a child ; 
 a charming, beautiful, innocent playfellow for 
 her son, and — whatever the girl's mother may 
 have had to say to it — you must excuse me 
 if I confess that I think the boy's mother was 
 very wise. Both Bianca and Hudson were 
 surrounded by their respective families and 
 friends ; and the mother who makes home 
 pleasant to her sons by gathering fresh, inno- 
 cent, well-bred girls about her, does a wise 
 thing ; for graceful virtue is the best antidote 
 to vice ; and such things keep youth more 
 effectually fi'om harm than all the " Wise saws 
 and modern instances " morality can quote.' 
 
 ' That's right ! Blame me ! Go on ! Blas- 
 pheme rehgion ! I quite understand your in- 
 sinuation as to these model mothers. Perhaps 
 
 you will tell me that Her Mrs. Towers is 
 
 a model mother, too ! '
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 105 
 
 ' Hero is a perfect mother ! ' Fitz cried, 
 with conviction, ' and I should not be a man if 
 I could sit by and hear her abused ! ' 
 
 ' A fine perfection ! a woman who left her 
 husband to go upon the stage ; a woman who 
 has been before the public of every capital in 
 Europe and America ; a woman who is name- 
 less, homeless, husbandless. And you call her a 
 '' perfect " mother, and you neglect your own 
 for her, and insult your own, your widowed 
 mother, on her accoimt! Have I not every 
 reason to hate her, and her mother, and her 
 daughter, and all her works and ways ? ' cried 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald, outraged by her son's en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 ' You are mistaken, . mother,' Fitzgerald 
 said, coldly. 
 
 ' Mistaken ? It is you who are infatuated ! 
 Upon my word, I believe it is the mother, not 
 the girl, you are in love with : a woman old 
 enough to be your mother.' 
 
 ' I know Hero's age.' 
 
 ' I dare say. I dare say she has no secrets 
 from you. How much money has she got out 
 of you this time? You blush, and well you 
 may, to waste your father's hardly-gained 
 earnings on such a crew ! '
 
 io6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Stop, mother ; even you must not go too far. 
 Hero would not accept a farthing from me. I 
 should not dare to offer her money, nor can I 
 hnagine the person who would.' 
 
 ' How can they afford to travel about, to 
 educate that hobbledehoy of a girl, to pay Mrs. 
 Owen's doctor's bills ? ' 
 
 ' I have never asked them.' 
 
 ' As for your uncle, if you had the slightest 
 spark of filial affection you would not associate 
 with him ; he has swindled me out of hundreds. 
 I dare say they are living on my money at the 
 present moment.' 
 
 Fitz, who knew to the contrary, made no 
 reply to this. He thought the conversation 
 had gone far enough, and regretted the turn it 
 had taken. From his aunt he knew the truth. 
 
 With the first arrest of the final summons 
 already upon her, Leonie had opened her heart 
 to the friendly, considerate, kind, chivalrous 
 young fellow, who, from the first hour of their 
 acquaintance, had been uniformly tender and 
 affectionate towards her. A woman, no matter 
 her age, always knows instinctively where she 
 is loved and appreciated, and a French woman, 
 with her quick sympathies and sensitive insight, 
 sooner, perhaps, than any other. She could
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 107 
 
 see in his honest eyes that he admired and 
 loved her ; she conld feel his affection in the 
 arm that supported her feebleness, in the hand 
 that gnided her steps, in the care that placed 
 her chair, settled her cushions, brought her the 
 book or the flowers which he thought would 
 suit her best. And then they had another bond 
 of union ; secret, known only to themselves, and 
 seldom alluded to in so many words by either. 
 
 Graham ! 
 
 ' Hero would never forgive me, my dear 
 boy,' she said, ' but I must tell you, so that 
 when I am gone one may know ; one at least 
 I make you the depositary of truth, doubly 
 sacred as it will then be by the eternal silence 
 of the speaker, that you may testify for her 
 [should the need ever arise] who will then be 
 for ever dumb. Martello was an unspeakable 
 villain. My chikl loved him in an innocent, 
 unknowing, trusting sort of way. His appear- 
 ance, his caressing lively manners, his know- 
 ledge of the world, his iri'eproachable temie, all 
 roused an interest in the girl's mind, attracted 
 her ambition, dazzled her imagination. Ex- 
 perience she had, and could have, none. The 
 attentions of a man, nearer fifty than forty, 
 could not but flatter a young creature scarcely
 
 io8 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL, 
 
 out of the schoolroom. He was engaged with 
 her father in endless speculations : they w^ere 
 thrown together ; he talked to her of Italy, of 
 art, of society, of the world — the world that 
 she longed to see ; and loving him for these fair 
 promises, for his flatteries, for all the qualities 
 wherewith a girl's fancy invests her love, she 
 married him in spite of all I could do and say 
 to the contrary. Alas ! it was little enough. 
 It was too little, I have told myself over and 
 over again. I should have prevented it at 
 whatever, at any cost. My child did not know 
 what she was doing. No sooner were they 
 married than Martello told her the truth ; told 
 her that he did not believe in love, otherwise 
 than as a youthful disease, which, like the 
 measles or the rose-rash, had to be got over, 
 and then need trouble one no more : told her 
 that she must understand her position to 
 him as that of a partner in a mercantile house. 
 They were to do their duty to one another for 
 the good of the firm. She was to use her 
 abilities in his service ; her fresh young beauty 
 was to attract and secure new chents ; she 
 was to play the agreeable, make his home 
 respectable by the care she bestowed upon 
 every detail, and to understand that the atten-
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 109 
 
 tions he liad paid her, very proper before 
 marriage, would be altogether ridiculous, out 
 of place, preposterous between man and wife. 
 Mercifully the human heart and brain are 
 so constituted that they are only susceptible of 
 a certain amount of misery. My poor Hero 
 still had the illusion of a generous young mind 
 — she did not realise the utter shipwreck she 
 had made at once. She thought she was 
 w^orking for her father's and my good ; that if 
 we grew rich and prosperous by her means she 
 would have our blessings for all the ease of our 
 later life. And then she, so used to love, so 
 fed and nm^tm^ed and nourished on love, be- 
 lieved fondly that at the bottom of his heart 
 her husband did love her ; or, if he did not — 
 why, then, so she whispered to herself, he 
 should. Her youth, with which he taunted her, 
 should be no drawback ; she would grow sedate 
 and serious in pleasing him. Naturally, a man 
 so much older woidd be tenacious, lest liis 
 friends might accuse him of weakness towards 
 a young wife. She, who had accepted the 
 semblance of love as a right, now set herself 
 to conquer love the reality, as a guerdon. Even 
 her father saw that Martello treated her in a 
 manner that nothing could excuse, that he tried
 
 no AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 to make a stranger of her, keeping her at arm's 
 length, tutoring, criticising, and reproving her, 
 until the girl grew dumb, dull, dispirited and 
 weary. There were words — I cannot repeat 
 them — between her husband and her father, 
 and ' — here Mrs. Owen paused, and the tears 
 which had been gathering in her eyes rolled 
 slowly down her pallid cheek, and fell upon the 
 hand Fitz held in his. The young man stooped 
 and kissed them away. 
 
 ' Another time, aunt,' he said, ' you are not 
 strong enough ; it will make you ill.' 
 
 ' After that — some time after — Bianca was 
 born. Fitz, how can I tell you ? I was with 
 her, and we never thought she could live 
 through it. The doctor said she needed hope, 
 the mainspring of life to most young wives 
 and mothers ; she did not seem to rally : as 
 they lay side by side in the bed, mother and 
 child looked like two waxen images. Martello 
 was in more than ordinary money difficulties, 
 and very angry about the arrival of this inop- 
 portune little creature. He seldom came near 
 his wife. I was glad he left her alone. But 
 on the seventh day after Bianca's birth the 
 pressure from without, whatever it may have 
 been, became more persistent, and he applied
 
 MOTHER AND SON. m 
 
 to me. I had no money either to give or lend 
 Mm. He went to Hero. As time passed and 
 he did not rejoin me I began to think he must 
 have left the house. I trembled for all this 
 excitement and its effect upon my poor girl. 
 I opened the door, and the sound of altercation 
 reached me. Hero's voice was so faint it was 
 but an indistinct murmur. Suddenly a piercing 
 shriek rang through the house, then all was 
 still. I stood rooted to the spot. Then I ran 
 towards Hero's room. Martello came striding 
 past me. I went on. As I entered the bed- 
 room Hero snatched her baby from the bed 
 where it lay beside her, and held its little face 
 to hers. The nurse took it from her, and as 
 my poor girl fell back upon the pillow I saw 
 that her face bore the fiery imprint of five 
 fingers in flaming outrage on her pale cheek. 
 The Italian nurse, half frantic, gesticulated, 
 wept, and raved, and called all the saints to 
 witness that she was not responsible if her 
 mistress died, for how could she make a good 
 recovery.? Hero did not speak a word. . . . 
 That night she told me that she had given 
 Martello all her jewels long since, and that he 
 had desired her to write to her relations for 
 money. Alas ! the poor child knew we had
 
 112 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 nothing. "Then find some one who has some- 
 thing," he said, and suggested a rich sister of 
 Mr. Owen's, of whom he had heard. But Hero 
 explained that she did not know this lady, and 
 that to apply to her would only be to expose 
 him to lowering remarks, which for honour's 
 sake she must avoid. He said it was a beg- 
 garly pride that would sacrifice her husband 
 to these considerations, and that he no longer 
 requested — he commanded. Hero said that 
 when she was better she would write to her 
 uncle. " No ! Dealings with men," he said, 
 ^^ were better avoided on occasions of this sort." 
 Hero must write to her aunt ; and her selfish- 
 ness in talking of " when she would be better " 
 was on a par with the rest of her conduct. 
 She must write for the money now, at once, 
 to-day, and, seeing she hesitated, he added 
 
 furiously : " Now, or never I " " Then 
 
 Never ! " Hero cried, all her nerves tingling 
 with excitement, and no longer mistress of 
 herself, and the blow fell in response upon 
 her upturned face. The little baby pined, 
 wailing night and day ; and its mother sat 
 looking at it with large tearless eyes, and 
 said nothing. " Why should it live ? " she 
 asked wearily. My heart felt broken. I
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 113 
 
 wrote to your uncle, and at last help, in the shape 
 of money, came. When Hero saw Bianca in her 
 peasant nurse's arras the spell was broken, the 
 merciful tears came, and mother and babe were 
 saved. Martello had gone into hiding from his 
 creditors. He did not write, which was for- 
 tunate, but the time of peace seemed too good 
 to last, and I daily dreaded his return. 
 
 ' An old friend of the house, a Eoman artist, 
 coming on Hero and her child, fell into ecstasies 
 about them, and said his fortune was made if 
 she would pose for the Madonna he was com- 
 missioned to paint for some country church. 
 The purity of the young mother was what he 
 had dreamed but despaired of realising. Hero 
 consented. The picture made a furore ; the 
 thing got noised abroad, and when MartoJlo 
 came home, he found that Hero was in a sense 
 the celebrity of the hour. The Italians used 
 to rave about her. She was so serious, solemn, 
 and sad ; so young, fragile, and tender, that she 
 rccally did seem fitly to represent some sacred 
 mystery. 
 
 ' Then, what she had done for love, Mar- 
 tello insisted she could also do for money. 
 She revolted, resisted, rebelled, and — submitted. 
 It was a shame and a horror to her. One day 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Hero arrived in London. For a week she 
 scarcely spoke. The journey and her trouble 
 had almost killed her. Martello had engaged 
 in fresh schemes ; new victims were to be lured 
 into the brilliant net ; he took an apartment, 
 and desired Hero to send out cards for recep- 
 tions. She was to smile upon the men, please 
 them, inveigle them. His family, one of the 
 most honourable in Italy, had long ago refused 
 to recognise him. J^o more room for illusions ; 
 his wife's role was clearly defined by him. I 
 cannot tell you what passed between them, 
 but Hero borrowed a little money of the old 
 Italian artist, bound him down to secrecy and 
 came straight home. She told me she would 
 never go back to Martello, and she never did, 
 nor could I blame her resolve. She changed 
 her name (so as to annoy her relatives as little 
 as possible), and her extraordinary musical 
 talents shortened the time of probation by 
 more than half. 
 
 ' The first time she sang in public (it was 
 for charity at a concert in the English Embassy 
 at Eome) all Hero's old artist friends were 
 there ; they gave her a true Italian reception. 
 It was a great success. She is not so very 
 difierent perhaps now from what she was then ;
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 115 
 
 only that a sort of ardent fire wliich was not 
 excitement nor even enthusiasm seemed burn- 
 ing within her. From that time forward we 
 were fairly prosperous. During the season 
 Hero sang in London, and then she lived with 
 us. Her income sufficed to educate her child 
 and to keep them both in tolerable comfort. 
 Her husband never recognised her under the 
 name she adopted. My delicate health made 
 the Italian winters very Avelcome to me ; it 
 was then that — that Graham' — she paused and 
 went on hurriedly — ' yoiu* uncle talked of 
 getting a divorce for Hero, but there were 
 chfficulties. A woman, on marriage, adopts her 
 husband's nationality. Legally Hero was an 
 Italian, and in Italy there w^as no divorce 
 law\ We were so afraid that in the event of 
 his discovering she was making money, he 
 might take the child, which was legally his, 
 from her, that we lived in fear and trembling. 
 But at last news came that Bianca was father- 
 less, and my poor Hero once more free ! ' 
 
 Fitz found nothing to say in answer to 
 these confidences, and yet Mrs. Owen felt he 
 understood them. 'Hero has never offered 
 an explanation to anybody,' her mother w^ent 
 on, ' not that she was too proud to justify her-
 
 ii6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 self, but '' My life must be my explanation," is 
 what she has always said. And so it has been. 
 I suppose it is because she is without reproach 
 that she is so entirely without fear. " You 
 know, mother, and that is enough," was her 
 invariable reply. But, when I am gone, no 
 one will know, no one can know (as I did), all 
 the days of her life and the hours of her days. 
 
 Her father is he does not understand — and 
 
 besides he was not with her as I w^as. He is 
 very proud of her, of her beauty, and of her 
 success ; but he is vexed that, loathing and 
 hating publicity with an almost morbid hatred, 
 she has shrunk from recognition, and has steadily 
 persisted in withdrawing from professional life. 
 He says, perhaps not unjustly, that she might 
 be earning her thousands, and he ascribes her 
 repugnance to pride and obstinacy, whilst he 
 believes, now she is free, that she might easily 
 make what he calls "a brilhant marriage." 
 Hero will never sing in public again. I know 
 her reasons. They include more than I dare 
 say — even to you — and I approve them. You, 
 who are her only relative — fot my people are 
 all dead, and the income Hero enjoys she de- 
 rives from the de Courteville property which 
 my brother, dying in Canada, left to her — you
 
 MOTHER AND SON. 117 
 
 must be as a brother to her — a younger bro- 
 tlier, it is true, but what of that ? I shall feel 
 happier to have told you this if you promise 
 me that, when I am gone, should occasion arise 
 you will defend her from slander as emphati- 
 cally as I myself could do. She is still young, 
 and Bianca seems an anxious care to be laid 
 on her weak shoulders. You can defend and 
 protect her as a younger brother might.' 
 
 It was after this conversation, prophetic of 
 future trouble, that Fitzgerald had ventured to 
 say to Hero that he thought her mother feeble, 
 and that the change in her was for the worse. 
 Something like unreasonable resentment had 
 stirred Hero's heart, as the sharp stab of pain, 
 foretelling bereavement, ran through her at his 
 words. Could he know how cruel he was 
 in speaking thus ? Was fresh trouble coming ? 
 Must he needs prophesy evil as though that of 
 the day were not sufficient unto itself.^ And 
 her answer showed Fitz that she was vexed and 
 angry with him for wliat she deemed the 
 superfluous cruelty of his remarks. 
 
 These were the matters revolving in Fitz's 
 mind as he sat silently awaiting his mother's 
 next words. 
 
 ' Don't let us talk about them, since we
 
 ii8 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 can't agree,' said slie, after a long pause, stretch- 
 ing out lier hand to ring the bell for tea. 
 
 ' With all my heart,' Fitz repliei ; ' we will 
 agree to differ.' 
 
 His mother's harsh voice startled him out 
 of the reverie which had transported him to 
 Sprudelheim, and put to definite flight the 
 visions of grace and beauty that, but now, had 
 peopled his dreams.
 
 119 
 
 CHAPTER yil. 
 
 ' THE GOOD cause/ 
 
 ' It is for the good Cause,' said Mellin. 
 
 The short autumnal day was drawing to a 
 close. Mr. Owen, Hero, and Bianca were 
 dauntlessly performing their ' constitutional ' in 
 cork soles and waterproofs. 
 
 The mist hung heavy on the dim outline of 
 the hills ; the drip of the trees sounded cheer- 
 less, as by- forest paths they climbed the steep 
 ascent to the ruined Burg. 
 
 The Kerezoffs had left Sprudelheim. The 
 Hudsons had left. The diligence had ceased 
 to ply between the spa and the post-town. 
 The hotels were shut up, the lodging-houses 
 deserted, but the Owens were still detained by 
 the state of Mrs. Owen's health. After a long 
 fine summer the weather had comj^letely 
 broken up, and the doctor would not at pre- 
 sent sanction any attempt to move the invalid.
 
 I20 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Hero, who had rather dreaded the effect on 
 Bianca of the departure of all her playfellows, 
 was agreeably surprised by the cheerful philo- 
 sophy with which the girl accepted the situa- 
 tion. It was true that Lord and Lady Gifford 
 and their daughter had arranged to await their 
 arrival in Brussels, and that Mrs. Hudson had 
 Hero's promise to pay them a visit in their 
 Sussex home before the expiration of the year ; 
 that the Kerezofs talked of coming to London 
 next spring, and that all the Prussian officers 
 had assured Bianca {sous toutes les reserves) that 
 they intended pilgrimages of politeness to the 
 country of their supremest abhorrence and 
 contempt. Yet these were but prospective 
 advantages, not calculated to meet what, Hero 
 feared, would be the blank and the desoeuvre- 
 ment of the present. Nevertheless, Bianca's 
 gaiety remained undimmed ; nor had even the 
 parting with Eeggie Hudson a more than pass- 
 ing effect upon her cheerful mood. The old 
 people viewed with not uncomplacent eyes the 
 growing intimacy of the boy and girl lovers. 
 Mrs. Hudson, subdued by Bianca's capable 
 ways and evident influence on her son, had 
 whispered a word to the girl's mother. Hero 
 had smiled, but made no direct reply. She
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 121 
 
 would keep her child if she could ; but, remem- 
 beiing her own miserable youth, and their 
 present unprotected condition, she would not 
 selfishly interfere with her girl's happiness, if 
 happiness for Bianca should be found to lie 
 in that direction. Eeggie Hudson was a 
 thoroughly good fellow ; as httle spoiled as the 
 circumstances allowed, and as much in love as 
 a romantic young gentleman accustomed to 
 have his own way in all things could possibly 
 be. Meantime they were both but big children, 
 and a Midsummer holiday's dream does not 
 necessarily develop into domesticity of the 
 permanent placid order, or prolific type. The 
 young man must see the world, and the girl must 
 have the opportunity of making comparisons. 
 True love is scarcely compatible with such 
 smooth running as the immature circumstances 
 denoted; and the elders were all prudently 
 silent as to what was passing before their eyes 
 and in their minds. 
 
 'It is for the good Cause,' said Mellin again, 
 in his peculiarly inexpressive, level manner. 
 His voice, veiled, thin and monotonous in tone, 
 was, when raised above its usual diapason, like 
 tlie voice of an invalid or peevish person, 
 strained and harsh. It had so little ' carrying '
 
 122 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 quality that only tlie person specially addressed 
 could catch what he said. 
 
 He was now standing with Bianca on a 
 small natural platform made by a landslip on 
 the hill-side, overlooking Sprudelheim, some 
 fifty feet below the ruined castle that crowned 
 the summit. A bench had been placed there 
 by the Society farming the waters, and it was 
 a favourite point for the post-prandial pro- 
 menades of pedestrian Sprudelheimers. To- 
 day the view, like Baron Mellin's voice, was 
 veiled ; effaced in fog and mist ; and the uni- 
 verse seemed to be restricted to the small space 
 of terra firma visible at their feet. 
 
 Bianca had declared to her companions 
 that they must take leave of the scene of their 
 summer exploits from this spot ; and, agile and 
 fleet of foot, she had succeeded in outstripping 
 her mother and grandfather. 
 
 Mr. Ov/en, short and scant of breath, was 
 uttering Falstaflian laments, as puffing and 
 blowing he stopped to pull out a scarlet silk 
 handkerchief, and mop his illuminated counten- 
 ance. The thick close autumnal mist was op- 
 pressively stifling amongst the trees. Once or 
 twice Mellin appeared to pause, as though 
 politeness demanded the party should remain,
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 125 
 
 as it had started, together. But Bianca con- 
 tinued her ascent with conviction, disdaining 
 even the semblance of waiting ; and, after a 
 moment's a})parent irresolution, he followed 
 his energetic guide without proffering either 
 remark or remonstrance. 
 
 Now that they had fairly outstripped the 
 others and got a good five minutes' start of 
 them, it was again Bianca who took the initiative. 
 
 She stopped, and Melhn simply acquiesced 
 in the pause. The girl looked at him with 
 large, inquiring, anxious eyes, and seemed 
 about to ask a question, but checked herself. 
 Time w^as very precious. Twice he had said it 
 was for the good Cause, as though to impress 
 it on her mind. 
 
 ' I know,' she answered, almost humbly. 
 
 The swiftness of their movements had sent 
 the blood coursing through her veins, and 
 given her pale Italian skin an unwonted tinge 
 of colour. Her eyes were bright, and large 
 with a strange, ho If- veiled expectancy, as they 
 rested anxiously, impatiently and yet timidly 
 on Meilin's inscrutable countenance. Then, as 
 he made no sign, not even looking in her face, 
 she said hurriedly: 'Have you brought it? 
 You do not speak.'
 
 124 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Is it safe to speak ? ' 
 
 ' Of course it is safe ; only we must be 
 quick. There will be no better time. But it 
 is short. Julie said I might depend on your 
 bringing it.' 
 
 'Madame de Kerezoff is very prudent — 
 for herself,' Mellin added in a lower note. 
 There was no bitterness in his tone. He was 
 merely stating a fact. It was doubtful whether 
 Bianca understood. She looked at him with a 
 puzzled air. ' This is my only chance,' she 
 said ; ' grandpapa is determined, fine or rainy, 
 we shall go to-morrow, and then ' — her voice 
 suddenly changed, and the lids were lowered 
 over her eager eyes, whilst her cheek lost its 
 vivid, delicate pink. 
 
 ' Well, then, I suppose what must be, 
 must,' her companion answered. ' You know 
 the conditions, you understand what they in- 
 clude.^ You are alive to all the gravity of 
 their import? You are to be trusted? Ee- 
 member, it is only step by step that one arrives 
 at a full knowledge of the responsibilities 
 undertaken, but you must realise these responsi- 
 bilities step by step too. He who is admitted 
 to the antechamber is still distant from the 
 throne-room. The pilgrim must not falter
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 125 
 
 even tliougli he learn by painful stations how 
 far the altar of his desires is from the porch 
 that first admits him to a distant view of the 
 shrine.' 
 
 ' I know.' 
 
 ' Does your mother guess or suspect any- 
 thing?' 
 
 ' Nothing.' 
 
 ' Of that you are sure ? That, if need were, 
 you could swear ? ' 
 
 ' Solemnl}^' 
 
 ' And you bind yourself by a triple oath of 
 Secrecy, Self-sacrifice, and Service ? ' 
 
 ' I do.' 
 
 ' Then take it my child, and remember 
 your duty to your brothers and sisters — 
 brethren in the Bond.' 
 
 He opened his left hand, and showed Bianca 
 a small silver ornament depending from a black 
 chain. 
 
 Tivo clasped hands holding a heart, upon 
 which was graven in strangle characters : ' To 
 Eternity.' The obverse of the medalhon showed 
 a death's head, grinning hideously beneath a 
 crown, and a curious cabalistic sign, of which 
 Bianca did not understand the meaning. 
 
 It was not a very ' gallant ' ornament for a
 
 126 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 man to give a beautiful young girl ; but Bianca 
 seized it eagerly. 
 
 ' When you look at this, night and morning, 
 you will remember, with joy and pride, that 
 you are admitted one of us. The heart symbol- 
 ises devotion to the Cause ; the clasped hands, 
 indissoluble union with it ; the words '' To 
 Eternity," that you, and all you have, and all 
 you are, or may have, and shall be, are ours. 
 The death's head is typical of the " next future ; " 
 of that oppression and tyranny which two 
 thousand centuries of wrong have crowned, 
 throned, and anointed in the name of " God and 
 Eight." The figure beneath represents a reck- 
 oning, for the amount of which the science of 
 numerals has accepted no sign. It shadows 
 forth millions, like the sands of the seashore for 
 multitude, whose ghastly shades people the 
 Hades of history, the victims of immemorial 
 wrong.' 
 
 Terrible words, uttered as calmly and with 
 as little expression as the merest conventional 
 commonplace. 
 
 Nevertheless, nothing daunted, Bianca 
 moved a step nearer. ' This is my altar,' she 
 said, laying one slender hand on a huge boulder 
 that, perilously poised, overhung the valley.
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 127 
 
 whilst she shghtly raised the other ; ' and on 
 this rock I swear allegiance to all I know, and 
 to all I do not know, that may be, and that is, 
 included in my vows of faith and service/ 
 
 She looked rather like some young inspired 
 priestess of an ancient faith, invoking her gods 
 with mystic rites upon the wild hill-side altar, 
 than a young English girl of the present prosaic 
 period, of the conventional commonplace type. 
 But, indeed, Bianca's Italian blood, the fusion 
 of nationalities, and confusion of strain, that 
 coursed through her veins, told seriously against 
 the middle- class ' conveniences ' of which her 
 ostensible life might be supposed the natural 
 outcome. 
 
 ' Now, put the medal round my neck,' she 
 said ; again, as always, taking the initiative ; 
 ' and let me realise in silence all the immensity 
 of my privileges.' There was real enthusiasm 
 in her tone, and she did not attempt to conceal 
 it, though even to herself her language sounded 
 stilted and grandiloquent. 
 
 Mellin obeyed her bidding. 
 
 She shut her eyes and held her breath with 
 an air of intense ' recollection.' 
 
 Two words recalled her to herself. 
 
 Mellin murmured : ^ Your mother.'
 
 128 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Why do you race on in such a ridiculous 
 way to this beastly dripping dog-hole ? ' said 
 Mr. Owen, angrily. ' You, Bianca, are as 
 ghastly pale as I am red ; and you, Baron, 
 would have done better not to follow the lead 
 of a romp in such a wild-goose chase. You 
 should have stopped with us old sober-sides. 
 Hero, shall you be afraid to sit down for a 
 minute ? ' 
 
 Baron Melhn was no favourite of Mr. 
 Owen. He thought him a needy adventurer, 
 a dull companion, a beggarly would-be gentle- 
 man, with nothing but a doubtful title and a 
 shabby suit of clothes to emphasise his preten- 
 sions. Tom Tiddler resents even the bare sus- 
 picion that outsiders contemplate an irruption 
 on his world-famous grounds for the purpose 
 of picking up the gold and silver that, of right, 
 ought to be T. T.'s alone. If the gTcat copper 
 mines were floated, KerezofF would insist on 
 giving this shabby-genteel threadbare- coated 
 compatriot of his a portion of the pickings ; 
 and, the more sharers, the less pickings would 
 be the obviously unpleasing result. 
 
 With Bianca, Mellin had spoken rapidly in 
 fluent English, almost without an accent. To 
 Mr. Owen he replied in a few halting, entangled
 
 'THE GOOD CAUSE} 129 
 
 •sentences, which that gentleman did not give 
 himself the trouble to comprehend. 
 
 ' Why did you race on at such a rate ? ' 
 Hero asked, reprovingly. 
 
 ' On the contrary, motherkin, you crawled 
 hke two caterpillars. Besides, what good could 
 our crawhng in company have done ? ' 
 
 ' It is sometimes better to do a thing in 
 company,' was Mr. Owen's sententious reply. 
 ' I suppose, having got up, we had better go 
 down again. But no running away this time, 
 Miss Bianca.' 
 
 ' Who wants to run away ? ' said the young 
 lady, not in the most respectful of tones. 
 
 ' Bianca ! ' said her mother, rising hastily 
 from the dripping stone on wliich she had 
 seated herself. 
 
 They were all cross, damp, and uncomfort- 
 able ; and the presence of a stranger made the 
 situation anything but pleasant. Fortunately 
 (two of the party thought) he did not under- 
 stand English, and the finer tones of family 
 discord would be lost upon him. 
 
 ' Might I venture to offer you my arm .^ ' 
 blandly asked the Baron of Hero. 
 
 As a foreigner he deemed the familiarity 
 sanctioned by the slipperiness of the descent. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I30 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 The offer was decicledly apologetic in tone. Hero 
 thought it better to take Mellin's arm frankly, 
 and as a matter of course. She felt as though 
 some concession were due to this unobtrusive 
 stranger for the inexpHcable ill-humour of the 
 family party ; and she good-naturedly wished 
 to convey that the national ' spleen ' was in 
 fault rather than individual idiosyncrasy. 
 
 The slippery stones and greasy earth made 
 the descent difficult ; now and again Hero slid, 
 but, with a little cry, recovered her equihbrium. 
 The Baron checked her fall by a judicious, yet 
 tender, pressure of the arm. This, so often as 
 it happened, annoyed her, and she was glad 
 when, at last, level ground gave her the oppor- 
 tunity of withdrawing her hand. 
 
 ' The privilege is one I shall not forget, 
 though I owe it to mere casual circumstances,' 
 he said, in his customary inexpressive melan- 
 choly voice. ' I, madame, speak from an 
 isolated position, and my words have therefore 
 all the more, and all the less, meaning. But 
 now that we are about to part I may say that 
 I have watched you with the eyes of respectful 
 enthusiasm, but I have not dared to ask for 
 your friendship. The world, Life, has not shown 
 me any other woman altogether such as you.'
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 131 
 
 ' You are very kind,' Hero answered, stiffly, 
 as though it were a mere passing compliment 
 he had paid her. In truth she was indignant 
 and amazed beyond words at the persoriahty of 
 his tone. 
 
 The very turn of his sentence was ill-chosen ; 
 there is always something offensive in being 
 ' watched.' Au reste^ of what consequence 
 whether he approved her or no ? What he 
 said was in the worst possible taste and utterly 
 uncalled for. His opinion was without weight 
 and his compliments without consequence. 
 They might not be meant impertinently, but 
 they were impertinent all the same. 
 
 ' You are not offended ? I hope you are 
 not offended ? ' he asked, reading her counten- 
 ance aright. 
 
 ' Certainly not. Only we will " change the 
 conversation, if you please.' The annoyance her 
 words disclaimed her tone sufficiently conveyed. 
 
 She expected him to understand that he 
 was dismissed, and it was with surprise she 
 heard him begin de novo : — 
 
 'My experience of the world is perhaps 
 the only possession of value that I have. You 
 will think me deficient in tact, but I hope you 
 k2
 
 132 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 will forgive me if I say that, though you have 
 no faults, you have one failing.' 
 
 ' And that is ? ' Hero asked, like a true 
 
 woman, her attention arrested by the fact of 
 his putting her under the microscope. 
 
 ' You do not know how to command.' 
 
 ' To command ? Where ? When ? Whom ? 
 I have no need to command. I obey my 
 parents and my child obeys me.' 
 
 ' Pardon me. You ask, as a favour, things 
 which you should demand as a right. There- 
 fore you will always be the victim of coarser, 
 more selfish, more unscrupulous, though not 
 necessarily, " stronger," natures.' 
 
 Some slight twinge of remorse, immediately 
 suppressed, probably inspired the ill-timed re- 
 mark. She understood some particular hint, 
 concealed in these vague generalities, but she 
 failed to apply the words ; and this attempt by 
 a stranger to penetrate, uninvited, into her 
 personal life offended her. 
 
 ' I suppose it is a mere compliment to ask 
 you to come in ? ' she said. 
 
 The doubtful hospitality was not accepted. 
 
 ' Then it is good-bye,' she continued, as 
 they reached the gate. In answer to Mellin's 
 elaborate bow she held out her hand, adding
 
 'THE GOOD cause: 133 
 
 in an indifferent tone : ' Ala mode de Bretagne I 
 a bow is too ceremonious when it means Fare- 
 well!' 
 
 He murmured something which she did not 
 understand ; and with what Hero thought a 
 ridiculous affectation of gallantry in a man who 
 hitherto had barely recognised the fact of her 
 existence, uncovered and bareheaded, stooped 
 and kissed her extended hand. 
 
 ' You should say, like the Austrians, Baron, 
 " I kiss the hand," and let the word stand for 
 the deed,' said Mr. Owen, who piqued himself 
 on knowing the world, and boasted that he 
 could tell a man's nationality by the way he 
 walked into a room. 
 
 ' Good-bye, Baron, et bon voyage ! ' 
 
 Bianca came last. 
 
 ' Adieu, Mademoiselle ! ' 
 
 'A rivederla!' she cried, looking him 
 steadfastly in the face for a moment, as she 
 followed her mother into the house. 
 
 Mellin had carefully abstained from using 
 words of farewell. ' We shall meet again,' he 
 said to himself, as he looked up at the blank 
 windows, ' but When, and Where ? '
 
 134 ^UT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE YIII. 
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 
 
 ' Brussels, Nov. 27, 18— 
 
 ' My dear Fitz, — Here we are still at Brussels, 
 and as our neighbours say, "-' pour cause.'' Now 
 that your aunt is better, nothing prevents our 
 getting under weigh but the de quoi. My 
 dividends are not paid till the New Year, and I 
 don't like to worry Hero about money, as she 
 has paid all our expenses for the past six weeks, 
 and is fretting over the loss of what she had — 
 fortunately not much — in the Bastwick Bank. 
 If you, like a dear fellow, could oblige me with 
 a loan of fifty pounds, I Avill send you an 
 I.O.U. for the amount, and wipe off my in- 
 debtedness at the turn of the year. My wife 
 and the girls don't know I am writing or they 
 would send their love. 
 
 'Your affectionate uncle, G. O.' 
 
 Fitz smiled as he drew a cheque for a
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 135 
 
 hundred pounds, and enclosed it to bis uncle. 
 He did not hope that the extra fifty would 
 repay Hero, but it was some comfort to him to 
 give his uncle the chance of making restitution 
 to the widow and the orphan. 
 
 Oxford, in a dripping November, is not a 
 cheerful city, though, no doubt, the wisdom 
 within its walls goes far to redeem the damp 
 without, and to rescue its inhabitants from 
 that ennui which is said, by French novelists, 
 to induce the autumnal batch of British 
 suicides. 
 
 The Christchurch Meadows were under 
 water and Magdalen walks deserted. The 
 waiters at the ' Clarendon,' pasting their pallid 
 countenances against the windows, and looking 
 out disconsolately at the martyr monument 
 over the way, were disposed to envy Cranmer, 
 Latimer, and Eidley the dryness and warmth 
 of their final exit, as they tried to " fleet 
 tlie time" by counting the Taylorian visitors. 
 Students in the Bodleian grumbled at the early 
 darkness that fell upon their labours ; Mr. 
 Euskin's army of amateur labourers had aban- 
 doned ' spade and wheel ' and ' the ethics of 
 the dust ' in sheer despair of coping with the 
 morals of the mud ; all the ' Heads ' had
 
 136 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 bronchitis; the Keble men had taken on a 
 deeper shade of priggishness, and the Balhol 
 men a liveher tinge of arrogance ; the Debating 
 Club had degenerated into a bear-garden, or 
 had at best become a mere theatre for cub- 
 wranghng (in the non-academical sense) ; the 
 plodding men wearily wending their home- 
 ward way were met, virtuous and unsightly, 
 in dripping mackintoshes and impossible shoeSy 
 carrying out the ' constitutional ' of the con- 
 scientious, despite the adverse elements. The 
 idlers and swaggerers, the rufflers and swash- 
 bucklers, out of sheer desoeuvrement^ had taken 
 out a new diploma of rowdiness, whilst now 
 and again a don, with a degenerate ' gamp,' 
 would glide surreptitiously past a noisy group 
 in terror for his gingham. 
 
 It was the weather to make a misanthrope 
 take out a new lease of hatred against his 
 fellow-creatures, Fitz thought ; and for the 
 tame-cat species to yearn with ardent if futile 
 longings for feminine companionship, sweet- 
 ness and light within doors, in place of 
 sloppiness and fog without — for bright, cheer- 
 ing domestic grace and happiness, that is as 
 the promised Paradise to the solitary celibate. 
 If his hundred pounds would bring the Owen
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 137 
 
 to England, they would be well laid out, lie 
 thought ; for he was anxious (with an almost 
 superstitious apprehension of evil at the bottom 
 of his anxiety) to know that the wanderers were 
 settled once more in their cosy English home. 
 
 Hudson, ingenuous youth, had written to 
 engage Fitzgerald for the last week of the old 
 and the first week of the New Year. ' To 
 meet the Queen,' he wrote upon a huge card, 
 and down in the corner, with the felicitous 
 ingenuity of impromptu waggery, added the 
 
 cabalistic si2;ns ' of m '^S^ f^'O •' 
 
 ' He is very young of his age : he must be 
 three or four-and-twenty,' said Fitz to himself, 
 smiling at the conceit as much as at the calm- 
 ness of the confidential quip. 
 
 ' Who is young ? ' asked Graham. 
 
 ' Hudson. Look here I ' and he handed 
 his friend the youth's letter. 
 , ' I read, but I do not understand. 
 \ ' That means Bianca.' 
 
 ' Bianca ? are you serious ? ' 
 
 ' Never more so.' 
 
 ' But Bianca is a child.' 
 
 ' So everyone tells me.'
 
 138 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' How well I remember old Casteroni's 
 picture of her as a baby ! It is like yesterday.' 
 
 ' All the same. Bianca is a woman, and 
 you deceive yourself. I don't even know 
 whether one would call her a girl in the sense 
 of being " girlish." ' 
 
 ' How so ? ' 
 
 ' Well, on this wise. She has lived ex- 
 clusively with old people ; people old by 
 comparison. My aunt thinks all young crea- 
 tures ought to be happy. I believe happiness 
 is generally held to be a prerogative of youth, 
 though I expect it's a fallacy. Hero, from 
 silently dwelling on the disaster of her own 
 early life, and the consequent drawbacks of 
 the position, has come to magnify these last 
 inordinately ; and the passion of self-sacrifice 
 being strong upon her, she regards life only 
 in so far as it can be adapted to Bianca's 
 happiness.' 
 
 Graham groaned in the spirit, but in the 
 flesh made no audible reply ; observing which, 
 Fitz continued his monologue. 
 
 ' They have all ministered to her ; my 
 uncle is good-natured and easy-going, proud of 
 Bianca's beauty and wit. The girl is fearless 
 and frank; speaks half a dozen languages with
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 139 
 
 facility ; has lived, in a sense, more or less in 
 public, whilst, so far, she has had no intimacies 
 outside her own family. My aunt is the only 
 person who can see any fault in her. But then 
 she is all mother. What Hero is to Bianca she 
 is to Hero ; that, and a great deal more.' 
 
 ' Naturally. It would seem the women of 
 your family have maternity strongly developed 
 They are, typically, mothers.' 
 
 The words were slightly cynical, if intonation 
 might fairly count. 
 
 ' I don't know. I suppose the heart must 
 have an outlet in some direction. I don't 
 think Bianca is a predestined mother. I can- 
 not fancy her a martyr to domesticities and 
 dulness. I can fancy her a Joan of Arc, a 
 Cleopatra, a Zenobia, a Eomola, even a St. 
 Elizabeth, a Corinna, a Hypatia. And the 
 curious part of it is they all think and keep 
 telhng themselves and each other that she is a 
 child.' 
 
 ' Tell me about them,' Graham said, settling 
 himself down in his easy chair, as he took out 
 a cigar, and, speaking with it between his teeth, 
 struck a match briskly. It seemed ages since 
 he had heard anything, and he might as weU 
 make himself comfortable whilst Fitz talked.
 
 140 AUl C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 After long abstinence the hungry heart clamours, 
 though it be but for a crumb of comfort. The 
 strong man is not always strong ; instinct teaches 
 him to hide his moments of weakness ; but he 
 himself knows the weakness is none the less 
 there. 
 
 Fitz also was, in a minor degree, passing 
 through a phase of heart-hunger. A few 
 more days and the vacation would empty 
 Oxford, and if the Owens still remained away, 
 he would not know what to do with himself, or 
 how to profit by his freedom. Graham sat and 
 smoked and listened. His mind travelled back 
 to the old Roman days, to afternoons on the 
 Pincio, to mornings in the Campagna, to 
 evenings in the Coliseum. He remembered 
 Hero's voice as, at his request, she sang amidst 
 the shadowy arches of the deserted amphitheatre 
 one of Neale's grand hymns of the Eastern 
 Church, and how it had risen, soaring and 
 tlirilling with magic vibrations across the con- 
 secrated scene of Christian martyrdom, until 
 the final message of consolation rang forth in 
 silver tones upon the startled midnight air : 
 ' Peace ! it is I ! ' 
 
 These two women. Hero and her mother, 
 both of them in his eyes martyrs, had been
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 141 
 
 sacred to him in spite of his cynicism ; and, as 
 he sat now in his friend's Oxford rooms, hsten- 
 ing to the story of their later hves, an intense 
 longing came upon him to see them both once 
 again. 
 
 ' Mrs. Owen seemed to me like a saint,' 
 he said ; ' like a Madame de Chantal, or some 
 delicate French lady of other days, devoted to 
 good w^orks, but gracious and graceful still in 
 spite of her piety.' 
 
 ' Or, perhaps, because of it,' Fitz interjected, 
 ' for my aunt, though deeply religious, is no 
 enthusiast, no bigot. There is nothing ascetic 
 or extreme in her view of life.' 
 
 ' No ; she is too calm, of too well-balanced, 
 too large and liberal a mind, too human and 
 devoted in her family affections for that. The 
 wives and mothers who are martyred out- 
 number the virgin-martyrs, though they be 
 not in the calendar. I wish I had made a 
 drawing of her, with her exquisite profile, her 
 clear dehcate colouring, her noble brow, and 
 the soft hair, prematurely grey, that gave such 
 distinction to her head. 
 
 ' She is not changed.' 
 
 ' And then her intelligence, her ready and 
 easy sympathy, her high-bred air, and mar-
 
 142 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 velloiisly varied conversation ! Never talking 
 too much or too little, but with a graceful turn 
 of language which proved to me conclusively 
 that conversation, as a fine art, is not yet 
 extinct.' 
 
 Thus the two men talked together familiarly 
 of past, present, and future, as women often 
 do who love their theme, but men seldom, 
 and then only under exceptional combina- 
 tions and influences. 
 
 ' I shall hear in a day or two,' Fitz said, as 
 Graham threw the end of his cigar into the fire, 
 and took down his great coat ; ' if they are in 
 town we will go up together to see them.' 
 
 Graham made no direct reply to this pro- 
 position, but nodded a silent assent and farewell 
 as he passed out, and found himself with the 
 rain beating in his face once more in the blank, 
 cheerless street. Excitement quickening his 
 pulses, and thrilling his blood, drove him 
 along the flat country road regardless of the 
 cheerless autumn weather, and indifferent to 
 the present solitude and the gathering gloom. 
 
 The perils that were closing round the 
 women these two men loved were such as they 
 could neither divine nor remedy. The world is 
 intolerant of the offices of friendship when these
 
 FROM ROME TO OXFORD. 143. 
 
 are not authentically solicited by ' the powers 
 that be.' Every man is supposed, by a con- 
 venient traditional fiction, to be equal to the 
 headship of his own house. Women err and 
 stray from weakness, not through wickedness. 
 Whilst Mr. Owen was maturing a brilliant 
 scheme for cattle-breeding on the Grampians, 
 poor foolish little Bianca was slowly and surely 
 breaking through the fragile barriers of the 
 family fold, after the immemorial fashion of 
 ' seely sheepe.'
 
 144 ^UT CyESAR AUJ NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 REVELATIONS. 
 
 The party at Brussels was, like the lot of Mr. 
 Gilbert's policeman, ' not a happy one.' 
 
 ' I don't know what we could have been 
 thinking of, but I feel that we were wrong to 
 let her see so much of the Kerezoffs,' said Mrs. 
 Owen to her daughter, in an anxious voice. 
 Oh ! my poor child, if Bianca were not all she 
 ought to be to you — if, after all, she were to 
 disappoint you, I could never forgive her, but 
 still less could I forgive myself! I was not 
 blind, and I blame myself — I blame myself ! ' 
 
 ' Needlessly, mother, I am sure. You are 
 over anxious, and I, who saw a good deal of 
 them, saw no harm in Madame de Kerezoff 
 She was frivolous, but she lived happily with 
 her husband ; and she was kind to her children 
 and servants. I do so fear wearying Bianca by 
 keeping her too exclusively with us. Jealousy 
 always defeats its own aim.'
 
 REVELATIONS. 
 
 145 
 
 ' A girl of that age " weary " of her mother ; 
 and of — you, Hero, of you ? — of such a mother 
 as you have been ? It seems out of place, hke 
 an ill-timed humility. That is not the attitude 
 you ought to take up with respect to your child. 
 Why not assert yourself in a reasonable way, 
 and maintain a mother's rightful authority ? ' 
 
 ' I need not assert my authority if it is not 
 disputed. Bianca never disobeys me.' 
 
 'Because she always has her own way.' 
 
 ' But if there is no wrong, no harm, in her 
 way? ' 
 
 ' Still I am not sure she ought always to 
 have it. As a mere matter of discipline.' 
 
 * Surely, mother, that would be making life 
 too penihle. Have you not often said yoiurself 
 that life brings its own discipline.^ There are 
 already difficulties enough without our seeking 
 or creating them. I hope and believe that the 
 more indulgent and the less exacting I am, the 
 more Bianca will love me.' 
 
 ' But she ought to respect you, too ; to 
 respect your mil, your opinions, yoiu: in- 
 fluence ; to submit her judgment to yours ; to 
 remember we are three and that she is only 
 one.' 
 
 ' You were not this Spartan parent to me, 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Mamma mia^ and Hero laid a cool caressing 
 palm upon her mother's feverish hand, using 
 the soft southern speech which long sojoiu-n 
 in the land of song had made familiar on her 
 lips. 
 
 ' Ah ! my child, things were very different 
 with you. Bianca has had indulgences and 
 luxuries that, in my wildest dreams, I never 
 dared to hope for you. You have worked to 
 give her an education, pleasures, toilettes ; she 
 has had change, travel, society, amusement. I 
 never worked for you. Your change was from 
 the bedroom to our sitting-room, and vice versa. 
 You have given all your youth, as you will 
 give all your middle life, to your child, whilst 
 I had no youth left to give to mine. You came 
 a little angel of consolation, a priceless gift to 
 me, who could do notliing for you, nothing but 
 love you ; who saw you sacrificed, and knew 
 it, and made no sign. Ah! my Hero, you 
 were " the child of your mother only ; " but 
 Bianca is Martello's child, and in Italian blood 
 in the Italian nature, with all its apparent 
 simplicity and frankness, with all its naivete and 
 caressing surface, there always lurks a strain of 
 — of — help me to a word less harsh than 
 intrigue, less cold than concealment.'
 
 RE VELA TIONS. 1 47 
 
 ' Mother ! ' 
 
 ' Do not be wilfully blind, Hero.' 
 
 ' I am not blind. It is you who see too 
 much. You are over anxious, over sensitive.' 
 
 'You say so, and you think I am imjust. 
 Have you seen Madame de KerezofTs last 
 letter ? ' 
 
 ' No ; but I could have seen it. Now that 
 you mention it, I don't know why I did not. 
 Bianca always offers me her letters ; and if by 
 chance she omits to do so, I do not like to ask 
 o see them, lest I should appear to be, what I 
 am not, and never could be where she is con- 
 cerned — suspicious . ' 
 
 ' That sort of delicacy might be very well 
 between equals and friends, between husband 
 and wife, but it is overstrained between mother 
 and child. It is more than that, for it is a 
 neglect of duty, a manque de surveillance^ which 
 some day you will regret.' 
 
 ' A generous mind is far more likely to feel 
 itself bound not to betray implicit confidence. 
 Many a nature that would evade or resent suspi- 
 cion would feel it impossible to be false to a 
 trust.' 
 
 ' You credit youth with a strength of will
 
 148 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 beyond its powers, and you judge other natures 
 by your own. But where outside adverse 
 influences creep in, parents ought not to be 
 surprised to find their trust betrayed. Why 
 do they not lend the aid of their authority, 
 the strength of their influence, claim the full 
 weight of their position as parents, and thus 
 help their children out of the beginning of 
 difficulty?' 
 
 Hero, for a moment, did not reply. She 
 was thinking how clearly and strongly her 
 mother spoke, and how different had been 
 her practice from her theory. 
 
 'Young people are so differently brought 
 up nowadays, mother,' she said at length, 
 ' They resent all attempt at control. Even 
 when most willing to obey, it must be of their 
 own freewill, of their own initiative, not of 
 compulsion.' 
 
 ' May I ask you something. Hero ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly. Anything.' 
 
 ' Did you know that Bianca called Madame 
 de Kerezoff' " Julie " ? ' 
 
 ' Impossible ! ' 
 
 ' But true ! I saw a letter open on the 
 table. It was only the commencement. As 
 Bianca's grandmother, and, in some sense, her
 
 REVELATIONS. 149 
 
 guardian, I did not scruple to read it. I did 
 not like what I read.' 
 
 ' Bianca could not say anything wrong.' 
 
 ' Perhaps not. I do not know. It depends 
 upon what you call wrong. Words — or their 
 meanings — are elastic' 
 
 ' mother, you misjudge her ; you do, in- 
 deed ! ' 
 
 ' And, if Bianca disappoints you, what will 
 your position be ? ' Mrs. Owen went on, as it 
 seemed to Hero, ruthlessly. ' You have set 
 your life and happiness on the cast of the die, 
 you have sacrificed everything to it, and you 
 must remember that you have nothing to fall 
 back upon if things turn out differently from 
 what you anticipate.' 
 
 ' Do you know anything, mother, or are 
 you speaking generally ? ' Hero cried with a 
 sharp tone of suffering in her voice. ' I cannot 
 understand you.' 
 
 Eespect forbade her saying what she felt, 
 that her mother was needlessly torturing her. 
 
 ' Perhaps a little of both. If you are wise 
 you will be guided by me ; you will trust in my 
 love.' 
 
 It was true that Bianca's temper had 
 seemed, day by day, to grow more uncertain.
 
 I50 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 She was impatient and moody, almost disre- 
 spectful to lier grandparents, and disregardful 
 of lier mother ; the very character of her 
 beauty had undergone a change. Her moments 
 of gaiety were loud and forced ; she was restless 
 and snappish ; now un^villing to move out of 
 the house, at another time complaining of the 
 monotony of their Brussels life. The only 
 moment of the day that seemed to interest her 
 was when, at the sound of the postman's foot 
 uJDon the stairs, she would rush to fetch her 
 grandfather's newspaper. 
 
 ' Why does Bianca always go to meet the 
 postman? ' asked Mrs. Owen one day. 
 
 ' I do not know. Out of idleness, by chance, 
 for no reason,' Hero replied, inwardly hurt at 
 the implied suspicion. To suspect her child 
 seemed to her an outrage, a degradation 
 of her own maternity. A coolness was grow- 
 ing up between her mother and herself where 
 Bianca was concerned. Now and again fits of 
 gaiety and epanchement brought back the frank 
 merry girl of the early summer. The denou- 
 ment was at hand. 
 
 ' Ah, Mamma mia ! do you know what the 
 people say? I give it you in 99 ? I will not 
 tell vou ; it will make the motherkin too vain.
 
 REVELATIONS. 151 
 
 And yet I love them for it.' Then, suddenly, 
 with almost the impassioned tone of a grown 
 woman : ' Ah, mother ! why have you not given 
 me, your own and only child, some of your 
 good gifts ? Why do you take all the love and 
 keep it all ? Why do you gain people's hearts, 
 and not care to have them? Why have you not 
 given me some of these gracious gifts, that I 
 
 might win hearts ? And ' She stopped, 
 
 confused, her face crimson. 
 
 ' And throw them away, as you used to 
 throw your broken toys, goosey goosey gander ! 
 Why, that is what you accuse me of doing ! ' 
 
 ' I should not throw them away,' the girl 
 said almost suddenly, ' I should use them ! ' 
 
 The light of enthusiasm and passion had died 
 out of her face, her voice was harsh, cold, and 
 resentful. 
 
 ' You have enough love, my child, and to 
 spare ; you need not wish for more,' Hero said 
 tenderly, pained she knew not why by the 
 unchildlike outburst. ' The measure of mine is 
 pressed down and running over. Strangers 
 need not intermeddle with our joy.' 
 
 ' Have I yours mother, truly — all yours .^ 
 All ? all ? ' she repeated jealously, insistingly. 
 
 ' All mine.'
 
 152 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' So that you could forgive me anything 1 ' 
 
 ' I cannot fancy that I shall ever have to 
 forgive you anything, Bianca mia! 
 
 ' But if you had ? If put to the test ? ' 
 
 ' I cannot say what I should do under 
 impossible circumstances,' her mother answered 
 gravely ; ' and we need not torment ourselves 
 with vain imaginings. It is foolish, even if 
 not wrong.' 
 
 ' Then you do not love me as I mean.' 
 The girl had felt some subtle hidden reproof 
 in the mother's tone, and in her excitement 
 was ready to resent it. 
 
 'But this is profitless, idle folly,' Hero 
 said cheerfully; 'you must not give way to 
 morbid fancies, my child. Brush away these 
 cobwebs, and be my dear Bianca again. You 
 are not amiable of late, not as I like to see you. 
 And, since we are on disagreeable subjects, I 
 must beg you to take heed how you answer 
 your grandparents. They are too good to 
 you for you to treat them roughly.' 
 
 Mr. Owen had permitted himself some 
 freedom in speaking of the KerezofFs and 
 Baron Mellin, and he had expiated his fault 
 at his granddaughter's hands without knowing 
 the cause of Bianca's ill-temper.
 
 REVELATIONS. 153 
 
 ' Give her a couple of antibilious pills,' he 
 said with vulgar common sense, declining to 
 take offence seriously. ' The girl is out of 
 sorts and wants a dose. Bianca, who chose on 
 the contrary to take everything just then from 
 the tragic side, overlooked her grandpapa's 
 existence for several days, and was indignant 
 with him for not perceiving her displeasure. 
 
 ' What is this P ' said Mrs. Owen one 
 afternoon, holding out her hand carefully as 
 she asked the question. 
 
 The three ladies were in her little sitting- 
 room. Mr. Owen was taking his constitu- 
 tional. 
 
 With a cry Bianca darted forwards, spring- 
 ing like a young panther at the fragile hand. 
 She almost tore it open. Ghttering between 
 the slender fingers she recognised her silver 
 medal, from which the black chain broken in 
 one of its links still depended. In her ex- 
 citement she snatched it roughly from her 
 grandmother, Hero looking on in silent 
 amazement. 
 
 ' It is mine ! ' she cried. 
 
 'Yours? What is it? What does it 
 mean ? Where did you get it ? Why this 
 excitement? Why have you never shown it
 
 154 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 to US ? Bianca, how can you be so rough to 
 grandmamma ? ' were the questions that fell 
 from mother and grandmother in a perfect 
 hailstorm of dismayed interrogatory. 
 
 Hero was pale to her very lips. 
 
 Bianca answered not a word. Her hand 
 closed over the medallion ; she stood before 
 the anxious questioners with compressed lips, 
 sullenly defiant. 
 
 ' Will you answer nothing, Bianca ? ' her 
 mother said at last, in indignant despair. 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 ' At least, tell me who gave it you ? Don't 
 you see, my poor child, that it is you who by 
 your misconduct are giving importance to a 
 thing which perhaps is quite indifferent ; by 
 your foolish obstinacy you are placing yourself 
 needlessly in the wrong. There can, at w^orst, 
 be only some error of judgment on your part.' 
 
 No answer. 
 
 ' Bianca,' cried her mother, roused at 
 leno[th to indiojnation, ' I command vou to 
 tell me who gave you that thing ? After all, 
 if the only fault you have committed is in 
 having kept the matter a secret, you need not 
 be afraid to own it.' 
 
 Then, as suddenly a happy thought occurred
 
 REVELATIONS. 155 
 
 to lier, Hero's face lightened and brightened. 
 A girl's modesty is apt to be almost /a7^owcA^ 
 when her maidenliness is touched. Smiling 
 and softening, her mother bent over, and in a 
 coaxing voice that almost pleaded for for- 
 giveness with her child, said : ' Did Eeggie 
 
 Hudson give it you, Bianca ? If so- ' and 
 
 a world of happy anticipation beamed in the 
 sunshine of Hero's hiatus. 
 
 ' Eeggie Hudson ? He ? I should think 
 not, indeed ! ' the girl cried. 'Why should I 
 hide anything about Eeggie Hudson ? ' An 
 expression of almost cruel contempt was in 
 her voice as she repeated scornfully : ' Why 
 should I keep it a secret if he had given it 
 me?' 
 
 ' Why, indeed ? ' her mother answered 
 sorrowfully, and again there was a pause. 
 Mrs. Owen had not yet spoken, but her 
 daughter felt that in her own mother's pre- 
 sence she could not thus suffer defeat. 
 
 Taking Bianca by the arm she said firmly : 
 ' Bianca, I insist upon knowing once for all 
 who gave you that extraordinary ornament — 
 whatever be its meaning. Tell me who gave it 
 you, and when, and where ? ' 
 
 The worst had come. But it had been
 
 156 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 foreseen and provided against. Withdrawing 
 her arm from her mother, and looking at her 
 defiantly as she threw her head back : — 
 
 'Madame de KerezofF gave it to me,' 
 Bianca said in a hard voice. She was deadly- 
 pale. 
 
 A moment's doubt glanced across Hero's 
 mind but she dismissed it. Her child would 
 not lie to her. 
 
 ' And you write to her as " Julie ? '" 
 
 ' Who told you so ? ' 
 
 ' I did,' and her grandmother's reply met 
 no response. 
 
 Again there was silence. 
 
 ' All this maybe very unimportant, very silly, 
 trifling, and of no consequence,' Hero said, 
 ' but that you should have secrets from us, 
 from your mother and grandmother ; that you 
 have secrets with strangers, with whom you 
 appear to be on terms of surprising familiarity, 
 can never be unimportant.' 
 
 ' They are not strangers to me.' 
 
 ' They are to us, and I blame myself for 
 my weakness in allowing you to spend all your 
 time with them as you did at Sprudelheim, 
 but I thought your heart was with us, if you 
 found more amusement with them. It would
 
 REVELATIONS. 157 
 
 seem that the affection which without any 
 cause or reason you have withdrawn from your 
 family, to lavish on these strangers, has not 
 spoken one word of warning to your heart/ 
 
 ' They are not strangers to me,' the girl 
 again cried, passionately reiterating and re- 
 asserting the fact \\dth hard pertinacity. 
 ' And, if you are a stranger to them, you need 
 not have been so. They showed you every 
 kindness ; they lavished every attention on you. 
 Why, everyone noticed it. Madame de 
 Kerezoff — Juhe — told me all Sprudelheim 
 coupled your name with — with — Baron Mellin's, 
 and ' 
 
 ' Bianca ! ' cried her grandmother, in a voice 
 that rang through the room ; and even the 
 infuriated girl was quieted into momentary 
 respect by the indignation that spoke in the 
 one word of protest. ' You forget yourself 
 You forget that you are speaking to your 
 mother. You forget yourself as a child, as a 
 modest girl. Go to your room, and when you 
 are able to consider your words, when you are 
 calmer, I, not your mother, will speak to you.' 
 
 With pale face, but head erect, Bianca left 
 them. 
 
 Hero, as pallid as death, dropped into u
 
 158 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 chair. ' After all, perhaps it is mere childish- 
 ness,' she said, bravely, attempting to smile in 
 answer to the look of inquiry in her mother's 
 face. But the next moment she broke down 
 utterly, her courage deserted her, and she sank 
 sobbing on Mrs. Owen's shoulder. 'They have 
 robbed me of my child's heart,' she cried ; ' if 
 that is turned away from me, what am I to 
 do?' 
 
 ' JSTo, Hero,' her mother answered, quietly ; 
 ' her heart is not turned against you ; you have 
 not devoted your whole life to this child for 
 nothing. Only you must be firm, and not let 
 her see the extent of her own power, or. she will 
 abuse it.'
 
 159 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS.' 
 
 Ix a wretched room, situated in one of the 
 most miserable shims of St. Petersburg, a pale 
 woman in a shabby serge gown, trimmed with 
 Astrachan sheepskin, was engaged in nipidly 
 setting up type. A table, three chairs, and 
 the inevitable Ikon, or holy picture, were, 
 except a small printing-press, all that the place 
 contained. The grey winter afternoon was sink- 
 ing into night ; a smell of hot tallow rendered 
 the atmosphere of the little room sickening ; the 
 closed stove gave out a metallic vapour which 
 made the air stifling beyond endurance. Yet 
 a man, who was seated at a desk Avritingf, 
 uttered a murmur of unmistakable protest as 
 the woman rose, and opening a little pane 
 of glass in the double window, thrust her 
 head into the aperture. 
 
 The draught caused the candle placed
 
 i6o AUT CJLSAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 before the Ikon^ near the broken cornice, to 
 flicker so as to endanger the existence of the 
 greasy saint thereon depicted. 
 
 ' Pest ! it was only wanting that the dranght 
 should blow out our last candle,' he exclaimed, 
 as the long unsnuffed wick at his elbow sent 
 the flame across the paper and accelerated the 
 gutter of the tallow. 
 
 ' I cannot bear this atmosphere any longer. 
 It is stifling me,' the woman answered shortly. 
 
 ' I told you that you were too fanciful, and 
 delicate of fibre for the work.' 
 
 ' Nothing of the kind ; fancy is not in it ; 
 but one must breathe.' 
 
 ' I don't see the necessity. As a matter of 
 fact, Katinka Petrowna, we have not breathing 
 time, much less leisure to squabble. This sheet 
 must be struck off to-night, and I have not yet 
 finished my address to our brethren at Moscow.' 
 
 ' What time do you meet the delegates .^ ' 
 she asked, turning her head for a moment, but 
 not looking at her companion as she spoke. 
 
 ' At nine.' 
 
 A pause ensued, during which the woman 
 silently closed the square of glass, and returning 
 to the ' case,' continued her work with skilful 
 rapidity. After a pause the man spoke, but
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: i6i 
 
 he also refrained from looking up, keeping his 
 eyes fixed on his manuscript. 
 
 ' At what hour have you to go to the ball?' 
 
 ' I must be ready by half-past seven.' 
 
 'At the Winter Palace?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' I am ill. My servant will go at the last 
 moment and report to Colonel Krackowsky 
 that I am in bed. If necessary he will make 
 my excuses, semi-officially.' 
 
 ' And if they send to see ? Surely it would 
 be wiser to go ? ' 
 
 ' They Avill not. Du reste, the figure that 
 will be lying in my bed must not be disturbed. 
 Ivan will take care the patient sleeps his 
 " feverish cold " away.' 
 
 ' If we lighted another candle ? ' 
 
 ' No. We cannot afford it ; the neighbours 
 might talk.' 
 
 'We are so fortunate in having no Dvornik,^ 
 
 ^ The functions of the Dvornik, or yard-keeper, somewhat 
 resemble those of the French Concierge. He acts as a sentinel, 
 standing all day at the gate or door of the house to which he 
 is attached, closely observing all incomers and outgoers. He 
 is popularly supposed to be a paid parasite of the police, and 
 any reluctance on the part of the occupant to permit the 
 Dvornik to enter his apartments would rouse his suspicion, and 
 subject the tenant to police surveillance. The Dvornik is 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 AUl C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 that I should have thought we might have 
 allowed ourselves the luxury of forgetting the 
 neighbours,' Katinka said, as, with a sigh and a 
 shrug of impatience, she continued her work. 
 
 ' How about the correspondence ? ' asked 
 her companion, after the silence had lasted some 
 time. 
 
 ' It is safe ; Dimitri will bring it.' 
 
 A step was heard upon the wooden stair as 
 she spoke. Katinka held up her hand in token 
 of attention, and listened, looking across at the 
 scribe, who also paused for a moment, but 
 without looking up. A hand shook the rough 
 wooden door in the lintel, and a voice outside 
 said, impatiently: 'It is I! Dimitri Sergue- 
 vitch. Be quick.' 
 
 The sallow woman gave a sigh of rehef, 
 then, as though awaiting orders from the man 
 at the desk before drawing the bolt, kept her 
 gaze fixed upon him, until he called boldly in 
 a loud voice : — 
 
 ' Hast thou brought the potatoes, my friend ? 
 and if so, what sort are they ? ' 
 
 ' English. The German seedlings, as well as 
 the Swiss kidneys, are rotten.' 
 
 literally a 'hewer of ^vood and drawer of water/ and it* a 
 familiar feature in Russian domestic life.
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 163 
 
 ' 'Tis all right,' said the scribe, nodding at 
 the woman, and the bolt was suddenly drawn 
 on the inside. 
 
 Dimitri Serguevitch, otherwise Baron Kere- 
 zoff, in the dress of the ordinar}^ Eussian 
 moujik, entered the room. Across his shoulder 
 hung a coarse canvas bag, of which the in- 
 equality of outline was sufficiently suggestive of 
 the vegetable produce alluded to. 
 
 ' You might have opened quicker,' he said, 
 throwing the sack upon the ground as he looked 
 at Katinka. 
 
 ' I might, but I did not. Goodness knows 
 I am W'cary enough of all these tiresome pre- 
 cautions,' answered the woman, dispiritedly, 
 ' it seems such a farce ; it adds gall and worm- 
 ^vood to the daily cup.' 
 
 ' No farce where so much is at stake,' re- 
 marked the scribe, still writing. 'How could 
 you be sure that some spy in disguise had not 
 appropriated Dimitri's sack ? And if your 
 husband w^ere to get into trouble through 
 
 neglect of such simple precautions ' 
 
 'I know my husband's voice.' 
 ' It is more than I do, in that Novgorod 
 patois. But it is like a woman to weary of 
 small things ; yet by trifles empires have been 
 M 2
 
 1 64 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 overturned. The cackling of geese saved the 
 Capitol.' 
 
 ' If I don't carry it far enough, you carry 
 it too far, with these eternal precautions, mon 
 ami. Sergius and Julie are '' Dimitri " and 
 " Katinka," even behind bolts and barricades 
 for you. But if you have finished your address 
 to the delegates, you can rest awhile, whilst I 
 read the evening's correspondence.' 
 
 The potatoes and turnips were rolled out 
 upon the bare floor, the false bottom to the 
 sack unripped, and a packet of letters extracted. 
 
 ' The English last,' said Mellin, trimming 
 the tallow candle. 
 
 In accordance with his command, French, 
 German, and Swiss letters received the earlier 
 attention. 
 
 ' The Gallic cock crows loud,' Mellin said 
 contemptuously, ^but he lays no eggs.' 
 
 Julie read on. 
 
 ' Our German brethren play the hen to 
 the Gallic cock,' he continued in running 
 commentary ; ' if they do not crow, they sit ; 
 sit fast and firm, but their eggs are addled with 
 over much incubation. Go on.' 
 
 The Swiss correspondence seemed also to 
 afford but httle satisfaction.
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 165 
 
 ' The Swiss are the most selfish people 
 under the sun,' grumbled the commentator. 
 * Eemember the Eoute du Chene, where the 
 Eussian delegates were grossly insulted. They 
 are, hke all hybrids, respectably deficient in all 
 the qualities, and all the defects^ that mark 
 " race." As calculating as the German, as 
 wordy as the French, they have no com- 
 prehension of self-devotion in a great cause. 
 Go on. Hope lies at the bottom of Pandora's 
 box.' 
 
 ' The goose with the golden eggs,' laughed 
 Julie. ' Let us see how far the generous folly 
 of these (so-called phlegmatic) British will 
 take them ; though, to do them justice, it is 
 only the Enghsh who are capable of enthusiasm. 
 I cannot imagine a conspiring Scot ; the Irish 
 are all froth and sentiment.' 
 
 At the words 'folly' and 'froth,' Mellin 
 frowned. 
 
 'Your terms are not well chosen,' he said, 
 sternly, ' but no matter, time flies ; ' and, sign- 
 ing to her to proceed, he fell back in his chair, 
 his gaze fixed upon the ceiling, as though 
 seeking patience amongst the rafters. 
 
 • My faith ! but it is long ! ' said Julie, 
 glancing at the closely- written sheets. ' If I
 
 1 66 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 am not to skip, there is no time to lose ! ' and 
 she began : — 
 
 .' Fail-holt, near Midhurst, Sussex, 
 ' December, 18 — . 
 
 'Dear Brother, — Although your calendar 
 differs from ours, you cannot be augry if I 
 begin by wishing you a " Merry Christmas and 
 a Happy New Year." You will see by my date 
 that I am no longer in London. Indeed, I 
 only stayed there a few days, for grandmamma 
 was so ill on our arrival from Brussels, and 
 continued to suffer so much that mamma wrote 
 to explain to Mrs. Hudson we could not possibly 
 carry out our promise of spending the last 
 week of the Old, and the first of the New 
 Year ^vith them. By the next train Mrs. 
 Hudson and Eeggie came to town, and by dint 
 of telling mamma they would never foi-give her 
 if she refused, and declaring I was looking pale 
 and thin, they got their own way, and brought 
 me off to Fairholt with. them. I came because 
 you had given me instructions as to what I was 
 to do if occasion offered ; and, if I had refused, 
 I should have had no opportunity of speaking 
 to Eeggie in private ; and I Avas the more 
 willing to come because I was utterly wretched 
 at home. Of course no one knows I write to,
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 167 
 
 or receive letters from, you, for I couid only do 
 so by making pretence to write to Julie. This 
 mamma supposed to be merely the idle gossip- 
 ing correspondence affected by young ladies, 
 and she never would have suspected the truth 
 but that grandmamma happened to see one of 
 my letters begmning '' Dear Julie," instead of 
 " Dear Baroness Kerezoff," and that brought 
 about a fearful scene, which, however, would 
 have died out and been forgotten, but for 
 something that happened almost immediately 
 afterwards, and of which I nuist now tell you. 
 ' I know that you will blame me, say I am 
 undeserving of your trust and confidence, 
 perhaps think me a careless, idle, ungrateful girl. 
 I blame myself so much that you cannot he 
 more severe to me than I am to myself ; but 
 that will not remedy the disaster. Here it is. 
 One day, before I had missed it or knew of my 
 loss, grandmamma picked up my medallion. 
 The little iron chain had snapped and fallen 
 through a loose jacket I was wearing. Owing 
 to the softness of the carpet I did not hear it 
 fall. I thought I should have fainted when 
 grandmamma opened her hand, and asked 
 w^hose it was ? I snatched it from her. She and 
 mamma were furious. They talked of " deceit,"
 
 i68 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 and "betrayal of trust," yet they only thought 
 it a grotesque ornament, given me by Julie. 
 I let them think so. It was arranged Julie 
 should sencl^ although you gave it to me. And 
 now, the moment I thought impossible, but 
 which you, in your wisdom and prevision had 
 foreseen, had arrived! It was not the thing 
 itself, they said, but the keeping it a secret, 
 that hurt them. 
 
 ' Faithful to my promise, I gave no explana- 
 tion ; for, seeing them so put out by a trifle I 
 could not help being glad that I was bound 
 in honour not to tell them the truth. How 
 I repented that I had not passed a ribbon 
 through the ring, for then the vexatious thing 
 need not have happened. The feeling that I 
 was sufferhig silently for a great cause could 
 not buoy me up, for the suffering grew out of 
 my own carelessness, and was totally uncon- 
 nected with the thing itself; and though all the 
 petty considerations of personal affection and 
 jealousies, as you have so often told me, shrink 
 into utter insignificance when compared with 
 that which must make or mar the happiness of 
 millions of fellow-creatures, yet I am uneasy at 
 having wounded my mother without benefiting 
 a single human being. The only thing that I
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 169 
 
 feel satisfied with myself about is that I have 
 offered no explanations. I have strictly obeyed 
 your injunctions on other matters, as you will 
 presently see. 
 
 ' Opportunity soon offered (as Reggie Hud- 
 son and I walk and ride together every day, 
 sometimes alone, sometimes with neighbours) for 
 me to tell him the contents of your last. Of 
 course I did not say that I had heard from 
 you, since you forbade it ; but I spoke as 
 though the information, the argument, the 
 reasoning were my own (you must not think 
 me very conceited). He seemed a good deal 
 cooled down since Sprudelheim, and said he 
 did not like having unnecessary secrets from 
 his mother, who is very good to him. He also 
 told me, what I did not know before, that he 
 only comes fully of age at five-and-twenty, and 
 that although he has a very liberal allowance, 
 he can't dispose of large sums of money. It seems 
 that he has promised never to go to strangers 
 or money-lenders, and that he had to borrow 
 largely of Mrs. Hudson to make up the sum he 
 lost to the KerezofFs at ecarte. Mrs. Hudson 
 said very harsh things about people winning, 
 privately, large sums of money from young 
 men who are minors. This obliged Eeggie to
 
 I70 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 tell her that all they so won they devoted to 
 good works, printing, and so on, for the en- 
 lightenment of their poorer fellow-countrymen ; 
 but she persisted that no good could come of 
 ill-gains, and Eeggie said she was too old to see 
 the " Cause " in its true light, or to understand 
 that in elevating humanity one forwards the 
 ultimate happiness and liberty of the whole 
 w^orld. Eeggie and I almost came to words, 
 but as you forbade me to quarrel with him I 
 managed to keep my temper. He proposed 
 our laying the whole thing before Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald, who, he says, is an advanced Liberal, 
 and quite without bias ; but I protested against 
 this, and even made him promise me, upon his 
 word of honour, not to consult my cousin, for 
 I think he was already suspicious before we 
 left Sprudelheim. You had better not write 
 to me here. If I had left, Mrs. Hudson, 
 suspecting nothing, might forward the letter 
 through mamma. Englishmen have very odd 
 ideas ; they are strait-laced in some things to 
 an incredible degree [although the freedom 
 allow^ed to young English ladies always as- 
 tonishes foreigners], and even Eeggie, though 
 he seems to be ready to do almost anything 
 in order to stand w^ell with me, would certainly
 
 ' THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS.' 171 
 
 o-o aorainst me if he thought I was cleceivmo- 
 niy motlier. My cousin Fitz worships grand- 
 mamma and mamma equally, and I fancy has 
 no great liking for me, so that I am rather 
 uncomfortable all round ; but I am afraid you 
 will be disgusted with me for talking so much 
 about myself. As Eeggie could only spare 
 five-and-twenty pounds, which he begs me to 
 say he hopes will go to the " Siberian exile 
 fund," I add the Christmas-boxes grandpapa 
 and grandmamma sent me. Mamma did not 
 give me money, but a locket : and Fitz sent 
 me, through her, the bracelet I forward by 
 post, Avhich you must give to the fund for 
 the widows and orphans of those who have 
 died for their opinions. If there is anything 
 I can do, let me know ; but if you are too 
 busy to write, let me have only one line, 
 saying, " / forgive yoiL' My love to Julie. 
 This goes, as usual, under cover to her. Ever 
 faithfully, Bianca.' 
 
 The foohsh, school-girlish, garrulous letter 
 seemed strangely out of place amongst such 
 grim surroundings, but the crisp Bank of Eng- 
 land notes crackled agreeably between Julie's 
 slim lingers as she smoothed them out and held
 
 172 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 them to the candle with a half contemptuous 
 smile. 
 
 ' Has she sent the bracelet ? ' asked Mel- 
 lin, disdaining sentiment, and not ashamed to 
 seem grasping since his greed was for the 
 ' Cause.' 
 
 'Doubtless. But you know parcels are 
 always delayed in the post. What a feeble 
 little goose it is ! But beggars can't be 
 choosers, and we cannot afford to despise the 
 golden eggs.' 
 
 ' The propaganda is at a standstill for want 
 of funds,' said Mellin, gravely.^ 
 
 ' We must see what can be done am Ort 
 und Stelle. To-night I shall see Prince 
 Karishkin ! ' and Katinka made a sweeping 
 court curtsey in grotesque contrast with her 
 frayed and faded gown. 
 
 ' If it be true that " absence makes the 
 heart grow fonder," the charming Julie de 
 KerezoiF will only have to ask and to have,' 
 
 ^ It is erroneously, but very generally, believed, that the 
 Nihilists have enormous means at their disposal. So opposed 
 is this to the true state of the case that, as a modern Nihilist 
 author observes, ' they are ahvaijs hunting about for a feiv 
 roubles. The expenses of the struggle are immense, and they are 
 compelled to do everything in the most economical mariner, often 
 at the risk of their lives.''
 
 'THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 173 
 
 Mellin replied, answering her curtsey by an 
 expressive gesture. 
 
 Katinka curtsied again in acknowledgment, 
 but sighed the next moment, as she said to 
 her husband, who was listening moodily to the 
 dialogue : ' I have barely time to dress for the 
 Court ball.' 
 
 ' And a propos,' Mellin exclaimed, ' your 
 diamonds ? ' 
 
 ' I have the whole parure! 
 
 ' I am not sure that I shall allow you to go 
 to-night,' said her husband suddenly, awaking 
 out of his sullen moodiness, and speaking with 
 some violence. ' I am sick and surfeited with 
 mortifications and annoyances. There is a 
 term to human endurance. What, if your 
 hundred odd bosom-enemies should discover, 
 Julie, that you are wearing paste ? ' 
 
 'No fear, 7non ami. If paste were so 
 easily recognised as that, the Palais Eoyal 
 jewellers would starve.' 
 
 ' And you do not regret your jewels .^ ' 
 asked Mellin, with an inflection of respectful 
 sympathy in hi.s voice, as, passing by the 
 husband's remarks in silence, he looked 
 curiously at the wife. 
 . ' Not a bit.'
 
 174 AUT CESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' It is for the Good Cause.' 
 
 ' It is to avenge a sister's wrongs. Ee- 
 venge is sweet, especially, someone has said, 
 to women,' JiiHe answered. 
 
 ' Call it by what name j^ou like, cela revient 
 a la meme chose. I speak of the thing, you 
 of the person ; but we are at one, for all that.' 
 
 'Eemember, Julie,' Kerezoff mterrupted, 
 * you have to make a wdde detour. You have 
 forgotten that your toilette cle ville is where 
 you left it, and that you said half an hour 
 since you must be going.' 
 
 ' Yes ! and my servants and sledge still 
 waiting before the princess's portico, whilst I 
 am supposed to be drinking endless tea. Till 
 this day fortnight then,' — and, nodding to Mellin 
 as she blew out the candle, Julie and the two 
 men passed out of the wretched room on to the 
 squalid landing of the miserable house, locking 
 the door of the garret carefully behind tliem. 
 
 'See,' said a neighbouring cobbler to his 
 wife, ' Dimitri Serguevitch and his sister have 
 put out their hght. I wager they will be up 
 and off betimes, for they have been hard at 
 work to get their gift-books and Ikons ready 
 :against Christmas.' 
 
 ' I don't envy these poor book, medal, and
 
 THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 17 
 
 Ikon hawkers at this time of year,' said his 
 comely kind-hearted spouse ; ' but what wilt 
 thou ? One must eat to live, and they are 
 fortimate in having no little mouths to clamour 
 to them for food.' 
 
 ' That's as it may be,' said the friendly 
 cobbler, patting his little cobblerkin on the 
 curly pate, whilst the motlier bent and kissed 
 the child's blonde head. 
 
 Mellin had been endeavoming ever since 
 the year 1860 to establish a secret printing- 
 press in St. Petersburg. He and his associates 
 fully recognised the fact that Herzen's free 
 press in London, and that in Switzerland, no 
 longer sufficed for the needs of the Propaganda, 
 since local questions were daily becoming more 
 uro^ent. 
 
 Other ' circles ' had made the same attempt ; 
 but, after printing a proclamation or two. had 
 invariably been discovered. One society, whose 
 type and machines had lain hidden away in 
 holes and corners for more than f^YQ years, had 
 been betrayed by the treachery of a Dvornik^ 
 and their property confiscated, whilst the con- 
 spirators were subjected to perpetual police 
 surveillance. Domiciliary visits were the 
 order of the day ; and, after so many failures,
 
 176 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 the project was finally abandoned as impossible- 
 of realisation. 
 
 Only Mellin, with that tenacity of purpose 
 which was one of his distinguishing charac- 
 teristics, still clung resohitely to his original 
 design. 
 
 Juhe Kerezoff, emulating the example of 
 many young ladies of aristocratic birth — who, 
 in order to spread the principles of the Propa- 
 ganda, laboured as many as fifteen hours a day 
 in factories, workshops, and fields — had spent 
 the whole of a summer holiday in Switzerland 
 acquiring the compositor's art ; and, knowing 
 her energy and trustworthiness, Mellin had 
 confided to her the secret of his address. Not 
 even his contributors knew where the press was 
 established, and all communications reached 
 him through a third person, who neither 
 knew their import nor suspected Mellin's con- 
 nection with this branch of Propagandist 
 activity. 
 
 The mechanism was, necessarily, of the 
 simplest, and in case of need everything could 
 be hidden in a quarter of an hour in a large 
 clothes-press, constructed in the wainscotting of 
 the room. A small cylinder, some brushes and 
 sponges in a pan ; a large, heavy cyhnder
 
 * THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 177 
 
 covered with cloth, which served as the press, 
 and a couple of jars of ink, together with the 
 necessary type and cases, formed the whole 
 apparatus. 
 
 As the Em]3eror Alexander, surrounded by 
 a brilliant staff of generals, chamberlains and 
 court officials, made the tour of the ball-room 
 at the Winter Palace a few hours later, finding 
 a gracious word for this officer, a flattering 
 sentence for that lady, a friendly smile for the 
 other devoted adherent, he stopped a minute 
 before Baron Kerezoff. 
 
 ' You have returned then ; your work com- 
 pleted ? ' 
 
 ' Sire, as your Majesty says.' 
 
 ' Ah ! we must reward your labours. Mere 
 money payment does not at all express what a 
 sovereign feels for those who faithfully serve 
 him.' 
 
 Baron Kerezoff inclined his head still 
 lower. 
 
 And, arrived at the spot where, in an ex- 
 quisite toilette, the Baroness Kerezoff was at- 
 tracting glances respectively of admiration and 
 jealousy, the Czar again paused. 
 
 Evidently the Kerezoff couple w^ere to enjoy 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 178 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 a social success if Imperial favour had any 
 meaning. 
 
 ' I need not ask after your health, madam e. 
 The air of Asia Minor evidently agreed with 
 you.' The aides-de-camp fell discreetly back, 
 and on Juhe's rising gracefully from the depths 
 of the profound curtsey into which on the 
 approach of the Czar she had sunk, His Im- 
 perial Majesty added in a lower tone : — 
 
 ' And your parure^ madame ? Did that, too, 
 come from Asia Minor .^ ' 
 
 A sudden colour suffused Juhe's face, even 
 through her rouge. Could some spy have 
 betrayed the secret of her diamonds, and the 
 end to which their proceeds had been devoted, 
 or was this a delicate hint that contractors and 
 engineers had bribed and plundered too 
 greedily ? Could the air of Asia Minor be an 
 euphemism for the stilling atmosphere of 
 Siberian mines, or were jewels too costly for 
 the wife of KerezofF? But without betraying 
 herself or her perplexity, Juhe looked the Czar 
 gravely in the face as she said composedly : — 
 
 ' A railway, sire, boldly planned and faith- 
 fully executed, carried from the sea of Azoff 
 safely beyond the Persian frontier, naturally 
 means diamonds for the engineer's wife, be he
 
 'THE GOOSE WITH THE GOLDEN EGGS: 179 
 
 civil or military ; and these mean, in a minor 
 degree, respect for our nationality, and recog- 
 nition of your Imperial Majesty's power.' 
 
 ' Quite so ; only, Madame la Baronne, you 
 must allow me to take the liberty of recognis- 
 ing your and your husband's loyalty, self- 
 devotion and voluntary exile by increasing the 
 contents of your jewel-case.' 
 
 Again a sweeping reverence, and the Em- 
 peror had passed on his glittering way. 
 
 ' Could he have meant anything ? ' Julie 
 KerezofF murmured anxiously in the ear of her 
 partner, Prince Karishkin, as later that even- 
 ing they swam round the room to one of 
 Strauss's waltzes. 
 
 '- Chi lo sa 1 Only, the promised bracelets 
 must never go the same road as their prede- 
 cessors. By the Avay, your last letter was 
 eloquent.' 
 
 ' It was written on the anniversary of my 
 sister's ' 
 
 ' Chut ! Yes ! Algeria produces wonderful 
 vegetables. I am told that the asparagus is 
 gigantic' 
 
 It required nothing more. Julie understood 
 that they were to separate. She made a pro- 
 found curtsey. The Prince put out his hand
 
 i8o AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 to lead her ceremoniously to a seat. When he 
 left her, he left ten thousand roubles in her 
 glove. 
 
 « It is for the Good Cause ! ' said Julie.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 'EEGAED OF HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY.' 
 
 Graham, the painter par excellence of the 
 Thames, the Spenser of the brush, — as well 
 known in Oxford as in London, and vice versd^ 
 had not always been the prosperous individual 
 so popular in University quadrangles at the 
 time our story commences. 
 
 On the contrary, his had been, as our 
 friends across the Channel say, ' a stormy 
 youth.' He had had his chances, and in the 
 madness of his folly he flung them recklessly 
 away. He had not, perhaps, been exceptionally 
 wild, but it is to be hoped he had been ex- 
 ceptionally obstinate. Anything like control he 
 especially resisted. Parents he had not, and the 
 tyranny of guardians he resented on purely 
 sentimental grounds. He could understand that 
 for a mother's sake, for a sister's happiness, for 
 a father's honour, sacrifices might be not only
 
 1 82 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 possible but pleasant. But the dim and dis- 
 tant fetish of his own problematical future self 
 he refused to set up, and absolutely and finally 
 declined to fall down and worship. 'I can 
 but enjoy myself as long as I am able,' he 
 would say in reply to his guardians' remon- 
 strances. ' Who knows ? Perhaps I may be 
 killed in a railway accident before I am ^\q,- 
 and-twenty ! A young fellow I know got a 
 tap on the skull last Christmas that will cer- 
 tainly save him from the ignominy of being 
 plucked in his " smalls." Or by fi ve-and-twenty 
 T may have used up all my capacity for enjoy- 
 ment, or for utilising the advantages you are 
 laboriously laying in store for my future delec- 
 tation.' The guardians shook their wiser heads 
 in dumb dismay, and w^ere not surprised when 
 an intimation reached them tliat Mr. Eustace 
 Graham's name had been taken off the books 
 of his college, and that that young gentleman 
 had disappeared into space. 
 
 Space is convenient. It saves postage- 
 stamps, pens, ink, and paper, and the wasted 
 effort of w^orthy persons in a remon strati ve 
 direction. For several years Mr. Eustace 
 Graham had only a local habitation for his 
 bankers. And tliis WcHS only in so far indicated
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 183 
 
 by their client directing that his letters and 
 dividends should be sent to thej!906'^^ restante 
 of a given Continental city. 
 
 One effort, the last and the least productive 
 of good, it may be the most conducive to evil 
 results, the guardians, being men of honour, 
 made. Had they but known it they miglit 
 have saved him by silence. But on occasions 
 of the kind silence seems to give consent, and 
 to the conscientious looker-on assumes the 
 aspect of cowardice. Thus, in their honest 
 endeavour to save him from final destruction, 
 they sent him posting on the road to ruin. 
 
 Vast sums of money, deep groans, bewail- 
 ings, and lifting up of hands and eyes followed, 
 and at length the day came when guardianship, 
 even in its nominal form, was over, and the 
 last clue to young Graham's whereabouts was 
 lost. 
 
 In old Caster oni's Eoman studio his was a 
 familiar figure. Everyone loved this simple 
 frugal Englishman. If they smiled at his mani 
 fold enthusiasms, his devotion to art, his rever- 
 ence for Italy, they loved him for his impul- 
 sive frankness and his direct address, so unlike 
 (so they told themselves and each otlier) the 
 customary ceremonious coldness of his com-
 
 1 84 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 patriots. He th^e^Y himself into the heart of 
 Eome as unhesitatingly — to use his own jesting 
 simile — as Marcus Cur tins, and delighted in 
 the society of the ateliers^ where to a sym- 
 pathetic audience he would rave by the hour, 
 in his queer Italo-Britannic lingo, on the 
 glories of the Eternal City. Not content with 
 • doing ' the correct round of sight-seeing, 
 according to Murray or Baedeker, he would 
 seek out obscure traditions of obscurer corners, 
 teaching even the Eomans themselves things 
 new to them, following up fresh tracks and 
 pursuing old traces in all sorts of forgotten 
 historic nooks, with an energy and an enthu- 
 siasm that alike enchanted and amazed his 
 amiable but apathetically contented hearers. 
 
 The world, he declared, owed Italy a debt 
 the world could never pay ; and he would 
 pour out a flood of facts and fancies of Pagan 
 and of Christian Eome, of the Eenaissance, of the 
 Decadence, so full of names and dates, of asso- 
 ciation and quotation that from Cicero to Shelley, 
 from Messalina (and the little garden of the 
 house, now a jpension, where the Eoman em- 
 press tried on one occasion to commit suicide) to 
 Mrs. Browning, from Ca3sar to Keats, from the 
 Gracchi to Garibaldi, from St. Peter and St.
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 185 
 
 John, the tenth Leo and the seventh Gregory ; 
 and so od, through the splendid roll-call of the 
 painters and poets, whose names re-echo in 
 the hearts of all lovers of art and song, he 
 would carry his hearers from Eome to Padua, 
 from Eavenna to Florence, from Venice to 
 Naples, from Pisa to Bologna, from Mantua 
 back again to Eome. to break out in a 
 fresh place with fresh enthusiasm. No wonder 
 the simple, loving Italian nature felt at once 
 flattered and entertained, soothed and glorified, 
 by the enthusiasm and eloquence of this fiery 
 young Briton's whirl and rush of admiration. 
 But if he talked, being ravenous for information, 
 eager to learn, anxious lo know, he listened as 
 well as talked. With an almost childlike absorp- 
 tion in the speaker's narrative he would hang 
 on old Casteroni's words, patiently enduring 
 the slow and quaint communications of a life- 
 long familiar devotion to the history of Eome's 
 great, mysterious, all-embracing, all-includiug 
 heart. To recall the eager and ardent Graham 
 of this period, of his awakening to a new life, 
 would be to recall a queer unassorted jumble 
 of strange useless lore, the ' lumber ' of history ; 
 of quotations from obscure poets, of local 
 legends, side by side with the grand names
 
 1 86 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 that must for ever make Eome great and 
 glorious ' in secula seculorum^' as lie would 
 finish up his fit of enthusiasm, reverently dofiing 
 his bonnet in memory of those departed glories 
 which can never die. 
 
 But no one who saw the young fellow thus 
 would have recognised him as he went away 
 through the solitude of the splendid Eoman 
 night, when the moonbeams lay like hquid 
 silver, flooding the pavement, and the skies, 
 powdered with stars, were suffused with a pale 
 radiance, and luscious perfumes ascended like 
 the fragrant incense of Nature to heaven, and 
 the musical Silences, broken by the fall of 
 plashing waters in marble fountains, fell not 
 less upon the spirit than on the ear ; and the 
 vastness of the ruin wrought by Fate and the 
 littleness of man, and ,the nothingness of our 
 petty human passions, and the immensity of 
 God and Nature, smote his soul into a silent 
 adoration, and a dumb humility foreign to the 
 garrulous spirit of the day. 
 
 No one saw him or would have recognised 
 him as he sat in his little room, his face full of 
 blank bitterness ; and none of his friends would 
 have understood the dismay and disgust of his 
 mind, as the babblings of his meridian hours
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 187 
 
 came back to him ; and he not unseldom cursed 
 himself for the crudest, vainest, shallowest of 
 impertinent chatterers, ignoramuses, and fools. 
 It was at this time, at once so rich and so 
 poor, so full and so empty, that Graham first 
 saw Hero and loved her. 
 
 It w^as fate, he said. 
 
 Casteroni, with his slow didactic utterances, 
 his innocent cunning and extraordinary sim- 
 plicity of vanity, was nevertheless a faithful 
 soul. By degrees he had told the young man 
 all Hero's story, and Graham, affecting a levity 
 for which he hated himself at the time, said, 
 lightly laughing : ' And so your wonderful Hero 
 turns out to be a very commonplace heroine, 
 after all ! ' 
 
 • ' Say an angel rather, young man,' an- 
 swered the maestro in a tone of grave rebuke ; 
 and Graham mentally thanked him for his 
 severity. 
 
 It w^as the old story. Neither thought the 
 other cared, until an accident revealed that 
 both cared too much. 
 
 The kno^\iedge was at once bliss and 
 anguish to Graham. To Hero — women are 
 different from men in tliese things — it was, at 
 first, only unallo^^ed bliss. The certainty of
 
 i88 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 love seems, at first sight, so all-sufficing. 
 Doubt, torment, jealousy, fear, misgivings all 
 at an end. To love and be loved, what 
 vv^oman could want more, and what true woman 
 does not desire as much ? Why look back ? 
 Why look forward ? The past had been a 
 blank, and who could foretell the future ? But 
 the present, the bright, happy, secure, peaceful 
 present, — that was theirs. They needed no 
 speech of one another, no caresses ; they had 
 but to look in one another's eyes, and read the 
 truth there ; to clasp one another's hands in 
 momentary greeting and farewell, to know that 
 faith and loyalty met palm to palm, beat pulse 
 to pulse. The vulgar considerations of the com- 
 monplaces of life, by which the body-politic is- 
 governed and preserved from all excesses 
 (excess of sentiment amongst others), seemed 
 outside the conditions of their being. To the 
 woman, at any rate for a time, the contempla- 
 tion, the unquestioned absorption and rapture of 
 contentment would have seemed enouo-h. Sta- 
 blished and strengthened by this immense fact, 
 upheld, sustained, and comforted by the support 
 of a wholly loving, wholly faithful human soul, 
 to Hero it seemed after the black and bitter past 
 that a woman for love's sake could be and do^
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 189 
 
 «ujSer and endure, all things without complaint. 
 Life itself changed at once from a sacrifice to 
 an offering. Duty became worship. It was as 
 though some buoyant principle had entered 
 into her, The ground grew elastic beneath 
 her tread. She herself seemed inspired, ethe- 
 realised, as one who, no longer condemned to 
 tread the dull earth in dreary routine, is lifted 
 by winged feet into another region, untrodden 
 save of the elect. Her beauty lost its only 
 drawback, a certain pallid shadow as of melg^n- 
 choly or resignation, and became suddenly 
 resplendent, roseate, lit up with a strange inner 
 light, shining steadily in lambent fearlessness 
 and frankness out of her large trustful eyes. 
 She was, as it were, irradiated with unwaver- 
 ing contentment. The kiss of love had 
 awakened the spell-bound woman in her, and 
 for the first time she realised the possibilities 
 of Life and Love. Love is wonder. Love is 
 praise. And with the revelation, to some 
 natures, there comes a sense of awe, a need 
 almost of sohtude, where the votary may draw 
 apart from the world, and commune unques- 
 tioned with the sacred secrets of his own s])irit 
 and his own heart, and be still. 
 
 The ' recollection ' of piety has its parallel
 
 I90 AUT CESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ill the secret contemplation of an emotion not 
 less sacred, and equally of Divine inception. 
 But this attitude is not susceptible of indefinite 
 prolongation. Graham spoke ; the man, life, 
 reality, stirred within him, and with speech the 
 spell was spoken, the charm at an end. Ex- 
 planation and its attendant miseries, unavoid- 
 able on either side, showed them both with 
 convincing finality that the position w^as not 
 tenable. In her anguish Hero turned to her 
 mother ; and Leonie silently laid her child in the 
 young mother's arms. In his misery Graham 
 found all society unbearable, and he dis- 
 appeared from Eome, leaving no adcbess behind. 
 When, after three months' w^andering on 
 foot, he returned, it was to find Mrs. Owen and 
 her daughter on the eve of starting for England. 
 He was shocked to see the change three months' 
 uncertainty and grief had wrought in Hero ; 
 and his own selfishness was revealed by the 
 havoc sorrow had made in the sad-eyed woman 
 he met. She did not pretend to have been 
 otherwise than wretched ; not because of their 
 separation, but because of his misery, rebellion, 
 possible resentment, and positive silence. Un- 
 certainty had told heavily, and there was little 
 need of words.
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 191 
 
 ' A line to my mother would have set my 
 mind at rest,' she said. 
 
 ' I thought of that. But it seemed such a 
 sham ; such a shabby, paltry, subterfuge. It 
 was you I wanted, and to you I ought to have 
 written.' 
 
 ' But if it had set my mind at rest ? ' 
 
 He saw it novv% too late. He had almost 
 tried to persuade liimself, when she sent him 
 away, that she did not care for his anger and 
 disappointment. He had called up in aid of 
 hi^ mortification all the vulgar platitudes of 
 cheap commonplace as to the shallowness, 
 frivolity, poorness, and feebleness of women ; 
 but they had not consoled him. And now, 
 without a word of complaint on her part the 
 story of her love and of her sorrow was written, 
 all too plainly to be gainsaid, in her face. 
 
 ' It shall not happen again,' he said, ' come 
 what come may.' Then, catching her hands in 
 his : ' But don't expect more from me than I 
 promise I will not keep up a dilettante corre- 
 spondence with you, full of " elegant extracts," 
 and pretend it is "friendship." I have no 
 understanding for the intellectual coquetries of 
 what people are pleased to call " literary friend- 
 ships." I love you. Hero, and I let you go
 
 192 
 
 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 because my love shall never harm or injure 
 you — that I swear. But I love you as a man 
 loves the one woman in all the world to him. 
 I shall count my life as nought, as blank and 
 void, as dark and empty, and of no effect, so 
 lono- as it is passed away from you, and I will 
 never give up the hope that we may yet be one. 
 I will work and hope. When I can see you 
 without injuring you, I will see you. But I 
 could not, now I know you love me, spend hour 
 after hour and day after day in your society, 
 content with that. No man who really loved 
 a woman could. And I, at least, will not try 
 it. Fate takes you from me, but cannot sepa- 
 rate us. I ask, I can ask, no promise of you — 
 I dare not insult you with words of hope ; you 
 know my love, but you will not listen to 
 it. We can both w^ork and wait. Silence 
 means effort and a goal — it may be distant — to 
 be attained. For your sake I love your mother 
 and reverence her for the saint she is. And 
 after you and your mother I love Eome. I 
 will not set idle tongues gossiping about you 
 here. I am gomg to England. I shall not 
 see you often if I remain there, but I shall 
 see you sometimes — I shall write to you some- 
 times — and I shall love you always. I know
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY: 193 
 
 you too well to ask you not to offend me 
 by any missish offers of sisterly regard — not to 
 outrage my love by any shallow compromise 
 unworthy of us both, impossible for either.' 
 
 They kissed and parted, and both were 
 loyal to the programme laid down. Hero 
 acknowledged the dual impossibility of loving 
 or forgetting ; her mother, who knew all the 
 disaster included in this fresh mistake, which 
 seemed to fill her daughter's cup of anguish to 
 the brim, could only deplore the evil chance 
 and admire Hero's courage, looking on with 
 silent pity. To her Graham told the truth as 
 he dared not tell it to Hero. 
 
 How in his hot-headed, rash, insubordinate 
 youth he had given himself and his name to a 
 woman who had had the cunning to appeal to 
 the generous weakness of his character. He 
 believed her tale, and found, too late, that he 
 had committed an act of irreparable folly. 
 Instead of an innocent victim heartlessly jilted 
 by a f dthless lover, he had married a woman 
 whose calculations had for once been at fault — 
 a person of damaged reputation. Eecrimina- 
 tion, scenes of violence, debt, disgrace, and all 
 the disgust of disillusionment and a disorganised 
 domesticity, determined him upon leaving her. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 ^UT Cu-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 When, after months of humihation, his lawyer 
 inthnated that all debts were ]3aid, the amount 
 of capital left proved hardly sufficient to afford 
 a life of decent comfort for both. Two-thirds 
 of the sum were, under certain conditions, 
 settled on the woman ; and the man, once more 
 taking his life in his hands, went forth to 
 seek his fortune ostensibly unfettered, and yet 
 secretly manacled for life. 
 
 ' If I could have dreamed of winning Hero's 
 heart,' he said to her mother, ' believe me I 
 would never have taken one voluntary step in 
 that direction. Honour would have forbidden 
 it, common justice forbade it. I know her 
 pure, proud, stainless soul too well not to 
 shudder at the feelings with which she would 
 hear my story. Hers I know ; that is, as the 
 world knows it, but one needs only to look in 
 her face to speak her blameless.' 
 
 ' Poor Hero ! Poor child ! ' said her mother, 
 who saw only misfortune in all this, yet had 
 not one harsh word for the man, so winning in 
 his frank regret and love, beside her. 
 
 • The more I think of it, the more wonder- 
 ful it seems, and the more unworthy I feel. 
 That I should love her was inevitable, but that 
 she should love me ! But talking will do no
 
 'HONOUR AND MILD MODESTY^ 195 
 
 good. I promise you not to trouble her peace, 
 not to worry her with complaints. If you are 
 merciful — I only ask it in the name of mercy, 
 not in that of justice — as you are merciful you 
 will write to me now and then, and tell me how 
 she is, and what she is doing. . Tell me what 
 dress she wears ; how her hair is arranged; 
 whether she is singing much ; whether she is 
 well and cheerful. Alas ! that I cannot make 
 her happy.' 
 
 And so it had been. Mrs. Owen had a gift 
 amounting to clairvoyance in matters of cha- 
 racter. 
 
 'No man with a voice like that could be a 
 villain,' she said ; ' it rings true. He is real 
 down to the last fault, folly, or failing in his 
 character.' 
 
 Then came the day when Martello's death 
 set Hero free. Hero herself remained silent. 
 
 To her mother Graham wrote in reply : 
 ' Your news makes the position of things almost 
 worse. She is free, and I am bond ! And how 
 bond? If I shrank, years ago, from the dis- 
 grace of dragging my name through the dreary 
 details of the Divorce Court, judge with what 
 horror I should contemplate such degradation 
 in her pure eyes at the present time ! I confess 
 2
 
 196 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 tliat I am behind my age. I do not under- 
 stand that spirit which, in the result achieved, 
 overlooks all other considerations. I am thin- 
 skinned, and the very lapse of time would tell 
 against me. I should be asked why I had 
 remained passive all these years, to open up the 
 case thus late in the day ? Motives would be 
 sought and imputed ; her spotless name perhaps 
 dragged in. And then — supposing it possible 
 I could take such a step — with what counten- 
 ance could I offer her a name, wrested from 
 one unworthy to bear it, and already befouled 
 and disgraced and dragged through the mire ? 
 Do not hate me, if you can help it ; and yet, if 
 you knew all, you would pity me.' 
 
 It was thus no sur^^rise to Graham when 
 the morning's post brought a letter to his 
 Oxford lodgings from Hero, to the effect that 
 her mother, who was feeling a little better since 
 her late attack, had expressed a wish to see 
 him the first time he was in town. 
 
 Within half an hour he was en route for 
 London.
 
 197 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ' THREE GENERATIONS.' 
 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald had taunted her son with his 
 ' Owen ' ciiltus, flinging in his face her opinion 
 that it was Hero (' old enough,' as with feminine 
 exaggeration, finely tempered with spite, she 
 observed, ' to be his mother ') he loved. 
 
 In truth she did not believe him to be ' in 
 love ' with either of the ladies, though it 
 pleased her to say so, ' what time indignation ' 
 at his defection yet vexed her, ' as a thing that 
 is raw.' Maternal jealousy is not the least atiiic- 
 tive variety of the palhd passion, and if Mrs. 
 Fitzgerald's form of the disease was rather of 
 the active than the passive variety, her son did 
 not suffer the less from the violent periodical 
 attacks to which slie was subject, and he 
 subjected. 
 
 Unconsciously, mother and son were tend- 
 ing in the same direction, each, in fact, being
 
 198 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 unaware of this modification of opinion, and, 
 as yet, but vaguely affected by the incij^ient 
 change. Combined with jealousy of Mrs. 
 Owen and Hero, Mrs. Fitzgerald suffered from 
 acute curiosity on their account. Too proud to 
 ask her son any direct questions, which might be 
 construed either as prying inquisitiveness or be 
 taken to betray a kindly interest, she contented 
 herself as a rule with flinging down assertions 
 to their discredit, so unlike the truth that Fitz 
 let the gauntlet of abuse lie where it fell, think- 
 ing it not worth while to contradict such 
 extravagant absurdities as his mother wilfully 
 set forth. 
 
 But this masterly inactivity left the poor 
 lady very much in the dark, and gave her a 
 sense of baffled ignorance very unpleasant to a 
 person on the look out for any small item of 
 information germane to the subject in which a 
 lively interest is felt. 
 
 Casting about in her mind for means of 
 studying from the life these ' models of virtue,' 
 as she contemptuously characterised them to 
 her son, she decided that Bianca must be the 
 connecting hnk, the means of rapprochement 
 between the two families. She could con- 
 descend to the child, where her pride would not
 
 'THREE generations: 199 
 
 permit lier to make advances to the mother and 
 grandmother ; and, whilst she was yet de- 
 liberating on a means, the manner of which 
 should not be too palpably reconciliative, her 
 ends were served, by fate, after an altogether 
 unforeseen fashion. Fitz, after spending the 
 ' festive season ' tete-a-tete with his exacting 
 parent, betook himself, according to long 
 promise, to the Hudsons for the first fortnight 
 of the New Year. 
 
 Bianca, in a few commonplace phrases, had 
 thanked Mm by letter for the bracelet he had 
 sent her. ' Just such an one as she had seen 
 and coveted in the arcades at Sprudelheim, 
 and with all good wishes for the coming year, 
 she was his affectionate cousin.' 
 
 Between the lines and in the handwriting of 
 the regulation epistle, Fitz seemed to see more 
 than the mere expressionless acknowledg- 
 ments of a well brought up young lady. The 
 writing was original, firm, and almost masculine 
 in its freedom from twirls, flourishes, and scor- 
 ing. The phraseology, if simple, was compact, 
 and the note itself was as carefullv dated and 
 signed and the address as correctly given, as if 
 Fitzgerald had never heard of Hudson, or 
 Fairholt, or his correspondent before.
 
 200 A UT CyESAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 Since Bianca was a little toddling thing 
 Fitz had loved and believed in her, at the same 
 time telling himself that she was unlike what 
 he should have chosen, had choice been possible, 
 for a sister or fiancee. Watching her narrowly, 
 he saw the germs of remarkable qualities in her 
 frank, girhsh outspokenness. He could fancy 
 her, in one mood, going to the stake, sublime 
 in all the strength of virgin martyrdom; in, 
 another, defying opinion, convenience, preju- 
 dice, and proclaiming a propaganda of personal 
 freedom, subversive of all that social ethics have 
 consecrated by custom. ' The daily round, 
 the common task,' he thought, would never be 
 enough for her. And, whereas her mother and 
 grandmother shrank from all pubhcity, and 
 thought notoriety the grave of the ' eternal 
 womanly,' this girl, with warm Italian blood 
 coursing through her veins, would, like another 
 Corinna, have gloried in coronation at the 
 Capitol. From her earliest childhood she had, 
 in a sense, shown a spirit of independence that 
 required very tender handling. She would 
 give her clothes, new as well as old, to little 
 beggar-girls in the street, and suffer punishment 
 — a philosophic impenitent ; saying beneath her 
 breath : ' I know I was right. The poor girl
 
 'THREE generations: 201 
 
 was nearly naked. The beggar child was in 
 rags.' 
 
 'But your mother could have given you 
 older clothes for her ; clothes more fitted to 
 her needs.' 
 
 ' Then / should not have given them. I 
 loved ray Sunday frock ; ' seeing the merit of the 
 gift in the sacrifice, not in the value of the gift 
 itself, with an insight or an intuition far beyond 
 her years. Hero's instinct taught her truly that 
 such a nature should be hampered with as few 
 commands and as few prohibitions as possible ; 
 that the child should feel its power to wound 
 and grieve as a mean and base privilege, the 
 exercise of which meant shame to all generous 
 and lovins^ natures Thus she lived with her 
 mother and grandparents on a curious basis of 
 equality, taking her place at the family table, 
 sitting in a corner of the family room, wrapped 
 round and enveloped with feminine love and 
 care. 
 
 ' I have to love her for two,' Hero would 
 say to her own mother. ' Slie must never feel 
 the want of a father's love.' 
 
 ' And mine ? Ours ? Does that count for 
 nothing. Hero ? ' asked her mother jealously. 
 
 ' For everything, mother. But a heavy
 
 202 A UT C.^SAR A UT NIHIL. 
 
 weight of responsibility lies on my shoulders. I 
 took her from her father, and she must never be 
 able to say I robbed her of her birthright of love/ 
 
 ' You 51 re super-sensitive, you caricature 
 conscience. Did he love her? Would you 
 have had your child ruined by the sight of your 
 own degradation ? How could she have re- 
 spected you, hearing language of the sort we 
 both remember, addressed to you ? What 
 would she have grown up ? ' Mrs. Owen would 
 ask, with the indignation of common sense as 
 opposed to sentiment. 
 
 ' Yes, mother. You are right, and were it 
 all to do again, I should do as I have done. For 
 myself, I could have borne it, as I had borne it. 
 Use is second nature. But I had no right to 
 sacrifice the child. I was forced to rescue it.' 
 
 ' That is sensible. If Bianca were to dis- 
 appoint you, I could never forgive her.' 
 
 'You love Bianca, mother, and yet you 
 speak as though it were possible not to do so.' 
 
 'I am not blind. Martello's blood flows in 
 her veins. We cannot lose sight of that ; and 
 we must guard against the consequences.' 
 
 'And in mine there is also a mixture. 
 Yet you do not blame me for bemg my father's 
 child. You are less than just to Bianca.'
 
 'THREE generations: 203. 
 
 ' Ah ! in yours, my sweet Hero, I tliink it 
 is only a second better self that lives.' 
 
 And the pale, fragile lady kissed the eager 
 face of her daughter and drew it close to her 
 own, so like and yet so unlike. 
 
 If there was one point on which Hero was 
 more keenly sensitive than on another, it was with 
 regard to those years of enforced publicity, when, 
 in order that her cliild might be tenderly cared 
 for, warmly housed, softly bedded, anxiously 
 guarded, and carefully taught, the husbandless 
 wife had to conquer her shrinking pride and 
 timidity, and take that final, fatal step by which 
 a woman makes herself public property, de- 
 fenceless against public comment, and the target 
 of public criticism. Those few years of un- 
 ceasing, work, under a feigned name, had given 
 her the modest competence she now enjoyed, 
 and it was her warmest hope that Bianca might 
 never know that her mother had emerged from 
 the sacred shelter of hearth and home, a volun- 
 tary, if fainthearted victim. 
 
 To her parents Hero had spoken once 
 for all, urgently, imperatively, on this point, 
 and they were not likely to betray her. Fitz 
 knew that it was not to be referred to in 
 Bianca's presence, and Graham sympathised
 
 204 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 witli her so entirely, that to him she had even 
 appeared to make light of her own suscepti- 
 bilities, fearing to give weight to his jealous 
 sensibility on all details touching her honour 
 and fair fame, and the guarded and shielded life 
 he thought right for women. 
 
 She still gave lessons at her own house, but 
 absolutely refused to go to the homes of her 
 pupils ; and thus, nearly every day of the 
 week, fair young girls attended by governesses, 
 or accompanied by their mothers, would emerge 
 from luxuriously appointed carriages, and trip 
 eagerly up the stairs to Hero's pleasant draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 She called herself professionally Madame 
 Martello, and several songs of her composition, 
 which had become popular in London drawing- 
 rooms, bore the name Hero Martello on the title- 
 page. 
 
 Bianca had continually passing before her 
 eyes the fairest models of well-bred grace and 
 refinement in these budding blossoms of English 
 wealth and aristocracy, just on the verge of 
 early womanhood, bearing the stamp of delicate 
 nurture in thek unaffected grace and simple 
 manners. Not a few of these young girls wor- 
 shipped Hero with that kind of heroine- worship
 
 ' THREE GEAERA TIONS: 205 
 
 wliicli is common to the entliusiasm of feminine 
 youth : and the mothers were happy to find in 
 Madame Martello, instead of the clever, florid 
 foreigner many expected, a sweet and gracious 
 Enghshwoman, whose manners and bearing had 
 that cachet of distinction which popular voice 
 declares cannot be produced under three gene- 
 rations of culture. 
 
 The beautiful elderly French lady — seated 
 by the fire, knitting or reading, her soft white 
 hair covered by the rare lace that told its own 
 history, her pale, finely cut face, and thin 
 delicate hands proclaiming her gentle birth — 
 was an object of interest in the family picture ; 
 and, as time went on, and Bianca, from an 
 espiegle, lively child, shot up into a slender 
 gazelle-like girl, full of fearless animation, the 
 group gained in character, charm, and in- 
 terest. 
 
 Bianca pursued her studies, drew, wrote 
 themes, and translated modern languages in 
 the room where the sinoino'-lessons were mven ; 
 and many were the invitations proffered and 
 declined, many the efforts at nearer acquaint- 
 ance pleasantly urged and as steadily resisted 
 by Hero. Of late Bianca had appeared to 
 resent her mother's persistent refusal of the
 
 2o6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 attentions offered ; and the day came when, with 
 her accustomed outspokenness, she expressed 
 herself on the subject : — 
 
 'Why did you refuse Lady Fortescue's 
 invitation, mother ? ' 
 
 ' I did not wish to accept it,' Hero answered 
 simply. 
 
 But this was not the answer Bianca wanted. 
 
 ' But I wish you had accepted it,' she 
 said ; and then, her mother not noticing her 
 emphasis, she added, interrogatively : ' Why not ? 
 Is there any reason ? ' 
 
 ' Do you question your mother's judgment ? ' 
 Mrs. Owen asked, severely. It had not escaped 
 Iter that Bianca was no longer inclined to take 
 her mother's decisions on trust. 
 
 ' No. I only question her motive. With- 
 out knowing that I could not, I should have no 
 right, to question her judgment.' 
 
 What an answer for a girl to make! Hero 
 thought, with dismay. 
 
 ' Your mother owes you no explanation of 
 her conduct, or her motives either. Sufficient 
 that your grandfather and I, who know them, 
 know and approve both.' 
 
 These insubordinate symptoms troubled the 
 grandmother, whose heart was all her child's.
 
 ' THREE GENERA TIONS: 207 
 
 She loved Bianca dearly, but she did not love 
 her blindly, and she loved Hero better, and 
 would have saved her from disappointment with 
 her heart's blood, had such vicarious salvation 
 been possible. 
 
 ' You could sue him in the Divorce Court,' 
 Mr. Owen had said in the old days of his son- 
 in-law, with bustling eagerness of assertion, 
 and fussy vindictiveness. ' Alimony would be 
 granted, and a sum for the child's education, 
 d him ! ' 
 
 ' Xo father. Why should I disgrace my 
 child ? ' 
 
 ' Disgrace ! Fiddlesticks ! Let disgrace fall 
 where it sticks. Who would think of Martello 
 when Bianca was marriageable 1 ' 
 
 'Bianca might. People might fling her 
 father in her face. As it is our wrongs remain 
 private, and no one has the right to insult us 
 with them.' 
 
 ' Insult ye ? ' shouted Mr. Owen, his 
 Hibernian blood coming out in his accents of 
 scorn ; ' it would be once, and not again, I can 
 tell you, for Garry Owen's not the man to stand 
 by and see a lady insulted ! ' 
 
 ' Having taken the child, and gone without 
 leave, I have no right to ask him for anything,'
 
 2o8 AUT C.KSAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Hero said. ' Besides, you know as well as I do 
 that he has iiolhing to give, and that an in junc- 
 tion such as you speak of would be mere waste- 
 paper.' 
 
 Seeing how much more Hero coukl make 
 by her su[)erb voice than the impecunious 
 Martello would be hkely to allow her, Mr. 
 Owen let the subject drop, saying that women 
 must always have the last word ; but when 
 Bianca's ])recocious intelligence warned her 
 mother tliat it was time for her to remodel the 
 course of her existence, if she would have the 
 girl remain a stranger for ever to the publicity 
 she lierself hated, Mr. Owen's indignation knew 
 no bounds. 
 
 'Tlirowing away splendid emoluments, and 
 the chances of a brilliant marriage for some 
 sentimental absurdity about this brat of a child, 
 that ought to be lapping porridge in an attic ! ' 
 he cried angrily, and perha[)s not altogether 
 unreasonably. 
 
 Marriage had ceased to be a i)ossibility in 
 Hero's life. Martello was dead. She was free. 
 But her lieart was as irrevocably ])ledged as if a 
 bisho]) and unlimited incumbents and assistant- 
 curates had combined, at the height of a 
 London season, to tie the holy bands in (he
 
 'THREE GENERATIONS^ 209 
 
 most fiisliioiiable of matrimoiiial knots with the 
 aid of several dozen bridesmaids. 
 
 'We shall be no burthen to you, papa,' 
 Hero answered, following the train of her own 
 thoughts rather than reflecting on the parental 
 liberality. Her little inde[)endent capital, 
 derived from her iniknown uncle, de Courte- 
 ville, she thought, would one day be Bianca's 
 marriage portion, and she determined on work- 
 ing as liard as liealth and home duties would 
 permit, so that her child might never feel she 
 had achieved happiness at her mother's expense. 
 
 Hero received pressing invitations to sing, 
 during the season, at private parties. But to 
 mount grand stak'cases, find her way across 
 gilded saloons, feel herself an object of half-con- 
 temptuous curiosity to the well-dressed but not 
 necessarily well-bred crowd, and then fight her 
 unattended way back to her modest brougham, a 
 paid servant, where her birth and breeding no 
 less than her beauty, education and manners 
 entitled her to an undoubted equality, was an 
 ordeal that Hero's philosophy could not' calmly 
 contemplate. 
 
 In former times her mother had accom- 
 panied her wherever she went ; but Mrs. Owen's 
 age and the state of her health forbade this 
 VOL. I. r
 
 2IO AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 now: and it was years since Hero had been 
 seen, except by the ladies who knew her in her 
 own house. Fitz was, as his aunt had said, as a 
 younger brother to her. He watched these 
 two good women with a reverent admiration 
 and pity that lent an affection to his tone, of 
 which he himself was unaware. Was Bianca, 
 too, to be sacrificed, he asked himself, as these 
 had been? two out of the thousands of social 
 (women) martyrs of whom the world knows 
 notliing ? When the time came for Bianca to 
 make her choice, was it to be left to these two 
 weak, unworldly women to judge whether the 
 man she elected to honour was worthy of her 
 young unsullied soul? What do women, at 
 best, know of men, their manner of life, their 
 pursuits and private occupations ? Women, 
 happily married, need know nothing ; their 
 husbands, the fathers of their girls, know, yet 
 scarcely care to regale their Avives with back- 
 stairs histories of other men's lives. 
 
 Fitz could not trust Mr. Owen with such a 
 momentous matter as Bianca's future. An 
 inquiry as to the man's income, and the assurance 
 that he was not a bigamist, would suffice this 
 gay optimist ; and Bianca, allowed to follow the 
 first impulses of an ignorant predilection, might
 
 'THREE generations: 211 
 
 fall a worse victim than either her mother or 
 grandmother had done. 
 
 Fitz told himself that he would not stand in 
 the girl's way, nor seek to estabhsh anj^ under- 
 standing with her before others were in the 
 field ; but he would watch over her, and, God 
 willing, eventually win her for his own. 
 
 At Sprudelheim he had been much exer- 
 cised on the score of Bianca's independent 
 friendships, but had not seen his way to any 
 sort of interference. Hero, occupied with Mrs. 
 Owen, seemed to dread confining the girl to an 
 invalid atmosphere ; and life at a watering- 
 place is always a more or less free-and-easy 
 state of existence, abandoned perforce when 
 people return to the routine duties of home. 
 
 Hudson's undisguised admiration opened up 
 new possibilities in Fitz's eyes, and he set a guard 
 upon himself lest he should be tempted by his 
 secret feelings to betray how deeply he was 
 interested in the issue of the young man's suit. 
 
 Above all things he dreaded lest Mrs. Owen 
 or Hero sliould quote him as a mentor or censor, 
 thus placing him in a ridiculous and unpleasant 
 light in the young gull's eyes, and he grew 
 doubly careful lest unwary criticism sliould 
 betray him to his ruin. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Still, he was too clear-sighted, too fond of 
 Bianca, too jealous of and for her, too much a 
 man, and a lover, not to be keenly alive to the 
 fact that she had made an immense stride in 
 independence of character; whilst, he noted 
 with regret, that of preference she sought the 
 society of ' foreigners,' declaring English people 
 to be as stiff' and wooden-jointed as Dutch dolls, 
 incapable of enthusiasm, and intensely and dis- 
 gustins^ly selfish. 
 
 Now, that he was going down to Fairholt, 
 his heart a little misgave him. What if, 
 favoured by tete-a-tete drives and walks, and 
 smiled upon by kind Mrs. Hudson, the young 
 people should have fancied they were indispensa- 
 ble to one another's happiness, and be even now 
 on the brink of an engagement and consequent 
 matrimony ? 
 
 Hudson met him at the station, 
 
 ' You will be awfully dull old fellow,' he 
 said, ' the frost shuts up everything.' 
 
 ' It will not shut me uj). Don't you 
 skate ? ' 
 
 'Eather. I am teaching Bi Miss 
 
 Martello.' 
 
 Bianca greeted her cousin with the same easy 
 unconscious friendliness that she had shown
 
 'THREE generations: 213 
 
 liim since her babyhood. 'How are they at 
 home ? ' she asked. ' I wish the motherkin had 
 come with you. She almost said she would.' 
 
 ' No ; she cannot leave my aunt.' Then, 
 after a pause, 'I fear my aunt is very ill, 
 Bian(;a.' 
 
 But the young are never apprehensive. 
 Life to them is one vast, bright, shining 
 possibihty. Besides, there were reasons, un- 
 dreamt of in Fitz's philosophy, why Bianca did 
 not wish to talk of her grandmother. 
 
 Fitz, as was but natural in a lover, watched 
 the young people, without discovering anything. 
 Bianca assumed a rather dictatorial tone to her 
 youthful adorer, and there was too much 
 bandying of jests for any serious love-making, 
 so that Fitz never felt himself to be the ' third 
 wheel on the waggon.' 
 
 He also watched for the appearance of his 
 bracelet, as a signal of his lady's favour, but 
 though one or two eveninoj festivities afforded 
 the opportunity for adornment, Bianca neither 
 wore nor alluded to his gift. 
 
 Two slight matters set Fitz thinking. 
 
 The day before lie was to leave Fairholt, 
 Bianca came down late to breakfast. 
 
 'Pass this letter to Miss Martello,' said
 
 214 AUT CAESAR AU7 NIHIL. 
 
 Hudson, laying a thin, long, biglily-scented 
 envelope on an empty plate. 
 
 Fitz could not help seeing that it was a 
 foreign letter. The peculiar niggling, character- 
 less handwriting, the enormous monogram, and 
 the variegated stamps, told as much as that. 
 
 ' From mamma ? ' asked Bianca, at the end 
 of the table. 
 
 'No. A foreign letter. A Eussian letter.' 
 
 And Bianca's pale, clear face became 
 suddenly crimson. 
 
 ' By Jove ! those Eussians know every- 
 thing. How the deuce could they know you 
 were here? ' Hudson exclaimed, in his boyish 
 way, not looking at Bianca's face. She put the 
 letter down, unopened, beside her plate. 
 
 'You correspond with Madame de Kere- 
 zoff?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 Her face was now as pale as it had before 
 been red. 
 
 Fitz looked at her as he spoke. 
 
 ' Why,' Hudson exclaimed, ' what a fool I 
 am ; of course, I had forgotten, or I should have 
 remembered.' 
 
 ' What ? ' asked Fitz. For the ingenious 
 youth, suddenly catching Bianca's gaze fixed
 
 'THREE generations: 215 
 
 angrily upon him, ni his confusion fell into a 
 fresh error, then suddenly stopped short. 
 
 ' Why, Sprudelheim — and — and — the Kere- 
 zoffs, of course.' 
 
 But Fitz knew there was something more 
 in the matter than met the eye, though he 
 abstained from pursuit of a disagreeable topic. 
 
 Bianca left her letter beside her plate as 
 though it were of no importance ; but she was 
 short and snappish to Hudson all day, so that 
 her cheerful swain became at length crushed 
 and dispirited, and took himself off for a 
 solitary ride on pretext of some neglected 
 social duties in the neighbourhood. 
 
 With his disappearance Bianca's spirits rose. 
 She laughed and chatted with Fitz, and gaily 
 challenged him to a game at billiards. 
 
 She exerted herself to please him ; was 
 playful and sweet and saucy by turns; and 
 that, in such a gracious, maidenly manner that 
 the young man began to think he had been 
 mistaken all along, and that the cause of her 
 listlessness and pre-occupation liad been purely 
 physical. 
 
 Happy and liopeful, and encouraged by the 
 girl's gay, good humour, he ventured on a few 
 words more nearly approaching tenderness
 
 2i6 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL, 
 
 than any he had ever yet addressed to her. It 
 is never a very graceful thing for tlie donor to 
 alhide to a gift which the recipient has ignored. 
 
 Fitz felt this, but at the same time he 
 felt something else yet more strongly ; and 
 thus, after confessing himself beaten at chess 
 and draughts, which had follow^ed the billiards, 
 he said : ' If my conqueror will stoop to a 
 gracious act, defeat will lose all its bitter- 
 ness.' 
 
 ' A conqueror can always afford to be 
 gracious.' 
 
 ' Then, Bianca, oblige me ; show me by 
 wearing my bracelet at the party this evening 
 that you really liked it, and have some regard 
 for the giver.' 
 
 In his eagerness and anxiety he laid a 
 hand on her wrist, as though in fancy he saw^ 
 the bracelet already there. 
 
 But she shook his touch off' angrily. 
 
 ' I cannot oblige you,' she said, offence and 
 embarrassment unmistakable in every tone. 
 
 ' Have I offended you, Bianca ? If so, I 
 am sure I beg your pardon.' 
 
 ' It is granted.' 
 
 But he noticed the offence implied was not 
 denied.
 
 'THREE generations: 217 
 
 ' But have I ojQTended you ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Then why will you not wear my bracelet ? 
 I bought it for you tlie day you admired it so 
 much at Sprudellieim.' 
 
 There was an awkward pause. He ex- 
 pected her to relent. She did not look at 
 him. 
 
 ' I think you ought to tell me if I have 
 offended you,' he said, not without dignity. 
 
 ' I am not offended — only ' 
 
 ' Only ? ' 
 
 ' Well, if there is to be all this fuss about it, 
 I had rather you had not given it to me.' 
 
 ' Is it I who have made a fuss ? I think 
 you are unjust Bianca, and ungenerous. Per- 
 haps I was wrong to allude to it at all. But I 
 meant no harm. BetAveen cousins there should 
 be no false pride. If I have offended you I 
 heartily beg your pardon.' 
 
 He hoped that in reply she would say she 
 had not meant to hurt him, and that she would 
 wear his bracelet that evening in token of her 
 unaltered friendly feeling. But nothing was 
 further from Bianca's tlioughts. 
 
 'You do not answer, Bianca — you say 
 nothin<T ?
 
 2i8 AUT CzESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Well — of course it was very kind of you, 
 and I dare say it seems capricious, but — to tell 
 tlie truths— I hate jewellery ! ' 
 
 ' Then your note meant nothing ? ' 
 ' It meant that you were very kind. How 
 could you know I had altered my mind ? I 
 mean to be hke mamma. She never wears 
 jewellery.'
 
 219 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAIiS'TED JOSEPH.' 
 
 It has been said that every man, however pro- 
 saic, has his ideal. Great men have been 
 found after tlieir death to have formulated 
 touchingiy modest personal aspirations. ' Mine,' 
 says the poet, ' be the cot beside the hill,' 
 and the companionship of ' Lucy, in her russet 
 gown and apron blue.' These conditions fulfil 
 all he desires from the point of view of female 
 society, or accomplished destiny. Eoyal per- 
 sonages long, or think they long, for the 
 equality of friendship. ' Such a new thing for 
 her to dare to be unguarded in conversing 
 with anybody,' wrote a lady of her Court, 
 referring to the ncAvly-found married happiness 
 of the fair young Maiden Queen, whose girl- 
 hood had already felt the ' lonely splendour ' of 
 the Crown. And wliether we take the respect 
 able figure of Farmer George and his little
 
 220 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 frugal German spouse, partaking of a boiled 
 leg of mutton and turnips, and studying the 
 profound problem of the apple-pie ; or the 
 graceful form of Marie Antoinette acting the 
 milkmaid, or the shepherdess at the Little 
 Trianon ; or her lethargic spouse doing 
 locksmith's work at Versailles, we may be sure 
 we have stumbled upon a very common phase 
 of the ' undress ' aspirations of the great ones 
 of the earth. 
 
 To that conspirator whose obvious day is 
 passed in official uniform ; to the Nihihst, dis- 
 guised as the colonel of a regiment, the aide- 
 de-camp of the parade-ground, the chamber- 
 lain of the palace, or the admiral of the fleet, 
 whose spurs and sabre, galloon and golden 
 key, are the insignia of present safety, mid- 
 night meetings, mysterious watch- words, dan- 
 gerous signals and deathly risks may afford 
 sufficient contrast to the pipe-clay and trappings, 
 the red-tape and buckram of the regulation 
 routine life. To many a man whose existence 
 is bounded by the narrow confines of the 
 barrack or the bureau, the alternative of 
 desperate enterprises and possible ruin may 
 afford overwhelmingly attractive features, from
 
 'THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH? 221 
 
 the mere force of contrast. Thiip, at any rate 
 for many years, it had been with MelUn. 
 
 Born of many generations of bureaucracy 
 and mihtarism, educated in the most strenuous 
 traditions of ImperiaHsm, the descendant of a 
 long-suffering, loyal and Conservative family, 
 his outward tenue had all the inexpressive 
 passivity of scrupulous officialism. His spare 
 figure, colourless face, pale eyes and negative 
 countenance succeeded to admiration in con- 
 veying the vaguest of impressions. Long 
 habits of reticence, caution and silence had 
 given him an unobtrusive, retiring manner, 
 not devoid of dignity ; and although he con- 
 versed not unwillingly on all except political 
 subjects, after several hours spent in his society 
 it was but a shadowy and uncertain picture of 
 his mind that acquaintances carried away from 
 the rencontre. 
 
 ' Baron Mellin has the power of extracting 
 all colour from conversation,' Madame de 
 KerezofF declared to Hero, in one of her, not 
 infrequent, moods of expansiveness. 
 
 ' Perhaps we weary him with our frivolities 
 and platitudes ; perhaps it is our English chatter 
 which appears to him characterless,' Hero 
 repHed. ' I often blame myself for falling
 
 222 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 back so selfishly upon our mother-tongue ; but 
 I forget, when with you — you speak it so well — 
 that it is not yours. Still, it must be very dull 
 for Baron Mellin, though perhaps fortunate for 
 us, that he possesses this power of abstrac- 
 tion.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' answered Julie, looking at Hero 
 absently as she echoed her words. And after 
 a minute she added : ' I adore ignorance. My 
 parrot's tongue can patter any language in the 
 vernacular of lady's-maids and nurses. I con- 
 fess it is a comfort to me to know I can rattle 
 on in English and not disturb Monsieur de 
 Mellin's philosophic reflections. My indiscre- 
 tions — conversational indiscretions, of course, I 
 ijiean — would be too much for him.' 
 
 Strange as it may appear, Mellin's ideal, 
 hereditary hatreds notwithstanding, had always 
 been the safe, sheltered and dignified life of an 
 English gentleman. A few paternal acres, 
 flocks and herds, milk and wool, pastoral plea- 
 sures, ' study and ease together mixed,' Vir- 
 gihan joys, Horatian culture, and a sympathetic 
 friend or two at his modest board, seemed to 
 him the summum honum of earthly bliss. No 
 bad ideal. Lovely indeed, and peaceful when 
 compared with the obscure anxieties of his
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH.' 223 
 
 dual existence, and sufficiently impossible of 
 realisation to give added beauty to the pictured 
 joys of his romance. 
 
 Hereditary hatreds, equally notwithstanding, 
 his ideal woman was the Englishwoman. The 
 grande dame of St. Petersburg society, edu- 
 cated in all the traditions of Muscovite veneer, 
 the thin French polish of exotic manners and 
 the superficial accomphshments which scarcely 
 disguised the vacuity and poverty of the 
 uncultured nature beneath, was scarcely so 
 repellant, in her negative fine ladyism and 
 intellectual idleness, to him, as the emancipated 
 female, the modern product of Nihilism and 
 * advanced ideas.' The one at least retained 
 something of her womanhood, and appealed to 
 you through her very weakness and insuffi- 
 ciency ; whereas the other, with her ' billy-cock ' 
 hat, her ulster, her pince-nez^ her close-cropped 
 hair, stifi* shirt- collar, manly cravat, whip or 
 walking-stick, bold stare, and independent 
 carriage — like that of an impudent boy whose 
 swagger needs a severe lesson — caused Mellin a 
 shudder of revulsion which it needed all his 
 practised powers of dissimulation successfully to 
 disguise. 
 
 Yet the ideal Englishwoman whose image he
 
 224 ^UT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 fondly, if silently and hopelessly, cherished, 
 was not the insipid beauty of 'Keepsake' 
 memory, nor the preposterous blue-veiled and 
 be-ringletted ' Miladi ' of French comedy and 
 romance; still less the angular ' Mees' who 
 screeches 'shocJciiigV in season and out of 
 season, through unrelenting decades of French 
 plays and novels ; but the Enghsh woman, 
 ccmpanion and friend of the English man; 
 such as our Chaucer, Surrey, Wyatt, Shaks- 
 peare, Jonson, Milton ; and, in later days, our 
 Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley and 
 Tennyson have painted her. Sweet, spirited 
 women, gentle, generous ladies, modest 
 maidens, fresh and fair, and fragrant as the 
 country of their birth. 
 
 The hard actualities of life had left Mellin 
 but httle time for thoughts of love ; yet even 
 during a six weeks' stay in England, towards 
 the end of the London season, two weeks in 
 town and four in the shires, had offered him a 
 fair procession of what England has best to 
 show in the way of worth and beauty. That 
 had, in sooth, been ' a dream of fair women,' 
 with an all too sudden awakening. The 
 bright vision of homes of peace and wealth, 
 of refinement and comfort ; of mothers, scarcely
 
 'THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 225 
 
 less beautiful than their daughters — fathers and 
 sons equally frank, kind, honest and true. The 
 memory of such an experience did not pass 
 away. It abode with him, and the tender 
 tones of colour and sound remained unaffected 
 by the chill touch of Time — a cherished recollec- 
 tion. A proof of the man's strength of character 
 — of that character which the superficial might 
 have labelled ' negative ' — lay in the fact that 
 he had positive resolution sufficient never to 
 refer, in Hero's or Bianca's presence, to that 
 paradisaical past, the one romance of his life — 
 impossible, beautiful. When at Sprudelheim, 
 he was introduced to Hero by Madame de 
 KerezofT, though years had elapsed since he 
 last saw her, and then under a different name, 
 his long habits of observation enabled him to 
 recognise her at once. For reasons of his own 
 he determined not to refer to that episode, 
 much as it would have enlarged their subject 
 of conversation, but to let things take their 
 course. 
 
 Life, in Eussia, is bounded by large horizons 
 Once outside St. Petersburg or Moscow, 01 
 any other town which the traveller may 
 choose to recall or imagine, vast, limitless 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 AUT C.'ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 plains stretch away in level uniformity, mono- 
 tonous, melancholy, immense. 
 
 The soHtary peasant, the lonely shepherd, 
 gazes up at you from his s]iee]3skins or his 
 touloupe, and, in an accent pitched to a minor 
 key, wishes you in soft, pathetic inflections 
 a wondering ' Good-day.' Why should you 
 put yourself to the expense and inconvenience 
 of travel, expose yourself to the extortion of 
 innkeepers, the heat of frowsy hostelries, 
 cheating moujiks, and exorbitant charges ? And 
 vaguely commiserating you, — whom he reckons 
 one of the great ones of the earth, in your 
 pictured difficulties, — the herdsman gazes in 
 your face, prince or potentate though he dreams 
 you to be, with the sympathy and pity of a 
 gentle brotherly soul. In the villages you 
 pass through, it may be that now and again 
 some Eussian Volkslied falls upon the ear. 
 Weeks afterwards you will find yourself 
 haunted by its pathetic rhythm, by its yearning 
 refrain, and you will wonder why this half- 
 barbaric song has the power to absorb you, 
 and touch you by its appealing, plaintive 
 melody. It is as though some unknown spirit 
 of fraternity stretched its arms forth across the 
 dreary miles of waste and wild, murmuring :
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 227 
 
 ' I, too, despite our widely-differiug experiences, 
 am thy brother. From the deep forests and 
 silent plains, from Siberian mines and Tartar 
 steppes, from the dim Caucasian peaks, from 
 Aryan myths and empires of utmost Iiid, 
 shrouded in the mists of immemorial ages, I 
 call to thee, across Time and Space, out of the 
 depths of my unheeded century -old solitude ! ' 
 In this vast, mysterious country, where all 
 the Eussias, and each, has its qualifying adjec- 
 tive, where the styles and titles of Ceesar read 
 like the projected geographical course of a 
 college term on an extended scale, the very 
 impossibility of things suggests the possible. 
 Eigorous ice-bound nature broods above 
 more ardent aspirations than warm Italian 
 skies ever ripened into an easy enthusiasm, 
 and, beneath a winding-sheet of snow, men's 
 blood burns in fierce revolt, frozen though for 
 the nonce it be into seeming silence. Under 
 gigantic conditions, to count the pigmy items 
 is impossible. Temperate or torrid zones may 
 reckon with fate, but the frigid must overleap 
 half a world, and trust to chance or fate for 
 tlie result. There is a point at which cold be- 
 comes heat ; and the frost-bitten sufferer seems 
 to endure the torments of the fiery furnace. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 AUT CA£SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 In such a condition was Eiissia at the time 
 of our story. 
 
 The snow-clad volcano might burst forth in 
 destructive eruption at any moment, and those 
 who knew how thin was the crust of the crater, 
 were prepared to see the signal flames, like 
 those of some giant watch-fire on a mountain 
 peak, shoot up into the midnight skies, the 
 token amidst surrounding silence, obscurity, 
 and gloom, of a far-spreading conflagration. 
 In old times, it took a hundred horses and 
 seven days to travel from St. Petersburg to 
 Moscow. To-day the journey is performed by 
 train in fifteen hours, and your fellow travellers 
 will probably be as ' mixed ' as the company 
 to be met in an American ' car.' 
 
 The very manner in which the raih^oad 
 connecting the two capitals came to be made, 
 is typical of the country and its rulers. 
 Nicholas, the enemy of all progress, looked 
 with an unfavourable eye upon the innovation 
 of steam. His councillors were anxious so to 
 make the iron way that it shoukl prove a 
 financial success, and to that end endeavoured 
 to construct the line so that it should include 
 several important tow^ns in the system. The 
 plans were laid before the Emperor. He listened
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 229 
 
 silently to the explanations of the experts, and 
 then taking a ruler he drew a line in pen and 
 ink between St. Petersburg and Moscow, 
 remarking : 'The railroad will either be made 
 on that line, or not at all.' His officials, 
 knowing the nature of the man, knew also 
 that remonstrance would be worse than useless. 
 The line was eventually made as the Emperor 
 had ruled it should be, and remains a monu- 
 ment of his unbending will to the present hour. 
 
 And yet, on the eve of the railway epoch, 
 the Eussian peasant would have thought tlie 
 results of steam, could they have been ]iiade 
 clear to his limited intelligence, far more im- 
 possible than the impossibihties of to-day — be 
 they what they may — appear to eyes bent on 
 a horizon still wider than that of the bonded 
 serf, watching and waiting. 
 
 ' The eyes of a goddess,' Monsieur de 
 Mellin had said to himself, as Hero turned 
 her level gaze upon him on the terrace of the 
 hunting Schloss. He had said the same Avords 
 years ago in a London drawing-room. 
 
 There had been a concert that night at the 
 Marquis of Matlock's, and, together with his 
 ambassador, Mellin had gone to the palace 
 of that patron of the fine arts, in order that
 
 230 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 he might see something of London society in 
 all its various and varied shades and grades. 
 The Marquis, in his character of host and con- 
 noisseur of beauty, had spoken a few gracious 
 words to Hero after each of her songs, and 
 the Sovereign had deigned to commission him 
 with Her approval, as the singer withdrew 
 after her last aria. Mellin thought Hero more 
 beautiful than the most beautiful of the titled 
 ladies present ; and when at his request the 
 Eussian Ambassador presented him to her, the 
 large, serious gaze of her earnest eyes seemed to 
 the young Eussian's imagination to be illumined 
 with tlie wisdom of the typical Pallas Athene. 
 
 '" We know that, for us, the possible has 
 ceased to exist,' Julie had said to him in the 
 Kur Garten at Sprudelheim ; and, tacitly, he 
 had recognised the truth of her epigram, and 
 knew that he could only ' find his reckoning ' 
 in the impossible. 
 
 He acknowledged no other mterest or 
 claim than the interests and claims of ' the 
 Cause.' For these he had not scrupled to work 
 on Bianca's undisciphned nature, to take ad- 
 vantage of her ductile enthusiasm, to profit, 
 under high-sounding maxims, by the spirit of 
 mtrigue that ran in the southern blood which
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 231 
 
 was her inheritance. Base, ignoble ends could 
 never have swayed the girl to the course she 
 now bhndly took. For the good of Humanity 
 at large ! What a programme ! What purity 
 of principle, what impersonal aspirations ! 
 What lofty aims and ends ! How free from 
 any claim of merit, or expectation of applause ! 
 
 The Association wanted money. For money, 
 Mellin would have sacrificed Bianca as ruthlessly 
 as ever Spartan socialist, maldng proverbial his- 
 tory for later civilisation, would have devoted 
 the single life to the perpetuation of the type. 
 Hudson's money was as good as another's. 
 Hudson was young and enthusiastic ; a good 
 fellow ; bon enfant. Why should not two young 
 people be happy togetner, as well as, better 
 than, apart ? Besides, the old people desired it ; 
 it was plain to see that if — with the reserve 
 peculiar to their race — they would not make, 
 yet, neither would they mar, this match. Bianca 
 once implicated, the mother would follow, and 
 thus three times d'elite^ to say nothing of good 
 English money, gained for ' the Cause.' 
 
 Yet something in Bianca's ardent gaze, 
 something in her girlish enthusiasm, disturbed 
 Mellin's equanimity. ' Her eyes are like her 
 mother's — yet how unlike ! ' he said to himself,
 
 232 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 and became colder and colder to his young 
 disciple. ' No matter, she was but a tool,' he 
 told himself, with that latent savagery of 
 nature which Napoleon declared that he who 
 scratched the Euss, might count on iinding in 
 the Tartar beneath. 
 
 It pleased Mellin — there seemed a sort of 
 compromise with conscience, or what stood 
 for that inconvenient monitor in his moral 
 vocabulary — it pleased him to be harsh and 
 short and dogmatic in his utterances, and as 
 little sympathetic as possible in his acknow- 
 ledgments to the girl. He had declared Bianca 
 was Julie de KerezofF's convert. He would 
 none of her. Julie must send her the ghastly 
 ' charm,' the sign and token of her affiliation 
 to their ' Society.' ' It was a farce,' as he said 
 to himself with a sneer, but ' a convenient one,' 
 especially where women were concerned ; and 
 it was not his fault if, on the wild hill- side 
 the Sprudelheim novice l:iad made her profes- 
 sion, taking her vows in the very teeth, as it 
 were, of warning, harshness, and discourage* 
 ment. 
 
 In all things, not consciously paltering with 
 honour, but finding some strange, insincere 
 satisfaction in the line he had adopted, Mellin
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 233 
 
 almost forced the girl to take the initiative, 
 throwing obstacles in her way and increasing 
 her ardour, in proportion to the difficulties he 
 raised. If they w^alked fast, it Avas that she 
 walked fast. If they outstripped their com- 
 panions, it was by her desire. She should ask 
 him for the ' token.' He would not give her 
 the accolade ; he would not instruct her in the 
 shibboleth. She should beg him to put the 
 grim badge about her neck. He would origi- 
 nate nothing. She should take the oath as a 
 volunteer, not as a conscript. It was with 
 something almost like contemptuous tenderness 
 that he had on that occasion turned to Hero, 
 offering her his arm down the hill. She must 
 indeed be weak and blind not to suspect what 
 was going on beneath her very eyes. The 
 thought of her maternal weakness did not, 
 however, dispose him more kindly towards his 
 younger dupe. Imagination painted circum- 
 .stances in which this spoiled child might be- 
 come his rival and his enemy. 
 
 He divined instinctively something of the 
 unwilhngness with which Hero had accepted 
 his arm. He had ventured on a sufficiently 
 hanale allusion, and had not felt sorry that the 
 power to wound was granted him, since the
 
 234 ^UT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 privilege to woo was denied. Then he had 
 taunted her (he who had suborned her child) 
 with her inability to rule. ' You ask as a 
 favour that which you should demand as a 
 right,' he had said ; " you w^ill always be the 
 victim of coarser, of more selfish natures.' 
 
 Later on, if she should reproach him (and 
 women, he told himself, were unreasonable 
 enough, as a rule, to attribute their blindness 
 and folly to the fault of others rather than to 
 their own want of prudence and foresight), he 
 could appeal against her wTath to facts, and 
 show her that he had warned her, and prove 
 her conclusively to be the victim of her own 
 confiding folly. 
 
 As the pale, hard light of the reflected snow 
 fell upon Mellin's ashen countenance, the cold 
 mockery of the Spring sun was scarcely less 
 cruel than the expression of his pallid face. 
 
 A man who has no ties to bind hun to his 
 fellow-men, who declares that impersonal objects 
 fill out his personal life, must, for all his tall-talk 
 of universal brotherhood, of general good and 
 public ends, grow^ narrow and one-sided. The 
 emotional part of his nature starved to death, 
 and the remembrance of personal sympathies a 
 reproach and a shame to him in his own eyes.
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 235 
 
 he is at best but an imperfect specimen of a 
 human being, incapable of the noblest passions 
 and sublimest enthusiasms of humanity. 
 
 It was part of his misery that he could trust 
 no man. As for women, if they were less sel- 
 fish than men, they were more impulsive and 
 less discreet ; if more enduring and more de- 
 voted, less logical and less to be depended on. 
 Things in the outer world had baffled all his 
 combinations ; things m the inner w^orld, of 
 plotting and conspiracy, had been far from 
 satisfactory. Trade was, all over the world, 
 bad. Money was scarce, and without the base 
 medium the ineffectual fires of enthusiasm must 
 pale inevitably, and 'the Cause' languish and 
 lapse. Men, in the outer world of commerce 
 and enterprise, were congratulating themselves 
 on the lull that seemed to have come over the 
 more turbulent spirits ; and in the inner world 
 of politics and diplomacy, of state-craft and 
 governments, there seemed a blind security ; 
 whilst the divisions, heart-burnings, and dis- 
 union amongst the sworn fraternity portended 
 a weakening of forces and threatened discom- 
 fiture to the Brotherhood. 
 
 It was but seldom that Mellin ventured, by 
 daylight, into the Street of Sainted Joseph, but
 
 236 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 the approach of Easter gave a pretext for some 
 stir in the interests of his supposed trade as a 
 huckster travelhng with charms, illuminated 
 cards, Easter eggs, and chap-books into distant 
 outlying districts, where the peasantry were 
 eager customers for the pedler's wares. 
 
 The residuum of the population of all great 
 cities is pervaded by a strong family likeness, 
 whether, in ' scum,' it rises to the surface of 
 detected crime, or sinks, like lees, to the bot- 
 tom, after the custom of unrecognised ' dregs.' 
 It shifts according to the wash of circumstance ; 
 and thus, in its ebb and flow, affords a safe 
 refuge for such members of society as, for 
 cogent reasons, do not prize the advantages of 
 a • local habitation and a name.' 
 
 In a neighbourhood where the social grade 
 of the inhabitants had been only a degree 
 higher or a shade less humble, Melhn and 
 his friends could not have found so safe an 
 asylum as the garret in the Street of Sainted 
 Joseph afforded them. 
 
 Even the smallest of shopkeepers are con- 
 servative in instinct, and it is the pride of 
 a petty tradesman to point to his httle shop 
 as havincr been his father's and ^grandfather's 
 before him, and (the Haussiiann of the future
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 2^7 
 
 permitting) the heritage of the Ghilclren's chil- 
 dren wlio shall come after. 
 
 Tlius the neighbours, if by a stretch of 
 courtesy the}' may so be called, who inhabited 
 the garrets and cellars of Sainted Joseph's Street, 
 when last Mellin and his friends w^ere seen 
 there, had now all disappeared. The cobbler, 
 his spouse, and the little cobblerkin had mi- 
 grated to the great leather factory near the 
 quays, Avhere work, less precarious than patch- 
 ing the foot gear of moKJiks, was to be found ; 
 the young seamstress overhead had gone to her 
 last resting-place ; the German fiddler had 
 found permanent employment at one of the 
 minor theatres ; and if a few porters, wharf- 
 ingers, and carters still remained, why, they 
 were men whose daily labour was done at a 
 distance from the kennels where they slept, 
 and who, coming home after a day's hard 
 work, were httle disposed to watch their neigh- 
 bour's doings or to busy themselves with their 
 neighbour's concerns. 
 
 The ' International,' that word of terror, 
 after years of secret existence startled Euroj^e 
 from its lethargy of false security, when it 
 came to resound, as it presently did, upon the 
 public ear.
 
 238 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 By the irony of Fate the epoch of the 
 ' Peace Palace,' with all its ' fruitful rivalries,' 
 was the era of the introduction of the 'Inter- 
 national ' into England. The bronze-workers 
 and gravers of Paris made the ' Exhibition ' a 
 reason and excuse for their trip to ' perfidious 
 Albion.' They wanted to see how far they 
 were entitled to measure and mate themselves 
 with the skilled artisans and decorative work- 
 men of other countries ; but they also wanted to 
 hear something of the English system of strikes 
 and locks-out, of work and wages, of factory- 
 schools and ten-hours' labour bills, of co-opera- 
 tive stores, of demand and supply, of trades- 
 unions, and the relation of capital and labour. 
 
 At that epoch Mellin had also been in 
 London, and though his time had been chiefly 
 spent in scenes far distant from workshops and 
 artisans' clubs, he had, in virtue of his affiliation 
 with certain secret societies, been admitted 
 to the debates of the International Socialists, 
 where Odger, Potter, and Lucraft had made it 
 plain to the foreign delegates that the English 
 workmen were, practically, far in advance of 
 their Continental brethren — fiery oratory and 
 frothy periods notwithstanding. 
 
 On this occasion Mellin had not spoken,
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 239 
 
 looking on rather as an amused than as an 
 interested visitor. The discomfited vanity of 
 the Frenchmen, who had fancied themselves 
 masters of pohtics, and had formed but a con- 
 temjDtuous estimate of the insular barbarians' 
 social science, struck his sense of humour as 
 infinitely comical. It was whispered that 
 Herzen, or Bakounine, or both, were present, 
 and there were some who persisted in recognis- 
 ing the Tartar communist in Mellin ; but, in 
 truth, no man of special mark had put in an 
 appearance, the glory of celebrity being re- 
 served for future occasions. Ledru Eollin, who 
 was in England at the time, smiled superior on 
 the shortsighted aspirations of the few hot- 
 headed inconsequent neophytes who went in 
 deputations to invoke his aid and request his 
 presence, seeking to draw him from his retire- 
 ment in St. John's Wood to their debates in 
 obscure taverns and convenient pothouses. 
 
 Karl Marx, by birth a French Jew of 
 German strain, was likewise in London ; but he 
 also found no special sympathy amongst English 
 working-men. His cool, crafty character, his 
 cold-blooded unscrupulousness, had no attrac- 
 tion for, but irather held the elements of a cha- 
 racter repulsive to the instincts of the average
 
 240 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Englishman. As a scholar, a linguist, and a 
 doctor of philosophy, his subtle insight, prac- 
 tical intellect, and logical reasoning would have 
 been thrown away upon a group so much in 
 the rough as the politicians of Belleville and the 
 Barricades. He belonged rather to the circle 
 which included men like Blind, Freiligrath, 
 Herzen, Kink el, Mazzini, Arrivabene, and 
 others, who, living in poverty and obscurity, 
 spent their time in writing for the foreign 
 democratic press, or in studying beneath the 
 hospitable dome of the British Museum Library. 
 
 But Marx, if he held himself aloof from the 
 brethren generally, was closely associated with 
 Herzen, the editor of the Eussian Kolokol, and 
 the author of the ' Development of Eevolu- 
 tionary Ideas in Eussia,' which book Marx saw 
 through the press for his friend. 
 
 We have already heard Melhn's contemp- 
 tuous summing-up of the socialistic merits of 
 the Swiss, German, and French Brotherhood. 
 There had been splits and divisions innumerable ; 
 the English and French association had been 
 dissolved ; there had been quarrelling at 
 Geneva, and defiance in Paris. The babel of 
 tongues had waxed furious at Lausanne, and 
 all shouted together — Euss raging against
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAhNTED JOSEPH: 241 
 
 Teuton, Gaul against Saxon, tlie Latin races 
 against the Slav, in horrible polyglot, jaw- 
 breaking gutturals, and spluttering sibilants, 
 until fusion, harmony and mutual aid passed 
 into the sphere of impossibilities. 
 
 In all this Mellin had remained rather a 
 spectator than an agitator. He had, now and 
 again, been in the thick of it. He got a 
 doctor's certificate to say that certain German 
 baths were indispensable to his condition ; and, 
 a faithful servant of the Crown, he had been 
 let go Avith only the necessary formula of in- 
 dispensable passports and red-tapeism. Once 
 over the frontier, although it behoved him still 
 to be cautious, he was comparatively free, and 
 if he turned up under the name of Treib, and 
 said he was a watchmaker, at Geneva, it could 
 be a matter of no possible import to anyone. 
 
 Congresses at Geneva and at Lausanne 
 showed clearly that propagandism must come 
 to a standstill if the propagandists could not 
 pay their printer's bills ; for as yet the society 
 had no secret presses of its own. It would 
 have been unsafe to attempt anything on a 
 large scale in St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, 
 or Berlin. At Geneva they enjoyed the liberty 
 of a free press ; but, if their sheets were to be 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 sown broadcast over Europe, they, the sowers, 
 must be prepared to pay skilled workmen for 
 setting up the polyglot type. 
 
 The squabbles of detail, the personal and 
 local disputes, had left Mellin and those work- 
 ing with him, cold, disgusted and unhopeful. 
 But here was an opening, here was an oppor- 
 tunity for an immense and ever-spreading 
 activity. Wherever money was wanted, 
 women could easily be found who, by social 
 influence, by personal gifts, and personal 
 pressure, by smiles and softness, or by scorn 
 and reproach, would draw the necessary coin 
 from its hiding-places, and set the vital prin- 
 ciple rolling in gold according to the behests 
 of their instructors. 
 
 Mellin had always felt that to utihse the 
 enthusiasm and power of women would be to 
 turn to account a glut of undeveloped capital 
 lying dormant for want of a motive power 
 sufficiently strong to set it going. But now he 
 could 'take occasion by the hand,' and, through 
 the women secretly, though hitherto passively, 
 bound to the Cause, he should be able to raise 
 a vast amount of capital that would help the 
 matter in hand effectually along its precarious 
 path.
 
 * THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 243 
 
 He was now brouglit into more familiar 
 contact with Bakounine, a Muscovite by birth, 
 a Tartar by name and blood, belonging \o the 
 inner cuxle of Eussian communism as repre- 
 sented by Herzen, Ogareff, and others at Geneva, 
 and presently joined by Becker, whose prison 
 Bakounine had shared on more than one 
 occasion ; together tliey let the storm go by 
 whilst they plotted and planned extensively in 
 the interests of Eussian Nihilism. 
 
 Bakounine, strong on the equahty of the 
 sexes, seized on the idea of the development of 
 female co-operation with avidity. Women had 
 always been mixed up in Eussian intrigues, but 
 there had been no organisation : it had been 
 due to chance, to special circumstances, or 
 individual influence. But now, it was incalcul- 
 able what an unscrupulous propaganda might 
 not effect, if female delegates could be made 
 the instruments of a wide- working system of 
 pressure. 
 
 Thus it was that Julie Kerezoff had become 
 afhhated to the society, and, with her, thousands 
 of women who longed for an outlet to all the 
 aspirations and sympathies created by the 
 condition of their own country, and by the 
 disastrous social status of civilised women 
 R 2
 
 244 ^UT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 generally. Whilst men of all countries and of 
 all shades of opinion squabbled over local 
 questions, and fell out on matters of detail, the 
 Eussian group held steadily together. Their 
 annals were full of daring deeds and devoted 
 self-sacrifice. To them it seemed that the 
 Discontents of other nations v^ere as social 
 sybarites grumbling over the one crumpled 
 rose-leaf. They did not disguise from them- 
 selves that the ' public,' as understood in 
 England, France, Belgium, Germany, or even 
 in Italy and Austria, had, as yet, no existence 
 in Eussia. Subtract the twenty-two millions 
 of peasants, take away the vast population of 
 barrack and bureau, and what remained that 
 could be accredited as ' public opinion,' or that 
 could numerically claim sufficient importance 
 to justify a plea for hearing ? The university 
 students had always been in the van of pro- 
 gress ; and the way in which women had rushed 
 into the schools when the profession of medi- 
 cine was thrown open to them, proved that the 
 pent-up spirit of a class susceptible of higher 
 education and training would not be slow to 
 avail itself of increased opportunities of inde- 
 pendence and training. Such as these must 
 preach the propaganda ; yet the classes that
 
 ' THE STREET OF SAINTED JOSEPH: 245 
 
 could be raised and inspired were not exclu- 
 sively to have their attention. Public opinion 
 must be educated. The bourgeoisie^ timid and 
 apathetic, must be fostered and encouraged. 
 The ' middle class,' so far conspicuous by its 
 absence from all political movements, must be 
 gradually inspired to recognise the fact that its 
 interests lay in the direction of Eeform. The 
 official classes must be corrupted and under- 
 mined. The means to the end mattered little. 
 To seduce some great official and hopelessly 
 compromise his future, was well worth the 
 sums which the propaganda had more than 
 once unhesitatingly offered to some siren a la 
 mode, to some diva of the Opera, sworn to the 
 service of ' the Cause.' Why were great ladies 
 great, if not to show the power of wealth and 
 grace and charms ? And what harm if in 
 intimate circles romantic stories of handsome, 
 ardent Nihihst students, and court dames, or 
 resplendent, unattainable princesses, lent a 
 wliispered flavour to the chronique scandaleuse 
 of Nihilism, the piquancy of which lost nothing 
 by the apparent incongruity of the exciting 
 details ? 
 
 And Melhn, as he sits revolving these and 
 other matters in the cold spring sunshine,
 
 246 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 awaits two, it may be three, visitors, in his 
 humble garret, such as the Street of Sainted 
 Joseph rarely sees ; each, in her way, destined 
 to play no unimportant part in the annals of 
 ' the Cause.'
 
 247 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BIAInTCA. 
 
 In London the same cold spring sunsliine and 
 bleak east wind sent wayfarers hurriedly 
 through the streets. It had been a long, 
 hard winter, and it was a long, hard spring ; 
 but the lengthening April days told Londoners 
 that the busy season was near, and that in a 
 few weeks the crowded streets Avould testify to 
 the fulness of town. 
 
 In the large, light drawing-room everything 
 looked cold and hard and inhospitable. No 
 dexterous hand had draped the hangings, 
 drawn the blinds, or stirred the fire into a 
 clieerful blaze. " A woman's hand and a 
 woman's instinct would have placed a few 
 flowers, pale and scentless though the early 
 blossoms of the year might be, in the em])ty 
 vases ; have pushed the furniture into some 
 semblance of grace and comfort; whilst needle-
 
 248 AUT CESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 work, magazines, and music would have 
 betrayed a woman's presence. 
 
 Fitzgerald felt the sadly-altered aspect of 
 the familiar room, and understood and sympa- 
 thised with all that its changed aspect ex- 
 pressed ; yet he told himself, at the same time, 
 that he would combat, even at the risk of 
 seeming hard and unfeeling, the condition of 
 mind it betrayed ; and that, not of indifference, 
 but of conviction ; not from want of sympathy, 
 but out of the deepest sympathy and the ten- 
 derest affection. 
 
 The door opened and Hero came in. 
 
 ' I am afraid I have kept you waiting. I 
 was at the top of the house. You know what 
 these tall London houses are.' 
 
 ' As to my waiting, that is of no con- 
 sequence. But wdiy w^ere you at the top of 
 the house ? ' 
 
 The tears rushed to her eyes. 
 
 ' I cannot sit here all alone,' she said. 
 
 ' Fo, perhaps not. But my uncle is some- 
 times at home, and Bianca will soon be coming.' 
 
 To this she made no reply. Her face 
 expressing as plainly as silent language could : 
 ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof 
 
 ' I know what you w^ould say,' Fitz went
 
 BIANCA. 249 
 
 on, speaking rapidly ; ' you have removed all 
 Her belongings as too sacred for common use, 
 too precious to risk their profanation by the 
 common touch. I know that to you " all the 
 place is dark, and all The chambers emptied of 
 delight ; " but sooner or later, the effort lias to 
 be made ; sooner or later we have to come 
 back to the old order of things, and, believe 
 me, the sooner the better — in a sense the 
 easier.' 
 
 ' What does that matter, where all is so 
 hard, so utterly hard and cruel ? And what 
 can you know — I don't mean to be unkind — 
 but you have your mother still ! I knoAv your 
 father was kind, and of course you mourned 
 him ; but what son — what young man — who in 
 the Avorld, could feel as I do? Oh, Fitz ! you 
 knew her, and you know what need I had of 
 her love, and what that love was to me. And 
 yet, even to you, I feel almost harsh and re- 
 sentful, hard and impatient, when you seem as 
 though you would bid me be consoled ; would 
 tell me " loss is common," and I dread lest you, 
 too, should repeat all the thousand well-meant 
 complacent things by which our friends think 
 to check the course of grief. Don't you see 
 that the fear is not of our grievimx too much.
 
 250 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 but of our never being able to grieve enough ? 
 I, at least, feel like that. Her great untiring 
 love, Avhich never forsook me during all the 
 long years of ray life — and some were bitterly 
 long — cannot be forgotten in a few short weeks. 
 Thirty years hence — doesn't it seem awful to 
 think of living so long ? — thirty years hence, if 
 I am still ahve. I shall feel there is a great 
 debt of love and gratitude yet unpaid ; a debt 
 I never can pay even if I live to be an old, 
 old woman.' 
 
 ' I do not want to hurt you. Hero. I wish 
 I knew how to comfort you.' 
 
 ' People mean well, I know ; but to me 
 there seems something cruel aud cowardly in 
 these attempts at consolation. Why should one 
 not grieve .^ We have lost our most precious 
 earthly possession and yet we are to feel no 
 sorrow. Or we are to hustle our grief out of 
 sight, and pretend to be the same as we were 
 before sorrow overwhelmed us. It is cruel — 
 cruel ! ' 
 
 ' You have a child, Hero ! ' 
 
 ' I know. I have her. It is for that which 
 we have not ' 
 
 ' And— God forbid that I should preach — 
 but you ought to consider what She who is
 
 BIANCA. 251 
 
 ^one would, under the circumstances, have 
 thought the best.' 
 
 ' I know. But She always let me grieve 
 when I had real cause for grief. She would 
 not begrudge me my tears now. She would 
 know — as no one else does, or can.' 
 
 ' Do not be vexed that we wish to -comfort 
 you, Hero.' 
 
 She shook her head sadly. 
 
 ' Have you seen Graham ? ' he asked, after 
 a pause. 
 
 He would try every point of interest 
 despite her impatience to return and brood 
 over her grief. 
 
 'Not since — since Then.' 
 
 ' Poor fellow. I am so glad I brought him 
 up the last time I came.' 
 
 There was a pause. Evidently conversation 
 would not flow in that direction. 
 
 ' May I send you somic flowers ? I have 
 been ordering some for my mother,' and again, 
 as the last word inadvertently escaped his lips, 
 he felt he had blundered, and the colour rose 
 to his vexed face. 
 
 But Hero, seeing his discomfiture and pain, 
 laid her hand on his. 
 
 ' Never mind, Fitz ; it was kindly meant.
 
 252 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 But not now. This room I always looked on 
 as hers ; there she sat, tliat was her chair ; 
 she loved to have flowers and children, and 
 birds, and all beautiful, bright, innocent things 
 about her. I have no one to make the room 
 pretty for now ; no one to please.' 
 
 ' You forget Bianca.' 
 
 ' 1^0, I don't. But the young, in the very 
 fact of their youth, have everything. They 
 feel so secure of the happiness their elders have 
 missed ; they deem they are so much wiser^ 
 that the trouble we take in trying to please 
 them seems superfluous. Ah, Fitz ! it is the old 
 folks nowadays who are humble, and simple, 
 and easily pleased. Some little commonplace 
 act of conventional grace from the young ; a 
 pot of flowers, a birthday card, and they are 
 delighted, and endow the child or grandchild 
 that remembers them with a thousand virtues 
 and graces. If I must trim up the desolate 
 room for Bianca, it shall be for Bianca, though 
 the child will never guess the cost of the sacri- 
 fice. For my own part, I could never, will- 
 ingly, inhabit it again.' 
 
 As the pitiless sun shone upon Hero, sparing 
 no single line set by sorrow and sickness in her 
 face, Fitz became painfully aware of the change
 
 BIANCA. 253 
 
 that grief and loss had wrought in this fair 
 woman. Her black dress, made of some heavy- 
 thick material resembling a dense sort of crape, 
 fell in large straight folds to her feet. Her 
 beautiful white hands, so like her mother's, 
 whose clasp, strong and firm, seemed ordinarily 
 expressive of help and comfort, now lay limp 
 and unoccupied on her lap. She wore no 
 beads, bracelets, or trimmings ; no earrings, 
 crosses, or lockets ; not because she thought 
 it wrong to do so, but because to put on this 
 terrible black gown seemed at present as much 
 as she could endure, as much as it was neces- 
 sary she should accomplish. A narrow \Vhite 
 line at the throat and wrists relieved the uni- 
 versal gloom of her attire, which was, Fitz 
 thought, with the true mascuhne abhorrence of 
 ' mourning,' almost conventual in its uncom- 
 promising simplicity. 
 
 For the first time in his life Fitz realised 
 that Hero — still beautiful as she was — had 
 passed beyond her youth, and it was with 
 almost a passion of pity that he understood all 
 the barrenness of her past, and all the solitude 
 of her future. 
 
 He knew that a thousand reminiscences, 
 the experiences of daily life, lived together.
 
 254 ^UT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 would never be referred to by her again ; that 
 in all the dreary outlook there must be sub- 
 jects on which Hero's lips would be for ever 
 sealed ; facts as to which she must henceforth 
 be entirely dumb. He, a young man, strong 
 in the hopes of an ardent youth, and unsulhed 
 Manhood, for whom the fair possibilities of life 
 yet lay in the untried future, was by a gene- 
 rous intuition able to understand the long 
 loneliness of this mourninoj woman. Still in 
 her prime, yet standing on the brink of an 
 eternal silence, through which, at best, only 
 vague, sad voices of the past could now and 
 again re-echo, in melancholy cadence, startling 
 the caves of memory. 
 
 ' Since you would not come to luncheon 
 with us,' Fitz said, breaking, as it were, with an 
 effort through his chain of thought, 'I wrote 
 saying I would come to you. And,' he added, 
 after a pause, 'it was about Bianca that I 
 wanted to speak to you.' 
 
 If he expected Hero to be roused by his 
 abrupt address he was evidently mistaken. It 
 was so natural that he should speak to the 
 mother of the child, so entirely what she ex- 
 pected. 
 ■'Yes?'
 
 BIANCA. 255 
 
 ' There are things, Hero, that one cannot 
 speak of, and for that reason I don't speak of 
 them, but I think you ^vill understand me all 
 the same ? ' 
 
 He paused a moment, wondering whether 
 she would understand the drift of his vague 
 allusions ; and again Hero moved her head in 
 acquiescence. 
 
 ' So that you know I am speaking 
 
 1 gainst my own interests if I ask when Bianca 
 IS to come home ? ' 
 
 The colour flushed up into her pale cheeks 
 as Hero answered by another question. 
 
 ' You come from your mother ? ' 
 
 ' Not at all. Neither my mother nor Bianca 
 enow of my coming.' 
 
 The brief flash of emotion, the quick sensi- 
 iveness of a mother who sees her child an un- 
 alued, slighted, perhaps unwelcome guest, died 
 ut, and, almost as listlessly as before, Hero 
 epeated her monosyllabic query. 
 
 'Yes?' 
 
 ' And so you must take what I say to you 
 X no more than it is worth. It means exactly 
 iiat, and nothing more.' 
 
 ' I understand.' 
 
 ' When is Bianca to come home ? '
 
 2 56 AUT C.'ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Neithf^r your mother nor Bianca have sent 
 you, you say ? Allow, Fitz, that your question 
 is a little odd ; a little startling. Do you want 
 to get rid of Bianca ? ' 
 
 'As one wants to get rid of the sunshine 
 and the flowers ! ' 
 
 ' Use some other simile,' Hero answered, 
 lookino^ round the hm bare room. Ah ! how 
 willingly would she have banished the sunshine ! 
 How long it would be before she could again 
 bear the sight of flowers ! 
 
 ' No ; the simile is good enough. Forgive 
 me, Hero ; it is you who are out of harmony, 
 out of tune with nature.' 
 
 ' Nature is cruel ! ' 
 
 ' Granted. But you are not answering m}^ 
 question. When is Bianca to come home ? ' 
 
 ' This is no place for her.' 
 
 ' Not by her mother's side ? Are you just, 
 Hero ? / want to be so ; but, frankly, to me 
 you seem neither just nor kind.' 
 
 'Men judge in that way. You only see 
 what you see.' 
 
 ' When is Bianca to come home ? ' 
 
 ' If my aunt still likes to have her, it is 
 better she should stay away. You say I am 
 not just ; but to my thinking it would be
 
 BIAXCA 257 
 
 utterly unjust to bring a bright young nature 
 into this gloom, this blank, this solitude, and 
 expect sympathy of it.' 
 
 ' Make the gloom and solitude less.' 
 ' You ask too much of me ! ' Hero cried, 
 with a passionate outburst of resentful weeping. 
 ' You ask a sacrifice for which there is no need ! 
 I am weary of this eternal strangling of self, 
 the good as well as the bad, the true as well as 
 false ! I am weary of this incessant sacrifice 
 to youth ! Let us sacrifice to the old at last, 
 at length, by way of a change ! Now that it 
 can no longer do them any good, when they 
 have passed beyond the assurance, and our 
 love can comfort them no more, and our devo- 
 tion comes, like everything else in this world — 
 too late ! The youog have all their lives be- 
 fore them. Why should we implant and foster 
 in them the ruthless selfishness which is the 
 shame and the sin and the crime of this gene- 
 ration? We give them no chance of beino- 
 modest, reverent, and generous. When ^ve — 
 when I and my generation — were young, we 
 were taught to consider our elders, to respect 
 tJieir wishes, to await their pleasure ; whilst 
 now, if trouble comes to parents, it must be 
 hidden from the sons and daughters ; if money 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 cares, whomsoever may want, the young people 
 must not go without ; if illness — keep the sick- 
 room door tightly closed ; if death — tears and 
 grief are depressing ! Unclose the shutters, 
 take a trip to the sea-side, and be sure your 
 mourning is becomingly made ! No, Fitz ! I 
 am of my generation, you of yours. Do you 
 think if my mother had lost me^ She would 
 have displayed all the admirable philosophy 
 you advocate ? I hate myself for my hardness 
 as I speak (how differently she would have 
 spoken, dear mother !), but it is the impatient 
 selfishness of this generation that makes me 
 bitter. Do you think my mother's Hfe was 
 such a happy one, so well filled with what a 
 woman holds dearest, that I can dismiss it 
 with that decent and complacent grief that is 
 but a mockery of real woe, as a thing fitly 
 fulfilled, appropriately concluded ? Ah ! how 
 different it would have been had the case been 
 reversed ! ' And Hero's sobs, coming thick and 
 threefold, checked the grievous flow of words. 
 
 ' Bianca wants to come to you. She suffers 
 from being kept away. She writes to you, and 
 doubtless she says more than I can ; but I 
 thought it might comfort you to know that she 
 is longing to be with you.'
 
 BIANCA. 259 
 
 'I believe it.' 
 
 ' Tlien why not let her come ? Why punish 
 yourself and her ? ' 
 
 But Hero was on her guard. Nothing 
 should wTing from her the confession that she 
 felt herself unable longer to suffice to her 
 child ; that the girl's heart had gone after 
 *- strange gods,' and tliat the impatience she 
 had already shown of the day of small things, 
 would run the risk of being dangerously de- 
 veloped by the enforced dulness of this house 
 of sorrow. To abate the gloom in order to 
 suit the caprices of a spoiled child seemed to 
 Hero, in the first bitterness of her berccivement, 
 little short of sacrilege, and in her present 
 mood, every word of her own and Bianca's 
 that had not been syllabled by love, rose up 
 and reproached her as an act of cruel ingra- 
 titude and lovelessness, towards her dear, dead 
 mother. 
 
 It was unfortunate that the latest inter- 
 course between her mother and her child had 
 left a painful impression on Hero's mind. She 
 had, secretly, resented what she thought the 
 suspicions of age in Mrs. Owen's reference 
 to Bianca's correspondence and understanding 
 with the KerezofFs ; at the same tmie that she 
 s 2
 
 26o AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 had felt more bitterly than she would confess, 
 the pain of being supplanted by strangers in 
 her child's heart. 
 
 Juster and more far-sighted, Mrs. Owen had 
 striven to show her that, if she had erred in 
 giving Bianca too much liberty, she would err 
 yet more in resenting the foreign influence that 
 had crept in, owing to her own want of vigi- 
 lance. But Hero had taken the thing from 
 another side. Not resentment, but utter de- 
 pression and a dispirited resignation, marked 
 the attitude of her mind. Bianca's secret 
 correspondence had supermduced in her mother 
 a sense of profound discouragement, against 
 which, for the present, she vainly struggled. 
 
 ' What ! am I to watch and suspect my own 
 child ? ' she had cried in a paroxysm of despair. 
 ' Why, it is the way to make her deceitful ! 
 What should I have been, mother, if you had 
 watched and suspected me ? ' 
 
 ' Italian, and Irish, and French blood does 
 not flow in Bianca's veins for nothing ; she was 
 bound by the accidents of birth to be some- 
 thing of a conspirator.' 
 
 ' No ! I could not do it ! I would not, if I 
 could ! Would that secure my child's love to 
 me? mother! you cannot mean it.'
 
 BIANCA. 261 
 
 ' I do mean it. You will have to do it, 
 Hero. You must do it. It is a duty like 
 another. You are her guardian. Is it not 
 expecting too much, to expect a child of her 
 age to guide herself ? You must help her ; 
 anticipate her difficulties ; point out the danger 
 of these follies ; help her against herself, in 
 spite of herself.' 
 
 ' And lose her love by letting her see that 
 I suspect her P ' 
 
 ' You think too much about her love. A 
 child has to love its mother. It will certainly 
 not love her the less because she exacts what 
 is just and right. It will respect her ; and 
 respect is the basis of all right kind of lovt. 
 Leave the love to take care of itself. Com- 
 mand yom child as seldom as possible, but the 
 command once issued, insist upon its being 
 obeyed.' 
 
 Long before Mrs. Owen's death all personal 
 annoyance at the discovery she had involun- 
 tarily made at Brussels had faded from her 
 own gentle forgiving mind. • Our little sun- 
 shine,' she continually called Bianca ; ' our httle 
 white lady ; ' ' our Blanchejieiu\ and a dozen 
 such endearing names ; but she, too, thought 
 change would do the girl good, and was glad to
 
 262 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 know her in the fresh country au% surrounded 
 b}^ safe friends and simple social pleasures. 
 When Fitz brought the bracelet for Hero to 
 see, Leonie looked at it for a long time, 
 thoughtfully turning the motto round and 
 round, with a smile in her wise, kind eyes. 
 
 ' Our winter-rose will like this ; ' and, after 
 a pause: ' Out petite reine hlaiiche has clready 
 a sovereignty of her own, with knights, and 
 squires, and vassals at her feet. They are but 
 boy and girl, but I am much mistaken if Bianca 
 has not the choice of reigning at Fairholt ; 
 but — old matchmaker that I am — I should be 
 happier to see her put her little hand into 
 Fitz's big honest one. She needs a guiding- 
 influence, and such a brave and upright soul 
 commands respect, and, with women, respect, 
 in the long run, almost certainly insures love.' 
 
 Hero, who at Sprudelheim had been ner- 
 vously anxious lest Fitz's kindly yet keen eyes 
 sliould be scanning her child too judicially, and 
 who, more than once, had detected grave dis- 
 approval in his glance, could not complacently 
 follow her mother along this prospective joath. 
 To her mind, Avater and fire could as soon 
 commingle as two such opposite natures as 
 Bianca's and her cousin's. Maternal vanity
 
 BIANCA. 263 
 
 may have lurked in secret corners, unsuspected 
 by herself, and have unconsciously influenced 
 her ; for whatever Fitz might take upon him- 
 self to blame in Bianca, was an indirect con- 
 demnation of Hero herself. And again, she 
 shrank from the Idea of any man morally dis- 
 secting her child, as she would have resented 
 his appraising her young, fresh beauty. It 
 seemed an intrusion. Let her mother have 
 care of her, body and soul, whilst both were 
 yet tender. A man's rougher estimate, and 
 coarser judgment, should not profane the 
 secrets of the girl's inner nature, by prying 
 scrutiny. 
 
 When that dread blow, so long expected, 
 and yet so unexpected at last, fell upon the 
 Owen household, it was Fitz who at Hero's 
 request went to fetch the child home. He had 
 to break the terrible news to her, and to tele- 
 graph to the poor distracted mother that her 
 child's panic terror of the Dread Presence made 
 it impossible to bring her to the house where 
 Death reigned supreme. 
 
 Mrs. Fitzgerald jumped at the opportunity 
 thus offered her of semi-reconciliation with the 
 Owen family, and Hero, fearful lest Bianca's 
 impressionable natui-e should suffer by any
 
 264 ^UT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 violence done to its instinctive horror and fear 
 of death, acquiesced in the plan. 
 
 She did not wish to compel the child to 
 return home. She asked for time to give her- 
 self up to her own absorbing grief. Effort, she 
 knew, would be demanded of her later on, but 
 for the present she gave way utterly, and sor- 
 row held its undivided sway. 
 
 As Fitz and the terror- stricken girl 
 journeyed up to town, she shrank against her 
 cousin, cowering at his side for the mere com- 
 fort of human contact. She would have done 
 the same to anyone. To Fitz, however, that 
 journey had seemed like a dream, half pain, 
 half-pleasure. To feel his manhood sheltering 
 and protecting the frail young creature ; to put 
 his arm round her trembling form and draw 
 her to him, and pillow her pale face upon his 
 breast, stirred all that was tender and manly in 
 his honest heart. The shadoAv of a great grief 
 was upon them both, chastening all his thoughts 
 (for Fitz had loved and reverenced his aunt) ; 
 and, thinking nothing of himself and everything 
 of Bianca, it sufficed him that he was helpful 
 and needful to her in this hour of helplessness 
 and need.
 
 BIAXCA. 265 
 
 A few words Mrs. Hudson had said to him 
 in private. 
 
 ' Bianca is a dear girl, but I think she is 
 changed, Mr. Fitzgerald. She has something 
 on her mind.' 
 
 Hudson, too, had his word. 
 
 ' I'm glad 5'ou've come, old fellow. You 
 know I was awful " spoons " upon her, and all 
 that ; but when a girl looks persistently over 
 the top of a fellow's head, pot-hat and all, you 
 may be sure he had better get himself out of 
 the way. It may come all right, but I don't 
 like those letters." 
 
 Honest Fitz said nothing against his junior's 
 philosophy, but secretly he found the letters a 
 stumbling-block of offence. Hudson spoke as 
 though there were no secret in the matter, yet 
 it seemed impossible to ask any questions about 
 Bianca's private correspondence, or to discuss 
 her doings with strangers. He shook hands 
 warmly with mother and son, and jumped into 
 the carriage after his weeping charge. 
 
 ' I think,' Fitz said, returning to his pro- 
 position, for Hero had not spoken again, ' that 
 if you do not need Bianca, Bianca needs you.' 
 
 ' To-day, perhaps. But to-morrow she 
 •would feel all the crushino- sadness of our lives.
 
 266 AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL 
 
 her heart would rebel against the monotony, 
 and she would weary of her home and her 
 own people.' 
 
 ' Surely you are unjust. But if so — still she 
 is better, safer, with you than elsewhere.' 
 
 ' Safer ? ' repeated Hero, her attention 
 arrested at last. ' Is she not safe with your 
 mother — with you .^ ' 
 
 ' In one sense, yes — in another, no.' 
 
 The little maid from Fairholt, pleasure 
 beaming all over her fresh country face, was 
 coming across the room with a letter on a silver 
 tray. The paper and the metal made a bright 
 spot against her black gown. ' A letter from 
 Mrs. Hudson, ma'am. It has the Midhurst 
 post-mark,' said the little maid's country voice, 
 ignorant of London codes and conduct, and 
 proud of her own discernment. 
 
 Hero took the letter from the tray. ' That 
 will do, Hannah. If there is any message from 
 your people, or anything about your home, I 
 will tell you afterwards.' Then looking atFitz, 
 ' You will excuse me ? ' she said, and Fitz drew 
 a little aside, taking a book from the table, 
 wdnlst Hero opened Mrs. Hudson's letter.
 
 26/ 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 'I FORGIVE YOU.' 
 
 There was silence in the room, 
 
 Fitz, his back ahnost turned to Hero, was 
 deep in thought. The interruption came op- 
 portunely. It behoved him to be careful. In 
 these dehcate matters it is so much easier to 
 mar than to make. 
 
 He left Hero to the undisturbed considera- 
 tion of her correspondence. 
 
 Mrs. Hudson's kind, commonplace (and 
 yet not altogether simple) letter was quickly 
 scanned. The enclosure, which, being of some 
 size and bulk, with a large and very armorial 
 seal, had stuck in the envelope, gave Hero a 
 httle trouble to extract from its envelope. 
 She held it a minute in her hand — whilst the 
 painful colour flushed her cheeks and neck— 
 glanced at Fitz, and saw him apparently ab-
 
 268 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 sorbecl in his book ; hesitated again a second, 
 and then with more energy than so slight a 
 matter wonld have seemed to suggest, tore the 
 letter quickly open. 
 
 ' My dear Child^ — I forgive you. All the 
 rest^ beyond heartfelt thanks^ is, as your own 
 Hamlet says, " Silence.'" ' 
 
 That was all. A matter of a dozen words 
 or so. Xo signature. Ah ! too hasty suspicion ; 
 it was a mistake. The letter, addressed to 
 someone else, had been shuffled by the good, 
 fussy old lady into the wrong envelope. But 
 no ! There was the direction, painfully plain, 
 in the little laboiu^ed, niggling, foreign hand- 
 writing : ' A la Signorina Bianca Martello.^ 
 aux soins de Monsieur Hudson, a Fairholt., pres 
 de Midhurst, Sussex., Angleterre.'' 
 
 'My dear Child: Whose dear child? 
 Not hers, not Hero's, surely not? Surely yes! 
 ' The Signorina Bianca Martello: The letters 
 which, erewhile, looked black, now seemed 
 written in fire. They burned into Hero's sight, 
 they seemed printed in scorching charactei's 
 upon her brain. 
 
 What gulf was this that had suddenly 
 opened beneath her feet*-^ Who dared to 
 share her right in Bianca, and address her as
 
 '/ FORGIVE YOU: 269 
 
 ' My dear Child ? ' Why, but now, a moment 
 since, Fitz was here, talking of the child ; of 
 ' la ^petite reine blanche,' of lier grandmother's 
 lovin£^ vocabulary, or — was it years ago ? A 
 time that had no name, no boundaries, and no 
 limit? No to-day or j' esterday ? A dream- 
 land of phantasmagoric slumbers ? 
 
 ' I forgive you.' 
 
 'Forgive her — What?' asked the agonised, 
 ignorant, exasperated, outraged mother. Wlio 
 — now that the only one whose rights she had 
 recognised as equal to her own, had ceased 
 to exercise them- -who dared, and by what 
 authority, thus to assume the sacred power of 
 parental absolution, and, with comprehensive 
 brevity, to declare that her sins — hers, Bianca's 
 — were remitted to her? A mist clouded 
 Hero's brain as she sat in silent anguish, her 
 pulses beating thick in her throat and at her 
 temples. 
 
 She glanced at Fitz, who appeared to be 
 absorbed in a book. 
 
 ' And all the rest,' so the mysterious corre- 
 spondent declared, was ' silence ! ' 
 
 Was it possible? Could such things be? 
 And with a moan of piteous anguish, an 
 inarticulate cry of pain, like a dumb, stricken
 
 270 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 creature in distress, Hero — reserve, pride, reti- 
 cence broken down — fell forward against the 
 arm of the sofa, conscious only of a vast de- 
 spair. 
 
 Startled by the strangeness of her cry, Fitz 
 sprang towards her. She had not fainted. 
 Only, in her dumb anguish, in her sense of 
 baffled misery, the need of human sympathy 
 and human contact overcame all lesser needs, 
 and, with groping hands, she instinctively felt 
 for support from the very person whose coun- 
 sels she had but now rejected. 
 
 Then, the first speechless suffering having 
 found outlet in a flood of tears, much to Fitz's 
 relief, she unreservedly appealed to him for 
 sympathy and counsel in her sorrow. All 
 pride and reticence were forgotten ; all petty 
 considerations cast to the winds, and in her 
 frantic desire for aid and advice she told him 
 all she knew\ 
 
 But, after all, what did it amount to ? To 
 nothing. So she declared, not willing to deceive 
 herself, or be yet further deceived. 
 
 Fitz, himself as pale as trouble could make 
 a man, felt that before all things, before any 
 consideration of his own pain, it behoved him 
 to give her all the comfort his manhood could
 
 '/ FORGIVE you: 271 
 
 convey to her appealing womanhood in that 
 hour of distress. 
 
 ' Did you — after what took place about tlie 
 lettei' and the charm — did you forbid Bianca to 
 write to these people any more ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' No. I thought the lesson would have 
 been enough for her.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' 
 
 ' And I was afraid to command lest slie 
 should disobey. I did not want to make it 
 more difficult for her.' 
 
 ' Perhaps you would have made it easier 
 for her. To plead a mother's commands as 
 reason and excuse, explains everything where 
 a young girl is concerned. Don't you see that 
 she had no need to apologise for you ? In- 
 deed, such apologies would be unbecoming 
 and out of place in a child on behalf of her 
 mother.' 
 
 ' She had had such a lesson ! I preferred 
 leaving it to her ow^n sense of right. It would 
 have been ungracious to extort what she might 
 offer willingly. I did not want to rob her act 
 of its generosity — its grace.' 
 
 ' And the ornament — the charm ? ' 
 
 ' She refused point blank to give it up. 
 What could I do? I thought it seemed hke
 
 272 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 breaking a butterfly on the wheel to oppose 
 a childish fancy of the sort with any severity. 
 Girls have a thousand fancies and passing 
 manias which it is best not to notice.' 
 
 ' This has not proved to be of the trifling 
 order.' 
 
 ' Ah ! I know how much I must seem to 
 blame. But consider, Fitz, what little differ- 
 ence there is in our ages. We were more like 
 two sisters than mother and daughter ; and I 
 thought the law of love the best.' 
 
 ' It is possible to think too much of love,' 
 Pitz said, steeling himself, in his young severity, 
 against her pleadings ad misericordiam. 
 
 To Hero, even in her hour of need and 
 utter failure, this seemed ' rank blasphemy.' 
 
 ' Oh, surely not ! ' she said in protest. ' That 
 I have been wrong, utterly wrong and mistaken, 
 seeing the result, how can I deny? But the 
 law of love is best, however badly I may have 
 succeeded in my attempt to prove its power.' 
 
 Her humility touched Fitz to the quick. 
 ' I am sure you meant only the best, always,' 
 he said, encouragingly ; ' but, you see, you put 
 a sore burthen on such young shoulders.' 
 
 ' Fitz ! how good of you ! ' Hero ex- 
 claimed with a sort of divination. Intuition
 
 '/ FORGIVE vol/: 273 
 
 told her that lie was excusing Bianca at some 
 cost to himself. In sooth he was bitterly ' dis- 
 illusioned.' Here was another Eichmond in the 
 field, and in a likeness so httle anticipated by 
 him that the shock was all the greater. 
 
 Dark sayings of Eeggie's, and dim hints of 
 kind, simple Mrs. Hudson's, rose up in Fitz's 
 mind. But he felt the need of time to sift 
 the whole matter. He was only struggling 
 through night to light. ' / doiit like those 
 letters,' Eeggie Hudson had said in his boyish 
 way. And Ficz had not pursued the subject, 
 feelmg as though to do so would be indelicate, 
 ungenerous ; not wise, nor kind. 
 
 ' She has something on her mind,' the good, 
 motherly, simple soul had declared, as she de- 
 livered her young guest into Fitz's keeping. 
 
 And now this trouble had broken like a 
 storm over their heads, and found both Hero 
 and her cousin utterly unprepared to deal 
 with it. 
 
 Fitz, arguing against his own interests, had 
 come that very afternoon to urge upon Hero 
 the wisdom of recalling her child ; his fine in- 
 stinct hintmg at some undefined estrangement, 
 since the great grief which had overwhelmed 
 them both, instead of throwing these two into 
 
 VOL. 1. T
 
 274 -^^^ CjESAR AUT nihil. 
 
 one another's arms, had swept them silently 
 asunder. To hhn it seemed alike sad and 
 cruel, that Hero should sit alone evening after 
 evening, beside her desolate hearth, whilst, 
 within a circumscribed radius, iier child was 
 unconsciously growing accustomed to the sepa- 
 ration, and sinking into a kind of life that Fitz 
 felt was not good for a girl of her peculiar dis- 
 position. 
 
 He had come there to effect a purpose, and' 
 if, in furtherance of his amiable project, he 
 somewhat exaggerated Bianca's desire to be 
 once more wdth her mother, he did so in the 
 hope that all the secret fibres of maternity 
 would be stirred, and that Hero, in recalling 
 her child, would alike find the proper outlet 
 for her pent-up misery, and save the girl from 
 what, in the long run, not even filial piety 
 could call a wholesome influence. 
 
 But now? He felt that he could not be 
 too thankful some bhnd prophetic instinct of 
 caution had sealed his lips, at home, as to 
 to-day's intended visit ; that he could meet his 
 mother and Bianca at dinner and make no sign. 
 
 To sugo-est that Bianca should return was 
 now out of the question. They must wait and 
 see what best could be done.
 
 '/ FORGIVE you: 275 
 
 * Shall you send Bianca tliat letter ? ' lie 
 asked. 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 ^ Shall you write to lier on the subject ? ' 
 
 ' No. Fitz, how cau I ? ' 
 
 ' Well, perhaps not.' 
 
 ' Tell me what I am to do.' 
 
 ' AVe must wait and see. I must think.' 
 
 ' You will come to me again to-morrow 
 morning early, or I shall go mad. liemember, 
 I am all alone ! ' 
 
 ' I do remember it,' he answered, taking 
 her hand. 
 
 ' And — Fitz — you will not say anything to 
 — to anybody ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not.' 
 
 ' Not to your mother ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Nor to her — to Bianca. It midit do 
 endless mischief- Nor — if you should see him 
 — nor to Graham ? ' 
 
 ' Nor to Graham. Though. — mind — he is 
 so wise and kind, so just and generous, you 
 could have no better counsellor at such a 
 juntiture.' 
 
 ' Oh, no, no ! ' Hero exclaimed. 
 
 This man, who ought to have been her 
 
 T 2
 
 276 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 child's next friend, was the last being in the 
 world to whom she could reveal any flaw in 
 a character which she fondly wished him to 
 beheve perfect. 
 
 Graham, who knew that no such thing as 
 perfection existed, would probably have liked 
 Bianca none the less for her ' touch of earth ; ' 
 but Fitz understood and appreciated the 
 mother's jealousy on this point. 
 
 ' I may speak to Bianca herself, should oc- 
 casion offer, openly on the subject? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Of your's and of her grandmother s re- 
 monstrances, and of this letter enclosed by 
 Mrs. Hudson ? ' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Meanwhile, how will you account to her 
 for not writing ? For I apprehend you will 
 not be able to do so, as though nothing had 
 occurred, and that you will, under the circum- 
 stances, prefer silence to what you may think 
 insincerity.' 
 
 * I will take my father to Brighton or 
 Eichmond for a few days' change, and my 
 notes will be mere routine notes of excuse. 
 That will be the best.' 
 
 ' Bad's the best.'
 
 / FORGIVE YOU? 277 
 
 ' Fitz ! if you only knew 
 
 ' But you must not give in. All will come 
 
 right. Believe me. I promise you. Good- 
 
 bye.' 
 
 ' Good-bye. God bless you, Fitz ! ' 
 
 ' God bless you ! And be of good cheer.' 
 
 And Fitz stooped and kissed his cousin's cold 
 
 hand.
 
 278 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 ' A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS, DIVINELY TALL 
 AND MOST DIVINELY FAIR.' 
 
 There is a certain type of beauty which cannot 
 be disguised. It is so striking, so exquisite, so 
 accomphshed, that neither rags nor poverty, 
 neither chmate nor costume, can modify its 
 intrinsic perfection, neither can age wither nor 
 custom stale its infinite variety. 
 
 Perhaps this was the reason that the 
 Countess Helena Perowska attempted no sort 
 of disguise in her visits to the garret of the 
 Street of Sainted Joseph. 
 
 What peasant costume could liave hidden 
 the harmonious symmetry of her stately pre- 
 sence ? How could the clear outline of her 
 delicately- tinted face have been accepted as 
 that of a daughter of toil? Those slender 
 hands, with their rosy palms and tapering 
 fingers, would have alone betrayed her ; and
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 279 
 
 therefore she judged wisely in making no at- 
 tempt to obscure her radiant lovehness. 
 
 She presented the rare anomaly of a re- 
 ligious bigot and a Nihilist combined ; and, as 
 an uncommon variety of the species, claims a 
 few special words as to her past, and as to the 
 reason of her presence in the reputed chap- 
 man's garret. 
 
 Brought up in the rigid forms of the 
 strictest Greek orthodoxy, the daughter of a 
 House that claimed for itself the prestige of 
 having reigned imperially in legendary times, 
 and of having, historically, distinguished itself 
 by an unswerving fidelity ' to the reigning 
 dynasty,' one of a large household of daughters, 
 the beautiful Helena had made a stir, even in 
 a family where beauty was a prerogative of 
 birthrioiit. Her education had been somethinor 
 other, and better, than the usual French polish, 
 the thin lacquer and veneer of superficial ac- 
 comphshments and shallow smatterings taught 
 in the fashionable institutions of St. Peters- 
 burg. She had travelled, as a young girl, 
 with her parents in Europe ; she had had an 
 excellent and sensible English governess ; and 
 her greatest friend was a young Englishwoman 
 married to a German official at the Eussian
 
 28o AUT CAESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Court. She was romantic, proud, impulsive, 
 and yet cold. She was so dazzliagly fair, so 
 beautiful and graceful, so soft and serene, that 
 to have the privilege of gazing upon her, in the 
 bloom of her young loveliness, as at some work 
 of art standing in its dedicated shrine, seemed, 
 to the modest spectator, no despicable advan- 
 tas^e. 
 
 From travel and from intercourse, from 
 reading and conversation, she had unconsciously 
 imbibed large and liberal ideas. Naturally in- 
 clined to enthusiasm, she flung herself with 
 ardour into the only enthusiasm at that time 
 possible to her. Eeligion with her was ecstasy ; 
 loyalty a passion ; and she worshipped the 
 Sovereign with a romantic devotion such as 
 caused the faithful followers and adherents of 
 our own royal and reckless Stuarts to even- 
 tually ruin themselves in a thankless cause. 
 
 Not that there was in her case any prospect 
 of contingent ruin implied by the fact of her 
 devotion to Imperial Csesar. To her it almost 
 seemed as if the divinity ' that doth hedge 
 about a king ' sat visibly upon his lofty brow, 
 and shone out in the soul-piercing yet melan- 
 choly eyes. 
 
 The lustrous liquid gaze that rested so flat-
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 281 
 
 tcringly, so complacently, and yet so mourn- 
 fully upon her own fair young face, could not 
 but touch her profoundly. She would, in the 
 innocent enthusiasm of her girlish devotion, 
 have gladly laid her head upon the block at 
 His command, nor thought His approval dearly 
 won by the sacrifice. 
 
 His isolation upon an unapproachable pin- 
 nacle, as it were, of solitary glory, seemed to 
 her the most pathetic of lonehnesses. Who 
 could dare to be his friend ? Who might not 
 venture to be his enemy ? And what was life 
 worth, lived for the World, for the Public, for 
 his subjects ; lived for the army, the church, 
 the family, the throne, but not lived for Him- 
 self? 
 
 Her exquisite and extraordinary beauty 
 caused a flutter in Court circles when, at 
 eighteen years of age, she was presented to the 
 Empress Dowager, to the reigning Empress, 
 and all the Imperial family. Eegulation coiu^t- 
 mourning was just at the time of her presenta- 
 tion the order of the day, and a murmur of 
 admiration went round as the lovely debutante 
 made her curtsey. Her golden-brown hair 
 was wreathed with Eussian violets, her white 
 crape dress caught up with bunches of the
 
 282 AUT CyESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 same flower, and tiny white plumelets ; her 
 exquisite arms and neck rivallmg in uniformity 
 and purity of tint the priceless pearls she wore. 
 Modest, gentle, and dignified, there was at 
 once a softness and vividness, a freshness and 
 fragrance about her that words cannot de- 
 scribe. 
 
 At the end of three years the lovely 
 Helena, then more lovely than ever, was told 
 that her betrothal and marriage to Count 
 Perowsky must now be celebrated. She knew 
 but little of Perowsky, and what she knew she 
 did not like. A fast young nobleman of the 
 Calmuck-Tartar type, insincere countenance, 
 and oblique, shifty eyes ; a yoinig man of tan- 
 dems, bull- dogs, betting and boxing ; of mon-. 
 ster cigars, deep potations, questionable tastes 
 and doubtful manners ; dress and address alike 
 supposed to be English — Anglomania repre- 
 senting the latest fashionable craze in the 
 circles he chiefly frequented. 
 
 She asked her mother if some other ar- 
 rangement could not be made ? She scarcely 
 expected a favourable answer. The question 
 was hardly worth asking. She did not dream 
 of choosing for herself; she did not ask for 
 love. That, she supposed, like so many other
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 283 
 
 bright and beautiful thiugs — legends and lives 
 of the saints, miracles and marvels — existed 
 only in books, as a thing of the imagination ; 
 but she thought perhaps someone more suitable 
 could be found — someone who swore less, 
 reeked less of wine, betted and wagered less, 
 was less disposed to imitate the swagger of 
 loud Americans or underbred Englishmen, and 
 spent less money in a less questionable manner. 
 But she was told it ' suited.' 
 She was told that a certain august Person- 
 age desired it ; that young Perowsky, the 
 chosen companion of one of the younger arch- 
 dukes, was a protege of the Emperor's, who 
 looked upon his escapades as mere ebullitions 
 of youthful folly, and would gladly see tlie 
 volatile young nobleman settled, ranged, 'pose^ 
 by a suitable marriage, in order that He might, 
 thereafter, testify His good-will to the young 
 man in a substantial form. 
 
 Traditions of obedience led Helena, both as 
 a daughter and as a subject, to obey. The 
 Imperial family, to its remotest archducal 
 branches, each after its kind, sent her magnili- 
 cent presents. Society feted her, and the Czar 
 signified His intention of honouring the occa- 
 sion of her marriage by His presence.
 
 284 AUT C.^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 Anyone wlio has lived at even the smallest 
 of Courts, Avill readily understand that the 
 young couple were regarded with envious eyes, 
 and that for the bride-elect there was no possi- 
 bility of escape. 
 
 The atmosphere of Courts is fatal to indi- 
 vidual independence. The tone which prevails 
 is necessarily one of extreme devotion ; plain- 
 speaking is impossible, unless by special invita- 
 tion ; and even then it is a perilous experiment. 
 The frankest and least servile soul, breathing 
 the general atmosphere of scrupulous submis- 
 sion, inhales something of the polite poison, 
 and insensibly the character becomes more or 
 less invertebrate. He who, in such an atmo- 
 sphere, seeks to save something of his indi- 
 viduahty and independence, is looked upon as 
 an uncivilised ruffian ; averted eyes, cold 
 shoulders, curt replies, tell him of his mistake,, 
 and mark the disapproval wdiich politeness re- 
 frains from pronouncing. 
 
 It is true that a feeling of pain, not un- 
 mingled with surprise, was for a time Helena's 
 predominant sentiment. The Sovereign had 
 looked on her with such kindly eyes, had said 
 so many gracious and flattering things to her, 
 that there seemed a contradiction in his impos-
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 285 
 
 ing so uncongenial a spouse upon her. But 
 the habit of unquestioning obedience prevailed, 
 and she made no sign. The ceremony took 
 place in her father's palace, and was followed 
 by a ball. The following day the Czar left 
 St. Petersburg for a week's hunting, and the 
 bride was taken by her bridegroom to. one ot 
 his numerous country estates. 
 
 At the wedding everyone had remarked 
 the extraordinary emotion wdth which the Czar 
 had followed the marriage ceremonial. By 
 some it w^as attributed to personal reminis- 
 cences ; others declared that young Count 
 Perowsky, being the ringleader of a band of 
 boon companions of one of the Lnperial Grand 
 Dukes, the Czar had promoted this alliance in 
 order to cut short His own son's scandalous 
 existence ; and it was asserted that He lived in 
 fear lest Perow^sky, in the folly and exultation 
 consequent on having secured the loveliest lady 
 at Court for his bride, might not betray the 
 history of past bachelor riotings and escapades, 
 or at the last moment implicate the Grand 
 Duke, his quondam boon companion, so as 
 to outrage even the very elastic proprieties of 
 the Im})erial Court. 
 
 Helena looked grave, pale, and composed.
 
 286 AUT C.-ESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 As innocent as, but less frolicsome tlian, the 
 typical ingenue^ she saw in the marriage a social 
 arrangement by which two families were en- 
 abled to represent and consolidate wealth and 
 power, community of interest, and unity of 
 aim, combined with undying fidehty to the 
 Sovereign. 
 
 She had no regrets on the score of love : 
 she did not like leaving her mother, and the 
 nursery and school-room, full of little sistei's. 
 Still, she did not doubt but that she could 
 pursue her ideals as uninterruptedly as ever ; 
 that she would be permitted in a dilettante way 
 to look after the peasants on her husband's 
 estates, a little a I Anglaise ; that she might 
 continue her studies in Enghsh history and 
 poetry, on the plan recommended by her late 
 governess. ' Are we far from Katchaloff ? ' she 
 asked her bridegroom, as they drove up to the 
 door of their country-house. 
 
 They had not been alone together until — 
 after the wedding ball and an early dejeuner — 
 she entered the travelling-carriage which was 
 to take them to their destination. 
 
 Before she had settled herself comfortably 
 in her furs, and coaxed her little pet dog to 
 sleep upon her knees, a loud snore told her
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 287 
 
 that her lord and master liad dispensed with 
 further ceremony. With a look of disgust in 
 his direction, she applied herself to the scenery. 
 Some vague idea that rough and boisterous 
 caresses might have been the unwelcome alter- 
 native, glanced across her mind, and made her 
 temporarily grateful for the unceremonious 
 somnolence of her life-companion. But, to do 
 him justice, Paul Perowsky had no such fami- 
 liar intentions. 
 
 Hitherto his attentions to the female sex 
 had been exclusively confined to the venal and 
 the vulgar. He did not know how to address 
 a lady, nor could he imagine how any man, 
 worthy the name, could be mean-spirited 
 enough to succumb to the airs of affected 
 fastidiousness, the assumptions and exactions of 
 fanciful women. 
 
 The stopping of the carriage, the barking 
 of dogs, the question, 'Are we far from Katcha- 
 loff ? ' roused the bridegroom from his four 
 hours' uninterrupted slumber. 
 
 ' Katchaloff ? What do you know, why 
 do you want to know, about Katchaloff.^' he 
 asked gruffly. 'We are at Semonow, now.' 
 
 ' I know what everyone knows ; that His 
 Imperial Majesty has a hunting lodge at
 
 288 , AUT CESAR AUT XIHIL. 
 
 Katchaloff, and that He went there from the 
 ball, for a week's shooting.' 
 
 ' Then you know more than I do.' 
 
 The vast, dreary, uninhabited building to 
 which, as -representing a home, the young 
 reprobate had brought his bride, was melan- 
 choly enough of aspect to depress anyone, even 
 though of the most cheerful temperament. 
 But there had been little choice in the matter. 
 Great possessions, titles, wealth and estates do 
 not in Eussia presuppose a ' castle,' or ' court,' 
 or ' lodge,' or ' manor house,' as they do m 
 England, and in a minor degree, in other Euro- 
 pean countries. 
 
 Count Perowsky was that young Eussian 
 nobleman whose words have often been quoted, 
 when — in reply to some remark as to the ex- 
 tent of his possessions — he replied that he knew 
 nothing about it, as they were managed by an 
 agent, adding : ' Pourtant on dit que fai de 
 superbes tenses du cote de Tomsk.'' 
 
 As it was, Helena's high courage and proud 
 self-command were nearly failing her under a 
 sickening sense of terror and loneliness. 
 
 The crowd of rough unkempt retainers in 
 the courtyard, the baying and barking of the 
 dogs — which not even the whip of the overseer
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 289 
 
 could quell — the monotonous melancholy of 
 the blank frontage, unbroken by one friendly 
 or familiar face, the unpainted window frames, 
 with here and there a broken pane of glass, the 
 shattered fragments still lying on the unswept 
 flagstones, between the crevices of which the 
 seeding grasses grew high and rank, the grey 
 decline of a cloudy day, and the remoteness 
 and loneliness of the place, rendered it a matter 
 of effort for Helena to smile graciously and try 
 to look pleased, when the wild horde pressed 
 about her, kissing her hands, her shoes, the 
 hem of her dress and of her travelling-cloak, 
 calling her ' Barina^' ' princess,' ' httle mother,' 
 ' saint,' ' little mistress.' 
 
 It is true that since the emancipation (at 
 which epoch a certain number of serfs were 
 chosen by the landed proprietors to fulfil house- 
 hold functions), the Dvorovie, or domestic ser- 
 vants, who received their liberty but were not 
 allotted portions of land, were not expected to 
 do more than salute the Barina respectfully, as 
 house-servants engaged by the year ; but this 
 was a special occasion, and the labourers on 
 the estates had joined the Dvorovie in wel 
 coming the bride and bridegroom. Helena 
 bore up bravely, smiling in response to the 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 uncouth reception, until, with a sudden move- 
 ment, her husband snatched a long-thonged 
 whip from the kennel-master's hands, lashing 
 the group immediately within thong's range 
 unmercifully. A dull howl of mingled rage 
 and pain, a menacing animal protest, as of 
 dumb brute indignation, struck a terrible note 
 of warning in Helena's breast. At that moment 
 she would have given all she possessed, to see 
 the wanton tyrant beside her receive retributive 
 castigation at the hands of one of his infuriated 
 victims. Her contempt for this uncalled-for act 
 of cruelty brought a frown to her fair brow ; 
 and, where passive resignation had hitherto 
 prevailed, an intense and active sense of re- 
 pulsion rose rebellious in her bosom. 
 
 ' Why do you do that ? ' she asked ; ' the 
 poor people mean no harm. Why beat them 
 like dogs ? ' 
 
 ' Dogs ? They haven't half the manner of 
 dogs. Curse them ! Dogs, if they are per- 
 mitted to live, are licked into form ! ' 
 
 Then she had walked away, not hiding, nor 
 attempting to hide all the scorn she felt for 
 this boorish lout of a nobleman. 
 
 A kind of major-domo, in black, with 
 elaborate manners and an unpleasant, impassive
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 291 
 
 face, led the way. The labyrinthine passages 
 gave Helena a prison-like feeling as they passed 
 many closed doors in their silent progress. 
 Presently the German iutendant threw open 
 a suite of rooms, luxuriously furnished. 
 
 ' These are the Countess's own apartments,' 
 he said, obsequiously. 'I hope the gracious 
 lady is satisfied ? ' 
 
 'Perfectly. Be so good as to tell the 
 people to send my maid to me when she 
 arrives. And stay ! Tell the Count I shall 
 rest until dinner-time.' 
 
 At dinner it appeared that the advent of 
 the maid might be indefinitely delayed. The 
 carriage containing her had broken down, and 
 there was a difficulty as to repairs. The 
 nearest smithy was a shed six miles away from 
 the scene of tlie accident. 
 
 Helena was now greatly discomposed. The 
 maid who, in childliood, had been her nurse, 
 was selected by her mother as a staid, trust- 
 worthy person, to form the last responsible link 
 with home ; to mitigate the young bride's sense 
 of loneliness, which the presence of a stranger 
 would painfully have completed. 
 
 ' What am I to do ? ' the Countess asked. 
 
 ' Katliarina can attend on you. Katharina's 
 u 2
 
 292 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 a jolly little girl, better than nine-tenths of 
 your fine-lady /^??img5 de chamhve! 
 
 To this Helena made no reply. But when 
 she withdrew, and the major-domo's daughter, 
 practised in the pert familiar airs, as it seemed, 
 of the souhrette of the comic opera, came up to 
 offer assistance, her mistress instinctively shrank 
 from the too free touch, and chartered im- 
 pertinence of her bold black-eyed attendant. 
 
 ' You can go,' she said. Then, a sudden 
 terror of loneliness overcoming her pride, she 
 added, quickly, ' that is, when you have shown 
 me the Count's apartments;' and, walking to 
 the window, she drew aside the heavy curtains. 
 
 ' The bachelor suite, madame, is in an 
 eastern wing, which you cannot see from here. 
 The new suite of rooms have been furnished, 
 and are on the other side of the ante-room 
 which leads into this suite ; but I heard our 
 lord the Count say the keys of both were to be 
 given to him, so ' — with a hateful grimace — 
 ' the gracious lady may have some difficulty in 
 knowing where to find him.' 
 
 As Helena felt, she scarcely knew whether, 
 in case of need, she would call her husband to 
 her aid, or apply to others for protection as 
 against him. She determined, at any rate, not
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 293 
 
 to go to bed ; and, turning up the lamp, she 
 drew an easy chair to the table, and sat down 
 to read. It might be that her own maid would 
 arrive before daylight, and, if so, her mistress 
 would be the first to welcome her. 
 
 By degrees the familiar signs and sounds oi 
 daily hfe abated. Doors ceased to slam ; hghts 
 were extinguislied ; profound stillness settled 
 down upon the house and its belongings. Once 
 it seemed to her that distant wlieels were ap- 
 proaching; but the soil was sandy, the turf, 
 over whch everyone recklessly drove, would 
 deaden sound, and imagination might be only 
 counterfeiting the arrival of the belated tra- 
 veller. 
 
 Her highly- strung nerves were startled in 
 the midst of the most intense silence, by the 
 sound of a distant door slamming. She laid 
 her book down upon her knees and waited. 
 
 The room, which had been lit with many 
 candles on her entrance, was now nearly dark. 
 A lamp burned on the table at her side ; she 
 had caused the candles to be extinguished in 
 her boudoir. Those in the bedroom beyond 
 were still alight ; and through the open door 
 she could see the pale blue satin bed-hangings, 
 and large cheval glass. On the wall opposite
 
 294 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 was an unframed mirror let into the panelling, 
 but the room, being in shadow, except under 
 the immediate circle of light caused by the 
 lamp-shade, the eye was not attracted to, nor 
 were objects clearly reflected in, its brilliant 
 surface. 
 
 Suddenly, as she sat looking and listening, 
 her hearing morbidly alive to every sound, it 
 seemed as if she heard her own name . pro- 
 nounced. Unwilling to be the fool of Fancy 
 she braced her nerves, by yet another effort, to 
 disbelief; she told herself it was mere imagi- 
 nation. But — just as she had succeeded in 
 persuading herself — she heard a voice whisper- 
 ing her name. 
 
 ' Helena ! ' 
 
 Deprecatingly, appealingly, remonstratively 
 — so it seemed to her — the familiar syllables 
 formed themselves into a melancholy ghostlike 
 echo. ' Helena ! ' 
 
 Who knew her name here ? In this vast, 
 lonely building, who could so call her ? 
 Was it some spirit- token ? or was it some 
 practical joke ? If so, the jesters should not 
 be gratified at her expense. She would betray 
 no fear. Yet, as she formed the resolution, 
 and was about to resume her interrupted
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 295 
 
 studies, again the voice, softly calling ' Helena ! ' 
 arrested her purpose. 
 
 She had been looking towards the door of 
 her bedroom, forgetting that, masked by a 
 tapestry 'portiere^ there was also a door behind 
 her. But now some confused movement 
 attracted her gaze to the looking-glass panel, 
 and she was startled out of her well-preserved 
 composure by finding herself face to face with 
 the Emperor. 
 
 Eising instinctively to her feet she advanced 
 to meet the apparition, but her progress was 
 checked by the looking-glass. Then she 
 understood that the person intruding was, in 
 reality, behind her, reflected only in the un- 
 framed mirror. 
 
 As she turned, pale with terror, to confront 
 her midnight visitor, the apparition dropped 
 the tapestry over the door, and the Sovereign, 
 in person, stood before her. 
 
 ' Helena ! ' he said again, this time in no 
 whisper, in accents which she knew only too 
 well ; ' Helena ! It is I, the Emperor ; have 
 no fear.' 
 
 ' Your Imperial Majesty here, at this hour, 
 unattended, unexpected ! What does it mean ? 
 What am I to think, Sire ? '
 
 296 AUT CJESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Think the truth.' 
 
 ' The truth, Sire, must mean danger, sudden 
 and secret. So much I can guess, if I cannot 
 guess the details. Our loyalty and fidelity 
 cause your Imperial Majesty to place gracious 
 confidence in us and to entrust your personal 
 safety to our keeping. So much I understand 
 as a matter of course. But ' 
 
 She spoke in the conventional tones of deep 
 and devoted respect. ' We,' ' our,' hard as the 
 words were to form, she forced her rebellious 
 tongue to utter them glibly. 
 
 ' " We," " our " ; is it really then come to 
 that ? Have you been able to identify yourself 
 with your husband so soon, so terribly soon ? ' 
 asked the Emperor in a tone of tender re- 
 proach. 
 
 ' I thought, Sire, I meant — that is, the well- 
 known devotion of my father's house, the 
 loyalty and love in which we have been 
 trained ' 
 
 And she stammered, confused, uneasy, and 
 dismayed at the novelty of the situation. Per- 
 sonal fear she had none. She stood, as a sub- 
 ject, awaiting the Sovereign's commands. 
 
 ' Loyalty and love,' repeated the Emperor, 
 in melancholy tones. ' Ah ! Helena, the last
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 297 
 
 word includes the first, with bhss added to- 
 duty.' Then, seeing her startled and astonished 
 aspect, he went on : ' And that is all ? You 
 have guessed nothing of my anguish ? Is it 
 possible you have never divined the agony of 
 love and despair with which I saw your young 
 beauty sacrificed, where I, the high-priest of 
 that sacrifice, assisted at it, and yet made no 
 sigh ? ' 
 
 Helena, deadly pale — suppressed emotion 
 almost suffocating her — moved a step aside. 
 
 ' Why, then, was the sacrifice made ? What 
 does it all mean ? ' she asked, her face scared 
 and anxious, her eyes dilated, her lips pale and 
 trembling. 
 
 ' It means that black and bitter tongues 
 were sullying your fair fame. It means that 
 miscreants, who do not dream, who have not 
 capacity, themselves, for suffering the slow tor- 
 ture of long-suppressed tenderness, and the 
 anguish of a solitary life, had discovered my 
 secret, and had ventured to sully with the 
 breath of scandal your maiden purity and 
 honour.' 
 
 The pale lovehness — which, despite his pre- 
 occupation, he could not help thinking, made 
 her in her white robes ready for the sacrifice —
 
 298 AUT C^SAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 like an Iphigenia, turned into a ghastly pallor, 
 but still she held up bravely. 
 
 'No one,' she said, proudly, ' could traduce 
 me so vilely. What have I ever done to 
 make an enemy ? It is a mistake, Sire ; it can- 
 not be.' 
 
 ' Alas ! my child, Avhat have you done ? 
 Are you not lovely? And is not the very 
 tribute paid to worth and beauty, more than 
 envious souls can bear .^ A glass breathed upon 
 is sullied. A rough touch destroys the peach's 
 bloom ; the purple of the grape will bear no 
 handling. No explanations, no denials, avail in 
 certain cases. The less said the better. There 
 is nothing for it but to act, and to act promptly. 
 Your parents saw it as I did — hence your hasty 
 marriage.' 
 
 ' My hateful, unnecessary, cruel, hopeless 
 marriage ! ' she cried, bitterly. 
 
 It was the first word of self she had spoken. 
 
 ' Yes ; but marriage gives you freedom ; 
 marriage will silence the slanderers.' 
 
 ' I could have gone into a convent.' 
 
 ' And have you, then, no pity for me ? ' cried 
 the Emperor. ' Do you know what it is, can 
 you understand what it means, to be lonely and 
 loveless, without a friend, without a single
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS? 299 
 
 aspiration of 3^oiir soul gratified or fulfilled ? 
 The sickening round of so-called pleasure, the 
 deadening round of endless duty, the eternal 
 self-same monotony of splendour and weariness ! 
 Why, since that first hour I saw you, Helena, 
 my whole soul has been wholly, solely, and 
 absolutely yours. I guarded my lips and eyes, 
 to speak and look no praise that spies might 
 turn to your disadvantage. I endured the sight 
 of you, surrounded by admirers and flatterers, 
 and I kept at a distance, and never breathed a 
 word of the torments of love and jealousy that 
 were distracting my soul and embittering my 
 existence. At the risk of your despising me, 
 Helena, I confess that there have been moments 
 when I have even thought of laying aside the 
 sceptre and taking off the crown, and thus 
 escaping all the intolerable burthens which 
 Oovernment binds upon the soul, of entreating 
 you to fly with me to some reftige, where we 
 might live a simple hfe of love and rational 
 occupation — a life of calm domestic bhss, a life 
 of sheltered privacy, untroubled with the cares 
 of State, untrammelled by the trappings of 
 office. But I dared not approach you ; your 
 spotless purity awed my unhappy passion into 
 silence, so that the very words of my wilder
 
 300 AUT CESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 moments died unframed and unspoken upon 
 my lips.' 
 
 ' Your Imperial Majesty might have spared 
 me this marriage.' 
 
 ' I could not.' 
 
 ' Or at least have given me a husband I 
 could respect.' 
 
 ' Eespect and — love. No, Helena ! that, too, 
 I could not. That was beyond me. No man, 
 loving a woman as I love you, could do that. 
 But, in truth, I have given you liberty, and the 
 trammels are merely nominal. You are hence- 
 forth absolutely your own mistress.' 
 
 ' And Count Perowsky ? ' 
 
 ' Count Perowsky, after misleading One who 
 as the son of his sovereign should have been 
 sacred to him, after ruining himself with 
 gambling and sycophants, with rioting and 
 wastefulness, has put himself beyond the pale, by 
 appropriating Government funds to a very large 
 amount. I intervened between him and ruin. 
 I hold his life in the palm of my hand. I have 
 but to put down my finger to crush him. But 
 I abstain for your sake, and for yours only. 
 He is reduced to the nonentity of absolute 
 slavery. He lives, but he only exists ; and he 
 knows on what tenure — as the tool that shall
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 301 
 
 be needful to the skilled workman. He dare 
 not move a hand or foot, he dare not say his 
 soul is his own. He is a mere Thing. Xor 
 will he dare to deviate, by so much as a hair's- 
 breadth, fi'om the contract that binds him. 
 The world thinks him only a foohsh young 
 fellow who has sown liis wild oats, but who 
 now will '^ range " himself on virtue's side, and 
 turn over a new leaf. You and he will remain 
 strangers. If he ever approaches you with 
 familiarity or insolence, if he dares to make 
 your will subservient to his own, you have but 
 to lift up your finger and he shall be removed 
 from your path. Nay, do not shrink. I do 
 not mean murder. There are a thousand ways. 
 Power has its privileges. The Governorship 
 of a distant province ; leave to travel ; the 
 honourable exile of a foreign Embassy, an 
 Appointment outre mer. Meanwhile, yester- 
 day's ceremony has silenced scandal. You are 
 established. You are absolute mistress of your- 
 self and your own actions. I witnessed the 
 ceremony without blanching. Helena I 
 what have I not endured for your sake ? 
 At least, say that the news I bring you is 
 welcome ! Say that you are glad to be 
 free ! '
 
 302 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 ' Aud M. de Perowsky ? ' Helena asked 
 
 again. 
 
 ' He knows that I am here, to see if he has 
 carried out his compact. He was informed of 
 the hour of my coming ; when I leave he will 
 know that you know all.' 
 
 ' And do you think, Sire, you wdio are so 
 anxious for my reputation, that it will conduce 
 to my honour if the story of to-night — the 
 history of my marriage — should creep into 
 certain circles and be circulated in society ? ' 
 
 ' It will not. It cannot. Precautions were 
 taken that your ow^n personal maid should be 
 detained e7i route. It was necessary that I 
 should see you, alone, untrammelled; that I 
 should explain the situation to you, and prove 
 to you, conclusively, that you had nothing to 
 fear. The people hereabouts are, for the most 
 part, little other than barbarians ; the few who 
 could tattle or gossip — dare not.' 
 
 ' I had no cause. Sire, to be afraid.' 
 
 ' But reassurance is better than doubt. You 
 might have been doubtful. The situation is at 
 least exceptional. I needed reassurance myself. 
 A man, with a heart in his body, would risk 
 ruin, disgrace, even death itself, for a woman 
 like you. But this craven hound has kept his
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 303 
 
 word, — and will ! The suite of rooms through 
 which I entered are supposed to be his ; but 
 they are really mine. And yet voluntarily, 
 Helena, — without a word, without a petition, a 
 hinted reproach, or an expression of vexation 
 from you, — I promise never, after to-night, to 
 intrude upon your privacy without an express 
 permission. This once, it was necessary. I had 
 to convince myself that the compact was con- 
 scientiously fulfilled ; I had to lighten your 
 heart of half its heavy bmxlen.' 
 
 ' Your Imperial Majesty has taken my fate, 
 my hfe, my destiny into your keeping.' 
 
 'Is it worse that they should be in my 
 keeping than in his ? Eeflect. I have given 
 you Liberty, and estabhshed your reputation.' 
 
 ' But at what a cost ! ' 
 
 ' And that is all you have to say to me ? — 
 Helena, have a little pity on my loneliness and 
 despair ; have a word of kindness for One who 
 throws himself on your generosity. Look at 
 me. The dead are not more cold, than the 
 woman I wedded in my youth is to me. My 
 uncles and cousins squander and intrigue, and 
 bring obloquy on me, and in the eyes of the 
 world I have to endorse their base actions, and 
 appear to approve their scandalous hves. My
 
 304 AUl CyESAR AUT NIHIL 
 
 children are rebellious, extravagant, headstrong, 
 and ungrateful. They have no sense of duty ; 
 yet them, too, I must seem to justify, and 
 approve. I, whose heart is overflowing with 
 tenderness towards the whole human race, with 
 whom the Enthusiasm of Humanity is a passion 
 rather than a principle, who hate war and look 
 on all official slaughter as an anachronism ; I, 
 who would gladly die in the service of my 
 country, who, — born in a private station, might 
 have figured as a philanthropic fanatic — I am 
 a mere puppet, forced by circumstances too 
 strong for me, to acquiesce in the wrong-doing 
 of others ; driven by causes overwhelmingly 
 powerful in their effects, to act in direct con- 
 tradiction to my distinct convictions ! I long 
 in my loneliness for the voice of a friend, for 
 the sympathy of an equal, for the encourage- 
 ment of a fellow-mind. And what have I? 
 What am I ? An Emperor, yet a lonely 
 wretch ; beggared of love and affection, world- 
 weary, heart -hungry and soul-sick, who begs 
 for a cup of water and a crust of bread in love's 
 name, and gets, in reply, a serpent and a stone. 
 Helena, say at least that you pity, if you 
 cannot love me ! ' 
 
 ' Sire, I respect you, and your sorrows.
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 305 
 
 I am your loyal and obedient servant and 
 subject.' 
 
 And she knelt at his feet and kissed his 
 hand. 
 
 ' Be my friend, my guide, my counsellor, 
 my Egeria, whose gentle wisdom shall effect 
 her country's good ? ' cried the Emperor, raising 
 her in a transport of enthusiasm. 
 
 'Sire, my ambitions do not he in that 
 direction. I would suggest that it were a 
 gracious act now to leave me alone.' 
 
 'Farewell, Helena, since you will it so. 
 Your noble confidence in me shall never be 
 betrayed. A woman less single-minded, less 
 absolutely and stainlessly pure, might have 
 counterfeited the calm confidence which you 
 have really felt, yet not have had the cruel 
 courage to drive me away. And now, Good- 
 night ! ' 
 
 According to wont and use, she again 
 bent low, but the Emperor raised her, and 
 lightly touching her forehead with his lips, as 
 a father might have done, he passed through 
 the door by which he came, without another 
 word. 
 
 At the dejeuner served to Count Perowsky 
 and his bride the following day, when the- 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 3o6 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 servants had withdrawn a short dialogue took 
 place between the young couple. 
 
 ' I hope you passed an agreeable night, 
 madame.' 
 
 ' A most sad and terrible night ; for, as you 
 probably know, the peril in which you live 
 was totally unsuspected by me.' 
 
 ' Be easy, madame. Spare your pity. As 
 I shall not be led into temptation, the peril to 
 which you allude is purely imaginary.' 
 
 This with supercilious insolence. 
 
 * There is peril even in insolence,' Helena 
 replied. ' Though I may not complain of it, 
 there is the chance of its being reported ; for, 
 in our unhappy country, everything is known.' 
 
 ' Yes. Damn the spies ! However, we 
 understand one another, madame, at last.' 
 
 ' I think you scarcely understand me,' she 
 said quietly. ' But that is an ignorance which 
 will be remedied by degrees.' 
 
 The ideal relationship which in his enthu- 
 siasm the Countess Perowsky's Imperial lover 
 liad sketched with a flattering pencil was not 
 destined to last. 
 
 From loyalty to love, the way is not long. 
 
 By pleading and tenderness, by submission 
 and patience, the woman's heart was won at
 
 A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS. 307 
 
 last. The Egeria of the fountain and the 
 grove became the companion and close friend, 
 the counsellor and fellow student, of the modern 
 Numa. 
 
 How is it, then, that still in the zenith of her 
 resplendent beauty Countess Helena Perowska 
 is climbing the stairs of the Nihilist conspirator's 
 obscure lodging ; in company with two women 
 not less resolute than herself? 
 
 It is difficult for the world at large to 
 understand the hfe of courts, the intrigues of 
 officials, the deadly ennui that eats into the very 
 heart of all the gorgeous shams and empty 
 shows, and renders null and void the hollov/ 
 splendour of this glittering routine. 
 
 Helena had grown to passionately adore 
 her Imperial protector. 
 
 Then had come a period of weakness and 
 suffering, and the physicians who prescribed 
 German baths declared that these must be 
 supplemented by a winter in the South. She 
 was longing for the early summer ; that would 
 bring her back to all her heart held dear. 
 
 But in Helena's rooms in the Winter Palace 
 a rival was installed — that rival a sister who, ten 
 years before, had been her favourite pet and 
 plaything in the nursery — full of rosebud
 
 3o8 AUT CjESAR AUT NIHIL. 
 
 brothers and sisters — and who, now, at seven- 
 teen, was the hving, breathing counterpart of 
 what Helena herself had formerly been. 
 
 St. Petersburg gossips merely remarked, in 
 comment, that ' That family had ever been 
 devoted to the pleasures of their Imperial 
 masters.' The men were all brave and the 
 women all frail. Honours and emolument, 
 dignities and powers, rewarded the valour and 
 devotion, and perhaps the silence, of the men ; 
 whilst the traditions of the past pledged the 
 women to an acquiescence in all demands made 
 upon them in the name of any member of that 
 Imperial House, to which for generations they 
 had been so profoundly attached. 
 
 Count Perowsky enjoyed at length full 
 liberty to love his Countess, had he been so 
 inclined, the tattlers declared. 
 
 But the thoughts of both took another 
 direction, and the day for love's young dream 
 was past. 
 
 1! union fait la force ^ was their new motto ; 
 but the union alluded to was not that of 
 wedlock. 
 
 The man hated his Master, and was ready 
 to denounce him as a Tyrant. 
 
 The remembrance of his own misconduct,
 
 'A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS: 309 
 
 and the clemency which had reduced his func- 
 tions to those of a tool, rankled within him. 
 
 The betrayed and outraged Woman in 
 Helena thirsted for vengeance. 
 
 It was her turn to make use of Perowsky 
 now; and he, for his part, was quite willing 
 to be made use of. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST TOLUME, 
 
 10!«D0X : PRINTED BT 
 
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