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BY
GRANT ALLEN
Author of “The woman Who Did,” “What's Bred in the Bone,” etc.
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NEW YORK
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPANY
9-11 east 16th street
LONDON – F. V. WHITE & CO.,
1899 -
WA


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A Splendid Sin
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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
743.11.1
ASTOR, LENox AND
TILDEN FGUNDAT IONS
| R 1916 L
Copyright, 1899
by
F. M. BUCKLES & company
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Pace
THE BLACK EAGLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
CHAPTER II.
A FLORENTINE NOBLEMAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2I
CHAPTER III.
ENTER HUBERT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4I
CHAPTER IV.
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
CHAPTER V.
Love's PHILOSOPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................... 74
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
CHAPTER VII.
MATRIMONIAL BUSINESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNEXPECTED INTERVIEW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I 18
CHAPTER IX.
THE COLONEL SCORF.S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I3o
CHAPTER X.
REACTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I35


vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.
page
THE ENGLISH FOR FEDE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 146
CHAPTER YII.
THE POINT OF VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - . . . . . . 163
CHAPTER XIII.
A GREAT CONFESSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
CHAPTER XIV.
COLONEL EGREMONT SEES HIS WAY. . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I91
CHAPTER XV.
AND FEDE *... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COLONEL's PLANs. ..... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 208
CHAPTER XVII.
AT MILWORTH MANOR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 219
CHAPTER XVIII.
PRIVATE INQUIRY... . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 230
CHAPTER XIX.
VICTORY 1... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 242
CHAPTER XX.
HIS TRAFALGAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - 26o
- w


A SPLENDID SIN.
CHAPTER I.
THE BLACK EAGLE.
“IT's a lovely view,” Mrs. Egremont said,
with her eyes on the Himmelberg.
Sir Emilius Rawson looked up sharply and
surveyed it in a critical mood through his
glasses. He did not wish to commit himself.
He gave the scene a searching glance, as if it
were a doubtful patient, before he ventured
upon his diagnosis. “Yes, it is a lovely view,”
he admitted at last, after scanning it all over.
He made the admission with an air of curious
candor, begotten of the habit of seldom grant-
ing anything, lest he should afterwards be con-
victed of possible error. “It is a lovely view "
And he peered up and down, like one who ex-
pects to find some dangerous symptom lurking
unobserved in some obscure corner.
Not that Sir Emilius was the least interested
in the view; he had seen it before, and knew
it thoroughly. But it was an instinct with him
7
*


8 A Splendid Sin.
to look everything steadily in the face for a
minute or two before plunging into even the
most casual opinion. Use had made it in him
a second nature. You had only to look, in-
deed, at Sir Emilius's close-shaven face and
preoccupied eyes in order to recognize at a
glance the fact that he was a great London
consulting physician. All big doctors acquire
at last that preoccupied air ; it grows out of
their profession ; they pretend to be listening
to their patient's recital of unimportant details,
while they are really employed in looking be-
hind his words and the mask of his face at
such signs of constitution, disease, or tempera-
ment as his build and features may chance to
indicate. Sir Emilius was bland, like all his
class; without blandness of manner and a def-
erential smile, you cannot succeedin medicine.
But even while he folded his scrupulously
white hands in front of him, fingers touching
and thumbs upright, with an external appear-
ance of the profoundest interest in his patient's
life-history (from measles and scarlatina on-
ward), he was inwardly engaged in observing
to himself, “Strumous type ; gouty diathesis :
a large eater, a constant drinker of just a couple
of glasses more wine than is good for him.
General habit of body indicates the Carlsbad
treatment. Prominent eyes—a loquacious
talker; may as well make up my mind to half-
an-hour of him.—Quite so ; I follow.you ; it


The Black Eagle. 9
is one of the well-known sequelae of influenza.
—Wish he'd come to the point. I can see
beforehand it's premonitory symptoms of
Bright's disease—and the fellow'll waste twenty
minutes of my precious time before he even
arrives at it !”
For Sir Emilius was famous among men of
his profession for his rapid and almost intuitive
diagnosis; no doubt it was partly the promp-
titude with which he could read other men's
faces that gave his own that abiding look of
preoccupied boredom. For it is hard, of
course, to assume an air of interest in a story
whose parallel you have heard ten thousand
times before, and every detail of which you
could supply by anticipation ; yet, if you make
a large income by pretending to listen to it,
you must needs acquire a professional ap-
pearance of intelligent sympathy with every
fresh narrator who unfolds his woes to you.
“When a lady of a certain age comes into
my consulting-room, settles herself comfortably
down, and begins by saying, ‘Doctor, I am
the mother of fourteen children,' Sir Emilius
used often to remark in the privacy of family
life, “I lean back in my armchair, fold my
hands on my bosom, and close my eyes with a
mechanical smile of gentle attention. For I
know I shall have to listen to a full account of
how all those fourteen children were, jointly
and severally, brought into the world, as well


IO A Splendid Sin.
as to everything that has happened to their
mother in connection with each one of them.
I lose consciousness for a moment in a placid
doze, from which I awake automatically the
moment she says, “And now, doctor, I come
to my fourteenth.' Then I know I may,
perhaps, at last begin to hear why she wants
to consult me.”
So now, Sir Emilius gazed around him sus-
piciously at the pines and the mountains be-
fore he ventured at last on the non-committing
remark, “It is a fine view, I admit, Julia.”
They were seated on an obtrusively rustic
bench outside the Black Eagle Hotel in the
Rothenthal. Sir Emilius was tall, broad-
shouldered, a somewhat massive figure—one of
those immaculate English gentlemen whose
most salient feature appears to be that they tub
every morning. He had a close-shaven face,
clear-cut features, and an expression that sum-
med up the College of Physicians. No man,
indeed, was ever quite so wise as Sir Emilius
Rawson looked. He had that studied air of
preternatural sagacity which comes only from
the assiduous employment of years in im-
pressing your own superior knowledge and
skill upon many thousand patients. When he
put his hand to his chin, and drew it slowly
downward, you felt that he was bringing a
gigantic intellect to bear upon the elements
of some most difficult problem ; when he
º **


The Black Eagle. II
puckered his forehead and gazed hard at you
through his eyeglasses, you realized that the
Rontgen rays themselves could not spy out
more than he did of your internal skeleton.
His half-sister, who sat beside him, was of
different mold. Her air was shrinking. Sir
Emilius, who was above everything physio-
logical and modern, accounted for their un-
likeness by the racial traits of their respective
fathers. His own father, Dr. Rawson of Ipswich,
was a burly East Anglian who had died when
Emilius was a boy of twelve, leaving his widow
not very well provided for. But Mrs. Egre-
mont's father, whom their mother had married
in her second trial of matrimony, was a De-
vonshire squire, endowed with the soft and
gentle Devonian nature ; he had been com-
pletely overshadowed during his married life
by the cleverness and energy of the woman
he had chosen. It was from him, Sir Emilius
thought, that Julia inherited her more delicate
characteristics. And, indeed, Mrs. Egremont
had a slender figure and sensitive face, deeply
marked with the beauty of some great sorrow.
She was still young, as women count youth
nowadays—scarcely more than forty, and her
features were daintily refined and sympathetic.
She was one of those tall and graceful women
who attract one at first sight by the moral
qualities visible in their faces, and of whom
one says at once, “There is a good woman "


I2 A Splendid Sin.
Mrs. Egremont raised her large eyes slowly
towards the peak of the Rothspitze. “Hubert
ought to be coming back,” she murmured anx-
iously. “He said it was only a six hours'
expedition, and he's been gone over seven.”
Sir Emilius lighted a cigarette—he allowed
himself the luxury of a cigarette in public at
more than fifty miles from London. “Expe-
ditions invariably take longer than one thinks,”
he answered, in a somewhat unconcerned voice.
“Add twenty per cent. to Baedeker's estimate,
and you get the fair average. Besides, Hubert
took his camera with him, didn't he ”
“He did,” Mrs. Egremontanswered. “That,
of course, would delay him. Still, I just hate
this mountain climbing for him. I hope, when
he marries, Fede will make him promise to
give it up. It's so horribly dangerous ! I
watched him through my field-glasses for an
hour yesterday, clambering up that bare brown
face of rock on the side of the Eselstein, and
it made me giddy to look at him. I assure
you, Mill, there wasn't a foothold anywhere.
He seemed to me to cling by his eyebrows.”
“These perpendicular cliffs are never quite
so steep as they look from a distance,” Sir
Emilius went on, calmly. “Never—or seldom.”
It was his habit to hedge, lest he should too
rashly have committed himself ; for a doctor
must always abstain from giving an absolute
opinion; “never to prophesy unless you know,”


The Black Eagle. I3
is the wisdom of the profession. “When you
get at close quarters with them, you find them
diversified by little inequalities of surface which
enable you to climb ; here, a jutting ledge ;
there an inconspicuous crack; yonder again, a
bush that springs from a cranny by whose aid
you can prise yourself up. Hubert's all right;
he's as safe a climber as any I ever saw. He
has arms and legs exactly adapted for the
work of mountaineering. If you notice the
muscles of his thumbs and wrists, you'll see at
once—”
“Oh, what's that speck on the wall of rock 2"
Mrs. Egremont cried, leaning forward, and lift-
ing her field-glass hurriedly:
“A goat l” Sir Emilius answered, surveying
it through his own. “A most unmitigated
goat l—unless, indeed, it's a chamois. And
the chamois, I believe, is a mythical beast, like
gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire—a mere
playful figment of the Swiss imagination. He
exists, if at all, in order that the Swiss may carve
him in wood during the depths of winter, to
sell at an extravagant price to Cockney tourists
in the following season. That's the worst, Julia,
of you hens with one chicken. You can't be
philosophical. Boys will be boys; and Hubert
is at the age when the desire to climb heredi-
tarily manifest itself. 'Tis a survival from
monkeydom. My old enemy, the mother of
fourteen, now, has the advantage of you there.


I4. A Splendid Sin.
She is calm and collected. Calmness, in fact,
is her prevailing characteristic. She tends, as
a rule, to be large and placid. She runs natur-
ally to fat, just as she runs to infants;–a super-
abundance of the assimilative and accumulative
tendencies. When I see her sailing under
twenty yards of black silk into my room in
Harley Street, I sum her up at once. “My
dearmadam,' I say mentally, ‘you are a mother
of fourteeen. You have buried three, and you
have survived those shocks with matronly
quietude. Your boys are abroad in the world
—Matabeleland, Texas, Manitoba, Trinidad—
and they give you no anxiety. You are aware
that they break their heads ; and that heads
can be mended. You know they get into
scrapes; and that scrapes are things which
young fellows crawl out of as easily as they fall
into them. You recognize the fact that they
will marry horrid creatures; and that, by the
end of six months, you and the horrid creature
will be the best of friends, having mutually
arrived at a modus wivendi, based upon the
principle of an armed neutrality. You sleep
O' nights and you lay on fat still, no matter what
happens to you.’ Whereas, you, Julia—you,
if your boy has gone one hour longer than he
says, you grow visibly thin to the naked eye
under the stress of your terrors. Why, you
have crows' feet gathering round your eyes this
very moment. Too anxious a temperament,


The Black Eagle. I5
my dear; too anxious a temperament You
can't expect to keep a young man of twenty-
two tied to your apron-string.”
“I don't want to do that,” Mrs. Egremont
answered, flushing. “I’m sure, Emilius, I've
allowed him to go to Oxford, and to row and
swim, and to take to anatomy, and everything
of that sort ; but this mountain climbing, you
know, is so very different. And even in that
I don't oppose him ; I try not to let him see how
much it frightens me. I never once say to
him, ‘I wouldn't, if I were you,' for fear of
seeming to interfere with his pleasures.”
“No, you don't say it,” her brother answered,
with a masculine smile. “But, by George,
Julia, you look it.”
“I’m sorry if I do,” the mother went on, with
her eyes fixed steadily on the distant peak. “I
can't bear to let Hubert see he's giving me
trouble. Dear boy, I only want to make him
happy. And I know we women can't quite
understand what a boy wants to do. We would
like, of course, to make girls and women of
them.”
“Fortunately,” Sir Emilius interposed,
“there's not much danger of your succeeding
in that aim with Hubert. He has a fine broad
basis of solid manliness to work upon which it
would be difficult to feminize. Though, of
course, if you could, you would do your best
to feminize it.”


I6 A Splendid Sin.
“Oh, I hope not l” Mrs. Egremont cried.
“My own dear boy | Why, I just love his
manliness "
“Yes, you just love his manliness. Every
mother does ; and never remembers that it
can only be ensured by those very dangers she
would like to guard him from. Without break-
ing of eggs, my dear, there is no omelet.
You only want to make him happy. Yet you
let him see you live for his happiness. Now,
isn't that the way to make him selfish P”
Mrs. Egremont shrank back, surprised.
“What, Hubert selfish 7" she cried. “My
Hubert selfish 7 Why, Mill, you can't mean
it. Nothing on earth could make Hubert
Selfish ”
The doctor stroked his chin ; professional
habits survive even in private life. “Well, I
admit,” he answered, “that Hubert, up to date,
is one of the most affectionate and unselfish
young fellows I ever came across. I allow he's
wrapped up in you. Never knew a boy think
more of his mother—as, of course, he ought to
do, for you've been a perfect angel to him.
Still, it can't be good for him to see that you
are always thinking of him, and watching over
him, and planning his happiness. He's a good
lad, I admit, and, as the stock phrase goes, he
has never given you one minute's anxiety—
though he's never ceased for one minute to
be an anxiety to you. He's unselfish by nature,


The Black Eagle. 17
I grant. That he takes from you ; for you're
about the most unselfish woman I ever came
across, Julia ; and I've known you for forty-
four years, and am in a position to judge of
you. Still, consider the other side. These
things are hereditary. Every man is liable,
sooner or later, to show some traits, at least,
that recall his father.”
Mrs. Egremont's cheek burned bright crim-
son. “His father | " she exclaimed, with a
sudden fall in her voice. “His father | His
father | " Then, after a moment, the glow
dying away, she added, in a lower tone, “Ah,
yes; I forgot ; his father "
“Walter was the most selfish pig I ever knew
in my life,” Sir Emilius continued, with the
frankness of family confidence.
Mrs. Egremont leaned forward with an im-
patient wave of the hand. “Oh, don't talk of
him 1" she cried. “I am only happy—when
I forget about him, Emilius.”
Sir Emilius paused. He took a puff or two
at his cigarette. Then he resumed the con-
versation. “Still you must realize,” he said,
slowly, “that if Hubert takes after you in some
things, he must equally take after Walter in
others. And Walter being a conspicuously
selfish man, anything that tends to encourage
selfishness in Hubert ought surely to be
avoided.”
Mrs. Egremont paused too. For some
2


I8 A Splendid Sin.
minutes she seemed to turn the matter over
in her mind. The doctor's eyes were fixed
steadily upon her. He was reading her
through and through, and she knew it per-
fectly. She trembled under his glance. He
could see into one's brain. But at last she
broke silence. “I suppose,” she said, hesita-
ting, “certain characteristics of one parent,
Emilius, tend rather to come out in children,
and certain of the other. Now, Hubert's father
was undoubtedly, at least, a very able man ;
he was a man of intellect. And Hubert has
intellect—far more intellect than he could ever
have derived from me. Well, then, isn't it
possible—I don't know, I put the question to
you only as a physiologist—isn't it possible
that Hubert might take intellectually after his
father, and emotionally after me 2 Might he
not reproduce his father's brains without—with-
out reproducing any moral defects his father
may have exhibited P’’
“May have exhibited. Why, Julia,” Sir
Emilius exclaimed, smiling, “how unnecessarily
mild is your way of putting it ! You know as
well as I do what sort of man Walter really
was. Could Hubert inherit any kind of good
quality from him—other than intellectual 7”
Mrs. Egremont bowed her head. Again
she was silent. “Don’t let's talk of it,” she
cried at last ; “I can't bear to think about it.”
Sir Emilius rose from his place with great


The Black Eagle. I9
deliberation, and lighted another cigarette.
“Selfishest pig I ever knew in my life,” he
murmured to himself in a very slow drawl, as
he paced up and down in front of the seat.
“But Julia's quite right ! Hubert doesn't take
after him. This one-sided heredity is common
enough, after all. Judge a man as a whole,
and he's half his father and half his mother.
But which half of each will come out in each
part—why, that's more than physiology at pres-
ent can decide for us !”
Mrs. Egremont rose too. “Emilius,” she
cried, faltering, “I can't stand it any longer.
This suspense wears me out. I must go and
meet him " "
“By all means,” Sir Emilius answered.
“One walk like another | He's as safe as
houses, of course. But we'll go and meet
him.”
“It was so black on the Eselstein once this
afternoon,” the mother added, after a forced
pause. “He may have been caught in a thun-
derstorm.”
“Clouds designed in sepia,” Sir Emilius ad-
mitted. “But he'll come to no harm. An
expert climber like Hubert | Cats have nine
lives, they say: boys have ten, I fancy.”
He walked on a pace or two, then he began
again. “Hubert has intellect,” he said, “un-
doubted intellect. But it's badly compounded.
The worst of him is, he's half a poet and half


2O A Splendid Sin.
a physiologist. Now, you can't drive poetry
and physiology tandem.”
“Hubert drives them abreast,” Mrs. Egre-
mont retorted, gently. “And, to my mind,
they go very well in harness.”


A Florentine Nobleman. 2I
CHAPTER II.
A FLORENTINE NOBLEMAN.
THE Black Eagle in the Rothenthal is one of
those old-fashioned Swiss hotels which lie a
little off the beaten track of tourists. The
season was autumn, and the crop of visitors
was nearly all garnered. On the verandah of
the inn the concierge stood lounging, with his
cap on one side, a cheap Swiss cigar stuck
carelessly in his mouth, and his hands in his
pockets. Nobody else stood about except
a single chambermaid, in the Bernese dress
now confined to her occupation. The con-
cierge nodded. “Season's over,” he murmured.
“Never knew it close so early,” the chamber-
maid answered.
“Bad weather in England,” the concierge
replied. “Keeps them from coming south.
Fine on the Italian lakes. Keeps them from
coming north. I'm off to Nice, Rosa, if this
sort of thing goes on much longer.”
“Well, I don't mind it,” Rosa answered, with
a saucy air. “A little relief after the hurry and
scurry I'm engaged till the thirtieth, come
visitors or come nobody.”


22 A Splendid Sin.
“Ah, the patron engages you so ; but I'm by
the week,” the concierge continued ; “and as
things go now, there's no tips worth speaking
of.”
“Well, I don't mind for that,” Rosa answered.
“I’ve made a good season—and I want to stop
on here as long as I can ; for I'm doing my
winter at Naples, where my term doesn't begin
before the Ioth of November. So of course
it suits me best to hang on here and take it
easy, There's nobody left on my floor now,
except those English in Number Twenty.”
“Ten coming to-morrow,” the concierge said,
briefly.
“Yes, but only Cookies. They give more
trouble than pourboire, those Cook's tourists.”
“Too many Cooks spoil the Continent,” the
concierge murmured, reflectively. “If it
weren't for the Americans—”
Rosa drew herself up suddenly. She was a
transformed woman. The easy-going air of
the chambermaid-at-large gave way at once to
the official demeanor of the chambermaid-in-
waiting. At the same moment a similar trans-
formation came over the concierge. He pulled
his cap straight, hid his cigar in his palm, and
assumed the severely well-bred air which is the
badge of his position. Anyone could guess that
strangers were coming. And, as a matter of
fact, it was the roll of carriage-wheels that had
wrought this metamorphosis. A Family was


A Florentine Nobleman. 23
arriving. “Must be those stingy Italians who
telegraphed for rooms on the third floor from
Milan,” Rosa murmured, pulling her Bernese
bodice straight, and arranging her hair in the
most approved fashion. “He calls himself a
Marquis ; but he wants on Salon / Just like
those Italians !”
The concierge rang the big bell. All at
once, from the recesses of the kitchen and din-
ing-room, a whole posse of waiters in very
white ties and very black coats swarmed out
like ants, to take their stand on the steps and
welcome the new-comers. The patron him-
self, all cringing obsequiousness, one wrinkled
smile, stood at the top of the flight and rubbed
his hands in expectation : the waiters and
chambermaids, the boots and porters, all stood
at attention in their various positions. As the
carriage with the “stingy Italians,” drew up at
the foot of the steps, the concierge advanced,
all servility, to greet them ; while the landlord,
representative of the only real aristocracy in
modern Switzerland, bowed his profoundest
bow from the top of the flight to the prospec-
tive customers.
The concierge took the rugs and umbrellas
as they descended. “For 70,” he observed in
an undertone to the porter. “Take that bag
down, Karl | The lady's parasol, Rosal Al-
phonse, the portmanteau !”
A stout but well-built Italian gentleman rose


24 A Splendid Sin.
from his seat in a leisurely manner. He was
tall and broad-shouldered, with very big
mustaches and a bushy black beard, and his
appearance was that of a born aristocrat. He
smiled a bland smile of somewhat cynical
amusement. “Received, as usual, by the
whole strength of the company,” he said, in his
soft Tuscan, turning round to his pretty young
daughter who accompanied him. “We shall
have to pay for it, Fedel No pay, no polite-
ness; nothing in Switzerland without paying
through the nose for it !” Then he went on
in good colloquial German to the concierge,
“I telegraphed from Milan for rooms for my-
self and my daughter. I hope you have re-
served them. The Marchese and Marchesa
Tornabuoni.” He said the last words with
just a touch of pomposity.
“Si, signore,” the concierge answered in
Italian, anxious to show he had fully under-
stood that part of the colloquy which was not
intended for him, and politer than usual in
order to disprove its libellous insinuations.
“Your rooms are ready for you. Will your
excellency and the Signora Marchesa give
yourselves the trouble to mount at once to
them P''
“A lift 2" the Marchese inquired, raising his
eyebrows.
“Si, signore ; a lift and electric light; we
made the installation for both this season.”


26 A Splendid Sin.
“And he would have been here, of course, if
he'd known I was coming.”
“No doubt,” her father answered, with the
same cynical smile. “To prevent which mis-
fortune, my poor dear innocent, I wrote we
would arrive by midday to-morrow, and so
secured you time to put your hair straight and
wash your face and hands before meeting your
lover. We know nothing as yet of his position
and prospects ; but if he's a proper person to
marry you at all, it's as well you should make a
good first impression upon him and his family.”
“I don't feel like that to Hubert,” Fede an-
swered, smiling. “Hubert is—well, in Eng-
land, you know, it's all so different.”
“But we are not in England,” the Marchese
replied, biting the end of his moustache. “So
now go to your room and make yourself pre-
sentable. A girl should always look her best
before her lover—until she's married him.
Here, concierge, one moment l”
“Signore 1"
“Is there a Mr. Egremont in the house ?”
“Yes, signóre ; and Mrs. Egremont, his
mother ; and Sir Emilius Rawson ; all three
of them English.”
“Then don't tell them we've arrived. We'll
go up to our rooms now, and see them later.”
“Is Mr. Egremont in the hotel at present 2"
Fede interposed, all crimson.
“No, signora, not at this moment. He


A Florentine Nobleman. 27
started for a trip up the Eselstein this morning,
and has not yet returned. His mother and
uncle have gone out to meet him.”
“That's well,” the Marchese answered.
“Go up to your room at once, Fede. You're
a perfect fright at present. It would be abso-
lutely fatal to your chance of marriage if your
Uberto were to see you.”
Fede went off to the lift ; the Marchese fol-
lowed her. Rosa showed them to their rooms
as obsequiously as if they were not “stingy
Italians.” Fede unpacked her portmanteau
and did her hair as desired. They had come
over from Milan that day, and driven across
from Goeschenen. Yet she was not tired. In
scenery like that, she thought, she could never
get tired. Besides, had she not come to meet
Hubert once more ? And though she was
naturally nervous as to what papa might think
of Hubert, and what Hubert might think of
papa, she was absolutely happy at the thought
of meeting him. Her cheek was flushed with
quite unusual roses, and her eye was bright,
when she went out on the balcony. Her
father was there before her, smoking his in-
evitable cigar, and gazing rather lazily across
at the mountains. Even after all the glorious
scenery she had come through that day, the
view delighted Fede. “Oh, papa,” she cried,
gazing out upon it, “did you ever in your life
see anything so lovely P"


28 A Splendid Sin.
The Marchese waved his cigar over the field
of view with Italian demonstrativeness. “Why,
yes, my child,” he answered. “ Dozens of
times. At home, on our estate at Florence.” He
punctuated each phrase with a puff and a wave.
“For my part, I consider a basking Tuscan
hillside—covered with a good terraced Chianti
vineyard—a vast deal more attractive than all
this useless snow and ice and pinewood.”
“Papa,” Fede cried, clasping her hands,
“you've no sense of the picturesque !”
“So your mother used to say, my dear. And
perhaps I haven't. I’m a man of business.
But I believe you allow these Swiss to
bamboozle you, as they bamboozle everybody.”
The Marchese sank his voice to a confidential
whisper. “My dear, the Swiss are an extremely
clever commercial nation. They manage to
delude all the rest of the world in a most ex-
traordinary fashion.”
Fede's eyes were far away upon the cloud-
topped peaks, now just beginning to glow with
the pink light of sunset. “Delude them 2" she
murmured. “How do you mean, delude
them P’’
The Marchese took a puffortwo, and then con-
tinued deliberately. “It was a fellow called De
Saussure,” he said, “who first hit upon the prin-
ciple—very clever fellow, as you may naturally
imagine. You see, Switzerland, to start with,
was a poor and out-of-the way pastoral country.


A Florentine Nobleman. 29
It lived on pasture. The Swiss produce a
quantity of beef, and mutton, and milk, and
cream, and eggs, and butter—and they don't
know what to do with them. There they
are, stuck in the very middle of the map of
Europe—remote from the consumer—remote
from all the great markets—Paris, London,
Berlin, Vienna, Naples ; and they can't afford
to send their stuff away by rail, because it
wouldn't even pay the cost of carriage. They
have plenty to eat—and nobody to eat it. So,
happy thought—as they can't send their
produce away to the consumer, they must
make the consumer come to their produce.
Naturally, however, there was nothing in the
world to bring people of their own free wills
to these inhospitable wilds ; but that difficulty
didn't daunt the ingenious Switzers. They
invented Scenery—and the rest of the world
fell into the trap like lambs, and came to
Switzerland to eat the beef, and stare at the
mountains 2 " And the Marchese puffed away,
with eyes half-closed, well pleased at his own
philosophical cleverness.
“But, papa, they're so beautiful l’ Fede
cried, clasping her hands ecstatically.
“What, the Swiss 2"
“No, no, of course not ; the mountains !
Look at them now, turning crimson in the
setting sun. Aren't they just lovely 2”
The Marchese shrugged his shoulders.


3O A Splendid Sin.
“People didn't look at crags in the eighteenth
century,” he replied, with his two hands ex-
tended in a rhetorical gesture. “The Swiss
hadn't then developed the scenery business.
Glaciers were notas yet the fashion. Everybody
in those days used sensibly to admire fine open
stretches of cultivable land—like the plain of
Lombardy as you see it from the top of Milan
Cathedral. That was before the time of
Monsieur de Saussure, who discovered the
commercial value of these uninteresting Alps.
Putting up statues is a precious bad way of
investing your money, or else I suspect the
grateful Swiss would have put up a statue to
De Saussure long ago. But they're a prudent
people ; they never do anything except with a
single eye to remunerative investment.”
“Oh, papa,” Fede cried, “you're incorrigible.
I believe you only care for our own lovely
place on the Arno for the sake of the wine
and oil you make in it.”
“My dear,” the Marchese answered, with the
common sense of the modern Italian, “in spite
of the present depressed condition of the wine
market, my Chianti fetches the highest price
in the English ports of any brand in Tuscany,
and that's quite enough for me. I leave the
picturesque to those who care for it.”
“But these mountains !” Fede cried, stretch-
ing her arms towards them impulsively.
The Marchese spread his hands. “Mere


A Florentine Nobleman. 3I
anfractuosities in the earth's crust,” he an-
Swered. “They would make much more land,
ironed out and distributed.”
Fede laughed in spite of herself. “You’re
a degenerate Tornabuoni, dear,” she said, half
in jest, half in earnest. “I’m sure Giovanni
Tornabuoni, who had the pictures painted by
Ghirlandajo in the choir of Santa Maria Novella,
wouldn't have thought as you do.”
“Very probably not,” her father replied, pat-
ting her head. “But he would have burnt you
for a heretic, my dear; so there are advantages
both ways. I don't pretend, myself, that I live
outside my own century.”
Fede's eyes were far away on the rose-tipped
peaks. “I’m glad,” she said, slowly, “I’m not
as practical as you, papa. Hubert loves the
mountains—I mean the anſractuosities—and I
love them too. And that will be nice for
Hubert. I don't think Englishmen are so
practical as Italians; though in England, of
course, everybody thinks differently.”
“In England,” her father observed, leaning
over the parapet and puffing away reflectively,
“everybody thinks the average Italian is a
judicious mixture of an operatic tenor, an
organ-grinder, a Calabrian brigand, and a
Neapolitan macaroni-seller. The Italian of
real life is little known, even to Englishmen
who have lived long in Italy.”
“That's true,” Fede replied. “For, as a


32 A Splendid Sin.
matter of fact, the Italians I have met
have all been intensely practical, while the
English I have met, no matter how business-
like, have always had some undercurrent at
least in their natures of romance and poetry.”
“Too true,” the Marchese murmured. “Too
true, I fear, Fede. Your good mother was an
Englishwoman, and for romantic—well, you
remember her. In that, you show yourself
your mother's daughter. I sent you to Eng-
land to be educated, because it was her dying
wish, and also because an Italian girl in Flor-
ence has far better chances of marrying an
Englishman of fortune than a Florentine of
equal means and of suitable position. And
you come back telling me you are in love with
“Hubert.” “Who is Hubert 2' I naturally
ask ; and you answer me, ‘His other name is
Egremont. Isn't it a pretty one —so soft,
Hubert Egremont l’ ‘Very soft,' I admit,
“but his fortune, his prospects, his family,
Fede 2' And you reply, ‘His family lives in
Devonshire, the loveliest part of England, with
beautiful red cliffs and purple bays and green
valleys.” “How many acres of it does he
own 2' I ask. You have never even inquired.
I tear my hair but I get no further. Your in-
formation about him sums itself up in the two
simple facts that he has a pretty name and is
an agreeable person. I ask you, is that
practical ?”


A Florentine Nobleman. 33
Fede looked down and smiled, a little em-
barrassed smile, while she fingered the rose at
her bosom somewhat nervously. “I saw so
little of him, you see, papa,” she answered,
lowering her eyes. “We—we only met, at
most, half-a dozen times. And then, you know,
we had so much else to talk about !”
“Yes, I know,” the Marchese answered,
more amused than provoked, for he had
Italian tolerance for the foibles of the young.
“I know, exactly. You and Hubert went on
talking pretty nothings to one another, and
making love for love's sake, precisely as if it
were an intrigue, not a marriage, you were
contemplating. A pure-blooded Italian girl
wouldn't behave like that, you know—not with
a man she thought of making her husband.
A married woman with her lover, I grant you
—very right and proper; but a marriage is
different ; 'tis an affair of business. You have
to take this man—he has to take this woman—
for life and always. Therefore it becomes im-
portant to know precisely how much each can
contribute to the family exchequer, and what
sort of fortune each expects and possesses. If
you were my daughter only, you would have
inquired these things first about your precious
Hubert. As you are also your mother's, and
have imbibed all sorts of romantic English
ideas at Oxford, you inquire nothing of the
sort; you merely come telling me that Hubert
3


34 A Splendid sin.
is charming, high-souled, handsome, clever, in-
tellectual. Are those the qualities, I ask you,
one demands in a husband 2"
“They are—in England,” Fede answered,
half smiling. For the Marchese, though prac-
tical, was a kindly-natured father.
“And what's the consequence 2" the Italian
went on, holding one hand out oratorically.
“I write to England, delicately suggesting
these important preliminaries, and am met with
a reserve which, I suppose, proceeds from Eng-
lish refinement, but which, in Italy, we should
considerabsurd and impracticable. We should
call it mere shuffling. You tell me you're
“engaged,’ whatever that may mean, to Hubert.
So I have no resource left except to write and
inquire when and where I may meet Mr.
Hubert. And where does the man propose to
give me an appointment 2 In Paris, Milan,
Florence, Venice, London, where either party
could have access to proper legal opinions 2
Not a bit of it; he says he and his mother will
be touring in Switzerland, and they will be
delighted to meet us half-way, at a second-rate
inn, in a sequestered valley, remote from all
the conveniences and resources of civilization
—they discuss the affair as though the element
of contract didn't enter into the question.
And that's what poses as a practical people !
Pah ! cara mia, it makes me ill to think of
it l’’


A Florentine Nobleman. 35
Fede smiled in turn. She had spent the
five formative years of her life in England, first
at school, and then at Somerville College ; and
though she was Italian still in speech and
features, she was English to the core in her
ideas and opinions. “That's not quite the way
people would look at it in England—” she
began. -
“I know it's not,” the Marchese interrupted,
good-humoredly ; “and that's just what I
complain of !”
“They would think,” Fede went on, “this
was an affair between two lovers, and that
nothing could be more natural than for the
lovers to settle it among these beautiful moun-
tains and these lovely valleys, where the people
most concerned could find abundant oppor-
tunities for seeing one another alone—after the
English fashion.”
“Precisely,” her father echoed. “After the
English fashion | In England, a marriage is
still, to a great extent, an affair of the heart;
in Italy, we see that it is an affair of the pocket.”
“Then I'm glad,” Fede murmured, “I’m
going to marry an Englishman 1"
“Oh, well,” the Marchese replied, shrugging
his shoulders once more, “as you seem to have
decided the question for yourself, without even
So much as an inquiry as to your father, I really
don't know why I should have come all this
way merely to give my consent to a precon-


36 A Splendid Sin.
ceived arrangement, as to the terms of which
I have not even been consulted | "
Fede took his hand in hers. “Dear papa,'
she cried, “you know I couldn't bear to do any-
thing to displease you. You have always been
the sweetest and best of fathers. You've been
goodness itself to me. But Hubert is so nice,
so kind, so lovable ; I'm sure when you see
him you can't help loving him.”
The Marchese smiled in spite of himself.
“Loving him ' " he exclaimed, much amused.
“There you are again, Fede. You insist upon
treating it all as if it were a mere affair of pass-
ing affection. You forget it is proposed you
should marry this man. And we don't yet
know whether he has anything to marry upon.”
“I would marry him without a penny,”
Fede exclaimed impulsively.
“No doubt,” the Marchese replied ; “and
come back upon me in three years, without a
penny, but with a couple of babies! Remem-
ber, Fede, I have the two boys to provide for.
Luigi must have his allowance for the army ;
Carlo must continue to cultivate the family
estate ; so where I am to find any but the most
modest dowry for you, I'm sure I don't know.
The first thing to be settled—the very first
thing—is the question how much this young
man is worth, and what arrangement he pro-
poses to make for you. I shall speak of that
at once— the first thing when I see them.”
y


A Florentine Nobleman. 37
Fede drew back, crimson-cheeked. “Oh,
papa,” she cried, “I beg of you—not this
evening !”
“Why not, my child It's most proper and
businesslike.”
“Businesslike | That's just it ! Wait till
to-morrow at least,” Fede pleaded, all her
English feelings in revolt at the suggestion of
such precipitancy.
“What, my dear, and let you spend an
evening with him in my presence, on the foot-
ing of your future husband, before I've inquired
whether the arrangement is practicable 2 My
child, it would be impossible !”
Fede hesitated for a moment. Then a bril-
liant idea struck her. “Well, let us be busi-
nesslike,” she answered, conforming as far as
she could to her father's standpoint. “After
all, they are English ; and you must deal with
Rome as Rome expects to be dealt with. If
you speak to them to-night they will think it
precipitate, and—and vulgar—and mercenary.
They are not accustomed in England to that
way of doing things. If you say out at once
to them---' How much is he worth 2' you will
only succeed in setting them against you. Now,
I don't know whether Hubert is rich or poor;
I—I had too many other things to discuss the
few times I saw him---for you know it was all a
very sudden engagement. But perhaps he is
rich—so many Englishare; and at any rate he was


38 A Splendid Sin.
an Oxford man, which means a good deal, you
know, in England. Wouldn't it be better worth
while to wait just one night, and find out to-
morrow, than to create a bad impression on a
man who, after all, may be what you your-
self would consider a very suitable son-in-
law P”
She said it with a pretty smile, which showed
at once how far she was modifying her own
mode of thought to suit her father's ; and when
Fede Tornabuoni smiled, she was simply ir-
resistible. The Marchese looked at her with
admiring eyes; he was proud and fond of her.
“You're a clever little humbug,” he answered,
after a moment, “and I know you don't mean
it. But still, there's something in what you say.
I know these English and their absurd ro-
manticisms. Well, let it be as you wish. 'Tis
the true Tuscan way, domane, domane / "
They were bending over the second-floor
balcony as they spoke, and the concierge was
lounging on a garden bench below. Suddenly
the Marchese leaned down and addressed him.
“What mountain did you say Mr. Egremont
had ascended to-day ?” he inquired, with a
curious air of interest. -
“Signore, the Eselstein.”
“Most appropriate name !—the Donkeys'
Crag. Alone 2"
“With a guide and two companions.”
The Marchese turned to Fede. “With a


40 A Splendid Sin.
for six weeks, and then give you a franc at the
end when he was leaving ! I made my last
winter season at Rome, and I had enough of
them, I promise you. The year before, at the
Paradis at Cannes, all the world was English,
and the tips were just splendid. But at Rome
—my hotel was Italian to the core, and, my
faith, it was starvation l "


Enter Hubert. 4I
CHAPTER III.
ENTER HUBERT.
A SHORT mile from the inn, Mrs. Egremont
and Sir Emilius had come upon Hubert. The
climber of peaks was walking alone, having
dropped his guide at the village, while his two
temporary companions had diverged by them-
selves from the base of the crag in the opposite
direction, meaning to sleep, they said, at the
Rhone Glacier.
The mother's heart leaped up with pride as
Hubert approached her. How carelessly
handsome he looked in his mountaineering
suit, swinging his stick as he went—how lithe,
how supple ! No costume sets a man off like
flannel shirt and running-trousers, and Hubert
was attired for a light climb below snow-level
in that easy fashion. He was a well-built .
young fellow, after the English pattern, almost
arrogantly healthy. Mrs. Egremont had never
felt prouder of him before ; so tall, so fresh,
so strong—so like his father
He hallooed to them from afar. “Not
alarmed, I hope, mother ?”


42 A Splendid Sin.
Mrs. Egremont prevaricated. “We thought
we might as well stroll this way as any other,”
she answered with a gasp, gulping down her
inner joy and delight at recovering him. But
she sank on a grassy knoll by the side of the
path, and surveyed him with great eyes of re-
lief and tenderness.
Hubert flung himself by her side on a bed
of short clover. “Oh, it's nothing of a climb,”
he cried, reassuring her. “We just walked up
and down. As easy as running. Quite a baby
of a peak. Like Primrose Hill, I assure
you.”
“Like Primrose Hill !” Sir Emilius echoed,
with an incredulous laugh. “I looked at it
through my glasses this morning, Julia—all
ramping teeth of rock—and I call it a pretty
stiff piece of climbing. My dear, that boy will
stick a notice on the Jungfrau—" This hill is
dangerous to cyclists.'”
“Anybody else on the summit 2" Mrs.
Egremont inquired with forced interest, trying
her best to seem occupied with that hateful
climbing ; though, to be honest, the one thing
she ever cared to learn about a mountain jaunt
was that her boy had got back again.
“Crowds of them l’” Hubert answered. “A
perfect Piccadilly ” He plucked a long grass
and bit at it as he spoke. “Ten people on the
Eselstein l’
“And you got some new specimens 2" Mrs.


Enter Hubert. 43
Egremont continued, with a wistful glance at
his tin collecting case.
Hubert opened the little box. “Two or three
Alpine beetles,” he answered—“rather odd
varieties; and a pretty gentian that's new to
me. But I had to scramble for it ; a cleft in
the rock ; I slipped and hung on, and cut my
fingers in clinging.” He held them up—
lacerated.
“Oh, Hubert,” his mother cried, shrinking
back in spite of herself, “how can you bear to
risk your life for nothing 2"
“There was no risk, mother. A mere drop
of ten feet. If I fell, I lighted on a perfect
feather-bed of scented daphne. But I wanted
the plant, because I rather think it's a hybrid,
and these natural hybrids are always interest-
ing. They give one such clues to the work-
ings of heredity.”
The mother fingered the plant with a sort of
mute horror, as she might have fingered some
sentient thing—an asp or a cobra—that had
tried to lure her boy into danger. But she
uttered not a word. She had schooled herself
never to let Hubert see how deeply these
mountain excursions terrified her.
“And the view 7" she asked again, with
maternal hypocrisy. Earth holds no hypocrite
like your loving mother.
The poet in Hubert blossomed out. “The
view,” he said, “was ineffable ! I was in


Enter Hubert. 45
heights and white crystalline needles rose per-
fectly unconcerned into the dazzling sunlight."
“Capital for those who like it !” Sir Emilius
put in, drily. “But you must have got wet,
Hubert ; though at your age a wetting seems
to promote digestion.”
There was a minute's pause, during which
Mrs. Egremont gazed at her son fondly.
“Fede not come, I suppose ?” Hubert began
again, stretching himself and fondling his
muscle.
“Why, no,” Sir Emilius interposed. “We
don't expect them till to-morrow.”
“I know that ; but I thought —”
“Yes, lovers will think things,” Sir Emilius
said, sardonically.
“I thought perhaps Fede would beg her
father not to sleep at Milan, but come straight
through by the morning train ; and then of
course she'd be disappointed if I was not at
the inn when she arrived, to meet her.”
Sir Emilius smiled the wise smile of middle
age. “Much more likely she'd want to get a
good night's rest,” he remarked, “so as to look
fresh and well before she met you. “I’ve
three girls of my own, and I know the ways of
them.”
“Milly and Hilda and Effie–oh, yes,”
Hubert said, with just a tinge of disrespect ;
“but then, Fede's quite different.”
“They always are quite different l” Sir


46 A Splendid Sin.
Emilius admitted. “Everybody's girl is the
one girl in the world. ‘There is none like
her, none,’ says Tennyson's lover in Maud ;
which shows, not that Maud was an exceptional
creature, but that Tennyson had indepen-
dently arrived at the same generalization as to
the psychology of lovers.”
Hubert lay back on the grass and surveyed
the sky for a while in silence. Then he ad-
dressed himself to his mother. “I often think,”
he said, in a very musing voice, “how wonder-
fully all these things are ordered. It almost
makes one believe at times in the old idea of
an over-ruling providence.”
“I never left off believing in that old idea,”
Mrs. Egremont murmured, gently.
Hubert clasped her hand in his. “That's
your charm,” he said, with real tenderness.
“In spite of everything, mother, you still be-
lieve in the universe ! And really it almost
looks like deliberate design, when you think
of the strange coincidences which had to exist
before I could ever arrange things with Fede.”
“As which 7" Sir Emilius asked, with a
skeptical twinkle. Sir Emilius declined to
believe in anything.
“Oh, I’m not talking to you, Uncle Mill,”
the young man answered, half flushing with
pride. “I’m talking to my mother. And you
see, mother, I could never had fallen so much in
love with Fede if she hadn't been a Florentine.


48 A Splendid Sin.
continue the species 2 The particular object
on which it expends itself is all pure accident.
A bud reaches the stage at which the flower
must expand, and it expands accordingly. A
man reaches the stage at which he must fall in
love, and he falls in love accordingly. There's
no more in it than that—a common result of
pure human heredity.”
“But not every girl—” Hubert began.
Sir Emilius snapped his fingers with sub-
dued impatience. “Don’t talk nonsense to
me, sir,” he said. “It’s as plain as a pikestaff.
You fall in love with the girls you see ; I know
that very well. How the dickens can you fall
in love with the girls you don't see ?” And
he snapped his jaw firmly.
Hubert gazed up at the sky through his half-
closed eyelids. Red rifts of cloud flecked it.
“My dear uncle,” he answered, “if the poet
in me gets the better of the anatomist, doesn't
the anatomist in you get the better of the poet 2
Quite too much the better Can't you see in
turn that the world you ignore is every bit as
real, every bit as important, as the world you
acknowledge 2"
Sir Emilius shook his head. “No, I can't,”
he responded, testily. “I say, you fell in love
with the little Italian girl because you met her;
you didn't meet her because you were pre-
destined by nature to fall in love with her.”
Hubert turned the subject. He was a con-


Enter Hubert. 49
sistent determinist, and it is not worth while
for determinists to argue. “My one fear now,”
he said, “is about the Marchese.”
“So is mine.” Sir Emilius assented with
promptitude.
“A Florentine gentleman of the oldest de-
scent,” Hubert mused on, stroking his mother's
hand in his. “It seems so presumptuous of
me !”
“To take his daughter off his hands,” Sir
Emilius answered, smiling. “I didn't mean
quite what you mean, Hubert. A Florentine
nobleman is generally poor, and always grasp-
ing. I meant I had my doubts as to his sol-
vency and respectability.” For Sir Emilius,
being a true-born Briton, had a low opinion of
mere Foreigners.
“Why, the Tornabuoni were great folk in
Florence,” Hubert cried, astonished, “when
the Egremonts were nothing more than Lan-
cashire farmers | He may consider me—as I
am—whole worlds beneath Fede.”
“He may think small beer of our English
gentility, no doubt,” Sir Emilius answered,
“but he'll think precious well of our English
consols, you may be certain, Hubert. They
touched 114 yesterday, I see by the Standard.
I know these Florentines, my boy ; and you
may take my word for it they are not the
romantic Italians of Covent Garden opera.
They know the precise worth of twenty shillings
4.


50 A Splendid Sin.
sterling in King Humbert's currency to half a
centesimo.”
“Well, I'm anxious, at any rate, to see Fede's
father,” Hubert went on, gazing upward. He
had lived so frankly in the bosom of his family
that he had none of the mauvaise homte so
many young men feel in discussing their
future wife before their relations. “So much
depends upon one's father and mother l’’
“Everything,” Sir Emilius assented, prompt-
ly. There, he was entirely at one with his
nephew.
“The Marchese must be a splendid and
high-minded man,” Hubert continued, shading
his eyes with his hand as he gazed at the
mountains. “I only wish I could ever have
seen my own father. One would like to know
what noble characteristics, what intellectual
traits one has a chance of inheriting ; for to a
physiologist, of course, heredity's everything.”
Sir Emilius was just about to cut short this
awkward colloquy by observing diplomatically,
“Colonel Egremont was one of the finest-built
soldiers in the British army,” when his sister
anticipated him by answering in his place,
“Your father was a man to be proud of,
Hubert.”
Sir Emilius raised his eyebrows, and glanced
hard at his sister. He did not exclaim, “Eh 2
what l” He merely whistled a tune unobtru-
sively. But he uttered not a word. He would


Enter Hubert. 5.I
not interfere in so delicate a matter. Still,
it was all very well to say in the abstract,
“Honor thy father and thy mother ; ” but
how any one who had ever known Walter
Egremont could, for a moment, describe him
as “a man to be proud of,” passed Sir Emilius's
comprehension. However, it was Julia's busi-
ness, not his; and as long as she chose to keep
Hubert in ignorance of his father's real history,
Sir Emilius did not feel quixotically inclined
to enlighten him. Nevertheless, he rose, and,
still whistling to himself, moved away some
twenty yards, picking a late autumn flower or
two ostentatiously as he went, lest it should
embarrass Julia to know he was mentally crit-
icising her veracity.
Mother and son were left alone. There was
a moment's pause. Then Mrs. Egremont be-
gan again. “Though I sometimes fancy,
Hubert,” she said, in a grave voice, “you
make too much of heredity.”
“You can't make too much of it,” Hubert
answered, with decision. “In mankind, it's
omnipotent. My studies at my hospital, and
afterwards my psychological observations at
the asylum, have shown me, on the contrary,
that not even men of science themselves have
yet appreciated the whole wonder, the full
marvel and mystery of heredity. Look at this
case, for example—one only out of hundreds.
I had a man on my list who had always kept a


52 A Splendid Sin.
diary from the time he was twenty. He was a
medical man; and he noted everything with
medical accuracy. At four-and-twenty and
two weeks, he lost his first tooth—the second
left molar in the upper jaw. He had two twin
sons. At four-and-twenty and three weeks, one
of the twins lost his first tooth in turn. I asked
which tooth, and found it was the second left
molar in the upper jaw. The other twin's teeth
were apparently sound ; but, a fortnight later, he
had a violent toothache. I inquired in what
tooth—exactly as I expected—the second left
molar ! That's the kind of result that has met me
every day in the course of my researches. We
seem like clocks, set each to run our appointed
course in so many years and days and minutes.
I know it so well now, that I almost feel at times
as if I had no individuality at all of my own ;
I recognize myself as nothing more in the end
than the sum of my joint parental tendencies.”
“It seems a dangerous doctrine,” Mrs. Egre-
mont murmured, with the feminine habit of
seeing everything in an ethical light. “It
may lead to fatalism, and strike at the root of
all moral endeavor.”
“If it is the truth, it is not dangerous,”
Hubert answered, with firmer faith. “The
truth, dearest, is never dangerous. Truth
never fears truth. Only a lie is liable to lead
us into error.”
Mrs. Egremont winced, “Perhaps so,” she


54 A Splendid Sin.
Hubert went on, without attaching much im-
portance to his words. “It seems to me you're
half afraid of foreigners. Uncle Mill despises
them : you seem to fear them. Come along,
Uncle Mill ; we're going back to the Black
Eagle.”
Mrs. Egremont's look was certainly one of
fright as Hubert said those words. It was
clear he had stirred some deep chord within
her. She walked back to the inn by her son's
side in silence. When they reached the door,
the Tornabuoni had just gone in to their rooms
from the balcony. And the concierge, as
directed, said nothing as to their arrival.
Sir Emilius and his sister strolled into the
hotel, leaving Hubert on the veranda. While
they went up in the lift, the doctor turned a
searching glance on Mrs. Egremont.
“Do you think, Julia,” he said, slowly, “it’s
quite wise—never to tell him 7”
Mrs. Egremont flushed up, and evaded the
question. “I have told him—as much as it's
well for him to know,” she answered. She
paused for a second, then she began again.
“Truth,” she mused, “is relative. He knows
the truth—as far as I conceive it.”
“Very relative indeed,” Sir Emilius assented.
“So relative, that it seems to come out quite
upside down in some relations, doesn't it 2."
Mrs. Egremont said nothing : for she knew
when to be silent.


An Officer and a Gentleman. 55
CHAPTER IV.
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.
IT was still day. The delicate rose-colored
glow within rather than upon the ice of the
Alps had not yet given place to the cold steel-
blue of twilight. Hubert, weary from his climb,
waited outside in the cool for a minute or two,
calling for a glass of light beer to refresh him
after his toil before going in to his room to get
ready for dinner. Autumn was in the air, but
the day was summer-like. As he sat at the
table outside the veranda and drank his lager,
the concierge came down and began talking to
him quite humanly. Towards the end of the
season, indeed, even a concierge often discovers
unsuspected human traits that are really re-
freshing. He unbends from the long restraint
of summer.
“Beautiful lights just now on the Himmel-
berg, sir,” he said, turning to Hubert. “It’s
a glorious mountain. Such a rearing mass
Go where you will in the world, you'll find
nothing lovelier.”
“You know the world, then 7" Hubert in-


56 A Splendid Sin.
terposed, smiling, and amused at his air of
universal travel.
“I ought to know it,” the concierge retorted,
speaking fluently in English, “for I've lived in
half the best hotels in Europe.”
“For example 7" Hubert queried.
The concierge ran them over, ransacking the
distant cells of his memory. “The Métropole
in London,” he said ; “I was interpreter there;
the Continental, the Grand, and the Chatham
in Paris ; the Italie in Rome ; the Hotel de
Bavière in Munich ; the Bristol at Naples—
half-a-dozen others.”
“Why, you know the Continent well,” Hu-
bert observed, surprised to find the man so
widely diffused.
“Yes, and a little beyond it—Shepheard's at
Cairo, the Kirsch at Algiers, the Brunswick at
Boston, Cook's Hotel at Jerusalem. Yet, go
where you will in the world—I say it still—you
won't find a finer view anywhere than the
Himmelberg.”
“But you're not a Bernese Swiss,” Hubert
interposed, eyeing him. “I can see that
instantly.”
“Why not ?” the concierge asked, surprised
in turn at his visitor's confidence.
“Oh, I can tell it at a glance by your build
and features. You come from the Grisons,
I'll bet; you were brought up Roumansch-
speaking.”


An Officer and a Gentleman. 57
“Quite right,” the concierge answered, with
a smile of amusement at the young English-
man's penetration. “I come from the Grisons,
as you say ; I have the face and figure of the
Rhaetian mountaineers. But how did you
guess I was brought up Roumansch-speaking?”
“If you were a true Bernese,” Hubert an-
Swered, after a second's reflection, “you would
have a more distinctive German accent—the
Thuringian accent—in speaking English. But
you speak it admirably—as most of your
countrymen do ; and what foreign tinge you
have—very little indeed—is not Thuringian at
all, but belongs to the type of the Latin
races.”
The concierge was flattered. He drew him-
self up at once. “You are right,” he answered
again. “We of the Rhaetian Alps all know
our descent, and all are proud of it. It is a
thing to remember. We are the original
Etruscans ! ”
“You are,” Hubert replied. “And, if I may
venture to say it, only in the Grisons would a
man in your position be likely to know it.”
“That is true, too,” the concierge admitted.
“We are like your own Scotch. We are
all of us educated. And we learn languages
easily. You see, our native Roumansch stands
nearest of any modern Latin dialect to the
original Latin. Therefore we learn French,
Italian, Spanish easily; because the roots of


58 A Splendid Sin.
all of them are contained in purer forms in our
own dialect. And we speak German, too, for
the most part from childhood ; so that lan-
guages come naturally to us. Besides which,”
and he drew himself up with a curious pride,
“we inherit the old Etruscan intelligence.”
He spoke in quite another tone, now he had
begun to discuss a subject which interested
him, from the servile accent, half cringing, half
familiar, which was habitual to him in the
exercise of his office as concierge. He had
dropped the recollection of a distinction of class.
He saw that his hearer was interested ; and he
went off into that not unnatural eulogy of his
native canton which every intelligent Grau-
bünder always delivers to all willing listeners.
“Then you saw I was from the Grisons P’’
he said, inquiringly, at last.
“Yes,” Hubert answered. “I was sure of
it. I gathered it both from your bodily ap-
pearance and your liquid accent. You have
the true Etruscan build and features, and the
Etruscan lips. You remind me exactly of the
figures one sees on the Etruscan sarcophagi—
strong, short, and thickset.”
“That is so once more,” the concierge as-
serted, delighted. “Have you ever seen the
tombs of the Volumnii, near Assisi ?”
“I visited them last year,” Hubert answered,
growing interested.
“Well, do you remember the sculptured


An Officer and a Gentleman. 59
nobles all carved in white stone who lounged
on the lids 2 There was one of them near the
door, an old Etruscan chief, who might easily
have been taken for a portrait of my father.”
“That would not be surprising,” Hubert
replied. “I know such cases elsewhere. A
wooden statue belonging to the old Egyptian
Empire, six thousand years ago, was dug up
at Memphis, and it exactly resembled the Arab
sheikh of the neighboring modern Egyptian
village. I have studied these questions of
heredity for some years, and I find that when
one can compare family portraits together for
several generations, the most surprising like-
nesses often reveal themselves between kins-
men who are separated from one another by
centuries.”
“That is so, I know,” the concierge answered,
without any consciousness of obtruding into a
scientific field where his observation was scanty.
“For in the Grisons to this day I find hundreds
of faces which exactly reproduce the Etruscan
statues, and the wall-paintings on the tombs I
have been to see at Corneto and Volaterra.”
Where else in the world, Hubert thought
to himself—except, perhaps, as the concierge
said, in Scotland—would a man of the people
have observed or remembered such a class of
facts as this Rhaetian peasant 2
Hubert was just going on to hazard a guess
at the nationality of the various waiters and


An Officer and a Gentleman. 6I
walking,” he said, mopping his mouth and
forehead with a rather dirty handkerchief.
He concealed his still dirtier cuffs by a little
jerk under his sleeves with a dexterity which
argued long use and practice. “I’ve just
tramped over the Col from Goeschenen.”
“It's a beautiful walk,” Hubert answered,
coldly, finishing his beer and half rising.
“It’s a damned hot walk,” the newcomer
responded, with a quaint air of easy bonhomie.
“It may be beautiful : I'm not much judge of
that, for I never noticed it ; but I know it's
confoundedly long and hilly. And the dust—
oh, I'll trouble you ! Haven't had such a
pull for close on twenty years. As an officer
and a gentleman, I'm unaccustomed to walking;
I take carriage exercise.” He drew himself
up, hid one shabby trouser behind the other
leg, and turned to the concierge. “Here you,
young fellow,” he said, in an overbearing tone ;
“got anything to drink, eh?”
The concierge surveyed him contemptuously
from head to foot. The stranger's clothes
were certainly much more than merely dusty :
they were threadbare and dirty. “You can
call the waiter,” the concierge said, with slow
distinctness, “and give him your order :
whatever you like—coffee, lemonade, seltzer,
soda-water.”
The officer and gentleman flung him back
his contempt with interest. “Lemonade 1


62 A Splendid Sin.
Seltzer | Soda-water | " he cried. “Do I look
like a teetotaller 2 I suppose you take me for
one of Dr. Lunn's psalm-singing Grindel-
walders | No, sir. Not soda-water. I'm not
taking any. Brandy, neat brandy, the best
cognac you've got—and plenty of it !”
The concierge answered nothing. He just
pressed a little hand-bell. “Alphonse,” he
said to the close-cropped waiter who answered
it, “take this—gentleman's order.”
The newcomer, quite undisconcerted at the
tone, repeated his instructions in excellent
French.
“Cognac, monsieur ; oui, monsieur,” the
waiter answered mechanically, with a glance
at the trousers.
He turned on his heel. The stranger called
out after him. “And look here,” he added in
English, “while you're about it, young man,
you may as well bring me some absinthe and
some vermouth.”
“Instead of the cognac, monsieur 2 " the
waiter asked, hesitating.
“Instead of the cognac l’ the newcomer
replied angrily. “Who countermanded the
cognac, I should like to know 2 No, jackanapes,
no ; with the cognac, with it—all three of them
together | Why don't you go and get them
when you're told, you fool, instead of standing
there and grinning like a laughing jackass 2"
The waiter drew back, surprised at the un-


An Officer and a Gentleman. 65
“A petit verre for me !” he cried. “What rot
This is how I take it !” He seized the small
glass of cognac and emptied it into a tumbler.
Then he poured out about three times as much
more from the decanter on top of it. After
that, he lifted the vermouth bottle and the ab-
sinthe and poured a wine-glassful or so of each
on top of the brandy. He looked at it all ad-
miringly against the dying light in the western
sky. “That's the sort of thing,” he said at last,
“to put the blood in circulation.”
“But you can't like it so,” Hubert cried.
“Such a nasty mixture.”
“I beg your pardon,” the Colonel replied,
tossing it off at a gulp. “I don't like it. I
love it. I'm a modest man in most ways, and
I admit I have my faults; but on the question
of my own likes and dislikes, I submit, I can
claim to be the first living authority in Europe.”
He turned the glass upside down, and laid
it empty on the marble table. “That's won-
derful,” Hubert said, “wonderful How long
do you reckon to live at that rate, may I vent-
ure to ask you ?”
The Colonel's good-humor was absolutely
imperturbable. “Well, my grandfather died
of it at eighty,” he answered, in a most cheer-
ful voice, “and my father at seventy. I reck-
on myself to last, with luck, till sixty or there-
abouts. Though, having been deucedly ill-
treated by an unnatural wife, I may go even
5


66 A Splendid Sin.
sooner. It's an interesting example of what
Darwin calls the law of accelerated inheritance.”
And he poured himself out another small glass
of brandy.
The curious gleams of science interested
Hubert. “You are never drunk, I suppose ?”
he remarked, drawing back with some natural
disgust, yet regarding him as a valuable ob-
ject of study, like a germ under the micros-
Cope.
“Not often, you bet,” the Colonel answered,
with candor. He spoke with deep regret.
“It don't often run to it,” he murmured quite
sadly. “You see, it costs a good deal to make
me drunk nowadays ; and times being hard
and women cruel, I seldom have cash in hand
to spend upon a manful and resolute attempt
in that direction—except about quarter-days,
when my wife pays up my miserable pittance.
Though now and then a friend is kind enough
to defray the expense of the experiment ; but
it's long—and costly.” -
“And deadly,” Hubert added.
The Colonel acquiesced. “It’s killing me,”
he admitted, “ of course ; but, as I often say,
we must all of us die ; and how can man die
better than when he dies enjoying himself 2 "
“Alcoholic narcosis, I suppose 2" Hubert
murmured, looking hard at him with sup-
pressed disgust.
“The very word,” the Colonel cried, holding


An Officer and a Gentleman. 67
out one hand with evident pride to show how
it trembled. Alcholic narcosis. You hit it
first time. Which will you take, a cigar or a
cocoa-nut 2."
His vulgar leer was hateful to Hubert ; yet
the scientific interest of the case retained him.
“Well, you're frank about it, any way,” he
observed, half angry with himself for continu-
ing to talk with so abject a creature.
The Colonel drew himself up. There were
remnants of a gentleman and a handsome man
about him. “A soldier,” he said, with a sort
of malicious mock-dignity, “should always
be frank. And I flatter myself I've served the
country with distinction. I never quail under
fire. Drink's my worst enemy—and I face it
daily.” He poured himself out a little more
neat brandy.
The concierge motioned quietly to the waiter
to remove the bottle. But the Colonel was too
quick for him. He caught at it with a rapid
clutch and clasped it to his bosom. “No, no,
my friend,” he said smiling. “We are always
told to love our enemies. Would you make
me a heathen f" And he clung to it affection-
ately.
“You know you're killing yourself 2 " Hu-
bert put in.
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. His
manners, Hubert had noticed from the first,
were much Italianate, as of a man who had


68 A Splendid Sin.
spent many years in Italy. “Of course,” he
said, “ I'm killing myself. 'Tis a soldier's
business. I lead a forlorn hope against the
enemy's guns ten times a day.” He made a
lunge with an imaginary sword at the brandy
bottle. “What does that matter 2" he went
on. We're all of us dying—all under sentence
of death—you, and I, and the rest of us—and
what difference does a year or two more or less
make to us? I tell you what, my dear sir, it
was a fine philosopher who first said those
words. ‘A short life and a merry one.' He
summed up in one phrase the wisdom of
centuries.”
Hubert looked at him with a mixture of curi-
osity and disgust. The stranger sat on the
table still, and gazed across at them with a
hateful smile of complacent degradation. His
face was puffy. The eyes were red and
bleared ; the lips had the dark blue hue of the
habitual sot's. Hubert knew the type well;
he had studied it carefully for two years at his
hospital. As they sat and faced one another
Rosa came down the steps with a message for
a second. “Madame has left her bag, mon-
sieur,” she said in French to Hubert, picking
it up and taking it off. “She sent me to get
it.” For Hubert had carried her little reticule
home for her.
The Colonel, as he called himself, turned
to the girl with that offensive and senile leer


7o A Splendid Sin.
plished diplomatist. Be ambassador to Russia.
Do you expect me to believe that every bed in
this house is full in the beginning of October 2
If so, I can only say you've mistaken my char-
acter.”
He strode up the steps and entered the
hotel, humming. Hubert did not follow him.
The concierge did—having his doubts as to
the coats and umbrellas in the vestibule.
When he reached the top flight, the Colonel
turned to him. “No nonsense, my friend,”
he said, in a severer tone than he had hitherto
adopted. “I want a room in this hotel to-
night, and I mean to have it. You have plenty
vacant ; and if luggage is in the way,” he
glanced at his knapsack and slapped his pocket,
“I’ll pay beforehand for bed and breakfast.”
The concierge hesitated. “I don't know—”
he began.
His interlocutor stopped him with an angry
gesture. “Send me the proprietor,” he said,
assuming the air of a great gentleman. “I
propose to honor his hotel with my patron-
age.”
The concierge gave way. “We might put
you in seventy-two,” he said, pretending to
consult his books, and looking suspiciously at
the hoary old reprobate. “What name shall
I enter 7"
“What's that to you ?” the Colonel answered,
growing redder than before. “I pay in ad-


An Officer and a Gentleman. 71
vance, I tell you. He pulled out a worn purse
with a hole in its side, and counted a few
francs into the concierge's hand with the mien
of a millionaire. “A gentleman is a gentle-
man, in spite of misfortunes,” he observed,
sententiously, “and will not submit to be sat
upon by a lackey.” He paused a moment,
and reflected. Then he dropped his voice a
little. “Anybody of the name of Egremont
in the hotel ?” he asked, in a confidential
tone.
“Mrs. Egremont and her son,” the concierge
replied, a trifle astonished. “They came a
week ago. That was young Mr. Egremont
you were speaking to just now—the gentleman
by the table.”
The Colonel drew himself up and looked
across at Hubert, who was still sitting on a
chair beside the veranda. He observed him
with interest. “Well, he's a fine, well-grown
young man,” he remarked, after a pause, sur-
veying him deliberately. “A young man any
father in England might be proud of ! A chip
of the old block, as far as body goes | But
I'm afraid, after all, he's a canting humbug. I
hate hypocrisy " Drank beer, though, like a
man Hope his mother hasn't succeeded in
making a confounded Methodist of him 1"
“Seventy-two is six francs,” the concierge
said, returning strictly to business ; “and plain
breakfast three. I suppose you will go into


72 A Splendid Sin.
table d'hote this evening. Table d'hôle is five.
Fourteen in all, sir.”
The Colonel eyed him severely. “There,
young man,” he replied, “you make your
blooming little error I will not go in to table
d'hôte this evening. I will dine à la carte,
unostentatiously and simply, in number
seventy-two. I am traveling incognito.” He
drew himself up again. “Mind,” he said,
lowering his voice, “don’t mention to Mr.
Egremont that I asked at all after him or his
family. You are not paid by your master,
young fellow, to carry tales about from one
guest to another.”
The concierge nodded, and sent the boots
to accompany the threadbare stranger to the
room assigned him. The Colonel strode on
with much military dignity. The concierge
returned to the veranda to Hubert.
“Who is he 7” the young man asked, with a
certain languid curiosity.
“I’m sure I can't say, sir,” the concierge
answered ; “but he can't be anybody much,
for he didn't write for rooms beforehand.
Though, to be sure, we have gentlemen come
here in the climbing season who look more
like chimney-sweeps than like people of posi-
tion, through accidents on the mountains.
But this isn't one of those ; his clothes are old
and patched—premeditated poverty 1"
“He’s a loathsome sight,” Hubert mused ;


An Officer and a Gentleman. 73
“and yet, there are relics of a gentleman about
him still.”
“It takes an opera-glass to see them, though,”
the concierge added. “I should say by the
look of him he lives on brandy.”
“He'll die of it soon,” Hubert answered.
“His is a very bad case. He hasn't much more
than six months of life, at most, left in him.”
“You think not P”
“I don't think, I know. He has had de-
lirium tremens, I can see, for years ; and he's
well on his way now to alcoholic insanity and
creeping paralysis.”
“That's bad,” the concierge said.
“Yes, inherited,” Hubert went on. “He
has brought it on himself in large part, of
course ; but his ancestors had laid the seeds
of it before him. His children will develop
it sooner than he , and his grandchildren will
be born idiots or epileptics.”
“You’re a doctor, sir?” the concierge asked,
eyeing him hard.
“Not exactly a doctor; but next door to it
—a physiologist. I've spent three years in
watching and studying these cases at an
hospital. I know the type well. You take my
word for it—if that man has a son, the son is
doomed to insanity before thirty l’’


74 A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER V.
LOVE's PHILOSOPHY.
THE table d'hôte that evening consisted of
five people only—for the “hoary old repro-
bate,” persisted in his intention of dining alone
in number seventy-two off a menu of his
ordering.
The Marchese and Fede were the first to
enter the Salle à manger. They had only
been seated a minute, however, when Hubert
dropped in, not expecting to see them. He
gave a start of surprise when his eyes lighted
upon Fede.
“Why, signorina,” he cried, advancing to
her with outstretched hand, “I didn't know
you were here. We were not expecting you
till to-morrow morning.”
Fede took his hand timidly. Her eyes
met his and dropped. “Oh, Hubert,” she
said—“I—I mean, Mr. Egremont, how well
you're looking ! Papa, allow me to intro-
duce Mr. Egremont.”
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Hubert


Love's Philosophy. 75
cried—not searching about for a phrase like a
modern novelist, but using the easy and con-
venient formula. “I’m delighted to meet you !
When did you arrive 2 I'm afraid, Fede, your
father doesn't understand English ; and my
Italian, you know—”
The Marchese bowed impressively with Flor-
entine politeness. He was carefully groomed,
and his big black mustache looked extremely
imposing. “English,” he answered, smiling,
and showing two rows of pearly white teeth.
“As well as you do, Mr. Egremont We
Florentines are nothing, you know, if not cos-
mopolitan. Besides, my mother was an Eng-
lishwoman, and so was my wife ; and when I
was a clerk in a merchant's office in Fen-
church Street—”
Hubert's preconceived notions of the proud
Tuscan nobleman received a severe blow. “A
merchant's office in Fenchurch Street 2" he
repeated, bewildered. What had a Florentine
Tornabuoni to do with Fenchurch Street 2"
The Marchese stroked the ends of the big
black mustache with evident amusement. He
was overflowing with good humor. “Yes, a
merchant's office in Fenchurch Street,” he
reiterated, delighted. “You see, we Floren-
tines are also nothing if not commercial ; and
as my ancestors, the Tornabuoni, had left us a
Property,”—the Marchese always dropped his
voice reverently at that sacred word, and pro-


76 A Splendid Sin.
nounced it somehow with a capital initial—
“a wine-growing estate in the valley of the
Arno, which does a big export business in
Chianti with England---my father thought it
best for me, while I was young and plastic, to
learn the ways of the English wine-market on
the spot in London.”
“I see,” Hubert murmured, sitting down
and feeling very much taken aback. This was
not the haughty Florentine his fancy had
pictured. The man before him was gentleman
to the core, but he was distinctly commercial.
“You know my Chianti, I dare say,” the
Marchese continued, with his expansive Smile.
“The Monte Riggioni brand. It's making its
way, I'm told, at Romano's and Gatti's.
“I—I don't think I discriminate between
vintages of Chianti,” Hubert answered, much
surprised. But he noted mentally that the
Italian aristocrat was not above turning an
honest penny.
“When did you get here 2" he went on,
turning round to Fede. “How unkind you
must have thought it of me not to have been
waiting at the hotel to meet you ! But your
father wrote you wouldn't arrive till to-mor-
row.”
“I didn't wish to give you the trouble,” the
Marchese answered, taking the words from
Fede. “It was a lovely day, so I decided, on
second thoughts, we had better push on to


Love's Philosophy. 77
Rothenthal at once, instead of waiting over
night at the inn at Goeschenen.”
“We are the gainers,” Hubert answered,
still awkward and confused. “But I could
have wished I had known it, Fede; my mother
and I would have been on the road to meet
you.”
The Marchese noticed that he called her
plain Fede. These English have certainly the
most precipitate ways of plunging into matri-
mony But, being a shrewd and observant
father, he had taken a preliminary survey of the
young man whom Fede had picked up in an
Oxford college, and he was pleased at first
sight with his visible qualities. There was an
air of solid coininess about his simple dinner-
jacket, and his studs and sleeve-links were of
a sterling kind that inspired confidence.
One minute later, Mrs. Egremont and Sir
Emilius entered the room together.
Hubert rose to introduce them. “Mother,”
he said, bringing her forward with natural
pride, “I find to my surprise the Marchese and
—er—and Signorina Tornabuoni have arrived
unexpectedly. Allow me to introduce you;
the Marchese Tornabuoni, the Marchesa Fede ;
my mother, Mrs. Egremont.”
The Italian bowed low with Florentine em-
pressement. “Charmed, ” he muttered be-
tween his white teeth, “charmed to make your
acquaintance.”


78 A Splendid Sin.
“And my uncle, Sir Emilius Rawson,”
Hubert added, glancing round at him.
A curious shade of expression flitted for a
second across the Marchese's face, which did
not escape Hubert's keen notice. His future
father-in-law was not an Englishman; yet it
was clear he was quite as visibly impressed by
Sir Emilius's title as the veriest of snobs in our
most snobbish of islands. “And Sir Emilius,”
he went on, bowing again, “delighted to meet
you. We had heard you were staying here—
the concierge told us—but we did not connect
you, somehow, with Mrs. Egremont's party.
Fede, my dear, you omitted to tell me that
Sir Emilius Rawson was Mr. Hubert's uncle.”
As he said it, he was reflecting inwardly that
an English Sir, even if only a knight, was
usually wealthy. Beer gains no coronet till
it has sold its million bottles.
“I didn't know it,” Fede answered, with an
apologetic smile. “Hubert–er—never hap-
pened to mention it to me.”
“We had—so many other things to talk
about,” Hubert adventured, with a smile, in
the vain attempt to keep his eye simultaneously
on his uncle, his mother, the Marchese, and
Fede.
Sir Emilius came to the rescue. He had
diagnosed his man at a single glance—sound
common sense, a head for affairs, hot-tempered,
placable, overworks his digestion. “I was


Love's Philosophy. 79
only plain Dr. Rawson when the signorina was
in England,” he put in. “A royal duke had
luckily, soon after, a bad attack of gout—and—
you behold me a baronet !”
“A baronet !” the Marchese echoed. That
was good, a baronet ! He recollected to have
heard that, while knighthoods are sometimes
cheap, unless a man has money enough to
support the hereditary dignity he can never
attain to the honor of a baronetcy.
Soup intervened—the inevitable Julienne.
The Marchese addressed himself to it with
Italian promptitude. “I understand,” he an-
swered. “Physician in ordinary—that kind
of thing, isn't it A very good profession.
The one unmistakably beneficent calling—for
I don't count priests—and also paying. We
are partners in business, Sir Emilius. I deal
in Chianti, you deal in gout ; between us we
ought to catch most of the world in our net, I
fancy.”
Sir Emilius smiled. “And we do,” he
answered.
Throughout the rest of dinner it gradually
dawned on Hubert's mind that the haughty
Italian aristocrat was gently engaged in ex-
ploring the question, not whether his pros-
pective son-in-law was the equal in birth,
rank, breeding, and position of the Marchesa
Fede, but whether his fortune was one worth
a sensible man's acceptance for his marriage-


Love's Philosophy. 8I
went on, with a bland smile of suggestion ;
“are they also in Devonshire 2"
The doctor smiled in return. “My estates,”
he replied, “are entirely in Harley Street.”
“Ah, I see,” the Marchese echoed, at fault
for once in an English allusion. “ Town
Property. Most lucrative "
Sir Emilius found himself ignominiously
compelled to elucidate his little joke. “Harley
Street,” he explained drily, “is the doctors'
quarter in London. It is wholly given over to
medical men, you know—a paradise of pill-
makers. I own no houses there-—not even my
own—which is merely leasehold. But you
seemed so absolutely at home in England,
Marchese, that I thought you would appreciate
my—er—my delicate and playful way of put-
ting it.”
The Marchese nodded assent. “How stupid
of me,” he exclaimed. “I understand, of
course ; I catch your idea. You mean to say,
your estate is the profits of your profession.”
“Quite so,” Sir Emilius answered, with an
eye on the salad.
The Marchese did not attempt to conceal the
scope of his inquiries. “Then the park in
Devonshire came to you through your husband,
madame 2" he suggested tentatively.
“No,” Mrs. Egremont answered, hardly per-
ceiving his drift. “Nothing came to me
thrºgh my husband. It was my dear father's


82 A Splendid Sin.
place, and I inherited it from him. It will
be Hubert's after me.” She spoke with the
unobtrusive and pleasing confidence of an
English lady.
“That's odd,” the Marchese continued, ap-
plying the common pump with less skill than
vigor. “It did not go to Sir Emilius. I
thought that in England property descended
always to the eldest son. You have the law of
primogeniture.”
“I am only Mrs. Egremont's half-brother,”
Sir Emilius interposed, clearer sighted than
his sister. “Our mother was twice married.
The first time to my father, a doctor at Norwich,
a mere professional man, who left me unfortu-
nately nothing to speak of, but what brains I may
possess ; the second time to a well-to-do Dev-
onshire squire, who bequeathed to my sister
his estate and fortune. Which is why I am
a poor devil of a doctor in Harley Street, while
she rolls in her carriage down the slopes of
Dartmoor.”
“I see,” the Marchese answered; “a double
household. Yet—” he took Sir Emilius's social
measure with a frank glance of observation—
“I should say you made a very fair interest on
the brains which you tell me were all the in-
heritance your father left you.”
“My brother is one of the most distinguished
medical men in London "Mrs. Egremont put
in, with sisterly pride.


Love's Philosophy. 83
“And my sister is one of the most confiding
women in England,” Sir Emilius added, in the
same half undertone.
The Marchese was well satisfied. The pump
had acted. These were the very points he
wanted to know. To-morrow, of course, he
would have a formal talk with Hubert and his
uncle, to settle the details of this business
arrangement, this partnership into which Fede
was thinking of entering. He would learn in
full precisely how much the young man was
worth, and how much he proposed to settle on
Fede. A house 2 An income 2 An estate 2
A remainder P Meanwhile, however, he was
so far satisfied with his preliminary inquiries
that he waived further question. He could
gather that the Egremonts were “the right sort
of people "—people with whom a man of Prop-
erty (with a capital initial) might safely con-
clude an alliance on his daughter's behalf,
provided all other things turned out favorable.
So the Marchese was affable. Affability was
his forte. He diverged upon Florence. And
when the Marchese was once well launched
upon Florentine gossip, he was always interest-
1ng.
As for Fede, she sat and smiled with a smile
that alone was better than talking. She did
not say much, but the little she said pleased
her future mother-in-law. As they went out
of the Salle à manger, Hubert gave a significant


84 A Splendid Sin.
glance at his mother. Mrs. Egremont bent
towards him ; her lips moved slightly. “She
is charming, dear, charming,” the mother said,
in a low sweet voice. And they passed on to
the veranda.
“It's a lovely evening,” Hubert observed.
“Let us take a stroll through the grounds.”
And he glanced up at the moon, now seen
through the waving tops of the larches.
The Marchese hesitated. If he had known
nothing at all of Hubert's position and pros-
pects, he would have met the suggestion with
a prompt negative. But as Mrs. Egremont
was a squiress in Devonshire, and as Hubert
was her only son and heir to the Property, the
Marchese decided, after a moment's pause, that
there could be no great harm in letting the
young people stroll out by themselves for a few
minutes together—if he and Mrs. Egremont
followed in the wake and kept a good lookout
upon them.
“May I, papa?” Fede asked, looking up at
him.
“Shall we, madame 2" the Marchese asked
Mrs. Egremont in turn, with more Italian cor-
rectness.
“The young people would probably prefer
to go out alone,” Sir Emilius suggested. He
had once been young himself, and had not quite
forgotten it.
To Luigi Tornabuoni, however, the sugges-


Love's Philosophy. 85
tion was revolutionary. A young girl stroll out
in the grounds of an hotel for ten minutes alone
with her prospective lover ! Impossible ! im-
possible ! But he understood these English,
and dissembled his feelings. “It's a lovely
night,” he said. “I should enjoy a stroll my-
self. Fede, my love, run upstairs and fetch a
light wrap—Mrs. Egremont, can she bring down
a shawl or cape for you ? You will help me
to chaperon them 2''
“Oh, would you ask my maid, in number
twenty, for my Cashmere shawl, dear!” Mrs.
Egremont said, with a motherly smile at
Fede.
The Marchese noted two things; first, that
she smiled; and second, that she brought a
maid abroad with her when she traveled.
“Looks coiny,” he thought to himself ; “coinyl
I shouldn't be surprised if Fede, after all,
without in the least knowing it, has managed
to patch up a very good match for herself.
But, mother of heaven, how foolishly they do
arrange these things in England l’’
They strolled out into the grounds. It was
one of those serene October evenings, rare
further north, when the odor of pine and the
buzz of insects seem to echo summer. The
larches swayed and trembled in the moonlight.
The three seniors walked behind ; Fede and
Hubert walked on in front, just far enough
away to say those little nothings which were


86 A Splendid Sin.
nearest to their hearts at that moment of meet-
ing. The paths wound irregularly among
shrubs and trees, and it was not even impos-
sible—behind a clump of rhododendrons—but
this book may perhaps be read in families.
Hubert fixed a white rose in Fede's bosom
as she walked. She looked down at it, blush-
ing. “You look sweeter than ever, Fede,” he
said, gazing hard at her.
“Do I, darling 2 If I do, for your sake, I'm
glad of it.”
“And that dress becomes you so Oh,
Fede, what a delight ! I've been so dreaming
of you, and longing for you. And you ?”
“Well, what do you think, Hubert 2"
“I think—you've missed me.”
“Clever boy | Who told you ?”
“The usual little bird, I fancy, Fede.”
Fede clasped her hands in the passionate
Italian fashion. A British matron would have
called it theatrical ; but to Hubert, who knew
how naturally she did it, it was charming. “Ah,
darling, that same little bird came and perched
on the vine by my bedroom window,” she said,
with a deep tremor ; “and what do you think
it sang to me all day long “Tweet, tweet,
tweet; Hu-bert, Hu-bert, Hu-bert, Hubert |
You love him ; he loves you—Hubert,
Hubert.”
She said it with a delicious imitation of the
song of the beccafico. Her tongue trilled like


Love's Philosophy. 87
a bird's ; her breast rose and fell sweetly. It
was a simple trick, but it made his heart beat
hard within him.
“And how much have you missed me 2"
Hubert asked once more, breaking forth with
one of those eternal nothings of love which
lovers of all ages have asked and answered in
a thousand languages.
Fede stretched her two arms as wide as they
would go. “As much as that l” she an-
swered, laughing, “As much as the world !
As much as all the way from Florence to
England l’”
He leaned forward pleadingly. “Just one,
Fede; just one !” They were abreast of the
rhododendrons.
Fede glanced round her with a nervous look.
Papa was too near. “Not here, dear; not
here,” she said, in a faint voice of dissent.
But her eyes belied her.
Hubert snatched it, and walked on. His
hand was on her arm. “And my mother, dar-
ling 2" he asked, more with pride than anxiety.
“Oh, Hubert, there can only be one opinion
about your mother.”
“So I think,” he answered. “But I wanted
you to love her.”
“I shall, I'm sure. She's so soft, so gentle.
And she looks so young, too. Yet very sym-
pathetic. I'm sure I shall feel to her more
like a sister than a daughter.”


88 A Splendid Sin.
“Her heart is young,” Hubert answered
truthfully.
“And her face, and her figure | But not too
young. She has also the look of a woman who
has suffered.”
“She lost my father young,” Hubert replied.
“But she loves me so much, she is happy now,
I think. And it makes her happy to secure
my happiness. All has turned out so well !
Do you know, Fede, the first sight of your
father's face completely reassured me.”
“Reassured you, darling 2 Why did you
need reassuring 2"
“Well, I thought he might demand so much
in the way of noble birth and all that sort of
thing. But now I see him, I feel my fears
were wholly groundless—or at least exagger-
ated. I fancied a Tornabuoni with a six
hundred year old name would think so little
of us. Yet—if you don't mind my saying so
—I couldn't help noticing he was visibly im-
pressed, when Uncle Emilius came in, by a
brand new baronetcy.”
Fede glanced at her lover proudly. “If he
wasn't satisfied with you, dear,” she said, “he
must be exacting ! And besides, we Floren-
tines think so much of England. It's fashion-
able in Florence to be half-English, you know.
All the best families intermarry with English-
men.”
“I’m glad of that,” Hubert answered, as they


Love's Philosophy. 89
passed a second clump of taller trees, “for it
tells on my side. . . . Now—quick, Fede dar-
ling—another.”
There was an interval of twenty seconds for
refreshments. -
“Besides,” Fede went on next minute,
glancing back along the path, and trying hard
to look as if nothing had happened, “–what
were we talking about—let me see " Oh, yes;
the baronetcy Well—you mustn't mind my
saying it, dear—it's Florentine, you know, to
be strictly businesslike ; and papa knows quite
enough of England to know that a baronetcy
means money. So I was glad to hear you
had a title laid on in the family to impress
him.” -
“But I haven't money, Fede. You must
understand that. It's all my mother's.”
“I know, darling, I know ; and to me, that's
nothing. I would marry you, Hubert, if we
had to earn our bread and to live in a hovel.
But papa's not in love with you, of course ; and
that makes all the difference He's a man of
business, papa; and he'll want to know soon
all about your position and prospects and so
forth. I had never thought about those ; so
I was ever so glad to hear a number of things
that your mother and uncle said at dinner;
because I knew it would satisfy him--and-and
—and—”
“And bring our marriage nearer.”


90 - A Splendid Sin.
Fede clasped his arm ecstatically. “Mar-
riage ' " she cried. “Oh, Hubert, I don't mind
about that. I only want to be near you ! This
is joy enough for me ! This is life with the
halo on it !”


The Philosophy of Love. 91
CHAPTER VI.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE.
“You were wrong in what you said this
afternoon, Uncle Emilius,” Hubert began that
evening, as soon as the Tornabuoni had left
the salon. “You were wrong when you said,
‘You fall in love with the girls you see ; how
the dickens can you fall in love with the girls
you don't see ?' The mystery of love goes
much deeper than that. There is another and
a far profounder side to it.”
“So young men always think when they're
in love themselves,” Sir Emilius replied, with
middle-aged tolerance for the follies of youth.
“They see everything through the rose-colored ,
glasses of their fancy. But they see through
those glasses in another sense when they're
twenty years older.”
Hubert paused for a second, reflectively.
They were sitting with Mrs. Egremont in her
private room. “Mother,” he said, turning to
her, “you must help me. Uncle Emilius is
altogether too resolutely scientific. And yet
not philosophically scientific either; for falling


92 A Splendid Sin.
in love, after all, is a great fact and factor in
the history of humanity ; and, like every other
powerful component of our nature, it must be
there for something.”
“It is there,” Uncle Emilius replied, “for
the very simple purpose of making men and
women, at the turning point of life, enter into
what is after all a very irrational union with
one another, viewed from the standpoint of
their personal convenience. To be the father
of a family—as I know by experience—is no
easy sinecure ; to be the mother of a family is
still less of an amusement, Julia, when one
comes to face its meaning fairly. If we acted
as was wisest for our own convenience alone,
we would shirk the duty of raising up future
generations of men. But there, nature inter-
venes with the illusion of love; she cajoles us
into believing, for a moment, that this, that, or
the other particular woman is absolutely indis-
pensable to our happiness or our very existence.
As soon as we have made the step irrevocable,
and committed ourselves to this husbandor that
wife, as the case may be, for the whole of a life-
time, we find out our mistake, and discover that
any other person of modern attractiveness and
tolerable manners would probably have done
about equally well for us.”
Hubert played with his cigarette-holder for
a moment before he replied. Then he an-
swered quietly, “I still maintain your view is


The Philosophy of Ilove. 93
neither scientific nor philosophical. You omit
to take into consideration the very essence of
love—its fastidious selectiveness.”
“Explain ' " Sir Emilius exclaimed. “Ex-
plain l " And he leaned back in his chair,
regarding his nephew with supremely critical
superiority. The two men were singularly
unlike in intellect—Sir Emilius keen and acute,
not broad ; Hubert expansive, many-sided,
elusive.
The young man looked at the ceiling, and
half shut his eyes, dreamily. “One day this
summer term at Oxford,” he said, at last, taking
up his parable, “I was lying on a bank in
Bagley Wood, when foxgloves flared, and
bullfinches had put on their finest coats for
courting. As I lay and looked about me, I
saw, on a bent of grass close by, an orange-tip
butterfly, just escaped from the chrysalis. He
stood there, motionless, just poised on the stem
up which he had crawled ; and after a while, as
he grew accustomed to his strange new body,
he began timidly to plim his untried wings,
half opening them in the sunlight from time
to time, as if wondering how they got there. For
remember, mother, he was bred nothing better
than a common green caterpillar. He knew
nought of wings, of flight, of honey; nought
of love, of his mate, of his destiny. So he sat
there, spreading out his airy vans with vague
wonder, and mentally comparing his six slender


94 A Splendid Sin.
legs with the creeping suckers on which he
crawled in his nonage.”
Sir Emilius sniffed. “Poetry "he murmured.
“Pure unmitigated poetry | Nothing on earth
to do with science.”
“Let him go on, Mill,” Mrs. Egremont put
in, with a warning look. “I want to hear
what Hubert has to say about it.”
“Science has its philosophy which is deeper
than its facts,” Hubert continued, pressing his
mother's hand in mute gratitude. “And the
use of the facts is, to teach us the philosophy.
Well, I saw my butterfly at last creep up his
bent of grass—he that was till lately a small
green grub, gorging himself on cresses; and
one minute later, he had spread his wings, and
ventured into the unknown, a full-fledged
orange-tip. He seemed conscious of his beauty,
too, as he spread his white pinions, with their
brilliant orange badge, and their delicate fringe
of Tyrian purple. All at once, as he fluttered
and hesitated in mid air, he caught sight from
afar of a virgin brimstone. ‘Will he chase
her ?' I thought, though I knew he would
not ; but he gazed at her, disdainful, and flitted
by in the sunlight without one flutter of
recognition. Then a clouded yellow sailed
past, pursued by two rivals of her own swift-
winged race ; but the orange-tip fared on,
never pausing to look at her. At a turn of the
hedge, however, up loomed from windward a


96 A Splendid Sin.
and bred a small green-and-white caterpillar.
He never knew, as you and I do, that his father
and mother were orange-tip butterflies before
him. He never beheld any previous generation.
He emerged from the egg, a tiny, hungry grub,
long after his parents were dead and forgotten ;
and when he crawled abroad into the world,
he met none of his own kind, save a few other
creeping green-and-white caterpillars. He
ate and slept and never dreamt of wings or of
the future butterfly. At last, one day as he
sat on his native plant, a curious change came
slowly over him. He found himself melting
away into a boat-shaped chrysalis. A film
grew over him. There he lay, as in a mummy-
case, growing gradually and unconsciously
into a full-formed butterfly. Yet, how did he
know, when he emerged from the cast shell,
that he was a male orange-tip 2 Still more
marvelous, how did he know the female of
his own species He had never beheld his
own wings in a glass; he had never beheld
any image of his beloved. Yet, the moment
he emerged from the solid mold in which he
had undergone his strange transformation, he
flaunted his wings at once by inherited instinct,
so as to display the orange patch he had never
himself beheld there ! And when butterflies
of other kinds appeared on his path he took
no notice of them ; yet the moment a mate
of his own swam into his ken, he instantly and


98 A Splendid Sin.
case of Miranda lacks objective confirmation,
Besides, what you say comes still just to this
—that each kind falls in love not with alien
forms, but with its own species.”
Hubert stuck to his point. “Still,” he an-
swered warmly, “you are omitting the selec-
tiveness. Love distinguishes and discrimi-
nates. Even the little female orange-tip is not
ready to accept without demur the advances
of the first stray suitor who presents himself.
She picks and chooses. What do all her coy-
ness and coquetry mean but just such picking
and choosing 2 She pleases herself in her
choice of a lover. Not only has she imprinted
on her tiny brain an inherited image of her kind
as such, but also an inherited image of the
exact type of her kind which best suits and
delights her individual idiosyncrasy. For,
mark you, Uncle Mill, it is not all pure caprice.
This picking and choosing, again, is there
for a reason. It is only the most beautiful,
the most perfect, the most agile, the most
effective that get selected on the average,
and such selection increases in the long run
the beauty, agility and effectiveness of the
species.
Mrs. Egremont sat by, listening with a curi-
ously attentive face. As a rule, Hubert's talk
with his uncle on these abstruse subjects lay
on a plane a little above her range of interests.
But his theory to-night somehow seemed to


The Philosophy of Love. 99
–
engage her. “You remind me,”—she began,
and then broke off suddenly.
“Of what ?” Hubert asked, turning quickly
towards her.
Mrs. Egremont hesitated. “Well, I have
heard the same thing discussed before,” she
said very slowly, “from another point of
view, and what you said just now re-
minded me so strangely of—the person who
discussed it.”
“Still, all this reasoning amounts to no more
than what Darwin taught us long ago,” Sir
Emilius insisted. “I don't see that you ad-
vance the matter one step by these idyllic
instances.”
“What is true of the species is true of the
individual too, I fancy,” Hubert went on, half
dreamily. “Is it not the fact that for each one
of us everywhere there is somewhere a counter-
part, an affinity, as Goethe rightly called it in
a phrase now vulgarized out of all serious mean-
ing, but still a phrase that encloses, even so, a
kernel of truth beyond all power of vulgar
destructiveness 2 I don't mean necessarily
one affinity alone, but a relatively small num-
ber of possible affinities. Is it not the fact
that, just in proportion as we rise in the scale
of being, we find, at every fresh grade, a fresh
stage or level of selectiveness—a further narrow-
ing down of the possible range of choice and
of attraction ? Among the lower animals, for
743.1 : ;


IOO A Splendid Sin.
example, any mate will suffice ; with the
higher, aesthetic preferences begin to come
into play, and give us at last such visible re-
sults as the plumage of the peacock, the bird
of Paradise, the argus pheasant ; as the song
of the skylark, the linnet, the nightingale ; as
the grace of the fallow deer, the crane, the
squirrel. To this do we not owe the antlers of
the stag, the crest of the heron, the colors of
the humming-bird, the love-cry of the night-
jar So, too, among men. With the savage,
almost any one squaw is as good as another;
he discriminates little between woman and
woman. The rustic begins to demand, at least,
physical beauty ; higher cultivated types are
progressively fastidious ; they ask for some-
thing more than mere ordinary prettiness—
they must have soul, and heart, and intelli-
gence, and fancy.”
“There's something in that, no doubt,” Sir
Emilius admitted, half grudgingly. “Your
doctrine is, in short, the old and discredited
one—that marriages are made in heaven.”
“Marriages are made in heaven,” Hubert
answered, accepting his phrase. “True mar-
riages, that is to say ; for a marriage that is not
made in heaven is no marriage at all. It be-
longs–elsewhere. Higher men and women
feel intuitively that only here and there in the
world, perhaps in some cases only in one per-
son, can they find all the qualities necessary


The Philosophy of Love. IOI
to unite with and supplement their own ; and
for that one person, surely, it is fair to say that
heaven designed them. This consciousness
of fitness, this sense of something instinctive
within one, drawing one irresistibly to one
particular soul, is it not, in the last resort, the
voice of Nature telling us clearly what mate
the powers that rule the universe have built
and fashioned for us? To neglect its bidding,
to step aside from its impulses, to disobey its
orders for mere human reason, these are surely
rebellion to the divinely-appointed monitor
we each carry within us. The man or woman
who allows any other consideration, save this
of immediate fitness for one another, to inter-
fere in marriage does obvious wrong—at least,
so I take it. Money, rank, position, prospects,
differences of creed, differences of race, differ-
ences of class, differences of language, the
wishes of parents, the arrangements of property
—what are any of these to the inner voice of
God and duty P”
“But if a woman has been coerced 2" Mrs.
Egremont put in eagerly. “If she has been
compelled by her parents, while she is still
too young and unformed for independent
action, to marry a man whom she hates and
loathes, as often happens, what hope for her
then, Hubert 2 How do you treat her case ?
What is her proper course, her right plan, her
duty "


IO2 A Splendid Sin.
“She should leave him,” Hubert answered,
without one second's hesitation. “No other
path, it seems to me, is open to her. For
what can be more criminal than to become
the mother of a child by a man whose idiosyn-
crasy is at war with your own, a man whom
your own tastes and sympathies and senses
proclaim to be unfit for you ?”
“And if he is rightly distasteful to her,”
Mrs. Egremont went on, leaning forward, with
a flushed cheek. “If he is, for example, a
drunkard, or a gambler, or a forger, or a
rake, or a man of cruelly brutal instincts, you
think she should not live with him 2 She
should cut herself adrift from his hateful
presence 2"
“Of course,” Hubert answered calmly. To
him this was all mere speculative opinion.
“That is her clear duty. Ought she to people
the world with children tainted from their
birth, and spoil her own nobler or better
qualities by admixture with vile and low and
unworthy ones 2 ”
Sir Emilius glanced at his sister with an air
of concern. He saw in her eye a strangely
harassed look which was by no means uncom-
mon there. “Julia, my dear,” he said, gazing
hard at her, “you are tired to-night. If I
were you I wouldn't sit up any longer. You
need a good night's rest. And this talk of
Hubert's is disturbing—with the clock on


The Philosophy of Love. IO3
eleven. Sleepless people should never ex-
ercise their brains after dinner. I never ex-
ercise mine—in the evening I am always
strenuously lazy—and I sleep like a top from
twelve to eight, without one minute's inter-
mission.”
Mrs. Egremont drew a deep breath. “Per-
haps you are right, dear,” she answered, laying
her hand on her brother's arm, “though there
are dozens of other things I should like to ask
Hubert.” She hesitated a moment, then took
up her candle reluctantly. “Good-night, my
darling,” she said, kissing him twice on his
forehead. “Hubert, of one thing I am per-
fectly certain, that you have chosen wisely in
choosing Fede.”
Sir Emilius, with his keen instinct for read-
ing faces and voices, was instantly aware that
she said it in part to cover her obvious emotion,
and make Hubert think it was his marriage,
not her own, that she had sighed over so pro-
foundly. But Hubert did not notice it. Sir
Emilius's eye was keen for passing emotion :
Hubert's, for the deeper-seated underlying
facts of race and temperament.
She glided silently through the door into
her bedroom, which communicated with the
Salon. Sir Emilius dropped his voice. “You
see these things too exclusively, Hubert,” he
said, settling down in his chair again, “from
the physiological standpoint. You forget there


IO4 A Splendid Sin.
is a social standpoint as well—quite equally
important. We can't regulate our marriages
wholly from the point of view of the efficiency
of the race. We have to think of personal
considerations also.”
“Such as what ?” Hubert asked, pouncing
down upon him.
Sir Emilius hummed and hawed. “Well,
considerations of social convenience,” he an-
swered at last, with some hesitation. “The
laws and conventions of civilized society. We
can't marry our cooks or our footmen, can
We P’’
“If a man wants to marry his cook,” Hubert
answered, with plain common sense, “one of
two things, I think, is pretty certain. Either
he's a man just fit to marry a cook, or else his
cook is a woman quite fit for him to marry.”
“In the first case,” Sir Emilius mused, “it
doesn't much matter, I suppose ; and in the
second, there's no reason why the woman
shouldn't rise to her proper station. Well,
you may be right there, my boy. I'm not
prepared to argue it out with you at this hour
of the evening. But don't you think your
doctrine is liable to lead on to all kinds of im-
morality ?”
“What do you mean by immorality ?”
Hubert inquired, inexorable.
Sir Emilius paused again. “Well, to a
good deal of chopping and changing in marital
*


The Philosophy of Love. IO5
relations,” he answered, with an evasive sub-
terfuge.
“I think,” Hubert retorted, “if all men and
women formed real attachments of native
preference while they were young and plastic,
there would be no real immorality at all in the
world ; they would choose instinctively the
persons best fitted for them, and would, in the
vast majority of cases, never feel the want of
any other affections.”
“Suppose they did, though 2 ” Sir Emilius
urged. “Suppose, for example, that a woman
is married to a man whom she grows to de-
spise; and suppose that afterwards she is thrown
in with another towards whom she gradually
develops a deep attachment ; don't you think
on your principles—”
“Well ?” Hubert murmured, half smiling.
“Don’t you think it very likely she might
. . . prove unfaithful.”
Hubert's smile deepened. “Unfaithful to
whom or what l” he asked. Herself—or her
husband 2 She proves unfaithful to the man,
as things are, under such circumstances, doesn't
she Whereas, under the system of things
that would result from unrestricted natural
marriages, she would not be likely, if she were
a good woman, ever to form a union that was
not destined to be permanent. As for bad
women, they will be bad women, I fancy, no
matter what artificial rules you make to bind


Ioé A Splendid Sin.
them. No doubt a pure-minded woman—im-
aginative—-sensitive—married to a bad man,
and thrown in with a better one—”
“Would lose her purity,” Sir Emilius
suggested, as Hubert cast about in search of a
phrase for a moment.
“No,” Hubert said, with decision, “Such
a woman could not lose her purity ; she would
only lose what we foolishly call her virtue.
She would be loyal to herself and disloyal to
her husband. But which is in nature the
greater crime, do you think —for a woman to
step aside with a man she truly and deeply
loves, or to become the mother of Nature's
bastards by a man to whom she is married,
though she loathes and detests him 2 ”
“Dangerous ! Very dangerous !” Sir Emi-
lius murmured. “You play fast and loose with
sin. You undermine the foundations of civil-
ized society.”
“You know what George Meredith makes
one of his characters say under such circum-
stances 7" Hubert put in, still smiling faintly
—“‘The real sin would have been if she and I
had met, and—’”—
“And what ?” Sir Emilius asked quickly.
“Meredith doesn't say,” Hubert answered.
“He is wise enough to break off. He leaves
it to the reader to finish the sentence. But
surely, uncle, there are positive duties in life
as well as negative—things which it would be


Io8 A Splendid Sin.
as Iris,” “so self-seeking as Iris,” “so cautious
as Iris,” Hubert would have understood it.
But “a woman of the high character of
Iris 1"–it was really too absurd. He went
to sleep smiling at it.


Matrimonial Business. IO9
CHAPTER VII.
MATRIMONIAL BUSINESS.
AT breakfast next morning, Fede wore the
white rose Hubert had pinned the night before
into her evening bodice. It had somehow un-
accountably got crushed meanwhile—behind
the rhododendrons; but it revived in water,
and looked almost as well as ever in the pretty
pink blouse she wore down to breakfast. Only
Mrs. Egremont (being a woman) noticed its
tumbled condition, and mentally accounted
for it with a motherly smile ; for Mrs. Egre-
mont had been young, and was young enough
still to sympathize with lovers.
Fede certainly was charming. The mixture
of the hot Italian woman and the bright Eng-
lish girl in her made a delicious compound.
“A co-inheritor on one side with Dante and
Giotto,” Hubert said ; “a co-inheritor on the
other with Shakespeare and Darwin.” As she
smiled across the table, with a flush of timidity
on her dark olive cheek, at her future mother-
in-law, Julia Egremont felt she had never yet
seen any girl so attractive. It is seldom one's


IIO A Splendid Sin."
children choose the wives one thinks fit for
them ; but if Mrs. Egremont had been asked
to select for Hubert, she could not have
picked out anyone more to her taste than Fede.
“And then just look at her antecedents,”
Hubert said to her with pride, when they met
in their salon three minutes before breakfast.
“Could any one have a better or finer re-
cord 2 Her father is a Tornabuoni; and you've
only to look at him to see at a glance he is
straight, and well-built, and noble, and honor-
able—an Italian gentleman to the core, every
inch of him 1 And her mother, an English
lady—a Warwickshire Hampden, indirectly
descended from the great John Hampden, and
belonging therefore to one of the soundest
and ablest families in England. I don't care
twopence myself about family from any other
point of view ; of course, I don't want to marry
the last girl of a decadent stock, not if she were
the daughter of a hundred silly or drunken
earls; but surely, noblesse oblige, and a phys-
iologist at least ought to take care he's marry-
ing into a good sound stock that will do credit
to his children.”
“Besides which,” Uncle Emilius added
maliciously,” you're in love with Fede.”
It's the same thing,” Hubert answered stur-
dily not yielding one jot or tittle of his argu-
ment. “If people fall in love, that shows
they're eternally meant for one another.


II 2 A Splendid Sin.
that my sister desires to make a proper and
ample provision, meanwhile, for the Marchesa
Fede.”
“After her death—your sister's, I mean—Mr.
Hubert must necessarily inherit everything 2"
“Yes, absolutely everything.”
“Her husband was a military man, I under-
stand 2 " the Marchese continued tentatively.
“Colonel Egremont ?—he was. He had
served in India.”
“A colonel ? So ! I must telegraph full de-
tails of the arrangement, you see, to Florence.”
And he made a little note of it.
Sir Emilius looked doubtful. “Well, be-
tween you and me,” he remarked after a pause,
stroking his chin with one dubitative hand,
“I don't know that I would make a great point
of the Colonel. He was—well—a bit of a
scamp, I’m bound to admit. There are black
sheep, you see, in every family. He gave my
sister a good deal of trouble.”
The Marchese was a man of the world ; and
besides, he knew the exacting morality of these
extraordinary English. With them, a married
man—but there. No Tuscan gentleman could
ever endure it. “Oh, of course,” he answered
diplomatically, “we understand these things.
Military men have a code of their own. And
in India, too, you say ! Those very hot
climates 1"
“But Hubert,” Sir Emilius went on, with


Matrimonial Business. II3
avuncular pride, “Hubert's a young fellow to
be proud of. He carried everything before
him in science at Oxford. He's a rising phy-
siologist, sure of election to the Royal Society.
And—he's also a poet.”
“A poet ! That's bad,” the Marchese cried,
drawing back. “These poets play ducks and
drakes with their money.”
Sir Emilius assumed at once his blandest
air—the air with which he assured the nervous
lady-patient there was nothing on earth the
matter with her digestive economy. “But my
dear sir,” he put in, “the man of science in
Hubert outbalances the poet. It's a capital
mixture. Enough imagination to save him
from being dry ; enough steady ballast to keep
him from being wild and mad and reckless.
He's my favorite nephew—like one of my own
boys to me !”
This was an opening for the Marchese to
explore the question of contingent remainders.
“Then you have children of your own 2" he
interposed dubiously.
Sir Emilius drew one weary hand across his
ample brow. “Children 2" he cried. “Oh,
dear, yes | My quiver full of them | In fact,
I may say, twelve go to the quiverful.”
The Marchese made a mental note of the
fact. No windfalls from that quarter | “Well,
you'll excuse my being businesslike,” he said,
with his expansive smile, stroking the black


II4 A Splendid Sin.
mustache pensively. “We Italians treat these
affairs from a strictly legal standpoint. And
in the present depressed condition of the wine-
market”—the Marchese delivered those well-
worn words in his most impressive style—he had
had much practice—“before I allowed matters
to go a step further between Fede and your
nephew, I felt I must understand his financial
position.”
He paused a moment, expecting Sir Emilius
to inquire in turn what provision he meant to
make, per contra, for his daughter's future.
But, to say the truth, Sir Emilius, like a true-
born Briton, had never even conceived that a
“foreign " nobleman could make any provision
of any sort for his family. The moment he heard
Hubert was going to marry the daughter of an
Italian marquis, he made up his mind it must
be a pure love-match, and put considerations
of money out of court entirely. For it is the
fixed belief of Uncle Emilius's kind that all
foreign noblemen are penniless adventurers,
perpetually on the lookout for a British heiress
or an American millionairess, to keep the pot
boiling. So he merely observed in an acquies-
cent tone, “We may gather, then, Marchese,
that you offer no obstacle 7"
The Marchese jumped at this view of the
question. “I offer no obstacle,” he answered,
with an air of the greatest magnanimity ;
though, as a matter of fact, he would have been


Matrimonial Business. II5
prepared to make a settlement upon Fede if Sir
Emilius had asked for it. “You see, if my
daughter were an only child we could afford
to do more for her ; but as she has two
brothers—”
The idea struck Sir Emilius as novel—nay,
almost brilliant. An Italian nobleman portion
his daughter who was marrying an English-
man | Original, really “Oh, we're perfectly
satisfied as to that,” he said, smiling. “The
provision my sister means to make for the
Marchesa will be ample—ample. The fact of
it is, my nephew is in love with your daughter;
and all we require is your consent to the
marriage. That being given, I think nothing
else need detain us.”
“Certainly not,” the Marchese replied. He
rose from his chair and began to move round
Mrs. Egremont's salon, in which they had been
sitting. A photograph in a frame on the
mantelpiece caught his eye. “Ha, an old
friend ' " he cried, taking it up and looking at it.
Sir Emilius nodded. “Yes, the great
American poet,” he said. “You knew him 7”
The Marchese expanded visibly to the naked
eye. “When he lived at Florence—yes; I
knew him intimately. Who that loved Italy
did not know the poet 2 Who was not proud
of his love for our country f"
“But I thought you had a feeble opinion of
poets 2" Sir Emilius put in maliciously.


II6 A Splendid Sin.
The Marchese snapped his fingers. “As
sons-in-law, yes, I grant you. But, him l ah,
there, he was a Man, your poet !”
“He was,” Sir Emilius admitted with caution.
“We count him our own,” the Italian con-
tinued enthusiastically. “Look what he did
for Italian unity " He put his hand on his
heart. “We are businesslike, we Italians,” he
went on, “but we are not ungrateful. Your poet
forged a golden chain which linked together
Florence, London, America. After Mazzini
and Garibaldi, what man of our time so deeply
stirred the soul of Italy "
Sir Emilius was unprepared for such a
burst of emotion. The Englishman keeps all
his sentiment for the family: the Italian be-
stows it rather on his country. “He was an
intimate friend of my sister's,” he said drily,
distrusting these transports. “She admired
his work. She carries his portrait about with
her everywhere.”
“In a silver frame,” the Italian added, looking
hard at it.
“Eh 2 Quite so,” Sir Emilius answered,
not grasping his meaning.
The Marchese mused aloud. “This world's
an enigma,” he said. “Yet sometimes one
gets a clue that leads one through it.—Well,
well, Sir Emilius, I think we perfectly under-
stand each other. Suppose we adjourn for
a while to the writing-room, where we can get


Matrimonial Business. 117
pen and paper, and reduce the terms of our
agreement to writing 2 For this being a mar-
riage, you see—an affair of importance—we
must of course leave nothing to feeling, but
treat it in every way as a matter of business.”


II8 A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNEXPECTED INTERVIEW.
WHILE the two men of business were en-
gaged on these practical details in the Salom,
Mrs. Egremont, Fede, and Hubert had slipped
out into the garden. For a while they kept to-
gether; but after twenty minutes or so, the
mother dropped quietly and naturally into the
background—she knew her place, she said to
herself with some tinge of a mother's irrepres-
sible feeling when she first finds herself rele-
gated to a secondary rank in her son's estima-
tion—and allowed the young people to wander
off by themselves among the roses and rhodo-
dendrons. She would write a letter home, she
thought, under the shade of the trees ; and she
beckoned to Rosa, the round-faced chamber-
maid, from the window to come to her.
“Bring me the writing-case from number
twenty,” she said, “and a postage-stamp for
England. The concierge will give you one.”
“Yes, madame,” Rosa answered, in her
most insinuating voice. “And madame's
shawl, n'est-ce pas ? Madame may catch a
chill if she sits under the trees here.”


An Unexpected Interview. II9
“Oh, thank you,” Mrs. Egremont answered,
with her soft, subdued smile. “How thought-
ful of you, Rosal ’’
The girl tripped away, with the affected
mincing step of the Bernese chambermaid
when tricked out in her finery; and was back
again in a minute with the writing materials
and shawl, as well as a footstool. She arranged
it carefully under Mrs. Egremont's feet, with
obtrusive politeness.
“Oh, thanks, Rosa,” the lady said, with
another gentle smile. “How very kind and
good you always are to me!”
“Oh, madame,” Rosa answered, in her in-
sinuating voice ; “it is always a pleasure to
do anything for madame. Madame is so gra-
cious !”
She moved up the steps again. As she
passed, the concierge muttered, “You do make
up to her "
Rosa smiled and tossed her head. “Last
chance for the season | " she answered flip-
pantly, in quite a different voice, and in her
own broad dialect. “She's good for twenty
francs. If I carney her enough, she may make
it forty. Besides, I'd like to get a good place
in England ' "
It is the modern Eldorado of Bernese cham-
bermaids. It may lead to apotheosis—marry-
ing the butler
Mrs. Egremont sat writing some minutes in
a


An Unexpected Interview. I2 I
you ?” he wenton, with hateful banter. “Oh,
no, of course not. In point of fact, that's ex-
actly why you came here. You avoided
Florence, for fear of meeting me. How did I
find out your plan 2 I see you asking yourself
that mental question. Well, it's as simple as
getting drunk, and much less costly. I was
over at Lugano, boring myself to death in a
bad hotel, and baking myself to blazes, when I
happened to see your respected name in the
Swiss Times on the visitors' list at the Black
Eagle. ‘A rare chance,' thought I to myself,
‘of seeing dear Julia ' ' When a man's been
separated so long from his wife, the sight of
her name naturally produces in his mind an
immediate access of deferred affection. He
takes the arrears out, so to speak. So into the
train I jumped, took the Gotthard to Goe-
schenen, walked over the pass, didn't kill my-
self on the glacier, descended on the valley, and
—here I am at last, my dear girl, to adore you !”
He held out both hands, palm outward, in
an imploring attitude. But his face was all
mockery. Mrs. Egremont rose from her seat
in an agony of terror.
“Oh, go, go, gol” she cried. “How could
you be so imprudent 2 What should I do if
Hubert were to come up and see you ? He's
here at the hotel with me.”
“So I saw in the newspaper. And, to tell
you the truth, that seemed to me an additional


I22 A Splendid Sin.
reason for paying my respects to you. It's
high time the boy knew his own father.”
Mrs. Egremont wrung her hands.
“Walter,” she moaned, “you are merciless.”
She cast her eyes about her hastily, as if looking
for shelter. “You have broken your compact,”
she went on. “Didn't you promise me faith-
fully you'd never come north of the Alps with-
out leave 2 Don't I pay you five hundred a
year to live away from England 2 Haven't I got
your own name to the agreement on paper ?”
Colonel Egremont eyed her through his
eyeglass with a complacent smile. “Well, I'm
not north of the Alps, am I ?” he answered,
gazing about him at the mountains with un-
ruffled geniality. “I’m here in the midst of
'em. Jolly fine Alps, too ; as large as they
make 'em. Besides, if it comes to that, didn't
you promise once to love, honor and obey me?”
He held out his arms once more with mock
pathos—that loathsome, bloated man. “Do
you love me now 3" he asked. “Do you
honor me 2 Do you obey me 2"
Mrs. Egremont shuddered.
“God help me, no l’ she cried, with a wild
gesture of repugnance. “How could any
one love or honor or obey such a creature as
you are 7”
The Colonel was cool as indifference could
make him. “Very well, then,” he said, shrug-
ging his shoulders. “There you are, my good


An Unexpected Interview. I23
woman. You see how you keep your own
promises, Julia.”
His wife recoiled from him. His very look
repelled her. “It was a wicked and a foolish
one,” she said. “I ought never to have made
it. Promise to do or not to do, if you will ;
but promise to feel or not to feel—what a trans-
parent absurdity 1"
Colonel Egremont surveyed her satirically
through his pince-nez. “And this, I suppose,”
he said at last, “is the New Morality.”
The unhappy woman sank into a seat and
half-covered her face. “I don't know whether
it's new or old,” she answered, shrinking from
him. “But this I do know, that I cannot pos-
sibly have any feeling now but disgust and
loathing for you.” -
Colonel Egremont dropped into a rustic seat
and unbuttoned his coat. “Oh, pray go on,”
he observed, in a sarcastic voice. “Don’t
trouble about me. Forgive my intrusion.
Excuse me for existing !”
His wife rose wildly again, and approached
him in her despair. “No, finish it off at once,”
she cried, pulling out her purse. “How much
do you want 2 Name your own price I know
one thing alone ever brings you near me. Say
what you demand, and go. But don't shame
me before Hubert. If he were to come—oh,
my God, it would kill me !”
“No, it wouldn't,” the Colonel answered,


An Unexpected Interview. I25
suppose I was going to take the trouble to get
Sober, just because I was coming to see you,
do you ? But I'm not so drunk as usual by a
long way, for all that.” He drew himself up
with tipsy solemnity. “Matter has three states,”
he said, “solid, liquid, and gaseous. I have
three states—drunk, very drunk, and dead
drunk. I'm only just simple drunk at present ;
and that's quite as much as you could expect
from me, Julia.”
He drew a step closer. Mrs. Egremont
held out her hand to repel him. “Stand off,
sir ' " she cried. “Don’t come one pace nearer,
and don't presume to address me by my Chris-
tian name ! Take your money and go If
you don't respect me, you might at least respect
Hubert.”
She glanced around her, terrified lest Hubert
should come up. But Colonel Egremont only
gazed back at her with a vacant smile. “Might
I, really P" he murmured. “What I get sober
for Hubert 2 Oh, no ; hang it all, I'm as Sober
this moment as ever I mean to be.” He drew
himself up for a moment. “Do you remember
when I had charge of the casting at Woolwich
Arsenal 7" he inquired.
“Do I remember 2 ” his wife answered.
“Can I ever forget it 7”
“Well, don't you recollect, if we once let
the fires down in the blast-furnace, it took us
a week, and two hundred tons of coal, ever to


I26 A Splendid Sin.
get them back properly into working order.
Now, I'm just like a blast-furnace. If once I
got sober, it 'ud take me a week, and two dozen
of brandy, to get comfortably drunk again.”
Mrs. Egremont's fingers trembled on her
purse. She looked round her once more with
a piteous glance. “Oh, Walter ' " she cried,
“for heaven's sake, have mercy upon me !
Name your own price ; but name it quickly "
Colonel Egremont gazed down through his
pince-nez most contemptuously on the purse.
“What, gold 7" he said. “Notes ? Do you
take me for an idiot? Do you think I came
all the way from Lugano for that ? No, no,
my dear Julia, I. value the domestic affections
a world too high to dream of curtailing this
delightful visit under a couple of hundred
pounds. I suppose you have your cheque-
book 2 ”
“A couple of hundred pounds !” Mrs. Egre-
mont echoed. “Walter, it's impossible.”
“Impossible ! Not at all ! Or-I come
back to Milworth. Now, don't look so appalled;
and don't plead poverty. When I married
you, you had a nice little fortune of your own,
dear lady. Consider how you've treated me.
We'd lived only five years together, like a pair
of turtle-doves—coo, coo, and nestle—when,
all at once, you refuse me the privilege of re-
siding with you any longer.”
“Because no self-respecting woman could


An Unexpected Interview. 127
degrade herself one day more by admitting
your presence in her house, Walter.”
The Colonel took no notice of the interrup-
tion, but continued his monologue. “And as
you had, by settlement, the power of the
purse—all through your father's confounded
pig-headedness—you extort from me an absurd
and ridiculous bargain that I must pass my
winters at Nice, Cannes, Algiers, Monte Carlo,
and my summers in the Apennines or Lord
knows where, so long as it's a good three hun-
dred miles away from you. I ask you, is that the
right way to treat the man you promised to
love, honor, obey, and cherish 2 Well, now,
I've broken loose ! I'm not going to stand it !
I'm a free man, am I not ? I'm an English
gentleman 2"
“You were once,” Mrs. Egremont answered,
surveying him despairingly.
The Colonel drew himself up with military
pride. “And I mean henceforth,” he said,
“to resume my proper place in society. I
will no longer accept your miserable pittance.”
He reeled for a second, and steadied himself,
repeating once more the words, “miserable
pittance.” “That's not intoxication,” he went
on ; “that's this beastly ataxy. But my terms
are simple—two hundred down, I say, and an
advance to a thousand a year in future !”
“Walter, I can't do it. The estate won't
stand it.”


An Unexpected Interview. I29
The Colonel wrenched again. “I won't let
you go,” he said, “till you've promised to
arrange with me.”
“Never !” Mrs. Egremont cried, “never !”
She lifted her voice and called aloud in her
torture, “Emilius ! Emilius !”
Next moment, an apparition of a dainty
morning dress round a corner of the shrubbery
—and—Fede and Hubert stood full in view of
them.
9


I3O A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COLONEL SCORES.
HUBERT saw nothing but a man—a vile-
looking man, the hardened drunkard of the
previous evening—holding his mother's wrists
and evidently trying to bully her. In a second
he had rushed forward and seized the fellow's
hands. “Stand back, sir!” he cried, flinging
him off. “How dare you ? How dare you?”
And he threw the Colonel aside with a violent
effort. “Mother, what does this mean P” he
exclaimed, gazing gently at her. “Who is
this man that's frightening you !”
The worst had come ! At sight of her son,
Mrs. Egremont sank back, pale and trembling,
into her seat, and covered her face with her
hands, shame and fear fighting hard in her.
“Oh, Hubert, what shall I do *" she moaned
aloud, through her sobs. Then she turned to
the Colonel. “Go, go,” she wailed again.
“I can't stand it ! Go! ” And she trembled
violently.
Hubert faced the man again. The Colonel
posed there, with an affected air of gentlemanly


The Colonel Scores. I3 I
indifference. “Explain, sir!” Hubert cried,
confronting him. “How dare you lay your
hands on this lady ?” And a twitch in his
foot displayed his first impulse.
Colonel Egremont drew himself up with a
conscious effort. “You demand an explana-
tion ?” he said slowly, facing him.
“I do,” the young man answered, hardly
able to address him.
“No, Hubert, no,” Mrs. Egremont moaned,
pleading, and holding his arm.
“I demand it,” Hubert answered again,
laying one soothing hand on his mother's
shoulder.
“Then you shall have it,” the Colonel
replied, with what shred of dignity was left
him. He drew a card from his pocket, and
handed it to Hubert. “There is my name,
young man, he went on in a very deliberate
way. “This lady is my wife. And you, I
presume, are my son—Hubert Egremont.”
Hubert glanced at the card in a whirl of
amazement. The world swam round him.
“Colonel Walter Egremont, late Royal En-
gineers | " He turned, half faint, to the droop-
ing figure on the seat. “Mother, mother,” he
cried, “what does it mean 2 Who is this man 2
How dare he use my father's name—my
father's 2"
Mrs. Egremont bowed her head in a fierce
burst of remorse. “I did it for your sake,”


I32 A Splendid Sin.
she answered, cowering. “Oh, Hubert, don't
hate me for it. What he says is true, my boy.
I married that creature | He is my husband ' "
Hubert drew back, appalled. One hand
was on his forehead. He scanned the man
over from head to foot, disdainfully. Colonel
Egremont tried to stand before his gaze with-
out reeling. “Your husband ' " Hubert
echoed. “My father | That thing ! That
creature " Oh, mother, can you mean it?
Don't say so, dear mother | "
The quaver in his voice was concentrated
agony. Mrs. Egremont dared not raise her
eyes to meet her son's. She only murmured
again, “For your own sake, my boy, I tried
to hide it from you. I paid him to keep away.
I have paid him for years. You know why
now. What he says is true. This man is
my husband.”
“And your father,” Colonel Egremont added,
with malicious satisfaction.
“But he died—he died twenty years ago 1"
Hubert broke out wildly, unable to believe the
hideous truth, now he heard it.
“So she told you,” the Colonel answered,
with a smile of triumph. “So she told you,
no doubt. But "--he dug his own ribs de-
monstratively with his thumbs—“I venture to
say, she was quite mistaken. I'm alive and
kicking. I can kick hard still, thank heaven.
Oh, she poses, of course, as a model mother.


The Colonel Scores. I33
But she's brought you up, my boy, on a pack of
lies. Come to your father's bosom, my long-
lost son " " He stretched out his arms melo-
dramatically—then reeled again, and caught
hold of the rustic seat with one hand to balance
himself. “We have been too long apart 1"
he went on. “This woman, this wretched
woman, has separated us !”
“Sir!” Hubert cried, springing forward
and raising one fist instinctively.
The Colonel retreated a step, and buttoned
up his coat with significant symbolism. “Oh,
very well,” he said, “if you renounce your own
flesh and blood, of course I've nothing more
to say against it. But you'll have to put up
with me when I return to Milworth.”
Till that moment Fede had stood back, un-
perceived, among the rhododendrons. But
as Hubert advanced with one fist raised to
strike the wretched creature, she rushed for-
ward to stop him. “Oh, don't l” she cried,
seizing his arm ; “oh, don't l Who is this
man, dear Hubert 2"
Hubert fell back on the seat, crouching.
The full terror and horror of it came home
to him at that moment. “This man P” he
repeated, only realizing it by degrees. “This
man Who is this man 2 Fede, Fede, my
darling, go away, I implore of you ! I can
never be yours now. It's too hateful to face
Who is this man 2 My father / My father "


I34 A Splendid Sin.
Fede drew back, incredulous. “Your father
oh, no !” she cried, “he can't be your father
Hubert, Hubert, my darling, I don't believe
it—I won't believe it !”
She flung herself upon him, embracing him
passionately. Mrs. Egremont, with her face in
her hands, sat inconsolable by his side. Hubert
bowed himself down in his abject wretched-
ness. The Colonel alone, bolt upright, with
arms crossed and a smile of victory, surveyed
the whole group in an e ºstasy of triumph.
“It is this that you have brought about with
your régime of lies ” he said, slowly and bit-
terly. “You have taught your son to hate and
despise his own father l "


Reaction. I35
CHAPTER X.
REACTION.
HUBERT sat there immovable. It takes
Some minutes for revulsions of feeling like his
to rise fully into consciousness. He sat there
long, bowed down with utter shame, unable
to look upon Fede's face, holding her hand in
his, and endeavoring to realize this incredible
catastrophe. Slowly the truth shaped itself at
last in his mind. He began to understand it.
His mother had married this hateful wretch—
married him how he could not imagine ; and
then, finding his company and his vices insup-
portable, had broken away from him, given
him an ample yearly allowance. But all these
years she had hid the truth from her son, pre-
tending her husband was dead ; and now that
Hubert saw the man as he actually was, he
could not wonder at it.
His son | That man's son | As the ghastly
blind terror of it came home to him bit by bit,
he rose up at last in his shame, withdrew his
hand abruptly from Fede's, and rushed off in
a wild burst of feeling to his own bedroom.


136 A Splendid Sin.
Mrs. Egremont, for her part, did not attempt
to follow him. She sat there still, alone with
her remorse, and bowed down in her agony.
Nor did Fede seek to detain him. She knew
these things are best faced in solitude. She
took her future mother-in-law's hand in hers,
and, without one word, stroked and smoothed
it tenderly. As for the Colonel, having de-
livered his bolt, he thought it best to beat
a strategic retreat for the moment. A little
later, when tide served, he could arrange at
leisure for his increased allowance, or, its
only alternative, his return to Milworth.
For twenty minutes or more Hubert lay on
his bed, tossed this way and that in a whirl-
wind of emotion. Yet the full shame and awe
of the revelation broke over him but gradually.
Not for several minutes did it dawn upon his
soul that as he was in blood and bone this
man's son, he was also the inheritor of his
transmitted tendencies. The mere disgrace of
calling such a creature his father was more
than enough in itself for the first few dark
moments; to inherit his taints, his vices, his
diseases was more than he could take in with-
out long reflection. And he had dreamt an
hour ago of marrying Fede—he, that loathsome
thing's son It was past all thinking. He had
but one consolation in this hour of gloom—
that the truth had come out in time to save
him from such ineffable sacrilege.


Reaction. I39
and mental taints, the hereditary tendencies of
Colonel Egremont's moral or immoral nature ?
To some men the plea of heredity is a con-
venient excuse. Hubert saw far too deep into
Nature for that fallacy. It was the opposite
idea which troubled him most. “I am what I
hate. I am, potentially, all that in my father
revolts and disgusts me.”
He climbed on and on with restless energy,
up straight walls of rock, where his foot hardly
found a hold in slight cracks and crannies.
He caught at sprigs of bushes growing out of
tiny clefts, and helped himself up by their
slender twigs, in the wild hope that they might
give way and let him dash himself to pieces
against the rocks at the bottom. But they
held, by a miracle. He never thought of how
he climbed : his mind was seething now with
so many fierce and conflicting ideas. He could
not possibly have scaled that rearing wall of
rock, alone and unaided, if he had attacked it
consciously ; but the unconscious clambering
instinct of the boy and the monkey came out in
him now that he was blind to danger. He
climbed and climbed, scarcely knowing what
he did. He could hardly have pointed out
his own track again to any other athlete ; and
if he could have pointed it out, nobody would
have believed him.
But all the time as he climbed one terrible
sentence rangever in his ear, “Who visiteth the


Reaction. I4I
hour, driven by such torturing thoughts, and
biting his own arm now and again for relief,
he gained the summit. But it took him all
day, for the northern face was steeper by far
than the usual path, and he clambered up by
himself with numerous delays and endless
difficulties. On the top, once gained, he rested,
weary. He could not scramble down again
without some hours of repose. He had no
food or covering, and the wind was chilly ; still
he must stop where he was till his limbs had re-
covered from their fatigue and stiffness. He
was bruised and torn, and he was glad of his
hurts: the physical pain seemed to relieve the
mental. It acted as a counter-irritant. By this
time he had fully walked off his first restless
mood, which began to be succeeded by a ter-
rible depression. Evening came on. The peaks
grew dark. The white blossoms shone with a
strange internal light, as if they were self-lu-
minous. He lay down on a bed of flowering
daphne and saxifrage—close Alpine plants,swept
short by the wind, which made a sort of spring
cushion for his head and limbs—and looked up
at the sky in listless indifference. His brain
was all a blur, his eyes ached wearily. Still, he
did not sleep, but mused to himself, in a deadly
monotone, “Who visiteth the sins of the fathers
on the children unto the third and fourth gen-
eration.” At moments of emotion, the Bible
words of our childhood recur to us. They


I42 A Splendid Sin.
come with the sanctity, the solemnity, the
power of ancestral echoes.
The night was cold, and he was only a few
hundred yards below snow-level. Now and
then, to warm himself, he rose and walked
about restlessly on the little rocky platform that
formed the summit. As he did so, he kept
stumbling over loops of root and gnarled stocks
of low bushes. His heel struck against stones:
he almost fell. Did he lift his feet as high as
usual, he wondered 2 At the thought a chilly
shudder came over him all at once. That
shuffling gait—that indecision of step—was
it not one of the premonitory symptoms of
locomotor ataxy 2
Not for himself he cared, but for his mother's
sake—and Fede's. How could he dream, such
as he was, of ever marrying Fede 2
The night wore away slowly. He lay down
again and watched it. Cold dews fell upon
him. The stars came out, one by one, moved
slowly across the zenith, and westered by de-
grees till they set behind the rearing white
mass of the Himmelberg. He could see its
whiteness now by their rays quite easily.
Strange, how at moments of overpowering
emotion, other thoughts will yet obtrude them-
selves now and then in shot threads across the
woof of consciousness | As he lay there and
watched those silent constellations crawl with
stealthy pace in measured spaces athwart the


Reaction. I43
face of heaven, he realized, as he had never
realized before, why astronomy was the earliest
of all the sciences to force itself upon the mind
of primitive man—the sleeper under the open,
the watcher of the sky through roofless nights
of summer and winter. When the early hunter
lay awake, even so, and tossed on his uneasy
couch, and counted the groups that followed
one another with even, unhurrying tramp across
the sphere overhead, how could he fail to note
the slow sequence of their movements, the in-
variable order of their secular rising and set-
ting 2 Hubert absolutely envied those ignorant
savages. If only he could have thrown himself
back into their place and forgotten these terrible
lessons of modern physiology But no—the
doom was pronounced against him—pronounced
by those immutable laws of nature, which, like
the God of the Hebrews, visit the sins of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation—though, unlike him, they
show no mercy to any, whether he love them
or hate them, whether he keep or keep not
their mute commandments.
Gradually, morning approached. Hubert
knew from the stars in sight that dawn could
not be far from reddening the horizon. By
this time an alternative feeling possessed him ;
he was painfully conscious now into what an
agony of terror he must have cast his mother.
His thoughts rambled in a haze. He rose once


I44 A Splendid Sin.
more, and by the uncertain light began to grope
and feel his way down the treacherous moun-
tain. One false step would solve the insoluble
problem. Now was the chance to slip ; now
was the time for an unintentional and half-un-
willing suicide—for he was not quite at the
point where he would knowingly and intention-
ally have flung himself down on the rocks be-
low. From that last resource of hunted lives
he shrank even then with real moral repug-
nance. But if only he could miss his foothold
and fall against his will—how easy an outlet
such an accident would afford him from an
insupportable dilemma I
Dawn primrosed the sky. Once more the
white flowers on the slopes glowed as if self-
luminous. He clambered recklessly down,
clinging to twigs and ledges that seemed all but
hopeless. Yet he never missed his foothold.
Perhaps the very absence of fear and of the
sense of danger which his weariness of life and
longing for death gave him may have acted as
a preservative. If he had clutched at those
slender supports in any terrified or half-hearted
fashion they might have yielded and let him
go : but the recklessness itself with which he
trusted to their flimsy aid made them adequate
for his purpose. He swung from them as lightly,
as surely, and as easily as a squirrel or a mon-
key. He had recurred to the level of the boy
or the savage, who risks a life which he values


Reaction. I45
little. Day broke as he descended the steep
face of rock ; at the base of the first great
pinnacle he could already see his track with
perfect distinctness.
Thenceforth his way was easy. He shuffled
and stumbled down much more quickly and
surely than he had mounted. It was about
nine o'clock by the village church when he
found himself once more in the one long gleam-
ing street of Rothenthal.
And he was not dead. And he had cleared
up nothing. The situation remained exactly
where it was before he started, except that he
had no doubt succeeded in casting his mother
and Fede into transports of fear for his im-
mediate safety. Selfish, selfish, selfish ! No
doubt, a son of that unwelcome father
IO


I46 A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ENGLISH FOR FEDE.
IN Mrs. Egremont's salon, about nine o'clock,
Cecco, the Marchese's valet, peeped in at the
door, where Rosa was engaged in dusting the
furniture.
“Good morning, signorina,” he said in
Italian, just poking his head somewhat tenta-
tively round the corner.
“Good morning,” Rosa repeated in her own
Teutonic variety of the Tuscan dialect. She
was a cosmopolitanized Bernese, and spoke
most European languages in a more or less
broken fashion.
“The young signore not yet come back 7"
Cecco inquired with curiosity.
“No,” Rosa answered, playing carelessly
with her duster. She pretended to be busy
with the objects on the mantelpiece. “He
left a note on his table for Number Twenty,
to say he had gone up for a climb on the
Rothenspitze, and might be out all night. But
Number Twenty doesn't like it, I'm sure of
that : she's been crying all night, I think : her
eyes are red and swollen this morning.”


The English for Fede. I47
“Something's gone wrong,” Cecco mur-
mured, venturing in a step or two.
“This is Number Twenty's salon,” Rosa
observed in her coquettish way, looking round
at him with a warning glance. “She'll be out
here presently.”
“No, she won't,” Cecco answered, taking
another step, in. “She's gone out on the
terrace, looking for Twenty-Four. There's
something wrong somewhere, as you say,
signorina. Our young lady has been crying,
too, ever since yesterday morning.”
“It's odd,” Rosa continued, pausing awhile
and fronting him. “I think the horrid old
man in Seventy-Two must have something to
do with it.”
Cecco dropped his voice to a confidential
whisper. “You know why we've come here 2"
he said. “There's a marriage to be arranged
between our young lady, the Marchesa Fede,
and—”
“And Number Twenty-Four ; well, I knew
that already, silly,” Rosa answered, brusquely.
“Who told you ?” Cecco inquired, drawing
yet a step nearer to her.
Rosa flicked her duster. “Who told me 2"
she answered. “Well, I call that a good one !
Do you think I've been eightyears a chamber-
maid, and must wait to know things till people
tell me 2"
“But yesterday morning,” Cecco went on,


148 A Splendid Sin.
“Number Twenty-Four and Number Seventy-
Two had a talk together, and ever since then
there's been nothing but misfortunes. The
young signore has gone off up the Rothen-
spitze; our Marchesa's in tears, the picture of
misery; the signore's mother is crying her
eyes out ; and my Marchese's walking up and
down in his room, swearing at me all the time
as if it were an earthquake in Florence 1 "
“Hateful old man | " Rosa cried. “I mean
Seventy-Two. I should just like to know
what he has to do with them. It's he who
has come and made all the bother.”
“Perhaps he's Twenty's husband,” the valet
suggested, with a gleam of white teeth.
“Oh, no, he's not,” Rosa answered, still
dusting coquettishly at the vases on the man-
telpiece, “for I heard madame say something
to Twenty-Four—that's her son—about his
father having died at least twenty years ago.”
“But she may have married again, stupid "
Cecco retorted.
“Stupid yourself | If she had, how could
she and her son be both called the same name 2
They're all of them Egremontes.” She pro-
nounced the word as four syllables, Italian
fashion.
“That's true,” Cecco answered, pondering.
“Then perhaps he's her lover.”
Rosa pouted her lips. “You don't under-
stand the Inglese,” she answered, candidly.


The English for Fede. I49
“That's Italian manners. The English ladies
never have lovers, signore.”
Cecco nodded his head. “True !” he
assented, after a pause. “I quite forgot that.
Droll manners, those English ! One wonders
what they live for. You seem very much in-
terested in the family, signorina.”
Rosa tossed her pretty head. “Nobody else
in the hotel ! ” she answered. “One must in-
terest oneself in something. Besides, I rather
want Twenty to take me with her as lady's-
maid to England.”
“To England Ah, well, perhaps then we
may meet there, for my Marchese is sure to
carry me with him to England for the wed-
ding.”
“But the wedding will be in Florence, won't
it 2 at Santa Croce or Santa Maria P" the cham-
bermaid suggested.
“Trust my Marchese for that l” Cecco cried.
“He’s a man of business, my Marchese, and
‘in the present depressed condition of the
wine-market'"—he imitated his master's most
pompous manner—“ten lire to a soldo he'll
put the expense of his daughter's marriage on
Number Twenty's shoulders.”
Rosa was dusting a photograph on the man-
telpiece as he spoke. It was the portrait of a
talland handsome man, close-shaven and clear-
featured and very distinguished-looking. It
stood in a silver frame. “I think this must be


I50 A Splendid Sin.
Number Twenty's gentleman,” she said, after
a pause. “She keeps it here always in the
middle of the shelf, and she often looks at it.
It is no doubt the signore her husband.”
“Oh, no,” Cecco put in. “That man's
name's not Egremonte. I know him well.
He was a friend of my Marchese's. That's the
great American poet who died at Florence
when I was lift at the Minerva. He used often
to drop in for our table d'hôte. I remember
him well. He was a very great man. He
gave me five lire once for posting a letter for
him.”
“He’s handsome,” Rosa said, scrutinizing it.
“So he was a poet, was he The signora has
his photograph in her bedroom as well, with
some verses on the back of it. Perhaps he
wrote them. But the verses are in English—
or perhaps in American—so I cannot read
them.”
“Well, you see, he was a distinguished
man,” Cecco replied, full of importance. “Oh,
distinguished—but distinguished His friends
were proud of him. A poet's a poet. When
the King of Italy—the Re Galantuomo, I mean,
Vittorio Emmanuele, not this man Umberto
—when the King came to Florence, the poet
was always asked to dine at the Pitti Palace:
and when he died, the American ambassador
came on purpose from Rome to attend the
funeral. So I ask you, was he distinguished 2


I52 A Splendid Sin.
answered, “It would have been better so,
mother.”
Mrs. Egremont flung her arms round him.
“No, no, my darling,” she murmured. “For
my sake, no—for my sake—and for Fede’s.”
“Where is she 7” Hubert asked, trembling.
“In her room.”
“Was she very much frightened P’’
“No. She has confidence in you. She
knows in her heart you could never desert her.”
Hubert paused again. “Oh, mother l’ he
cried at last, “I will not reproach you. Who
am I to reproach you—I, that creature’s son
But why, oh why did you keep it from me
always 2"
Mrs. Egremont's bosom heaved. “I thought
it was for the best,” she answered, faltering.
“The truth is best,” Hubert retorted. “I
would always know it.”
“The truthis best ?” Mrs. Egremont echoed,
with a faint tremor of the lips. “Oh, Hubert,
do you think so 7"
There was agony in her voice—doubt, terror,
longing. -
“It was kind of you to try, I know,” Hubert
went on, not perceiving it. “I see you wanted
to shield me—oh, my God, from what? I
can't bear to think of it. From what I am in
myself | From knowing the truth about my
own inmost nature | "
Mrs. Egremont leant forward. “Hubert,


The English for Fede. I55
‘Mother l’ She was sitting there, as it
happened, with one of her admirers, a cabinet
minister; she moved in that society, and was
a very great lady : and she didn't like the in-
terruption—for she was a handsome woman
still, and couldn't bear to have a grown-up
daughter in the house with her. So she held
me off, withour kissing me, and said, in a freez-
ing tone, ‘Your complexion's ruined You're
not half as good-looking, child, as you were
three years ago. Go up-stairs, and take off
your hat, and wash yourself after your journey—
and then, perhaps, you'll be in a fit condition
to come down and say how-do-you-do to Lord
Winstanley.' I slunk off, chilled. That same
evening she said to me, in a very cold voice,
‘Julia, I must marry you. It shall be Colonel
Egremont.' I didn't like him, though I didn't
know him, of course, as I know him now ;-and
I said, ‘Oh, mother l’ “Go to your room,
miss,’ my mother said, ‘and don't dare to
answer me back.' And in three weeks' time,
whether I wished it or not, she had me married
to Colonel Egremont.”
Hubert still rocked himself up and down.
“It was a dishonor to yourself,” he said, “and
a wrong to me. Epilepsy, insanity, drunken-
ness, paralysis—how could you burden your
son with such legacies as those, mother ?”
Mrs. Egremont trembled. “If you had
known my mother, you would understand,


The English for Fede. I57
than Hubert could have conceived of his using.
“She left him as soon as she could—left him
by my advice and assistance. He did things—
fortunately—which made it impossible for him
to show his face in England again ; broke the
law, and rendered himself liable to serious
punishment. Your mother very properly
bought him off on an agreement never to come
within two hundred miles of her. He has
skulked for years, sometimes under his own
name, sometimes under another, up and down
on the Continent.” -
“But he went too late,” Hubert cried, in
his misery. “And—Fede and I must suffer
for it.”
“Not necessarily,” Sir Emiliusputin. “You
are a strong and well-built fellow, Hubert.
It's unusual, I admit, for such a man to be the
father of a sound child ; but I've never seen
one trace in you, at least, of the inherited
temperament.”
Hubert shook his head once more. “No,
no,” he said gloomily, “it’s no use your trying
to comfort me, uncle. I know the truth too
well. That man's children must be hopelessly
mad before they're thirty.”
“I dispute your prognosis,” Sir Emilius an-
swered. He spoke with authority. “These
cases are so elusive. The moral qualities lie
on the surface of heredity. There isn't a sign
in you of alcoholic tendency.”


I58 A Splendid Sin."
“But I know it all so deeply,” Hubert cried,
leaning back, “as well as any doctor. The
symptoms often remain latent till twenty-five
or thirty, and then they come out suddenly.
His children couldn't escape. I have seen
with my eyes. He's too far gone in alcoholic
mania to doubt it.”
“Hubert,” Sir Emilius said, looking hard at
him, “in spite of all you say, my advice to
you is to marry Fede.”
Hubert moaned from his place. “How
can I burden Fede with such a future ?” he
cried in his despair.
Mrs. Egremont leant forward with a sudden
burst of speech. “My darling,” she cried,
“take my word for it still. You will not be-
lieve it, but your father had once many great
and noble qualities.” -
Her brother stared at her. He knew that
Julia had misled her son on this point for
many years past, but he was hardly prepared
for such a wildly improbable declaration at
such a moment.
“Then again, I can never break it to her,”
Hubert went on, in utter dejection. “I can
never make her feel how impossible it would
be for me to dream of marrying her ' "
Sir Emilius meanwhile had felt his nephew's
pulse. “My boy,” he said suddenly, “you
are sinking from inanition. You have neither
slept nor eaten. This mood, I see, is partly


16o A Splendid Sin.
The precise treatment I was just about to pre-
scribe for him 1"
He opened the door, and Fede entered,
very pale, and with eyes red from crying.
The Marchese would have considered her
presence at that moment a most imprudent
proceeding.
She took his hand frankly. “Dearest,” she
murmured, leaning forward and kissing him,
“I couldn't stop away. I was obliged to
come. I have thought of you all night long.
I knew how you must feel about that—that
dreadful creature.”
Hubert recoiled from her kiss. “Oh, don't,
Fede,” he cried, as if he shrank from her
purity. “I feel I am polluted—not fit for such
as you. You must never again kiss me.”
She drew back, astonished. “Why not,
my darling 2"
“Because that man's my father. Because
I am his son. Because I inherit from him a
deadly taint. Because I shall most likely be
mad and paralyzed before I'm thirty.”
With a wild burst of emotion, Fede flung
her arms round him. “ Hubert | Hubert | "
she cried, “what is all that to me, dearest ? I
am a woman—no more. I love you—I love
you ! No matter what might happen to you,
I still would marry you !”
He tried to unwind her arms. A ghastly
sense of his own inherited impurity came over


The English for Fede. I61
him. “Fede,” he cried, “you mustn't—not
to that man's son | What you say is quite
right—quite right for you, dearest. A woman
should take these things so; I see that very
well : no good woman could take them other-
wise. But a man must be strong. A man
must fight against it. A man must guard the
woman he loves against herself and her
womanly-instincts. A man must know when
and how to deny himself. He must refuse to
marry the girl of his choice—if marriage would
mean to her inevitable misery.”
Fede clung to him passionately. “But it
wouldn't, it wouldn't,” she cried. “I know
you better than you know yourself, Hubert.
My name is Fede, and Fede means faith. I
have faith in you, darling. You're not that
man's son—not in the sense you mean it.
You're so good, so gentle, as well as so clever.
I can trust you, Hubert–body and soul I can
trust you.” He gave a gesture of dissent ; but
she clung to him still, and cut him short with a
wave of her hand. “My intuition tells me so,”
she said, “and I know I can rely upon it. My
name against your doubts | My faith against
your fear ! My heart against your brain
My instinct against your reason 1"
She tried to kiss him once more—tried to
kiss him passionately. Hubert drew back
with a wild look of terror. He held out his
hand as if to protect her against himself.
I I


I62 A Splendid Sin.
“No, darling, no " he cried. “Not me—not
me ! You have kissed me for the last time !
Never again, Fede—never !”
Fede dragged him down to her lips with a
fierce burst of passion. “Yes, you shall,” she
exclaimed, clasping him hard. “You shall !
You must, my darling !” And she drew him
to her bosom.
At that inopportune moment the door opened
suddenly, and Colonel Egremont entered.


The Point of View. I63
CHAPTER XII.
THE POINT OF VIEW.
HE stood for some seconds just within the
doorway, with his mock-military air, twirling
his grizzled mustache, and surveying com-
placently the whole family group whom he had
thrown by his action into this state of misery.
The eyeglass, screwing up that bloated face,
made him more hideous than even he would
have been by nature. Then he spoke very
jauntily. “Sorry to intrude, I'm sure,” he said
with a hateful grin, “upon this domestic party,
—and at such a moment l But after all, we
must remember, I'm the Head of the House—
and "-spreading his hands pathetically—“what
is Home without a Father?”
He had evidently been drinking even more
than usual, and his voice was thick ; but he
had still a strange air of affected bonhomie, and
a triumphant manner.
Hubert sprang up with a fierce gesture.
“How dare you enter this room, sir?” he cried,
moving forward.
The Colonel advanced a step, blustering.


I64 A Splendid Sin.
“Upon my soul,” he said, bridling up, “pretty
sort of treatment for a long-lost parent My
own flesh and blood to assault me in that
fashion 1 Am I to be debarred from access to
my wife's rooms, and violently attacked by my
son on the threshold 2 If I were not the best-
natured old reprobate in the world, by George,
sir, I tell you, I'd lose my temper.” He gave
a little start, and took a long look through his
eyeglass at Fede. “What, a joy forever ?” he
exclaimed, with one of his odious leers. “So
this is your fiancee, then, is it, Mr. Hubert 2
Why, I've been hearing all about her down-
stairs from the head waiter. Good morning,
my dear ! Delighted, I'm sure, to make your
acquaintance A deuced good-looking young
woman she is too, Hubert. As pretty as they
make 'em But the Egremonts were always
famous for their taste in their choice of their
womankind. I was a connoisseur myself in
female beauty once. Look at your mother, my
boy; devilish fine girl she was when she was
a girl ; and devilish handsome woman she is
to this day, at forty odd-devilish handsome
woman, though a trifle haughty 1"
“Sir,” Hubert cried, unable to endure it,
and placing himself full in front of the creature,
with one fist raised warningly.
, “Hot-tempered, isn't he, my dear 2" the
Colonel continued with a nod to Fede. “Can't
restrain his emotions. But, children, you


The Point of View. I65
should never let—fie, fie, Mr. Hubert | Allow
me to introduce myself, my dear, as your pros-
pective papa-in-law. We're to be relations,
you know. My name is Walter Egremont;
my address—Europe.” He moved suddenly
forward, with a curious lurch, as if to kiss
her.
Fede shrank back in terror. “Oh, Hubert,
don't let him come near me !” she cried, re-
treating, with a face of fierce repugnance.
Hubert caught the man in his arms and
flung him bodily back. “Stand off, sir!” he
cried, growing red in the face. “How dare
you ?” -
Sir Emilius laid one hand on the intruder's
shoulder. “Now, restrain yourself, Walter,”
he said. “This is not a pot-house. Leave
the room instantly, if you know what's good
for you. I will talk matters over with you in
the garden quietly.” For he was used to the
insane, and he saw at a glance that the Col-
onel's mood was not far off from alcoholic
insanity.
As for Colonel Egremont, he drew back
a pace, reeling slightly as he did so, not so
much from drink as from his nervous affection,
and scanned Fede and Hubert up and down
solemnly. “A pretty pair,” he mused aloud,
in a judicial tone. “A very pretty pair! Upon
my soul, I'm proud of them. Julia, my dear,
this son of mine's a handsome, well-grown, up-


I66 A Splendid Sin.
standing young Egremont. The very model
of the race | I always did believe in the doc-
trine of heredity 1"
“Then how dare you become the father of
a son 7" Hubert burst out bitterly. “How
dare you reproduce your own vile image 2"
The Colonel measured him up and down
with his eye, and smiled. “That's pretty
straight, that is " he answered slowly, as if
trying to take it in. “One in the eye for me !
Pretty hot and strong ! Prepare to receive
cavalry ! Julia, you haven't brought your boy
up to respect his parents. Train up a child
in the way he should go—you know Mr. Solo-
mon. Signorina Marchesa, do you allow this
young fellow to speak in such very unparlia-
mentary terms of your future father ?”
He took a step towards her again. Hubert
darted upon him wildly. “Leave this room,
sir,” he cried, lifting the Colonel bodily and
carrying him to the door. “You're not fit to
remain under the same roof with my mother
and this lady. Though you were fifty times
my father, if you speak like that, by God, sir,
you shall answer for it.”
The Colonel, however, was still imperturb-
able. “Go on, young man,” he cried, in a
half-angry, half-mocking voice; “go on 1
Pray don't be shy. Don't mind my feelings
—a father's feelings | Say just what you
please ! Curse me to slow music l’”


I68 A Splendid Sin.
“when I arrived you were just engaged in
ejecting this—person 2"
“We were,” Sir Emilius answered frankly.
“Then why does he come back?” the Mar-
chese demanded, in a rather acrid tone.
Colonel Egremont bristled up. “Take care,
sir,” he cried, blustering, “how you venture
to touch a British soldier | "
The Marchese took his measure with a rapid
glance. “Oh, if you elevate it to the dignity
of an international contest,” he answered de-
liberately, “though Switzerland is neutral ter-
ritory—well, eviva l'Italia / " And with a
sudden and dexterous advance, he seized the
intruder in his powerful arms—for he was a
very strong man—lifted him clean off the floor,
and bundled him out unceremoniously.
Sir Emilius, with the coolness of a doctor
in trying circumstances, turned the key in the
door the moment the Colonel was safely out-
side it.
The Marchese addressed himself to Hubert,
evidently ruffled. “I hope, Mr. Egremont,”
he said, “this awkward little episode may be
made satisfactorily to account for your extraor-
dinary absence at so critical a moment. My
daughter has told me something of this crea-
ture. A most loathsome object ' He lays
some preposterous claim to being your father,
doesn't he A madman, no doubt. But why
should his conduct have driven you to absent


The Point of View. I69
yourself with such marked discourtesy at such
a juncture ?”
Sir Emilius glanced at Hubert imploringly.
But Hubert was true to his principle of fidelity
to the truth. “I must tell him, uncle,” he
said, with a piteous shake of his head. “I
can't deny it !—Marchese, the man says what
is simply true. He is my father l’’
The Marchese smiled benignly. The
avowal seemed rather to please him than other-
wise. “Oh, of course,” he answered, ap-
peased, “if he has happened to turn up at an
inconvenient moment and upset your arrange-
ments, I can easily understand there may be
some reason for your singular conduct. I
gather that a certain degree of coldness seems
to reign within the family.”
“Let me explain,” Sir Emilius said blandly,
fearing that Hubert might make things worse
in his present mood of despair. “This man,
I regret to say, is really Mrs. Egremont's hus-
band. But I must also admit he is a rake and
a drunkard. His financial transactions have
also been—well, let us put it, imaginative. To
say it in brief, he has disgraced the family.
My sister is compelled to live alone, and to
pension him off, on condition that he never
comes nearer England than Nice or Lugano.
As he generally lives under an assumed name,
and has had nothing to do for years with my
nephew, we didn't feel bound to mention his


17o A Splendid Sin.
existence heretofore to Hubert, who thought
till now that his father was dead, and has only
just learnt accidentally of his survival.”
The Marchese smiled a cynical smile. “Don’t
apologize for that,” he answered. “It does
not concern me. It is Mr. Hubert's absence that
calls for an explanation, which will, no doubt,
be forthcoming. For my own part, I don't
like too much unity in a family circle. It’s
entirely bourgeois—shows the relations have
never had any Property worth speaking of to
quarrel over. From what you told me, I gather
Mrs. Egremont has, by English law, sole con-
trol of her own estate, and that this superfluous
husband possesses no legal claim of any sort
upon her.”
“That is so,” Sir Emilius answered. “He
lives upon her bounty.”
“Then,” the Marchese went on, with an air
of relief, “we may treat this unprepossessing
gentleman as a mere cipher.”
Fede broke out in a sudden cry. “But,
papa,” she said, sobbing, “Hubert doesn't see
things like that at all. He thinks he's bound
not to marry me if this man's his father.”
The Marchese turned round with a bewil-
dered air. “Thinks he's bound not to marry
you ?” he repeated. “Not to marry a Torna-
buoni ! Why, why, Mr. Egremont ? I ask
you, yes or no 2 Has this man any claim on
your mother's Property 2"


The Point of View. 171
“On her property 2 ” Hubert answered.
“Not the least in the world, so far as I am
aware.” The point of view puzzled him.
“The estate is absolutely settled on my sis-
ter,” Sir Emilius put in ; “with remainder to
Hubert, as I have already explained to
you.”
“Then where does the difficulty come in 7"
the Marchese continued, looking puzzled.
“Why shouldn't you marry her ?”
“You don't understand,” Hubert cried.
“With a father such as that, how can I? How
dare I ? I am doomed beforehand to hopeless
madness.”
The Marchese almost laughed. “What, a
fine young fellow like you,” he cried, “with the
limbs of a mountaineer and the chest of a
Bersagliere ! Sentimental nonsense !”
“You can't see it, I suppose,” Hubert mur-
mured, “with the eye of a physiologist.”
The Marchese was severe. “No, but I can
see it with the eye of a gentleman and a man
of honor,” he answered, growing hot. “I un-
derstand what you mean now. You mean to
act like a cad to my daughter.”
Sir Emilius detected quickened action of the
heart in the swollen veins of the Marchese's
forehead. He interposed as composer of the
rising storm. “Wait a moment,” he said, with
his bland medical manner. “Marchese, you
and I will talk things over together a little.


172 A Splendid Sin.
Julia, my dear, leave us—and you, too, Marchesa.
Hubert, take your mother out into the garden
awhile, and then come back to us. We must
arrange this thing gradually. It's entirely a
question of the point of view. Your points of
view are different. I sympathize with both—
and I will try to harmonize them.”
The Marchese bowed stiffly. “As you will,
signore,” he answered, with cold politeness.
“But this marriage is arranged now, and cannot
be put off. I allow no going back upon the
claims of my daughter.”
Sir Emilius bowed in return, and motioned
Mrs. Egremont and Fede to leave the room.
Hubert went with them.
“Well ?” the Marchese said coldly, looking
across at his opponent.
“Well,” Sir Emilius began, “Marchese,
my nephew is deeply in love with your
daughter.”
“Sir " the Italian exclaimed.
“I mean,” Sir Emilius corrected, perceiving
his error, “Hubert's affections are deeply en-
gaged to her. It is through no lack of will that
he has doubts about his marriage.”
“I don't understand,” the Marchese replied,
in his chilliest voice. “If he is not going to
marry my daughter, how dare he tell me he
has feelings of affection for her ? In Italy, Sir
Emilius, we cannot permit such avowals.
Either the young man means marriage, or else."


The Points of View. I73
—his hand sought an imaginary sword—“we
settle these questions in that way.”
Sir Emilius tried another tack. “Let me
explain to you my nephew's idea,” he said, still
bland as ever. “He has—er—the profoundest
admiration and respect for your daughter, Mar-
chese. He desires to marry her. But the
sudden discovery of his father's degradation—
for I will admit that Colonel Egremont is
really a drunken and degraded creature—has
given him such a shock that he has momentary
qualms which his common sense will soon no
doubt enable him to get over. He is a physi-
ologist, you must recollect ; too much a physi-
ologist ; and he fancies he must inherit his
father's physical taint. Indeed, as a medical
man, I am bound to admit that the chances in
favor of any person who comes from a family
so deeply tainted are usually—infinitesimal.
Though in Hubert's case I have good hopes
that his mother's fine physique—but I see you
are impatient.”
“I am,” the Marchese admitted, fuming
visibly. “What has all this got to do with
your nephew's arrangement to marry my
daughter It is for her to consider whether
she will take the risk—which, frankly, to me
seems, as you say, infinitesimal.”
“I—I meant the other way,” Sir Emilius
corrected, taken aback.
The Marchese pursed his lips. “Not at all,”


I74 A Splendid Sin.
he answered. His tone was acid. “The mat-
ter stands thus. Mr. Egremont has formally
proposed for my daughter. I have accepted
his offer. He now wants to back out, appar-
ently—on a most frivolous pretext. As a man
of honor, I cannot permit it.”
“He will not back out, I am sure,” Sir Emil-
ius responded diplomatically. “That is to say,
when he recovers mental balance.”
“Not with impunity, certainly,” the Marchese
answered stiffly. His hand moved once more
towards his hip with a nervous movement.
“He is a fine healthy young fellow,” Sir
Emilius went on, “with excellent principles.”
The Marchese snapped his fingers. “My
dear sir,” he answered, “you are altogether
too English. We talk at cross purposes.
What on earth do I care about your nephew's
principles 2 What do I care about his heredity,
if that's the right word for it 2 Heredity's all
very well in its way, when you know the facts.
But you never know them. Isn't marriage
expressly invented to conceal them It puts
a premium on denial of paternity. Haven't
you English an unusually sensible proverb
about it's being a wise child who knows his
own father ?”
It was Sir Emilius's turn now to be shocked
and insulted. “My dear sir,” he exclaimed,
bristling up, “remember 1 my sister | " Noth-
ing but the fact that the Marchese was only


The Point of View. I75
a foreigner could have restrained him from
deeply resenting the imputation.
“Ah, yes,” the Marchese interjected. “I
forgot | In England, of course ! You Eng-
lish are so impeccable. You have no romance,
no love, no affection. These things don't
happen, chez vous. Whereas we other Italians,
you see—”
“Oh, with Italians,” Sir Emilius answered
drily, drawing himself up, “that's quite another
matter. But north of the Alps, Marchese—”
“True, true,” the Marchese mused. “And
yet—there was your friend the poet. He
caught the subtle aroma of life as it passed.
And he was an Englishman. No, no, an
American. Yet English and Americans are
alike in that. But then I suppose poets don't
count. They have no nationality—just the
poetic temperament.”
“He was the austerest and purest of men,”
Sir Emilius said, too surprised to be angry.
“Have you read his Gwendoline 2 What
could be severer P’’
“His poetry Ah, yes. Most ascetic, no
doubt. But his life—ah, there ! I knew him
well, Sir Emilius. He longed to be a saint—
but he loved to be a sinner.”
“Well, Hubert, I believe, will get over this
mood,” the Englishman went on, reverting to
the matter in hand. “It is a natural revul-
sion.”


176 A Splendid Sin.
“He must get over it,” the Florentine an-
swered, “ or take the consequences. And you
know what those are Ah, here he comes to
answer for it.”
As he spoke, Hubert entered, still as de-
jected and despondent as ever. Sir Emilius
tried to prompt him. “I have been explain-
ing to the Marchese,” he said, in his most
persuasive tone, “that you are momentarily
taken aback by this unfortunate episode ; but
that, after you have had time for reflection and
consideration—”
Hubert shook his head firmly. “No, no,”
he answered. “Let us be clear about this.
If I am that man's son—I will never, never
marry Fede.”
“You won't P” the Marchese cried, stepping
closer.
“For her own sake, no,” Hubert answered
firmly—“and for her possible children.”
The Marchese's face grew red. “My dear
sir,” he said, “this is absurd, quixotic | You
don't know what you're talking about. The
marriage is arranged, and must come off now.
I believed I was dealing with persons of honor.
I have telegraphed the facts to all the Floren-
tine journals, as well as to my family, and
have received in return the congratulations of
the Sindaco. By this time, my daughter's
engagement is the common talk of the Cascine.
To break it off at such a stage would be, you


The Point of View. 177
must understand—as we Italians think—a
direct impugnment of my daughter's honor.
Nobody would suppose you could go back
upon your word now, except on grounds,-
which I decline to specify.” His face grew
redder still. “You can't play fast and loose
in that way,” he added, “with a Tornabuoni.”
“But for Fede's own happiness, Mar-
chese—” Hubert began.
“How dare you, sir?” the Marchese cried,
turning upon him. “How dare you speak of
the Marchesa, my daughter, as Fede to my
face, in the very same breath in which you
tell me you do not mean to marry her ? Break
it off 2 Not at all ! The thing's simply im-
possible ! What is her happiness, I'd like to
know, to the honor of the family 2 Here on
the Continent we have our ideas of honor.
We treat our marriages as binding contracts.
You shall not put a public slight upon my
daughter's reputation. We meet a public
slight—you know our way—by referring the
matter to the sword or the pistol. If you
persist in this course—this most absurd course
—I must ask you the name of some friend
who will act for you.”
Sir Emilius tried once more to throw the
oil of pacification upon the troubled waters.
“Let this wear itself out, signore,” he mur-
mured, touching the Italian's arm. “ Hubert
in his present condition—”
I2


The Point of View. I79
but terribly resolute. “Hubert, darling,” she
said slowly, standing between the two men,
“wait ! Don't quarrel with Fede's father
Marchese, I implore you, allow me to talk with
my boy a little. I think I can persuade him.
This may be arranged even now.” She spoke
with resolution, but with deadly earnestness.
The Marchese looked down at her with icy
politeness. “Certainly, dear lady,” he an-
swered, with Italian courtesy. “Your sex can
do much. Perhaps it may even assist you to
persuade this headstrong young fanatic.” He
paused for a second and mused. “You more
than any one else,” he added, after a second's
thought. “The entanglement is, perhaps, not
quite so impossible as the signore fancies.”
Mrs. Egremont waved Sir Emilius with one
hand from the room. The Marchese bowed,
and accompanied him. Fede clung to her new
friend. “Must I go too !" she asked plead-
ingly.
Mrs. Egremont stooped down and kissed her
tenderly. “Yes, dear, you must go,” she said,
in a very gentle voice, yet tremulous with cour-
age. “It is for your own sake, Fede. Wait
for us in my bedroom. I will call you when I
want you.”
“But nothing you can say will alter me,
mother,” Hubert added, in a tone of abject
despair. “I have made up my mind. That
person's son can never marry.”
a


18O A Splendid Sin.
Fede cast a glance at him as she left the
room. “Marry me or not, darling,” she cried,
“I am yours forever. I shall be true to my
name. My faith shall be faithful.”
º
*-


A Great Confession. I8I
CHAPTER XIII.
A GREAT CONFESSION.
MRS. EGREMONT flung herself in despair on
the sofa. She trembled violently, and her lips
quivered ; but her air was resolute. Hubert
seated himself by her side, his hands folded
despondently.
“My boy,” the mother said softly at last, “I
have something to tell you—something I hoped
never to breathe while I lived—though after
I was dead I always meant that you should
know it. I had written it down in my deskto
tell you. But you compel me to speak now.
I can't help it any longer. I can't delay it.”
“Go on, mother,” Hubert said gloomily,
taking her hand in his. “I am strong enough
—and crushed enough—to bear anything now.
Nothing on earth matters to me.”
“This will matter to you,” Mrs. Egremont
said, in a very grave voice. “Oh, where can I
begin 7" She cast about for an opening.
“Hubert, help me, my boy. Can't you guess
Can't you spare me 2 Something that will
enable you to marry Fede.”


A Great Confession. 183
“A year too late,” Hubert answered. “And
I am here to prove it.”
Mrs. Egremont clasped her hands. “No,
darling, no,” she cried. “Bear with me, Hu-
bert. I must tell it my own way, if I'm to tell it
at all. Oh, how can I ever tell it 2 Ilived with
him, and hated him ; but, thank God! I was
childless. That alone consoled me. Four
years after my marriage I went with him to
Venice. I had no baby yet, then, and prayed,
oh, how fervently, I might never have one.
To bear a child for him, I felt, would have
been cruel—no, criminal.” She paused, and
looked hard at her son. “At Venice——” she
went on, then broke off suddenly ; “do you
begin to understand, Hubert 2"
The young man nestled close to her. “Go
on,” he cried. “Go on I begin to suspect.
You give me fresh hope, mother.”
“At Venice,” the mother continued, hiding
her face in her hands, “I met a Man—a very
great Man—the greatest I ever knew—who
fascinated me deeply. I admired and re-
spected him. Hubert, Hubert, need I say any
more to you ?”
Hubert leaned eagerly forward. “Yes, yes,”
he cried. “Go on 1 I must know it all—all !
Tell me everything, mother "
“You said you wished the truth,” Mrs.
Egremont moaned faintly.
“I wish the truth,” Hubert answered. “By


184 A Splendid Sin.
that we live. Go on, go -on l I know it was
well, mother l’”
“He loved me,” the trembling woman went
on. “He loved me, and he told me so. I
loved him, and I denied it. I thought it was
wrong to love ; I thought it was right to con-
ceal the truth. But he found it out in spite
of me. “We needs must love the highest when
we see it,” he used to say, and—I loved him
with all the purest love of my nature. Two
things I longed for—sympathy, and a child.
He gave me sympathy, and he told me mater-
nity was a sacred right and duty of woman-
hood.”
“He said the truth,” Hubert cried, drawing
closer and closer to the trembling mother.
“Till she has borne a child, no woman has
realized her own whole nature.”
“He was beautiful and noble-hearted,” Mrs.
Egremont went on—“a leader among men ; a
teacher and thinker ; and there, in those glo-
rious streets, among those glorious churches,
he taught me new lessons—oh, Hubert, dare I
say them He taught me it was wrong for me
to remain one day longer under the same roof
with the husband whom I loathed—told me in
almost the self-same words as those you used
to-day, that in yielding myself up to a man I
despised, I profaned and dishonored my own
body.”
“Dear mother,” the son said, “go on 1 I


A Great Confession. 185
| "
know all now ; but tell it me ; tell it me
His voice was eager.
Mrs. Egremont hid her head, overcome with
womanly shame. “He told me,” she whis-
pered, “I ought to trust my own heart, and
defy conventions. He said the bond that bound
me to that man was cruel and unholy. He
spoke so earnestly, he loved me so purely,
that, bit by bit he overcame my scruples. I
could not conceal it from myself or from
him. I loved him to distraction.”
Hubert smoothed her hand with a gentle
pressure, but answered nothing.
“One evening at Venice,” the mother contin-
ued, “he pressed me close to his heart—his
great beautiful heart—oh, close, so close ; and
he cried aloud to me, in a sense I had never
before realized, those beautiful words, “Whom
God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder.' The voice of God within us had
joined us, he said ; man's laws and conventions
should not avail to sever us.”
“I know that voice, too,” Hubert cried, lean-
ing forward. “I know those very thoughts.
They are mine, mother, mine ! I see the truth
now. He must have been my father—that
pure great soul, not the wretched drunkard.
I recognize his spirit ! Am I his son, dear
mother ?”
He said it caressingly. He said it eagerly.
He said it as one asks some supreme favor.


I86 A Splendid Sin.
Mrs. Egremont bowed her head, and dared
not look him in the face as her lips answered
low, “How shall I tell you the truth P You are
his son, Hubert 1"
“And his name 2" Hubert cried, pressing
forward breathlessly.
“I can't say it aloud,” the mother replied,
still trembling with anxiety ; “but—stoop
down here—closer—at your ear—I will whis-
per it.”
She whispered one word in his ear. Hubert
started, amazed. It was indeed a great name.
“What, the poet?” he cried, gasping.
His mother hung her head with a gesture of
deprecation. “Yes, the poet,” she answered.
In a revulsion of pride and joy, Hubert
clasped her in his arms, and kissed her many
times ecstatically. “Thank you, mother,” he
said simply. “Thank you ! Thank you ! ”
“Oh, hush, Hubert,” the mother interposed.
“Suppose any one were to hear ! Don't
thank me for that 1 It was a sin they say, a
very great sin—and bitterly am I expiating it.”
“It was a splendid sin,” Hubert cried cling-
ing fondly to her hand, “ and from my heart I
thank you for it. Such sins are purer far than
half this world's purity. It is love—and nat-
ural fitness—not the word of a priest or a law,
that sanctifies. And the result shows it. To
be that great soul's son—not the loathsome
drunkard's l’’


A Great Confession. 187
“My darling,” Mrs. Egremont cried, now
weeping bitterly with the reaction from that
moment of effort, “you frighten me when you
say so. You don't know what pangs and re-
morses it has given me.”
“It need have given you none,” Hubert ex-
claimed. “It gave you them only because you
but half understood him. Your heart told you
true. Your poet was right. He knew what
was best. You have given me a noble and a
glorious father | "
The mother clung to him still. “Oh, Hu-
bert,” she cried, “if you say so, my boy, I am
justified. He wanted to raise up a son like
himself, he said. He wanted to raise him up
by the woman meant for him. He told me we
two were meant by nature for one another.
But I doubted it still. You can't think what
a relief it is to me now to have told you.”
“I trust the truth,” Hubert answered slowly.
“It is all so new and strange ; but "-and he
paused—“this, this is the father I had always
dreamed of.”
“And I told you the truth,” Mrs. Egremont
added wistfully. “I told you the truth, as far
as I could tell it. Far more than you thought.
I told you he was dead. I told you he was in-
deed a father to be proud of. I told you he
had many great and splendid qualities. I told
you half : but I could never tell you how great
and pure he was—my love, my poet !”


I88 A Splendid Sin.
“Does my uncle know 7" Hubert ventured,
after a moment's pause.
“Not a soul on earth but myself I have
hidden it in my heart—deep, deep, unspoken
—ever since that white soul died ten years ago
in Florence. But—I loved him—I loved him
—oh, Hubert, how I loved him ' "
She raised her head and looked her son in
the face now. The knowledge of his approval
had taken all sense of false shame away from
her. It was his father's face. More than
ever, she saw it so.
“And that man—your husband 2" Hubert
asked. “The man to whom you were nobly un-
faithful. Did he know what had happened 7”
“He never even suspected it,” Mrs. Egre-
mont answered. “He was far too drunk to
know or to trouble himself about anything that
happened. I left him at once as soon as—as
soon as I was sure what was going to happen
to me ; as soon as I felt a new life within me.
And you are the son of that moment of pro-
foundest passion 1"
She said it confidently now ; she said it al-
most proudly. She saw, she felt the father in
the son. She no longer shrank from him.
“Then all is easy now,” Hubert cried. “I can
marry Fede.”
His mother flung her arms round him in a
transport of joy. “I thank heaven I have had
the courage to tell you,” she whispered. “You


A Great Confession. 189
can marry Fede. I would never have dared to
tell it, though, my darling, if I had not over-
heard what you said the other night in this very
room to your uncle. I have thought so often
since of those glorious words you quoted from
Meredith—“The real sin would have been if she
and I had met, and—' They comforted me
deeply. So too did your own comment :
‘There are positive duties in life as well as neg-
ative. If it is a duty to abstain from peopling
the world with the unfit, is it not equally a
duty to do what we can towards peopling it
with the fittest ?’” And she looked at him
proudly.
There was another long pause. Each gazed
on each with profound earnestness. “And
you forgive me 2" the mother asked at last,
with a momentary shrinking.
“Forgive you? Dear mother, I have noth-
ing to forgive | I have everything to thank
you for. You took care to ensure me a splen-
did birthright. One thing alone I regret.”
He gazed at her wistfully. “I shall have to
bear that wretched creature's name through
life,” he said—“instead of the one I am right-
fully entitled to.”
“You will,” his mother said—“for my sake.
- And for yours, I regret it.”
“So do I,” Hubert answered. “But I will
bear it still, for your sake alone—not for fear
of the base lies that enslave and unman us.”


Colonel Egremont Sees his Way. 191
CHAPTER XIV.
COLONEL EGREMONT SEES HIS WAY.
HE had a cigar in his mouth, but he with-
drew it jauntily.
“Forgive this persistence,” he said, smiling.
“Family feeling ! Family feeling ! Restitu-
tion of conjugal rights is all I ask for. And—
I’ve ventured to take it. When you locked
me out of the door, my dear Julia, with such
unnatural cruelty—you forgot it was easy for
me to come in by the window.”
Mrs. Egremont seized her son's arm. “Oh,
Hubert,” she cried, low, “ did he hear, do you
think P Did he hear us 2"
“I don't fancy he did,” Hubert answered,
whispering. “And if he did, I don't care.
He is a drunken lunatic, or next door to it.
Nobody would pay the slightest heed to his
chatter.” He turned to the wretched creature.
“Leave the room, sir,” he said, pointing to the
window by which the man had entered, “or
take your choice of being thrown out. I will
permit no insolence.” -
Colonel Egremont advanced a step. “Take


I92 A Splendid Sin.
care, young man,” he cried. “You touch me
at your peril ' "
Hubert was just about to seize him, when
Mrs. Egremont intervened with an imploring
look. “For my sake, Hubert, let him stop !
We can answer him now. We understand
one another, my boy—you and I-and we have
nothing more to fear from him.”
The Colonel stepped forward, looking about
him gingerly. “That Italian brigand's gone 2"
he said, peering round the chairs as if in
doubt. “Yes | Then here we are, en fa-
mille / We can proceed to business l’”
Hubert shuddered at his breath. “He’s
drunk, mother,” he said, low. “He reeks of
brandy.”
“Well, yes,” the Colonel replied, drawing
himself up with dignity, and squinting through
his eyeglass, “I do my duty in the matter of
brandy. I flatter myself, I am the chief sup-
port of that vast industry.”
Then for the first time it began to dawn
upon Hubert that the man's bravado was
an initial stage in the form of madness
known as megalomania, where the lunatic,
at first humorously, but afterwards seriously,
exaggerates to a gross and ludicrous ex-
tent the importance of all his own pettiest
actions.
Mrs. Egremont laid her hand on her son's
arm gently. “Don’t bandy words with him,


I94 A Splendid Sin.
mont—one of the best in Lancashire—all for
nothing? No, no, young fellow, I shall have
my rights, I tell you. She had a tidy little
fortune of her own when I married her.”
“Most of which you've long ago squandered,”
Mrs. Egremont said, interposing.
The Colonel poised himself blandly.
“Well, I've done my best, I acknowledge,” he
said, “to prevent you from wasting it on your
own selfish pleasures. I've used it royally.
Did you ever know me pander for a moment
to the better elements of my nature, Julia 2
Still, we shared and shared alike in both our
fortunes; so that's all even. With all my
worldly goods I thee endowed—fourteen pence
in the pound to compound with my creditors
—and you made up the deficit.”
“Promise him anything, Hubert,” Mrs.
Egremont cried, with a sudden rush of dis-
gust ; “only, get rid of him instantly.”
“I will promise him nothing, mother,” Hu-
bert answered sternly, “and I earnestly hope
you will not either.—Leave the room, sir, this
moment, or I shall ring for the servants of the
hotel to remove you.”
The Colonel struck a mock-tragic attitude.
“Then your sentence is for open war?” he
said rhetorically.
“My sentence is for open war,” Hubert
answered, with a contemptuous dash of the
hand. “I have nothing to do with you. You


196 A Splendid Sin.
twopence—that's Walker ; and it may interest
you to know that I saw his death in the Times
at Lugano."
He played that trump card with an insolent
smile. He had come there, in fact, in large part
to play it. Mrs. Egremont shrank from him.
“But—the other things 2 " she said, hesitating.
The Colonel laughed. “Oh, no,” he answered
quietly. “The public prosecutor isn't going
to rake up old scandals like that at this time
of day just to gratify you, my dear. He's had
more than enough of them. The authorities
prefer to keep those things quiet. Anyhow,
I'll risk it. You shall see me back at Milworth
before long, dear Julia.” And he kissed his
hand to her.
Hubert could stand it no longer. He ad-
vanced and laid his hand on the old scoundrel's
shoulder. “You have said enough,” he mur-
mured, in a very low voice. “Now, go ! We
know your intentions. In my mother's name
I tell you plainly, you shall not have one
penny now, nor one penny ever if you come to
Milworth.” And he pushed him backwards
forcibly towards the balcony.
“Hullo ! What's this 2 " the Colonel cried,
fairly surprised that Hubert should actually
lay hands on him. “You're my son, young
man, remember. Will you assault your
father ?”
“Your son 1" Hubert cried, hardly able to


Colonel Egremont Sees his Way. I97
contain himself. “Your son l’ And he gave
an imploring look towards his mother.
Mrs. Egremont's face was still flushed with
the joy and pride and shame of her confession
to her boy. She could not look at that wretched
Sot who had once been her husband without
the profoundest loathing. Should he call Hu-
bert his son 2 Her whole soul revolted from it.
She rose up and faced him with a sudden
tremulous resolution. “He is not your son,”
she cried, flinging the words defiantly in the
old man's face. “He is the son of ten thousand
times a nobler and better man than you are.”
Hubert let his hand fall. “Now you know
the whole truth,” he said calmly, gazing full at
Colonel Egremont.
The mother sank back on the sofa in a sud-
den revulsion of alarm and terror. What had
she done 7 What had she done 2 What was
this she had said in the impulse of a moment 2
He might publish it to the world ; he might
shame her ; he might ruin her |
But Colonel Egremont drew back, trying to
take it all in with that drunken head of his.
“Not my son | " he muttered slowly. “Ten
thousand times a nobler and better man than
I am | " Then he burst of a sudden into a loud,
harsh laugh. “So that's how things lie, is it?”
he cried, steadying himself by the lintel of the
window. “I see it all now. So you choose
to play my game ! Well tant mieux pour moi!


Colonel Egremont Sees his Way. 199
of as I like, without any restriction. Aha,
young fellow, there I have you on the hip !
So you'd better just compromise. I'm prepared
to negotiate.” He struck a judicial attitude.
“If you can't confine your skeleton to its na-
tive cupboard,” he said, with emphasis, “the
next best thing is to dress it up smart, and
walk out in the Park with it, arm in arm to-
gether, as if you loved it. My proposal is—
I come back to Milworth.”
“What he says is true, Hubert,” Mrs. Egre-
mont murmured low. “He can will the estate
away from you.”
“It seems strange,” Hubert answered,
amazed, “that a man can't inherit his own
mother's property.”
“But in law,” the Colonel cried, catching a
murmur of the words, “an illegitimate son is
not related to his own mother ; and we know
from Blackstone that the law is the perfection
of wisdom | "
Hubert advanced towards him once more.
“This time you must go,” he said firmly. “I
will have no shilly-shallying. We are not
afraid of you. You may do your worst. But
recollect this—if you come to England, you
shall never receive one penny further.”
He made a threatening move forward. The
Colonel, having gained all he wanted for the
moment, retreated strategically before him.
“Well, good morning, Julia,” he said, with a


And Fede 2 2OI
CHAPTER XV.
AND FEDE 2
MRS. EGREMONT sank back on the sofa once
more, terrified. “Oh, what have I done 7"
she cried, clasping her hands. “What have
I done 2 My poor boy, I have ruined you !”
Hubert smoothed her hair once more with
his hand. “Dear mother,” he answered, “you
have done nothing at all. What is Milworth
to me, compared to the relief of knowing after
all I am a great man's son—not that besotted
creature's 2 Even if Milworth were lost, I am
young, and strong, and a Fellow of my college ;
I am far better off than nine men out of ten
who were with me at Oxford. I could earn
enough for myself, and for you and Fede.
But Milworth will not go. He cannot take it.
My grandfather meant it should be yours and
your children's ; the silly phrase about “issue
of her body, lawfully begotten,” is a mere
verbal trick and catchword of the lawyers.
Suppose even he tries to prove his point—what
evidence has he for the matter but your word 2
What corroboration, what witnesses 2 If he


2O2 A Splendid Sin.
goes about talking after so long a lapse of time,
nobody will believe him. He may talk till
he dies, and the whole world will laugh at
him. But he will not talk. His very insanity
will urge him to secretiveness.”
Mrs. Egremont wrung her hands. “Oh,
why did I tell him 2 " she cried, in her reac-
tion. “Why did I tell him 7”
“If you had not told him, I think I should
have been forced to tell,” Hubert answered
calmly. “I could not stand his vile insinua-
tion that I was born of such a father as he is.
Now I know the truth, that imputation shocks
me. Dear mother, you immensely exaggerate
the importance of his threats. He could only
take action after your death, and in case he
survived you. But he will not survive you.
If only you knew the man's state as well as I
do | He's more than half delirious mad
already, and the slightest extra strain will
drive him into an asylum. There he'll die
within six months—and nobody will believe
him.”
“But meanwhile, meanwhile 2" Mrs. Egre-
mont said faintly.
“There is no meanwhile,” Hubert answered.
“He is on the very verge of a nervous break-
down. If he were to try any large issue, the
shock and excitement would kill him instantly.
I handled him gently just now, because, to
say the truth, I was afraid of killing him. For


And Fede 2 2O3
your sake, I didn't wish him to die before your
eyes. His heart is all gone to pieces. You
need not be afraid of him. Now, the next
thing is, I must explain this to Fede.”
“Explain this to Fede 2" Mrs. Egremont
cried, drawing back. “Oh, Hubert, never !”
“I must break it to her somehow, dearest
mother,” Hubert said, leaning over her tenderly.
“But you need not be afraid of her. I feel
sure we can trust her. You see, I must
account somehow for this change of front.
Only an hour ago, I told her I could never,
never marry her. Now, after what I have
learned—that I am the inheritor of a great
man's noble qualities—of course I need no
longer hesitate to take her. And I must give
some reason for my altered attitude.”
Mrs. Egremont clung to him. “But, Hubert,”
she cried passionately, overcome with false
shame, “do you think it is necessary 2 Oh,
darling, wait at least. Take time, take time to
reflect and consider. Don't act precipitately.
How do we know what a young girl like that
may choose to think of it It was different
with you, darling. For one thing, you are my
son ; for another thing, you are a man ; for a
third, you are a philosopher, a thinker, a
reasoner. But—a pure young girl like that
Suppose, when she hears, she were to hate and
despise me 2"
Hubert kissed away her tears. “No, mother,”


2O4 A Splendid Sin.
he said, “no ; now is the moment to act. Now
is the time to tell her. She is waiting anxiously
in your room to know what all this means.
She will willingly embrace any explanation
that makes it possible for me to marry her.
Besides, I feel sure I can depend upon Fede.
I have faith in her faithfulness. She is Italian,
you know, and she understands passion quite
otherwise than our English girls. She is
Oxford-bred, again, and she understands reason
more than most other women. She will take
the story in its true light ; she will, I know—
for she has seen your husband ' "
He rose to call Fede. Mrs. Egremont still
clung to him. “But her father must know
too,” she cried ; “and, oh, Hubert, I could
never bear that Any talk of it would kill me.”
Hubert disentwined her clinging arms gently.
“He need not know,” he answered. “His
point of view is so different. It will be
necessary to say no more to her father than
that, on second thoughts, I find my difficulties
altogether removed, and that no sufficient
obstacle prevents my marrying Fede. That
will satisfy the Marchese. It is all he asks of
me. The property is his aim. To him, this
is merely a matter of business.” He unwound
the clasping arms with difficulty, and moved
over to the door. “Fede,” he called out,
opening it, “Fede l''
By the very sound of his voice, the poor


206 A Splendid Sin.
“And this wretched creature is not your
husband 2 " Fede put in, with a deep flush.
Hubert looked at her earnestly. His face
was grave. “This wretched creature is my
mother's husband,” he said in plain words,
“but not my father. As you are to marry me,
darling, it is well you should know it. You had
faith in me, Fede : I have faith in you.” And
he gazed into her eyes with deep intentness.
Fede drew back, and caught her breath
suddenly.
Mrs. Egremont fell away in turn, and fixed
her gaze on the girl, terrified. “Oh, Fede,”
she cried, “I have shocked you. Do you un-
derstand now 2 Can you—can you ever again
speak to me 2"
“Wait !” Hubert cried. “Let me tell her
all. She must know the whole truth.” He
pointed to the photograph. “That was my
father, Fede,” he said, with deep pride. “The
poet, your father's friend, whom you saw, you
told me, as a child, in Florence ”
Still Fede stood blushing. “My child, my
child,” Mrs. Egremont cried, unable to endure
the suspense any longer, “if you hate me for
it, tell me so " -
Fede turned to her in amaze. “Could I
wish our Hubert to be that other man's son 7"
she answered, wondering.
Mrs. Egremont stretched out wild arms of
passionate yearning towards her. “Then you


And Fede 2 2O7
won't renounce me, Fede 7" she cried, gasp-
ing.
The girl rushed into her embrace and
covered her with hot kisses. “Mother, dear
mother,” she cried, using that sacred name
naturally, “I love you, I love you ! How
sweet of you to trust me ! I loved you from
the very first moment I saw you. I love you
now ten times better than ever.” And she
clung to her in an ecstasy.
“I thanked her for giving me such a father,”
Hubert whispered in her ear. “Do you thank
her, Fede 7”
Fede clasped her to her breast. “I thank
you, dearest,” she murmured, and laid her
hand trustfully on the elder woman's shoulder.
“You have done more for me than that. You
have given me Hubert.”


208 A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COLONEL'S PLANS.
THE Marchese, as Hubert had justly antici-
pated, asked for his part no awkward ques-
tions. He was a man of the world, of the
Italian pattern ; his tolerance was broad. So
long as Hubert announced his intention of
marrying Fede, and salved the slight to the
honor of the Tornabuoni, he felt little inclined
to stir up unpleasant bygones. He made no
comment upon Hubert's volte-face. To let
sleeping dogs lie was the wisdom of his philos-
ophy. So he merely shrugged his shoulders
in his lazy, easy-going, Florentine way, and
remarked that, provided only the Property was
safe, it was no part of a prudent father's busi-
ness to inquire by what curious process of
logic Hubert had come to accept a situation
which one hour before he had declared un-
tenable. “Droll people these English, Fede,”
he said, between the puffs of a cigarette.
“My mother was English ; my wife was Eng-
lish ; my daughter is English ; yet hang me if
after fifty years of knowing them, I understand


The Colonel's Plans. 209
their point of view any better than I did when
I was a lad of twenty.” Nevertheless, though
he said it not, he had his suspicions of the
grounds of action.
So everybody was satisfied—except the
Colonel.
Nay, the Colonel himself strolled away from
that singular interview with a pleasing sense
that things were turning out for him better than
he anticipated. “Even you must feel,” Hubert
said to him, as he disappeared through the
window, “that no good purpose can now be
served by prolonging any further this painful
situation. It is unhappy for us, and humiliat-
ing for you—if anything can humiliate you.”
The Colonel slunk off, ruminating on those
words. He held his head high, however, as
was the wont of his mania. “Oh, pray don't
mention it,” he muttered to himself, in his man-
of-the-world way, as he strolled along the
balcony. “Happy to go, I'm sure. Never
desire to intrude where the pleasure of my com-
pany is not appreciated. Sorry I disturbed
the tranquillity of this charming wedding party.
They're at it already among themselves, by all
that I can see—quarreling like cats and dogs
with one another over the plunder—my
plunder | Very unprincipled lot. Not dis-
pleased to be rid of them. Best intentions in
the world, I'm sure ; only wanted to give them
my paternal blessing—cheap at two hundred,
I4.


The Colonel's Plans. 2 II
the hotel would not trust him. So he sat and
ruminated in a puzzle-headed way, which only
resulted at first in a vague phantasmagoria of
wild possibilities. As his head cleared, how-
ever, and the world came back to him, he
began to form plans. “I shall go to London,”
he said to himself, “if I can get the money.
I've not been in London for more than twenty
years. Absurd that an officer and a gentleman
in my position should be debarred from visit-
ing his own club in Pall Mall, for fear of being
cut short of money by his wife, who doles him
out a pittance as if he were a schoolboy. I've
stood it too long. I'll stand it no longer.”
He paused and mused, drawing figures in
the gravel with his cane as he thought. “I
shall try her by three roads,” he said to himself
once more. “I’ll instruct my solicitor—have
I got a solicitor Never mind, I’ll instruct a
solicitor—some solicitor—any solicitor—all
rogues alike, solicitors—to enter three separate
actions against her. One shall be for Restitu-
tion of Conjugal Rights.” He rolled it on his
tongue. “That'll frighten her. One shall be
for divorce. That'll touch her reputation. One
shall be for declaring this boy of hers illegiti-
mate. “That'll threaten the money. I have
her there on the horns of a trilemma. Good
word, trilemma I Never heard of it before—
suppose I invented it. What an inventive
genius I have, to be sure | But anyhow, I've


2 I 2 A Splendid Sin.
got her on one. If I fail in the divorce, I
score off restitution ; if I draw restitution blank,
I win on illegitimacy. A very pretty trilemma
—heads, I win ; tails, Julia loses ; and edge-
ways, the boy has to go from Milworth. I
wonder whether a trilemma has three horns 2
and, if so, whether they go all three abreast :
or, like the arms of Sicily and the Isle of Man,
which are not arms at all, but really legs, turn-
ing round and round as if they were a bicycle
wheel, with perpetual motion, and always kick-
ing. I fancy the Isle of Man must be a most
unpleasant antagonist. It kicks you circularly.
Well, I'm just like that. Whichever way I
fall, I shall have two good legs firmly fixed on
the ground, and one up to kick with !” And
he hugged himself at the prospect.
A single petty obstacle alone blocked his
way—the temporary tightness of the money
market. He was reduced by this time to one
or two nickel sous of the Swiss Republic—
which is an insufficient provision for a journey
to London and three expensive lawsuits. On
this question of ways and means, therefore, the
Colonel ruminated long. “One should always
be a gentleman,” he said to himself, reflectively,
“and I've always been a gentleman. How
does a gentleman behave when he finds him-
self, accidentally, hard up at an inn, through
the remissness of his family —what somebody
calls their unremitting kindness 2 Why, he


The Colonel's Plans. 213
explains to the landlord, and borrows a trifling
sum for current expenses. I'll explain to the
landlord. And I'll borrow a trifling sum—that
is to say, if he'll lend it me.”
He rose from the garden seat and moved
towards the steps. / “Concierge ' " he called
out with ridiculous dignity. -
“Monsieur 2 " ſhe concierge said, raising his
head without quitting his box for the shabby
visitor.
“I desire speak with the proprietor,”
Colonel Egremont went on, with aristocratic
hauteur. º
“Certainly, sir,” the concierge answered,
and went in search of him.
The proprietor came out with that singular
mixture of deference and rudeness which pro-
prietors of hotels keep specially laid on for
undesirable guests. “Monsieur 2 " he said
blandly.
The Colonel drew himself up, and played
his best card first. “I’m a disreputable old
party for a hotel like this,” he observed insin-
uatingly. “A vaurien. A bummeln. Is it
not so, Herr Proprietor "
The proprietor bowed. “Monsieur plai-
Sante,” he murmured, rubbing his hands du-
biously.
“Not at all,” the Colonel replied, glancing
down at his shabby coat. “Honor bright, I
mean it. I'm no recommendation, no recom-


2I6 A Splendid Sin.
Egremont,” he said firmly, laying one hand on
his shoulder, and holding up a monitory fore-
finger of the other, “the landlord tells me
you've tried to borrow money. You know
very well if you borrow it from him, you can
never repay him. I've told him as much and
warned him against lending it to you. As for
Hubert and Julia, they have made their minds
up never to let you have another penny.
You've brought that on yourself, by coming
here against orders and your own written agree-
ment. And you've caused no end of bother,
and trouble as well, in an innocent family,
whose only crime is the fact that it happens to
have you for a husband and father. I approve
of their decision. But for myself, as I desire
to get rid of you at once, I'm prepared to lend
you a small sum—five pounds—to clear out
with immediately, provided you engage to go
straight back to Lugano to-day, and show your
face here no longer. Do you understand, and
do you promise 2"
He held an English five-pound note be-
tween finger and thumb, and extended it tenta-
tively. The sight of so much money was
tempting indeed to a thirsty man. It repre-
sented some dozens of brandy, and meant,
among other things, a drink immediately.
Colonel Egremont did not hesitate. Visions
of cognac and a syphon of soda floated before
his eyes. His finance and his diplomacy were


The Colonel's Plans. 217
both from hand to mouth. He would accept
anything, and promise anything, for a mo-
mentary advance. One can always lie and
break one's word afterwards. His fingers
closed over the crisp paper eagerly. “I’ll
clear out at once, Rawson,” he answered, “as
soon as I've had a drink.” But he had no
more intention of returning to Lugano than of
returning the money.
He fortified himself for the way with a
strong glass or two of brandy. Then, certain
that nothing more was to be obtained from his
wife or Hubert for the present, he set off on
foot in the direction of Meyringen, carrying,
as usual, his whole wardrobe with him. But
he only walked as far as the very next village.
There he ordered a post-cart to Lucerne with
the air of a duke, and lolled back in it luxuri-
ously, like a born Bashaw. For nobody could
accuse Colonel Egremont of not spending his
money royally when he got it. He wasted it
while it lasted, and then begged or borrowed
with a mind at ease till the arrival of his next
remittance.
He slept well at the Schweitzerhof : why
try a worse house It was his intention to
proceed next day to England.
But he would do nothing rash. He would
keep his own counsel. As Hubert anticipated,
he had reached the secretive stage of insanity.
Arrived in London, he would consult a solici-


218 A Splendid Sin.
tor; till then, not one word would he say to
any one. Better lock up the great secret in his
own safe breast, till he could trumpet it forth
in court—“This woman was unfaithful.” He
hugged himself at the prospect of that humili-
ating disclosure. If Julia got wind of his in-
tention too soon, she might manage to evade
him. But he would make his case sure, and
then burst upon her like a thunderbolt. Ha,
ha, ha, what a triumph ! That bastard should
never be the heir of Milworth !
He whistled it to himself as he drove and
lolled. Bastard 1 bastard I bastard ' bastard |
He lingered on the word. But nature's
bastards, as Hubert knew well, are the chil-
dren of loveless and ill-assorted unions.


At Milworth Manor. 2I9
CHAPTER XVII.
AT MILWORTH MANOR.
WHILE the hoary old reprobate was matur-
ing his plans, Hubert and his bride were pursu-
ing theirs quietly. Early in November, the
Marchese and Fede sat in Mrs. Egremont's
comfortable drawing-room at Milworth Manor,
Devonshire.
“There is no reason,” Hubert had said in
Switzerland, “why Fede and I should not be
married immediately.”
As for the Marchese, he entirely reciprocated
that view. He was quite convinced that, in
his own parlance, Fede had got hold of “a good
thing ” in England. The young man was eli-
gible. But, with a person so apparently capri-
cious and fanciful as Hubert, the Italian pre-
ferred to see everything signed, sealed and
delivered outright with full legal formalities.
“Marry them out of hand,” was his plan for
the young people. The wedding, it was ar-
ranged, should take place (as Cecco had wisely
surmised) at the end of November in London.
Meanwhile, the Marchese and Fede were to


22O - A Splendid Sin.
visit Mrs. Egremont for a fortnight at her home
in Devonshire.
The Marchese was by no means disappointed
in the property. A Georgian house in a big
domain exactly suited him. He stood at the
bay window of the square brick mansion, look-
ing down upon the valley of the little stream
that ran in esses below, admiring the rich
green pastures, dotted with ruddled sheep, and
the wedge-shaped glen that opened through
red cliffs to the purple sea of the South Hams
of Devon.
“Isn't it lovely, papa,” Fede exclaimed,
touching his arm—“this beautiful park, and
those glorious old oak trees 2 ”
The Marchese took it all in with a compre-
hensive glance. “Excellent grass land, my
dear,” he answered, “and most valuable timber!”
“And these sweet hills and dales | " Fede
cried once more. “And the darling fallow-
deer huddled together on the ground under
the big horse-chestnuts ; and the river that
flows in such a curve at the bottom ; and the
gardens and the lawn / Oh, Hubert, it's lovely 1”
Hubert beamed his joy. “I’m so glad you
like it,” he said, smiling. “I was afraid after
Italy—”
Fede cut him short. “Oh, no,” she an-
swered, “Italy's a picture-gallery; but Eng-
land's a garden.”
“The river bounds your estate, I suppose,


At Milworth Manor. 22 I
Mrs. Egremont ?” the Marchese observed, with
an underlying note of interrogation in his voice
which meant inquiry as to the exact extent of
the Property.
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Egremont said, pointing
vaguely with one hand toward the hills of the
horizon, “we go beyond it, Marchese—to the
top of the ridge where you see the red plowed
fields there.”
“So 2" the Marchese repeated. His respect
for the family into which Fede was marrying
rose visibly each moment. “And in the other
direction ?”
“In the other direction,” Hubert said, “we
go up to the summit of the down that you came
over from the station.”
“Indeed ' " the Marchese answered. “A
very handsome Property. Fede, my dear,
you'll have room to walk about in, I fancy.”
“Everything's delicious !” Fede said, en-
chanted ; “the house and grounds, and the dear
old red church, and the rookery with the elms,
and the winding river. Did you ever see a house
so pretty as this, papa 2 I don't mean outside—
though even outside the creepers make it all
so snug and cosy—but this charming hall and
this delightful, comfortable English drawing-
room 2"
“My dear,” the Marchese interposed, “I see
in this taste of yours the finger of Providence.
It's lucky you're going to marry an Englishman,


224 A Splendid Sin.
The Marchese shrugged his shoulders. “At
Naples,” he said, “they produce opera and
cholera ; at Florence, Michael Angelo, typhoid,
and Dante. I grant you all you ask. You
are the cleanest and the best-drained nation in
Europe. I only suggest that main drainage is
not everything : to be merely clean does not
sum up in itself the whole gospel of per-
fection.”
Sir Emilius was dumfounded. When a
foreigner found anything to criticise in England,
he set it down at once to envenomed envy.
Mrs. Egremont interposed to save Sir Emil-
ius's wounded feelings. “Look at my Bot-
ticelli, Marchese,” she said ; “that charming
Madonna | It's a sweet thing, isn't it 2 You
see, we are not wholly given over to Re-
bekahs 1”
The Marchese scanned it attentively. “A
school piece, I should say,” he answered after
a pause ; for he was a bit of a connoisseur :
“not a genuine work of the master.” He had
more than one specimen of his great country-
man's handicraft on his own walls in Florence.
“I bought it as a Botticelli,” Sir Emilius said
warmly, “and gave it to my sister. I believe
it's genuine. I know I paid a genuine price
for it.” -
Pictures, unfortunately, were the one object
on earth for which the Marchese did not accept
a money value as ultimate. “Botticelli as im-


i At Milworth Manor. 225
ported, perhaps,” he replied, with a smile and
a doubtful accent. “The Botticelli of com-
merce. Not the sort of article we consume in
Florence.”
“Why shouldn't we go out for a stroll in the
grounds, Hubert P” Fede put in, apprehensive.
“The morning's so lovely.”
“And yet, I'm sorry you should see Milworth
first in November fogs,” Hubertanswered, with
a darted glance. “It looks so different, you
know, when the leaves are on the oaks and the
rhododendrons in the shrubbery are one blaze
of crimson.”
“If it's so lovely now,” Fede replied, “I
don't know what it can be in the green and
purple of summer. But, indeed, could it be
lovelier than the dappled gold of the autumn
tints on the beeches, and the blood-red of the
maple trees 2 And those mists over the river,
how mysterious they are ; how soft 1 I love
the elusiveness of English outlines.”
“Then run and put your hat on, dear,” Mrs.
Egremont said, looking at her affectionately.
“We'll take you round the place and show
you where all the wild flowers grow in spring.
Not even the banks of the Arno in May are
lovelier, Fede, than our Milworth woods when
the bluebells and primroses carpet the slopes,
or when the foxgloves marshal their ranks in
great regiments in August.”
The Marchese lingered near the door as if
I5


At Milworth Manor. 227
himself. “Ay, that's just it : a joint of meat
Your national fetish Precisely my con-
tention.”
“And our London dinner-parties,” Sir Emil-
ius went on, growing warmer as he proceeded.
“The best in the world. What have you
to say about our London dinner-parties 2"
“Exhibitions of food,” the Marchese replied
in a conciliatory tone. “And as such, no doubt,
admirable. Material evidences of your nation-
al prosperity. The finished form of your famous
cattle shows. One shows the raw product, the
other the manufactured article. But for cook-
ery, my dear Sir Emilius"—he expanded his
palms and raised his shoulders—“excuse my
incredulity.”
Fede led him away gently to avoid further
complications. The Italian and the English-
man were as oil and vinegar.
“Remarkable the blindness of these Foreign-
ers,” Sir Emilius observed, as the door closed
behind them. “Brought up on macaroni, sour
wine and frittura, they don't understand a
good piece of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
when they see it ! Most singular, really ”
And he strolled out into the hall for his hat
and umbrella—the latter a talisman which he
carried through life with religious exactitude,
in no matter what climate.
Hubert and Mrs. Egremont were left alone,
awaiting their guests' return to go out into the


Private Inquiry. 23 I
chance that the wife would pay) had backed it
at an extravagant rate of interest for a few
pounds of ready money. With the capital
thus obtained, the Colonel had proceeded to
rig himself out in a suit of clothes fit for a
gentleman ; and if you had met him in Bond
Street in a shiny silk hat and a long black frock
Coat the day before, you might almost have
taken him at first sight for what he had once
been—an officer and a gentleman.
Colonel Egremont had not come down to
Milworth alone. He brought his suite along
with him. As he sat in the library awaiting
Hubert's arrival, he turned to the solemn-
looking young man in a respectable black suit
who had accompanied him from London.
“Now remember, Fletcher,” he said, in his
most impressive voice, gazing at him through
the eyeglass, “you come as my valet. Every
gentleman of position must have a valet. And
I'm not going to stand any damned nonsense
in this house, I can tell you. Why doesn't the
young jackanapes hurry up 2 Eh P eb 2 Is
this the sort of way to treat a person who has
borne Her Majesty's commission ?”
The private detective whom he addressed
as Fletcher looked at his employer suspiciously.
Suspicion is part of the legitimate stock-1n-
trade of a private detective. It is the armor
of the profession. And this particular client
was a peculiarly shady one. In the first place,


232 A Splendid Sin.
he had not deigned to confide to his employe
the nature of the errand upon which he was
coming. He merely remarked, with airy
generality, that he was going down to Devon-
shire, and wished to watch a house where his
wife was living. “ Divorce 7" the private
detective suggested gently. But the Colonel
shook his head with austere disapprobation.
“What's that to you, young fellow !” he
said. “You mind your own business.” He
had the exaggerated secretiveness of the semi-
insane, the private detective fancied ; indeed,
even to his lawyer and his money-lender he
had only confided so much of his suspicions
as would enable him to raise the sinews of war
for this important expedition. The detective
at first more than half suspected some attempt
at burglary, and as it is the first duty of every
intelligent private inquiry agent to look after
Number One, he was prepared to keep a close
watch of his own upon the very man who was
paying him to keep a close watch upon others.
Besides, the employer was clearly more than.
half mad, so Fletcher also kept an eye upon
him as a possible lunatic. Anyhow, there was
something to be got out of the job. His chief
business was, to draw his salary and to see that
his chief got him into no serious trouble.
Hubert did not hurry to go into the library.
It was not his policy to flatter Colonel Egre-
mont's idea of his own importance, or to show


Private Inquiry. 233
such signs of fear as might perhaps be im-
plied by too hasty an entrance, so he loitered
purposely. The Colonel fumed and fretted.
“Disgraceful, Fletcher, disgraceful ' " he said,
pacing up and down with uncertain steps, like
One who feels his legs after a casual tumble.
“I’m the master of this house—the lord of
Milworth Manor—and yet, I'm to give way to
a whipper-snapper of a boy, who has no more
right in the place than you—nor half as much,
if it comes to that, for I have brought you here
—and he keeps me waiting his pleasure in
this abominable fashion. A conceited upstart |
A blithering idiot A cad of an interloper |
But I shall make him smart for it.”
“Perhaps he's out,” Fletcher suggested
calmly.
“No, he isn't,” the Colonel answered, “for
I heard his voice in the drawing-room as we
came in. You see, I'm master here, and I
know the place well. This room is the library;
then outside there's the entrance hall, where
we passed ; and behind it, the drawing-room.
To the right my wife's boudoir ; to the left the
billiard-room.” He rose and walked about,
examining the pictures and furniture. “Very
little altered either,” he went on, gazing around.
“The same old bookcases, the same old water-
colors, the same old sermons in dusty calf, the
same old view from the big front window.
No flies on that view, Fletcher. One of the


234 A Splendid Sin.
best in Devonshire. Time writes no wrinkles
on its azure brow.” He assumed his grandiose
air. “Devilish fine house,” he went on.
“Always was a fine house. And my wife
has just modernized and aestheticized it a
trifle.”
“Good portrait, the young man in uniform,”
Fletcher observed, glancing up at it.
“Good portrait 2 You think so *" the
Colonel answered, gazing at it affectionately.
“Well, it was considered very like at the time
it was taken. It's one of Watts's earliest. I
sat for that—let me see—it must be close on
thirty years ago.”
“You sat for it 2" the detective said incred-
ulously, glancing from one to the other.
“Why, that can't be you.” He had graver
doubts than ever of his employer's sanity.
“It is, though,” the Colonel replied, hold-
ing his head on one side and admiring it un-
affectedly. “I was an innocent young chap
then, wasn't I eh 2 before I blossomed out into
the hoary old reprobate. I quite agree with
you, I, do look a young milksop ! We know
what we are, as Ophelia says, but we know
not what we may be. Hang it all, when I sat
for that portrait, Fletcher, to give my wife
before I married her, I didn't think I should
ever be kept waiting by a whipper-snapper of
a sawbones in my own house till he found it
convenient to himself to come to me. Dis-


Private Inquiry. 235
graceful, I call it, to a retired officer | If the
fellow don't make haste, I'll go and drag
him.”
“I wouldn't if I were you,” the private in-
quirer put in. “Legal methods are safest.
'Tis the great First Principle of private inquiry.”
“Legal methods !” the Colonel responded,
in his largest style, swelling visibly before his
eyes like bread when it rises. “Why, who's
got a legal right to be here if it isn’t me, I
should like to know 2 Eh, eh? What do
you make of it 2 This house is mine—and
the park—and the manor.” He waved his
hands about and moved over to the window.
“Why, damn it all, there's the whipper-
snapper,” he cried, looking out at Hubert—
“over there by the clump of evergreens, with
that Italian girl of his. In my grounds, too !
By George, what insolence "
He opened the French window slightly, so
that he could catch what was passing. Hubert
was speaking rather low. “I must go in for
a while, dear,” he said. “Somebody wants
to see me. But mother will show you round
the garden and grounds, and I'll come out
again as soon as I can and meet you.”
“Will you?” the Colonel ejaculated in an
undertone. “Oh, will you really Not if I
know it, my young friend. Once I catch you,
I keep you.”
He spoke in a thick but excited voice, which


Private Inquiry. 239
—he addressed the servant--" that I'm the
master of this house ; the lord of the Manor of
Milworth ; and when I come again, I expect
you to obey me. Do you understand 2" He
tapped his chest. “I'm your master, sir—
your master l’’
“Yes, sir; certainly, sir,” Reece replied,
with the same stolid indifference. It was no
part of his duty to be rude to the intruder.
“Then why do you take me to the gate 2"
the Colonel exclaimed, as Hubert stood at the
door to watch him retreat from it.
“Because them's my orders,” Reece said, in
the same official tone. “You may be my
master—but I'm engaged by Mrs. Egremont.”
“And I'm her husband, fellow,” the Colonel
cried, trying to stop, turn round, and face
him.
Reece drove the obnoxious visitor before
him down the avenue as he would have driven
a cow or a flock of sheep. “Yes, sir; so I
hear, sir,” he assented, never pausing for a
moment. “And young Mr. Egremont's orders
is to see Mrs. Egremont's husband safe off the
premises; and I'm obeying them, sir; beg
your pardon.”
There was no withstanding this stolid unim-
pressionable devotion to duty. If the last day
had intervened, Reece would still have con-
tinued ejecting the Colonel, till force majeure
compelled him to desist. The Colonel recog-
--------


Victory. 243
and even when he succeeded, his equilibrium
was most unstable. “I’m run down, Fletcher,”
he said, with a glance at the flask. “Want
winding up a bit. And here's the watch-key !”
He poured himself out a small glass of brandy,
and drank it off in meditative abstraction.
“What's the next move 2" the detective
asked. This odd situation piqued his curiosity.
Colonel Egremont passed him the glass with
a polite gesture of invitation. “Have a wind-
up 2" he asked. “What ; no 2 Blue ribbon 2
I hope not. Ah, don't want a drink just now
Then we'll proceed to business.”
He steadied himself on the fence with con-
siderable difficulty. Turning round towards
his satellite, he began again slowly. “Fletch-
er,” he inquired, in an impressive voice, “do
you know anything about divorce 7"
The detective smiled a contemptuous smile.
“Do I know anything about it 2 " he repeated,
with sarcastic emphasis. “Do I - know my
own business 2 Divorce is bread and butter
to me—board, lodging and washing. Why,
I've supported a wife and family on divorce—
four strapping little youngsters, as fine as they
make 'em.”
“Well, wherever there's an intrigue—” the
Colonel began, in a tentative voice.
“In my experience,” Fletcher broke in,
“there is always an intrigue.” And he spoke
with confidence.


244 A Splendid Sin.
“There will probably be letters,” the Colonel
went on, without noticing the interruption.
“In 1ny experience,” the private inquirer
repeated pointedly, “there are always letters.”
Colonel Egremont hesitated. With the
natural secretiveness of the half-insane, he did
not wish to blurt out more of his case than
necessary. “But if an intrigue happened long
since,” he said ; “many years ago, for instance
—say twenty or more—would the letters be
kept, or would the possessors burn them 2"
The detective answered with the certainty
given by long habituation to the ways of human
nature. “A man lets 'em lie about, or loses
'em, or burns 'em ; a woman keeps 'em.”
“Always keeps them, Fletcher ?”
“Invariably keeps 'em.”
“For twenty-four years ?”
“For the term of her natural life. Till she
dies, or somebody else gets 'em.”
The Colonel let himself down with difficulty
from his perch. His control of his limbs was
evidently precarious. He braced himself up
for a supreme effort. “Then come along,” he
said shortly. “I’m going for those letters "
The detective paused and hung back. “To
the house again?” he inquired, with apparent
unwillingness.
“Not by the front way,” Colonel Egremont
answered. “I shall take another. Remember,
I'm master here, Fletcher ; I know the estate


Victory. 245
and all the ways of it. We'll stroll in by the
shrubbery and the library window, without
passing the lodge, or ringing the bell, or trying
the front door. There's a side path yonder.
Why, man, I could find the road anywhere
about here in the dark. It's the same as
twenty years ago, only just grown up a bit.”
Fletcher drew back once more. “I don't
quite like the look of it,” he said ; “it’s too
near a shave of burglary.”
“Now, you look here, young man,” the
Colonel broke out, in his most paternal tone ;
“there's nothing to be afraid of. I'm master
here, and I mean to be respected. I'm the
lady's husband, and you saw they admitted it.
A man may visit his own wife's house, mayn't
he 2 If he can't, what's the law for, and res-
titution of conjugal rights, I ask you? I don't
want you to help me. I don't ask you to come
in. I only ask you to watch outside and let
me know if anybody else is coming. When
they turn up, you can cough ; and I'll promise
to see you safely through with it.”
“What I want to know,” the detective said
doggedly, is, what's this job 7 Is it divorce or
isn't it 2 Do you suspect your wife, or do you
want her money 2"
The Colonel temporized. “I suspect my
wife,” he answered, “ of hopeless respecta-
bility. Though, of course, when a man's been
away from home for twenty-four years, why,


Victory. 247
matted underfoot, and completely over-arched
by horse-chestnut and lilac bushes. Still
walking very erect, the Colonel approached
the library window, which he had left half-
open when they quitted it an hour before. He
stalked in with some remnant of a military
tread, in spite of his paralysis. Still Fletcher
followed him. The Colonel's manner grew
more grandiose at each step ; he entered the
drawing-room, and looked haughtily about
him. Then he drew out his flask again.
“What are you up to ?” the detective asked,
in a warning voice.
“Only just going to oil the machinery a
bit,” Colonel Egremont replied with a wink ;
and he proceeded to oil it ; after which, he
reflected that winking was undignified, and
drew himself up still more stiffly than ever.
The detective looked alarmed. “Well, the
Sooner you get to work now,” he said, “the
better. If it's letters you want, do you know
where to find them 2 '' -
“Yes,” the Colonel mused slowly, like one
talking in his sleep. “In my wife's boudoir
There was an escritoire there—if they haven't
modernized and aestheticized it out of existence
—in which she used always to keep her most
private correspondence. It may be there still ;
. . and again it may not.”
He doddered as he talked, but his smile
was a smile of ineffable cunning. He moved


248 A Splendid Sin.
towards the door. “If anyone comes,” he said,
turninground, “cough! I'll manage everything.”
“Look here,” Fletcher said again, “are you
going to open this escritoire, or are you not 2
For if you do, that's burglary.”
The Colonel waved his hand. “I tell you,”
he answered, with some impatience, “I’m well
within my rights. I'm master in this house,
and I can do what I like in it. I shall find
that woman out. Yes, I'm going to open it.”
“Well, have you anything to open it with,
then 2" the cautious detective inquired, more
practically. He spoke in a whisper.
Colonel Egremont produced a small skeleton
key. “I have this,” he answered.
“Good | " the detective replied, with a sat-
isfied nod. “Not such a fool as he looks
D. T., no doubt: but still the lady may have
letters for all that.—Well, you'd better make
haste. I don't half like the hang of it.”
The Colonel nodded and disappeared.
Fletcher gazed after him with a dubious glance.
“He’s the oddest client I ever had,” he mur-
mured to himself. “I don't know what to think
of him. If he's a burglar, he's made me an
accessory before the fact ; if he's not a burglar,
he comes about as near being a lunatic as any
one I ever had the pleasure of serving. He's
a mystery, that's what he is. Anyhow, I've got
to keep an eye on him. After all, Number
One stands first on the register | "


Victory. 25 I
of his class. He did not think of the slight
upon his honor, as people phrase it ; he rejoiced
to know he could be revenged on Julia. She
had kept him all those years on the Continent
out of his own. Now, his heel was on her
neck, and he would crush her, crush her
And that bastard upstart, who turned him out
to-day ! He would turn him out in turn—to
beg or starve by the wayside
As he read and read, Fletcher coughed in
the next room. For a minute or two the Colo-
nel, now flushed with victory, hardly noted
the signal ; but when the detective coughed
again, somewhat more loudly than before, he
recollected with an effort, and bundling up the
letters loosely in his hand, staggered out into
the drawing-room.
Staggered visibly now ; Fletcher noticed
the change as he entered the room again.
“Well, what's up 2" the Colonel inquired,
with an air of suppressed triumph.
The detective pointed to the park. “They're
coming this way,” he said; “young Mr. Eg-
remont and some ladies and gentlemen.”
“That's my wife " the Colonel cried ex-
citedly, pointing towards her. “I’ve got her
under my foot I've found what I wanted,
Fletcher | I've found what I wanted ' " He
flourished the letters over his head, and then
thrust them hastily here and there into his
pockets. “And that's the Italian brigand by


252 A Splendid Sin.
her side,” he went on ; “and that's the young
jackanapes who's taken my place, and the girl
who thinks it's a fine thing to marry him I
have them all under my thumb l’’ He spoke
with thick, loud accents. “I’ve bested them,
Fletcher | I've bested them And I mean to
make them pay for it.”
The detective looked at him closely. The
Colonel's eye was shot with triumph. Was it
madness or success, the private inquirer won-
dered. Had he really found anything, or was
he suffering from a delusion “Well, you'd
better come away now,” the spy said at last.
“You've got what you want—and they'll be
back in a minute 1"
The Colonel turned to him with fierce ex-
ultation. “Victory ! victory !” he cried. “I've
crushed that woman "
“Then the best thing you can do,” the
detective answered dryly, “is to clear out at
once, before they come back and take the
letters away from you ! ”
“No, no,” the Colonel cried, “I’m in my
own house again, and I'll never clear out of it.”
“Till you go to Colney Hatch,” the detective
murmured inaudibly.
“I’m lord of the manor of Milworth,” the
Colonel went on, blustering. “As fine a place
as any in the county of Devon 1 And now
I'm here, I'd have you to know, I mean to
stop here.”


Victory. 253
“If you've got the letters you want,” Fletcher
urged, with professional common sense, “you'd
better go at once. They're coming back four
strong, and they'll make short work of you
and me, Colonel.”
“No, no,” the Colonel cried, staggering.
“I've found what I wanted, and I'm master of
the situation. J'y, suis, et j'y reste / That's the
word for a soldier. This is my Malakoff,
and I won't stir out of it. Fletcher, I feel like
Nelson at Trafalgar ! I've carried my point
I've trampled on that woman 1"
“Nelson died at Trafalgar, I believe,” the
detective said dryly, trying to lead him away.
The omen appeared to him by no means a
well-chosen one.
The Colonel resisted, and reeled more than
ever. “What's that to a soldier P’’ he cried.
He was quivering with excitement. “What's
death—with victory P Do I care about dying
—at the moment of triumph 2 Wolfe died on
the field ! So did Sidney—and Gordon. I'm
Nelson at Trafalgar. These papers settle all.
If she dares to turn me out, I have her at my
mercy ” He drew them from his pocket
again and brandished them round his head,
“Compromising ! compromising ! They've
settled her ' " he shouted.
“Well, what are they any way ?” the
detective asked, with a quiet smile. If there
was anything to know, he might as well know it.


Victory. 257
and rang it violently. “Electric,” he said,
“electric ; put in without my consent l But
I want some brandy. I'm master in this
house, and, by George, I tell you I shall have
what I want in it.”
He strode up and down fiercely till the bell
was answered. Fletcher in the background
regarded him with cynical indifference. A
young footman came up, not the imperturbable
Reece. He stared at the Colonel in evident
surprise. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said,
stammering. “Did you ring, sir?”
Colonel Egremont turned upon him with a
scowl that made the man tremble. “Yes, I
did ring, jackass,” he said. “I should think
you heard me. I want some brandy.”
The footman hesitated. “I beg your
pardon, sir,” he began. “Mr. Reece, sir,
told me—
The Colonel advanced towards him with a
fierce grimace, brandishing his revolver. “Mr.
Reece may go to hell, fool,” he shouted.
“Do you hear what I say ? Brandy, BRANDY,
BRANDY | "
The man retreated a step or two, and glanced
aside at Fletcher. Fletcher signed to him to
fetch it. A keeper, no doubt ; but still the
man hesitated. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he
said again, “but—I didn't let you in ; and
Mr. Reece gave particular orders—”
The Colonel strode towards him with two
y
17


258 A Splendid Sin.
very long paces, and pointed the revolver.
“I'm master in this house,” he cried, “not
Mr. Reece or Mrs. Egremont. I'm Colonel
Walter Egremont, fellow—late Royal En-
gineers ; and when I give an order, by George,
I expect to be listened to. I'm lord of the
manor of Milworth, and I shall be obeyed in
it. I'm waiting here for your mistress, who
happens to be my wife. And I order you
now to bring me some brandy.”
He glared at the man savagely. The fellow,
cowed and terrified, answered in a feeble
voice, “’Yes, sir; certainly, sir!” and retreated
towards the door. The Colonel glanced after
him. “And mind,” he cried, “if you bring
up that creature Reece instead of bringing the
brandy, I shall put a bullet through that ugly
fat mug of yours. Do you understand, a
bullet—here—out of this revolver. Damned
cheek of the fellow ! That's the way to treat
them | A military man should inspire respect.
And here in my own house I'm an Egremont
of Egremont.”
He prowled about and blustered. The
man-servant came back with a decanter of
brandy, a syphon, and a tumbler. He pre-
sented them, shaking. “The spirit, sir,” he
muttered.
“I see it, idiot,” the Colonel replied.
“What's this for, fool 2" And he snatched
up the syphon derisively. Then, seized with


Victory. 259
a sudden impulse, he pressed the handle and
spurted the contents over the man's morning
livery. “Take that,” he exclaimed, laughing.
He poured himself out half a tumblerful of
spirit, and tossed it off neat. “There ! That
makes a man of me !” he cried. “That washes
out the brain and fortifies the intellect ' I
can face Julia now. By Jove, this is a triumph !
Victory, victory ! I’m Nelson at the Nile !
I'm Wolfe at Trafalgar ! If I don't go mad
with it, soon I shall have them on their mar-
row-bones ' '
“You'll have them pretty quick,” Fletcher
interposed, with a dry smile. “For they're
coming across the lawn there.”
The Colonel raised a loud laugh. “Now to
disinherit that beggar !” he cried, with fierce
joy. “Ha, ha, ha! I shall crush him I
shall trample on him ' "


26o A Splendid Sin.
CHAPTER XX.
HIS TRAFALGAR.
As they passed the drawing-room window,
Mrs. Egremont's eye caught a sudden glimpse
of a man in a gray tweed suit, walking up and
down with evident excitement, and talking
loudly to somebody. His head was so erect,
his mien so soldierly, his dress so much neater
and more gentlemanly than was usual with
Colonel Egremont, that for half a minute the
terrified wife did not recognize her husband.
But Hubert at the same second caught her
arm with a meaning touch. “He’s in there,”
he whispered, in a voice of warning, “Take
them off to the library !”
Mrs. Egremont's face blanched, but she
gave no overt sign of her intense agitation.
As she entered the house, she led Fede and
the Marchese into the room that Hubert sug-
gested, while her son went straight into the
drawing-room to face the Colonel. A minute
later, with some feminine excuse, Mrs. Egre-
mont followed, and confronted the man who
had once been her husband. As for Fletcher,


His Trafalgar. 26I
he had prudently disappeared for the moment
through the open window, and stood watching
the scene with attentive eyes from the clump
of evergreens.
Hubert looked at the sot sternly. “What
do you mean by this return, sir?” he asked.
“Must I drive you out again I told you
already you had no place in this house. I
shall send the servants now for the police to
expel you.”
The Colonel broke into a chuckle of insane
delight. “Don’t try to bully me, sir,” he cried,
in a voice of triumph, “for I'm not going to
stand it. The tables are turned. I have you
now in my grasp I " He stretched out his
right hand and clenched it hard. “And I
mean to grip you,” he continued. “I've come
here to stop, and I'm not going away again in
a hurry, I can tell you. This is my house,
young man ; it shall never be yours. I know
the truth. I have proof of it—proof of it !” He
chuckled hard once more, and clapped his hand
to his pocket. “A poet !” he cried. “A poet !
“Your ever devoted and affectionate Arthur !”
Ha, ha! so you kept them, Julia ;-his letters
—all these years—you kept them "
Mrs. Egremont gave a sudden wild scream
of terror. “My letters | " she cried, darting
forward. “My letters Has that creature
scen them 2"
“Oh, yes, I've seen them,” the Colonel an-


270 A Splendid Sin.
which he handed to his mother. Mrs. Egre-
mont received them without a word, slipped
them into her bosom, and rushed off dis-
tractedly to find the sal-volatile.
Sir Emilius watched his patient with close
attention. “He’s in the very last stage,” he
murmured. “Hold his head up, Hubert |
Suppressed insanity, breaking out all at once.
I've always expected it. He's not fit to be at
large. Send Reece post-haste for any local
doctor. We must sign a committal order, and
get him into an asylum.”
“An asylum,” Mrs. Egremont cried, return-
ing, and just catching the words. “Oh, Mill,
is it that 2 At once 2 At once 2'' A certain
womanly remorse seemed to come over her
for a moment.
“It won't be for long, mother,” Hubert an-
swered, in a soft voice. “He has killed him-
self at last. This collapse is final. I knew it
was coming. Only brandy kept him up. The
excitement of the return, and this scene, have
finished him.”
Sir Emilius was rubbing the Colonel's cold
hands meanwhile. “You’re quite right, Hu-
bert,” he answered, low. “He can't live six
weeks. And meanwhile, he will be nothing
but a helpless imbecile.”
As he spoke, the Colonel's eyes opened, and
he stared about him vacantly. Then he lifted
himself on his elbows, and gazed around with


His Trafalgar. 27I
a distraught air. “I’m the Earl of Devon-
shire,” he muttered feebly. “I’m Duke Nel-
son of Trafalgar.” Then he lost his balance
and fell back, mumbling.
“Take those things off again ” Sir Emilius
said in an authoritative voice to Fletcher.
The detective obeyed, and unfastened the
handcuffs. Colonel Egremont felt his hands
free, and lifted them up with an effort. His
eye caught Sir Emilius’s. “Ha! Rawson,
old boy ' " he mumbled, smiling at him.
“You were always my friend, Rawson. Do
you remember, when we two were boys to-
gether at Winchester, on a half-remedy after-
noon, down by the playing-fields—” He broke
into a fatuous smile, and left off suddenly,
laughing.
Sir Emilius looked at him with compassion-
ate eyes. “Poor fellow ! Poor fellow !” he
said. “He’s all gone to pieces ! He has been
a blackguard all his life, Julia, and he has
treated you like a blackguard. But, 'pon my
soul, when one sees him now, one can't help
pitying him. Tothink atruculent bully should
be reduced to that 1 He needs no asylum
now, my dear. He won't want restraint.
He's past any violence. A good home, where
he can be nursed and tended while he lasts, is
all he will require. Come this way with me,
Egremont,” and Sir Emilius lifted him ten-
derly. “He’d better go to a bedroom, and lie


272 A Splendid Sin.
down and rest for an hour or so. Then I'll
take him off myself to a home that is fit for him.
The collapse, when it comes, is always final.”
The shadow of the Colonel rose feebly and
clutched Sir Emilius's arm. He was smiling
a bland smile. “Yes, I'll go and lie down,”
he said with an abortive laugh. “And then
you'll take me home, Rawson 1 Milworth's
looking nice Fine boy that of Julia's You'll
see me home, I hope. I'm a bit screwed, I
think, and you'll see me home, Rawson, won't
you ? Ha, ha, ha old boy; you and I were
always good chums together, weren't we ?”
He tottered out of the room on the doctor's
arm. Hubert and Mrs. Egremont followed
them silently at a little distance.
“Send Reece to help me up-stairs with him,”
Sir Emilius said, in his quiet way. “He must
rest here for an hour or two ; then Dr. Wills
and I must take him over by road to that nurs-
ing home at Exeter.”
They carried him up-stairs. Outside the
bedroom door Mrs. Egremont broke into a
sudden flood of tears. Hubert led her into
her own room. There she sat down on the
sofa, buried her face in her hands, and cried
to herself in silence.
Hubert seated himself by her side for some
minutes without a word, just smoothing her
cheek with one hand, and holding hers with
the other.


Joan, the Curate
By FLORENCE WARDEN
308 pages, size 7% a 5, dom, 3 stampings, £r.oo
The time of the story is 1748, its scene being along the seacoast of Sussex, England.
The doings here of the “free traders,” as they called themselves, or smugglers, as the
government named them, had become so audacious that a revenue cutter with a smart
young lieutenant in command, and a brigade of cavalry, were sent down to work together
against the offenders. Everybody in the village seems engaged in evading the revenue
laws, and the events are very exciting. Joan is the parson's daughter, and so capable and
useful in the parish that she is called “the curate.” She and the smart young lientenant
are the characters in a romance.—Book Notes, May, 1899.
The author of the once immensely popular “House on the Marsh" turns in her new
story to the Sussex coast as it was in the middle of the last century. The time and the
place will at once suggest smugglers to the observant reader, and, in truth, these gentry
play an important part in the tale.—The Mail and Express, April 11, 1899.
Miss Florence Warden in “Joan, the Curate” (F. M. Buckles & Co.) tells an or-
thodox tale of smugglers in the last century with plenty of exciting adventures and no de-
viations from the accepted traditions of a familiar pattern in fiction.
—N. Y. Sun, May 6, 1899.
“Joan, the Curate” (Joan, a creamy-skinned, blackeyed maiden, gets her surname on
account of the part she plays in helping her father, Parson Langley, with his duties), is a
village tale of *: smuggling days on the wild marsh coast of Kent and the equally lonely
cliffs of Sussex. The village is a hot-bed of these daring “free-traders,” even the parson
and his daughter are secretly in sympathy with them, and young Lieutenant Tregenna,
who is in command of the revenue cutter sent to overawe the natives, has anything but a
comfortable task to perform. His difficulties only increase when he falls in love with Joan
and discovers her leanings towards the illegalities of the village, and when, at the same
time, the audacious leader of the smugglers, Ann Price, who carries on her trade disguised
as a man, falls in love with him herself, the complications are almost bewildering. The
story moves through countless adventures, sanguinary, fights, and lovers' quarrels to the
conventionally happy ending and the partial return of the fishermen to honest ways.
—Book News, May, 1899.
At all booksellers or will be sent,
postpaid, upon receipt of price by
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPANY"
9-11 East 16th Street, New York


The Good Mrs. Hypocrite
By “RITA”
284 pages, size 7% + 5, cloth, 3 stampings, $1.oo
“Good Mrs. Hypocrite.” A study in self-righteousness, is a most enjoyable
novel by “Rita.” It has little of plot, and less of adventure, but is the study of
a single character and a narration of her career. But she is sufficiently unique to
absorb the attention, and her purely domestic experiences are quite amusing. She
is the youngest daughter of a Scotch family, angular as to form and sour as to fea-
ture. She had an aggressive manner, was selfish, and from girlhood set herself
against all tenderness of sentiment. Losing her parents, she tried her hand as a
governess, went to her brother in Australia, returned to England and joined a sister-
hood in strange garb, and her quarrelsome disposition and her habit of quoting
scripture to set herself right made her presence everywhere objectionable. For this
old maid was very religious and strict as to all outward forms. Finally she went to
live with an invalid brother. She discharged the servant, chiefly because she was
plump and fair of feature, and she replaced her with a maid as angular as herself,
straight from Edinbro’. The maid was also religious and quoted scripture, and the
fun of the story lies in the manner in which the woman who had had her way so
long was beaten by her own weapons.
—Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer, June 15, 1899.
The Scotch character is held up in this story at its worst. All its harshness,
love of money, unconscious hypocrisy, which believes in lip-service while serving
but its own self, are concentrated in the figure of the old spinster who takes charge
of her invalid brother's household. She finds a match, however, in the Scotch
servant she hires, hard like herself, but with the undemonstrative kindness that
seems to be a virtue of the race. The book lacks the charm that lies at the root
of the popularity of the books of the “Kailyard ” school. In its disagreeable
way, however, it is consistent, though the melodramatic climax is not the ending
one has a right to expect.—The Mail and Express, June 21, 1899.
At all booksellers or zwill be sent,
postpaid, upon receipt of price by
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPANY"
9-11 East 16th Street, New York


-
Captain jackman
By W. CLARK RUSSELL
240 pages, size 7% a 5, cloth, 3 stampings, £r.oo
- - - *
Clark Russell in “Captain Jackman" has told a good story of the strange conduct of
a ship's master, who starts out with a fake robbery by which he realizes 41500. The ac-
count of his peculiar courtship and the still more peculiar acceptance of his offer by the
daughter of a retired naval commander is scarcely credible, but it is readable and the tragic
end is not improbable. It is a mere short story, expanded by large type into a volume.
–San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1899.
“Captain Jackman; or, A Tale of Two Tunnels,” is a story by W. Clark Russell,
not so elaborate in plot as some of his stories, or so full of life on the sea, but some of the
characters are sailors, and its incidents are of the ocean, if not on it. Its hero is dismissed
from the command of a ship by her owners, because of his loss of the proceeds of a voyage,
which they evidently think he had appropriated to himself. The heroine discovers him in
and rescues him from a deserted smuggler's cave, where he had by some mischance im-
prisoned himself. He handsome, she romantic as well, they fall in love with each other.
Her father, a retired commander of the Royal navy, storms and swears to no purpose, for
she elopes with the handsome captain, who starts on an expedition to capture a Portuguese
ship laden with gold – a mad scheme, conceived as it appears by a madman, which ac-
counts for his curious and unconventional ways,
—Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer, July, 15, 1899.
It is readable. interesting, and admirable in its technical skill. Mr. Russell, without
apparent effort, creates an atmosphere of realism. ... His personages are often drawn with a
few indicative strokes, but this can never be said of his central figures. In the present little
story the fascinating personality of Captain Jackman stands our very clearly. He is a cur-
ious study, and the abnormal state of his mind is made to come slowly into the recogni-
tion of the reader just as it does into that of old Commander Conway, R. N. This is really
a masterly bit of story-craft, for it is to this that the maintenance of the interest of the
story is due. The reader does not realize at first that he is following the fortunes of a mad-
man, but regards Jackman as a brilliant adventurer. The denouement is excellently brought
about, although it gives the tale its sketchy character.-N. r. Times, July 1, 1899,
At all booksellers or will be sent,
postpaid, upon receipt of price by
F. M. BUCKLES & COMPAN1"
9-11 East 16th Street, New York








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