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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 L161— O-1096 
 
A Passionate Pilgrim. 
 
PASSIONATE PILGRIM 
 
 Al^D OTHEE TALES. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY^ 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street. 
 
 1897. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENEY JAMES, Jr. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION. 
 
Copyright, 1875, 
 By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. 
 
 TTit Riverside Press y Cambridge ^ Mass.y U. S. A. 
 Printed by II. O. Houghton & Company. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 A Passionate Pilgrim . . . . 
 The Last op the Valerii . 
 
 Eugene Pickering 
 
 The Madonna of the Future . 
 
 The Romance op Certain Old Clothes 
 
 Madame de Mauvbs .... 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 I. 
 
 NTENDING to sail for America in the early part 
 
 -L of June, I determined to spend the interval of 
 six weeks in England, of which I had dreamed much 
 but as yet knew nothing. I had formed in Italy and 
 France a resolute preference for old inns, deeming that 
 what they sometimes cost the ungratified body they 
 repay the delighted mind. On my arrival in London, 
 therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry far to 
 the east of Teraple Bar, deep in what I used to denom- 
 inate the Johnsonian city. Here, on the first evening 
 of my stay, I descended to the little coffee-room and 
 bespoke my dinner of the genius of decorum, in the 
 person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had I crossed 
 the threshold of this apartment than I felt I had 
 mown the first swath in my golden-ripe crop of British 
 impressions." The coffee-room of the Eed-Lion, like 
 so many other places and things I was destined to 
 see in England, seemed to have been waiting for long 
 
8 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 years, with just that sturdy sufferance of time written 
 on its visage, for me to come and gaze, ravished but 
 unamazed. 
 
 The latent preparedness of the American mind for 
 even the most delectable features of English life is a 
 fact which I never fairly probed to its depths. The 
 roots of it are so deeply buried in the virgin soil of 
 our primary culture, that, without some great upheaval 
 of experience, it would be hard to say exactly when 
 and where and how it begins. It makes an American s 
 enjoyment of England an emotion more fatal and 
 sacred than his enjoyment, say, of Italy or Spain. I 
 had seen the coffee-room of the Eed-Lion years ago, at 
 home, — at Saragossa, Illinois, — in books, in visions, 
 in dreams, in Dickens, in Smollett, and Boswell. It 
 was small, and subdivided into six small compartments 
 by a series of perpendicular screens of mahogany, 
 something higher than a man's stature, furnished on 
 either side with a narrow uncushioned ledge, denomi- 
 nated in ancient Britain a seat. In each of the little 
 dining-boxes thus immutably constituted was a small 
 table, which in crowded seasons was expected to ac- 
 commodate the several agents of a fourfold British 
 hungriness. But crowded seasons had passed away 
 from the Eed-Lion forever. It was crowded only with 
 memories and ghosts and atmosphere. Eound the 
 room there marched, breast-high, a magnificent panel- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 9 
 
 ling of mahogany, so dark with time and so polished 
 with unremitted friction, that by gazing awhile into its 
 lucid blackness I fancied I -could discern the lingering 
 images of a party of gentlemen in periwigs and short- 
 clothes, just arrived from York by the coach. On the 
 dark yellow walls, coated by the fumes of English coal, 
 of English mutton, of Scotch whiskey, were a dozen 
 melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age, — the Derby 
 favorite of the year 1807, the Bank of England, her 
 Majesty the Queen. On the floor was a Turkey carpet, 
 — as old as the mahogany, almost, as the Bank of 
 England, as the Queen, — into which the waiter in his 
 lonely revolutions had trodden so many massive soot- 
 flakes and drops of overflowing beer, that the glowing 
 looms of Smyrna would certainly not have recognized 
 it. To say that I ordered my dinner of this superior 
 being would be altogether to misrepresent the process, 
 owing to which, having dreamed of lamb and spinach, 
 and a charlotte-russe, I sat down in penitence to a mut- 
 ton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet against 
 the cross-beam of my little oaken table, T opposed to 
 the mahogany partition behind me that vigorous dorsal 
 resistance which expresses the old-English idea of re- 
 pose. The sturdy 'screen refused even to creak ; but 
 my poor Yankee joints made up the deficiency. While 
 I was waiting for my chop there came into the room a 
 person whom I took to be my sole fellow-lodger. He 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 seemed, like myself, to have submitted to proposals 
 for dinner ; the table on the other side of my partition 
 had been prepared to receive him. He walked up to 
 the fire, exposed his back to it, consulted his watch, 
 and looked apparently out of the window, but really 
 at me. He was a man of somethim less than middle 
 age and more than middle stature, ^ough indeed you 
 would have called him neither young nor tall. He was 
 chiefly remarkable for his exaggerated leanness. His 
 hair, very thin on the summit of his head, was dark, 
 short, and fine. His eye was of a pale, turbid gray, 
 unsuited, perhaps, to his dark hair and brow, but not 
 altogether out of harmony with his colorless, bilious 
 complexion. His nose was aquiline and delicate ; be- 
 neath it hung a thin, comely, dark mustache. His 
 mouth and chin were meagre and uncertain of outline ; 
 not vulgar, perhaps, but weak. A cold, fatal, gentle- 
 manly weakness, indeed, seemed expressed in his atten- 
 uated person. His eye was restless and ^ting; 
 his whole physiognomy, his manner of shifting his 
 weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his 
 head, told of exhausted purpose, of a will relaxed. His 
 dress was neat and careful, with an air of half-mourn- 
 ing. I made up my mind on three points : he was 
 unmarried, he was ill, he was not an Englishman. The 
 waiter approached him, and they murmured momen- 
 tarily in barely audible tones. I heard the words 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 11 
 
 "claret," "sherry," with a tentative inflection, and 
 finally "beer," with a gentle afi&rmative. Perhaps he 
 was a Eussian in reduced circumstances ; he reminded 
 me of a certain tj^e of Eussian which I had met on 
 the Continent. While I was weighing this hypothesis, 
 — for you see I was interested, — there appeared a 
 short, brisk man with reddish-brown hair, a vulgar 
 nose, a sharp blue eye, and a red beard, confined to 
 his lower jaw and chin. My impecunious Eussian was 
 still standing on the rug, with his mild gaze bent on 
 vacancy ; the other marched up to him, and with his 
 umbrella gave him a playful poke in the concave front- 
 age of his melancholy waistcoat. " A penny-ha'penny 
 for your thoughts ! " said the new-comer. 
 
 His companion uttered an exclamation, stared, then 
 laid his two hands on the other's shoulders. The 
 latter looked round at me keenly, compassing me in 
 a momentary glance. I read in its own high light 
 that .IS an American eyebeam; and with such 
 
 confidence that I hardly needed to see its owner, as 
 he prepared, with his friend, to seat himself at the 
 table adjoining my own, take from his overcoat-pocket 
 three New York papers and lay them beside his plate. 
 As my neighbors proceeded to dine, I became con- 
 scious that, through no indiscretion of my own, a large 
 portion of their conversation made its way over the 
 top of our dividing partition and mingled its savor 
 
12 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 with that of my simple repast. Occasionally their 
 tone was lowered, as with the intention of secrecy ; 
 but I heard a phrase here and a phrase there dis- 
 tinctly enough to grow very curious as to the burden 
 of the whole, and, in fact, to succeed at last in guess- 
 ing it. The two voices were pitched in an unforgotten 
 key, and equally native to our Cisatlantic air; they 
 seemed to fall upon the muffled medium of surround- 
 ing parlance as the rattle of pease on the face of a 
 drum. They were American, however, with a differ- 
 ence ; and I had no hesitation in assigning the lighter 
 and softer of the two to the pale, thin gentleman, 
 whom I decidedly preferred to his comrade. The 
 latter began to question him about his voyage. 
 
 " Horrible, horrible ! I was deadly sick from the 
 hour we left New York." 
 
 " Well, you do look considerably reduced," his friend 
 affirmed. 
 
 " Eeduced ! I Ve been on the verge of the grave. 
 I have n't slept six hours in three weeks." This was 
 said with great gravity. "Well, I have made the 
 voyage for the last time." 
 
 "The deuce you have! You mean to stay here 
 forever ? " 
 
 " Here, or somewhere ! It 's likely to be a short 
 forever." 
 
 There was a pause; after which : "You're the 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 13 
 
 same cheerful old boy, Searle. Going to die to-mor- 
 row, eh ? 
 
 " I almost wish I were." 
 
 " You 're not in love with England, then ? I 've 
 heard people say at home that you dressed and talked 
 and acted like an Englishman. But I know Eng- 
 lishmen, and I know you. You're not one of them, 
 Searle, not you. You 11 go under here, sir ; you '11 
 go under as sure as my name is Simmons." 
 
 Following this, I heard a sudden clatter, as of the 
 dropping of a knife and fork. " Well, you 're a deli- 
 cate sort of creature, Simmons 1 I have been wan- 
 dering about all day in this accursed city, ready to 
 cry with home-sickness and heart-sickness and every 
 possible sort of sickness, and thinking, in the absence 
 of anjrthing better, of meeting you here this evening, 
 and of your uttering some syllable of cheer and com- 
 . fort, and giving me some feeble ray of hope. Go 
 ^ under ? Am I not under now ? I can't sink lower, 
 except to sink into my grave ! " 
 
 Mr. Simmons seems to have staggered a moment 
 under this outbreak of passion. But the next, 
 " Don't cry, Searle," I heard him say. Eemember 
 the waiter. I 've grown Englishman enough for 
 that. For heaven's sake, don't let us have any feel- 
 ings. Feelings will do nothing for you here. It 's 
 best to come to the point Tell me in three words 
 what you expect of me." 
 
14 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 I heard another movement, as if poor Searle had 
 collapsed in his chair. " Upon my word, Simmons, 
 you are inconceivable. You got my letter ? " 
 
 " Yes, I got your letter. I was never sorrier to 
 get anything in my life." 
 
 At this declaration Mr. Searle rattled out an oath, 
 which it was well perhaps that I but partially heard. 
 " John Simmons," he cried, " what devil possesses 
 you ? Are you going to betray me here in a foreign 
 land, to turn out a false friend, a heartless rogue ? " 
 
 " Go on, sir," said sturdy Simmons. " Pour it all 
 out. I '11 wait till you have done. — Your beer is 
 very bad," to the waiter. " I '11 have some more." 
 
 " For God's sake, explain yourself ! " cried Searle. 
 
 There was a pause, at the end of which I heard 
 Mr. Simmons set down his empty tankard with em- 
 phasis. " You poor morbid man," he resumed, " I 
 don't want to say anything to make you feel sore. 
 I pity you. But you must allow me to say that 
 you have acted like a blasted fool ! " 
 
 Mr. Searle seemed to have made an effort to com- 
 pose himself "Be so good as to tell me what was 
 the meaning of your letter." 
 
 " I was a fool, myself, to have written that letter. 
 It came of my infernal meddlesome benevolence. I 
 had much better have let you alone. To tell you 
 tlie plain truth, I never was so horrified in my life 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 15 
 
 as when I found that on the strength of that letter 
 you had come out here to seek your fortune." 
 
 " What did you expect me to do ? " 
 
 "I expected you to wait patiently till I had made 
 further inquiries and had written to you again." 
 
 "You have made further inquiries now?" 
 
 " Inquiries ! I have made assaults." 
 And you find I have no claim ? " 
 
 "No claim to call a claim. It looked at first as 
 if you had a very pretty one. I confess the idea 
 took hold of me — " 
 
 " Thanks to your preposterous benevolence ! " 
 
 Mr. Simmons seemed for a moment to experience 
 a difficulty in swallowing. " Your beer is undrink- 
 able," he said to the waiter. " 1 11 have some brandy. 
 — Come, Searle," he resumed, "don't challenge me 
 to the arts of debate, or 1 11 settle right down on 
 you. Benevolence, as I say, was part of it. The 
 reflection that if I put the thing through it would be 
 a very pretty feather in my cap and a very pretty 
 penny in my purse was part of it. And the satis- 
 faction of seeing a poor nobody of a Yankee walk 
 right into an old English estate was a good deal of 
 it. Upon my word, Searle, when I think of it, I 
 wish with all my heart that, erratic genius as you 
 are, you had a claim, for the very beauty of it ! I 
 should hardly care what you did with the confounded 
 
16 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 property when you got it. I could leave you alone to 
 turn it into Yankee notions, — into ducks and drakes, 
 as they call it here. I should like to see you stamping 
 over it and kicking up its sacred dust in their very 
 
 faces!" 
 
 " You don't know me, Simmons ! " said Searle, for 
 all response to this untender benediction. 
 
 " I should be very glad to think I did n't, Searle. 
 I have been to no small amount of trouble for you. 
 I have consulted by main force three first-rate men. 
 They smile at the idea. I should like you to see 
 the smile negative of one of these London big-wigs. 
 If your title were written in letters of fire, it would 
 n't stand being sniffed at in that fashion. I sounded 
 in person the solicitor of your distinguished kinsman. 
 He seemed to have been in a manner forewarned 
 and forearmed. It seems your brother George, some 
 twenty years ago, put forth a feeler. So you are 
 not to have the glory of even frightening them." 
 
 " I never frightened any one," said Searle. " I 
 should n't begin at this time of day. I should ap- 
 proach the subject like a gentleman.'' 
 
 "Well, if you want very much to do something 
 like a gentleman, you've got a capital chance. Take 
 your disappointment like a gentleman." 
 
 I had finished my dinner, and I had become keen- 
 ly interested in poor Mr. Searle's mysterious claim ; 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 17 
 
 SO interested that it was vexatious to hear his emo- 
 tions reflected in his voice without noting them in 
 his face. I left my place, went over to the fire, took 
 up the evening paper, and established a post of ob- 
 servation behind it. 
 
 Lawyer Simmons was in the act of choosing a 
 soft chop from the dish, — an act accompanied by a 
 great deal of prying and poking with his own per- 
 sonal fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed 
 away his plate ; he sat with his elbows on the table, 
 gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His 
 companion stared at him a moment, I fancied half 
 tenderly ; I am not sure whether it was pity or 
 whether it was beer and brandy. " I say, Searle," 
 — and for my benefit, I think, taking me for an 
 impressible native, he attuned his voice to some- 
 thing of a pompous pitch, — " in this country it is 
 the inestimable privilege of a loyal citizen, under 
 whatsoever stress of pleasure or of pain, to make a 
 point of eating his dinner." 
 
 Searle disgustedly gave his plate another push. 
 " Anything may happen, now ! " he said. " I don't 
 care a straw." 
 
 "You ought to care. Have another chop, and you 
 will care. Have some brandy. Take my advice 1 " 
 
 Searle from between his two hands looked at him. 
 ^ ^ ^^ave had enough of your advice ! " he said. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " A little more " said Simmons, mildly ; I sha' n't 
 trouble you again. What do you mean to do ? " 
 " Nothing." 
 "0, come!" 
 
 " Nothing, nothing, nothing ! " 
 
 " Nothing but starve. How about your money ? 
 
 " Why do you ask ? You don't care." 
 
 " My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer 
 you twenty pounds, you set most clumsily about it. 
 You said just now I don't know you. Possibly ! 
 There is, perhaps, no such enormous difference be- 
 tween knowing you and not knowing you. At any 
 rate, you don't know me. I expect you to go 
 home." 
 
 " I won't go home ! I have crossed the ocean for 
 the last time." 
 
 " What is the matter ? Are you afraid ? " 
 Yes, I 'm afraid ! 'I thank thee, J ew, for teach- 
 ing me that word ! ' " 
 
 " You 're more afraid to go than to stay ? " 
 
 " I sha' n't stay. I shall die." 
 
 " 0, are you sure of that ? " 
 
 " One can always be sure of that." 
 
 Mr. Simmons started and stared : his mild cynic had 
 turned grim stoic. " Upon my soul," he said, one 
 would think that Death had named the day ! " 
 
 " We have named it, between us." 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 19 
 
 This was too much even for Mr. Simmons's easy 
 morality. I say, Searle/* he cried, " I 'm not more of 
 a stickler than the next man, but if you are going to 
 blaspheme, I shall wash my hands of you. If you 11 
 consent to return home with me by the steamer of the 
 23d, I '11 pay your passage down. More than that, 1 11 
 pay your wine bill." 
 
 Searle meditated. " I believe I never willed any- 
 thing in my life," he said ; " but I feel sure that I have 
 willed this, that I stay here till I take my leave for a 
 newer world than that poor old New World of ours. 
 It 's an odd feeling, — I rather like it ! What should 
 I do at home ? " 
 
 " You said just now you were homesick." 
 
 " So I was — for a morning. But have n't I been 
 all my life long sick for Europe ? And now that I Ve 
 got it, am I to cast it off again ? I 'm much obliged to 
 you for your offer. I have enough for the present. I 
 have about my person some forty pounds' worth of 
 British gold and the same amount, say, of Yankee vi- 
 tality. They '11 last me out together ! After they are 
 gone, I shall lay my head in some English churchyard, 
 beside some ivied tower, beneath an English yew." 
 
 I had thus far distinctly followed the dialogue ; but 
 at this point the landlord came in, and, begging my 
 pardon, would suggest that No. 12, a most superior 
 apartment, having now been vacated, it would give him 
 
20 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 pleasure, etc. The fate of N"o. 12 having been decreed, 
 I transferred my attention back to my friends. They 
 had risen to their feet ; Simmons had put on his over- 
 coat ; he stood polishing his rusty black hat with his 
 napkin. " Do you mean to go down to the place ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Possibly. I have dreamed of it so much I should 
 like to see it." 
 
 " Shall you call on Mr. Searle ? " 
 
 Heaven forbid ! " 
 " Something has just occurred to me," Simmons pur- 
 sued, with an unhandsome grin, as if Mephistopheles 
 were playing at malice. " There 's a Miss Searle, the 
 old man's sister." 
 
 Well ? " said the other, frowning. 
 Well, sir ! suppose, instead of dying, you should 
 marry ! " 
 
 Mr. Searle frowned in silence. Simmons gave him 
 a tap on the stomach. " Line those ribs a bit first ! " 
 The poor gentleman blushed crimson and his eyes filled 
 with tears. " You are a coarse brute," he said. The 
 scene was pathetic. I was prevented from seeing the 
 conclusion of it by the reappearance of the landlord, 
 on behalf of No. 12. He insisted on my coming to 
 inspect the premises. Half an hour afterwards I was 
 rattling along in a Hansom toward Covent Garden, 
 where I heard Madame Bosio in the Barber of Seville. 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 21 
 
 On my return from the opera I went into the coffee- 
 room, vaguely fancying I might catch another glimpse 
 of Mr. Searle. I was not disappointed. I found him 
 sitting before the fire, with his head fallen on his 
 breast, sunk in the merciful stupor of tardy sleep. I 
 looked at him for some moments. His face, pale and 
 refined in the dim lamplight, impressed me with an 
 air of helpless, ineffective delicacy. They say fortune 
 comes while we sleep. Standing there I feit benignant 
 enough to be poor Mr. Searle's fortune. As I walked 
 away, I perceived amid the shadows of one of the little 
 dining stalls which I have described the lonely ever- 
 dressed waiter, dozing attendance on my friend, and 
 shifting aside for a while the burden of waiterhood. I 
 lingered a moment beside the old inn-yard, in which, 
 upon a time, the coaches and postchaises found space 
 to turn and disgorge. Above the upward vista of the 
 enclosing galleries, from which lounging lodgers and 
 crumpled chambermaids and all the picturesque domes- 
 ticity of an antique tavern must have watched the 
 great entrances and exits of the posting and coaching 
 drama, I descried the distant lurid twinkle of the Lon- 
 don constellations. At the foot of the stairs, enshrined 
 in the glittering niche of her well-appointed bar, the 
 landlady sat napping like some solemn idol amid votive 
 brass and plate. 
 
 The next morning, not finding the innocent object of * 
 
22 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 my benevolent curiosity in the coffee-room, I learned 
 from the waiter that he had ordered breakfast in 
 bed. Into this asylum I was not yet prepared to 
 pursue him. I spent the morning running about 
 London, chiefly on business, but snatching by the 
 way many a vivid impression of its huge metropoli- 
 tan interest. Beneath the sullen black and gray of 
 that hoary civic world the hungry American mind 
 detects the magic colors of association. As the after- 
 noon approached, however, my impatient heart began 
 to babble of green fields ; it was of English meadows 
 I had chiefly dreamed. Thinking over the suburban 
 lions, I fixed upon Hampton Court. The day was the 
 more propitious that it yielded just that dim, suba- 
 queous light which sleeps so fondly upon the English 
 landscape. 
 
 At the end of an hour I found myself wandering 
 through the multitudinous rooms of the great palace. 
 They follow each other in infinite succession, with 
 no great variety of interest or aspect, but with a sort 
 of regal monotony, and a fine specific flavor. They 
 are most exactly of their various times. You pass 
 from great painted and panelled bedchambers and clos- 
 ets, anterooms, drawing-rooms, council-rooms, through 
 king's suite, queen's suite, and prince's suite, until 
 you feel as if you were strolling through the ap- 
 pointed hours and stages of some decorous monarchi- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 23 
 
 cal day. On one side are the old monumental uphol- 
 steries, the vast cold tarnished beds and canopies, 
 with the circumference of disapparelled royalty at- 
 tested by a gilded balustrade, and the great carved 
 and yawning chimney-places, where dukes-in-waiting 
 may have warmed their weary heels ; on the other 
 side, in deep recesses, the immense windows, the 
 framed and draped embrasures where the sovereign 
 whispered and favorites smiled, looking out on the 
 terraced gardens and the misty glades of Bushey Park. 
 The dark walls are gravely decorated by innumerable 
 dark portraits of persons attached to Court and State, 
 more especially with various members of the Dutch- 
 looking entourage of William of Orange, the restorer 
 of the palace; with good store, too, of the lily-bos- 
 omed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole tone 
 of this long-drawn interior is immensly sombre, prosaic, 
 and sad. The tints of all things have sunk to a cold 
 and melancholy brown, and the great palatial void 
 seems to hold no stouter tenantry than a sort of pun- 
 gent odorous chill. I seemed to be the only visitor. 
 I held ungrudged communion with the formal genius 
 of the spot. Poor mortalized kings ! ineffective lure 
 of royalty! This, or something like it, was the 
 murmured burden of my musings. They were inter- 
 rupted suddenly by my coming upon a person standing 
 in devout contemplation before a simpering countess 
 
24 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 of Sir Peter Lely's creation. On hearing my footstep 
 this person turned his head, and I recognized my 
 fellow-lodger at the Red-Lion. I was apparently rec- 
 ognized as well; I detected an air of overture in his 
 glance. In a few moments, seeing I had a cata- 
 logue, he asked the name of the portrait. On my 
 ascertaining it, he inquired, timidly, how I liked 
 the lady. 
 
 " Well," said I, not quite timidly enough, perhaps, 
 "I confess she seems to me rather a light piece of 
 work." 
 
 He remained silent, and a little abashed, I think. 
 As we strolled away he stole a sidelong glance of 
 farewell at his leering shepherdess. To speak with 
 him face to face was to feel keenly that he was 
 weak and interesting. We talked of our inn, of 
 London, of the palace; he uttered his mind freely, 
 but he seemed to struggle with a weight of depres- 
 sion. It was a simple mind enough, with no great 
 culture, I fancied, but with a certain- appealing 
 native grace. I foresaw that I should find him a 
 true American, full of that perplexing interfusion 
 of refinement and crudity which marks the Ameri- 
 can mind. His perceptions, I divined, were delicate ; 
 his opinions, possibly, gross. On my telling him 
 that I too was an American, he stopped short and 
 seemed overcome with emotion : then silently pass- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 'iJj 
 
 ing his arm into my own, he suffered me to lead 
 him through the rest of the palace and down into 
 the gardens. A vast gravelled platform stretches it- 
 self before the basement of the palace, taking the 
 afternoon sun. A portion of the edifice is reserved 
 as a series of private apartments, occupied by state 
 pensioners, reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the 
 Queen's bounty, and other deserving persons. Many 
 of these apartments have their little private gardens; 
 and here and there, between their verdure-coated walls, 
 you catch a glimpse of these dim horticultural clos- 
 ets. My companion and I took many a turn up and 
 down this spacious level, looking down on the antique 
 geometry of the lower garden and on the stoutly woven 
 tapestry of vine and blossom which muffles the foun- 
 dations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various 
 images of old-world gentility, which, early and late, 
 must have strolled upon that ancient terrace and felt 
 the great protecting quietude of the solemn palace. 
 We looked through an antique grating into one of 
 the little private gardens, and saw an old lady with 
 a black mantilla on her head, a decanter of water in 
 one hand and a crutch, in the other, come forth, fol- 
 lowed by three little dogs and a cat, to sprinkle a 
 plant. She had an opinion, I fancied, on the virtue 
 of Queen Caroline. There are few sensations so ex- 
 quisite in life as to stand with a companion in a 
 3 . 
 
,36 i A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 foreign land and inhale to the depths of your con- 
 sciousness the alien savor of the air and the tonic 
 picturesqueness of things. This common relish of 
 local color makes comrades of strangers. My •com- 
 panion seemed oppressed with vague amazement. 
 He stared and lingered and scanned the scene with 
 a gentle scowl. His enjoyment appeared to give 
 him pain. I proposed, at last, that we should dine 
 in the neighborhood and take a late train to town. 
 We made our way out of the gardens into the ad- 
 joining village, where we found an excellent inn. 
 Mr. Searle sat down to table with small apparent 
 interest in the repast, but gradually warming to his 
 work, he declared at the end of half an hour that 
 for the first time in a month he felt an appetite. 
 
 " You 're an invalid ? " I said. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " A hopeless one ! " 
 
 The little village of Hampton Court stands clus- 
 tered about the broad entrance of Bushey Park. 
 After we had dined we lounged along into the hazy 
 vista of the great avenue of horse-chestnuts. There 
 is a rare emotion, familiar to every intelligent trav- 
 eller, in which the mind, with a great passionate 
 throb, achieves a magical synthesis of its impres- 
 sions. You feel England; you feel Italy. The re- 
 flection for the moment has an extraordinary poig- 
 nancy. I had known it from time to time in Italy, 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 • i ad opened my soul to it as to the spirit of 
 ^: <j i.ord. Since my arrival in England I had been 
 vvnMng for it to come. A bottle of excellent Bur- 
 ^y^. at dinner had perhaps unlocked to it the 
 gc'tr of sense; it came now with a conquering 
 irf: Just the scene around me was the England 
 Miy visions. Over against us, amid the deep-hued 
 L ur,m of its ordered gardens, the dark red palace, with 
 tv.rmal copings and its vacant windows, seemed to 
 of a proud-^and^s^lendid past ; the little village 
 iing between park and palace, around a patch of 
 common, with its tavern of gentility, its ivy- 
 •ed church, its parsonage, retained to my modern- 
 fancy the lurking semblance of a feudal hamlet. 
 iS in this dark compositeTighrtBst-^HlM re^^ a^ 
 ::^ish prose; it was this mild moist air that had 
 .^ nvn from the verses of English poets; beneath these 
 bio;) I acres of rain-deepened greenness a thousand 
 hwhored dead lay buried. 
 
 Well," I said to my friend, " I think there is no 
 take about this being England. We may like it 
 «^ )t, it s positive! No more dense and stubborn 
 ^.ver settled down on an expectant tourist. It 
 s my heart into my throat." 
 irle was silent. I looked at him ; he was looking 
 t the sky, as if he were watching some visible 
 at of the elements. "On me too," he said, "it's 
 
28 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 settling down ! " Then with a forced smile : " Heaver^ 
 give me strength to bear it ! " 
 
 0 mighty world," I cried, to hold at once so rare 
 an Italy and so brave an England ! " 
 
 " To say nothing of America," added Searle. 
 - ,^0," I answered, " America has a world to herself 1 " 
 " You have tfie advantage over me," my companion 
 resumed, after a pause, "in coming to all this with 
 an educated eye. You already know the old. I have 
 /never known it but by report. I have always fancied 
 1 1 should like it. In a small way at home, you know, 
 I have tried to stick to the old. I must be a conserva- 
 tive by nature. People at home — a few people — 
 used to call me a snob." 
 
 ^ "I don't believe you were a snob," I cried. "You 
 look too amiable." 
 
 He smiled sadly. " There it is," he said. " It 's the 
 old story ! I 'm amiable ! I know what that means ! 
 I was too great a fool to be even a snob ! If I had 
 been I should probably have come abroad earlier in 
 life — before — before — " He paused, and his head 
 dropped sadly on his breast. 
 
 The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue. 
 I felt that my learning his story was merely a question 
 of time. Something told me that I had gained his 
 confidence and he would unfold himself " Before you 
 lost your health," I said. 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 29 
 
 " Before I lost my health/' he answered. " And my 
 property, — the little I had. And my ambition. And 
 my self-esteem." 
 
 " Come ! " I said. " You shall get them all back. 
 This tonic English climate will wind you up in a 
 month. And with the return of health, all the rest 
 will return." 
 
 He sat musing, with his eyes fixed on the distant 
 palace. "They are too far gone, — self-esteem espe- 
 cially ! I should like to be an old genteel pensioner, 
 lodged over there in the palace, and spending my days 
 in maundering about these classic haunts. I should 
 go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun, 
 into that long gallery where all those pretty women of 
 Lely's are hung, — I know you despise them ! — and 
 stroll up and down and pay them compliments. Poor, 
 precious, forsaken creatures ! So flattered and courted 
 in their day, so neglected now ! Offering up their 
 shoulders and ringlets and smiles to that inexorable 
 solitude ! " 
 
 I patted my friend on the shoulder. " You shall be 
 yourself again yet," I said. 
 
 Just at this moment there came cantering down the 
 shallow glade of the avenue a young girl on a fine 
 black horse, — one of those lovely budding gentle- 
 women, perfectly mounted and equipped, who form to 
 American eyes the sweetest incident of English seen- 
 
30 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 ery. She had distanced her servant, and, as she came 
 abreast of us, turned slightly in her saddle and looked 
 back at him. In the movement she dropped her whip. 
 Drawing in her horse, she cast upon the ground a 
 glance of maidenly alarm. " This is something better 
 than a Lely," I said. Searle hastened forward, picked 
 up the whip, and removing his hat with an air of great 
 devotion, presented it to the young girl. Fluttered 
 and blushing, she reached forward, took it with softly 
 murmured gratitude, and the next moment was bound- 
 ing over the elastic turf Searle stood watching her ; 
 the servant, as he passed us, touched his hat. When 
 Searle turned toward me again, I saw that his face 
 was glowing with a violent blush. " I doubt of your 
 having come abroad too late ! " I said, laughing. 
 
 A short distance from where we had stopped was an 
 old stone bench. We went and sat down on it and 
 watched the light mist turning to sullen gold in the 
 rays of the evening sun. "We ought to be thinking 
 of the train back to London, I suppose," I said at last. 
 
 " 0, hang the train ! " said Searle. 
 
 " Willingly ! There could be no better spot than 
 this to foel the magic of an English twilight." So we 
 lingered, and the twilight lingered around us, — a light 
 and not a darkness. As we sat, there came trudging 
 along the road an individual whom, from afar, I recog- 
 nized as a member of the genus " tramp." I had read 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 31 
 
 of the British tramp, but I had never yet encountered 
 him, and I brought my historic consciousness to bear 
 upon the present specimen. As he approached us he 
 slackened pace and finally halted, touching his cap. 
 He was a man of middle age, clad in a greasy bonnet, 
 with greasy ear-locks depending from its sides. Eound 
 his neck was a grimy red scarf, tucked into his waist- 
 coat ; his coat and trousers had a remote affinity with 
 those of a reduced hostler. In one hand he had a 
 stick; on his arm he bore a tattered basket, with a 
 handful of withered green stuff in the bottom. His 
 face was pale, haggard, and degraded beyond descrip- 
 tion,— a singular mixture of brutality and finesse. 
 He had a history. From what height had he fallen, 
 from what depth had he risen ? Never was a form of 
 rascally beggarhood more complete. There was a 
 merciless fixedness of outline about him which filled 
 me with a kind of awe. I felt as if I were in the pres- 
 ence of a personage, — an artist in vagrancy. 
 
 For God's sake, gentlemen," he said, in that rau- 
 cous tone of weather-beaten poverty suggestive of 
 chronic sore-throat exacerbated by perpetual gin,— 
 " for God's sake, gentlemen, have pity on a poor fern- 
 collector ! " — turning up his stale dandelions. " Food 
 has n't passed my lips, gentlemen, in the last three 
 days." 
 
 We gaped responsive, in the precious pity of guile- 
 
32 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 less Yankeeism. ''I wonder," thought I, "if half a 
 crown would be enough ? " And our fasting botanist 
 went limping away through the park with a mystery 
 of satirical gratitude superadded to his general mys- 
 tery. 
 
 " I feel as if I had seen my doppel-gangeVy' said 
 Searle. " He reminds me of myself. What am I but 
 a tramp ? " 
 
 Upon this hint I spoke. " What are you, my 
 friend ? " I asked. Who are you ? " 
 
 A sudden blush rose to his pale face, so that I feared 
 I had offended him. He poked a moment at the 
 sod with the point of his umbrella, before answering. 
 " Who am I ? " he said at last. " My name is Clement 
 Searle. I was born in New York. I have lived in 
 New York. What am I ? That 's easily told. Noth- 
 ing ! I assure you, nothing." 
 
 " A very good fellow, apparently," I protested. 
 A very good fellow ! Ah, there it is ! You Ve said 
 more than you mean. It 's by having been a very good 
 fellow all my days that I Ve come to this. I have 
 drifted through life. I 'm a failure, sir, — a failure as 
 hopeless and helpless as any that ever swallowed up 
 the slender ' investments of the widow and the orphan. 
 I don't pay five cents on the dollar. Of what I was to 
 begin with no memory remains. I have been ebbing 
 away, from the start, in a steady current which, at 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 33 
 
 forty, has left this arid sand-bank behind. To begin i 
 with, certainly, I was not a fountain of wisdom. All 
 the more reason for a definite channel, — for will and ^ 
 purpose and direction. I walked by chance and sym- ' 
 pathy and sentiment. Take a turn through New York 
 and you 11 find my tattered sympathies and sentiments 
 dangling on every bush and fluttering in every breeze ; 
 the men to whom I lent money, the women to whom I 
 made love, the friends I trusted, the dreams I cher- 
 ished, the poisonous fumes of pleasure, amid which 
 nothing was sweet or precious but the manhood they 
 stifled ! It was my fault that I believed in pleasure 
 here below. I believe in it still, but as I believe in 
 God and not in man ! I believed in eating your cake 
 and having it. I respected Pleasure, and she made a 
 fool of me. Other men, treating her like the arrant 
 strumpet she is, enjoyed her for the hour, but kept 
 their good manners for plain-faced Business, with the 
 larger dowry, to whom they are now lawfully mar- 
 ried. My taste was to be delicate ; well, perhaps I 
 was so ! I had a little money ; it went the way of 
 my little wit. Here in my pocket I have forty pounds 
 of it left. The only thing I have to show for my 
 money and my wit is a little volume of verses, printed 
 at my own expense, in which fifteen years ago I made 
 bold to sing the charms of love and idleness. Six 
 months since I got hold of the volume ; it reads like 
 
34 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 the poetry of fifty years ago. The form is incredible. 
 I had n't seen Hampton Court then. When I was 
 thirty I married. It was a sad mistake, but a gener- 
 ous one. The young girl was poor and obscure, but 
 beautiful and proud. I fancied she would make an 
 incomparable woman. It was a sad mistake ! She 
 died at the end of three years, leaving no children. 
 Since then I have idled long. I have had bad habits. 
 To this impalpable thread of existence the current of 
 my life has shrunk. To-morrow I shall be high and 
 dry. . Was I meant to come to this? Upon my 
 soul I was n't ! If I say what I feel, you '11 fancy 
 my vanity quite equal to my folly, and set me 
 down as one of those dreary theorizers after the 
 fact, who draw any moral from their misfortunes 
 but the damning moral that vice is vice and that 's 
 an end of it. Take it for what it 's worth. I have 
 always fancied that I was meant for a gentler world. 
 Before heaven, sir, - — whoever you are, — I 'm in prac- 
 tice so absurdly tender-hearted that I can afford to 
 say it, — I came into the world an aristocrat. I was 
 born with a soul for the picturesque. It condemns 
 me, I confess ; but in a measure, too, it absolves me. 
 I found it nowhere. I found a world all hard lines 
 and harsh lights, without shade, without composition, 
 as they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery 
 of color. To furnish color, I malted down the very 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 35 
 
 substance of my own soul. I went about with my 
 brush, touching up and toning down ; a very pretty 
 chiaroscuro you '11 find in my track ! Sitting here, 
 in this old park, in this old land, I feel — I feel that 
 I hover on the misty verge of what might have been ! 
 I should have been born here and not there ; here 
 my vulgar idleness would have been — don't laugh 
 now ! — would have been elegant leisure. How it was 
 that I never came abroad is more than I can say. It 
 might have cut the knot ; but the knot was too tight. 
 I was always unwell or in debt or entangled. Besides, 
 I had a horror of the sea, — with reason, heaven 
 knows ! A year ago I was reminded of the existence 
 of an old claim to a portion of an English estate, 
 cherished off and on by various members of my family 
 for the past eighty years. It 's undeniably slender and 
 desperately hard to define. I am by no means sure 
 that to this hour I have mastered it. You look as 
 if you had a clear head. Some other time, if you '11 
 consent, we '11 puzzle it out, such as it is, together. 
 Poverty was staring me in the face ; I sat down and 
 got my claim by heart, as I used to get nine times 
 nine as a boy. I dreamed about it for six months, 
 half expecting to wake up some fine morning to hear 
 through a latticed casement the cawing of an English 
 rookery. A couple of months since there came out 
 he?:'e on business of his own a sort of half-friend of 
 
36 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 mine, a sharp New York lawyer, an extremely common 
 fellow, but a man with an eye for the weak point and 
 the strong point. It was with him yesterday that you 
 saw me dining. He undertook, as he expressed it, to 
 'nose round' and see if anything could be made of 
 this pretended right. The matter had never seriously 
 been taken up. A month later I got a letter from 
 Simmons, assuring me that things looked mighty well, 
 that he should be vastly amazed if I hadn't a case. 
 I took fire in a humid sort of way; I acted, for the 
 first time in my life; I sailed for England. NJ have 
 been here three days : it seems three months. / After 
 keeping me waiting for thirty-six hours, last: evening 
 my precious Simmons makes his appearance and in- 
 forms me, with his mouth full of mutton, that I was 
 a blasted fool to have taken him at his word ; that he 
 had been precipitate ; that I had been precipitate ; that 
 my claim was moonshine ; and that I must do penance 
 and take a ticket for another fortnight of seasickness 
 in his agreeable society. My friend, my friend ! Shall 
 I say I was disappointed ? I 'm already resigned. I 
 doubted the practicability of my claim. I felt in my 
 deeper consciousness that it was the crowning illusion 
 of a life of illusions. Well, it was a pretty one. Poor 
 Simmons ! I forgive him with all my heart. But for 
 him I should n't be sitting in this place, in this air, 
 with these thoughts. This is a world I could have 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 37 
 
 loved. There 's a great fitness in its having been kept 
 for the last. After this nothing would have been tol- 
 erable. I shall now have a month of it, I hope, and 
 I shall not have a chance to be disenchanted. There 's 
 • one thing ! " — and here, pausing, he laid his hand on 
 mine ; I rose and stood before him, — "I wish it were 
 possible you should be with me to the end." 
 
 " I promise you," I said, " to leave you only at your 
 own request. But it must be on condition of your 
 omitting from your conversation this intolerable flavor 
 of mortality. The end! Perhaps it's the begin- 
 ning." 
 
 He shook his head. " You don't know me. It 's a 
 long story. I 'm incurably ill." 
 
 "I know you a little. I have a strong suspicion 
 that your illness is in great measure a matter of mind 
 and spirits. All that you Ve told me is but another 
 way of saying that you have lived hitherto in your- 
 self. The tenement 's haunted ! Live abroad ! Take 
 an interest ! " 
 
 He looked at me for a moment with his sad weak 
 eyes. Then with a faint smile : Don't cut down a 
 man you find hanging. He has had a reason for it. 
 I 'm bankrupt." 
 
 " 0, health is money ! " I said. " Get well, and the 
 rest will take care of itself. I 'm interested in your 
 claim." 
 
38 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 Don't ask me to expound it now ! It 's a sad 
 muddle. Let it alone. I know nothing of business. 
 If I myself were to take the matter in hand, I should 
 break short off the poor little silken thread of my 
 expectancy. In a better world than this I think I 
 should be listened to. But in this hard world there 's 
 small bestowal of ideal justice. There is 'no doubt, I 
 fancy, that, a hundred years ago, we suffered a palpa- 
 ble wrong. But we made no appeal at the time, and 
 the dust of a century now lies heaped upon our 
 silence. Let it rest ! 
 
 " What is the estimated value of your interest ? 
 
 "We were instructed from the first to accept a 
 compromise. Compared with the whole property, our 
 utmost right is extremely small. Simmons talked of 
 eighty-five thousand dollars. Why eighty-five I 'm 
 sure I don't know. Don't beguile me into figures." 
 
 " Allow me one more question. Who is actually in 
 possession ? " 
 
 "A certain Mr. Eichard Searle. I know nothing 
 about him." 
 
 " He is in some way related to you ? " 
 
 " Our great-grandfathers were half-brothers. What 
 does that make ? " 
 
 " Twentieth cousins, say. And where does your 
 twentieth cousin live ? " 
 
 " At Lockley Park, Herefordshire." 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 39 
 
 I pondered awhile. " I 'm interested in you, Mr. 
 Searle," I said. " In your story, in your title, such as 
 it is, and in this Lockley Park, Herefordshire. Sup- 
 pose we go down and see it." 
 
 He rose to his feet with a certain alertness. " I 
 shall make a sound man of him, yet," I said to 
 myself. 
 
 " I should n't have the heart," he said, " to accom- 
 plish the melancholy pilgrimage alone. But with you 
 I '11 go anywhere." . 
 
 On our return to London we determined to spend 
 three* days there together, and then to go into the 
 country. We felt to excellent purpose the sotnbre 
 charm of London, the mighty mother-city of our 
 mighty race, the great distributing heart of our tradi- 
 tional life. Certain London characteristics — monu- 
 ments, relics, hints of history, local moods and mem- 
 ories — are more deeply suggestive to an American 
 soul than anything else in Europe. With an equal at- 
 tentive piety my friend and I glanced at these things. 
 Their influence on Searle was deep and singular. 
 His observation I soon perceived to be extremely 
 acute. His almost passionate relish for the old, the 
 artificial, and social, wellnigh extinct from its long 
 inanition, began now to tremble and thrill with a 
 tardy vitality. I watched in silent wonderment this 
 strange metaphysical renascence. 
 
40 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 Between the fair boundaries of the counties of 
 Hereford and Worcester rise in a long undulation the 
 sloping pastures of the Malvern Hills. Consulting a 
 big red book on the castles and manors of England, 
 we found Lockley Park to be seated near the base 
 of this grassy range, — though in which county I 
 forget. In the pages of this genial volume, Lockley 
 Park and its appurtenances made a very handsome 
 figure. We took up our abode at a certain little way- 
 side inn, at which in the days of leisure the coach 
 must have stopped for lunch, and burnished pewters 
 of rustic ale been tenderly exalted to "outsides" athirst 
 with 'breezy progression. Here we stopped, for sheer 
 admiration of its steep thatched roof, its latticed win- 
 dows, and its homely porch. We allowed a couple 
 of days to elapse in vague, undirected strolls and 
 sweet sentimental observance of the land, before we 
 
 I prepared to execute the especial purpose of our jour- 
 ney. This admirable region is a compendium of the 
 '^i general physiognomy of England. The noble friendli- 
 ness of the scenery, its subtle old-friendliness, the 
 magical familiarity of multitudinous details, appealed 
 ' to us at every step and at every glance. Deep in our 
 souls a natural affection answered. The whole land, in 
 the full, warm rains of the last of April, liad burst into 
 sudden perfect spring. The dark walls of the hedge- 
 rows had turned into blooming screens ; the sodden 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 41 
 
 verdure of lawn and meadow was streaked with a 
 ranker freshness. We went forth without loss of time 
 for a long walk on the hills. Eeaching their summits, 
 you find half England unrolled at your feet. A dozen 
 broad counties, within the vast range of your vision, 
 commingle their green exhalations. Closely beneath 
 us lay the dark, rich flats of hedgy Worcestershire and 
 the copse-checkered slopes of rolling Hereford, white 
 with the blossom of apples. At widely opposite points 
 of the large expanse two great cathedral towers rise 
 sharply, taking the light, from the settled shadow 
 of their circling towns, — the light, the ineffable Eng- 
 lish light ! " Out of England," cried Searle, " it 's but 
 a garish world !" 
 
 The whole vast sweep of our surrounding prospect 
 lay answering in a myriad fleeting shades the cloudy . 
 process of the tremendous sky. The English heaven 
 is a fit antithesis to the complex English earth. We 
 possess in America the infinite beauty of the blue; 
 England possesses the splendor of combined and ani- 
 mated clouds. Over against us, from our station on 
 the hills, we saw them piled and dissolved, compacted 
 and shifted, blotting the azure with sullen rain spots, 
 stretching, breeze-fretted, into dappled fields of gray, 
 bursting into a storm of light or melting into a driz- 
 zle of silver. We made our way along the rounded 
 summits of these well-grazed heights, — mild, breezy 
 
42 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 inland downs, — and descended through long-drawn 
 slopes of fields, green to cottage doors, to where a 
 rural village beckoned us from its seat among the 
 meadows. Close beside it, I admit, the railway shoots 
 fiercely from its tunnel in the hills; and yet there 
 broods upon this charming hamlet an old-time quie- 
 tude and privacy, which seems to make it a violation 
 of confidence to tell its name so far away. We struck 
 through a narrow lane, a green lane, dim with its 
 height of hedges ; it led us to a superb old farm- 
 house, now jostled by the multiplied lanes and roads 
 which have curtailed its ancient appanage. It stands 
 in stubborn picturesqueness, at the receipt of sad-eyed 
 contemplation and the sufferance of ''sketches." I 
 doubt whether out of Nuremberg — or Pompeii ! — 
 you may find so forcible an image of the domiciliary 
 genius of the past. It is cruelly complete : its bended 
 beams and joists, beneath the burden of its gables, 
 seem to ache and groan with memories and regrets. 
 The short, low windows, where lead and glass combine 
 in equal proportions to hint to the wondering stranger 
 of the mediaeval gloom within, still prefer their dark- 
 / some office to the grace of modern day. Such an old 
 /i hous^fills an American with an indefinable feeling of 
 /((respect^ So propped and patched and tinkered with 
 clumsy tenderness, clustered so richly about its central 
 English sturdiness, its oaken vertebrations, so human- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. * 43 
 
 ized with ages of use and touches of beneficent afFec-C^ 
 tion, it seemed to offer to our grateful eyes a small, ^ 
 rude synthesis of the great English social order. Pass- a 
 ing out upon the high-road, we came to the common 
 browsing-patch, the " village green " of the tales of our 
 youth. Nothing was wanting; the shaggy, mouse- 
 colored donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and 
 huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman, — the old 
 woman, in person, with her red cloak and her black 
 bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside 
 her decent, placid cheeks, — the towering ploughman 
 with his white smock-frock, puckered on chest and 
 back, his short corduroys, his mighty calves, his big, 
 red, rural face. We greeted these things as children 
 greet the loved pictures in a story-book, lost and 
 mourned and found again. It was marvellous how 
 well we knew them. Beside the road we saw a 
 ploughboy straddle, whistling, on a stile. Gainsbor- 
 ough might have painted him. Beyond the stile, 
 across the level velvet of a meadow, a footpath lay, 
 like a thread of darker woof. We followed it from 
 field to field and from stile to stile. It was the way 
 to church. At the church we finally arrived, lost in 
 its rook-haunted churchyard, hidden from the work- 
 day world by the broad stillness of pastures, — a gray, 
 gray tower, a huge black yew, a cluster of village 
 graves, with crooked headstones, in grassy, low relief. 
 
44 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 The whole scene was deeply ecclesiastical. My com- 
 panion was overcome. 
 
 " You must bury me here," he cried. It 's the 
 first church I have seen in my life. How it makes a 
 Sunday where it stands ! " 
 
 The next day we saw a church of statelier propor- 
 tions. We walked over to Worcester, through such a 
 mist of local color, that I felt like one of Smollett's 
 pedestrian heroes, faring tavernward for a night of 
 adventures. As we neared the provincial city we saw 
 the steepled mass of the cathedral, long and high, rise 
 far into the cloud-freckled blue. And as we came 
 nearer still, we stopped on the bridge and viewed the 
 solid minster reflected in the yellow Severn. And 
 going farther yet we entered the town, — where surely 
 Miss Austen's heroines, in chariots and curricles, must 
 often have come a shopping for swan's-down boas and 
 high lace mittens ; — we lounged about the gentle 
 close and gazed insatiably at that most soul-soothing 
 sight, the waning, wasting afternoon light, the visible 
 ether which feels the voices of the chimes, far aloft on 
 the broad perpendicular field of the cathedral tower; 
 saw it linger and nestle and abide, as it loves to do 
 on all bold architectural spaces, converting them gra- 
 ciously into registers and witnesses of nature ; tasted, 
 too, as deeply of the peculiar stillness of this clerical 
 precinct ; saw a rosy English lad come forth and lock 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 45 
 
 the door of the old foundation school, which marries 
 its hoary basement to the soaring Gothic of the church, 
 and carry his big responsible key into one of the quiet 
 canonical houses ; and then stood musing together on 
 the effect on one's mind of having in one's boyhood 
 haunted such cathedral shades as a King's scholar, and 
 yet kept ruddy with much cricket in misty meadows 
 by the Severn. On the third morning we betook our- 
 selves to Lockley Park, having learned that the greater 
 part of it was open to visitors, and that, indeed, on 
 application, the house was occasionally shown. 
 
 Within its broad enclosure many a declining spur 
 of the great hills melted into parklike slopes and dells. 
 A long avenue wound and circled from the outermost 
 gate through an untrimmed woodland, whence you 
 glanced at further slopes and glades and copses and 
 bosky recesses, — at everything except the limits of 
 the place. It was as free and wild and untended as 
 the villa of an Italian prince ; and I have never seen 
 the stern English fact of property put on such an air 
 of innocence. The weather had just become perfect; 
 it was one of the dozen exquisite days of the English 
 year, — days stamped with a refinement of purity un- 
 known in more liberal climes. It was as if the mellow 
 brightness, as tender as that of the primroses which 
 starred the dark waysides like petals wind-scattered 
 over beds of moss, had been meted out to us by the 
 
46 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 cubic foot, — tempered, refined, recorded ! From this 
 external region we passed into the heart of the park, 
 through a second lodge-gate, with weather-worn gild- 
 ing on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where 
 the great trees stood singly and the tame deer browsed 
 along the bed of a woodland stream. Hence, before 
 us, we perceived the dark Elizabethan manor among 
 its blooming parterres and terraces. 
 
 " Here you can wander all day," I said to Searle^ 
 "like a proscribed and exiled prince, hovering about 
 the dominion of the usurper." 
 
 ^ To think," he answered, of people having enjoyed 
 this all these years ! I know what I am, — what 
 
 ^ might I have been ? What does all this make of 
 
 i you?" 
 
 " That it makes you happy," I said, " I should hes- 
 itate to believe. But it 's hard to suppose that such a 
 place has not some beneficent action of its own." 
 
 " What a perfect scene and background it forms ! " 
 Searle went on. " What legends, what histories it 
 knows ! My heart is breaking with unutterable vis- 
 ions. There 's Tennyson's Talking Oak. What sum- 
 mer days one could spend here ! How I could lounge 
 my bit of life away on this shady stretch of turf! 
 Have n't I some maiden-cousin in yon moated grange 
 who would give me kind leave ? " And then turning 
 almost fiercely upon me : " Why did you bring me 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 47 
 
 here ? Why did you drag me into this torment of 
 vain regrets ? " 
 
 At this moment there passed near us a servant 
 who had emerged from the gardens of the great 
 house. I hailed him and inquired whether we should 
 be likely to gain admittance. He answered that Mr. 
 Searle was away from home, and that he thought 
 it probable the housekeeper would consent to do 
 the honors of the mansion. I passed my arm into 
 Searle's. " Come," I said. " Drain the cup, bitter- 
 sweet though it be. We shall go in." We passed an- 
 other lodge-gate and entered the gardens. The house 
 was an admirable specimen of complete Elizabethan, 
 a multitudinous cluster of gables and porches, oriels 
 and turrets, screens ^of ivy and pinnacles of slate. 
 Two broad terraces commanded the great wooded 
 horizon of the adjacent domain. Our summons was 
 answered by the butler in person, solemn and tout 
 de noir hdbille. He repeated the statement that Mr. 
 Searle was away from home, and that he* would pre- 
 sent our petition to the housekeeper. We would be so 
 good, however, as to give him our cards. This request, 
 following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle 
 was absent, seemed to my companion not distinctly 
 pertinent. " Surely not for the housekeeper," he said. 
 
 The butler gave a deferential cough. " Miss Searle 
 is at home." 
 
48 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " Yours alone will suffice," said Searle. I took out 
 a card and pencil, and wrote beneath my name, New 
 York. Standing with the pencil in my hand I felt 
 a sudden impulse. Without in the least weighing 
 proprieties or results, I yielded to it. I added above 
 my name, Mr. CUmmt SearTe. What would come 
 of it ? 
 
 Before many minutes the housekeeper attended us, 
 — a fresh rosy little old woman in a dowdy clean 
 cap and a scanty calico gown; an exquisite speci- 
 men of refined and venerable servility. She had the 
 accent of the country, but the manners of the house. 
 Under her guidance we passed through a dozen 
 apartments, duly stocked with old pictures, old tap- 
 estry, old carvings, old armor, ;with all the constitu- 
 ent properties of an English manor. The pictures 
 were especially valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio 
 of rosy Eubenses, the sole and sombre Eembrandt, 
 glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a 
 Murillo, a Greuze, and a Gainsborough hung gracious 
 in their chosen places. Searle strolled about silent, 
 pale, and grave, with bloodshot eyes and lips com- 
 pressed. He uttered no comment and asked no ques- 
 tion. Missing him, at last, from my side, I retraced 
 my steps and found him in a room we had just left, 
 on a tarnished silken divan, with his face buried in 
 his hands. Before him, ranged on an antique buffet, 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 49 
 
 was a magnificent collection of >ld Italian majolica ; 
 huge platters radiant with their steady colors, jugs 
 and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There came 
 to me, as I looked, a sudden vision of the young Eng- 
 lish gentleman, who, eighty years ago, had travelled 
 by slow stages to Italy and been waited on at his 
 inn by persuasive toymen. " What is it, Searle ? " I 
 asked. "Are you unwell? ' 
 
 He uncovered his haggard face and showed a burn- 
 ing blush. Then smiling in hot irony : " A memory 
 of the past 1 I was thinking of a china vase that 
 used to stand on the parlor mantel-shelf while I was 
 a boy, with the portrait of General Jackson painted 
 on one side and a bunch of flowers on the other. 
 How long do you suppose that majolica has been 
 in the family ? " 
 
 "A long time probably. It was brought hither in 
 the last century, into old, old England, out of old, old 
 Italy, by some old young buck of this excellent house 
 with a taste for chinoiseries. Here it has stood for a 
 hundred years, keeping its clear, firm hues in this 
 aristocratic twilight." 
 
 Searle sprang to his feet. "I say," he cried, "in 
 heaven's name take me away ! I can't stand this. 
 Before I know it I shall do something I shall be 
 ashamed of. I shall steal one of their d — d majolicas. 
 I shall proclaim my identity and assert my rights ! 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 I shall go blubbering to Miss Searle and ask her in 
 pity's name to keep me here for a month ! " 
 
 If poor Searle could ever have been said to look 
 "dangerous," he looked so now. I began to regret 
 my ofl&cious presentation of his name, and prepared 
 without delay to lead him out of the house. We 
 overtook the housekeeper in the last room of the 
 suite, a small, unused boudoir, over the chimney- 
 piece of which hung a noble portrait of a young man 
 in a powdered wig and a brocaded waistcoat. I was 
 immediately struck with his resemblance to my com- 
 panion. 
 
 "This is Mr. Clement Searle, Mr. Searle's great- 
 uncle, by Sir Joshua Eeynolds," quoth the house- 
 keeper. "He died young, poor gentleman. He per- 
 ished at sea, going to America." 
 
 " He 's the young buck," I said, " who brought the 
 majolica out of Italy." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I believe he did," said the housekeeper, 
 staring. 
 
 " He 's the image of you, Searle," I murmured. 
 
 " He 's wonderfully like the gentleman, saving his 
 presence," said the housekeeper. 
 
 My friend stood gazing. " Clement Searle — at sea 
 — going to America — " he muttered. Then harshly, 
 to the housekeeper, "Why the deuce did he go to 
 America ? " 
 
A PASS ONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 Why, indeed, sir ? You may well ask. I believe 
 he had kinsfolk there. It was for them to come to 
 him." 
 
 Searle broke into a laugh. "It was for them to 
 have come to him ! Well, well," he said, fixing his 
 eyes on the little old woman, "they have come to 
 him at last!" 
 
 She blushed like a wrinkled rose-leaf. "Indeed, 
 sir," she said, " I verily believe that you are one of 
 us!'' 
 
 " My name is the name of that lovely youth," Searle 
 went on. " Kinsman, I salute you ! Attend ! " And 
 he grasped me by the arm. "I have an idea! He 
 perished at sea. His spirit came ashore and wandered 
 forlorn till it got lodgment again in my poor body. 
 In my poor body it has lived, homesick, these forty 
 years, shaking its rickety cage, urging me, stupid, to 
 carry it back to the scenes of its youth. And I never 
 knew what was the matter with me ! Let me exhale 
 my spirit here ! " 
 
 The housekeeper essayed a timorous smile. The 
 scene was embarrassing. My confusion was not al- 
 layed when I suddenly perceived in the doorway the 
 figure of a lady. " Miss Searle ! " whispered the house- 
 keeper. My first impression of Miss Searle was that 
 she was neither young nor beautiful. She stood with 
 a timid air on the threshold, pale, trying to smile, and 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 twirling my card in her fingers. I immediately bowed 
 Searle, I think, gazed marvelling. 
 
 " If I am not mistaken," said the lady, " one of you 
 gentlemen is Mr. Clement Searle." 
 
 " My friend is Mr. Clement Searle," I replied. Al- 
 low me to add that I alone am responsible for your 
 having received his name." 
 
 "I should have been sorry not to receive it," said 
 Miss Searle, beginning to blush. "Your being from 
 America has led me to — to interrupt you." 
 
 "The interruption, madam, has been on our part. 
 And with just that excuse, — that we are from Amer- 
 ica." 
 
 Miss Searle, while I spoke, had fixed her eyes on 
 my friend, as he stood silent beneath Sir Joshua's 
 portrait. The housekeeper, amazed and mystified, 
 took a liberty. " Heaven preserve us. Miss ! It 's 
 your great-uncle's picture come to life." 
 
 " I 'm not mistaken, then," said Miss Searle. " We 
 are distantly related." She had the aspect of an ex- 
 tremely modest woman. She was evidently embar- 
 rassed at having to proceed unassisted in her overture. 
 Searle eyed her with gentle wonder from head to foot. 
 I fancied I read his thoughts. This, then, was Miss 
 Searle, his maiden-cousin, prospective heiress of these 
 manorial acres and treasures. She was a person of 
 about thirty-three years of age, taller than most wo- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 53 
 
 men, with health and strength in the rounded ampli- 
 tude of her shape. She had a small blue eye, a 
 massive chignon of yellow hair, and a mouth at once 
 broad and comely. She was dressed in a lustreless 
 black satin gown, with a short train. Around her 
 neck she wore a blue silk handkerchief, and over 
 this handkerchief, in many convolutions, a string of j 
 amber beads. Her appearance was singular ; she was i 
 large, yet not imposing ; girlish, yet mature. Her 
 glance and accent, in addressing us, were simple, too 
 simple. Searle, I think, had been fancying some 
 proud cold beauty of five-and-twenty ; he was re- 
 lieved at finding the lady timid and plain. His per- 
 son was suddenly illumined with an old disused gal- 
 lantry. 
 
 "We are distant cousins, I believe. I am happy 
 to claim a relationship which you are so good as to 
 remember. I had not in the least counted on your 
 doing so." 
 
 "Perhaps I have done wrong," and Miss Searle 
 blushed anew and smiled. " But I have always known 
 of there being people of our blood in America, and I 
 have often wondered and asked about them ; without 
 learning much, however. To-day, when this card was 
 brought me and I knew of a Clement Searle wan- 
 dering about the house like a stranger, I felt as if I 
 ought to do something. I hardly knew what! My 
 
54 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 brother is in London. I have done what I think he 
 would have done. Welcome, as a cousin." And 
 with a gesture at once frank and shy, she put out 
 her hand. 
 
 I 'm welcome indeed," said Searle, taking it, " if 
 he would have done it half as graciously." 
 
 You Ve seen the show," Miss Searle went on. 
 " Perhaps now you '11 have some lunch." We fol- 
 lowed her into a small breakfast-room, where a deep 
 bay-window opened on the mossy flags of the great 
 terrace. Here, for some moments, she remained 
 silent and shy, in the manner of a person resting 
 from a great effort. Searle, too, was formal and reti- 
 cent, so that I had to busy myself with providing 
 small-talk. It was of course easy to descant on the 
 beauties of park and mansion. Meanwhile I observed 
 our hostess. She had small beauty and scanty grace ; 
 her dress was out of taste and out of season; yet 
 she pleased me well. There was about her a sturdy 
 sweetness, a homely flavor of the sequestered chate- 
 laine of feudal days. To be so simple amid this mas- 
 sive luxury, so mellow and yet so fresh, so modest 
 and yet so placid, told of just the spacious leisure in 
 which I had fancied human life to be steeped in 
 many a park-circled liome. Miss Searle was to tlie 
 Belle au Bois Dormant what a fact is to a fairy-tale, 
 an interpretation to a myth. We, on our side, were 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 to our hostess objects of no light scrutiny. The best 
 possible English breeding still marvels visibly at the 
 native American. Miss Searle's wonderment was 
 guileless enough to have been more overt and yet 
 inoffensive; there was no taint of offence indeed in 
 her utterance of the unvarying amenity that she had 
 met an American family on the Lake of Como whom 
 she would have almost taken to be English. 
 
 "If I lived here," I said, "I think I should hardly 
 need to go away, even to the Lake of Como." 
 
 ''You might perhaps get tired of it. And then 
 the Lake of Como ! If I could only go abroad 
 again ! " 
 
 " You have been but once ? " 
 
 " Only once. Three years ago my brother took me 
 to Switzerland. We thought it extremely beautiful. 
 Except for this journey, I have always lived here. 
 Here I was born. It 's a dear old place, indeed, and I 
 know it well. Sometimes I fancy I 'm a little tired." 
 And on my asking her how she spent her time and 
 what society she saw, " It 's extremely quiet," she went 
 on, proceeding by short steps and simple statements, in 
 the manner of a person summoned for the first time to 
 define her situation and enumerate the elements of her 
 life. " We see very few people. I don't think there 
 are many nice people hereabouts. At least we don't 
 know them. Our own family is very small. My 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 brother cares for little else but riding and books. He 
 had a great sorrow ten years ago. He lost his wife and 
 his only son, a dear little boy, who would have suc- 
 ceeded him in the estates. Do you know that I'm 
 likely to have them now ? Poor me ! Since his loss 
 my brother has preferred to be quite alone. I 'm sorry 
 he 's away. But you must wait till he comes back. I 
 expect him in a day or two." She talked more and 
 more, with a rambling, earnest vapidity, about her cir- 
 cumstances, her solitude, her bad eyes, so that she 
 could n't read, her flowers, her ferns, her dogs, and the 
 curate, recently inducted by her brother and warranted 
 sound orthodox, who had lately begun to light his altar 
 candles ; pausing every now and then to blush in self- 
 surprise, and yet moving steadily from point to point 
 in the deepening excitement of temptation and occa- 
 sion. Of all the old things I had seen in England, 
 ithis mind of Miss Searle's seemed to me the oldest, 
 Ithe quaintest, the most ripely verdant ; so fenced and 
 protected by convention and precedent and usage ; so 
 passive and mild and docile. I felt as if I were talk- 
 ing with a potential heroine of Miss Burney. As she 
 talked, she rested her dull, kind eyes upon her kinsman 
 with a sort of fascinated stare. At last, " Did you 
 mean to go away," she demanded, " without asking for 
 us?" 
 
 " I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had deter- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 57 
 
 mined not to trouble you. You have shown me how 
 unfriendly I should have been.'* 
 
 But you knew of the place being ours and of our 
 relationship ? " 
 
 " Just so. It was because of these things that I 
 came down here, — because of them, almost, that I 
 came to England. I have always liked to think of 
 them." 
 
 You merely wished to look, then ? We don't pre- 
 tend to be much to look at." 
 
 "You don't know what you are, Miss Searle," said 
 my friend, gravely. 
 
 " You like the old place, then ? " 
 4 Searle looked at her in silence. " If I could only 
 tell you," he said at last. 
 
 " Do tell me ! You must come and stay with us." 
 
 Searle began to laugh. " Take care, take care," he 
 cried. " I should surprise you. At least I should bore 
 you. I should never leave you." 
 
 " 0, you 'd get homesick for America ! " 
 
 At this Searle laughed the more. " By the way," he 
 cried to me, " tell Miss Searle about America ! " And 
 he stepped through the window out upon the terrace, 
 followed by two beautiful dogs, a pointer and a young 
 stag-hound, who from the moment we came in had es- 
 tablished the fondest relation with him. Miss Searle 
 looked at him as he went, with a certain tender won- 
 
 3* 
 
58 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 der in her eye. I read in her glance, methought, that 
 she was interested. I suddenly recalled the last words 
 I had heard spoken by my friend's adviser in Lon- 
 don : " Instead of dying you 'd better marry." If Miss 
 Searle could be gently manipulated. O for a certain 
 divine tact ! Something assured me that her heart was 
 virgin soil; that sentiment had never bloomed there. 
 If I could but sow the seed ! There lurked within her 
 the perfect image of one of the patient wives of old. 
 
 " He has lost his heart to England/' I said. " He 
 ought to have been born here." 
 
 " And yet," said Miss Searle, he 's not in the least 
 an Englishman." 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 " I hardly know how. I never talked with a for- 
 eigner before ; but he looks and talks as I have fancied 
 foreigners." 
 
 " Yes, he 's foreign enough ! " 
 
 " Is he married ? " 
 
 " He 's a widower, — without children." 
 
 " Has he property ? " 
 
 " Very little." • 
 
 " But enough to travel ? " 
 
 I meditated. " He has not expected to travel far,'^ 
 I said at last. " You know he 's in poor health." 
 " Poor gentleman ! So I fancied." 
 " He 's better, though, than he thinks. He came 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 59 
 
 here because he wanted to see your place before he 
 dies." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " And I fancied I perceived in her 
 eye the lustre of a rising tear. And he was going off 
 without my seeing him ? " 
 
 " He 's a modest man, you see." 
 
 " He 's very much of a gentleman." 
 
 " Assuredly ! " 
 
 At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud, 
 harsh cry. It 's the great peacock ! " said Miss Searle, 
 stepping to the window and passing out. I followed 
 her. Below us on the terrace, leaning on the parapet, 
 stood our friend, with his arm round the neck of the 
 pointer. Before him, on the grand walk, strutted a 
 splendid peacock, with ruffled neck and expanded tail. 
 The other dog had apparently indulged in a momen- 
 tary attempt to abash the gorgeous fowl ; but at Searle's 
 voice he had bounded back to the terrace and leaped 
 upon the parapet, where he now stood licking his new 
 friend's face. The scene had a beautiful old-time air ; 
 the peacock flaunting in the foreground, like the very 
 genius of antique gardenry ; the broad terrace, which 
 flattered an innate taste of mine for all deserted prom- 
 enades to which people may have adjourned from for- 
 mal dinners, to drink coffee in old Sevres, and where 
 the stiff brocade of women's dresses may have rustled 
 autumnal leaves ; and far around us, with one leafy 
 
60 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 circle melting into another, the timbered acres of the 
 park. " The very beasts have made him welcome," I 
 said, as we rejoined our companion. 
 
 " The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle," said his 
 cousin, " what he does only for very great people. A 
 year ago there came here a duchess to see my brother. 
 I don't think that since then he has spread his tail as 
 wide for any one else by a dozen feathers." 
 
 " It 's not alone the peacock," said Searle. " Just 
 now there came slipping across my path a little green 
 lizard, the first I ever saw, the lizard of literature ! 
 And if you have a ghost, broad daylight though it be, 
 I expect to see him here. Do you know the annals of 
 your house. Miss Searle ? " 
 
 " 0 dear, no ! You must ask my brother for all 
 those things." 
 
 " You ought to have a book full of legends and tra- 
 ditions. You ought to have loves and murders and 
 mysteries by the roomful. I count upon it." 
 
 " 0 Mr. Searle ! We have always been a very well- 
 behaved family. Nothing out of the way has ever 
 happened, I think." 
 
 Nothing out of the way ? 0 horrors ! We have 
 done better than that in America. Why, I myself! " — 
 and he gazed at her a moment with a gleam of malice, 
 and then broke into a laugh. Suppose I should turn 
 out a better Searle than you ? Better than you, nursed 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 61 
 
 here in romance and picturesqueness. Come, don't 
 disappoint me. You have some history among you all, 
 you have some poetry. I have been famished all my 
 days for these things. Do you understand ? Ah, you 
 can't understand ! Tell me something ! When I think 
 of what must have happened here ! when I think of 
 the lovers who must have strolled on this terrace and 
 wandered through those glades ! of all the figures and 
 passions and purposes that must have haunted these 
 walls ! of the births and deaths, the joys and suffer- 
 ings, the young hopes and the old regrets, the intense 
 experience — " And here he faltered a moment, with 
 the increase of his vehemence. The gleam in his eye, 
 whjch I have called a gleam of malice, had settled into 
 a deep unnatural light. I began to fear he had become 
 over-excited. But he went on with redoubled passion. 
 "To see it all evoked before me," he cried, "if the 
 Devil alone could do it, I 'd make a bargain with the 
 Devil ! 0 Miss Searle, I 'm a most unhappy man ! 
 
 " 0 dear, 0 dear ! " said Miss Searle. 
 
 " Look at that window, that blessed oriel ! " And 
 he pointed to a small, protruding casement above us, 
 relieved against the purple brick-work, framed in chis- 
 elled stone, and curtained with ivy. 
 
 " It 's my room," said Miss Searle. 
 
 " Of course it 's a woman's room. Think of the for- 
 gotten loveliness which has peeped from that window ; 
 
62 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 think of the old-time women's lives which have known 
 chiefly that outlook on this bosky world. O gentle 
 cousins ! And you, Miss Searle, you 're one of them 
 yet." And he marched towards her and took her 
 great white hand. She surrendered it, blushing to her 
 eyes, and pressing her other hand to her breast. 
 " You 're a woman of the past. You 're nobly simple. 
 It has been a romance to see you. It does n't matter 
 what I say to you. You did n't know me yesterday, 
 you '11 not know me to-morrow. Let me to-day do 
 a mad, sweet thing. Let me fancy you the soul of 
 all the dead women who have trod these terrace-flags, 
 which lie here like sepulchral tablets in the pavement 
 of a church. Let me say I worship you ! " And he 
 raised her hand to his lips. She gently withdrew it, 
 and for a moment averted her face. Meeting her 
 eyes the next moment, I saw that they were filled 
 with tears. The Belle au Bois Dormant was awake. 
 
 There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue 
 was suddenly presented by the appearance of the but- 
 ler bearing a letter. " A telegTam, Miss," he said. 
 
 " Dear me ! " cried Miss Searle, " I can't open a tele- 
 gram. Cousin, help me." 
 
 Searle took the missive, opened it, and read aloud : 
 " / shall be home to dinner. Keep the American'* 
 
II. 
 
 ""T^EEP the American!'' Miss Searle, in com- 
 I \ pliance with che injunction conveyed in her 
 brother's telegram (with something certainly of tele- 
 gi-aphic curtness), lost no time in expressing the pleas- 
 ure it would give her to have my companion remain. 
 ''Eeally you must/' she said; and forthwith repaired 
 to the housekeeper, to give orders for the preparation 
 of a room. 
 
 " How in the world," asked Searle, |' did he know of 
 my being here ? " 
 
 " He learned, probably," I expounded, " from his 
 solicitor of the visit of your friend Simmons. Sim- 
 mons and the solicitor must have had another inter- 
 view since jcxr arrival in England. Simmons, for 
 reasons of his t)wn, has communicated to the solicitor 
 your journey to this neighborhood, and Mr. Searle, 
 learning thiS; has immediately taken for granted that 
 you have fr^mally presented yourself to his sister. 
 He 's hospitably inclined, and he wishes her to do the 
 proper thing by you. More, perhaps ! I have my little 
 theory that he is the very Phoenix of usurpers, that 
 
64 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 his nobler sense has been captivated by the exposition 
 of the men of law, and that he means gracefully to 
 surrender you your fractional interest in the estate." 
 
 I give it up ! " said my friend, musing. " Come 
 what come will ! " 
 
 "You of course," said Miss Searle, reappearing and 
 turning to me, are included in my brother's invita- 
 tion. I have bespoken your lodging as well. Your 
 luggage shall immediately be sent for." 
 
 It was arranged that I in person should be driven 
 over to our little inn, and that I should return with 
 our effects in time to meet Mr. Searle at dinner. On 
 my arrival, several hours later, I was immediately con- 
 ducted to my room. The servant pointed out to me 
 that it communicated by a door and a private passage 
 with that of my companion. 1 made my way along 
 this passage, — a low, narrow corridor, with a long 
 latticed casement, through which there streamed, upon 
 a series of grotesquely sculptured oaken closets and 
 cupboards, the lurid animating glow of the western 
 sun, — knocked at his door, and, getting no answer, 
 opened it. In an arm-chair by the open window sat 
 my friend, sleeping, with arms and legs relaxed and 
 head placidly reverted. It was a great relief to find 
 him resting from his rhapsodies, and I watched him 
 for some moments before waking him. There was a 
 faint glow of color in his cheek and a light parting of 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 65 
 
 his lips, as in a smile; something nearer to mental 
 soundness than I had yet seen in him. It was almost 
 happiness, it was almost health. I laid my hand on 
 his arm and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, 
 gazed at me a moment, vaguely recognized me, then 
 closed them again. Let me dream, let me dream ! " 
 he said. 
 
 " What are you dreaming about ? " 
 
 A moment passed before his answer came. " About 
 a tall woman in a quaint black dress, with yellow hair, 
 and a sweet, sweet smile, and a soft, low, delicious 
 voice ! I 'm in love with her." 
 
 " It 's better to see her," I said, " than to dream 
 about her. Get up and dress, and we shall go down 
 to dinner and meet her." 
 
 " Dinner — dinner — " And he gradually opened his 
 eyes again. " Yes, upon my word, I shall dine ! " 
 
 " You 're a well man ! " I said, as he rose to his feet. 
 " You 11 live to bury Mr. Simmons." He had spent 
 the hours of my absence, he told me, with Miss Searle. 
 They had strolled together over the park and through 
 the gardens and green-houses. " You must already be 
 intimate ! " I said, smiling. 
 
 " She is intimate with me," he answered. " Heaven 
 knows what rigmarole I Ve treated her to ! " They 
 had parted an hour ago, since when, he believed, her 
 brother had arrived. 
 
66 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 The slow-fading twilight still abode in the great 
 drawing-room as we entered it. The housekeeper had 
 told us that this apartment was rarely used, there 
 being a smaller and more convenient one for the same 
 needs. It seemed now, however, to be occupied in 
 my comrade's honor. At the farther end of it, rising 
 to the roof, like a ducal tomb in a cathedral, was a 
 great chimney-piece of chiselled white marble, yel- 
 lowed by time, in which a light fire was crackling. 
 Before the fire stood a small short man with his hands 
 behind him; near him stood Miss Searle, so trans- 
 formed by her dress that at first I scarcely knew her. 
 There was in our entrance and reception something 
 profoundly chilling and solemn. We moved in silence 
 up the long room. Mr. Searle advanced slowly a 
 dozen steps to meet us. His sister stood motionless. 
 I was conscious of her masking her visage with a 
 large white tinselled fan, and of her eyes, grave and 
 expanded, watching us intently over the top of it. 
 The master of Lockley Park grasped in silence the 
 proffered hand of his kinsman, and eyed him from 
 head to foot, suppressing, I think, a start of surprise 
 at his resemblance to Sir Joshua's portrait. "This is 
 a happy day ! " he said. And then turning to me 
 with a bow, " My cousin's friend is my friend." Miss 
 Searle lowered her fan. 
 
 The first thing that struck me in Mr. Searle's ap- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 67 
 
 pearance was his short and meagre stature, which was 
 less by half a head than that of his sister. The second 
 was the preternatural redness of his hair and beard. 
 They intermingled over' his ears and surrounded his 
 head like a huge lurid nimbus. His face was pale 
 and attenuated, like the face of a scholar, a dilettante, 
 a man who lives in a librai^y, bending over books and 
 prints and medals. At a distance it had an oddly 
 innocent and youthful look ; but on a nearer view it 
 revealed a number of finely etched and scratched 
 wrinkles, of a singularly aged and cuni;iing effect. It 
 was the complexion of a man of sixty. His nose was ^ 
 arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose | 
 of my friend. In harmony with the effect of his hair | 
 was that of his eyes, which were large and deep-set, 
 with a sort of vulpine keenness and redness, but full I 
 of temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy — 
 grave and solemn in aspect, grotesquely solemn, al- 
 most, in spite of the bushy brightness in which it was ! 
 encased — set in motion by a smile which seemed to 
 whisper terribly, " I am the smile, the sole and official, 
 the grin to command," and you will have an imperfect 
 notion of the remarkable presence of our host; some- 
 thing better worth seeing and knowing, I fancied as I 
 covertly scrutinized him, than anything our excursion 
 had yet introduced us to. Of how thoroughly I had 
 entered into sympathy with my companion and how 
 
68 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 effectually I had associated my sensibilities with his, 
 I had small suspicion until, within the short five min- 
 utes which preceded the announcement of dinner, I 
 distinctly perceived him place himself, morally speak- 
 ing, on the defensive. To neither of us was Mr. Searle, 
 as the Italians would say, sympathetic. I might have 
 fancied from her attitude that Miss Searle apprehended 
 our thoughts. A signal change had been wrought in 
 her since the morning; during the hour, indeed (as I 
 read in the light of the wondering glance he cast at 
 her), that had elapsed since her parting with her 
 cousin. She had not yet recovered from some great 
 agitation. Her face was pale and her eyes red with 
 weeping. These tragic betrayals gave an unexpected 
 dignity to her aspect, which was further enhanced by 
 the rare picturesqueness of her dress. 
 
 Whether it was taste or whether it was accident, 
 I know not; but Miss Searle, as she stood there, 
 half in the cool twilight, half in the arrested glow 
 of the fire as it spent itself in the vastness of its 
 marble cave, was a figure for a cunning painter. 
 She was dressed in the faded splendor of a beauti- 
 ful tissue of combined and blended silk and crape 
 of a tender sea-green color, festooned and garnished 
 and puffed into a massive houillonnement ; a ^)iece 
 of millinery which, though it must ^ ssed 
 a number of stately dinners, pre^^' Searle^^j 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 C9 
 
 air of admirable elegance. Over her white shoulders 
 she wore an ancient web of the most precious and 
 venerable lace, and about her rounded throat a neck- 
 lace of heavy pearls. I went with her in to dinner, 
 and Mr. Searle, following with my friend, took his 
 arm (as the latter afterwards told me) and pretended 
 sportively to conduct him. As dinner proceeded, the 
 feeling grew within me that a drama had begun to 
 be played in which the three persons before me were 
 actors, each of a most exacting part. The part of my 
 friend, however, seemed the most heavily charged, and 
 I was filled with a strong desire that he should ac- 
 quit himself with honor. I seemed to see him sum- 
 mon his shadowy faculties to obey his shadowy will. 
 The poor fellow sat playing solemnly at self-esteem. 
 With Miss Searle, credulous, passive, and pitying, he 
 had finally flung aside all vanity and propriety, and 
 shown her the bottom of his fantastic heart. But with 
 our host there might be no talking of nonsense nor 
 taking of liberties ; there and then, if ever, sat a 
 double-distilled conservative, breathing the fumes of 
 hereditary privilege and security. For an hour, then, 
 I saw my poor friend turn faithfully about to speak 
 graciously of barren things. He was to prove him- 
 self til sound American, so that his relish of this 
 eldeyet introipight seem purely disinterested. What 
 his kj into sym\ expected to find him, I know not; 
 
70 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 but, with all his finely adjusted urbanity, he was 
 unable to repress a shade of annoyance at finding 
 him likely to speak graciously at all. Mr. Searle 
 was not the man to show his hand, but I think his 
 best card had been a certain implicit confidence that 
 this exotic parasite would hardly have good manners. 
 Our host, with great decency, led the conversation 
 to America, talking of it rather as if it were some 
 fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately pro- 
 I claimed indeed to have the proportion of atmos- 
 I pheric gases required to support animal life, but not, 
 I save under cover of a liberal afterthought, to be 
 admitted into one's regular conception of things. 
 I, for my part, felt nothing but regret that the 
 ■ spheric smoothness of his universe should be strained 
 to cracking by the intrusion of our square shoulders. 
 
 " I knew in a general way," said Mr. Searle, " of 
 my having relations in America; but you know one 
 hardly realizes those things. I could hardly more 
 have imagined people of our blood there, than I 
 could have imagined being there myself. There 
 was a man I knew at college, a very odd fellow, a 
 nice fellow too ; he and I were rather cronies ; I 
 think he. afterwards went to America; to the Argen- 
 tine Eepublic, I believe. Do you know the Argen- 
 tine Eepublic ? What an extraordinary name, by 
 the way ! And then, you know, there was that 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 71 
 
 great-uncle of mine whom Sir Joshua painted. He 
 went to America, but he never got there. He was 
 lost at sea. You look enough like him to have one 
 fancy he d'id get there, and that he has lived along 
 till now. If you are he, you've not done a wise 
 thing to show yourself here. He left a bad name 
 behind him. There's a ghost who comes sobbing 
 about the house every now and then, the ghost of 
 one against whom he wrought a great evil ! " 
 0 brother ! " cried Miss Searle, in simple horror. 
 
 " Of course you know nothing of such things," 
 said Mr. Searle. " You 're too sound a sleeper to 
 hear the sobbing of ghosts." 
 
 " I 'm sure I should like immensely to hear the 
 sobbing of a ghost ! " said my friend, with the light 
 of his previous eagerness playing up into his eyes. 
 " Why does it sob ? Unfold the wondrous tale." 
 
 Mr. Searle eyed his audience for a moment gaug- 
 ingly ; and then, as the French say, se recetcillit, as if 
 he were measuring his own imaginative force. 
 
 He wished to do justice to his theme. With the 
 five finger-nails of his left hand nervously playing 
 against the tinkling crystal of his wineglass, and his 
 bright eye telling of a gleeful sense that, small and 
 grotesque as he sat there, he was for the moment 
 profoundly impressive, he distilled into our untutored 
 minds the sombre legend of his house. Mr. Clement 
 
72 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGKIM. 
 
 Searle, from all I gather, was a young man of great 
 talents but a weak disposition. His mother was left 
 a widow early in life, with two sons, of whom he was 
 the older and the more promising. She educated him 
 with the utmost fondness and care. Of course, when 
 he came to manhood she wished him to marry well. 
 His means were quite sufficient to enable him to over- 
 look the want of means in his wife ; and Mrs. Searle 
 selected a young lady who possessed, as she conceived, 
 every good gift save a fortune, — a fine, proud, hand- 
 some girl, the daughter of an old friend, — an old 
 lover, I fancy, of her own. Clement, however, as it 
 appeared, had either chosen otherwise or was as yet 
 unprepared to choose. The young lady discharged upon 
 him in vain the battery of her attractions ; in vain 
 his mother urged her cause. Clement remained cold, 
 insensible, inflexible. Mrs. Searle possessed a native 
 force of which in its feminine branch the family seems 
 to have lost the trick. A proud, passionate, imperious 
 woman, she had had great cares and a number of law- 
 suits ; they had given her a great will. She suspected 
 that her son's affections were lodged elsewhere, and 
 lodged amiss. Irritated by his stubborn defiance of 
 her wishes, she persisted in her urgency. The more 
 she watched him the more she believed that he loved 
 in secret. If he loved in secret, of course he loved 
 beneath him. He went about sombre, sullen, and 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 73 
 
 preoccupied. At last, with the fatal indiscretion of an 
 angry woman, she threatened to bring the young lady 
 of her choice — who, by the way, seems to have been 
 no shrinking blossom — to stay in the house. A 
 stormy scene was the result. He threatened that if 
 she did so, he would leave the country and sail for 
 America. She probably disbelieved him; she knew 
 him to be weak, but she overrated his weakness. At 
 all events, the fair rejected arrived and Clement de- ^ 
 parted. On a dark December day he took ship at 
 Southampton. The two women, desperate with rage 
 and sorrow, sat alone in this great house, mingling 
 their tears and imprecations. A fortnight later, on 
 Christmas eve, in the midst of a great snow-storm, 
 long famous in the country, there came to them a 
 mighty quickening of their bitterness. A young wo- 
 man, soaked and chilled by the storm, gained entrance 
 to the house and made her way into the presence of 
 the mistress and her guest. She poured out her tale. 
 She was a poor curate's daughter of Hereford. Clem- 
 ent Searle had loved her ; loved her all too well. She 
 had been turned out in wrath from her father's house ; 
 his mother, at least, might pity her ; if not for herself, 
 then for the child she was soon to bring forth. The 
 poor girl had been a second time too trustful. The 
 women, in scorn, in horror, with blows, possibly, turned 
 her f)rth again into the storm. In the storm she 
 
 4 
 
74 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 wandered, and in the deep snow she died. Her lover, 
 as you know, perished in that hard winter weather at 
 sea; the news came to his mother late, but soon 
 enough. We are haunted by the curate's daughter ! " 
 
 There was a pause of some moments. "Ah, well 
 we may be!" said Miss Searle, with a great pity. 
 
 Searle blazed up into enthusiasm. " Of course you 
 know," — and suddenly he began to blush violently, — 
 "I should be sorry to claim any identity with my 
 faithless namesake, poor fellow. But I shall be hugely 
 tickled if this poor ghost should be deceived by my 
 resemblance and mistake me for her cruel lover. 
 She 's welcome to the comfort of it. What one can do 
 in the case I shall be glad to do. But can a ghost 
 haunt a ghost ? I am a ghost ! " 
 
 Mr. Searle stared a moment, and then smiling 
 superbly : " I could almost believe you are ! " he 
 said. 
 
 " 0 brother — cousin ! " cried Miss Searle, with the 
 gentlest, yet most appealing dignity, "how can you 
 talk so horribly ? " 
 
 This horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a 
 potent magic for my friend ; and his imagination, 
 chilled for a while by the frigid contact of his kins- 
 man, began to glow again with its earlier fire. From 
 this moment he ceased to steer his cockle-shell, to 
 care what he said or how he said it, so long as lie 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 expressed his passionate satisfaction in the scene \ 
 about him. As he talked I ceased even mentally 
 to protest. I have wondered since that I should 
 not have resented the exhibition of so rank and 
 florid an egotism. But a great frankness for the 
 time makes its own law, and a great passion its 
 own channel. There was, moreover, an immense 
 sweetness in the manner of my friend's speech. 
 Free alike from either adulation or envy, the very 
 soul of it was a divine apprehension, an imagina- 
 tive mastery, free as the flight of Ariel, of the 
 poetry of his companions' situation and of the con- 
 trasted prosiness of their attitude. 
 
 " How does the look of age come ? " he demanded, 
 at dessert. "Does it come of itself, unobserved, un- 
 recorded, unmeasured ? Or do you woo it and set 
 baits and traps for it, and watch it like the dawn- 
 ing brownness of a meerschaum pipe, and nail it 
 down when it appears, just where it peeps out, and 
 light a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to 
 it daily ? Or do you forbid it and fight it and 
 resist it, and yet feel it settling and deepening about 
 you, as irresistible as fate ? " 
 
 " What the deuce is the man talking about ? " 
 said the smile of our host. 
 
 " I found a gray hair this morning," said Miss 
 Searle. 
 
76 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " Good heavens ! I hope you respected it," cried 
 Searle. 
 
 " I looked at it for a long time in my little 
 glass/' said his cousin, simply. 
 
 " Miss Searle, for many years to come, can afford 
 to be amused at gray hairs," I said. 
 
 " Ten years hence I shall be forty-three," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 " That 's my age," said Searle. " If I had only 
 come here ten years ago ! I should have had more 
 time to enjoy the feast, but I should have had less 
 of an appetite. I needed to get famished for it." 
 
 " Why did you wait for the starving point ? " asked 
 Mr. Searle. " To think of these ten years that we 
 might have been enjoying you ! " And at the thought 
 of these wasted ten years Mr. Searle broke into a vio- 
 lent nervous laugh. 
 
 " I always had a notion, — a stupid, vulgar no- 
 tion, if there ever was one, — that to come abroad 
 properly one ought to have a pot of money. My 
 pot was too nearly empty. At last I came with 
 my empty pot ! " 
 
 Mr. Searle coughed with an air of hesitation. 
 " You 're a — you 're in limited circumstances ? " 
 
 My friend apparently was vastly tickled to have 
 his bleak situation called by so soft a name. Lim- 
 ited circumstances ! " he cried with a long, liglit 
 laugh ; " I 'm in no circumstances at all ! " 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 77 
 
 " Upon my word ! " murmured Mr. Searle, with 
 an air of being divided between his sense of the 
 indecency and his sense of the rarity of a gentle- 
 man taking just that tone about his affairs. " Well 
 — well — well!" he added, in a voice which might 
 have meant everything or nothing ; and proceeded, 
 with a twinkle in his eye, to finish a glass of wine. 
 His sparkling eye, as he drank, encountered mine 
 over the top of his glass, and, for a moment, we 
 exchanged a long deep glance, — a glance so keen 
 as to leave a slight embarrassment on the face of 
 each. "And you," said Mr. Searle, by way of carry- 
 ing it off, " how about your circumstances ? " 
 
 0, his," said my friend, " his are unlimited ! He 
 could buy up Lockley Park ! " He had drunk, I 
 think, a rather greater number of glasses of port — 
 I admit that the port was infinitely drinkable — • 
 than was to have been desired in the interest of per- 
 fect self-control. He was rapidly drifting beyond 
 any tacit dissuasion of mine. A certain feverish 
 harshness in his glance and voice warned me that 
 to attempt to direct him would simply irritate him. 
 As we rose from the table he caught my troubled 
 look. Passing his arm for a moment into mine, 
 " This is the great night ! " he whispered. " The night 
 of fataUty, the night of destiny!" 
 
 Mr. Searle had caused the whole lower region of 
 
78 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 the house to be thrown open and a multitude of lights 
 to be placed in convenient and effective positions. 
 Such a marshalled wealth of ancient candlesticks and 
 flambeaux I had never beheld. Niched against the 
 dark panellings, casting great luminous circles upon 
 the pendent stiffness of sombre tapestries, enhancing 
 and completing with admirable effect the vastness 
 and mystery of the ancient house, they seemed to 
 people the great rooms, as our little group passed 
 slowly from one to another, with a dim, expectant 
 presence. We had a delightful hour of it. Mr. Searle 
 at once assumed the part of cicerone, and — I had 
 not hitherto done him justice — Mr. Searle became 
 agreeable. While I lingered behind with Miss Searle, 
 he walked in advance with his kinsman. It was as 
 if he had said, "Well, if you want the old place, 
 you shall have it — metaphysically!" To speak vul- 
 garly, he rubbed it in. Carrying a great silver can- 
 dlestick in his left hand, he raised it and lowered it 
 and cast the light hither and thither, upon pictures 
 and hangings and bits of carving and a hundred 
 lurking architectural treasures. Mr. Searle knew his 
 house. He hinted at innumerable traditions and 
 memories, and evoked with a very pretty wit the 
 figures of its earlier occupants. He told a dozen 
 anecdotes with an almost reverential gravity and neat- 
 ness. His companion attended, with a sort of brood- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 79 
 
 ing intelligeice. Miss Searle and I, meanwhile, were 
 not wholly silent. 
 
 "I suppose that by this time/' I said, "you and 
 your cousin are almost old friends." 
 
 She trifled a moment with her fan, and then raising 
 her homely candid gaze : " Old friends, and at the 
 same time strangely new ! My cousin, — my cousin," 
 — and her voice lingered on the word, — "it seems 
 so strange to call him my cousin, after thinking 
 these many years that I had no cousin ! He 's a 
 most singular man." 
 
 " It 's not so much he as his circumstances that 
 are singular," I ventured to say. 
 
 " 1 'm so sorry for his circumstances. I wish I 
 could help him in some way. He interests me so 
 much." And here Miss Searle gave a rich, mellow 
 sigh. " I wish I had known him a long time ago. He 
 told me that he is but the shadow of what he was." 
 
 I wondered whether Searle had been consciouslj 
 playing upon the fancy of this gentle creature. If 
 he had, I believed he had gained his point. But in 
 fact, his position had become to my sense so charged 
 with opposing forces, that I hardly ventured wholly 
 to rejoice. " His better self just now," I said, " seems 
 again to be taking shape. It will have been a good 
 deed on your part, Miss Searle, if you help to restore 
 him to soundness and serenity." 
 
80 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 "Ah, what can I do?" • f-^ 
 11 "Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him 
 I love you ! You see in him now, doubtless, much to 
 f pity and to wonder at. But let him simply enjoy 
 I awhile the grateful sense of your nearness and dear- 
 ly ness. He will be a better and stronger man for it, 
 :; and then you can love him, you can respect him 
 I without restriction." 
 
 Miss Searle listened with a puzzled tenderness of 
 gaze. " It 's a hard part for poor me to play ! " 
 
 Her almost infantine gentleness left me no choice 
 but to be absolutely frank. " Did you ever play any 
 1 part at all ? " I asked. 
 
 Her eyes met mine, wonderingly; she blushed, as 
 with a sudden sense of my meaning. " Never ! I 
 i think I have hardly lived." 
 
 j " You 've begun now, perhaps. You have begun to 
 [ care for something outside the narrow circle of habit 
 and duty. (Excuse me if I am rather too outspoken : 
 you know I 'm a foreigner.) It 's a great moment : 
 I wish you joy !" 
 
 "I could almost fancy you are laughing at me. 
 I feel more trouble than joy." 
 "Why do you feel trouble?" 
 
 She paused, with her eyes fixed on our two com- 
 panions. "My cousin's arrival," she said at last, "is 
 *a great disturbance." 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 81 
 
 "You mean that you did wrong in recognizing 
 him ? In that case the fault is mine. He had no 
 intention of giving you the opportunity." 
 
 " I did wrong, after a fashion ! But I can't find 
 it in my heart to regret it. I never shall regret it ! 
 I did what I thought proper. Heaven forgive me ! " 
 
 " Heaven bless you, Miss Searle ! Is any harm to 
 come of it ? I did the evil ; let me bear the brunt ! " 
 
 She shook her head gravely. " You don't know 
 my brother!" 
 
 " The sooner I do know him, then, the better ! " 
 And hereupon I felt a dull irritation which had been 
 gathering force for more than hour explode into sud- 
 den wrath. " What on earth is your brother ? " I 
 demanded. She turned away. " Are you afraid of 
 him?" I asked. 
 
 She gave me a tearful sidelong glance. " He 's 
 looking at me ! " she murmured. 
 
 I looked at him. He was standing with his back 
 to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror, framed 
 in rococo silver, which he had taken from a shelf of 
 antiquities, in just such a position that he caught 
 the reflection of his sister's person. Shall I confess 
 it ? Something in this performance so tickled my 
 sense of the picturesque, that it was with a sort of 
 blunted anger that I muttered, "The sneak!" Yet 
 I felt passion enough to urge me forward. It seemed 
 
82 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 to me that by implication I, too, was being covertly 
 watched. I should not be watched for nothing ! 
 ''Miss Searle/' I said, insisting upon her attention, 
 "promise me something." 
 
 She turned upon me with a start and the glance 
 of one appealing from some great pain. " 0, don't 
 ask me ! " she cried. It was as if she were standing 
 on the verge of ^some sudden lapse of familiar ground 
 and had been summoned to make a leap. I felt 
 that retreat was impossible, and that it was the greater 
 kindness to beckon her forward. 
 
 "Promise me," I repeated. 
 
 Still with her eyes she protested. " 0, dreadful 
 day ! " she cried, at last. 
 
 " Promise me to let him speak to you, if he should 
 ask you, any wish you may suspect on your brother's 
 part notwithstanding." 
 
 She colored deeply. "You mean," she said, — "you 
 mean that he — has something particular to say." 
 
 "Something most particular!" 
 
 "Poor cousin!" 
 
 I gave her a deeply questioning look. "Well, 
 poor cousin! But promise me." 
 
 " I promise," she said, and moved away across the 
 long room and out of the door. 
 
 " You 're in time to hear the most delightful 
 story ! " said my friend, as I rejoined the two gentle- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 83 
 
 men. They were standings before an old sombre por- 
 trait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne's time, 
 with her ill-painted flesh-tints showing livid in the 
 candlelight against her dark drapery and background. 
 " This is Mistress Margaret Searle, — a sort of Beatrix 
 Esmond, — who did as she pleased. She married a 
 paltry Frenchman, a penniless fiddler, in the teeth 
 of her whole family. Fair Margaret, my compliments ! 
 Upon my soul, she looks like Miss Searle! Pray 
 go on. What came of it all?" 
 
 Mr. Searle looked at his kinsman for a moment with 
 an air of distaste for his boisterous homage, and of pity 
 for his crude imagination. Then resuming, with a 
 very effective dryness of tone : I found a year ago, in 
 a box of very old papers, a letter from Mistress Mar- 
 garet to Cynthia Searle, her elder sister. It was dated 
 from Paris and dreadfully ill-spelled. It contained a 
 most passionate appeal for — a — for pecuniary assist- 
 ance. She had just been confined, she was starving, 
 and neglected by her husband ; she cursed the day she 
 left England. It was a most dismal effusion. I never 
 heard that she found means to return." 
 
 " So much for marrying a Frenchman ! " I said, sen- 
 , tentiously. 
 
 Mr. Searle was silent for some moments. " This was 
 the first," he ' said, finally, and the last of the family 
 who has been so d — d un-English ! " 
 
84 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " Does Miss Searle know her history ? " asked my 
 friend, staring at the rounded whiteness of the lady's 
 heavy cheek. 
 
 " Miss Searle knows nothing ! " said our host, with 
 zeal. 
 
 This utterance seemed to kindle in my friend a gen- 
 erous opposing zeal. " She shall know at least the tale 
 of Mistress Margaret/' he cried, and walked rapidly 
 away in search of her. 
 
 Mr. Searle and I pursued our march through the 
 lighted rooms. You've found a cousin," I said, with 
 a vengeance." 
 
 Ah, a vengeance ? " said my host, stiffly. 
 
 " I mean that he takes as keen an interest in your 
 annals and possessions as yourself" 
 
 0, exactly so ! " and Mr. Searle burst into resound- 
 ing laughter. " He tells me," he resumed, in a mo- 
 ment, "that he is an invalid. I should never have 
 fancied it." 
 
 " Within the past few hours," I said, " he 's a changed 
 man. Your place and your kindness have refreshed 
 him immensely." 
 
 Mr. Searle uttered the little shapeless ejaculation 
 with which many an Englishman is apt to announce 
 the concussion of any especial courtesy of speech. He 
 bent his eyes on the floor frowningly, and then, to my 
 surprise, he suddenly stopped and looked at me with a 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 85 
 
 penetrating eye. I 'm an honest man ! " he said. I 
 was quite prepared to assent ; but he went on, with a 
 sort of fury of frankness, as if it was the first time in 
 his life that he had been prompted to expound himself, 
 as if the process was mightily unpleasant to him and 
 he was hurrying through it as a task. " An honest 
 man, mind you ! I know nothing about Mr. Clement 
 Searle ! I never expected to see him. He has been to 
 me a — a — " And hero Mr. Searle paused to select 
 a word which should vividly enough express what, for 
 good or for ill, his kinsman had been to him. " He 
 has been to me an amazement ! I have no doubt he is 
 a most amiable man ! You '11 not deny, however, that 
 he's a very odd style of person. I 'n^ sorry he 's ill! 
 I 'm sorry he 's poor ! He 's my fiftieth cousin ! Well 
 and good ! I 'ni an honest man. He shall not have it 
 to say that he was not received at my house." 
 
 " He, too, thank heaven ! is an honest man ! " I said, 
 smiling. 
 
 ''Why the deuce, then," cried Mr. Searle, turning 
 almost fiercely upon me, "has he established this 
 underhand claim to my property?" 
 
 This startling utterance flashed backward a gleam of 
 light upon the demeanor of our host and the suppressed 
 agitation of his sister. In an instant the jealous soul 
 of the unhappy gentleman revealed itself For a . mo- 
 ment I was so amazed and scandalized at the directness 
 
/86^ A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 of his attack that I lacked words to respond. As soon 
 as he had spoken, Mr. Searle appeared to feel that he 
 had struck too hard a blow. Excuse me, sir," he hur- 
 ried on, " if I speak of this matter with heat. But I 
 have seldom suffered so grievous a shock as on learn- 
 ing, as I learned this morning from my solicitor, the 
 monstrous proceedings of Mr. Clement Searle. Great 
 heaven, sir, for what does the man take me ? He pre- 
 tends to the Lord knows what fantastic passion for my 
 place. Let him respect it, then. Let him, with his 
 tawdry parade of imagination, imagine a tithe of what 
 I feel. I love my estate; it's my passion, my life, 
 myself! Am I to make a great hole in it for a beg- 
 garly foreigner, a man without means, without proof, 
 a stranger, an adventurer, a Bohemian? I thought 
 America boasted that she had land for all men ! Upon 
 my soul, sir, I have never been so shocked in my life." 
 
 I paused for some moments before speaking, to allow 
 his passion fully to expend itself and to flicker up 
 again if it chose ; for on my own part it seemed well 
 that I should answer him once for all. Your really 
 absurd apprehensions, Mr. Searle," I said at last, — 
 " your terrors, I may call them, — have fairly over- 
 mastered your common-sense. You are attacking a 
 man of straw, a creature of base illusion ; though I 'm 
 sadly afraid you have wounded a man of spirit and of 
 conscience. Either my friend has no valid claim on 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 87 
 
 your estate, in which case your agitation is super- 
 fluous ; or he has a valid claim — " 
 
 Mr. Searle seized my arm and glared at me, I 
 may say ; his pale face paler still with the horror oi 
 my suggestion, his great keen eyes flashing, and his 
 flamboyant hair erect and quivering. 
 
 " A valid claim ! " he whispered. " Let him try it ! " 
 
 We had emerged into the great hall of the mansion 
 and stood facing the main doorway. The door stood 
 open into the porch, through whose stone archway I 
 saw the garden glittering in the blue light of a full 
 moon. As Mr. Searle uttered the words I have just 
 repeated, I beheld my companion come slowly up into 
 the porch from without, bareheaded, bright in the 
 outer moonlight, dark then in the shadow of the 
 archway, and bright again in the lamplight on the 
 threshold of the hall. As he crossed the threshold 
 the butler made his appearance at the head of the 
 staircase on our left, faltered visibly a moment* on 
 seeing Mr. Searle ; but then, perceiving my friend, he 
 gravely descended. He bore in his hand a small 
 plated salver. On the salver, gleaming in the light 
 of the suspended lamp, lay a folded note. Clement 
 Searle came forward, staring a little and startled, I 
 think, by some fine sense of a near explosion. The 
 butler applied the match. He advanced toward my 
 friend, extending salver and note. Mr. Searle made a 
 
88 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 moveiiient as if to spring forward, but controlled him- 
 self. " Tottenham 1" he shouted, in a strident voice. 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " said Tottenham, halting. 
 
 " Stand where you are. For whom is that note ? " 
 For Mr. Clement Searle," said the butler, staring 
 straight before him as if to discredit a suspicion of his 
 having read the direction. 
 
 " Who gave it to you ? " 
 
 "Mrs. Horridge, sir." (The housekeeper.) 
 
 " Who gave it Mrs. Horridge ? " 
 
 There was on Tottenham's part just an infinitesimal 
 pause before replying. 
 
 My dear sir," broke in Searle, completely sobered 
 by the sense of violated courtesy, " is n't that rather 
 my business ? " 
 
 " What happens in my house is my business ; and 
 mighty strange things seem to be happening." Mr. 
 Searle had become exasperated to that point that, a 
 rarer thing for an Englishman, he compromised himself 
 before a servant. 
 
 ^'fering me the note!" he cried. The butler 
 obeyed. 
 
 " Keally, this is too much ! " cried my companion, 
 affronted and helpless. 
 
 I was disgusted. Before Mr. Searle had time to 
 take the note, I possessed myself of it. " If you have 
 no regard for your sister," I said, "let a straj]ger, at 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 89 
 
 least, act for her." And I tore the disputed thing 
 into a dozen pieces. 
 
 " In the name of decency," cried Searle, " what does 
 this horrid business mean ? " 
 
 Mr. Searle was about to break out upon him ; but 
 at this moment his sister appeared on the staircase, 
 summoned evidently by our high-pitched and angry 
 voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for 
 a dark dressing-gown, removed her ornaments, and 
 begun to disr^jy^yie her hair, a heavy tress of which 
 escaped from the' comb. She hurried downward, with 
 a pale, questioning face. Feeling distinctly that, for 
 ourselves, immediate departure was in the air, and 
 divining Mr. Tottenham to be a butler of remarkable 
 intuitions and extreme celerity, I seized the oppor- 
 tunity to request him, sotto voce, to send a carriage 
 to the door without delay. " And put up our things,'' 
 I added. 
 
 Our host rushed at his sister and seized the white 
 wrist which escaped from the loose sleeve of her 
 dress. "What was in that note?" he demanded. 
 
 Miss Searle looked first at its scattered fragments 
 and then at her cousin. " Did you read it ? " she asked. 
 
 "No, but I thank you for it!" said Searle. 
 
 Her eyes for an instant communed brightly with 
 his own ; then she transferred them to her brother's 
 face, where the light went out of them and left a 
 
DO 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 dull, sad patience. An inexorable patience he seemed 
 to find it : he flushed crimson with rage and the sense 
 of his unhandsomeness, and flung her away. " You 're 
 a child ! " he cried. " Go to bed." 
 
 In poor Searle's face as well the gathered serenity- 
 was twisted into a sickened frown, and the reflected 
 brightness of his happy day turned to blank confu- 
 sion. " Have I been dealing these three hours with a 
 madman ? " he asked plaintively. 
 
 "A madman, yes, if you will! A pian mad with 
 the love of his home and the sense of its stability. 
 I have held my tongue till now, but you have been 
 too much for me. Who are you, what are you ? 
 From what paradise of fools do you come, that you 
 fancy I shall cut off a piece of my land, my home, 
 my heart, to toss to you ? Forsooth, I shall share 
 my land with you ? Prove your infernal claim ! 
 There is n't that in it 1 " And he kicked one of the 
 bits of paper on the floor. 
 
 Searle received this broadside gaping. Then turn- 
 ing away, he went and seated himself on a bench 
 against the wall and rubbed his forehead amazedly. 
 I looked at my watch, and listened for the wheels of 
 our carriage. 
 
 Mr. Searle went on. "Wasn't it enough that you 
 should have practised against my property ? Need 
 you have come into my very house to practise against 
 my sister?" 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 91 
 
 t 
 
 Searle put his two hands to his face. " Oh, oh, oh ! " 
 he softly roared. 
 
 Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her 
 knees at his side. 
 
 "Go to bed, you fool!" shrieked her brother. 
 
 " Dear cousin," said Miss Searle, it 's cruel that 
 you are to have to think of us so ! " 
 
 " 0, I shall think of you ! " he said. And he laid 
 a hand on her head. 
 
 " I believe you have done nothing wrong ! " she 
 murmured. 
 
 " I Ve done what I could," her brother pursued. 
 " But it 's arrant folly to pretend to friendship when 
 this abomination lies between us. You were wel- 
 come to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you 
 could swallow them. The sight spoiled my appe- 
 tite ! " cried the furious little man, with a laugh. 
 " Proceed with your case ! My people in London are 
 instructed and prepared." 
 
 "I have a fancy," I said to Searle, "that your 
 case has vastly improved since you gave it up." 
 
 " Oho ! you don't feign ignorance, then ? " and he 
 shook his flaming chevelure at me. "It is very kind 
 of you to give it up ! " And he laughed resound- 
 ingly. " Perhaps you will also give up my sister ! " 
 
 Searle sat in his chair in a species of collapse, 
 staring at his adversary. " 0 miserable man ! " he 
 
92 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 f 
 
 moaned at last. " I fancied we had become such 
 friends 1 " 
 
 " Boh ! you imbecile ! " cried our host. 
 
 Searle seemed not to hear him. "Am I serious- 
 ly expected," he pursued, slowly and painfully, — 
 " am I seriously expected — to — to sit here and de- 
 fend myself — to prove I have done nothing wrong ? 
 Think what you please." And he rose, with an ef- 
 fort, to his feet. " I know what you think ! " he 
 added, to Miss Searle. 
 
 The carriage wheels resounded on the gravel, and 
 at the same moment the footman descended with 
 our two portmanteaus. Mr. Tottenham followed him 
 with our hats and coats. 
 
 " Good God ! " cried Mr. Searle ; " you are not go- 
 ing away ! " This ejaculation, under the circumstan- 
 ces, had a grand comicality which prompted me to 
 violent laughter. " Bless my soul ! " he added ; " of 
 course you are going." 
 
 " It 's perhaps well," said Miss Searle, with a great 
 effort, inexpressibly touching in one for whom great 
 efforts were visibly new and strange, " that I should 
 tell you what my poor little note contained." 
 
 " That matter of your note, madam," said her broth- 
 er, " you and I will settle together ! " 
 
 " Let me imagine its contents," said Searle. 
 
 " Ah ! they have been too much imagined ! " she 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 93 
 
 answered simply. " It was only a word of warning. 
 I knew something painful was coming." 
 
 Searle took his hat. " The pains and the pleasures 
 of this day," he said to his kinsman, I shall equally 
 never forget. Knowing you," and he offered his hand 
 to Miss Searle, "has been the pleasure of pleasures. 
 I hoped something more was to come of it." 
 
 " A deal too much has come of it ! " cried our host, 
 irrepressibly. 
 
 Searle looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, 
 from head to foot ; and then closing his eyes with 
 an air of sudden physical distress : " I 'm afraid so ! 
 I can t stand more of this." I gave him my arm, 
 and crossed the threshold. As we passed out I 
 heard Miss Searle burst into a torrent of sobs. 
 
 " We shall hear from each other yet, I take it ! " 
 cried her brother, harassing our retreat. 
 
 Searle stopped and turned round on him sharply, 
 almost fiercely. O ridiculous man ! " he cried. 
 
 " Do you mean to say you shall not prosecute ? " 
 screamed the other. " I shall force you to prose- 
 cute ! I shall drag you into court, and yon shall be 
 beaten — beaten — beaten ! " And this soft vocable 
 continued to ring in our ears as we drove away. 
 
 We drove, of course, to the little wayside inn 
 whence we had departed in the morning so unen- 
 cumbered, in all broad England, with either enemies 
 
94 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 or friends. My companion, as the carriage rolled 
 along, seemed utterly overwhelmed and exhausted. 
 " What a dream ! " he murmured stupidly. " What 
 an awakening ! What a long, long day 1 What a 
 hideous scene ! Poor me ! Poor woman ! " When 
 we had resumed possession of our two little neigh- 
 boring rooms, I asked him if Miss Searle's note had 
 been the result of anything that had passed between 
 them on his going to rejoin her. " I found her on 
 the terrace, he said, " walking a restless walk in the 
 moonlight. I was greatly excited ; I hardly know 
 what I said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the 
 story of Margaret Searle. She seemed frightened and 
 troubled, and she used just the words her brother 
 had used, ' I know nothing.' For the moment, some- 
 how, I felt as a man drunk. I stood before her and 
 told her, with great emphasis, how sweet Margaret 
 Searle had married a beggarly foreigner, in obedi- 
 ence to her heart and in defiance of her family. As 
 I talked the sheeted moonlight seemed to close about 
 us, and we stood in a dream, in a solitude, in a ro- 
 mance. She grew younger, fairer, more gracious. I 
 trembled with a divine loquacity. Before I knew it 
 I had gone far. I was taking her hand and calling 
 her ' Margaret ! ' She had said that it was impossi- 
 l)le ; that she could do nothing ; that she was a fool, 
 a child, a slave. Then, with a sudden huge convic- 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 95 
 
 tion, I spoke of my claim against the estate. 'It 
 
 exists, then ? ' she said. ' It exists/ I answered, ' but 
 
 I have foregone it. Be generous ! Pay it from your 
 
 heart ! ' For an instant her face was radiant. ' If 
 
 I marry you/ she cried, ' it will repair the trouble.' 
 
 ' In our marriage/ I afl&rmed, ' the trouble will melt 
 
 away like a rain-drop in the ocean.' ' Our marriage ! ' 
 
 she repeated, wonderingly ; and the deep, deep ring 
 
 of her voice seemed to shatter the crystal walls of 
 
 our illusion. ' I must think, I must think ! ' she 
 
 said ; and she hurried away with her face in her 
 
 hands. I walked up and down the terrace for some • 
 
 moments, and then came in and met you. This is 
 
 the only witchcraft I have used ! " 
 
 The poor fellow was at once so excited and so ex- 
 hausted by the day's events, that I fancied he would 
 get little sleep. Conscious, on my own part, of a 
 stubborn wakefulness, I but partly undressed, set my 
 fire a blazing, and sat down to do some writing. I 
 heard the great clock in the little parlor below strike 
 twelve, one, half past one. Just as the vibration of 
 this last stroke was dying on the air the door of com- 
 munication into Searle's room was flung open, and my 
 companion stood on the threshold, pale as a corpse, in 
 his nightshirt, standing like a phantom against the 
 darkness behind him. Look at me ! " he said, in a 
 low voice, " touch me, embrace me, revere me ! You 
 see a man who has seen a ghost ! " 
 
96 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " Great heaven, what do you mean ? " 
 
 "Write it down!" he went on. "There, take your 
 pen. Put it into dreadful words. Make it of all 
 ghost-stories the ghostliest, the truest 1 How do I 
 look ? Am I human ? Am I pale ? Am I red ? Am 
 I speaking English ? A ghost, sir ! Do you under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 I confess, there came upon me, by contact, a great 
 supernatural shock. I shall always feel that I, too, 
 have seen a ghost. My first movement ~ I can't 
 smile at it even now — was to spring to the door, 
 close it with a great blow, and then turn the key upon 
 the gaping blackness from which Searle had emerged. 
 I seized his two hands ; they were wet with perspira- 
 tion. I pushed my chair to the fire and forced him to 
 sit down in it. I kneeled down before him and held 
 his hands as firmly as possible. They trembled and 
 quivered ; his eyes were fixed, save that the pupil 
 dilated and contracted with extraordinary force. I 
 asked no questions, but waited with my heart in my 
 throat. At last he spoke. "I'm not frightened, but 
 I 'm — O, EXCITED ! This is life ! This is living ! 
 My nerves — my heart — my brain ! They are throb- 
 bing with the wildness of a myriad lives ! Do you 
 feel it ? Do you tingle ? Are you hot ? Are you 
 cold ? Hold me tight — tight — tight ! I shall trem- 
 ble away into waves — waves — waves, and know the 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 97 
 
 universe and approach my Maker ! " He paused a 
 
 moment and then went on : "A woman — as clear as 
 
 that candle. — No, far clearer ! In a blue dress, with 
 
 a black mantle on her head, and a little black muff. 
 
 Young, dreadfully pretty, pale and ill, with the sadness 
 
 of all the women who ever loved and suffered pleading 
 
 and accusing in her dead dark eyes. God knows I 
 
 never did any such thing I But she took me for my 
 
 elder, for the other Clement. She came to me here as 
 
 she would have come to me there. She wrung her 
 
 hands and spoke to me. ' Marry me I ' she moaned ; 
 
 'marry me and right me ! ' I sat up in bed just as I 
 
 sit here, looked at ber, heard her, — heard her voice 
 
 melt away, watched her figure fade away. Heaven 
 
 and earth ! Here I am ! " 
 
 I made no attempt either to explain my friend's 
 
 vision or to discredit it. It is enough that I felt for 
 
 the hour the irresistible contagion of his own agitation. 
 
 On the whole, I think my own vision was the more 
 
 interesting of the two. He beheld but the transient, 
 
 irresponsible spectre: I beheld the human subject, 
 
 hot from the spectral presence. Nevertheless, I soon 
 
 recovered my wits sufficiently to feel the necessity of 
 
 guarding my friend's health against the evil results of 
 
 excitement and exposure. It was tacitly established 
 
 I that, for the night, he was not to return to his 
 
 room ; and I soon made him fairly comfortable in his 
 5 o 
 
98 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 place by the fire. Wishing especially to obviate a 
 chill, I removed my bedding and wrapped him about 
 with multitudinous blankets and counterpanes. I 
 had no nerves either for writing or sleep ; so I put 
 out my lights, renewed the fire, and sat down on the 
 opposite side of the hearth. I found a kind of solemn 
 entertainment in watching my friend. Silent, swathed 
 and muffled to his chin, he sat rigid and erect with 
 the dignity of his great adventure. For the most 
 part his eyes were closed ; though from time to time 
 he would open them with a vast steady expansion 
 and gaze unblinking into the firelight, as if he again 
 beheld, without terror, the image of that blighted maid. 
 With his cadaverous, emaciated face, his tragic wrin- 
 kles, intensified by the upward glow from the hearth, 
 his drooping black mustache, his transcendent gravity, 
 and a certain high fantastical air in the flickering alter- 
 nations of his brow, he looked like the vision-haunted 
 knight of La Mancha, nursed by the Duke and Duch- 
 ess. The night passed wholly without speech. To- 
 wards its close I slept for half an hour. When I awoke 
 the awakened birds had begun to twitter. Searle sat 
 unperturbed, staring at me. We exchanged a long 
 look ; I felt with a pang that his glittering eyes had 
 tasted their last of natural sleep. " How is it ? are 
 you comfortable ? " I asked. 
 
 He gazed for some time without replying. Then 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 99 
 
 he spoke with a strange, innocent grandiloquence, and 
 with pauses between his words, as if an inner voice 
 were slowly prompting him. "You asked me, when 
 you first knew me, what I was. ' Nothing,' I said, — 
 'nothing.' Nothing I have always deemed myself. 
 But I have wronged myself. I 'm a personage ! I 'm 
 rare among men ! I 'm a haunted man ! " 
 
 Sleep had passed out of his eyes : I felt with a 
 deeper pang that perfect sanity had passed out of his 
 voice. From this moment I prepared myself for the 
 worst. There was in my friend, however, such an 
 essential gentleness and conservative patience, that to 
 persons surrounding him the worst was likely to come 
 without hurry or violence. He had so confirmed a 
 habit of good manners that, at the core of reason, the 
 process of disorder might have been long at work 
 without finding an issue. As morning began fully 
 to dawn upon us, I brought our grotesque vigil to an 
 end. Searle appeared so weak that I gave him my 
 hands to help him to rise from his chair ; he retained 
 them for some moments after rising to his feet, from 
 an apparent inability to keep his balance. "Well," 
 he said, " I Ve seen one ghost, but I doubt of my liv- 
 ing to see another. I shall soon be myself as brave a 
 ghost as the best of them. I shall haunt Mr. Searle ! 
 It can only mean one thing, — my near, dear death." 
 
 On my proposing breakfast, "This shall be my 
 
ICO 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 breakfast ! " he said ; and he drew from his travelling- 
 sack a phial of morphine. He took a strong dose and 
 went to bed. At noon I found him on foot again, 
 dressed, shaved, and apparently refreshed. ''Poor 
 fellow ! " he said, " you have got more than you bar- 
 gained for, — a ghost-encumbered comrade. But it 
 won't be for long." It immediately became a question, 
 of course, whither we should now direct our steps. 
 
 "As I have so little time," said Searle, "I should 
 like to see the best, the best alone." I answered that, 
 either for time or eternity, I had imagined Oxford to 
 be the best thing in England ; and for Oxford in the 
 course of an hour we accordingly departed. 
 
 Of Oxford I feel small vocation to speak in detail. 
 It must long remain for an American one of the su- . 
 preme gratifications of travel. The impression it pro- 
 duces, the emotions it stirs, in an American mind, are 
 too large and various to be compassed by words. It 
 seems to embody with undreamed completeness a kind 
 of dim and sacred ideal of the Western intellect, — a 
 scholastic city, an appointed home of contemplation. 
 No other spot in Europe, I imagine, extorts from our 
 barbarous hearts so passionate an admiration. A finer 
 ])en than mine must enumerate the splendid devices by 
 w^hich it performs this great office ; I can bear testi- 
 mony only to the dominant tone of its effect. Passing 
 throuf^h the various streets in which the obverse lon^^i- 
 
^ PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 101 
 
 tude of the hoary college walls seems to maintam an 
 antique stillness, you feel this to be the most dignified 
 of towns. Over all, through all, the great corporate 
 fact of the University prevails and penetrates, like 
 some steady bass in a symphony of lighter chords, like 
 the mediaeval and mystical presence of the Empire in 
 the linked dispersion of lesser states. The plain Gothic 
 of the long street-fronts of the colleges — blessed 
 seraglios of culture and leisure — irritate the fancy 
 like the blank harem-walls of Eastern towns. Within 
 their arching portals, however, you perceive more sa- 
 cred and sunless courts, and the dark verdure grateful 
 and restful to bookish eyes. The gray -green quadran- 
 gles stand forever open with a noble and trustful hos- 
 pitality. The seat of the humanities is stronger in the 
 admonitory shadow of her great name than in a mar- 
 shalled host of wardens and beadles. Directly after 
 our arrival my friend and I strolled eagerly forth in 
 the luminous early dusk. We reached the bridge 
 which passes beneath the walls of Magdalen and saw 
 the eight-spired tower, embossed with its slender shaft- 
 ings, rise in temperate beauty, — the perfect prose of 
 Gothic, — wooing the eyes to the sky, as it was slowly 
 drained of day. We entered the little monkish door- 
 way and stood in that dim, fantastic outer court, made 
 narrow by the dominant presence of the great tower, 
 in which the heart beats faster, and the swallows niche 
 
102 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM 
 
 more lovingly in the tangled ivy, I fancied, than else- 
 where in Oxford. We passed thence into the great 
 cloister, and studied the little sculptured monsters 
 along the entablature of the arcade. I was pleased to 
 see that Searle became extremely interested; but I 
 very soon began to fear that the influence of the place 
 would prove too potent for his unbalanced imagination. 
 I may say that from this time forward, with my un- 
 happy friend, I found it hard to distinguish between 
 the play of fancy and the labor of thought, and to fix 
 the balance between perception and illusion. He had 
 already taken a fancy to confound his identity with 
 that of the earlier Clement Searle ; he now began to 
 speak almost wholly as from the imagined conscious- 
 ness of his old-time kinsman. 
 
 " This was my college, you know," he said, " the no- 
 blest in all Oxford. How often I have paced this gen- 
 tle cloister, side by side with a friend of the hour ! My 
 friends are all dead, but many a young fellow as we 
 meet him, dark or fair, tall or short, reminds me of 
 them. Even Oxford, they say, feels about its massive 
 base the murmurs of the tide of time ; there are things 
 eliminated, things insinuated ! Mine was ancient Ox- 
 ford, — the fine old haunt of rank abuses, of precedent 
 and privilege. What cared I, who was a perfect gen- 
 tleman, with my pockets full of money ? I had an 
 allowance of two thousand a year." 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 103 
 
 It became evident to me, on the following day, that 
 his strength had begun to ebb, and that he was un- 
 equal to the labor of regular sight-seeing. He read my 
 apprehension in my eyes, and took pains to assure me 
 that I Avas right. " I am going down hili. Thank 
 heaven it's an easy slope, coated with English turf 
 and with an English churchyard at the foot/' The 
 almost hysterical emotion produced by our adventure 
 at Lockley Park had given place to a broad, calm sat- 
 isfaction, in which the scene around us was reflected 
 as in the depths of a lucid lake. We took an after- 
 noon walk through Christ-Church Meadow, and at the 
 river-bank procured a boat, which I pulled up the 
 stream to Iflley and to the slanting woods of Nune- 
 ham, — the sweetest, flattest, reediest stream-side land- 
 scape that the heart need demand. Here, of course, 
 we encountered in hundreds the mighty lads of Eng- 
 land, clad in white flannel and blue, immense, fair- 
 haired, magnificent in their youth, lounging down the 
 current in their idle punts, in friendly couples or in 
 solitude possibly portentous of scholastic honors ; or 
 pulling in straining crews and hoarsely exhorted from 
 the near bank. When, in conjunction with all this 
 magnificent sport, you think of the verdant quietude 
 and the silvery sanctities of the college gardens, you 
 cannot but consider that the youth of England have 
 their porridge well salted. As my companion found 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 himself less and less able to walk, we repaired on 
 three successive days to these scholastic domains, and 
 spent long hours sitting in their greenest places. They 
 seemed to us the fairest things in England and the 
 ripest and sweetest fruits of the English system. 
 Locked in their antique verdure, guarded (as in the 
 case of New College) by gentle battlements of silver- 
 gray, outshouldering the matted leafage of centenary 
 vines, filled with perfumes and privacy and memories, 
 with students lounging bookishly on the turf (as if 
 tenderly to spare it the pressure of their boot-heels), 
 and with the great conservative presence of the college 
 front appealing gravely from the restless outer world, 
 they seem places to lie down on the grass in forever, 
 in the happy faith that life is all a vast old English 
 garden, and time an endless English- afternoon. This 
 charmed seclusion was especially grateful to my friend, 
 and his sense of it reached its climax, I remember, on 
 the last afternoon of our three, as we sat dreaming in 
 the spacious garden of St. John's. The long college 
 facade here, perhaps, broods over the lawn with a more 
 effective air of property than elsewhere. Searle fell 
 into unceasing talk and exhaled his swarming impres- 
 sions with a tender felicity, compounded of the oddest 
 mixture of wisdom and folly. Every student who 
 passed us was the subject of an extemporized romance, 
 and every feature of the place the theme of a lyric 
 rhapsody. 
 
A PASSIONATE PU ' \i 105 
 
 "Isn't it all," he demandea otelightful lie? 
 Might n't one fancy this the ver ' tl point of the 
 world's heart, where all the ech( le world's life 
 
 arrive only to falter and die ? Lis lie air is thick 
 
 with arrested voices. It is well 1 > o^ld be such 
 places, shaped in the interest ol Iv nis needs; 
 framed to minister to the book-begotten lo r^JJg for a 
 medium in which one may dream unwaked,^aK' believe 
 unconfuted; to foster the sweet illusion that aiI^s^^lwell 
 in this weary world, all perfect and rounded, mt^li 
 and complete in this sphere of the pitiful uxiachi.evi^ 
 and the dreadful uncommenced. The world niade I 
 Work 's over 1 Now for leisure ! England 's safe ! 
 Now for Theocritus and Horace, for lawn and sky ! 
 What a sense it all gives one of the composite life of 
 England, and how essential a factor of the educated, 
 British consciousness one omits in not thinking of Ox- 
 ford ! Thank heaven they had the wit to send me here 
 in the other time. I 'm not much with it, perhaps ; but 
 what should I have been without it ? The misty spires 
 and towers of Oxford seen far off on the level have been 
 all these years one of the constant things of memory. 
 Seriously, what does Oxford do for these people ? Are 
 they wiser, gentler, richer, deeper ? At moments when 
 its massive influence surges into my mind like a tidal 
 wave. Intake it as a sort of affront to my dignity. My 
 soul reverts to the naked background of our own edu- 
 
 5* 
 
106 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 j cation, the dead white wall before which we played our 
 [ parts. I assent to it all with a sort of desperate calm- 
 I ness ; I bow to it with a dogged pride. We are nursed 
 I at the opposite pote^ Naked come we into a naked 
 world. There IS a^' certain grandeur in the absence of a 
 mise en schTie, a certain heroic strain in those young 
 imaginations of the West, which find nothing made to 
 their hands, which have to concoct their own mysteries, 
 and laise ■ high into our morning air, with a ringing 
 Iiammer and nails, the castles in which they dwell. 
 NoUesse oUige : Oxford obliges. What a horrible thing 
 not to respond to such obligations. If you pay the 
 pious debt to the last farthing of interest, you may 
 go through life with her blessing ; but if you let it 
 stand unhohored, you are a worse barbarian than we ! 
 But for better or worse, in a myriad private hearts, 
 think how she must be loved ! How the youthful sen- 
 timent of mankind seems visibly to brood upon her ! 
 Think of the young lives now taking color in her cor- 
 ridors and cloisters. Think of the centuries' tale of 
 dead lads, — dead alike with the close of the young 
 days to which these haunts were a present world and 
 the ending of the larger lives which a sterner mother- 
 scene has gathered into her massive history ! What 
 are those two young fellows kicking their heels over 
 on the grass there ? One of them has the S^Mrday 
 Eeview ; the other — upon my soul — the other lias 
 
 I 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 107 
 
 A?teinus Ward ! Where do they live, how do they 
 iire^ to what end do they live ? Miserable boys ! How 
 can they read Artemus Ward under those windows of 
 Elizabeth ? What do you think loveliest in all Ox- 
 ford ? The poetry of certain windows. Do you see 
 that one yonder, the second of those lesser bays, with 
 the broken muUion and open casement ? That used to 
 be the window of my fidus Achates, a hundred years 
 ago. Eemind me to tell you the story of that broken 
 muUion. Don't tell me it 's not a common thing to 
 have one's fidus Achates at another college. Pray, was 
 I pledged to common things ? He was a charming 
 fellow. By the way, he was a good deal like you. 
 Of course his cocked hat, his long hair in a black 
 ribbon, his cinnamon velvet suit, and his flowered 
 waistcoat made a difference ! We gentlemen used to 
 wear swords." 
 
 There was something surpri.slng and impressive in 
 my friend's gushing magnilrquence. The poor dis- 
 heartened loafer had turned rhapsodist and seer. I 
 was particularly struck vith his having laid aside 
 the diffidence and shy sdf-consciousness which had 
 marked him during the first days of our acquaintance. 
 He was becoming more and more a disembodied ob- 
 server and critic; the shell of sense, growing djaily 
 thinner and more tra^isparent, transmitted the tremor 
 of his quickened spiiit. He re^^<ealed an unexpected 
 
108 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 faculty for becoming acquainted with the lounging 
 gownsmen whom we met in our vague peregrinations. 
 If I left him for ten minutes, I was sure to find 
 him, on my return, in earnest conversation with sonis^ 
 affable wandering scholar. Several young men with 
 whom he had thus established relations invited him 
 to their rooms and entertained him, as I gatheret?, 
 with boisterous hospitality. For myself, I chose not 
 to be present on these occasions ; I shrunk partly 
 from being held in any degree responsible for his 
 vagaries, and partly from witnessing that painful 
 aggTavation of them which I feared might be induced 
 by champagne and youthful society. He reported 
 these adventures with less eloquence than I had 
 fancied he might use ; but, on the whole, I suspect 
 that a certain method in his madness, a certain firm- 
 ness in his most melting honhomie, had insured him 
 perfect respect. Two things, however, became evident, 
 — that he drank more champagne than was good for 
 him, and that the boyish yrossness of his entertainers 
 tended rather, on reflection to disturb in his mind 
 the pure image of Oxford.* At the same time it 
 completed his knowledge of the place. Making the 
 acquaintance of several tutors- and fellows, he dined 
 in Hall in half a dozen collej^es, and alluded after- 
 wards to these banquets with: a sort of religious 
 un(ition. One evening, at the close of one of these 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 . 109 
 
 enteitainments, he came back to the hotel in a cab, 
 accompanied by a friendly student and a physician, 
 looking deadly pale. He had swooned away on leav- 
 ing table, and had remained so stubbornly uncon- 
 scious as to excite great alarm among his companions. 
 The following twenty-four hours, of course, he spent 
 in bed; but on the third day he declared himself 
 strong enough to go out. On reaching the street his 
 strength again forsook him, and I insisted upon his 
 returning to his room. He besought me with tears 
 in his eyes not to shut him up. " It 's my last 
 chance," he said. " I want to go back for an hour 
 to that garden of St. John's. Let me look and feel; 
 to-morrow I die." It seemed to me possible that 
 with a Bath-chair the expedition might be accom- 
 plished. The hotel, it appeared, possessed such a con- 
 venience : it was immediately produced. It became 
 necessary hereupon that we should have a person to 
 propel the chair. As there was no one available on 
 the spot, I prepared to perform the office; but just 
 as Searle had got seated and wrapped (he had come 
 to suffer acutely from cold), an elderly man emerged 
 from a lurking-place near the door, and, with a 
 formal salute, offered to w^ait upon the gentleman. 
 We assented, and he proceeded solemnly to trundle 
 the chair before him. I recognized him as an in- 
 dividual whom I had seen lounging shyly about the 
 
110 ' A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 hotel doors, at intervals during our stay, with a de- 
 pressed air of wanting employment and a hopeless 
 doubt of finding any. He had once, indeed, in a 
 half-hearted way, proposed himself as an amateur 
 cicerone for a tour through the colleges ; and I now, 
 as I looked at him, remembered with a pang that I 
 had declined his services with untender curtness. 
 Since then, his shyness, apparently, had grown less 
 or his misery greater ; for it was with a strange, 
 grim avidity that he now attached himself to our 
 service. He was a pitiful image of shabby gentility 
 and the dinginess of " reduced circumstances." He 
 impart^"' an original force to the term "seedy." He 
 was, I bUj^jjose, some fifty years of age; but his pale, 
 haggard, unwViolesome visage, his plaintive, drooping 
 carriage, and the irremediable decay of his apparel, 
 seemed to add to the burden of his days and ex- 
 perience. His eyes were bloodshot and weak-looking, 
 his handsome nose had turned to purple, and his 
 sandy beard, largely streaked with gray, bristled with 
 a month's desperate indifference to the razor. In all 
 this rusty forlornness there lurked a visible assurance 
 of our friend's having known better days. Obviously, 
 "he was the victim of some fatal depreciation in the 
 market value of pure gentility. There had been 
 something terribly pathetic in the way he fiercely 
 merged the attempt to touch the greasy rim of his 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 antiquated hat into a rounded and sweeping bow, as 
 from jaunty equal to equal. Exchanging a few 
 words with him as we went along, I was struck 
 with the refinement of his tone. 
 
 " Take me by some long roundabout way," said 
 Searle, "so that I may see as many college walls as 
 possible." 
 
 " You can wander without losing your way ? " I 
 asked of our attendant. 
 
 " I ought to be able to, sir," he said, after a moment, 
 with pregnant gravity. And as we were passing Wad- 
 ham College, " That 's my college, sir," he added. 
 
 At these words, Searle commanded him to ^top and 
 come and stand in front of him. "You that is 
 your college ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Wadham might deny me, sir ; but Heaven forbid I 
 should deny Wadham. If you 11 allow me to take you 
 into the quad, I '11 show you my windows, thirty years 
 ago!" 
 
 Searle sat staring, with his huge, pale eyes, which 
 now had come to usurp the greatest place in his 
 wasted visage, filled with wonder and pity. " If you 11 
 be so kind," he said, with immense politeness. But 
 just as this degenerate son of Wadham was about to 
 propel him across the threshold of the court, he turned 
 about, disengaged his hands, with his own hand, from 
 the back of the ehair, drew him alongside of him and 
 
112 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 turned to me. "While we are here, my dear fellow/' 
 he said, " be so good as to perform this service. You 
 understand?" I smiled sufferance at our companion, 
 and we resumed our way. The latter showed us his 
 window of thirty years ago, where now a rosy youth in 
 a scarlet smoking-fez was puffing a cigarette in the 
 open lattice. Thence we proceeded into the little gar- 
 den, the smallest, I believe, and certainly the sweetest 
 of all the bosky resorts in Oxford. I pushed the chair 
 along to a bench on the lawn, wheeled it about toward 
 the facade of the college, and sat down on the grass. 
 Our attendant shifted himself mournfully from one 
 foot to the other. Searle eyed him open-mouthed. 
 At length he broke out : " God bless my soul, sir, you 
 don't suppose that I expect you to stand ! There 's an 
 empty bench." 
 
 " Thank you," said our friend, bending his joints to 
 sit. 
 
 " You English," said Searle, " are really fabulous ! 
 I don't know whether I most admire you or despise 
 you ! Now tell me : who are you ? what are you ? 
 what brought you to this ? " 
 
 The poor fellow blushed up to his eyes, took off his 
 hat, and wiped his forehead with a ragged handker- 
 chief " My name is Eawson, sir. Beyoo^l that, it 's a 
 long story." 
 
 " T ask out of sympathy," said Searle. " I have a 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 113 
 
 fellow-feeling J You 're a poor devil ; I 'm a poor 
 devil too/' 
 
 " I 'm the poorer devil of the two," said the stranger, 
 with a little emphatic nod of the head. 
 
 " Possibly. I suppose an English poor devil is the 
 poorest of all poor devils. And then, you have fallen 
 from a height. From Wadham College as a gentleman 
 commoner (is that what they called you ? ) to Wadham 
 College as a Bath-chair man ! Good heavens, man, 
 the fall 's enough to kill you ! " 
 
 " I did n't take it all at once, sir. I dropped a bit 
 one time and a bit another." 
 
 " That 's me, that 's me ! " cried Searle, clapping his 
 hands. 
 
 "And now," said our friend, "I believe I can't 
 drop further." 
 
 " My dear fellow," and Searle clasped his hand 
 and shook it, there 's a perfect similarity in our 
 lot." 
 
 Mr. Eawson lifted his eyebrows. " Save for the 
 difference of sitting in a Bath-chair and walking be- 
 hind it!" 
 
 " 0, I 'm at my last gasp, Mr. Eawson." 
 
 I 'm at my last penny, sir." 
 " Literally, Mr. Eawson ? " 
 
 Mr. Eawson shook his head, with a world of vague 
 bitterness. I have almdst come to the point," he 
 
 H 
 
114 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRTM. 
 
 said, " of drinking my beer and buttoning my coat 
 figuratively; but I don't talk in figures." 
 
 Fearing that the conversation had taken a turn 
 which might seem to cast a rather fantastic light upon 
 Mr. Kawson's troubles, I took the liberty of asking 
 him with great gravity how he made a living. 
 
 " I don't make a living," he answered, with tearful 
 eyes, " I can't make a living. I have a wife and three 
 children, starving, sir. You would n't believe what I 
 have come to. I sent my wife to her mother's, who 
 can ill afford to keep her, and came to Oxford a week 
 ago, thinking I might pick up a few half-crowns by 
 showing people about the colleges. But it's no use. 
 I haven't the assurance. I don't look decent. They 
 want a nice little old man with black gloves, and a 
 clean shirt, and a silver-headed stick. What do I 
 look as if I knew about Oxford, sir?" 
 
 " Dear me," cried Searle, " why did n't you speak to 
 us before ? " 
 
 " I wanted to ; half a dozen times I have been on 
 the point of it. I knew you were Americans." 
 
 And Americans are rich ! " cried Searle, laughing. 
 " My dear Mr. Rawson, American as I am, I 'm living 
 on charity." 
 
 " And I 'm not, sir ! There it is. I 'm dying for 
 the want of charity. You say you 're a pauper ; it 
 takes an American pauper to go bowling about in a 
 Bath-chair. America 's an easy country." 
 
A- PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 115 
 
 " Ah me ! " groaned Searle. " Have I come to Wad- 
 ham gardens to hear the praise of America ? " 
 
 "Wadham gardens are very well!" said Mr. Eaw- 
 son ; " but one may sit here hungry and shabby, so 
 long as one is n't too shabby, as well as elsewhere. 
 You '11 not persuade me that it 's not an easier thing, 
 to keep afloat yonder than here. I wish I were there, 
 that 's all ! " added Mr. Eawson, with a sort of feeble- 
 minded energy. Then brooding for a moment on his 
 wrongs : " Have you a brother ? or you, sir ? It mat- 
 ters little to you. But it has mattered to me with a 
 vengeance ! Shabby as I sit here, I have a brother 
 with his five thousand a year. Being a couple of years 
 my senior, he gorges while I starve. There 's England 
 for you ! A very pretty place for him ! " 
 
 "Poor England 1 " said Searle, softly. 
 
 " Has your brother never helped you ? " I asked. 
 
 " A twenty-pound note now and then ! I don't say 
 that there have not been times when I have sorely 
 tried his generosity. I have not been what I should. 
 I married dreadfully amiss. But the devil of it is 
 that he started fair and I started foul ; with the 
 tastes, the desires, the needs, the sensibilities of a 
 gentleman, — and nothing else ! I can't afford to live 
 in England." 
 
 " This poor gentleman," said I, " fancied a couple of 
 months ago that he couldn't afford to live in America." 
 
116 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 " I 'd change chances with him ! " And Mr. Rawson 
 gave a passionate slap to his knee. 
 
 Searle reclined in his chair with his eyes closed and 
 his face twitching with violent emotion. Suddenly he 
 opened his eyes with a look of awful gravity. " My 
 friend," he said, " you 're a failure ! Be judged ! 
 Don't talk about chances. Don't talk about fair starts 
 and foul starts. I 'm at that point myself that I have 
 a right to speak. It lies neither in one's chance nor 
 one's start to make one a success ; nor in anything 
 one's brother can do or can undo. It lies in one's will ! 
 You and I, sir, have had none ; that 's very plain ! 
 We have been weak, sir ; as weak as water. Here we 
 are, sitting staring in each other's faces and reading 
 our weakness in each other's eyes. We are of no 
 account ! " 
 
 Mr. Eawson received this address with a counte- 
 nance in which heartfelt conviction was oddly min- 
 gled with a vague suspicion that a proper self-respect 
 required him to resent its unflattering candor. In the 
 course of a minute a proper self-respect yielded to the 
 warm, comfortable sense of his being understood, even 
 to his light dishonor. "Go on, sir, go on," he said. 
 " It 's wholesome truth." And he wiped his eyes with 
 his dingy handkerchief. 
 
 " Dear me ! " cried Searle. I 've made you cry. 
 Well ! we speak as from man to man. I should be 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 117 
 
 glad to think that you had felt for a moment the 
 side-light of thab great undarkening of the spirit 
 which precedes — which precedes the grand illumina- 
 tion of death." 
 
 Mr. Eawson sat silent for a moment, with his eyes 
 fixed on the ground and his well-cut nose more deeply 
 tinged by the force of emotion. Then at last, looking 
 up : You 're a very good-natured man, sir ; and you 'R 
 not persuade me that you don't come of a good-natured 
 race. Say what you please about a chance; when a 
 man 's fifty, — degraded, penniless, a husband and 
 father, — a chance to get on his legs again is not to 
 be despised. Something tells me that my chance is 
 in your country, — that great home of chances. I can 
 starve here, of course; but I don't want to starve. 
 Hang it, sir, I want to live. I see thirty years of life 
 before me yet. If only, by God's help, I could spend 
 them there ! It 's a fixed idea of mine. I 've had it 
 for the last ten years. It 's not that I 'm a radical. 
 I 've no ideas ! Old England 's good enough for me, 
 but I 'm not good enough for old England. I 'm a , 
 shabby man that wants to get out of a room full of / 
 staring gentlefolks. I 'm forever put to the blush. /| 
 It's a perfect agony of spirit. Everything reminds : 
 me of my younger and better self. 0, for a cooling,o(|f 
 cleansing plunge into the unknowing and the un- 
 known! I lie awake thinking of it." 
 
118 A PASSIONATE PILGR-M. 
 
 Searle closed his eyes and shivered with a long- 
 drawn tremor which I hardly knew whether to take 
 for an expression of physical or of mental pain. In 
 a moment I perceived it was neither. " 0 my country, 
 my country, my country ! " he murmured in a broken 
 voice; and then sat for some time abstracted and 
 depressed. I intimated to our companion that it was 
 time we should bring our seance to a close, and he, 
 without hesitating, possessed himself of the little hand- 
 rail of the Bath-chair and pushed it before him. We 
 had got half-way home before Searle spoke or moved. 
 Suddenly in the High Street, as we were passing in 
 front of a chop-house, from whose open doors there 
 proceeded a potent suggestion of juicy joints and suet 
 puddings, he motioned us to halt. "This is my last 
 five pounds," he said, drawing a note from his pocket- 
 book. "Do me the favor, Mr. Eawson, to accept it. 
 Go in there and order a colossal dinner. Order a 
 bottle of Burgundy and drink it to my immortal 
 health ! Mr. Eawson stiffened himself up and re- 
 ceived the gift with momentarily irresponsive fingers. 
 But Mr. Eawson had the nerves of a gentleman. I 
 saw the titillation of his pointed finger-tips as they 
 closed upon the crisp paper ; I noted the fine tremor 
 in his empurpled nostril as it became more deeply 
 conscious of the succulent flavor of the spot. He 
 cruslied the crackling note in his palm with a convul- 
 sive pressure. 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 119 
 
 " It shall be Chambertin ! " he said, jerking a spas- 
 modic bow. The next moment the door swung behind 
 him. 
 
 Searle relapsed into his feeble stupor, and on reach- 
 ing the hotel I helped him to get to bed. For the 
 rest of the day he lay in a half-somnolent state, with- 
 out motion or speech. The doctqr, whom I had con- 
 stantly in attendance, declared that his end was near. 
 He expressed great surprise that he should have lasted 
 so long ; he must have been living for a month on a 
 cruelly extorted strength. Toward evening, as I sat 
 by his bedside in the deepening dusk, he aroused 
 himself with a purpose which I had vaguely felt gath- 
 ering beneath his quietude. " My cousin, my cousin," 
 he said, confusedly. Is she here ? " It was the first 
 time he had spoken of Miss Searle since our exit from 
 her brother's house. " I was to have married her," 
 he went on. " What a dream ! That day was like a 
 string of verses — rhymed hours. But the last verse 
 is bad measure. What 's the rhyme to ' love ' ? 
 Above ! Was she a simple person, a sweet person ? 
 Or have I dreamed it ? She had the healing gift ; her 
 touch would have cured my madness. I want you to 
 do something. Write three lines, three words : ' Good 
 by; remember me; be happy.'" And then, after a 
 long pause : " It 's strange a man in my condition 
 should have a wish. Need a man eat his breakfast 
 
120 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 before his hanging ? What a creature is man ! what 
 a farce is life ! Here I lie, worn down to a mere 
 throbbing fever-point; I breathe and nothing more, 
 and yet I desire ! My desire lives. If I could see 
 her! Help me out with it and let me die." 
 
 Half an hour later, at a venture, I despatched a note 
 to Miss Searle : " Your cousin is rapidly dying. He 
 asks to see you!' I was conscious of a certain unkind- 
 ness in doing so. It would bring a great trouble, and 
 no power to face the trouble. But out of her distress 
 I fondly hoped a sufficient energy might be born. On 
 the following day my friend's exhaustion had become 
 so total that I began to fear that his intelligence 
 was altogether gone. But towards evening he rallied 
 awhile, and talked in a maundering way about many 
 things, confounding in a ghastly jumble the memories 
 of the past weeks and those of bygone years. "By 
 the way," he said suddenly, " I have made no will. I 
 have n't much to bequeath. Yet I Ve something." 
 He had been playing listlessly with a large signet-ring 
 on his left hand, which he now tried to draw off. " I 
 leave you this," working it round and round vainly, " if 
 you can get it off. What mighty knuckles! There 
 must be such knuckles in the mummies of the Pha- 
 raohs. Well, wlien I 'm gone ! Nay, I leave you some- 
 thing more precious than gold, — the sense of a great 
 kindness. But I have a little gold left. Bring me 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 121 
 
 those trinkets." I placed on the bed before him sev- 
 eral articles of jewelry, relics of early elegance : his 
 watch and chain, of great value, a locket and seal, some 
 shirt-buttons and scarf-pins. He trifled with them 
 feebly for some moments, murmuring various names 
 and dates associated with them. At last, looking up 
 with a sudden energy, " What 's become of Mr. Eaw- 
 son?" 
 
 " You want to see him ? " 
 
 " How much are these things worth ? " he asked, 
 without heeding me. " How much would they bring ? " 
 And he held them up in his weak hands. " They have 
 a great weight. Two hundred pounds ? I am richer, 
 than I thought ! Eawson — Eawson — you want to 
 get out of this awful England." 
 
 I stepped to the door and requested the servant, 
 whom I kept in constant attendance in the adjoining 
 sitting-room, to send and ascertain if Mr. Eawson was 
 on the premises. He returned in Or few moments, in- 
 troducing our shabby friend. Mr. Eawson was pale, 
 even to his nose, and, with his suppressed agitation, had 
 an air of great distinction. I led him up to the bed. 
 In Searle's eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a 
 moment the light of a high fraternal greeting. 
 
 " Great God ! " said Mr. Eawson, fervently. 
 
 " My friend," said Searle, " there is to be one Amer- 
 ican the less. Let there be one the more. At the 
 
 6 
 
122 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 worst, you '11 be as good a one as I. Foolish me ! 
 Take these trinkets ; let them help you on your way. 
 They are gifts and memories, but this is a better use. 
 Heaven speed you! May America be kind to you. 
 Be kind, at the last, to your own country ! " 
 
 Eeally, this is too much ; I can't," our friend pro- 
 tested in a tremulous voice. " Do get well, and 1 11 
 stop here ! " 
 
 " ISTay ; I 'm booked for my journey, you for yours. 
 I hope you don't suffer at sea." 
 
 Mr. Eawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, 
 appealing piteously from so awful a good fortune. 
 " It 's like the angel of the Lord," he said, who bids 
 people in the Bible to rise and flee ! " 
 
 Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, exhausted : I 
 led Mr. Eawson back into the sitting-room, where in 
 three words I proposed to him a rough valuation of our 
 friend's trinkets. He assented with perfect good breed- 
 ing ; they passed into my possession and a second 
 bank-note into his. 
 
 From the collapse into which this beneficent inter- 
 view had plunged him, Searle gave few signs of being 
 likely to emerge. He breathed, as he had said, and 
 nothing more. The twilight deepened: I lit the 
 night-lamp. The doctor sat silent and official at the 
 foot of the bed ; I resumed my constant place near 
 the head. Suddenly Searle opened his eyes widely 
 
A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 123 
 
 " She '11 not come," he murmured. " Amen ! she 's an 
 English sister." Five minutes passed. He started 
 forward. " She has come, she is here ! " he whispered. 
 His words conveyed to my mind so absolute an assur- 
 ance, that I lightly rose and passed into the sitting- 
 room. At the same moment, through the opposite 
 door, the servant introduced a lady. A lady, I say; 
 for an instant she was simply such ; tall, pale, dressed 
 in deep mourning. The next moment I had uttered 
 her name — "Miss Searle!" She looked ten years 
 older. 
 
 She met me, with both hands extended, and an 
 immense question in her face. ''He has just spoken 
 your name," I said. And then, with a fuller con- 
 sciousness of the change in her dress and countenance : 
 " What has happened ? " 
 
 "O death, death!" said Miss Searle. "You and I 
 are left." 
 
 There came to me with her words a sort of sick- 
 ening shock, the sense of poetic justice having been 
 grimly shuffled away. " Your brother ? " I demanded. 
 
 She laid her hand on my arm, and I felt its pressure 
 deepen as she spoke. " He was thrown from his horse 
 in the park. He died on the spot. Six days have 
 passed. — Six months!" 
 
 She took my arm. A moment later we had entered 
 the room and approached the bedside. The doctor 
 
124 
 
 A PASSIONATE PILGRIM. 
 
 withdrew. Searle opened his eyes and looked at her 
 from head to foot. Suddenly he seemed to perceive 
 her mourning. ''Already!" he cried, audibly; with 
 a smile, as I believe, of pleasure. 
 
 She dropped on her knees and took his hand. 
 "Not for you, cousin," she whispered. "For my 
 poor brother." 
 
 He started in all his deathly longitude as with a 
 galvanic shock. " Dead ! he dead ! Life itself ! " And 
 then, after a moment, with a slight rising inflection: 
 "You are free?" 
 
 " Free, cousin. Sadly free. And now — now — with 
 what use for freedom ? " 
 
 He looked steadily a moment into her eyes, dark in 
 the heavy shadow of her musty mourning veil. " For 
 me," he said, " wear colors ! " 
 
 In a moment more death had come, the doctor had 
 silently attested it, and Miss Searle had burst into 
 sobs. 
 
 We buried him in the little churchyarcl in which 
 he had expressed the wish to lie ; beneath one of the 
 mightiest of English yews and the little tower than 
 which none in all England has a softer and hoarier 
 gray. A year has passed. Miss Searle, I believe, has 
 begun to wear colors. 
 
The Last of the Valeril 
 
THE LAST OF THE YALEKII. 
 
 HAD had occasion to declare more than once that 
 
 -L if my god-daughter married a foreigner I should 
 refuse to give her away. And yet when the young 
 Conte Valerio was presented to me, in Eome, as her 
 accepted and plighted lover, I found myself looking at 
 the happy fellow, after a momentary stare of amaze- 
 ment, with a certain paternal benevolence; thinking, 
 indeed, that from the picturesque point of view (she 
 with her yellow locks and he with his dusky ones), 
 they were a strikingly well-assorted pair. She brought 
 him up to me half proudly, half timidly, pushing him 
 before her, and begging me with one of her dovelike 
 glances to be very polite. I don't know that I am 
 particularly addicted to rudeness ; but she was so 
 deeply impressed with his grandeur that she thought 
 it impossible to do him honor enough. The Conte 
 Valerie's grandeur was doubtless nothing for a young 
 American girl, who had the air and almost the habits 
 
128 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 of a princess, to soun'^ her trumpet about; but she 
 was desperately in love with him, and not only her 
 heart, but her imagination, was touched. He was 
 ^^extremely handsome, and with a more significant sort 
 of beauty than is common in the handsome Eoman 
 race. He had a sort of sunken depth of expression, 
 and a grave, slow smile, suggesting no great quickness 
 of wit, but an unimpassioned intensity of feeling which 
 promised well for Martha's happiness. He had little 
 of the light, inexpensive urbanity of his countrymen, 
 and more of a sort of heavy sincerity in his gaze which 
 seemed to suspend response until he was sure he under- 
 stood you. He was perhaps a little stupid, and I fan- 
 cied that to a political or aesthetic question the response 
 would be particularly slow. " He is good, and strong, 
 and brave,'' the young girl however assured me ; and 
 I easily believed her. Strong the Conte Valeric cer- 
 tainly was ; he had a head and throat like some of the 
 busts in the Vatican. To my eye, which has looked at 
 things now so long with the painter's purpose, it was 
 a real perplexity to see such a throat rising out of tlie 
 white cravat of the period. It sustained a head as 
 massively round as that of the familiar bust of the 
 Emperor Caracalla, and covered with the same dense 
 sculptural crop of curls. The young man's hair grew 
 superbly ; it was such hair as the old Eomans must 
 have had when they walked bareheaded and bronzed 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERH. 129 
 
 about t jhe world. It made a perfect arch over his low, 
 clear ibrehead, and prolonged itself on cheek and chin 
 in a close, crisp beard, strong with its own strength and 
 unstiffened by the razor. Neither his nose nor his 
 mouth was delicate ; but they were powerful, shapely, 
 and manly. His complexion was of a deep glowing 
 brown which no emotion would alter, and his large, 
 lucid eyes seemed to stare at you like a pair of pol- 
 ished agates. He was of middle stature, and his chest 
 was of so generous a girth that you half expected to 
 hear his linen crack with its even respirations. And 
 yet, with his simple human smile, he looked neither 
 like a young bullock nor a gladiator. His powerful 
 voice was the least bit harsh, and his large, ceremo- 
 nious reply to my compliment had the massive sonority 
 with which civil speeches must have been uttered in 
 jbhe age of Augustus. I had always considered my 
 god-daughter a very American little person, in all 
 delightful meanings of the word, and I doubted if 
 this sturdy young Latin would understand the trans- 
 atlantic element in her nature; but, evidently, he 
 would make her a loyal and ardent lover. She seemed 
 to me, in her blond prettiness, so tender, so appealing, 
 so bewitching, that it was impossible to believe he had 
 not more thoughts for all this than for the pretty for- 
 tune which it yet bothered me to believe that he must, 
 like a good Italian, have taken the exact measure of. 
 
 6* I 
 
130 
 
 THE LAST 0? THE VALERII. 
 
 His own worldly goods consisted of the paternal ^^^state, 
 a villa within the walls of Eome, which his scanty- 
 funds had suffered to fall into sombre disrepair. " It 's 
 the Villa she's in love with, quite as much as the 
 Count/' said her mother. " She dreams of converting 
 the Count ; that 's all very well. But she dreams of 
 refurnishing the Villa!" 
 
 The upholsterers were turned into it, I believe, be- 
 fore the wedding, and there was a great scrubbing and 
 sweeping of saloons and raking and weeding of alleys 
 and avenues. Martha made frequent visits of inspec- 
 tion while these ceremonies were taking place ; but one 
 day, on her return, she came into my little studio with 
 an air of amusing horror. She had found them scrap- 
 ing the sarcophagus in the great ilex-walk ; divesting it 
 of its mossy coat, disincrusting it of the sacred green 
 mould of the ages ! This was their idea of making the 
 Villa comfortable. She had made them transport it to 
 the dampest place they could find ; for, next after that 
 slow-coming, slow-going smile of her lover, it was the 
 rusty complexion of his patrimonial marbles that she 
 most prized. The young Count's conversion proceeded 
 less rapidly, and indeed I believe that his betrothed 
 brought little zeal to the affair. She loved him so 
 devoutly that she beHeved no change of faith could 
 better him, and she would have been willing for his 
 sake to say her prayers to the sacred Bambino at 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 131 
 
 Epiphany. But he had the good taste to demand no 
 such sacrifice, and I was struck with the happy prom- 
 ise of a scene of which I was an accidental observer. 
 It was at St. Peter's, one Friday afternoon, during the 
 vesper service which takes place in the chapel of the 
 Choir. I met my god-daughter wandering happily on 
 her lover's arm, her mother being established on her 
 camp-stool near the chapel door. The crowd was col- 
 lected thereabouts, and the body of the church was 
 empty. Now and then the high voices of the singers 
 escaped into the outer vastness and melted slowly 
 away in the incense-thickened air. Something in the 
 young girl's step and the clasp of her arm in her lov- 
 er's told me that her contentment was perfect. As she 
 threw back her head and gazed into the magnificent 
 immensity of vault and dome, I felt that she was in 
 that enviable mood in which all consciousness revolves 
 on a single centre, and that her sense of the splendors 
 around her was one with the ecstasy of her trust. 
 They stopped before that sombre group of confessionals 
 which proclaims so portentously the world's sinfulness, 
 and Martha seemed to make some almost passionate 
 protestation. A few minutes later I overtook them. 
 ^ "Don't you agree with me, dear friend," said the 
 Count, who always addressed me with the most affec- 
 tionate deference, "that before I marry so pure and 
 sweet a creature as this, I ought to go into one of 
 
132 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 those places and confess every sin I ever was guilty 
 of, — every evil thought and impulse and desire of my 
 grossly evil nature ? " 
 
 Martha looked at him, half in deprecation, half in 
 homage, with a look which seemed at once to insist 
 that her lover could have no vices, and to plead that, 
 if he had, there would be something magnificent in 
 them, " Listen to him ! " she said, smiling. " The list 
 would be long, and if you waited to finish it, you 
 would be late for the wedding ! But if you confess 
 your sins for me, it 's only fair I should confess mine 
 for you. Do you know what I have been saying to 
 Camillo ? " she added, turning to me with the half-filial 
 confidence she had always shown me and with a rosy 
 glow in her cheeks; *'that I want to do something 
 more for him than girls commonly do for their lovers, 
 — to take some step, to run some risk, to break some 
 law, even ! I 'm willing to change my religion, if he 
 \^bids me. There are moments when I 'm terribly tired 
 of simply staring at Catholicism ; it will be a relief to 
 come into a church to kneel. That's, after all, what 
 they are meant for ! Therefore, Camillo mio, if it casts 
 a shade across your heart to think that I 'm a heretic, 
 I'll go and kneel down to that good old priest who 
 has just entered the confessional yonder and say to 
 him, ' My father, I repent, I abjure, I believe. Baptize 
 me in the only faith.' " 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 133 
 
 " If it 's as a compliment to the Count," I said, " it 
 seems to me he ought to anticipate it by turning Prot- 
 estant." 
 
 She had spoken lightly and with a smile, and yet 
 with an undertonf^ of girlish ardor. The young man 
 looked at her with a solemn, puzzled face and shook 
 his head. Keep your religion," he said. " Every one 
 his own. If you should attempt to embrace mine, I 'm 
 afraid you would close your arms about a shadow. 
 I 'm a poor Catholic ! I don't understand all these 
 chants and ceremonies and splendors. When I was a 
 child I never could learn my catechism. My poor old 
 confessor long ago gave me up; he told me I was a 
 good boy but a pagan! You must not be a better 
 Catholic than your husband. I don't understand your 
 religion any better, but I beg you not to change it for 
 mine. If it has helped to make you what you are, 
 it must be good." And taking the young girl's hand, 
 he was about to raise it affectionately to his lips ; but 
 suddenly remembering that they were in a place unac- 
 cordant with profane passions, he lowered it with a 
 comical smile. " Let us go ! " he murmured, passing 
 his hand over his forehead. " This heavy atmosphere 
 of St. Peter's always stupefies me." 
 
 They were married in the month of May, and 
 we separated for the summer, the Contessa's mamma 
 going to illuminate the domestic circle in New 
 
V 
 
 \ 
 
 134 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 York with her reflected dignity^. When I returned 
 to Eome in the autumn, I foun4 the young couple 
 established at the Villa Valerio, which was being 
 gradually reclaimed from its antique decay. I begged 
 that the hand of improvement might be lightly laid 
 on it, for as an unscrupulous old gtnre painter, with 
 an eye to " subjects," I preferred ti;iat ruin should 
 accumulate. My god-daughter was quite of my way 
 of thinking, and she had a capital v sense of the 
 picturesque. Advising with me often as to projected 
 changes, she was sometimes more conservative than 
 myself ; and I more than once smiled at her archae- 
 ological zeal, and declared that I believed she had 
 married the Count because he was like a statue of 
 the Decadence. I had a constant invitation to spend 
 my days at the Villa, and my easel was always 
 planted in one of the garden- walks. I grew to have 
 a painter's passion for the place, and to be intimate 
 with every tangled shrub and twisted tree, every 
 moss-coated vase and mouldy sarcophagus and sad, 
 disfeatured bust of those grim old Eomans who could 
 so ill afford to become more meagre-visaged. The 
 place was of small extent ; but though there were 
 many other villas more pretentious and splendid, none 
 seemed to me more deeply picturesque, more roman- 
 tically idle and untrimmed, more encumbered with pre- 
 cious antique rubbish, and haunted with half-historic 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 135 
 
 echoes. It contained an old ilex-walk in which I 
 used religiously to spend half an hour every day, — 
 half an hour being, I confess, just as long as I could 
 stay without beginning to sneeze. The trees arched 
 and intertwisted l.ere along their dusky vista in the 
 quaintest symmetry ; and as it was exposed un- 
 interruptedly to the west, the low evening sun used 
 to transfuse it with a sort of golden mist and play 
 through it — over leaves and knotty boughs and 
 mossy marbles — with a thousand crimson fingers. 
 It was filled with disinterred fragments of sculp- 
 ture, — nameless statues and noseless heads and rough- 
 hewn sarcophagi, which made it deliciously solemn. 
 The statues used to stand there in the perpetual 
 twilight like conscious things, brooding on their gath- 
 ered memories. I used to linger about them, half 
 expecting they would speak and tell me their stony 
 secrets, — whisper heavily the whereabouts of their 
 mouldering fellows, still unrecovered from the soil. 
 
 My god-daughter was idyllically happy and abso- 
 lutely in love. I was obliged to confess that even 
 rigid rules have their exceptions, and that now and 
 then an Italian count is an honest fellow. Camillo 
 was one to the core, and seemed quite content to 
 be adored. Their life was a childlike interchange of 
 caresses, as candid and unmeasured as those of a 
 shepherd and shepherdess in a bucolic poem. To 
 
136 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 stroll in the ilex-walk and feel her husband's arm 
 about her waist and his shoulder against her cheek ; 
 to roll cigarettes for him while he puffed them in 
 the great marble-paved rotunda iv. the centre of the 
 house ; to fill his glass from an old rusty red am- 
 phora, — these graceful occupations satisfied the young 
 Countess. 
 
 She rode with him sometimes in the grassy shadow 
 of aqueducts and tombs, and sometimes suffered him 
 to show his beautiful wife at Eoman dinners and 
 balls. She played dominos with him after dinner, 
 and carried out in a desultory way a daily scheme 
 of reading him the newspapers. This observance was 
 subject to fluctuations caused by the Count's invincible 
 tendency to go to sleep, — a failing his wife never 
 attempted to disguise or palliate. She would sit and 
 brush the flies from him while he lay picturesquely 
 snoozing, and, if I ventured near him, would place 
 her finger on her lips and whisper that she thought 
 her husband was as handsome asleep as awake. I 
 confess I often felt tempted to reply to her that he 
 was at least as entertaining, for the young man's 
 happiness had not multiplied the topics on which, he 
 readily conversed. He had plenty of good sense, and 
 his opinions on practical matters were always worth 
 having. He would often come and sit near me while 
 I worked at my easel and offer a friendly criticism. 
 
THE LAST Gi^^ THE VALERII. 
 
 137 
 
 His taste was a little crade, but his eye was excellent, 
 and his measurement of the resemblance between some 
 point of my copy anl the original as trustworthy as 
 that of a mathemati3al instrument. But he seemed 
 to me to have eithar a strange reserve or a strange 
 simplicity; to be fundamentally unfurnished with 
 "ideas." He had no beliefs nor hopes nor fears, — 
 nothing but sensf;s, appetites, and serenely luxurious 
 tastes. As I watched him strolling about looking at 
 his finger-nails, I often wondered whether he had 
 anything that could properly be termed a soul, and 
 whether good health and good-nature were not the 
 sum of his advantages. " It 's lucky he 's good- 
 natured," I used to say to myself; "for if he were 
 not, there is nothing in his conscience to keep him 
 in order. If he had irritable nerves instead of quiet 
 ones, he would strangle us as the infant Hercules 
 strangled the poor little snakes. He 's the natural 
 man ! Happily, his nature is gentle ; I can mix my 
 colors at my ease.'* I wondered what he thought 
 about and what passed through his mind in the sunny 
 leisure which seemed to shut him in from that mod- 
 ern work-a-day world of which, in spite of my passion 
 for bedaubing old panels with ineffective portraiture 
 of mouldy statues against screens of box, I still flat- 
 tered myself I was a member. I went so far as to 
 believe that he sometimes withdrew from the world 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 
 138 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 altogether. He had moods m which his conscious- 
 ness seemed so remote and his mind so irresponsive 
 and dumb, that nothing but a powerful caress or a 
 sudden violence was likely to a ouse him. Even his 
 lavish tenderness for his wife ha>l a quality which I 
 but half relished. Whether or no he had a soul 
 himself, he seemed not to suspect that she had one. 
 I took a godfatherly interest in what it had not always 
 seemed to me crabbed and pedantic to talk of as her 
 moral development. I fondly believed her to be a 
 creature susceptible of the finer spiritual emotions. 
 But what was becoming of her spiritual life in this 
 interminable heathenish honeymoon ? Some fine day 
 she would find herself tired of the Count's heatcx yeux 
 and make an appeal to his mind. She had, to my 
 knowledge, plans of study, of charity, of worthily play- 
 ing her part as a Contessa Valerio, — a position as to 
 which the family records furnished the most inspiring 
 examples. But if the Count found the newspapers 
 soporific, I doubted if he would turn Dante's pages 
 very fast for his wife, or smile with much zest at 
 the anecdotes of Vasari. How could he advise her, 
 instruct her, sustain her? And if she became a 
 mother, how could he share her responsibilities ? He 
 doubtless would assure his little son and heir a stout 
 pair of arms and legs and a magnificent crop of curls, 
 and sometimes remove his cigarette to kiss a dimpled 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 139 
 
 spot; but I found it hard to picture him lending his 
 voice to teach the lusty urchin his alphabet or his 
 prayers, or the rudiments of infant virtue. One ac- 
 complishment indeed the Count possessed which 
 would make him an agreeable playfellow: he carried 
 in his pocket a collection of precious fragments of 
 antique pavement, — bits of porphyry and malachite 
 and lapis and basalt, — disinterred on his own soil 
 and brilliantly polished by use. With these you 
 might see him occupied by the half-hour, playing the 
 simple game of catch-and-toss, ranging them in a 
 circle, tossing them in rotation, and catching them on 
 the back of his hand. His skill was remarkable ; he 
 would send a stone five feet into the air, and pitch 
 and catch and transpose the rest before he received 
 it again. I watched with affectionate jealousy for 
 the signs of a dawning sense, on Martha's part, that 
 she was the least bit strangely mated. Once or 
 twice, as the weeks went by, I fancied I read them, 
 and that she looked at me with eyes which seemed 
 to remember certain old talks of mine in which I 
 had declared — with such verity as you please — that 
 a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard, might be a very 
 good fellow, but that he never really respected the 
 woman he pretended to love. For the most part, 
 however, these dusky broodings of mine spent them- 
 selves easily in the charmed atmosphere of our ro- 
 
140 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 mantic home. We were out of the modern world and 
 had no business with modern scruples. The place 
 was so bright, so still, so sacred to the silent, imper- 
 turbable past, that drowsy contentment seemed a nat- 
 ural law; and sometimes when, as I sat at my work, 
 I saw my companions passing arm-in-arm across the 
 end of one of the long-drawn vistas, and, turning 
 back to my palette, found my colors dimmer for the 
 radiant vision, I could easily believe that I was some 
 loyal old chronicler of a perfectly poetical legend. 
 
 It was a help to ungrudging feelings that the Count, 
 yielding to his wife's urgency, had undertaken a series 
 of systematic excavations. To excavate is an expen- 
 sive luxury, and neither Camillo nor his latter fore- 
 fathers had possessed the means for a disinterested 
 pursuit of archaeology. But his young wife had per- 
 suaded herself that the much-trodden soil of the Villa 
 was as full of buried treasures as a bride-cake of plums, 
 and that it would be a pretty compliment to the 
 ancient house which had accepted her as mistress, to 
 devote a portion of her dowry to bringing its mouldy 
 honors to the light. I think she was not without a 
 fancy that this liberal process would help to disinfect 
 her Yankee dollars of the impertinent odor of trade. 
 She took learned advice on the subject, and was soon 
 ready to swear to you, proceeding from irrefutable 
 premises, that a colossal gilt-bronze Minerva men- 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 141 
 
 tioned by Strabo was placidly awaiting resurrection 
 at a point twenty rods from the northwest angle of 
 the house. She had a couple of grotesque old anti- 
 quaries to lunch, whom having plied with unwonted 
 potations, she walked off their legs in the grounds; 
 and though they agreed on nothing else in the world, 
 they individual!;^ assured her that properly conducted 
 researches would probably yield an unequalled harvest 
 of discoveries. The Count had been not only indiffer- 
 ent, but even averse, to the scheme, and had more than 
 once arrested his wife's complacent allusions to it by 
 an unaccustomed acerbity of tone. " Let them lie, the 
 poor disinherited gods, the Minerva, the Apollo, the 
 Ceres you are so sure of finding,'' he said, "and don't 
 break their rest. What do you want of them ? We 
 can't worship them. Would you put them on pedes- 
 tals to stare and mock at them ? If you can't believe 
 in them, don't disturb them. Peace be with them ! " 
 I remember being a good deal impressed by a vigorous 
 confession drawn from him by his wife's playfuUy de- 
 claring in answer to some remonstrances in this strain 
 that he was absolutely superstitious. "Yes, by Bac- 
 chus, I am superstitious ! " he cried. " Too much so, 
 perhaps ! But I 'm an old Italian, and you must take 
 me as you find me. There have been things seen and 
 done here which leave strange influences behind ! 
 They don't touch you, doubtless, who come of another 
 
142 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 race. But they touch me, often, in the whispier of 
 the leaves and the odor of the mouldy soil and the 
 blank eyes of the old statues. I can't bear; to look 
 the statues in the face. I seem to see other strange 
 eyes in the empty sockets, and I hardly know what 
 they say to me. I call the poor old p/tatues ghosts. 
 In conscience, we 've enough on thp place already, 
 lurking and peering in every shady nook. Don't 
 dig up any more, or I won't answer for my wits!" 
 
 This account of Camillo's sensibilities was too fan- 
 tastic not to seem to his wife almost a joke; and 
 though I imagined there was more in it, he made a 
 joke so seldom that I should have been sorry to cut 
 short the poor girl's smile. With her smile she carried 
 her point, and in a few days arrived a kind of archaeo- 
 logical detective, with a dozen workmen armed with 
 pickaxes and spades. For myself, I was secretly vexed 
 at these energetic measures ; for, though fond of disin- 
 terred statues, I disliked the disinterment, and deplored 
 the profane sounds which were henceforth to jar upon 
 the sleepy stillness of the gardens. I especially ob- 
 jected to the personage who conducted the operations ; 
 an ugly little dwarfish man who seemed altogether a 
 subterranean genius, an earthy gnome of the under- 
 world, and went prying about the grounds with a ma- 
 licious smile which suggested more delight in the 
 money the Signer Conte was going to bury than in the 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 143 
 
 C 
 
 expected marbles and bronzes. When the first sod 
 had been turned, the Count's mood seemed to alter, 
 and his curiosity got the better of his scruples. He 
 sniffed delightedly the odor of the humid earth, and 
 stood watching the workmen, as they struck constantly 
 deeper, with a kindling wonder in his eyes. When- 
 ever a pickaxe rang against a stone he would utter a 
 sharp cry, and be deterred from jumping into the 
 trench only by the little explorer's assurance that it 
 was a false alarm. The near prospect of discoveries 
 seemed to act upon his nerves, and I met him more 
 than once strolling restlessly among his cedarn alleys, 
 as if at last he had fallen a thinking. He took me by 
 the arm and made me walk with him, and discoursed 
 ardently of the chance of a " find." I rather marvelled 
 at his sudden zeal, and wondered whether he had an 
 eye to the past or to the future, — to the beauty of pos- 
 sible Minervas and ApoUos or to their market value. 
 Whenever the Count would come and denounce his 
 little army of spadesmen for a set of loitering vaga- 
 bonds, the little explorer would glance at me with a 
 sarcastic twinkle which seemed to hint that excava- 
 tions were a snare. We were kept some time in sus- 
 pense, for several false beginnings were made. The 
 earth was probed in the wrong places. The Count 
 began to be discouraged and to prolong his abbreviated 
 siesta. But the little expert, who had his own ideas, 
 
144 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 0 
 
 shrewdly continued his labors ; and as I sat ^t my 
 easel I heard the spades ringing against the dislodged 
 stones. Now and then I would pause, with an un- 
 controllable acceleration of my heart-beats. "It may 
 be," I would say, "that some marble masterpiece is 
 stirring there beneath its lightening weight of earth ! 
 There are as good fish in the sea . . . . ! I may be 
 summoned to welcome another Antiuous back to fame, 
 — a Venus, a Faun, an Augustus ! " 
 
 One morning it seemed to me that I had been hear- 
 ing for half an hour a livelier movement of voices than 
 usual; but as I was preoccupied with a puzzling bit 
 of work, I made no inquiries. Suddenly a shadow fell 
 across my canvas, and I turned round. The little ex- 
 plorer stood beside me, with a glittemg- eye, cap in 
 hand, his forehead bathed in perspiration. Eesting in 
 the hollow of his arm was an earth-stained fragment 
 of marble. In answer to my questioning glance he 
 held it up to me, and I saw it was a woman's shapely 
 hand. " Come ! " he simply said, and led the way to 
 the excavation. The workmen were so closely gath- 
 ered round the open trench that I saw nothing till he 
 made them divide. Then, full in the sun and flashing 
 it back, almost, in spite of her dusky incrustations, I 
 beheld, propped up with stones against a heap of earth, 
 a majestic marble image. She seemed to me almost 
 colossal, though I afterwards perceived that she was of 
 
'jTHE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 145 
 
 perfect humai,. proportions. My pulses began to throb, 
 for I fe't shef was something great, and that it was 
 great to le among the first to know her. Her marvel- 
 lous beaut^r gave her an almost human look, and her 
 absent eyes ^eemed to wonder back at us. She was 
 amply draped, so that I saw that she was not a Venus. 
 " She 's a Juno," said the excavator, decisively ; and 
 she seemed indeed an embodiment of celestial suprem- 
 acy and repose. Hsr beautiful head, bound with a 
 single band, could ha^e bent only to give the nod of 
 command ; her eyes looked straight before her ; her 
 mouth was implacably grave ; one hand, outstretched, 
 appeared to have held a kind of impe ial wand, the 
 arm from which the other had been broken hung at 
 her side with the most classical majesty. The work- 
 manship was of the rarest finish ; and though perhaps 
 there was a sort of vaguely modern attempt at charac- 
 ter in her expression, she was wrought, as a whole, in 
 the large and simple manner of the great Greek period. 
 She was a masterpiece of skill and a marvel of preser- 
 vation. " Does the Count know ? " I soon asked, for I 
 had a guilty sense that our eyes were taking something 
 from her. 
 
 " The Signor Conte is at his siesta," said the ex- 
 plorer, with his sceptical grin. "We don't like to 
 disturb him." 
 
 Here he comes ! " cried one of the workmen, and 
 
 I 
 
we made way for him. His siesta had 6 
 suddenly broken, for his face was flu^^ 
 
 146 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII 
 
 hair disordered. i; 
 
 "Ah, my dream — my dream was riglit, then!" he ' 
 cried, and stood staring at the image. 
 
 seemed to betray more dismay than delight. 
 
 " That they 'd found a Juno ; and that she rose 
 and came and laid her marble hand on mine. Eh ? " 
 said the Count, excitedly. ^ 
 
 A kind of awe-struck, guttural a-ah ! burst from 
 the listening workmen. 
 
 " This is th3 hand ! " said the little explorer, hold- 
 ing up his perfect fragment. "I've had it this half- 
 hour, so it can't have touched you." 
 
 " But you 're apparently right as to her being a 
 Juno," I said. "Admire her at your leisure." And 
 I turned away; for if the Count was superstitious, I 
 wished to leave him free to relieve himself I re- 
 paired to the house to carry the news to my god- 
 daughter, whom I found slumbering — dreamlessly, 
 it appeared — over a great archaeological octavo. 
 " They 've touched bottom," I said. " They 've found 
 a Juno of Praxiteles at the very least ! " She dropped 
 her octavo, and rang for a parasol. I described tlie 
 statue, but not graphically, I presume, for Martha 
 gave a little sarcastic grimace. 
 
 " What was your dream ? " I asked, as his face 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 147 
 
 A long, fluted peplum ? " she said. " How very 
 odd! I" don't believe she's beautiful." 
 ^ " She 's beautiful enough, figlioccia mial' I answered, 
 "to make you jealous." 
 
 We found the Count standing before the resurgent 
 goddess in fixed contemplation, with folded arms. He 
 seemed to have recovered from the irritation of his 
 dream, but I thought his face betrayed a still deeper 
 emotion. He was pale, and gave no response as his 
 wife caressingly clasped his arm. I 'm not sure, 
 however, that his wife's attitude was not a livelier 
 tribute to the perfection of the image. She had been 
 laughing at my rhapsody as we walked from the 
 house, and I had bethought myself of a statement 
 I had somewhere seen, that women lacked the per- 
 ception of the purest beauty. Martha, however, 
 seemed slowly to measure our Juno's infinite state- 
 liness. She gazed a long time silently, leaning against 
 her husband, and then stepped half timidly down on 
 the stones which formed a rough base for the figure. 
 She laid her two rosy, ungloved hands upon the stony 
 fingers of the goddess, and remained for some mo- 
 ments pressing them in her warm grasp, and fixing 
 her living eyes upon the inexpressive brow. When 
 she turned round her eyes were bright with an admir- 
 ing tear, — a tear which her husband was too deeply 
 absorbed to notice. He had apparently given orders 
 
148 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 that the workmen should be treated to a cask 6f wine, 
 in honor of their discovery. It was now brought and 
 opened on the spot, and the little explorer, having 
 drawn the first glass, stepped forward, hat in hand, and 
 obsequiously presented it to the Countess. She only 
 moistened her lips with it and passed it to her hus- 
 band. He raised it mechanically to his own ; then 
 suddenly he stopped, held it a moment aloft, and 
 poured it out slowly and solemnly at the feet of the 
 Juno. 
 
 " Why, it 's a libation ! " I cried. He made no an- 
 swer, and walked slowly away. , 
 
 There was no more work done that day. The labor- 
 ers lay on the grass^ gazing with the native Eoman 
 relish of a fine piece of sculpture, but wasting no wine 
 in pagan ceremonies. In the evening the Count paid 
 the Juno another visit, and gave orders that on the 
 morrow^ she should be transferred to the Casino. The 
 Casino was a deserted garden-house, built in not un- 
 graceful imitation of an Ionic temple, in which Camil- 
 lo's ancestors must often have assembled to drink cool 
 syrups from Venetian glasses, and listen to learned 
 madrigals. It contained several dusty fragments of 
 antique sculpture, and it was spacious enough to en- 
 close that richer collection of which I began fondly to 
 regard the Juno as but the nucleus. Here, with short 
 delay, this fine creature was placed, serenely upright, 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 149 
 
 a reversed funereal cippus forming a sufficiently solid 
 pedestal. The little explorer, who seemed an expert 
 in all the offices of restoration, rubbed her and scraped 
 her with mysterious art, removed her earthy stains, 
 and doubled the lustre of her beauty. Her mellow 
 substance seemed to glow with a kind of renascent 
 purity and bloom, and, but for her broken hand, you 
 might have fancied she had just received the last 
 stroke of the chisel. Her fame remained no secret. 
 Within two or three days half a dozen inquisitive co- 
 Twscenti posted out to obtain sight of her. I happened 
 to be present when the first of these gentlemen (a Ger- 
 man in blue spectacles, with a portfolio under his arm) 
 presented himself at the Villa. The Count, hearing 
 his voice at the door, came forward and eyed him cold- 
 ly from head to foot. 
 
 "Your new Juno, Signor Conte," began the Ger- 
 man, "is, in my opinion, much more likely to be a 
 certain Proserpine — " 
 
 " I Ve neither a Juno nor a Proserpine to discuss 
 with you," said the Count, curtly. " You 're misin- 
 formed." 
 
 " You Ve dug up no statue ? " cried the German. 
 "What a scandalous hoax!" 
 
 " None worthy of your learned attention. I 'm 
 sorry you should have the trouble of carrying your 
 little note-book so far." The Count had suddenly 
 become witty ! 
 
150 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 " But you 've something, surely. The rumor is 
 running through Eome." 
 
 " The rumor be damned ! " cried the Count, savagely. 
 " I Ve nothing y — do you understand ? Be so good 
 as to say so to your friends." 
 
 The answer was explicit, and the poor archaeologist 
 departed, tossing his flaxen mane. But I pitied him, 
 and ventured to remonstrate with the Count. " She 
 might as well be still in the earth, if no one is to 
 see her," I said. 
 
 " / 'm to see her : that 's enough ! " he answered 
 with the same unnatural harshness. Then, in a mo- 
 ment, as he caught me eying him askance in troubled 
 surprise, ''I hated his great portfolio. He was going 
 to make some hideous drawing of her." 
 
 *'Ah, that touches me," I said. ''I too have been 
 planning to make a little sketch." 
 
 He was silent for some moments, after which he 
 turned and grasped my arm, with less irritation, but 
 with extraordinary gravity. " Go in there towards 
 twilight," he said, " and sit for an hour and look at 
 her. I think you '11 give up your sketch. If you 
 don't, my good old friend, — you 're welcome ! " 
 
 I followed his advice, and, as a friend, I gave up 
 my sketch. But an artist is an artist, and I secretly 
 longed to attempt one. Orders strictly in accordance 
 with the Count's reply to our German friend were 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 151 
 
 given to the servants, who, with an easy Italian con- 
 science and a gracious Italian persuasiveness, assured 
 all subsequent inquirers that they had been regretta- 
 bly misinformed. I have no doubt, indeed, that, in 
 default of larger opportunity, they made condolence 
 remunerative. Further excavation was, for the present, 
 suspended, as implying an affront to the incompar- 
 able Juno. The workmen departed, but the little 
 explorer still haunted the premises and sounded the 
 soil for his own entertainment. One day he came to 
 me with his usual ambiguous grimace. " The beau- 
 tiful hand of the Juno," he murmured; "what has 
 become of it?" 
 
 " I Ve not seen it since you called me to look at 
 her. I remember w^hen I went away it was lying 
 on the grass near the excavation." 
 
 "Where I placed it myself! After that it disap- 
 peared. Ecco ! " 
 
 "Do you suspect one of your workmen? Such a 
 fragment as that would bring more scudi than most 
 of them ever looked at." 
 
 " Some, perhaps, are greater thieves than the others. 
 But if I were to call up the worst of them and accuse 
 him, the Count would interfere." 
 
 " He must value that beautiful hand, nevertheless." 
 
 The little expert in disinterment looked about him 
 and winked. " He values it so much that he himself 
 
152 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 purloined it. That 's my belief, and I think that the 
 less we say about it the better." 
 
 "Purloined it, my dear sir? After all, it's his 
 own property." 
 
 Not so much as that comes to ! So beautiful a 
 creature is more or less the property of every one ; 
 weVe all a right to look at her. But the Count 
 treats her as if she were a sacro-sanct image of the 
 Madonna. He keeps her under lock and key, and 
 pays her solitary visits. What does he do, after all ? 
 When a beautiful woman is in stone, all he can do 
 is to look at her. And what does he do with that 
 precious hand ? He keeps it in a silver box ; he has 
 made a relic of it ! " And this cynical personage 
 began to chuckle grotesquely and walked away. 
 
 He left me musing uncomfortably, and wondering 
 what the deuce he meant. The Count certainly 
 chose to make a mystery of the Juno, but this 
 seemed a natural incident of the first rapture of pos- 
 session. I was willing to wait for a free access to 
 her, and in the mean time I was glad to find that 
 there was a limit to his constitutional apathy. But 
 as the days elapsed I began to be conscious that his 
 enjoyment was not communicative, but strangely cold 
 and shy and sombre. That he should admire a mar- 
 ble goddess was no reason for his despising mankind; 
 yet he really seemed to be making invidious com- 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 153 
 
 parisons between us. From this untender proscription 
 his charming wife was not excepted. At moments 
 when I tried to persuade myself that he was neither 
 worse nor better company than usual, her face con- 
 demned my optimism. She said nothing, but she wore 
 a constant look of pathetic perplexity. She sat at times 
 with her eyes fixed on him with a kind of imploring 
 curiosity, as if pitying surprise held resentment yet 
 awhile in check. What passed between them in 
 private, I had, of course, no warrant to inquire. Noth- 
 ing, I imagined, — and that was the misery ! It was 
 part of the misery, too, that he seemed impenetrable 
 to these mute glances, and looked over her head 
 with an air of superb abstraction. Occasionally he 
 noticed me looking at him in urgent deprecation, 
 and then for a moment his heavy eye would sparkle, 
 half, as it seemed, in defiant irony and half with a 
 strangely stifled impulse to justify himself But from 
 his wife he kept his face inexorably averted; and 
 when she approached him with some persuasive ca- 
 ress, he received it with an ill-concealed shudder. I 
 inwardly protested and raged. I grew to hate the 
 Count and everything that belonged to him. "I was 
 a thousand times right," I cried ; " an Italian count 
 may be mighty fine, but he won't wear ! Give^ us 
 some wholesome young fellow of our own blood, 
 who'll play us none of these dusky old-world tricks. 
 
 7* 
 
154 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 Painter as I am, I '11 never recommend a picturesque 
 husband ! " I lost my pleasure in the Villa, in the 
 purple shadows and glowing lights, the mossy mar- 
 bles and the long-trailing profile of the Alban Hills. 
 My painting stood still; everything looked ugly. I 
 sat and fumbled with my palette, and seemed to be 
 mixing mud with my colors. My head was stuffed 
 with dismal thoughts ; an intolerable weight seemed 
 to lie upon my heart. The Count became, to my 
 imagination, a dark efflorescence of the evil germs 
 which history had implanted in his line. No wonder 
 he was foredoomed to be cruel. Was not cruelty a 
 tradition in his race, and crime an example ? The 
 unholy passions of his forefathers stirred blindly in 
 his untaught nature and clamored dumbly for an 
 issue. What a heavy heritage it seemed to me, as I 
 reckoned it up in my melancholy musings, the Count's 
 interminable ancestry ! Back to the profligate revival 
 of arts and vices, — back to the bloody medley of 
 mediaeval wars, — back through the long, fitfully glar- 
 ing dusk of the early ages to its ponderous origin in 
 the solid Eoman state, — back through all the dark- 
 ness of history it seemed to stretch, losing every 
 feeblest claim on my sympathies as it went. Such a 
 record was in itself a curse ; and my poor girl had 
 expected it to sit as lightly and gratefully on her 
 consciousness as her feather on her hat ! I have 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 155 
 
 little idea how long this painful situation lasted. It 
 seemed the longer from my god-daughter's continued 
 reserve, and my inability to offer her a word of con- 
 solation. A sensitive woman, disappointed in mar- 
 riage, exhausts her own ingenuity before she takes 
 counsel. The Count's preoccupations, whatever they 
 were, made him increasingly restless; he came and 
 went at random, with nervous abruptness: he took 
 long rides alone, and, as I inferred, rarely went through 
 the form of excusing himself to his wife ; and still, as 
 time went on, he came no nearer explaining his mys- 
 tery. With the lapse of time, however, I confess that 
 my apprehensions began to be tempered with pity. 
 If I had expected to see him propitiate his urgent 
 ancestry by a crime, now that his native rectitude 
 seemed resolute to deny them this satisfaction, I felt 
 a sort of grudging gratitude. A man couldn't be so 
 gratuitously sombre without being unhappy. He had 
 always treated me with that antique deference to 
 a grizzled beard for which elderly men reserve the 
 flower of their general tenderness for waning fashions, 
 and I thought it possible he might suffer me to lay 
 a healing hand upon his trouble. One evening, when 
 I had taken leave of my god-daughter and given her 
 my useless blessing in a silent kiss, I came out and 
 found the Count sitting in the garden in the mild 
 starlight, and staring at a mouldy Hermes, nestling 
 
156 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 in a clump of oleander. I sat down by him and in- 
 formed him roundly that his conduct needed an expla- 
 nation. He half turned his head, and his dark pupil 
 gleamed an instant. 
 
 " I understand," he said, you think me crazy ! " 
 And he tapped his forehead. 
 
 " No, not crazy, but unhappy. And if unhappiness 
 runs its course too freely, of course, our poor wits are 
 sorely tried." 
 
 He was silent awhile, and then, " I 'm not un- 
 happy !" he cried abruptly. " I 'm prodigiously happy. 
 You wouldn't believe the satisfaction I take in sit- 
 ting here and staring at that old weather-worn Hermes. 
 Formerly I used to be afraid of him : his frown used 
 to remind me of a little bushy-browed old priest who 
 taught me Latin and looked at me terribly over the 
 book when I stumbled in my Virgil. But now it 
 seems to me the friendliest, j oiliest thing in the 
 world, and suggests the most delightful images. He 
 stood pouting his great lips in some old Eoman's 
 garden two thousand years ago. He saw the san- 
 dalled feet treading the alleys and the rose-crowned 
 heads bending over the wine ; he knew the old feasts 
 and the old worship, the old Eomans and the old gods. 
 As I sit here he speaks to me, in his own dumb way, 
 and describes it all ! No, no, my friend, I 'm the 
 happiest of men ! " 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 157 
 
 I had denied that I thought he was crazy, but I 
 suddenly began to suspect it, for I found nothing re- 
 assuring in this singular rhapsody. The Hermes, for 
 a wonder, had kept his nose ; and when I reflected 
 that my dear Countess was being neglected for this 
 senseless pagan block, I secretly promised myself to 
 come the next day with a hammer and deal him 
 such a lusty blow as would make him too ridiculous 
 for a sentimental tete-a-tete. Meanwhile, however, the 
 Count's infatuation was no laughing matter, and I ex- 
 pressed my sincerest conviction w^hen I said, after a 
 pause, that I should recommend him to see either a 
 priest or a physician. 
 
 He burst into uproarious laughter. A priest ! 
 What should I do with a priest, or he with me ? I 
 never loved them, and I feel less like beginning than 
 ever. A priest, my dear friend," he repeated, lay- 
 ing his hand on my arm, ''don't set a priest at 
 me, if you value his sanity ! My confession would 
 frighten the poor man out of his wits. As for a doc- 
 tor, I never was better in my life ; and unless," he 
 added abruptly, rising, and eying me askance, " you 
 want to poison me, in Christian charity I advise you 
 to leave me alone." 
 
 Decidedly, the Count was unsound, and I had no 
 heart, for some days, to go back to the Villa. How 
 should I treat him, what stand should I take, what 
 
158 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 course did Martha's happiness and dignity demand? 
 I wandered about Eome, revolving these questions, 
 and one afternoon found myself in the Pantheon. A 
 light spring shower had begun to fall, and I hurried 
 for refuge into the great temple which its Christian 
 altars have but half converted into a church. No 
 Eoman monument retains a deeper impress of ancient 
 life, or verifies more forcibly those prodigious beliefs 
 which we are apt to regard as dim fables. The huge 
 dusky dome seems to the spiritual ear to hold a 
 vague reverberation of pagan worship, as a gathered 
 shell holds the rumor of the sea. Three or four per- 
 sons were scattered before the various altars ; another 
 stood near the centre, beneath the aperture in the 
 dome. As I drew near I perceived this was the 
 Count. He was planted with his hands behind him, 
 looking up first at the heavy rain-clouds, as they 
 crossed the great bull's-eye, and then down at the 
 besprinkled circle on the pavement. In those days 
 the pavement was rugged and cracked and magnifi- 
 cently old, and this ample space, in free communion 
 with the weather, had become as mouldy and mossy 
 and verdant as a strip of garden soil. A tender 
 herbage had sprung up in the crevices of the slabs, 
 and the little microscopic shoots were twinkling in 
 the rain. This great weather-current, through the un- 
 capped vault, deadens most effectively the customary 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 159 
 
 odors of incense and tallow, and transports one to 
 a faith that was on friendly terms with nature. It 
 seemed to have performed this office for the Count ; 
 his face wore an indefinable expression of ecstasy, 
 and he was so rapt in contemplation that it was 
 some time before he noticed me. The sun was strug- 
 gling through the clouds without, and yet a thin rain 
 continued to fall and came drifting down into our 
 gloomy enclosure in a sort of illuminated drizzle. 
 The Count watched it with the fascinated stare of a 
 child watching a fountain, and then turned away, 
 pressing his hand to his brow, and walked over to 
 one of the ornamental altars. Here he again stood 
 staring, but in a moment wheeled about and returned 
 to his former place. Just then he recognized me, 
 and perceived, I suppose, the puzzled gaze I must 
 have fixed on him. He saluted me frankly with his 
 hand, aod at last came toward me. I fancied that he 
 was in a kind of nervous tremor and was trying to 
 appear calm. 
 
 / "This is the best place in Eome," he murmured. 
 " It 's worth fifty St. Peters'. But do you know I 
 never came here till the other day ? I left it to the 
 forestieri They go about with their red books, and 
 read about this and that, and think they know it. 
 Ah ! you must feel it, — feel the beauty and fitness 
 of that great open skylight. Now, only the wind and 
 
160 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALEKll. 
 
 the rain, the sun and the cold, come down ; but of old 
 — of old " — and he touched my arm and gave me a 
 strange smile — "the pagan gods and goddesses used 
 to come sailing through it and take their places at 
 their altars. What a procession, when the eyes of 
 faith could see it! Those are the things they have 
 given us instead ! " And he gave a pitiful shrug. " I 
 should like to pull down their pictures, overturn their 
 candlesticks, and poison their holy-water!" 
 
 " My dear Count," I said gently, " you should tol- 
 erate people's honest beliefs. Would you renew the 
 Inquisition, and in the interest of Jupiter and Mer- 
 cury ? " 
 
 People would n't tolerate my belief, if they guessed 
 it ! " he cried. " There 's been a great talk about the 
 pagan persecutions; but the Christians persecuted as 
 well, and the old gods were worshipped in caves and 
 woods as well as the new. And none the worse for 
 that ! It was in caves and woods and streams, in earth 
 and air and water, they dwelt. And there — and here, 
 too, in spite of all your Christian lustrations — a son 
 of old Italy may find them still ! " 
 
 He had said more than he meant, and his mask had 
 fallen. I looked at him hard, and felt a sudden out- 
 gush of the compassion we always feel for a creature 
 irresponsibly excited. I seemed to touch the source 
 of his trouble, and my relief was great, for my dis- 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 161 
 
 covery made me feel like bursting into laughter. But 
 I contented myself with smiling benignantly. He 
 looked back at me suspiciously, as if to judge how far 
 he had betrayed himself; and in his glance I read, 
 somehow, that he had a conscience we could take hold 
 of. In my gratitude, I was ready to thank any gods 
 he pleased. " Take care, take care," I said, " you 're 
 saying things which if the sacristan there were to hear 
 and report — !" And I passed my hand through his 
 arm and led him away. 
 
 I was startled and shocked, but I was also amused 
 and comforted. The Count had suddenly become for 
 me a delightfully curious phenomenon, and I passed 
 the rest of the day in meditating on the strange in- 
 effaceability of race-characteristics. A sturdy young 
 Latin I had called Camillo; sturdier, indeed, than I 
 had dreamed him ! Discretion was now misplaced, and 
 on the morrow I spoke to my god-daughter. She had 
 lately been hoping, I think, that I would help her to 
 unburden her heart, for she immediately gave way to 
 tears and confessed that she was miserable. ''At first,'* 
 she said, *' I thought it was all fancy, and not his ten- 
 derness that was growing less, but my exactions that 
 were growing greater. But suddenly it settled upon 
 me like a mortal chill, — the conviction that he had 
 ceased to care for me, that something had come be- 
 tween us. And the puzzling thing has been the want 
 
162 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 of possible cause in my own conduct, or of any sign that 
 there is another woman in the case. I have racked my 
 brain to discover what I had said or done or thought 
 to displease him ! And yet he goes about like a man 
 too deeply injured to complain. He has never uttered 
 a harsh word or given me a reproachful look. He has 
 simply renounced me. I have dropped out of his 
 life." 
 
 She spoke with such an appealing tremor in her 
 voice that I was on the point of telling her that I had 
 guessed the riddle, and that this was half the battle. 
 But I was afraid of her incredulity. My solution was 
 so fantastic, so apparently far-fetched, so absurd, that I 
 resolved to wait for convincing evidence. To obtain 
 it, I continued to watch the Count, covertly and cau- 
 tiously, but with a vigilance which disinterested curi- 
 osity now made intensely keen. I returned to my 
 painting, and neglected no pretext for hovering about 
 the gardens and the neighborhood of the Casino. The 
 Count, I think, suspected my designs, or at least my 
 suspicions, and would have been glad to remember just 
 what he had* suffered himself to say to me m the Pan- 
 theon. But it deepened my interest in his extraordi- 
 nary situation that, in so far as I could read his deeply 
 brooding face, he seemed to have grudgingly pardoned 
 me. He gave me a glance occasionally, as he passed 
 me, in which a sort of dumb desire for help appeared 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 163 
 
 to struggle with the instinct of mistrust. I was willing 
 enough to help him, but the case was prodigiously del- 
 icate, and I wished to master the symptoms. Mean- 
 while I worked and waited and wondered. Ah ! I 
 wondered, you may be sure, with an interminable won- 
 der; and, turn, it over as I would, I could n't get used 
 to my idea. Sometimes it offered itself to me w4th 
 a perverse fascination which deprived me of all wish to 
 interfere. The Count took the form of a precious psy- 
 chological study, and refined feeling seemed to dictate 
 a tender respect for his delusion. I envied him the 
 force of his imagination, and I used sometimes to close 
 my eyes with a vague desire that when I opened them 
 I might find Apollo under the opposite tree, lazily kiss- 
 ing his flute, or see Diana hurrying with long steps 
 down the ilex -walk. But for the most part my host 
 seemed to me simply an unhappy young man, with an 
 unwholesome mental twist which should be smoothed 
 away as speedily as possible. If the remedy was to 
 match the disease, however, it would have to be an in- 
 genious compound ! 
 
 One evening, having bidden my god-daughter good 
 night, I had started on my usual walk to my lodgings 
 in Eome. Five minutes after leaving the villa-gate I 
 discovered that I had left my eye-glass — an object 
 in constant use — behind me. I immediately remem- 
 bered that, while painting, I had broken the string 
 
164 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 which fastened it round my neck, and had hooked it 
 provisionally upon a twig of a flowering-almond tree 
 within arm's reach. Shortly afterwards 1 had gathered 
 up my things and retired, unmindful of the glass ; and 
 now, as I needed it to read the evening paper at the 
 CafiPe Greco, there was no alternative but to retrace my 
 steps and detach it from its twig. I easily found it, 
 and lingered awhile to note the curious night-aspect of 
 the spot I had been studying by daylight. The night 
 was magnificent, and full-charged with the breath of 
 the early Eoman spring. The moon was rising fast and 
 flinging her silver checkers into the heavy masses of 
 shadow. Watching her at play, I strolled farther and 
 suddenly came in sight of the Casino. 
 
 Just then the moon, which for a moment had been 
 concealed, touched with a white ray a small marble 
 figure which adorned the pediment of this rather fac- 
 titious little structure. Its sudden illumination sug- 
 gested that a rarer spectacle was at hand, and that the 
 same influence must be vastly becoming to the im- 
 prisoned Juno. The door of the Casino was, as usual, 
 locked, but the moonlight was flooding the high-placed 
 windows so generously that my curiosity became ob- 
 stinate — and inventive. I dragged a garden-seat round 
 from the portico, placed it on end, and succeeded in 
 climbing to the top of it and bringing myself abreast 
 of one of the windows. The casement yielded to my 
 
THE LAST OF THE YALERII. 
 
 165 
 
 pressure, turned on its hinges, and showed me what 
 I had been looking for, — Juno visited by Diana. The 
 ^beautiful image stood bathed in the radiant flood and 
 shining with a purity which made her most persua- 
 sively divine. If by day her mellow complexion sug- 
 gested faded gold, her substance now might have 
 passed for polished silver. The effect was almost terri- 
 ble; beauty so eloquent could hardly be inanimate. 
 This was my foremost observation. I leave you to 
 fancy whether my next was less interesting. At some 
 distance from, the foot of the statue, just out of the 
 light, I perceived a figure lying flat on the pavement, 
 prostrate apparently with devotion. I can hardly tell 
 you how it completed the impressiveness of the scene. 
 It marked the shining image as a goddess indeed, and 
 seemed to throw a sort of conscious pride into her 
 stony mask. I of course immediately recognized this 
 recumbent worshipper as the Count, and while I stood 
 gazing, as if to help me to read the full meaning of 
 his attitude, the moonlight travelled forward and cov- 
 ered his breast and face. Then I saw that his eyes 
 were closed, and that he was either asleep or swoon- 
 ing. Watching him attentively, I detected his even 
 respirations, and judged there was no reason for alarm. 
 The moonlight blanched his face, which seemed already 
 pale with weariness. He had come into the presence 
 of the Juno in obedience to that fabulous passion of 
 
166 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERIL 
 
 which the symptoms had so wofully perplexed us, and, 
 exhausted either by compliance or resistance, he had 
 sunk down at her feet in a stupid sleep. The bright 
 moonshine soon aroused him, however; he muttered 
 something and raised himself, vaguely staring. Then 
 recognizing his situation, he rose and stood for some 
 time gazing fixedly at the glowing image with an 
 expression which I fancied was not that of wholly 
 unprotesting devotion. He uttered a string of broken 
 words of which I was unable to catch the meaning, 
 and then, after another pause and a long, melancholy 
 moan, he turned slowly to the door. As rapidly and 
 noiselessly as possible I descended from my post of 
 vigilance and passed behind the Casino, and in a mo- 
 ment I heard the sound of the closing lock and of 
 his departing footsteps. 
 
 The next day, meeting the little antiquarian in the 
 grounds, I shook my finger at him with what I meant 
 he should consider portentous gravity. But he only 
 grinned hke the malicious earth-gnome to which I 
 had always compared him, and twisted his mustache 
 as if my menace was a capital joke. " If you dig any 
 more holes here," I said, " you shall be thrust into the 
 deepest of them, and have the earth packed down on 
 top of you. We have made enough discoveries, and 
 we want no more statues. Your Juno has almost 
 /ruined us." 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 167 
 
 He burst out laughing. " I expected as much," he 
 cried ; I had my notions ! " 
 ^^What did you expect?" 
 
 " That the Signor Conte would begin and say his 
 prayers to her." 
 
 " Good heavens ! Is the case so common ? Why 
 did you expect it ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, the case is rare. But I 've fum- 
 bled so long in the monstrous heritage of antiquity, 
 that I have learned a multitude of secrets; learned that 
 ancient relics may work modern miracles. There 's 
 a pagan element in all of us, — I don't speak for 
 you, illustrissimi forestieri, — and the old gods have 
 still their worshippers. The old spirit still throbs 
 here and there, and the Signor Conte has his share 
 of it. He 's a good fellow, but, between ourselves, 
 he 's an impossible Christian ! " And this singular 
 personage resumed his impertinent hilarity. 
 
 "If your previsions were so distinct," I said, 
 "you ought to have given me a hint of them. I 
 should have sent your spadesmen walking." 
 
 " Ah, but the Juno is so beautiful ! " 
 
 " Her beauty be blasted ! Can you tell me what 
 has become of the Contessa's ? To rival the Juno, 
 she 's turning to marble herself." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "Ah, but the Juno 
 is worth fifty thousand scudi ! " 
 
168 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 " I give a hundred thousand," I said, " to have 
 her annihilated. Perhaps, after all, I shall want you 
 to dig another hole." 
 
 " At your service ! " he answered, with a flourish ; 
 and we separated. 
 
 A couple of days later I dined, as I often did, 
 with my host and hostess, and met the Count face 
 to face for the first time since his prostration in 
 the Casino. He bore the traces of it, and sat plunged 
 in sombre distraction. I fancied that the path of 
 the antique faith was not strewn with flowers, and 
 that the Juno was becoming daily a harder mistress 
 to serve. Dinner was scarcely over before he rose 
 from table and took up his hat. As he did so, 
 passing near his wife, he faltered a moment, stopped 
 and gave her — for the first time, I imagine — that 
 vaguely imploring look which I had often caught. 
 She moved her lips in inarticulate sympathy and 
 put out her hands. He drew her towards him, 
 kissed, her with a kind of angry ardor, and strode 
 away. The occasion was propitious, and further de- 
 lay unnecessary. 
 
 "What I have to tell you is very strange," I 
 said to the Countess, "very fantastic, very incredible. 
 But perhaps you '11 not find it so bad as you feared. 
 There is a woman in the case ! Your enemy is the 
 Juno. The Count — how shall I say it? — the Count 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 169 
 
 takes her au §4>rieuxr She was silent ; but after a 
 moment she touched my arm with her hand, and 
 I knew she meant that I had spoken her own be- 
 lief. " You admired his antique simplicity : you see 
 how far it goes. He has reverted to the faith of 
 his fathers. Dormant through the ages, that impe- 
 rious statue has silently aroused it. He believes in 
 the pedigrees you used to dog's-ear your School My- 
 thology with trying to get by heart. In a word, 
 dear child, Camillo is a pagan ! " 
 
 " I suppose you '11 be terribly shocked," she an- 
 swered, " if I say that he 's welcome to any faith, if 
 he will only share it with me. I '11 believe in Ju- 
 piter, if he '11 bid me ! My sorrow 's not for that : 
 let my husband be himself! My sorrow is for the 
 gulf of silence and indifference that has burst open be- 
 tween us. His Juno 's the reality ; I 'm the fiction ! " 
 
 ''I've lately become reconciled to this gulf of si- 
 lence, and to your fading for a while into a fiction. 
 After the fable, the moral ! The poor fellow has but 
 half succumbed : the other half protests. The mod- 
 ern man is shut out in the darkness with his in- 
 comparable wife. How can he have failed to feel — 
 vaguely and grossly if it must have been, but in 
 every throb of his heart — that you are a more per- 
 fect experiment of nature, a riper fruit of time, than 
 those primitive persons for whom Juno was a terror 
 
 8 
 
170 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 and Venus an example ? He pays you the compli- 
 ment of believing you an inconvertible modern. He 
 has crossed the Acheron, but he has left you be- 
 hind, as a pledge to the present. We '11 bring him 
 back to redeem it. The old ancestral ghosts ought 
 to be propitiated when a pretty creature like you 
 has sacrificed the fragrance of her life. He has 
 proved himself one of the Valerii ; we shall see to 
 it that he is the last, and yet that his decease 
 shall leave the Conte Camillo in excellent health." 
 
 I spoke with confidence which I had partly felt, 
 for it seemed to me that if the Count was to be 
 touched, it must be by the sense that his strange 
 spiritual excursion had not made his wife detest him. 
 We talked long and to a hopeful end, for before I 
 went away my god-daughter expressed the desire to 
 go out and look at the Juno. I was afraid of her 
 almost from the first," she said, " and have hardly 
 seen her since she was set up in the Casino. Per- 
 haps I can learn a lesson from her, — perhaps I can 
 guess how she charms him ! " 
 
 For a moment I hesitated, with the fear that w 
 might intrude upon the Count's devotions. Then, 
 something in the poor girl's face suggested that sh 
 had thought of this and felt a sudden impulse t 
 pluck victory from the heart of danger, I bravel 
 offered her my arm. The night was cloudy, and o 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 171 
 
 this occasion, apparently, the triumphant goddess was 
 to depend upon her own lustre. But as we approached 
 the Casino I saw that the door was ajar, and that there 
 was lamplight within. The lamp was suspended in 
 front of the image, and it showed us that the place 
 was empty. But the Count had lately been there. 
 Before the statue stood a roughly extemporized altar, 
 composed of a nameless fragment of antique marble, 
 engraved with an illegible Greek inscription. We 
 seemed really to stand in a pagan temple, and we 
 gazed at the serene divinity with an impulse of spir- 
 itual reverence. It ought to have been deepened, I 
 suppose, but it was rudely checked, by our observing 
 a curious glitter on the face of the low altar. A sec- 
 ond glance showed us it was blood ! 
 
 My companion looked at me in pale horror, and 
 turned away with a cry. A swarm of hideous con- 
 jectures pressed into my mind, and for a moment I 
 was sickened. But at last I remembered that there 
 is blood and blood, and the Latins were posterior to 
 the cannibals. 
 
 " Be sure it 's very innocent," I said ; " a lamb, a kid, 
 or a sucking calf ! " But it was enough for her nerves 
 and her conscience that it was a crimson trickle, and 
 she returned to the house in sad agitation. The rest 
 of the night was not passed in a way to restore her 
 to calmness. The Count had not come in, and she 
 
172 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. f 
 
 *r 
 
 ■? 
 
 sat up for him from hour to hour. I remained with | 
 her and smoked my cigar as composedly as I might; ? 
 but internally I wondered what in horror's name had f 
 become of him. Gradually, as the hours wore away, ^ 
 I shaped a vague interpretation of these dusky - por- | 
 tents, — an interpretation none the less valid and de- I 
 voutly desired for its being tolerably cheerful. The ^ 
 blood-drops on the altar, I mused, were the last instal- 
 ment of his debt and the end of his delusion. They 
 had been a happy necessity, for he was, after all, too | 
 gentle a creature not to hate himself for having shed | 
 them, not to abhor so cruelly insistent an idol. He | 
 had wandered away to recover himself in solitude, 
 and he would come back to us with a repentant heart 
 and an inquiring mind ! I should certainly have be- 
 lieved all this more easily, however,' if I could have 
 heard his footstep in the hall. Toward dawn, scep- 
 ticism threatened to creep in with the gray light, and 
 I restlessly betook myself to the. portico. Here in a 
 few moments I saw him cross the grass, heavy-footed, 
 splashed with mud, and evidently excessively tired. 
 He must have been walking all night, and his face 
 denoted that his spirit had been as restless as his body. 
 He paused near me, and before he entered the house 
 he stopped, looked at me a moment, and then held 
 out his hand. I grasped it warmly, and it seemed to 
 me to throb with all that he could not utter. 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 173 
 
 " Will you see your wife ? " I asked. 
 
 He passed his hand over his eyes and shook his 
 head. " Not now — not yet — some time ! " he an- 
 swered. 
 
 I was disappointed, but I convinced her, I think, 
 that he had cast out the devil. She felt, poor girl, a 
 pardonable desire to celebrate the event. I returned 
 to my lodging, spent the day in Eome, and came 
 back to the Villa toward dusk. I was told that the 
 Countess was in the grounds. I looked for her 
 cautiously at first, for I thought it just possible I 
 might interrupt the natural consequences of a recon- 
 ciliation; but failing to meet her, I turned toward 
 the Casino, and found myself face to face with the 
 little explorer. 
 
 " Does your excellency happen to have twenty yards 
 of stout rope about him ? " he asked gravely. 
 
 "Do you want to hang yourself for the trouble 
 you Ve stood sponsor to ? " I answered. 
 
 " It 's a hanging matter, I promise you. The Coun- 
 tess has given orders. You 11 find her in the Casino. 
 Sweet-voiced as she is, she knows how to make her 
 orders understood." 
 
 At the door of the Casino stood half a dozen of 
 the laborers on the place, looking vaguely solemn, 
 like outstanding dependants at a superior funeral. 
 The Countess was within, in a position which was an 
 
174 
 
 THE LAST OF THE YALERII. 
 
 answer to the surveyor's riddle. She stood with her 
 eyes fixed on the Juno, who had been removed from 
 her pedestal and lay stretched in her magnificent length 
 upon a rude litter. 
 
 " Do you understand ? " she said. "She's beautiful, 
 she 's noble, she 's precious, but she must go back ! " 
 And, with a passionate gesture, she seemed to indicate 
 an open grave. 
 
 I was hugely delighted, but I thought it discreet 
 to stroke my chin and look sober. " She 's worth fifty 
 thousand scudi." 
 
 She shook her head sadly. " If we were to sell 
 her to the Pope and give the money to the poor, it 
 wouldn't profit us. She must go back, — she must 
 go back ! We must smother her beauty in the dread- 
 ful earth. It makes me feel almost as if she were 
 alive ; but it came to me last night with overwhelm- 
 ing force, when my husband came in and refused to 
 see me, that he '11 not be himself as long as she is 
 above ground. To cut the knot we must bury her! 
 If I had only thought of it before ! " 
 
 " Not before ! " I said, shaking my head in turn 
 " Heaven reward our sacrifice now ! " 
 
 The little surveyor, when he reappeared, seemed 
 hardly like an agent of the celestial influences, but 
 lie was deft and active, which was more to the point. 
 Every now and then he uttered some half-articulat 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 175 
 
 lament, by way of protest against the Countess's 
 cruelty; but I saw him privately scanning the re- 
 cumbent image with an eye which seemed to foresee 
 a malicious glee in standing on a certain unmarked 
 spot on the turf and grinning till people stared. He 
 had brought back an abundance of rope, and having 
 summoned his assistants, who vigorously lifted the 
 litter, he led the way to the original excavation, 
 which had been left unclosed with the project of 
 further researches. By the time we reached the 
 edge of the grave the evening had fallen and the 
 beauty of our marble victim was shrouded in a 
 dusky veil. No one spoke, — if not exactly for shame, 
 at least for regret. Whatever our plea, our perform- 
 ance looked, at least, monstrously profane. The ropes 
 were adjusted and the Juno was slowly lowered into 
 her earthy bed. The Countess took a handful of earth 
 and dropped it solemnly on her breast. "May it lie 
 lightly, but forever ! " she said. 
 
 " Amen ! " cried the little surveyor with a strange 
 mocking inflection ; and he gave us a bow, as he de- 
 parted, which betrayed an agreeable consciousness of 
 knowing where fifty thousand scudi were buried. His 
 underlings had another cask of wine, the result of 
 which, for them, was a suspension of all conscious- 
 ness, and a subsequent irreparable confusion of mem- 
 ory as to where they had plied their spades. 
 
176 
 
 THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 The Countess had not yet seen her husband, who 
 had again apparently betaken himself to communion 
 with the great god Pan. I was of course unwilling 
 to leave her to encounter alone the results of her 
 momentous deed. She wandered into the drawing- 
 room and pretended to occupy herself with a bit of 
 embroidery, but in reality she was bravely composing 
 herself for an "explanation." I took up a book, but 
 it held my attention as feebly. As the evening wore 
 away I heard a movement on the threshold and saw 
 the Count lifting the tapestried curtain which masked 
 the door, and looking silently at his wife. His eyes 
 were brilliant, but not angry. He had missed the 
 Juno — and drawn a long breath ! The Coimtess 
 kept her eyes fixed on her work, and drew her silken 
 stitches like an image of wifely contentment. The 
 image seemed to fascinate him: he came in slowly, 
 almost on tiptoe, walked to the chimney-piece, and 
 stood there in a sort of rapt contemplation. What 
 had passed, what was passing, in his mind, I leave 
 to your own apprehension. My god-daughter's hand 
 trembled as it rose and fell, and the color came into 
 her cheek. At last she raised her eyes and sustained 
 the gaze in which all his returning faith seemed con- 
 centrated. He hesitated a moment, as if her very 
 forgiveness kept the gulf open between them, and 
 tlien he strode forward, fell on his two knees and 
 
THE LAST OF THE VALERII. 
 
 177 
 
 buried his head in her lap. I departed as the Count 
 had come in, on tiptoe. 
 
 He never became, if you will, a thoroughly modern 
 man ; but one day, years after, when a visitor to whom 
 he was showing his cabinet became inquisitive as to 
 a marble hand, suspended in one of its inner recesses, 
 he looked grave and turned the lock on it. " It is 
 the hand of a beautiful creature," he said, " whom I 
 once greatly admired." 
 
 " Ah, — a Eoman ? " said the gentleman, with a 
 smirk. 
 
 "A Greek," said the Count, with a frown. 
 
Eugene Pickering. 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 I. 
 
 T was at Homburg, several years ago, before the 
 
 J- gaming had been suppressed. The evening was 
 very warm, and all the world was gathered on the 
 terrace of the Knrsaal and the esplanade below it, to 
 listen to the excellent orchestra ; or half the world, 
 rather, for the crowd was equally dense in the gaming- 
 rooms, around the tables. Everywhere the crowd was 
 great. The night was perfect, the season was at its 
 height, the open windows of the Kursaal sent long 
 shafts of unnatural light into the dusky woods, and 
 now and then, in the intervals of the music, one might 
 almost hear the clink of the napoleons and the metallic 
 call of the croupiers rise above the watching silence 
 of the saloons. I had been strolling with a friend, and 
 we at last prepared to sit down. Chairs, however, were 
 scarce. I had captured one, but it seemed no easy 
 matter to find a mate for it. I was on the point of 
 giving up in despair and proposing an adjournment to 
 
182 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 the damask divans of the Kursaal, when I observed 
 a young man lounging back on one of the objects of 
 my quest, with his feet supported on the rounds of 
 another. This was more than his share of luxury, 
 and I promptly approached him. He evidently be- 
 longed to the race which has the credit of knowing 
 best, at home and abroad, how to make itself comfort- 
 able ; but something in his appearance suggested that 
 his present attitude was the result of inadvertence 
 rather than egotism. He was staring at the conduc- 
 tor of the orchestra and listening intently to the 
 music. His hands were locked round his long legs, 
 and his mouth was half open, with rather a foolish 
 air. " There are so few chairs," I said, " that I must 
 beg you to surrender this second one." He started, 
 stared, blushed, pushed the chair away with awkward 
 alacrity, and murmured something about not having 
 noticed that he had it. 
 
 " What an odd-looking youth ! " said my compan- 
 ion, who had watched me, as I seated myself beside 
 her. 
 
 " Yes, he 's odd-looking ; but what is odder still is 
 that I Ve seen him before, that his face is familiar to 
 me, and yet that I can't place him." The orchestra 
 was playing the Prayer from Der Freischiitz, but We- 
 ber's lovely music only deepened the blank of memory. 
 Who the deuce was he ? where, when, how, had I 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 183 
 
 known him ? It seemed extraordinary that a face 
 should be at once so familiar and so strange. We 
 had OTir backs turned to him, so that I could not look 
 at him again. When the music ceased, we left our 
 places and I went to consign my friend to her mamma 
 on the terrace. In passing, I saw that my young 
 man had departed ; I concluded that he only strik- 
 ingly resembled some one I knew. But who in the 
 world was it he resembled? The ladies went off to 
 their lodgings, which were near by, and I turned into 
 the gaming-rooms and hovered about the circle at 
 roulette. Gradually, I filtered through to the inner 
 edge, near the table, and, looking round, saw my puz- 
 zling friend stationed opposite to me. He was watch- 
 ing the game, with J^is hands in his pockets ; but, 
 singularly enough, now that I observed him at my 
 leisure, the look of familiarity quite faded from his 
 face. What had made us call his appearance odd was 
 his great length and leanness of limb, his long, white 
 neck, his blue, prominent eyes, and his ingenuous, 
 unconscious absorption in the scene before him. He 
 was not handsome, certainly, but he looked peculiarly 
 amiable ; and if his overt wonderment savored a trifle 
 of rurality, it was an agreeable contrast to the hard, 
 inexpressive masks about him. He was the verdant 
 offshoot, I said to myself, of some ancient, rigid stem ; 
 he had been brought up in the quietest of homes, and 
 
184 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 was having his first glimpse of life. I was curious to 
 see whether he would put anything on the table ; he 
 evidently felt the temptation, but he seemed paralyzed 
 by chronic embarrassment. He stood gazing at the 
 rattling cross-fire of losses and gains, shaking his loose 
 gold in his pocket, and every now and then passing 
 his hand nervously over his eyes. 
 
 Most of the spectators were too attentive to the play 
 to have many thoughts for each other ; but before long 
 I noticed a lady who evidently had an eye for her 
 neighbors as well as for the table. She was seated 
 about half-way between my friend and me, and I 
 presently observed that she was trying to catch his 
 eye. Though at Homburg, as people said, " one could 
 never be sure," I yet doubted ^hether this lady was 
 one of those whose especial vocation it was to catch 
 a gentleman's eye. She was youthful rather than 
 elderly, and pretty rather than plain ; indeed, a few 
 minutes later, when I saw her smile, I thought her 
 wonderfully pretty. She had a charming gray eye and 
 J a good deal of blond hair, disposed in picturesque dis- 
 order ; and though her features were meagre and her 
 complexion faded, she gave one a sense of sentimental, 
 artificial gracefulness. She was dressed in white mus- 
 lin very much puffed and frilled, but a trifle the worse 
 for wear, relieved here and there by a pale blue rib- 
 bon. T used to flatter myself on guessing at people's 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 185 
 
 nationality by their faces, and, as a rule, I guessed 
 aright. This faded, crumpled, vaporous beauty, I con- 
 ceived, was a German, — such a German, somehow, 
 as I had seen imaged in literature. Was she not a 
 friend of poets, a correspondent of philosophers, a 
 muse, a priestess of aesthetics, — something in the 
 way of a Bettina, a Eahel ? My conjectures, how- 
 ever, were speedily merged in wonderment as to what 
 my diffident friend was making of her. She caught 
 his eye at last, and raising an ungloved hand, covered 
 altogether with blue-gemmed rings, — turquoises, sap- 
 phires, and lapis, — she beckoned him to come to her. 
 The gesture was executed with a sort of practised 
 coolness and accompanied with an appealing smile. 
 He stared a moment, rather blankly, unable to sup- 
 pose that the invitation was addressed to him ; then, 
 as it was immediately repeated, with a good deal of 
 intensity, he blushed to the roots of his hair, wavered 
 awkwardly, and at last made his way to the lady's 
 chair. By the time he reached it he was crimson 
 and wiping his forehead with his pocket-hai/ ikerchief. 
 She tilted back, looked up at him with the same smile, 
 laid two fingers on his sleeve, and said something, 
 interrogatively, to which he replied by a shake of the 
 head. She was asking him, evidently, if he had ever 
 played, and he was saying no. Old players have a 
 fancy that when luck has turned her back on them. 
 
186 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 they can put her into good-humor again by having 
 their stakes placed by an absolute novice. Our young 
 man's physiognomy had seemed to his new acquaint- 
 ance to express the perfection of inexperience/ and, 
 like a practical woman, she had determined to make 
 him serve her turn. Unlike most of her neighbors, 
 she had no little pile of gold before her, but she drew 
 from her pocket a double napoleon, put it into his 
 hand, and bade him place it on a number of his own 
 choosing. He was evidently filled with a sort of 
 delightful trouble ; he enjoyed the adventure, but he 
 shrank from the hazard. I would have staked the 
 coin on its being his companion's last; for, although 
 she still smiled intently as she w^atched his hesita- 
 tion, there was anything but indifference in her pale, 
 pretty face. Suddenly, in desperation, he reached over 
 and laid the piece on the table. My attention was 
 diverted at this moment by my having to make way 
 for a lady with a great many flounces, before me, to 
 give up her chair to a rustling friend to whom she had 
 promised it ; when I again looked across at the lady 
 in white muslin, she was drawing in a very goodly 
 pile of gold with her little blue-gemmed claw. Good 
 luck and bad, at the Homburg tables, were equally 
 undemonstrative, and this fair adventuress rewarded 
 her young friend for the sacrifice of his innocence 
 with a single, rapid, upward smile. He had innocence 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 187 
 
 enough left, however, to look round the table with a 
 gleeful, conscious laugh, in the midst of which his 
 eyes encountered my own. Then, suddenly, the famil- 
 iar look which had vanished from his face flickered 
 up unmistakably; it was the boyish laugh of a boy- 
 hood's friend. Stupid fellow that I was, I had been 
 looking at Eugene Pickering! 
 
 Though I lingered on for some time longer, he 
 failed to recognize me. Eecognition, I think, had 
 kindled a smile in my own face; but, less fortunate 
 than he, I suppose my smile had ceased to be boyish. 
 Now that luck had faced about again, his companion 
 played for herself, — played and won hand over hand. 
 At last she seemed disposed to rest on her gains, and 
 proceeded to bury them in the folds of her muslin. 
 Pickering had staked nothing for himself, but as he 
 saw her prepare to withdraw, he offered her a double 
 napoleon and begged her to place it. She shook her 
 head with great decision, and seemed to bid him put 
 it up again ; but he, still blushing a good deal, urged 
 her with awkward ardor, and she at last took it from 
 him, looked at him a moment fixedly, and laid it on 
 a number. A moment later the croupier was raking 
 it in. She gave the young man a little nod which 
 seemed to say, " I told you so " ; he glanced round 
 the table again and laughed ; she left her chair, 
 and he made a way for her through the crowd. Be- 
 
188 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 fore going home I took a turn on the terrace and 
 looked down on the esplanade. The lamps were out, 
 but the warm starlight vaguely illumined a dozen 
 figures scattered in couples. One of these figures, I 
 thought, was a lady in a white dress. 
 
 I had no intention of letting Pickering go without 
 reminding him of our old acquaintance. He had been 
 a very droll boy, and I was curious to see what had 
 become of his drollery. I looked for him the next 
 morning at two or three of the hotels, and at last 
 discovered his whereabouts. But he was out, the 
 waiter said; he had gone to walk an hour before. I 
 went my way, confident that I should meet him in 
 the evening. It was the rule with the Homburg 
 world to spend its evenings at the Kursaal, and Pick- 
 ering, apparently, had already discovered a good rea- 
 son for not being an exception. One of the charms 
 of Homburg is the fact that of a hot day you may 
 walk about for a whole afternoon in unbroken shade. 
 The umbrageous gardens of the Kursaal mingle with 
 the charming Hardtwald, which, in turn, melts away 
 into the wooded slopes of the Taunus Mountains. 
 To the Hardtwald I bent my steps, and strolled for 
 an hour through mossy glades and the still, perpen- 
 dicular gloom of the fir woods. Suddenly, on the 
 grassy margin of a by-path, I came upon a young 
 man stretched at his length in the sun-checkered 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 189 
 
 shade and kicking his heels toward a patch of blue 
 sky. My step was so noiseless on the turf, that be- 
 fore he saw me, I had time to recognize Pickering 
 again. He looked as if he had been lounging there 
 for some time; his hair was tossed about as if he 
 had been sleeping; on the grass near him, beside 
 his hat and stick, lay a sealed letter. When he per- 
 ceived me he jerked himself forward, and I stood 
 lookiug at him without elucidating, — purposely, to 
 give him a chance to recognize me. He put on his 
 glasses, being awkwardly near-sighted, and stared up 
 at me with an air of general trustfulness, but with- 
 out a sign of knowing me. So at last I introduced 
 myself. Then he jumped up and grasped my hands 
 and stared and blushed and laughed and began a 
 dozen random questions, ending with a demand as 
 to how in the world I had known him. 
 
 " Why, you 're not changed so utterly," I said, " and, 
 after all, it 's but fifteen years since you used to do 
 my Latin exercises for me." 
 
 " Not changed, eh ? " he answered, still smiling, and 
 yet speaking with a sort of ingenuous dismay. 
 
 Then I remembered that poor Pickering had been 
 in those Latin days a victim of juvenile irony. He 
 used to bring a bottle of medicine to school and 
 take a dose in a glass of water before lunch ; and 
 every day at two o'clock, half an hour before the rest 
 
190 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 of US were liberated, an old nurse with bushy eye- 
 brows came and fetched him away in a carriage. 
 His extremely fair complexion, his nurse, and his 
 bottle of medicine, which suggested a vague analogy 
 with the phial of poison in the tragedy, caused him 
 to be called Juliet. Certainly, Eomeo's sweetheart 
 hardly suffered more ; she was not, at least, a stand- 
 ing joke in Verona. Eemembering these things, I 
 hastened to say to Pickering that I hoped he was 
 still the same good fellow who used to do my Latin 
 for me. "We were capital friends, you know," I 
 went on, "then and afterwards." 
 
 "Yes, we were very good friends," he said, "and 
 that makes it the stranger I should n't have known 
 you. For you know as a boy I never had many 
 friends, nor as a man either. You see," he added, 
 passing his hand over his eyes, " I 'm dazed and be- 
 wildered at finding . myself for the first time — alone." 
 And he jerked back his shoulders nervously and 
 threw up his head, as if to settle himself in an un- 
 wonted position. I wondered whether the old nurse 
 with the bushy eyebrows had remained attached to 
 his person up to a recent period, and discovered 
 presently that, virtually at least, she had. We had 
 the whole summer day before us, and we sat down 
 on the grass together and overhauled our old memo- 
 ries. It was as if we had stumbled upon an ancient 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 191 
 
 cupboard in some dusky corner, and rummaged out 
 a heap of childish playthings, — tin soldiers and torn 
 story-books, jack-knives and Chinese puzzles. This is 
 what we remembered, between us. 
 
 He had made but a short stay at school, — not 
 because he was tormented, for he thought it so fine 
 to be at school at all that he held his tongue at 
 home about the sufferings incurred through the medi- 
 cine bottle : but because his father thought he was 
 learning bad manners. This he imparted to me in 
 confidence at the time, and I remember how it in- 
 creased my oppressive awe of Mr. Pickering, who 
 had appeared to me, in glimpses, as a sort of high- 
 priest of the proprieties. Mr. Pickering was a wid- 
 ower, — a fact which seemed to produce in him a 
 sort of preternatural concentration of parental dig- 
 nity. He was a majestic man, with a hooked nose, 
 a keen, dark eye, very large whiskers, and notions 
 of his own as to how a boy — or his boy, at any 
 rate — should be brought up. First and foremost, 
 he was to be a " gentleman " ; which seemed to mean, 
 chiefly, that he was always to wear a muffler and 
 gloves, and be sent to bed, after a supper of bread 
 and milk, at eight o'clock. School-life, on experi- 
 ment, seemed hostile to these observances, and Eu- 
 gene was taken home again, to be moulded into 
 urbanity beneath the parental eye. A tutor was 
 
192 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 provided for him, and a single select companion was 
 prescribed. The choice, mysteriously, fell upon me, 
 born as I was under quite another star ; my parents 
 were appealed to, and I was allowed for a few 
 months to have my lessons with Eugene. The tutor, 
 I think, must have been rather a snob, for Eugene 
 was treated like a prince, while I got all the ques- 
 tions and the raps with the ruler. And yet I re- 
 member never being jealous of my happier comrade, 
 and striking up, for the time, a huge boyish friend- 
 ship. He had a watch and a pony and a great 
 store of picture-books, but my envy of these luxuries 
 was tempered by a vague compassion, which left me 
 free to be generous. I could go out to play alone, 
 I could button my jacket myself, and sit up till I 
 was sleepy. Poor Pickering could never take a step 
 without a prior petition, or spend half an hour in 
 the garden without a formal report of it when he 
 came in. My parents, who had no desire to see me 
 inoculated with importunate virtues, sent me back to 
 school at the end of six months. After that I never 
 saw Eugene. His father went to live in the country, 
 to protect the lad's morals, and Eugene faded, in 
 reminiscence, into a pale image of the depressing 
 effects of education. I think I vaguely supposed 
 that he would melt into thin air, and indeed began 
 gradually to doubt of his existence and to regard 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 193 
 
 him as one of the foolish things one ceased to be- 
 lieve in as one grew older. It seemed natural that 
 I should have no more news of him. Our present 
 meeting was my first assurance that he had really 
 survived all that muffling and coddling. 
 ^ I observed him now with a good deal of interest, for 
 he was a rare phenomenon, — the fruit of a system 
 persistently and uninterruptedly applied. He struck 
 me, in a fashion, like certain young monks I had seen 
 in Italy; he had the same candid, unsophisticated 
 cloister-face. His education had been really almost 
 monastic. It had found him, evidently, a very com- 
 pliant, yielding subject ; his gentle, affectionate spirit 
 was not one of those that need to be broken. It had 
 bequeathed him, now that he stood on the threshold 
 of the great world, an extraordinary freshness of im- 
 pression and alertness of desire, and I confess that, as 
 I looked at him and met his transparent blue eye, I 
 trembled for the unwarned innocence of such a soul. 
 I became aware, gradually, that the world had already 
 wrought a certain work upon him and roused him to a 
 restless, troubled self-consciousness. Everything about 
 him pointed to an experience from which he had been 
 debarred; his whole organism trembled with a dawning 
 sense of unsuspected possibilities of feeling. This ap- 
 pealing tremor was indeed outwardly visible. He kept 
 shifting himself about on the grass, thrusting his hands 
 
 9 M 
 
194 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 through his hair, wiping a light perspiration from his 
 forehead, breaking out to say something and rush- 
 ing off to something else. Our sudden meeting had 
 greatly excited him, and I saw that I was likely to 
 profit by a certain overflow of sentimental fermenta- 
 tion. I could do so with a good conscience, for all this 
 trepidation filled me with a great friendliness. 
 
 " It 's nearly fifteen years, as you say," he began, 
 " since you used to call me ' butter-fingers ' for always 
 missing the ball. That 's a long time to give an ac- 
 count of, and yet they have been, for me, such event- 
 less, monotonous years, that I could almost tell their 
 history in ten words. You, I suppose, have had all 
 kinds of adventures and travelled over half the world. 
 I remember you had a turn for deeds of daring ; I used 
 to think you a little Captain Cook in roundabouts, for 
 climbing the garden fence to get the ball, when I had 
 let it fly over. I climbed no fences then or since. You 
 remember my father, I suppose, and the great care he 
 took of me ? I lost him some five months ;ago. From 
 those boyish days up to his death Ave were always 
 together. I don't think that in fifteen years we spent 
 half a dozen hours apart. We lived in the country, 
 winter and summer, seeing but three or four people. I 
 had a succession of tutors, and a library to browse 
 about in ; I assure you I 'm a tremendous scholar. It 
 was a dull life for a growing boy, and a duller life for 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 195 
 
 a young man grown, but I never knew it. I was per- 
 fectly happy." He spoke of his father at some length 
 and with a respect which I privately declined to emu- 
 late. Mr. Pickering had been, to my sense, a cold 
 egotist, unable to conceive of any larger vocation for 
 his son than to became a mechanical reflection of him- 
 self. " I know I Ve been strangely brought up," said 
 my friend, "and that the result is something grotesque; 
 but my education, piece by piece, in detail, became one 
 of my father's personal habits, as it were. He took a 
 fancy to it at first through his intense affection for my 
 mother and the sort of worship he paid her memory. 
 She died at my birth, and as I grew up, it seems that I 
 bore an extraordinary likeness to her. Besides, my 
 father had a great many theories ; he prided himself on 
 his conservative opinions ; he thought the usual Ameri- 
 can laissez aller in education was a very vulgar prac- 
 tice, and that children were not to grow up like dusty 
 thorns by the wayside. So you see," Pickering went 
 on, smiling and blushing, and yet with something of 
 the irony of vain regret, " I 'm a regular garden plant. 
 I Ve been watched and watered and pruned, and, if 
 there is any virtue in tending, I ought to take the 
 prize at a flower-show. Some three years ago my 
 father's health broke down and he was kept very 
 much within doors. So, although I was a man grown, 
 I lived altogether at home. Tf I was out of his sight 
 
196 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 for a quarter of an hour he sent for me. lie had 
 severe attacks of neuralgia, and he used to sit at his 
 window, basking in the sun. He kept an opera-glass 
 at hand, and when I was out in the garden he used to 
 watch me with it. A few days before his death, I was 
 twenty-seven years old, and the most innocent youth, 
 I suppose, on the continent. After he died I missed 
 him greatly," Pickering continued, evidently with no 
 intention of making an epigram. " I stayed at home, 
 in a sort of dull stupor. It seemed as if life offered 
 itself to me for the first time, and yet as if I did n't 
 know how to take hold of it." 
 
 He uttered all this with a frank eagerness which 
 increased as he talked, and there was a singular con- 
 trast between the meagre experience he described and 
 a certaint radiant intelligence which I seemed to per- 
 ceive in his glance and tone. Evidently, he was a 
 clever fellow, and his natural faculties were excellent. 
 I imagined he had read a great deal, and recovered, in 
 some degree, in restless intellectual conjecture, the 
 freedom he was condemned to ignore in practice. Op- 
 portunity was now offering a meaning to the empty 
 forms with which his imagination was stored, but it 
 appeared to him dimly, through the veil of his per- 
 sonal diffidence. 
 
 " I Ve not sailed round the world, as you suppose," 
 I said, " but I confess I envy you the novelties you 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 197 
 
 axe going to behold. Coming to Homburg, you have 
 plunged in medias res!' 
 
 He glanced at me to see if my remark contained an 
 allusion, and hesitated a moment. ''Yes, I know it. 
 I came to Bremen in the steamer with a very friendly 
 German, who undertook to initiate me into the glories 
 and mysteries of the fatherland. At this season, he 
 said, I must begin with Homburg. I landed but a 
 fortnight ago, and here I am." Again he hesitated, as 
 if he were going to add something about the scene at 
 the Kursaal ; but suddenly, nervously, he took up the 
 letter which was lying beside him, looked hard at the 
 seal with a troubled frown, and then flung it back on 
 the grass with a sigh. 
 
 " How long do you expect to be in Europe ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Six months, I supposed when I came. But not so 
 long — now ! " And he let his eyes wander to the 
 letter again. 
 
 " And where shall you go — what shall you do ? " 
 
 " Everywhere, everything, I should have said yester- 
 day. But now it is different." 
 
 I glanced at the letter interrogatively, and he gravely 
 picked it up and put it into his pocket. We talked for 
 a while longer, but I saw that he had suddenly become 
 preoccupied ; that he was apparently weighing an im- 
 pulse to break some last barrier of reserve. At last 
 
198 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 he suddenly laid his hand on my arm, looked at me 
 a moment appealingly, and cried, "Upon my word, I 
 should like to tell you everything." 
 
 "Tell me everything, by all means," I answered, 
 smiling. " I desire nothing better than to lie here in 
 the shade and hear everything." 
 
 " Ah, but the question is, will you understand it ? 
 No matter ; you think me a queer fellow already. It 's 
 not easy, either, to tell you what I feel, ■ — not easy for 
 so queer ^ fellow as I to tell you in how many ways 
 he 's queer ! " He got up and walked away a moment, 
 passing his hand over his eyes, then came back rapid- 
 ly and flung himself on the grass again. " I said just 
 now I always supposed I was happy ; it 's true ; but 
 now that my eyes are open, I see I was only stul- 
 tified. I was like a poodle-dog, led about by a blue 
 ribbon, and scoured and combed and fed on slops. It 
 was not life ; life is learning to know one's self, and in 
 that sense I Ve lived more in the past six weeks than 
 in all the years that preceded them. I 'm filled with 
 this feverish sense of liberation ; it keeps rising to my 
 head like the fumes of strong wine. I find I 'm an 
 active, sentient, intelligent creature, with desires, with 
 passions, with possible convictions, — even with what 
 I never dreamed of, a possible will of my own ! I find 
 there is a world to know, a life to lead, men and wo- 
 men to form a thousand relations with. It all lies 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 199 
 
 there like a great surging sea, where we must plunge 
 and dive and feel the breeze and breast the waves. I 
 stand shivering here on the brink, staring, longing, 
 wondering, charmed by the smell of the brine and yet 
 afraid of the water. The world beckons and smiles 
 and calls, but a nameless influence from the past, that 
 I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist, seems 
 to hold me back. I 'm full of impulses, but, some- 
 how, I 'm not full of strength. Life seems inspiring 
 at . certain moments, but it seems terrible and unsafe ; 
 and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure my- 
 self with merciless forces, when I have learned so well 
 how to stand aside and let them pass. Why should n't 
 I turn my back upon it all and go home to — what 
 awaits me ? — to that sightless, soundless country life, 
 and long days spent among old books ? But if a man 
 is weak, he does n't want to assent beforehand to his 
 weakness ; he wants to taste whatever sweetness there 
 may be in paying for the knowledge. So it is there 
 comes and comes again this irresistible impulse to take 
 my plunge, to let myself swing, to go where liberty 
 leads me." He paused a moment, fixing me with his 
 excited eyes, and perhaps perceived in my own an ir- 
 repressible smile at his intensity. " ' Swing ahead, in 
 heaven's name,' you want to say, ' and much good may 
 it do you.' I don't know whether you are laughing at 
 my trepidation or at what possibly strikes you as my 
 
200 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 depravity. I doubt/' he went on gravely, whether I 
 have an inclination toward wrong-doing ; if I have, 
 I 'm sure I sha' n't prosper in it. T honestly believe I 
 may safely take out a license to amuse myself. But 
 it isn't that I think of, any more than I dream of 
 playing with suffering. Pleasure and pain are empty 
 
 ' words to me ; what I long for is knowledge, — some 
 other knowledge than comes to us in formal, colorless, 
 impersonal precept. You would understand all this 
 better if you could breathe for an hour the musty in- 
 door atmosphere in which I have always lived. To 
 break a window and let in light and air, — I feel as if 
 at last I must act ! " 
 
 " Act, by all means, now and always, when you 
 have a chance," I answered. " But don't take things 
 too hard, now or ever. Your long seclusion makes you 
 think the world better worth knowing than you 're 
 likely to find it. A man with as good a head and 
 heart as yours has a very ample world within himself, 
 ^ and I 'm no believer in art for art, nor in what's called 
 ' life ' for life's sake. Nevertheless, take your plunge, 
 and come and tell me whether you 've found the pearl 
 of wisdom." He frowned a little, as if he thought my 
 sympathy a trifle meagre. I shook him by the hand 
 
 ( and laughed. " The pearl of wisdom," I cried, is 
 love ; honest love in the most convenient concentra- 
 1 tion of experience ! I advise you to fall in love." He 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 201 
 
 gave me no smile in response, but drew from his 
 pocket the letter of which I Ve spoken, held it up, 
 and shook it solemnly. " What is it ? " I asked. 
 
 " It 's my sentence ! 
 Not of death, I hope ! " 
 
 " Of marriage." 
 
 " With whom ? 
 
 "With a person I don't love." 
 
 This was serious. I stopped smiling and begged 
 him to explain. 
 
 " It 's the singular part of my story," he said at 
 last. "It will remind you of an old-fashioned ro- 
 mance. Such as I sit here, talking in this wild way, 
 and tossing off invitations to destiny, my destiny is 
 settled and sealed. I 'm engaged, — I 'm given in 
 marriage. It 's a bequest of the past, — the past I 
 never said nay to ! The marriage was arranged by 
 my father, years ago, when I was a boy. The young 
 girl's father was his particular friend; he was also a 
 widower, and was bringing up his daughter, on his 
 side, in the same rigid seclusion in which I was 
 spending my days. To this day, I 'm unacquainted 
 with the origin of the bond of union between our 
 respective progenitors. Mr. Vernor was largely en- 
 gaged in business, and I imagine that once upon a 
 time he found himself in a financial strait and was 
 helped through it by my father's coming forward with 
 9* 
 
20£» EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 a heavy loan, on which, in his situation, he could offer 
 no security but his word. Of this my father was quite 
 capable. He was a man of dogmas, and he was sure 
 to have a precept adapted to the conduct of a gen- 
 tleman toward a friend in pecuniary embarrassment. 
 What 's more, he was sure to adhere to it. Mr. Ver- 
 nor, I believe, got on his feet, paid his debt, and owed 
 my father an eternal gratitude. His little daughter 
 was the apple of his eye, and he pledged himself to 
 bring her up to be the wife of his benefactor's son. 
 So our fate was fixed, parentally, and we have been 
 educated for each other. I Ve not seen my betrothed 
 since she was a very plain-faced little girl in a sticky 
 pinafore, hugging a one-armed doll — of the male sex, 
 I believe — as big as herself Mr. Vernor is in what 's 
 called the Eastern trade, and has been living these 
 many years at Smyrna. Isabel has grown up there 
 in a white- walled garden, in an orange grove, between 
 her father and her governess. She is a good deal my 
 junior; six months ago she was seventeen; when she 
 is eighteen we 're to marry ! " 
 
 He related all this calmly enough, without the ac- 
 cent of complaint, dryly rather and doggedly, as if he 
 were weary of thinking of it. It 's a romance in- 
 deed," I said, "for these dull days, and I heartily 
 congratulate you. It's not every young man who 
 finds, on reaching the marrying age, a wife kept in 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 cotton for him. A thousand to one Miss Vernor is 
 charming ; I wonder you don't post off to Smyrna." 
 
 You 're joking," he answered, with a wounded air, 
 " and I am terribly serious. Let me tell you the rest. 
 I never suspected this tender conspiracy till something 
 less than a year ago. My father, wishing to provide 
 against his death, informed me of it, solemnly. I was 
 neither elated nor depressed; I received it, as I re- 
 member, with a sort of emotion which varied only in 
 degree from that with which I could have hailed the 
 announcement that he had ordered me a dozen new 
 shirts. I supposed that it was under some such punc- 
 tual, superterrestrial dispensation as this that all young 
 men were married. Novels and poems indeed said 
 otherwise; but novels and poems were one thing and 
 life was another. A short time afterwards he intro- 
 duced me to a photograph of my predestined, who has 
 a pretty, but an extremely inanimate face. After this 
 his health failed rapidly. One night I was sitting, as 
 I habitually sat for hours, in his dimly lighted room, 
 near his bed, to which he had been confined for a 
 week. He had not spoken for some time, and I sup- 
 posed he was asleep, but happening to look at him I 
 saw his eyes wide open and fixed on me strangely. 
 He was smiling benignantly, intensely, and in a mo- 
 ment he beckoned to me. Then, on my going to him 
 — ' I feel that I sha' n't last long,' he said, ' but I am 
 
204* EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 willing to die when I think how comfortably I have 
 arranged your future.' He was talking of death, and 
 anything but grief at that moment was doubtless im- 
 pious and monstrous ; but there came into my heart 
 for the. first time a throbbing sense of being over- 
 governed. I said nothing, and he thought my silence 
 was all sorrow. ' I sha' n't live to see you married/ 
 he went on, 'but since the foundation is laid, that 
 little signifies ; it would be a selfish pleasure, and I 
 have never had a thought but for your own personal 
 advantage. To foresee your future, in its main outline, 
 to know to a certainty that you '11 be safely domiciled 
 here, with a wife approved by my judgment, cultivat- 
 ing the moral fruit of which I have sown the seed, — 
 this will content me. But, my son, T wish to clear 
 this bright vision from the shadow of a doubt. I 
 believe in your docility; I believe I may trust the 
 salutary force of your respect for my memory. But I 
 must remember that when I am removed, you will 
 stand here alone, face to face with a myriad name- 
 less temptations to perversity. The fumes of un- 
 righteous pride may rise into your brain and tempt 
 you, in the interest of a vain delusion which it 
 will call your independence, to shatter the edifice 
 I have so laboriously constructed. So I must ask 
 you for a promise, — the solemn promise you owe my 
 condition.' And he grasped my hand. 'You will 
 
'EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 follow the path I have marked; you will be faithful 
 to the young girl whom an influence as devoted as that 
 which has governed your own young life has moulded 
 into everything amiable; you will marry Isabel Ver- 
 nor.' There was something portentous in this rigid 
 summons. I was frightened. I drew away my hand 
 and asked to be trusted without any such terrible vow. 
 My reluctance startled my father into a suspicion that 
 the vain delusion of independence had already been 
 whispering to me. He sat up in his bed and looked 
 at me with eyes which seemed to foresee a lifetime 
 of odious ingratitude. I felt the reproach; I feel it 
 now. I promised ! And even now I don't regret my 
 promise nor complain of my father^s tenacity. I feel, 
 somehow, as if the seeds of ultimate rest had been 
 sown in those unsuspecting years, — as if after many 
 days I might gather the mellow fruit. But after many 
 days ! 1 11 keep my promise, I '11 obey ; but I want 
 to live first ! " 
 
 My dear fellow, you 're living now. All this 
 passionate consciousness of your situation is a very 
 ardent life. I wish I could say as much for my 
 own." 
 
 "I want to forget my situation. I want to spend 
 three months without thinking of the past or the 
 future, grasping whatever the present offers me. 
 Yesterday, I thought I was in a fair way to sail with 
 
EUGENE PICKERING.' 
 
 the tide. Bat this morning comes this memento!" 
 And he held up his letter again. 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " A letter from Smyrna." 
 
 " I see you have not yet broken the seal." 
 
 " No, nor do I mean to, for the present. It contains 
 bad news." 
 
 " What do you call bad news ? " 
 
 " News that I 'm expected in Smyrna in three weeks. 
 News that Mr. Vernor disapproves of my roving about 
 the world. News that his daughter is standing expect- 
 ant at the altar." 
 
 Is n't this pure conjecture ? " 
 
 Conjecture, possibly, but safe conjecture. As soon 
 as I looked at the letter, something smote me at the 
 heart. Look at the device on the seal, and I 'm sure 
 you '11 find it 's Tarry not I " And he flung the letter 
 on the grass. 
 
 " Upon my word, you had better open it," I said. 
 
 " If I were to open it and read my summons, do you 
 know what I should do ? I should march home and 
 ask the Oberkellner how one gets to Smyrna, pack my 
 trunk, take my ticket, and not stop till I arrived. I 
 know I should; it would be the fascination of habit. 
 The only way, therefore, to wander to my rope's end 
 is to leave the letter unread." 
 
 " In your place," I said, " curiosity would make me 
 open it." 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 207 
 
 1/ 
 
 He shook his head. " I have no curiosity ! For 
 these many weeks the idea of my marriage has ceased 
 to be a novelty, and I have contemplated it mentally 
 in every possible light. I fear nothing from that side, 
 but I do fear something from conscience. I want my 
 hands tied. Will you do me a favor ? Pick up the 
 letter, put it into your pocket, and keep it till I ask 
 you for it. When I do, you may know that I am at 
 my rope's end." 
 
 I took the letter, smiling. " And how long is your 
 rope to be ? The Homburg season does n't last for- 
 ever." 
 
 " Does it last a month ? Let that be my season ! A 
 month hence you '11 give it back to me." 
 
 To-morrow, if you say so. Meanwhile, let it rest in 
 peace ! " And I consigned it to the most sacred inter- 
 stice of my pocket-book. To say that I was disposed 
 to humor the poor fellow would seem to be saying that 
 I thought his demand fantastic. It was his situation, 
 by no fault of his own, that was fantastic, and he was 
 only trying to be natural. He watched me put away 
 the letter, and when it had disappeared gave a soft sigh 
 of relief. The sigh was natural, and yet it set me 
 thinking. His general recoil from an immediate re- 
 sponsibility imposed by others might be wholesome 
 enough ; but if there was an old grievance on one side, 
 was there not possibly a new-born delusion on the 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 other? It would be unkind to withhold a reflection 
 that might serve as a warning ; so I told him, abruptly, 
 that I had been an undiscovered spectator, the night 
 before, of his exploits at roulette. 
 
 He blushed deeply, but he met my eyes with the 
 same radiant frankness. 
 
 "Ah, you saw then,'' he cried, "that wonderful 
 lady?" 
 
 " Wonderful she was indeed. I saw her afterwards, 
 too, sitting on the terrace in the starlight. I imagine 
 she was not alone." 
 
 " No, indeed, I was with her — for nearly an hour. 
 Then I walked home with her." 
 
 " Verily ! And did you go in ? " 
 
 " No, she said it was too late to ask me ; though in 
 a general way, she declared she did not stand upon 
 ceremony." 
 
 " She did herself injustice. When it came to losing 
 your money for you, she made you insist." 
 
 " Ah, you noticed that too ? " cried Pickering, still 
 quite unconfused. "I felt as if the whole table was 
 staring at me; but her manner was so gracious and 
 reassuring that I concluded she was doing nothing un- 
 usual. She confessed, however, afterwards, that she is 
 very eccentric. The world began to call her so, she 
 said, before she ever dreamed of it, and at last finding 
 that she had the reputation, in spite of herself, she 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 209 
 
 resolved to enjoy its privileges. Now, she does what 
 she chooses." 
 
 " In other words, she is a lady with no reputation to 
 lose ? " 
 
 Pickering seemed puzzled, and smiled a little. " Is 
 n't that what you say of bad women ? " 
 
 " Of some — of those who are found out." 
 
 " WeU," he said, still smiling, " I have n't yet found 
 out Madame Blumenthal." 
 
 " If that 's her name, I suppose she 's German." 
 
 " Yes ; but she speaks English so well that you 
 might almost doubt it. She is very clever. Her hus- 
 band 's dead." 
 
 I laughed, involuntarily, at the conjunction of these 
 facts, and Pickering's clear glance seemed to question 
 my mirth. " You have been so bluntly frank with 
 me," I said, "that I too must be frank. Tell me, if 
 you can, whether this clever Madame Blumenthal, 
 whose husband is dead, has given an edge to your de- 
 sire for a suspension of communication witii Smyrna." 
 
 He seemed to ponder my question, unshrinkingly. 
 " I think not," he said, at last. " I 've had the desire 
 for three months; I 've known Madame Blumenthal for 
 less than twenty-four hours." 
 
 "Very true. But when you found this letter of 
 yours on your plate at breakfast, did you seem for a 
 moment to see Madame Blumenthal sitting opposite ? " 
 
 N 
 
210 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 " Opposite ? " he repeated, frowning gently. 
 
 "Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the 
 neighborhood. In a word, does she interest you ? " 
 
 " Very much ! " he cried, with his frown clearing 
 away. 
 
 Amen ! " I answered, jumping up with a laugh. 
 " And now, if we are to see the world in a month, 
 there is no time to lose. Let us begin with the Hardt- 
 wald." 
 
 Pickering rose, and we strolled away into the forest, 
 talking of lighter things. At last we reached the edge 
 of the wood, sat down on a fallen log, and looked out 
 across an interval of meadow at the long wooded waves 
 of the Taunus. What my friend was thinking of, I 
 can't say ; I was revolving his quaint history and let- 
 ting my wonderment wander away to Smyrna. Sud- 
 denly I remembered that he possessed a portrait of 
 the young girl who was waiting for him there in a 
 white- walled garden. I asked him if he had it with 
 him. He said nothing, but gravely took out his 
 pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph. It 
 represented, as the poet says, a simple maiden in her 
 flower, — a slight young girl, with a certain childish 
 roundness of contour. There was no ease in her pos- 
 ture ; she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her like- 
 ness ; she wore a short-waisted white dress ; her arms 
 hung at her sides and her hands were clasped in 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 211 
 
 front; her head was bent downward a little, and her 
 dark eyes fixed. But her awkwardness was as pretty 
 as that of some angular seraph in a mediaeval carving, 
 and in her sober gaze there seemed to lurk the ques- 
 tioning gleam of childhood. What is this for ? " her 
 charming eyes appeared to ask ; " why have I been 
 decked, for this ceremony, in a white frock and amber 
 beads ? " 
 
 "Gracious powers!" I said to myself; "what an 
 enchanting thing is innocence ! " 
 
 "That portrait was taken a year and a half ago," 
 said Pickering, as if with an effort to be perfectly just. 
 " By this time, I suppose, she looks a little wiser." 
 I "Not much, I hope," I said, as I gave it back. 
 " She 's lovely ! " 
 
 " Yes, poor girl, she 's lovely — no doubt ! " And he 
 put the thing away without looking at it. 
 
 We were silent for some moments. At last, ab- 
 ruptly : " My dear fellow," I said, " I should take some 
 satisfaction in seeing you immediately leave Homburg." 
 
 " Immediately ? " 
 
 " To-day — as soon as you can get ready." 
 
 He looked at me, surprised, and little by little he 
 blushed. " There 's something I Ve not told you," he 
 said ; " something that your saying that Madame Blu- 
 menthal has no reputation to lose has made me half 
 afraid to tell you." 
 
212 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 " I think T can guess it. Madame Blumenthal has 
 asked you to come and check her numbers for her at 
 roulette again." 
 
 " Not at all ! " cried Pickering, with a smile of 
 triumph. She says that she plays no more, for the 
 present. She has asked me to come and take tea with 
 her this evening." 
 
 Ah, then," I said, very gravely, " of course you 
 can't leave Homburg." 
 
 He answered nothing, but looked askance at me, as 
 if he were expecting me to laugh. " Urge it strongly," 
 he said in a moment. " Say it 's my duty, — command 
 me." 
 
 I didn't quite understand him, but, feathering the 
 shaft with a harmless expletive, I told him that unless 
 he followed my advice, I would never speak to him 
 again. 
 
 He got up, stood before me, and struck the ground 
 with his stick. " Good ! " he cried. " I wanted an 
 occasion to break a rule, — to leap an obstacle. Here 
 it is ! I stay ! " 
 
 I made him a mock bow for his energy. " That 's 
 very fine," I said ; " but now, to put you in a proper 
 mood for Madame Blumenthal's tea, we '11 go and lis- 
 ten to the band play Schubert under the lindens." 
 And we walked back throudi the woods. 
 
 I went to see Pickering the next day, at his inn, 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 213 
 
 and on knocking, as directed, at his door, was surprised 
 to hear the sound of a loud voice within. My knock 
 remained unnoticed, so I presently introduced myself. 
 I found no company, but I discovered my friend walk- 
 ing up and down the room and apparently declaiming 
 ^to himself from a little volume bound in white vellum. 
 He greeted me heartily, threw his book on the table, 
 and said that he was taking a German lesson. 
 
 " And who is your teacher ? " I asked, glancing at 
 the book. 
 
 He rather avoided meeting my eye, as he an- 
 swered, after an instant's delay, '^Madame Blumen- 
 thal." 
 
 " Indeed ! Has she written a grammar ? " I in- 
 quired. 
 
 " It 's not a grammar ; it 's a tragedy." And he 
 handed me the book. 
 
 I opened it, and beheld, in delicate type, in a very 
 large margin, a Trauerspiel in five acts, entitled Cleo- 
 patra. There were a great many marginal corrections 
 and annotations, apparently from the author's hand ; 
 the speeches were very long, and there was an inor- 
 dinate number of soliloquies by the heroine. One 
 of them, I remember, toward the end of the play, 
 began in this fashion : — 
 
 "What, after all, is life but sensation, and sensa- 
 tion but deception? — reality that pales before the 
 
214 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 light of one's dreams, as Octavia's dull beauty fades 
 beside mine ? But let me believe in some intenser 
 bliss and seek it in the arms of death 1 " 
 
 "It seems decidedly passionate/' I said. "Has the 
 tragedy ever been acted ? " 
 
 "Never in public; but Madame Blumenthal tells 
 me that she had it played at her own house in 
 Berlin, and that she herself undertook the part of 
 the heroine." 
 
 Pickering's unworldly life had not been of a sort 
 to sharpen his perception of the ridiculous, but it 
 seemed to me an unmistakable sign of his being 
 under the charm, that this information was very 
 soberly offered. He was preoccupied, and irrespon- 
 sive to my experimental observations on vulgar topics, 
 — the hot weather, the inn, the advent of Adelina 
 Patti. At last he uttered his thoughts, and an- 
 nounced that Madame Blumenthal had turned out 
 an extraordinarily interesting woman. He seemed to 
 have quite forgotten our long talk in the Hardtwald, 
 and betrayed no sense of this being a confession that 
 he had taken his plunge and was floating with the 
 current. He only remembered that I had spoken 
 slightingly of the lady and hinted that it behooved 
 me to amend my opinion. I had received the day 
 before so strong an impression of a sort of spiritual 
 fastidiousness in my friend's nature, that on hearijig 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 215 
 
 now the striking of a new hour, as it were, in his 
 consciousness, and observing how the echoes of the 
 past were immediately quenched in its music, I said 
 to myself that it had certainly taken a delicate hand 
 to regulate thatJ^fine machinery. No doubt Madame 
 Blumenthal was a clever woman. It is a good Ger- 
 man custom, at Homburg, to spend the hour preced- 
 ing dinner in listening to the orchestra in the Kur- 
 garten ; Mozart and Beethoven, for organisms in w^hich 
 the interfusion of soul and sense is peculiarly mys- 
 terious, are a vigorous stimulus to the appetite. 
 Pickering and I conformed, as we had done the day 
 before, to the fashion, and when we were seated 
 under the trees, he began to expatiate on his friend's 
 merits. 
 
 "I don't know whether she is eccentric or not," 
 he said ; " to me every one seems eccentric, and it 's 
 not for me, yet awhile, to measure people by my 
 narrow precedents. I never saw a gaming-table in 
 my life before, and supposed that a gamester was, of 
 necessity, some dusky villain with an evil eye. In 
 Germany, says Madame Blumenthal, people play at 
 roulette as they play at billiards, and her own vener- 
 able mother originally taught her the rules of the 
 game. It is a recognized source of subsistence for 
 decent people with small means. But I confess 
 Madame Blumenthal might do worse things than 
 
216 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 play roulette, and yet make them harmonious and 
 beautiful. I have never been in the habit of think- 
 ing positive beauty the most excellent thing in a 
 woman. I have always said to myself that if my 
 heart was ever to be captured it woi^d be by a sort 
 of general grace, — a sweetness of motion and tone, 
 
 — on which one could count for soothing impressions, 
 as one counts on a musical instrument that is per- 
 fectly in tune. Madame Blumenthal has it, — this 
 grace that soothes and satisfies ; and it seems the 
 more perfect that it keeps order and harmony in a 
 character really passionately ardent and active. With 
 her multifarious impulses and accomplishments noth- 
 ing would be easier than that she should seem rest- 
 less and over-eager and importunate. You will know 
 her, and I leave you to judge whether she does. 
 She has every gift, and culture has done everything 
 for each. What goes on in her mind, I of course 
 can't say ; what reaches the observer — the admirer 
 
 — is simply a penetrating perfume of intelligence, 
 mingled with a penetrating perfume of sympathy." 
 
 " Madame Blumenthal,'' I said, smiling, " might be 
 the loveliest woman in the world, and you the ob- 
 ject of her choicest favors, and yet what I should 
 most envy you would be, not your peerless friend, 
 but your beautiful imagination." 
 
 That 's a polite way of calling me a fool," said 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 217 
 
 Pickering. " You 're a sceptic, a cynic, a satirist ! I 
 hope I shall be a long time coming to that." 
 
 " You '11 make the journey fast if you travel by 
 express trains. But pray tell me, have you ventured 
 to intimate to Madame Blumenthal your high opin- 
 ion of her ? " 
 
 " I don't know what I may have said. She lis- 
 tens even better than she talks, and I think it pos- 
 sible I may have made her listen to a great deal 
 of nonsense. For after the first few words I ex- 
 changed with her I was conscious of an extraordi- 
 nary evaporation of all my old diffidence. I have, 
 in truth, I suppose," he added, in a moment, "owing 
 to my peculiar circumstances, a great accumulated 
 fund of unuttered things of all sorts to get rid of. 
 Last evening, sitting there before that lovely woman, 
 they came swarming to my lips. Very likely I 
 poured them all out. I have a sense of having 
 enshrouded myself in a sort of mist of talk, and 
 of seeing her lovely eyes shining through it oppo- 
 site to me, like stars above a miasmatic frog-pond." 
 And here, if I remember rightly, Pickering broke 
 off into an ardent parenthesis, and declared that 
 Madame Blumenthal's eyes had something in them 
 that he had never seen in any others. " It was 
 a jumble of crudities and inanities," he went on, 
 " which must have seemed to her terribly farcical ; 
 
 10 
 
218 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 but I feel the wiser and the stronger, somehow, for 
 having poured them out before her; and I imagine 
 I might have gone far without finding another wo- 
 man in whom such an exhibition would have pro- 
 voked so little of mere cold amusement." 
 
 "Madame Blumenthal, on the contrary," I sur- 
 mised, entered into your situation with warmth." 
 
 Exactly so, — the greatest ! She 's wise, she knows, 
 she has felt, she has suffered, and now she understands ! " 
 
 " She told you, I imagine, that she understood you 
 to a t, and she offered to be your guide, philosopher, 
 and friend." 
 
 She spoke to me," Pickering answered, after a 
 pause, " as I had never been spoken to before, and she 
 offered me, in effect, formally, all the offices oi a 
 woman's friendship." 
 
 "Which you as formally accepted?" 
 
 " To you the scene sounds absurd, I suppose, but 
 allow/ne to say I don't care ! " Pickering cried, with 
 an air of genial aggression which was the most inof- 
 fensive thing in the world. " I was very much moved; 
 I was, in fact, very much excited. I tried to say 
 something, but I couldn't; I had had plenty to say 
 before, but now I stammered and bungled, and at last 
 I took refuge in an abrupt retreat." 
 
 " Meanwhile she had dropped her tragedy into youi 
 pocket!" 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 219 
 
 " Not at all. I had seen it on the table before she 
 came in. Afterwards she kindly offered to read Ger- 
 man aloud with me, for the accent, two or three times 
 a week. ' What shall we begin with ? ' she asked. 
 ' With this ! ' I said, and held up the book. And she 
 let me take it to look it over." 
 
 I was neither a cynic nor a satirist, but even if I 
 had been, I might have had my claws clipped by 
 Pickering's assurance, before we parted, that Madame 
 Blumenthal wished to know me and expected him to 
 introduce me. Among the foolish thiugs which, ac- 
 cording to his own account, he had uttered, were some 
 generous words in my praise, to which she had civilly 
 replied. I confess I was curious to see her, but I 
 begged that the introduction should not be immediate. 
 I wished, on the one hand, to let Pickering work 
 out his destiny without temptation, on my part, to 
 play providence; and, on the other hand, I had at 
 Homburg d group of friends with whom for another 
 week I had promised to spend my leisure hours. For 
 some days I saw little of Pickering, though we met at 
 the Kursaal and strolled occasionally in the park. I 
 watched, in spite of my desire to let him alone, for the 
 signs and portents of the world's action upon him, — 
 of that portion of the world, in especial, which Madame 
 Blumenthal had gathered up into her comprehensive 
 soul. He seemed very happy, and gave me in a dozen 
 
220 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 ways an impression of increased self-confidence and 
 maturity. His mind was admirably active, and al- 
 ways, after a quarter of an hour's talk with him, I 
 asked myself what experience could really do, that 
 seclusion had not, to make it bright and fine. Every 
 now and then I was struck with his deep enjoyment 
 j of some new spectacle, — often trifling enough, — some- 
 I thing foreign, local, picturesque, some detail of manner, 
 some accident of scenery ; and of the infinite freedom 
 with which he felt he could go and come and rove 
 and linger and observe it all. It was an expansion, 
 an awakening, a coming to manhood in a graver fash- 
 ion ; as one might arrive somewhere, after delays, in 
 some quiet after-hour which should transmute disap- 
 pointment into gratitude for the preternatural vivid- 
 ness of first impressions. Each time I met him he 
 spoke a little less of Madame Blumenthal, but let me 
 know generally that he saw her often, and continued 
 to admire her — tremendously ! I was forced to admit 
 to myself, in spite of preconceptions, that if she was 
 really the ruling star of this serene efflorescence, she 
 must be a very fine woman. Pickering had the air 
 of an ingenuous young philosopher sitting at the feet 
 of an austere muse, and not of a sentimental spend- 
 thrift dangling about some supreme incarnation of 
 levity. 
 
II. 
 
 ADAME BLUMENTHAL seemed, for the time, 
 
 -i-V_X_ to have abjured the Kursaal, and I never 
 caught a glimpse of her. Her young friend, appar- 
 ently, was an interesting study ; she wished to pursue 
 it undiverted. 
 
 She reappeared, however, at last, one evening at the 
 opera, where from my chair I perceived her in a box, 
 looking extremely pretty. Adelina Patti was singing, 
 and after the rising of the curtain I was occupied with 
 the stage ; but on looking round when it fell for the 
 entr' ade, I saw that the authoress of Cleopatra had 
 been joined by her young admirer. He was sitting a 
 little behind her, leaning forward, looking over her 
 shoulder, and listening, while she, slowly moving her 
 fan to and fro and letting her eye wander over the 
 house, was apparently talking of this person and that. 
 No doubt she was saying sharp things ; but Pickering 
 was not laughing ; his eyes were following her covert 
 indications ; his mouth was haJf open, as it always was 
 when he was interested ; he looked intensely serious. 
 I was glad that, having her back to him, she was 
 
222 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 unable to see how he looked. It seemed the proper 
 moment to present myself and make her my bow ; 
 but just as I was about to leave my place, a gentleman, 
 whom in a moment I perceived to be an old acquaint- 
 ance, came to occupy the next chair. Eecognition and 
 mutual greetings followed, and I was forced to post- 
 pone my visit to Madame Blumenthal. I was not 
 sorry, for it very soon occurred to me that Medermeyer 
 would be just the man to give me a fair prose version 
 of Pickering's lyrical tributes to his friend. He was 
 an Austrian by birth, and had formerly lived about 
 Europe a great deal, in a series of small diplomatic 
 posts. England especially he had often visited, and 
 he spoke the language almost without accent. I had 
 once spent three rainy days with him in the house 
 of an English friend in the country. He was a sharp 
 observer and a good deal of a gossip ; he knew a little 
 something about every one, and about some people 
 everything. His knowledge on social matters gen- 
 erally had the flavor of all German science; it was 
 copious, minute, exhaustive. " Do tell me/' I said, as 
 we stood looking round the house, who and what is 
 the lady in white, with the young man sitting behind 
 her." 
 
 "Who?" he answered, dropping his glass. "Ma- 
 dame Blumenthal ! What ? It would take long to 
 say. Be introduced ; it 's easily done ; you 11 find her 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 223 
 
 charming. Then, after a week, you 11 tell me what 
 she is." 
 
 " Perhaps I should n t. My friend there has known 
 her a week, and I don't think he is yet able to give 
 an accurate account of her." 
 
 He raised his glass again, and after looking awhile, 
 " I 'm afraid your friend is a little — what do you 
 call it? — a little 'soft.' Poor fellow! he's not the 
 first. I've never known this lady that she had not 
 some eligible youth hovering about in some such 
 attitude as that, undergoing the softening process. 
 She looks wonderfully well, from here. It's extraor- 
 dinary how those women last ! " 
 
 "You don't mean, I take it, when you talk about 
 'those women,' that Madame Blumenthal is not em- 
 balmed, for duration, in a certain dilution of respect- 
 ability ? " 
 
 "Yes and no. The sort of atmosphere that sur- 
 rounds her is entirely of her own making. There is 
 no reason, in her antecedents, that people should 
 lower their voice when they speak of her. But some 
 women are never at their ease till they have given 
 some odd twist or other to their position before the 
 world. The attitude of upright virtue is unbecoming, 
 like sitting too straight in a fauteuil. Don't ask me 
 for opinions, however; content yourself with a few 
 facts, and an anecdote. Madame Blumenthal is Prus- 
 
224 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 sian, and very well born. I remember her mother, 
 an old Westphalian Grafin, with principles marshalled 
 out like Frederick the Great's grenadiers. She was 
 poor, however, and her principles were an insufficient 
 dowry for Anastasia, who was married very young 
 to a shabby Jew, twice her own age. He was sup- 
 posed to have money, but I 'm afraid he had less 
 than was nominated in the bond, or else that his 
 pretty young wife spent it very fast. She has been 
 a widow these six or eight years, and living, I im- 
 agine, in rather a hand-to-mouth fashion. I sup- 
 pose she is some thirty-four or five years old. Tn 
 winter one hears of her in Berlin, giving little sup- 
 pers to the artistic rabble there; in summer one often 
 sees her across the green table at Ems and Wiesba- 
 den. She 's very clever, and her cleverness has 
 spoiled her. A year after her marriage she pub- 
 lished a novel, with her views on matrimony, in the 
 George Sand manner, but really out-Heroding Herod. 
 No doubt she was very unhappy; Blumenthal was 
 an old beast. Since then she ha^s published a lot of 
 stuff, — novels and poems and pamphlets on every 
 conceivable theme, from the conversion of Lola Mon- 
 tez, to the Hegelian philosophy. Her talk is much 
 better than her writing. Her radical theories on 
 matrimony made people think lightly of her at a 
 time when her rebellion against it was probably only 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 225 
 
 theoretic. She had a taste for spinning fine phrases, 
 she drove her shuttle, and when she came to the 
 end of her yarn, she found that society had turned 
 its back. She tossed her head, declared that at last 
 she could breathe the air of freedom, and formally 
 announced her adhesion to an ' intellectual ' life. This 
 meant unlimited camaraderie with scribblers and 
 daubers, Hegelian philosophers and Hungarian pian- 
 ists waiting for engagements. But she has been ad- 
 mired also by a great many really clever men ; there 
 was a time, in fact, when she turned a head as well 
 set on its shoulders as this one ! " And Niedermeyer 
 tapped his forehead. " She has a great charm, and, 
 literally, I know no harm of her. Yet for all that, 
 I 'm not going to speak to her ; I 'm not going near 
 her box. I 'm going to leave her to say, if she does 
 me the honor to observe the omission, that I too 
 have gone over to the Philistines. It 's not that ; it / 
 is that there is something sinister about the woman. 
 I 'm too old to have it frighten me, but I 'm good- 
 natured enough to have it pain me. Her quarrel 
 with society has brought her no happiness, and her 
 outward charm is only the mask of a dangerous dis- 
 content. Her imagination is lodged where her heart 
 should be ! So long as you amuse it, well and good ; 
 she 's radiant. But the moment you let it flag, she 's 
 capable of dropping you without a pang. If you 
 10* o 
 
226 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 land on your feet, you 're so much the wiser, simply ; 
 but there have been two or three, I believe, who 
 have almost broken their necks in the fall." 
 
 " You 're reversing your promise," I said, " and giv- 
 ing me an opinion, but not an anecdote." 
 
 This is my anecdote. A year ago a friend of mine 
 made her acquaintance in Berlin, and though he was 
 no longer a young man and had never been what 's 
 called a susceptible one, he took a great fancy to 
 Madame Blumenthal. He 's a major in the Prussian 
 artillery, — grizzled, grave, a trifle severe, a man every 
 way firm in the faith of his fathers. It 's a proof of 
 Anastasia's charm that such a man should have got 
 into the way of calling on her every day for a month. 
 But the major was in love, or next door to it ! Every 
 day that he called he found her scribbling away at a 
 little ormolu table on a lot of half-sheets of note-paper. 
 She used to bid him sit down and hold his tongue for 
 a quarter of an hour, till she had finished her chapter ; 
 she was writing a novel, and it was promised to a pub- 
 lisher. Clorinda, she confided to him, was the name 
 of the injured heroine. The major, I imagine, had 
 never read a work of fiction in his life, but he knew 
 by hearsay that Madame Blumenthal's literature, when 
 put forth in pink covers, was subversive of several 
 respectable institutions. Besides, he did n't believe in 
 women knowing how to write at all, and it irritated 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 227 
 
 liim to see this inky goddess scribbling away under 
 his nose for the press ; irritated him the more that, as 
 I say, he was in love with her and that he ventured to 
 believe she had a kindness for his years and his hon- 
 ors. And yet she was not such a woman as he could 
 easily ask to marry him. The result of all this was 
 that he fell into the way of railing at her intellectual 
 pursuits and saying he should like to run his sword 
 through her pile of papers. A woman was clever 
 enough when she could guess her husband's wishes, 
 and learned enough when she could spell out her 
 prayer-book. At last, one day, Madame Blumenthal 
 flung down her pen and announced in triumph that 
 she had finished her novel. Clorinda had danced her 
 dance. The major, by way of congratulating her, de- 
 clared that her novel was coquetry and vanity and that 
 she propagated vicious paradoxes on purpose to make a 
 noise in the world and look picturesque and passionate. 
 He added, however, that he loved her in spite of her 
 follies, and that if she would formally abjure them he 
 would as formally offer her his hand. They say that in 
 certain cases women like being frightened and snubbed. 
 I don't know, I 'm sure ; I don't know how much 
 pleasure, on this occasion, was mingled with Anastasia's 
 wrath. But her wrath was very quiet, and the major 
 assured me it made her look terribly handsome. ' I 
 have told you before,' she says, ' that I write from an 
 
228 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 inner need. I write to unburden my heart, to satisfy 
 my conscience. You call my poor efforts coquetry, 
 vanity, the desire to produce a sensation. I can prove 
 to you that it is the quiet labor itself I care for, and 
 not the world's more or less flattering attention to it ! ' 
 And seizing the manuscript of Clorinda she thrust it 
 into the fire. The major stands staring, and the first 
 thing he knows she is sweeping him a great courtesy 
 and bidding him farewell forever. Left alone and 
 recovering his wits, he fishes out Clorinda from the 
 embers and then proceeds to thump vigorously at the 
 lady's door. But it never opened, and from that day 
 to the day three months ago when he told me the tale, 
 he had not beheld her again. • 
 
 " By Jove, it 's a striking story," I said. " But the 
 question is, what does it prove ? " 
 
 " Several things. First (what I was careful not to 
 tell my friend), that Madame Blumenthal cared for 
 him a trifle more than he supposed ; second, that he 
 cares for her more than ever ; third, that the perform- 
 ance was a master stroke, and that her allowing him 
 to force an interview upon her again is only a question 
 of time." 
 
 " And last ? " I asked. 
 
 " This is another anecdote. The other day, Unter 
 den Linden, I saw on a bookseller's counter a little 
 pink-covered romance : Sophronia, by Madame Blu- 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 229 
 
 menthaL Glancing through it, I observed an extraor- 
 dinary abuse of asterisks ; every two or three pages 
 the narative was adorned with a portentous blank, 
 crossed with a row of stars." 
 
 \ ''Well, but poor Clorinda?" I objected, as Meder- 
 meyer paused. 
 
 "Sophronia, my dear fellow, is simply Clorinda re- 
 named by the baptism of lire. The fair author comes 
 back, of course, and finds Clorinda tumbled upon the 
 floor, a good deal scorched, but on the whole more 
 frightened than hurt. She picks her up, brushes her 
 off, and sends her to the printer. Wherever the fiames 
 had burnt a hole, she swings a constellation I But if 
 the major is prepared to drop a penitent tear over the 
 ashes of Clorinda, I sha' n't whisper to him that the 
 urn is empty." 
 
 Even Adelina Patti's singing, for the next half-hour, 
 but half availed to divert me from my quickened curi- 
 osity to behold Madame Blumenthal face to face. As 
 soon as the curtain had fallen again, I repaired to her 
 box and was ushered in by Pickering with zealous 
 hospitality. His glowing smile seemed to say to me, 
 '' Ay, look for yourself, and adore ! " Nothing could 
 have been more gracious than the lady's greeting, and 
 I found, somewhat to my surprise, that her prettiness 
 lost nothing on a nearer view. Her eyes indeed were 
 the finest I have ever seen, — the softest, the deepest, 
 
230 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 the most intensely responsive. In spite of something 
 faded and jaded in her physiognomy, her movements, 
 her smile, and the tone of her voice, especially when 
 she laughed, had an almost girlish frankness and spon- 
 taneity. She looked at you very hard with her radiant 
 gray eyes, and she indulged in talking in a superabun- 
 dance of restless, zealous gestures, as if to make you 
 take her meaning in a certain very particular and rather 
 superfine sense. I wondered whether after a while 
 this might not fatigue one's attention; then, meeting 
 her charming eyes, I said, No ! not for ages, at least. 
 She was very clever, and, as Pickering had said, she 
 spoke English admirably. I told her, as I took my 
 seat beside her, of the fine things I had heard about 
 her from my friend, and she listened, letting me run 
 on some time, and exaggerate a little, with her fine 
 eyes fixed full upon me. " Eeally ? " she suddenly 
 said, turning short round upon Pickering, who stood 
 behind us, and looking at him in the same way, "is 
 that the way you talk about me ? " 
 
 He blushed to his eyes, and I repented. She sud- 
 denly began to laugh; it was then I observed how 
 sweet her voice was in laughter. We talked after 
 this of various matters, and in a little while I com- 
 plimented her on her excellent English, and asked 
 if she had learned it in England. 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " she cried. " I Ve never been 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 231 
 
 there and wish never to go. I should never get on 
 with the — " I wondered what she w^as going to say ; 
 the fogs, the smoke, or whist with six-penny stakes ? 
 — ''I should never get on," she said, " with the Aris- 
 tocracy ! I 'm a fierce democrat, I 'm not ashamed of 
 it. I hold opinions which would make my ancestors 
 turn in their graves. I was born in the lap of feudal- 
 ism. I'm a" daughter of the crusaders. But I 'm a 
 revolutionist ! I have a passion for freedom, — bound- 
 less, infinite, ineffable freedom. It 's to your great 
 country I should like to go. I should like to see 
 the wonderful spectacle of a great people free to do 
 everything it chooses, and yet never doing anything 
 wrong ! " 
 
 I replied, modestly, that, after all, both our freedom 
 and our virtue had their limits, and she turned quickly 
 about and shook her fan with a dramatic gesture at 
 Pickering. "No matter, no matter!" she cried, "I 
 should like to see the country which produced that 
 wonderful young man. I think of it as a sort of 
 Arcadia, — a land of the golden age. He 's so de- 
 lightfully innocent ! In this stupid old Germany, if 
 a young man is innocent, he 's a fool ; he has no 
 brains ; he 's not a bit interesting. But Mr. Picker- 
 ing says the most naif things, and after I have laughed 
 five minutes at their simplicity, it suddenly occurs 
 to me that they are very wise, and I think them 
 
232 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 over for a week. True!" she went on, nodding at 
 him. " I call them ijQspire d^solecism s, and I treasure 
 them up. Eemember that when I next laugh at 
 you!" 
 
 Glancing at Pickering, I was prompted to believe 
 that he was in a state of beatific exaltation which 
 weighed Madame Blumenthal's smiles and frowns in 
 an equal balance. They were equally hers ; they were 
 links alike in the golden chain. He looked at me 
 with eyes that seemed to say, " Did you ever hear such 
 wit? Did you ever see such grace?" I imagine he 
 was but vaguely conscious of the meaning of her 
 words ; her gestures, her voice and glance, made an 
 irresistible harmony. There is something painful in 
 the spectacle of absolute inthralment, even to an ex- 
 cellent cause. I gave no response to Pickering's chal- 
 lenge, but embarked upon some formal tribute to the 
 merits of Adelina Patti's singing. Madame Blumen- 
 thal, as became a " revolutionist," was obliged to con- 
 fess that she could see no charm in it ; it was meagre, 
 it was trivial, it lacked soul. " You must know that 
 in music, too," she said, " I think for myself ! " And 
 she began with a great many flourishes of her fan to 
 expound what it was she thought. Remarkable things, 
 doubtless ; but I cannot answer for it, for in the midst 
 of the exposition, the curtain rose again. " You can't 
 be a great artist without a great passion ! " Madame 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 233 
 
 Blumenthal was affirming. Before I had time to as- 
 sent, Madame Patti's voice rose wheeling like a sky- 
 lark, and rained down its silver notes. " Ah, give me 
 that art," I whispered, " and I '11 leave you your pas- 
 sion ! " And I departed for my own place in the orches- 
 tra. I wondered afterwards whether the speech had 
 seemed rude, and inferred that it had not, on receiving 
 a friendly nod from the lady, in the lobby, as the 
 theatre was emptying itself. She was on Pickering's 
 arm, and he was taking her to her carriage. Distances 
 are short in Homburg, but the night was rainy, and 
 Madame Blumenthal exhibited a very pretty satin- 
 shod foot as a reason why, though but a penniless 
 creature, she should not walk home. Pickering left us 
 together a moment while he went to hail the vehicle, 
 and my companion seized the opportunity, as she said, 
 to beg me to be so very kind as to come and see her. 
 It was for a particular reason ! It was reason enough 
 for me, of course I answered, that I could grasp at the 
 shadow of a permission. She looked at me a moment 
 with that extraordinary gaze of hers, which seemed so 
 absolutely audacious in its candor, and answered that I 
 paid more compliments than our young friend there, 
 but that she was sure I was not half so sincere. " But 
 it 's about him I want to talk," she said. " I want to 
 ask you many things : I want you to tell me all about 
 him. He interests me, but you see my sympathies^ 
 
234 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 are so intense, my imagination is so lively, that I don't 
 trust my own impressions. They have misled me more 
 than once ! " And she gave a little tragic shudder. 
 
 I promised to come and compare notes with her, and 
 we bade her farewell at her carriage door. Pickering 
 and I remained awhile, walking up and down the long 
 glazed gallery of the Kursaal. I had not taken many 
 steps before I became aware that I was beside a man 
 in the very extremity of love. " Is n't she wonder- 
 ful ? " he asked, with an implicit confidence in my 
 sympathy which it cost me some ingenuity to elude. 
 If he was really in love, well and good ! For although, 
 now that I had seen her, I stood ready to confess to 
 large possibilities of fascination on Madame Blumen- 
 thal's part, and even to certain possibilities of sincerity 
 of which I reserved the precise admeasurement, yet it 
 seemed to me less ominous to have him give the reins 
 to his imagination than it would have been to see him 
 stand off and cultivate an " admiration " which should 
 pique itself on being discriminating. It was on his 
 fundamental simplicity that I counted for a happy 
 termination of his experiment, and the former of these 
 alternatives seemed to me to prove most in its favor. 
 I resolved to hold my tongue and let him run his 
 course. He had a great deal to say about his happi- 
 ness, about the days passing like hours, the hours like 
 minutes, and about Madame Blumenthal being a " rev- 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 235 
 
 elation." "She was nothing to-night I " he said; ''noth- 
 ing to what she sometimes is in the way of brilliancy, 
 — in the way of repartee. If you could only hear her 
 when she tells her adventures ! " 
 
 "Adventures?" I inquired. "Has she had adven- 
 tures ? " 
 
 " Of the most wonderful sort ! " cried Pickering, with 
 rapture. " She has n't vegetated, like me ! She has 
 lived in the tumult of life. When I listen to her ^ 
 reminiscences, it 's like hearing the opening tumult of | 
 one of Beethoven's symphonies, as it loses itself in a 
 triumphant harmony of beauty and faith ! " 
 
 I could only bow, but I desired to know before we 
 separated what he had done with that troublesome 
 conscience of his. " I suppose you know, my dear 
 fellow," I said, " that you 're simply in love. That 's 
 what they call your state of mind." 
 
 He replied with a brightening eye, as if he were 
 delighted to hear it. " So Madame Blumenthal told 
 me," he cried, " only this morning ! " And seeing, I 
 suppose, that I was slightly puzzled, " I went to drive 
 with her," he continued ; " we drove to Konigstein, to 
 see the old castle. We scrambled up into the heart 
 of the ruin and sat for an hour in one of the crum- 
 bling old courts. Something in the solemn stillness 
 of the place unloosed my tongue ; and while she sat 
 on an ivied stone, on the edge of the plunging wall, I 
 
236 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 stood there and made a speech. She listened to me, 
 looking at me, breaking off little bits of stone and 
 letting them drop down into the valley. At last she' 
 got up and nodded at me two or three times silently, 
 with a smile, as if she were applauding me for a solo 
 on the violin. * You 're in love,' she said. ' It 's a 
 perfect case ! ' And for some time she said nothing 
 more. But before we left the place she told me that 
 she owed me an answer to my speech. She thanked 
 me heartily, but she was afraid that if she took me 
 at my word she would be taking advantage of my 
 inexperience. I had known few women, I was too 
 easily pleased, I thought her better than she really 
 was. She had great faults ; I must know her longer 
 and find them out ; I must compare her with other 
 women, — women younger, simpler, more innocent, 
 more ignorant ; and then if I still did her the honor 
 to think well of her, she would listen to me again. 
 I told her that I was not afraid of preferring any 
 woman in the world to her, and then she repeated, 
 ' Happy man, happy man ! you 're in love, you 're in 
 love!'" 
 
 I called upon Madame Blumenthal a couple of 
 days later, in some agitation of thought. It has been 
 proved that there are, here and there, in the world, 
 such people as sincere attitudinizers ; certain charac- 
 ters cultivate fictitious emotions in perfect good faith. 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 237 
 
 Even if this clever lady enjoyed poor Pickering's be- 
 dazzlement, it was conceivable that, taking vanity and 
 charity together, she should care more for his welfare 
 than for her own entertainment ; and her offer to 
 abide by the result of hazardous comparison with 
 other women was a finer stroke than her fame — and 
 indeed than probability — had seemed to foreshadow. 
 She received me in a shabby little sitting-room, lit- 
 tered with uncut books and newspapers, many of 
 which I saw at a glance were French. One side of it 
 was occupied by an open piano, surmounted by a jar 
 full of white roses. They perfumed the air; they 
 seemed to me to exhale the pure aroma of Pickering's 
 devotion. Buried in an arm-chair, the object of this 
 devotion was reading the Eevue des Deux Mondes. 
 The purpose of my visit was not to admire Madame 
 Blumenthal on my own account, but to ascertain how 
 far I might safely leave her to work her will upon my 
 friend. She had impugned my sincerity the evening 
 of the opera, and I was careful on this occasion to 
 abstain from compliments and not to place her on her 
 guard against my penetration. It is needless to nar- 
 rate our interview in detail; indeed, to tell the per- 
 fect truth, I was punished for my ambition to read 
 her too clearly by a temporary eclipse of my own 
 perspicacity. She sat there so questioning, so percep- 
 tive, so genial, so generous, and so pretty withal, that 
 
238 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 I was quite ready at the end of half an hour to shake 
 hands with Pickering on her being a wonderful wo- 
 man. I have never liked to linger, in memory, on 
 that half-hour. The result of it was to prove that 
 there were many more things in the composition of a 
 woman who, as Medermeyer said, had lodged her 
 imagination in the place of her heart, than were 
 dreamt of in my philosophy. Yet, as I sat there 
 stroking my hat and balancing the account between 
 nature and art in my affable hostess, I felt like a very 
 competent philosopher. She had said she wished me 
 to tell her everything about our friend, and she ques- 
 tioned me, categorically, as to his family, his fortune, 
 his antecedents, and his character. All this was natu- 
 ral in a woman who had received a passionate declara- 
 tion of love, and it was expressed with an air of 
 charmed solicitude, a radiant confidence that there 
 was really no mistake about his being a supremely 
 fine fellow, and that if I chose to be explicit, I might 
 deepen her conviction to disinterested ecstasy, which 
 might have almost inspired me to invent a good 
 opinion, if I had not had one at hand. I told her^ 
 that she really knew Pickering better than I did, and 
 that until we met at Homburg, I had not seen him 
 siuce he was a boy. 
 
 But he talks to you freely," she answered ; " I know 
 you 're his confidant. He has told me certainly a 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 239 
 
 great many things, but I always feel as if he were 
 keeping something back ; as if he were holding some- 
 thing behind him, and showing me only one hand at 
 once. He seems often to be hovering on the edge of 
 a secret. I have had several friendships in my life, 
 — thank Heaven ! but I have had none more dear to 
 me than this one. Yet in the midst of it I have the 
 painful sense of my friend being half afraid of me ; of 
 his thinking me terrible, strange, perhaps a trifle out 
 of my wits. Poor me ! If he only knew what a plain 
 good soul I am, and how I only want to know him 
 and befriend him ! 
 
 These words were full of a plaintive magnanimity 
 which made mistrust seem cruel. How much better 
 I might play providence over Pickering's experiments 
 with life, if I could engage the fine instincts of this 
 charming woman on the providential side ! Picker- 
 ing's secret was, of course, his engagement to Miss 
 Vernor; it was natural enough that he should have 
 been unable to bring himself to talk of itvto Madame 
 Blumenthal. The simple sweetness of this young girl's 
 face had not faded from my memory ; I could n't rid 
 myself of the fancy that in going further Pickering 
 might fare much worse. Madame Blumenthal's pro- 
 fessions seemed a virtual promise to agree with me, 
 and after a momentary hesitation I said that my friend 
 had, in fact, a substantial secret, and that it appeared 
 
240 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 to me enlightened friendship to put her into possession 
 of it. In as few words as possible I told her that 
 Pickering stood pledged by filial piety to marry a 
 young lady at Smyrna. She listened intently to my 
 story ; when I had finished it there was a faint fiush 
 of excitement in each of her cheeks. She broke out 
 into a dozen exclamations of admiration and compas- 
 sion. " What a wonderful tale — what a romantic sit- 
 uation ! No wonder poor Mr. Pickering seemed rest- 
 less and unsatisfied ; no wonder he wished to put off 
 the day of submission. And the poor little girl at 
 Smyrna, waiting there for the young Western prince like 
 the heroine of an Eastern tale ! She would give the 
 world to see her photograph; did I think Mr. Pick- 
 ering would show it to her? But never fear; she 
 would ask nothing indiscreet ! Yes, it was a marvel- 
 lous story, and if she had invented it herself, people 
 would have said it was absurdly improbable." She 
 left her seat and took several turns about the room, 
 smiling to herself and uttering little German cries of 
 wonderment. Suddenly she stopped before the piano 
 and broke into a little laugh; the next moment she 
 buried her face in the great bouquet of roses. It was 
 time I should go, but I was indisposed to leave her 
 without obtaining some definite assurance that, as far 
 as pity was concerned, she pitied the young girl at 
 Smyrna more than the young man at Homburg. 
 
P EUGENE PICKERING. 241 
 
 Of course you appreciate/' I said, rising, " my hopes 
 in telling you all this." 
 
 She had taken one of the roses from the vase and 
 was arranging it in the front of her dress. Suddenly, 
 looking up, " Leave it to me, leave it to me ! " she 
 cried. " I 'm interested ! " And with her little blue- * 
 gemmed hand she tapped her forehead. "I'm inter- 
 ested, — don't interfere ! " 
 
 And with this I had to content myself. But more 
 than once, for the day following, I repented of my 
 zeal, and wondered whether a providence with a white 
 rose in her bosom might not turn out a trifle too 
 human. In the evening, at the Kursaal, I looked 
 for Pickering, but he was not visible, and I reflected 
 that my revelation had not as yet, at any rate, 
 seemed to Madame Blumenthal a reason for prescrib- 
 ing a cooling-term to his passion. Very late, as I 
 was turning away, I saw him arrive, — with no small 
 satisfaction, for I had determined to let him know 
 immediately in what way I had attempted to serve 
 him. But he straightway passed his arm through 
 my own and led me off toward the gardens. I saw 
 that he was too excited to allow me prior speech. 
 ( " I Ve burnt my ships ! " he cried, when we were 
 out of earshot of the crowd. " I 've told her every- 
 thing. I 've insisted that it 's simple torture for me 
 to wait, with this idle view of loving her less. It 's 
 11 p 
 
242 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 well enough for her to ask it, but I feel strong 
 enough now to override her reluctance. I Ve cast 
 off the millstone from round my neck. I care for 
 nothing, I know nothing but that I love her with 
 every pulse of my being, — and that everything 
 • else has been a hideous dream, from which she 
 may wake me into blissful morning with a single 
 word ! " 
 
 I held him off at arm's-length and looked at him 
 gravely. " You have told her, you mean, of your en- 
 gagement to Miss Vernor ? " 
 
 " The whole story ! I 've given it up, — I 've thrown 
 it to the winds. I 've broken utterly with the past. 
 It may rise in its grave and give me its curse, but 
 it can't frighten me now. I 've a right to be happy. 
 I 've a right to be free, I 've a right not to bury 
 myself alive. It w^as n't / who promised ! I was n't 
 born then. I myself, my soul, my mind, my option, 
 — all this is but a month old ! Ah," he went on, 
 " if you knew the difference it makes, — this having 
 chosen and broken and spoken ! I 'm twice the man 
 I was yesterday ! Yesterday I was afraid of her ; 
 there was a kind of mocking mystery of knowledge 
 and cleverness about her, which oppressed me in the 
 midst of my love. But now I 'm afraid of nothing 
 but of being too happy." 
 
 I stood silent, to let him spend his eloquence. 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 243 
 
 But he paused a moment, and took off his hat and 
 fanned himself. " Let me perfectly understand," I 
 said at last. You 've asked Madame Blumenthal 
 to be your wife ? " 
 
 *^ The wife of my intelligent choice.'' 
 
 " And does she consent ? " 
 She asks three days to decide." 
 
 " Call it four ! She has known your secret since 
 this morning. I 'm bound to let you know I told 
 her." 
 
 " So much the better ! " cried Pickering, without 
 apparent resentment or surprise. It 's not a bril- 
 liant offer for such a woman, and in spite of what T 
 have at stake I feel that it would be brutal to press 
 her." 
 
 " What does she say," I asked in a moment, " to 
 your breaking your promise ? " 
 
 Pickering was too much in love for false shame. 
 " She tells me," he answered bravely, " that she loves 
 me too much to find courage to condemn me. She 
 agrees with me that I have a right to be happy. I 
 ask no exemption from the common law. What I 
 claim is simply freedom to try to be ! " 
 
 Of course I was puzzled; it was not in that fash- 
 ion that I had expected Madame Blumenthal to 
 make use of my information. But the matter now 
 was quite out of my hands, and all I could do was 
 
244 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 to bid my companion not work himself into a fever 
 over either fortune. 
 
 The next day I had a visit from Medermeyer, on 
 whom, after our talk at the opera, I had left a card. 
 We gossiped awhile, and at last he said suddenly : 
 " By the way, I have a sequel to the history of Clo- 
 rinda. The major is in Homburg ! 
 
 " Indeed ! " said 1. " Since when ? " 
 These three days." 
 
 " And what is he doing ? " 
 
 " He seems," said Medermeyer with a laugh, to be 
 chiefly occupied in sending flowers to Madame Blu- 
 menthal. That is, I went with him the morning of 
 his arrival to choose a nosegay, and nothing would 
 suit him but a small haystack of white roses. I 
 hope it was received." 
 
 "I can assure you it was," I cried. "I saw the 
 lady fairly nestling her head in it. But I advise 
 the major not to build upon that. He has a rival." 
 
 "Do you mean the soft young man of the other 
 night?" 
 
 "Pickering is soft, if you will, but his softness 
 seems to have served him. He has offered her every- 
 thing, and she has not yet refused it." I had handed 
 my visitor a cigar and he was puffing it in silence. 
 At last he abruptly asked if T had been introduced to 
 Madame Blumenthal ; and, on my affirmative, inquired 
 
f 
 
 \ EUGENE PICKERING. 245 
 
 ^what I thought of her. " I '11 not tell you," I said, 
 f^'or you'll call me soft." 
 
 ' He knocked away his ashes, eying me askance. 
 
 I 've noticed your friend about," he said, " and even 
 if you had not told me, I should have known he was 
 in love. After he has left his adored, his face wears 
 for the rest of the day the expression with which he 
 has risen from her feet, and more than once I Ve felt 
 like touching his elbow, as you would that of a man 
 who has inadvertently come into a drawing-room in his 
 overshoes. You say he has offered our friend every- 
 thing ; but, my dear fellow, he has n't everything to 
 offer her. He 's as amiable, evidently, as the morning, 
 hut madame has no taste for daylight." 
 
 " I assure you," said I, " Pickering is a very inter- 
 esting fellow." 
 
 Ah, there it is ! Has n't he some story or other ? 
 is n't he an orphan, or natural child, or consumptive, 
 or contingent heir to great estates ? She '11 read his 
 little story to the end, and close the book very ten- 
 derly and smooth down the cover, and then, when he 
 least expects it, she '11 toss it into the dusty limbo of 
 all her old romances. She '11 let him dangle, but she '11 
 let him drop ! " 
 
 " Upon my word," I cried with heat, " if she does, 
 she '11 be a very unprincipled little creature ! " 
 
 Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. " I never said 
 she was a saint ! " 
 
246 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 Shrewd as I felt Medermeyer to be, I was not pre- 
 pared to take his simple word for this consummation, 
 and in the evening I received a communication which 
 fortified my doubts. It was a note from Pickering, and 
 it ran as follows : — 
 
 " My DEAR Friend, — I have every hope of being 
 happy, but I am to go to Wiesbaden to learn my fate. 
 Madame Blumenthal goes thither this afternoon to 
 spend a few days, and she allows me to accompany 
 her. Give me your good wishes ; you shall hear of 
 the event. "E. P." 
 
 One of the diversions of Homburg for new-comers 
 is to dine in rotation at the different tables d'hotes. It 
 so happened that, a couple of days later, Medermeyer 
 took pot-luck at my hotel and secured a seat beside 
 my own. As we took our places I found a letter on 
 my plate, and, as it was postmarked Wiesbaden, I lost 
 no time in opening it. It contained but three lines : — 
 
 " I 'm happy — I 'm accepted — an hour ago. I can 
 hardly believe it 's your poor old " E. P." 
 
 I placed the note before Niedermeyer: not exactly 
 in triumph, but with the alacrity of all privileged con- 
 futation. He looked at it much longer than was need- 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 247 
 
 fill to read it, stroking down his beard gravely, and I 
 felt it was not so easy to confute a pupil of the school 
 of Metternich. At last, folding the note and handing 
 it back, " Has your friend mentioned," he asked, " Ma- 
 dame Blumenthal's errand at Wiesbaden ? " 
 
 You look very wise. I give it up ! " said I. 
 
 " She 's gone there to make the major follow her. 
 He went by the next train." 
 
 "And has the major, on his side, dropped you 
 a line ? " 
 
 " He 's not a letter- writer." 
 
 "Well," said I, pocketing my letter, "with this 
 document in my hand I 'm bound to reserve my 
 judgment. We '11 have a bottle of Johannisberg, 
 and drink to the triumph of virtue." 
 
 For a whole week more I heard nothing from 
 Pickering, — somewhat to my surprise, and, as the 
 days went bj, not a little to my discomposure. I had 
 expected that his bliss would continue to overflow in 
 an occasional brief bulletin, and his silence was pos- 
 sibly an indication that it had been clouded. At 
 last I wrote to his hotel at Wiesbaden, but received 
 no answer ; whereupon, as my next resource, I re- 
 paired to his former lodging at Homburg, where I 
 thought it possible he had left property which he 
 would sooner or later send for. There I learned that 
 he had indeed just telegraphed from Cologne for 
 
248 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 his baggage. To Cologne I immediately despatched 
 a line of inquiry as to his prosperity and the cause 
 of his silence. The next day I received three words 
 in answer, — a simple, uncommented request that I 
 would come to him. I lost no time, and reached 
 him in the course of a few hours. It was dar^ 
 when I arrived, and the city was sheeted in a cold", 
 autumnal rain. Pickering had stumbled, with an in- 
 difference which was itself a symptom of distres^, 
 on a certain musty old Mainzerhof, and I found him 
 sitting over a smouldering fire in a vast, dingy cham- 
 ber, which looked as if it had grown gray with watch- 
 ing the ennui of ten generations of travellers. Looking 
 at him, as he rose on my entrance, I saw that he 
 was in extreme tribulation. He was pale and hag- 
 gard ; his face was five years older. Now, at least, 
 in all conscience, he had tasted of the cup of life. 
 I was anxious to know what had turned it so sud- 
 denly to bitterness ; but I spared him all importu- 
 nate curiosity, and let him take his time. I as- 
 sented, tacitly, to the symptoms of his trouble, and 
 we made for a while a feeble effort to discuss the 
 J picturesqueness of Cologne. At last he rose and 
 stood a long time looking into the fire, while I 
 slowly paced the length of the dusky room. 
 
 " Well ! " he said as I came back ; " I wanted 
 knowledge, and I certainly know something I did n't 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 249 
 
 a month ago." And herewith, calmly and succinctly 
 enough, as if dismay had worn itself out, he related 
 the history of the foregoing days. He touched lightly 
 on details ; he evidently never was to gush as freely 
 again as he had done during the prosperity of his 
 suit. He had been accepted one evening, as expli- 
 citly as his imagination could desire, and had gone 
 forth in his rapture and roamed about till nearly 
 morning in the gardens of the Conversation House, 
 taking the stars and the perfumes of the summer 
 night into his confidence. " It 's worth it all, almost," 
 he said, " to have been wound up for an hour to that 
 celestial pitch. No man, I 'm sure, can ever know it 
 but once." The next morning he had repaired to 
 Madame Blumenthal's lodging and had been met, to 
 his amazement, by a naked refusal to see him. He 
 had strode about for a couple of hours — in another 
 mood — and then had returned to the charge. The 
 servant handed him a three-cornered note ; it contained 
 these words : " Leave me alone to-day ; I '11 give you 
 ten minutes to-morrow evening." Of the next thirty- 
 six hours he could give no coherent account, but at 
 the appointed time Madame Blumenthal had received 
 him. Almost before she spoke there had come to 
 him a sense of the depth of his folly in sup- 
 posing he knew her. " One has heard all one's 
 days," he said, " of people removing the mask ; it 's 
 11* 
 
250 EUGENE PICKERING. ^ 
 
 one of the stock phrases of romance. Well, there 
 she stood with her mask in her hand. Her face/' he 
 went on gravely, after a pause, — "her face was hor- 
 rible ! " I give you ten minutes/' she had said, point- 
 ing to the clock. "Make your scene, tear your hair, 
 brandish your dagger ! " And she had sat down and 
 folded her arms. " It 's not a joke," she cried, " it 's 
 dead earnest ; let 's get through with it. You 're dis- 
 missed ! Have you nothing to say ? " He had stam- 
 mered some frantic demand for an explanation; and 
 she had risen and come near him, looking at him 
 from head to feet, very pale, and evidently more ex- 
 cited than she wished to have him see. " I 've done 
 with you!" she said with a smile; "you ought to 
 have done with me ! It has all been delightful, but 
 there are excellent reasons why it should come to an 
 end." "You've been playing a part, then/' he had 
 gasped out; "you never cared for me?" "Yes; till 
 I knew you ; till I saw how far you 'd go. But now 
 the story 's finished ; we 've reached the denouement. 
 We '11 close the book and be good friends." " To see 
 how far I would go ? " he had repeated. " You led 
 me on, meaning all the while to do this?" "I led 
 you on, if you will. I received your visits in sea- 
 son and out! Sometimes they were very entertain- 
 ing; sometimes they bored me fearfully. But you 
 were such a very curious case of — what shall I call 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 251 
 
 it ? — of enthusiasm, that I determined to take good 
 and bad together. I wanted to make you commit 
 yourself unmistakably. I should have preferred not 
 to bring you to this place : but that too was neces- 
 sary. Of course I can't marry you ; I can do better. 
 Thank your fate for it. You 've thought wonders 
 of me for a month, but your good-humor would n't 
 last. I 'm too old and too wise ; you 're too young 
 and too foolish. It seems to me that I 've been very 
 good to you ; I 've entertained you to the top of 
 your bent, and, except perhaps that I 'm a little 
 brusque just now, you 've nothing to complain of. I 
 would have let you down more gently if I could 
 have taken another month to it; but circumstances 
 have forced my hand. Abuse me, revile me, if you 
 like. I'll make every allowance!" Pickering lis- 
 tened to all this intently enough to perceive that, as 
 if by some sudden natural cataclysm, the ground 
 had broken away at his feet, and that he must recoil. 
 He turned away in dumb amazement. " I don't know 
 how I seemed to be taking it," he said, "but she 
 seemed really to desire — I don't know why — some- 
 thing in the way of reproach and vituperation. But 
 I could n't, in that way, have uttered a syllable. I 
 was sickened ; I wanted to get away into the air, — 
 to shake her off and come to my senses. 'Have 
 you nothing, nothing, nothing to say ? ' she cried, as 
 
252 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 I stood with my hand on the door. ' Have n't I 
 treated you to talk enough ? ' I believe I answered. 
 ' You 11 write to me then, when you get home V 'I 
 think not/ said I. ' Six months hence, I fancy, you '11 
 come and see me ! ' ' Never ! ' said I. ' That 's a 
 confession of stupidity,' she answered. 'It means 
 that, even on reflection, you '11 never understand the 
 philosophy of my conduct.' The word 'philosophy' 
 seemed so strange that I verily believe I smiled. 
 * I 've given you,' she went on, ' all that you gave 
 me. Your passion was an affair of the head.' 'I 
 only wish you had told me sooner,' I exclaimed, 'that 
 you considered it so ! ' And I went my way. The 
 next day I came down the Ehine. I sat all day on 
 the boat, not knowing where I w^as going, where to 
 get off. I was in a kind of ague of terror; it seemed 
 to me I had seen something infernal. At last I saw 
 the cathedral towers here looming over the city. They 
 seemed to say something to me, and when the boat 
 stopped, I came ashore. I 've been here a week : I 
 have n't slept at night, — and yet it has been a week 
 of rest!" 
 
 It seemed to me that he was in a fair way to 
 recover, and that his own philosophy, if left to take 
 its time, was adequate to the occasion. After his 
 story was told I recurred to his grievance but once, — 
 that evening, later, as we were about to separate for 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 253 
 
 the night. "Suffer me to say," I said, "that there 
 was some truth in her account of your relations. You 
 were using her, intellectually, and all the while, with- 
 out your knowing it, she was using you. It was 
 diamond cut diamond. Her needs were the more 
 superficial and she came to an end first." He frowned 
 and turned uneasily away, but he offered no denial. 
 I waited a few moments, to see if he would remem- 
 ber, before we parted, that he had a claim to make 
 upon me. But he seemed to have forgotten it. 
 
 The next day we strolled about the picturesque old 
 city, and of course, before long, went into the cathe- 
 dral. Pickering said little; he seemed intent upon 
 his own thoughts. He sat down beside a pillar near 
 a chapel, in front of a gorgeous window, and, leaving 
 him to his meditations, I wandered through the church. 
 When I came back I saw he had something to say. 
 But before he had spoken, I laid my hand on his 
 shoulder and looked at him with a significant smile. 
 He slowly bent his head and dropped his eyes, with 
 a mixture of assent and humility. I drew forth his 
 letter from where it had lain untouched for a month, 
 placed it silently on his knee, and left him to deal 
 with it alone. 
 
 Half an hour later I returned to the same place, 
 but he had gone, and one of the sacristans, hovering 
 about and seeing me looking for Pickering, said he 
 
254 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 thought he had left the church. I found him in his 
 gloomy chamber at the inn, pacing slowly up and 
 down. I should doubtless have been at a loss to say 
 just what effect I expected his letter to produce ; but 
 his actual aspect surprised me. He was flushed, ex- 
 cited, a trifle irritated. 
 
 Evidently," I said, " you Ve read your letter." 
 "I owe you a report of it," he answered. "When 
 I gave it to you a month ago, I did my friends in- 
 justice.'* 
 
 " You called it a ' summons,' I remember." 
 " I was a great fool ! ' It 's a release ! " 
 " From your engagement ? " 
 
 " From everything ! The letter, of course, is from 
 Mr. Vernor. He desires to let me know at the earliest 
 moment, that his daughter, informed for the first time 
 a week before of what was expected of her, positively 
 refuses to be bound by the contract or to assent to 
 my being bound. She had been given a week to 
 reflect and had spent it in inconsolable tears. She 
 had resisted every form of persuasion ; from compul- 
 sion, writes Mr. Vernor, he naturally shrinks. The 
 young lady considers the arrangement * horrible.' Af- 
 ter accepting her duties cut and dried all her life, she 
 presumes at last to have a taste of her own. I confess 
 I 'm surprised ; I had been given to believe that she 
 was idiotically passive and would remain so to the 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 255 
 
 end of the chapter. Not a bit! She has insisted 
 on my being formally dismissed, and her father inti- 
 mates that in case of non-compliance she threatens 
 him with an attack of brain fever. Mr. Vernor con- 
 doles with me handsomely, and lets me know that 
 the young lady's attitude has been a great shock to 
 his own nerves. He adds that he will not aggravate 
 such regret as I may do him the honor to entertain, 
 by any allusion to his daughter's charms and to the 
 magnitude of my loss, and he concludes with the hope 
 that, for the comfort of all concerned, I may already 
 have amused my fancy with other 'views.' He re- 
 minds me in a postscript that, in spite of this painful 
 occurrence, the son of his most valued friend will 
 always be a welcome visitor at his house. I am free, 
 he observes ; I have my life before me ; he recom- 
 mends an extensive course of travel. Should my 
 wanderings lead me to the East, he hopes that no 
 false embarrassment will deter me from presenting 
 myself at Smyrna. He will insure me at least a 
 friendly reception. It's a very polite letter." 
 
 Polite as the letter was, Pickering seemed to find 
 no great exhilaration in having this famous burden 
 so handsomely lifted from his conscience. He fell 
 a-brooding over his liberation in a manner which you 
 might have deemed proper to a renewed sense of 
 bondage. " Bad news " he had called his letter origi- 
 
256 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 nally ; and yet, now that its contents proved to be in 
 flat contradiction to his foreboding, there was no im- 
 pulsive voice to reverse the formula and declare the 
 news was good. The wings of impulse in the poor 
 fellow had of late been terribly clipped. It was an 
 obvious reflection, of course, that if he had not been 
 so doggedly sure of the matter a month before, and 
 had gone through the form of breaking Mr. Vernor's 
 seal, he might have escaped the purgatory of Madame 
 Blumenthal's blandishments. But I left him to mor- 
 alize in private ; I had no desire, as the phrase is, to 
 rub it in. My thoughts, moreover, were following 
 another train ; I was saying to myself that if to those 
 gentle graces of which her young visage had offered 
 to my fancy the blooming promise, Miss Vernor added 
 in this striking measure the capacity for magnanimous 
 action, the amendment to my friend's career had been 
 less happy than the rough draught. Presently, turn- 
 ing about, I saw him looking at the young lady's 
 photograph. ''Of course, now," he said, "I have no 
 right to keep it ! " And before I could ask for another 
 glimpse of it, he had thrust it into the fire. 
 
 "I am sorry to be saying it just now," I observed 
 after a while, " but I should n't wonder if Miss Vernor 
 were a lovely creature." 
 
 "Go and find out," he answered gloomily. "The 
 coast is clear. My part," he presently added, "is to 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 257 
 
 forget her. It oughtn't to be hard. But don't you 
 think," he went on suddenly, " that for a poor fellow 
 who asked nothing of fortune but leave to sit down in 
 a quiet corner, it has been rather a cruel pushing 
 about ? " 
 
 Cruel indeed, I declared, and he certainly had the 
 right to demand a clean page on the book of fate, and 
 a fresh start. Mr. Vernor's advice was sound ; he 
 should seek diversion in the grand tour of Europe. If 
 he would allow it to the zeal of my sympathy, I w^ould 
 go with him on his way. Pickering assented without 
 enthusiasm ; he had the discomfited look of a man 
 who, having gone to some cost to make a good appear- 
 ance in a drawing-room, should find the door suddenly 
 slammed in his face. We started on our journey, 
 however, and little by little his enthusiasm returned. 
 He was too capable of enjoying fine things to remain 
 permanently irresponsive, and after a fortnight spent 
 among pictures and monuments and antiquities, I felt 
 that I was seeing him for the first time in his best and 
 healthiest mood. He had had a fever and then he had 
 had a chill; the pendulum had swung right and left 
 in a manner rather trying to the machine ; but now, at 
 last, it was working back to an even, natural beat. 
 He recovered in a measure the generous eloquence 
 with which he had fanned his flame at Homburg, and 
 talked about things with something of the same pas- 
 
 Q 
 
258 
 
 EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 sionate freshness. One day when I was laid up at the 
 inn at Bruges with a lame foot, he came home and 
 treated me to a rhapsody about a certain meek-faced 
 virgin of Hans Memling, which seemed to me sounder 
 sense than his compliments to Madame Blumenthal. 
 He had his dull days and his sombre moods, — hours 
 of irresistible retrospect ; but I let them come and go 
 without remonstrance, because I fancied they always 
 left him a trifle more alert and resolute. One evening, 
 however, he sat hanging his head in so doleful a fashion 
 that I took the bull by the horns and told him he had 
 by this time surely paid his debt to penitence, and 
 owed it to himself to banish that woman forever from 
 his thoughts. 
 
 He looked up, staring ; and then with a deep blush : 
 That woman ? " he said. " I was not thinking of 
 Madame Blumenthal ! " 
 
 After this I gave another construction to his melan- 
 choly. Taking him with his hopes and fears, at the 
 end of six weeks of active observation and keen 
 sensation, Pickering was as fine a fellow as need be. 
 We made our way down to Italy and spent a fort- 
 night at Venice. There something happened which I 
 had been confidently expecting ; I had said to my- 
 self that it was merely a question of time. We had 
 passed the day at Torcello, and came floating back in 
 the glow of the sunset, with measured oar-strokes. 
 
EUGENE PICKERING. 
 
 259 
 
 " I 'm well on the way," Pickering said ; " I think I '11 
 
 go!" 
 
 We had not spoken for an hour, and I naturally 
 asked him. Where ? His answer was delayed by our 
 ■^getting in to the Piazzetta. I stepped ashore first and 
 then turned to help him. As he took my hand he 
 met my eyes, consciously, and it came : " To Smyrna ! " 
 
 A couple of days later he started. I had risked the 
 conjecture that Miss Vernor was a lovely creature, and 
 six months afterwards he wrote me that I was right. 
 
The Madonna of the Future. 
 
THE MADOMA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 E had been talking about the masters who had 
 
 V V achieved but a single masterpiece, — the art- 
 ists and poets who but once in their lives had known 
 the divine afflatus, and touched the high level of the 
 best. Our host had been showing us a charming little 
 cabinet picture by a painter whose name we had never 
 heard, and who, after this one spasmodic bid for fame, 
 had apparently relapsed into fatal mediocrity. There 
 was some discussion as to the frequency of this phe- 
 nomenon; during which, I observed, H sat silent, 
 
 finishing his cigar with a meditative air, and looking 
 at the picture, which was being handed round the table. 
 " I don't know how common a case it is," he said at 
 last, but I Ve seen it. I Ve known a poor fellow who 
 painted his one masterpiece, and " — he added with a 
 smile — " he did n't even paint that. He made his bid 
 
 for fame, and missed it." We all knew H for a 
 
 clever man who had seen much of men and manners^ 
 
264 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 and had a great stock of reminiscences. Some one im- 
 mediately questioned him further, and while I was en- 
 grossed with the raptures of my neighbor over the little 
 picture, he was induced to tell his tale. If I we^ to 
 doubt whether it would bear repeating, I should only 
 have to remember how that charming woman, our 
 hostess, who had left the taljp, ventu:^d back in rust- a 
 ling rose-color, to pronounce our lingering a want of J 
 gallantry, and, finding us a listening circle, had sunk 1 
 into her chair in spite of our cigars, and heard the story 
 out so graciously, that when the catastrophe was 
 reached she glanced across at me, and showed me a 
 tender tear in each of her beautiful eyes. 
 
 It relates to my youth, and to Italy: two fine things ! 
 
 (H began.) I had arrived late in the evening at ^ 
 
 Florence, and while I finished my bottle of wine at 
 supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, 
 I might pay the city a finer compliment than by going 
 vulgarly to bed. A narrow passage wandered darkly | 
 away out of the little square before my hotel, and 
 looked as if it bored into the heart of Florence. I 
 followed it, and at the end of ten minutes emerged 
 upon a great piazza, filled only with the mild autumn 
 moonlight. Opposite rose the Palazzo Vecchio, like 
 some huge civic fortress, with the great bell-tower 
 springing from its embattled verge like a mountain- 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 2G5 
 
 pine from the edge of a cliff. At its base, in its pro- 
 jected shadow, gleamed certain dim sculptures which I 
 wonderingly approached. One of the images, on the 
 left of the palace door, was a magnificent colossus, 
 shining through the dusky air like some embodied 
 Defiance. In a moment I recognized him as Michael 
 Angelo's David. I turned with a certain relief from 
 his sinister strength to a slender figure in bronze, sta- 
 tioned beneath the high, light loggia, which opposes 
 1 the free and elegant span of its arches to the dead 
 masonry of the palace ; a figure supremely shapely and 
 graceful ; gentle, almost, in spite of his holding out 
 with his light nervous arm the snaky head of the 
 slaughtered Gorgon. His name is Perseus, and you 
 may read his story, not in the Greek mythology, but in 
 memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini. Glancing from one of 
 these fine fellows to the other, I probably uttered some 
 irrepressible commonplace of praise, for, as if provoked 
 by my voice, a man rose from the steps of the loggia, 
 where he had been sitting in the shadow, and addressed 
 me in good English, — a small, slim personage, clad in a 
 sort of black velvet tunic (as it seemed), and with a mass 
 of auburn hair, which gleamed in the moonlight, escap- 
 ing from a little mediaeval berretta. In a tone of the 
 most insinuating deference, he asked me for my " im- 
 pressions." He seemed picturesque, fantastic, slightly 
 unreal. Hovering there in this consecrated neighbor- 
 
 12 
 
266 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 hood, he might have passed for the genius of aesthetic 
 hospitality, — if the genius of aesthetic hospitality were 
 not commonly some shabby little custode, flourishing a 
 calico pocket-handkerchief, and openly resentful of the 
 divided franc. This fantasy was made none the less 
 plausible by the brilliant tirade with which he greeted 
 my embarrassed silence. 
 
 I Ve known Florence long, sir, but I Ve never 
 known her so lovely as to-night. It 's as if the ghosts 
 of her past were abroad in the empty streets. The 
 present is sleeping ; the past hovers about us like a 
 dream made visible. Fancy the old Florentines stroll- 
 ing up in couples to pass judgment on the last per- 
 formance of Michael, of Benvenuto ! We should come 
 in for a precious lesson if we might overhear what 
 they say. The plainest burgher of them, in his cap 
 and gown, had a taste in the matter ! That was the 
 prime of art, sir. The sun stood high in heaven, and 
 his broad and equal blaze made the darkest places 
 bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live in the 
 evening of time ! We grope in the gray dusk, carrying 
 each our poor little taper of selfish and painful wis- 
 dom, holding it up to the great models and to the dim 
 idea, and seeing nothing but overwhelming greatness 
 and dimness. The days of illumination are gone! 
 But do you know I fancy — I fancy," — and he grew 
 suddenly almost familiar in this visionary fervor, — 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 267 
 
 I fancy the light of that time rests upon ns here for 
 an hour ! I have never seen the David so grand, the 
 Perseus so fair! Even the inferior productions of 
 John of Bologna and of Baccio Bandinelli seem to 
 realize the artist's dream. I feel as if the moonlit air 
 were charged with the secrets of the masters, and as 
 if, standing here in religious contemplation, we might 
 — we might witness a revelation ! " Perceiving at this 
 moment, I suppose, my halting comprehension reflected 
 in my puzzled £ace, this interesting rhapsodist paused 
 and blushed. Then with a melancholy smile, ''You 
 think me a moonstruck charlatan, I suppose. It 's not 
 my habit to hang about the piazza and pounce upon 
 innocent tourists. But to-night, I confess, I 'm imder 
 the charm. And then, somehow, I fancied you, too, 
 were an artist ! " 
 
 " I 'm not an artist, I 'm sorry to say, as you must 
 understand the term. But pray make no apologies. 
 I am also under the charm ; your eloquent reflections 
 have only deepened it." 
 
 " If you 're not an artist, you 're worthy to be one ! " 
 he rejoined, with a bow. " A young man who arrives 
 at Florence late in the evening, and, instead of going 
 prosaically to bed, or hanging over the travellers' book 
 at his hotel, walks forth without loss of time to pay 
 his devoirs to the beautiful, is a young man after my | 
 own heart ! " 
 
268 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 The mystery was suddenly solved; my friend was 
 an American ! He must have been, to take the pic- 
 turesque so prodigiously to heart. " None the less so, 
 I trust," I answ^ered, " if the young man is a sordid 
 New-Yorker." 
 
 " New-Yorkers," he solemnly proclaimed, " have been 
 munificent patrons of art ! " 
 
 For a moment I was alarmed. Was this midnight 
 revery mere Yaiikee enterprise, and was he simply a 
 desperate brother of the brush who had posted himself 
 here to extort an " order " from a sauntering tourist ? 
 But I was not called to defend myself. A great brazen 
 note broke suddenly from the far-off summit of the 
 bell-tower above us and sounded the first stroke of 
 midnight. My companion started, apologized for de- 
 taining me, and prepared to retire. But he seemed to 
 offer so lively a promise of further entertainment, that 
 I was indisposed to part with him, and suggested that 
 we should stroll homeward together. He cordially as- 
 sented, so we turned out of the Piazza, passed down 
 before the statued arcade of the Ufl&zi, and came out 
 upon the Arno. What course we took I hardly re- 
 member, but we roamed slowly about for an hour, 
 my companion delivering by snatches a sort of moon- 
 touched aesthetic lecture. I listened in puzzled fasci- 
 nation, and wondered who the deuce he was. He con- 
 fessed with a melancholy but all-respectful head-shake 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 269 
 
 to his American origin. " We are the disinherited 
 of Art 1 " he cried. " We are condemned to be super- 
 ficial ! We are excluded from the magic circle. The 
 soil of American perception is a poor little barren, 
 artificial deposit. Yes ! we are wedded to imperfec- 
 tion. An American, to excel, has just ten times as 
 much to learn as a^ European. We lack the deeper 
 sense. We have neither taste, nor tact, nor force. 
 How should we have them ? Our crude and garish 
 climate, our silent past, our deafening present, the 
 constant pressure about us of unlovely circumstance, 
 are as void of all that nourishes and prompts and in- 
 spires the artist, as my sad heart is void of bitterness 
 in saying so ! We poor aspirants must live in per- 
 petual exile." 
 
 You seem fairly at home in exile," I answered, 
 and Florence seems to me a very pretty Siberia. But 
 do you know my own thought ? Nothing is so idle as 
 to talk about our want of a nutritive soil, of oppor- 
 tunity, of inspiration, and all the rest of it. The wor- 
 thy part is to do something fine ! There 's no law in 
 our glorious Constitution against that. Invent, create, 
 achieve ! No matter if you 've to study fifty times as 
 much as one of these ! What else are you an artist 
 for ? Be you our Moses," I added, laughing, and lay- 
 ing my hand on his shoulder, " and lead us out of the 
 house of bondage ! " 
 
270 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Golden words, — golden words, young man ! " he 
 cried, with a tender smile. " ' Invent, create, achieve ! ' 
 Yes, that 's our business : I know it well. Don't take 
 me, in Heaven's name, for one of your barren com- 
 plainers, — querulous cynics who have neither talent 
 nor faith ! I 'm at work ! " — and he glanced about 
 him and lowered his voice as if this were a quite 
 peculiar secret, — " I 'm at work night and day. I 've 
 undertaken a creation ! I 'm no Moses ; I 'm only a 
 poor, patient artist ; but it would be a fine thing if I 
 were to cause some slender stream of beauty to flow 
 in our thirsty land 1 Don't think me a monster of 
 conceit," he went on, as he saw me smile at the avidity 
 with which he adopted my fantasy ; " I confess that 
 I 'm in one of those moods when great things seem 
 possible ! This is one of my nervous nights, — I dream 
 waking ! When the south-wind blows over Florence 
 at midnight, it seems to coax the soul from all the fair 
 things locked away in her churches and galleries ; it 
 comes into my own little studio with the moonlight, 
 and sets my heart beating too deeply for rest. You 
 see I am always adding a thought to my conception ! 
 This evening I felt that I could n't sleep unless I had 
 communed with the genius of Michael ! " 
 
 He seemed deeply versed in local history and tra- 
 dition, and he expatiated con amore on the charms of 
 Florence. " I gathered that he was an old resident, and 
 
THE MADONNA OF "ikfi FtFTURE. 271 
 
 that he had taken the lovely i>ity inio his heart. " I 
 owe her everything" he declared. /'It's only since 
 I came here that I have rea]ly lived, intellectually. 
 One by one, all profane deglres, all mere worldly aims, 
 have dropped away fron me, and left me nothing but | 
 my pencil, my iittle note-book " (and he tapped his ' 
 breast-pocket), " and the worship of the pure masters, 
 — those vno were pure becausi|) they were innocent, 
 and those who were pure because they were strong!" 
 
 "And have you been very productive all > 
 time ? " ^ asked, with amenity. | 
 He silent awhile before replying. " Not in \ 
 the vulvar sense ! " he said, at last. " I have chosen 
 never to manifest myself by imperfection. The good 
 in everyperformance I have reabsorbed into the gen- 
 erative )rce of new creations ; the bad — there 's al- 
 ways plcity of that — I have religiously destroyed. 
 I may s7, with some satisfaction, that I have not ' 
 added a ms to the rubbish of the world. As a proof 
 of my conscntiousness/' — and he stopped short, and 
 eyed me wit extraordinary candor, as if the proof j 
 were to be orwhelming, — " I Ve never sold ^ pic- | 
 ture ! ' At le& no merchant traffics in my heart ! ' 'lii 
 Do you rememb the line in Browning ? My little 
 studio has never en profaned by superficial, feverish, 
 mercenary work, 's a temple of labor, but of leis- 
 ure ! Art is long. - we work for ourselves, of course 
 
272 THE MADO^/NA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 we must hurry. If wo work for her, we must often 
 pause. She can wait ! " 
 
 This had brought us to my hotel door, somewhat to 
 my relief, I confess, for 1 bad begun to feel unequal 
 to the society of a genius of tfis heroic strain. I left 
 him, however, not without expressingNa friendly hope 
 that we should meet again. The next morning my 
 curiosity had not abated ; I was anxious to see him by 
 common daylight. I counted upon meeting lim in one 
 of the many aesthetic haunts of Florence, ind I was 
 gratified without delay. I found him in t/e course 
 of the morning ' in the Tribune of the Uffii, — that 
 little treasure-chamber of perfect works. ^He had 
 turned his back on the Venus de' Medici, andyith his 
 arms resting on the railing which protects the ictures, 
 and his head buried in his hands, he was los in the 
 contemplation of that superb triptych of Andi^ Man- 
 tegna, — a work which has neither the materii splen- 
 dor nor the commanding force of some of itsieighbors, 
 but which, glowing there with the lovelinei^ of patient 
 labor, suits possibly a more constant nee(of the soul. 
 I looked at the picture for some time cer his shoul- 
 der; at last, with a heavy sigh, he tuied away and 
 our eyes met. As he recognized me aeep blush rose 
 to his face ; he fancied, perhaps, the he had made a 
 fool of himself overnight. But I ofred him my hand 
 with a frankness which assuredim I was not a 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 273 
 
 scoffer. I knew him by his ardent chevelure ; other- 
 •wise he was much altered. His midnight mood was 
 over, and he looked as haggard as an actor by daylight. 
 He was far older than I had supposed, and he had less 
 bravery of costume and gesture. He seemed the quite 
 poor, patient artist he had proclaimed himself, and the 
 fact that he had never sold a picture was more obvious 
 than glorious. His velvet coat was threadbare, and his 
 short slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a 
 rustiness which marked it an " original," and not one 
 of the picturesque reproductions w^hich brethren of his 
 craft affect. His eye was mild and heavy, and his ex- 
 pression singularly gentle and acquiescent ; the more 
 so for a certain pallid leanness of visage which I hardly 
 knew whether to refer to the consuming fire of genius 
 or to a meagre diet. A very little talk, however, cleared 
 his brow and brought back his eloquence. 
 
 "And this is your first visit to these enchanted 
 halls ? " he cried. " Happy, thrice happy youth ! " 
 And taking me by the arm, he prepared to lead me 
 to each of the pre-eminent works in turn and show me 
 the cream of the gallery. But before we left the Man- 
 tegna, he pressed my arm and gave it a loving look. 
 " He was not in a hurry," he murmured. " He knew 
 nothing of ' raw Haste, half-sister to Delay ' ! " How 
 sound a critic my friend was I am unable to say, but 
 he was an extremely amusing one ; overflowing with 
 
 12* R 
 
274 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTX^RE. 
 
 opinions, theories, and sympathies, with disquisition 
 and gossip and anecdote. He was a shade too senti- 
 mental for my own sympathies, and I fancied he was 
 rather too fond of superfine discriminations and of dis- 
 covering subtle intentions in the shallow f(;licities of 
 chance. At moments, too, he plunged into the sea of 
 metaphysics and floundered awhile in waters too deep 
 for intellectual security. But his abounding knowl- 
 edge and happy judgment told a touching story of long 
 attentive hours in this worshipful company ; there was 
 a reproach to my wasteful saunterings in so devoted a 
 culture of opportunity. There are two moods," I 
 remember his saying, " in which we may walk through 
 galleries, — the critical and the ideal. They seize us 
 at their pleasure, and we can never tell which is to 
 take its turn. The critical mood, oddly, is the genial 
 one, the friendly, the condescending. It relishes the 
 pretty trivialities of art, its vulgar clevernesses, its 
 conscious graces. It has a kindly greeting for any- 
 thing which looks as if, according to his light, the 
 painter had enjoyed doing it, — for the little Dutch 
 cabbages and kettles, for the taper fingers and breezy 
 mantles of late-coming Madonnas, for the little blue- 
 hilled pastoral, sceptical Italian landscapes. Then 
 there are the days of fierce, fastidious longing, — 
 solemn church-feasts of the intellect, — when all vul- 
 gar effort and all petty success is a weariness, and 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 275 
 
 everything but the best — the best of the best — 
 disgusts. In these hours we are relentless aristocrats 
 of taste. We '11 not take Michael for granted, we 11 
 not swallow Raphael whole ! " 
 
 The gallery of the Uffizi is not only rich in its 
 possessions, but peculiarly fortunate in that fine ar- 
 chitectural accident, as one may call it, which unites 
 it — with the breadth of river and city between them 
 — to those princely chambers of the Pitti Palace. The 
 Louvre and the Vatican hardly give you such a sense 
 of sustained enclosure as those long passages projected 
 over street and stream to establish a sort of inviolate 
 transition between the two palaces of art. We passed 
 along the gallery in which those precious drawings 
 by eminent hands hang chaste and gray above the 
 swirl and murmur of the yellow Arno, and reached 
 the ducal saloons of the Pitti. Ducal as they are, it 
 must be confessed that they are imperfect as show- 
 rooms, and that, with their deep-set windows and their 
 massive mouldings, it is rather a broken light that 
 reaches the pictured walls. But here the masterpieces 
 hang thick, and you seem to see them in a luminous 
 atmosphere of their own. And the great saloons, with 
 their superb dim ceilings, their outer wall in splendid 
 shadow, and the sombre opposite glow of mellow can- 
 vas and dusky gilding, make, themselves, almost as 
 fine a picture as the Titians and Raphaels they im- 
 
276 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 perfectly reveal. We lingered briefly before many a 
 Eaphael and Titian ; but I saw my friend was impa- 
 tient, and I suffered him at last to lead me directly to 
 the goal of our journey, — the most tenderly fair of 
 Eaphael's Virgins, the Madonna in the Chair. Of all 
 the fine pictures of the world, it seemed to me this is 
 the one with which criticism has least to do. None be- 
 trays less effort, less of the mechanism of effect and of 
 the irrepressible discord between conception and result, 
 which shows dimly in so many consummate works. 
 Graceful, human, near to our sympathies as it is, it 
 has nothing of manner, of method, nothing, almost, of 
 style ; it blooms there in rounded softness, as instinct 
 with harmony as if it were an immediate exhalation 
 of genius. The figure melts away the spectator's mind 
 into a sort of passionate tenderness which he knows 
 not whether he has given to heavenly purity or to 
 earthly charm. He . is intoxicated with the fragrance 
 of the tenderest blossom of maternity that ever bloomed 
 on earth. 
 
 " That 's what I call a fine picture," said my com- 
 panion, after we had gazed awhile in silence. " I 
 have a right to say so, for I Ve copied it so often and 
 so carefully that I could repeat it now with my eyes 
 shut. Other works are of Eaphael: tKs is Eaphael 
 himself Others you can praise, you can qualify, you 
 can measure, explain, account for : this you can only 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 277 
 
 love and admire. I don't know in what seeming he 
 walked among men/ while this divine mood was upon 
 him ; but after it, surely, he could do nothing but die ; 
 this world had nothing more to teach him. Think 
 of it awhile, my friend, and you 11 admit that I 'm 
 not raving. Think of his seeing that spotless image, 
 not for a moment, for a day, in a happy dream, as a 
 restless fever-fit, not as a poet in a five minutes* 
 frenzy, time to snatch his phrase and scribble his im- 
 mortal stanza, but for days together, while the slow 
 labor of the brush went on, while the foul vapors of 
 life interposed, and the fancy ached with tension, 
 fixed, radiant, distinct, as we see it now ! What a 
 master, certainly ! But ah, what a seer ! " 
 
 "Don't you imagine," I answered, "that he had a 
 model, and that some pretty young woman — " 
 
 " As pretty a young woman as you please ! It 
 does n't diminish the miracle ! He took his hint, of 
 course, and the young woman, possibly, sat smiling 
 before his canvas. But, meanwhile, the painter's idea 
 had taken wings. No lovely human outline could 
 charm it to vulgar fact. He saw the fair form made 
 perfect; he rose to the vision without tremor, with- 
 out effort of wing ; he communed with it face to 
 face, and resolved into finer and lovelier truth the 
 purity which completes it as the perfume completes 
 the rose. That 's what they call idealism ; the word 's 
 
278 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 vastly abused, but the thing is good. It 's my own 
 creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna, model at once 
 and muse, I call you to witness that I too am an 
 idealist ! " 
 
 " An idealist, then," I said, half jocosely, wishing to 
 provoke him to further utterance, " is a gentleman who 
 says to Nature in the person of a beautiful girl, ' Go 
 to, you 're all wrong ! Your fine is coarse, your bright 
 is dim, your grace is gaucherie. This is the way you 
 should have done it ! ' Is n't the chance against 
 him?" 
 
 He turned upon me almost angrily, but perceiving 
 the genial flavor of my sarcasm, he smiled gravely. 
 " Look at that picture," he said, " and cease your ir- 
 reverent mockery ! Idealism is that ! There 's no 
 explaining it ; one must feel the flame ! It says 
 nothing to Nature, or to any beautiful girl, that 
 they '11 not both forgive ! It says to the fair wo- 
 man, ' Accept me as your artist-friend, lend me your 
 beautiful face, trust me, help me, and your eyes shall 
 be half my masterpiece ! ' No one so loves and respects 
 the rich realities of nature as the artist whose imagi- 
 nation caresses and flatters them. He knows what a 
 fact may hold (whether Eaphael knew, you may judge 
 by his portrait behind us there, of Tommaso Inghi- 
 rami) ; but his fancy hovers above it, as Ariel above 
 the sleeping prince. There is only one Raphael, but 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 279 
 
 an artist may still be an artist. As I said last night, 
 the days of illumination are gone ; visions are rare ; 
 we have to look long to see them. But in meditation 
 we may still woo the ideal ; round it, smooth it, per- 
 fect it. The result — the result " (here his voice fal- 
 tered suddenly, and he fixed his eyes for a moment on 
 the picture ; when they met my own again they were 
 full of tears) — " the result may be less than this ; but 
 still it may be good, it may be great ! " he cried with 
 vehemence. " It may hang somewhere, in after years, 
 in goodly company, and keep the artist's memory 
 warm. Think of being known to mankind after some 
 such fashion as this ! of hanging here through the slow 
 centuries in the gaze of an altered world, living on and 
 on in the cunning of an eye and hand that are part of 
 the dust of ages, a delight and a law to remote genera- 
 tions ; making beauty a force and purity an example 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " I said, smiling, that I should 
 .take the wind out of your sails ; but does n't it oc- 
 cur to you that beside being strong in his genius, 
 Eaphael was happy in a certain good faith of which 
 we have lost the trick ? There are people, I know, 
 who deny that his spotless Madonnas are anything 
 more than pretty blondes of that period, enhanced by 
 the Eaphaelesque touch, which they declare is a pro- 
 fane touch. Be that as it may, people's religious and 
 aesthetic needs went hand in hand, and there was, as I 
 
280 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 may say, a demand for the Blessed Virgin, visible and 
 adorable, which must have given firmness to the art- 
 ist's hand. I 'm afraid there is no demand now." 
 
 My companion seemed painfully puzzled ; he shiv- 
 ered, as it were, in this chilling blast of scepticism. 
 Then shaking his head with sublime confidence : 
 " There is always a demand ! " he cried ; that inef- 
 fable type is one of the eternal needs of man's 
 heart; but pious souls long for it in silence, almost 
 in shame. Let it appear, and this faith grows brave. 
 How should it appear in this corrupt generation ? It 
 can't be made to order. It could, indeed, when the 
 order came, trumpet-toned, from the lips of the Church 
 herself, and was addressed to genius panting with in- 
 spiration. But it can spring now only from the soil of 
 passionate labor and culture. Do you really fancy 
 that while, from time to time, a man of complete artis- 
 tic vision is born into the world, that image can per- 
 ish ? The man who paints it has painted everything. 
 The subject admits of every perfection, — form, color, 
 expression, composition. It can be as simple as you 
 please, and yet as rich, as broad and pure, and yet as 
 full of delicate detail. Think of the chance for flesh 
 in the little naked, nestling child, irradiating divinity ; 
 of the chance for drapery in the chaste and ample gar- 
 ment of the mother ! Think of the great story you 
 compress into that simple theme 1 Think, above all, 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 281 
 
 of tlie mother's face and its ineffable suggestiveness, of 
 the mingled burden of joy and trouble, the tenderness 
 turned to wors^hip, and the worship turned to far-seeing 
 pity ! Then look at it all in perfect line and lovely 
 color, breathi ng truth and beauty and mastery ! " 
 
 " Anch' io son pittore ! " I cried. " Unless I 'm mis- 
 taken, you 've a masterpiece on the stocks. If you put 
 all that in, you '11 do more than Eaphael himself did. 
 Let me know when your picture is finished, and 
 wherever hi the wide world I may be, I '11 post back 
 to Florence and make my bow to — the Madonna of 
 the future ! " 
 
 He blushed vividly and gave a heavy sigh, half of 
 protest, half of resignation. " I don't often mention 
 my picture, in so many words. I detest this modern 
 custom of premature publicity. A great work needs 
 silence, privacy, mystery even. And then, do you 
 know, people are so cruel, so frivolous, so unable to 
 imagine a man's wishing to paint a Madonna at this 
 time of day, that I 've been laughed at, — laughed at, 
 sir ! " And his blush deepened to crimson. I don't 
 know what has prompted me to be so frank and trust- 
 ful with you. You look as if you would n't laugh at 
 me. My dear young man," — and he laid his hand on 
 my arm, — "I'm worthy of respect. Whatever my 
 talents may be, I 'm honest. There 's nothing gro- 
 tesque in a pure ambition, or in a life devoted to it ! " 
 
282 THE MADONNA OF THE FUT^pRE. 
 
 There was something so sternly sinceire in his look 
 and tone, that further questions seemec! impertinent. 
 I had repeated opportunity to ask themj however ; for 
 after this we spent much time together. ^ Daily, for a 
 fortnight, we met by appointment, to see the sights. 
 He knew the city so well, he had strolled and lounged 
 so often through its streets and churches and galleries, 
 he was so deeply versed in its greater and lesser mem- 
 ories, so imbued with the local genius, that he was an 
 altogether ideal valet de place, and I was glad enough 
 to leave my Murray at home, and gather facts and 
 opinions alike from his gossiping commentary. He 
 talked of Florence like a lover, and admitted that it 
 was a very old affair ; he had lost his heart to her at 
 first sight. " It 's the fashion to talk of all cities as 
 feminine," he said, " but, as a rule, it 's a monstrous 
 mistake. Is Florence of the same sex as New York, 
 as Chicago ? She 's the sole true woman of them all ; 
 one feels towards her as a lad in his teens feels to 
 some beautiful older woman with a ' history.' It 's a 
 sort of aspiring gallantry she creates." This disinter- 
 ested passion seemed to stand my friend in stead of 
 the common social ties ; he led a lonely life, apparent- 
 ly, and cared for nothing but his work. I was duly 
 flattered by his having taken my frivolous self into his 
 favor, and by his generous sacrifice of precious hours, 
 as they must have been, to my society. We spent 
 
[ THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 283 
 
 many of these hours among those early paintings in 
 which Florence is so rich, returning ever and anon 
 with restless sympathies to wonder whether these ten- 
 der blossoms of art had not a vital fragrance and savor 
 more precious than the full-fruited knowledge of the 
 later works. We lingered often in the sepulchral 
 chapel of San Lorenzo, and watched Michael Angelo's 
 dim-visaged warrior sitting there like some awful 
 Genius of Doubt and brooding behind his eternal 
 mask upon the mysteries of life. We stood more 
 than once in the little convent chambers where Fra 
 Angelico wrought as if an angel indeed had held his 
 hand, and gathered that sense of scattered dews and 
 early bird-notes which makes an hour among his 
 relics seem like a morning stroll in some monkish 
 garden. We did all this and much more, — wandered 
 into dark chapels, damp courts, and dusty palace- 
 rooms, in quest of lingering hints of fresco and lurking- 
 treasures of carving.^' 
 
 I was more and more impressed with my compan- 
 ion s prodigious singleness of purpose. Everything was 
 a pretext for some wildly idealistic rhapsody or revery. 
 Nothing could be seen or said that did not end 
 sooner or later in a glowing discourse on the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good. If my friend was not a 
 genius, he was certainly a monomaniac ; and I found 
 as great a fascination in watching the odd lights and 
 
284 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 shades of his character as if he had been a creature 
 from another planet. He seemed, indeed, to know 
 very little of this one, and lived and moved altogether 
 in his own little province of art. A creature more 
 unsullied by the world it is impossible to conceive, 
 and I often thought it a flaw in his artistic character 
 that he had n't a harmless vice or two. It amused me 
 vastly at times to think that he was of our shrewd 
 Yankee race ; but, after all, there could be no better 
 token of his American origin than this high aesthetic 
 fever. The very heat of his devotion was a sign of 
 conversion ; those born to European opportunity man- 
 age better to reconcile enthusiasm with comfort. He 
 had, moreover, all our native mistrust for intellectual 
 discretion and our native relish for sonorous superla- 
 tives. As a critic he was vastly more generous than 
 just, and his mildest terms of approbation were "stupen- 
 dous," "transcendent," and "incomparable." The small 
 change of admiration seemed to him no coin for a gen- 
 tleman to handle ; and yet, frank as he was intellectu- 
 ally, he was, personally, altogether a mystery. His 
 professions, somehow, were all half-professions, and 
 his allusions to his work and circumstances left some- 
 thing dimly ambiguous in the background. He was 
 modest and proud, and never spoke of his domestic 
 matters. He was evidently poor ; yet he must have 
 had some slender independence, since he could afford 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 285 
 
 to make so merry over the fact that his culture of 
 ideal beauty had never brought him a penny. His 
 poverty, I supposed, was his motive for neither invit- 
 ing me to his lodging nor mentioning its whereabouts. 
 We met either in some public place or at my hotel, 
 where I entertained him as freely as I might without 
 appearing to be prompted by charity. He seemed 
 always hungry, which was his nearest approach to a 
 ''redeeming vice." I made a point of asking no im- 
 pertinent questions, but, each time we met, I ventured 
 to make some respectful allusion to the magnum opus, 
 to inquire, as it were, as to its health and progress. 
 "We're getting on, with the Lord's help," he would 
 say with a grave smile. " We 're doing well. You see 
 1 have the grand advantage that I lose no time. 
 These hours I spend with you are pure profit. 
 They 're suggestive ! Just as the truly religious soul 
 is always at worship, the genuine artist is always in 
 labor. He takes his property wherever he finds it, 
 and learns some precious secret from every object 
 that stands up in the light. If you but knew the 
 rapture of observation ! I gather with every glance 
 some hint for light, for color or relief! When I get 
 home, I pour out my treasures into the lap of my 
 Madonna. 0, I 'm not idle ! Nulla dies sine linea.^' 
 
 I was introduced in Florence to an American lady 
 whose drawing-room had long formed au attractive 
 
286 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 place of reunion for the foreign residents. She lived 
 on a fourth floor, and she was not rich ; but she 
 offered her visitors very good tea, little cakes at 
 option, and conversation not quite to match. Her 
 conversation had mainly an aesthetic flavor, for Mrs. 
 Coventry was famously artistic." Her apartment was 
 a sort of Pitti Palace aub petit pied. She possessed 
 " early masters " by the dozen, — a cluster of Peruginos 
 in her dining-room, a Giotto in her boudoir, an An- 
 drea del Sarto over her parlor chimney-piece. Backed 
 by these treasures, and by innumerable bronzes, mo- 
 saics, majolica dishes, and little worm-eaten diptychs 
 showing angular saints on gilded panels, our hostess 
 enjoyed the dignity of a sort of high-priestess of the 
 arts. She always wore on her bosom a huge minia- 
 ture copy of the Madonna della Seggiola. Gaining her 
 ear quietly one evening I asked her whether she 
 knew that remarkable man, Mr. Theobald. 
 
 " Know him ! " she exclaimed ; know poor Theobald ! 
 All Florence knows him, his flame-colored locks, his 
 black velvet coat, his interminable harangues on the 
 beautiful, and his wondrous Madonna that mortal eye 
 has never seen, and that mortal patience has quite 
 given up expecting." 
 
 Eeally," I cried, " you don't believe in his Madon- 
 na?" 
 
 " My dear ingenuous youth," rejoined my shrewd 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 287 
 
 friend, " has he made a convert of you ? Well, we all 
 believed in him once ; he came down upon Florence and 
 took the town by storm. Another Eaphael, at the 
 very least, had been born among men, and poor, dear 
 America was to have the credit of him. Had n't he the 
 very hair of Eaphael flowing down on his shoulders ? 
 The hair, alas, but not the head I We swallowed him 
 whole, however ; we hung upon his lips and proclaimed 
 his genius on the house-tops. The women were all 
 dying to sit to him for their portraits and be made im- 
 mortal, like Leonardo's Joconde. We decided that his 
 manner was a good deal like Leonardo's, — mysterious 
 and inscrutable and fascinating. Mysterious it certain- 
 ly was ; mystery was the beginning and the end of it. 
 The months passed by, and the miracle hung fire ; our 
 master never produced his masterpiece. He passed 
 hours in the galleries and churches, posturing, musing, 
 and gazing ; he talked more than ever about the beau- 
 tiful, but he never put brush to canvas. We had all 
 subscribed, as it were, to the great performance ; but 
 as it never came off, people began to ask for their 
 money again. I was one of the last of the faithful ; I 
 carried devotion so far as to sit to him for my head. 
 If you could have seen the horrible creature he made 
 of me, you would admit that even a woman with no 
 more vanity than will tie her bonnet straight must 
 have cooled off then. The man did n't know the very 
 
288 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 alphabet of drawing ! His strong point, he intimated, 
 was his sentiment ; but is it a consolation, when one has 
 been painted a fright, to know it has been done with 
 peculiar gusto ? One by one, I confess, we fell away 
 from the faith, and Mr. Theobald did n't lift his little 
 finger to preserve us. At the first hint that we were 
 tired of waiting ^nd that we should like the show to 
 begin, he was off in a huff. ' Great work requires time, 
 contemplation, privacy, mystery ! 0 ye of little faith ! ' 
 We answered that we did n't insist on a great work ; that 
 the five-act tragedy might come at his convenience ; 
 that we merely asked for something to keep us from 
 yawning, some inexpensive little lever de rideau. Here- 
 upon the poor man took his stand as a genius miscon- 
 ceived and persecuted, an dme meconnue, and washed 
 his hands of us from that hour ! No, I believe he does 
 me the honor to consider me the head and front of the 
 conspiracy formed to nip his glory in the bud, — a bud 
 that has taken twenty years to blossom. Ask him if 
 he knows me, and he 'd tell you I 'm a horribly ugly 
 old woman who has vowed his destruction because he 
 would n't paint her portrait as a pendant to Titian's 
 Flora. I fancy that since then he has had none but 
 chance followers, innocent strangers like yourseK, who 
 have taken him at his word. The mountain 's still in 
 labor ; I 've not heard that the mouse has been born. 
 I pass him once in a while in the galleries, and he fixes 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 289 
 
 his great dark eyes on me with a sublimity of indiffer- 
 ence, as if I were a bad copy of a Sassoferrato ! It is 
 a long time ago now that I heard that he was making 
 studies for a Madonna who was to be a resum^ of all 
 the other Madonnas of the Italian school, — like that 
 antique Venus who borrowed a nose from one great 
 image and an ankle from another. It's certainly a 
 masterly idea. The parts may be fine, but when 
 I think of my unhappy portrait I tremble for the 
 whole. He has communicated this striking idea un- 
 der the pledge of solemn secrecy to fifty chosen 
 spirits, to every one he has ever been able to button- 
 hole for five minutes. I suppose he wants to get 
 an order for it, and he 's not to blame ; for Heaven 
 knows how he lives. I see by your blush," my host- 
 ess frankly continued, "that you have been honored 
 with his confidence. You need n't be ashamed, my 
 dear young man; a man of your age is none the 
 worse for a certain generous credulity. Only allow 
 me to give you a word of advice : keep your cre- 
 dulity out of your pockets ! Don't pay for the pic- 
 ture till it's delivered. You've not been treated to a 
 peep at it, I imagine. No more have your fifty prede- 
 cessors in the faith. There are people who doubt 
 whether there is any picture to be seen. I fancy, my- 
 self, that if one were to get into his studiO; one would 
 find something very like the picture in that tale of 
 13 s 
 
290 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 Balzac's, — a mere mass of incoherent scratches and 
 daubs, a jumble of dead paint ! 
 
 I listened to this pungent recital in silent won- 
 der. It had a painfully plausible sound, and was 
 not inconsistent with certain shy suspicions of my 
 own. My hostess was a clever woman, and presum- 
 ably a generous one. I determined to let my judg- 
 ment wait upon events. Possibly she was right ; 
 but if she was wrong, she was cruelly wrong ! Her 
 version of my friend's eccentricities made me impa- 
 tient to see him again and examine him in the 
 light of public opinion. On our next meeting, I 
 immediately asked him if he knew Mrs. Coventry. 
 He laid his hand on my arm and gave me a sad 
 smile. " Has she taxed your gallantry at last ? " he 
 asked. She 's a foolish woman. She 's frivolous 
 and heartless, and she pretends to be serious and 
 kind. She prattles about Giotto's second manner 
 and Vittoria Colonna's liaison with ' Michael,' — one 
 would think that Michael lived across the way and 
 was expected in to take a hand at whist, — but she 
 knows as little about art, and about the conditions 
 of production, as I know about Buddhism. She 
 profanes sacred words," he added more vehemently, 
 after a pause. " She cares for you only as some 
 one to hand teacups in that horrible mendacious 
 \ittle parlor of hers, with its trumpery Peruginos ! 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 291 
 
 If you can't dash off a new picture every three days, 
 and let her hand it round among her guests, she tells 
 them in plain English you 're an impostor ! " 
 
 This attempt of mine to test Mrs. Coventry's ac- 
 curacy was made in the course of a late afternoon 
 walk to the quiet old church of San Miniato, on 
 one of the hill-tops which directly overlook the city, 
 from whose gate you are guided to it by a stony 
 and cypress-bordered walk, which seems a most fit- 
 ting avenue to a shrine. No spot is more propi- 
 tious to lingering repose* than the broad terrace in 
 front of the church, where, lounging against the para- 
 pet, you may glance in slow alternation from the 
 black and yellow marbles of the church faQade, 
 seamed and cracked with time and wind-sown with 
 a tender flora of its own, down to the full domes 
 and slender towers of Florence and over to the blue 
 sweep of the wide-mouthed cup of mountains into 
 whose hollow the little treasure-city has been dropped. 
 I had proposed, as a diversion from the painful mem- 
 ories evoked by Mrs. Coventry's name, that Theo- 
 bald should go with me the next evening to the 
 opera, where some rarely played work was to be 
 given. He declined, as I had half expected, for I 
 had observed that he regularly kept his evenings in 
 reserve, and never alluded to his manner of pass- 
 
 * 1869. 
 
292 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 ing them. "You have reminded me before," I said, 
 smiling, " of that charming speech of the Florentine 
 painter in Alfred de Musset's Lorenzaccio : ' I do 
 no harm to any one, I pass my days in my studio. 
 On Sunday, I go to the Annunziata or to Santa Maria ; 
 the monks think I have a voice ; they dress me in a white 
 gown and a red cap, and I take a share in the choruses, 
 sometimes I do a little solo : these are the only times I go 
 into puhlic. In the evening, I visit my sweetheart ; when 
 the night is fine, we pass it on her halcony! I don't 
 know whether you have a sweetheart, or whether she 
 has a balcony. But if you 're so happy, it 's certainly 
 better than trying to find a charm in a third-rate 
 prima donna!' 
 
 He made no immediate response, but at last he 
 turned to me solemnly. " Can you look upon a beau- 
 tiful woman with reverent eyes ? " 
 
 " Eeally," I said, " I don't pretend to be sheepish, 
 but I should be sorry to think I was impudent." And 
 I asked him what in the world he meant. When at 
 last I had assured him that I could undertake to tem- 
 per admiration with respect, he informed me, with an 
 air of religious mystery, that it was in his power to 
 introduce me to the most beautiful woman in Italy. 
 " A beauty with a soul ! " 
 
 Upon my word," I cried, " you 're extremely for- 
 tunate. I shall rejoice to witness the conjunction." 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 293 
 
 " This woman's beauty," he answered, " is a lesson, a 
 morality, a poem ! It 's my daily study." 
 
 Of course, after this, I lost no time in reminding 
 him of what, before we parted, had taken the shape of 
 a promise. " I feel somehow," he had said, " as if it 
 were a sort of violation of that privacy in which I have 
 always contemplated her beauty. This is friendship, 
 my friend. No hint of her existence has ever fallen 
 from my lips. But with too great a familiarity we are 
 apt to lose a sense of the real value of things, and you 
 perhaps will throw some new light upon it and offer a 
 fresher interpretation." We went accordingly by ap- 
 pointment to a certain ancient house in the heart of 
 Florence, — the precinct of the Mercato Vecchio, — 
 and climbed a dark, steep staircase to the very summit 
 of the edifice. Theobald's beauty seemed as jealously 
 exalted above the line of common vision as the Belle 
 aux Cheveux d'Or in her tower-top. He passed with- 
 out knocking into the dark vestibule of a small apart- 
 ment, and, flinging open an inner door, ushered me 
 into a small saloon The room seemed mean and 
 sombre, though I caught a glimpse of white curtains 
 swaying gently at an open window. At a table, near 
 a lamp, sat a woman dressed in black, working at a 
 piece of embroidery. As Theobald entered, she looked 
 up calmly, v^dth a smile ; but seeing me, she made a 
 movement of surprise, and rose with a kind of stately 
 
294 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 grace. Theobald stepped forward, took her hand and 
 kissed it, with an indescribable air of immemorial • 
 usage. As he bent his head, she looked at me askance, 
 and I thought she TDlushed. 
 
 " Behold the Serafina ! " said Theobald, frankly, wav- 
 ing me forward. " This is a friend, and a lover of the 
 arts," he added, introducing me. I received a smile, a 
 courtesy, and a request to be seated. 
 
 The most beautiful woman in Italy was a person of 
 a generous Italian type and of a great simplicity of 
 demeanor. Seated again at her lamp, with, her em- 
 broidery, she seemed to have nothing whatever to say. 
 Theobald, bending towards her in a sort of Platonic 
 ecstasy, asked her a dozen paternally tender questions 
 as to her health, her state of mind, her occupations, 
 and the progress of her embroidery, which he examined 
 minutely and summoned me to admire. It was some 
 portion of an ecclesiastical vestment, — yellow satin 
 wrought with an elaborate design of silver and gold. 
 She made answer in a full, rich voice, but with a 
 brevity which I hesitated whether to attribute to na- 
 tive reserve or to the profane constraint of my pres- 
 ence. She had been that morning to confession ; she 
 had also been to market, and had bought a chicken 
 for dinner. She felt very happy ; she had nothing to 
 complain of, except that the people for whom she was 
 making her vestment, and who furnished her materials, 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 295 
 
 should be willing to put such rotten silver thread into 
 the garment, as one might say, of the Lord. From 
 time to time, as she took her slow stitches, she raised 
 her eyes and covered me with a glance which seemed 
 at first to denote a placid curiosity, but in which, as 
 I saw it repeated, I thought I perceived the dim 
 glimmer of an attempt to establish an understanding 
 with me at the expense of our companion. Mean- 
 while, as mindful as possible of Theobald's injunction 
 of reverence, I considered the lady's personal claims 
 to the fine compliment he had paid her. 
 
 That she was indeed a beautiful woman I perceived, 
 after recovering from the surprise of finding her with- 
 out the freshness of youth. Her beauty was of a sort 
 which, in losing youth, loses little of its essential 
 charm, expressed for the most part as it was in form 
 and structure, and, as Theobald would have said, in 
 " composition." She was broad and ample, low-browed 
 and large-eyed, dark and pale. Her thick brown hair 
 hung low beside her cheek and ear, and seemed to 
 drape her head with a covering as chaste and formal 
 as the veil of a nun. The poise and carriage of her 
 head was admirably free and noble, and the more 
 effective that their freedom was at moments discreetly 
 corrected by a little sanctimonious droop, which har- 
 monized admirably with the level gaze of her dark 
 and quiet eye. A strong, serene physical nature and 
 
296 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 the placid temper which comes of no nerves and no 
 troubles seemed this lady's comfortable portion. She 
 was dressed in plain dull black, save for a sort of dark 
 blue kerchief which was folded across her bosom and 
 exposed a glimpse of her massive throat. Over this 
 kerchief was suspended a little silver cross. I admired 
 her greatly, and yet with a large reserve. A certain 
 mild intellectual apathy belonged properly to her type 
 of beauty, and had always seemed to round and enrich 
 it; but this hourgeoisc Egeria, if I viewed her right, 
 betrayed a rather vulgar stagnation of mind. There 
 might have been once a dim, spiritual light in her 
 face; but it had long since begun to wane. And 
 furthermore, in plain prose, she was growing stout. 
 My disappointment amounted very nearly to complete 
 disenchantment when Theobald, as if to facilitate my 
 covert inspection, declaring that the lamp was very 
 dim and that she would ruin her eyes without more 
 light, rose and fetched a couple of candles from the 
 mantel-piece, which he placed lighted on the table. 
 In this brighter illumination I perceived that our host- 
 ess was decidedly an elderly woman. She was neither 
 haggard nor worn nor gray ; she was simply coarse. 
 The " soul " which Theobald had promised seemed 
 scarcely worth making such a point of; it was no 
 deeper mystery than a sort of matronly mildnes.s of 
 lip and brow. I would have been ready even to declare 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 297 
 
 that that sanctified bend of the head was nothing 
 more than the trick of a person constantly working 
 at embroidery. It occurred to me even that it was 
 a trick of a less innocent sort; for, in spite of the 
 mellow quietude of her wits, this stately needlewoman 
 dropped a hint that i she took the situation rather less 
 au serieux than her friend. When he rose to light 
 the candles, she looked across at me with a quick, 
 intelligent smile and tapped her forehead with her 
 forefinger ; then, as from a sudden feeling of compas- 
 sionate loyalty to poor Theobald, I preserved a blank 
 face, she gave a little shrug and resumed her work. 
 
 What was the relation of this singular couple ? 
 Was he the most ardent of friends or the most rev- 
 erent of lovers ? Did she regard him as an eccen- 
 tric youth whose benevolent admiration of her beauty 
 she was not ill-pleased to humor at this small cost 
 of having him climb into her little parlor and gossip 
 of summer nights ? With her decent and sombre 
 dress, her simple gravity, and that fine piece of priestly 
 needlew^ork, she looked like some pious lay-member of 
 a sisterhood, living by special permission outside her 
 convent walls. Or was she maintained here aloft by 
 her friend in comfortable leisure, so that he might 
 have before him the perfect, eternal type, uncorrupted> 
 and untarnished by the struggle for existence ? Her 
 shapely hands, I observed, were very fair and white; 
 
 13* 
 
298 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 they lacked the traces of what is called "honest 
 toil." 
 
 " And the pictures, how do they come on ? " she 
 asked of Theobald, after a long pause. 
 
 "Finely, finely! I have here a friend whose sym- 
 pathy and encouragement give me new faith and 
 ardor." 
 
 Our hostess turned to me, gazed at me a moment 
 rather inscrutably, and then tapping her forehead 
 with the gesture she had used a minute before, "He 
 has a magnificent genius ! " she said, with perfect 
 gravity. 
 
 " I 'm inclined to think so," I answered, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " Eh, why do you smile ? " she cried. " If you 
 doubt it, you must see the hamhino ! " And she took 
 the lamp and conducted me to the other side of the 
 room, where on the wall, in a plain black frame, 
 hung a large drawing in red chalk. Beneath it was 
 festooned a little bowl for holy-water. The drawing 
 represented a very young child, entirely naked, half 
 nestling back against his mother's gown, but with 
 his two little arms "outstretched, as if in the act of 
 benediction. It was executed with singular freedom 
 and power, and yet seemed vivid with the sacred 
 bloom of infancy. A sort of dimpled elegance and 
 grace, mingled with its boldness, recalled the touch 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 299 
 
 of Correggio. " That 's what he can do ! " said my 
 hostess. " It 's the blessed little boy whom I lost. 
 It 's his very image, and the Signor Teobaldo gave 
 it me as a gift. He has given me many things 
 beside!" 
 
 I looked at the picture for some time and admired 
 it vastly. Turning back to Theobald, I assured him 
 that if it were hung among the drawings in the Uffizi 
 and labelled with a glorious name, it would hold its 
 own. My praise seemed to give him extreme pleas- 
 ure ; he pressed my hands, and his eyes filled with 
 tears. It moved him apparently with the desire to 
 expatiate on the history of the drawing, for he rose 
 and made his adieux to our companion, kissing her 
 hand with the same mild ardor as before. It oc- 
 curred to me that the offer of a similar piece of gal- 
 lantry on my own part might help me to know what 
 manner of woman she was. When she perceived 
 my intention, she withdrew her hand, dropped her 
 eyes solemnly, and made me a severe courtesy. The- 
 obald took my arm and led me rapidly into the 
 street. 
 
 " And what do you think of the divine Serafina ? " 
 he cried with fervor. 
 
 " It 's certainly good solid beauty ! " I answered. 
 
 He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed 
 hurried along by the current of remembrance. "You 
 
300 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 should have seen the mother and the child together, 
 seen them as I first saw them, — the mother with 
 her head draped in a shawl, a divine trouble in her 
 face, and the bambino pressed to her bosom. You 
 would have said, I think, that Eaphael had found 
 his match in common chance. I was coming in, one 
 summer night, from a long walk in the country, when 
 I met this apparition at the city gate. The woman 
 held out her hand. I hardly knew whether to say, 
 ' What do you want V or to fall down and worship. 
 She asked for a little money. I saw that she w^as 
 beautiful and pale. She might have stepped out of 
 the stable of Bethlehem ! I gave her money and 
 helped her on her way into the town. I had guessed 
 her story. She, too, was a maiden mother, and she 
 had been turned out into the world in her shame. 
 I felt in all my pulses that here was my subject 
 mavellously realized. I felt like one of the old con- 
 vent artists who had had a vision. I rescued the 
 poor creatures, cherished them, watched them as I 
 would have done some precious work of art, some 
 lovely fragment of fresco discovered in a mouldering 
 cloister. In a month — as if to deepen and conse- 
 crate the pathos of it all — the poor little child died. 
 When she felt that he was going, she held him up 
 to me for ten minutes, and I made that sketch. You 
 saw a feverish haste in it, I suppose ; I wanted to 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 301 
 
 spare the poor little mortal the pain of his position. 
 After that, I doubly valued the mother. She is the 
 simplest, sweetest, most natural creature that ever 
 bloomed in this brave old land of Italy. She lives 
 in the memory of her child, in her gratitude for the 
 scanty kindness I have been able to show her, and 
 in her simple religion ! She 's not even conscious of 
 her beauty; my admiration has never made her vain. 
 Heaven knows I 've made no secret of it. You must 
 have observed the singular transparency of her ex- 
 pression, the lovely modesty of her glance. And was 
 there ever such a truly virginal brow, such a natural 
 classic elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch 
 of the forehead ? I 've studied her ; I may say I 
 know her. I Ve absorbed her little by little ; my 
 mind is stamped and imbued, and I have determined 
 now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite 
 her to sit for me ! " 
 
 " ' At last, — at last ' V 1 repeated, in much amaze- 
 ment. "Do you mean that she has never done so 
 yet?" 
 
 " I Ve not really had — a — a sitting," said Theo- 
 bald, speaking very slowly. " I Ve taken notes, you 
 know ; I Ve got my grand fundamental impression. 
 That 's the great thing ! But I Ve not actually had 
 her as a model, posed and draped and lighted, before 
 my easel." 
 
302 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 What had become for the moment of my perception 
 and my tact I am at a loss to say; in their absence, 
 I was unable to repress headlong exclamation. I was 
 destined to regret it. We had stopped at a turning, 
 beneath a lamp. My poor friend," I exclaimed, lay- 
 ing my hand on his shoulder, ''youVe dawdled! 
 She an old, old woman — for a Madonna ! " 
 
 It was as if I had brutally struck him ; I shall never 
 forget the long, slow, almost ghastly look of pain with 
 which he answered me. "Dawdled — old, old!" he 
 stammered. ''Are you joking?" 
 
 "Why, my dear fellow, I suppose you don't take 
 the woman for twenty?" 
 
 He drew a long breath and leaned against a house, 
 looking at me with questioning, protesting, reproachful 
 eyes. At last, starting forward, and grasping my arm : 
 "Answer me solemnly: does she seem to you truly 
 old ? Is she wrinkled, is she faded, am I blind ? " 
 
 Then at last I understood the immensity of his 
 illusion ; how, one by one, the noiseless years had 
 ebbed away, and left him brooding in charmed inac- 
 tion, forever preparing for a work forever deferred. 
 It seemed to me almost a kindness now to tell him 
 the plain truth. "I should be sorry to say you're 
 blind," I answered, " but I think you 're deceived. 
 You've lost time in effortless contemplation. Your 
 friend was once young and fresh and virginal; but, I 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTUKE. 
 
 303 
 
 protest, that was some years ago. Still, she has de 
 beaux Testes 1 By all means make her sit for you ! " I 
 broke down ; his face was too horribly reproachful. 
 
 He took off his hat and stood passing his 'hand- 
 kerchief mechanically over his forehead. De beaux 
 Testes ? I thank you for sparing me the plain English. 
 I must make up my Madonna out of de beaux restes ! 
 What a masterpiece she 11 be ! Old — old ! Old — 
 old ! " he murmured. 
 
 ''Never mind her age," I cried, revolted at what I 
 had done, ''never mind my impression of her! You 
 have your memory, your notes, your genius. Finish 
 your picture in a month. I proclaim it beforehand a 
 masterpiece, and I hereby offer you for it any sum you 
 may choose to ask." 
 
 He stared, but he seemed scarcely to understand me. 
 " Old — old ! " he kept stupidly repeating. " If she is 
 old, what am I ? If her beauty has faded, where — 
 where is my strength ? Has life been a dream ? Have 
 I worshipped too long, — have I loved too well ? " 
 The charm, in truth, was broken. That the chord of 
 illusion should have snapped at my light, accidental 
 touch showed how it had been weakened by excessive 
 tension. The poor fellow's sense of wasted time, of 
 vanished opportunity, seemed to roll in upon his soul 
 in waves of darkness. He suddenly dropped his head 
 and burst into tears. 
 
304 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 I led him homeward with all possible tenderness, 
 but I attempted neither to check his grief, to restore 
 his equanimity, nor to unsay the hard truth. When 
 we reached my hotel I tried to induce him to come in. 
 " We 11 drink a glass of wine," I said, smiling, ".to the 
 completion of the Madonna." 
 
 With a violent effort he held up his head, mused for 
 a moment with a formidably sombre frown, and then 
 giving me his hand, " I '11 finish it," he cried, " in a 
 month ! No, in a fortnight ! After all, I have it 
 here ! " And he tapped his forehead. " Of course 
 she 's old ! She can afford to have it said of her, — a 
 woman who has made twenty years pass like a twelve- 
 month ! Old — old ! Why, sir, she shall be eternal ! " 
 
 I wished to see him safely to his own door, but he 
 waved me back and walked away with an air of reso- 
 lution, whistling and swinging his cane. I waited a 
 moment, and then followed him at a distance, and saw 
 him proceed to cross the Santa Trinita Bridge. When 
 he reached the middle, he suddenly paused, as if his 
 strength had deserted him, and leaned upon the para- 
 pet gazing over into the river. I was careful to keep 
 him in sight ; I confess that I passed ten very nervous 
 minutes. He recovered himself at last, and went his 
 way, slowly and with hanging head. 
 
 That I should have really startled poor Theobald into 
 a bolder use of his long-garnered stores of knowledge 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 305 
 
 and taste, into the vulgar effort and hazard of produc- 
 tion, seemed at first reason enough for his continued 
 silence, and absence ; but as day followed day without 
 his either calling or sending me a line, and without my 
 meeting him in his customary haunts, in the galleries, 
 in the chapel at San Lorenzo, or strolling between the 
 Arno-side and the great hedge-screen of verdure which, 
 along the drive of the Cascine, throws the fair occu- 
 pants of barouche and phaeton into such becoming 
 relief, — as for more than a week I got neither tidings 
 nor sight of him, I began to fear that I had fatally 
 offended him, and that, instead of giving wholesome 
 impetus to his talent, I had brutally paralyzed it. I 
 had a wretched suspicion that I had made him ill. My 
 stay at Florence was drawing to a close, and it was 
 important that, before resuming my journey, I should 
 assure myself of the truth. Theobald, to the last, had 
 kept his lodging a mystery, and I was altogether at 
 a loss where to look for him. The simplest course 
 was to make inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato 
 Vecchio, and I confess that unsatisfied curiosity as to 
 the lady herself counselled it as well. Perhaps I had 
 done her injustice, and she was as immortally fresh 
 and fair as he conceived her. I was, at any rate, anx- 
 ious to behold once more the ripe enchantress who 
 had made twenty years pass as a twelvemonth. I re- 
 paired accordingly, one moning, to her abode, climbed 
 
306 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 the interminable staircase, and reached her door. It 
 stood ajar, and as I hesitated whether to enter, a little 
 serving-maid came clattering out with an empty kettle, 
 as if she had just performed some savory errand. The 
 inner door, too, was open ; so I crossed the little vesti- 
 bule and entered the room in which I had formerly 
 been received. It had not its evening aspect. The 
 table, or one end of it, was spread for a late breakfast, 
 and before it sat a gentleman, — an individual, at least, 
 of the male sex, — dealing justice upon a beefsteak 
 and onions, and a bottle of wine. At his elbow, in 
 friendly proximity, was placed the lady of the house. 
 Her attitude, as I entered, was not that of an enchant- 
 ress. With one hand she held in her lap a plate of 
 smoking maccaroni ; with the other she had lifted high 
 in air one of the pendulous filaments of this succulent 
 compound, and was in the act of slipping it gently 
 down her throat. On the uncovered end of the table, 
 facing her companion, were ranged half a dozen small 
 statuettes, of some snuff-colored substance resembling 
 terra-cotta. He, brandishing his knife with ardor, was 
 apparently descanting on their merits. 
 
 Evidently I darkened the door. My hostess dropped 
 her maccaroni ■ — into her mouth, and rose hastily with 
 a harsh exclamation and a flushed face. I immedi- 
 ately perceived that the Signora Serafina's secret was 
 even better worth knowing than I had supposed, and 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 307 
 
 tliat the way to learn it was to take it for granted. 
 I summoned my best Italian, I smiled and bowed 
 and apologized for my intrusion; and in a moment, 
 whether or no I had dispelled the lady's irritation, I 
 had, at least, stimulated her prudence. I was wel- 
 come, she said ; I must take a seat. This was another 
 friend of hers, — also an artist, she declared with a 
 smile which was almost amiable. Her companion 
 wiped his mustache and bowed with great civility. 
 I saw at a glance that he was equal to the situation. 
 He was presumably the author of the statuettes on 
 the table, and he knew a money-spending forestiere 
 when he saw one. He was a small, wiry man, with 
 a clever, impudent, tossed-up nose, a sharp little black 
 eye, and waxed ends to his mustache. On the side 
 of his head he wore jauntily a little crimson velvet 
 smoking-cap, and I observed that his feet were en- 
 cased in brilliant slippers. On Serafina's remarking 
 with dignity that I was the friend of Mr. Theobald, 
 he broke out into that fantastic French of which 
 Italians are so insistently lavish, and declared with 
 fervor that Mr. Theobald was a magnificent genius. 
 
 " I 'm sure I don't know," I answered with a shrug. 
 " If you 're in a position to affirm it, you have the 
 advantage of me. I 've seen nothing from his hand 
 but the bambino yonder, which certainly is fine." 
 
 He declared that the bambino was a masterpiece, a 
 
308 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 pure Correggio. It was only a pity, he added with a 
 knowing laugh, that the sketch had not been made on 
 some good bit of honeycombed old panel. The stately 
 Serafina hereupon protested that Mr. Theobald was 
 the soul of honor, and that he would never lend him- 
 self to a deceit. " I 'm not a judge of genius," she said, 
 " and I know nothing of pictures. I 'm but a poor 
 simple widow ; but I know that the Signor Teobaldo 
 has the heart of an angel and the virtue of a saint. 
 He 's my benefactor," she added sententiously. The 
 after-glow of the somewhat sinister flush with which 
 she had greeted me still lingered in her cheek, and 
 perhaps did not favor her beauty ; I could not but 
 fancy it a wise custom of Theobald's to visit her only 
 by candlelight. She v/as coarse, and her poor adorer 
 was a poet. 
 
 " I have the greatest esteem for him," I said ; " it is 
 for this reason that I have been uneasy at not seeing 
 him for ten days. Have you seen him ? Is he per- 
 haps ill?" 
 
 " 111 ! Heaven forbid ! " cried Serafina, with genu- 
 ine vehemence. 
 
 Her companion uttered a rapid expletive, and re- 
 proached her with not having been to see him. She 
 hesitated a moment ; then she simpered the least bit 
 and bridled. "He comes to see me — without re- 
 proach ! But it would not be the same for me to go 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 309 
 
 to him, though, indeed, you may almost call him a man 
 of holy life." 
 
 " He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. 
 He would have been honored by your visit." 
 
 She looked at me a moment sharply. " More admi- 
 ration than you. Admit that ! " Of course I pro- 
 tested with all the eloquence at my command, and 
 my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had 
 taken no fancy to me on my former visit, and that, 
 Theobald not having returned, she believed I had poi- 
 soned his mind against her. " It would be no kind- 
 ness to the poor gentleman, I can tell you that," she 
 said. '"He has come to see me every evening for 
 years. It 's a long friendship ! No one knows him as 
 well as I." 
 
 " I don't pretend to know him, or to understand 
 him," I said. " He 's a mystery ! Nevertheless, he 
 seems to me a little — " And I touched my forehead 
 and waved my hand in the air. 
 
 Serafina glanced at her companion a moment, as if 
 for inspiration. He contented himself with shrugging 
 his shoulders, as he filled his glass again. The padrona 
 hereupon gave me a more softly insinuating smile than 
 would have seemed likely to bloom on so candid a 
 brow. " It 's for that that I love him ! " she said. 
 " The world has so little kindness for such persons. It 
 laughs at them, and despises them, and cheats them. 
 
310 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 He is too good for this wicked life ! It 's his fancy- 
 that he finds a little Paradise up here in my poor 
 apartment. If he thinks so, how can I help it ? He 
 has a strange belief — really, I ought to be ashamed to 
 tell you — that I resemble the Blessed Virgin : Heaven 
 forgive me ! I let him think what he pleases, so long 
 as it makes him happy. He was very kind to me 
 once, and I am not one that forgets a favor. So I 
 receive him every evening civilly, and ask after his 
 health, and let him look at me on this side and that ! 
 For that matter, I may say it without vanity, I was 
 worth looking at once ! And he 's not always amusing, 
 poor man ! He sits sometimes for an hour without 
 speaking a word, or else he talks away, without stop- 
 ping, on art and nature, and beauty and duty, and fifty 
 fine things that are all so much Latin to me. I beg 
 you to understand that he has never said a word to me 
 that I might n't decently listen to. He may be a little 
 cracked, but he 's one of the saints." 
 / " Eh ! " cried the man, " the saints were all a little 
 cracked 1 " 
 
 Serafina, I fancied, left part of her story untold ; but 
 she told enough of it to make poor Theobald's own 
 statement seem intensely pathetic in its exalted sim- 
 plicity. " It 's a strange fortune, certainly," she went 
 on, to have such a friend as this dear man, — a friend 
 who 's less than a lover and more than a friend." I 
 
^ THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 311 
 
 glanced at her companion, who preserved an impene- 
 trable smile, twisted the end of his mustache, and dis- 
 posed of a copious mouthful. Was he less than a 
 lover ? " But what will you have ? " Serafina pursued. 
 " In this hard world one must n't ask too many ques- 
 tions ; one must take what comes and keep what one 
 gets. I 've kept my good friend for twenty years, and 
 I do hope that, at this time of day, Signore, you Ve not 
 come to turn him against me ! " 
 
 I assured her that I had no such design, and that I 
 should vastly regret disturbing Mr. Theobald's habits 
 or convictions. On the contrary, I was alarmed about 
 him, and I should immediately go in search of him. 
 She gave me his address and a florid account of her 
 sufferings at his non-appearance. She had not been 
 to him, for various reasons ; chiefly because she was 
 afraid of displeasing him, as he had always made such 
 a mystery of his home. " You might have sent this 
 gentleman ! " I ventured to suggest. 
 
 " Ah," cried the gentleman, " he admires the Signora 
 Serafina, but he would n't admire me." And then, 
 confidentially, with his finger on his nose, He 's a 
 purist ! " 
 
 I was about to withdraw, on the promise that I 
 would inform the Signora Serafina of my friend's con- 
 dition, when her companion, who had risen from table 
 and girded his loins apparently for the onset, grasped 
 
312 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 me gently by the arm, and led me before the row of 
 statuettes. " I perceive by your conversation, signore, 
 that you are a patron of the arts. Allow me to request 
 your honorable attention for these modest products 
 of my own ingenuity. They are brand-new, fresh from 
 my atelier, and have never been exhibited in public. 
 I have brought them here to receive the verdict of 
 this dear lady, who is a good critic, for all she may 
 pretend to the contrary. I am the inventor of this 
 peculiar style of statuette, — of subject, manner, mate- 
 rial, everything. Touch them, I pray you ; handle 
 them ; you need n't fear. Delicate as they look, it is 
 impossible they should break! My various creations 
 have met with great success. They are especially 
 admired by Americans. I have sent them all over 
 Europe, — to London, Paris, Vienna ! You may have 
 observed some little specimens in Paris, on the Boule- 
 vard, in a shop of which they constitute the specialty. 
 There is always a crowd about the window. They 
 form a very pleasing ornament for the mantel-shelf 
 of a gay young bachelor, for the boudoir of a pretty 
 woman. You couldn't make a prettier present to a 
 person with whom you wished to exchange a harmless 
 joke. It is not classic art, signore, of course; but, 
 between ourselves, is n't classic art sometimes rather 
 a bore ? Caricature, burlesque, la charge^ as the Frencli 
 say, has hitherto been confined to paper, to the pen and 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 313 
 
 pencil. Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce 
 it into statuary. For this purpose I have invented a 
 peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me 
 not to divulge. That 's my secret, signore ! It 's as 
 light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabas- 
 ter ! I frankly confess that I really pride myself as 
 much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as 
 upon the other element of novelty in my creations, — 
 my types. What do you say to my types, signore? 
 The idea is bold ; does it strike you as happy ? Cats 
 and monkeys, — monkeys and cats, — all human life 
 is there ! Human life, of course, I mean, viewed with l/ 
 the eye of the satirist ! To combine sculpture and 
 satire, signore, has been my unprecedented ambition. 
 I flatter myself that I have not egregiously failed." 
 
 As this jaunty Juvenal of the chimney-piece de- 
 livered himself of his persuasive allocution, he took 
 up his little groups successively from the table, held 
 them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with 
 his knuckles, and gazed at them lovingly with his 
 head on one side. They consisted each of a cat 
 and a monkey, fantastically draped, in some prepos- 
 terously sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a 
 certain sameness of motive, and illustrated chiefly 
 the different phases of what, in delicate terms, may 
 be called gallantry and coquetry ; but they were 
 strikingly clever and expressive, and were at once 
 
314 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 very perfect cats and monkeys and very natural men 
 and women. I confess, however, that they failed to 
 amuse me. I was doubtless not in a mood to enjoy 
 them, for they seemed to me peculiarly cynical and 
 
 ^ vulgar. Their imitative felicity was revolting. As 1 
 looked askance at the complacent little artist, brandish- 
 ing them between finger and thumb, and caressing them 
 with an amorous eye, he seemed to me himself little 
 
 ^^more than an exceptionally intelligent ape. I mus- 
 tered an admiring grin, however, and he blew an- 
 other blast. " My figures are studied from life ! I 
 have a little menagerie of monkeys whose frolics 
 I contemplate by the hour. As for the cats, one has 
 only to look out of one's back window ! Since I 
 have begun to examine these expressive little brutes, 
 I have made many profound observations. Speaking, 
 signore, to a man of imagination, I may say that my 
 little designs are not without a philosophy of their 
 own. Truly, I don't know whether the cats and 
 monkeys imitate us, or whether it 's we who imitate 
 them." I congratulated him on his philosophy, and 
 he resumed : " You will do me the honor to admit 
 that I have handled my subjects with delicacy. Eh, 
 it was needed, signore ! I have been free, but not 
 too free — eh ? Just a hint, you know ! You may see 
 as much or as little as you please. These little 
 groups, "however, are no measure of my invention. 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 315 
 
 If you will favor me with a call at my studio, I 
 think that you will admit that my combinations are 
 really infinite. I likewise execute figures to com- 
 mand. You have perhaps some little motive, — the 
 fruit of your philosophy of life, signore, — which 
 you would like to have interpreted. I can promise 
 to work it up to your satisfaction; it shall be as 
 malicious as you please ! Allow me to present you 
 with my card, and to remind you that my prices 
 are moderate. Only sixty francs for a little group like 
 that. My statuettes are as durable as bronze, — mre 
 perennius, signore, — and, between ourselves, I think 
 they are more amusing ! " 
 
 As I pocketed his card, I glanced at Madonna 
 Serafina, wondering whether she had an eye for con- 
 trasts. She had picked up one of the little couples 
 and was tenderly dusting it with a feather broom. 
 
 What I had just seen and heard had so deepened 
 my compassionate interest in my deluded friend, that 
 I took a summary leave, and made my way directly to 
 the house designated by this remarkable woman. It 
 was in an obscure corner of the opposite side of the 
 town, and presented a sombre and squalid appearance. 
 An old woman in the doorway, on my inquiring for 
 Theobald, ushered me in with a mumbled blessing and 
 an expression of relief at the poor gentleman having a 
 friend. His lodging seemed to consist of a single room 
 
316 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 at the top of the house. On getting no answer to my 
 knock, I opened the door, supposing that he was ab- 
 sent ; so that it gave me a certain shock to find him 
 sitting there helpless and dumb. He was seated near 
 the single window, facing an easel which supported a 
 large canvas. On my entering, he looked up at me 
 blankly, without changing his position, which was that 
 of absolute lassitude and dejection, his arms loosely 
 folded, his legs stretched before him, his head hanging 
 on his breast. Advancing into the room, I perceived 
 that his face vividly corresponded with his attitude. 
 He was pale, haggard, and unshaven, and his dull and 
 sunken eye gazed at me without a spark of recognition. 
 I had been afraid that he would greet me with fierce 
 reproaches, as the cruelly officious patron who had 
 turned his peace to bitterness, and I was relieved to 
 find that my appearance awakened no visible resent- 
 ment. " Don't you know me ? " I asked, as I put out 
 my hand. Have you already forgotten me ? " 
 
 He made wo response, kept his position stupidly, 
 and left me staring about the room. It spoke most 
 plaintively for itself. Shabby, sordid, naked, it con- 
 tained, beyond the wretched bed, but the scantiest 
 provision for personal comfort. It was bedroom at 
 once and studio, — a grim ghost of a studio. A few 
 dusty casts and prints on the walls, three or four old 
 canvases turned face inward, and a rusty -looking color- 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 317 
 
 box formed, with the easel at the window, the sum of 
 its appurtenances.- The place savored horribly of pov- 
 erty. Its only wealth was the picture on the easel, 
 presumably the famous Madonna. Averted as this 
 was from the door, I was unable to see its face ; but 
 at last, sickened by the vacant misery of the spot, I 
 passed behind Theobald, eagerly and tenderly. I can 
 hardly say that I was surprise^ at what I found, — a 
 canvas that was a mere dead blank, cracked and discol- 
 ored by time. This was his immortal work ! Though 
 not surprised, I confess I was powerfully moved, and I 
 think that for five minutes I could not have trusted 
 myself to speak. At last, my silent nearness affected 
 him ; he stirred and turned, and then rose and looked 
 at me with a slowly kindling eye. I murmured some 
 kind, ineffective nothings about Kis being ill and need- 
 ing advice and care, but he seemed absorbed in the 
 effort to recall distinctly what had last passed between 
 us. " You were right," he said with a pitiful smile, 
 I 'm a dawdler ! I 'm a failure ! ^ I shall do nothing 
 more in this world. You opened my eyes ; and, though 
 the truth is bitter, I bear you no grudge. Amen ! I Ve 
 been sitting here for a week, face to face with the truth, 
 with the past, with my weakness and poverty and 
 nullity. I shall never touch a brush ! I believe I 've 
 neither eaten nor slept. Look at that canvas ! " he 
 went on, as I relieved my emotion in the urgent 
 
318 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 request that he would come home with me and dine. 
 " That was to have contained my masterpiece ! Is n't 
 it a promising foundation ? The elements of it are all 
 here!' And he tapped his forehead with that mystic 
 confidence which had marked the gesture before. 
 "If I could only transpose them into some brain 
 that had the hand, the will ! Since I Ve been sit- 
 ting here taking stock of my intellects, I 've come 
 to believe that I have the material for a hundred 
 masterpieces. But my hand is paralyzed now, and 
 they '11 never be painted. I never began ! I waited 
 and waited to be worthier to begin, and wasted my 
 life in preparation. While I fancied my creation was 
 growing, it was dying. I 've taken it all too hard I 
 Michael Angelo did n't when he went at the Lorenzo ! 
 He did his best at a venture, and his venture is im- 
 mortal. That 's mine ! " And he pointed with a ges- 
 ture I shall never forget at the empty canvas. " I sup- 
 pose we 're a genus by ourselves in the providential 
 Bcheme, — we talents that can't act, that can't do nor 
 dare ! We take it out in talk, in plans and promises, 
 in study, in visions ! But our visions, let me tell you," 
 he cried, with a toss of his head, " have a way of 
 being brilliant, and a man has n't lived in vain who 
 has seen the things I have ! Of course you '11 not 
 believe in them when that bit of worm-eaten clotli 
 is all I have to show for them; but to convince 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 319 
 
 you, to enchant and astound the world, I need only 
 the hand of Eaphael. I have his brain. A pity, 
 you 11 say, I have n't his modesty ! Ah, let me bab- 
 ble now ; it 's all I have left ! I 'm the half of a 
 genius ! Where in the wide world is my other half? 
 Lodged perhaps in the vulgar soul, the cunning, ready 
 fingers of some dull copyist or some trivial artisan 
 who turns out by the dozen his easy prodigies of 
 touch ! But it 's not for me to sneer at him ; he 
 at least does something. He 's not a dawdler ! Well 
 for me if I had been vulgar and clever and reck- 
 less, if I could have shut my eyes and dealt my 
 stroke ! " 
 
 What to say to the poor fellow, what to do for 
 him, seemed hard to determine ; I chiefly felt that 
 I must break the spell of his present inaction, and 
 remove him from the haunted atmosphere of the 
 little room it seemed such cruel irony to call a stu- 
 dio. I cannot say I persuaded him to come out 
 with me ; he simply suffered himself to be led, and 
 when we began to walk in the open air I was able 
 to measure his pitifully weakened condition. Never- 
 theless, he seemed in a certain way to revive, and 
 murmured at last that he would like to go to the 
 Pitti Gallery. I shall never forget our melancholy 
 stroll through those gorgeous halls, every picture on 
 whose walls seemed, even to my own sympathetic 
 
320 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 vision, to glow with a sort of insolent renewal of 
 strength and lustre. The eyes and lips of the great 
 portraits seemed to smile in ineffable scorn of the 
 dejected pretender who had dreamed of competing 
 with their triumphant authors ; the celestial candor, 
 even, of the Madonna in the Chair, as we paused 
 in perfect silence before her, was tinged with the 
 sinister irony of the women of Leonardo. Perfect 
 silence indeed marked our whole progress, — the 
 silence of a deep farewell ; for I felt in all my 
 pulses, as Theobald, leaning on my arm, dragged one 
 heavy foot after the other, that he was looking his 
 last. When we came out, he was so exhausted 
 that, instead of taking him to my hotel to dine, I 
 called a carriage and drove him straight to his own 
 poor lodging. He had sunk into an extraordinary 
 lethargy ; he lay back in the carriage, with his eyes 
 closed, as pale as death, his faint breathing inter- 
 rupted at intervals by a sudden gasp, like a smothered 
 sob or a vain attempt to speak. With the help of 
 the old woman who had admitted me before, and 
 who emerged from a dark back court, I contrived to 
 lead him up the long steep staircase and lay him on 
 his wretched bed. To her I gave him in charge, 
 while I prepared in all haste to seek a physician. 
 But she followed me out of the room with a pitiful 
 clasping of her hands. 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 321 
 
 " Poor, dear, blessed gentleman," she murmured ; 
 " is he dying ? " 
 
 " Possibly. How long has he been thus ? " 
 
 " Since a night he passed ten days ago. I came 
 up in the morning to make his poor bed, and found 
 him sitting up in his clothes before that great can- 
 vas he keeps there. Poor, dear, strange man, he 
 says his prayers to it! He had not been to bed, 
 nor since then properly ! What has happened to 
 him ? Has he found out about the Serafina ? " she 
 whispered with a glittering eye and a toothless grin. 
 
 "Prove at least that one old woman can be faith- 
 ful," I said, "and watch him well till I come back." 
 My return was delayed, through the absence of the 
 English physician on a round of visits, and my vainly 
 pursuing him from house to house before I overtook 
 him. I brought him to Theobald's bedside none too 
 soon. A violent fever had seized our patient, and 
 the case was evidently grave. A couple of hours 
 later I knew that he had brain-fever. From this 
 moment I was with him constantly, but I am far 
 from wishing to describe his illness. Excessively 
 painful to witness, it was happily brief. Life burned 
 out in delirium. A certain night that I passed at 
 his pillow, listening to his wild snatches of regret, of 
 aspiration, of rapture and awe at the phantasmal pic- 
 tures with which his brain seemed to swarm, recurs 
 
 14* u 
 
322 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 to my memory now like some stray page from a lost 
 masterpiece of tragedy. Before a week was over we 
 had buried Jiini in the little Protestant cemetery on 
 the way to Fiesole. The Signora Serafina, whom I 
 had caused to be informed of his illness, had come 
 in person, I was told, to inquire about its progress ; 
 but she was absent from his funeral, which was 
 attended by but a scanty concourse of mourners. 
 Half a dozen old Florentine sojourners, in spite of 
 the prolonged estrangement which had preceded his 
 death, had felt the kindly impulse to honor his grave. 
 Among them was my friend Mrs. Coventry, whom I 
 found, on my departure, waiting at her carriage door 
 at the gate of the cemetery. 
 
 "Well," she said, relieving at last with a signifi- 
 cant smile the solemnity of our immediate greeting, 
 "and the great Madonna? Have you seen her, after 
 aU?" 
 
 " I Ve seen her," I said ; " she 's mine, — by be- 
 quest. But I shall never show her to you." 
 " And why not, pray ? " 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Coventry, you'd not understand 
 her!" 
 
 "Upon my word, you're polite." 
 
 " Excuse me ; I 'm sad and vexed and bitter." 
 And with reprehensible rudeness, I marched away. 
 I was excessively impatient to leave Florence; my 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 323 
 
 friend's dark spirit seemed diffused through all things. 
 I had packed my trunk to start for Eome that night, 
 and meanwhile, to beguile my unrest, I aimlessly 
 paced the streets. Chance led me at last to the 
 church of San Lorenzo. Eemembering poor Theo- 
 bald's phrase about Michael Angelo, — " He did his 
 best at a venture," — I went in and turned my steps 
 to the chapel of the tombs. Viewing in sadness the 
 sadness of its immortal treasures, I fancied, while I 
 stood there, that the scene demanded no ampler com- 
 mentary. As I passed through the church again to 
 depart, a woman, turning away from one of the side- 
 altars, met me face to face. The black shawl depend- 
 ing from her head draped picturesquely the handsome 
 visage of Madonna Serafina. She stopped as she rec- 
 ognized me, and I saw that she wished to speak. 
 Her eye was bright and her ample bosom heaved in 
 a way that seemed to portend a certain sharpness of 
 reproach. But the expression of my own face, appar- 
 ently, drew the sting from her resentment, and she 
 addressed me in a tone in which bitterness was tem- 
 pered by a sort of dogged resignation. "I know it 
 was you, now, that separated us," she said. "It was 
 a pity he ever brought you to see me ! Of course, 
 you could n't think of me as he did. Well, the Lord 
 gave him, the Lord has taken him. I 've just paid for 
 a nine days' mass for his soul. And I can tell you 
 
324 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 this, signore, I never deceived him. Who put it into 
 his head that I was made to live on holy thoughts 
 and fine phrases ? It was his own fancy, and it 
 pleased him to think so. Did he suffer much ? " she 
 added more softly, after a pause. 
 
 " His sufferings were great, but they were short.'' 
 
 " And did he speak of me ? " She had hesitated and 
 dropped her eyes ; she raised them with her question, 
 and revealed in their sombre stillness a gleam of femi- 
 nine confidence which, for the moment, revived and 
 illumined her beauty. Poor Theobald ! Whatever 
 name he had given his passion, it was still her fine 
 eyes that had charmed him. 
 
 Be contented, madam," I answered, gravely. 
 
 She dropped her eyes again and was silent. Then 
 exhaling a full, rich sigh, as she gathered her shawl 
 together : " He was a magnificent genius ! " 
 
 I bowed, and we separated. 
 
 Passing through a narrow side-street on my way 
 back to my hotel, I perceived above a doorway a sign 
 which it seemed to me I had read before. I suddenly 
 remembered that it was identical with the superscrip- 
 tion of a card that I had carried for an hour in my 
 waistcoat-pocket. On the threshold stood the ingen- 
 ious artist whose claims to public favor were thus dis- 
 tinctly signalized, smoking a pipe in the evening air, 
 and giving the finishing polish with a bit of rag to 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 325 
 
 one of his inimitable combinations." I caught the 
 expressive curl of a couple of tails. He recognized 
 me, removed his little red cap with a most obsequi- 
 ous bow, and motioned me to enter his studio. I 
 returned his bow and passed on, vexed with the ap- 
 parition. For a week afterwards, whenever I was 
 seized among the ruins of triumphant Eome with 
 some peculiarly poignant memory of Theobald's tran- 
 scendent illusions and deplorable failure, I seemed 
 to hear a fantastic, impertinent murmur, Cats and 
 monkeys, monkeys and cats ; all human life is 
 there ! " 
 
I 
 
THE 
 
 Romance of Certain Old Clothes. 
 
THE 
 
 ROMANCE OF CERTim OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 TOWAED the middle of the eighteenth century 
 there lived in the Province of Massachusetts 
 a widowed gentlewoman, the mother of three chil- 
 dren. Her name is of little account : I shall take 
 .the liberty of calling her Mrs. Willoughby, — a name, 
 like her own, of a highly respectable sound. She had 
 been left a widow after some six years of marriage, 
 and had devoted herself to the care of her progeny. 
 These young persons grew up in a manner to reward 
 her zeal and to gratify her fondest hopes. The first- 
 born was a son, whom she had called Bernard, after 
 his father. The others were daughters, — born at an 
 interval of three years apart. Good looks were tra- 
 ditional in the family, and this youthful trio were 
 not likely to allow the tradition to perish. The boy 
 was of that fair and ruddy complexion and of that 
 athletic mould which in those days (as in these) were 
 the sign of genuine English blood, — a frank, affec- 
 
330 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 tionate young fellow, a deferential son, a patronizing 
 brother, and a steadfast friend. Clever, however, he 
 was not ; the wit of the family had been apportioned 
 chiefly to his sisters. Mr. Willoughby had been a 
 great reader of Shakespeare, at a time when this 
 pursuit implied more liberality of taste than at the 
 present day, and in a community where it required 
 much courage to patronize the drama even in the 
 closet ; and he had wished to record his admiration 
 of the great poet by calling his daughters out of his 
 favorite plays. Upon the elder he had bestowed the 
 romantic name of Viola; and upon the younger, the 
 more serious one of Perdita, in memory of a little 
 girl born between them, who had lived but a few 
 weeks. 
 
 When Bernard Willoughby came to his sixteenth 
 year, his mother put a brave face upon it, and pre- 
 pared to execute her husband's last request. This 
 had been an earnest entreaty that, at the proper age, 
 his son should be sent out to England, to complete 
 his education at the University of Oxford, which had 
 been the seat of his own studies. Mrs. Willoughby 
 fancied that the lad's equal was not to be found in 
 the two hemispheres, but she had the antique wifely 
 submissiveness. She swallowed her sobs, and made 
 up her boy's trunk and his simple provincial outfit, 
 and sent him on his way across the seas. Bernard 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 331 
 
 was entered at his father's college, and spent five 
 years in England, without great honor, indeed, but 
 with a vast deal of pleasure and no discredit. On 
 leaving the University he made the journey to France. 
 In his twenty-third year he took ship for home, pre- 
 pared to find poor little New England (New England 
 was very small in those days) an utterly intolerable 
 place of abode. But there had been changes at home, 
 as well as in Mr. Bernard's opinions. He found his 
 mother's house quite habitable, and his sisters grown 
 into two very charming young ladies, with all the 
 accomplishments and graces of the young women of 
 Britain, and a certain native-grown gentle hrusquerie 
 and wildness, which, if it was not an accomplishment, 
 was certainly a grace the more. Bernard privately 
 assured his mother that his sisters were fully a match 
 for the most genteel young women in England ; where- 
 upon poor Mrs. Willoughby, you may be sure, bade 
 them hold up their heads. Such was Bernard's opin- 
 ion, and such, in a tenfold higher degree, was the opin- 
 ion of Mr. Arthur Lloyd. This gentleman, I hasten 
 to add, was a college-mate of Mr. Bernard, a young 
 man of reputable family, of a good person and a 
 handsome inheritance ; which latter appurtenance he 
 proposed to invest in trade in this country. He and 
 Bernard were warm friends ; they had crossed the ocean 
 together, and the young American had lost no time in 
 
332 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 presenting him at his mother's house, where he had 
 made quite as good an impression as that which he 
 had received, and of which I have just given a hint. 
 
 The two sisters were at this time in all the freshness 
 of their youthful bloom ; each wearing, of course, this 
 natural brilliancy in the manner that became her best. 
 They were equally dissimilar in appearance and char- 
 acter. Viola, the elder, — now in her twenty-second 
 year, — was tall and fair, with calm gray eyes and 
 auburn tresses ; a very faint likeness to the Viola of 
 Shakespeare's comedy, whom I imagine as a brunette 
 (if you will), but a slender, airy creature, full of the 
 softest and finest emotions. Miss Willoughby, with 
 her candid complexion, her fine arms, her majestic 
 height, and her slow utterance, was not cut out for 
 adventures. She would never have put on a man's 
 jacket and hose ; and, indeed, being a very plump 
 beauty, it is perhaps as well that she would not. 
 Perdita, too, might very well have exchanged the 
 sweet melancholy of her name against something more 
 in consonance with her aspect and disposition. She 
 was a positive brunette, short of stature, light of foot, 
 with a vivid dark brown eye. She had been from her 
 childhood a creature of smiles and gayety ; and so far 
 from making you wait for an answer to your speech, 
 as her handsome sister was wont to do (while she 
 gazed at you with her somewhat cold gray eyes), she 
 
THE ROMAN JE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 333 
 
 had given you the choice of half a dozen, suggested 
 by the successive clauses of your proposition, before 
 you had got to the end of it. 
 
 The young girls were very glad to see their brother 
 once more ; but they found themselves quite able to 
 maintain a reserve of good-will for their brother's 
 friend. Among the young men their friends and 
 neighbors, the helle jeunesse of the Colony, there were 
 many excellent fellows, several devoted swains, and 
 some two or three who enjoyed the reputation of 
 universal charmers and conquerors. But the home- 
 bred arts and the somewhat boisterous gallantry of 
 those honest young colonists were completely eclipsed 
 by the good looks, the fine clothes, the punctilious 
 courtesy, the perfect elegance, the immense informa- 
 tion, of Mr. Arthur Lloyd. He was in reality no 
 paragon ; he was an honest, resolute, intelligent young 
 man, rich in pounds sterling, in his health and com- 
 fortable hopes, and his little capital of uninvested 
 affections. But he was a gentleman ; he had a hand- 
 some face ; he had studied and travelled ; he spoke 
 French, he played on the flute, and he read verses 
 aloud with very great taste. There were a dozen 
 reasons why Miss Willoughby and her sister should 
 forthwith have been rendered fastidious in the choice 
 of their male acquaintance. The imagination of wo- 
 man is especially adapted to the various small conven- 
 
334 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 tions and mysteries of polite society. Mr. Lloyd's 
 talk told our little New England maidens a vast deal 
 more of the ways and means of people of fashion in 
 European capitals than he had any idea of doing. It 
 was delightful to sit by and hear him and Bernard 
 discourse upon the fine people and fine things they 
 had seen. They would all gather round the fire after 
 tea, in the little wainscoted parlor, — quite innocent 
 then of any intention of being picturesque or of being 
 anything else, indeed, than economical, and saving an 
 outlay in stamped papers and tapestries, — and the two 
 young men would remind each other, across the rug, 
 of this, that, and the other adventure. Viola and 
 Perdita would often have given their ears to know 
 exactly what adventure it was, and where it happened, 
 and who was there, and what the ladies had on ; but 
 in those days a well-bred young woman was not ex- 
 pected to break into the conversation of her own 
 movement or to ask too many questions ; and the poor 
 girls used therefore to sit fluttering behind the more 
 languid — or more discreet — curiosity of their mother. 
 
 That they were both very fine girls Arthur Lloyd 
 was not slow to discover ; but it took him some time to 
 satisfy himself as to the apportionment of their charms. 
 He had a strong presentiment — an emotion of a na- 
 ture entirely too cheerful to be called a foreboding — 
 that he was destined to marry one of them ; yet he was 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 335 
 
 unable to arrive at a preference, and for such a con- 
 summation a preference was certainly indispensable, 
 inasmuch as Lloyd was quite too gallant a fellow to 
 make a choice by lot and be cheated of the heavenly 
 delight of falling in love. He resolved to take things 
 easily, and to let his heart speak. Meanwhile, he was 
 on a very pleasant footing. Mrs. Willoughby showed 
 a dignified indifference to his " intentions,'' equally re- 
 mote from a carelessness of her daughters' honor and 
 from that odious alacrity to make him commit himself, 
 which, in his quality of a young man of property, he 
 had but too often encountered in the venerable dames 
 of his native islands. As for Bernard, all that he asked 
 was that his friend should take his sisters as his own ; 
 and as for the poor girls themselves, however each may 
 have secretly longed for the monopoly of Mr. Lloyd's 
 attentions, they observed a very decent and modest 
 and contented demeanor. 
 
 Towards each other, however, they were somewhat 
 more on the offensive. They were good sisterly friends, 
 betwixt whom it would take more than a day for the 
 seeds of jealousy to sprout and bear fruit ; but the 
 young girls felt that the seeds had been sown on the 
 day that Mr. Lloyd came into the house. Each made 
 up her mind that, if she should be slighted, she would 
 bear her grief in silence, and that no one should be any 
 the wiser ; for if they had a great deal of love, they 
 
336 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 had also a great deal of pride. But each prayed in 
 secret, nevertheless, that upon her the glory might fall. 
 They had need of a vast deal of patience, of self-control, 
 and of dissimulation. In those days a young girl of 
 decent breeding could make no advances whatever, and 
 barely respond, indeed, to those that were made. She 
 was expected to sit still in her chair with her eyes on 
 the carpet, watching the spot where the mystic hand- 
 kerchief should fall. Poor Arthur Lloyd was obliged 
 to undertake his wooing in the little wainscoted par- 
 lor, before the eyes of Mrs. Willoughby, her son, and 
 his prospective sister-in-law. But youth and love are 
 so cunning that a hundred signs and tokens might 
 travel to and fro, and not one of these three pair of 
 eyes detect them in their passage. The young girls 
 had but one chamber and one bed between them, and 
 for long hours together they were under each other's 
 direct inspection. That each knew that she was being 
 watched, however, made not a grain of difference in 
 those little offices which they mutually rendered, or 
 in the various household tasks which they performed 
 in common. Neither flinched nor fluttered beneath 
 the silent batteries of her sister's eyes. The only ap- 
 parent change in their habits was that they had less 
 to say to each other. It was impossible to talk about 
 Mr. Lloyd, and it was ridiculous to talk about any- 
 thing else. By tacit agreement they began to wear 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 337 
 
 all their choice finery, and to devise such little im- 
 plements of coquetry, in the way of ribbons and top- 
 knots and furbelows as were sanctioned by indubitable 
 modesty. They executed in the same inarticulate 
 fashion an agreement of sincerity on these delicate 
 matters. " Is it better so ? " Viola would ask, tying 
 a bunch of ribbons on her bosom, and turning about 
 from her glass to her sister. Perdita would look up 
 gravely from her work and examine the decoration. 
 " I think you had better give it another loop," she 
 would say, with great solemnity, looking hard at her 
 sister with eyes that, added, " upon my honor ! " So 
 they were forever stitching and trimming their petti- 
 coats, and pressing out their muslins, and contriving 
 washes and ointments and cosmetics, like the ladies 
 in the household of the Vicar of Wakefield. Some 
 three or four months went by; it grew to be mid- 
 winter, and as yet Viola knew that if Perdita had 
 nothing more to boast of than she, there v/as not 
 much to be feared from her rivalry. But Perdita by 
 this time, the charming Perdita, felt that her secret 
 had grown to be tenfold more precious than her sis- 
 ter's. 
 
 One afternoon Miss Willoughby sat alone before her 
 toilet-glass combing out her long hair. It was getting 
 too dark to see ; she lit the two candles in their sock- 
 ► ets on the frame of her mirror, and then went to the 
 
 15 V 
 
338 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 window to draw her curtains. It was a gray Decem- 
 ber evening; the landscape was bare and bleak, and 
 the sky heavy with snow-clouds. At the end of the 
 long garden into which her window looked was a wall 
 with a little postern door, opening into a lane. The 
 door stood ajar, as she could vaguely see in the gath- 
 ering darkness, and moved slowly to and fro, as if 
 some one were swaying it from the lane without. It 
 was doubtless a servant-maid. But as she was about 
 to drop her curtain, Viola saw her sister step within 
 the garden, and hurry along the path toward the 
 house. She dropped the curtain, all save a little 
 crevice for her eyes. As Perdita came up the path, 
 she seemed to be examining something in her hand, 
 holding it close to her eyes. When she reached the 
 house she stopped a moment, looked intently at the 
 object, and pressed it to her lips. 
 
 Poor Viola slowly came back to her chair, and sat 
 down before her glass, where, if she had looked at it 
 less abstractedly, she would have seen her handsome 
 features sadly disfigured by jealousy. A moment 
 afterwards the door opened behind her, and her sister 
 came into the room, out of breath, and her cheeks 
 aglow with the chilly air. 
 
 Perdita started. " Ah," said she, " I thought you 
 were with our mother." The ladies were to go to a 
 tea-party, and on such occasions it was the habit of i 
 
THE ROMAXCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 339 
 
 one of the young girls to help their mother to dress. 
 Instead of coming in, Perdita lingered at the door. 
 
 " Come in, come in," said Viola. " We 've more 
 than an hour yet. I should like you very much to 
 give a few strokes to my hair." She knew that her 
 sister wished to retreat, and that she could see in 
 the glass all her movements in the room. " Nay, just 
 help me with my hair," she said, " and I '11 go to 
 mamma." 
 
 Perdita came reluctantly, and took the brush. She 
 saw her sister's eyes, in the glass, fastened hard upon 
 her hands. She had not made three passes, when Vi- 
 ola clapped her own right hand upon her sister's left, 
 and started out of her chair. " Whose ring is that ? " 
 she cried passionately, drawing her towards the light. 
 
 On the young girl's third finger glistened a little 
 gold ring, adorned with a couple of small rubies. 
 Perdita felt that she need no longer keep her secret, 
 yet that she must put a bold face on her avowal. 
 " It 's mine," she said proudly. 
 
 " Who gave it to you ? " cried the other. 
 
 Perdita hesitated a moment. "Mr. Lloyd." 
 
 "Mr. Lloyd is generous, all of a sudden." 
 
 "Ah no," cried Perdita, with spirit, "not all of a 
 sudden. He offered it to me a month ago." 
 
 " And you needed a month's begging to take it ? " 
 said Viola, looking at the little trinket ; which indeed 
 
340 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OL0 CLOTHES. 
 
 was not especially elegant, although it was the best 
 that the jeweller of the Province could furnish. " I 
 should n't have taken it in less than two." 
 
 "It isn't the ring," said Perdita, "it's what it 
 means ! " 
 
 " It means that you 're not a modest girl/' cried 
 Viola. "Pray does your mother know of your con- 
 duct ? does Bernard ? " 
 
 " My mother has approved my ' conduct,' as you call 
 it. Mr. Lloyd has asked my hand, and mamma has 
 given it. Would you have had him apply to you, 
 sister ? " 
 
 Viola gave her sister a long look, full of passionate 
 envy and sorrow. Then she dropped her lashes on 
 her pale cheeks and turned away. Perdita felt that 
 it had not been a pretty scene ; but it was her sister's 
 fault. But the elder girl rapidly called back her 
 pride, and turned herself about again. " You have ! 
 my very best wishes," she said, with a low curtsey.! 
 "I wish you every happiness, and a very long life."'; 
 
 Perdita gave a bitter laugh. " Don't speak in that 
 tone," she cried. " I 'd rather you cursed me outright. 
 Come, sister," she added, " he could n't marry both 
 of us." 
 
 " I wish you very great joy," Viola repeated mechan- 
 ically, sitting down to her glass again, " and a very 
 long life, and plenty of children." 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES 341 
 
 m There was something in the sound of these words 
 not at all to Perdita's taste. " Will you give me a 
 year, at least ? " she said. " In a year I can have one 
 little boy, — or one little girl at least. If you 11 give 
 me your brush r.gain I'll do your hair." 
 
 " Thank you," said Viola. " You had better go to 
 mamma. It is n't becoming that a young lady with a 
 promised husband should wait on a girl with none." 
 
 " Nay," said Perdita, good-humoredly, " I have Ar- 
 thur to wait upon me. You need my service more 
 than I need yours." 
 
 But her sister motioned her away, and she left the 
 room. When she had gone poor Viola fell on her 
 knees before her dressing-table, buried her head in her 
 arms, and poured out a flood of tears and sobs. She 
 felt very much the better for this effusion of sorrow. 
 When her sister came back, she insisted upon helping 
 her to dress, and upon her wearing her prettiest things. 
 She forced upon her acceptance a bit of lace of her 
 own, and declared that now that she was to be married 
 she should do her best to appear worthy of her lover's 
 choice. She discharged these offices in stern silence ; 
 but, such as they were, they had to do duty as an 
 apology and an atonement ; she never made any other. 
 
 Now that Lloyd was received by the family as an 
 accepted suitor, nothing remained but to fix the wed- 
 ding-day. It was appointed for the following April, 
 
342 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 and in the interval preparations were diligently made 
 for the marriage. Lloyd, on his side, was busy with 
 his commercial arrangements, and with establishing 
 a correspondence with the great mercantile house to 
 which he had attached himself in England. He was 
 therefore not so frequent a visitor at Mrs. Willough- 
 by's as during the months of his diffidence and irres- 
 olution, and poor Viola had less to suffer than she 
 had feared from the sight of the mutual endearments 
 of the young lovers. Touching his future sister-in- 
 law, Lloyd had a perfectly clear conscience. There 
 had not been a particle of sentiment uttered between 
 them, and he had not the slightest suspicion that she 
 coveted anything more than his fraternal regard. He 
 was quite at his ease; life promised so well, both domes- 
 tically and financially. The lurid clouds of revolution 
 were as yet twenty years beneath the horizon, and that 
 his connubial felicity should take a tragic turn it was 
 absurd, it was blasphemous, to apprehend. Meanwhile 
 at Mrs. Willoughby's there was a greater rustling of 
 silks, a more rapid clicking of scissors and flying of 
 needles, than ever. Mrs. Willoughby had determined 
 that her daughter should carry from home the most 
 elegant outfit that her money could buy, or that the 
 country could furnish. All the sage women in tlie 
 county were convened, and' their united taste was 
 brought to bear on Perdita's wardrobe. Viola's situa- 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 343 
 
 tion, at this moment, was assuredly not to be envied. 
 The poor girl had an inordinate love of dress, and the 
 very best taste in the world, as her sister perfectly well 
 knew. Viola was tall, she was stately and sweeping, 
 she was made to carry stiff brocade and masses of 
 heavy lace, such as belong to the toilet of a rich man's 
 wife. But Viola sat aloof, with her beautiful arms 
 folded and her head averted, while her mother and 
 sister and the venerable women aforesaid worried and 
 wondered over their materials, oppressed by the multi- 
 tude of their resources. One day there came in a beau- 
 tiful piece of white silk, brocaded with celestial blue 
 and silver, sent by the bridegroom himself, — it not 
 being thought amiss in those days that the husband 
 elect should contribute to the bride's trousseau. Perdita 
 was quite at loss to imagine a fashion which should 
 do sufficient honor to the splendor of the material. 
 
 Blue 's your color, sister, more than mine," she said, 
 with appealing eyes. " It 's a pity it 's not for you. 
 You 'd know w^hat to do with it." 
 
 Viola got up from her place and looked at the great 
 shining fabric as it lay spread over the back of a chair. 
 Then she took it up in her hands and felt it, — lov- 
 ingly, as Perdita could see, — and turned about tow^ard 
 the mirror with it. She let it roll down to her feet, 
 and flung the other end over her shoulder, gathering it 
 ill about her Avaist with her white arm bare to the 
 
344 THE KOMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD t^LOTHES. 
 
 elbow. She threw back her head, and looked at her 
 image, and a hanging tress of her auburn hair fell upon 
 the gorgeous surface of the silk. It made a dazzling 
 picture. The women standing about uttered a little 
 " Ah ! " of admiration. Yes, indeed," said Viola, quiet- 
 ly, blue is my color." But Perdita could see that her 
 fancy had been stirred, and that she would now fall to 
 work and solve all their silken riddles. And indeed 
 she behaved very well, as Perdita, knowing her insatia- 
 ble love of millinery, was quite ready to declare. In- 
 numerable yards of lustrous silk and satin, of muslin, 
 velvet, and lace, passed through her cunning hands, 
 without a word of envy coming from her lips. Thanks 
 to her industry, when the wedding-day came Perdita 
 was prepared to espouse more of the vanities of life 
 than any fluttering young bride who had yet challenged 
 the sacramental blessing of a New England divine. 
 
 It had been arranged that the young couple should 
 go out and spend the first days of their wedded life at 
 the country house of an English gentleman, — a man 
 of rank and a very kind friend to Lloyd. He was 
 an unmarried man ; he professed himself delighted to 
 withdraw and leave them for a week to their billing 
 and cooing. After the ceremony at church, — it had 
 been performed by an English parson, — young Mrs. 
 Lloyd hastened back to her mother's house to change 
 her wedding gear for a riding-dress. Viola helped her 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 345 
 
 to effect the change, in the little old room in which 
 they had been fond sisters together. Perdita then hur- 
 ried off to bid farewell to her mother, leaving Viola 
 to follow. The parting was short ; the horses were at 
 the door and Arthur impatient to start. But Viola 
 had not followed, and Perdita hastened back to her 
 room, opening the door abruptly. Viola, as usual, was 
 before the glass, but in a position which caused the 
 other to stand still, amazed. She had dressed herself 
 in Perdita's cast-off wedding veil and wreath, and on 
 her neck she had hung the heavy string of pearls 
 which the young girl had received from her husband 
 as a wedding-gift. These things had been hastily laid 
 aside, to await their possessor s disposal on her return 
 from the country. Bedizened in this unnatural garb, 
 Viola stood at the mirror, plunging a long look into 
 its depths, and reading Heaven knows what audacious 
 visions. Perdita was horrified. It was a hideous im- 
 age of their old rivalry come to life again. She made 
 a step toward her sister, as if to pull off the veil and 
 the flowers. But catching her eyes in the glass, she 
 stopped. 
 
 " Farewell, Viola," she said. " You might at least 
 have waited till I had got out of the house." And 
 she hurried away from the room. 
 
 Mr. Lloyd had purchased in Boston a house which, 
 in the taste of those days, was considered a marvel 
 15 * 
 
346 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 of elegance and comfort ; and here he very soon 
 established himself with his young wife. He was 
 thus separated by a distance of twenty miles from 
 the residence of his mother-in-law. Twenty miles, in 
 that primitive era of roads and conveyances, were as 
 serious a matter as a hundred at the present day, 
 and Mrs. Willoughby saw but little of her daughter 
 during the first twelvemonth of her marriage. She 
 suffered in no small degree from her absence ; and 
 her affliction was not diminished by the fact that 
 Viola had fallen into terribly low spirits and was 
 not to be roused or cheered but by change of air 
 and circumstances. The real cause of the young 
 girl's dejection the reader will not be slow to sus- 
 pect. Mrs. Willoughby and her gossips, however, 
 deemed her complaint a purely physical one, and 
 doubted not that she would obtain relief from the 
 remedy just mentioned. Her mother accordingly pro- 
 posed on her behalf a visit to certain relatives on 
 the paternal side, established in New York, who had 
 long complained that they were able to see so lit- 
 tle of their New England cousins. Viola was de- 
 spatched to these good people, under a suitable 
 escort, and remained with them for several months. 
 In the interval her brother Bernard, who had begun 
 the practice of the law, made up his mind to take 
 a wife. Viola came home to the wedding, appar- 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 347 
 
 ently cured of her heartache, with honest roses and 
 lilies in her face, and a proud smile on her lips. 
 Arthur Lloyd came over from Boston to see his 
 brother-in-law married, but without his wife, who 
 was expecting shortly to present him with an heir. 
 It was nearly a year since Viola had seen him. She 
 was glad — she hardly knew why — that Perdita 
 had stayed at home. Arthur looked happy, but he 
 was more grave and solemn than before his mar- 
 riage. She thought he looked " interesting," — for 
 although the word in its modern sense was not 
 then invented, we may be sure that the idea was> 
 The truth is, he was simply preoccupied with his 
 wife's condition. Nevertheless, he by no means failed 
 to observe Viola's beauty and splendor, and how she 
 quite effaced the poor little bride. The allowance 
 that Perdita had enjoyed for her dress had now been 
 transferred to her sister, who turned it to prodigious 
 account. On the morning after the wedding, he had 
 a lady's saddle put on the horse of the servant who 
 had come with him from town, and went out with 
 the young girl for a ride. It was a keen, clear 
 morning in January ; the ground was bare and hard, 
 and the horses in good condition, — to say nothing 
 of Viola, who was charming in her hat and plume, 
 and her dark blue riding-coat, trimmed with fur. 
 They rode all the morning, they lost their way, and 
 
348 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 were obliged to stop for dinner at a farm-house. 
 The early winter dusk had fallen when they got 
 home. Mrs. Willoughby met them with a long face. 
 A messenger had arrived at noon from Mrs. Lloyd ; 
 she was beginning to be ill, and desired her hus- 
 band's immediate return. The young man, at the 
 thought that he had lost several hours, and that 
 by hard riding he might already have been with 
 his wife, uttered a passionate oath. He barely con- 
 sented to stop for a mouthful of supper, but mount- 
 ed the messenger's horse and started otf at a gallop. 
 
 He reached home at midnight. His wife had been 
 delivered of a little girl. " Ah, why were n't you 
 with me ? " she said, as he came to her bedside. 
 
 "I was out of the house when the man came. I 
 was with Viola," said Lloyd, innocently. 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd made a little moan, and turned about. 
 But she continued to do very well, and for a week 
 her improvement was uninterrupted. Finally, how- 
 ever, through some indiscretion in the way of diet 
 or of exposure, it was checked, and the poor lady 
 grew rapidly worse. Lloyd was in despair. It very 
 soon became evident that she was breathing her last. 
 Mrs. Lloyd came to a sense of her approaching end, 
 and declared that she was reconciled with death. 
 On the third evening after the change took place 
 she told her liusband that she felt she would not 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 349 
 
 outlast the night. She dismissed her servants, and 
 also requested her mother to withdraw, — Mrs. Wil- 
 loughby having arrived on the preceding day. She 
 had had her infant placed on the bed beside her, 
 and she lay on her side, with the child against her 
 breast, holding her husband's hands. The night-lamp 
 was hidden behind the heavy curtains of the bed, 
 but the room was illumined with a red glow from 
 the immense fire of logs on the hearth. 
 
 "It seems strange to die by such a fire as that," 
 the young woman said, feebly trying to smile. If 
 I had but a little of such fire in my veins ! But I Ve 
 given it all to this little spark of mortality." And 
 she dropped her eyes on her child. Then raising 
 them she looked at her husband with a long pene- 
 trating gaze. The last feeling which lingered in her 
 heart was one of mistrust. She had not recovered 
 from the shock which Arthur had given her by tell- 
 ing her that in the hour of her agony he had been 
 with Viola. She trusted her husband very nearly as 
 well as she loved him ; but now that she was called 
 away forever, she felt a cold horror of her sister. She 
 felt in her soul that Viola had never ceased to envy 
 her good fortune; and a year of happy security had 
 not effaced the young girl's image, dressed in her 
 wedding garments, and smiling with coveted triumph. 
 Now that Arthur was to be alone, what might not 
 
350 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 Viola do ? She was beautiful, she was engaging ; 
 what arts might she not use, what impression might 
 she not make upon the young man's melancholy 
 heart ? Mrs. Lloyd looked at her husband in silence. 
 It seemed hard, after all, to doubt of his constancy. 
 His fine eyes were filled with tears ; his face was 
 convulsed with weeping; the clasp of his hands was 
 warm and passionate. How noble he looked, how 
 tender, how faithful and devoted ! " Nay," thought 
 Perdita, " he 's not for such as Viola. He 11 never 
 forget me. Nor does Viola truly care for him; she 
 cares only for vanities and finery and jewels." And 
 she dropped her eyes on her white hands, which her 
 husband's liberality had covered with rings, and on 
 the lace ruffles which trimmed the edge of her night- 
 dress. " She covets my rings and my laces more than 
 she covets my husband." 
 
 At this moment the thought of her sister's rapacity 
 seemed to cast a dark shadow between her and the 
 helpless figure of her little girl. "Arthur," she said, 
 "you must take off my rings. I shall not be buried 
 in them. One of these days my daughter shall wear 
 them, — my rings and my laces and silks. I had 
 them all brought out and shown me to-day. It's a 
 great wardrobe, — there 's not such another in the 
 Province ; I can say it without vanity now that I 've 
 done with it. It will be a great inheritance for my 
 
THE EOMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 351 
 
 daughter, when she grows into a young woman. 
 There are things there that a man never buys twice, 
 and if they 're lost you '11 never again see the like. 
 So you '11 watch them well. Some dozen things I 've 
 left to Viola ; I Ve named them to my mother. 1 've 
 given her that blue and silver; it was meant for 
 her ; I wore it only once, I looked ill in it. But the 
 rest are to be sacredly kept for this little innocent. 
 It 's such a providence that she should be my color ; 
 she can wear my gowns ; she has her mother's eyes. 
 You know the same fashions come back every twenty 
 years. She can wear my gowns as they are. They '11 
 lie there quietly waiting till she grows into them, — 
 wrapped in camphor and rose-leaves, and keeping 
 their colors in the sweet-scented darkness. She shall 
 have black hair, she shall wear my carnation satin. 
 Do you promise me, Arthur ? " 
 Promise you what, dearest ? " 
 "Promise me to keep your poor little wife's old 
 gowns.'* 
 
 " Are you afraid I '11 sell them ? " 
 No, but that they may get scattered. My mother 
 will have them properly wrapped up, and you shall 
 lay them away under a double-lock. Do you know 
 the great chest in the attic, with the iron bands ? 
 There's no end to what it will hold. You can lay 
 them all there. My mother and the housekeeper will 
 
352 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CtOTHES. 
 
 do it, and give you the key. And you 11 keep the key 
 in your secretary, and never give it to any one but 
 your child. Do you promise me ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, I promise you," said Lloyd, puzzled at the 
 intensity with which his wife appeared to cling to this 
 idea. 
 
 Will you swear ? " repeated Perdita. 
 " Yes, I swear." 
 
 "Well — I trust you — I trust you," said the poor 
 lady, looking into his eyes with eyes in which, if he 
 had suspected her vague apprehensions, he might have 
 read an appeal quite as much as an assurance. 
 
 Lloyd bore his bereavement soberly and manfully. 
 A month after his wife's death, in the course of 
 commerce, circumstances arose which offered him an 
 opportunity of going to England. He embraced it 
 as a diversion from gloomy thoughts. He was absent 
 nearly a year, during which his little girl was ten- 
 derly nursed and cherished by her grandmother. On 
 his return he had his house again thrown open, and 
 announced his intention of keeping the same state as 
 during his wife's lifetime. It very soon came to be 
 predicted that he would marry again, and there were 
 at least a dozen young women of whom one may say 
 that it was by no fault of theirs that, for six months 
 after his return, the prediction did not come true. 
 During this interval he still left his little daughter 
 
I THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 353 
 
 in Mrs. Willoughby's hands, the latter assuring him 
 that a change of residence at so tender an age was 
 perilous to her health. Finally, however, he declared 
 that his heart longed for his daughter's presence, and 
 that she must be brought up to town. He sent his 
 coach and his housekeeper to fetch her home. Mrs. 
 Willoughby was in terror lest something should befall 
 her on the road ; and, in accordance with this feeling, 
 Viola offered to ride along with her. She could return 
 the next day. So she went up to town with her lit- 
 tle niece, and Mr. Lloyd met her on the threshold of 
 his house, overcome with her kindness and with grati- 
 tude. Instead of returning the next day, Viola stayed 
 out the week ; and when at last she reappeared, she 
 had only come for her clothes. Arthur would not hear 
 of her coming home, nor would the baby. She cried 
 and moaned if Viola left her ; and at the sight of her 
 grief Arthur lost his wits, and swore that she was 
 going to die. In fine, nothing would suit them but 
 that Viola should remain until the poor child had 
 grown used to strange faces. 
 
 It took two months to bring this consummation 
 about; for it was not until this period had elapsed 
 that Viola took leave of her brother-in-law. Mrs. Wil- 
 loughby had shaken her head over her daughter's ab- 
 sence ; she had declared that it was not becoming, and 
 
 that it was the talk of the town. She had reconciled 
 
 w 
 
354 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 herself to it only because, during the young girl's visit, 
 the household enjoyed an unwonted term of peace. 
 Bernard Willoughby had brought his wife home to 
 live, between whom and her sister-in-law there existed 
 a bitter hostility. Viola was perhaps no angel ; but 
 in the daily practice of life she was a sufficiently good- 
 natured girl, and if she quarrelled with Mrs. Bernard, 
 it was not without provocation. Quarrel, however, she 
 did, to the great annoyance not only of her antagonist, 
 but of the two spectators of these constant altercations. 
 Her stay in the household of her brother-in-law, there- 
 fore, would have been delightful, if only because it 
 removed her from contact with the object of her an- 
 tipathy at home. It was doubly — it was ten times — 
 delightful, in that it kept her near the object of her 
 old passion. Mrs. Lloyd's poignant mistrust had fallen 
 very far short of the truth. Viola's sentiment had 
 been a passion at first, and a passion it remained, — 
 a passion of whose radiant heat, tempered to the deli- 
 cate state of his feelings, Mr. Lloyd very soon felt the 
 influence. Lloyd, as I have hinted, was not a modern 
 Petrarch ; it was not in his nature to practise an ideal 
 constancy. He had not been many days in the house 
 with his sister-in-law before he began to assure him- 
 self that she was, in the language of that day, a devil- 
 ish fine woman. Whether Viola really practised those 
 insidious arts that her sister had been tempted to im- 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 355 
 
 pute to lier it is needless to inquire. It is enough to 
 say that she found means to appear to the very best 
 advantage. She used to seat herseK every morning be- 
 fore the great fireplace in the dining-room, at work 
 upon a piece of tapestry, with her little niece disport- 
 ing herself on the carpet at her feet, or on the train of 
 her dress, and playing with her woollen balls. Lloyd 
 would have been a very stupid fellow if he had re- 
 mained insensible to the rich suggestions of this charm- 
 ing picture. He was prodigiously fond of his little girl, 
 and was never weary of taking her in his arms and 
 tossing her up and down, and making her crow wdth 
 delight. Very often, however, he would venture upon 
 greater liberties than the young lady was yet prepared 
 to allow, and she would suddenly vociferate her dis- 
 pleasure. Viola would then drop her tapestry, and 
 put out her handsome hands with the serious smile of 
 the young girl whose virgin fancy has revealed to her 
 all a mother's healing arts. Lloyd would give up the 
 child, their eyes would meet, their hands would touch, 
 and Viola would extinguish the little girl's sobs upon 
 the snowy folds of the kerchief that crossed her bosom. 
 Her dignity was perfect, and nothing could be more 
 discreet than the manner in which she accepted her 
 brother-in-law's hospitality. It may be almost said, 
 perhaps, that there was something harsh in her re- 
 serve. Lloyd had a provoking feeling that she was 
 
356 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 in the house, and yet that she was unapproachable. 
 Half an hour after supper, at the very outset of the 
 long winter evenings, she would light her candle, 
 and make the young man a most respectful curtsey, 
 and march off to bed. If these were arts, Viola was 
 a great artist. But their effect was so gentle, so 
 gradual, they were calculated to work upon the young 
 widower's fancy with such a finely shaded crescendo, 
 that, as the reader has seen, several weeks elapsed 
 before Viola began to feel sure that her return would 
 cover her outlay. When this became morally cer- 
 tain, she packed up her trunk, and returned to her 
 mother's house. For three days she waited; on the 
 fourth Mr. Lloyd made his appearance, — a respect- 
 ful but ardent suitor. Viola heard him out with 
 great humility, and accepted him with infinite mod- 
 esty. It is hard to imagine that Mrs. Lloyd should 
 have forgiven her husband ; but if anything might 
 have disarmed her resentment, it would have been 
 the ceremonious continence of this interview. Viola 
 imposed upon her lover but a short probation. They 
 were married, as was becoming, with great privacy, 
 — almost with secrecy, — in the hope perhaps, as was 
 waggishly remarked at the time, that the late Mrs. 
 Lloyd would n't hear of it. 
 
 The marriage was to all appearance a happy one, 
 and each party obtained what each had desired — 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 357 
 
 Lloyd a devilish fine woman/' and Viola — but Vi- 
 ola's desires, as the reader will have observed, have 
 remained a good deal of a mystery. There were, 
 indeed, two blots upon their felicity ; but time would, 
 perhaps, efface them. During the first three years 
 of her marriage Mrs. Lloyd failed to become a 
 mother, and her husband on his side suffered heavy 
 losses of money. This latter circumstance compelled 
 a material retrenchment in his expenditure, and Vi- 
 ola was perforce less of a great lady than her sister 
 had been. She contrived, however, to sustain with 
 unbroken consistency the part of an elegant woman, 
 although it must be confessed that it required the 
 exercise of more ingenuity than belongs to your 'real 
 aristocratic repose. She had long since ascertained that 
 her sister's immense wardrobe had been sequestrated 
 for the benefit of her daughter, and that it lay lan- 
 guishing in thankless gloom in the dusty attic. It 
 was a revolting thought that these exquisite fabrics 
 should await the commands of a little girl who sat 
 in a high chair and ate bread-and-milk with a wooden 
 spoon. Viola had the good taste, however, to say 
 nothing about the matter until several months had 
 expired. Then, at last, she timidly broached it to her, 
 husband. Was it not a pity that so much finery 
 should be lost ? — for lost it would be, what with col- 
 ors fading, and moths eating it up, and the change 
 
358 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 of fashions. But Lloyd gave so abrupt and peremp- 
 tory a negative to her inquiry, that she saw that 
 for the present her attempt was vain. Six. months 
 went by, however, and brought with them new needs 
 and new fancies. Viola's thoughts hovered lovingly 
 about her sister's relics. She went up and looked 
 at the chest in which they lay imprisoned. There 
 was a sullen defiance in its three great padlocks 
 and its iron bands, which only quickened her de- 
 sires. There was something exasperating in its incor- 
 ruptible immobility. It was like a grim and grizzled 
 old household servant, who locks his jaws over a 
 family secret. And then there was a look of capacity 
 in its vast extent, and a sound as of dense fulness, 
 when Viola knocked its side with the toe of her little 
 slipper, which caused her to flush with baffled longing. 
 " It 's absurd," she cried ; " it 's improper, it 's wick- 
 ed " ; and she forthwith resolved upon another attack 
 upon her husband. On the following day, after din- 
 ner, when he had had his wine, she bravely began it. 
 But he cut her short with great sternness. 
 
 "Once for all, Viola," said he, "it's out of the 
 question. I shall be gravely displeased if you re- 
 turn to the matter." 
 
 " Very good," said Viola. " I 'm glad to learn the 
 value at which I 'm held. Great Heaven ! " she 
 cried, " I 'm a happy woman. It 's an agreeable 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 359 
 
 thing to feel one's self sacrificed to a caprice ! " 
 And her eyes filled with tears of anger and disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 Lloyd had a good-natured man's horror of a woman's 
 sobs, and he attempted — I may say he condescend- 
 ed — to explain. " It 's not a caprice, dear, it 's a 
 promise," he said, — " an oath." 
 
 An oath ? It 's a pretty matter for oaths ! and 
 to whom, pray ? " 
 
 " To Perdita," said the young man, raising his eyes 
 for an instant, but immediately dropping them. 
 
 " Perdita, — ah, Perdita ! ' and Viola's tears broke 
 forth. Her bosom heaved with stormy sobs, — sobs 
 which were the long-deferred counterpart of the 
 violent fit of weeping in which she had indulged 
 herself on the night when she discovered her sis- 
 ter's betrothal. She had hoped, in her better mo- 
 ments, that she had done with her jealousy ; but her 
 temper, on that occasion, had taken an ineffaceable 
 fold. " And pray, what right," she cried, had. Per- 
 dita to dispose of my future ? What right had she to 
 bind you to meanness and cruelty ? Ah, I occupy a 
 dignified place, and I make a very fine figure ! I 'm 
 welcome to what Perdita has left ! And what has she 
 left ? I never knew till now how little ! Nothing, 
 nothing, nothing" 
 
 This was very poor logic, but it was very good pas- 
 
360 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD .CLOTHES. 
 
 sion. Lloyd put his arm around his wife's waist and 
 tried to kiss her, but she shook him off with mag- 
 nificent scorn. Poor fellow ! he had coveted a " devil- 
 ish fine woman," and he had got one. Her scorn was 
 intolerable. He walked away with his ears ting- 
 ling, — irresolute, distracted. Before him was his 
 secretary, and in it the sacred key which with his 
 own hand he had turned in the triple lock. He 
 marched up and opened it, and took the key from a 
 secret drawer, wrapped in a little packet which he 
 had sealed with his own honest bit of blazonry. 
 TeneOy said the motto, — "I hold." But he was 
 ashamed to put it back. He flung it upon the table 
 beside his wife. 
 
 " Keep it ! " she cried. " I w^ant it not. I hate it ! " 
 
 " I wash my hands of it," cried her husband. " God 
 forgive me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Lloyd gave an indignant shrug of her shoul- 
 ders, and swept out of the room, while the young 
 man retreated by another door. Ten minutes later 
 Mrs. Lloyd returned, and found the room occupied 
 by her little step-daughter and the nursery-maid. 
 The key was not on the table. She glanced at the 
 child. The child was perched on a chair with the 
 packet in her hands. She had broken the seal with 
 her own little fingers. Mrs. Lloyd hastily took pos- 
 session of the key. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 3(]1 
 
 At the habitual supper-hour Arthur Lloyd came 
 back from his counting-room. It was the month of 
 June, and supper was served by daylight. The meal 
 was placed on the table, but Mrs. Lloyd failed to 
 make her appearance. The servant whom his master 
 sent to call her came back with the assurance that 
 her room was empty, and that the women informed 
 him that she had not been seen since dinner. They 
 had in truth observed her to have been in tears, and, 
 supposing her to be shut up in her chamber, had not 
 disturbed her. Her husband called her name in vari- 
 ous parts of the house, but without response. At last 
 it occurred to him that he might find her by taking 
 the way to the attic. The thought gave him a strange 
 feeling of discomfort, and he bade his servants remain 
 behind, wishing no witness in his quest. He reached 
 the foot of the staircase leading to the topmost flat, 
 and stood with his hand on the banisters, pronouncing 
 his wife's name. His voice trembled. He called 
 again, louder and more firmly. The only sound which 
 disturbed the absolute silence was a faint echo of his 
 own tones, repeating his question under the great 
 eaves. He nevertheless felt irresistibly moved to 
 ascend the staircase. It opened upon a wide hall, 
 lined vrith wooden closets, and terminating in a win- 
 dow which looked westward, and admitted the last 
 rays of the sun. Before the window stood the great 
 
 16 
 
362 THE ROMANCE OF CERTAIN OLD CLOTHES. 
 
 chest. Before the chest, on her knees, the young man 
 saw with amazement and horror the figure of his wife. 
 In an instant he crossed the interval between them, 
 bereft of utterance. The lid of the chest stood open, 
 exposing, amid their perfumed napkins, its treasure 
 of stuffs and jewels. Viola had fallen backward from 
 a kneeling posture, with one hand supporting her on 
 the floor and the other pressed to her heart. On her 
 limbs was the stiffness of death, and on her face, in 
 the fading light of the sun, the terror of something 
 more than death. Her lips were parted in entreaty, 
 in dismay, in agony ; and on her bloodless brow and 
 cheeks there glowed the marks of ten hideous wounds 
 from two vengeful ghostly hands. 
 
Madame de Mauyes. 
 
MADAME BE MAUYES. 
 
 I . 
 
 THE view from thedifarace at Saint-Germain-en- 
 Laye is immensBB.^cJ lamous. Paris lies spread 
 before you in dusky u^aa^ss, domed and fortified, 
 glittering here and th^?e tb?ougli her light vapors, and 
 girdled with her silver, S^ii|^. Behind you is a park 
 of stately symmetry, aedii b^ind that a forest, where 
 you may lounge through ^tujfy avenues and light- 
 checkered glades, and quite forget that you are within 
 half an hour of the boulevards. One afternoon, how- 
 ever, in mid-spring, some five years ago, a young man 
 seated on the terrace had chosen not to forget this. 
 His eyes were fixed in idle wistfulness on the mighty 
 human hive before him. He was fond of rural things, 
 and he had come to Saint-Germain a week before to 
 meet the spring half-way ; but though he could boast 
 of a six months' acquaintance with the great city, he 
 ne^ er looked at it from his present standpoint without 
 a. leeling of painfully unsatisfied curiosity. There were 
 
MADAME DE rM lUVJlS. 
 
 i" 
 
 moments when it seemed to him that not to be there 
 just then was to miss some thrilling chapter of ex- 
 perience. And yet his winter's experience had been 
 rather fruitless, and he had? clo^d the book almost 
 with a yawn. Though not iu the least a cynic, he 
 was what one may call a glisippointed observer ; and 
 he never chose the right-hand road without beginning 
 to suspect after an hour's w^faring that the left would 
 have been the interesting one. He now had a dozen 
 minds to go to Paris for t4i)e ieitening, to dine at the 
 Caf^ Brebant, and to repair afterwards to the Gymnase 
 and listen to the latest exposition of the duties of the 
 injured husband. He would probably have risen to 
 execute this project, if he had not observed a little 
 girl who, wandering alolrg the terrace, had suddenly 
 stopped short and begum^ to gaze at him with round- 
 eyed frankness. For a mom^flt he was simply amused, 
 for the child's face denoted helpless wonderment ; the 
 next he was agreeably surprised. " Why, this is my 
 friend Maggie," he said ; " I see you have not forgot- 
 ten me." 
 
 Maggie, after a short parley, was induced to seal 
 her remembrance with a kiss. Invited then to explain 
 her appearance at Saint-Germain, she embarked on a 
 recital in which the general, according to the infantine 
 method, was so fatally sacrificed to the particular, that 
 Longraore looked about him for a superior source o^i 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 307 
 
 information. He found it in Maggie's mamma, who 
 was seated with another lady at the opposite end of 
 tlie terrace ; so, taking the child by the hand, he led 
 her back to her companions. 
 
 Maggie's mamma was a young American lady, as 
 you would immediately have perceived, with a pretty 
 and friendly face and an expensive spring toilet. She 
 greeted Longmore with surprised cordiality, mentioned 
 his name to her friend, and bade him bring a chair 
 and sit with them. The other lady, who, though 
 equally young and perhaps even prettier, was dressed 
 more soberly, remained silent, stroking the hair of the 
 little girl, whom she had drawn against her knee. 
 She had never heard of Longmore, but she now per- 
 ceived that her companion had crossed the ocean with 
 him, had met him afterwards in travelling, and (having 
 left her husband in Wall Street) was indebted to him 
 for various small services. 
 
 Maggie's mamma turned from time to time and 
 smiled at her friend with an air of invitation ; the 
 latter smiled back, and continued gracefully to say 
 nothing. 
 
 For ten minutes Longmore felt a revival of interest 
 in his interlocutress ; then (as riddles are more amus- 
 ing than commonplaces) it gave way to curiosity about 
 her friend. His eyes wandered; her volubility was 
 less suf^jgestive than the latter's silence. 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. - 
 
 The stranger was perhaps not obviously a beauty 
 nor obviously an American, but essentially both, on a 
 closer scrutiny. She was slight and fair, and, though 
 naturally pale, delicately flushed, apparently with re- 
 cent excitement. 'W^'hat chiefly struck Longmore in 
 her face was the unton of a pair of beautifully gentle, 
 almost languid gray eyes, with a mouth peculiarly ex- 
 pressive and firm. Her forehead was a trifle more 
 expansive than belongs to classic types, and her thick 
 brown hair was dressed out of the fashion, which was 
 just then very ugly. Her throat and bust were 
 slender, but all the more in harmony with certain 
 rapid, charming movements of the head, which she 
 had a way of throwing back every now and then, with 
 an air of attention and a sidelong glance from her 
 dove-like eyes. She seemed at once alert and indif- 
 ferent, contemplative and restless ; and Longmore very 
 soon discovered that if she was not a brilliant beauty, 
 she was at least an extremely interesting one. This 
 very impression made him magnanimous. He per- 
 ceived that he had interrupted a confidential conver- 
 sation, and he judged it discreet to withdraw, having 
 first learned from Maggie's mamma — Mrs. Draper — 
 that she was to take the six-o'clock train back to 
 Paris. He promised to meet her at the station. 
 
 He kept his appointment, and Mrs. Draper arrived 
 betimes, accompanied by her friend. The latter, how- 
 
ADAME DE MAUVES. 369 
 
 ever, njWte.hsrf farewells at the door and drove away 
 again, , giving,: Longmore time only to raise his hat. 
 " Who is she ? " he asked with visible ardor, as he 
 brought Mrs. Draper her tickets. 
 
 " Come and see me to-morrow at the Hotel de 
 I'Empire," she answered, " and I will tell you all about 
 her." The force of this offer in making him punctual 
 at the Hotel de I'Empire Longmore doubtless never 
 exactly measured ; and it was perhaps well that he did 
 not, for he found his friend, who was on the point of 
 leaving Paris, so distracted by procrastinating milliners 
 and perjured lingeres that she had no wits left for dis- 
 interested narrative. "You must find Saint-Germain 
 dreadfully dull," she said, as he was going. "Why 
 won't you come with me to London ? " 
 
 " Introduce me to Madame de Mauves," he answered, 
 " and Saint-Germain will satisfy me." All he had 
 learned was the lady's name and residence. 
 
 " Ah ! she, poor woman, will not make Saint- Ger- 
 main cheerful for you. She 's very unhappy." 
 
 Longmore's further inquiries were arrested by the 
 arrival of a young lady with a bandbox ; but he went 
 away with the promise of a note of introduction, to be 
 immediately despatched to him at Saint-Germain. 
 
 He waited a week, but the note never came ; and he 
 declared that it was not for Mrs. Draper to complain 
 of her milliner's treachery. He lounged on the terrace 
 
 16* X 
 
V 
 
 ■ . \ 
 
 370 MADAME DE MAUVES;. ' , . 
 
 and walked in the forest, studied suburban, street life, 
 and made a languid attempt to investigat^the records 
 of the court of the exiled Stuarts ; but he- spent most 
 of his time in wondering where Madame de Mauves 
 lived, and whether she never walked on the terrace. 
 Sometimes, he finally discovered; for one afternoon 
 toward dusk he perceived her leaning against the para- 
 pet, alone. In his momentary hesitation to approach 
 her, it . seemed to him that there was almost a shade of 
 trepidation ; but his curiosity was not diminished by 
 the consciousness of this result of a quarter of an hour's 
 acquaintance. She immediately recognized him on his 
 drawing near, with the manner of a person unaccus- 
 tomed to encounter a confusing variety of faces. Her 
 dress, her expression, were the same as before ; her 
 charm was there, like that of sweet music on a second 
 hearing. She soon made conversation easy by asking 
 him for news of Mrs. Draper. Longmore told her that 
 he was daily expecting news, and, after a pause, men- 
 tioned the promised note of introduction. 
 
 " It seems less necessary now," he said — " for me, 
 at least. But for you — I should have liked you to 
 know the flattering things Mrs. Draper would probably 
 have said about me." 
 
 " If it arrives at last," she answered, " you must 
 come and see me and bring it. If it does n't, you must 
 come without it." 
 
l:ADXm^^DY. MAUVES. 371 
 
 Then, as she contii ued to linger in spite of the thick- 
 ening twilight, she ex^ %med that she was waiting for 
 her husband, who was tD> ai Ave in the train from Paris, 
 and who often passed along the terrace on his way- 
 home. Longmore well remembered that Mrs. Draper 
 had pronounced her unhappy, and he found it con- 
 venient to suppose that this same husband made her 
 so. Edified by his six months in Paris — " What else 
 is possible," he asked himself, " for a sweet American 
 girl who marries an unclean Frenchman ? " 
 
 But this tender expectancy of her lord's return im- 
 dermined his hypothesis, and it received a further 
 check from the gentle eagerness with which she turned 
 and greeted an approaching figure. Longmore beheld 
 in the fading light a stoutish gentleman, on the fair 
 side of forty, in a high light hat, whose countenance, 
 indistinct against the sky, was adorned by a fantasti- 
 cally pointed mustache. M. de Mauves saluted his 
 wife with punctilious gallantry, and having bowed to 
 Longmore, asked her several questions in French. Be- 
 fore taking his proffered arm to walk to their carriage, 
 which was in waiting at the terrace gate, she intro- 
 duced our hero as a friend of Mrs. Draper, and a fellow- 
 countryman, whom she hoped to see at home. M. de 
 Mauves responded briefly, but civilly, in very fair Eng- 
 lish, and led his wife away. 
 
 Longmore watched him as he went, twisting his 
 
picturesque mustache, with feeling of irritation which 
 he certainly would have;been'at' a loss to account for. 
 The only conceivable cause was the light which M. de 
 Mauves's good English cast uf)on his own bad French. 
 For reasons involved apparently in the very structure 
 of his being, Longmore found himself unable to speak 
 the language tolerably. He admired and enjoyed it, 
 but the very genius of awkwardness controlled his 
 phraseology. But he reflected with satisfaction that 
 Madame de Mauves and he had a common idiom, and 
 his vexation was effectually dispelled by his finding on 
 his table that evening a letter from Mrs. Draper. It 
 enclosed a short, formal missive to Madame de Mauves, 
 but the epistle itself was copious and confidential. 
 She had deferred WTiting till she reached London, 
 where for a week, of course, she had found other 
 amusements. 
 
 " I think it is these distracting Englishwomen," she 
 wrote, " with their green barege gowns and their white- 
 stitched boots, who have reminded me in self-defence 
 of my graceful friend at Saint-Germain and my 
 promise to introduce you to her. I believe I told you 
 that she was unhappy, and I wondered afterwards 
 whether I had not been guilty of a breach of confi- 
 dence. But you would have found it out for yourself, 
 and besides, she told me no secrets. She declared 
 she was the happiest creature in the world, and then. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 373 
 
 poor thing, she burst into tears, and I prayed to be 
 ^ delivered from such happiness. It 's the miserable 
 story of an American girl, born to be neither a slave 
 nor a toy, marrying a profligate Frenchman, who be- 
 lieves that a woman must be one or the other. The 
 silliest American woman is too good for the best for- 
 eigner, and the poorest of us have moral needs a 
 Frenchman can't appreciate. She was romantic and 
 wilful, and thought Americans were vulgar. Matri- 
 monial felicity perhaps is vulgar; but I think nowa- 
 days she wishes she were a little less elegant. M. de 
 Mauves cared, of course, for nothing but her money, 
 which he 's spending royally on his menus plaisirs. I 
 hope you appreciate the compliment I pay you when 
 I recommend you to go and console an unhappy wife. 
 I have never given a man such a proof of esteem, and 
 if you were to disappoint me I should renounce the 
 world. Prove to Madame de Mauves that an Ameri- 
 can friend may mingle admiration and respect better 
 than a French husband. She avoids society and lives 
 quite alone, seeing no one but a horrible French sis- 
 ter-in-law. Do let me hear that you have drawn 
 some of the sadness from that desperate smile of hers. 
 Make her smile with a good conscience." 
 
 These zealous admonitions left Longmore slightly 
 disturbed. He found himself on the edge of a domes- 
 tic tragedy from which he instinctively recoilec^. To 
 
374 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 call upon Madame de Mauves with his present knowl- 
 edge seemed a sort of fishing in troubled waters. He 
 was a modest man, and yet he asked himself whether 
 the effect of his attentions might not be to add to her 
 tribulation. A flattering sense of unwonted opportu- 
 nity, how^ever, made him, with the lapse of time, more 
 confident, — possibly more reckless. It seemed a very 
 inspiring idea to draw the sadness from his fair coun- 
 trywoman's smile, and at least he hoped to persuade 
 her that there was such a thing as an agreeable Ameri- 
 can. He immediately called upon her. 
 
1^ 
 
 II. 
 
 HE had been placed for her education, fourteen 
 
 kJ/ years before, in a Parisian convent, by a widowed 
 mamma, fonder of Homburg and Nice than of letting 
 out tucks in the frocks of a vigorously growing daughter. 
 Here, besides various elegant accomplishments, — the art 
 of wearing a train, of composing a bouquet, of present- 
 ing a cup of tea, — she acquired a certain turn of the 
 imagination w^hich might have passed for a sign of 
 precocious worldliness. She dreamed of marrying a 
 title, — not for the pleasure of hearing herself called 
 Mme. la Vicomtesse (for which it seemed to her that 
 she should never greatly care), but because she had 
 a romantic belief that the best birth is the guaranty 
 of an ideal delicacy of feeling. Eomances are rarely 
 shaped in such perfect good faith, and Euphemia's 
 excuse was in the radical purity of her imagination. 
 She was profoundly incorruptible, and she cherished 
 this pernicious conceit as if it had been a dogma 
 revealed by a white-winged angel. Even after expe- 
 rience had given her a hundred rude hints, she found 
 it easier to believe in fables, when they had a certain 
 
376 
 
 MADAME D: 
 
 nobleness of meaning, than K V/^Kittested but sordid 
 facts. She believed that a genffeman with a long 
 ^ pedigree must be of necessity a very fine fellow, and 
 that the consciousness of a picturesque family tradi- 
 tion imparts an exquisite tone to the character. No- 
 Uesse oblige, she thought, as regards yourself, and 
 insures, as regards your wife. She had never spoken 
 to a nobleman in her life, and these convictions were 
 but a matter of transcendent theory. They were the 
 fruit, in part, of the perusal of various ultramontane 
 works of fiction — the only ones admitted to the con- 
 vent library — in which the hero was always a legiti- 
 mist vicomte who fought duels by the dozen, but went 
 twice a month to confession ; and in part of the per- 
 fumed gossip of her companions, many of them filUs 
 de haut lieu, who in the convent garden, after Sundays 
 at home, depicted their brothers and cousins as Prince 
 Charmings and young Paladins. Euphemia listened 
 and said nothing ; she shrouded her visions of matri- 
 mony under a coronet in religious mystery. She was 
 not of that type of young lady who is easily induced 
 to declare that her husband must be six feet high and 
 a little near-sighted, part his hair in the middle, and 
 have amber lights in his beard. To her companions, 
 she seemed to have a very pallid fancy ; and even the 
 fact that she was a sprig of the transatlantic democ- 
 racy never sufficiently explained her apathy on social 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 377 
 
 questions. She had a mental image of that son of 
 the Crusaders who wais to suffer her to adore him, 
 but like many an artist who has produced a master- 
 piece of idealization, she shrank from exposing it to 
 public criticism. It was the portrait of a gentleman 
 rather ugly than handsome, and rather poor than rich. 
 But his ugliness was to be nobly expressive, and his 
 poverty delicately proud. Euphemia had a fortune of 
 her own, which, at the proper time, after fixing on her 
 in eloquent silence those fine eyes which were to 
 soften the feudal severity of his visage, he was to 
 accept with a w^orld of stifled protestations. One con- 
 dition alone she was to make, — that his blood should 
 be of the very finest strain. On this she would stake 
 her happiness. 
 
 It so chanced that circumstances were to give con- 
 vincing color to this primitive logic. 
 
 Though little of a talker, Euphemia was an ardent 
 listener, and there were moments when she fairly hung 
 upon the lips of Mademoiselle Marie de Mauves, Her 
 intimacy with this chosen schoolmate was, like most 
 intimacies, based on their points of difference. Mad- 
 emoiselle de Mauves was very positive, very shrewd, 
 very ironical, very French, — everything that Eu- 
 phemia felt herself unpardonable in not being. Dur- 
 ing her Sundays en ville she had examined the world 
 and judged it, and she imparted her impressions to 
 
378 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 our attentive heroine with an agreeable mixture of 
 enthusiasm and scepticism. She was moreover a 
 handsome and well-grown person, on whom Eu- 
 phemia's ribbons and trinkets had a trick of looking 
 better than on their slender proprietress. She had, 
 finally, the supreme merit of being a rigorous exam- 
 ple of the virtue of exalted birth, having, as she did, 
 ancestors honorably mentioned by Joinville and Com- 
 mines, and a stately grandmother with a hooked nose, 
 who came up with her after the holidays from a ver- 
 itable castel in Auvergne. It seemed to Euphemia 
 that these attributes made her friend more at home 
 in the world than if she had been the daughter of 
 even the most prosperous grocer. A certain aristo- 
 cratic impudence Mademoiselle de Mauves abundantly 
 possessed, and her raids among her friend's finery were 
 quite in the spirit of her baronial ancestors in the 
 twelfth century, — a spirit which Euphemia consid- 
 ered but a large way of understanding friendship, — a 
 freedom from small deference to the world's opinions 
 which would sooner or later justify itself in acts of 
 surprising magnanimity. Mademoiselle de Mauves 
 perhaps enjoyed but slightly that easy attitude toward 
 society which Euphemia envied her. She proved her- 
 self later in life such an accomplished schemer that 
 her sense of having further heights to scale must have 
 awakened early. Our heroine's ribbons and trinkets 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 379 
 
 had miicli to do with the other's sisterly patronage, 
 and her appealing pliancy of character even more ; but 
 the concluding motive of Marie's writing to her grand- 
 mamma to invite Euphemia for a three weeks' holiday 
 to the castel in Auvergne, involved altogether superior 
 considerations. Mademoiselle de Mauves was indeed 
 at this time seventeen years of age, and presumably 
 capable of general views; and Euphemia, who was 
 hardly less, was a very well-grown subject for experi- 
 ment, besides being pretty enough almost to pre-assure 
 success. It is a proof of the sincerity of Euphemia's 
 aspirations that the castel was not a shock to her faith. 
 It was neither a cheerful nor a luxurious abode, but 
 the young girl found it as delightful as a play. It 
 had battered towers and an empty moat, a rusty draw- 
 bridge and a court paved with crooked, grass-grown 
 slabs, over which the antique coach-wheels of the old 
 lady with the hooked nose seemed to awaken the 
 echoes of the seventeenth century. Euphemia was 
 not frightened out of her dream ; she had the pleasure 
 of seeing it assume the consistency of a flattering pre- 
 sentiment. She had a taste for old servants, old 
 anecdotes, old furniture, faded household colors, and 
 sweetly stale odors, — musty treasures in which the 
 Chateau de Mauves abounded. She made a dozen 
 sketches in water-colors, after her conventual pattern ; 
 but sentimentally, as one may say, she was forever 
 sketching with a freer hand. 
 
380 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Old Madame de Mauves had nothing severe but her M 
 nose, and she seemed to Euphemia, as indeed she was,^ 
 a graciously venerable rv^lic of a historic order of things!^ 
 She took a great fancy to the young American, who ^ 
 was ready to sit all day at her feet and listen to 
 anecdotes of the bon temps and quotations from the 
 family chronicles. Madame de Mauves was a very 
 honest old woman, and uttered her thoughts with 
 antique plainness. One day, after pushing back Eu- 
 phemia's shining locks and blinking at her with some 
 tenderness from under her spectacles, she declared, 
 with an energetic shake of the head, that she did n't 
 know what to make of her. And in answer to the i 
 young girl's startled blush, — "I should like to advise 
 you," she said, " but you seem to me so all of a piece 
 that I am afraid that if I advise you, I shall spoil you. 
 It 's easy to see that you 're not one of us. I don't ; 
 know whether you 're better, but you seem to me to j 
 listen to the murmur of your own young spirit, rather * 
 than to the voice from behind the confessional or to 
 the whisper of opportunity. Young girls, in my day, 
 when they were stupid, were very docile, but when 
 they were clever, were very sly. You 're clever 
 enough, I imagine, and yet if I guessed all your 
 secrets at this moment, is there one I should have 
 to frown at? I can tell you a wickeder one than 
 any you have discovered for yourself. If you expect 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 381 
 
 to live in France, and you want to be happy, don't 
 listen too hard to that little voice I just spoke of, — 
 the voice that is neither the cure's nor the world's. 
 You '11 fancy it saying things that it won't help your 
 case to hear. They '11 make you sad, and when you 're 
 sad you '11 grow plain, and when you 're plain you '11 
 grow bitter, and when you 're bitter you '11 be very 
 disagreeable. I was brought up to think that a 
 woman's first duty was to please, and the happiest 
 women I 've known have been the ones who performed 
 this duty faithfully. As you 're not a Catholic, I sup- 
 pose you can't be a devote ; and if you don't take life 
 as a fifty years' mass, the only way to take it is as a 
 game of skill. Listen : not to lose, you must, — I 
 don't say cheat ; but don't be too sure your neighbor 
 won't, and don't be shocked out of your self-possession 
 if he does. Don't lose, my dear ; I beseech you, don't 
 lose. Be neither suspicious nor credulous ; but if you 
 find your neighbor peeping, don't cry out, but very 
 politely wait your own chance. I 've had my revanche 
 more than once in my day, but I 'm not sure that the 
 sweetest I could take against life as a whole w^ould 
 be to have your blessed innocence profit by my expe- 
 rience." 
 
 This was rather awful advice, but Euphemia under- 
 stood it too little to be either edified or frightened. 
 She sat listening to it very much as she would have 
 
o82 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 listened to the speeches of an old lady in a comedy, 
 whose diction should picturesquely correspond to the 
 pattern of her mantilla and the fashion of her head- 
 dress. Her indifference was doubly dangerous, for 
 Madame de Mauves spoke at the prompting of coming 
 events, and her words were the result of a somewhat 
 troubled conscience, — a conscience which told her at 
 once that Euphemia was too tender a victim to be 
 sacrificed to an ambition, and that the prosperity of 
 her house was too precious a heritage to be sacrificed 
 to a scruple. The prosperity in question had suffered 
 repeated and grievous breaches, and the house of De 
 Mauyes had been pervaded by the cold comfort of an 
 establishment in which people were obliged to balance 
 dinner-table allusions to feudal ancestors against the 
 absence of side dishes ; a state of things the more 
 regrettable as the family was now mainly represented 
 by a gentleman whose appetite was large, and who 
 justly maintained that its historic glories were not 
 established by underfed heroes. 
 
 Three days after Eiiphemia's arrival, EicharcJ de 
 Mauves came down from Paris to pay his respects to 
 his grandmother, and treated our heroine to her first 
 encounter with a gentilhomme in the flesh. On coming 
 in he kissed his grandmother's hand, with a smile 
 which caused her to draw it away with dignity, and set 
 Euphemia, who was standing by, wondering what had 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 383 
 
 happened between them. Her unanswered wonder 
 was but the beginning of a life of bitter perplexity, but 
 the reader is free to know that the smile of M. de 
 Mauves was a reply to a certain postscript affixed by 
 the old lady to a letter promptly addressed to him by 
 her granddaughter, after Euphemia had been admit- 
 ted to justify the latter's promises. Mademoiselle de 
 Mauves brought her letter to her grandmother for 
 approval, but obtained no more than was expressed in 
 a frigid nod. The old lady watched her with a sombre 
 glance as she proceeded to seal the letter, and suddenly 
 bade her open it again and bring her a pen. 
 
 " Your sister's flatteries are all nonsense," she wrote ; 
 " the young lady is far too good for you, mauvais sujet. 
 If you have a conscience you'll not come and take 
 possession of an angel of innocence." 
 
 The young girl, who had read these lines, made up a 
 little face as she redirected the letter ; but she laid 
 down her pen with a confident nod, which might have 
 seemed to mean that, to the best of her belief, her 
 brother had not a conscience. 
 
 "If you meant what you said," the young man whis- 
 pered to his grandmother on the first opportunity, "it 
 would have been simpler not to let her send the 
 letter 1 " 
 
 It was perhaps because she was wounded by this 
 cynical insinuation, that Madame de Mauves remained 
 
384 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 in her own apartment during a greater part of Eu- 
 phemia's stay, so that the latter's angelic innocence 
 was left entirely to the Baron's mercy. It suffered no 
 worse mischance, however, than to be prompted to in- 
 tenser communion with itself. M. de Mauves was the 
 hero of the young girl's romance made real, and so 
 completely accordant with this creature of her imagi- 
 nation, that she felt afraid of him, very much as she 
 would have been of a supernatural apparition. He 
 was thirty-five years old, — young enough to suggest , 
 possibilities of ardent activity, and old enough to have | 
 formed opinions which a simple woman might deem it ' 
 an intellectual privilege to listen to. He was perhaps | 
 a trifle handsomer than Euphemia's rather grim, Quix- • 
 otic ideal, but a very few days reconciled her to his 
 good looks, as they would have reconciled her to his ; 
 ugliness. He was quiet, grave, and eminently distin- ^ 
 guished. He spoke little, but his speeches, without | 
 being sententious, had a certain nobleness of tone ; 
 which caused them to re-echo in the young girl's ears \ 
 at the end of the day. He paid her very little direct 
 attention, but his chance words — if he only asked her 
 if she objected to his cigarette — were accompanied by ^ 
 a smile of extraordinary kindness. I 
 It happened that shortly after his arrival, riding an I 
 unruly horse, which Euphemia with shy admirationJH 
 had watched him mount in the castle yard, he was^ 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 385 
 
 thrown with a violence which, without disparaging his 
 skill, made him for a fortnight an interesting invalid, 
 lounging in the library with a bandaged knee. To 
 beguile his confinement, Euphemia was repeatedly- 
 induced to sing to him, which she did with a little 
 natural tremor in her voice, which might have passed 
 for an exquisite refinement of art. He never over- 
 whelmed her with compliments, but he listened with 
 unwandering attention, remembered all her melodies, 
 and sat humming them to himself. While his impris- 
 onment lasted, indeed, he passed hours in her company, 
 and made her feel not unlike some unfriended artist 
 who has suddenly gained the opportunity to devote a 
 fortnight to the study of a great model. Euphemia 
 studied with noiseless diligence what she supposed to 
 be the character " of M. de Mauves, and the more she 
 looked the more fine lights and shades she seemed to 
 behold in this masterpiece of nature. M. de Mauves's 
 character indeed, whether from a sense of being gener- 
 ously scrutinized, or for reasons which bid graceful 
 defiance to analysis, had never been so amiable ; it 
 seemed really to reflect the purity of Euphemia's inter- 
 pretation of it. There had been nothing especially to 
 admire in the state of mind in which he left Paris, — a 
 hard determination to marry a young girl whose charms 
 might or might not justify his sister's account of them, 
 but who was mistress, at the worst, of a couple of hun- 
 
 17 T 
 
386 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 dred thousand francs a year. He had not counted out 
 sentiment ; if she pleased him, so much the better ; 
 but he had left a meagre margin for it, and he would 
 hardly have admitted that so excellent a match could 
 be improved by it. He was a placid sceptic, and it 
 was a singular fate for a man who believed in nothing 
 to be so tenderly believed in. What his original faith 
 had been he could hardly have told you ; for as he 
 came back to his childhood's home to mend his for- 
 tunes by pretending to fall in love, he was a thor- 
 oughly perverted creature, and overlaid with more 
 corruptions than a summer day's questioning of his 
 conscience would have released him from. Ten years' , 
 pursuit of pleasure, which a bureau full of unpaid bills 
 was all he had to show for, had pretty well stifled the 
 natural lad, whose violent will and generous temper ] 
 might have been shaped by other circumstances to a ^ 
 result which a romantic imagination might fairly ac- | 
 cept as a late-blooming flower of hereditary honor, j 
 The Baron's violence had been subdued, and he had i| 
 learned to be irreproachably polite ; but he had lost 
 the edge of his generosity, and his politeness, which in 
 the long run society paid for, was hardly more than a 
 form of luxurious egotism, like his fondness for cam- 
 bric handkerchiefs, lavender gloves, and other fopperies 
 by which shopkeepers remained out of pocket. In 
 after years he was terribly polite to his wife. He had 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 387 
 
 formed himself, as the phrase was, and the form pre- 
 scribed to him by the society into which his birth and 
 his tastes introduced him was marked by some peculiar 
 features. That which mainly concerns us is its classi- 
 fication of the fairer half of humanity as objects not 
 essentially different — say from the light gloves one 
 soils in an evening and throws away. To do M. de 
 Mauves justice, he had in the course of time encoun- 
 tered such plentiful evidence of this pliant, glove-like 
 quality in the feminine character, that idealism natu- 
 rally seemed to him a losing game. 
 
 Euphemia, as he lay on his sofa, seemed by no 
 means a refutation ; she simply reminded him that 
 very young women are generally innocent, and that 
 this, on the whole, was the most charming stage of 
 their development. Her innocence inspired him with 
 profound respect, and it seemed to him that if he 
 shortly became her husband it would be exposed to a 
 danger the less. Old Madame de Mauves, who flat- 
 tered herself that in this whole matter she was being 
 laudably rigid, might have learned a lesson from his 
 gallant consideration. For a fortnight the Baron was 
 almost a blushing boy again. He watched from be- 
 hind the " Figaro," and admired, and held his tongue. 
 He was not in the least disposed toward a flirtation ; 
 he had no desire to trouble the waters he proposed 
 to transfuse into the golden cup of matrimony. Some- 
 
388 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 times a word, a look, a movement of Euphemia's, gave 
 him the oddest sense of being, or of seeming at least, 
 almost bashful; for she had a way of not dropping 
 her eyes, according to the mysterious virginal mech- 
 anism, of not fluttering out of the room when she 
 found him there alone, of treating him rather as a 
 benignant than as a pernicious influence, — a radiant 
 frankness of demeanor, in fine, in spite of an evident 
 natural reserve, which it seemed equally graceless not 
 to make the subject of a compliment and indelicate 
 not to take for granted. In this way there was 
 wrought in the Baron's mind a vague, unwonted reso- 
 nance of soft impressions, as we may call it, which / 
 indicated the transmutation of "sentiment" from a con- 
 tingency into a fact. His imagination enjoyed it ; he 
 was very fond of music, and this reminded him of ; 
 some of the best he had ever heard. In spite of the / 
 bore of being laid up with a lame knee, he was in a i 
 better humor than he had known for months; he lay 
 smoking cigarettes and listening to the nightingales,! 
 with the comfortable smile of one of his country neigh- 
 bors whose big ox should have taken the prize at a 
 fair. Every now and then, with an impatient sus- 
 picion of the resemblance, he declared that he was 
 pitifully ISte ; but he was under a charm which braved 
 even the supreme penalty of seeming ridiculous. One 
 morning he had half an hours tete-^-tcte with his 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 389 
 
 grandmother's confessor, a soft-voiced old abbe, whom, 
 for reasons of her own, Madame de Mauves had sud- 
 denly summoned, and had left waiting in the drawing- 
 room while she rearranged her curls. His reverence, 
 going up to the old lady, assured her that M. le Baron 
 was in a most edifying state of mind, and a promising 
 subject for the operation of grace. This was a pious 
 interpretation of the Baron's momentary good-humor. 
 He had always lazily wondered what priests were good 
 for, and he now remembered, with a sense of especial 
 obligation to the abbe, that they were excellent for 
 marrying people. 
 
 A day or two after this he left off his bandages, and 
 tried to walk. He made his way into the garden and 
 hobbled successfully along one of the alleys; but in 
 the midst of his progress he was seized with a spasm 
 of pain which forced him to stop and call for help. 
 In an instant Euphemia came tripping along the path 
 and offered him her arm with the frankest solicitude. 
 
 " Not to the house," he said, taking it ; " farther on, 
 to the bosquet." This choice was prompted by her 
 having immediately confessed that she had seen him 
 leave the house, had feared an accident, and had fol- 
 lowed him on tiptoe. 
 
 " Why did n't you join me ? " he had asked, giving 
 her a look in which admiration was no longer dis- 
 guised, and yet felt itself half at the mercy of her 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 replying that a jeune fille should not be seen following 
 a gentleman. But it drew a breath which filled its 
 lungs for a long time afterward, when she replied 
 simply that if she had overtaken him he might have 
 accepted her arm out of politeness, whereas she wished 
 to have the pleasure of seeing him walk alone. 
 
 The bosquet was covered with an odorous tangle of 
 blossoming vines, and a nightingale overhead was shak- 
 ing out love-notes with a profuseness which made the 
 Baron consider his own conduct the perfection of pro- 
 priety. 
 
 " In America," he said, " I have always heard that 
 when a man wishes to marry a young girl^ he offers 
 himself simply, face to face, without any ceremony, — 
 without parents, and uncles, and cousins sitting round 
 in a circle." 
 
 " Why, I believe so," said Euphemia, staring, and too 
 surprised to be alarmed. 
 
 "Very well, then," said the Baron, "suppose our 
 bosquet here to be America. I offer you my hand, 
 a lAmericaine. It will make me intensely happy to 
 have you accept it." 
 
 Whether Euphemia's acceptance was in the Ameri- 
 can manner is more than I can say ; I incline to think 
 that for fluttering, grateful, trustful, softly - amazed 
 young hearts, there is only one manner all over the 
 world. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 391 
 
 That evening, in the little turret chamber which it 
 was her happiness to inhabit, she wrote a dutiful letter 
 to her mamma, and had just sealed it when she was 
 sent for by Madame de Mauves. She found this an- 
 cient lady seated in her boudoir, in a lavender satin 
 gown, with all her candles lighted, as if to celebrate 
 her grandson's betrothal. "Are you very happy?" 
 Madame de Mauves demanded, making Euphemia sit 
 down before her. 
 
 " I 'm almost afraid to say so," said the young girl, 
 "lest I should wake myself up." 
 
 "May you never wake up, helh mfantl' said the 
 old lady, solemnly. " This is the first marriage ever 
 made in our family in this way, — by a Baron de 
 Mauves proposing to a young girl in an arbor, like 
 Jeannot and Jeannette. It has not been our w^ay of 
 doing things, and people may say it wants frankness. 
 My grandson tells me he considers it the perfection 
 of frankness. Very good. I 'm a very old woman, 
 and if your differences should ever be as frank as your 
 agreement, I should n't like to see them. But I 
 should be sorry to die and think you were going to v 
 be unhappy. You can't be, beyond a certain point; 
 because, though in this world the Lord sometimes 
 makes light of our expectations, he never altogether 
 ignores our deserts. But you 're very young and inno- 
 cent, and easy to deceive. There never was a man in 
 
392 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 the world — among the saints themselves — as good 
 as you believe the Baron. But he 's a galant homme 
 and a gentleman, and I 've been talking to him to- 
 night. To you I want to say this, — that you 're to 
 forget the worldly rubbish I talked the other day 
 about frivolous women being happy. It 's not the 
 kind of happiness that would suit you. Whatever 
 befalls you, promise me this: to be yourself. The 
 Baronne de Mauves will be none the worse for it. 
 Yourself, understand, in spite of everything, — bad 
 precepts and bad examples, bad usage even. Be per- 
 sistently and patiently yourself, and a De Mauves will 
 do you justice ! " 
 
 Euphemia remembered this speech in after years, and 
 more than once, wearily closing her eyes, she seemed 
 to see the old woman sitting upright in her faded fin- 
 ery and smiling grimly, like one of the Fates who sees 
 the wheel of fortune turning up her favorite event. 
 But at the moment it seemed to her simply to have 
 the proper gravity of the occasion ; this was the way, 
 she supposed, in which lucky young girls were ad- 
 dressed on their engagement by wise old women of 
 quality. 
 
 At her convent, to which she immediately returned, 
 she found a letter from her mother, which shocked her 
 far more than the remarks of Madame de Mauves. 
 Who were these people, Mrs. Cleve demanded, who 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 393 
 
 had presumed to talk to her daughter of marriage with- 
 out asking her leave ? Questionable gentlefolk, plain- 
 ly; the best French people never did such things. 
 Euphemia would return straightway to her convent, 
 shut herself up, and await her own arrival. 
 
 It took Mrs. Cleve three weeks to travel from Mce 
 to Paris, and during this time the young girl had no 
 communication with her lover beyond accepting a bou- 
 quet of violets, marked with his initials and left by a 
 female friend. " I Ve not brought you up with such 
 devoted care," she declared to her daughter at their 
 first interview, " to marry a penniless Frenchman. I 
 will take you straight home, and you will please to 
 forget M. de Mauves." 
 
 Mrs. Cleve received that evening at her hotel a visit 
 from the Baron which mitigated her wrath, but failed 
 to modify her decision. He had very good manners, 
 but she was sure he had horrible morals ; and Mrs. 
 Cleve, who had been a very good-natured censor on 
 her own account, felt a genuine spiritual need to sac- 
 rifice her daughter to propriety. She belonged to that 
 large class of Americans who make light of America in 
 familiar discourse, but are startled back into a sense of 
 moral responsibility when they find Europeans taking 
 them at their word. " I know the type, my dear," she 
 said to her daughter with a sagacious nod. " He 11 not 
 beat you ; sometimes you 11 wish he would." 
 
394 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Euphemia remained solemnly silent; for the only- 
 answer she felt capable of making her mother was that 
 her mind was too small a measure of things, and that 
 the Baron's type " was one which it took some mys- 
 tical illumination to appreciate. A person who con- 
 founded him with the common throng of her watering- 
 place acquaintance was not a person to argue with. 
 It seemed to Euphemia that she had no cause to plead ; 
 her cause was in the Lord's hands and her lover's. 
 
 M. de Mauves had been irritated and mortified by 
 Mrs. Cleve's opposition, and hardly knew how to han- 
 dle an adversary who failed to perceive that a De 
 Mauves of necessity gave more than he received. But 
 he had obtained information on his return to Paris 
 which exalted the uses of humility. Euphemia's for- 
 tune, wonderful to say, was greater than its fame, and 
 in view of such a prize, even a De Mauves could afford 
 to take a snubbing. 
 
 The young man's tact, his deference, his urbane in- 
 sistence, won a concession from Mrs. Cleve. The en- 
 gagement was to be suspended and her daughter was 
 to return home, be brought out and receive the homage 
 she was entitled to, and which w^ould but too surely 
 take a form dangerous to the Baron's suit. They were 
 to exchange neither letters, nor mementos, nor mes- 
 sages ; but if at the end of two years Euphemia had 
 refused offers enough to attest the permanence of her 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 395 
 
 attacliinent, lie should receive an invitation to address 
 her again. 
 
 This decision was promulgated in the presence of the 
 parties interested. The Baron bore himself gallantly, 
 and looked at the young girl, expecting some tender 
 protestation. But she only looked at him silently in 
 return, neither weeping, nor smiling, nor putting out 
 her hand. On this they separated ; but as the Baron 
 walked away, he declared to himself that, in spite of 
 the confounded two years, he was a very happy fellow, 
 — to have a fiancee who, to several millions of francs, 
 added such strangely beautiful eyes. 
 
 How many offers Euphemia refused but scantily 
 concerns us, — and how the Baron wore his two years 
 away. He found that he needed pastimes, and, as 
 pastimes were expensive, he added heavity to the 
 list of debts to be cancelled by Euphemia's millions. 
 Sometimes, in the thick of what he had once called 
 pleasure with a keener conviction than now, he put 
 to himself the case of their failing him after all ; and 
 then he remembered that last mute assurance of her 
 eyes, and drew a long breath of such confidence as he 
 felt in nothing else in the world save his ow^n punc- 
 tuality in an affair of honor. 
 
 At last, one morning, he took the express to Havre 
 with a letter of Mrs. Cleve's in his pocket, and ten 
 days later made his bow to mother and daughter in 
 
396 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 New York. His stay was brief, and he was apparently 
 unable to bring himself to view what Euphemia's 
 uncle, Mr. Butterworth, who gave her away at the 
 altar, called our great experiment in democratic self- 
 government in a serious light. He smiled at every- 
 thing, and seemed to regard the New World as a co- 
 lossal plaisanterie. It is true that a perpetual smile 
 was the most natural expression of countenance for a 
 man about to marry Euphemia Cleve. 
 
III. 
 
 ONGMOEE'S first visit seemed to open to him 
 
 that he very soon paid a second, and, at the end of a 
 fortnight, had spent a great many hours in the little 
 drawing-room which Madame de Mauves rarely quitted 
 except to drive or walk in the forest. She lived in an 
 old-fashioned pavilion, between a high-walled court and 
 an excessively artificial garden, beyond whose enclos- 
 ure you saw a long line of tree-tops. Longmore liked 
 the garden, and in the mild afternoons used to move 
 his chair through the open window to the little terrace 
 which overlooked it, while his hostess sat just within. 
 After a while she came out and wandered through the 
 narrow alleys and beside the thin-spouting fountain, 
 aji4 Iftst introduced him to a little gate in the garden 
 wgU^.MJiji^ning upon a lane which led into the forest. 
 Hithei vard, more than once, she wandered with him, 
 barehtaaed and meaning to go but twenty rods, but 
 alwa^ . strolling good-naturedly farther, and often tak- 
 ing a generous walk. They discovered a vast deal to 
 talk /about, and to the pleasure of finding the hours 
 
 opportunity for tranquil enjoyment. 
 
398 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 tread inaudibly away, Longmore was able to add the 
 satisfaction of suspecting that he was a " resource " for 
 Madame de Mauves. He had made her acquaintance 
 with the sense, not altogether comfortable, that she 
 was a woman with a painful secret, and that seeking 
 her acquaintance would be like visiting au a house 
 where there was an invalid who could bear no noise. 
 But he very soon perceived that her sorrow, since sor- 
 row it was, was not an aggressive one ; that it was not 
 fond of attitudes and ceremonies, and that her earnest 
 wish was to forget it. He felt that even if Mrs. Dra- 
 per had not told him she was unhappy, he would have 
 guessed it ; and yet he could hardly have pointed to 
 his evidence. It was chiefly negative, — she never 
 alluded to her husband. Beyond this it seemed to 
 him simply that her whole being was pitched on a 
 lower key than harmonious Nature meant ; she was 
 like a powerful singer who had lost her high notes. 
 She never drooped nor sighed nor looked unutterable 
 things ; she indulged in no dusky sarcasms against 
 J fate ; she had, in short, none of the coquetry^ iff tin- 
 happiness. But Longmore was sure that her gentle 
 gayety was the result of strenuous effort, and that she 
 was trying to interest herself in his thoughts to escape 
 from her own. If she had wished to irritate tiis curi- 
 osity and lead him to take her confidenc4f"Bf^ «tbrm, 
 nothing could have served her purpose better thaii tliis 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 399 
 
 ingenuous reserve. He declared to himself that there 
 was a rare magnanimity in such ardent self-effacement, 
 and that but one woman in ten thousand was capable 
 of merging an intensely personal grief in thankless 
 outward co^.templation. Madame de Mauves, he in- 
 stinctively ^elt, was not sweeping the horizon for a 
 compensation or a consoler ; she had suffered a per- . " 
 sonal deception which had disgusted her with persons. 
 She was not striving to balance her sorrow with some 
 strongly flavored joy ; for the present, she was trying 
 to live with it, peaceably, reputably, and without scan- 
 dal, — turning the key on it occasionally, as you would 
 on a companion liable to attacks of insanity. Long- 
 more was a man of fine senses and of an active imagi- 
 nation, whose leading-strings had never been slipped. 
 He began to regard his hostess as a figure haunted by 
 a shadow^whi<!h was somehow her intenser, more au- 
 thentic ' This hovering mystery came to have for 
 him aii'^eitoaordinary charm. Her delicate beauty 
 acquirecf'tdliis eye the serious cast of certain blank- 
 brow^ Glp^ek statues, and sometimes, when his imagi- 
 nation, more than his ear, detected a vague tremor in 
 ^be'^ one in which she attempted to make a friendly 
 seem to have behind it none of the hollow 
 of absent-mindedness, his marvelling eyes 
 an answer more eloquent, though much less 
 point, than the one she demanded. 
 
400 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 She gave him indeed much to wonder about, and, 
 in his ignorance, he formed a dozen experimental 
 theories upon the history of her marriage. She had 
 married for love and staked her whole soul on it; 
 of that he was convinced. She had not married a 
 Frenchman to be near Paris and her base of supplies 
 of millinery ; he was sure she had seen conjugal hap- 
 piness in a light of which her present life, with its 
 conveniences for shopping and its moral aridity, was 
 the absolute negation. But by what extraordinary 
 process of the heart — through what mysterious in- 
 termission of that moral instinct which may keep 
 pace with the heart, even when that organ is making 
 unprecedented time — had she fixed her affections on 
 an arrogantly frivolous Frenchman ? Longmore needed 
 no telling ; he knew M. de Mauves was^ivolous ; 
 it was stamped on his eyes, his nose, iqtiouth, his 
 carriage. For French women Longmore had but a 
 scanty kindness, or at least (what with him was very 
 much the same thing) but a scanty gallantry; , they 
 all seemed to belong to the type of a certain fine 
 lady to whom he had ventured to present a letter of 
 introduction, and whom, directly after his first visit 
 to her, he had set down in his note-book as "metal- 
 lic." Why should Madame de Mauves have. qhosen 
 a French woman's lot, — she whose character . }iad a 
 perfume which does n't belong to even the brig]|iJ;e^L 
 
MADATVtE DE IM^ATjrES, 
 
 401 
 
 metals ? He asked her one day frankly if it had 
 cost her nothing to transplant herself, — if she was 
 not oppressed with a sense of irreconcilable difference 
 from ''all these people." She was silent awhile, and 
 he fancied that she was hesitating as to whether she 
 should resent so unceremonious an allusion to her 
 husband. He almost wished she would; it would 
 seem a proof that her deep reserve of sorrow had a 
 limit. 
 
 " I almost grew up here," she said at last, " and it 
 was here for me that those dreams of the future took 
 shape that we all have when we cease to be very 
 young. As matters stand, one may be very American 
 and yet arrange it with one's conscience to live in 
 Europe. My imagination perhaps — I had a little 
 when I was younger — helped me to think I should 
 find happiness here. And after all, for a woman, 
 what does it signify ? This is not America, perhaps, 
 about me, but it 's quite as little France. France 
 is out there, beyond the garden, in the town, in the 
 forest ; but here, close about me, in my room and " — 
 she paused a moment — " in my mind, it 's a name- 
 less country of my own. It 's not her country," she 
 added, ''that makes a woman l]^tppy or unhappy." 
 
 Madame Clairin, Euphemia's sister-in-law, might 
 have been supposed to have undertaken the graceful 
 task of making Longmore ashamed of his uncivil jot- 
 
402 
 
 MADAME Ua MAiJVES, 
 
 tings about her sex and nation. Mademoiselle de 
 Mauves, bringing example to the confirmation of pre- 
 cept, had made a remunerative match and sacrificed 
 her name to the millions of a prosperous and aspir- 
 ing wholesale druggist, — a gentleman liberal enough 
 to consider his fortune a moderate price for being 
 towed into circles unpervaded by pharmaceutic odors. 
 ^His system, possibly, was sound, but his own appli- 
 cation of it was unfortunate. M. Clairin's head was 
 turned by his good luck. Having secured an aristo- 
 cratic wife, he adopted an aristocratic vice and began 
 to gamble at the Bourse. In an evil hour he lost 
 heavily and staked heavily to recover himself. But 
 he overtook his loss only by a greater one. Then he 
 let everything go, — his wits, his courage, his prob- 
 ity, — everything that had made him what his ridic- 
 ulous marriage had so promptly unmade. He walked 
 up the Eue Vivienne one day with his hands in his 
 empty pockets, and stood for half an hour staring con- 
 fusedly up and down the glittering boulevard. People 
 brushed against him, and half a dozen carriages almost 
 ran over him, until at last a policeman, who had been 
 watching him for some time, took him by the arm and 
 led him gently away.^ He looked at the man's cocked 
 hat and sword with tears in his eyes ; he hoped he 
 was going to interpret to him the wrath of Heaven, — 
 to execute the penalty of his dead-weight of self-ab- 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 403 
 
 I 
 
 ^^^Hb embrasure of a door, out of harm's way, and 
 ^^^Hd away to supervise a financial contest between 
 ^^^Hd lady and a cabman. Poor M. Clairin had 
 
 ^^Upbeen married a year, but he had had time to 
 measure the lofty spirit of a De Mauves. When night 
 had fallen, he repaired to the house of a friend and 
 asked for a night's lodging; and as his friend, who 
 was simply his old head book-keeper and lived in a 
 small way, was put to some trouble to accommodate 
 him, — "You must excuse me," Clairin said, ''but I 
 can't go home. I 'm afraid of my w^ife ! " Toward 
 morning he blew his brains out. His widow turned 
 the remnants of his property to better account than 
 could have been expected, and wore the very hand- 
 somest mourning. It was for this latter reason, per- 
 haps, that she was obliged to retrench at other points 
 and accept a temporary home under her brother's 
 roof. 
 
 Fortune had played Madame Clairin a terrible trick, 
 but had found an adversary and not a victim. Though 
 quite without beauty, she had always had what is 
 called the grand air, and her air from this time for- 
 ward was grander than ever. As she trailed about in 
 her sable furbelows, tossing back her well-dressed 
 head, and holding up her vigilant eye-glass, she 
 seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and 
 
404 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 asking herself where she should pluck her re 
 Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her han 
 poor Longmore's wealth and amiability. Ame 
 dollars and American complaisance had mad^~ 
 brother's fortune ; why should n't they make h^ts ? 
 She overestimated Longmore's wealth and misinter- 
 preted his amiability ; for she was sure that a man 
 could not be so contented without being rich, nor so 
 unassuming without being weak. He encountered her 
 advances with a formal politeness which covered a 
 great deal of unflattering discomposure. She made 
 him feel acutely uncomfortable ; and though he was 
 at a loss to conceive how he could be an object of 
 interest to a shrewd Parisienne, he had an indefinable 
 sense of being enclosed in a magnetic circle, like the 
 victim of an incantation. If Madame Clairin could 
 have fathomed his Puritanic soul, she would have 
 laid by her wand and her book and admitted that he 
 was an impossible subject. She gave him a kind of 
 moral chill, and he never mentally alluded to her 
 save as that dreadful woman, — that terrible woman. 
 He did justice to her grand air, but for his pleasure 
 he preferred the small air of Madame de Mauves ; 
 and he never made her his bow, after standing frigidly 
 passive for five minutes to one of her gracious over- 
 tures to intimacy, without feeling a peculiar desire to 
 ramble away iqto the forest, fling himself down on 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 405 
 
 the warm gra^s, and, staring up at the blue sky, for- 
 get that there were any women in nature who did n't 
 please like the swaying tree-tops. One day, on his 
 arrival, she met him in the court and told him that 
 her sister-in-law was shut up with a headache, and 
 that his visit must be for her. He followed her into 
 the drawing-room with the best grace at his command, 
 and sat twirling his hat for half an hour. Suddenly 
 he understood her ; the caressing cadence of her voice 
 was a distinct invitation to solicit the incomparable 
 honor of her hand. He blushed to the roots of his 
 hair and jumped up with uncontrollable alacrity ; then, 
 dropping a glance at Madame Clairin, who sat watch- 
 ing him with hard eyes over the edge of her smile, as 
 it were, perceived on her brow a flash of unforgiving 
 wrath. It was not becoming, but his eyes lingered 
 a moment, for it seemed to illuminate her character. 
 What he saw there frightened him, and he felt him- 
 self murmuring, " Poor Madame de Mauves ! His 
 departure was abrupt, and this time he really went 
 into the forest and lay down on the grass. 
 
 After this he admired Madame de Mauves more 
 than ever ; she seemed a brighter figure, dogged by a 
 darker shadow. At the end of a month he received a 
 letter from a friend with whom he had arranged a 
 tour through the Low Countries, reminding him of his 
 promise to meet him promptly at Brussels. It was 
 
406 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 only after his answer was posted that he fully meas- 
 ured the zeal with which he had declared that the 
 journey must either be deferred or abandoned, — that 
 he could not possibly leave Saint-Germain. He took 
 a walk in the forest, and asked himself if this was 
 irrevocably true. If it was, surely his duty was to 
 march straight home and pack his trunk. Poor Web- 
 ster, who, he knew, had counted ardently on this 
 excursion, was an excellent fellow ; six weeks ago he 
 would have gone through fire and water to join Web- 
 ster. It had never been in his books to throw over- 
 I board a friend w^hom he had loved for ten years for a 
 ' married woman whom for six weeks he had — admired. 
 It was certainly beyond question that he was linger- 
 ing at Saint-Germain because this admirable married 
 woman was there ; but in the midst of all this admi- 
 ration what had become of prudence ? This was the 
 conduct of a man prepared to fall utterly in love. If 
 she was as unhappy as he believed, the love of such a 
 man would help her very little more than his indiffer- 
 ence ; if she was less so, she needed no help and could 
 dispense with his friendly offices. He was sure, more- 
 over, that if she knew he was staying on her account, 
 she would be extremely annoyed. But this very feel- 
 ing had much to do with making it hard to go ; her 
 displeasure would only enhance the gentle stoicism 
 which touched him to the heart. At moments, indeed, 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 407 
 
 lie assured himself that to linger was simply imperti- 
 nent ; it was indelicate to make a daily study of such 
 a shrinking grief. But inclination answered that some 
 day her self-support w^ould fail, and he had a vision 
 of this admirable creature calling vainly for help. He 
 would be her friend, to any length; it was unworthy 
 of both of them to think about consequences. But he 
 was a friend who carried about with him a mutter- 
 ing resentment that he had not known her five years 
 earlier, and a brooding hostility to those who had an- 
 ticipated him. It seemed one of fortune's most mock- 
 ing strokes, that she should be surrounded by persons 
 whose only merit was that they threw the charm of 
 her character into radiant relief 
 
 Longmore's growing irritation made it more and 
 more difficult for him to see any other merit than this 
 in the Baron de Mauves. And yet, disinterestedly, it 
 would have been hard to give a name to the porten- 
 tous vices which such an estimate implied, and there 
 were times when our hero was almost persuaded 
 against his finer judgment that he was really the most 
 considerate of husbands, and that his wife liked melan- 
 choly for melancholy's sake. His manners were per- 
 fect, his urbanity was unbounded, and he seemed never 
 to address her but, sentimentally speaking, hat in hand: 
 His tone to Longmore (as the latter was perfectly 
 aware) was that of a man of the world to a man not 
 
408 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 quite of the world ; but what it lacked in deference 
 it made up in easy friendliness. " I can't thank you 
 enough for having overcome my wife's shyness/' he 
 more than once declared. " If we left her to do as she 
 pleased, she would bury herself alive. Come often, 
 and bring some one else. She 'U have nothing to do 
 with my friends, but perhaps she '11 accept yours." 
 
 The Baron made these speeches with a remorseless 
 placidity very amazing to our hero, who had an inno- 
 cent belief that a man's head may point out to him the 
 shortcomings of his heart and make him ashamed of 
 them. He could not fancy him capable both of neg- 
 lecting his wife and taking an almost humorous view 
 of her suffering. Longmore had, at any rate, an exas- 
 perating sense that the Baron thought rather less of 
 his wife than more, for that very same fine difference 
 of nature which so deeply stirred his own sympathies. 
 He was rarely present during Longmore's visits, and 
 made a daily journey to Paris, where he had "busi- 
 ness," as he once mentioned, — not in the least with a 
 tone of apology. When he appeared, it was late in tlie 
 evening, and with an imperturbable air of being on the 
 best of terms with every one and everything, which 
 was peculiarly annoying if you happened to have a 
 tacit quarrel with him. If he was a good fellow, he 
 was surely a good fellow spoiled. Something he 
 had, however, which Longmore vaguely envied — a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 409 
 
 kind of superb positiveness — a manner rounded and 
 polished by the traditions of centuries — an amenity- 
 exercised for his own sake and not his neighbors' — 
 which seemed the result of something better than a 
 good conscience — of a vigorous and unscrupulous 
 temperament. The Baron was plainly not a moral 
 man, and poor Longmore, who was, would have been 
 glad to learn the secret of his luxurious serenity. 
 What was it that enabled him, without being a mon- 
 ster with visibly cloven feet, exhaling brimstone, to 
 misprize so cruelly a lovely wife, and to walk about 
 the world with a smile under his mustache ? It was 
 the essential grossness of his imagination, which had 
 nevertheless helped him to turn so many neat compli- 
 ments. He could be very polite, and he could doubt- 
 less be supremely impertinent ; but he was as unable 
 to draw a moral inference of the finer strain, as a 
 school-boy who has been playing truant for a week to 
 solve a problem in algebra. It was ten to one he 
 did n't know his wife was unhappy ; he and his bril- 
 liant sister had doubtless agreed to consider their com- 
 panion a Puritanical little person, of meagre aspira- 
 tions and slender accomplishments, contented with 
 looking at Paris from the terrace, and, as an especial 
 treat, having a countryman very much like herself to 
 supply her with homely transatlantic gossip. M. de 
 Mauves was tired of his companion : he relished a 
 
 18 
 
410 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 higher flavor in female society. She was too modest, 
 too simple, too delicate ; she had too few arts, too little 
 coquetry, too much charity. M. de Mauves, some day, 
 lighting a cigar, had probably decided she was stupid. 
 It was the same sort of taste, Longmore moralized, as 
 the taste for Gerome in painting, and for M. Gustave 
 Flaubert in literature. The Baron was a pagan and 
 his wife was a Christian, and between them, according- 
 ly, was a gulf He was by race and instinct a grand 
 seigneur. Longmore had often heard of this distin- 
 guished social type, and was properly grateful for an 
 opportunity to examine it closely. It had certainly a 
 picturesque boldness of outline, but it was fed from 
 spiritual sources so remote from those of which he felt 
 the living gush in his own soul, that he found himself 
 gazing at it, in irreconcilable antipathy^ across a dim 
 historic mist. " I 'm a modern hourgeois,' he said, 
 and not perhaps so good a judge of how far a pretty 
 woman's tongue may go at supper without prejudice to 
 her reputation. But I Ve not met one of the sweetest 
 of women without recognizing her and discovering that 
 a certain sort of character offers better entertainment 
 than Theresa's songs, sung by a dissipated duchess. 
 Wit for wit, I think mine carries me further." It was 
 easy indeed to perceive that, as became a grand seig- 
 neur, M. de Mauves had a stock of rigid notions. He 
 would not especially have desired, perhaps, that his 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 411 
 
 wife should compete in amateur operettas with the 
 duchesses in question, chiefly of recent origin ; but he 
 held that a gentleman may take his amusement where 
 he finds it, that he is quite at liberty not to find it at 
 home ; and that the wife of a De Mauves who should 
 hang her head and have red eyes, and allow herself to 
 make any other response to ofiicious condolence than 
 that her husband's amusements were his own affair, 
 would have forfeited every claim to having her finger- 
 tips bowed over and kissed. And yet in spite of these 
 sound principles, Longmore fancied that the Baron was 
 more irritated than gratified by his wife's irreproach- 
 able reserve. Did it dimly occur to him that it was 
 self-control and not self-effacement ? She was a model 
 to all the inferior matrons of his line, past and to come, 
 and an occasional " scene " from her at a convenient 
 moment would have something reassuring, — would at- 
 test her stupidity a trifle more forcibly than her inscru- 
 table tranquillity. 
 
 Longmore would have given much to know the 
 principle of her submissiveness, and he tried more 
 than once, but with rather awkward timidity, to sound 
 the mystery. She seemed to him to have been long 
 resisting the force of cruel evidence, and, though she 
 had succumbed to it at last, to have denied herself 
 the right to complain, because if faith was gone her 
 heroic generosity remained. He believed even that 
 
412 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 she was capable of reproaching herself with having 
 expected too much, and of trying to persuade herself 
 out of her bitterness by saying that her hopes had 
 been illusions and .that this was simply — life. "I 
 hate tragedy," she once said to him ; " I have a really 
 pusillanimous dread of moral suffering. I believe that 
 — without base concessions — there is always some 
 way of escaping from it. I had almost rather never 
 smile all my life than have a single violent explosion 
 of grief." She lived evidently in nervous apprehension 
 of being fatally convinced, — of seeing to the end of 
 her deception. Longmore, when he thought of this, 
 felt an immense longing to offer her something of 
 which she could be as sure as of the sun in heaven. 
 
IV. 
 
 IS friend Webster lost no time in accusing him 
 
 -L JL of the basest infidelity, and asking him v^hat he 
 found at Saint-Germain to prefer to Van Eyck and 
 Hemling, Eubens and Eembrandt. A day or two after 
 the receipt of Webster's letter, he took a walk with 
 Madame de Mauves in the forest. They sat down on 
 a fallen log, and she began to arrange into a bou- 
 quet the anemones and violets she had gathered. " I 
 have a letter," he said at last, "from a friend whom 
 I some time ago promised to join at Brussels. The 
 time has come, — it has passed. It finds me terribly 
 unwilling to leave Saint-Germain." 
 
 She looked up with the candid interest which she 
 always displayed in his affairs, but with no disposition, 
 apparently, to make a personal application of his words. 
 "Saint-Germain is pleasant enough," she said; "but 
 are you doing yourself justice ? Won't you regret in 
 future days that instead of travelling and seeing cities 
 and monuments and museums and improving your 
 mind, you sat here — for instance — on a log, pulling 
 my flowers to pieces ? " 
 
414 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 "What I shall regret in future days," he answered 
 after some hesitation, " is that I should have sat here 
 and not spoken the truth on the matter. I am fond 
 of museums and monuments and of improving my 
 mind, and I 'm particularly fond of my friend Webster. 
 But I can't bring myself to leave Saint-Germain v^^ith- 
 out asking you a question. You must forgive me if 
 it's unfortunate, and be assured that curiosity was 
 never more respectful. Are you really as unhappy as 
 I imagine you to be ? " 
 
 She had evidently not expected his question, and 
 she greeted it with a startled blush. " If I strike you 
 as unhappy," she said, "I have been a poorer friend 
 to you than I wished to be." 
 
 " I, perhaps, have been a better friend of yours than 
 you have supposed. I 've admired your reserve, your 
 courage, your studied gayety. But I have felt the 
 existence of something beneath them that was more 
 you — more you as I wished to know you — than they 
 were ; something that I have believed to be a constant 
 sorrow." 
 
 She listened with great gravity, but without an air 
 of offence, and he felt that while he had been timor- 
 ously calculating the last consequences of friendship, 
 she had placidly accepted them. " You surprise me," 
 she said slowly, and her blush still lingered. "But 
 to refuse to answer you would confirm an impression 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 415 
 
 which is evidently already too strong. An unhappi- 
 ness that one can sit comfortably talking about, is an 
 unhappiness with distinct limitations. If I were ex- 
 amined before a board of commissioners for investi- 
 gating the felicity of mankind, I 'm sure I should be 
 pronounced a very fortunate woman." 
 
 There was something delightfully gentle to him in 
 her tone, and its softness seemed to deepen as she 
 continued : But let me add, with all gratitude for 
 your sympathy, that it's my own affair altogether. 
 It need n't disturb you, Mr. Longmore, for I have 
 often found myself in your company a very contented 
 person." 
 
 " You 're a wonderful woman," he said, and I ad- 
 mire you as I never have admired any one. You 're 
 wiser than anything I, for one, can say to you ; and 
 what I ask of you is not to let me advise or console 
 you, but simply thank you for letting me know you." 
 He had intended no such outburst as this, but his 
 voice rang loud, and he felt a kind of unfamiliar joy 
 as he uttered it. 
 
 She shook her head with some impatience. "Let 
 us be friends, — as I supposed we were going to be, — 
 without protestations and fine words. To have you 
 making bows to my wisdom, — that would be real 
 wretchedness. I can dispense with your admiration 
 better than the Flemish painters can, — better than 
 
416 
 
 MADAME D£ MAUVES. 
 
 Van Eyck and Eubens, in spite of all their worship- 
 pers. Go join your friend, — see everything, enjoy 
 everything, learn everything, and write me an excel- 
 lent letter, brimming over with your impressions. I 'm 
 extremely fond of the Dutch painters," she added with 
 a slight faltering of the voice, which Longmore had 
 noticed once before, and which he had interpreted as 
 the sudden weariness of a spirit self-condemned to play 
 a part. 
 
 " I don't believe you care about the Dutch painters 
 at all," he said with an unhesitating laugh. " But I 
 shall certainly write you a letter." 
 
 She rose and turned homeward, thoughtfully re- 
 arranging her flowers as she w^alked. Little was said ; 
 Longmore was asking himself, with a tremor in the 
 unspoken words, whether all this meant simply that 
 he was in love. He looked at the rooks wheeling 
 against the golden-hued sky, between the tree-tops, 
 but not at his companion, whose personal presence 
 seemed lost in the felicity she had created. Madame 
 de Mauves was silent and grave, because she was 
 painfully disappointed. A sentimental friendship she 
 had not desired; her scheme had been to pass with 
 Longmore as a placid creature with a good deal of 
 leisure, which she was disposed to devote to profitable 
 conversation of an impersonal sort. She liked him 
 extremely, and felt that there was something in him 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 417 
 
 to which, when she made up her girlish mind that a 
 needy French baron was the ripest fruit of time, she 
 had done very scanty justice. They went through the 
 little gate in the garden wall and approached the 
 house. On the terrace Madame Clairin was entertain- 
 ing a friend, — a little elderly gentleman with a white 
 mustache, and an order in his button-hole. Madame 
 de Mauves chose to pass round the house into the 
 court; whereupon her sister-in-law, greeting Long- 
 more with a commanding nod, lifted her eye-glass and 
 stared at them as they went by. Longmore heard 
 the little old gentleman uttering some old-fashioned 
 epigram about "la vieille galanterie Fran^aise," and 
 then, by a sudden impulse, he looked at Madame 
 de Mauves and wondered what she was doing in such 
 a world. She stopped before the house, without ask- 
 ing him to come in. " I hope," she said, " you 11 con- 
 sider my advice, and waste no more time at Saint- 
 Germain." 
 
 For an instant there rose to his lips some faded 
 compliment about his time not being wasted, but it 
 expired before the simple sincerity of her look. She 
 stood there as gently serious as the angel of disin- 
 terestedness, and Longmore felt as if he should insult 
 her by treating her words as a bait for flattery. "I 
 shall start in a day or two," he answered, " but I won't 
 promise you not to come back." 
 
 18* AA 
 
418 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 "I hope not/' she said simply. ''I expect to be 
 here a long time." 
 
 " I shall come and say good by," he rejoined ; on 
 which she nodded with a smile, and went in. 
 • He turned away, and walked slowly homeward by 
 the terrace. It seemed to him that to leave her thus, 
 for a gain on which she herself insisted, was to know 
 her better and admire her more. But he was in a 
 vague ferment of feeling which her evasion of his 
 question half an hour before had done more to deepen 
 than to allay. Suddenly, on the terrace, he encoun- 
 tered M. de Mauves, who was leaning against the 
 parapet finishing a cigar. The Baron, who, he fancied, 
 had an air of peculiar affability, offered him his fair, 
 plump hand. Longmore stopped; he felt a sudden 
 angry desire to cry out to him that he had the love- 
 liest wife in the world ; that he ought to be ashamed 
 of himself not to know it ; and that for all his shrewd- 
 ness he had never looked into the depths of her eyes. 
 The Baron, we know, considered that he had; but 
 there was something in Euphemia's eyes now that was 
 not there five years before. They talked for a while 
 about various things, and M. de Mauves gave a humor- 
 ous account of his visit to America. His tone was 
 not soothing to Longmore's excited sensibilities. He 
 seemed to consider the country a gigantic joke, and 
 his urbanity only went so far as to admit that it was 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 419 
 
 not a bad one. Longmore was not, by habit, an ag- 
 gressive apologist for our institutions ; but the Baron's 
 narrative confirmed his worst impressions of French 
 superficiality. He had understood nothing, he had 
 felt nothing, he had learned nothing; and our hero, 
 glancing askance at his aristocratic profile, declared 
 that if the chief merit of a long pedigree was to 
 leave one so vaingloriously stupid, he thanked his stars 
 that the Longmores had emerged from obscurity in 
 the present century, in the person of an enterprising 
 lumber merchant. M. de Mauves dwelt of course on 
 that prime oddity of ours, — the liberty allowed to 
 young girls ; and related the history of his researches 
 into the " opportunities " it presented to French noble- 
 men, — researches in which, during a fortnight's stay, 
 he seemed to have spent many agreeable hours. " I 
 am bound to admit," he said, " that in every case I 
 was disarmed by the extreme candor of the young 
 lady, and that they took care of themselves to better 
 purpose than I have seen some mammas in France 
 take care of them." Longmore greeted this handsome 
 concession with the grimmest of smiles, and damned 
 his impertinent patronage. 
 
 Mentioning at last that he was about to leave Saint- 
 Germain, he was surprised, without exactly being flat- 
 tered, by the Baron's quickened attention. I 'm very 
 sorry," the latter cried. " I hoped we had you for the 
 
420 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 summer." Longmore murmured something civil, and 
 wondered why M. de Mauves should care whether he 
 stayed or went. " You were a diversion to Madame de 
 Mauves," the Baron added. I assure you I mentally 
 blessed your visits." 
 
 " They were a great pleasure to me," Longmore said 
 gravely. " Some day I expect to come back." 
 
 " Pray do," and the Baron laid his hand urgently on 
 his arm. " You see I have confidence in you ! " Long- 
 more was silent for a moment, and the Baron puffed 
 his cigar reflectively and watched the smoke. " Ma- 
 dame de Mauves," he said at last, is a rather singular 
 person." 
 
 Longmore shifted his position, and wondered wheth- 
 er he was going to " explain " Madame de Mauves. 
 
 " Being as you are her fellow-countryman," the 
 Baron went on, " I don't mind speaking frankly. She 's 
 just a little morbid, — the most charming woman in 
 the world, as you see, but a little fanciful, — a little 
 exalt^e, Now you see she has taken this extraordinary 
 fancy for solitude. I can't get her to go anywhere, — 
 to see any one. When my friends present themselves 
 she 's polite, but she 's freezing. She does n't do her- 
 self justice, and I expect every day to hear two or 
 three of them say to me, ' Your wife 's jolie a croqucr : 
 what a pity she has n't a little esprit.^ You must 
 have found out that she has really a great deal. But 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 423 
 
 to tell the whole truth, what she needs is to forget 
 herself. She sits alone for hours poring over her 
 Enghsh books and looking a-t life through that terrible 
 brown fog which they always seem to me to fling over 
 the world. I doubt if your English authors/' the 
 Baron continued, with a serenity which Longmore 
 afterwards characterized as sublime, "are very sound 
 reading for young married women. I don't pretend to 
 know much about them ; but I remember that, not long- 
 after our marriage, Madame de Mauves undertook to 
 read me one day a certain Wordsworth, — a poet highly 
 esteemed, it appears, chez vous. It seemed to me that 
 she took me by the nape of the neck and forced my 
 head for half an hour over a basin of soupe aux clioux, 
 and that one ought to ventilate the drawing-room be- 
 fore any one called. But I suppose you know him, — 
 ce g^nie la. I think my wife never forgave me, and 
 that it was a real shock to her to find she had married 
 a man who had very much the same taste in literature 
 as in cookery. But you 're a man of general culture," 
 said the Baron, turning to Longmore and fixing his 
 eyes on the seal on his watch-guard. " You can talk 
 about everything, and I 'm sure you like Alfred de 
 Musset as well as Wordsworth. Talk to her about 
 everything, Alfred de Musset included. Bah ! I forgot 
 you 're going. Come back then as soon as possible and 
 talk about your travels. If Madame de Mauves too 
 
420 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 would travel for a couple of months, it would do her 
 good. It would enlarge her horizon/' — and M. de 
 Mauves made a series of short nervous jerks with his 
 stick in the air, — it would wake up her imagination. 
 She 's too rigid, you know, — it would show her that 
 one may bend a trifle without breaking." He paused 
 a moment and gave two or three vigorous puffs. Then 
 turning to his companion again, with a little nod and a 
 confidential smile : — ''I hope you admire my candor. 
 I would n't say all this to one of us!' 
 
 Evening was coming on, and the lingering light 
 seemed to float in the air in faintly golden motes. 
 Longmore stood gazing at these luminous particles ; he 
 could almost have fancied them a swarm of humming 
 insects, murmuring as a refrain, She has a great deal 
 of esprity — she has a great deal of espritr Yes, she 
 has a great deal," he said mechanically, turning to the 
 Baron. M. de Mauves glanced at him sharply, as if to 
 ask what the deuce he was talking about. " She has 
 a great deal of intelligence," said Longmore, deliber- 
 ately, " a great deal of beauty, a great many virtues." 
 
 M. de Mauves busied himself for a moment in light- 
 ing another cigar, and when he had finished, witli a 
 return of his confidential smile, " I suspect you of 
 thinking," he said, "that I don't do my wife justice. 
 Take care, — take care, young man ; that 's a danger- 
 ous assumption. In general, a man always does his 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 423 
 
 wife justice. More than justice," cried the Baron with 
 a laugh, — " that we keep for the wives of other 
 men ! " 
 
 Longmore afterwards remembered it in favor of the 
 Baron's grace of address that he had not measured at 
 this moment the dusky abyss over which it hovered. 
 But a sort of deepening subterranean echo lingered on 
 his spiritual ear. For the present his keenest sensa- 
 tion was a desire to get away and cry aloud that M. de 
 Mauves was an arrogant fool. He bade him an abrupt 
 good-night, which must serve also, he said, as good-by. 
 
 " Decidedly, then, you go ? " said M. de Mauves, 
 almost peremptorily. 
 Decidedly." 
 
 " Of course you 11 come and say good by to Madame 
 de Mauves." His tone implied that the omission would 
 be most uncivil ; but there seemed to Longmore some- 
 thing so ludicrous in his taking a lesson in considera- 
 tion from M. de Mauves, that he burst into a laugh. 
 The Baron frowned, like a man for whom it was a 
 new and most unpleasant sensation to be perplexed. 
 " You 're a queer fellow," he murmured, as Longmore 
 turned away, not foreseeing that he would think him 
 a very queer fellow indeed before he had done with 
 him. 
 
 Longmore sat down to dinner at his hotel with his 
 usual good intentions ; but as he was lifting his first 
 
424 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 glass of wine to his lips, he suddenly fell to musing and 
 set down his wine untasted. His revery lasted long, and 
 when he emerged from it, his fish was cold ; but this 
 mattered little, for his appetite was gone. That even- 
 ing he packed his trunk with a kind of indignant 
 energy. This was so effective that the operation was 
 accomplished before bedtime, and as he was not in the 
 least sleepy, he devoted the interval to writing two 
 letters ; one was a short note to Madame de Mauves, 
 which he intrusted to a servant, to be delivered the 
 next morning. He had found it best, he said, to leave 
 Saint- Germain immediately, but he expected to be 
 back in Paris in the early autumn. The other letter 
 was the result of his having remembered a day or 
 two before that he had not yet complied with Mrs. 
 Draper's injunction to give her an account of his 
 impressions of her friend. The present occasion seemed 
 propitious, and he wrote half a dozen pages. His 
 tone, however, was grave, and Mrs. Draper, on receiv- 
 ing them, was slightly disappointed, — she would have 
 preferred a stronger flavor of rhapsody. But what 
 chiefly concerns us is the concluding sentences. 
 
 " The only time she ever spoke to me of her mar- 
 riage," he wrote, " she intimated that it had been a per- 
 fect love-match. With all abatements, I suppose most 
 marriages are ; but in her case this would mean more, 
 I think, than in that of most women ; for her love 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 425 
 
 was an absolute idealization. She believed her hus- 
 band was a hero of rose-colored romance, and he turns 
 out to be not even a hero of very sad-colored reality. 
 For some time now she has been sounding her mis- 
 take, but I don't believe she has touched the bottom 
 of it yet. She strikes me as a person who is beg- 
 ging off from full knowledge, — who has struck a truce 
 with painful truth, and is trying awhile the experi- 
 ment of living with closed eyes. In the dark she 
 tries to see again the gilding on her idol. Illusion of 
 course is illusion, and one must always pay for it ; 
 but there is something truly tragical in seeing an 
 earthly penalty levied on such divine folly as this. 
 As for M. de Mauves, he 's a Frenchman to his fin- 
 gers' ends ; and I confess I should dislike him for this 
 if he were a much better man. He can't forgive his 
 wife for having married him too sentimentally and 
 loved him too well ; for in some uncorrupted corner 
 of his being he feels, I suppose, that as she saw him, 
 so he ought to have been. It 's a perpetual vexation 
 to him that a little American bourgeoise should have 
 fancied him a finer fellow than he is, or than he at 
 all wants to be. He hasn't a glimmering of real 
 acquaintance with his wife ; he can't understand the 
 stream of passion flowing so clear and still. To tell 
 the truth, I hardly can myself ; but when I see the 
 spectacle I can admire it furiously. M. de Mauves, 
 
426 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 at any rate, would like to have the comfort of feel- 
 ing that his wife was as corruptible as himself; and 
 you 11 hardly believe me when I tell you that he 
 goes about intimating to gentlemen whom he deems 
 worthy of the knowledge, that it would be a conven- 
 ience to him to have them make love to her." 
 
V. 
 
 N reaching Paris, Longmore straightway pur- 
 
 vey chased a Murray's " Belgium/' to help himself to 
 believe that he would start on the morrow for Brussels; 
 but when the morrow came, it occurred to him that, by 
 way of preparation, he ought to acquaint himself more 
 intimately with the Flemkh painters in the Louvre. 
 This took a whole morning, but it did little to hasten 
 his departure. He had abruptly left Saint-Germain, 
 because it seemed to him that respect for Madame de 
 Mauves demanded that he should allow her husband 
 no reason to suppose that he had understood him ; but 
 now that he had satisfied this immediate need of deli- 
 cacy, he found himself thinking more and more ardent- 
 ly of Euphemia. It was a poor expression of ardor 
 to be lingering irresolutely on the deserted boulevards, 
 but he detested the idea of leaving Saint-Germain five 
 hundred miles behind him. He felt very foolish, nev- 
 ertheless, and wandered about nervously, promising 
 himself to take the next train ; but a dozen trains 
 started, and Longmore was still in Paris. This senti- 
 mental tumult was more than he had bargained for, 
 
428 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 and, as he looked in the shop windows, he wondered 
 whether it was a passion." He had never been fond 
 of the word, and had grown np with a kind of horror 
 of what it represented. He had hoped that when he 
 fell in love, he should do it with an excellent con- 
 science, with no greater agitation than a mild general 
 glow of satisfaction. But here was a sentiment com- 
 pounded of pity and anger, as well as admiration, and 
 bristling with scruples and doubts. He had come 
 abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all others ; 
 but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or Memling 
 was so appealing a figure a^ Madame de Mauves? His 
 restless steps carried him at last out of the long villa- 
 bordered avenue which leads to the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 Summer had fairly begun, and the drive beside the 
 lake was empty, but there were various loungers on 
 the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had an air 
 of animation. Longmore's walk had given him an ap- 
 petite, and he went into the establishment and de- 
 manded a dinner, remarking for the hundredth time, as 
 he observed the smart little tables disposed in the open 
 air, how much better they ordered this matter in 
 France. 
 
 Will monsieur dine in the garden, or in the salon ? " 
 asked the waiter. Long more chose the garden; and 
 observing that a great vine of June roses was trained 
 over the wall of the house, placed himself at a table 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 429 
 
 near by, where the best of dinners was served him on 
 the whitest of linen, in the most shining of porcelain. 
 It so happened that his table was near a window, 
 and that as he sat he could look into a corner of the 
 salon. So it was that his attention rested on a lady 
 seated just within the window, which was open, face 
 to face apparently to a companion who was concealed 
 by the curtain. She was a very pretty woman, and 
 Longmore looked at her as often as was consistent 
 with good manners. After a while he even began 
 to wonder who she was, and to suspect that she was 
 one of those ladies whom it is no breach of good man- 
 ners to look at as often as you like. Longmore, too, 
 if he had been so disposed, would have been the more 
 free to give her all his attention, that her own was 
 fixed upon the person opposite to her. She was what 
 the French call a helle bncne, and though our hero, who 
 had rather a conservative taste in such matters, had no 
 great relish for her bold outlines and even bolder color- 
 ing, he could not help admiring her expression of bask- 
 ing contentment. 
 
 She was evidently very happy, and her happiness 
 gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her friend, 
 whoever he was, abundantly suited her humor, for she 
 sat listening to him with a broad, lazy smile, and inter- 
 rupted him occasionally, while she crunched her bon- 
 bons, with a murmured response, presumably as broad. 
 
430 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 which seemed to deepen his eloquence. She drank a 
 great deal of champagne and ate an immense number 
 of strawberries, and was plainly altogether a person 
 with an impartial relish for strawberries, champagne, 
 and what she would have called hetises. 
 
 They had half finished dinner when Longmore sat 
 down, and he was still in his place when they rose. 
 She had hung her l^onnet on a nail above her chair, 
 and her companion passed round the table to take it 
 down for her. As he did «o, she bent her head to 
 look at a wine stain on her dress, and in the move- 
 ment exposed the greater part of the back of a very 
 handsome neck. The gentleman observed it, and ob- 
 served also, apparently, that the room beyond them, 
 was empty; that he stood within eyeshot of Long- 
 more, he failed to observe. He stooped suddenly and 
 imprinted a gallant kiss on the fair expanse. Long- 
 more then recognized M. de Mauves. The recipient of 
 this vigorous tribute put on her bonnet, using his flushed 
 smile as a mirror, and in a moment they passed 
 through the garden, on their way to their carriage. 
 
 Then, for the first time, M. de Mauves perceived 
 Longmore. He measured with a rapid glance the 
 young man's relation to the open window, and checked 
 himself in the impulse to stop and speak to him. He 
 contented himself with bowing with great gravity as 
 lie opened the gate for his companion. 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 431 
 
 That evening Longmore made a railway journey, 
 but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to 
 care about Brussels ; the only thing he now cared 
 about was Madame de Mauves. The atmosphere of 
 his mind had had a sudden clearing up; pity and 
 anger were still throbbing there, but they had space 
 to rage at their pleasure, for doubts and scruples had 
 abruptly departed. It was little, he felt, that he 
 could interpose between her resignation and the un- 
 sparing harshness of her position; but that little, if 
 it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound 
 him to the tranquil past, it seemed to. him that he 
 could offer her with a rapture which at last made 
 reflection a wofuUy halting substitute for faith. Noth- 
 ing in his tranquil past had given such a zest to 
 consciousness as the sense of tending with all his 
 being to a single aim which bore him company on 
 his journey to Saint-Germain. How to justify his 
 return, how to explain his ardor, troubled him little. 
 He was not sure, even, that he wished to be under- 
 stood ; he wished only to feel that it was by no fault 
 of his that Madame de Mauves was alone with the ug- 
 liness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct desire 
 to "make love" to her; if he could have uttered the 
 essence of his longing, he would have said that he 
 wished her to remember that in a world colored gray 
 to her vision by disappointment, there was one vividly 
 
432 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 honest man. She might certainly have remembered 
 it, however, without his coming back to remind her; 
 and it is not to be denied that, as he packed his valise 
 that evening, he wished immensely to hear the sound 
 of her voice. 
 
 He waited the next day till his usual hour of call- 
 ing, — the late afternoon ; but he learned at the door 
 that Madame de Mauves was not at home. The ser- 
 vant offered the information that she was walking in 
 the forest. Longmore went through the garden and 
 out of the little door into the lane, and, after half an 
 hour's vain exploration, saw her coming toward him 
 at the end of a green by-path. As he appeared, she 
 stopped for a moment, as if to turn aside ; then rec- 
 ognizing him, she slowly advanced, and he was soon 
 shaking hands with her. 
 
 '^Nothing has happened," she said, looking at him 
 fixedly. " You 're not ill ? " 
 
 "Nothing, except that when I got to Paris I found 
 how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." 
 
 She neither smiled nor looked flattered ; it seemed 
 indeed to Longmore that she was annoyed. But he 
 was uncertain, for he immediately perceived that in 
 his absence the whole character of her face had al- 
 tered. It told him that something momentous had 
 happened. It was no longer self-contained melan- 
 choly that he read in her eyes, but grief and agita- 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 433 
 
 tion which had lately struggled with that passionate 
 love of peace of which she had spoken to him, and 
 forced it to know that deep experience is never peace- 
 ful. She was pale, and she had evidently been shed- 
 ding tears. He felt his heart beating hard ; he seemed 
 now to know her secrets. She continued to look at 
 him with a contracted brow, as if his return had given 
 her a sense of responsibility too great to be disguised 
 by a commonplace welcome. For some moments, as 
 he turned and walked beside her, neither spoke ; then 
 abruptly, — "Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, 
 "why you have come back." 
 
 He turned and looked ' at her with an air which 
 startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. 
 "Because I've learned the real answer to the ques- 
 tion I asked you the other day. You 're not happy, — 
 you 're too good to be happy on the terms offered you. 
 Madame de Mauves," he went on with a gesture which 
 protested against a gesture of her own, "I can't be 
 happy if you 're not. I don't care for anything so long 
 as I see such a depth of unconquerable sadness in your 
 eyes. I found during three dreary days in Paris that 
 the thing in the world I most care for is this daily 
 privilege of seeing you. I know it 's absolutely brutal 
 to tell you I admire you ; it 's an insult to you to treat 
 you as if you had complained to me or appealed to me. 
 But such a friendship as I waked up to there " — and he 
 
 19 BB 
 
434 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 tossed his head toward the distant city — " is a potent 
 force, I assure you; and when forces are compressed 
 they explode. But if you had told me every trouble in 
 your heart, it would have mattered little ; I could n't 
 say more than I must say now, — that if that in life 
 from w^hich you Ve hoped most has given you least, 
 my devoted respect will refuse no service and betray 
 no trust." 
 
 She had begun to make marks in the earth with the 
 point of her parasol ; but she stopped and listened to 
 him in perfect immobility. Rather, her immobility 
 was not perfect ; for when he stopped speaking a faint 
 flush had stolen into her cheek. It told Longmore 
 that she was moved, and his first perceiving it was the 
 happiest instant of his life. She raised her eyes at 
 last, and looked at him with what at first seemed a 
 pleading dread of excessive emotion. 
 
 "Thank you — thank you!" she said, calmly enough; 
 but the next moment her own emotion overcame her 
 calmness, and she burst into tears. Her tears vanished 
 as quickly as they came, but they did Longmore a 
 world of good. He had always felt indefinably afraid 
 of her ; her being had somehow seemed fed by a deeper 
 faith and a stronger will than his own ; but her half- 
 dozen smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her 
 heart, and assured him that she was weak enough to be 
 grateful. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 435 
 
 " Excuse me," she said ; " I 'm too nervous to listen 
 to you. I believe I could have faced an enemy to-day, 
 but I can't endure a friend." 
 
 " You 're killing yourself with stoicism, — that 's my 
 belief," he cried. " Listen to a friend for his own sake, 
 if not for yours. I have never ventured to offer you 
 an atom of compassion, and you can't accuse yourself 
 of an abuse of charity." 
 
 She looked about her with a kind of weary con- 
 fusion which promised a reluctant attention. But sud- 
 denly perceiving by the wayside the fallen log on 
 which they had rested a few evenings before, she went 
 and sat down on it in impatient resignation, and looked 
 at Longmore, as he stood silent, watching her, with a 
 glance which seemed to urge that, if she was charita- 
 ble now, he must be very wise. 
 
 " Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he 
 said as he sat down beside her, which gave me a su- 
 preme sense of your moral isolation. You are truth 
 itself, and there is no truth about you. You believe in 
 purity and duty and dignity, and you live in a world 
 in which they are daily belied. I sometimes ask my- 
 self with a kind of rage how you ever came into such 
 a world, — and why the perversity of fate never let me 
 know you before." 
 
 ''I like my ' world' no better than you do, and it was 
 not for its own sake I came into it. But what par- 
 
436 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 ticular group of people is worth pinning one's faith 
 upon ? I confess it sometimes seems to me that men 
 and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I 'm 
 romantic. I have a most unfortunate taste for poetic 
 fitness. Life is hard prose, which one must learn to 
 read contentedly. I believe I once thought that all 
 the prose was in America, which was very foolish. 
 What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, 
 when I was an ignorant girl, fatally addicted to falling 
 in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin 
 to tell you now. Sometimes, when I remember certain 
 impulses, certain illusions of those days, they take 
 away my breath, and I wonder my bedazzled visions 
 did n't lead me into troubles greater than any I have 
 now to lament. I had a conviction which you would 
 probably smile at if I were to attempt to express it to 
 you. It was a singular form for passionate faith to 
 take, but it had all of the sweetness and the ardor of 
 passionate faith. It led me to take a great step, and 
 it lies behind me now in the distance like a shadow 
 melting slowly in the light of experience. It has 
 faded, but it has not vanished. Some feelings, I am 
 sure, die only with ourselves ; some illusions are as 
 much the condition of our life as our heart-beats. 
 They say that life itself is an illusion, — that this 
 world is a shadow of which the reality is yet to come. 
 Life is all of a piece, then, and there is no shame in 
 
MADAME DE MAUVE 
 
 being miserably human. As for my ' iso 
 does n't greatly matter ; it 's the fault, in part, o 
 obstinacy. There have been times when I have bee 
 frantically distressed, and, to tell you the truth, wretch- 
 edly homesick, because my maid — a jewel of a maid 
 — lied to me with every second breath. There have 
 been moments when I have wished I was the daugh- 
 ter of a poor New England minister, living in a little 
 white house under a couple of elms, and doing all the 
 housework." 
 
 She had begun to speak slowly, with an air of 
 effort ; but she went on quickly, as if talking were a 
 relief. " My marriage introduced me to people and 
 things which seemed to me at first very strange and 
 then very horrible, and then, to tell the truth, very 
 contemptible. At first I expended a great deal of 
 sorrow and dismay and pity on it all ; but there 
 soon came a time when I began to wonder whether 
 it was worth one's tears. If I could tell you the 
 eternal friendships I 've seen broken, the inconsolable 
 woes consoled, the jealousies and vanities leading off 
 the dance, you would agree with me that tempers like 
 yours and mine can understand neither such losses nor 
 such compensations. A year ago, while I was in the 
 country, a friend of mine was in despair at the infi- 
 delity of her husband ; she wrote me a most tragical 
 letter, and on my return to Paris I went immediately 
 
A week had elapsed, and, as I had seen 
 ger things, I thought she might have recovered 
 ler spirits. Not at all ; she was still in despair, — but 
 at what ? At the conduct, the abandoned, shameless 
 conduct of Mme. de T. You ^11 imagine, of course, 
 that Mme. de T. was the lady whom my friend's hus- 
 band preferred to his wife. Far from it ; he had 
 never seen her. Who, then, was Mme. de T. ? • Mme. 
 de T. w^as cruelly devoted to M. de V. And who was 
 M. de V. ? M. de V. — in two words, my friend was 
 cultivating two jealousies at once. I hardly know 
 what I said to her ; something, at any rate, that she 
 found unpardonable, for she quite gave me up. 
 Shortly afterward my husband proposed we should 
 cease to live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I 
 believe I was falling into a state of mind that made 
 me a detestable companion. I should have preferred 
 to go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where my 
 husband has a place. But to him Paris, in some degree, 
 is necessary, and Saint-Germain has been a sort of 
 compromise." 
 
 " A sort of compromise ! " Longmore repeated. 
 That 's your whole life." 
 
 " It 's the life of many people, of most people of 
 quiet tastes, and it is certainly better than acute dis- 
 tress. One is at loss theoretically to defend a compro- 
 mise ; but if I found a poor creature clinging to one 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 439 
 
 from day to day, I should think it poor friendship to 
 make him lose his hold." Madame de Mauves had 
 no sooner uttered these words than she smiled faintly, 
 as if to mitigate their personal application. 
 
 " Heaven forbid," said Longmore, that one should 
 do that unless one has something better to offer. And 
 yet I am haunted by a vision of a life in which you 
 should have found no compromises, for they are a per- 
 version of natures that tend only to goodness and rec- 
 titude. As I see it, you should have found happiness 
 serene, profound, complete ; a femme de chambre not a 
 jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but one fib a day ; 
 a society possibly rather provincial, but (in spite of 
 your poor opinion of mankind) a good deal of solid 
 virtue ; jealousies and vanities very tame, and no par- 
 ticular iniquities and adulteries. A husband," he added 
 after a moment, — ''a husband of your own faith and 
 race and spiritual substance, who would have loved 
 you well." 
 
 She rose to her feet, shaking her head. " You are very 
 kind to go to the expense of visions for me. Visions 
 are vain things ; we must make the best of the reality." 
 
 " And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what seemed 
 the very wantonness of her patience, "the reality, if 
 I 'm not mistaken, has very recently taken a shape 
 that keenly tests your philosophy." 
 
 She seemed on the point of replying that his sym- 
 
440 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 pathy was too zealous ; but a couple of impatient tears 
 in his eyes proved that it was founded on a devotion 
 to which it was impossible not to defer. " Philoso- 
 phy ? " she said. I have none. Thank Heaven ! " she 
 cried, with vehemence, I have none. I believe, Mr. 
 Longmore," she added in a moment, "that I have 
 nothing on earth but a conscience, — it 's a good time 
 to tell you so, — nothing but a dogged, clinging, inex- 
 pugnable conscience. Does that prove me to be indeed 
 of your faith and race, and have you one for which 
 you can say as much ? I don't say it in vanity, for 
 L I believe that if my conscience will prevent me from 
 \ doing anything very base, it will effectually prevent 
 \ me from doing anything very fine." 
 
 "I am delighted to hear it," cried Longmore. ''We 
 are made for each other. It 's very certain I too shall 
 never do anything fine. And yet I have fancied that 
 in my case this inexpugnable organ you so eloquently 
 describe might be blinded and gagged awhile, in a fine 
 cause, if not turned out of doors. In yours," he went 
 on with the same appealing irony, " is it absolutely 
 invincible ? " 
 
 But her fancy made no concession to his sarcasm. 
 " Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered grave- 
 ly ; " that 's the only blasphemy I know." 
 
 She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly 
 at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 441 
 
 Longmore heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path 
 which crossed their own at a short distance from 
 where they stood. 
 
 " It 's M. de Mauves," said Euphemia directly, and 
 moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how she 
 knew it, had overtaken her by the time her husband 
 advanced into sight. A solitary walk in the forest was 
 a pastime to which M. de Mauves was not addicted, 
 but he seemed on this occasion to have resorted to it 
 with some equanimity. He was smoking a fragrant 
 cigar, and his thumb was thrust into the armhole of 
 his waistcoat, with an air of contemplative serenity. 
 He stopped short with surprise on seeing his wife and 
 her companion, and Longmore considered his surprise 
 impertinent. He glanced rapidly from one to the 
 other, fixed Longmore's eye sharply for a single in- 
 stant, and then lifted his hat with formal politeness. 
 
 " I was not a vvare," he said, turning to Madame de 
 Mauves, " thac I might congratulate you on the return 
 of monsieur." 
 
 " You should have known it," she answered gravely, 
 " if I had expected Mr. Longmore's return." 
 
 She had become very pale, and Longmore felt that 
 this was a first meeting after a • stormy parting. " My 
 return was unexpected to myself," he said. " I came 
 last evening." 
 
 M. de Mauves smiled with extreme urbanity. " It 's 
 
 19* 
 
442 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 needless for me to welcome you. Madame de Mauves 
 knows the duties of hospitality." And with another 
 bow he continued his walk. 
 
 Madame de Mauves and her companion returned 
 slowly home, with few words, but, on Longmore's part 
 at least, many thoughts. The Baron's appearance had 
 given him an angry chill; it was a dusky cloud re- 
 absorbing the light which had begun to shine between 
 himself and his companion. 
 
 He watched Euphemia narrowly as they went, and 
 wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her hus- 
 band's presence had checked her frankness, but nothing 
 indicated that she had accepted the insulting meaning 
 of his words. Matters were evidently at a crisis be- 
 tween them, and Longmore wondered vainly what it 
 was on Euphemia's part that prevented an absolute 
 rupture. What did she suspect ? — how much did she 
 know ? To what was she resigned ? — how much had 
 she forgiven ? How, above all, did she reconcile with 
 knowledge, or with suspicion, that ineradicable tender- 
 ness of which she had just now all but assured him ? 
 " She has loved him once," Longmore said with a sink- 
 ing of the heart, and with her to love once is to com- 
 mit one's being forever. Her husband thinks her too 
 rigid ! What would a poet call it ? " 
 
 He relapsed with a kind of aching impotence into 
 the sense of her being somehow beyond him, unattaina- 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 443 
 
 ble, immeasurable by his own fretful spirit. Suddenly 
 he gave three passionate switches in the air with his 
 cane, which made Madame de Mauves look round. 
 She could hardly have guessed that they meant that 
 where ambition was so vain, it was an innocent com- 
 pensation to plunge into worship. 
 
 Madame de Mauves found in her drawing-room the 
 little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom 
 Longmore had observed a few days before on the ter- 
 race. On this occasion, too, Madame Clairin was en- 
 tertaining him, but as his sister-in-law came in she 
 surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. 
 Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, 
 and there was something in this lady's large coquetry 
 which had the power of making him blush. He was 
 surprised at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her 
 favor by his deportment at their last interview, and a 
 suspicion of her meaning to approach him on another 
 line completed his uneasiness. 
 
 " So you Ve returned from Brussels," she said, " by 
 way of the forest." 
 
 " I Ve not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday 
 from Paris by the only way, — by the train." 
 
 Madame Clairin stared and laughed. " I Ve never 
 known a young man to be so fond of Saint-Germain. 
 They generally declare it 's horribly dull." 
 
 " That 's not very polite to you," said Longmore, who 
 
444 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 was vexed at his blushes, and determined not to be 
 abashed. 
 
 " Ah, what am I ? " demanded Madame Clairin, 
 swinging open her fan. " I 'm the dullest thing here. 
 They Ve not had your success with my sister-in-law." 
 
 "It would have been very easy to have it. Ma- 
 dame de Mauves is kindness itself." 
 
 " To her own countrymen ! " 
 
 Longmore remained silent ; he hated the talk. Ma- 
 dame Clairin looked at him a moment, and then turned 
 her head and surveyed Euphemia, to whom M. de Cha- 
 lumeau was serving up another epigram, which she 
 was receiving with a slight droop of the head and her 
 eyes absently wandering through the window. " Don't 
 pretend to tell me," she murmured suddenly, "that 
 you 're not in love with that pretty woman." 
 
 Allons done /" cried Longmore, in the best French 
 he had ever uttered. He rose the next minute, and 
 took a hasty farewell. 
 
VI. 
 
 HE allowed several days to pass without going 
 back ; it seemed delicate not to appear to re- 
 gard his friend's frankness during their last interview 
 as a general invitation. This cost him a great effort, 
 for hopeless passions are not the most deferential ; and 
 he had, moreover, a constant fear, that if, as he be- 
 lieved, the hour of supreme " explanations " had come, 
 the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de 
 Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded, 
 had been so converted as to be acceptable to God, 
 and the something divine in Euphemia's temper would 
 sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her 
 ■ means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and 
 the essence of his admiration ought to be to respect her 
 freedom ; but he felt as if he should turn away into a 
 world out of which most of the joy had departed, if 
 her freedom, after all, should spare him only a mur- 
 mured " Thank you." 
 
 When he called again he found to his vexation that 
 he was to run the gantlet of Madame Clairin's officious 
 hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of per- 
 
446 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 feet summer, and the drawing-room, through the open 
 windows, was flooded with a sweet confusion of odors 
 and bird-notes which filled him with the hope that 
 Madame de Mauves would come out and spend half 
 the day in the forest. But Madame Clairin, with her 
 hair not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a 
 maze of melody. 
 
 At the same moment the servant returned with Eu- 
 phemia's regrets ; she was indisposed and unable to see 
 Mr. Longmore. The young man knew that he looked 
 disappointed, and that Madame Clairin was observing 
 him, and this consciousness impelled her to give him a 
 glance of almost aggressive frigidity. This was appar- 
 ently what she desired. She wished to throw him off 
 his balance, and, if he was not mistaken, she had the 
 means. 
 
 " Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, " and 
 be polite for once. You were not at all polite the 
 other day when I asked you that friendly question 
 about the state of your heart." 
 
 " I have no heart — to talk about," said Longmore, 
 uncompromisingly. 
 
 " As well say you Ve none at all. I advise you to 
 cultivate a little eloquence ; you may have use for it. 
 That was not an idle question of mine ; I don't ask 
 idle questions. For a '* couple of months now that 
 you Ve been coming and going among us, it seems to 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 447 
 
 me that you have had very few to answer of any 
 sort." 
 
 " I have certainly been very well treated," said 
 Longmore. 
 
 Madame Clairin was silent a moment, and then — 
 " Have you never felt disposed to ask any ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 Her look, her tone, were so charged with roundabout 
 meanings that it seemed to Longmore as if even to 
 understand her would savor of dishonest complicity. 
 
 What is it you have to tell me ? " he asked, frowning 
 and blushing. 
 
 Madame Clairin flushed. It is rather hard, when 
 you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl 
 when she came to the Eoman king, to be treated as 
 something worse than a vulgar gossip. " I might tell 
 you, Mr. Longmore," she said, " that you have as bad 
 a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you 
 lived, — what are your ideas ? I wish to call your 
 attention to a fact which it takes some delicacy to 
 touch upon. You have noticed, I supposed, that my 
 sister-in-law is not the happiest woman in the world." 
 
 Longmore assented with a gesture. 
 
 Madame Clairin looked slightly disappointed at his 
 want of enthusiasm. Nevertheless — You have formed, 
 I suppose," she continued, " your conjectures on the 
 causes of her — dissatisfaction." 
 
448 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Conjecture has been superfluous. I have seen the 
 causes — or at least a specimen of them — with my 
 own eyes." 
 
 " I know perfectly what you mean. My brother, in 
 a single word, is in love with another woman. I don't 
 judge him ; I don't judge my sister-in-law. I permit 
 myself to say that in her position I would have 
 managed otherwise. I would have kept my husband's 
 affection, or I would have frankly done without it, 
 before this. But my sister is an odd compound ; I 
 don't profess to understand her. Therefore it is, in a 
 measure, that I appeal to you, her fellow-countryman. 
 Of course you '11 be surprised at my way of looking at 
 the matter, and I admit that it 's a way in use only 
 among people whose family traditions compel them 
 to take a superior view of things." Madame Clairin 
 paused, and Longmore wondered where her family tra- 
 ditions were going to lead her. 
 
 " Listen," she went on. " There has never been a 
 De Mauves who has not given his wife the right to 
 be jealous. We know our history for ages back, ^nd 
 the fact is established. It 's a shame if you like, but 
 it 's something to have a shame with such a pedigree. 
 The De Mauves are real Frenchmen, and their wives 
 — I may say it — have been worthy of them. You 
 may see all their portraits in our Chateau de Mauves ; 
 every one of them an ' injured ' beauty, but not one 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 449 
 
 of them hanging her head. Xot one of them had the 
 bad taste to be jealous, and yet not one in a dozen 
 was guilty of an escapade, — not one of them was 
 talked about. There 's good sense for you! How they 
 managed — go and look at the dusky, faded canvases 
 and pastels, and ask. They were femmes d'esprit 
 When they had a headache, they put on a little rouge 
 and came to supper as usual; and when they had a 
 heart-ache, they put a little rouge on their hearts. 
 These are fine traditions, and it does n't seem to me 
 fair that a little American bourgeoise should come in 
 and interrupt them, and should hang her photograph, 
 with her obstinate little air pencM, in the gallery of 
 our shrewd fine ladies. A De Mauves must be a De 
 Mauves. When she married my brother, T don't sup- 
 pose she took him for a member of a societe de tonnes 
 ceuvres. I don't say we 're right ; who is right ? But 
 we're as history has made us, and if any one is to 
 change, it had better be Madame de Mauves herself." 
 Again Madame Clairin paused and opened and closed 
 her fan. " Letcher conform ! " she said, with amazing 
 audacity. 
 
 Longmore's reply was ambiguous ; he simply said, 
 '^Ah!" 
 
 Madame Clairin's pious retrospect had apparently 
 imparted an honest zeal to her indignation. "For a 
 long time," she continued, my sister has been taking 
 
 c c 
 
450 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 the attitude of an injured woman, affecting a disgust 
 with the world, and shutting herself up to read the 
 ' Imitation/ I Ve never remarked on her conduct, but 
 I Ve quite lost patience with it. When a woman with 
 her prettiness lets her husband wander, she deserves 
 her fate. I don't wish you to agree with me — on the 
 contrary ; but I call such a woman a goose. She must 
 have bored him to death. What has passed between 
 them for many months needn't concern us; what prov- 
 ocation my sister has had — monstrous, if you wish — 
 what ennui my brother has suffered. It 's enough that 
 a week ago, just after you had ostensibly gone to 
 Brussels, something happened to produce an explosion. 
 She found a letter in his pocket — a photograph — a 
 trinket — que sais-je ? At any rate, the scene was 
 terrible. I didn't listen at the keyhole, and I don't 
 know what was said ; but I have reason to believe 
 that my brother was called to account as I fancy none 
 of his ancestors have ever been, — even by injured 
 sweethearts." 
 
 Longmore had leaned forward in silent attention 
 with his elbows on his knees, and instinctively he 
 dropped his face into his hands. " Ah, poor woman ! " 
 he groaned. 
 
 " Voilk ! " said Madame Clairin. " You pity her." 
 " Pity her ? " cried Longmore, looking up with 
 ardent eyes and forgetting the spirit of Madame 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 451 
 
 Clairin's narrative in the miserable facts. "Don't 
 you?" 
 
 " A little. But I 'm not acting sentimentally ; I 'm 
 acting politically. I wish to arrange things, — to see 
 my brother free to do at he chooses, — to see Euphemia 
 contented. Do you understand me ? " 
 
 ''Very well, I think. You're the most immoral 
 person I 've lately had the privilege of conversing 
 with." 
 
 Madame Clairin shrugged her shoulders. " Possibly. 
 When was there a great politician who was not im- 
 moral ? " 
 
 " Nay," said Longmore in the same tone. " You 're 
 too superficial to be a great politician. You don't 
 begin to know anything about Madame de Mauves." 
 
 Madame Clairin inclined her head to one side, eyed 
 Longmore sharply, mused a moment, and then smiled 
 with an excellent imitation of intelligent compassion. 
 " It 's not in my interest to contradict you." 
 
 " It would be in your interest to learn, Madame 
 Clairin," the young man went on with unceremonious 
 candor, " what honest men most admire in a woman, — 
 and to recognize it when you see it." 
 
 Longmore certainly did injustice to her talents for 
 diplomacy, for she covered her natural annoyance at 
 this sally with a pretty piece of irony. " So you are, 
 in love ! " she quietly exclaimed. 
 
452 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Longmore was silent awhile. " I wonder if you 
 would understand me," he said at last, " if I were to 
 tell you that I have for Madame de Mauves the most 
 devoted friendship ? " 
 
 You underrate my intelligence. But in that case 
 you ought to exert your influence to put an end to 
 these painful domestic scenes." 
 
 " Do you suppose," cried Longmore, " that she talks 
 to me about her domestic scenes ? " 
 
 Madame Clairin stared. " Then your friendship is n't 
 returned?" And as Longmore turned away, shaking 
 his head, — " Now, at least," she added, she will have 
 something to tell you. I happen to know the upshot 
 of my brother's* last interview with his wife." Long- 
 more rose to his feet as a sort of protest against the 
 indelicacy of the position into which he was being 
 forced ; but all that made him tender made him curi- 
 ous, and she caught in his averted eyes an expression 
 which prompted her to strike her blow. My brother 
 is monstrously in love with a certain person in 
 Paris ; of course he ought not to be ; but he would n't 
 be a De Mauves if he were not. It was this unsanc- 
 tified passion that spoke. 'Listen, madam,' he cried 
 at last : ' let us live like people who understand life 
 It 's unpleasant to be forced to say such things out- 
 right, but you have a way of bringing one down to the 
 rudiments. I 'm faithless, I 'm heartless, I 'm brutal 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 453 
 
 I 'm everything horrible, — it 's understood. Take your 
 revenge, console yourself; you 're too pretty a woman 
 to have anything to complain of. Here 's a handsome 
 young man sighing himself into a consumption for you. 
 Listen to the poor fellow, and you '11 find that virtue is 
 none the less becoming for being good-natured. You '11 
 see that it 's not after all such a doleful world, and that 
 there is even an advantage in having the most impu- 
 dent of husbands.' " Madame Clairin paused ; Long- 
 more had turned very pale. You may believe it," she 
 said ; " the speech took place in my presence ; things 
 were done in order. And now, Mr. Longmore," — tliis 
 with a smile which he was too troubled at the moment 
 to appreciate, but which he remembered later with a 
 kind of awe, — " we count upon you ! " 
 
 " He said this to her, face to face, as you say it to 
 me now ? " Longmore asked slowly, after a silence. 
 
 " Word for word, and with the greatest politeness." 
 
 " And Madame de Mauves — what did she say ? " 
 
 Madame Clairin smiled again. " To such a speech 
 as that a woman says — nothing. She had been sit- 
 ting with a piece of needlework, and I think she had 
 not seen her husband since their quarrel the day 
 before. He came in with the gravity of an ambas- 
 sador, and I 'm sure that when he made his de- 
 mande en mariage his manner was not more respect- 
 ful. He only wanted white gloves ! " said Madame 
 
454 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Clairin. " Euphemia sat silent a few moments draw- 
 ing her stitches, and then without a word, without 
 a glance, she walked out of the room. It was just 
 what she should have done ! " 
 
 " Yes/' Longmore repeated, " it was just what she 
 should have done." 
 
 " And I, left alone with my brother, do you know 
 what I said?" 
 
 Longmore shook his head. Mauvais sujet ! " he 
 suggested. 
 
 " ' You Ve done me the honor,' I said, ' to take 
 this step in my presence. I don't pretend to qualify 
 it. You know what you 're about, and it 's your own 
 affair. But you may confide in my discretion.' Do 
 you think he has had reason to complain of it ? " 
 She received no answer ; Longmore was slowly turn- 
 ing away and passing his gloves mechanically round 
 the band of his hat. " I hope," she cried, " you 're 
 not going to start for Brussels ! " 
 
 Plainly, Longmore was deeply disturbed, and Ma- 
 dame Clairin might flatter herself on the success of 
 her plea for old-fashioned manners. And yet there 
 was something that left her more puzzled than sat- 
 isfied in the reflective tone with which he answered, 
 " No, I shall remain here for the present." The pro- 
 cesses of his mind seemed provokingly subterranean, 
 and she would have fancied for a moment that he 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 455 
 
 was linked with her sister in some monstrous con- 
 spiracy of asceticism. 
 
 " Come this evening," she boldly resumed. " The 
 rest will take care of itself. Meanwhile I shall take 
 the liberty of telling my sister-in-law that I have 
 repeated — in short, that I have put you an faitr 
 
 Longmore started and colored, and she hardly knew 
 whether he was going to assent or demur. " Tell her 
 what you please. Nothing you can tell her will 
 affect her conduct." 
 
 " Voyons ! Do you mean to tell me that a woman, 
 young, pretty, sentimental, neglected — insulted, if you 
 will — ? I see you don't believe it. Believe sim- 
 ply in your own opportunity ! But for heaven's 
 sake, if it 's to lead anywhere, don't come back with 
 that visage de croquemort. You look as if you were 
 going to bury your heart, — not to offer it to a pretty 
 woman. You 're much better when you smile. Come, 
 do yourself justice." 
 
 Yes," he said, I must do myself justice." Ancl 
 abruptly, with a bow, he took his departure. 
 
VII. 
 
 E felt, when he found himself unobserved, in 
 
 J — L the open air, that he must plunge into violent 
 action, walk fast and far, and defer the opportunity 
 for thought. He strode away into the forest, swinging 
 his cane, throwing back his head, gazing away into 
 the verdurous vistas, and following the road without 
 a purpose. He felt immensely excited, but he could 
 hardly have said whether his emotion was a pain or a 
 joy. It was joyous as all increase of freedom is joy- 
 ous ; something seemed to have been knocked down 
 across his path ; his destiny appeared to have rounded 
 a cape and brought him into sight of an open sea. But 
 his freedom resolved itself somehow into the need 
 r'f despising all mankind, with a single exception ; and 
 the fact of Madame de Mauves inhabiting a planet 
 contaminated by the presence of this baser multitude 
 kept his elation from seeming a pledge of ideal bliss. 
 
 But she was there, and circumstance now forced 
 them to be intimate. She had ceased to have what 
 men call a secret for him, and this fact itself brought 
 with it a sort of rapture. He had no prevision that 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 457 
 
 he should profit/* in the vulgar sense, by the extraor- 
 dinary position into which they had been thrown ; it 
 might be but a cruel trick of destiny to make hope a 
 harsher mockery and renunciation a keener suffering. 
 But above all this rose the conviction that she could do 
 nothing that would not deepen his admiration. 
 
 It was this feeling that circumstance — unlovely as 
 it was in itself — was to force the beauty of her char- 
 acter into more perfect relief, that made him stride 
 along as if he were celebrating a kind of spiritual fes- 
 tival. He rambled at random for a couple of hours, 
 and found at last that he had left the forest behind 
 him and had wandered into an unfamiliar region. It 
 was a perfectly rural scene, and the still summer day 
 gave it a charm for which its meagre elements but half 
 accounted. 
 
 Longmore thought he had never seen anything so 
 characteristically French ; all the French novels 
 seemed to have described it, all the French land- 
 scapists to have painted it. The fields and trees 
 were of a cool metallic green ; the grass looked as if 
 it might stain your trousers, and the foliage your 
 hands. The clear light had a sort of mild grayness: 
 the sunbeams were of silver rather than gold. A great 
 red-roofed, high-stacked farm-house, with whitewashed 
 walls and a straggling yard, surveyed the high road, 
 on one side, from behind a transparent curtain of 
 
 20 
 
458 
 
 MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 poplars. A narrow stream, half choked with emerald 
 rushes and edged with gray aspens, occupied the op- 
 posite quarter. The meadows rolled and sloped away 
 gently to the low horizon, which was barely concealed 
 by the continuous line of clipped and marshalled 
 trees. The prospect was not rich, but it had a frank 
 homeliness which touched the young man's fancy. 
 It was full of light atmosphere and diffused sunshine, 
 and if it was prosaic, it was soothing. 
 
 Longmore was disposed to walk further, and he 
 advanced along the road beneath the poplars. In 
 twenty minutes he came to a village which straggled 
 away to the right, among orchards and potagers. On 
 the left, at a stone's throw from the road, stood a 
 little pink-faced inn, which reminded him that he 
 had not breakfasted, having left home with a previs- 
 ion of hospitality from Madame de Mauves. In the 
 inn he found a brick-tiled parlor and a hostess in 
 sabots and a white cap, whom, over the omelette she 
 speedily served him, — borrowing license from the 
 bottle of sound red wine which accompanied it, — 
 he assured that she was a true artist. To reward his 
 compliment, she invited him to smoke his cigar in 
 her little garden behind the house. 
 
 Here he found a tonnelle and a view of ripening 
 crops, stretching down to the stream. The tonnelle 
 was rather close, and he preferred to lounge on a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 459 
 
 bench against the pink wall, in the sun, which was 
 not too hot. Here, as he rested and gazed and 
 mused, he fell into a train of thought which, in an 
 indefinable fashion, was a soft influence from the 
 scene about him. His heart, which had been beat- 
 ing fast for the past three hours, gradually checked 
 its pulses and left him looking at life with a rather 
 more level gaze. The homely tavern sounds coming 
 out through the open windows, the sunny stillness 
 of the fields and crops, which covered so much vig- 
 orous natural life, suggested very little that was 
 transcendental, had very little to say about renuncia- 
 tion, — nothing at all about spiritual zeal. They 
 seemed to utter a message from plain ripe nature, to 
 express the unperverted reality of things, to say that* 
 the common lot is not brilliantly amusing, and that 
 the part of wisdom is to grasp frankly at experience, 
 lest you miss it altogether. What reason there was 
 for his falling a-wondering after this whether a deeply 
 wounded heart might be soothed and healed by such 
 a scene, it would be difficult to explain; certain it 
 is that, as he sat there, he had a waking dream of 
 an unhappy woman strolling by the slow-flowing 
 stream before him, and pulling down the blossoming 
 boughs in the orchards. He mused and mused, and 
 at last found himself feeling angry that he could not 
 somehow think worse of Madame de Mauves, — or at 
 
460 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 any rate think otherwise. He could fairly claim that 
 in a sentimental way he asked very little of life, — 
 he made modest demands on passion; why then 
 should his only passion be born to ill-fortune ? why 
 should his first — his last — glimpse of positive hap- 
 piness be so indissolubly linked with renunciation ? 
 
 It is perhaps because, like many spirits of the 
 same stock, he had in his composition a lurking 
 principle of asceticism to whose authority he had 
 ever paid an unquestioning respect, that he now felt 
 all the vehemence of rebellion. To renounce — to 
 renounce again — to renounce forever — was this all 
 that youth and longing and resolve were meant for ? 
 Was experience to be muffled and mutilated, like an 
 • indecent picture ? Was a man to sit and deliber- 
 ately condemn his future to be the blank memory of 
 a regret, rather than the long reverberation of a joy ? 
 Sacrifice ? The word was a trap for minds muddled 
 by fear, an ignoble refuge of weakness. To insist 
 now seemed not to dare, but simply to be, to live 
 on possible terms. 
 
 His hostess came out to hang a cloth to dry on the 
 hedge, and, though her guest was sitting quietly 
 enough, she seemed to see in his kindled eyes a flatter- 
 ing testimony to the quality of her wine. 
 
 As she turned back into the house, she was met by 
 a young man whom Longmore observed in spite of his 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 4G1 
 
 preoccupation. He was evidently a member of that 
 jovial fraternity of artists whose very shabbiness has 
 an affinity with the element of picturesqneness and 
 unexpectedness in life which provokes a great deal of 
 unformulated envy among people foredoomed to be 
 respectable. 
 
 Longmore was struck first with his looking like a 
 very clever man, and then with his looking like a very 
 happy one. The combination, as it was expressed in 
 his face, might have arrested the attention of even a 
 less cynical philosopher. He had a slouched hat and 
 a blond beard, a light easel under one arm, and an un- 
 finished sketch in oils under the other. 
 
 He stopped and stood talking for some moments to 
 the landlady with a peculiarly good-humored smile. 
 They were discussing the possibilities of dinner ; the 
 hostess enumerated some very savory ones, and he 
 nodded briskly, assenting to everything. It couldn't 
 be, Longmore thought, that he found such soft content- 
 ment in the prospect of lamb chops and spinach and a 
 tarte a la creme. When the dinner had been ordered, 
 he turned up his sketch, and the good woman fell 
 a-wondering and looking off at the spot by the stream- 
 side where he had made it. 
 
 Was it his work, Longmore wondered, that made 
 him so happy ? Was a strong talent the best thing in 
 the world ? The landlady went back to her kitchen. 
 
462 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 and the young painter stood as if he were waiting for 
 something, beside the gate which opened upon the path 
 across the fields. Longmore sat brooding and asking 
 # himself whether it was better to cultivate an art than 
 to cultivate a passion. Before he had answered the 
 question the painter had grown tired of waiting. He 
 picked up a pebble, tossed it lightly into an upper 
 window, and called, " Claudine ! " 
 
 Claudine appeared ; Longmore heard her at the win- 
 dow, bidding the young man to have patience. " But 
 I 'm losing my light," he said ; " I must have my 
 shadows in the same place as yesterday." 
 
 " Go without me, then," Claudine answered ; " I will 
 join you in ten minutes." Her voice was fresh and 
 young ; it seemed to say to Longmore that she was as 
 happy as her companion. 
 
 " Don't forget the Chenier," cried the young man ; 
 and turning away, he passed out of the gate and fol- 
 lowed the path across the fields until he disappeared 
 among the trees by the side of the stream. Who was 
 Claudine ? Longmore vaguely wondered ; and was she 
 as pretty as her voice ? Before long he had a chance 
 to satisfy himself; she came out of the house with her 
 hat and parasol, prepared to follow her companion. 
 She had on a pink muslin dress and a little white hat, 
 ^ and she was as pretty as a Frenchwoman needs to be 
 to be pleasing. She had a clear brown skin and a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 463 
 
 bright dark eye, and a step which seemed to keep time 
 to some slow music, heard only by herself. Her hands 
 were encumbered with various articles which she 
 seemed to intend to carry with her. In one arm she 
 held her parasol and a large roll of needlework, and in 
 the other a shawl and a heavy white umbrella, such as 
 painters use for sketching. Meanwhile she was trying 
 to thrust into her pocket a paper-covered volume which 
 Longmore saw to be the Poems of Andre Chenier ; but 
 in the effort she dropped the large umbrella, and ut- 
 tered a half-smiling exclamation of disgust. Long- 
 more stepped forward with a bow and picked up the 
 umbrella, and as she, protesting her gratitude, put out 
 her hand to take it, it seemed to him that she was un- 
 becomingly overburdened. 
 
 " You have too much to carry," he said ; " you must 
 let me help you." 
 
 " You 're very good, monsieur," she answered. " My 
 husband always forgets something. He can do nothing 
 without his umbrella. He is d'une etourderie — " 
 
 " You must allow me to carry the umbrella," Long- 
 more said. It 's too heavy for a lady." 
 
 She assented, after many compliments to his polite- 
 ness ; and he walked by her side into the meadow. 
 She went lightly and rapidly, picking her steps and 
 glancing forward to catch a glimpse of her husband. 
 She was graceful, she was charming, she had an air of 
 
464 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 decision and yet of sweetness, and it seemed to Long- 
 more that a young artist would work none the worse 
 for having her seated at his side, reading Chenier's 
 iambics. They were newly married, he supposed, and 
 evidently their path of life had none of the mocking 
 crookedness of some others. They asked little ; but 
 what need one ask more than such quiet summer days, 
 with the creature one loves, by a shady stream, with 
 art and books and a wide, unshadowed horizon ? To 
 spend such a morning, to stroll back to dinner in the 
 red-tiled parlor of the inn, to ramble away again as the 
 sun got low, — all this was a vision of bliss which 
 floated before him, only to torture him with a sense of 
 the impossible. All Frenchwomen are not coquettes, 
 he remarked, as he kept pace with his companion. 
 She uttered a word now and then, for politeness' sake, 
 but she never looked at him, and seemed not in the 
 least to care that he was a well-favored young man. 
 She cared for nothing but the young artist in the 
 shabby coat and the slouched hat, and for discovering 
 where he had set up his easel. 
 
 This was soon done. He was encamped under the 
 trees, close to the stream, and, in the diffused green 
 shade of the little wood, seemed to be in no immediate 
 need of his umbrella. He received a vivacious rebuke, 
 however, for forgetting it, and was informed of what 
 he owed to Longmore's complaisance. He was duly 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 465 
 
 grateful ; he thanked our hero warmly, and offered him 
 a seat on the grass. But Longmore felt like a marplot, 
 and lingered only long enough to glance at the young 
 man's sketch, and to see it was a very clever rendering 
 of the silvery stream and the vivid green rushes. The 
 young wife had spread her shawl on the grass at the 
 base of a tree, and meant to seat herself when Long- 
 more had gone, and murmur Chenier's verses to the 
 music of the gurgling river. Longmore looked awhile 
 from one to the other, barely stifled a sigh, bade them 
 good morning, and took his departure. 
 
 He knew neither where to go nor what to do; he 
 seemed afloat on the sea of ineffectual longing. He 
 strolled slowly back to the inn, and in the doorway 
 met the landlady coming back from the butcher's with 
 the lamb chops for the dinner of her lodgers. 
 
 "Monsieur has made the acquaintance of the dame 
 of our young painter," she said with a broad smile, — 
 a smile too broad for malicious meanings. " Monsieur 
 has perhaps seen the young man's picture. It appears 
 that he has a great deal of talent." 
 
 " His picture was very pretty," said Longmore, " but 
 his dame was prettier still." 
 
 " She 's a very nice little woman ; but I pity her all 
 the more." 
 
 " I don't see why she 's to be pitied," said Longmore; 
 they seem a very happy couple." 
 
 20* DD 
 
466 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 The landlady gave a knowing nod. 
 
 " Don't trust to it, monsieur ! Those artists, — pa 
 n'a pas de principes ! From one day to another he 
 can plant her there ! I know them, allez. I Ve had 
 them here very often ; one year with one, another year 
 with another." 
 
 Longmore was puzzled for a moment. Then, You 
 mean she 's not his wife ? " he asked. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. ''What shall I tell 
 you ? They are not des hommes serieux, those gentle- 
 men ! They don't engage themselves for an eternity. 
 It 's none of my business, and I Ve no wish to speak 
 ill of madame. She 's a very nice little woman, and 
 she loves her jeune homme to distraction." 
 
 " Who is she ? " asked Longmore. " What do you 
 know about her ? " 
 
 " Nothing for certain ; but it 's my belief that she 's 
 better than he. I've even gone so far as to believe 
 that she 's a lady, — a true lady, — and that she has 
 given up a great many things for him. I do the best 
 I can for them, but I don't believe she 's been obliged 
 all her life to content herself with a dinner of tw^o 
 courses." And she turned over her lamb chops ten- 
 derly, as if to say that though a good cook could 
 imagine better things, yet if you could have but one 
 course, lamb chops had much in their favor. " I shall 
 cook them with bread crumbs. Voila les femmes, 
 monsieur ! " 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 467 
 
 Longmore turned away with the feeling that women 
 were indeed a measureless mystery, and that it was 
 hard to say whether there was greater beauty in their 
 strength or in their weakness. He walked back to 
 Saint-Germain, more slowly than he had come, with 
 less philosophic resignation to any event, and more of 
 the urgent egotism of the passion which philosophers 
 call the supremely selfish one. Every now and then 
 the episode of the happy young painter and the 
 charming woman who had given up a great many 
 things for him rose vividly in his mind, and seemed 
 to mock his moral unrest like some obtrusive vision 
 of unattainable bliss. 
 
 The landlady's gossip cast no shadow on its bright- 
 ness ; her voice seemed that of the vulgar chorus of the 
 uninitiated, which stands always ready with its gross 
 prose rendering of the inspired passages in human action. 
 Was it possible a man could take that from a woman, 
 — take all that lent lightness to that other woman's 
 footstep and intensity to her glance, — and not give 
 her the absolute certainty of a devotion as unalterable 
 as the process of the sun ? Was it possible that such a 
 rapturous union had the seeds of trouble, — that the 
 charm of such a perfect accord could be broken by any- 
 thing but death ? Longmore felt an immense desire to 
 cry out a thousand times " No ! " for it seemed to him 
 at last that he was somehow spiritually the same as the 
 
468 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 young painter, and that the latter's companion had the 
 soul of Euphemia de Mauves. 
 
 The heat of the sun, as he walked along, became 
 oppressive, and when he re-entered the forest he turned 
 aside into the deepest shade he could find, and stretched 
 himself on the mossy ground at the foot of a great 
 beech. He lay for a while staring up into the verdu- 
 rous dusk overhead, and trying to conceive Madame 
 de Mauves hastening toward some quiet stream-side 
 where he waited, as he had seen that trusting creature 
 do an hour before. It would be hard to say how well 
 he succeeded ; but the effort soothed him rather than 
 excited him, and as he had had a good deal both of 
 moral and physical fatigue, he sank at last into a quiet 
 sleep. 
 
 While he slept he had a strange, vivid dream. He 
 seemed to be in a wood, very much like the one on 
 which his eyes had lately closed; but the wood was 
 divided by the murmuring stream he had left an hour 
 before. He was walking up and down, he thought, 
 restlessly and in intense expectation of some mo- 
 mentous event. Suddenly, at a distance, through the 
 trees, he saw the gleam of a woman's dress, and hur 
 ried forward to meet her. As he advanced he re 
 ognized her, but he saw at the same time that s' 
 was on the opposite bank of the river. She seeme 
 at first not to notice him, but when they were opp 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 469 
 
 site each other she stopped and looked at him very 
 gravely and pityingly. She made him no motion that 
 he should cross the stream, but he wished greatly to 
 stand by her side. He knew the water was deep, and 
 it seemed to him that he knew that he should have 
 to plunge, and that he feared that when he rose to 
 the surface she would have disappeared. Nevertheless, 
 he was going to plunge, when a boat turned into the 
 current from above and came swiftly toward them, 
 guided by an oarsman, who was sitting so that they 
 could not see his face. He brought the boat to the 
 bank where Longmore stood ; the latter stepped in, 
 and with a few strokes they touched the opposite 
 shore. Longmore got out, and, though he w^as sure he 
 had crossed the stream, Madame de Mauves was not 
 there. He turned with a kind of agony and saw that 
 now she was on the other bank, — the one he had 
 left. She gave him a grave, silent glance, and walked 
 away up the stream. The boat and the boatman re- 
 sumed their course, but after going a short distance 
 they stopped, and the boatman turned back and looked 
 at the still divided couple. Then Longmore recognized 
 him, — just as he had recognized him a few days before 
 at the caf^ in the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
VIII. 
 
 HE must have slept some time after he ceased 
 dreaming, for he had no immediate memory of 
 his dream. It came back to him later, after he had 
 roused himself and had walked nearly home. No 
 great ingenuity was needed to make it seem a rather 
 striking allegory, and it haunted and oppressed him 
 for the rest of the day. He took refuge, however, in 
 his quickened conviction that the only sound policy 
 in life is to grasp unsparingly at happiness ; and it 
 seemed no more than one of the vigorous measures 
 dictated by such a policy, to return that evening to 
 Madame de Mauves. And yet when he had decided 
 to do so, and had carefully dressed himself, he felt an 
 irresistible nervous tremor which made it easier to 
 linger at his open window, wondering, with a strange 
 mixture of dread and desire, whether Madame Clairin 
 
 had told her sister-in-law that she had told him 
 
 His presence now might be simply a gratuitous cause 
 of suffering ; and yet his absence might seem to imply 
 that it was in the power of circumstances to make 
 them ashamed to meet each other's eyes. He sat a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 471 
 
 long time with his head in his hands, lost in a painful 
 confusion of hopes and questionings. He felt at mo- 
 ments as if he could throttle Madame Clairin, and yet 
 he could not help asking himself whether it was not 
 possible that she might have done him a service. It 
 was late when he left the hotel, and as he entered the 
 gate of the other house his heart was beating so that 
 he was sure his voice would show it. 
 
 The servant ushered him into the drawing-room, 
 which was empty, with the lamp burning low. But 
 the long windows were open, and their light curtains 
 swaying in a soft, warm wind, and Longmore stepped 
 out upon the terrace. There he found Madame de 
 Mauves alone, slowly pacing up and down. She was 
 dressed in white, very simply, and her hair was ar- 
 ranged, not as she usually wore it, but in a single loose 
 coil, like that of a person unprepared for company. 
 
 She stopped when she saw Longmore, seemed slightly 
 startled, uttered an exclamation, and stood waiting 
 for him to speak. He looked at her, tried to say 
 something, but found no words. He knew it was 
 awkward, it was offensive, to stand silent, gazing ; but 
 he could not say what was suitable, and he dared not 
 say what he wished. 
 
 Her face was indistinct in the dim light, but he 
 could see that her eyes were fixed on him, and he 
 wondered what they expressed. Did they warn him. 
 
472 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 did they plead or did they confess to a sense of provo- 
 cation ? For an instant his head swam ; he felt as if 
 it would make all things clear to stride forward and 
 fold her in his arms. But a moment later he was still 
 standing looking at her ; he had not moved ; he knew 
 that she had spoken, but he had not understood her. 
 
 ''You were here this morning," she continued, and 
 now, slowly, the meaning of her words came to him. 
 "I had a bad headache and had to shut myself up." 
 She spoke in her usual voice. 
 
 Longmore mastered his agitation and answered her 
 without betraying himself: "I hope you are better 
 now." 
 
 "Yes, thank you, I 'm better — much better." 
 
 He was silent a moment, and she moved away to a 
 chair and seated herself. After a pause he followed 
 her and stood before her, leaning against the balus- 
 trade of the terrace. " I hoped you might have been 
 able to come out for the morning into th^ forest. I 
 went alone ; it was a lovely day, and I took a long 
 walk." 
 
 "It was a lovely day," she said absently, and sat 
 with her eyes lowered, slowly opening and closing her 
 fan. Longmore, as he watched her, felt more and more 
 sure that her sister-in-law had seen her since her in- 
 terview with him ; that her attitude toward him was 
 changed. It was this same something that chilled the 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 473 
 
 ardor with which he had come, or at least converted 
 the dozen passionate speeches which kept rising to his 
 lips into a kind of reverential silence. No, certainly, 
 he could not clasp her to his arms now, any more than 
 some early worshipper could have clasped the marble 
 statue in his temple. But Longmore's statue spoke at 
 last, with a full human voice, and even with a shade 
 of human hesitation. She looked up, and it seemed 
 to him that her eyes shone through the dusk. 
 
 " I 'm very glad you came this evening," she said. 
 "I have a particular reason for being glad. I half 
 expected you, and yet I thought it possible you might 
 not come." 
 
 "As I have been feeling all day/' Longmore an- 
 swered, " it was impossible I should not come. I have 
 spent the day in thinking of you." 
 
 She made no immediate reply, but continued to open 
 *and close her fan thoughtfully. At last, — "I have 
 something to say to you," she said abruptly. " I want 
 you to know to a certainty that I have a very high 
 opinion of you." Longmore started and shifted his 
 position. To what was she coming? But he said 
 nothing, and she went on. 
 
 " I take a great interest in you ; there 's no reason 
 why I should not say it, — I have a great friendship 
 for you." 
 
 He began to laugh; he hardly knew why, unless 
 
474 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 that this seemed the very mockery of coldness. But 
 she continued without heeding him. 
 
 You know, I suppose, that a great disappointment 
 always implies a great confidence — a great hope ? " 
 
 " I have hoped/' he said, "hoped strongly; but doubt- 
 less never rationally enough to have a right to bemoan 
 my disappointment." 
 
 "You do yourself injustice. I have such confidence 
 in your reason, that I should be greatly disappointed 
 if I were to find it wanting." 
 
 " I really almost believe that you are amusing your- 
 self at my expense," cried Longmore. " My reason ? 
 Eeason is a mere word ! The only reality in the world 
 is feding ! " 
 
 She rose to her feet and looked at him gravely. His 
 eyes by this time were accustomed to the imperfect 
 light, and he could see that her look was reproachful, 
 and yet that it was beseechingly kind. She shook her ^ 
 head impatiently, and laid her fan upon his arm with 
 a strong pressure. 
 
 "If that were so, it would be a weary world. I 
 know your feeling, however, nearly enough. You 
 need n't try to express it. It 's enough that it gives 
 me the right to ask a favor of you, — to make an 
 urgent, a solemn request." 
 
 " Make it ; I listen." 
 
 " Dont disappoint me. If you don't understand me 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 475 
 
 now, you will to-morrow, or very soon. When I said 
 just now that I had a very high opinion of you, I 
 meant it very seriously. It was not a vain compli- 
 ment. I believe that there is no appeal one may 
 make to your generosity which can remain long unan- 
 swered. If this were to happen, — if I were to find 
 you selfish where I thought you generous, narrow 
 where I thought you large," — and she spoke slowly, 
 with her voice lingering with emphasis on each of 
 these words, — " vulgar where I thought you rare, — 
 I should think worse of human nature. I should suf- 
 fer, — I should suffer keenly. I should say to myself 
 in the dull days of the future, ' There was one man 
 who might have done so and so ; and he, too, failed.' 
 But this shall not be. You have made too good an 
 impression on me not to make the very best. If you 
 wish to please me forever, there 's a way/' 
 
 She was standing close to him, with her dress 
 touching him, her eyes fixed on his. As she went on 
 her manner grew strangely intense, and she had the 
 singular appearance of a woman preaching reason 
 with a kind of passion. Longmore was confused, daz- 
 zled, almost bewildered. The intention of her words 
 was all remonstrance, refusal, dismissal ; iDut her pres- 
 ence there, so close, so urgent, so personal, seemed a 
 distracting contradiction of it. She had never been so 
 lovely. In her white dress, with her pale face and 
 
476 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 deeply lighted eyes, she seemed the very spirit of the 
 summer night. When she had ceased speaking, she 
 drew a long breath ; Longmore felt it on his cheek, 
 and it stirred in his whole being a sudden, rapturous 
 conjecture. Were her words in their soft severity a 
 mere delusive spell, meant to throw into relief her 
 almost ghostly beauty, and was this the only truth, 
 the only reality, the only law ? 
 
 He closed his eyes and felt that she was watching 
 him, not without pain and perplexity herself. He 
 looked at her again, met her own eyes, and saw a tear 
 in each of them. Then this last suggestion of his desire 
 seemed to die away with a stifled murmur, and her 
 beauty, more and more radiant in the darkness, rose 
 before him as a symbol of something vague which 
 was yet more beautiful than itself. 
 
 " I may understand you to-morrow," he said, but I 
 don't understand you now." 
 
 "And yet I took counsel with myself to-day and 
 asked myself how I had best speak to you. On one 
 side, I might have refused to see you at all." Long- 
 more made a violent movement, and she added: "In 
 that case I should have written to you. I might see 
 you, I thought, and simply say to you that there were 
 excellent reasons why we should part, and that I 
 begged this visit should be your last. This I inclined 
 to do; what made me decide otherwise was — simply 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 477 
 
 friendship! I said toi» myself that I should be glad to 
 remember in future days, not that I had dismissed 
 you, but that you had gone away out of the fulness 
 of your own wisdom." 
 
 " The fulness — the fulness ! " cried Longmore. 
 
 " I 'm prepared, if necessary," Madame de Mauves 
 continued after a pause, " to fall back upon my strict 
 right. But, as I said before, I shall be greatly dis- 
 appointed, if I am obliged to." 
 
 "When I hear you say that," Longmore answered, 
 " I feel so angry, so horribly irritated, that I wonder 
 it is not easy to leave you without more words." 
 
 If you should go away in anger, this idea of mine 
 about our parting would be but half realized. No, I 
 don't want to think of you as angry ; I don't want even 
 to think of you as making a serious sacrifice. I want 
 to think of you as — " 
 
 " As a creature who never has existed, — who never 
 can exist ! A creature who knew you without loving 
 you, — who left you without regretting you!" 
 
 She turned impatiently away and walked to the 
 other end of the terrace. When she came back, he 
 saw that her impatience had become a cold sternness. 
 She stood before him again, looking at him from head 
 to foot, in deep reproachfulness, almost in scorn. Be- 
 neath her glance he felt a kind of shame. He colored ; 
 she observed it and withheld something she was about 
 
478 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 to say. She turned away agaift, walked to the other 
 end of the terrace, and stood there lookhig away into 
 the garden. It seemed to him that she had guessed 
 he understood her, and slowly — slowly — half as the 
 fruit of his vague self-reproach, — he did understand 
 her. She was giving him a chance to do gallantly 
 what it seemed unworthy of both of them he should 
 do meanly. 
 
 She liked him, she must have liked him greatly, to 
 wish so to spare him, to go to the trouble of conceiving 
 an ideal of conduct for him. With this sense of her 
 friendship, — her strong friendship she had just called 
 it, — Longmore's soul rose with a new flight, and sud- 
 denly felt itself breathing a clearer air. The words 
 ceased to seem a mere bribe to his ardor ; they were 
 charged with ardor themselves ; they were a present 
 happiness. He moved rapidly toward her with a feel- 
 ing that this was something he might immediately 
 enjoy. 
 
 They were separated by two thirds of the length of 
 the terrace, and he had to pass the drawing-room win- 
 dow. As he did so he started with an exclamation. 
 Madame Clairin stood posted there, watching him. 
 Conscious, apparently, that she might be suspected 
 of eavesdropping, she stepped forward with a smile and 
 looked from Longmore to his hostess. 
 
 " Such a tete-a-tete as that," she said, " one owes no 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 479 
 
 apology for interrupting. One ought to come in for 
 good manners." 
 
 Madame de Mauves turned round, but she answered 
 nothing. She looked straight at Longmore, and her 
 eyes had extraordinary eloquence. He was not exactly 
 sure, indeed, what she meant them to say; but they 
 seemed to say plainly something of this kind : " Call 
 it what you will, what you have to urge upon me is the 
 thing which this woman can best conceive. What I 
 ask of you is something she can't ! " They seemed, 
 somehow, to beg him to suffer her to be herself, and 
 to intimate that that self was as little as possible like 
 Madame Clairin. He felt an immense answering de- 
 sire not to do anything which would seem natural to 
 this lady. He had laid his hat and cane on the para- 
 pet of the terrace. He took them up, offered his hand 
 to Madame de Mauves with a simple good night, bowed 
 silently to Madame Clairin, and departed. 
 
IX. 
 
 E went 'home and without lighting his candle 
 
 _l — L flung himself on his bed. But he got no sleep 
 till morning ; he lay hour after hour tossing, thinking, 
 wondering; his mind had never been so active. It 
 seemed to him that Euphemia had laid on him in those 
 last moments an inspiring commission, and that she 
 had expressed herself almost as largely as if she had lis- 
 tened assentingly to an assurance of his love. It was 
 neither easy nor delightful thoroughly to understand 
 her ; but little by little her perfect meaning sank into 
 his mind and soothed it with a sense of opportunity, 
 which somehow stifled his sense of loss. For, to begin 
 with, she meant that she could love him in no degree 
 nor contingency, in no imaginable future. This was 
 absolute ; he felt that he could alter it no more than 
 he could transpose the constellations he lay gazing at 
 through his open window. • He wondered what it was, in 
 the background of her life, that she grasped so closely : 
 a sense of duty, unquenchable to the end ? a love that 
 no offence could trample out ? " Good heavens ! " he 
 thought, " is the world so rich in the purest pearls of 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 481 
 
 passion, that such tenderness as that can be wasted 
 forever, — poured away without a sigh into bottomless 
 darkness ? " Had she, in spite of the detestable pres- 
 ent, some precious memory which contained the germ 
 of a shrinking hope ? Was she prepared to submit to 
 everything and yet to believe ? Was it strength, was 
 it weakness, was it a vulgar fear, was it conviction, 
 conscience, constancy ? 
 
 Longmore sank back with a sigh and an oppres- 
 sive feeling that it was vain to guess at such a 
 woman's motives. He only felt that those of Madame 
 de Mauves were buried deep in her soul, and that 
 they must be of some line temper, not of a base one. 
 He had a dim, overwhelming sense of a sort of in- 
 vulnerable constancy being the supreme law of her 
 character, — a constancy which still found a foothold 
 among crumbling ruins. She has loved once," he 
 said to himself as he rose and wandered to his win- 
 dow ; " that 's forever. Yes, yes, — if she loved again 
 she would be common^ He stood for a long time 
 looking out into the starlit silence of the town and 
 the forest, and thinking of what life would have 
 been if his constancy had met hers unpledged. But 
 life was this, now, and he must live. It was living 
 keenly to stand there with a petition from such a 
 woman to revolve. He was not to disappoint her, 
 he was to justify a conception which it had beguiled 
 
 21 E B 
 
482 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 her weariness to shape. Longmore's imagination 
 swelled; he threw back his head and seemed to be 
 looking for Madame de Mauves's conception among 
 the blinking, mocking stars. But it came to him 
 rather on the mild night-wind, as it wandered in 
 over the house-tops which covered the rest of so many 
 heavy human hearts. What she asked he felt that 
 she was asking, not for her own sake (she feared noth- 
 ing, she needed nothing), but for that of his own 
 happiness and his own character. He must assent 
 to destiny. Why else was he young and strong, intel- 
 ligent and resolute ? He must not give it to her to 
 reproach him with thinking that she had a moment's 
 attention for his love, — to plead, to argue, to break 
 off in bitterness ; he must see everything from above, 
 her indifference and his own ardor; he must prove 
 his strength, he must do the handsome thing; he 
 must decide that the handsome thing was to submit 
 to the inevitable, to be supremely delicate, to spare 
 her all pain, to stifle his passion, to ask no compen- 
 sation, to depart without delay and try to believe 
 that wisdom is its own reward. All this, neither 
 more nor less, it was a matter of friendship with 
 Madame de Mauves to expect of him. And what 
 should he gain by it ? He should have pleased her ! 
 . ... He fiung himself on his bed again, fell asleep 
 at last, and slept till morning. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 483 
 
 Before noon the next day he had made up his mind 
 that he would leave Saint-Germain at once. It 
 seemed easier to leave without seeing her, and yet 
 if he might ask a grain of "compensation," it would 
 be five minutes face to face with her. He passed a 
 restless day. Wherever he went he seemed to see 
 her standing before him in the dusky halo of evening, 
 and looking at him with an air of still negation more 
 intoxicating than the most passionate self-surrender. 
 He must certainly go, and yet it was hideously hard. 
 He compromised and went to Paris to spend the rest 
 of the day. He strolled along the boulevards and 
 looked at the shops, sat awhile in the Tuileries gar- 
 dens and looked at the shabby unfortunates for whom 
 this only was nature and summer; but simply felt, 
 as a result of it all, that it was a very dusty, dreary, 
 lonely world into which Madame de Mauves was 
 turning him away. 
 
 In a sombre mood he made his way back to the 
 boulevards and sat down at a table on the great 
 plain of hot asphalt, before a cafe. Night came on, 
 the lamps were lighted, the tables near him found 
 occupants, and Paris began to wear that peculiar even- 
 ing look of hers which seems to say, in the flare of 
 windows and theatre doors, and the muffled rumble 
 of swift-rolling carriages, that this is no world for you 
 unless you have your pockets lined and your scru- 
 
484 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 pies drugged. Longmore, however, had neither scru- 
 ples nor desires ; he looked at the swarming city for 
 the first time with an easy sense of repaying its in- 
 difference. Before long a carriage drove up to the 
 pavement directly in front of him, and remained stand- 
 ing for several minutes without its occupant getting 
 out. It was one of those neat, plain coupes, drawn 
 by a single powerful horse, in which one is apt to 
 imagine a pale, handsome woman, buried among silk 
 cushions, and yawning as she sees the gas-lamps glit- 
 tering in the gutters. At last the door opened and 
 out stepped M. de Mauves. He stopped and leaned 
 on the window for some time, talking in an excited 
 manner to a person within. At last he gave a nod 
 and the carriage rolled away. He stood swinging his 
 cane and looking up and down the boulevard, with 
 the air of a man fumbling, as one may say, with the 
 loose change of time. He turned toward the cafe and 
 was apparently, for want of anything better worth his 
 attention, about to seat himself at one of the tables, 
 when he perceived Longmore. He wavered an in- 
 stant, and then, without a change in his nonchalant 
 gait, strolled toward him with a bow and a vague 
 smile. 
 
 It was the first time they had met since their en- 
 counter iA the forest after Longmore's false start for 
 Brussels. Madame Clairin's revelations, as we may 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 485 
 
 call them, had not made the Baron especially present 
 to his mind; he had another office for his emotions 
 than disgust. But as M. de Mauves came toward 
 him he felt deep in his heart that he abhorred him. 
 He noticed, however, for the first time, a shadow upon 
 the Baron's cool placidity, and his delight at finding 
 that somewhere at last the shoe pinched Aim, mingled 
 with his impulse to be as exasperatingiy impenetrable 
 as possible, enabled him to return the other's greeting 
 with all his own self-possession. 
 
 M. de Mauves sat down, and the two men looked 
 at each other across the table, exchanging formal greet- 
 ings which did little to make their mutual scrutiny 
 seem gracious. Longmore had no reason to suppose 
 that the Baron knew of his sister's revelations. He 
 was sure that M. de Mauves cared very little about 
 his opinions, and yet he had a sense that there was 
 that in his eyes which would have made the Baron 
 change color if keener suspicion had helped him to 
 read it. M. de Mauves did not change color, but he 
 looked at Longmore with a half-defiant intentness, 
 which betrayed at once an irritating memory of the 
 episode in the Bois de Boulogne, and such vigilant 
 curiosity as was natural to a gentleman who had in- 
 trusted his "honor" to another gentleman's magna- 
 nimity, — or to his artlessness. It would appear that 
 Longmore seemed to the Baron to possess these vir- 
 
486 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 tues in rather scantier measure than a few days before ; 
 for the cloud deepened on his face, and he turned away 
 and frowned as he lighted a cigar. 
 
 The person in the coupe, Longmore thought, whether 
 or no the same person as the heroine of the episode 
 of the Bois de Boulogne, was not a source of unalloyed 
 delight. Longmore had dark blue eyes, of admirable 
 lucidity, — truth-telling eyes which had in his child- 
 hood always made his harshest taskmasters smile at 
 his nursery fibs. An observer watching the two men, 
 and knowing something of their relations, would cer- 
 tainly have said that what he saw in those eyes must 
 not a little have puzzled and tormented M. de Mauves. 
 They judged him, they mocked him, they eluded him, 
 they threatened him, they triumphed over him, they 
 treated him as no pair of eyes had ever treated him. 
 The Baron's scheme had been to make no one happy 
 but himself, and here was Longmore already, if looks 
 were to be trusted, primed for an enterprise more in- 
 spiring than the finest of his own achievements. Was 
 this candid young barbarian but a foMX honliomme 
 after all ? He had puzzled the Baron before, and this 
 was once too often. 
 
 M. de Mauves hated to seem preoccupied, and he 
 took up the evening paper to help himself to look 
 indifferent. As he glanced over it he uttered some 
 cold commonplace on the political situation, which 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 487 
 
 gave Longmore an easy opportunity of replying by 
 an ironical sally which made him seem for the moment 
 aggressively at his ease. And yet our hero was far 
 from being master of the situation. The Baron's ill- 
 humor did him good, so far as it pointed to a want 
 of harmony with the lady in the coupe ; but it dis- 
 turbed him sorely as he began to suspect that it pos- 
 sibly meant jealousy of himself It passed through 
 his mind that jealousy is a passion with a double face, 
 and that in some of its moods it bears a plausible 
 likeness to affection. It recurred to him painfully 
 that the Baron might grow ashamed of his political 
 compact with his wife, and he felt that it would 
 be far more tolerable in the future to think of his 
 continued turpitude than of his repentance. The two 
 men sat for half an hour exchanging stinted small- 
 talk, the Baron feeling a nervous need of playing the 
 spy, and Longmore indulging a ferocious relish of his 
 discomfort. These rigid courtesies were interrupted 
 however by the arrival of a friend of M. de Mauves, — 
 a tall, pale, consumptive-looking dandy, who filled the 
 air with the odor of heliotrope. He looked up and 
 down the boulevard wearily, examined the Baron's 
 toilet from head to foot, then surveyed his own in the 
 same fashion, and at last announced languidly that the. 
 Duchess was in town I M. de Mauves must come 
 with him to call; she had abused him dreadfully a 
 
488 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 couple of evenings before, — a sure sign she wanted to 
 see him. 
 
 " I depend upon you/' said M. de Mauves's friend 
 with an infantine drawl, "to put her en train!' 
 
 M. de Mauves resisted, and protested that he was 
 d'une Mimeur massacrante ; but at last he allowed 
 himself to be drawn to his feet, and stood looking 
 awkwardly — awkwardly for M. de Mauves — at Long- 
 more. " You 11 excuse me," he said dryly ; " you, too, 
 probably, have occupation for the evening ? " 
 
 " None but to catch my train," Longmore answered, 
 looking at his watch. 
 
 " Ah, you go back to Saint-Germain ? " 
 
 " In half an hour." 
 
 M. de Mauves seemed on the point of disengaging 
 himself from his companion's arm, which was locked 
 in his own ; but on the latter uttering some persuasive 
 murmur, he lifted his hat stiffly and turned away. 
 
 Longmore packed his trunk the next day with dog- 
 ged heroism and wandered off to the terrace, to try and 
 beguile the restlessness with which he waited for even- 
 ing ; for he wished to see Madame de Mauves for the 
 last time at the hour of long shadows and pale pink- 
 reflected lights, as he had almost always seen her. 
 Destiny, however, took no account of this humble plea 
 for poetic justice ; it was his fortune to meet her on 
 the terrace sitting under a tree, alone. It was an hour 
 
MADAME DE MAUYES. 
 
 489 
 
 when the place was almost empty ; the day was warm, 
 but as he took his place beside her a light breeze 
 stirred the leafy edges on the broad circle of shadow 
 in which she sat. She looked at him with candid 
 anxiety, and he immediately told her that he should 
 leave Saint-Germain that evening, — that he must bid 
 her farewell. Her eye expanded and brightened for a 
 moment as he spoke; but she said nothing and turned 
 her glance away toward distant Paris, as it lay twink- 
 ling and flashing through its hot exhalations. " I have 
 a request to make of you," he added. That you think 
 of me as a man who has felt much and claimed little." 
 
 She drew a long breath, which almost suggested 
 pain. " I can't think of you as unhappy. It 's im- 
 possible. You have a life to lead, you have duties, 
 talents, and interests. I shall hear of your career. 
 And then," she continued after a pause and with the 
 deepest seriousness, "one can't be unhappy through 
 having a better opinion of a friend, instead of a 
 worse." 
 
 For a moment he failed to understand her. " Do 
 you mean that there can be varying degrees in my 
 opinion of you ? " 
 
 She rose and pushed away her chair. "I mean," 
 she said quickly, " that it 's better to have done noth- 
 ing in bitterness, — nothing in passion." And she 
 began to walk. 
 
 21 * 
 
490 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Longmore followed her, without answering. But he 
 took off his hat and with his pocket-handkerchief 
 wiped his forehead. " Where shall you go ? what 
 shall you do ? " he asked at last, abruptly. 
 
 " Do ? I shall do as I 've always done, — except 
 perhaps that I shall go for a while to Auvergne." 
 
 " I shall go to America. I have done with Europe 
 for the present." 
 
 She glanced at him as he walked beside her after 
 he had spoken these words, and then bent her eyes 
 for a long time on the ground. At last, seeing that 
 she was going far, she stopped and put out her hand. 
 " Good by," she said ; " may you have all the happi- 
 ness you deserve ! " 
 
 He took her hand and looked at her, but something 
 was passing in him that made it impossible to return 
 her hand's light pressure. Something of infinite value 
 was floating past him, and he had taken an oath not 
 to raise a finger to stop it. It was borne by the strong 
 current of the world's great life and not of his own 
 small one. Madame de Mauves disengaged her hand, 
 gathered her shawl, and smiled at him almost as you 
 would do at a child you should wish to encourage. 
 Several moments later he was still standing watching 
 her receding figure. When it had disappeared, he 
 shook himself, walked rapidly back to his hotel, and 
 without waiting for the evening train paid his bill and 
 departed. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 491 
 
 Later in the day M. de Mauves came into Ms wife's 
 drawing-room, where she sat waiting to be summoned 
 to dinner. He was dressed with a scrupulous fresh- 
 ness which seemed to indicate an intention of dining 
 out. He walked up and down for some moments in 
 silence, then rang the bell for a servant, and went out 
 into the hall to meet him. He ordered the carriage 
 to take him to the station, paused a moment with his 
 hand on the knob of the door, dismissed the servant 
 angrily as the latter lingered observing him, re-entered 
 the drawing-room, resumed his restless walk, and at 
 last stepped abruptly before his wife, who had taken 
 up a book. " May I ask the favor," he said with evi- 
 dent effort, in spite of a forced smile of easy courtesy, 
 " of having a question answered ? " 
 
 " It 's a favor I never refused," Madame de Mauves 
 replied. 
 
 "Very true. Do you expect this evening a visit 
 from Mr. Longmore ? " 
 
 Mr. Longmore," said his wife, " has left Saint- 
 Germain." M. de Mauves started and his smile 
 expired. " Mr. Longmore," his wife continued, has 
 gone to America." 
 
 M. de Mauves stared a moment, flushed deeply, and 
 tifrned away. Then recovering himself, — " Had any- 
 thing happened ? " he asked. " Had he a sudden call ? " 
 
 But his question received no answer. At the 
 
492 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 same moment the servant threw open the door and 
 announced dinner; Madame Clairin rustled in, rub- 
 bing her white hands, Madame de Mauves passed 
 silently into the dining-room, and he stood frowning 
 and wondering. Before long he went out upon the 
 terrace and continued his uneasy walk. At the end 
 of a quarter of an hour the servant came to inform 
 him that the carriage was at the door. Send it 
 away," he said curtly. "I shall not use it.'* When 
 the ladies had half finished dinner he went in and 
 joined them, with a formal apology to his wife for 
 his tardiness. 
 
 The dishes were brought back, but he hardly tasted 
 them; on the other hand, he drank a great deal of 
 wine. There was little talk ; what there was, was 
 supplied by Madame Clairin. Twice she saw her 
 brother's eyes fixed on her own, over his wineglass, 
 with a piercing, questioning glance. She replied by 
 an elevation of the eyebrows, which did the office of a 
 shrug of the shoulders. M. de Mauves was left alone 
 to finish his wine ; he sat over it for more than an 
 hour, and let the darkness gather about him. At last 
 the servant came in with a letter and lighted a can- 
 dle. The letter was a telegram, which M. de Mauves, 
 when he had read it, burnt at the candle. After five 
 minutes' meditation, he wrote a message on the back 
 of a visiting-card and gave it to the servant to carry 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 493 
 
 to the office. The man knew quite as much as his 
 master suspected about the lady to whom the tele- 
 gram was addressed ; but its contents puzzled him ; 
 they consisted of the single word, " Impossible.'' As 
 the evening passed without her brother reappearing 
 in the drawing-room, Madame Clairin came to him 
 where he sat, by his solitary candle. He took no 
 notice of her presence for some time ; but he was the 
 one person to whom she allowed this license. At last, 
 speaking in a peremptory tone, "The American has 
 gone home at an hour's notice," he said. What does 
 it mean ? " 
 
 Madame Clairin now gave free play to the shrug she 
 had been obliged to suppress at the table. " It means 
 that I have a sister-in-law whom I have n't the honor 
 to understand." 
 
 He said nothing more, and silently allowed her to 
 depart, as if it had been her duty to provide him with 
 an explanation and he was disgusted with her levity. 
 When she had gone, he went into the garden and 
 walked up and down, smoking. He saw his wife sit- 
 ting alone on the terrace, but remained below strolling 
 along the narrow paths. He remained a long time. 
 It became late and Madame de Mauves disappeared. 
 Toward midnight he dropped upon a bench, tired, 
 with a kind of angry sigh. It was sinking into his 
 mind that he, too, did not understand Madame 
 Clairin's sister-in-law. 
 
494 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Longmore was obliged to wait a week in London for 
 a ship. It was very hot, and he went out for a day 
 to Eichmond. In the garden of the hotel at which he 
 dined he met his friend Mrs. Draper, who was stay- 
 ing there. She made eager inquiry about Madame de 
 Mauves, but Longmore at first, as they sat looking 
 out at the famous view of the Thames, parried her 
 questions and confined himself to small-talk. At last 
 she said she was afraid he had something to conceal ; 
 whereupon, after a pause, he asked her if she remem- 
 bered recommending him, in the letter she sent to 
 him at Saint-Germain, to draw the sadness from her 
 friend's smile. " The last I saw of her was her smile," 
 said he, — " when I bade her good by." 
 
 " I remember urging you to ' console ' her," Mrs. 
 Draper answered, and I wondered afterwards whether 
 — a model of discretion as you are — I had n't given 
 you rather foolish advice." 
 
 She has her consolation in herself," he said ; " she 
 needs none that any one else can offer her. That 's for 
 troubles for which — be it more, be it less — our own 
 folly has to answer. Madame de Mauves has not a 
 grain of folly left." 
 
 " Ah, don't say that ! " murmured Mrs. Draper. " Just 
 a little folly is very graceful." 
 
 Longmore rose to go, with a quick nervous move- 
 ment. " Don't talk of grace," he said, " till you have 
 measured her reason." 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 495 
 
 For two years after his return to America he heard 
 nothing of Madame de Mauves. That he thought of 
 her intently, constantly, I need hardly say : most peo- 
 ple wondered why such a clever young man should not 
 " devote " himself to something ; but to himself he 
 seemed absorbingly occupied. He never wrote to her ; 
 he believed that she preferred it. At last he heard 
 that Mrs. Draper had come home, and he immediately 
 called on her. Of course," she said after the first 
 greetings, " you are dying for news of Madame de 
 Mauves. Prepare yourself for something strange. I 
 heard from her two or three times during the year 
 after your return. She left Saint-Germain and went 
 to live in the country, on some old property of her 
 husband's. She wrote me very kind little notes, but 
 I felt somehow that — in spite of what you said about 
 ' consolation ' — they were the notes of a very sad wo- 
 man. The only advice I could have given her was to 
 leave her wretch of a husband and come back vO her own 
 land and her own people. But this I did n't feel tree 
 to do, and yet it made me so miserable not to be able 
 to help her that I preferred to let our correspondence 
 die a natural death. I had no news of her for a year. 
 Last summer, however, I met at Vichy a clevef young 
 Frenchman whom I accidentally learned to be a friend 
 of Euphemia's lovely sister-in-law, Madame Clairin. 1/ 
 lost no time in asking him what he knew abor 
 
496 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 Madame de Mauves, — a countrywoman of mine and 
 an old friend. ' I congratulate you on possessing her 
 friendship/ he answered. ' That 's the charming little 
 woman who killed her husband.' You may imagine 
 that I promptly asked for an explanation, and he pro- 
 ceeded to relate to me what he called the whole story. 
 M. de Mauves had fait quelques folies, which his wife 
 had taken absurdly to heart. He had repented and 
 asked her forgiveness, w^hich she had inexorably re- 
 fused. She was very pretty, and severity, apparently, 
 suited her style; for whether or no her husband had 
 been in love with her before, he fell madly in love with 
 her now. He was the proudest man in France, but 
 he had begged her on his knees to be readmitted to 
 favor. All in vain ! She was stone, she was ice, she 
 was outraged virtue. People noticed a great change in 
 him : he ^ave up society, ceased to care for anything, 
 lo^^^' • 'dngly. One fine day they learned that he 
 ait his brains. My friend had the story 
 from Madame Clairin." 
 i^ongmore was strongly moved, and his first impulse 
 after he had recovered his composure was to return 
 immediately to Europe. But several years have passed, 
 and he still lingers at home. The truth is, that in the 
 midst of all the ardent tenderness of his memory of 
 Madame de Mauves, he has become conscious of a 
 singular feeling, — a feeling for which awe would be 
 lardly too strong a name.